Ground Truth

by Rob Sangster

  In his next call, he gave Gano a task that was straightforward and dangerous. Gano said he was ready to roll.

  As soon as Jack clicked off, his phone buzzed. “This is Ed Rincon calling.”

  Jack’s mouth went dry, letting him know how apprehensive he was about the radioactivity report from Rincon. For a few seconds, he watched a sloop with a billowing yellow Genoa tack around a race marker buoy. Well, if it was bad news, he’d deal with it.

  “Dr. Rincon, thanks for calling.”

  “I got the results from the lab on the readings on your Eberline contamination counter. Many factors affect the readings like distance from the source, intervening shielding such as rock, and so on, but there’s definitely intense, ambient radioactive material in that cave.”

  “So that showed up in our personal dosimeters too?”

  “It’s a matter of degree. For reference, a person gets about ten millirem of radiation from a chest x-ray. If you work around nuclear material, you’re allowed a max of five-thousand millirem a year, which is five rem. At around twenty-five rem, you’ll experience serious health problems.”

  “Where does that leave me, and Gano?”

  “Your readings were four rem. Both of you should be fine as long as you don’t add much to that in coming months.”

  Jack let out the breath he’d been holding. The sun seemed brighter. He closed his eyes and gave himself a moment to absorb the good news.

  “Can you tell what kind of radioactive material is in the cave?”

  “That little Eberline can’t discriminate. But for you to accumulate four rem that fast, some of it was probably Cesium-137 or Cobalt 60. Could even be high-level radioactive material out of nuclear reactors, but that stuff is stored on-site at power plants or government weapons-making facilities. I don’t see how it could have gotten into Mexico. By the way, if the workers you saw weren’t heavily protected and working very short shifts, every one of them is probably dying.”

  Jack had a clear image of the men working in the cave. “Then they’re dead men.”

  “How critical the problem is,” Rincon said, “depends on whether what’s in that cave is low level nuclear waste or high level nuclear waste.”

  “Please explain.”

  “Low level waste, referred to as LLW, is generated by all kinds of businesses. Hospitals pump out radioactive lab waste, carbon-14, tritium and a lot more. Almost none of these businesses have adequate room or security to store the LLW on-site so they have to ship it by rail or truck to treatment facilities—if they can find one that will accept it. Inspection of treatment facilities is unbelievably slipshod. Inspectors are poorly trained, and most are so spooked they want to get off the property two minutes after they get there.”

  “Out of morbid curiosity,” Jack said, “is that stuff driving past me on the highway?”

  “Of course it is. When they’re carrying Class A, B and C radioactive cargo, the drivers take any route they want. If the cargo is more dangerous, it’s supposed to be route-controlled. But if that’s not the shortest route, some shippers ignore the rules. The biggest problem is that every state refuses to be a dumping ground for nuclear waste from the rest of the country. That’s why there are so few approved storage sites and why they charge exorbitant fees.”

  “So what about high level waste?”

  “Government facilities that build nuclear weapons are the biggest sources of high-level nuclear waste, or HLW. Next are nuclear power plants. Some of that HLW is so dangerous they enclose it in glass cylinders inside stainless steel barrels inside concrete blocks. Sometimes the containers look like long sausages.”

  Jack’s mind went back to the cave. Or maybe like mini-submarines?

  “Where is that stuff stored?”

  “Historically, it’s stored on site because there’s nowhere to send it for permanent storage. For example, Oak Ridge National Laboratory tried hydrofracture, meaning they dumped HLW into 1,200 foot deep wells. After a while, radiation started escaping up the well shafts so they had to cap and abandon every single well. Next, they tried disposing of radioactive liquid waste in seepage pits in beds of shale on the theory the shale would absorb the radioactive material. That failed, too, and they had to cap the pits with 30 feet of cement. Scary stuff. And that’s why businesses, power plants and places that build nuclear weapons will pay almost any price to get rid of their nuclear waste.”

  Suddenly, everything became clear. That’s what motivated someone to use D-TECH and Palmer Industries to funnel nuclear waste into Mexico. As always, it was about the money.

  “So,” Jack said, “you’re saying there could be some HLW in that cave?”

  “Based on the readings, I’d say so, except that regulations would prevent that. For example—”

  “Dr. Rincon, thanks for calling about the readings.” Jack knew the regulations hadn’t prevented anything, and didn’t have time for a recital. “You’re a great help.”

  “Hold on a minute. You sure you’re on top of this?”

  Damned good question. “I think so.”

  “Remember that if I don’t hear from you, I’ll have to do something.”

  “I remember. I’ll keep you in the loop.”

  He hung up and bowed his head for a moment, letting the tension flow out of his body. He wasn’t about to start glowing in the dark after all. The presence of some amount of high level nuclear waste meant he’d been right to worry about the mystery trucks. But they were just the mules in a system that was still unclear to him. George McDonald could help, so he made the call.

  McDonald’s secretary said he was teaching a class but would be free after four o’clock.

  “Please ask him to meet me at the Sculpture Garden on campus. I’ll be there at half past four.

  Just after he clicked off, caller ID showed an incoming call from Sam Butler. He didn’t want the interruption. He’d return it later.

