Chapter 33
Daisy reluctantly climbed out and felt the chilly March breeze ruffle her messy hair. She shivered without a coat.
Her bag was heavy, but she didn’t want to leave it in the car.
Thankfully, no one had searched them because she had her gun in her purse.
A worrying lapse of security, but as she had no intention of using the weapon, one she’d report later.
Much later. She didn’t want to give anyone an excuse to cancel the test or hate her any more than they already did.
Les opened the cargo doors, and they all grabbed various tools and laptops then hiked up the steps to the control room, where they’d set up their monitoring equipment and where Roger would spend most of the next couple of months.
Thankfully, Agent Crabtree remained with the vehicle.
Upstairs, they introduced themselves to the plant manager, Lonnie Segall, who wore a blue tweed blazer with brown leather elbow patches over a black shirt and slacks, along with a pair of steel-toe boots.
He had a smile and handshake that any car salesman would be proud of.
Then they met the shift supervisor, Greg Sivik, who had deep grooves carved into his lived-in face.
Greg wore a lab coat. Both had dosimeters attached to their chests.
The first thing Greg did was assign them each a dosimeter to make sure they were not inadvertently exposed to radiation and to monitor their exposure levels in the Contamination Area.
Roger took the lead. “I don’t know where Professor Williams is, but he shouldn’t be too long. I’d like to be ready to start as soon as the assemblies arrive. He’ll tag in with me anyway.” His mouth was downturned.
Amed was his friend. Daisy hated how awful and hopeless she felt about Amed even though the FBI had evidence he’d planned to hurt anyone who got in his way.
“If we could dress out, we can be ready to roll. I assume the spent rods have been removed and placed in the SFP?”
SFP was the Spent Fuel Pool where the old fuel assemblies were cooled after being removed from the reactor.
Lonnie pointed to a monitor showing a large pool of water that steamed eerily and glowed a chilling blue color—a result of the Cherenkov effect. “We did. Last week. The core was given a full safety inspection which it passed with flying colors.” Obviously, Lonnie was the PR guy.
“Fuel rods ETA is five minutes.” Greg checked his phone.
“You can dress out now, either in pairs or all together. Wait in the balcony area and observe from behind the barriers. Be sure to take your clothes off on one side of the painted line and get dressed in coveralls and boots on the other side of the line. Anything that crosses that line stays on the other side until it can be decontaminated. We have respirators hanging up near the door, but given the radiation levels right now, they’re not mandatory.
Once in coveralls you do not pass back over the line.
You forget something from the other side, you undress, shower, get it, and then get back into the coveralls on the other side of the line.
Your naked body is the only thing allowed to pass back and forth between areas. Is that understood?”
They all nodded. She felt like saluting.
“Remove watches and all jewelry. If you don’t want to go to the reactor floor you can stay here.
We monitor all the systems and environmental conditions of the core and the reactor from this room.
” He switched on another large screen which showed the whole facility.
“Time on the floor will be limited to fifteen minutes. You can rotate in and out. Most of the procedure is done remotely with cranes and other tools anyway. We’re allowing you onsite as a training exercise so you understand how these facilities work in practice for when you head back to your labs. ”
“I’m happy to stay here,” Emilia said. “Until the professor appears anyway.”
Roger nodded. Shot Daisy a disgusted look. “You’re up first with me. I want you to inspect and record the outside of the rod structure prior to it being inserted in the core. The camera system is available, yes?”
Greg nodded. “I’ll show you where it is. I plan to escort you to and from the areas where you are allowed to go. I’ll withdraw in-between. Stay out of the way of any workers and machinery, or I’ll pull you immediately.”
Daisy nodded. She could tell he knew what he was doing and that he took his job seriously.
She followed Mira into the female changing room, found a locker, and placed her bag inside. At least she wouldn’t have to get naked with her supervisor—one advantage to being a woman in this case.
She stared at her cell phone for a long moment and then, because she couldn’t not reach out to the man who’d put his heart on the line this morning, she texted Krychek.
Sorry for being an ass earlier.
U OK?
Ha. The fact he questioned her mental health because she apologized was not a good sign.
She gave him a thumbs up emoji and turned the device off before she got distracted and asked him about Bocharov. Now was not the time to be thinking about other things. This morning would form the basis for her entire PhD, and she needed to concentrate.
Even so, it was hard to feel motivated.
Amed had worked long and hard on these new designs.
This was the fruition of his work, and she wasn’t sure she should step into his shoes.
She’d do the work that needed to be done today and figure out the rest later.
Maybe the FBI would let her talk to Amed.
She could ask him what he wanted her to do with his research.
She stripped off her clothes, earrings, watch, and placed them carefully inside her bag.
She made sure the gun was well hidden under everything else.
Then she stepped across the line and picked a pile of clothes on the other side.
Some surgical gloves, lime green panties, and a T-shirt to go under the overalls.
She shrugged them on, along with the lime green socks and steel cap boots that were a size too big for her.
Then she followed Mira out the other door, each grabbing a respirator off the hook on the way.
Roger and Les were already there, dressed, and prepared. They stood on a wide viewing gallery that was sealed off from the reactor room itself. Greg stood beside them.
He examined Daisy and Mira top to bottom and nodded approval.
“The fuel rods arrived. The guys are unloading them from the truck now.”
It was noisy on the floor as a few workers scurried about. An alarm sounded, and Daisy jolted. The platform began to vibrate slightly as the massive crane started up and swung slowly toward the doors that stood wide open. A massive rig was parked just inside with a pale plastic pod sitting on top.
