"Oh, the total will be less than twenty grams," Fromm estimated. "It's nothing to worry about." Fromm looked at another gauge, the one that measured relative pressures. The machine tool was totally isolated from the rest of the room, with the pressure inside its enclosure marginally less than outside. The fact that argon gas was heavier than air would keep oxygen away from the plutonium. That prevented possible combustion. Combustion would generate plutonium dust, which was every bit as lethal as Fromm had told them. A toxic heavy metal, the additional hazard of radioactivity-mainly low-energy alphas-merely made death more rapid and marginally less pleasant. The machinists moved in to take over supervision of the process. They had worked out extremely well, Fromm thought. The skills they'd brought with them had grown with remarkable speed under his tutelage. They were nearly as good as the men he'd trained in Germany, despite their lack of formal education. There was much to be said for practical instead of theoretical work.

"How long?" Qati asked.

"How many times do I have to tell you? We are precisely on schedule. This phase of the project is the most time-consuming. The product we are now producing must be perfect. Absolutely perfect. If this part of the device fails to function, nothing else will."

"That's true of everything we've done!" Ghosn pointed out.

"Correct, my young friend, but this is the easiest thing to get wrong. The metal is hard to work, and the metallic phase transformations make it all the more delicate. Now, let's see those explosive blocks."

Ghosn was right. Everything had to work. The explosives had been almost entirely his problem after Fromm had set the design specifications. They'd taken normal TNT and added a stiffener, a plastic that made the material quite rigid, but without affecting its chemical properties. Normally explosives are plastic and easily malleable by their nature. That property had to be eliminated, since the shape of the blocks was crucial to the way in which their explosive energy was delivered. Ghosn had shaped six hundred such blocks, each a segment of a full ellipsoid. Seventy of them would nest together exactly, forming an explosive ring with an outside diameter of 35 centimeters. Each block had a squib fired from kryton switches. The wires leading from the power supply to the switches all had to be of exactly the same length. Fromm lifted one of the blocks.

"You say that these are all identical?" Fromm asked.

"Completely. I followed your directions exactly."

"Pick seventy at random. I'll take one of the stainless-steel blanks, and we will test your work."

The spot was already prepared, of course. It was, in fact, the eroded crater from an American-made Mark 84 bomb dropped by an Israeli F-4 Phantom some years before. Qati's men had erected a prefabricated structure of timber posts and beams whose roof was three layers of sandbags. Camouflage netting had been added to reduce the chance of notice. Test a.s.sembly took three hours, and an electronic strain-gauge was inserted in the steel blank and a wire run to the next crater down-two hundred meters away-where Fromm waited with an oscilloscope. They were finished just before dusk.

"Ready," Ghosn said.

"Proceed," Fromm replied, concentrating on his scope.

Ibrahim pressed the b.u.t.ton. The structure disintegrated before their eyes. A few sandbags survived, flying through the air, but mainly there was a shower of dirt. On the 0-scope, the peak pressure was frozen in place well before the crump crump of the blast wave pa.s.sed over their heads. Bock and Qati were somewhat disappointed in the physical effects of the explosion, most of which had been attenuated by the sandbags. Was such a small detonation enough to ignite a nuclear device? of the blast wave pa.s.sed over their heads. Bock and Qati were somewhat disappointed in the physical effects of the explosion, most of which had been attenuated by the sandbags. Was such a small detonation enough to ignite a nuclear device?

"Well?" Ghosn asked as a man ran off to the newly deepened crater.

"Ten percent off," Fromm said, looking up. Then he smiled. "Ten percent too much."

"What does that mean?" Qati demanded, suddenly worried that they'd done something wrong.

"It means that my young student has learned his lessons well." Fifteen minutes later, they were sure. It took two men to find it, and half an hour to remove the tungsten casing from the core. What had been a nearly solid steel ma.s.s as big around as a man's fist was now a distorted cylinder no wider than a cigar. Had it been plutonium, a nuclear reaction would have taken place. Of that the German was sure. Fromm hefted it in his hand and presented it to Ibrahim.

"Herr Ghosn," he said formally. "You have a gift with explosives. You are a fine engineer. In the DDR it took us three attempts to get it right. You have done it in one."

"How many more?"

Fromm nodded. "Very good. We shall do another tomorrow. We will test all the stainless-steel blanks, of course."

"That is why we made them," Ghosn agreed.

On the way back, Bock ran over his own calculations. According to Fromm, the force of the final explosion would be more than four hundred fifty thousand tons of TNT. He therefore based his estimates on a mere four hundred thousand. Bock was always conservative on casualty estimates. The stadium and all in it would be vaporized. No, he corrected himself. That wasn't really true. There was nothing magical about this weapon. It was merely a large explosive device. The stadium and all in it would be totally destroyed, but there would be a great deal of rubble flung ballistically hundreds, perhaps thousands of meters. The ground nearest the device would be pulverized down to pieces of molecular size. Dust particles would then be sucked up into the fireball. Bits of the bomb-a.s.sembly residue would affix themselves to the rising, boiling dust. That's what fallout was, he'd learned, dirt with bomb residue attached. The nature of the blast-being set off at ground level-would maximize the fallout, which would be borne downwind. The majority would fall within thirty kilometers of the blast site. The remainder would be a plaything of the winds, to fall over Chicago or St. Louis or maybe even Washington. How many would die from that?

