Cleanup Duty

[Poohbah]

March 8th, 1993
Boise, ID

I sipped decaf coffee and reviewed the soil report and the specification document from NetDynatronics.

I was backstopping the NDT account manager, Ezra Rockwell, while he and his wife Lisa were dealing with the aftermath of a house fire (nobody hurt, but the house was totaled), NDT was being cagey about what they needed, and the soil report was maddeningly incomplete. I flipped through it a second time, and realized that the nuclear densitometry results for the proposed Arco facility were missing.

I picked up the phone and called the subcontractor who'd done the site report.

"Cowley Geophysics, how may I direct your call?"

"Frank Cowley, please. Tell him Roberta Mantell is calling from Collins, Falk, and West."

Thirty seconds later, Frank Cowley was on the line. "Roberta! How are you?"

For the umpteenth time, I desperately wished he would drop the bonhomie--he barely knew my name, but always tried to act as if we'd been besties since elementary school. As the son of one of the founders, he was expecting to succeed Doctor Gerald Cowley as Chief Operating Officer Real Soon Now, and he struck me as being more glib than thorough. He wasn't stupid, or malicious--just not especially detail-oriented, leaving a lot of the grunt work in the hands of subordinates while he glad-handed prospective customers.

I didn't want to open a newspaper ten years from now and learn that my data center had just collapsed into a sinkhole.

"Frustrated. NetDynatronics wants to move on their project, and we're missing the nuclear densitometry data."

"Oh, that! Well, we're having an issue with the densitometer."

Something in his too-casual dismissal of the problem really woke me up. "What kind of issue?"

"The thing went off the scale, I sent it back to Troxler for recalibration, they said it's fine. But it went off the scale again when we went for a second try, and now I'm arguing with Troxler's customer service people about replacing it."

I looked at the map of Butte County that had our job site, and suddenly noticed a town at the edge of the map.

Atomic City. And that reminded me of the old name for the Idaho National Engineering Lab: Nuclear Reactor Testing Station.

I carefully considered my next words.

"Frank, do you still have the Troxler?"

"What? Oh, yes, we still have it."

"Could you have one of your people try it out in your parking lot, please?"

"I suppose I could. First thing tomorrow?"

"I think it might be a good idea to do it immediately--as in, send one of your junior people out the door in the next minute or so. And put together a list of everyone who ever went onsite. From both your side and ours. And anyone from NDT as well."

"Roberta, dear, I don't like how this is sounding."

"Neither do I, overmuch. I'm praying I'm wrong. Seriously."

I heard Frank giving orders, and he said, "Now, I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. Just a broken instrument and a company that doesn't want to do a warranty replacement."

Five minutes later, he called me back. "Well, that's strange. It worked just fine in the parking lot."

I felt a cold finger trace down my spine, even worse than when I was face to face with Randall Flagg.

And--to my shame--thanked God I was just backfilling for Ezra and hadn't been out to the site yet.

"Frank, did you go out on either of those surveys?"

"Oh, yes. Second time. I wanted to see that the Troxler worked--or not--myself. Roberta, you're starting to scare me."

"Good, Frank, because things just got extremely scary. Your Troxler works just fine."

"But if it works fine, why did it go off the scale . . . "

His voice trailed off as his brain fully engaged and made the connection.

Like I said, he wasn't stupid.

Finally, he asked, "You're saying the site's hot?"

A grim smile crawled onto my face. "Hotter than a stolen Aston Martin, honey."

Cowley sighed. "Maybe Uncle Sam lost track of some leftovers. Uncle is not universally beloved or trusted out here." He paused, then said, "There are reasons."

I remembered Josh's father saying to me in those innocent days of Before, "Trust is gathered one raindrop at a time and lost by tipping over the whole barrel."

I heard Frank typing, and he said, "All right, I found the travel reports . . . Oh, good, it looks like we got courtesy copies of CF&W's reports . . . and . . . well, that's odd. No record of anyone from NDT ever being onsite during either of our companies' trips. But we got everyone from here and CF&W. I'm sending you a copy. And I'm going to get everyone from Cowley who was there to the hospital ASAP and get the full battery of tests."

"Same here. I'll call the Butte County Sheriff and find out who Butte County would send for this kind of thing."

