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I have a lot of fun mixing my story lines with real events. I based the plot of my book The Defect (cover art at left) on real events at Watts Bar Nuclear Power Station (NPS), Tenn. and Three Mile Island NPS, PA. Most of the background and scenes that take place in a Desert Canyons NPS are taken from my own experiences as an Army nuclear power plant operator and as an operation’s shift supervisor.
At Watts Bar NPS, a gunman in a hooded coat got past security and onto the facility grounds. He fired several shots at a security guard, missed the guard, but managed to hit the guard’s truck. A news account says that the gunman escaped in a boat. When I worked at the MH-1A Barge Mounted Army nuclear power plant on Lake Gatun in the Panama Canal Zone, we frequently had tell local boaters to leave the marked exclusion area around the barge. I developed the terrorist’s escape route in The Defect from these events.
In the accident at Three Mile Island (right), a pilot-operated relief valve stuck in the open position. Initially, the operators failed to recognize the indications of the ‘loss-of-reactor-coolant’ accident. The reactor eventually melted down from that loss of coolant. Even though the reactor core melted to a lava-like mass and flowed down into the lower spaces of the containment vessel, the containment vessel did prevent the release of radioactive debris to the environment. In my estimation, it was a successful failure. The reactor core was destroyed but the resulting debris was ‘contained.’ Two factors contributed to the loss of coolant: a defect air solenoid valve (as in The Defect) and operator error. Several factors contributed to the successful containment.
I wrote several of the operating and power plant scenes in The Defect from my own experiences as an operator, especially in the control room. As an Army Nuclear Power operations specialist, I worked at the SM-1 Army NPS in Virginia (left) and at the MH-1A Barge Mounted NPS (right) in The Panama Canal Zone. I don’t have documentation beyond my military records to support the stories, so all I can do is claim that they are personal recollection. The control room at a nuclear power plant is as intense place as a hospital surgical suite. I was completely in my element when I was in a nuclear power plant control room. I tried to capture that feeling in The Defect. The Rack of Cable Trays below is an example of a real locale that I adapted to my story.
As far as the rest of the story is concerned, our government does what’s required to keep America and Americans safe. They do what’s needed to capture suspected terrorists and prevent attacks on our homeland. I have no problem with the process. The psychology of terrorist pursuit provided ample material for my story. These things can and do happen. From experience, I know that they happen more frequently than the average person realizes. That’s what makes these stories so compelling. I claim only that The Defect is a work of fiction.
My name is Jeff Bailey. I write nuclear thrillers for a reason, I’ve worked in nuclear related industries, from nuclear weapons to nuclear research, for fifty years. Deer Hawk Publications released my first book, The Defect in June of 2016. In The Defect, I tell the story of a terrorist attack on a nuclear power plant and why the government covered it up. The Defect is based on true events. Deer Hawk Publications is scheduled to release I’m a Marine in May of 2017. I’m a Marine is about a female aviation firefighter in the U.S. Marines who witnesses the murder of two M.P.s. She decides that it is her duty to stop them. Keep in mind that I write nuclear thrillers. The Chilcoat Project, to be released in spring of 2018, is about the theft of nuclear weapons secrets from a national laboratory. The Chilcoat Project is also based on true events. My current project, Wine Country, is based on the true story of the Radioactive Boy Scout, but with a more sinister twist.
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