The sum of all fears - Tom Clancy [232]
"The three missing ones?"
"One is definitely in South America. The other two are merely missing. I am recommending that we launch a major operation to examine what's happening in Argentina."
"What about the Americans " Golovko mused.
"Nothing definite. I expect they're as much in the dark as we are." The colonel paused. "It is difficult to see how they would have an interest in wider proliferation of nuclear weapons. It's contrary to their government policy."
"Explain Israel, then."
"The Israelis obtained nuclear material from the Americans over twenty years ago, plutonium from their Savannah River plant, and enriched uranium from a depot in Pennsylvania. In both cases the transfers were apparently illegal. The Americans themselves launched an investigation. They believe that the Israeli Mossad pulled off one of the greatest operations in history, aided by Jewish American citizens in sensitive positions. There was no prosecution. What evidence they had came from sources that could not be revealed in court, and it was deemed politically inadvisable to reveal security leaks in so sensitive a government activity. Everything was handled quietly. The Americans and Europeans have been lax in selling nuclear technology to various countries - capitalism at work, there is a huge amount of money involved - but we made the same mistake with China and Germany, did we not? No," the colonel concluded. "I do not believe the Americans have any more interest in seeing German-made nuclear weapons than we do."
"Next step?"
"I don't know, General. We've run all our leads down as well as we can without risk of detection. I think we need to look at activity in South America. Next, some careful inquiries within the German military establishment to see if there is any indication of a nuclear program there."
"If there were, we'd have known by now." Golovko frowned. "Good Lord, did I really say that? What delivery systems are likely?"
"Aircraft. There is no need for ballistic launchers. From Eastern Germany to Moscow is not all that far. They know our air-defense capabilities, don't they? We left enough of our equipment behind."
"Pyotr, just how much more good news will you leave me this afternoon?"
The colonel smiled very grimly indeed. "Nu, and all those Western fools are rhapsodizing about how safe the world has become."
The sintering process for the tungsten-rhenium was simplicity itself. They used a radio-frequency furnace much like a microwave oven. The metallic powder was poured into a mold and slid into the furnace for heating. After it became dazzlingly white hot - unfortunately not hot enough actually to melt the tungsten, which had a very high thermal tolerance - pressure was applied, and the combination of heat and pressure formed it into a mass that while not quite metallically solid was firm enough to treat as such. A total of twelve curved sections were made one after the other. They required machining to modest tolerances of shape and smoothness, and were set aside on their own section of shelving installed in the fabrication plant.
The big milling machine was working on the final large beryllium component, a large metallic hyperboloid about fifty centimeters in length, with a maximum width of twenty. The eccentric shape made for difficult machining, even with computer-assisted tools, but that could not be helped.
"As you see, the initial neutron flux will be a simple spherical expansion from the Primary, but it will be trapped by the beryllium," Fromm explained to Qati. "These metallic elements actually reflect neutrons. They are gyrating about at approximately twenty percent of the speed of light, and we will leave them with only this exit into the core. Inside the hyperboloid will be this cylinder of tritium-enriched lithium deuteride."
"It happens so fast?" the Commander asked. "The explosives will be destroying everything."
"It requires a new way of