| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <shadowtk@********.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Hot Zone |
| Date: | Thu, 20 Mar 1997 00:21:19 +0000 |
>>>>>[TO: 1Lt J R W Lynch, 1Lt L R W Lynch
Bells ringing all over. Get to >>address<< in Auburn, now. A house blew
up, and the Franklin crew pulled back when they found the cellar was
hot. Radioactive, airborne alpha emitters.
They're expecting a couple of Feds leading a DoE team. I didn't get too
specific as to agency, and the lead cop on scene was smart enough not to
ask questions: he just authenticated the call, then said 'okay'.
I guess the threat is confirmed.]<<<<<
-- The Horny Toad <Furry:Fighting:Felines/Rule-The-Skies>
Strategic Intelligence Gathering Agency
*****INTERNAL: SIGANet
>>>>>[TO: D J H Coppinger: Alex Monroe: LCdr R E Tarkington: Sgt J S
Karlsbruhn
Confirm the threat. Here's our footage: the full DoE report will follow.
+++++begin trideo
Lilith's Interceptor rounds the corner at alarming speed, and you see
the smouldering, steaming shell of a house, surrounded by the flashing
blue and red lights of police cars, fire trucks and one DocWagon
ambulance. A Lone Star uniform flags them down.
"Sorry, people, you'll have to wait for tbe evening news, this is-"
Lynch shows her a badge and the policewoman shrugs, then grins. "Park
over there, sir." The area outside the perimeter is already crowded with
TV crews.
Getting out, Lynch reaches back for a large holdall: as they walk
towards the house, they are met by a Dwarf in a rumpled suit. "You the
Feds?"
"The same." Lilith drawls.
"Detective Linning. Call me Joe... we got a slight situation. The place
blew ub about an hour ago, kaboom. Looks like commercial blasting
gelignite with gasohol accelerants. The rain helped some, limited the
spread once the roof caved, and the house is still standing because one
detonator was cruddy and another charge sputtered. We got the fire out
about twenty minutes ago and went in looking for cause - easy, someone
set six gelignite charges, we found the two misfires - and any
casualties. So far nada injured, but the basement rang a bell."
"Something interesting?" asks Lynch.
"Something radioactive. Which is why you're here, I guess." the Dwarf
shrugs.
"Your people okay?" enquires Lynch, unzipping the holdall and beginning
to don an NBC suit.
"Yeah, no problem, the fire crew were all in full suits and CABAs, we're
just keeping them over there. Might be contaminated or something. They
caught a crackle from the air snooper, backed out right away. Now we're
keeping it hosed down from a distance, like you see: keep the smoke and
dust wetted down so it doesn't spread."
"Good." Lynch zips up his overboots, pulls the jacket over his head and
adjusts the hood. "I'll go down, see what we have. A Department of
Energy team should be here soon for a better look." The view warps
slightly as he puts the respirator on, checks his breathing, and Lilith
adjusts the hood around it for a good seal.
Moving into the burned-out house, an olive-drab Geiger counter in hand,
Lynch picks his way over fallen rubble and the occasional structual beam
before reaching the cellar entrance: now sheeted off with heavy plastic.
As he lifts the cover, you hear a clicking rattle, increasing in pace.
"I got a reading, it's warm here. Maybe two, three rads an hour." He
adjusts the clicking device and it falls silent, then buzzes angrily
again. "Almost all alphas, maybe ten per cent gammas. Suits and masks
should be fine, but don't let anyone breathe it or eat it. Good work
sealing it in and wetting it down, the rubble topsides is pretty clean."
The stairs are smoky and littered with unidentifiable debris: Lynch
staggers a little and his headware display changes slightly.
"I'm running on internal air. The fire down here died when it ran out of
oxygen. Don't send anyone in on filters, they'll need bottled air down
here for quite a while."
Clearing the bottom of the stairwell, his flashlight picks out the
shapes of four burned and broken machine tools, a charred pile of
clothing, shattered laboratory glassware, all blackened and scarred. The
flashlight beam swirls with smoke, and the Geiger counter sounds like
surf washing on a beach. Shreds of ash and charred paper float in the
foggy air.
"Very warm. Up to about ten rads an hour, almost all alphas: two rems a
fucking minute. This is a definite possible for what we're looking for.
I'm getting out of here, I don't want to fuck it up for the Energy
guys."
Outside, Lynch braces himself as a fire crew hose him down thoroughly,
then he wanders over to the seperated firemen. Occupying himself for a
while in reassuring them that they are in no danger - the radiation
can't penetrate their suits and their compressed-air breathing masks
mean they didn't inhale any - he leaves to speak with the arriving DoE
team.
"Lieutenant? Good to see you." The team leader is businesslike, wearing
a silver protective suit with the air mask hanging ready by his face.
"Is that NBC suit going to perform okay wet?"
"We don't stop the wars just because it's raining." Lynch sounds amused.
"There's some interesting stuff down there for you. Airborne alpha
emitters, enough to LD50 you in a day."
"Ouch. Careless work?"
"Demolition job. Someone blew the place up, and the machines had been
sealed. I'd guess whatever was trapped in there is what's glowing now."
"You look uncomfortable."
