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figures watch over the six thousand acres of land bounded by strands of barbed-wire and No Trespassing signs. One might expect a top-secretnuclear weaponry facility to look like something out of a James Bond film—a fortress of gleaming metal and glass—but Rocky Flats is a cluster of shabby gray concrete buildings with a distinct government feel. Every building has a number. Every employee has a number.
    The men pull up to the gate, ready to show their badges even though the guard usually recognizes their faces. But this time the guard waves them down. “Hold on, you guys,” he says, his face tense.
    Stan rolls down his window. “What’s up?” he asks.
    “There’s a fire at the 771 complex.”
    Stan turns to Bill in surprise. That’s the plutonium line.
    “Better hurry,” the guard says. “It’s a bad one.”
    O N THIS particular afternoon, Willie Warling isn’t thinking about work. He’s headed down to the local bar for a beer. Maybe two. It’s a beautiful day and he has the day off. He could use the relaxation. He’s got a stressful job.
    Willie works in the 771 complex—the Hell Hole, people call it. Chain link and razor wire surround the heavily guarded two-story building half-buried in a rocky gulch.It’s the core of the plant, where plutonium is molded and shaped before it’s sent to the Pantex facility in Texas to be put in bomb casings.
    Willie didn’t start out working as a radiation monitor. He began at Rocky Flats as a janitor, worked a couple of years as a shop clerk, and then moved into what they called health physics. A radiation monitor’s job is to control contamination. Contamination on the surface of the skin can usually be scrubbed off, but if an alpha particle is inhaled or ingested, it lodges in the body and emits a high, localized dose of radiation.Internal alpha emitters like plutonium are more harmful per unit dose than gamma or X-ray radiation. The damage is permanent and ongoing. The lungs are especially vulnerable. Plutonium can ignite spontaneously when exposed to air, and as it burns, it turns into a very fine dust, similar to rust. This dust consists of intensely radioactive particles that remain in the air for long periods and are easily inhaled. Even a singleparticle of plutonium can lodge in the lungs and continuously expose the surrounding tissue. Cancer may result, although it can take years or even decades to manifest.
    The weight of plutonium is measured in micrograms.A single microgram—that is, one millionth of a gram of plutonium—is considered by the Department of Energy (DOE) to be a potentially lethal dose. A needle in a haystack, a dot on the head of a pin, a flea in a cathedral. In 1945 the AEC defined the “tolerance level” for nuclear workers exposed to plutonium as one microgram. In other words, by the time you’ve reached your tolerance level, you’ve received a potentially fatal dose.
    Willie’s job is to make sure the plutonium stays put.
    He suits up for work every day in a Halloween costume of sorts: full-face mask, cap, protective clothing, rubber gloves—sometimes two or three sets of rubber gloves—and often a tank of supplied air. He makes sure the other employees suit up correctly. He tests them before they go in to work on the glove boxes, and he tests them before they go home.
    The work gets hot in more ways than one. Willie sweats beneath his uniform, especially when there’s been a spill and he has to stay on duty for hours without a break. Sometimes it takes two or three weeks to clean up just one spill. And it’s a never-ending story of cleaning one thing up and something else going wrong. A valve leaks, a glove box leaks, a pipe breaks.
    Willie works at Rocky Flats for almost a year before he begins to understand what is coming off the assembly line. When he does understand, he never speaks to his wife about it. Or his three kids. He never speaks to anyone about it. It’s important work. He wants to protect the secrets of