The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

thirty-six hours. 'I refuse to be surprised by that, and I won't ask how you
pulled that one out of the hat.'
'But?'
'But I wish somebody would leak it to the press or something!' Ryan allowed
himself a laugh.
'I'm afraid we don't do that here. I've only leaked it to one person.'
'PM?'
'His Royal Highness. You're having dinner with him tonight, correct? I reckoned
he might like to know.'
Jack thought about that. The Prince of Wales wouldn't let it go any farther.
Ryan could never have told him . . . but . . . 'Thanks, pal.'
'We all crave recognition in one way or another. You and I are both denied it as
a matter of course. Not really fair, but there you are. In this case I broke one
of my own rules, and if you ask why, I'll tell you: what you did was bloody
marvelous, Jack. If there were justice in the world, Her Majesty would enter you
in the Order of Merit.'
'You can't tell her, Basil. She just might do it all on her own.'
'She might indeed, and that would let out the little secret, mightn't it?'
Dinner arrived, and they had to wait again.
'It wasn't just me. You know that, Charlie Alden did a lot of good work. So did
Talbot, Bunker, Scott Adler, a bunch of others.'
'Your modesty is as comprehensive as ever, Dr Ryan.'
'Does that mean "stupid," Bas?' Ryan got a smile instead of an answer. The Brits
were good at that.
***
Fromm would never have believed it. They'd made five stainless-steel blanks to
duplicate the size and configuration of the plutonium. Ghosn had made all the
necessary explosive blocks. They'd tested the explosives on all five blanks, and
in every case the explosives had done their job. This was one very talented
young man. Of course he'd had exact plans to follow, and Fromm had generated
them with the help of a fine computer, but even so, getting something so
difficult right the first time was hardly the norm in engineering.
The plutonium was now through the first part of the machining process. It
actually looked rather good, like a high-quality steel forging machined to be
part of an automotive engine. That was a good beginning. The robot arm of the
milling machine removed the plutonium from its spindle and set it in an enclosed
box. The box was, of course, filled with argon gas. The arm sealed it and moved
it to a door, then Fromm removed it from the machine enclosure and walked over
to the air-bearing lathe. The process was reverse-duplicated. He slid the box
into the enclosure. Vacuum pumps were activated and while the air was sucked out
the top of the enclosure, argon gas was added at the bottom. When the internal
atmosphere was totally inert, the robot arm of this tool opened the box, and
extracted the plutonium. The next programmed set of movements set it precisely
on a new spindle. The degree of precision was hugely important. Under Fromm's
supervision, the spindle was activated, building its speed up slowly to fifteen
thousand RPM.
'It would appear that – no!' Fromm swore. He'd thought he'd gotten it perfect.