Good question. He estimated roughly two hundred thousand from the blast itself, certainly no more than that. Another fifty to one hundred thousand from secondary effects, that number including long-term deaths from cancers which would take years to manifest themselves. As Qati had noted earlier, the actual death count was somewhat disappointing. It was so easy to think of nuclear bombs as magical engines of destruction, but they were not. They were merely highly powerful bombs with some interesting secondary effects. It also made for the finest terrorist weapon yet conceived.

Terrorist? Bock asked himself. Bock asked himself. Is that what I am? Is that what I am?

It was, of course, in the eye of the beholder. Bock had long since decided his measure of respect for the judgment of others. This event would be the best expression of it.

"John, I need an idea," Ryan said.

"What's that?" Clark asked.

"I've drawn a blank. The j.a.panese Prime Minister is going to be in Mexico in February, then he's flying up here to see the President. We want to know what he's going to be saying on his airplane."

"I don't have the legs to dress up as a stew, doc. Besides, I've never learned to do the tea ceremony, either." The field officer turned SPO paused and turned serious. "Bug an airplane ... ? That sounds like a real technical challenge."

"What do you know about this?"

John examined his coffee. "I've placed intelligence-gathering devices before, but always on the ground. With an aircraft you have lots of ambient noise to worry about. You also have to sweat where your subject intends to sit. Finally, with a presidential aircraft you need to worry about security. The technical side is probably the hardest," he decided. "The greatest personal threat to the guy is probably at home-unless he's going to stopover at Detroit, right? Mexico City. Okay, people speak Spanish there, and my Spanish is pretty good. I'd take Ding down with me, of course.... What sort of aircraft will he be using?"

"I checked. He'll be flying a JAL 747. The upper deck behind the c.o.c.kpit is laid out as his conference room. They put in beds, too. That's where he'll be. Their PM likes to kibbitz with the drivers. He's pretty smart about traveling, sleeps as much as he can to handle the jet lag."

Clark nodded. "People have to wipe the windows. Not like he's got an air force base to handle all the ground-service requirements like we do it. If JAL flies into there regularly, they'll have Mexican ground crews. I'll check out data on the 747.... Like I said, that's the easy part. I can probably talk my way there. Might even get Ding to head down with a good set of papers and get a job. That would make it easier. I presume this has executive approval?"

"The President said 'find a way.' He'll have to approve the final op-plan."

"I need to talk to the S&T guys." Clark referred to the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology. "The real problem is noise.... How fast, doc?"

"Fast, John."

"Okay." Clark rose. "Gee, I get to be a field-spook again. I'll be over in the new building. It may take me a few days to figure if it's possible or not. This mean I can't go on the U.K. trip?"

"Bother you?" Jack asked.

"Nope. Just as soon stay home."

"Fair enough. I get to do some Christmas shopping at Hamleys."

"You know how lucky you are to have 'em little? All my girls want now is clothes, and I can't pick girl clothes worth a d.a.m.n." Clark lived in horror of buying women's clothing.

"Sally has her doubts now, but little Jack still believes."

Clark shook his head. "After you stop believing in Santa Claus, the whole world just goes downhill."

"Ain't it the truth?"

23.

OPINIONS.

"Jack, you look b.l.o.o.d.y awful," Sir Basil Charleston observed.

"If one more person tells me that, I'm going to waste him."

"Bad flight?"

"b.u.mpy as h.e.l.l all the way across. Didn't sleep much." As the even-darker-than-usual circles under his eyes proclaimed.

"Well, we'll see if lunch helps."

"It is a pretty day," Ryan noted as they walked up Westminster Bridge Road toward Parliament. It was a rare early-winter English day with a blue, cloudless sky. A brisk wind swept down the Thames, but Ryan didn't mind. He had a heavy coat and a scarf around his neck, and the frigid blast on his face woke him up. "Trouble at the office, Bas?"

"Found a bug, a b.l.o.o.d.y bug, two floors down from my office! The whole building's being swept."

"Things are tough all over. KGB?"

"Not sure," Charleston said as they crossed the bridge. "Trouble with the facade, you see, b.l.o.o.d.y thing began crumbling-same as happened to Scotland Yard a few years ago. The workers replacing it found an unexplained wire and followed it.... Our Russian friends have not cut back on their activities, and there are other services as well. See anything like that in your shop?"

"No. It helps that we're more isolated than Century House." Jack meant that the British Secret Intelligence Service was in so densely populated an area-there was a nearby apartment block, for example-that a very low-power bug could get data out. That was less likely at the Agency's Langley headquarters, which sat alone on a large wooded campus. In addition to that, the newer construction had allowed installation of elaborate protections against internal radio sources. "You should do what we've done and install wave guides."

"That would cost a b.l.o.o.d.y fortune, which we do not have at the moment."

