Critical Reaction (26 page)

“Hanford was where they made atomic bombs,” Emily said. “There must have been plenty of things in LB5 that could cause a big blast.”

Dr. Trân shook his head vigorously. “No, no, no. Your first statement is mistaken. Hanford manufactured plutonium, the fissile fuel for nuclear weapons, but not the bombs themselves. Plutonium can only cause a nuclear explosion if triggered by a detonation mechanism.” He proceeded to describe what a nuclear trigger was.

“You’re saying plutonium can never detonate by itself,” Ryan said, “but only with one of these triggers.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Dr. Trân responded. “Plutonium, if left in proximity to another radioactive substance, can generate a natural critical reaction without the aid of a detonator. Such critical reactions generate dangerous localized heat and radiation. But a natural critical reaction, by itself, could not have caused explosions of the magnitude experienced at LB5 last October. Those explosions were more consistent with the powerful
detonating materials
that operate as triggers for nuclear weapons.”

“So maybe they left a nuclear trigger in the LB5 basement that caused the explosion,” Emily said.

Dr. Trân shrugged once more. “Those devices aren’t treated like office supplies. They would not have been
left
in the LB5 lower levels. And explosive triggers were never manufactured or
stored at Hanford—for obvious reasons. Hanford’s plutonium was shipped elsewhere for assembly into bombs. Nevertheless, I must agree that, based upon the magnitude and method of the LB5 explosion, such a trigger or its components may have been in the lower levels of LB5 that night, and served as the source of the explosion.”

“They would have detected residue of a nuclear trigger after the explosion if one was involved,” Ryan argued.

“Yes,” Dr. Trân said. “If they chose to look for it.”

Now the whole thing was a conspiracy, Ryan thought dismissively. “So that’s really your theory,” Ryan said impatiently. “That something that had no place in Hanford was somehow in LB5 that night, and Vat 17 just happened to make it explode.”

Dr. Trân didn’t meet Ryan’s gaze when he answered. “Yes. And for that reason, Kieran was not responsible for his own injuries that night.”

This guy expects Emily to take that theory into the courtroom with no other proof than Trân’s calculations of the limited explosive potential of the mixing-room contents, Ryan fumed. When was Emily going to jump down the doctor’s throat on this thin excuse for a theory?

Without waiting for more objections, Dr. Trân turned to the other report binder. “I believe this conclusion is also supported by the radiation data. According to the pre-explosion sampling records you obtained, room 365 was ‘clean’—showing little radionuclide residue through the years. Yet Mr. Mullaney saw the hallway monitors signaling radiation moving down the corridor, past him, as he was fleeing room 365.”

Dr. Trân directed them to the final section of the Cause report, to a diagram of the corridor with a series of calculations below it.

“If room 365 was clear of radionuclides, the radiation tripping the corridor monitors must have come from another location. And since it took five to ten seconds for the hall monitors to
be triggered—the time between the first blast until Mr. Mullaney saw the monitors register radiation—I conclude the first explosion created a clear pathway between room 365 and the lower levels, while the second and third spread radiation from those levels back into 365 and beyond into the corridor. Which means there was radioactive material in significant quantities in the lower levels.”

“So you’re saying the source of the
explosion
in the lower levels of LB5 was also the source of the
radiation
,” Emily said.

“In all likelihood.”

“Well, if that were true,” Ryan said, skepticism flooding his tone, “then Kieran would definitely have been exposed to radiation.”

It was out before Ryan realized what he’d just said. Instantly, the room grew quiet.

“Well, yes,” Dr. Trân said gently. “And I’ve confirmed that in the blood tests.”

He turned to Kieran, and for the first time his smile was gone. “I am sorry to report, Mr. Mullaney, that our blood tests show damage to your chromosomes resulting from exposure to moderate-level radiation—radiation beyond what your prior dosimetry history can account for.”

Kieran’s expression of interest was gone. Emily took his hand.

“How bad?” the young man asked.

