The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

crop in the area. Inside the structure was about a hundred square meters of
concrete-floored shade, even with room to park a few vehicles. The only bad news
was that this place would be a deathtrap in case of an earthquake, Ghosn told
himself, not an unknown occurrence in the region. He pulled the car in between
two posts, out of sight. On leaving the car, he dropped camouflage netting
behind it. Yes, Qati had chosen well.
The hardest balance, as always, was choosing between the two aspects of
security. On the one hand, the more people who knew that anything was happening,
the worse it was. On the other, some people were necessary just to provide a
guard force. Qati had brought most of his personal guard, ten men of known
loyalty and skill. They knew Ghosn and Bock by sight, and their leader came
forward to meet Manfred.
'This is our new friend,' Ghosn told the man, who looked closely at the German's
face and walked away.
'Was gibt's hier?' Fromm asked in tense German.
'What we have here,' Ghosn answered in English, 'is very interesting.'
Manfred took his lesson from that.
'Kommen Sie mit, bitte.' Ghosn led them to a wall with a door in it. A man with
a rifle stood outside of it, which made much better sense than a lock. The
engineer nodded to the guard, who nodded curtly back. Ghosn led them into the
room and pulled a cord to turn on the fluorescent lighting. There was a large
metal work table covered with a tarp. Ghosn removed the tarp without further
comment. He was tiring of the drama in any case. It was time for real work.
'Gott im Himmel!'
'I've never seen it myself,' Bock admitted. 'So that is what it looks like?'
Fromm put on some glasses and peered over the mechanism for perhaps a minute
before looking up. 'American design, but not American manufacture.' He pointed.
'Wrong sort of wiring. Crude device, thirty years – no, older than that, in
design, but not in fabrication. These circuit boards are . . . 1960s, perhaps
early '70s. Soviet? From the cache in Azerbaijan, perhaps?'
Ghosn merely shook his head.
'Israeli? Ist das möglich?' That question got a nod.
'More than possible, my friend. It is here.'
'Gravity bomb. Tritium injection into the pit to boost yield – 50 to 70
kilotons, I'd guess – radar and impact fusing. It has actually been dropped, but
did not go off. Why?'
'Apparently it was never armed. Everything we recovered is before you,' Ghosn
answered. He was already impressed with Manfred.
Fromm ran his fingers inside the bombcase, searching for connectors. 'You're
correct. How interesting.' There was a long pause. 'You know that it can
probably be repaired . . . and even . . .'
'Even what?' Ghosn asked, knowing the answer.
'This design can be converted into a triggering device.'
'For what?' Bock asked.
'For a hydrogen bomb,' Ghosn answered. 'I suspected that.'
'Awfully heavy, nothing like the efficiency of a modern design. As they say,
crude but effective . . ." Fromm looked up. 'You want my help to repair it,