by Joe Haldeman
1. 13 October 1975
Shark Key is a few hundred feet of sand and scrub between two slightly larger islands in the Florida Keys: population, one.
Not even one person actually lives there—perhaps the name has not been attractive to real estate developers—but there is a locked garage, a dock and a mailbox fronting on US 1. The man who owns this bit of sand—dock, box, and carport—lives about a mile out in the Gulf of Mexico and has an assistant who picks up the mail every morning, and gets groceries and other things.
Howard Knopf Ramo is this sole “resident” of Shark Key, and he has many assistants besides the delivery boy. Two of them have doctorates in an interesting specialty, of which more later. One is a helicopter pilot, one ran a lathe under odd conditions, one is a youngish ex-Colonel (West Point, 1960), one was a contract killer for the Mafia, five are doing legitimate research into the nature of gravity, several dozen are dullish clerks and technicians, and one, not living with the rest off Shark Key, is a U.S. Senator who does not represent Florida but nevertheless does look out for the interests of Howard Knopf Ramo. The researchers and the delivery boy are the only ones in Ramo’s employ whose income he reports to the IRS, and he only reports one-tenth at that. All the other gentlemen and ladies also receive ten-times-generous salaries, but they are all legally dead, so the IRS has no right to their money, and it goes straight to anonymously numbered Swiss accounts without attrition by governmental gabelle.
Ramo paid out little more than one million dollars in salaries and bribes last year; he considered it a sound investment of less than one-fourth of one per cent of his total worth.
2. 7 May 1955
Our story began, well, many places with many people. But one pivotal person and place was 17-year-old Ronald Day, then going to high school in sleepy Winter Park, Florida.
Ronald wanted to join the Army, but he didn’t want to just join the Army. He had to be an officer, and he wanted to be an Academy man.
His father had served gallantly in WWII and in Korea until an AP mine in Ch’unch’on (Operation “Ripper”) forced him to retire. At that time he had had for two days a battlefield commission, and he was to find that the difference between NCO’s retirement and officer’s retirement would be the difference between a marginal life and a comfortable one, subsequent to the shattering of his leg. Neither father nor son blamed the Army for having sent the senior Day marching through a muddy mine field, 1955 being what it was, and neither thought the military life was anything but the berries. More berries for the officers, of course, and the most for West Pointers.
The only problem was that Ronald was, in the jargon of another trade, a “chronic underachiever.” He had many fascinating hobbies and skills and an IQ of 180, but he was barely passing in high school, and so had little hope for an appointment. Until Howard Knopf Ramo came into his life.
That spring afternoon, Ramo demonstrated to father and son that he had the best interests of the United States at heart, and that he had a great deal of money (nearly a hundred million dollars even then), and that he knew something rather embarassing about senior Day, and that in exchange for certain reasonable considerations he would get Ronald a place in West Point, class of 1960.
Not too unpredictably, Ronald’s intelligence blossomed in the straitjacket discipline at the Point. He majored in physics, that having been part of the deal, and took his commission and degree—with high honors—in 1960. His commission was in the Engineers and he was assigned to the Atomic Power Plant School at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. He took courses at the School and at Georgetown University nearby.
He was Captain Ronald Day and bucking for major, one step from being in charge of Personnel & Recruitment, when he returned to his billet one evening and found Ramo waiting for him in a stiff-backed chair. Ramo was wearing the uniform of a brigadier general and he asked a few favors. Captain Day agreed gladly to cooperate, not really believing the stars on Ramo’s shoulders; partly because the favors seemed harmless if rather odd, but reasonable in view of past favors; mainly because Ramo told him something about what he planned to do over the next decade. It was not exactly patriotic but involved a great deal of money. And Captain Day, O times and mores, had come to think more highly of money than of patriotism.
Ramo’s representatives met with Day several times in the following years, but the two men themselves did not meet again until early 1972. Day eventually volunteered for Vietnam, commanding a battalion of combat engineers. His helicopter went down behind enemy lines, such lines as there were in that war, in January, 1972, and for one year he was listed as MIA. The North Vietnamese eventually released their list and he became KIA, body never recovered.
