Badwater (The Forensic Geology Series) Page 14

  Scotty moved between me and them, blocking my line of sight. He shut off the water. He went over me hood to boots with the Geiger and this time, unlike his frisk before the shower, the counter relaxed. I relaxed too, a fraction. Scotty opened my hood and removed my facepiece. I sucked in sweet hot air. He disconnected the regulator and took the tank off my back. I felt so light I could float away.

  He doffed his own breather. “Doing okay?”

  I nodded and turned my face to the sky, to the low brutal sun, and for a moment the solar rays on my liberated skin felt simply like a beachy summer afternoon.

  “Okey-doke,” he said, “we’re gonna peel you outta that suit.”

  I said, “Do I have a problem?”

  “About?”

  “Gammas.”

  He said, grim, “Puppies throw off some gammas.”

  I shifted in my two-ton suit. “Any lead in this? Like the dentist’s bib?”

  “Can’t wear a suit with enough lead to protect against gammas, and still move.”

  “What’s my dosimeter say?”

  “Says you picked up some gammas. And I’m real unhappy about that. Rules say a civilian shouldn’t be exposed to more’n a hundred millirems a year—above and beyond the background dose.”

  “How safe’s the dose limit, Scotty?”

  “Depends what you mean by safe.”

  “The numbers they put in the equations. That correlate millirems to likely effects. Hap says it’s a guess.”

  “Hap’s a clown.”

  “So you trust the numbers?”

  “Gotta have some guideline.” He shifted. “Anyway, we go by alara.”

  “What’s alara?”

  “A-L-A-R-A. As low as reasonably achievable. It means, let’s not take the dose limit as a goal. Let’s lowball the exposures. If we can.”

  But we hadn’t.

  “Hey Cassie, what you got...there is nothing to worry about.”

  He didn’t say ‘no worry.’ I didn’t like ‘there is nothing to worry about.’ It was too formal for Scotty. It sounded like it came from some manual: there is nothing to worry about so long as exposure is kept below the dose limit. I glanced at the scowling RERT crew, preparing to start the cleanup of Jardine’s mess. “What about them? How’s ALARA let them go in there?”

  “ALARA for us isn’t the same as ALARA for you.”

  “Jesus Scotty, you’re made of the same stuff I am.”

  He reddened. “Look, nobody on my watch goes over their set limit. I time them. Keep track. That’s why we have dosimeters. Somebody gets close to dosing out, I’m gonna limit their exposure. It’s real simple.” He looked down at my boots. “Time equals dose.”

  It had taken me, I calculated, about five seconds to ID the resin beads as not rat turds, and run.

  He squinted, although the sun was not in his face. His skin crackled around the eyes. He looked weathered—surfer dude soaked too long in the brine, in the sun, soaking up too many cosmic rays. Surfer dude in hazmat that doesn’t protect against gammas, that doesn’t protect against the revenge-soaked unpredictability of a man with access to the rads. He said, finally, “We follow the rules best we can.”

  “I know you do.”

  He absently touched the good-luck medallion at his neck, then saw me looking. “Hey, we’re not gonna have you sucking up any more dose.” He peeled off my gloves and dropped them in a plastic decon bag. “I mean, it’s cumulative.”

  ~

  Scotty had taken my place in the shower, vigorously going after his own hard-to-reach places. I thought, it’s old news to Scotty. He’s done it before. He’ll do it again. Get contaminated. Decon. Rub the medallion for luck, or grace, or habit. Go on his way.

  Lucy had disappeared into the adit.

  Walter had gone to fetch me a chilled soda from one of Scotty’s ice chests.

  Hap joined me, clutching his EMT kit. “Probabilities, Buttercup.”

  “Not now, Hap.”

  “Don’t knock it. The radiation track is all about probability—whether or not it hits the cell. Odds are it didn’t. You’re not your grandma.”

  I glared at him. How about just: chin up, Buttercup?

  He knelt and opened his kit.

