The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

'My God! They were willing to – '
'Yeah, and it almost worked,' Ryan said huskily. 'Clever, weren't they?'
'I'll tell him.'
'I have to report this, Arnie. I have to tell the Vice President.'
'I understand.'
'One more thing.'
'What's that?'
The request he made was approved, largely because no one had a better idea.
After the two terrorists had had their hands treated, they were bedded down
separately in FBI holding cells.
'What do you think, Dan?'
'It's – Christ, Jack, where are the words for something like this?'
'The man's got cancer,' Clark said. 'He figures that if he has to die – why not
a bunch of others? Dedicated son-of-a-bitch, isn't he?'
'What are you going to do?' Murray asked.
'We don't have a federal death-penalty statute, do we?'
'No, neither does Colorado as a matter of fact.' Murray took a moment to
understand where Ryan was heading. 'Oh.'
***
Golovko had considerable trouble tracking Ryan down with his phone call. The
report on his desk from Dr Moiseyev, sitting there amid all the other things,
had dumbfounded him, but on learning Jack's plans, it was easy to set the
rendezvous.
***
Perhaps the only good news of the week was the rescue. The Admiral Lunin pulled
into Kodiak harbor at dawn, Alongside the pier, she offloaded her guests. Of the
Maine's crew of one hundred fifty-seven, perhaps a hundred had gotten off before
the submarine was claimed by the sea. Dubinin and his crew had rescued
eighty-one of them, and recovered eleven bodies, one of which was Captain Harry
Ricks. Professionals regarded it as an incredible feat of seamanship, though the
news media failed to cover the story until the Soviet submarine had put back to
sea. Among the first to call home was Ensign Ken Shaw.
***
Joining them on the trip out of Andrews was Dr Woodrow Lowell of the
Lawrence-Livermore Laboratory, a bearded, bearish man, known to his friends as
Red because of his hair. He'd spent six hours in Denver reviewing the damage
patterns.
'I have a question,' Jack said to him. 'How was it the yield estimates were so
far off? That almost made us think the Russians did it.'
'It was a parking lot,' Lowell replied. 'It was made of macadam, a mixture of
gravel and asphalt. The energy from the bomb liberated various complex
hydrocarbons from the upper layer of the pavement and ignited it – like a great
big fuel-air explosive bomb. The water vapor there – from the snow that flashed
away – caused another reaction that released more energy. What resulted was a
flame-front double the diameter of the nuclear fireball. Add to that the fact
that snow cover reflected a lot of the energy, and you got a huge augmentation
of the apparent energy released. It would have fooled anybody. Then afterwards,