By that time his body, quite alive and comfortable, was resting a mile off Shark Key.
3. 5 December 1969
Andre Charvat met Ronald Day only once, at Fort Belvoir, five years before they would live together under Ramo’s roof. Andre had dropped out of Iowa State as a sophomore, was drafted, was sent to the Atomic Power Plant School, learned the special skills necessary to turn radio-active metals into pleasing or practical shapes, left the Army and got a job running a small lathe by remote control, from behind several inches of lead, working with plutonium at an atomic power applications research laboratory in Los Alamos—being very careful not to waste any plutonium, always ending up with the weight of the finished piece and the shavings exactly equal to the weight of the rough piece he had started with.
But a few milligrams at a time, he was substituting simple uranium for the precious plutonium shavings.
He worked at Los Alamos for nearly four years, and brought 14.836 grams of plutonium with him when he arrived via midnight barge off Shark Key, 12 November 1974.
Many other people in similar situations had brought their grams of plutonium to Shark Key. Many more would, before the New Year.
4. 1 January 1975
“Ladies. Gentlemen.” Howard Knopf Ramo brushes long white hair back in a familiar, delicate gesture and with the other hand raises a tumbler to eye level. It bubbles with good domestic champagne. “Would anyone care to propose a toast?”
An awkward silence, over fifty people crowded into the television room. On the screen, muted cheering as the Allied Chemical ball begins to move. “The honor Should be yours, Ramo,” says Colonel Day.
Ramo nods, gazing at the television. “Thirty years,” he whispers and says aloud: “To our year. To our world.”
Drink, silence, sudden chatter.
5. 2 January 1975
Curriculum Vitae
My name is Philip Vale and I have been working with Howard Knopf Ramo for nearly five years. In 1967 I earned a doctorate in nuclear engineering at the University of New Mexico and worked for two years on nuclear propulsion systems for spacecraft. When my project was shelved for lack of funding in 1969, it was nearly impossible for a nuclear engineer to get a job; literally impossible in my specialty.
We lived off savings for a while. Eventually I had to take a job teaching high school physics and felt lucky to have any kind of a job, even at $7000 per year.
But in 1970 my wife suffered an attack of acute glomerulonephritis and lost both kidneys. The artificial dialysis therapy was not covered by our health insurance, and to keep her alive would have cost some $25,000 yearly. Ramo materialized and made me a generous offer.
Three weeks later, Dorothy and I were whisked incognito to Shark Key, our disappearance covered by a disastrous automobile accident. His artificial island was mostly unoccupied in 1970, but half of one floor was given over to medical facilities. There was a dialysis machine and two of the personnel were trained in its use. Ramo called it “benevolent blackmail” and outlined my duties for the next several years.
6. 4 April 1970
When Philip Vale came to Ramo’s island, all that showed above water was a golden geodesic dome supported by massive concrete pillars and armthick steel cables that sang basso in the wind. Inside the dome were living quarters for six people
and a more-or-less legitimate research establishment called Gravitics, Inc. Ramo lived there with two technicians, a delivery boy and two specialists in gravity research. The establishment was very expensive but Ramo claimed to love pure science, hoped for eventual profit, and admitted that it made his tax situation easier. It also gave him the isolation that semi-billionaires traditionally prefer; because of the delicacy of the measurements necessary to his research, no airplanes were allowed to buzz overhead and the Coast Guard kept unauthorized ships from coming within a one-mile radius. All five employees did do research work in gravity; they published with expected frequency, took out occasional patents, and knew they were only a cover for the actual work about to begin downstairs.
There were seven underwater floors beneath the golden dome, and Dr. Philip Vale’s assignment was to turn those seven floors into a factory for the construction of small atom bombs. 29 Nagasakisized fission bombs.
