Carlos woke with a start in the early dawn, both comforted
and alarmed at the sounds of lakeside morning he hadn’t heard since childhood:
the lapping of waves on the sand, the calls of hungry seagulls, and nearby
songbirds in the trees. Sounds that in
his youth had meant vacation on the beach could now mean only one thing. The cooling pumps weren’t running.
He sprang from his cot with an agility that defied his age;
at 55 he was the oldest Guardsman stationed at the Palisades Nuclear Power
Station by a generation. Opening the
flap on his tent, he surveyed the scene.
No sign of life stirred among the corrugated metal buildings that housed
what was left of a workshop and materials storage depot, nor in the nearby
tents where the other half-dozen Guardsmen bunked in the warmer months. The mess hall, now pitch dark, had been set
up in a low concrete building just east of the main plant building. On the two hundred yard stretch of beach
grass between the plant’s former cooling water intake and the lake, nothing
moved but the gentle breeze through the grass in the gray morning light. Worse than the silence, there wasn’t a guard
in sight.
“What the frack is going on around here?!” Carlos yelled as
he entered the mess hall. “And why
aren’t the pumps running, Williams?”
He punctuated the man’s name with a boot to the table leg,
where Williams had been characteristically sleeping through his watch. Williams jolted awake, leapt to attention,
and hoarsely croaked out an apology. “I
don’t know, Sarge,” said Williams, pointing out the obvious.
“Go check the pumps, and I’ll check on the generator,” said
Carlos, his tone calmer already, having found some comfort in the familiar.
Walking to the south side of the plant building, he passed
through the hallway to the room housing the backup generator, finding it shut
off with no fuel in either tank. He’d
checked the reserve tank himself two days ago on his weekly inspection, and the
night guards usually checked on the main tank every night, when the brownouts
usually lasted longest.
“Strange,” he thought to himself, “the reserve tank should
last 4 hours at night, and the main tank should power the facility for at least
18. That would mean that the power’s
been out for nearly a day. That’s not
unheard of, but we usually get notice from Holland in that case.” Before he followed that train of thought
further, Carlos walked out to the nearby shed, pulled the diesel cans off their
shelf, and headed out to the tanker truck that served as their fuel storage
facility.
Parked unceremoniously on the sandy remains of the lawn that
used to ring the plant, to make it easier to haul jugs into the generator room
with seemingly increasing frequency, the tanker was Carlos’s least favorite
part of his post. Partly because he was
keenly aware of how tenuously his squad was able to accomplish its mission,
partly because he knew where it came from and resented that, and partly because
it reminded him of a life he’d once wanted that he’d been born too late to
live.
“It’s too early for this, and I need coffee,” he said aloud
to no one, clearing his past away as the sun began to cook off the mist in the
nearby grasses. He set the jugs on the
crumbling asphalt beside the back end of the truck, hooked up the hose to the
tanker’s outlet, and filled each jug in turn.
The fuel came out slowly, and a couple quick raps on the side of the
tanker told him it was nearly empty.
“Not my morning, eh?” he asked the sky.
--
Back at the mess, with the power back on and the pumps
humming along in the background, Carlos sat down to breakfast with the men, enjoying
his oats, eggs, and coffee. By far the
best thing about this posting was the food, which was pretty good and in enough
quantity to keep them in good spirits. There
may not be much to do around the plant, but at least they ate well.
“Sergeant Murphy, how long was the power out,” asked Private
Gomez.
“Don’t know,” replied Carlos, swallowing his last mouth full
of eggs. “I’m going to hop on the radio
up to Holland and find out what the word is.
In the meantime, round up the guys.
We need to shape up this operation today.”
He stood, grabbing his cup of coffee, and headed for the
radio room. It was late enough by now
that he could get someone at the base in Holland to tell him about the power outage. Sitting down, he powered up the transmitter
and hailed the Michigan National Guard base in Holland. At 8 a.m. there ought
to be someone manning the radio.
“Palace Guard to Holland, over.”
“Holland here, go ahead, over,” he heard back.
“We’ve got and XPO here and want a status check, over.”
“Say again, over.”
“Palace is experiencing and extended power outage. Please advise status, over.”
“Hold please, over.”
Carlos sighed. He
waited impatiently to hear what he already knew. They had no idea.
“Palace Guard, be advised: HQ is working on it and will
contact you at twelve hundred, over.”
“Copy, Holland. Palace Guard also needs delivery of another
ammo canister,” said Carlos.
“Negative, Palace Guard.
Ammo is currently fully allocated.
Stay tuned at twelve hundred.
Holland out.”
