Overkill pr-1

by James Barrington

  ‘Probably more overt, in fact,’ Richter replied.

  Auden’s eyebrows rose a millimetre. ‘Indeed. Perhaps you would care to explain.’

  ‘Better than that, Ambassador, I have here a letter which I think will clarify things.’ Richter handed over the sealed envelope.

  Auden looked at it with interest, particularly at the seal, then he selected a silver letter-opener, slit the top open and extracted the three sheets of paper it contained. He looked first at the signature block and scrawled signature at the end, then at the crest on the first page. He glanced over at Richter, and began to read. At the end of the first sheet he looked up. ‘I can assume that this is not some sort of a joke?’

  ‘No, Ambassador. It’s not any kind of a joke – I wish it was.’

  Sir James Auden shook his head and carried on reading. Finally he put the pages down and stared across the desk. He looked suddenly older, and his hand was shaking slightly. ‘This is monstrous. It’s unbelievable.’

  ‘You have to believe it, Ambassador. It’s the truth, and I need your help if it isn’t going to become a reality.’

  Auden looked at the letter, then back at Richter and shook his head. ‘You are sure?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  The Ambassador spoke quietly. ‘The letter does not deal with the specifics of the matter, only the overall concept. I do not, I think, wish to know the specifics, which you will no doubt be discussing with Herron. What exactly do you want me to do?’

  Richter told him, and five minutes later walked out of the Ambassador’s office for his appointment with Tony Herron, Paris Head of Station. The Holy of Holies – that section of the Embassy used by Secret Service officers – was small in Paris, and the staff was similarly tiny. This was due to the fact that the French are, at least nominally, on the same side as the British. Richter had never met Tony Herron, but he knew his name from SIS reports.

  Herron was six feet tall, sandy haired and, like Richter, appeared slightly rumpled. He welcomed Richter into his inner sanctum, and they settled down to business. ‘I’ve had several Flash and Immediate Top Secret signals from SIS London,’ Herron began. ‘From these I gather that something is afoot with our eastern neighbours, despite glasnost and all the rest.’

  ‘Spot on. Do you want the background now, or wait until we talk to the French?’

  ‘It can wait. One question, though. What grade is the information you have?’

  ‘Grade One – no question.’

  Information obtained by all Secret Services is graded according to source and type. Under the United Kingdom grading system, Grade One data is absolutely, one hundred per cent correct without any possibility of error; Grade Two is probably correct; Grade Three is possibly correct; Grade Four is unlikely to be correct, and Grade Five is known to be incorrect. Most of the information Richter had obtained had been unwillingly provided by Orlov, and he had no doubt at all of its veracity.

  ‘I was afraid you’d say that. It’s the—’ Herron broke off as the telephone rang and he answered it. He identified himself, then listened without speaking for a couple of minutes. ‘Thank you, Your Excellency,’ he said, replaced the receiver and looked at Richter. ‘You certainly got the Ambassador’s attention. That was His Nibs – we have an appointment in fifteen minutes with DST operational staff at the rue des Saussaies.’

  The Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire is France’s counter-intelligence agency, which functions like a combination of the British Special Branch and MI5. It is controlled by the Ministry of the Interior and freely employs the resources of the Renseignements Généraux, the General Intelligence section of the French police service. It was the DST which in late March 1987 rolled up the Soviet-bloc espionage network that had been passing data on the HM–60 cryogenic rocket motor designed to launch the European Space Agency’s Hermes space vehicle.

  Richter looked at his watch. ‘How long to get there?’

  ‘No time at all – it’s just around the corner, off the place Beauvau,’ Herron replied. He pressed a button on the telephone, told the duty officer where he was going, then grabbed his jacket and headed for the door.

  French Ministry of the Interior, rue des Saussaies, Paris

  Herron and Richter were escorted to a small conference room on the second floor where three people waited, seated at a long table. The man at the end announced, in perfect English, that he was the senior officer, Colonel Pierre Lacomte, introduced the other two Frenchmen as DST officers, and requested that the Englishmen sit down. Tony Herron briefly outlined the reason for their visit, introduced Richter as a colleague from SIS London, then handed over to him.