7. August 1945
Howard Knopf Ramo worked as a dollar-a-year man for several years, the government consulting him on organizational matters for various projects. The details of many of these projects were quite secret, but he gave as good advice as he could, without being told classified details.
In August 1945 Ramo learned what that Manhattan Project had been all about.
8. 5 April 1970—3 February 1972
Dr. Philip Vale was absorbed for several weeks in initial planning: flow charts, lists of necessary equipment and personnel, timetables, floor plans. The hardest part of his job was figuring out a way to steal a lot of plutonium without being too obvious about it. Ramo had some ideas, on this and other things, that Vale expanded.
By the middle of 1971 there were thirty people living under Gravitics, Inc., and plutonium had begun to trickle in, a few grams at a time, to be shielded with lead and cadmium and concrete and dropped into the Gulf of Mexico at carefully recorded spots within the one-mile limit. In July they quietly celebrated Ramo’s 75th birthday.
On 3 February 1972, Colonel Ronald Day joined Vale and the rest. The two shared the directorship amicably, Day suggesting that they go ahead and make several mock-up bombs, both for time-and-motion studies within the plant and in order to check the efficiency of their basic delivery system: an Econoline-type van, specially modified.
9. Technological Aside
One need not gather a "critical mass" of plutonium in order to make an atom bomb of it. It is sufficient to take a considerably smaller piece and subject it to a neutron density equivalent to that which prevails at standard temperature and pressure inside plutonium at critical mass. This can be done with judiciously shaped charges of high explosive.
The whole apparatus can fit comfortably inside a Ford Econoline van.
10. 9 September 1974
Progress Report
Delivery Implementation Section
TO: Ramo, Vale, Day, Sections 2, 5, 8.
As of this date we can safely terminate R & D on the following vehicles: Ford, Fiat, Austin, VW. Each has performed flawlessly on trial runs to Atlanta.
On-the-spot vehicle checks assure us that we can use Econolines for Ghana, Bombay, Montevideo, and Madrid, without attracting undue attention.
The Renault and Soyuz vans have not been road-tested because they are not distributed in the United States. One mockup Renault is being smuggled to Mexico, where they are fairly common, to be tested. We may be able to modify the Ford setup to fit inside a Soyuz shell. However, we have only two of the Russian vans to work with, and will proceed with caution.
The Toyota’s suspension gave out in one out of three Atlanta runs; it was simply not designed for so heavy a load. We may substitute Econolines or VW’s for Tokyo and Kyoto.
90% of the vehicles were barged to New Orleans before the Atlanta run, to avoid suspicion at the Key Largo weigh station.
We are sure all systems will be in shape well before the target date.
(signed) Supervisor Maxwell Bergman
11. 14 October 1974
Today they solved the China Problem: automobiles and trucks are still fairly rare in China, and its border is probably the most difficult to breach. Ramo wants a minimum of three targets in China, but the odds against being able to smuggle out three vans, load them with bombs, smuggle them back in again and drive them to the target areas without being stopped—the odds are formidable.
Section 2 (Weapons Research & Development) managed to compress a good-sized bomb into a package the size of a large suitcase, weighing about 800 pounds. It is less powerful than the others, and not as subtly safeguarded—read “boobytrapped”—but should be adequate to the task. It will go in through Hong Kong in a consignment of Swiss heavy machinery, bound for Peking; duplicates will go to Kunming and Shanghai, integrated with farm machinery and boat hulls, respectively, from Japan. Section 1 (Recruiting) has found delivery agents for Peking and Shanghai, is looking for a native speaker of the dialect spoken around Kunming.
12. Naming
Ramo doesn’t like people to call it “Project Blackmail,” so they just call it “the project” when he’s around.
13. 1 July 1975
Everything is in order: delivery began one week ago. Today is Ramo’s 79th birthday.
His horoscope for today says “born today, you are a natural humanitarian. You aid those in difficulty and would make a fine attorney. You are attracted to the arts, including writing. You are due for domestic adjustment, with September indicated as a key month.”