  My scalp prickled, like I’d spent a day at the beach and come back with sand in my hair. I watched Hap—the top of his sombrero, his red-freckled hands rummaging in the kit. Probability, what means the cancer lottery. Probability, what means the genetics lottery. Step yourself right up and take a guess. Youse might win or youse might lose but no worry Buttercup. Nobody knows how to score anyway and you won’t find out how y’all did until somewhere down the road apiece.

  Hap stood, opening a pill bottle. He held it out to me.

  “What is it?”

  “Good old ibuprofen. Ease up those sore muscles.” He passed me his water bottle. “Sorry I can’t offer a nuke-dodgem pill.”

  I took the pill and washed it down.

  “And next I prescribe a long hot shower.”

  I glanced at the yellow stall.

  “Back at the Inn.” He grinned. “A real shower where you get naked and use soap. Soothe them aches and pains.” He added, kindly, “You have had one piss-poor day.

  24

  Roy Jardine was a happy man.

  He lay on his belly on a ridgetop, binoculars to his eyes and earbuds in his ears, watching the aftermath at Twenty-Mule-Team Canyon. He wanted to savor every last moment.

  Three hours already on his belly, monitoring The Trial. The arrival. The dressing-out. That female with the purple hair—was she supposed to be ace? And then the going in and out, one after another. Right past the little hole Jardine had bored into the ground to hide the microphone. Oblivious. And then there’d been the payoff.

  He just wished it hadn’t been the female geologist who got caught. He’d expected it to be one of the hotshots. If he’d had his choice, it would have been that Bastard Ballinger who went in—that was the original mission plan—but he understood the hotshots had no reason to send in Ballinger. Even if they had reason, Ballinger was a dirty coward.

  And evil.

  The Trial had proved that today. Ballinger was convicted. Today, everybody found out what kind of murdering coward Ballinger was.

  And Ballinger’s problems were just beginning.

  Jardine estimated that Stage Two could commence within a day or so. He wished he could be more precise but he had to wait for the trigger event. If it triggered sooner rather than later, he’d send another email, move up the deadline. Meanwhile, he’d wait. And he wouldn’t be waiting alone. The enemy was waiting along with him.

  And if the enemy threatened, there was that cask in Vegas with their name on it.

  He was riding high now on a day of great success but he had learned his lesson about riding high. Keep watch for surprises. The geologists were the ones he really had to keep an eye on. Still, after today’s events, how many surprises did they have left in them?

  He’d have to make a phone call soon. He needed information.

  He was suddenly bored with the flunkies down below. He scooted back from the vantage point and got up, stretching his stiff self. He packed his gear. He planned, when he got to Hole-in-the-Wall, to treat himself to the freeze-dried Shrimp Creole for dinner. A celebration. He would eat outside on that hidden outcrop and watch the sunset.

  He left the ridge and headed upcanyon. The chances of meeting anyone here were tiny because this was a rough and remote canyon, not in the guidebooks.

  His mind raced ahead of his feet.

  After the female again. All in all, he guessed the female getting crapped up was a good outcome. Make her stay out of mine tunnels in the future. But he sure hoped she hadn’t sucked up much dose. He was embarrassed, now, about how he’d reacted watching her in the decon shower. He’d wondered what she’d look like in his shower at home. He’d buy her strawberry shampoo and that girly soap. Maybe even get in and soap her up.

  The canyon narrowed.
He felt a breeze. He looked up. Clouds were coming in fast.

  He thought about what Miller said to her, the sneaky way it sounded in the earbuds: I prescribe a long hot shower. Getting naked. That took some real nerve. Jardine couldn’t see their faces but he was sure Miller had leered when he said it. Miller was a cad.

  Jardine was sure the female felt the same way.

  The breeze quickened, moving his ponytail.

  He stopped. There was a sound, in the distance. Ahead? About a dozen yards ahead, the canyon took a turn. The sound came from upcanyon, he thought, although in these narrow canyons sounds and directions could fool you. He listened. Still as post.

  He tried to hold on to the female.

  The sound was louder, coming downcanyon—coming straight for him—roaring now, and now he thought about the clouds, hells bells it was a flood and he was in a canyon. He looked around wildly. No way out. The walls went straight up. He threw himself against the nearest wall, flattened his skinny self until he was just a bump on the wall.

