The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

'What sort is that? You expect they're issued a scarlet "A" for their shirts?'
'Very clever, Bob. So, what the hell are you asking me?'
'Do we run a story on this or not?'
The editor's eyes widened in surprise. 'Are you kidding? How can we not run a
story on this?'
'I just don't like being used.'
'We've been through that! I don't, either. Granted that it's obvious in this
case, but it's still an important story, and if we don't run it, then the Times
will. How soon will you have it ready?'
'Soon,' Holtzman promised. Now he knew why he'd declined a promotion to
Assistant Managing Editor. He didn't need the money, his book income absolved
him of the necessity of working at all. He liked being a journalist, still had
his idealism, still cared about what he did. It was a further blessing, he
thought, that he was absolved of the necessity of making executive decisions.
***
The new feed-water pump was everything the Master Shipwright had promised on the
installation side, Captain Dubinin noted. They'd practically had to dismantle a
whole compartment to get it in, plus torch a hole through the submarine's double
hull. He could still look up and see sky through what should have been a curved
steel overhead, something very unnerving indeed for a submarine officer. They
had to make sure that the pump worked satisfactorily before they welded shut the
'soft patch' through which it had arrived. It could have been worse. This
submarine had a steel hull. Those Soviet submarines made of titanium were the
devil to weld shut.
The pump/steam-generator room was immediately aft of the reactor compartment. In
fact the reactor vessel abutted the bulkhead on the forward side, and the pump
assembly on the after side. The pump circulated water in and out of the reactor.
The saturated steam went into the steam-generator, where it ran through an
interface. There its heat caused water in the 'outside' or nonradioactive loop
to flash to steam, which then turned the submarine turbine engines (in turn
driving the propeller through reduction gears). The 'inner loop' steam, with
most of its energy lost, then ran through a condenser that was cooled by
seawater from outside the hull, and was pumped as water back into the bottom of
the reactor vessel for reheating to continue the cycle. The steam-generator and
condenser were actually the same large structure, and the same multi-stage pump
handled all of the circulation. This one mechanical object was the acoustical
Achilles heel of all nuclear-powered ships. The pump had to exchange vast
quantities of water that was 'hot' both thermally and radioactively. Doing that
much mechanical work had always meant making a large amount of noise. Until now.
'It's an ingenious design,' Dubinin said.
'It should be. The Americans spent ten years perfecting it for their missile
submarines, then decided not to use it. The design team was crushed.'
The captain grunted. The new American reactor designs were able to use natural
convection-circulation. One more technical advantage. They were so damnably
clever. As both men waited, the reactor was powering up. Control rods were being
withdrawn, and free neutrons from the fuel elements were beginning to interact,
starting a controlled nuclear chain-reaction. At the control panel behind the