were not serious outside the cave, they were bound to be considerably higher inside. In contrast, only the building Ferguson had explored earlier had any level of material, and this was relatively low, generating the sort of readings one might find in a medical radiation department where procedures were lax.
A knot of radiation-containment specialists and support troopers huddled in space suits near the cave, waiting for an hour until the last of the guerrillas in the second building surrendered. Van Buren had fourteen prisoners, all severely wounded. He decided to evac them right away, which would avoid any conflict with the Russians, who were reported en route. That necessitated more off-loading of equipment and more delays, and so, by the time they were ready to send the little rover into the mountain, the sky had faint hints of the approaching dawn ripening its edges.
Larger than the PackBot Explorers made by iRobot and used for exploring caves and minefields in Afghanistan, the lower chassis of the Atomic Rover looked like a squashed shoe box with two sets of tank tracks at each side. The main set ran the length of the vehicle; at the front, another set of treads rose like arms, helping the critter climb over obstructions. On top of the robot was a small disk not unlike that used to pick up satellite transmissions; in this case it fed and received a stream of data to and from the base station, which was contained in a pair of large suitcases and a laptop about fifty yards from the mouth of the cave. In front of the disk were two very small video cameras, which fed high-definition optical and near-infrared images back to the station. A pair of radiation counters and isotope analyzers, along with a chemical warfare “sniffer,” were mounted near the nose of the tiny vehicle. A fuel cell propelled AR and could do so for roughly twelve hours.
As Van Buren watched, the device rolled across the gravel where they were standing and rambled onto the hardened apron the 747 had used to get out; it popped up on the lip of the cement near the entrance and moved inside. Two men controlled AR, one handling the driving and the other the sensors. Each lieutenant had been thoroughly cross-trained in his companion’s job and, if circumstances required, could handle the entire show himself.
The small vehicle stopped in the middle of the hangar-sized area and began scanning around. Since Ferguson and Conners hadn’t been found yet, Van Buren assumed they were somewhere inside, though he was starting to fear that the two men would not be found alive.
The radiation suits the team wore provided protection against alpha and beta waves, where the real danger was contamination by breathing or swallowing particles, or infection in open wounds. They could not, however, shield out gamma waves; safety there depended largely on limiting time and proximity to the source. Each man on the team carried several film sensors, badges similar to those worn by medical personnel in X-ray departments to record their exposure to potentially harmful radiation. Each suit had a sensor that would sound if the exposure levels exceeded the preset limits. Before disembarking, the gear would be shed and left at the site. Upon returning to Incirlik a strict decontamination and isolation procedure — VB’s experts jokingly referred to it as twenty Saturdays’ worth of baths — would be followed.
Captain Peterson peered over Van Buren’s shoulder. “Crazy fucks,” Peterson said, holding a small Palm-like computer device that analyzed the radiation data fed from the robot. “Crazy fucks.”
Coming from the mouth of any other member of the SF team, the words would have seemed normal. But Peterson wasn’t just a woman — she was short, weighed maybe a hundred pounds, and had the complexion of a porcelain doll. Van Buren could not have been more surprised if her head began spinning around on her body, and he stared at her, waiting either for an explanation or a ventriloquist to appear.
“How bad is it in there?” he asked.
“Layman’s terms?”
“Please.”
“If you stayed inside for four hours, you’d have about twice the lifetime dosage you would give a patient with Stage IV thyroid cancer,” she said. “Won’t kill you right off, but eventually it’ll catch up with you. They’ve got all sorts of different material. There’s a lot of low-level gamma rays, but they were working with some nastier stuff as well. They must’ve had an accident at one point, a small spill that they had to contain.”
The specialist began talking about radiation levels and probability curves, and Van Buren started to get lost in the details.
“Layman’s language,” he asked.
“There are a couple of hot spots that we have to watch for inside,” she said.
“What about our guys?”
“We can go in, but we stay away from the hot spots and limit exposure. Nobody more than an hour, and no one inside without a suit.”
“I meant Ferguson and Conners.”
“If they haven’t been inside too long — well, it depends on where they are and what else we find. We’re talking about long-term effects, how close they are, how susceptible to cancer they may be. It’s complicated.”
“Bottom line is, sooner they’re out the better,” said Van Buren.
“Amen.”
A large storage area at the left of the hangar had fifty-gallon drums packed with middle-level waste, mostly cesium 137 and cobalt 60 from medical applications. These generated gamma radiation partly shielded by a low, thick wall separating the space from the main hangar area. Almost directly opposite it at the right side of the building, microscopic amounts of uranium filled several cement cracks, the remnants of the accident Peterson had speculated about. Besides presenting a danger, these traces suggested that the terrorists had had greater quantities and taken them away in the plane.
“This is what’s really scary,” said Captain Peterson, pointing to a chart display on one of the laptops. “That’s nitrate.”
“A bomb?” asked Van Buren.
“Has to be,” said Peterson.
“Uh-oh,” said one of the lieutenants driving AR.
A loud crack sounded through the speaker on the console. There was a flash in the screen, and the feed died. Cursing, the lieutenant’s fingers danced over the keyboard. Backup wire controls allowed the Rover to reverse its course, though the driver could not see where he was going and had to rely on the unit’s grid map.
“At least two guerrillas, maybe more, inside,” yelled the lieutenant on the monitor.
Van Buren pulled on his hood and ran toward the men crouched near the entrance to the hangar.
“Kalman’s in there,” said Lieutenant Yeger, who was in charge of AR’s four-man escort detail.
“Where?” said Van Buren.
“On the left.”
“Why did he go in?”
“He and Jacko went in to set up a backup relay antenna. The area where he was had been cleared. Jacko had started out, and Kalman was just about to. They were like, five yards apart, max.”
“Tell him to stay where he is.”
“I can’t. Radio’s out. Either he’s behind something that’s messing up the line-of-sight transmission, or the hangar shielding is killing it. I lost him on the com set.”
Peterson and two men dressed in the protective gear and carrying M4s ran up behind Van Buren as the guerrillas inside the mountain began firing at AR again. The rover stopped dead about a hundred feet from the entrance, its top blasted to pieces.
“We have to go in and get our people,” said the colonel. The hoods of the protective suits were equipped with voice-activated communications devices.
“Here,” said Peterson. “Come here and let me draw it out for you. There’s a few spots to avoid.”
She knelt and drew a diagram in the dirt, a kid working out a play in a pickup football game.
“This spot, you stay away from,” she said, showing where the worst of the radiation was. “Avoid these cracks. And keep your suit intact.”
The guerrillas were on a second level of the cave near the rear, above the hangar level. A team was waiting at the rear entrance to the facility, which Ferguson and Conners had used earlier. Yeger suggested that they make a feint at the entrance, drawing the attention of the people inside, while a team went in from the back. Van Buren agreed, after making sure they had their protective gear on.
The rear deck of the hangar where the gunmen were angled away, limiting their line of fire to the left side of the cave. This gave Van Buren’s men access to the interior — though it would bring them perilously close to the