Carlos clicked off the transmitter, swallowed his last swig
of coffee, and stormed into the mess.
“Captain will be here in two hours,” he barked. “Get this place cleaned up and I mean NOW!’
--
Captain Clark’s visit was brief and to the point. He drove down in his Jeep at the head of a
column of troop trucks and technicals, stopping by on his way to the Indiana
border. Carlos had hiked out to the
highway to meet them.
There would be no more fuel delivered from the base, as the
Chicago boys had cut them off. Clark’s
men had tried to patrol the area, but with fuel scarce and the renewed
hostilities between the rural militia and the mob, they couldn’t keep an eye on
all the power lines all the time.
Carlos’s orders were to “somehow” keep the pumps operating
until power could be restored to the plant, while Clark and his men would head
for the refinery down south and try to seize some fuel trucks.
“Good luck, Sergeant Murphy,” said Clark as he saluted his
goodbye.
“You too, sir.” Carlos watched the column disappear, knowing
that he would never see Clark again.
--
Back in the radio room, Carlos changed channels and flicked
on the transmitter. It was a long shot,
but he had no choice.
“Grease Monkey to Buffalo Wing, come in.”
Static was the only reply.
“Grease Monkey to Buffalo Wing, come in please.”
Carlos waited, beginning to doubt himself. He had all but disowned his cousin when he’d
joined the mob out of high school. Paco
hadn’t wanted to join the Army, and with the wars in Africa going so badly it
was hard to blame him. Still, the
mafia? Surely staying at his family farm
near Bangor would’ve been a better life.
Then again, Paco wasn’t the country type.
“Grease Monkey to Buffalo Wing, come in.”
They hadn’t spoken in years, and maybe Paco had
changed. Maybe it was just as well that
there was no answer. Then, the receiver
crackled to life.
“Hey Carlos. Long
time no hear, cuz.”
“Hey Paco. How you
been?”
“Busy, amigo. What
can I do for you?”
Carlos sighed. He
hated owing favors to dangerous men.
“I’m in a pinch, cousin. I need
some diesel in a bad way, and you know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t
important. I hear you know a guy who can
get things done.”
“Whoa, now, Carlito.
That’s a tall order, my man. What
you got to make this worth the trouble?”
“That’s the tough part, Paco. I’m in no position to offer anything. But I can say that if I don’t get some diesel
soon, all our family will become refugees, along with everyone else downwind
from Covert.”
Carlos paused, but Paco didn’t respond. They both knew talking on the radio about
this could be dangerous.
Finally Paco asked, “You calling from where I think you’re
calling from, Carlos?”
“I’ve been stationed at Palisades for a couple years, but
now the power here’s out and we’re running low on backup fuel. If those pumps shut off for more than a few
days, the pool could boil off and the fuel could go. I didn’t know where else to turn, as nobody seems
to have fuel anymore but you guys.”
There. He’d said it
aloud for the first time to anyone, and anyone could be listening.
“Well, you’re right about that,” Paco chuckled. “Let me see
what I can do.”
--
Martin and Millie VanWinkle taught school in the living room
of their small house near Holland’s waterfront.
Martin had taught science at Hope College in his early 30s until the
school, like so much else in town, shut its doors. Years later, their modest income kept them
fed, clothed, and housed; and it also paid for Martin’s prized solar panels
that powered the radio gear in the small room at the top of the stairs, where
he liked to spend sunny mornings like this one.
“Holy Frack!” he exclaimed.
“Martin, watch your language. The students are here,” called Millie.
“Millie, send them home, we need to pack,” Martin hollered
down the stairs. She could already hear
him rummaging upstairs. He’d been on the
radio since late morning and hadn’t come down for lunch.
“Wait here, kids, I’ll go see what the fuss is about. Connie, can you take over?” she asked the
oldest student as she headed up the stairs.
“Martin, what on Earth’s the matter?” she asked when she
found him in their bedroom throwing clothing into a suitcase. “Where are we going?”
“Palisades,” he said, closing his suitcase. “The grid’s down, and they’re almost out of
fuel. I’m going to pack the radio gear
after I round up the others.” He stopped
and looked up at his wife. They’d talked
about this idly for years, but it had always seemed so unreasonable. Now, all of a sudden, it was really
happening.
“Are you sure?” Millie wished she could think of something
better to say. “I mean, how do you
know?”
“I overheard a conversation on the military channel this
morning. They were talking about
ammunition, but that didn’t make any sense.
Then a couple hours later on a civilian channel I heard a guy asking his
cousin for a delivery of diesel fuel to Covert, saying something about refugees
and fuel pools. Then I checked in around
the county with the club guys, and they confirmed the grid power’s been out
along the lakeshore for nearly two days.
