Radioactive (The Rayna Tan Action Thriller Series Book 4) Read online

  Grocery cashier Gail did not participate in the banter. During the flick, the hairs on her worrywart forearms tingled, her unease growing as she witnessed company executives denying culpability in the disaster or even that anything was wrong.

  Davy leaned over to Carter and whispered, “Jane Fonda doesn’t have anything on Sally.”

  Sally Wong was a hot “older” Asian babe in seventh grade. At a church fundraising car wash, the two pre-pubescent boys salivated over her when she wore a one-piece turquoise swimsuit that they thought was almost as risqué as Harold’s skin magazines that they snuck looks at. The boys’ hormones had gone into overdrive when she stooped to wash the rims of Ken’s pickup truck and a little bit of her burgeoning cleavage was exposed.

  Carter nodded. “For sure. This movie’s boring.”

  * * *

  March 28, 1979

  “Can you stop it? Dickie and the rest of the operations group said there was nothing wrong and they have no reason to lie,” bellowed Ken at Gail as he threw an empty can of Miller’s at the kitchen window in their Goldsboro bungalow, where they could see the two huge natural draft cooling towers of Three Mile Island across the river from their front porch.

  Ken had arrived ten minutes ago after a long overtime shift at the station. He had been at TMI for five years, the steadiest job he’d ever had. The company was so well-organized that overtime was a rarity, so his being late raised a warning signal in Gail’s internal radar.

  “It’s all over the news and everything. There was an accident at TMI.”

  Ken grit his teeth. He knew Gail would freak if he told her there was extensive damage to the reactor core. “Accident, shmaccident. The radio always blows everything up. A little bit of spilled water that I helped clean up. I was properly protected and all safety procedures were followed. There’s nothing to worry about. I am totally fine.”

  Which was not how Ken felt at all. He did not want to tell Gail that he had seen how the melted fuel rods had formed a molten mass and burned through the lower core support plate. He also kept mum about his narrow escape—the burning molten fuel could have melted the floor of the containment building and triggered an uncontrollable release of radiation.

  But his biggest secret was that he had been totally oblivious to the contaminated water that had leaked into the room in the containment building, where the radiated water had spiked at more than seven thousand REMS per hour.

  At the time, he had been screwing Melissa in the reactor room of Unit 2. The pair chose that to be their love nest because it was infrequently visited and it was easy to hide a little fold-out bed. Adding to their clandestine thrill was being surrounded by one-hundred-and-sixty tons of uranium fuel assemblies.

  Talk about coitus interruptus. When the room went strangely silent mid-session, they had quickly put on their clothes and rushed out of their love nest to find that the turbine that generated Unit Two’s electricity had shut down.

  This was so not good.

  While Melissa took off as fast as she could, Ken stayed behind to check what had happened. It was part of his job to help keep everything in running order.

  What he saw freaked him out.

  With the turbine off, the secondary feedwater supply was no longer taking the heat away from the generators. That meant that the water that was supposed to cool the atomic reactor was heating up fast. On top of the huge pressurizer, a pressure relief valve kicked open.

  When Ken saw the water rushing out of the valve, he shuddered as he broke into a sprint toward the exit.

  Almost deafened by the sound of the steam whistling, he looked up and saw a huge column of white vapor shooting up above Unit 2’s round building.

  As badly as he wanted to get the hell out of the nuclear complex, the specter of the family’s mounting debts was scarier than losing his job. While Gail’s job helped with some family expenses, he was the main provider and the couple had no emergency fund. They borrowed to the max for their mortgage, bought a giant pick-up truck on the never - never plan, and Davy was a sickly kid whose medical costs were not fully covered.

  Ken knew he had to man up. And in this world, real men took care of their families, no matter what.

  Which was why he was screwing Melissa.

  Seven years older than Ken, her tits sagged and her butt was sloppy soft, but she had no qualms with stealing cash out of her husband Harold’s wallet, or from petty cash, and slipping a few bucks to help with her young buck’s expenses.

