Assault on L

In the late 1980's a group of mercenaries take over the L Reactor building at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Their demand for enough plutonium to make a nuclear weapon is only slightly less horrific than their threat to cause a nuclear reactor meltdown, contaminating a large area of the United States. The U. S. Department of Energy is faced with a very difficult decision. Will there be a winner in this high stakes game of poker, or is everyone holding a losing hand? The locations and facilities described in this story did exist and were operated for over three decades to support the United States nuclear weapons stockpile as a deterrent during the cold war. While entirely fictional, the events in this story illustrate the possibility that the risk to the public of operating these facilities may have been greater than was realised at the time.