Badwater (The Forensic Geology Series) Read online

  “Yes?” Soliano said.

  Ballinger hunched, silent.

  “Sorry Hector,” Hap said. “Milt doesn’t have a fully developed sense of irony.”

  “I have,” Soliano said. “Explain to me this irony.”

  Hap shrugged. “Like Scotty said, this place makes a point. Borax ore contains the element boron. And boron, Hector, is a crackerjack neutron absorber. They put it in the reactor control rods to slow the fission process—keep that chain reaction under control.”

  “Yes?”

  “So, Milt’s little incident began with the boron-recycle system at the nuke plant. Once upon a time plant’s getting decommissioned and sends the dump the resins they’d used to clean the system. Low curie-count, so casks get buried in the trench.”

  Soliano frowned. “I thought resins were hot. Or hotter.”

  “Depends what they pick up. Pick up hot clides, theys hot. Boron resins are low-rad.”

  “Mild salsa,” I said.

  He nodded. “Anyhoo, couple weeks later a guy’s digging a drainage ditch—and he’s a mite hungover—and he sideswipes a row of containers. Including the boron resin casks. But he doesn’t notice. Couple months later somebody sees the trench is slumping. Now, they have to regrade it.” Hap sighed. “Lady by the name of Sheila Cook gets nominated. Gets her backhoe stuck. Gets out to inspect, sees she’s tramping around in beads. Dang. She calls in the cavalry. And when they frisk the beads, surprise! TripleX hot.” He winked at me. “Been used to clean the spent-fuel pool. Turns out somebody at the nuke plant loaded them into the wrong cask and it shipped with the low-rad load.”

  “Christ,” Scotty said, “nobody caught it before it got buried?”

  “What you gotta understand, Scotty, is trucks were backed up half a mile waiting to unload. Busy time at the dump. So they frisked the resin truck and the overall dose rate was under the limit and they were under-staffed and all those high-rad trucks were waiting.” Hap smiled that curbed smile of his. “And that story came to be known in the dump oral history as Boron-gate.”

  “Very witty,” Soliano said. “And Ms. Cook?”

  Hap sighed again. “Starts woofin her cookies couple days after the incident. But she recovers, so the question becomes what’re the long-term effects? She gonna win the cancer lottery? By gum, she do. About seven years later she gets leukemia.” Hap whipped off his sombrero and held it over his heart. “Now, I didn’t see the lady get crapped up—this all happened afore I found my fortunate way to the dump—but it’s one of them legendary stories what get told to the new guy.” He glanced down at Ballinger. “That’s what Milt’s feeling a mite sick over right now.”

  I fixed on Ballinger oozing sweat and thought, he’s doing the math.

  Soliano said, “Mr. Ballinger, you were manager at the time of this incident?”

  Ballinger nodded.

  “You gave the order to hasten the disposal?”

  Ballinger started to speak, and then just nodded.

  “This was CTC policy?”

  Now he spoke. “Policy is avoid delays and make a profit. Safety first, and all.”

  “Did CTC bear liability for Ms. Cook’s contamination?”

  “Paid workers comp till she recovered.”

  “And later? The leukemia?”

  “No proof that one-time incident caused it. Lotsa things cause cancer.”

  “I will wish to contact Sheila Cook.”

  Ballinger wiped his skull. “She’s dead.”

  I recoiled, as though I hadn’t expected that.

  “She died....when?”

  “That would be, uh, two years ago.”

  “And you learned of her death...how?”

  “Grapevine.”

  Soliano squatted in front of Ballinger. “And Mr. Jardine? When did he come to work for you?”

  “That would be, um, three years ago. Same year she left. You know, when she got, uh, sick.”

  “So their employment overlapped?”

  “No, he came later in the year.”

  “Then Mr. Jardine would not have encountered her?”

  “Not at the dump.”

  “Meaning what? He encountered her outside the work place?”

  “Girlfriend, I’m thinking,” Hap said.

  Ballinger looked at his shoes. “Sister.”

  Soliano cursed softly in Spanish.

  I cursed silently, in English.

  “Mr. Ballinger.” Soliano gathered himself. “You did not recall a grievance he might hold against you, in regard to his sister?”