  She didn’t really care about being ridden like a filly by the cowboy stud; this was payback. Five years ago, Melissa had planned to surprise Harold on his thirtieth birthday and bought a crimson see-through negligee. Fantasizing about the sensual pleasure that she would exact from her man, she took the bus to the hotel in Akron where he was staying while attending company meetings.

  After asking about which room he was in, the hotel clerk looked up the information and replied, “Mr. and Mrs. Harold Johnson are in Room 736. Do you want me to ring their room for you?”

  As a sickening feeling grew in the pit of her stomach, she ventured, “Is there any other Harold Johnson registered?”

  A quick check and the clerk answered, “No, ma’am. No one else registered under either Johnson or Harold. They’re in their room now.” Snickering, the clerk added, “It seems like they’re always in the room.”

  Burning, Melissa caught the next bus home. The next day, she went to the reactor room when she knew that the only person there would be Ken on clean-up. Dropping her clothes, she twirled her fingers on the tips of her nipples through the red negligee for the strapping maintenance man. “Do me right and I’ll take care of you,” she purred.

  It was an offer he couldn’t and wouldn’t refuse.

  Words of rage and fear burst from Gail’s throat, “Ken. Of course the damn company’s going to say nothing’s wrong. If they admitted there was a problem, they’d have to pay all of us for health and damages.”

  “No one died; no one was injured. Metropolitan Ed has been part of Pennsylvania since 1917,” spat out Ken.

  “The damn equipment broke down. There’s radioactivity all over the place.” Gail broke down and sobbed as she began flailing at her husband. “We’re going to get radiated to death, just like the Japs in Hiroshima. We’re all gonna get cancer or become mutants and grow extra toes and get heart attacks.”

  “Knock it off, Gail. You’re just worried because of that damn movie. We should never have gone to see it. Harold said everything’s going to be fine.”

  ”What the hell does he know? He’s not on the floor like you are. He’s a damn suit,” Gail screamed hysterically. “TMI’s going to blow up and we’re going to be fried to a crisp and our ashes are going to wind up in China!”

  Ken stretched out his fingers, taut with tension, keeping a stoic face as Gail continued her not-entirely-irrational tirade. The truth was, Ken had had his own private concerns and Gail’s unsettling raving rant hit a nerve. Over the past year he had been sure that the temperature in Unit 2 had been rising, but when he brought it up, none of the plant officials seemed to have any concerns.

  “Damn it, Gail. Real life isn’t like that. There’s no problem with nuclear plants and God, the company’s constantly drilling us about safety.”

  He took her shoulders and held her out straight at arms distance, looking directly at her face. “Listen to me, Gail Johnson” he said with absolute conviction. “I was there. I saw with my own eyes that the pressurizer water level was high enough and that the core was covered by water. Sure, there was a little extra steam but there’s always some little thing or another that’s going wrong at Three Mile Island. Just like there is anywhere. That’s because we’re human… imperfect. In two weeks, everything will be back to normal. Okay?”

  When Gail opened her mouth to object, Ken touched his index finger on her lips. “I would never do anything that might hurt our family. I’m on the safety committee and we’re always watching out for the slightest
thing that doesn’t look normal. I guarantee you there is absolutely nothing wrong.”

  * * *

  This was a complete untruth. There was no such thing as a safety committee, and no one keeping an eye out for danger, because everyone thought Three Mile Island was safe.

  Ken’s lying eyes gleamed at Gail’s anguish-filled pupils. Wanting desperately to believe, she nodded her head with quick up and down movements, trying to control her quaking emotions. Then, with a dry mouth, she uttered, “Okay.”

  Davy stood in the doorway, unnoticed and unnerved. He had witnessed the whole exchange.

  That night, he cried himself to sleep.