I think this may be the real thing,” he said.
Millie’s eyes went wide at the thought of the spent fuel
boiling and burning and irradiating the county and beyond. “What are we going to do?”
Martin stood and held her shoulders, looking her in the
eyes. “We’re going to gather the others,
load up whatever we can fit into Bob’s boat, and do what we can. Now can you please send the children home and
start packing?” He turned to go down the
hall to the radio room and start packing his gear.
“But it’s May. Who
will tend the garden if we go, and who will teach the children?”
Martin stopped. She
had a point. While he was busy thinking
about saving the county from what happened in Boston, he hadn’t thought about
keeping their homestead going, let alone keeping people at the plant fed. He clearly needed to think this through.
Then it hit him; Sal would know what to do. If anyone knew how to pull off something this
crazy, it would definitely be the eccentric old man raising cider apples on the
other side of town. Martin walked
straight down the stairs, past the children studying algebra, and hopped on his
bicycle for a ride across what was left of Holland’s crumbling streets.
--
The next morning, Carlos knew he didn’t have long before he’d
have to fill they guys in. They were
anxious, and everyone could tell that Carlos was, too. To buy some time, he set two of them the task
of inventorying the larder, three of them on cleaning the deck in the fuel pool
room, and picked Gomez to walk the perimeter with him. He liked Gomez, and probably trusted him the
most of anyone else there. Besides, a
walk through the woods along the fence line would do him some good.
They started along the beach at the north line, and walked
up the dune above the dry cask storage platform, where fifty years’ worth of
fuel rods were packed in helium-filled concrete and steel casks, set out in the
sun and rain. They were designed to last
300 years, but the surfaces were cracking already.
Farther along they passed above the old parking lot. “Hard to believe that used to be full of cars
every day, isn’t it?” asked Gomez.
“Where’d they get all the fuel for them, anyway?”
Carlos said nothing, remembering his time in Africa fighting
for oil, vaguely recalling cars being still somewhat common as a child.
They moved on, walking past the old guard house and on down
the back side of the dune toward the highway.
The power plant had its own road, which they crossed now, heading south
and then back uphill toward the lake. So
far the fence was still intact, and there were no signs of trouble.
At the top of the dune along the south line, looking out at
the lake, Gomez asked Carlos about the cooling buildings, stretching out in two
long rows ahead of them.
“Those were to cool the main reactor,” he said. “The fuel would boil the water, make steam,
and turn a generator. The excess heat
had to be released to keep the reaction going safely. Those were just big exhaust vents.”
“Sarge, why did they shut this plant down? I mean, they still have the one in Benton
Harbor going, right? What was wrong with
this one?”
“That’s a long story Gomez.
The short version is that the company that owned it went bankrupt when
its other nuke plant in Boston melted down.
The state took over Palisades and idled it for a few years. They tried to restart it, but something was
wrong with the cooling system, and they couldn’t fix it. They brought in guys from Chicago to pull the
fuel rods out and stash them in the fuel pool.
That’s what we’re doing here now, just keeping the rest of the fuel from
causing any problems. The reactor is
shut down, thank God, but the fuel pool has to stay cooled.”
“How do you know so much about this plant?”
“I grew up here, and it was all anybody talked about for a
long time when I was young. All I wanted
to do was work on dad’s trucks, but you couldn’t avoid hearing about that plant
anywhere around. I thought I’d get away
from it in the Army, but somehow after all those years I ended up right back
here.”
Carlos started walking, ending the conversation. Gomez followed out through the trees, through
the dune grass, and out to the lake.
When they got back, the guys were clearly uneasy. There’d been some radio chatter about
fighting down near Indiana, and the two men checking the larder had
overheard. The Michigan Guard wouldn’t
be bringing any diesel at any rate.
Williams saw them coming first. “Sarge, what’s going on?”
Carlos stood facing them squarely. He couldn’t put it off any longer. “The power’s out,” he said. “We don’t know when it’s coming back on. The tanker truck is nearly empty, and the
generator is burning through what we’ve got left faster than I’d like.”
“What’d Captain Clark say?”
“He said they’re heading south to try to get more fuel. It’s not clear when more is coming.” He could see the wheels turning. They’d heard the radio chatter. How they'd react would determine their
future, but it was too early to read them.
Just then, Gomez said, “Listen! Do you hear that?” One by one, they each picked up on the rumble
of a truck on the highway.
