Castle Bravo

by Karna Small Bodman

  The secretary of Homeland Security spoke up. “I believe you’re right, Mike. But on the other hand, if they have perfected such a weapon, and we’ll have to get more intel on all of this to see exactly what the effects were, but if they do have it, we have to be prepared for the possibility that they might sell it. After all, they’re right across the water from Iran. Across the Caspian, I mean. I believe this calls for immediate action on our part. It’s good that State has already sent a protest, but I would recommend an urgent session with the IAEA, a demand for immediate inspections, a notification to our allies and a possible call for a UN meeting. And from that memo sent by the secretary of State, I believe he would concur.”

  “I, for one, agree with all of those moves,” Ken said. “We learned our lessons dallying around with Iran, to say nothing of the Six-Party Talks with North Korea which always remind me of the ‘Hokey Pokey’—you put your right foot in, you put your right foot out—what’s the point? I see this as a major destabilizing development, and we need to act fast. Will? What’s your take?”

  The secretary of Defense looked particularly grim as he paused for a moment, reached for a glass of water and then said, “I agree on the demand for inspections and getting the IAEA in there ASAP. We need to raise the provisions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty which Kazakhstan acceded to back in 1994. Looks like they’ve violated the provisions, and we have every right to come down hard on that regime. As for the UN, well, you all know my views on the effectiveness of that place. The word feckless comes to mind.”

  “Right on!” Hunt said. “But about inspections, if they won’t allow immediate access and try to fall back on their ‘this was a mistake’ line, then what’s our fall-back?” Hunt asked.

  “Then we get really tough. The president can order Treasury to freeze assets of certain banks and particular individuals. Assets in our country, of course. And since we’ve been doing a lot of energy business with that regime, we have a certain degree of leverage. We’ll get a quick study done of what they’ve got here. As for getting other countries on board, I figure Russia would be the first to sign up,” Ken said.

  The Defense secretary nodded and added, “Now, about the government in Kazakhstan, they’re not on our CPC list. Only ones on the Countries of Particular Concern list right now are Burma, Eritrea, Iran and North Korea. It never occurred to me that we’d have to consider Kazakhstan for that list.” He shrugged and added almost as an afterthought, “I mean, who woudda thunk?”

  It never occurred to most of the people around here that an EMP could be set off either, Samantha thought. The IAEA, NPT, UN, allies, I can’t even think about any of that until I find out about dad and Tripp. This is a national security issue, one that could have world-wide implications, but all I can do is picture the two men I love stranded out in some god-forsaken oil field. Are they still alive? How will I know? As the others began to gather their photos and notes and wind up the meeting, she realized that she had spent the last several months analyzing and working to prevent terrorist attacks, ideas, and plans that often kept her up at night. But now the political had become personal. And suddenly she felt powerless and absolutely petrified.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  SOUTH OF ATYRAU, KAZAKHSTAN

  “Let’s wrap him up, get him into the Jeep.”

  “Jeep won’t start.”

  “Nothin’s working.”

  “I’ve got to get him out of here. Out of the sun,” Tripp called out to the supervisor. “I can’t believe this happened to Jake. We knew he had a bad heart. Had a pacemaker. But how could it have failed him? I just don’t get it. Now, what the hell are we going to do? I’ve got to get him back. Back home. Back to … God! What can I tell Samantha? This is the worst thing I could ever imagine.”

  “Samantha?” the supervisor said. “Who’s Samantha?”

  “She’s his daughter. Works at the White House. Didn’t want him to make this trip. Begged him not to go.”

  “Oh Jesus!” He shook his head and looked down at his cell phone again. “Don’t know how to get help. None of our phones are working. Cell towers must be down. Might be some reception back in Atyrau, but who the hell knows? Question is, why isn’t anything working? Could that thing, whatever it was, have knocked out all the power or somethin’?”

  Tripp stared at the man and suddenly blurted, “That’s it. That’s what Samantha’s been talking about.” He pointed at the clouds of smoke still visible on the horizon. “She said that if a nuclear weapon of some kind were detonated high enough in the air, it could set off a bunch of pulses. Kind of like microwaves, I guess. And if that happened, it could fry all the electronics anywhere around it. But have you heard anything about Kazakhstan having nuclear weapons? And even if they did, why in God’s name would they shoot one off?”

  “Beats hell outta me,” the super replied. “But wait, if there’re these microwave things, how long do they last? When can we get our phones back and get our trucks started?”

  “I have no idea,” Tripp said, his blood pressure rising with every phrase. “Isn’t there anything around here we can use? I mean, an old truck or anything that doesn’t have a lot of fancy electronics?”

  “Not that I can see,” the man replied. He scratched his head and gazed around the drilling area. We’ll check everything back at the base, but nothin’ here can move us out. We’re gonna have to fashion some sort of gismo for Jake and then trek it ourselves.”

  The other men were grumbling amongst themselves, with some pointing to the sky and others still trying to get a signal on their cell phones. “What do you need, boss?” one asked.

  “See what you can rustle up that we can use for a stretcher.”

  “You got it.”

