Craig Kreident #2 Fallout (7 page)

The area was dry and desolate, some parts as flat as glass.
 
In the midday sun occasional streaks of paler tan splashed the broad plain like a watercolor wash.
 
Scarecrowish Joshua Trees mottled the landscape along with mesquite, brush sage, and gray-green thistles.
 
Jagged mountains lay in angled strips on every horizon.
 
Nothing looked remotely
soft
, as far as Paige could see.
 
The sky was as clear as a blue magnifying glass, but she knew that sudden and violent thunderstorms could roll in at any time.

The Russians spoke little, still in shock at the death of their team leader.
 
Paige knew the thoughts going through their minds:
 
Had it been lax security at the DAF, or was it a sophisticated coverup for something more sinister?
 
What had Nevsky been doing alone in a restricted area, far from the glove boxes?

Paige had seen other accident investigations and the inevitable result.
 
Fingers had to be pointed, and for a tragedy of this magnitude the DAF would have to cough up at least one scapegoat — probably someone like Jorgenson or PK Dirks.
 
She dreaded the repercussions might ripple as high as the DAF Manager, Uncle Mike. . . .

Paige caught a glimpse of figures moving overland across the desert up ahead.
 
People . . . walking along like a group of hikers crossing the road.
 
She squinted.
 
“Who’s that?”

Dirks leaned forward.
 
“Shouldn’t be anyone out here, ma’am.
 
Slow down,” he said.
 
“This is a security zone, not a Boyscout jamboree.”

The three hikers cut across the road as they headed north toward the distant range of mesas.
 
They turned to face the oncoming van as if hoping to hitch a ride.
 
How had they managed to get past NTS security?
 
Several sequential gates phased people into various sections of the site; mobile ground and airborne guard forces monitored the area for intruders.

But apparently not well enough.

“Ma’am,” said Dirks, speaking more urgently now, “maybe we should use the CB to call security?”
 
The Russians spoke excitedly among themselves, catching a glimpse of what was going on.

Paige handed Dirks the CB microphone as she pulled up next to the two men and a woman.
 
One of the men was extremely thin and tall, with stringy hair hanging from his floppy brown cowboy hat; he blinked behind round John Lennon glasses.
 
The woman was short and pudgy, wearing her black hair in two braids; the other man looked like a weightlifter dressed in a loose, tie-dyed T-shirt.
 

The tall man waved and gave a goofy grin.
 
“Hey, what’s happening?” he called as Paige opened the van door.
 
He shrugged off his backpack and peered up at the van through his dusty round glasses.

Paige gestured for PK Dirks to remain seated.
 
Her shoes crunched in the sand as the desert heat hit her full force.
 
“May I ask what you’re doing out here?
 
This is a restricted area.”

“Told you we should have stayed away from the roads,” the pudgy woman said.

“I’m Doog, and this is Tina and Geoff,” the tall man said with a grin.
 
“We didn’t expect to see anybody this far out past the gates.”

“Neither did we,” said Paige dryly.
 
“Are you aware that unauthorized access here is a Federal offense.”

Tina and Geoff exchanged nervous glances; Doog just shrugged and gave his goofy grin.
 
“We weren’t going to steal anything.
 
The Cold War is over, and you guys aren’t setting off any nukes anymore — so what do you have to hide?”
 
He waited with childlike anticipation for her answer.

Paige shook her head, trying not to get irritated.
 
“That’s not the point, Mr., uh, Doog.
 
No Trespassing
means
No Trespassing
.”

Doog looked at his two companions, who both shrugged in surrender.
 
“We’re just taking a shortcut up to Groom Lake.
 
We figured it might be easier to get through the fence this way.
 
No chance of getting through on the Route 375 side.
 
Extraterrestrial Highway.”

“Yeah,” said Tina, her eyes dark and intense.
 
“You know,
Dreamland
.”

Doog said, “Groom Lake, Area 51 — that super-secret Air Force base inside Nellis where the government is hiding a bunch of aliens in one of their hangars.
 
They won’t let the public know about it because they’re holding negotiations so Earth can be accepted into the galactic union.”

Paige lifted an eyebrow.
 
“Aliens?”

Geoff nodded, finally speaking,
 
His voice was surprisingly high pitched for his burly
 
body.
 
“We’re sneaking in to get a look for ourselves, find enlightenment, and channel our energy to the stars.”

Dirks leaned out the window.
 
“Site Security is on the way, ma’am.”

“Who are these people?”
 
General Ursov glared out the open window of the van.
 
“Why the delay?
 
Is this another breach in security?”

Paige sighed.
 
This was going to be one long day
.

CHAPTER 7

Tuesday, October 21

1:45 P.M.

Cane Springs Test Range

Nevada Test Site

After NTS security troops had taken the UFO-hunting trespassers, Paige drove the government van to a line of rocky, brush-covered hills where explosives storage bunkers dotted the gullies and ridgetops.

They passed through a checkpoint where a security officer in sand camouflage fatigues inspected underneath the vehicle using mirrors and a flashlight.
 
Paige couldn’t tell if the guard was suspicious of the Russians
per se
, or if his job was just to be skeptical of everyone driving past his station.

Warmed up to his role as tourguide, PK Dirks chatted breezily, trying to make the Russians relax.
 
Ursov looked dourly out the van windows, as if filing away details of the emplacements, the bunkers, everything he saw.
 

Dirks pointed up the road.
 
“Take the gravel road just before the curve, ma’am,” he said.
 
“Go to bunker 87-3 — I know the door lock combination.”

She pulled up in front of a thick-walled, windowless concrete bunker set into a steep hillside.
 
