Critical Reaction (10 page)

She was very slender, her eyes framed by dark-rimmed glasses. A ponytail of gray hair fell to her shoulder blades, pulled back tightly from her forehead and bound in a double-wrapped band.
A computer was open at her side and a tall stack of papers lay at her elbow inside an open briefcase. Three large cups of something steaming were on the table between Pauline and Emily.

Ryan tossed his empty Styrofoam cup from the inn into a wastebasket near the entrance and approached. The woman looked up and smiled, extending a thin hand.

“Pauline Strand. You’ve got a nice daughter here, Ryan.”

Ryan was still simmering at being dragged here this morning, and had no interest in small talk. “I know,” he said, taking a seat. “You were Kieran’s counsel?”

“Well, there was nobody else in this town fool enough to represent the boy—so yes.” The woman slid one of the cups of coffee across the table. “It’s hot. Black.”

Ryan noticed that Emily still wasn’t looking at him. He looked at the offered cup for a moment, then grasped it, deciding he’d take the extra caffeine today.

“I did a few minutes’ research before coming over here,” Pauline said. “You’ve got a little experience. I got the right Ryan L. Hart, didn’t I?
Friedman versus Totten Gear? Ingebretson
versus Spirit Motors?
”

“Yes,” Ryan answered, then added, “the Spirit Motors case I handled with my wife.”

Pauline nodded. “Well, that’s the kind of trial experience Kieran needs. Though Emily tells me you’re a little concerned about the case.”

He shuddered at the description his daughter probably gave of the dinner the night before. “Some,” he responded noncommittally.

The smile again. “So ask me.”

It felt like round two in a fight Ryan thought he’d won last night, with Emily again sitting stiffly at his side. So be it.

“All right. Who’s your judge in the case?”

“This is in federal court, as you probably know. There are only two judges sitting at the Sherman Federal Courthouse:
Judge Richard Renway and a newcomer appointed last fall, Celeste Johnston. Renway’s got Kieran’s case. Fact is, he gets all the Hanford cases.”

“Is he smart?”

The shrug. “He thinks so. Got some quirks. But, yes, he’s smart enough.”

“Is he fair?”

Pauline shook her head. “Depends on the context. The man was born on orchard land out near the reservation, land that’s still in the family. He went to Washington State undergrad and Gonzaga law school. He’s been on the bench since the 1980s. My point is, he’s a local boy and he’s always been a solid friend of Hanford and its contractors.”

Emily had grown as still as on the ride back from the Atomic Café.

“Kieran said Covington denies they’re responsible for the LB5 explosion,” Ryan pressed on. “How’s that possible when they had the contract to maintain safety in the buildings?”

“I’ve wondered the same thing,” the gray-haired lawyer smiled. “I don’t see how they avoid responsibility based on the evidence to date. But I think they have something up their sleeve.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because in their last interrogatory answers, Covington’s lawyer revealed that Kieran got into an argument with a techie before his shift. A supply tech named Red Whalen who worked up front at LB5. I don’t see the relevance of that new tidbit of information unless they’re building up to some new defense in the case.”

The lady was sharper than he’d assumed. “Have you got experts to explain the cause of the explosion?” Ryan asked.

“Yes.”

The hesitation was so minute Ryan wondered if he’d imagined it. “How good.”

She shrugged. “There’s just one: Dr. Nadine out of Princeton University. He says the explosion happened because water evaporation concentrated the remaining chemicals in the tank, making them reactive.”

“Does your Princeton guy say how that happened? Weren’t they monitoring the tanks?”

The hesitation lengthened. “Well, he mentioned that. In fact, based on Covington’s internal inspection records, it’s iffy whether the chemicals should have been so concentrated that they would explode. But they
did
explode, so he says that’s the most plausible scientific explanation.”

A little wobbly, but he liked the Princeton connection. “Is it true that Covington did a whole body count of Kieran that came up negative? And the same on the dosimetry badge?”

“Yes. And before you ask, I haven’t got an explanation for that.”

“So you have no experts to support Kieran’s claim that he was exposed to radiation.”

