Overkill pr-1

by James Barrington

  Richter turned in through the open double doors, walked across to a glass-fronted booth labelled ‘Porter’, but found it deserted. On the wall beside the staircase was a list of the building’s inhabitants, and Richter scanned rapidly down it until he found ‘Professor Hillsworth’ listed as having a laboratory on the third floor. The building consisted of a central stairwell, with a long corridor of rooms on each side of the stairs. On the third floor Richter flipped a mental coin and chose the left-hand corridor. It would have been quicker if he’d gone right, but he finally found the door he was looking for by dint of looking at about twenty others that didn’t have ‘Professor Hillsworth’ written on them. Richter knocked, heard a muffled call from inside, and entered.

  Richter didn’t know quite what he had been anticipating, but both the room and the man were unexpected. The room because it looked nothing like any laboratory Richter had ever been in. No test tubes, no retorts, no Bunsen burners, not even a slide rule or a calculator. After a moment, Richter realized that he shouldn’t have been surprised; theoretical physics, and particularly theoretical nuclear physics, could only find a very limited use for such mundane equipment. Nuclear reactions in the laboratory are not phenomena to be encouraged.

  The room was oblong, one wall consisting almost entirely of large windows, giving the place a light and airy look. Underneath the windows was a built-in table, covered in books, pieces of paper and writing implements of various sorts, and a small photocopier. At one end of the table was a sink and, adjacent to it, a kettle, mugs, instant coffee and a bag of sugar. A milk carton and a box of teabags completed the set.

  The chairs at the long table appeared starkly uncomfortable in contrast to the armchairs which comprised the furniture for the rest of the room. At the far end was a partly screened area, in which Richter could see three computer keyboards and monitors, plus a new high-tech wipe board and rather more traditional blackboard. On the walls were three framed photographs, two of elderly and no doubt distinguished scientific gentlemen, and the third showing the typical mushroom cloud of an atomic weapon detonation.

  The professor had been sitting in one of the armchairs, a drink in his hand and looking at a copy of Penthouse. He stood up as Richter walked in.

  ‘Professor Hillsworth?’

  ‘The same. You must be Mr Richter, from the Ministry of Defence.’ Hillsworth was a short, tubby man, with jet black hair parted on the right-hand side and prominent laughter lines on his face. He looked more like a stand-up comic from a working man’s club than a professor of anything, let alone theoretical nuclear physics. He was casually dressed in a tweed jacket and grey slacks, light blue shirt with dark blue stripes and a dark blue tie bearing a motif which appeared to be a small, but accurately drawn, pig with wings. He waved Richter to a chair. ‘First things first. How do you like your tea?’

  ‘Coffee, if possible. White, no sugar,’ Richter told him, and Hillsworth busied himself with the kettle, cups and a packet of shortcake biscuits for a couple of minutes.

  ‘Now,’ he said, when Richter had tasted the drink and declared it to be to his liking, ‘what can I tell you?’

  ‘What were you told on the telephone, Professor?’

  ‘Only that a Mr Richter from the Ministry of Defence would be along this afternoon, and that it would be appreciated if I could make myself available. That I have done.’

  ‘Fine,’ Richter said, and launched into the rather pompous spiel which Simpson had provided in the pink folder inside his briefcase. ‘If I may, I’ll just sketch out the background for you first. The Ministry of Defence, as you are no doubt aware, keeps a watching brief on numerous topics not directly connected with defence. We’ve recently received information which suggests certain developments have been taking place in the field of nuclear research which could have a pronounced effect on our defensive capability. I’ll return to that topic a little later, if I may. First of all, I would be grateful if you could establish the ground rules, as it were, by giving me a brief run-down on the way an atomic weapon works.’

  ‘Certainly, Mr Richter. Before I start, could you please show me your identification, just in case I trespass into classified areas.’

  One point for the professor. Richter pulled out his wallet and selected a card which he passed over to Hillsworth. He looked at it carefully, confirmed Richter’s likeness to the photograph, and then handed it back. ‘Where did your scientific education stop?’

