The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

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 thinking. As fast as the actions of the explosives
are, you must remember that we require only three shakes for the bomb to
complete the detonation process.'
'Three what?'
'Shakes.' Fromm allowed himself another of his rare smiles. 'You know what a
nanosecond is – that is one billionth of a second, ja? In that span of time, a
beam of light goes only thirty centimeters. The time it takes a beam of light to
go from here to here.' He held his hands out about a foot apart.
Qati nodded. Surely that was a very brief time indeed.
'Good. A "shake" is ten nanoseconds. The time for light to go three meters. The
term was invented by the Americans in the 1940s. They mean the time for a shake
of a lamb's tail – a technical joke, you see. In other words, three shakes, the
time needed for a beam of light to go approximately nine meters, the bomb has
begun and ended the detonation process. That is many thousands of times the time
required for chemical explosives to do anything.'
'I see,' Qati said, speaking both the truth and a lie. He left the room,
allowing Fromm to return to his ghastly reveries. Günther was waiting out in the
open air.
'Well?'
'I have the American side of the plan,' Bock announced. He opened up a map and
set it on the ground. 'We will place the bomb here.'
'What is this place?' Bock answered the question. 'How many?' the Commander
asked next.
'Over sixty thousand here. If the bomb's yield is as promised, the lethal radius
will encompass all of this. Total dead will number between one and two hundred
thousand.'
'That is all? For a nuclear bomb, that is all?'
'Ismael, this is merely a large explosive device.'
Qati closed his eyes and swore under his breath. Having only a minute before