Chapter 99
When Luca was finished, so many hands shot into the air that Bruno jumped to his feet to help facilitate the Q&A.
People wanted to know if the U.S. Navy was aware of these numbers and, if so, what they were going to do about them.
Luca was nothing if not diplomatic. “I am a scientist, so my job is to gather and make sense of the data. It’s the job of the politicians in this room to decide what to do with that data. ”
Someone near the back of the room shouted that they should shove the data up Uncle Sam’s ass, and the whole room erupted in applause.
At one point, Paul raised his hand, but it took Bruno a long time to call on him.
When he finally did, Paul seemed flustered, or maybe pissed off.
He made a point of introducing himself in Italian with not just his name but his rank and his role on the Gilmore, then got around to asking his question: “Is it not true that every single one of these numbers is below the minimum threshold value?”
Teo gave me the tiniest shoulder nudge. It was like he was saying, See, I told you he’d say that.
Luca was calm and measured in his response.
He agreed that this was the case, then made the argument that if the presence of these radionuclides was the result of a series of small leaks and not some catastrophic event, we could expect the pollutants to continue building up over time.
“What is under the minimum threshold value now may be over the threshold in a few short years.”
Paul didn’t like that and pushed harder. “But we have repeatedly told you that there has been no series of small leaks.”
Luca looked down at his notes, even though it was clear that he wouldn’t find his rebuttal there. “I can only speak to the data,” he said plainly.
“Well,” said Paul with a bitter laugh, “your data is wrong.”
I couldn’t believe Paul was trying to discredit Luca, especially in front of so many people. I wanted Luca to fight back, but that wasn’t his style, so before I could think too much about what I was doing, I shot my hand in the air. Even Bruno seemed surprised, but he called on me right away.
I stood and thanked Luca for the presentation, said something about it being informativo, a word I’d never used that was thankfully close to its English equivalent.
I was stalling, uncertain what to ask but certain that I wanted—needed—to show Luca and Bruno and even Teo that Paul and I weren’t the same and that he didn’t speak for me.
“Mi chiedo,” I said, then paused, trying to think of the words. I could feel all the eyes in the room on me, Paul’s in particular. “Puoi rispondere alla domanda sull’emivita? Per quanto tempo potremmo aspettarci che questi radionuclidi rimangano nell’ambiente?”
Luca liked the question, I could tell by the way he grinned at his notes, and Teo gave me another tiny nudge.
I had asked whether Luca could speak to the question of half-lives and how long we might expect these radionuclides to remain in the environment.
I thought it was a reasonable question and one that would help him regain his footing.
This is exactly what happened. Luca thanked me for the question, then explained what a half-life was for anyone in the audience who didn’t already know.
“With manganese-54, we’re looking at a half-life of three hundred and twelve days, so the archipelago has the opportunity to improve its position relatively quickly.
But with cobalt-60, it’s a different story,” he said, grimly.
“Its half-life is five point two seven years.”
There were audible gasps in the room, and a woman asked how long it would take to stop seeing cobalt-60 in the water if the U.S. Navy departed immediately.
Luca clarified. “You mean to where cobalt-60 was completely undetectable?”
“Yes,” said the woman.
He did the calculation in his head. “About nineteen years.”
The room fell silent, so silent that I could hear Paul breathing.
Luca didn’t want to end on a downbeat note, so he outlined the team’s next steps, including their hope that they’d soon acquire a research vessel and one day establish a real lab in La Maddalena.
By the time he’d sketched out his vision for continuous water testing on the island, people in the audience were nodding, and when he finished speaking, he received a round of riotous applause.
I was so pleased for him, but I could tell Paul was furious, which dampened my excitement. While the people around us began to stand and gather their things, he leaned over and hissed in my ear, “What the hell was that?”