  The next day, Ken went back to work. At lunchtime, Melissa lined up behind him in the cafeteria. “I’m still horny as hell,” she cooed softly so no one else could hear. “Let’s saddle up and finish yesterday’s ride.”

  “The reactor room’s shut down,” mumbled Ken.

  “I got a key to Harold’s office. Head office called him out of town for a meeting. I’ll meet you there after our shift.”

  Melissa was startled as Ken weakly turned to face her. Her lover’s brow beaded with sweat and his complexion was pale. “You look like hell. You okay?”

  “Got a touch of the flu. Don’t want to give it to you. Let’s wait until next week,” rasped Ken. “I’ll give it to you double then.”

  “Can’t wait until Monday.”

  But Ken never did see Melissa again. Nor did he ever go back to work.

  It took every bit of self-control he had to finish his shift. When he did, he went straight home and slept for twelve hours straight.

  When he finally woke up, he was alone. Gail had dropped Davy at school, then gone to the store.

  Thank God for that. The last thing he wanted was to have Gail make his headache worse by nattering at him. He dashed to the bathroom and upchucked immediately. He tried to get dressed but dizziness attacked while he was putting on his shirt and he collapsed, barely conscious, to the floor. He called in sick, then crawled back to bed.

  When Gail and Davy got home, they were repulsed by the stink that assaulted them as soon as they opened the front door.

  Then they discovered it was because Ken had spent the last hour in the bathroom with an explosive case of diarrhea.

  And it didn’t get better over the weekend. Ken was in total agony with a splitting headache, overwhelming nausea, a burning fever, and the runs in overdrive.

  Gail and Davy watched the once strong and proud Ken deteriorate. Losing weight, he became a skeleton of his former self. All his hair fell out, he was constantly weak, lightheaded, and exhausted, and there was blood in his stools and his vomit.

  TMI’s employee health plan was meager and the family’s financial situation was precarious. Rather than seeing a doctor, Ken began self-medicating with voluminous amounts of cheap alcohol.

  Gail grew desperate as she witnessed Ken’s rapid descent.

  There was no one to help, but then she saw a glimmer of light.

  Harold decided to return to university and Metropolitan Edison paid his way. Harold promised that when he was finished at Penn State, he would return to the company in a managerial position.

  Encouraged, Gail wrote a letter to Metropolitan Edison asking for financial assistance. Maybe if they helped Harold, they would help her too.

  The company’s response was quick.

  No.

  Gail wrote another letter, telling the company that she was prepared to sue.

  Metropolitan Edison shocked her with a summons to their head office. Her breath caught in her chest. Maybe?

  Now working full-time at the supermarket, she took a day off and went to Akron with Davy where the two were seated in a room with a company lawyer.

  The lawyer opened, “Maybe it’s best if your son steps outside while we discuss the situation in private.”

  “No,” said Gail. “He is now the man of the house.”

  The lawyer sucked in a deep breath to steel himself. He was not an unfeeling man, and in the next ten seconds he was going to rock this suffering widow’s world. “Very well, but before you proceed with your action, you might like to consider this.”

  He pulled out a dozen black and white photos. Mother and son’s faces darkened as they saw pictures of Ken and Melissa in a sexual embrace in the reactor room.

  “I didn’t want to show these to you but you forced our hand,” said the corporate lawyer.

  “So why isn’t Melissa sick, too?” choked out Gail.

  “As this was one of the areas that Ken is responsible for, he spent a lot more time in here than she did,” was the statement-of-fact reply. “And much of that time, he was too lazy to wear protection.”

  Pursing her lips, Gail closed her eyes, then murmured with a tone that sounded more like a plea than a question, “Can you do anything for us?”

  The lawyer was silent, tapping his fingers on the table as if thinking. In reality, he knew what he was going to say, having already consulted with Harold on what was the lowest amount that they could offer that would make Gail go away.

  With Gail’s nerves fraying, the lawyer finally said, “If you keep your mouth shut and drop the idea of a lawsuit, we will pay off your mortgage of $14,947.00 but that is the extent of what we will offer. We don’t negotiate.”

