Zero Day (John Puller, #1)(119)

“Lucky them,” commented Puller.

Larrimore said, “So what are you folks going to do?”

“We need to get inside the dome. Any ideas?”

Cole tapped him on the arm and mouthed, “Mineshaft.”

He shook his head and looked back at the phone. “Any ideas?” he said again.

“Three feet of concrete, son. You got a jackhammer?”

“We have to do it surreptitiously.”

Puller could hear Larrimore take several long breaths.

“You think somebody’s going to… ?” His voice trailed off.

“We can’t afford not to think that, can we? You probably knew that place as well as anyone. Anything you can think of would be more than what I’ve got right now.”

“Can you dig along the perimeter?”

“Iron footings that go out more feet than I can deal with.”

Several more long breaths. Puller looked at Cole and she stared back at him. The room wasn’t hot, but he saw several beads of sweat on her forehead. One slid down to her cheek. She made no move to wipe it away. Puller could feel the perspiration sheen on his face.

Larrimore said, “Ventilation shafts.”

Puller sat up straighter. “Okay.”

“Inside of the facility was not a place where you could let dust and other things collect, and we also had stuff in the air that we had to get out. We had about as powerful a ventilation and filtering system as you could get back then. We had ventilation shafts on the east and west sides. The filtering system was massive. It wasn’t housed in the facility for a number of reasons. The air would be directed there, filtered, and recirculated inside the facility. Place didn’t have any windows for obvious reasons. All self-contained. It could get hot in there, especially about this time of year.”

“I’ll need to know exactly where those shafts are. And where was the filtering system housed?”

“I can tell you roughly where the shafts were located. It’s been over forty years since I’ve been there, son. Memory’s not perfect. But I know exactly where the filtering system was located. And both the shafts bleed directly into it. And those shafts are big. Large enough for a tall man to stand up in.”

“Where is the filtering system?” Puller said eagerly.

“Right underneath the firehouse.”

Puller and Cole exchanged glances.

Larrimore said, “Figured that was the best place to put it. Always a fire hazard with filtering systems. Anything goes wrong, folks are right there to take care of it. The fire station was manned around the clock. The filtering system was alarmed so they’d know if there was a problem.”

“How do you get to the filtering system from the fire station?”

“You been there?”

“Yes.”

“You seen the wooden lockers? I’m talking the ones on the right side, main level.”

“Yes.”

“There’s a catch behind a panel on the inside of the locker farthest to the left. You can’t tell it’s there if you don’t know where to look. There’s a pressure plate in the inside of that locker. It’s located on the left side, top corner. You push right in that corner and the panel will swing out on hinges. Behind the panel is a lever. You pull that lever and the whole row of lockers slides out to the right. Stairway going down is revealed. Nifty piece of engineering. Those stairs take you to the filtering system. And from there you can get to the shafts.”

He said, “I appreciate this, Mr. Larrimore.”

“Agent Puller. If you’re really going in that place, keep a few things in mind. Wear a hazmat suit with the most powerful filter you can find. Bring a flashlight because you’ll have no light. The plutonium and uranium cakes are in lead-lined barrels. The plutonium cakes are marked in red with the skull-and-crossbones insignia. The uranium cakes are blue with the same skull and crossbones. We were working in a brand-new field and used our own marking system.”

“So they’re cakes?”

“Right. The ‘fuel’ term is sort of misleading. The uranium and plutonium look like round cakes. They’re both radioactive at the highly enriched level. But plutonium is super-radioactive. The plant workers handled the stuff using robotic arms behind protective shields. Even your hazmat suit probably won’t protect you completely against direct exposure. And one more thing, Agent Puller.”

“Yeah?”

“I wish you luck, son. You’re sure as hell going to need it.”

CHAPTER

86


PULLER STOOD in front of the cracked mirror in his bathroom at Annie’s Motel. He had on his combat uniform and his face was streaked black and green. Forward and rear M11s were in their holsters, rounds in chambers. The MP5 was fully loaded and the discharge set on two-round bursts. He had four extra clips in the cargo slots in his pants. He had to bend forward some to get his full image into the silver-backed glass.

In the Middle East, mirrors had been hard to come by out in the field. Puller had used a jerry-rigged contraption he’d made from a scrap of glass with some goop coated on the rear side to capture the light and thus his reflection. Some of his men thought him more than a little weird for looking at himself in a mirror before going out to fight. Puller didn’t care what they thought. He did this for one reason and one reason only.