Atomic Fossils: A Story of War and Deliverance in the Nuclear Age

Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

The Disk

The Inquiry

Human Remains

The Elephants, the Acrobats, and the Freak Show

The Crash of Stovepipe One

The Special Olympics

Alligators

Prelude to War

The Prophecy

Human Decoys

The First Book

Returned unto Heaven

The Diary

The Second Witness

The Incinerator

DEFCON 2

The Final Duty

L-I-V-E Live!

The Decision

An Eye for an Eye

Conscientious Objector

Ground Zero

The Sky Turns To Blood

ARC HAMMER

Epilogue

For my family.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Wanda, Candy, Ellen, and Susanne for all their help pulling this manuscript together and to all the members of my test reading corps who helped keep this ship from wandering too far off course.

Prologue

The brilliant flash ripped open the night sky and exploded into the cockpit. Before the pilot could respond, a powerful shock wave slammed into the jet—jerking her head forward and pitching the nose of her stricken aircraft steeply up beyond vertical.

Heart pounding, the pilot held the control wheel rigidly in place and tried desperately to orient herself. Only moments before she was busy configuring the small passenger jet for a routine night landing. Now she hung inverted from her seat harness, the screams of her passengers and the crashing sound of luggage and food trays banging against the cabin ceiling compounding her confusion. To make matters worse, her eyes were useless. The flash-induced image of white cockpit windows totally saturated her vision.

She pushed the distractions out of her mind and tried to focus on what the aircraft was telling her. From the harsh sound of the engines and the sluggish feel of the controls, she realized the jet was rapidly bleeding off speed. They were only seconds from a fatal stall. She had to rebuild airspeed and regain control of the aircraft

The pilot’s reaction was instinctive. She shoved the throttles forward and pulled back hard on the control wheel. The twin pulse-jet engines coughed erratically in response, protesting the turbulent airflow that swirled around their inlets as the plane fell backwards through the sky. Finally she felt a reassuring kick as the aircraft began accelerating and the engine noises smoothed to a low, droning roar.

The feel of her seat harness was changing. She now had the sensation that she was lying on her stomach, being hoisted up by the straps. The aircraft was in a vertical dive and rapidly gaining speed. A different concern now swept over her: was there enough altitude left to pull out?

As her vision began to recover, the pilot’s first horrifying sight was a cluster of ground lights rushing up to meet her. She had only a few hundred feet left. Planting her feet firmly on the floor, she yanked the control wheel back hard into her chest trying frantically to coax the jet’s nose up toward the horizon. Her efforts to rebuild airspeed were rewarded. The control surfaces bit solidly into the thick, low-altitude air and the resultant G forces pressed her firmly down into her seat.

The black night sky dropped slowly down from the top of her windshield like a curtain. She fought to bring the nose up to meet it, getting closer to the ground with each passing second. Just when she was certain that her efforts were in vain, the cluster of lights that had filled her windscreen only moments before went streaking past just a few dozen feet below her.

A sense of relief flooded over her. She had successfully completed the awkward loop that the shock wave initiated and her vision was fully restored. She held the jet in a shallow climb to regain precious altitude, still panting from her struggle with the wheel. She was in control again.

Then she caught sight of it. The hideous glowing mushroom cloud was billowing up only a few miles ahead of her. She responded by throwing her jet into a steep banking turn away from the flames, wishing she could get more power out of her already overtaxed engines. Behind her, the cries of her passengers grew louder. As they looked out the cabin windows, the passenger’s horrified faces were lit by a giant fireball consuming the city that was to be their sanctuary.

The pilot completed her turn and rolled the wings level. She arched her back and shoved harder on throttles that were already firmly against their stops. She continued to push as the burning light slowly subsided behind her—progressing through a sequence of yellow, orange, and red colors before it extinguished itself completely. Her cockpit was again immersed in the cold blackness of the night sky. They had escaped the devastation.