  ‘At school,’ Richter replied. ‘GCE – Ordinary Level Physics. I passed,’ he added.

  ‘Well, I suppose that’s something,’ Hillsworth said, doubtfully. He settled back into his chair, drew out a long curved pipe from his pocket, and began filling it from a leather pouch. ‘Let me,’ he said, ‘begin at the beginning.’

  Kutuzovskij prospekt, Moscow

  Genady Arkenko replaced the telephone receiver carefully, and walked over to the table. He was becoming very concerned. Despite all of Dmitri’s assurances, Podstava kept on changing. The last message he’d received meant that the planned arrival date of the Anton Kirov in Gibraltar had been advanced yet again. Even more worrying was the fact that he hadn’t seen Dmitri – hadn’t even spoken to him on the telephone, apart from repeating the messages – since Monday. Arkenko hoped, desperately, that Dmitri was all right.

  The apartment, once so comfortable and secure – a meeting place where the two men could lie together in a familiar embrace – was feeling more and more to Arkenko like a prison. A comfortable prison, but a prison nevertheless.

  With a sigh, he reached for his notepad and began to prepare the radio message.

  Cambridge

  The professor was well established into his lecture. ‘Matter, of course, can neither be created nor destroyed. What can happen is that matter can be converted into other sorts of matter, or into energy, as matter and energy can be considered to be different forms of the same thing. This conversion is what happens when you burn coal on a fire, for example. The energy released when the coal is burnt is the energy stored in the various sorts of chemical bonds holding together the molecules which constitute coal. That’s a simplification, of course, but it’s accurate enough for the purposes of this discussion.

  ‘As well as the release of energy, the products of the combustion process are radically different from the original components of the coal or whatever the fuel is. Carbon compounds will burn to produce carbon monoxide and dioxide, nitrogen compounds to give various nitrous and nitrogen gases, and so on. But the point is that if you have carbon in the original material, you will have exactly the same amount of carbon in the combustion products. OK?’

  Richter nodded, and wondered how long it would be before he started dozing off. ‘Now, in a nuclear reaction, that statement is no longer true. The elements which are present on the left side of the equation are not the same as those on the right. Matter is actually changed from one element to another, just as the old alchemists were trying to do in their search for the Philosopher’s Stone centuries ago. Our sun is a vast nuclear furnace, meshing atoms of hydrogen together to create helium. The same thing happens in the detonation of a nuclear weapon. One element is turned into another, with the release of enormous amounts of energy. And it’s the energy release which marks the practical difference between conventional explosives and nuclear weapons. A suitcase of dynamite could flatten a building. A suitcase of uranium would flatten a city.

  ‘This fundamental difference between the two types of explosion is because in a conventional explosive, the energy released is that which binds molecules together, whereas in a nuclear blast it’s the forces which hold the very atoms themselves together which are ruptured. The stronger the bond which is broken, the greater the energy released, and the atomic bonds are very, very strong.’ Hillsworth got up and walked over to the wipe board. ‘The actual value of the energy released is given by the mass-energy equation, with which I’ve no doubt you’re familiar.’ He wrote ‘E = mc2’ on the wipe board with a red magic marker
, and looked at Richter, who nodded and tried to look intelligent.

  ‘“E” is the energy released; “m” is the mass of the material used, and “c” is the numerical value of the speed of light, which is then squared. There’s no need to bother about the units involved; suffice it to say that the value of “c” squared is very high, which is why “E” is so vast.’

  Hillsworth resumed his seat. ‘Now, to build a nuclear weapon, you must first of all find some suitable material. It must be fissionable, which means it must be able to be readily converted into other elements, with the consequent release of energy, which in practice means that it must be one of the very heavy radioactive materials, like uranium or plutonium. Radioactive materials, as the name suggests, emit sub-atomic particles and certain types of radiation and some, like the isotope uranium 235, have what is called a critical mass. To put that in simple terms, if you simply assemble more than a certain amount of uranium 235 in one place, it will go critical and a nuclear explosion will result. That, in a nutshell, is the theory of the atomic bomb. Simply find yourself enough uranium, smash it all together at the desired time and place, and wait for the bang.

