that a great deal of nuclear policy was based on emotion rather than science, although he didn’t discount the horror if there ever was a major catastrophe, or even a minor one. By moving the worst of the waste before anyone knew it was happening, Dr. Marie felt she could cut the nation’s anxiety levels as well as better protect the shipments. It made sense because one way or the other the material
He understood the need for secrecy. What they hadn’t explained is the urgency, and he was willing to wait for hours before asking that question. While it was Ira’s nature not to divulge any more than necessary, Mercer wouldn’t agree to help until he knew the whole truth. He didn’t take it personally. It was the price he paid for his friendship with a professional spy.
Neither Ira nor Mercer showed the least discomfort sitting next to each other in silence. Dr. Marie, however, felt the urge to fill the lull. “We had an accident two days ago. A cave-in. We’ve been running twenty-four hours a day in three shifts, ten men per shift. The collapse occurred during a shift change. Fifteen men, including two shift supervisors, were killed.”
“The other five?” Mercer asked.
“Escaped unharmed,” she replied. “For security reasons, we don’t want to bring in any more miners. However, we all felt that we needed a second engineer. When our request reached Admiral Lasko, he said he had the right person. You’re a mine engineer who already has a high enough security clearance to work here.”
Again, Mercer noticed, nothing was said about the urgency.
“Listen, Mercer.” Ira’s voice deepened. “We’re already two months behind schedule. The tunnels should already be done and contractors brought in to handle water seepage problems. The first load of waste will be arriving in one hundred twenty-one days.”
“Why so precise?”
“Because a storage pool at Oak Ridge won’t be able to take any more spent fuel rods and they’re scheduled to replace the current fuel assemblies in an experimental fast-breeder reactor in a hundred twenty-one days. We want to bring what’s in the pool here rather than shuffle it to another facility.”
Satisfied with the answer, Mercer asked the next question that was bothering him. “I was told I’d be here for a week. Obviously that’s bull. I’m in the middle of a contract with De Beers. How long do I have to put them off? Am I here for the two months you said you’re behind?”
Marie shook her head. “Our remaining shift boss says we’re no more than two weeks from breaking into the subterranean chamber we’re planning on using. It’s a natural pocket in the rock. Our original geologic survey said it’s a hollow space left behind after an intrusive magma dike subsided.”
That’s where the seepage Ira mentioned came into play, Mercer thought. Though not common, such a dike — basically a tongue of molten rock injected into the surrounding strata — can drain back into the central magma chamber that spawned it. In this situation, it leaves an empty cavity in the earth that often fills with water. Once they got the hydrology handled, it made sense to use this natural chamber for their short-term repository.
“Who did the original survey?” he asked, doubting they’d found a drained dike. It was more likely a sill or laccolith, which ran with the grain of sedimentary layering rather than against it.
“Gregor Hood.”
Mercer nodded. “I know him. He takes a while, but he’s good. What about the other shift supervisor? Who have you got?”
“Donald Randall, he’s a professional miner from Kentucky.”
It took a moment for the name to sink in. “Donny Randall?”
“He prefers Donald,” Dr. Marie said primly, as if maintaining such niceties could somehow lessen the feeling of loathing Randall created.
Mercer’s eyes bored into Ira’s. His voice went flint-hard and accusatory. “You hired Randall the Handle? Do you know what an effing psychopath he is?”
Ira looked away. “We’ve had some complaints about him, but it’s too late. He’s already here and we can’t bring in anyone else.”
Donny Randall, Randall the Handle, got his nickname in South Africa before the end of apartheid. He’d gone there because his reputation for quick violence had gotten him booted from the United Mine Workers and blackballed from every mine in the States. South Africa became a perfect place for him. It wasn’t so much that he was racist, he was simply sadistic. Back then the black miners had no way to redress labor issues so he could be as brutal as he wanted without fear of retribution.
Standing six feet six, with a build to match, Randall delighted in fighting any man who challenged him, though he preferred to use the handle of a pickax rather than his fists, thus his moniker. Mercer had heard that he’d killed at least six men in the mines around Johannesburg and had beaten dozens more. It was also in South Africa that Randall had found another application for his two-inch-diameter piece of hardened hickory. He’d use it to sodomize workers too young or too small to defend themselves. Because of the permissive attitude of the courts, he hadn’t been tried for any of his acts. He’d left the country when Nelson Mandela assumed the presidency. Some said he was asked to go, but Mercer believed the story that he’d fled from a mob of black miners who’d wanted to give him a Soweto necklace — a burning tire around his neck.
His name had come up from time to time in the years since, but Mercer hadn’t known Randall had returned to the States. The last he’d heard, Donny was in a Russian prison following an attempt to steal diamonds from the Mir mine in northern Siberia.
Mercer finally stopped staring at the top of Ira’s bald head and allowed his eyes to sweep across Dr. Marie. If she thought all mine engineers were like Randall, no wonder she’d been chilly toward him. “I’ll help with your project,” he said, and Ira looked up, “on the condition that I can square things with De Beers-”
“We’ll take care of that.”
“-and that you make sure Randall knows I’m in charge. You’ve got enough men for two shifts working eight- to ten-hour days. Once we’re settled I don’t even want to see that son of a bitch.”
Ira and Briana Marie realized the emotion in Mercer’s voice wasn’t fear of Don Randall. It was fear he’d kill him.
“Thank you, Dr. Mercer,” Briana said. “You don’t know what this means to us.”
“I knew I could count on you,” Ira added, a couple of the tension lines in his forehead subsiding. This time he filled three tumblers with Scotch and they toasted each other.
The following morning, Mercer and Ira boarded a Chevy Suburban identical to the one that had taken him to Andrews Air Force Base. He idly hoped the government received a volume discount on the massive SUVs.
There was one difference, he quickly discovered. This vehicle had heavy curtains drawn over the windows and an opaque screen dividing them from the driver. Despite what he’d seen the evening before, it was obvious he wasn’t cleared to view other parts of Area 51. Then he thought that maybe Ira wasn’t cleared either. An interesting notion.
When he asked about Dr. Marie, Ira explained that she now worked out of Washington and had only come to Nevada for the briefing the night before. She wouldn’t be needed at the secret repository until well after the tunnel had been excavated. As the darkened truck rolled away from the base the two men passed the time drinking a thermos of coffee and reminiscing about their first meeting in Greenland almost a year ago.
Once the van reached an area beyond the immediate perimeter of Groom Lake, the unseen driver lowered the partition so they could see out the windshield and Ira drew back the curtains.
The mountains held a distant chill even if last night hadn’t been cold enough for frost. The few plants, cactus, yucca, and sage mostly, were stunted by their harsh environment as though life in the barren stretches was an experiment that was slowly failing. This was a land of rock in a thousand shades that changed and shifted as the sun rose higher. The dome of sky hinted that it stretched far beyond the horizon but seemed contained by the jagged hills.
Their destination was two hours from the main base, tucked at the end of a box canyon. Mercer recognized that the mounds of tailings, the material excavated from a mine shaft, had been spread evenly along the canyon floor to disguise that any work was taking place. The camp was nothing more than several battered mobile homes situated close to the towering canyon walls. An overhang of rock at the canyon’s lip kept the facility in perpetual shadow and hid it from aerial observation.
The camp was as forlorn as a West Texas trailer park, Mercer thought, although he’d worked in much, much worse. A tumbleweed skittered from between two trailers, whirled in a crosscurrent of wind, then dashed past the
