Zero Day (John Puller, #1)(117)

Larrimore’s voice was weak but steady. He appeared to have all of his faculties as Puller began talking to him. Puller hoped the man’s memory was faultless. He would need every scintilla of information he could get.

Larrimore said, “I guess you’re never really retired when you wear the uniform.”

“Guess not.”

“You related to Fighting John by any chance?”

“He’s my father.”

“Never had the pleasure of serving under him, but he did the Army and his country proud, Agent Puller.”

“Thanks, I’ll let him know.”

“Got a call from a two-star. I’ve been out of uniform nearly thirty years and it still scared the crap out of me. He said I was to tell you everything. Didn’t say why.”

“It’s complicated. But we really need your help.”

“Drake? That’s what you want to know about?”

“Everything you can tell me.”

“It’s a sore spot, son, at least in my memory.”

“Tell me why?”

Puller looked over at Cole, who was staring at him with such intensity that he thought she might stroke. He pressed the speaker button on his phone and set it down on the table between them.

Larrimore’s voice floated into the room. “I was assigned to Drake because it was the latest facility the government had in its nuclear weapons development program. I had my degree in nuclear engineering and had been stationed at Los Alamos and also did some work on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. Now this was the 1960s, so we were way past the A-bombs that we dropped on the Japs in ’45, but there was still a lot we didn’t know about thermonuclear weapons. The Hiroshima A-bomb used the gun method. Compared to what they do today, that’s kindergarten stuff. We were measuring A-bombs that topped out at a .7-megaton yield. The Soviets dropped an H-bomb in the Antarctic called the Tsar. It was a 50-megaton blast, the biggest ever. You could wipe out a country with something like that.”

Puller watched as Cole collapsed back in her chair and put a hand to her chest.

“There’s a classified file I saw that said the facility was used to make bomb components. There might have been some radioactivity left behind, but that was it.”

Larrimore said, “That’s not correct. But I’m not surprised there’s an official record out there like that. Military likes to cover its tracks. And back then the rules of the game were a lot more liberal.”

Puller said, “So you were building nuclear fuel for warheads. To be used in the implosion method?”

“You a nuke head?”

“What?”

“That’s what we used to call each other back then. Nuke heads.”

“No. But I have friends who are.”

“We were working with a defense contractor. Name would mean nothing to you. It’s long since been snapped up. And the company that bought it has been sold, and sold, and sold.”

Puller could sense Larrimore taking a walk down memory lane and he didn’t have time for that.

“You said it was a sore spot for you. Why?”

“Way we went into that area, built that monstrosity, didn’t tell anybody what it was. We shipped in everybody from outside the area. We didn’t encourage mingling with the locals. And when they did go into the little town there, we had them followed. Just the way it was back then. Everybody was paranoid.”

“I don’t think things have changed all that much,” commented Puller. “Was that the only reason you were sore?”

“No, I was also upset how we left things.”

“You mean the concrete dome? Three feet thick?”

“The hell you say!”

“You didn’t know that?”

“No. The facility was supposed to be dismantled and shipped away, every molecule of it. It had to be that way because of what we had there.”

“It’s all still there. At least I guess it is. Under a huge dome of concrete. I don’t how many acres, but it’s a lot.”

“What the hell were they thinking?”

“How come you didn’t know about that?” asked Puller.

“I did my job as part of the phase-out. Then I was shipped out to another facility way down south. I was a supervisor on the military side, sure, but the private-sector guys really ran it and the generals signed off on whatever they wanted.”

“Well, apparently what they wanted was to cover it with concrete rather than dismantle it. Why would that be the case?”

Larrimore said nothing.

“Mr. Larrimore.”

“I’m here.”

“I need you to answer that question.”

“Agent Puller, I’ve been out of the service a long time. Shocked the hell out of me when I got the call today. I got a good pension that I earned and a few years left to bask in the sunshine down here. I don’t want to lose that.”

“You won’t lose anything. But if you don’t help me a lot of Americans might lose their lives.”

When Larrimore next spoke his voice was stronger. “Might have to do with why we shut down in the first place. That’s what I meant when I said I didn’t like the way we left things.”

“Which was why?”

“We screwed up.”