  The implication was clear and so was the answer. Given the circumstances, Gail had no bargaining power, and if she didn’t accept immediately, the deal would be off the table.

  Gail hung her head and stared at the boardroom table. “What do I need to sign?”

  As Gail’s pen moved across the legal-sized sheets of paper, one thought reverberated through Davy’s pounding brain.

  I hate these people.

  Ken died two weeks later.

  While TMI’s medical providers claimed that Ken had caught some rare virus, Gail and Davy knew better.

  Ken was a victim of radiation poisoning because he had been at Ground Zero within the danger zone of Three Mile Island.

  4

  Another Victim

  35 Years Ago

  * * *

  Even though the home was now paid off, money was still tight and Gail took extra shifts at the grocery.

  That was great for Carter as Davy came over to his home more often. But much as he needed and relished the company of his best friend, Davy had conflicted feelings, especially when he saw Melissa. If his dad thought she was hot stuff, then Davy felt she must be hot. But the affair had wounded his mother, and if she was unhappy, then his spirits sagged too.

  Then Gail gave Davy an IBM personal computer for his birthday present. This was a turning point for Davy. While he still visited Carter almost every day, he no longer spent every waking moment he could with him. Davy loved the computer’s daring, creativity and flexibility. There was so much to learn and he soaked up everything he could.

  This happiness lasted a few brief years but one day, Gail was feeling dizzy and didn’t pay attention after her shift ended while walking from the store to her car late one evening. Because of the pelting rain, visibility was virtually non-existent. A hit-and-run driver collided with her as she was hurrying across the street. Her lower cervical spine was injured, causing partial paralysis in her legs, and her breathing became labored. Not enough to kill her, but enough that she had to quit her job.

  Without any kind of insurance, Gail had to sell the house. She and Davy moved into a small one-bedroom apartment, living just above the subsistence level.

  Despite teenaged Davy being his mother’s primary caregiver, Davy remained an excellent student spending most of his hours when he wasn’t at school by his mother’s bedside studying, or on his computer.

  And then something more worrying arose. Instead of her health improving, she lost her appetite and felt constant nausea. On occasion, her heart would, without warning, begin to beat rapidly. Then just as abruptly, it would revert to a more normal pace.

  Davy scoured for any information he could but it w
as scanty, and in his opinion, not well-researched. There was only one conclusion that he could draw that made any logical sense… and even that seemed a bit of a stretch.

  Radiation poisoning was not contagious, but sometimes it took time before it manifested itself. The car accident must have aggravated or compromised Gail’s immune system, allowing the latent sickness to develop.

  It was obvious that Gail would never recover. Her quality of life and savings sank. By the beginning of Davy’s senior year, there was only enough remaining in the bank account to keep them going until Davy’s graduation… barely.

  Gail’s eyes grazed her son as he sat by her bed studying. She struggled a whisper. “Hold my hand, Davy.”

  Davy saw his mother’s body sag. He leaped out of the armchair and grabbed his mother’s hand. “Yes, mama.”

  “I want you to promise to do two things for me.”

  Davy responded automatically without hesitation. “Of course, anything.”

  Gail coughed hard for ten seconds, then over her body’s painful objections, croaked, “Remember, you promised.”

  Davy’s head bobbed vigorously. “Yes, yes. I know what promise means.”

  Gail took Davy’s hands and caressed them. She pleaded softly, “I want you to make the bastards pay, the ones that did this to your father and me.”

  Davy’s answer was immediate. He wanted to lash out at the injustice inflicted on his parents too. “Of course. What is the other thing?”

  Tears welled in his mother’s eyes as she groped for words. “Take my pillow and put it over my face. Do not take it off until I’m gone. Remember. You promised.”

  Davy trembled but did not object. Was there any point in prolonging her pain?

  “I love you, Davy.”