  ‘The mechanics, of course, are much more complicated, which is probably just as well. The normal detonation methods utilize shaped charges, amongst other things, which enable a bomb to be produced using substantially less fissionable material than in the early days. The bombs I’ve mentioned so far are fission bombs, where a heavy element is broken down into two or more lighter elements. The hydrogen bomb, on the other hand, combines hydrogen atoms to produce heavier elements, in exactly the same way as the sun functions. Do you want me to go into that as well?’

  ‘Thank you, Professor. I would appreciate it.’ Richter had learnt nothing new, and nor did he expect to at that stage of the discussion, but one of the first rules of friendly interrogation – that is, interrogation of a non-hostile subject – is to ask so many questions that it is difficult for the person being questioned to discern what you are really trying to find out. As far as Richter was concerned, the more Hillsworth said the better, and he seemed to be settling nicely into his lecture routine.

  ‘Right,’ Hillsworth said. ‘A hydrogen bomb uses a fission trigger wrapped in hydrogenized material to initiate a fusion reaction.’ He paused as the sound of muffled ringing became audible.

  Richter muttered an apology and retrieved his cellular phone from his jacket pocket. ‘Richter,’ he said.

  ‘This is the Delivery Section,’ the voice at Hammersmith said. ‘We’ve just received a category-four delivery for our main customer.’

  On an open line – even for a call routed to a GSM digital cell phone, which was effectively scrambled by the transmitting cell – the proprieties had to be observed. ‘Main customer’ was America, and a ‘category-four delivery’ was code for DEFCON – DEFence CONdition – FOUR.

  There are five stages in the DEFCON process. The normal peacetime state is DEFCON FIVE; DEFCON ONE means that the American armed forces are in a state of maximum preparedness for combat, or are actually at war. DEFCON FOUR kicks the American military machine into a significantly higher state of readiness, and is the inevitable precursor to any outbreak of hostilities.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Richter replied. ‘When?’

  ‘About twenty minutes ago.’

  ‘What action?’

  ‘Back here as soon as you’ve finished where you are.’

  Richter snapped the phone closed as Hillsworth got up and made another drink, then he cut to the chase. ‘We have heard, Professor, that the Americans are starting to experiment with a new device which will produce about the same yield as a conventional nuclear weapon, about five megatons, but emit little or no radiation. I can’t reveal the source of this information, and we have at present no idea of the way in which such a weapon could function.’

  Richter couldn’t tell him the source of the information principally because no such information had been received. Hillsworth sipped his tea slowly, looking keenly at Richter over the rim of his mug, then smiled. ‘I thought the Americans were on our side?’

  ‘They are, Professor,’ Richter replied, ‘and that’s why we’re interested. You always know what an enemy will try to do. It’s much more difficult to tell what your friends are intending, which is why we always look very carefully at any rumours we hear.’

  Hillsworth nodded. ‘Very wise, no doubt.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘It’s an interesting idea, but unfortunately impossible.’

  ‘Impossible?’ Richter queried.

  ‘Yes. The physics won’t let it work. Whenever a nuclear explosion takes place, radiation products are emitted, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop that happening. The radiation is as much a part of the equation as the uranium or plutonium.’

  Hillsworth paused and scratched the back of his neck. ‘As we’ve briefly discussed,’ he continued, ‘there are three principal types of nuclear weapon: the fission bomb, the fusion bomb and the neutron bomb, which is also a fusion device. All emit radiation of various sorts, including gamma rays, x-rays, alpha particles and neutrons. In fact, the neutron bomb is specifically designed to emit huge quantities of high-speed neutrons which are lethal to all living things, but it’s only a tactical weapon, with no strategic potential.’