* * *

I printed out the list, tucked it into the folder, and went to Sharon Rice's office.

Sharon was the HR director, and she knew everything forwards and backwards.

"Afternoon, Roberta, what's up?"

I handed her the folder. "We need medical workups on these people ASAP. They may have been exposed to potentially dangerous levels of radiation."

I explained what had happened. She took notes, and nodded. "All right, you did the right thing. You verified that there was a problem, notified the relevant authorities that they may have a serious health hazard, they're doing their job, and now we need to look after our people. Only after we've done that do we notify the client, because he didn't have anyone on site."

* * *

The phone rang again. "Collins, Falk, and West--"

"Roberta, it's John Falk. Could you come to my office, please?"

I headed down, and Falk met me at the door.

"Come in, please, please, come in."

Falk ushered me to a chair, asked if I wanted coffee. I declined.

He headed, not to his desk, but to the corner sofa, and sprawled out across it--leaving me in a higher position than him.

"Good work today, Roberta."

"Thank you."

"I talked to Old Man Cowley, and I got the impression he was a bit surprised at how fast his son got moving."

"Frank Cowley's bright . . . but lazy."

Falk nodded. "Not an unusual combination."

"And his heart is in the right place when the chips are down."

"I see."

Falk was quiet for a long moment. I practiced a simple mindfulness breathing exercise to pass the time--Josh has a natural gift for waiting patiently, I have to work at it.

Finally, Falk said, "That's important. And he's growing--maybe his father needs to put him in roles that force him to be more diligent, more focused on details."

Another silence followed, and I continued working my breathing exercises.

Falk finally said, "Roberta, forgive me if I'm intruding . . . but there's a certain glow about you."

I chuckled. "Yeah, let's put a lampshade on the elephant in the room: in about five and a half months, I'm going to be a mother."

Falk's face lit up with genuine delight. "Congratulations! I suppose it's a little early to know if it's a boy or a girl?"

"Yeah, that's about right. We're planning to take a honeymoon in about a month . . . by then we should know, and we can talk about names." I chuckled again, "I just hope nobody does the math between our wedding date and the anticipated due date."

Falk laughed, then said, "Roberta, this is Idaho. Now, we may come off as a bunch of uptight church-going and God-fearing yokels, but being fussy about wedding dates and birth dates is considered . . . tacky. We're all sinners on this here damp rock, nobody should be putting on airs. And I'm genuinely happy for you and Josh."

* * *

March 12th, 1993
Boise, ID

Falk stepped into the conference room. "All right, people, let's get this underway. First, NDT has literally disappeared--they're not answering their phones, and when we had someone in Palo Alto check them out, the offices were very hastily vacated--some of the computers were left on. No customer, no further work beyond that necessary to close out the finances.

"Second, we have a preliminary report from the Butte County Health Department. The exact exposure figures for each person will depend on a detailed measurement by the Department of Energy when they do site remediation. Based on the preliminary report, some of our people are going to need extended monitoring . . . "

* * *

Ezra Rockwell tapped on the doorjamb of my office, and I waved him in.

He sat down, looking, well, grandfatherly, and we went over the details of the NDT file for closeout. Fortunately, the firm had been paid 50% up front, so it wasn't a total disaster.

After all was said and done, I asked, "How are you doing?"

"Just fine, Roberta."

"You probably spent the most time at the site--"

Ezra held up a hand, and I fell silent.

"In my faith, we sometimes say, 'all will be well, no matter what.' Death comes for us all, soon or late; I sure you know that as a combat veteran. I'm just grateful it was an old guy like me catching that dose and not a young lady like you--especially one who's expecting."

My jaw dropped open.

Ezra smiled and said, "John told me. I'm just hoping we can all give your children a better world than what we have now."

I sighed. "Ezra . . . I actually thanked God I hadn't been to the job site."

Ezra smiled. "I understand--and I don't hold it against you in the slightest."

"How can you be so . . . calm?"

"Roberta, I survived The Bowling Alley in Korea. I've known that death could come at any time for over 40 years. I've had a full life; every moment since 1950 was a gift from God. If I get sick . . . well, it's in God's hands, not mine."