  Tripp knelt down next to Jake’s body one more time. He stared at the man and felt his own throat choking up. “Jesus, Jake. Why did that have to happen to you? This was supposed to be your trip, your deal, and now it’s all over.” He started to break down as he leaned over and put his hand on the man’s body. “Why you? And what in God’s name can I ever say to Samantha? She’ll be destroyed.” He gazed up at the sky again, “just like you bastards destroyed him.”

  Several hours later, the bedraggled crew trudged into their base camp. They had taken turns carrying the stretcher and sharing bottles of water. They had grabbed all of the water and food stashed near the rigs since they had no idea how long their supplies would last or when they could get out of the area.

  They lifted Jake’s body into one of the Quonset Huts, but with no motor and no air conditioning, it was already stifling inside. Jake rushed to a refrigerator that was shut down, but he grabbed water bottles that were still chilled inside and put them all around the body. Won’t help much, he thought. I’ve got to find a way out of here. He shouted to the man who had been their driver. “Any old cars or trucks around here? Anything that might start?”

  “Most of our cars and trucks are pretty new. But, wait, there might be one older car. One of the guys has been restoring it on his own time. Brought it out here to work on.”

  Tripp stood up, suddenly hopeful. “What year is it? I’d give anything for an old Chevy, an old anything, right about now.”

  “I don’t know the exact year, but might be from the 60’s. I’ll go find out.”

  Tripp slumped down on the floor next to Jake’s body. He had this weird feeling that he didn’t want to leave the man. Had to protect him somehow. He hadn’t done a damn thing to protect him on this trip, though. As he thought back to that dinner when Samantha came over to his condo and was so excited to see her dad, he gave a rueful sigh. She hadn’t wanted him to go. Had begged him not to go. It was as if she had some sort of premonition or something. The thing about Samantha was that her job entailed all kinds of premonitions. That’s all she ever talked about. Looking ahead. Predicting what the bad guys might do next. Analyzing weapons and technology and figuring out who might use what to cause death and destruction just to make some crazy point about i
nfidels. But this time was totally different. There were no terrorists involved here. At least none that he could fathom.

  This had to be some government test. Some show of strength. It wasn’t an attack. Unless some other government had set that thing off against Kazakhstan. No, that didn’t make any sense. They didn’t threaten anybody. If anything, other countries were trying to ingratiate themselves with the Kazaks, trying to get hold of their oil and gas. Delegations were trooping into Almaty and Astana on a regular basis trying to bribe their way into deals all the time. No. This was a shot across somebody else’s bow. Probably Russia’s, and they wouldn’t like it one bit.

  He wondered if Russia would retaliate in some fashion. They weren’t above taking on Georgia and the Ukraine. What would stop them from invading Kazakhstan on the pretense of protecting ethnic Russians living here? And God knows there are a ton of them all over the place.

  As Tripp sat there on the floor, his arms around his knees and his head down, he realized he had to take action right away to get himself and Jake out of this place. All hell could break loose, and here he was stranded with a bunch of rough necks who would probably be fighting over dwindling food supplies any day now.

  He heard footsteps and looked up to see the driver running his way. He stood up and called out, “Find anything?”

  “Yeah. The old car that I told you about. Trouble is, the guy who owns it doesn’t want to part with the thing. Says it may be his only ticket out of here.”

  Tripp reached for his wallet. “Tell you what. Let’s try to make a deal with him. Whoever he is. Tell him I’ll pay him all I’ve got, about a thousand, American, if he’ll let us use his car and he can come with us.”

  “Where do you want to go? If we can’t get a signal to Atyrau, they may be out of power too. So that won’t do us any good.”

  “So we drive farther east. Must be some place, some village, somewhere we can call out. And if we can get through, I can get GeoGlobal to send a plane for us.”

  “That is if any planes around here are flying,” the driver observed.

  “We have to pray they can find one. Let’s get on this right away,” Tripp said. “We’ll need gas. Lots of it. And water. And some food. Everyone else is going to want to get out of here too.”

  “Maybe the others will decide to wait it out. Maybe they’ll figure it’s a big power failure, and it’ll come back on in a while.”

  “We can hope that’s the case. For their sake. But right now all I can think about is getting Jake’s body out of here before …”

  “Yeah. Know what you mean. Couple of days in this heat won’t be good for him or us or anybody.”

  Tripp pointed to the door. “Okay. Go see if you can make a deal with the guy. Keep it private. Tell him we’re desperate. Well, he has to know that. And tell him about the money.”

  “You got it,” the driver said. “But you have to realize, this is a pretty desolate country. I’ve got some maps in the Jeep. I’ll get those and try to figure out where we can go. But, you have to understand, this could be a very long journey.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  ATYRAU, KAZAKHSTAN

  “Who ruined our test?” the CEO screamed? “I want a full investigation. I want a report on every system, every employee, every move that was made prior to that test, and I want it yesterday!”