"Just trying to think of a way to smoke, wearing a respirator." Lynch
shrugs. "Want me to come down?"
"No need. We'll call you in when we get something." As the two agents
talk, the rest of the Energy team have been dismounting, carrying
safety-orange equipment and carefully checking each others' suits: they
disappear into the house.
Lilith strolls over. "Neighbours didn't see or hear a damn thing that's
worth repeating. Vehicles came and went at odd hours, that's all. Last
one was a white, beige or grey van, either a Volkswagen or a Chrysler-
Nissan, definitely an electric or for sure a diesel. No sight of the
occupants, and ten minutes after it leaves, boom."
"Great. What's under the dug area?" Lynch points at a rectangle of
disturbed turf.
"I'd guess corpses. SOP would be to kill the machinists and maybe your
nuke expert too. There's a forensics unit waiting: whatever's down there
can hold until we finish checking this out, they'll still be dead."
Lilith glances over her husband's shoulder. "Your DoE guys want you to
come on down."
The basement is more brightly lit, battery lamps shedding a smoky glow:
the silver-suited technicians working in the yellowish light.
"Lieutenant? Definite warhead refurb work. I'd guess the weapons would
be small, fifty kilotons or so: plutonium-239 with a lithium deuteride
kicker and tritium injection into the primary stage. From the swing on
the lathe, I'd guess a compact weapon, maybe a B-91 or a Kazakh
_Ghrikov_ series. Two hundred, two-twenty millimetres diameter max."
"Bombardment rocket, or large-calibre arty shell?"
"Exactly. Old, reliable, shockproof, not too hard to fix up if you know
what you're doing. Remachine the core and filter the tritium, and there
you go, a nice working nuke." The agent steps back as a colleague begins
photographing the lathe.
"How many?" asks Lynch.
"Hard to be sure, too much damage down here. More than one, less than
ten. We've got material samples, so we can run those by the database and
get a signature: might even narrow down the weapon by origin." The DoE
agent shrugs. "The area around the lab gear registers tritium traces and
they had a palladium filtration column set up: these guys knew their
stuff. I'd rate the threat highly credible."
Lynch nods. "How did they get so much contamination down here? Right
now, breathing this air for a day would kill you."
"When they blew the machinery, they blasted the enclosures apart. These
things were working in an argon atmosphere, sealed and overpressured:
that's one reason the air's so bad, the gas bottles burst in the fire.
The bombs blew all the sealing to ratdrek, of course, and there was
enough plutonium and deuteride in the swarf traps to give us... what we
got." The agent waves expressively at the wrecked machines. "Kind of
ironic, really. Maxim strikes again."
"Why Maxim?" Lynch asks, suddenly tense.
"Just that the tools are Maxim-Milacron, good stuff. We use a suite of
them for manufacturing reactor core elements, actually. Beautiful tools,
all double-sealed and easy to decontaminate. Turns out we know why
that's so... but they're nice machines. Like I said, our bomb-makers
knew their stuff."
"I think I preferred dealing with Thunda." mutters Lynch, as a warning
flashes in his vision: his internal air is running out.
+++++
The Lone Star forensics team are excavating the disturbed turf, as Lynch
carefully removes his protective gear and places it in a red
contaminated-waste bag. Once the bag is sealed and labelled with a
yellow-and-black trefoil, a DoE agent checks him with a Geiger counter
before pronouncing him clear: Lynch lights up a Marlboro with palpable
relief as Lilith joins him.
"It's for real?"
"Looks that way. If that charge on the roof tie hadn't deflagrated, the
whole house would have dropped into the basement, and we'd probably
never have found the workshop. Not for a few weeks, anyway, probably too
late. This means the weapons are out there, somewhere."
"Yeah." Lilith leans against her husband. "And we've got no idea where.
Yet."
"Got something!" calls one of the police officers, and the two SIGA
agents walk over: the corner of a black plastic sack. A standard-issue
Sack, Human Remains Storage.
+++++
"Eight dead, all fairly fresh." The policeman removes his filter mask
with relief. "ME's getting them, go see him for info. I just want to get
the frag out of here, if you'll excuse my Spanish."
"Jerry? I'll go talk to him." says Lilith.
"Okay. Soon as you get data - retinas, dental work, DNA map - send it
over and we'll see if we can find out who these guys were." Lynch
reaches for a cigarette, looks at the empty pack with disgust. "I'm
going to go chase some leads."
"I thought we don't have any?" enquiries Lilith with amusement.
"We don't. Which is why I need to chase them, else we'll never catch
them."
His wife shakes her head. "If it keeps you busy... let me know what you
find."
+++++end trideo
Lilith should have something from the autopsies within a day or two. I'm
hitting the streets: Alex, can you get out here and back us up? Jake can
handle the DC end, but it's nice having a decker on tap. Wish we had
Quinn handy, too.
So far it's just a terrorist bombing, we managed to keep the... other
aspects quiet for now. Don't know how long that can last.
Boss, we need to pull the real Feds in. I'm going to talk to Chris and
see if he can help us. I'll check if Matt's available, too.]<<<<<
-- 1Lt J R W Lynch <00:22:47/03-20-58>
Strategic Intelligence Gathering Agency