  He watched as a long shell finished practice, and the oarsmen settled the graceful shell back on its rack. When the pier was quiet again, he centered his thoughts. He had to have everything well-organized when he met with the President.

  First, dumping nuclear waste into an unprotected cave would result in a catastrophe if he couldn’t persuade President Gorton to intervene. To convince Gorton, he needed to identify the person, or entity, behind it. So who the hell was it?

  The most logical candidate was D-TECH. Its executives would know that more and more generators of radioactive waste are forced to shut down because they can’t dispose of it. They’d know that expanded reliance on nuclear power was dead in the water for the same reason. D-TECH’s executives were sophisticated enough to come up with this solution and make it operational. They could easily persuade generators of nuclear waste to ignore the law to solve the problem. Certainly, the immorality of dumping nuclear waste in Mexico wouldn’t deter a “gray” company like D-TECH, not with hundreds of millions in profits at stake. At least now he knew for sure that trucks from D-TECH were transporting nuclear waste to Mexico via Palmer Industries.

  It added up, but it didn’t feel right. The D-TECH Board would have to be crazy to initiate a scheme that, if discovered, could cost it every one of its profitable government contracts and put the company out of business. Much more likely that D-TECH was just one stop along the line, maybe without the knowledge of its Board.

  Could Tomás Montana have pulled this off on his own? He had a big motive and could have organized the logistics of the D-TECH-to-Juarez-to-Batopilas piece of the action. But he didn’t have the connections to implement the whole plan. It was more probable that someone had brought the idea to him to help implement it.

  That left Arthur Palmer. Because of the business he was in, Palmer had contacts with companies desperate to get rid of nuclear waste. He controlled the equipment and personnel needed
for the logistics. Plus, he was a greedy son-of-a-bitch who would dump nuclear waste in Mexico and never look back. But when he’d confronted Palmer, the man hadn’t stuck with his usual bullying tactics. Of course he was a liar, but he’d seemed genuinely surprised by what he heard about the aquifer.

  What Palmer lacked was the essential ingredient. The strategic vision needed to operate a complex international scheme. Only a few people had that. People like . . . Justin Sinclair.

  The thought slipped into place so easily that it was there without him even realizing it. And it rang true.

  Sinclair was a master at seeing and solving complex problems. He had the credibility to set up the network of suppliers of nuclear waste, and he would certainly know about D-TECH.

  He’d also made a big issue of keeping the plant from being shut down, had been ready to hand one million dollars to PROFEPA. That was to protect his client, he’d claimed, but was he also protecting the lifeline of the black trucks?

  Sinclair was already rich, but Jack knew that for people like him no amount of money was ever enough—and maybe there was more to it than that. But whatever the reason, it all fit.

  Then Jack had caught the master game player off guard when he’d marched into his office. Wielding facts and the threat of going public, he’d maneuvered the man into setting up the meeting with Gorton.

  Sinclair didn’t suspect that Jack knew anything about smuggling of nuclear waste. If he had, he would never have set up a meeting where Jack might tell Gorton about it. After all, he’d never said a word to Sinclair about the nuclear waste. In retrospect, that had been a very smart move. And now, thank God, he could give the President the identity of the mastermind—and fight to make that stick.

  “Hey,” called a young man coming out of the boathouse, “didn’t you used to be the guy who rowed in the Olympics, like a long time ago?”

  “I guess I used to be that guy,” he answered, barely looking up. He didn’t want a conversation right now.

  “Yeah, saw your picture on the wall in the boathouse. Well, cheers.” With a half-salute, the young man walked toward the parking lot.

  Jack had lost respect for Sinclair during the last few weeks, but it was still hard to wrap his mind around the conclusion that a former Secretary of State was his enemy. Sinclair had undoubtedly already covered his tracks, including setting up Montana or Arthur to take the blame. They’d never see that coming. He reminded himself that Sinclair would do the same to him in a heartbeat.

  Chapter 45

  July 11

  4:30 p.m.

  How had he gotten into this situation? Jack wondered. Only six weeks ago, he’d been elated at winning a sailboat race that seemed like a big deal at the time. Professionally, he’d been on the fastest track. Then Peck died. No, Peck shot himself. Suddenly, the sky had crashed on his head. That had been a dark time, but he’d changed course, chosen a path that would help him recover. But it sure as hell hadn’t worked out that way. His choices had led instead to the coming confrontation. Or was that the result of his evolution in the way he saw the world—and himself?

  Many times over the years, he’d walked among the larger-than-life bronze figures in the Stanford Sculpture Garden, the biggest collection of Auguste Rodin outside Musee Rodin in Paris. This time he walked from the “Burghers of Calais” to the “Gates of Hell” before seeing George McDonald striding across the courtyard toward him.

  McDonald’s face hadn’t changed much since his undergraduate days when he’d been PAC-10 light-heavyweight boxing champion. It was still a geometric assembly of flat planes, like a Cubist version of Jack Palance.

  “Good to see you, Jack.” He stuck out a hard hand. His face remained solemn. “I came as soon as I finished teaching.”