None of the above is true. It will be in October.
14. 13 October 1975
7:45 on a grey Monday morning in Washington, D.C., a three-year-old Econoline van rolls up to a Park-yourself lot on 14th Street. About a quarter-mile from the White House.
The attendant gives the driver his ticket. “How long ya gonna be?”
“Don’t know,” he says. “All day, probably.”
“Put it back there then, by the Camaro.”
The driver parks the van and turns on a switch under the dash. With a tiny voltmeter he checks the dead-man switch on his arm: a constant-readout sphygmomanometer wired to a simple signal generator. If his blood pressure drops too low too quickly, downtown Washington will be a radioactive hole.
Everything in order, he gets out and locks the van. This activates the safeguards. A minor collision won’t set off the bomb, and neither would a Richter-6 earthquake. It will go off if anyone tries to X-ray the van or enter it.
He walks two blocks to his hotel. He is very careful crossing streets.
He has breakfast sent up and turns on the Today show. There is no news of special interest. At 9:07 he calls a number in Miami. Ramo’s fortune is down to fifty million, but he can still afford a suite at the Beachcomber.
At 9:32, all American targets having reported, Ramo calls Reykjavik.
“Let me speak to Colonel Day. This is Ramo.”
“Just a moment, sir.” One moment. “Day here.”
“Things are all in order over here, Colonel. Have your salesmen reported yet?”
“All save two, as expected,” he says: everyone but Peking and Kunming.
“Good. Everything is pretty much in your hands, then. I’m going to go down and do that commercial.”
“Good luck, sir.”
“We’re past the need for luck. Be careful, Colonel.” He rings off.
Ramo shaves and dresses, white Palm Beach suit. The reflection in the mirror looks like somebody’s grandfather; not long for this world, kindly but a little crotchety, a little senile. Perhaps a little senile. That’s why Colonel Day is coordinating things in Iceland, rather than Ramo. If Ramo dies, Day can decide what to do. If Day dies, the bombs all go off automatically.
“Let’s go,” he shouts into the adjoining room. His voice is still clear and strong.
Two men go down the elevator with him. One is the exhit man, with a laundered identity (complete to plastic surgery) and two hidden pistols. The other is Philip Vale, who carries with him all of the details of Pro
ject Blackmail and, at Ramo’s suggestion, a.44 notice—not just the derringer. He watches the hit man, and the hit man watches everybody else.
The Cadillac that waits for them outside the Beachcomber is discreetly bulletproof and has under the front and rear seats, respectively, a Thompson submachine gun and a truncated 12-gauge shotgun. The exhit man insisted on the additional armament, and Ramo provided them for the poor man’s peace of mind. For his own peace of mind Ramo, having no taste for violence on so small a scale, had the firing pins removed last night.
They drive to a network-affiliated television station, having spent a good deal of money for ten minutes of network time. For a paid political announcement.
It only cost a trifle more to substitute their own men for Union employees behind the camera and in the control room.
15. Transcript
FADE IN LONG SHOT: RAMO, PODIUM, GLOBE
RAMO
My name is Howard Knopf Ramo.
SLOW DOLLY TO MCU RAMO
RAMO
Please don’t leave your set; what I have to say is extremely important to you and your loved ones. And I won’t take too much of your time.
You’ve probably never heard of me, though some years ago my accountants told me I was the richest man in the world. I spent a good deal of those riches staying out of the public eye. The rest of my fortune I spent on a project that has taken me thirty years to complete.
I was born just twenty-one years after the Civil War. In my lifetime, my country has been in five major wars and dozens of small confrontations. I didn’t consider the reasons for most of them worthwhile. I didn’t think that any of them were worth the price we paid.
And at that, we fared well compared to many other countries, whether they won their wars or lost them. Still, we continue to have wars. Rather …
TIGHT ON RAMO
… our leaders continue to declare wars, advancing their own political aims by sending sons and brothers and fathers out to bleed and die.