Zero Day (John Puller, #1)(118)

“How? Did something go wrong in the diffusion process?”

“We weren’t doing gaseous diffusion.”

“I thought that’s what we were talking about. Like they do in Paducah.”

“You ever been to the Paducah plant, son?”

“No.”

“It’s huge. Has to be for gaseous diffusion. Far bigger than what we had in Drake.”

Puller looked at Cole in confusion. “Then what were you doing in Drake?”

“Experimenting.”

“With what?”

“Basically trying to make a super nuclear fuel that we could spike our warheads with. Our goal, I suppose, was to obliterate the Soviet Union before they obliterated us.”

CHAPTER

85


SUPER NUCLEAR FUEL?

Puller stared at Cole. This time she wouldn’t meet his eye. Instead she looked distractedly at the floor.

Puller said, “Mr. Larrimore, I found a piece of paper at a firehouse near the Drake facility.”

“I know the firehouse well. We had a couple of incidents where those fellers were needed.”

“The paper had the numbers 92 and 94 written on it.”

“Atomic numbers for uranium and plutonium.”

“Right. But the gaseous diffusion method is only used to enrich uranium,” said Puller. “You can’t use gaseous diffusion on plutonium. You get that from breeder reactors.”

“That’s right. Capturing a neutron. Getting to P-239.”

“But if that document had both atomic numbers that means—”

“We used both uranium and plutonium at Drake.”

“Why?”

“Like I said, to try and build a super nuclear fuel for weapons. We had no idea if it would work or not. The goal was to use uranium and plutonium in a new bomb design. We were juggling combinations and concentrations of each to see what configuration would yield the biggest boom. In layman’s terms, sort of a hybrid between the gun and the implosion method, if you understand me.”

“I was told that the gun method was very inefficient and plutonium couldn’t be used in that design.”

“Those were the obstacles we were trying to overcome. We were trying to beat the communists at their own game. And the name of that game was explosive yield.”

“But you said you screwed up?”

“Well, let’s just say the science and the design logic were flawed. Bottom line was it didn’t work. That was why the facility closed.”

“But if they closed the plant surely they would have taken the nuclear material with them?”

“The fact that they covered it with three feet of cement tells me they didn’t.”

“But why the hell would they leave something that deadly behind?”

Larrimore didn’t answer for a few seconds. “This would be a guess on my part.”

“I’ll take it.”

“They were probably afraid it would blow up in their faces and radiate a good part of the country. I can’t say I was totally surprised when you said they’d cemented over it. Back then they covered up a lot of stuff, quite frankly. Let it stay where it was. Probably thought it was safer than trying to transport it. You’re probably way too young to remember this, but around that time a few incidents happened that scared the crap out of the country. A B-52 that was carrying a hydrogen bomb on one of its wings crashed somewhere in Kansas. The bomb didn’t detonate during the crash, of course, because atomic weapons don’t work that way. And then we had the plutonium train.”

“Plutonium train?”

“Yeah, the military wanted to move some of its plutonium stockpile from point A to point B. Right across the country. Train moved through major population centers. Nothing happened, but the news folks got wind of both the plane and the train. It was not a good time for the military. There were hearings on Capitol Hill and some guys lost their stars. Can you imagine if that happened today? With our twenty-four-hour news cycle? Anyway, that was fresh in everyone’s minds back then, especially the military brass. So I guess they said, ‘Screw it. It stays right where it is.’ ”

“And the place they left it was a rural county with not many people.”

“It wasn’t my call. If it had been I would’ve done it differently.”

“You’d think someone would have revisited the issue.”

“Not necessarily. You go out there now and start messing around, the news folks will get wind of it. Then the government has to start explaining. And maybe they were afraid that if they did open the sucker up they wouldn’t like what they found.”

“It’s been five decades,” Puller said. “Do you think that stuff, if it is there, is still dangerous?”

“Plutonium-239 has a half-life of twenty-four thousand years. So I’d say you aren’t out of the woods yet.”

Puller drew a long breath and looked at Cole. “How much of it is in there?”

“I can’t tell you for sure. But let me put it this way. If they kept the usual supply on hand that we maintained, and it got out somehow, it could make what we did to the Japs look puny by comparison. I tell you what, whoever made the call to leave it there should go to prison. But they’re probably all dead by now.”