“Guards! Take up
positions,” ordered Carlos. The men
scrambled for the mess hall, where their rifles were stored. They scattered in pairs to either side of the
road and took up positions behind trees, while Carlos readied his sidearm and
walked toward the old guardhouse.
Rumbling up the road from the highway was a tanker truck
tailed by a pickup with a mounted machine gun.
The design for these “technicals” had been imported from Africa with the
return of the soldiers who’d fought there twenty years earlier, ultimately
losing the competition with China for the last unclaimed oil exports. Riding shotgun in this one, an old Chevy one-ton,
was an older, pudgier version of the teenager Carlos had known. As the trucks rolled to a stop, Carlos waved
and walked up to the pickup.
“Paco, it’s good to see you,” greeted Carlos as Paco opened
the door and stepped out of the truck.
“It’s not every day I come bearing gifts to the enemy,
Carlito, but it’s good to see you, too.”
They embraced and smiled at each other.
“I would love to stay and catch up, amigo, but my men and these trucks
will be missed before too long. Lucky
for you your friends created a diversion with their silly little raid near the
refinery. We managed to sneak out mostly
unnoticed. How much fuel do you need?”
“As much as you can give us, Paco. Like I said, the grid here is down, and we
need to keep those pumps running to cool the fuel, at least until the power can
be restored.”
“That may be a long time, my friend. The lines are gone from the highway exit to
the substation a couple miles down, and the transformers there are gone,
too. Probably taken by someone who needs
them somewhere else,” said Paco, giving Carlos a sideways look and glancing at
the trees where the Guardsmen were poorly hidden, aiming back at them.
“You mean probably taken to Chicago, right?”
Paco clucked his disapproval. “Times are tough and getting tougher, you
know. It wasn’t my call, I can tell you
that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was us.
It’s hard to keep the power up in Chicago, and you can forget about
ordering new equipment. Why do you think
I’m here bringing you the fuel, amigo?
You think we got nothin’ better to do with it?”
“I’m sure you do,” Carlos was bitter now, but he couldn’t
show it. Paco’s men were eying the
Guards and watching for a sign of aggression.
The calculus had suddenly changed, though, and Carlos needed the whole
tanker truck. It seemed like Paco was
even looking for a reason to give it to him.
“Look,” he said, “I’m here because of the family,
Carlos. How much time do you need to get
word to them and get them up north somewhere?”
“Maybe two weeks, maybe a month. With you guys pulling the fuel supply, it’s
going to be slow moving people out of the downwind zone. With summer coming on, the pumps run 24/7 to
keep the fuel building cool. If you
could bring us another tanker in three weeks, we could get lots of people out
of the area in and orderly way and save a lot of lives.”
“Another tanker!” Paco laughed loudly, startling the men in
the trees. “Tell me, how do you think I
can convince the boss to give so much fuel to a humanitarian mission in a place
that we’ve abandoned to terrorists?”
“I don’t know. You
were always a good salesman,” said Carlos with a weak smile.
“I tell you what, Carlos.
We’ll trade you this tanker for that one you’ve got parked on the lawn
over there. I know you’re desperate, and
I’m a generous man. You swear to me on
your mother’s grave that you’ll get the family out of harm’s way before this
runs out, and we’ll pretend that we were never here.” He extended his hand. “What do you say, amigo?”
Carlos clasped his forearm and shook, clapping Paco on the
shoulder. “I say thank you, cousin. You’re a lifesaver, and you have my word.”
Paco whistled at the truck driver. “Hey Gupta!
Pull up next to that other trailer up ahead,” he shouted. They began walking toward the building, and
Paco said, “One more thing, Carlos. When
you go, please tell my father that I did what I could to help you. I know you’re all disappointed in the life I
chose, but you know I’ve never forgotten my family, right?”
Carlos turned and faced him.
“Your father still loves you, Paco, and today the whole family would be
proud of what you’ve done. I will be
sure to tell them next time I see them,” he said, grinning, “especially about
how well-fed you look these days.”
Paco laughed and clapped his cousin’s shoulder. “Thank you, Carlos. Now call your men down
from the trees, eh? It would be a shame
for one of them to frack this up.”
--
As Paco’s trucks pulled out with the near-empty tanker in
tow, Carlos sat at his desk in the mess building trying to figure out how long
they could make the diesel in the tanker last.
Now that he knew the power wouldn’t be coming back on, the Guard had
suffered serious losses in their failed raid on the refinery, and there
wouldn’t likely be much of any fuel to be had anywhere around for the
foreseeable future, he had to wrap his head around what to do next. Before he could find a pen to work out the
math on gallons of fuel per day, Gomez came rushing in.