The pilot pulled back on the power and took stock of things. Her short red hair was soaked with sweat and her hand was indented and sore from straining against the throttles. The electromagnetic pulse (EMP) from the nuclear blast had destroyed most of her flight instruments and the thickening smoke in the cockpit stung her eyes. Fuel was down to just a few hundred pounds.

She had to get the jet down fast—but where? A cloud layer blotted out even the timid light of the quarter moon making it impossible to gauge the terrain down below. The only thing discernible out her cockpit windows was the faint gray line of the horizon.

Suddenly, another powerful blast flashed behind her. Her heart sank as the fireball’s unholy brilliance clearly illuminated the ground—acres and acres of trees!

She spotted it off to the right. The bright reflection of a small pond shone through the sea of foliage. She quickly made her decision. No matter how deep the water, she would rather risk drowning her passengers than the certain death of a crash landing in the forest.

The pilot rolled the aircraft almost completely inverted, pitching its nose downward into a right-hand turn to set up her final approach. Leveling the wings, she prayed that the grisly mushroom of light would sustain itself for just a few moments longer so she could judge her flare out. Her morbid luck held.

She chopped the throttles and eased the jet down on the shiny surface just before the darkness engulfed them again. The jet bounced once and then began skipping across the black water. She pulled back hard on the wheel, fighting to keep the nose from submarining.

Her struggle with the wheel ended when the plane pounded into a muddy bank on the opposite end of the pond and ground to an abrupt halt just short of the tree line. The force of the impact sheared the port wing cleanly off the fuselage and triggered the automatic restraint system. More than a dozen airbags burst open around the passengers in the cabin and cushioned them from the impact.

The pilot lifted her head from the deflated bag covering her control wheel and glanced back through the open doorway. The faces of her passengers glowed in the dim luminescence of the emergency lights. Their heads were up and moving. Incredibly, they all appeared uninjured.

Her relief was only momentary. The pungent smell of raw fuel pouring from the severed wing struck her. Bounding out of the cockpit, she kicked open the boarding door and yelled for her passengers to get clear of the aircraft. Seeing the pilot’s urgency, the passengers came to life and crowded around the doorway. They jumped in rapid succession and landed with loud squishing sounds in the same warm muck that had dampened the jet’s impact.

The passengers then fought their way toward the trees, taking lunging, sucking steps through the knee-deep mud. The pilot was the last one out of the aircraft, right behind a father and his adolescent son. As she labored through the muck, she felt the sprinkle of a light rain on her cheeks and forehead. Finally they were safe! She was greeted with hugs from the grateful passengers when she arrived at the trees.

Their elation was short-lived. To the pilot’s horror, she now realized that it wasn’t rain droplets she felt on her face. Instead, it was small pieces of ash…radioactive ash. They had landed downwind of the city…

1

The Disk

Monday, 10:30 A.M.; Caesar Creek State Park, Ohio

The bright-pink color of young Erin Grogan’s sneakers contrasted sharply with the muted-gray surface of ancient rock supporting her gentle steps. Erin stopped for a moment and focusing on the biscuit-sized stone she clutched tightly in her hands. The jagged rock was studded with ancient shell fossils, the headstones of creatures that once thrived on this site. Now, 300 million years later, Erin and the rest of her first-grade classmates carefully scoured the ancient grounds.

A glint of light from across the rock field caught Erin’s attention. She walked slowly toward the shiny object, stepping carefully on the loose rock platelets that crunched beneath her feet. There—on the perimeter of the field—it shimmered once again. She moved quickly now and located the metallic object resting next to a small rivulet of flowing water. The flat, silvery disk was roughly the size and shape of a half-dollar with a pencil-sized hole in the middle of it. Erin thrust it into the pocket of her plaid jumper and resumed her search for fossils.

Tuesday, 7:45 A.M.; Oakwood, Ohio

Richard Grogan ducked to get his tall slender frame through the doorway that separated the kitchen from the garage. The garage was added to the Victorian cottage as an afterthought and Richard still found it remarkable that, in a house full of twelve-foot ceilings, one generation of owners had constructed such a diminutive doorway. As he emerged into the garage, he found his daughter Erin standing behind his white sports car trying to conceal a large grin with her lunch box.

