The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

then the best of them can design nuclear weapons, given the necessary materials
– and our reactor design gave them the ability to generate the proper materials.
I think it is something you need to look into – to see what they did, and what
they have. In any case, that is my advice.'
'I have some very good people in Directorate T of the First Chief Directorate,'
Golovko said. 'After we digest this information, some of them will come to speak
with you.' Sarova was only a few hours away by train.
'Yes, I've met with some of your technology analysts. A few of them are very
good indeed. I hope you still have good contacts in Germany.'
Golovko didn't answer that. He had many contacts still in Germany, but how many
of them had been doubled? He'd recently done a reliability assessment of former
penetration agents in the Stasi, and concluded that none could be trusted – more
properly, that those who could be trusted were no longer in positions of any
use, and even those . . . He decided on the spot to make this an all-Russian
operation.
'If they have the materials, how soon might they fabricate weapons?'
'Given their level of technical expertise, and the fact that they've had access
to American systems under NATO, there is no reason whatever why they could not
have home-made weapons already in their inventory. They would not be crude
weapons, either. In their position, and given the special nuclear materials, I
could easily have produced two-stage weapons within months of unification. More
sophisticated three-stage weapons . . . maybe another year.'
'Where would you do it?'
'In East Germany, of course. Better security. Exactly where?'The man thought for
a minute. 'Look for a place with extremely precise machine tools, the sort
associated with high-precision optical instruments. The X-ray telescope we just
orbited was a direct spin-off of H-Bomb research. Management of X-rays, you see,
is very important in a multi-stage weapon. We learned much of American bomb
technology from open-source papers on focusing X-rays for astrophysical
observations. As I said, it's physics. It cannot be hidden, only discovered;
once discovered, it is open for all who have the intelligence and the desire to
make use of it.'
'That is so wonderfully reassuring,' Golovko observed crossly. But who could he
be angry with – this man for speaking the truth, or nature for being so easy to
discover? 'Excuse me, Professor. Thank you very much indeed for taking the time
to bring this to our attention.'
'My father is a mathematics teacher. He has lived his entire life in Kiev. He
remembers the Germans.'
Golovko saw the man out the door, then walked back to stare out the window.
Why did we ever let them unify? he asked himself. Do they still want land?
Lebensraum? Do they still want to be the dominant European power? Or are you
being paranoid, Sergey? He was paid to be paranoid, of course. Golovko sat down
and lifted his phone.
***
'It is a small thing, and if it is necessary nothing more needs to be said,'
Keitel replied to the question.
'And the men?'