The Dreadful Alchemist: A Thrilling Espionage Novel (Techno thriller, Mystery & Suspense Book 1)

by Charles Z David

  The Pakistan government was toppled in a bloody coup d'etat by the Islamic Fundamentalists who seized control of the country's nuclear arsenal. Their first target was the long disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir that had been under control of India since 1947. The population in the Kashmir valley included about 4 million residents, mostly Muslim people, but that did not stop the Fundamentalists who were mainly out to make a point. India struck back by sending a couple of aircraft equipped with small nuclear bombs to fly below the Pakistani radar and drop their bombs in Karachi obliterating the entire seafront of the city. The Fundamentalists also tried to launch a Taimur experimental long range missile from Islamabad towards Israel but due to a malfunction of the missile's engine it fell on Esfahan and fortunately for the residents of this beautiful city the nuclear device did not work properly and only spread some radioactive contamination over a small area.

  The Iranian Revolutionary Guard attributed this attack to Israel, despite the clear Arab lettering on some of the debris of the missile and its unique features which clearly identified it as the Taimur missile. They launched an all-out attack sending missiles and aircraft directed at the Jewish state. Most were intercepted in mid-flight by the anti-missile Arrow missiles and the aircraft were shot down by Israel's F-15 and F-16 jet fighters, but a few got through and caused havoc in Tel Aviv and Haifa (there was nothing of significance left to hit in Jerusalem). Israel retaliated by destroying all the main cities in Iran and seized the opportunity to do the same in Iraq and Syria sending those countries back to the Stone Age. Lebanon was spared because the French government appealed to Israel to let it be. In Turkey the Islamist government was sent into exile by the army that seized power in a bloodless military coup, and so they managed to keep Turkey out of the nuclear conflict although some fallout did reach it.

  The Egyptians, Saudis and the small Gulf states offered no public statements but in private assured the Western nations, and Israel indirectly, that they would not mourn the annihilation of Iran, Iraq and Syria, and certainly would not grieve over the eradication of the Islamic State that they perceived as the most serious threat to their governments.

  The European governments called upon all sides to stop the fighting before it became an all-out nuclear conflict that would destroy all civilization and perhaps humanity itself. Thanks to the persistence of the Russian and US governments and the self-control of the Chinese, a full scale World War III was prevented. However, the loss of life in one week from the handful of nuclear weapons that were deployed was comparable to the total number of casualties in the five and a half years of the Second World War.

  September, the Aftermath

  A new world order was established. The five "official" nuclear powers, who also happened to be the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (in the order of becoming nuclear powers – the US, Russia, the UK, France and China), agreed to reduce the number of nuclear warheads they each kept operational and continue to blend down the weapon grade fissile materials and convert them into fuel for nuclear power plants. All other countries that had demonstrated and tested nuclear weapons were allowed to maintain a single item – to preserve their honor but to prevent them from starting a nuclear war. The terrorist movements, especially those motivated by religious fanaticism, were banned and any governments that gave them asylum or support of any kind, were to be punished by trade and economic sanctions and if that did not stop them then armed intervention by a UN force would be carried out.

  The reconstruction of Jerusalem would have to wait a few more years until the level of radioactivity abated to a safe level. Plans for rebuilding the churches, mosques and Jewish temples were discussed in the General Assembly of the United Nations but the funding was not found as the countries in which nuclear weapons were exploded were busy taking care of their own losses. This solved one of the major problems of the Middle East – the question of who would control Jerusalem. Neither Israel nor the Palestinian Authority wanted sole responsibility for rebuilding the city so it was divided between the two with each side accountable for reconstructing part of the city that would eventually serve as its own capital.

  Chapter 17

  The alternative

  If you are still reading this you know that the description of events presented above never occurred, fortunately.

  June 17th, evening, at the deserted house (what really happened)

  While Ollie and Nasser were busy arming the improvised nuclear device at the deserted building, above them a quiet drone equipped with a receiver tuned to the signal emitted from Ollie's passport detected the encoded signal and started circling around the source while keeping a safe distance. The news excited the people gathered inside the ISA control room and "The Fish" invited David to join him there. They summoned the elite special police unit, known by its Hebrew acronym Yamam, and led the way towards the isolated building where Nasser and Ollie were parked. The trip from Tel Aviv took less than 30 minutes. When they were two kilometers from the source of the signal the Yamam fighters dismounted from their vehicles and continued silently on foot towards the building. David recalled his days as a squad commander in the army's elite unit and joined the fighters, while "The Fish" with another group of Yamam fighters waited on the roadside and maintained their position as a reserve force ready to intervene if things got out of hand. The Yamam squad approached the building but at first, even with their night vision goggles, did not see the Isuzu. David was sure that it was still there as he did not receive any indication that it had been on the move again and asked the squad commander to send two of his men to carefully circle the house and search for the vehicle. As soon as they went to the back of the building they saw the light that Ollie had been using while arming the device. They quietly called their commander and the whole squad took positions surrounding the Isuzu. David saw two human figures standing by the side of the pick-up truck and instructed the squad commander to take them down silently and neutralize them quickly, and, if necessary, to shoot them dead.