Looking down at his car, Richard soon discovered the source of her amusement. Next to his prominent Naval Academy Alumni bumper sticker was a new addition. Richard ran his hand through his short-cropped black hair as he studied the new bumper sticker. The bright-green rectangle featured two humpback whales leaping vertically out of a silvery ocean. Their bodies framed the words: I’d rather be hugging whales.

Richard let out an obligatory grunt for the benefit of Erin, knowing this no doubt was the work of his wife—Casey. He made a mental note to be sure to pick up a National Rifle Association sticker so that he could return the favor on her station wagon.

Reaching the school, Richard pulled his car into line with a long parade of minivans and SUVs. He held up Erin’s backpack in the space between their two seats and announced, Time to put your parachute on, princess. Erin contorted her body to get her arms through the straps and then leaned over and planted an affectionate kiss on her father’s cheek. Richard returned it. I love you, sweetheart. You have a great day and I’ll talk to you on the phone tonight.

You too, Dad! Oh Dad, will you hold Sara for me? Alice has been stealing stuff out of my backpack and I don’t want her to take Sara! See the new hula-hoop I found for her on our field trip.

As she spoke, Richard immediately recognized Erin’s amazing squishy doll. Composed of synthetic material, the doll could be balled up for storage into a special container the size of a shot glass. Today, Sara sported a flat, metallic ring around her waist that grotesquely distorted her little body into the shape of an hourglass.

Richard took the object gingerly. Don’t worry, I’ll put it right in here for safe-keeping, he said, carefully placing the doll in his blazer pocket. I’ll give it back to you when I get home tomorrow night.

During the evening flight to Boston, Richard thought again about his daughter. He removed the tiny doll from his pocket and examined it more closely. He smiled as the shiny miniature face peered back at him. Then, he noticed it. The silver washer that gave the doll its bizarre Mae West proportions had concentric machining marks etched into both its top and bottom surfaces. It was odd. Why did the manufacturer go to the expense of machining such a simple washer? Stamping it out would have been much cheaper.

Wednesday, 8:45 A.M.; Massachusetts Research Institute (MRI), Boston

Richard Grogan pulled up to the complex of old brick buildings, which were cloaked in ivy. He was thrilled to find that the university still reserved a few parking spaces for its paying customers. He shut off his rental car and walked straight into a reception area that was reminiscent of a 1960s science museum. A massive brass model of an atom, featuring graceful elliptical rings, was mounted on the dark oak wall behind the reception desk. The words Atomic Particle Research Center were posted in bold, stylized script of matching brass on the adjacent wall.

Before Grogan could speak to the uniformed guard manning the desk, a short, stocky man dressed casually in khaki pants and a pat-terned-blue sweater emerged from the side door. Hey, Rich, you look great! boomed Dr. John Williams as he extended a large, muscular hand.

Hi, John. You don’t look so bad yourself, responded Grogan, returning the firm handshake. You still anchoring a scrum in your spare time?

Turning to the guard, Williams signaled that Grogan was with him, and the two of them walked through the doorway into the interior of the building. I wish! I’m afraid my rugby days are long behind me. With the research and publishing schedule they make me keep around this place, I’m lucky to make the weight room twice a week. Well, how long has it been, Richard? Twelve years?

Yeah, maybe more like 13 or 14. I was surprised to find you floating around on our consultant list, John. Last time we talked, you were headed to submarine school.

Yes, but you know me, Williams replied. "I’m much too big a loudmouth to ever be happy in the silent service. I put in my time with Uncle Sam and then came here to do my doctorate in nuclear. When I finished, the Institute was crazy enough to hire me. But what about you, Rich? Cal Johnson came through here a couple of years ago. He said he served with you on the Newbury during the Gulf War. He told me you personally saved a couple of guys from a flooding compartment when your boat ran over a mine and that you even managed a Navy Cross out of it."

