b'C HAPTER O NEA V I A T O RC A V ESPeople had to be strong to walk, for they walked in great strides. They would dehydrate roots and fruits for winter storageand put them in caches up and down the valleys or across the mountains. That was done so we would be noticed as beingpoor and without food. People did not know at the time that my people had caches. After the fruits were dehydrated, then they would go up into the mountains, over the summits, and into the meat world.Emma DannM for unauthorized entry, lost hunters, or ty clearances, armed guards at entryanything else unusual. Fencing for the gates, secure radio channels, Keepike Atwood, the 894-square-mile Site had never been Out warning signs, and a need tochief pilot, and his co-pilot, a serg e a n t considered necessarydespite the know approach to information.with the Special Response Tea classified nature of much that went onm, boarded their Bell 222 helicopter at ther e.Security fences topped with barbedCentral Facilities Area (CFA) to begin wire did exist around several smalla routine perimeter sur- acreages within theveillance of the Site. T h e perimeter where thetwo were part of the business of the Site wasAirborne Security concentrated. OutsideProgram, a system that those fences, the landthe Department of was mostly open desert.Enr A few neighboringe gy had installed in1984 to beef up the secu- ranchers had privilegesrity of A m er i con the premises, enjoy-as spe-cial nuclear materials, a ing concessions madephrase referring to urani- during the early yearsum, plutonium, and a when the ranchers hadfew other elements. 1 persuaded the A t omciEnre gy CommissionIt was January 1985, (AEC) that there was nofour years before the col- INEEL 89-329-2-2good reason to keep cat-lapse of the Berlin Wall and the begin- The pilots and their helicopters were tle and sheep from grazing the landning of the end of the Cold Wa r. The components of a new special response during the few months of the year that proper name of the Site, also referred team trained in counter-terrorism. In the the climate permitted. 2to as the desert, was Idaho National wake of the killing of over 240 U.S.Engineering Laboratory (INEL). T h e Marines in Lebanon in October 1983, As the helicopter ascended, it hoveredpilots flew the perimeter several times this heightened level of protection now momentarily and then tilted eastwardeach dayand each night, equipped lay over more traditional security mea- into forward flight about five hundredwith night vision gogglesto check sures: passes, badges, personnel securi- feet above the desert floor. At this low2'