The scientist shook his head. “If we knew the quantity of radioactive material involved, we could make a better dispersion analysis. Based solely on the blood tests, we can only confirm the obvious: that the levels were not sufficiently acute to be life-threatening. Because radionuclides can affect your immune system, they may have contributed to the slow pace of your bronchial recovery. Combined with your occupational exposure, there is a greater likelihood of cancers later in life. In the best case, the levels may have been low enough to cause no major impact during a normal life span.”

Kieran began to fade, sliding into an expression of disorientation. Ryan recognized the look. He’d seen it on Carolyn’s face the day they’d received the news from her physician about her cancer. And Emily looked as stricken as Kieran—like Ryan probably did that day years ago.

Ryan felt the boy’s concern, but he was also suddenly swept with another reaction: a suddenly shocking conclusion. It swept over him that this Trân could be right. Everything up until now had seemed mere speculation than science. But blood tests confirming radiation injury changed everything.

“What about the whole-body counts at the hospital that said Kieran wasn’t exposed?” Ryan asked.

Dr. Trân shook his head. “Whole-body counters measure radiation released from the body. Those counts are only useful if the machinery has been properly calibrated. Covington has produced no evidence of its calibration for Mr. Mullaney that night.”

And Pauline Strand, who hadn’t gone far down the road of proving exposure before she withdrew, almost certainly didn’t ask for that data when discovery was still allowed, Ryan thought.

Emily looked up from Kieran. “And Covington’s claim about the hall monitor and dosimetry badge data?”

“I have no explanation for that,” Dr. Trân explained. “But Covington’s people also collected all that data.”

Dr. Trân turned to Ryan now. “Mr. Hart, I informed you in Spokane that I would like to tour room 365. Now I believe my time is better spent visiting the lower levels of LB5—examining blast patterns evident in damaged rooms and hallways, perhaps finding samples of chemical and radioactive residues.”

Ryan hadn’t taken Dr. Trân’s prior request very seriously. He simply nodded now, still watching Emily and Kieran.

“You’re really ready to testify to each of these conclusions at trial,” Ryan said.

Dr. Trân nodded with a return of his smile. “Of course.”

Ryan nodded, stood, and showed Dr. Trân to the door. Then he turned again to the couple on the couch. Emily had an arm around Kieran, who was quietly holding himself together.

Ryan was torn between offering encouragement and absorbing everything Trân had related. Coming from him, encouragement would likely sound trite, he concluded.

“I’m going for a walk” was all Ryan said. Emily nodded.

He went out the back today, cutting across a small patch of yard and onto the next street. He walked, lost in thought, for what must have been miles, seeing sprinklers ladling water onto summer-parched lawns, smoke from barbecues rising into the blue sky from a few backyards.

It was a typical Saturday in America. Except in this town, as recently as twenty-five years ago, they’d celebrated weekends downwind from the world’s largest plutonium factory. Those days weren’t completely in the past: they still celebrated in the shadow of contamination that would terrify most Americans.

How had they done it? How did they still do it? Take their kids to the park, sit through football games outside in the fall, share beers around those barbecues in the open air. All with such danger so close.

The same way then as now, he supposed. With trust and faith—including an abiding trust in the people they worked for. Which meant, in the present day, the managers at Covington Nuclear.

He couldn’t have done it, Ryan concluded. He couldn’t even bring himself to fully trust Dr. Trân, whose opinions, while helpful to their case and logical, rested upon so many unprovable assumptions and too little proof. Chief among them was explosives in LB5 they had no evidence existed—other than by deductive elimination of other causes for the explosion. Then there were the blood test results, which seemed to confirm everything Dr. Trân was saying. What if, Ryan asked himself, Dr. Trân was a plant? What if he was setting them up with a plan to either
recant on the stand or draw them into relying on opinions that could be riddled with holes?

Of course,
a voice in his head responded,
the pitfalls in Trân’s report were only relevant if
Emily was forced to use him. If Dr. Strong came
through, Dr. Trân would become an expensive footnote to the
case.

But what kind of a case was it when they didn’t even know if they could trust their own expert? The same one, he thought with disgust, where their opponent already held a serious advantage with the judge and potentially the jury, and where his daughter was going up against King, a man who had years of civil trial experience representing Covington Nuclear in court.