“Sarge, we’ve got a problem.
Thompson was walking off with the two jerry cans of diesel, and Williams
has him held at gunpoint. You gotta come
quick!”
Carlos followed him out past the guardhouse to where all
five other men were now gathered, arguing loudly and brandishing their
rifles. As Carlos approached, two of the
men pointed their rifles at him and Gomez.
He raised his hands up and gestured calmly, “Everybody just settle down,
okay? There’s no reason anybody needs to
get shot over this.” The men just stared
at him, dumbfounded. This was not the
usual loud, aggressive Sergeant Murphy.
“Look, guys, if you want to leave, I’m not going to stop
you. I saw too many soldiers in Kenya
end up dead because their CO wouldn’t believe that the cavalry wasn’t
coming. Yesterday I saw Captain Clark
leading better than half of the men from Holland down toward Chicago. You all heard on the radio what
happened.” They nodded.
Thompson asked accusingly, “Did you warn your cousin that
they were coming? Is that why he showed
up to reward you?”
Gomez shouted, “You take that back, Thompson! Sarge has been one of us since before you
were born!” He raised his rifle at Thompson,
who still had the diesel cans.
“Easy now, fellas,” said Carlos. “I know that looked bad. Paco left for Chicago while I was fighting in
Africa. I hadn’t seen him again until
today. With the power out and our fuel
supply running low, I needed time to figure out what to do. Paco was the only one who could get us any
diesel and without that, the pumps fail and the fuel pool boils off and catches
fire. I had no choice.”
“Why didn’t you call up to Holland? They brought it before,” said Thompson.
“Where do you think they got their fuel? The only refinery in 300 miles with any oil
coming in is in Chicago,” replied Carlos.
He let it sink in that their militia was totally dependent on the mob
for their fuel.
“So what happens now?”
asked Williams, his rifle still raised but pointing aimlessly off to the
side. His attention was clearly
distracted.
“I tell you what I’m doing,” said Thompson. “I’m getting the frack out of here.”
“Me too,” said Johnson.
“Like I said, if you want to leave, go ahead and leave. We need those cans, Thompson. We’ve got to keep the generator filled up or
that spent fuel goes up and irradiates the countryside for 50 miles.”
Thompson relented, setting the cans down and backing
away. Gomez still had his rifle trained
on him, as Johnson did on Gomez. The
standoff was less dangerous but still tense.
“I’ll go further.
It’s about supper time. How about
we all sit down for one more meal together?
Anyone who wants to leave can pack up at their bunk and head out on a
full stomach,” said Carlos. “Sound
fair?”
The men looked around at each other, lowered their guns, and
followed Carlos back to the mess.
--
Four men left after supper.
Carlos watched them walk out to the highway and head north through the
tree-slanted evening light. They said
they were heading back to Holland to see who was left at the base, but Carlos
knew better. No soldier abandoned his
post and waltzed back to base to check in.
That left Gomez, Williams, and himself; three men to keep
the generator running as long as they could, and figure out what to do when the
fuel ran out. He had yet to figure out
exactly how long that would be, but it could wait at least until morning. His head was throbbing, and he needed
rest. He turned and walked up the hill
toward the setting sun, toward the looming containment dome above the old
reactor, toward the comforting hum of the cooling pumps, and his well-worn cot.
--
Martin and Millie brought their supplies with them to the
dock behind Bob’s house a few blocks west of downtown. As the sun sank lower over the lake to the
west, Martin moved with an air of excitement he hadn’t felt in decades. Millie fidgeted, unsure at this late hour if
the fate awaiting them at their destination was one she wanted to meet.
“It’s too dangerous,” said Millie. “If they’re out of fuel and the power’s out,
it may already be too late. We should
head north now, not rush headlong toward boiling plutonium rods and armed
soldiers!”
Martin looked up from the deck of Bob’s sailboat. They were loading some old PV panels, radio
gear, and supplies into what used to be the cabin. “Honey, you don’t have to come, but I’m
definitely going. Sal and the others are
right; we can’t walk away without at least trying to stop this. If the plant goes up, everyone from here to
Indiana becomes a refugee.”
“Well, can’t we send someone else to find out what’s going
on there, or maybe ask at the Guard base if they know what’s happening? Maybe they fixed everything, or maybe they
brought back fuel from the Whiting refinery.”
Martin grasped her hands and said, “Millie, it’s okay to be
afraid. To be honest, I’m pretty nervous
right now, too. I can’t let that stop
me, though. If you’d rather stay here
with my sister and look after the house, we’ll call you when we get there and
get the radio set up.”
At that, Millie set her jaw.