Grogan’s smile faded. Yeah. That got pretty bad. But you know the Navy, they’re always looking for a good excuse to hand out a few more medals.

"Hey, I did learn one thing in my mercifully-short career in the Navy. They don’t hand out the Navy Cross without a damn good reason. Anyway, how the heck did you end up in Ohio?"

My wife has a masters degree in healthcare administration. After Desert Storm, I decided to give civilian life a try and we started looking around. The Joint Air and Space Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson offered me a job just about the same time Casey landed a nice position with a hospital in town. We found ourselves an old Victorian house and now I spend my weekends trying to keep the ancient plumbing and wiring working.

When they reached his office, Williams entered a cipher code on the keypad next to the door and led Grogan into a small dormitory-sized room jammed with gray steel bookcases. Stacks of books and papers crowded the plain oak desk and threatened to topple over onto the floor. Williams worked the combination on a large black safe in the corner of the office and extracted a single document adorned with an orange-striped cover.

I’ve had some time to look over the blast residue data you sent me, said Williams flipping through the document. I suspect, coming from your organization, the device wasn’t one of ours?

I’m afraid you’re right about that, nodded Grogan.

A buddy of mine who works in the Image Processing Lab told me about some satellite imagery CIA sent him last week. He said it looked an awful lot like a giant yellow mushroom growing in the northern Arabian Sea. This wouldn’t have anything…

Shit, John! roared Grogan, cutting him off abruptly. "What the hell are you guys doing? This is compartmented information!"

I know that Rich! He and I both have top secret clearances and we’ve both pledged our damned underwear to national defense. The fact is, I can give you a substantially better analysis if I understand where and how this data was collected. It helps to reduce the number of variables. Just knowing things like soil and humidity conditions at the time of the explosion can make a difference.

Grogan’s face flushed a bright red in embarrassment over his outburst. "Sorry, but if the full extent of what we saw over there last week was known, it could change a lot of things internationally. We want to control when and how this information is released."

I understand, Rich. You don’t have to worry about security problems here.

All right. Let me fill in some details for you. The data was collected by an Air Force TC-135 aircraft fitted with an air-sampling pod. The so-called flash occurred just after noon last Monday over an isolated stretch of the Arabian Sea. We got lucky on the positioning of the aircraft. CIA got word that Pakistan might be doing some more nuclear testing, so we had the bird pre-positioned at Diego Garcia just before the blast. The data I sent you was collected by the TC-135 approximately eight hours after the detonation. The scariest part of the whole deal is that we believe the nuclear explosion was actually part of an Iranian flight test.

What kind of flight test? Williams asked, his face now solemn.

Just before the explosion, our DSP satellites recorded portions of a ballistic-missile trajectory. The trajectory started in a remote desert region of southern Iran and terminated just at the time and location where the yellow mushroom cloud appeared. So you figure it out.

My God! The Iranians have successfully tested a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile! Man, that’s going to change some things.

Yeah, no kidding! That’s why I’m here. I need to figure out what the Iranians had sitting in the nose cone of that missile last week.

I’m afraid what I have to tell you won’t bring cheer to the boys back in Dayton. I’ve done some preliminary calculations based on the spectrum data you sent me and I don’t think the material used in that blast was cheap Iranian home-brew. Some of the residual isotopes are more consistent with the better Soviet stuff we used to see. That makes even more sense given you guys believe it was a missile warhead.

Grogan’s eyebrows gathered. What makes you say that?

"You need pretty high-grade material to fabricate a nuclear warhead small enough to fit in the nose cone of a ballistic missile. It’s simple. The more pure and concentrated the fissionable material, the less of it you need to construct a weapon. You don’t get that kind of quality out of some backyard Iranian nuclear project.

I also compared the sampling data you sent me with some of our historical test data and found an almost perfect match with the old Soviet SS-23 warhead. But how can that be possible? All those missiles were destroyed in the mid-80s under the provisions of the INF Treaty.

Grogan smiled back cynically. At least, that was the theory. Unfortunately, the only missiles we actually verified were destroyed were the ones the Soviets told us existed. How long before you can give me a definitive answer on the warhead type?