  The sound was deafening. The thing came around the corner and if he had not been pressed against the wall the thing would have gone right through him. Spinning, shrieking, speeding down the canyon like it had wheels.

  When he could breathe again he said her name.

  He watched the dust devil whirl along the ground until it came to another turn and it pivoted and went around that corner like it knew what it was doing.

  If it had been a flood, he’d be drowned.

  When he could speak, he told himself: let this be a lesson. That whirlwind was a message, surprising you like that. Just like the female. The female is a whirlwind spinning your head to where it’s facing the wrong way and you better straighten it out.

  25

  Walter said, “You’re not eating, dear.”

  I lifted my fork and bit into my rattlesnake.

  Soliano had been first to order the rattlesnake croquettes because he always ordered the local delicacy, and Scotty and Ballinger recoiled and ordered steak, but then Hap brought up primitive tribes who eat the enemy to absorb their power and so Walter had ordered the snake and I thought why not and followed suit. I swallowed. The snake seemed to stick in my throat. Bats for breakfast tomorrow?

  Going a little mad, tonight, at the Inn.

  I hunkered down. We sat around an oak table in the corner of the dining room. I had an adobe wall at my back and a picture window at my flank, and from my hard oak chair I could keep watch on the twilit desert outside and the mad sunburned visitors inside who kept looking our way.

  We’re making them nervous.

  We should have made them gone. After today’s events, Soliano had wanted an evacuation but all he got was the borax canyon roped off until the cleanup’s done. His superiors bowed to the Park Service, who bowed to the businesses at Furnace Creek who feared publicity and the loss of dollars. And so we remain the EPA monitoring team, which has discovered illness in a colony of nesting bats in the borax mines. And so the mad summer visitors who came to Death Valley for sand and salt and heat just might—if we don’t stop Jardine—get more than they came for.

  Soliano laughed.

  “What?” Scotty said, alarmed.

  “The music.”

  We strained to hear over the buzz of talk in the cavernous room—guitar licks as haunting as background clicks of the Geiger counter.

  Soliano wore a dreamy look. “The piece is titled Fantasia Para un Gentilhombre, which translates to...”

  “Fantasy for a gentleman,” Hap said.

  Soliano showed his surprise. “You speak the language.”

  “Some. Don’t get the funny part though.”

  “No? It is you who calls unstable atoms the gentlemen. I hear this music and wonder what fantasy Mr. Jardine entertains for his gents.” Soliano smiled. His teeth showed white as bleached bone in the light cast from the brass coyote candlestick.

  I thought, some sense of humor the FBI has.

  “I’m not laughing,” Scotty said. “Add C4 to resin beads and I’m scared.”

  “That what he used?” Ballinger asked. “Plastique?”

  “We await the lab,” Soliano said. “The lab awaits the decontamination. A shaped charge certainly fits Mr. Jardine’s profile. He is not a wasteful man. Plastique is not a wasteful explosive. It can be shaped to fit the need. It can be placed unobtrusively. And, we will assume he attached some sort of motion sensor, which triggered a blasting cap to detonate the plastique.”

  Yeah, we could assume that. I bump the cask with Lucy’s tallywhacker scoop, the motion sensor reacts—and boom. My hand, now, shook. I feared I’d drop my fork. Walter was eyeing me. There he goes again. Since this afternoon he’s taken on a watchful look, overseeing my every move. Now I know how he feels when I watch him eat a sugar donut. How many donuts is safe? How do we know? Is one donut ALARA? Two, three? One donut for him is not the same as one for me. He’s already on the list. And it’s cumulative.

  Walter’s focus switched to Soliano. “Will we assume Jardine acted alone, today?”

  “Or in concert with Ms. Jellinek, who is not yet located, or with another, or others, not yet identified.” Soliano glanced around the table, then flipped a hand. “Currently, I confine myself to Mr. Jardine. My fantasy is to divine where he will strike next. Thoughts, Mr. Ballinger?”

  “Why ask me?”

  “Because we learn today that you are the object of his attention. He airs his grievances against you at the borax mine. Where next?”

  “Ask him when you find him.”