I thought back to Colton, and getting a platoon of combat engineers from the 132nd Engineer Battalion back into the fight after they'd gotten their asses thoroughly kicked by Nicaraguan irregulars during Tri-County . . . and learning the truth of Memento Mori: Remember that thou art mortal.

Ezra asked, "Do you . . . believe?"

I nodded. "Josh and I go to Grace Fellowship just off Fairview and North Curtis."

"Then you might understand this: I always thought the Church was there for me to learn how to live, but it was really about learning how to die."

I nodded--I'd learned that much after returning home after the war.

"Ezra . . . you're in my prayers."

"Thank you, Roberta, that does mean a lot to me."

We sat there for a long time, sharing a companionable silence.

* * *

Josh was putting together a sandwich and a thermos of coffee for his night security job.

I came up to him and embraced him without saying a word.

He asked, "Bad day?"

"I don't know how Ezra does it, how he's so calm facing an elevated cancer risk."

Josh said, "He knows he's found the better portion. Just like we have. He's enjoyed this life, just like we will."

We stood there for a long time in our kitchen, arms around each other.

[Matt Wiser]

Roberta dodged a hot one there-literally. Nice one.

[Matryoshka]

I’m a little baffled. I’m not directly familiar with densitometers, but contextually they are clearly devices that in some way interact with and measure nuclear radiation levels; such a device gives an ‘off the scale’ reading, and Frank’s first reaction is to dismiss it as ‘must be an instrument malfunction’? It’s 1993, the smoke has barely cleared from WW3, the man is clearly old enough that his living adult memory spans a good portion of the shooting-match, which very vividly saw distressingly free tactical use of physics packages both in the CONUS and the (former) USSR, and he’s that... lackadaisical about the possibility it might be genuine radiation exposure!?

Jaysus and all the Saints, sprinkle us with preservatives.

[Pdf27]

I’m a little baffled. I’m not directly familiar with densitometers, but contextually they are clearly devices that in some way interact with and measure nuclear radiation levels; such a device gives an ‘off the scale’ reading, and Frank’s first reaction is to dismiss it as ‘must be an instrument malfunction’? It’s 1993, the smoke has barely cleared from WW3, the man is clearly old enough that his living adult memory spans a good portion of the shooting-match, which very vividly saw distressingly free tactical use of physics packages both in the CONUS and the (former) USSR, and he’s that... lackadaisical about the possibility it might be genuine radiation exposure!?

Jaysus and all the Saints, sprinkle us with preservatives.

Reading the Wiki will explain it - it's a device which uses a radioactive source to measure the density of the soil below it. Hence the reference to sinkholes. Essentially the system directs gamma radiation downwards and measures the level of backscatter to figure out the density of the material. If you have a gamma source below you the reading will be unnaturally high and eventually go off the scale. Kind of takes away from the story, but you aren't using a particularly high energy source and are looking for reflected radiation so it doesn't actually take very much of a gamma source in the soil to go off the scale.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_densitometry

More interesting is the way the customer company (who asked for the survey) have run away as soon as they got a hint that something has been found. That's REALLY sketchy and is presumably setting us up for a follow-up story.

[jemhouston]

Is NDT related to RamDyne?

[Belushi TD]

A high gamma source in addition to the source on a nuke gauge will cause it to read that the ground is MUCH denser than its supposed to be. Like 150% and higher. I can easily see it giving readings that would, in fact, go "off the scale", which is a bit of a misnomer, because the gauges at that time had digital readouts and there was no "scale" per se. I messed up a calibration once and my first reading was something like 180% compaction, if I recall correctly.

I ran a nuke gauge for about a year and a half, in total, back in the 2000 to 2005 timeframe and still have my dosimeter records to prove it. Part of that was during the cleanup at Rocky Mountain Arsenal. I was told that if I ever got an anomalously high reading, like over 105% compaction, I was to pull the source back into the gauge and back away quickly, and then start talking to the supervisor.

Never happened to me, but it DID happen to someone else while I was on site. Whole place shut down for the rest of the day while they went out there with the Geiger counters and figured out what was going on. Don't remember the details, but there was a miniscule hot spot. Got dug up and drummed overnight.

Belushi TD

[Wolfman]

A story from Roberta’s POV is one heck of a switch! Bravo Zulu!

[jemhouston]

What if NDT knew about the hot spot and wanted it dug up for some reason?