  ‘Why is that?’ Richter asked.

  ‘Because in a conventional nuclear weapon the neutrons released when the weapon detonates are absorbed to increase the energy of the explosion, to increase its yield. In a neutron bomb, the neutrons are allowed to escape, which severely limits the maximum possible size of the weapon.’

  ‘How high a yield could a neutron bomb have?’

  ‘The theoretical limit is about nine megatons, but most neutron devices were designed to be fired from large-calibre artillery pieces or mounted on small battlefield-use missiles, so it’s usually down in the few kilotons range. As I said, it’s strictly tactical in its application.’

  ‘And what about the radiation?’

  ‘It’s known as an Enhanced Radiation Weapon or ERW, and was always intended to be used to defend the West against a numerically superior attacking force. The neutrons would kill the attacking troops, but the low yield of the bomb means that it would cause little structural damage, which could be important if you were fighting on your home territory. And the radiation dissipates quickly, which could also be an advantage.’

  Richter was, he thought, perhaps not actually able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but he was at least beginning to make out the tunnel walls fairly clearly.

  Anton Kirov

  ‘Not another change of plan?’ Valeri Bondarev asked, somewhat peevishly.

  Colonel Zavorin nodded. ‘I don’t like it any more than you do, Valeri,’ he said. ‘I am running to a schedule, but it is dictated by Moscow.’

  ‘So,’ Bondarev said. ‘Now we do not go to Tunis either.’

  ‘No. We have been told to head straight for Gibraltar, and to signal Moscow with our estimate as soon as possible. My signalman has already cancelled our berth at Tunis.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ Bondarev replied, with patent insincerity.

  Cambridge

  ‘So what’s happened to the neutron bomb?’ Richter asked.

  ‘Well,’ Hillsworth said, ‘it’s always been very controversial, because it’s a people-killer. It was specifically designed to decimate enemy troops, and its intended deployment by the Americans in Europe caused an uproar. The Russians apparently thought it was unfair that their vastly superior invasion forces could be defeated by a handful of troops armed with nothing more exotic than howitzers and a few rockets.

  ‘The fact that the weapon only had defensive potential and so would only be used to kill the Russian hordes if those same Russian hordes first swept into Europe riding main battle tanks was deemed to be irrelevant. The Americans didn’t deploy the weapon, although they did stockpile them in America to be used in the event of hostilities over here.’

  ‘And
the Russians? Did they build any?’

  Hillsworth nodded. ‘Of course they did. In the nineteen eighties they announced that they had built and tested neutron weapons. What the state of play is now I have no idea, but I strongly suspect that somewhere in Russia some new kind of neutron bomb has been tested in the fairly recent past.’

  ‘Why is that, Professor?’ Richter asked, sitting forward slightly in the chair.

  ‘Because you’re here, sitting in my chair drinking my coffee and eating my biscuits and telling me a pack of lies about American designs for a super-bomb.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Richter said.

  The professor smiled. ‘I’m not an idiot, Mr Richter. I know about Anglo-American co-operation in defence projects – apart from anything else I’m a member of one of the Steering Committees – and if our cousins across the sea were developing a new weapon I promise you I would know about it. I don’t, so therefore they’re not, but the Russians probably are. QED.’

  ‘Ah,’ Richter said, and drank the rest of his coffee. He reflected that you don’t get to become a professor at the age of thirty-two, which Hillsworth had achieved, without being a pretty sharp cookie, but Richter somehow hadn’t expected quite this degree of sharpness. ‘Without wishing to confirm or deny—’ Richter started in his best Civil Service voice, but Hillsworth interrupted.

  ‘Let me finish it for you,’ Hillsworth said. ‘I’ve heard it often enough. In brief, you are not prepared to confirm the source of your information, nor the quality of that information, nor even, if pushed, the existence of that information. Right?’ Richter nodded. ‘In short, you’ve heard a story, or seen some kind of report, and you want an independent opinion as to its veracity?’