Prometheus's Child: Harold Coyle's Strategic Solutions, Inc. by Coyle Harold & Tillman Barrett

Author:Coyle, Harold & Tillman, Barrett [Coyle, Harold & Tillman, Barrett]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller, War, Suspense
ISBN: 9781466820890
Goodreads: 24467253
Publisher: Forge Books
Published: 2007-10-16T07:00:00+00:00

42

SSI COMPOUND

Steve Lee was a professional pessimist. He spent much of his life contemplating what might go wrong, and shared that philosophy with the SSI team’s final briefing for the raid.

“As I see it, the biggest problem we might have is the people north of the border.” He indicated the boundary with Libya, barely forty kilometers from the uranium mine. “Now, there’s no reason to think that they’ll get involved, but in my experience that’s reason to think they might.” He gave an ironic grin that prompted polite chuckles from his audience.

“If we take them by surprise, there shouldn’t be much trouble. But if they ‘make’ us inbound, if they have much warning at all, they could have some yellow cake on a couple of trucks hightailing it for Colonel Qadhafi. From there, the load could go anywhere. Like Iran.”

Bernard Langevin, monitoring the briefing from the back row, raised a hand. “Steve, I agree that’s a concern. But I just don’t think the Libyans are going to pick a fight with the U.S., not even in Chad.”

Lee laid down his pointer and turned to the scientist. “Look at it from their boots, Bernie. They won’t know we’re Americans. Hell, officially we’re not even involved in this op. That’s the whole idea behind SSI: deniability.”

Before Langevin could respond, Brezyinski posed a question. “Sir, doesn’t Iran have uranium? I mean, why go to all the trouble to smuggle the stuff from Chad or someplace?”

Langevin nodded. “Reasonable question. But you’ve just had a hint of the answer from Major Lee: deniability.”

Breezy wrinkled a brow. “How’s that, Doc?”

“Almost every uranium ore has its own identification, like a fingerprint. If there’s anyplace on earth that hasn’t been fingerprinted, so to speak, I don’t know where it is. So if the Iranians want to nuke someplace, they’re not going to use material from their own backyard. They have at least three mines but they’ll want to use refined ore from someplace else, the farther away the better. They’d use it from Colorado if they could get enough of it.”

Bosco, whose scientific interest generally was limited to pulp fiction and Star Wars movies, now took a closer interest. “Excuse me, sir. But how much uranium do you need for a bomb?”

Langevin grinned hugely. His smile said, Low, slow one over the middle of the plate. Finally he replied, “Well, I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you.”

When the laughter abated, the scientist raised a hand. “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. But it’s a fair question. I can’t talk about current weapons, but for the Little Boy that flattened Hiroshima, about sixty-five kilos. Less than 150 pounds.” Warming to his subject, he continued. “But that’s not a very efficient use of a valuable product. Now, take Fat Man, the Nagasaki bomb. That only used six kilos of plutonium, but of course you need a lot of uranium to process plutonium. There’s an intermediate step called a composite, with a core using both uranium and plutonium. A little over three kilos of plutonium and six and a half of U-235.

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