  “Thanks. I need to get right to business. Did Debra Vanderberg get through to you with our questions?”

  “She said a lot of lives depended on my having certain information ready for you for a critical meeting tomorrow. Nothing like a little pressure. But when she read her list of questions, I told her I’m a hydrologist not a nuclear physicist, and the information she wanted was way out of my field. She didn’t take that too well. In fact, she was pretty damn snappish.”

  “It’s stress,” Jack said. “But do you mean you don’t have the answers?” He felt his blood pressure rising. He’d taken it for granted that Mac would come through for him. Now he’d have to meet the President without being able to quantify the danger in Batopilas.

  “Take it easy,” Mac said sharply and with a frown. “I had to scramble, but I have more than you need. I’ll give you the short, short version.”

  “Great, but we need to go someplace private.” Ever since Casa Lupo, he’d been looking over his shoulder. “Let’s drive out to the Stanford golf course and talk there.”

  In less than ten minutes, Mac pulled his Land Rover into the golf course parking lot and killed the engine.

  “Okay,” Mac said, “you asked for an overview of what’s done with nuclear waste in the U.S. Here goes. It wasn’t until 1970 that the federal government finally accepted responsibility for building a permanent geologic repository for disposal of high-level nuclear waste. That means someplace to bury it forever.

  “But it wasn’t until 1999 that the Department of Energy opened the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant—WIPP—a facility in the desert near Carlsbad, New Mexico. It’s a disposal site for transuranic waste left over from nuclear fission. Now picture this: they created a series of rooms 2,100 feet deep in a salt formation. But there’s a big drawback. WIPP can’t accept high level nuclear waste because it’s so hot it attracts water that could corrode the containers holding transuranics, even cause them to explode.

  “I know this is kind of dry, but here’s the part you’ll love.” He grinned as if about to tell a joke. “That Carlsbad site is meant to store that stuff for at least 10,000 years, so DOE is erecting granite pillars to warn extraterrestrials who drop in after humans are extinct. The pillars were designed by linguists, anthropologists, and science fiction writers who call them ‘passive institutional controls’. There’s even an image of ‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch. Honest, I couldn’t make this up. You with me so far?”

  Jack nodded. “Keep going.”

  “When the uranium in nuclear reactors stops producing energy efficiently, they call it ‘spent nuclear fuel.’ They shut down the reactor and the SNF goes into a cooling tank that’s like a deep swimming pool. It takes at least five years before its temperature cools down enough for it to be stored someplace else. Right now many of the cooling pools are crammed full. Several nuclear-powered electric utility sites have shut down because they’re out of storage space. More will close in the near future.”

  “So this crisis has been building for a long time,” Jack said. “What’s the government been doing?”

  “For decades, DOE has been shipping nuclear waste from one temporary site to another, hoping someone will figure out what to do with it. They try to keep these shipments secret, but it took me about ten minutes to sniff out pending shipments to DOE’s Savannah River National Laboratory and the Idaho National Lab. So far, they’ve dodged any catastrophes, but now they also have to protect nuclear waste from terrorists.

  “As I said, high level waste must be placed in permanent isolation in an approved geologic repository. Since every state raised hell to keep any nuke dump far away, Congress avoided making a decision on a site year after year. In the end, DOE was ordered to focus on Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as the site for the repository.”

  McDonald reached into the rear seat and produced a couple of containers of bottled water. He handed one to Jack, opened his bottle and took a long swig.

  “There must be a dozen task forces studying what would happen in case of an earthquake near Yucca Mountain. In one study, DOE projected what the environment will be like in the Y
ucca Mountain tunnels for the next 40,000 years. How crazy is that?”

  “Does that mean,” Jack asked, “that Yucca Mountain will solve the problem?” If so, why would Sinclair think his Mexican alternative was such a big deal?

  “Not a chance. First, it could take another ten years and $80 billion more before it could open. Second, Yucca Mountain is designed to hold only 70,000 tons of nuclear waste. The existing backlog at nuclear power plants would fill it up in no time. Third, there’s a big concern that water will seep into the tunnels and lead to chemical reactions that corrode the storage casks. If that happens, the contents could leak into the ground water. You may remember the Hanford atomic bomb building plant in Washington. The government is still storing over 50 million gallons of HLW in below-ground tanks. Some of those tanks are leaking and migrating to the Columbia River. It’s a disaster.”

  Which is exactly what will happen at the Batopilas cave where not even one study of the water table has been done.

  “But all that doesn’t matter,” Mac said, “because DOE has dropped funding for the project from the budget while they look for an alternative. Yucca Mountain is sacred land to the Western Shoshone. I think they put a hex on the project.”

  Another parallel with the Batopilas cave, Jack thought before he said, “So for political reasons this could go on indefinitely.”

  Mac nodded. “In desperation, the private sector took a swing at it. Eight nuclear power utilities got together and paid the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians to use part of its land as a site for temporary storage of nuclear waste. But since the site is only 60 miles from Salt Lake City, politicians stopped the project. Now a court has given it the go ahead. If it ever opens, utility companies will use the site for short term storage until they ship their nuclear waste somewhere else for permanent storage. Okay, there you have it,” he concluded.