“I’m coming with you,” she said.
“I still don’t know if I trust Sal’s plan, but I don’t want to sit
around wondering what kind of trouble you’re in.”
Martin laughed and hugged her. “I love you, Millie, and I’m so glad you’re
coming with us. I’ve got a hunch that
they’ll be happy to see us.”
Just then, Bob, Sal, and two young men walked up hauling
barrow-loads of food, wiring, and other gear for the boat. Sal smiled and with a twinkling eye guessed
correctly, “It will be lovely to have you along, Millie. I think you’ll be quite helpful when we get
to the plant.” Martin and the young men
began unloading the wheelbarrows and boarding with the gear.
“When will we get there?” asked Martin.
“That depends on the weather,” said Bob. “If we leave in the morning, catch good wind,
and everything goes well, we can make it by nightfall. More realistically, we’ll make it to
Saugatuck or South Haven tomorrow and get to Palisades sometime the next day.”
“Two days of sailing on the big lake. How lovely,” said Millie. She was genuinely
excited to go sailing on Lake Michigan.
“There sure are worse ways to travel.”
“Yes, yes,” gruffed Bob.
“Can we please finish loading this stuff? If we’re going to sink my boat I’d like to
find out here, where I can at least swim home safely.”
Sal chuckled.
“Robert, my boy, I find your confidence reassuring. Come; help an old man find his sea legs
again, would you?” He reached out to
Martin with a surprisingly firm grip, then stepped aboard and began to pass
duffel bags and crates below.
--
“Four months.” Carlos
stared into his coffee, not sure whether that was a long time or a short
time. He’d checked the numbers three
times, gone over the fuel consumption log twice, and checked the gauge on the
tanker trailer four times. “So something
had better happen by September,” he said to himself.
He didn’t know what to expect. He’d checked in with Holland by radio last
night and this morning, but got no response.
Clark and his men were probably never coming back, and without fuel
there wouldn’t likely be many reinforcements from Grand Rapids. Carlos wondered if there was anyone up there
who even remembered that there was an abandoned nuclear plant in Covert. All of his contact, supplies, relief squads,
and annual drills came from Holland, as they had for at least five years now. Even when he got relief time twice a year, he
just hiked out to Bangor to stay with his uncle, brother, and cousin on the family
farm. There was never any news from up
north, and rarely much from elsewhere.
He caught chatter on the radio now and then, but it was nearly
impossible to tell what was real news and what was just some crank with a solar
panel and a transmitter. For all he
knew, they were totally on their own.
That thought set Carlos in motion. “Gomez, Williams,” he called as he walked out
through the mess into the yard. The men
came up from their tents, expecting orders.
“I’m going to check the circuits from the generator to make sure we’re
not leaking power into anything but the pumps, lights, and radio. Will one of you give me a hand by flipping
breakers and the other keep an eye out?”
Gomez stared blankly.
Sergeant Murphy was asking for their help instead of barking
orders. Things had clearly changed. “Uh, sure Sarge. I’ll help you out with the breakers.” Williams nodded, shouldered his rifle, and
went to climb the access ladder up to the main roof of the plant to keep watch.
As they checked the circuits for power, they shut off all
but two. One clearly controlled the
pumps, and the other seemed to feed all power to the mess building. They went there next to check the building for
anything that looked to be using power.
Carlos planned to check the fuel consumption over the next few days to
see if it changed at all.
“Four months, huh?
That’s not that long. What do we
do when the fuel runs out then?”
“I don’t know,” said Carlos.
“You got any ideas?”
“Follow Thompson and the others up north, maybe.” Gomez shrugged. “How else do you keep nuclear fuel cooled?”
“I have no idea.
Let’s go into the fuel storage building and see what it looks like
inside,” suggested Carlos. “I haven’t
been in there since my orientation when I first arrived. HQ said they didn’t want us going in there,
but I don’t think it could hurt anything at this point.”
--
Carlos slept fitfully that night. For the first time in as long as he
remembered, no one was telling him what to do.
Growing up had been easy; school, summers working on the farm, and his
decade in the Army all handed him orders and a clear objective. Even when the Army abandoned his unit in
Kenya and he worked his way back on freighters, his way was clear. When he finally arrived home amid the chaos
of an imploding civil order he went back to the farm, where his uncle still
bossed him around. When things with the
mob in Chicago seemed to be spilling out up their way, he signed right up for
the New National Guard, where his orders came with 3 squares a day and a pretty
cushy assignment to guard something nobody wanted on a forested stretch of
beach near his family.