  “Just found out she was. She’s listed as his emergency contact on the new hire form. Sheila Cook. Sister. Guess it was her married name.” Ballinger wiped his oiled face. “And I guess after she died, Roy never bothered to change his info. Point is, I didn’t know. I mean, who reads that stuff anyway—unless you need it?”

  Soliano said, precise, “I read that stuff.”

  “Okay, see, I looked it over before I gave it to you and it kinda broadsided me—her being his sister. So I, uh, deleted it.” Ballinger took on a tight unwilling look. “Didn’t see any point in the FBI digging up ancient history. I mean, what difference does it make now?”

  Soliano said, icy, “Motive.”

  “So he’s got a bone to pick.”

  “Two bones, Mr. Ballinger. Let us not forget the prank that scarred his face. He might, perhaps, blame you for a...culture of lax management?”

  “Well he never complained to me about it.”

  Hap looked pained. “Uh, what if he’s sending a message now, Milt? You know—boron, control rods, chain reaction? And we’re at the wrong end of a chain reaction. Let’s see, nuke plant shuts down, got no more use for all the gear but you can’t sell the gear on eBay because the gear’s crapped up, so the gear gets shipped to the dump, but the paperwork’s effed up and the backhoe driver’s hung over and then poor Ms. Cook steps in and gets contaminated and wins the cancer lottery. Then brother Roy gets a feather up his and decides to put it to you, brother Roy’s got access to all those rads—and brother Roy’s gonna pull the rods and let that chain reaction go critical. Metaphorically speaking.”

  “Christ,” Scotty said, “so that diagram he drew on the truck—skull and bones, guy running away? That’s you, Milt?”

  I stared. My stick figure?

  Ballinger said, “That’s a buncha crapola.”

  “No Milt,” Walter snapped, “that’s revenge.”

  My thoughts took off along the chain of events. Brother Roy takes a job at the radwaste dump where his sister got crapped up. Maybe he’s looking to gather evidence of mismanagement—a lawsuit. Then his sister dies. And the prank is just one more grievance. So he settles upon revenge. He plans the swap. He enlists Chickie and her talc, or he just steals it. He enlists the truck driver; maybe he sells the plan as extortion, offering a cut. The pothead buys it. They siphon off radwaste for who knows how long. Then something goes wrong. Maybe Ryan Beltzman finds out Jardine’s real motive and wants no part of it. And there’s the fight, the chase, the crash, the shooting. And that changes things...how? Where does the chain reaction go from there? Metaphorically speaking.

  If the running figure is Milt, he’s not running alone any longer. We’re right there with him.

  Soliano moved to me and Walter. He looked haggard, his face more bony than aristocratic. “This mud on the cask—this could be from his depot?”

  I nodded.

  “Go get it.”

  ~

  “Which one of you?” Scotty asked, rummaging through the suits.

  Walter started to speak but I clamped his arm. “I’m smaller, and stronger.”

  Walter shook me off and headed for the suits.

  I followed and said, low, “And I’m healthy.”

  He shot me a look I would not like to see again.

  I pulled him aside and said, brutal, “You’re flushed. Try wearing one of those bug suits. Get halfway into the tunnel and pass out. Somebody has to come in afte
r you. Go ahead and push yourself real hard and see if you can bring on another stroke. Then you’ll be in the hospital and I’ll be here doing this job without you and that’s goddamned unfair.”

  Walter looked at the others. They hadn’t heard, or pretended not to. He gave me a brusque nod.

  Feeling like the biggest shit in the world, I went to Scotty. “It’ll be me.”

  Scotty had offered to go back in himself and scrape some mud but I needed to see it, undisturbed, in situ. Read the pattern of deposition before ruining it to take a sample.

  So now it became my show.

  Scotty opened an ice chest, pulled out a plastic vest filled with something that looked like blue ice, and then wrapped it like a gift around my baked husk. I had a moment to enjoy that and then Scotty worked me into the rubberized suit out of hell. I asked, “How much does this bug suit weigh?”

  He said, stern, “I call it a bug suit because I’ve worn it more times than I can count.” He packed me into the air tank and harness assembly. “You’re gonna call it a fully-encapsulated suit with self-contained breathing apparatus because I don’t want you to forget why you’re wearing it.”