A couple more days. But I can tell you right now, I’m pretty damned confident it was a 23.

Okay. Call me when you make a final confirmation.

Can do, Rich. Hey, we’ve still got about an hour before lunch. While you’re here, I want to give you a tour of one of the new toys you DoD boys bought for us.

Williams stuffed the report back into the top drawer of his safe and slammed it shut. Before leaving his office, Williams scanned his cluttered desk one more time to ensure he hadn’t left any classified material out. Satisfied, he led Grogan out the door and down the hall to a large, open laboratory.

Grogan spotted the bulky, telephone-booth-sized chamber which dominated a corner in the back of the room. Grafted onto the side of the chamber was a built-in desk and computer workstation. A slightly built man dressed in a white laboratory coat hovered next to the machine. Grogan guessed the man to be in his sixties.

This is our whole-body counter, trumpeted Williams as they walked toward the chamber. These things cost a small fortune and we are one of only five universities in the country that have one.

What exactly does this thing do? asked Grogan, scanning his eyes over the strange-looking contraption.

It measures the level of radioactivity present in a human body, explained Williams. It can accurately determine which specific radioactive particles are present and at what intensity. The Navy is funding us to conduct random population studies so they can compare the results with those of their crewman assigned aboard nuclear-powered vessels.

As the two men drew closer to the man in the white coat, Williams introduced Grogan to Dr. Henry Jacobs, the principal investigator for the radiological profiling study. The older man shook Grogan’s hand and inquired, Mr. Grogan, would you care to be a participant in our population study? It just takes a couple of minutes and you get a free radiological profile out of it.

Sure, he responded with a smile on his face. How can I turn down an offer like that?

Jacobs swept his hands towards the chamber in a welcoming gesture. If you’ll kindly step into our parlor, we’ll take care of the rest.

Okay, but only if you promise not to beam me anywhere, replied Grogan jokingly.

After Grogan entered the chamber, Williams sat down and started clicking away on the machine’s computer keyboard. A few moments later, the laser printer attached to the computer console fed out the results. Williams picked up the paper and signaling Grogan to step out of the chamber. After studying the readout for a few seconds, Williams shouted excitedly, Holy shit! Henry! Come take a look at this!

What is it, John? Grogan asked with concern in his voice.

"Don’t worry. It’s nothing dangerous. All the levels are in the noise. You are perfectly safe, but you are emitting a veritable smorgasbord of atomic particles. Did they drag you behind that TC-135?"

As the older scientist looked over Williams’ shoulder, his head tilted inquisitively. John, I’m seeing significant levels of Rubidium 79, Krypton 81, and Zirconium 93 here. Mr. Grogan, have you been to Los Alamos or any of the other old nuclear test ranges recently?

"I was out at White Sands nine or ten months ago for a missile test, but I wasn’t near any of the nuclear test sites if that’s what you mean. Damn it, guys, are you saying I’ve been exposed to nuclear waste?"

Williams responded in a calming voice. "Hold on, Rich. Let me reset the machine. We’ll run it again. Don’t worry though, you are perfectly safe. It’s the composition of the radiation we’re seeing here that is interesting, not the levels. The levels are in the noise."

Grogan reluctantly reentered the chamber, annoyed at being reduced to the role of test specimen. After a few minutes, the test came back with the same remarkable results.

Williams’ curiosity was piqued and he now sought to isolate the source of the readings. Let’s try something, Rich. Periodically, low-level radioactive waste gets inadvertently mixed in with regular metals being recycled. If you’ll take off the metal objects you’re wearing, like your watch and your belt, we’ll try it again.

A series of subsequent tests finally pinpointed the source of the strange readings—Grogan’s jacket. Pay dirt! shouted Williams, glancing over the computer printout. It has to be the metal buttons. Rich, with your permission, I’d like to cut those buttons off and test them separately.

Grogan nodded his head in agreement. Williams pulled a small penknife out of his pocket and