That all changed in the last two days, and now he felt
adrift. Each time he radioed for orders
from Holland and got no reply, a knot of fear welled up in his gut. Gomez and Williams still looked to him for
leadership, but he was a better squad leader than strategist. Thrown into a maze, he could always fight his
way out. Left now to his own devices
with a ticking bomb he couldn’t defuse, and the weight of the decisions he
faced threatened to crush him.
If he couldn’t figure out a way to keep those fuel rods cool
in the next few months, thousands of people, his family among them, would
become landless refugees. Visions of
highways crowded with people carrying their lives on their backs haunted his
dreams.
--
“There it is!” exclaimed Martin from the bow of the
boat. “I can see the containment dome.”
Millie looked past her husband as he pressed the binoculars
to his face. Not that she didn’t believe
him, but the shoreline in front of them looked just the same as the shoreline
behind them. The dense forested dunes
gave way to a stretch of beach grass, until a thin-looking strip of light tan
sand was lapped by white-foamed waves in the gentle westerly breeze. The scene disappeared into a light hazy mist
in both directions under a sky dotted with puffy clouds. To the west lay an unbroken line of water as
far as anyone could see.
They’d anchored last night just inside the breakwall at
Saugatuck, on the mouth of the Kalamazoo River.
Life on the boat was much less romantic than she’d hoped, especially
when night fell and all six of them were wedged on deck after a dinner of
cornbread and beans; what was left of the cabin had been stuffed with all of
their supplies. Still, it sure beat
walking.
“At this rate, we should get there by mid-afternoon,” said
Bob. “One night on the boat was plenty
for me.”
Sal agreed. “Better
to arrive during daylight hours for many reasons,” he said. “We have to be prepared for whoever is there
not to welcome visitors, even if we know we mean well.”
Millie frowned. “You
mean they don’t even know we’re coming?”
Bob looked questioningly to Sal, who smiled. “We didn’t think it wise to announce over the
radio that a handful of unarmed people would be bringing a boatload of valuable
equipment down the lakeshore. There may
be some who might look on that as an invitation to relieve us of our supplies.” He turned to face Millie. “That, my dear, is one reason why I was so
delighted you’d chosen to join us.
Nothing says ‘We come in peace’ to soldiers like an unarmed group of men
and women offering gifts and
assistance. There are many other
reasons, of course, but we’ll get to those in good time.”
--
A while after lunch Carlos was at his desk in the mess
building going over some documents Gomez had found in the main control
room. They looked like blueprints but
clearly weren’t; there were symbols indicating valves and heat exchangers, and
he thought they might help him understand the cooling system. His eyes hurt trying to read the tiny script,
and he had yet to make heads or tails of it.
Williams came running in nearly out of breath. “Sarge!
There’s a sailboat that just turned in to the cooling inlet trench. The people on board are waving white
hankies!”
Carlos looked up blankly.
“A sailboat? Here?” That didn’t make any sense. He hardly ever saw boats go by on the lake
these days, and certainly no one ever tried to land at the old power plant.
“Gomez is on the roof on watch, he yelled down for me to
come get you.”
Carlos stood and said, “Tell Gomez to stay put and watch our
backs. Grab your rifle and let’s go see
what these sailors are after.”
--
Sal, Martin, and the young men stood at the bow waving white
flags as the two rough-looking militiamen walked out through the beach grass to
meet them. Millie stayed with Bob at the
helm. Though used to the sight of men
with guns, she shivered at the thought that they were coming straight for the
boat, straight for the six of them. The
gentle rocking of the anchored boat on the waves in this small inlet didn’t
soothe her nerves in the least.
“It’s all going to be all right,” said Bob in a hushed
voice, patting her shoulder. “Sal’s up
front, and they’re not going to shoot an unarmed 70-year-old man.”
--
As they approached the boat, the sight of the motley crew
puzzled Carlos. There were two guys
about Gomez and Williams’ age, an old man with a big white beard, a middle-aged
couple and another middle-aged man. This
was clearly no invasion, and they were waving white hankies. He lowered his rifle and motioned Williams to
do the same.
“Hello there!” hollered the old man.
“Hello,” replied Carlos as he and Williams stopped a few
yards from the boat. “What are you doing
here?”
“I’m Sal, and this is Martin, Jose, Orrin, Millie, and
Bob.” He pointed out the crew and dodged
the question.
“My name is Sergeant Murphy, and this is Private Williams.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Sergeant,” said Sal. “We’ve come looking for the Palisades Nuclear
Power Station. Can you tell us if we’re
on the right track?”
“Well, this is the place, but I’m not sure why you’re
looking for it. It’s a restricted area
in the best of times, and these are not the best of times.”