  ‘We have a problem,’ Richter began, ‘and so do you.’ He opened his briefcase, pulled out the operation file and opened it on the table in front of him. ‘We have code-named this operation “Overkill”, which is actually quite appropriate. What I’m about to tell you will probably sound most unlikely, perhaps even impossible, but I can assure you that it isn’t.’ Richter glanced at the other men in the room – none showed any signs of dozing off. ‘Before I explain the present situation, I have to give you some background information – a bit of history, if you like.’ Richter looked at the two DST men. ‘Some of this is moderately technical, so please stop me if there are any words you do not understand, and perhaps Colonel Lacomte could then translate for you.’

  Lacomte nodded agreement. ‘Back in 1958,’ Richter said, ‘a man named Sam Cohen, who was employed as a strategic nuclear weapons analyst by the Rand Corporation in California, started looking into the secondary effects caused by the detonation of large thermonuclear weapons. One thing that struck him was the very high level of neutron emissions that was essentially a by-product of the detonation of a fusion weapon. Normally a hydrogen bomb has an outer casing of uranium which is irradiated by those neutrons and which contributes to the explosive yield of the weapon. Cohen theorized that if a bomb was designed without the uranium casing, the released neutrons would travel considerable distances and could penetrate pretty much anything. As neutron radiation has a high lethality, such a weapon would be an excellent people-killer, but due to the lower explosive yield of the weapon, it would cause much less structural damage on detonation.

  ‘And there was another benefit. Nuclear fallout is mainly caused by the products of fission reactions, and this weapon was by definition a fusion device triggered, like all fusion weapons, by a very small fission explosion. So, a bomb of this type would release only about one per cent of the radiation of a fission bomb of comparable size, causing minimal fallout, and the neutron radiation disperses very quickly, which would mean that the area could be entered comparatively soon after detonation. This was the birth of the Enhanced Radiation Weapon or neutron bomb.’

  ‘The ERW, Mr Beatty? This is hardly news, is it?’ Whatever Colonel Lacomte had been expecting, it clearly hadn’t been a lesson on the physics of nuclear weapons.

  ‘No, Colonel, it isn’t news, but it is essential background. Anyway, the neutron bomb became a political football. The Kennedy administration decided not to build any such weapons because it might affect their relations with the Soviet Union, but when the Russians broke the existing moratorium on nuclear weapons tests they changed their mind. The first American ERW was tested in 1962 and large-scale manufacture began in the 1970s, when President Carter proposed installing neutron warheads on Lance missiles and howitzer artillery shells to be deployed in Europe. That decision caused such political turmoil that Carter eventually backed down, indefinitely deferring any such deployment. Reagan was more of a hawk, and re-authorized the production of ERWs, but with the caveat that they would be stored in America and only deployed to Europe if hostilities broke out. The Russians, who were largely behind the “ban the neutron bomb” campaign, had secretly developed their own ERWs. France had tested its own version of the weapon by 1980 and began series production in 1982.’

  ‘Your information is out-of-date, Mr Beatty. We ceased production of t
hese weapons in 1986, and that is not a secret.’

  ‘Agreed, Colonel. But France didn’t destroy her existing stocks, did she? Nor did the Americans, who still hold in excess of seven hundred neutron warheads, all of tactical, not strategic, size. The latest information we have suggests that China, Israel and South Africa, at the very least, all have stockpiles of neutron weapons of various sizes and yields.’

  The DST men seemed to be keeping up with Richter, but Tony Herron looked moderately confused. Richter smiled at him. ‘That’s the history, and most of the background. There are just a couple of other things you need to know. First, since glasnost, America has been paying billions of dollars to the Russians in exchange for plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons. They had the best of motives – if the USA could buy all their plutonium, then the Russians wouldn’t need to sell it on the black market with the risk of it ending up in the hands of terrorists. Unfortunately, all the expert independent evidence shows that the Russians have actually been handing over material produced in their nuclear power plants, and not weapons-grade plutonium. That suggests very strongly that the Russians, contrary to their public statements, have not been dismantling any of their nuclear weapons.