  Hardly likely.

  “Weighs about sixty pounds.”

  I would have said a hundred.

  “I already metered for background radiation,” Scotty said. “We’re at eleven micro-Roentgens per hour. That’s what we’d expect around here, so no worry. You know, rads from rocks and...” He dimpled. “Well, rocks, that’s your department. Right-O?”

  “Right-O.” There’s some uranium and thorium in most rocks and soils, but around here it’d be down to point oh-oh parts per million. No worry. About the rocks.

  Scotty rummaged in his box of meters and brought out a Geiger counter. “This one’s for you. See the rate chart? Tells you rads based on clicks per second—alpha, beta, gamma. You get inside the tunnel, should sound about like this.” He snapped his fingers, paused, snapped again. “When you reach the fork, your reading’s gonna pick up a little.” He snapped a little faster. “When you see the cask, should sound about like this.” Faster. “Don’t get any closer than you need—Lucy’s making you a tool. And you wanna limit your time. Just grab your dirt and go, real fast. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “Your Geiger sounds like a machine-gun, you make that Titanic face and get the hell out.”

  I swallowed. “Got it.”

  Lucy came over with the tool. It was the type of telescoping wand the woman at the dump had used to meter the cask at a respectable distance. Scotty had, I assumed, used it in the adit here, to similar purpose. Now it was my turn. Lucy had duct-taped a small scoop to the end of the wand. Very clever. She made a fist and after a moment I understood and balled my free hand and we bumped fists. Very cool.

  Scotty moved back in. When I was fully encapsulated, he connected the breathing hose and opened the valve. “Gimme a big inhale.” He hung the Geiger around my neck, attached the headlamp, and tapped the hood. “We’ll stay in touch.”

  There was nothing for it now but to get on with the show.

  I moved, elephantine. Walter intercepted me and fastened the belt bag of tools around my bulky girth. I extended my fist. He pretended not to notice. He said, “Watch out for snakes.”

  As I passed Hap, he outlined a cross over me.

  I remembered. Go with low dose.

  ~

  I entered the adit. Already sweating. Turtling along in my thousand-pound rubber shell. The floor was furred with decomposed borates. If I tripped and pitched face-down I doubted I’d be able to right myself. My headlamp lit the near view, the hacked throat of crumbly gold and milky white. Further on, the gullet was pitchy black.

  I followed the tire tracks.

  There was a sudden glitter at the edge of my vision and I thought bat eyes, but of course it was just my light sparkling off faceted ore.

  “How you doin?” Scotty’s voice, jovial, came in my facepiece speaker.

  “Fine,” I lied. Back ached, sweat leaked, cool vest chafed, mouth metallic, and I was already hallucinating bats.

  The Geiger clicked leisurely. Snap...snap.

  I returned my attention to the tracks. They grew spotty as the soil thinned and the floor showed its base rock.

  Up ahead, the gullet split in two.

  For a wild moment I couldn’t remember which fork Lucy had taken, which fork I need take, and I didn’t want to take the wrong fork and spend one extra second entombed in this suit in this place. The tire tracks were unreadable—Scotty and Lucy had made such a mess that it was simply hopeless. I was making a bigger mess with my own shuffling bug-suited feet.

  I squeaked, “Left fork, right?”

  “No, not right,” Scotty boomed in my ears, “go left.”

  Something skittered in my beam. My heart lurched. A small naked form turned tail and disappeared into the left fork. Some kind of rat. So the air in that fork was rat-safe, anyway. Can rat teeth go through bug suits?

  Bile came up into my mouth. I forced it down in dread of retching into my self-contained breathing apparatus.

  And now my Geiger counter was growing chattier. I checked the rate chart. All was as Scotty said it should be.

  Okay lady, just keep going.

  I forced myself into the left fork, following the rat.

  Following Roy Jardine. Had he worn a bug suit? Surely a veteran of the radwaste dump knew what to wear in here. I hoped, fervently, that he had ached and sweated and chafed. I felt no sympathy for him, none at all. I felt a sorrow for poor dead Sheila. And for the rest of us.

  Up ahead, my headlamp beam caught on a roadblock of silver.