“Ah, I see. It’s just
that we heard there was a power outage here, and we were wondering if there was
anything we might be able to do…” Sal left the rest of the offering up to
Sergeant Murphy.
“How did you hear about that?” Carlos was curious what the public knew about
recent events involving the militia.
Martin piped up, “I have an old radio I like to listen to
sometimes, and I heard mention of a power outage a couple of days ago.” He made sure not to mention the other
conversation he’d overheard.
“Well, unless you can find some transformers and a couple
miles of power line to hook us back up to what’s left of the power grid, I’m
not sure what you’d be able to do to help,” said Carlos. “Unless maybe you’ve got a truckload of
diesel fuel for our generator in that boat.”
Sal smiled, “What we brought isn’t exactly diesel fuel, but
it can power some things in a pinch.”
Carlos perked up at this. “Would
you be so kind as to invite us ashore, Sergeant?”
--
On that first walk back to the plant they worked through
many formalities. Carlos gave the group
a tour of the facility and spoke frankly about their situation. He told them about the four other men leaving,
about how long their fuel supply would last, and how he’d had no orders for
days now. Had they come armed or shown
aggression, he’d have acted differently.
As they talked, he felt the weight of last night’s worries begin to ease
the more he shared them. It seemed at
least he wouldn’t be facing such challenging decisions alone.
They sat down for an
early dinner and got to know one another.
Carlos could fix anything with an engine in it, while Martin could make
anything electrical work with some time and scavenged parts. Bob ran a still in his backyard and could
ferment just about anything that grew, while Millie could grow a bountiful garden
anywhere. After dinner was over, though,
Sal surprised them all.
“It’s a strange pleasure seeing this place again. When I last left, it was under much more
strenuous circumstances. You see, I was
one of the government inspectors charged with overseeing this plant. My last day of work here was when the state
took over and then finished defueling the reactor.”
Everyone stared at him, stunned. He continued, “It had been my intention to
try restarting the plant for many years, but it’s clear now how foolish and
dangerous that would’ve been. I don’t
know everything about this place; there were hundreds of people working to make
it operate. I would, however, cherish
the opportunity to do my part to steward the spent fuel as best I can for as
long as possible, with the help of as many of you as are willing. I think that together we could do much to
protect our families and neighbors who live downwind.”
Millie found herself raising her glass. “To those downwind,” she said. The company joined her in a chorus of “here,
here!”
--
That evening as they unloaded the supplies up a wooden plank
and wheeled them on a cart up through the sandy stretch of grass, Sal found Carlos
staring out over the lake a few yards up the shore. He stood next to him facing the setting sun
as it widened and reddened over the gray glassy water, listening to the
rhythmic breaking of waves in the gentle wind.
“You know, those solar panels aren’t likely to outlast me,”
Carlos said. “Even if we figure out how
to keep this thing stitched together for a few years, eventually that pool is
going to go.”
“Yes, that’s true.
And even if we can keep the pool contained, those dry casks aren’t going
to hold together forever, either,” replied Sal.
“There is no technology we have to keep that spent fuel safe forever,
but I still can’t think of a good enough excuse to give my granddaughter why
she has to leave when there’s something I can do about it, if only for a time.”
Carlos sighed. “It
just feels like such a strange way to protect my home and family. Putting together solar panels, building wind
generators out of scrap wire and magnets, storing rainwater in tanks on the roof;
it all sounds so crazy. I’m used to
being a soldier, or a farmhand, or a mechanic; not a tinkerer. Looking through those plans today gave me a
headache. I don’t know if I’m cut out
for this.”
Sal reached out and set a hand on Carlos’s shoulder. “Surely you can find honor in fending off an
implacable foe, protecting innocent people from danger, even if you know you’ll
ultimately lose. Besides, there are
other people to help decipher old plans and help you out as a team. You have many skills and plenty of experience
that will come in handy. After all,
wasn’t it you who procured that full truckload of diesel fuel?”
Carlos looked at Sal to find a twinkle in his eye. He knew about Paco, and was seemingly
impressed.
“When we get these things unloaded,” continued Sal, “I think
you’d best get cleaned up and packed.”
“Packed? I didn’t say
I was leaving,” replied Carlos.
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll be back, Sergeant Murphy. But you probably haven’t been to visit your
family for some months now, have you?
I’m sure they wouldn’t mind a few days’ help with planting for the
summer.”
“Now that you mention it,” said Carlos, gazing out over the
lake where the last rays of sunlight were streaming through the broken clouds
on the horizon, “I do have something I need to tell them.”