  ‘Second, it’s well known that to construct a fission bomb you need uranium-235, but to build a fusion weapon or a neutron bomb you have to have access to plutonium. That’s a well-known fact, and it’s completely wrong.’ Richter paused and looked at Colonel Lacomte. ‘Have you ever heard of red mercury?’ he asked.

  National Military Command Center, The Pentagon, Washington, D.C.

  By five fifteen a.m., local time, the last of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and their aides had assembled in the National Military Command Center – a suite of offices on the third floor of the Pentagon. The noisiest section of the NMCC is the office which handles the raw data, because of the rows of clattering telex machines that bring in reports and information from sources worldwide. It has a bank of clocks set for a variety of world time zones and a permanent display of maps showing the dispersal of strategic assets and troops of all major national armed forces. Quiet by comparison, the Emergency Conference Room is next door.

  The ECR is a split-level room. On the lower level, the duty officers, known as the Battle Staff, sit on both sides of the ‘leg’ of a vast T-shaped table, collating data. Four Emergency Action officers sit at purpose-built consoles along the top of the ‘T’, each with communication links to American forces around the world. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, the President’s military advice team, sit on a raised platform slightly above and to the left of the table used by the Battle Staff. On the opposite side of the room, and in front of the Joint Chiefs, are six huge colour screens on which can be displayed maps of any area of the world, as well as plans, charts, surveillance and other photographs, details of troop concentrations and any other type of graphic which would help to clarify a developing situation.

  The NMCC, like the White House Situation Room and the hardened facilities at Cheyenne Mountain, the Underground Complex at Offutt, and Raven Rock, forms part of a single vast command structure, linked by telephones, faxes and telex machines, satellites, radios and computers. Although the briefing was being delivered in the Pentagon, staff at the other linked locations would be able to hear every word that was said.

  An army general was the Senior Duty Battle Staff Officer, and would normally have conducted the briefing of the Joint Chiefs. The situation, however, was not normal.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ the general began without preamble, ‘we have an unfolding situation possibly involving disaffected elements within the former Soviet Union. A definite threat, not involving overt troop or conventional military manoeuvres, has been made against both the United States and Western Europe. This briefing will be in two parts. First, Mr Walter Hicks, the Central Intelligence Agency’s Clandestine Services Director of Operations, and currently the acting DCI, will brief you on the history and substance of the threat. When he has concluded and answered any questions you may have, I will advise you of the White House’s response to the situation, and what the President intends to do next.’

  The general looked up, glanced to his left and nodded. Walter Hicks stubbed out his cigar in the ashtray by his left arm, got to his feet and walked over to the lectern.

  American Embassy, Grosvenor Square, London

  The internal telephone on Roger Abrahams’ desk rang at nine fifty. He put down the file he had been studying and picked up the handset. ‘Abrahams.’

  ‘This is the switchboard, sir, and I have a call holding for you. The caller won’t identify himself, but says it’s urgent and a personal matter,’ the Embassy operator announced.

  ‘What nationality?’ Abrahams asked.

  ‘British, sir, definitely.’

  ‘OK,’ Abrahams said. ‘Make sure the tape’s running and put him through.’

  There was a click and a brief silence. ‘Hullo,’ Abrahams said.

  ‘Good morning, Roger,’ the familiar voice said, and Abrahams could detect the urgency behind the casual drawl. ‘I presume you’re taping this, so I won’t bother repeating myself.’ The voice paused, then spoke three words. ‘Anatidae. Ten ten.’

  The line went dead, but Abrahams had completely understood what the caller meant. He looked at his watch, then pressed the speed-dial code for the motor pool’s number. ‘This is Abrahams. I need a car, now.’

  Le Moulin au Pouchon , St Médard, near Manciet, Midi-Pyrénées, France

  ‘Excellent,’ Hassan Abbas murmured, reading the decrypted email message from Dmitri Trushenko for the third time.

