Which is precisely what the terrorists would have to do to melt down a U.S. nuclear plant.
With our nuclear power plants, however, the attackers could substitute C-4 explosive and shaped charges for the tsunami. They could also detonate the backup equipment—the two low-head safety injection pumps, which are used for residual heat removal, the two low-head recirculation pumps, the two head safety injection pumps, the emergency feedwater pumps, and the diesel-powered auxiliary pumps. Then they could blow holes in the bottoms of the 8,000-gallon boric acid makeup tanks, the emergency 600,000-gallon condensate storage tank, the 390,000-gallon refueling water storage tank, and the big 1,500,000-gallon city water storage tank, probably with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs).
Most of Hudson River Nuclear Power Station’s (HRNPS’s) spent fuel is stored in two huge pools. One of these is in an elevated silo on a platform. It is over forty feet high and several stories above the ground. The other pool is sunk into the ground. These two high-density spent fuel pools are huge rectangular basins approximately forty-five feet deep. The pool walls are made of reinforced concrete with stainless steel liners. They store tens of thousands of spent fuel rods—there are almost two tons alone at HRNPS.
The terrorists could use shaped charges to shatter the spent rods, driving them into contact with one another, and those thousands of tons of waste will go critical. The blast would burn off the spent rod’s one-millimeter protective covering, boil the water away, and expose the spent rods to air. When the nuclear waste interacted with the air, those rods would turn to flame and render an area the size of Pennsylvania uninhabitable, killing twenty million people minimum. The damage of an attack on HRNPS would dwarf that of Chernobyl, which stored relatively little spent fuel and which was largely a fuel rod meltdown, not a spent fuel conflagration.
A small percentage of America’s nuclear waste is stored in dry, silo-sized casks, and while some experts view those containers as safer than pools, they are also vulnerable to organized assaults. They are easily blasted to pieces with shaped charges, after which the rods would automatically catch fire and chain-react.
Even worse, suppose this assault was not just an isolated mission but the beginning of a series of global nuclear power plant strikes. These attacks would be unimaginably catastrophic. The United States alone has thirty million spent fuel rods stored in seventy-seven sites throughout the country. This waste is the most lethal substance on earth. To stand next to nuclear waste is to die. Moreover, plant owners have increased their waste’s lethality by extending their uranium-235’s burning time, allowing plant officials to operate their reactor-generators longer and thereby generate more bottom-line profit per rod. This extra burning makes the protective cladding on the fuel rods brittle and thinner, and it accelerates hydrogen buildup within the cladding. Remember that zirconium cladding is less than one millimeter thick.
Moreover, nuclear power plants have been systematically making their waste even more lethal by extending reactor cycles from twelve months to twenty-four months. The increases allow the firms to produce more electricity per rod. However, the quantity and the concentrated lethality of the nuclear waste the plants are currently turning out is radically increased and far greater than that contained in the HEU reactor fuel rods.
A typical nuclear power station needs five billion gallons of water a day to function, and a lot of it goes into cooling the fuel rods. Blow the pumps and the water stops circulating. Pretty soon, it boils away. When the fuel temperature reaches 800 degrees Celsius, the zirconium cladding covering the fuel rods burns, generating massive quantities of hydrogen, which is extremely explosive. At 2,865 degrees Celsius, the air-exposed fuel melts, and you officially have a melted-down reactor. When this happens to the reactors’ fuel rods, which are under huge white hemispheric domes made of thick concrete and steel, everything will go. Those domes will turn into horrific hydrogen-filled hell-furnaces, and all that concrete and steel will blow sky-high.
The power companies are making it easier for our terrorists to set off spent fuel chain reactions and the hydrogen explosions that these chain reactions will produce. The companies are jamming the spent fuel rods into cooling ponds that are already filled to overflowing.
Consequently, there is no reason why the terrorists will not hit us. America’s ill-secured nuclear targets, such as New York City’s own HRNPS, are just too tempting. America now has five to ten times as much spent fuel stored around nuclear power sites as the HEU it keeps in its reactors. Nationwide, U.S. reactors create two thousand metric tons of new waste per year, even as the available storage room dwindles into nothingness. How can America’s enemies ignore such tremendous nuclear terror opportunities?
Especially when financed by all those Saudi petrodollars.
Wow, Elena thought. Lord knows what Jules’s bosses will say when they read that one.
The paper was co-owned by one of the richest Saudis on earth.
4
For that much money the op must be very bad indeed.
—Adara Nasira
Adara was lying on her apartment couch in Islamabad, contemplating for a much-needed vacation, when her encrypted scrambler sat-phone buzzed. She hated getting calls on it. Not that anyone would be listening in on it. All its calls were packet switched, satellite bounced, and encrypted on both ends. Furthermore, only one man called her on that phone—her boss—but his calls were always disturbing. Still, as much as she disliked receiving his calls, not taking them—even postponing one—was never wise. Hasad demanded promptness from those under him.