  How are they going to do that? Nurlan wondered as he stood in the lab along with the other workers, listening to the tirade. How could they possibly find out that he was the one who had extended the lift-off and delayed the whole detonation when none of the computers were working right now, the lights were off, and there was only a generator system that some of the workers had been sent out to check, but he hadn’t heard anything kick in yet. He thought he had covered his tracks pretty carefully, and if somehow they decided that he was the culprit, he could always claim that he made a stupid mistake. If that happened, he’d be fired, but that was okay. He would have done his job to make sure that nobody was hurt by this crazy bomb. But why are all the systems down? He hadn’t been outside. Their control room was in an enclosed, protected area, away from the nuclear plant, but everything seemed to have stopped. Then again, maybe he could blame the whole thing on some sort of massive power failure that messed up their operation. He’d have to think about that.

  The investigators lined up the workers and began questioning them, taking notes, and shaking their heads. When they got to Nurlan, he showed them his original calculations which he had kept in his own private notebook, not the ones he had actually used for the test. After a grueling review, he breathed a sigh of relief when they said he could leave and moved on to the next worker.

  Outside the control room, he was greeted with an eerie sight. As he started walking away from the facility, he saw people rushing along the streets, elbowing each other, and shouting questions. He saw a long line had formed at a nearby food store and another line snaked out the door and around the corner from a local bank. No cars or buses were moving. An ambulance was stopped in the middle of the road and the medical workers were trying to lift a patient out of the back. He heard someone cry out that people were trapped in elevators in a building across the street. A police car looked like it was stalled a block down and the officers were getting out, pointing to the crowds at the food store. People were pushing and shoving, and a fist fight had just broken out.

  Nurlan stared at the chaos with a growing sense of dread. Had there been a huge power failure of some sort? Must have been. But why weren’t the cars running? What about Zhanar and Pete? Would they still be on board the tourist boat? Would it be running while everything else seemed to be at a standstill? He ran toward the docks and after stopping several times to give his legs a rest, he finally came to the water’s edge where he saw a whole flotilla of small boats hauling people out of the water. Some were flailing around, gasping for air while others were trying to swim to shore on their own. He wanted to help, but he wasn’t much of a swimmer. He craned his neck and then he saw it. The tourist boat off in the distance, slowly sinking.

  Oh no! Zhanar! Where is she? Was she in water? Did boats pick her up? He ran onto the main dock and watched as several older women were pulled to safety, their clothes plastered against their frail bodies, their hair askew and dripping. “Did anyone see Tour Guide?” he shouted to the dazed women? “Pretty girl gives talks on boat? Anyone see her? Anyone at all?” he pleaded.

  The women looked at each other with quizzical glances. One spoke up, “I don’t know. The boat stopped and was going down. We were all thrown into the water. So many people. So much trouble. The crew was throwing out the life preservers. Don’t know about the captain. I don’t know about anybody else. We’re just grateful for the fishermen who came out to help us.”

  Nurlan started to panic. Zhanar couldn’t swim very well. He had told her to take lessons if she was going to work on the boat. But she never made the time. Now she might have been tossed into the water. She might have drowned. What could he do? How could he find out? Then he thought about Pete. He knew Pete was a great swimmer. He was on the swim team at college. So, sure, Pete would be okay. But what about Zhanar. He stayed on the dock and watched the fishermen bring in other survivors in. But no one seemed to know anything about his sister. When the last boat docked, he surveyed the scene, asked more questions but came away with nothing.

  He had no choice now but to head back to their apartment and see if he could find Pete. He would know. He had to know. Nurlan turned and started to jog in the direction of his building, but his legs were weak. They were hurting him again, so he had to slow down. As he passed the stalled cars and buses, he saw that all the passengers had gotten off, leaving a slew of empty shells littering the roads. It was if some giant child had been playing with huge match box cars, had grown tired of the game and just left them in place.

  When Nurlan got to the apartment, he shoved open the door and sagged against the edge as he heaved a sigh of relief. There was Zhanar trying to dry
her hair with a towel while Pete was opening a bottle of water. Nurlan rushed over and threw his arms around his sister. “What happened? I saw boat going down? I search for you. I worried you can’t swim. How you get out?”

  She pointed at Pete and gave him a broad smile. Her wide-set eyes glowing. “He saved my life. I was in the water. It was awful. I went down a couple of times and all of a sudden he was there, right next to me. He held me up and got us to the dock. He had already saved some other people, and he came back for me when he saw me near the boat. He said I could have been dragged down if the boat sank. But I’m okay and Pete is my hero.” She went over and gave Pete a simple kiss on his cheek.

  Nurlan slumped down in one of the kitchen chairs. He looked at his friend and gave him the thumbs up. “I don’t know how thank you. I knew you could swim but I so worried when I saw other people still in water. I afraid we lost Zhanar. But now we all here. This is so good news.”

  Pete offered Nurlan a drink from his bottle. “We’re here, but we’ve got a lot of problems. We’ve got water, for now. But I don’t know how long it will last. When we left the dock, we stopped at a sandwich shop and managed to grab a bunch of bottles and about half a dozen sandwiches, but people were starting to crowd in. I guess everyone realized that there was a power failure or something, and their food wouldn’t last. We have a few things in the refrigerator, but it’s off. Have to keep the door closed as long as we can.”

  “I’ve got some cans of soup,” Zhanar volunteered. “But we can’t heat it up. Microwave and ovens won’t work. Nothing works. And nobody can figure out why.”