  In fact, there had been two messages from the Russian. The first had simply confirmed that he had reached his secure location but did not, of course, reveal where that location was. When Abbas had read that, he’d heaved a sigh of relief. Obviously the comparatively long silence from the Russian had been caused by nothing more sinister than Trushenko’s journey from his apartment in Moscow to wherever he had chosen to hide whilst the final stages of Podstava were played out. Abbas suspected privately that Trushenko might even have left the Confederation of Independent States, maybe gone to Greece or Turkey. But it didn’t matter where he was, as long as the Russian authorities couldn’t find him.

  The second message contained the specifics of the positioning of the last two weapons. The Russian coaster was exactly on schedule for its planned arrival in Gibraltar, and the convoy carrying the London device should, according to the latest mobile telephone message from the escort, arrive in Germany that morning. Unless something totally unforeseen occurred, both weapons would be positioned precisely on time.

  Abbas rubbed his hands together, opened up his word processor and began preparing the text of the message he would sent to Sadoun Khamil in Saudi Arabia.

  French Ministry of the Interior, rue des Saussaies, Paris

  The colonel sat straighter in his chair. ‘What, exactly, is red mercury?’

  ‘Red mercury was the substance that frightened Sam Cohen most. It’s a mercury compound which has been subjected to massive irradiation in a nuclear reactor, and which when exploded creates tremendous heat and pressure. Exactly the same kind of heat and pressure that’s needed to trigger a fusion weapon. So you no longer need access to weapons-grade plutonium, or any plutonium at all, in fact. And red mercury is cheap, especially by comparison with the cost of plutonium.’

  ‘And?’ Lacomte asked.

  ‘And the Russians have been making it and selling it on the black market for years, although all sales stopped about four years ago. One of their biggest customers was Iraq, which is enough to make most people lose some sleep straight away.’

  Lacomte looked puzzled. ‘I hear what you’re saying, Mr Beatty, but I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with us. Why are you here? What, exactly, is the nature of any threat to us in Western Europe?’

  Richter nodded. ‘I’ll explain that in a moment. That’s the end of the history lesson. Last week a USAF SR–71A B
lackbird reconnaissance aircraft was pulled out of retirement at Beale Air Force Base in the States and made a totally illegal over-flight of a section of territory in north-west Russia. We believe that the Blackbird encountered opposition fighters during its flight and had to take evasive action. Precisely what happened we don’t know, but certainly it suffered battle damage and there was virtually no fuel left in its tanks when the aircraft landed at an Air Force base in Scotland. The Americans were very reluctant to explain the aircraft’s mission, but we finally discovered that the Blackbird had been sent to photograph a hill that wasn’t there any more.’

  Tony Herron still looked puzzled, and the DST men looked totally confused. ‘Hill? What hill, Mr Beatty?’ one asked.

  ‘Just a hill,’ Richter said, ‘deep in the Tundra. Let me explain. The Americans were puzzled, because the hill had been destroyed by a nuclear detonation of an unusual sort. The Blackbird flew to photograph the hole where the hill had been, but its principal mission was to take radiation measurements of the area. After that they had to sit down and think it out.’ Richter poured water into a glass and resumed the story. ‘We got involved after a man called Newman disappeared from the British Embassy in Moscow. He had apparently been killed in a road accident, but when we examined the body it was immediately apparent that it wasn’t Newman’s. That was significant enough, but when added to the fact that Newman was the SIS Head of Station in Moscow, it became obvious that something was going on. We surmised that he had been snatched by the SVR for terminal questioning.

  ‘We checked our files, and found that Newman’s deputy had acted as a translator, and had accompanied a party of Western businessmen on a tour in northwestern Russia, a tour which took them to within a mere hundred miles or so of the site of the hill. Then a CIA source advised us that the radiation analysis didn’t make sense. The Blackbird flew a fairly short time after the explosion, but the aircraft detectors registered no significant radiation.