“I’m supervising a debriefing on the Pakistan-Afghan border outside of Peshawar,” he said with abrupt directness. “I want you on the next plane to Peshawar. You’re helping out.”
No small talk. No “congratulations on your last job.” No “thanks so much for killing that fucker.” No “job well done.”
Just more orders.
Peremptory orders.
“You’re assigned to it. I’m e-mailing you the instructions and what other information you’ll need on our dedicated line and server. The paycheck will be exorbitant even by your standards—enough to retire on.”
“I just finished that assignment in Syria,” Adara said. “I got it done, but a lot of shit went wrong. I wanted to take some time off.”
“This op isn’t optional nor is fucking it up or bugging out. You’re taking it and seeing it through to the end. It could also involve leaving the country for some time. Perhaps permanently. Pack enough to leave for a long time on a moment’s notice.”
“Suppose I say I like it here in Pakistan?”
Hasads laughter unnerved Adara. He laughed at very little.
“I’m told travel broadens the mind,” Hasad said, “so consider this part of your ongoing education.”
“And if I say no?”
“You do not want to contemplate the consequences.”
Adara knew Hasad with painful intimacy. He was financially generous but quick to take offense. Those who crossed Hasad paid an agonizing, often lethal price.
It would be worse in her case. For two years, she and Hasad had been lovers. She thought it had gone well. They had a lot in common. They’d both spent a lot of time in America, had seen a lot of the world, and were relatively sophisticated compared to the other people they worked with. They also both viewed the world realistically—without ideology, theology, or preconceptions. To the extent they each had any morality at all, it was purely situational. Expediency was everything.
Still, he had broken it off two days ago.
He said he was back in touch with another woman with whom he’d had an affair twenty years ago, and he was serious about her. He needed time to think. He was thinking about reuniting with her.
Hasad getting serious about any woman? It didn’t ring true. In fact, it sounded patently false. He wasn’t capable of developing feelings for anyone.
Not that she was sorry he’d broken it off. True, he was good in bed. In fact, he
was the hottest lover she’d ever had—and she’d had more than her share—but he was always, always terrifying. Part of her was glad it was over.
But the whole thing left her uneasy. She knew Hasad. The bit about the other woman could well be a cover story. Hasad could also be nursing some paranoid grudge against her, biding his time, waiting for the right moment to get even, when she would least expect it and he could inflict the most pain.
She definitely did not want to be on his shit list. She had seen Hasad do some things to people—terrible things.
No, Adara did not wish to contemplate the consequences of turning him down.
“Whatever you say, boss. I’m there.”
“The instructions are on your laptop—the one with the line and server. I’ve deposited $1 million in your numbered account.”
Oh, shit. For that much money the op must be very bad indeed.
“Copy that,” Adara said, her hands starting to shake.
“Just don’t fuck up,” Hasad said.
PART IV
I first heard the song in Hiroshima
With firestorms blazing high.
Heard it again in Vietnam,
While death rained from the sky.
In the black smoke of the Baghdad
Countless thousands died.
In Auschwitz, in slave ships,
I heard their screams and cries.
I heard the song in Attica
Where I saw my brothers die.
I heard the song in the crack house
With my sisters oh so high.
I heard the song in the death house,
Where they take that lightnin’ ride.
Heard the song just one time more:
Sang the whole damn world done died.
I heard the song.
I heard the song.
Oh God, I heard the song.
Sang the whole world’s burning,
The whole world’s burning,
Gonna burn your world down.
—Sister Cassandra, “I Heard the Song”
1
“They’ll want your head on a stake.”
—Jules Meredith
When Jules reached the McDonald’s in Rockville, Maryland, it was 10:43 P.M. and three-fourths empty. She had just finished a two-hour workout when she’d gotten Elena’s text on her burner phone, so she still had on her running sweats, baseball cap, and sunglasses. The McDonald’s was far enough outside of D.C. and in a poor enough neighborhood to ensure the absence of familiar faces. Elena waited for her in a corner table nursing a coffee. She had just returned from the White House and was still in her black pin-striped three-piece business suit. She’d taken off her heels, though, and wore black running shoes. Jules bought a large black coffee at the counter and joined Elena at the table. Her friend seemed agitated.
“You look like you ran into a ghost,” Jules said.
“I have—that friend we used to have in college,” Elena said, “the Middle Eastern exchange student. You remember him.”
“Of course. The mercenary. Saved our asses once. Hell of a guy. Whatever happened to him?”
“He went back to Iraq, then Pakistan,” Elena said. “We stayed in touch in a strange sort of way. Every year or two he’d send me a new encrypted e-mail address and password.”
“Why?”
“Before he left, he sent me a note saying that he always wanted me to have his contact info in case I ever needed him.”
“But you never contacted him?”
“Never,” Elena said. “I picked up bits and pieces. He’d been recruited by one of Pakistan ISI’s Special Forces units and had served in Kashmir. Next, the ISI had him doing special ops on the Afghan border. In his line of work, he can’t afford lovers—not even friends. My joining the Agency made friendship even more impossible.”