  “I ask you. He demands payment, to his bank account in the Caymans. After today’s demonstration, your superiors at CTC consider negotiation. But he also, it appears, intends to get his pound of flesh. He does not appear to care who gets in the way. He has a stockpile of resins yet to unleash. And so, Mr. Ballinger.” Soliano’s voice went very soft. “I do not wish to be blindsided again. You knew about his sister. What else do you know, and do not say, that will help us identify his next target?”

  Ballinger’s skull bloomed in sweat.

  “There is something more? I will find it, but it behooves you to save me the trouble of looking.”

  “Just the, ah, side effect of the resin spill. Nothing to do with Roy.”

  “What is this side effect?”

  “It’s old news.”

  Soliano said, icy, “It will be new to me.”

  Ballinger hesitated.

  Soliano slammed his palm onto the table.

  Ballinger jumped. “Okay, so the resins got spilled in the trench, trench was torn up, it rained a lot. We get a kinda monsoon season in summer. Lot of thunderstorms. Like now.”

  “And so?”

  “And so rainwater made leachate.”

  “What is leachate?”

  “Stuff in the water.”

  Walter set down his fork, hard. “Milt, the man asked what leachate is. Not everyone is versed in hydrology.” Walter turned to Soliano and said—using the tone he takes when he’s explaining what gabbro is to a jury, the tone that says lack of information is not a moral failing—“Leachate is a liquid that percolates through soil and picks up soluble substances.”

  Soliano gave an almost imperceptible nod. “And these substances were... What, Mr. Ballinger?”

  “Radionuclides.”

  “Dios mio.”

  “Hey,” Ballinger said, “we reported it to the Nuclear Regulating Commission. Got a fine. Notice of violation. No big deal. We’re not the first to get fined for a leak.”

  Scotty snorted. “You’re damn lucky you didn’t get shut down.”

  “Well we goddamn cleaned up. Soon as we found the spill.”

  “True,” Hap put in. “Two months after the fact.”

  “You weren’t even there, Hap.”

  “True, Milt. But like I said at the borax mine, it’s one of them stories get told to the new guy. I get it wrong?”

  “We cleaned up. End of story.”

  Soliano tu
rned to Hap. “What further do you know of the story?” There was a new edge to Soliano’s voice, of grudging respect. Maybe because he’d learned that Hap understood Spanish. Maybe that was Soliano’s fantasy, to have others search for the translation.

  Hap shrugged. “Just what I heard.”

  “Did you hear if the cleanup recovered the contaminants?”

  “Ahh...ever try to put the toothpaste back in the tube?”

  “No I have not. What happened to the contaminants?”

  Hap folded back the white linen tablecloth, gathering our attention. He reached for his water glass. The glass was cobalt blue and it was impossible to tell how much water it held. Hap tipped it over. Not much water, it turned out, but enough to find its preferred path in the wood grain and channel to the table’s edge and trickle down to the carpet, where it was absorbed into the deep blue pile.

  I stared.

  Hap righted his glass. “Water moves. And if nuclides get into the water, they move. Tritium darn near does the backstroke. Mr. Plutonium hitches a ride on clay particles and jess rafts away.”

  I went cold. “You’re saying they got down into the water table?”

  Hap nodded.

  “At what concentration?”

  Ballinger answered. “Below regulatory concern, missy.”

  “Oh?” I regarded Milt Ballinger. I didn’t know if he could be found criminally negligent in the death of Sheila Cook. In the contamination of the water. What I did know was that this cocky little man was a moral pygmy. “So, if it’s below X number of parts-per-million, then everything’s copacetic? Above that line and somebody’s going to have to get upset about it?”

  Ballinger’s sharp chin tilted. “Didn’t crap up anybody.”

  “Ahhh,” Hap said, “we don’t rightly know that yet.” He put a finger in the little stream on the table, then touched his tongue. He made a face. “Thing is, plants take up the water from the aquifer and animals eat the plants and drink the water, and then people drink the water and eat the plants and animals. And in the process of moving up the food chain, the clides get concentrated and us apex feeders get a richer dose.” He eyed the snake on Soliano’s fork.