Mira shot her a look of derision as she jolted, but then Mira hadn’t been shot at yesterday.
Fluorescent lights cast shadows over the equipment and scaffolding. The scent was one of a mechanical room—warm oil, hot metal, ozone from the electronics.
“Okay. First two, put on your respirators and come with me. The others stay here.”
She followed Roger and Greg down to the main floor, but the respirator was so big she couldn’t see properly and almost tripped.
Greg went straight to a video recorder. “Here’s the camera.”
Daisy shoved the respirator back on the top of her head.
Greg wasn’t wearing one, and she’d never be able to get clean shots if she couldn’t see.
She took the video recorder and turned it on.
Hung the respirator on a hook on a shelf and zoomed in and out on the reactor core that was empty and waiting for its new fuel supply.
Then panned around the general area as the men set the crate down on the ground and removed the lid.
Inside were classic square rod lattices of 17 x 17 and about four meters long and 20 cm across.
Each fuel assembly weighed about half a ton, which was another reason to utilize machinery to move them into position.
She got in much closer to the shiny metal lattices and sniffed in surprise. She hadn’t expected the faint scent of plastic. She sniffed again and frowned, then was forced to move back as the crane moved in to lift the first of the Zirconium alloy assemblies.
She filmed from a safe distance and was able to zoom closer as the crane lowered the metal lattice into its assigned slot.
She moved back to the new rod assemblies and leaned close again. And swore she could smell paint this time, too, mixed with the faint odor of something like nail polish remover. It was all very subtle, but she had a good nose.
Was it some kind of finishing agent coating everything? Something she wasn’t aware of? This was her first time in an actual working reactor and the first time she’d seen brand-new assemblies up close.
Maybe they all smelled like this?
She wanted to ask Roger, but he was concentrating fiercely on the operation to the point that when Greg indicated their fifteen minutes were up, he scowled and shook his head.
Greg’s expression turned thunderous, and Roger quickly nodded and strode toward the observation platform.
She scooped up the respirator and hurried to precede the Shift Supervisor. She knew that if they were exposed to too much radiation the safety board would investigate the plant. No one wanted that, but as the reactor was currently shut down, Sivik was being overcautious.
She paused on the metal steps behind the barrier. “Are the assemblies coated in something prior to shipping?”
He frowned in annoyance. “Coated?”
“I thought I smelled plastic or something.”
Greg frowned. “They shouldn’t smell of anything. It’s a Zirconium alloy.”
Daisy grimaced self-consciously. “Yes, I know.” He obviously thought she was an idiot. “Sorry. I thought I smelled plastic or paint or something.”
His eyes narrowed. “Perhaps it’s your suit or the respirator?”
Daisy clenched her fists. “No. It wasn’t that.”
“You’re holding up everything,” Roger snapped.
Mira’s upper lip pulled back on one side. “Ignore her. She’s paranoid. Has an FBI boyfriend and now thinks she’s some kind of super sleuth.”
Daisy shrugged miserably. “I smelled plastic. Maybe it was from the shipping container.”
Greg stared at her. “I’ll check. In the meantime, you can send the video you took straight to your email then give the camera to one of these two. I’ll be back in two minutes. Wait here.”
“Jesus, Daisy. Are you deliberately trying to fuck this up for all of us?” Roger hissed.
Daisy blinked away the tears that threatened. They weren’t sad tears. They were tears of rage, but she was professional enough not to lose it, here, in this space.
Later though, when the fuel rods had finished being installed, she was going to flay the Yorkshire man to the bone and tell the others exactly what she thought of them. Silently, she sent the footage to herself and handed the camera over to Les, who gave her a winning smile.
Ugh.
She pushed back inside the changing room to shower.
Roger stayed on the viewing platform.
She should probably stay and watch, too, but she was so angry she was physically shaking.
Being unfairly attacked for asking a legitimate question was infuriating.
You had to be able to question the process and understand all the details to be good at this stuff.
Details mattered when lives were potentially at stake.
And when it came to nuclear reactors, a lot of lives were potentially at stake.
A loud bang made her jump again nervously as she headed into the shower room. She hoped she wasn’t getting some kind of PTSD from the fire. She should probably call her therapist as soon as she had time, but then she was going to have to talk about Jordan, and she wasn’t ready.
She didn’t want to parse down her weaknesses and fears for inspection, because when it came down to it, that’s all it really was. Fear. Of being hurt, of being left behind. Fear of being defective and not lovable enough.
She liked to believe being self-reliant was her biggest strength…but perhaps, rather than making her strong, maybe being unable to rely on others was a flaw.
She didn’t like that idea.
Didn’t like it at all.
She unclipped the dosimeter, then began stripping out of her protective gear when she heard the door to the changing room open and then, without pause, someone headed straight through to the reactor building.
If that was Emilia, she was going to get her ass reamed by Greg when she arrived in street clothes which he’d probably make her burn.
Daisy couldn’t help the little shimmer of satisfaction that moved through her at the thought of Emilia heading home in scrubs. She dumped the contaminated coveralls into the dirty laundry chute and quickly showered.
She stepped out on the other side of the line and grabbed a towel off the rack, scrubbing herself dry.
She thought she heard noises, almost like gunfire, and wondered what was happening.
Was there a mechanical issue? Maybe she should have stayed to watch, but she knew it was all being recorded.
She’d watch from the control room where she didn’t have to take constant abuse from people she’d thought were her friends.