The Sarcophagus

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Jean-Pierre Lajoie and his team considered themselves lucky. Although a radiation detection system for the highways and railways of France had been proposed some years ago, a paper describing such a system had been published in the United States in 2008, the cost of such a system had been considered prohibitive.

Luckily for Lajoie, a prototype system had been deployed around a number of French ports, mostly along the Mediterranean, in early 2025. It had worked during testing, up to a point. The scientists had noted that the radiation which could be detected had to be at very high levels. So high that whoever was transporting the material wouldn't survive the exposure for more than a few days.

But the system had been left in place as top government and private labs worked on a system which could detect much lower levels of radiation. But, as one scientist quipped, "We don't want it so sensitive that an older watch with tritium or radium won't set it off." What was in place worked, but only if a strong source was presented.

That had happened on a wet afternoon in late September when the system had sent out an alarm as a train had passed out of Marseille, northbound to Paris.

Maxime Lemaigre had studied the data from the sensors and had shaken his head, "This is enriched uranium, it has to be. Whatever someone used to shield it has broken down or has degraded in some way."

That's when Lajoie and his team had been dispatched. Six boxcars had been detached from the train and had been shuttled to a nearby siding and placed in a maintenance barn. Lajoie knew that the shielding from that barn would be inadequate and had told the government so. Of course, they didn't believe him.

So Louis Bonnot of the Autorité de sûreté nucléaire (ASN)¹ had been sent. When he arrived and talked with Lajoie, then taken his own measurements, he immediately phoned his superiors at ASN.

"Sir, this thing is throwing off lots of radiation, it would be suicide to approach it in order to determine what it is. My guess is that it's a uranium bomb. I will know more once the data analysts at ASN have had a chance to run the data through our computers. But from what I've been told, and where this crate came from, it almost certainly is an old Soviet tactical nuclear weapon."

Bonnot listened for a few moments, then spoke again. "It will be difficult enough decontaminating this place where it sits now, not to mention the 15 kilometers of track leading back to Marseille. Sir, this is a major incident. Somehow we must get this device far away from here. No Sir, I don't know how."

After a few more moments listening now to the Director of ASN, Bonnot simply said, "That's only a stopgap solution, Sir. But better than none."

Hubert Dufresne watched as his boss turned to him, Bonnot shook his head, "We need to seal this off for now, Hubert."

"How much, chef?"

"The entire barn, the military is flying in security for the site and ASN is trying to find enough material to build a sarcophagus over the barn. Much like the Soviets did at Chernobyl."

"That will cost millions of Euros!" Dufresne exclaimed.

"Yes, but for some reason the Director thinks he knows a source to fund the project."

"Really?"

"Don't ask me Hubert, I only work here."

President Nakagawa called Bill Aspinall into the office, he had told everyone to leave while he took a phone call.

"Who was that, Sir?"

Nakagawa looked ill, but he answered quickly enough, "That was the French President and his Prime Minister, they believe they have located the second bomb."

"Where?"

"On a railroad siding about ten miles north of Marseille. Seems the French have a partial nuclear detection system around their major Mediterranean ports."

"I thought that they were only able to detect a serious level of ..."

"Seems the crate the weapon was in was dropped in Marseille after being taken off a ship. Apparently whatever shielding was around the weapon has been compromised. It's leaking badly. One French dock worker has already died, three others are in critical condition."

"Damn, what did they do, lick the f**king crate?" Aspinall knew a bit about the subject.

"Apparently some highly radioactive bits of rust came out of the crate, it's believed the first man might have inhaled some of the dust from that. The others got sick from handling the cleanup."

"Damn. What are the French going to do?"

"Something along the lines of what was done at Chernobyl, President Beaugendre has ordered that task to be done immediately. The site is being evacuated for a distance of five miles around."

"Jesus, that's going to cost a lot of money!" Aspinall noted.

Nakagawa nodded, then said, "I let the French in on our little problem in Zürich. The cabal and how it's probably their weapon that the French intercepted."

"Ah Sir, that information is highly classified ..." then Aspinall stopped himself, the President was the man who made that call. He could determine who had a need to know and who didn't. Heck, if he wanted to the President could have the whole thing printed out on flyers and posted on telephone poles around DC.

"Yep, I classified it Bill. But Prime Minister Girardot had a brilliant suggestion, make the cabal pay for the cleanup. After all, it's their mess."

"And how would we make them do that?"

"Well, as Girardot put it, clean up the mess, or be shot. After being tortured."

Aspinall grimaced, "Wasn't Jean Girardot a French para?"

"He was indeed, he was indeed."

"What about the Swiss government?" Aspinall knew how tight-fisted Swiss bankers were.

"Beaugendre thinks the Swiss will cooperate for a piece of the action."

"Sir?"

"Well, the cabal is going to go from extraordinarily wealthy to dirt poor overnight. Seems they keep the bulk of their funds in Zürich, the Swiss can make the argument that the money is the proceeds of a criminal conspiracy and subject to forfeiture."

"What keeps the Swiss from keeping all of the money?"

"Beaugendre believes that they are amenable to reason. He also has leverage of some sort that he wouldn't talk about. He said, 'Trust me, the gnomes of Zürich will, as you Americans say, play ball.'"

"Damn."

"Yes, indeed."

¹ Nuclear Safety Authority