The bunker had water-stained walls and a heavy metal door.
 
The coded lock consisted of a round ring of numbered buttons.
 
Paige hung back as Dirks punched four buttons in sequence, then tugged on the handle.
 
One of the Russians helped him haul the heavy steel hatch open.

“This is where we store our chemical explosives,” Dirks said, reaching inside to flick on the lights.
 
He puffed his chubby cheeks, making his beard bristle out.
 
He gestured for the Russians to enter the claustrophobic building.
 

Ursov said, “A bunker looks like a bunker, looks like a bunker.”

“Maybe they keep more flying saucers out here,” Anatoli Voronin muttered, spreading his thick lips in a grin.

Paige had just closed the van door when her cellular phone rang.
 
As she plucked the unit from her belt, Dirks waved to her.
 
“I’ll take them in, ma’am.”
 
He ushered the Russians inside the bunker as Paige pressed the phone against her ear.

“This is Chief Medical Examiner Adams,” said a voice, reedy but firm.
 
Her heart beat more rapidly as she prepared to receive the report about Nevsky’s death.
 
“Are you someplace you can talk, Ms. Mitchell?
 
The report is worse than you might have imagined.”

Paige braced herself.
 
“Worse than him being dead?”

“Trouble is,” the coroner said, “the ambassador was dead long before that crate fell on his head — by at least half an hour.
 
We can tell by the splash pattern and by chemical analysis of the blood.
 
His heart wasn’t beating at the time of the massive trauma to his skull and vertebrae.
 
It would seem that the falling crate was a cover-up to hide a major blow to the cranium.”

Paige stiffened as the words sunk in.
 
“You’re suggesting this was a murder and coverup, not just an industrial accident.”

“No question in my mind.
 
You’ve got a problem on your hands, and I don’t envy you the political hot potato.
 
Not at all.”
 
Adams cleared his throat, then continued as if reading from a dry report.
 
“We’ll do a full autopsy and chemical workup, but facts are facts.”

Paige stared across the wide-open desert, aghast.
 
“Mr. Adams, I’d like to get guidance from the State Department and the DOE.”
 
At the back fringes of her shock, she began to feel the impending political implications to Nevsky’s death.
 
Murder
. . .
 
In a flash of panic she hoped no one was listening on this cellular band.
 
“You know about the President’s upcoming disarmament summit, the whole reason for the visit of this Russian inspection team.
 
How long can we keep this information from the press?”

“I’ve got to complete a lot of tests and document the formal autopsy,” Adams answered.
 
“Besides, in a sensitive case like this, I’m going to double- and triple-check every result.
 
In the meantime, if people want to assume it was an industrial accident, there’s no reason we have to change their minds.”

“I understand,” Paige said.
 
“I’ll get the FBI on it right away.”

Paige continued with the formal briefing.
 
“The Nevada Test Site was chosen as a nuclear proving ground in December 1950, to reduce the expense and logistics of conducting U.S. nuclear tests out on Pacific Islands.”
 
Speaking the familiar words helped her to wash away the settling numbness.
 
She tried to focus on the task at hand, to keep the Russians from suspecting anything.
 
She took a deep breath.
 
“Our first nuclear detonation occurred a month later, dropped from an Air Force plane onto Frenchman Flat.”

“Here?” Vitali Yakolev said excitedly, scratching his flame-red hair and looking around the barren lakebed.
 
The team members seemed fascinated by the wreckage around them, like a Hollywood set depicting a city in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust.

PK Dirks answered, hands on hips.
 
“You’re standing on ground zero.”

Paige said, “President Eisenhower declared a moratorium in 1958, but testing started again three years later, after the Soviet Union resumed testing.”

Smiling broadly, Dirks tossed a pebble into the distance.
 
“All told, we conducted about eight hundred tests out here, most of them underground.”
 
He trudged across the dried mud toward the town ruins just off the road.
 
“Don’t worry,” Dirks said jokingly, “it’s not too radioactive any more.
 
You hardly notice the glow at night.”

Paige knew the background levels were barely higher than anywhere else on the site.
 
She had checked for clearance before putting the mock towns on their schedule; the ruined buildings and bomb shelters were some of the most impressive sights at NTS.

Her mind still whirling about what she had learned from the ME, Paige continued the charade of the tour, waiting for a return call from DOE Headquarters, playing the attentive hostess and tourguide . . . a good protocol officer even in jeans and a denim shirt.
 
She followed the group onto Frenchman Flat, into an uninhabited city that never was.

To study the blast effects of an atomic strike, samples of different architecture and construction materials, arranged in varying orientations, were erected at incremental distances from ground zero.
 
Paige had seen films of the test explosions, how the flame front swept through the artificial town, scattering buildings like matchsticks, igniting rubble as if it were gunpowder.

Cameras planted inside the buildings showed mannequins seated on the furniture, play-doll families engaged in typical household activities, eating TV dinners in front of their black-and-white television sets.
 
The blast wave swept them aside like chaff.

“So this was a town,” Nikolai Bisovka said, lighting up another Marlboro.
 
He had grown immensely fond of American cigarettes.
 
“But where is the saloon?
 
Academician Nevsky would have felt right at home.”
 
General Ursov glared as Bisovka blew a puff of smoke.
 
The other Russians exchanged nervous glances.

The tour group crunched through the shattered rubble, the stumps of buildings, thick walls knocked down or caved in . . . twisted ends where steel doors had been
torn
free.
 
Broken bricks littered the ground, but low, gray-green vegetation thrived.
 
They walked under a steel railroad bridge whose immense girders had been twisted and bent like a pretzel.