Pauline smiled. “Dr. Nadine’s supposed to be working on that for me, too. The only choice he’s given me so far is blood testing—which is beyond my wallet size. I’m hoping he’ll eventually support an argument of radiation exposure based upon Kieran’s immune system weakness.”

Ryan recalled Kieran’s statement about suffering coughing and headaches for months now.

“But you don’t have any real expert proof to support Kieran’s contention that he was exposed to radiation at this point.”

“No. Truth is I don’t.”

“But do you believe him?” Emily jumped in quickly.

Pauline gave Emily a grim smile. “I’ve been working with the boy since November. And yes, I believe he’s telling the truth about what he saw and experienced. I believe him when he says he was exposed to radiation.”

Ryan thought about running through his cross-examination of Kieran again about radiation exposure. He rejected it as unnecessary—and likely dangerous with his daughter at his side.

“But you’ve got no proof, Pauline. Right?”

The older lawyer looked to Ryan. “That’s right, Counselor.”

“And we’d face a hometown jury in the case, wouldn’t we.” It was more a statement than a question, and Ryan did nothing to dampen the negative tone in his voice.

For the first time, Pauline Strand looked at Ryan with eyes of dawning awareness of his resolve to not take Kieran’s case. “Well, that’s not a simple question, Ryan. If you can spare another hour or two, I was planning on giving you a tour of the Hanford works—what you can see from outside the grounds. Sherman too. I’d rather answer your last question after that.”

More wasted time. But maybe this wasn’t all bad—Ryan almost had Emily convinced. If he still knew anything about his daughter, he could sense it in her face. If this could bring about a surrender instead of the alternative, it was worth indulging her with a little more time. “All right.”

Pauline pointed out the window at Ryan’s car. “Good. Then let’s take the fine machine you arrived in.”

They loaded into Ryan’s Avalon, with Strand taking the back seat alongside her computer and stuffed briefcase. After passing a few turns, Pauline directed them onto Sherman’s main street.

“In 1940, this was the only paved road in Sherman,” Pauline began. “Back then, the place was a little farming community that serviced some of the orchards around here. The population was fifty. By 1948, that number had grown to thirty-five thousand.”

Emily shook her head. “All workers for Hanford?” she asked.

“Yep,” Pauline answered.

They were moving north through light traffic, past storefronts, banks, and the occasional office building. “They had fifty thou
sand workers build Hanford during the war,” Pauline went on. “Once it was done and they’d started enriching uranium and producing plutonium out on the reservation, they still needed an army of workers to run the plant and someplace to house them—away from the factory buildings for safety and security. That’s when the housing shifted to Sherman, and the homes starting going up. It was an instant boomtown—except still so secret, they even had the workers’ mail delivered to a drop in Seattle and trucked over the mountains.”

“Who ran Hanford?” Emily asked.

“Contractors under the Atomic Energy Commission. Later—much later—the AEC was replaced by the Department of Energy. But the day-to-day work was still handled by contractors. Companies like Dupont, General Electric, Fluor Daniels, to name a few. Covington Nuclear just got the contract about six years ago.”

They were passing through the heart of downtown now. Pauline pointed out a newer library to the right, then a good-sized hospital a few blocks down on the left. There was a community pool on each side of town, she said, and several riverside parks. Both state and federal courthouses.

“You oughta see the high school,” she said with a hint of pride. “Looks like a college campus. We’ve got a minor league baseball team. All that and elbow room too. It’s like Seattle without all the traffic.”

“Government built?” Ryan asked.

“Some. But a lot of it’s been donated by contractors. Every company that’s ever worked at Hanford has known that part of the price for billions of dollars in government contracts out here is pumping money into the community. That’s been true since Hanford opened.”

Ryan shook his head darkly. This was even more of a company town than he’d suspected when he’d grilled Kieran.

They passed under the freeway, leaving town and continuing
north for several miles until the road came to a T intersection. Pauline directed him to turn left.

“I’m going to take you parallel to the fence line of the Hanford Reservation. You can’t see it for a long ways: it’s beyond some hills to the east. But after a drive, we’ll get to an overlook within sight of the main production works.”

