On paper the end point destination of the receptacles was specified as Rokkashi Village, Aomori Prefecture, Japan, where they would be stored for eventual reprocessing into plutonium-uranium mixed oxide—known as MOX—and utilized as fuel by the light-water reactors that provided the nation with a third of its energy demands. As plotted, the Valkyrie’s sea route was to take it through the Strait of Gibraltar, down along the Ivory Coast of Africa, then around South Africa into the Indian Ocean, through the Indonesian Archipelago to the Pacific Ocean, and finally to the Japanese shore for delivery.

The fact was that the cargo’s end point was nowhere near Aomori. The Swiss and Japanese had abruptly discontinued negotiations for the transfer after records of the clandestine talks were rumored to have been leaked to the American government, which, under exercise of the United States-Switzerland Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, had recently clamped down on the shipment of radioactive materials with a potential to yield the weapons-capable MOX extract. Executives at Fels-Hauden had later discreetly sought out another channel for the waste disposal. And found one.

Thus Valkyrie deviated from its charted course beyond the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa, and forged on into the Antarctic Ocean rather than heading east to the Pacific Rim.

In the open sea outside South Africa’s territorial waters, beneath a black and moonless night sky, the casks were moved by mechanized winch onto an ice-strengthened fishing trawler registered to an import/export firm based in Argentina.

Once aboard the trawler, they were placed in a special rad-insulated storage hold and ferried deeper into the southern latitudes, eventually crossing the Antarctic Convergence.

As it passed the subantarctic islands, the vessel encountered thin sea ice, which its riveted double-steel hull was able to nose through with relative ease. Further into its trip, the trawler used ice-distribution satellite maps composed weekly by the U.S. Navy and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—and made available over the Internet for the safeguard of research vessels in subantarctic and antarctic waters—to locate and weave its way around heavy floes of pack ice as it circumnavigated the continent to the Ross Ice Shelf, an immense sheet of ice fastened like glue to the coastline and extending over fifty miles outward into the Ross Sea.

On March 4th, the trawler dropped anchor at the edge of this immense ice sheet and off-loaded its hot cargo onto rubber-belted Caterpillar trucks for conveyance to the mainland. It had reached the end of its outbound voyage.

Where in the continental interior the casks eventually wound up was a detail that neither its marine carriers, nor the administrators at Fels-Hauden, sought to learn.

In certain types of dealings, it is not unusual for all participants to agree that there are some questions better left unasked.

Scottish Highlands