"You ready, Pete?" Jennings asked.

Collins nodded. Jennings punched the combination into the electronic lock on Fuel Repository Number I and waited for the huge door to swing open.

Collins stood to the side with a calculator in one hand and a clipboard in the other. When the door was open, the men stepped through and Collins punched in the closing combination.

Neither man knew both combinations. The theory behind this security measure was that it would make theft and sabotage more difficult. There was no real reason for it, since the problem was not access to the fuel rods as much as getting them past the heavy security and radiation detectors at the main gate. The rods were long and pencil thin. You couldn't disassemble them, and you sure as hell couldn't hide them under your clothes.

And if you did, you wouldn't get any closer than fifty yards to the gate without setting off an alarm.

Neither he nor Collins was in the same room with the fuel rods. They were on the other side of a thick concrete and steel wall, but the TV equipment they used to monitor the fuel supply was off-limits to most personnel. The fuel was so hot that they were required to wear protective gear. Collins often complained that he had to wear the outfit "Just to watch TV."

As soon as he began his count, Jennings knew something was wrong. He adjusted the contrast on his monitor just to be sure. When he had the focus as sharp as he could get it, he whispered to Collins. "Pete, come here. We've been robbed."

"Sure," Collins said, laughing. "I got to hand it to you, my man. That's a new one. You've tried just about every way a man could to make this more exciting than it is."

"I'm not kidding, Pete. Look for yourself. Punch up A28."

While Collins directed his camera, Jennings left his own screen to join his partner.

"Okay, a little higher and to the left. There. What do you see?"

"Holy shit. Holes. Fucking holes. We have been robbed. Must be sixteen, eighteen rods missing."

"Twenty-one. I counted."

"Damn! We got to get hold of McAndrews. He's going to have a stroke, man. A fuckin' stroke."

The first time the needle jumped, Dave Steinberg thought he was imagining things. He rubbed his eyes, and watched. The needle was normal.

He took a quick look at the bank of warning lights. They were all dark. The readings on all the other gauges were ordinary.

The temperature needle jumped again. This time it stayed against the right-hand peg. Something sure as hell was going on. Steinberg punched into the main PA and called his supervisor. While he waited for Mike Orlando, he watched the needle. It was starting to fall back toward the normal range. For a second he thought he'd call Orlando back and tell him to forget it. When the needle jumped a third time, he knew something was wrong.

The main control room door hissed open, and Orlando slipped in. "What's up?" he asked.

"Look at the temperature on sixteen."

"It's a little high. So what?"

"So it buried the needle twice. There's something wrong on that line. No way the temperature should skip around like that. Keep an eye on it."

Steinberg got up, and Orlando slid into the empty chair. He watched the gauge for several minutes without speaking.

"It still seems okay to me. A little skittish maybe, but..."

The bank of warning lights exploded into color. At the same time, the needle went off the high end.

"That's it, Davey. Hit the alarm. And check the cameras. Make sure there's nobody down there. Where's Patty?"

"She was going to check out Tower 3," Steinberg said, punching up the monitor for her location. A small figure in a bulky radiation suit appeared on the screen. "Christ, Mike. She's still down there."

As the men watched, a cloud of steam came into view at the bottom of the screen. It billowed like the fog in a monster movie, rising a foot or two, falling back halfway, then climbing again.

"Get on the radio, Davey. She doesn't see it."

Steinberg tried to raise her. It took him a few seconds. Finally he heard her voice.

"Hi, guys. What's happening?"

"Patty, don't panic. Just look behind you and tell me what you see."

"Quit clowning around, David."

"I'm not clowning, Patty. Do it. Now!"

Steinberg could see the figure on the screen halt. It bent to the side and down. "Holy shit! What's going on? Where the hell did all that steam come from?"

"How bad is it, Patty?"

"I don't know. The whole bottom of the tower is full of it. Is it hot?"

"I'm getting eighty rems per, Patty. You have to get the hell out of there. Now."

"What's happening, David?" Her voice began to break. She had been with them only six months. She'd never seen anything like this. Hell, none of them had. And if she didn't get out of the tower, she'd never see anything like it again.

"I got another needle hopping here, Davey. It's on the same line." Orlando was yelling to make himself heard over the klaxons blaring throughout the power station. "She has to get out of there."

The steam was growing as if it were alive. It followed Patty as she clambered up the ladder. The woman turned again to check her location. As Steinberg watched, the steam mushroomed upward, and Patty was obscured from view for a moment. The steam thinned a bit, and Steinberg could see her struggling to keep her grip. By now she was probably hysterical. He never should have told her how hot the steam was.

The ladder would get tougher and tougher to hold on to. It would get slippery with condensation. Then, in one breathtaking moment, it happened. The woman's left foot slipped off the ladder as she put her weight on it. She hung suspended by both arms.

Her feet whirled helplessly in the air as she sought to regain the ladder. Then she was gone from the screen.

"Oh, God," Orlando groaned. "Oh, my God."

"Patty," Steinberg screamed. "Patty." He clicked the mike on and off, trying to raise her again. But he knew there was no way.

No one could survive the steam, never mind the fall.

And who knew what was at the bottom of that infernal cloud. The klaxons continued to blare. The lights flashed like a Christmas tree. One by one, the needles on the Tower 3 cooling lines began to waver, then to climb.

"Attention, all personnel," Orlando roared into the PA mike. "We have an event in progress. Repeat, event in progress. L.o.c.a. in progress."

Steinberg stared at the empty monitor, now completely engulfed in steam. "It all sounds so routine, Mike. Loss of coolant accident. L.o.c.a., my ass. What the hell are we doing here?"

The huge flatbed trailer rumbled up Third Avenue, bouncing over every pothole. The deadweight strapped to its middle rocked precariously. Every bounce threatened to sever the heavy steel bands that clamped the load in place. There was little traffic, other than the trailer and its two escort vehicles. A police cruiser was in the lead and another followed the truck at a respectable distance.

The patrolmen in the rear had been given the standard briefing. They knew the lead-lined steel canister was supposed to be tightly sealed and accident proof. They didn't believe it, but not because they were in the habit of mistrusting their superiors.

They didn't believe it for a far simpler reason: if the official version was incorrect, they were dead men. The canister contained plutonium so radioactive that a single speck lodged in a lung would mean certain death.

Among them the four patrolmen had thirty-seven years of experience on the streets of New York.

They had seen death in all of its urban forms.

Blood was just a color to them now. Brighter than some perhaps, but not unusual. But this time they were scared stiff. The transport of this cargo had been on again, off again for years. Enough people had had enough reasons to delay the passage of radioactive material through inhabited areas so that the case had been tied up in the courts for years. It had finally been approved, but the losers died hard. Each of the cops knew there were dozens of groups who had their own reasons for wanting an accident in the city.