Chapter 85 Chapter 85

Super nuclear fuel?Puller looks over to Cole.This time she avoided his gaze, staring down at the floor restlessly. "Mr. Lyrimore, I found a page in the firehouse next to Drake's building," Puller said. "I remember the fire station very well. We've had a few accidents and it was the boys who dealt with it." "That page had the numbers 92 and 94 written on it." "Atomic numbers for uranium and plutonium." "Yes. But gas diffusion is only used to separate enriched uranium," Puller said. "You can't use it to get plutonium. Plutonium is produced in breeder reactors."

"You're right. It absorbs slow neutrons and ends up producing plutonium-239." "There are two element numbers written on this page, which means..." "At Drake, we use both uranium and plutonium." "why?" "Like I said, trying to create a supercharged charge for our nuclear weapons. We don't know if the idea is feasible. Our intention is to design a new nuclear fuel that uses both uranium and plutonium. Nuclear bombs. We tossed and tested the ratios of the two, their respective enrichments, and bomb configurations to figure out how to maximize the explosive yield. In a common saying, it was the crossbreeding of gun detonation and implosion Bastard, if you can understand."

"I heard that the explosive power of the gun detonation method is very limited, and this method can only use uranium, not plutonium." "That's the obstacle we were trying to overcome. We wanted to do the same to the Soviets, which was to create bombs that had a much higher explosive yield than theirs." "But you said it failed?" "Uh, it should be said that our scientific research direction and design ideas are flawed. The final result of the experiment is that this way is blocked. So the facilities there were closed." "But they will definitely transport the nuclear fuel away when they close the pilot plant."

For a few seconds, Larrymore didn't answer."I can only do a little guesswork," he said later. "I want to hear it." "They were probably worried about the nuclear fuel going off and radioactively contaminating a lot of the country. I'm not really surprised when you say they put a cement cover over it. A lot of stuff was sealed up like that, and left where they were. They probably thought it was safer to do that than to ship stuff back and forth. You're too young to know, and there were accidents in those days that took all of the U.S. People are freaking out. A B-52 with a hydrogen bomb on its wing fell down somewhere in Kansas. Good thing the hydrogen bomb didn't go off because of the crash, of course, because nukes don't go off just by dropping them . Then we had the plutonium train incident."

"Plutonium train?" "Yes, the military transported a batch of stored plutonium material from point A to point B across the entire United States. The train has passed through the most densely populated centers without incident. But a group of journalists Heard about that B-52 and this train. It was some bad days for the military. Congress had hearings and some guys lost the general on their shoulders. Can you imagine it happening today Something like this? The news on a 24 hour loop kept the military from doing it sneakily. Anyways, the memory of these sorts of events was still fresh in people at the time, especially in the upper echelons of the military. So I guess These generals said, 'Fuck it, leave that stuff where it is'."

"And the place where they left those things is a remote small county with not many people." "It's not a decision I made. If it was me, I would have handled it differently." "Do you think the military will send someone back to review those facilities?" "It's not necessary. You leave a place and come back there every now and then and it gets the media's attention. Then the government has to explain it. They're afraid people won't like it if such a monster is made public. found out of it." "It's been over fifty years," Puller said. "Do you think those things, if they're still there, are still dangerous?"

"Plutonium-239 has a half-life of over 24,000 years, so I have to say, you're far from crossing the minefield." Puller took a deep breath, looked at Cole, and asked, "How much is it?" "I can't say for sure. But let me put it this way, if they had kept the stock I had then, in case it fell into someone else's hands and made a bomb, the two we dropped on Japan would be nothing compared to the Not worth mentioning at all. I gotta tell you, whoever the guys who decided to keep these facilities there in the first place should be sent to jail. But maybe they're dead now."

"Lucky for them," Pooler remarked. Lyrimore said, "So what do you want to do?" "We're going to get into that domed building. Can you give me some advice?" Cole touched his arm and said silently with his mouth: "The mine shaft." Puller shook his head and continued to ask on the other end of the phone: "Can you help us get in?" "A meter of cement, boy. Do you have a percussion drill?" "We cannot expose our actions." Puller could hear Lilymore gasping for breath. "You think someone intends to..." His voice trailed off.

"You'd be at a loss if you didn't think so, wouldn't you? You probably know that place well, and anything you can think of will be more valuable than what we have so far." "Can you dig in on the outside of it?" "It has a wide base of iron boards under it, and I can't dig a hole in the ground." The other party took a few more breaths.Pooler looked at Cole, who was staring at him too.It wasn't hot in the room, but Puller noticed some beads of sweat on Cole's forehead, one of which had slid down her cheek, and she didn't think to wipe it off with her hands.Puller felt sweat dripping down his own face.

"Air ducts," said Larrymore. Puller straightened up suddenly. "You say." "The pilot plant is not a place where dust and other things are allowed to exist in large quantities, and some harmful substances in the air must be discharged in time. We have a ventilation and air filtration system that can be said to be extremely powerful according to the standards at the time. The east and west of the building There are ventilation ducts on both sides, and the volume of the air filter is huge. Due to some reasons, the air filter was not installed in the pilot plant. The air enters the filter system directly, and after being filtered, it is sent to the pilot plant to form a circulating air flow. Obviously there cannot be any Windows, completely self-circulating. And it's hot, especially at this time of year."

"I need to know exactly, where are the ventilation ducts? And where are the air filters?" "I can only give you a rough idea of ​​where the air ducts are. I haven't been there for over forty years, boy, and my memory isn't working. I do know exactly where the air filters are, though, and the air ducts go through them at both ends. Air filters for supply and exhaust. The ventilation ducts are so large that a tall person can stand up in them." "Where's the air filter?" Puller asked eagerly. "It's just under the fire station." Puller and Cole exchanged glances. "That's probably the best place to put it," Lyrimore said. "The air filtration system is a fire hazard. If there is a problem, the firefighters can deal with it on the spot. The fire station is manned 24 hours a day. The filtration system is equipped with an alarm so the fire brigade will know if there is a situation." "How do you get into the air filtration system from the fire station?" "Have you been to the fire station?" "yes." "You see those wooden lockers? I'm talking about the main locker in the middle row on the right." "I've seen it." "The innermost wall panel on the left side of that cabinet is a hidden mechanism. If no one told you, you would never notice it. There is a pressing plate in the cabinet, on the upper left corner. You pressed it in the right place, the left side The wall panel will slide to the side, revealing a lever. You pull the lever, and the entire row of lockers will slide to the right, and the stairs leading to the underground will appear in front of you. Very delicate and ingenious design. You go down the stairs to the air filtration system and from there you can access the ventilation ducts." Puller said, "Thank you very much, Mr. Larrymore." "Investigator Puller, if you do go in there, here are a few things to keep in mind. Wear NBC hazmat suits and the best respirator you can find. Take a flashlight, because there are No electricity. Both plutonium and uranium were packed in lead-lined barrels. The barrel containing the plutonium cakes had a red mark and a drawing of a skull. The barrel containing the uranium cakes had a blue mark and the same drawing of a skull. We thought we were living in a new era, so we wanted to be creative with the marking of nuclear fuel." "They're shaped like cakes?" "By the way. The term 'fuel' is easily misleading. In fact, high-purity plutonium and enriched uranium look like round cakes. They are all highly radioactive, and plutonium in particular is very toxic. Pilot plant Most of the workers are hiding behind protective shields and using robotic hands to manipulate them. Even if you wear protective clothing, it may not be easy to completely block the direct nuclear radiation. One more thing, Investigator Puller." "what?" "I wish you luck, boy. You're sure to need it badly."