Ryan halted at a street corner, coming out of his reverie long enough to realize that he’d paid no attention to where the walk had now led him. He looked around until he recognized the street he was on. Then he pivoted and began walking in the direction leading back to the Annex.

So what did he do now? Here he was, bankrolling a potentially two-million-dollar case—a fact that had hardly registered with him these past weeks, because he hadn’t really believed in its likely success. He’d written the checks and put in the hours, based not on an expectation of a payday, but to avoid a final parting with Emily. Ryan could never recall a case he’d handled where he didn’t have a strong belief in the client and the cause—and the potential to win.

But then, his faith in his cases until now was Carolyn’s doing, wasn’t it. His thoughts drifted to breakfast the morning after a night of celebrating graduation from law school, seated with Carolyn in the grandeur of the old Olympic Hotel. It was there that she’d made a toast over orange juice. “We’ll never represent an insurance company,” she’d said. “And we’ll never sue a teacher. Or a farmer. And we’ll only take on the fights truly worth fighting.”

He’d accepted the toast without comment, just a clinking of
glass. But he’d looked into those gorgeous eyes that were his to enjoy forever and thought,
And we’ll never lose. Because I’ll knock down our opponents
while you capture jurors’ hearts. Like you captured the hearts
of those judges at the mock trial. Like you captured
mine.

He’d marveled over the years at how she’d made the bone-bruising reality of litigation tolerable. Harsh tactics and sharp practices never seemed to reach her, and her optimism, in turn, curbed the cynicism that might otherwise have overtaken Ryan. That had now overtaken him.

And yet, with the success they’d enjoyed and her obvious love of the practice, she still hadn’t hesitated to leave it all for Emily. Seven years later, sitting together on the patio of Pasco’s Tex-Mex Grill overlooking Lake Union, Carolyn had nodded toward their young daughter, watching the boats on the water below. Then she’d smiled at him with those same eyes he’d seen at Starbucks years before.

“I’m leaving law for awhile,” she’d said simply. “I can’t take another week separated from my only daughter. She needs me.”

Then she’d taken Ryan’s hands. “I’ll come back to practice with you again after she’s older. You’ll do fine without me for awhile.”

He’d looked past her shoulder toward a passing catamaran on the lake, its jib sail puffed with wind like a sack stuffed with possibility. It
would
be fine, he’d thought. Just never the same.

She filled in the space with Emily that his absences created—that both their absences had been creating. And she continued to partner with him in law as his mentor of the heart—advising on cases to take or leave, listening at home in the evenings, even helping him strategize and prepare closing arguments. And he kept winning. Maybe with more sweat and less grace. But he won. And he never stopped planning for the day she’d return to the practice with him. Until the cancer arrived that made a mockery of all planning.

He was within sight of the Annex now, just another half a block away. This street was quieter than most. There were no children in the yards or traffic passing. Only a lone white van parked at the curb between Ryan and the Annex’s front door.

Emily was leaving the house, arm in arm with Kieran. They stopped beside Kieran’s battered car. Ryan watched as they turned and spoke a moment before she took his face in her hands and kissed him.

He wanted to be shocked and angry, but he was neither. Her feelings for Kieran had been no secret for weeks now, only their depth. He wanted to warn her about falling in love with someone you might lose too soon, but watching her looking at Kieran as he’d once looked at Carolyn, Ryan knew that was a waste of time.

Could he believe in Kieran’s case now? Perhaps not as much as Emily. But yes, he guessed he did, though mostly by the same deductive logic Dr. Trân had applied today. He believed that Kieran did not deliberately turn the Vat 17 valve. He believed that the boy wasn’t capable of that kind of deceit—or of keeping it a secret this long from Emily and himself. He believed that Kieran was genuinely harmed that night—perhaps quite seriously. He believed that Covington was covering up what happened that night. Though he wasn’t sure he bought the depths of conspiracy implied by Dr. Trân, any cover-up still implied guilt and secrets. And maybe—just maybe—he could accept the possibility of Dr. Trân’s logic about the cause of the explosion.