The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

nickel-cadmium, and all, he saw, fully charged, according to the test circuit.
The timing device was next to the batteries. Making sure that its firing
terminals were vacant, he checked its time – it was already set on local –
against his watch, and saw that either one or the other (probably his watch) was
a total of three seconds off. That was close enough for his purposes. Three
glasses placed inside the box to illustrate any rough handling in transit were
still intact. The shippers had taken their care, as he had hoped.
'You are ready, my friend,' Ghosn said quietly. He closed the inspection door,
made sure it was properly latched, then replaced the cardboard cover. Ghosn blew
warm breath on his hands, then walked back to the house.
'How will the weather affect us?' Qati asked Russell.
'There's another storm behind this one. I figure we'll drive down tomorrow
evening, right before it starts. The second one will be short, maybe another
inch or two, they say. If we go in between the two, the road should be all
right. Then we check into the motel, and wait for the right time, right?'
'Correct. And the truck?'
'I'll do the painting today, soon as I have the heaters rigged. That's only two
hours work. I have the templates all done,' Russell said as he finished his
coffee. 'Load the bomb after I paint, okay?'
'How long for the paint to dry" Ghosn asked.
'Three hours, tops. I want the paint job to be good, okay?'
'That is fine, Marvin.'
Russell laughed as he collected the breakfast dishes. 'Man, I wonder what the
people who made that movie would think?' He turned to see puzzlement on the
faces of his guests.
'Didn't Gunther tell you?' The faces were blank. 'I saw the movie on television
once. Black Sunday. A guy came up with an idea of killing the whole Superbowl
crowd from a blimp.'
'You're joking,' Qati observed.
'No, in the movie they had a big anti-personnel thing on the bottom of the
blimp, but the Israelis found out what was going on, and their CIA guys got
there in the nick of time – you know, how it usually happens in the movies. With
my people, it was always the cavalry that got there in the nick of time, so's
they could kill all the savage Indians.'
'In this movie, the objective was to kill the entire stadium?' Ghosn asked, very
quietly.
'Huh – oh, yeah, that's right.' Russell was loading the dishes into the
dishwasher. 'Not like we're doing.' He turned. 'Hey, don't feel bad. Just taking
out the TV coverage is going to piss people off like you wouldn't believe. And
this stadium is covered, okay? That blimp-thing wouldn't work. You'd need like a
nuke or something to do the same thing.'
'There's an idea,' Ghosn observed with a chuckle, wondering what reaction he'd
get.
'Some idea. Yeah, you might start a real nuclear war – shit, man, guess whose
people lives up in the Dakotas, where all those SAC bases are? I don't think I
could play that kind of a game.' Russell dumped in the detergent and started the
wash cycle. 'What exactly do you have in that thing anyway?'