The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

operators stood behind a shield and used lead-lined rubber gloves and yard-long
tongs to move the samples out of the lead bucket, then waited for the technician
to activate the machine.
'Okay – this is a hot one, all right.'
The machine had two displays, one on a cathode-ray tube, with a back-up paper
print-out. It measured the energy of the photo-electrons generated by the gamma
radiation within the instrument. The precise energy state of these electrons
identified both the element and the isotope of the source. These showed as lines
or spikes on the graphic display. The relative intensity of the various energy
lines – shown as the height of the spike – determined the proportions. A more
precise measurement would require insertion of the sample in a small reactor for
re-activation, but this system was good enough for the moment.
The technician flipped to the Beta Channel. 'Whoa, look at that tritium line!
What did you say the yield on this thing was?'
'Under fifteen.'
'Well, it had a shitload of tritium, doc, look at all that!' The technician – he
was a masters candidate – made a notation on his pad, and switched back to the
Gamma Channel. 'Okay, plutonium we've got some 239, 240; neptunium, americium,
gadolinium, curium, promethium, uranium some U235, some 238 . . . this was a
sophisticated beast, guys.'
'Fizzle,' one of the NESTers said, reading the numbers. 'We're looking at the
remains of a fizzle. This was not an IND. All that tritium . . . Christ, this
was supposed to be a two-stager, that's too much for a boosted fission weapon –
it's a fucking H-Bomb!'
The technician adjusted his dials to fine-tune the display. 'Look at the 239/240
mix.
'Get the book!'
Sitting on the shelf opposite the spectrometer was a three-inch binder of red
vinyl.
'Savannah River,' the technician said. 'They've always had that gadolinium
problem . . . Hanford does it another way. . . they always seem to generate too
much promethium . . .'
'Are you crazy?'
'Trust me,' the technician said. 'My thesis is on contamination problems at the
plutonium plants. Here's the numbers!' He read them off.
A NESTer flipped to the index, then back to a page. 'It's close! Close! Say the
gadolinium again!'
'Zero point zero five eight times ten to the minus seven, plus or minus point
zero zero two.'
'Holy Mary Mother of God!' The man turned the book around.
'Savannah River . . . That's not possible . . .'
'1968, it was a vintage year. It's our stuff. It's our fucking plutonium.'
The senior NESTer blinked his disbelief away. 'Okay, let me call D.C.'
'Can't,' the technician said as he refined his readings. 'The long-distance
lines are all down.'
'Where's Larry?'
'Aurora Presbyterian, working with the FBI guys. I put the number on a post-it