An emergency stairwell led from the control room to the primary reactor unit. Joe rushed down, taking the steps two or three at a time. His heart pounded in his chest, going a mile a minute, while he prayed that Sandra was heading toward him from the opposite direction. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could count on Takashi to keep the containment doors open.

Don’t stop, he silently pleaded with her. Don’t slow down for a second. Please!

Reaching Level 5 in record time, he burst out of the stairwell and skidded to a stop right before the entrance to the containment area. A large button, surrounded by emergency instructions in both Japanese and English, was installed in the wall to one side of the entrance. Joe peered down the long corridor beyond, hoping desperately to see Sandra and the others running toward him, but the hallway was eerily silent and empty, as though it had already been evacuated. He was tempted to run into the corridor to find Sandra, but there was no time to suit up and somebody had to stand by to trigger the manual controls, just in case the worst-case scenario played out, which was looking more and more likely by the moment.

C’mon, Sandy, he thought. Where the hell are you?

A closed-circuit video camera was mounted in a corner where the walls met the ceiling. Joe hoped to God that Takashi was still watching this. He shouted up at the camera.

“Takashi! Tell me this door is on manual!”

The other man’s voice emerged from the comm system. “Manual, yes, but Joe—we’re starting to breach, you understand me?”

He understood all right. This was the nightmare that every nuclear engineer dreaded, the one that kept them up at nights, thinking about Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. He feared there was nothing he could to do to save one or all of the reactors.

But maybe he could still save his wife.

“I’m right here,” he told Takashi, as forcefully as he could. “As soon as they’re through, I’ll seal it!”

He hoped that would be enough to Takashi’s finger off the panic button, but he wouldn’t blame the other man for playing it safe. Takashi didn’t have the love of his life still in the danger zone.

“Sandra?” he said into the walkie-talkie. “Can you hear me? I’m here, honey. I’m at the door!”

* * *

She held on tightly to the walkie-talkie as she and the others sprinted breathlessly down yet another seemingly endless corridor. Steel-toed rubber boots pounded against the hard concrete floors. The crew had made it up the stairs, but they still had a ways to go before they were beyond the containment area. Joe’s voice, coming over the walkie-talkie, urged her on, even though his words were fragmented by harsh blasts of static:

“—ere—for you—checkpoin—aiting—”