“Still, he always saw that you had an e-mail address?”
“He was concerned that one of us might need him,” Elena said.
“He was like that,” Jules said. “Loyal.”
“I could obviously never tell the Agency about him.”
“They’d have pressured you to turn him?”
“Which would have been impossible. He was too smart. Any game I’d have run on him, he’d have run right back up my butt.”
“Remember the gun ranges and martial arts classes? He was a tough guy.”
“Remember when he put those three linemen in the hospital?”
“How could I forget?” Jules said, nodding.
“Those monsters could have killed him.”
“He did it for you. You two had a special connection.”
“It was like we knew each other in another life,” Elena said, shaking her head. “Ever feel that way about anyone?”
“Like you were shaken out of the same tree twenty thousand years ago? Fought the same mastodons and saber-toothed cats? Made love on the African savannah under southern stars?”
“Turned out by the same evil preacher-man?” Elena gave her friend a wicked grin.
Jules leaned toward Elena, giving her her own evil smile. “There couldn’t have been two.”
They laughed, and for a while they were quiet.
Elena finally said, “The last thing he told me was, ‘You’ll be able to find me. Always. And if you ever need me, I’ll be there.’”
“But he has to know you’re with the Agency. You’ve run the Pakistani desk for the last five years.”
“Yes, but he never said anything about that,” Elena said.
“I think our Pakistani James Bond still has a thing for you,” Jules said.
“Could be,” Elena said.
“And you’ve never questioned him, not even once?”
“Last night,” Elena said. “I told him I believed something bad was about to happen and that I was afraid. I also asked him what I should do about Rashid.”
“You told him about our informant who disappeared in Pakistan?”
Elena nodded.
“Did Hasad get back to you?” Jules asked.
“Remember he used to write me poems in college? They were impressionistic, sometimes anagrammatic.”
“They didn’t make much sense,” Jules said.
“He wrote me another one.” She showed her friend a printout of the poem.
Remember Henry Hudson
And the power of the stars?
Where’s our more perfect union?
It’s one disastrous state of affairs,
New York, New York?
It’s a hell of a tomb,
While somewhere out there,
The west will writhe in flames.
A bad moon’s on the rise, kid.
A pair of setting suns
Will sink you forever.
My advice? Haul ass.
Get the fuck out of Dodge.
Remember me when the lights go out …
P.S. About the other guy, I’ve put someone on his case.
“Sounds pretty paranoid,” Jules said.
“He has reason to be paranoid. I run the CIA’s Pakistan desk, and he’s doing wetwork for ISI.”
“Any idea what the poem means?”
“Of course. I’m a trained intelligence expert,” Elena said. “Any child could decipher it.”
“Looks like gibberish to this child,” Jules said.
“What does Henry Hudson make you think of?”
“He discovered and navigated the Hudson River,” Jules said.
“Bingo,” Elena said. “And ‘the power of the stars’?”
“Thermonuclear reactors mimic the inner workings of stars.”
“Any chain reactions on the Hudson River you can think of?” Elena asked.
“The Hudson River Nuclear Power Station?” Jules suggested. “The HRNPS?”
“What about ‘more perfect union’?” Elena asked.
“I don’t know,” Jules said. “Does that have something to do with ‘a disastrous state’?”
“The disastrous stat
e of the union,’” Elena speculated.
“Or the state of the union is disastrous,” Jules said.
“What’s happening in a couple of days?” Elena said. “The State of the Union address.”
“And he says it’ll be disastrous?” Jules asked.
“But what about ‘New York, New York is a hell of a tomb’?” Elena asked.
“Adios Big Apple,” Jules said.
“‘A pair of setting suns/Will sink you forever’?” Elena asked.
“As you just implied, a thermonuclear weapon but a miniature man-made sun?” Jules said.
“Detonating on the earth,” Elena added.
“HRNPS, New York City, the State of the Union, and somewhere out west,” Jules said.
“A nuke will detonate out west, too,” Elena said. “‘The west will writhe in flames.’”
“It’s a warning,” Jules said. “He wants us to get the hell away from HRPNS, New York City, Washington, D.C., and way out west.”
“Wherever that is,” Elena said.
“Maybe Hasad doesn’t know,” Jules said.
“Apparently not,” Elena agreed.
“So what’s going to happen?”
“The balloon’s about to go up,” Elena said.
Jules stared at her in blank astonishment.
“You taking this to the director?” Jules asked.
“And the president,” Elena said. “Tomorrow. I scheduled the meeting.”
“You’ll be in big-time trouble if you tell them,” Jules said. “You concealed information about a former Islamist terrorist boyfriend. You signed numerous legal documents promising not to do that. You repeatedly perjured yourself about not knowing anyone like him before and during the time you worked at the Agency.”
“You print any of this, Jules, you’ll be in the deep shit, too.”
Jules shut her eyes. “Any chance your employers’ll view Hasad’s poem as a serious threat assessment?” Jules asked quietly.
“The odds of that approach nullity.”
And Into the Fire Page 7
