A Better Spy by Richard DeGrandpre

Author:Richard DeGrandpre [DeGrandpre, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sad Story Press
Published: 2024-10-16T00:00:00+00:00

A moment later, the message continued:

Stand by while I continue testing for intrusion detection and confirm the encryption protocols are functioning correctly…

Then, several minutes later, another message:

You will be feeling better soon, Misha. You can make the final modifications then. Get some rest. Again, trusted soldier, well done.

Misha blew his nose and reached for his pillow, letting the thought of Katerina take him back to his dreams.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SEVEN

Orange-hot crucibles boiled, sending waves of heat shimmering up into the high vaulted space. A deep, resonant vibration emanated from the back walls, a reminder of the facility’s former life. Two robotic 3D printers were busy in the background, encased in transparent glass, their sleek, futuristic forms looking out of place in the old Soviet space. Inside them, beams of light danced with spastic precision, fusing layers of glowing metal powder into Pavlovich’s desired shapes. The intermittent whine of the lasers was punctuated only by the soft hiss of the alloy powder and the steady whoosh of the cooling systems: a symphony of bespoke weapons manufacturing.

No less bespoke and no less out of place was the explosive device they were building and testing next door. Setting off ordnance inside a retired nuclear power facility was ill-advised, especially for those wishing to survive long enough to enjoy the delayed radiation poisoning that would follow. They were proceeding regardless.

The outdoors would have been preferable if not for the concern of prying eyes, whether local and Ukrainian, or distant and orbital. Estes needed no reminding. This was no time for taking chances. He would have used his own garage if he had to.

Employing Pavlovich, the question of what could possibly go wrong was about to be seen. Estes found the Russian painstakingly thorough, although the engineer had complained about the quality of some of the critical supplies he’d been provided. Having spent the previous thirty years behind bars, it was also reasonable to expect the Russian to be a little rusty. How accurate were his calculations, and how precise was his engineering going to be?

Fortunately, the Chernobyl facility was well suited to their present task—the atomic playground that Pavlovich wanted but never had as a child. Among the oddities it offered were large areas comprised of massively thick reinforced concrete, accessible as bunkers ready for the busting. These were the foundations of the reactor buildings, designed to withstand the massive weight of the reactors and associated equipment, plus the biological shield, which sat on top of the foundation, designed to absorb and reduce the radiation emitted by the reactor core. As long as they stayed away from the notorious contamination in Reactor 4, and as long as they did not lose control in any of their “controlled explosions,” everything was going to be just fine.

Of course, the nuclear component of the weapon would not be tested. This posed a different kind of worry for Estes. Admittedly not much of a physicist, he wanted reassurance that what they were testing was relevant to the final product. The primary would deliver the nuclear package, simulated here with conventional explosives.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.