"What the h.e.l.l, it gives us a chance to take a walk. If anyone can bug us out here, we've already lost."

"It never ends, does it? We win the Cold War, but it never ever ends."

"Which Greek was it? The one whose personal h.e.l.l was rolling a big rock up a hill, and every time he got it there the son of a b.i.t.c.h rolled down the other side."

"Sisyphus ... ? Tantalus, perhaps? Long time since I bade farewell to Oxford, Sir John. In either case, you're right. Get to the top of one hill and all you see is another d.a.m.ned hill." They continued walking down the embankment, away from Parliament, but toward lunch. Meetings like this one had rules. You couldn't get down to business until after the small talk and a pregnant pause. In this case, there were some off-season American tourists snapping pictures. Charleston and Ryan walked around to avoid them.

"We have a problem, Bas."

"What's that?" Charleston said without turning. Behind them were three security officers. Two more preceded them.

Jack didn't turn either. "We have a guy inside the Kremlin. Spends some time with Narmonov. Says Andrey Il'ych is worried about a military/KGB coup. Says that they might renege on the strategic-arms treaty. Also says that some tactical nuclear devices may be missing from their inventories in Germany."

"Indeed? That's cheery news. How good is your source?"

"Extremely good."

"Well, I can only say it's news to me, Dr. Ryan."

"How good is your guy?" Jack asked.

"Quite good."

"Nothing like this?"

"Some rumbles, of course. I mean, Narmonov does have a full plate, doesn't he? Ever since that dreadful affair with the Baits, and the Georgians, and and his Muslims. What is it you Yanks say, 'one-armed paperhanger'? He's that busy and more. He's had to make a deal with his security forces, but a his Muslims. What is it you Yanks say, 'one-armed paperhanger'? He's that busy and more. He's had to make a deal with his security forces, but a coup d'etat?" coup d'etat?" Charleston shood his head. "No. The tea leaves don't appear that way to us." Charleston shood his head. "No. The tea leaves don't appear that way to us."

"That's precisely what our agent is telling us. What about the nuclear thing?"

"I'm afraid our chap isn't well-placed for that sort of information. More the civilian side, you see." And that, Jack knew, was as far as Basil would go. "How seriously are you taking this?"

"Very seriously. I have to. This agent has been giving us good stuff for a lot of years."

"One of Mrs. Foley's recruits?" Charleston asked with a chuckle. "What a marvelous young lady. I understand she recently delivered another child?"

"Little girl, Emily Sarah, looks just like her mom." Jack thought he'd dodged the first question rather adroitly. "Mary Pat will be back at work right after New Year."

"Ah, yes, you do have that fortress nursery on your grounds, don't you?"

"One of the smartest investments we ever made. Wish I'd thought of it."

"You Americans!" Sir Basil laughed. "Missing nuclear weapons. Yes, I suppose one must take that very seriously indeed. Possible collusion between the Army and KGB and a tactical-nuclear trump. Quite frightening, I must say, but we have not heard a whisper. Rather a difficult secret to keep, wouldn't you say? I mean, blackmail doesn't work terribly well unless people know they're being blackmailed."

"We've also caught a rumble that KGB is running some nuclear-oriented operation in Germany. That's all, just a rumble."

"Yes, we've heard that too," Charleston said as they turned to walk down the brow to the Tattersall Castle, Tattersall Castle, an old paddle steamer long since converted to a restaurant. an old paddle steamer long since converted to a restaurant.

"And?"

"And we've run our own op. It seems that Erich Honecker had his own little Manhattan Project under way. Fortunately it died in the womb. Ivan was quite upset to learn of it. The DDR returned a goodly supply of plutonium to their former socialist colleagues just before the change. I speculate that KGB is investigating the same thing."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Jesus, Bas, Jesus, Bas, Jack thought. Jack thought. You guys just don't forget, do you? You guys just don't forget, do you?

"Nothing to tell, Jack." Charleston nodded at the headwaiter, who took them to a table well aft. The security officers situated themselves between their charges and the rest of luncheoning humanity. "Our German friends have been very forthcoming. The project, they say, has been quashed, completely and for all time. We've had our technical people over everything, and they confirmed everything our German colleagues told us."

"When was this?"

"Several months ago. Ever eat here, Jack?" Charleston asked as the waiter appeared.

"Not this one, a few of the other ferryboats." Basil ordered a pint of bitter. Jack decided on a lager. They watched the waiter withdraw. "The KGB op is more recent."

"Interesting. Could be the same thing, you know, could be that they had the same interests we had and were just a little slower to move."

"On nukes?" Ryan shook his head. "Our Russian friends are pretty smart, Bas, and they pay much closer attention to nuclear issues than we do. It's one of the things I admire about them."

"Yes, they did learn their lesson from China, didn't they?" Charleston set his menu down and waved for the waiter to bring the drinks. "You think this is a serious matter, then?"

"Sure do."

"Your judgment is generally rather good, Jack. Thank you," Basil told the waiter. Both men made their orders. "You think we should poke about?"

"I think that might be a good idea."

"Very well. What else can you tell me?"