  The cask seemed to fill the adit. It was the same make I’d seen at the crash site, and at the dump—that hefty tin can of a cask—and down here stuffed into the gullet of the mountain it looked monumental.

  I heaved my weighted self to a stop. “I’m looking at it,” I told Scotty.

  “Okey-doke. You got twenty minutes air left but you might wanna hurry it up.”

  My Geiger chattered gaily. I checked the chart. All was as it should be.

  I stood where I assumed Scotty had stood, at a telescoping-wand’s distance. I played my beam over the skin of the cask and saw what Scotty had seen: patches of dried mud, like the cask was molting. A dark gray mud. Not—just eyeballing it—the same species as the native soil around here. Not—a reasoned leap—acquired here. The mud was spattered across the lower reaches of the cask. I thought that over. Let’s say this cask was stored at the depot, until Jardine decided to bring it here. And in the process of loading it for transport maybe he spun the wheels of a telehandler or trailer in wet soil, and spattered the cask.

  I wanted that mud.

  I tucked Lucy’s tool under my arm and opened my belt bag, fishing for the specimen dish. I couldn’t tell a dish from a hand lens through this clown glove. Come on come on. You wanna limit your time. Just grab your dirt and go. Whatever I’d been fingering slipped away. I swallowed a curse. Scotty was listening. What if he told Walter I was stressed? And Walter’s already berating himself for letting me bully him into staying behind, and he’s got Soliano’s noblesse-oblige dogging him, and if there’s anything Walter hates more than letting himself down, it’s letting others down. He’s out there telling himself he feels just fine, and he’s never happy unless he can put his own eyes on the scene, and it’s not out of the question that he’ll bully Scotty into dressing him out and sending him in here to help.

  I secured the specimen dish and set it on the ground.

  I untelescoped Lucy’s tool and held the thing like a fishing pole, fishing for the spot just above the cask’s base collar where the largest mud patches clung.

  The scoop banged against steel and it made a big sound.

  And then there was a long moment when I didn’t understand, when I thought the sound came from my headset—Scotty banging his microphone into something—and then I thought I’d somehow dislodged a rat nest an
d it was rat turds spewing out. And then I focused on the yawning rip in the cask. Did I do that? With Lucy’s tool? And then I recoiled. The cask shat out beads, and beads geysered through the tunnel and spattered me and pooled at my feet and before I could backpedal out of their path, beads buried my booties.

  I must have screamed.

  Scotty yelped in my earphones.

  I paid no heed to my ringing ears, to Scotty’s babble—I paid heed, rather, to my little Geiger counter that was clicking its fool head off.

  ~

  I prepared to step out of the shower but Scotty stopped me. “Lemme get those hard-to-reach places.” He had a long-handled brush. “Lift the suit.”

  I pulled it up so that the leg wrinkles smoothed out, like I was hiking up a pair of sagging pantyhose, and Scotty scrubbed. Water was pumped from a RERT van up the ridge, and the hose connected to a PVC-pipe frame, and a nozzle rained the water down on me, and it pooled at my feet in a bright yellow catch basin that looked like a blow-up wading pool. I concentrated fiercely on the ludicrousness of this scene, of a toy shower stall outside a mine adit in the desert, of me in my bug suit being scrubbed down by Scotty in his suit. Some kind of kinky scene for hazmat fetishists. I focused on the soapy water that sluiced off my suit into the catch basin, on the hose that pumped the contaminated water out of the shower and down the ridge to the waste tank in the van.

  “Raise your arms.”

  I complied, numb, so Scotty could get at the hard-to-reach alphas and betas, but it was what he couldn’t get at, what my bug suit couldn’t keep out, that kept me sweating.

  I saw Walter, who had come to the edge of the decon corridor and was staring at me like I was from Mars. Soliano touched Walter’s elbow and said something I could not hear over the hiss of my tank.

  “Damn you,” Walter said.

  I heard that. But I didn’t blame Soliano for the exposure because I would have chosen to go in no matter what he said, and so would Walter, because there was the chance we could get a jump on locating the rest of the radwaste—although that chance had been blown to dust—and I knew Walter would not be blaming Soliano if Walter were the one standing here being deconned.