The sum of all fears - Tom Clancy [280]
"Yeah, Jack, if I ever find out, he's dogmeat."
Ryan had to laugh at that, but he knew he could afford to laugh. His little girl wasn't dating yet. That would be hard, watching her leave with someone else, beyond his protective reach. Harder still for a man like John Clark.
"Regular time tomorrow?"
"Yep."
"See ya' then, Doc."
Ryan walked into his house at eight fifty-five. His dinner was in its usual place. He poured his usual glass of wine, took a sip, then removed his coat and hung it in the closet before walking upstairs to change clothes. He caught Cathy going the other way and smiled at her. He didn't kiss her. He was just too tired. That was the problem. If he could only get time to relax. Clark was right, just a few days off to unwind. That's all he needed, Jack told himself as he changed.
Cathy opened the closet door to get some medical files she'd left in her own topcoat. She almost turned away when she noticed something. Not sure what it was, Cathy Ryan leaned in, puzzled, then caught it. Where was it? Her nose searched left and right in a way that might have appeared comical except for the look on her face when she found it. Jack's camel-hair coat, the expensive one she'd gotten for him last year.
It wasn't her perfume.
CHAPTER 26
Integration
The assembly had begun with the purchase of additional instruments. An entire day was spent attaching one heavy block of spent uranium to the inside of the far end of the case.
"This is tedious, I know," Fromm said, almost apologetically. "In America and elsewhere there are special jigs, specially designed tools, people assemble many individual weapons of the same design, all advantages that we do not have."
"And here everything must be just as exact, Commander." Ghosn added.
"My young friend is correct. The physics are the same for all of us."
"Then don't let us stop you," Qati said.
Fromm went immediately back to work. Part of him was already counting the money he'd receive, but most concerned itself with the job at hand. Only half of the machinists had actually worked on the bomb's physics package itself. The rest had been employed entirely with manufacturing other fittings, most of which could be called cradles. These would hold the bomb components in place, and were mainly made from stainless steel for strength and compactness. Each was set in place according to a precise sequence, as the bomb was more complex than most machines, and required assembly according to a rigid set of instructions. Here again the process was made simpler by the quality of the design and the precision of the machine tools. Even the machinists were amazed that the parts all fit, and they murmured among themselves that whatever Fromm might be - and on this subject their speculation had been wide-ranging and colorful - he was an inhumanly skilled designer. The hardest part was installing the various uranium blocks. Installation of the lighter and milder materials went much more smoothly.
"The procedure for the tritium transfer?" Ghosn asked.
"We'll leave that for last, of course," Fromm said, backing off from checking a measurement.
"Just heat the battery to release the gas, correct?"
"Yes," Fromm said with a nod. "But - no, no, not that way!"
"What did I do wrong?"
"This must twist in," Fromm told the machinist. He stepped forward to demonstrate. "Like that, do you see?"
"Yes, thank you."
"The elliptical reflectors hang on these -"
"Yes, thank you, I know."
"Very good."
Fromm waved to Ghosn. "Come over here. You see how this works now?" Fromm pointed to two series of elliptical surfaces which nested together one after the other - there was a total of nineteen - each made of a different material. The energy off the Primary impacts of these surfaces, destroying each in its turn, but in the process "
"Yes, it is always more clear to see the physical model than to extract it from a sheet of figures." This portion of the weapon derived its utility from the fact that light waves had no mass but did carry momentum.