The road angled northwest. The terrain here was little different than what Ryan had seen from the highway further south the day before: dry and barren flats overlooked by buttes and rounded hills.

Forty minutes after they’d turned, the ground rose until they reached an overlook offering a vista across the reservation. They parked and got out of the car.

From there, the Hanford security fence was fully visible, like an iron stream flowing across the desert. Far away, against the backdrop of the Columbia River, several domes glinted in the late morning sun, like distant mosques. Other structures were visible as well—including the cooling towers of two nuclear reactors and smaller buildings scattered across the landscape.

“All told, they built over six hundred buildings out there,” Pauline said, leaning against the car. “Production labs, storage facilities, nuclear reactors for power and for production. They’re spread out over the northeast half of the reservation mostly, where we’re looking now. LB5’s a little further east and south. It’s not visible here.”

“How bad is the contamination out there?” Emily asked.

Pauline whistled. “Millions of tons of radioactive wastewater and solid waste still out there. A pool of contaminated groundwater two hundred miles or more, seeping toward the Columbia. Estimates are they’ve lost enough plutonium on the grounds to fuel eighty hydrogen bombs. Nobody knows where it’s all at. Give you an example: they used to ship the plutonium from here to Rocky Flats and Los Alamos on special trains that were painted white, usually at night. I’ve had workers tell me the
white trains got so contaminated that they just dug caves out on the reservation, laid tracks, drove ’em in, and sealed them—locomotives and all. Same with some trucks they used out there: filled them with irradiated tools and buried the whole thing.”

Ryan caught Pauline’s eye. “And most of the people you know in Sherman are associated with Hanford,” he said matter-of-factly.

Emily glanced at him. Pauline smiled knowingly. “In some way or another.”

“Dad,” Emily said, the first she’d spoken to him since dinner the night before, “Kieran’s case is in federal court, not state district court. The jury could be drawn from anywhere in eastern Washington—not just the town of Sherman.”

Pauline held up a hand. “Yeah, honey, but your dad’s right—the final jury pool will be heavily weighted with folks with a Hanford connection.”

The lawyer crossed her arms and examined Ryan. “Before you draw too many conclusions, though, let me tell you: the Hanford workers that make up Sherman and this area worked for decades producing plutonium for the government and its contractors—and now on the cleanup. So it’s true these people are very loyal to the reservation and its contractors. But that loyalty’s always come with a big asterisk. Working with plutonium and all of the poisons involved in that process, a fat paycheck wasn’t ever enough to convince them to risk their lives out in this desert. The government and its contractors told these folks that they were keeping America safe, building the bombs that kept Russia at bay through the Cold War—working for a higher calling. And they believed in the mission; some still do. Some think that one day America will wake up and need plutonium or some other bomb again to protect America—and Hanford will answer that call.”

Ryan could see that Emily looked angry and crestfallen, like she was hearing the last nail being pounded into the coffin of Kieran’s case.

“But even the mission couldn’t seal the deal, if it weren’t for the promise,” Pauline went on. “These folks aren’t robots. A condition of their loyalty has always been an unspoken agreement that the government and its contractors wouldn’t lie to them. Not with all the hazards they put up with. They’d always be honest about the risks. You prove that promise has been broken by Covington at LB5, I believe you can beat ’em with a Sherman jury.”

They’d been in the sun long enough that Ryan felt the heat building under his shirt, adding to his fatigue at this game. He wanted to go back to the B&B, gather his bags, and head for home. If Emily didn’t get it by now, then he’d never convince her.

“If Kieran’s case is so tough,” Emily asked Pauline in a strained voice, “then why’d you take it?”

A light breeze blew wisps of gray hair across the lawyer’s face. “Because nobody else would,” she said, reaching up and nestling the strands behind her ear. “And I believed in him. I knew I was out of my league, but I believed in him.”

“Then why’d you quit,” Ryan snapped.

She looked at him and smiled. “Because of my sure-as-the-sun-comes-up certainty that I was going to lose. I don’t have enough of the right courtroom experience; I don’t have enough money. And I don’t know what Covington’s got up its sleeve, but something’s coming. When it hits, Kieran deserves a lawyer like you.”