  Ollie heard the footsteps of the Yamam fighter and managed to depress the instant triggering of the device before he was knocked down by a rubber baton striking his left temple. To his surprise he did not hear the big bang he expected but only a hushed puff. Instead of finding himself vaporized by a nuclear explosion or dismembered by detonation of hundreds of kilograms of conventional high explosives, when he regained consciousness he discovered that he was trussed like a Thanksgiving turkey. Nasser managed to turn around before receiving a similar treatment but there was nothing he could do. After ascertaining that no other terrorists were around David reported that they had secured the pick-up truck. Within a few minutes "The Fish" arrived on the scene along with the radiation detector that showed that strong gamma rays were emitted from the back of the pick-up. The Yamam fighters were ordered to form a secure perimeter at a safe distance of 50 meters from the Isuzu in order to avoid being exposed to the radiation.

  David approached the Isuzu and saw the car battery with the connected electrical wires and primitive timer as well as the instant triggering mechanism. He noticed that the timer was set to go off with a delay of two hours and reckoned that the intended target was about one hour's drive away to allow Ollie to get safely out of the range of the explosion. He called Shimony who was in the Mossad's situation room and informed him about the device and timing mechanism and asked for assistance in dismantling the bomb – using the professional term "render safe". Shimony promised that a team of experts would be there within less than 30 minutes and suggested that they try to get information about the device by interrogating Ollie.

  Ollie was just regaining consciousness and, realized that his grand project had failed miserably just as it was on the verge of success. He was surprised when David sat down next to him and started talking to him in a friendly tone:

  "How do you feel, Ollie? Or should I call you Olaf Gunther Andersson? Or perhaps Oscar Gunnar Axelsson? Or do you prefer your recent name of Andreas Nester B
urkhart or the name you used entering Israel, Hugo Elias Jacobsson?"

  "My name is Hugo Elias Jacobsson. I don't know what you are talking about and why you invented all these names. I am just an innocent tourist from Sweden and I insist you call the Swedish embassy."

  "What were you doing here, in the middle of nowhere?"

  "I only wanted to have some fun with my friend Nasser, so we drove to this secluded building…". David interrupted:

  "You must be joking. How can you explain the device in the back of the Isuzu?"

  "I know nothing about that – it must have belonged to the owner of the Isuzu".

  "Ollie, do you expect anyone to believe this story? You may be interested to know that I have some news for you from Professor Modena".

  "Who? I don't know any professors".

  "So, you wouldn't care about him dying slowly from radiation sickness alone like a dog, in a miserable room in Girona. By the way, do you know that there is strong gamma radiation emitted from the back of your Isuzu. Our experts will be on site in a few minutes to assess the dose rate. I hope for your sake that you have not spent too much time near the device, because if you have then you are to receive a slow, agonizing death sentence, not from us, but from Allah".

  "You depraved Jew, do not blaspheme the name of Allah the merciful".

  "In your case I don't think he will be so merciful – you will die in terrible pain and no virgins will await you, because even if they do you will be incapable of enjoying them".

  "Who are you to threaten me?"

  "My name is David and I have been one step behind you for the last two months, but now it looks as if I have caught up with you. Oh, another of your friends has also been quite cooperative when he learned about your true objective. You may remember him mainly as Dr. Jay, or by his full name Dr. Jason Smalley. He confessed everything as his hatred for all Muslims is especially focused on Aryan converts to Islam whom he regards as the lowliest form of scum. He was in custody of the Spanish authorities and then extradited to the UK where he will face charges of high treason and intent to support mass murder of innocent people".

  "The only Dr. Jay I know of is the basketball player Julius Erving".

  "Ollie, you also have warm regards from a sweet Swedish lass, Agda, and her twin sister Alva. When they heard what you had done to Andreas, your old pal who took you into his home and organization and treated you like his best friend, they both came forth and told us all about you. Agda in particular wishes you a long prison sentence among the worst and most violent rapists and hopes you become their "darling pet". Alva would like to slowly cut off your limbs one by one but not allow you to die. It looks as if you were a good student of the book How to win friends and influence people".

  "May all of them and you rot in Hell".

  "Ollie, this is no way for a devout Muslim to speak. I hear that the team has of experts just arrived. Would you like to see them at work or would you rather keep a safe distance in case the device goes off?"

  "David, if that is your real name, I wish to stay close and see all of you go up in a mushroom shaped cloud, together with your whole country".

  "Sorry to disappoint you. It looks as if you were trying to detonate a pile of dud high explosives. Dr. Jay told us all about the construction of the device. He said that there was neither the time nor the opportunity to test the explosives and had relied on the promises you and your friend Andreas made. Apparently the North Koreans had a good laugh when you handed over a huge sum of money for a few hundred kilograms of explosives that were no more energetic than candle wax. The hushed puff we all heard must have come from the detonators as they were the only thing that worked".

  After two days of intensive interrogation Ollie revealed the whole plot. He admitted that the explosion of the U-233 improvised nuclear device was supposed to be the trigger that would set in motion the clash between Islam and the Western civilization, and more importantly a nuclear war between the West and the former Soviet bloc while also dragging the Chinese into the conflict. The expected outcome was to be total dominance of ISIS – the supporters of the true religion, in his words – who would emerge from the deserts of Iraq, Syria and Arabia and conquer the world, replaying the spread of Islam in the 7th and 8th centuries. David managed to draw out this confession by taunting Ollie and telling him that his IND would never have worked. Indeed, the team of experts had easily neutralized the trigger mechanism and on close examination found that the intense gamma radiation damaged the high explosives to an extent that would have thrown off the timing preventing a true simultaneous detonation. This would make the effect of the bomb similar to something between a small radiation dispersion device and a conventional high explosives bomb. In other words, David explained to Ollie, all his efforts along with the millions of dollars spent and the cost in human lives, would have been about equal to the effect of an amateur teenager producing a peroxide bomb in his bath tub based on instructions downloaded from the Internet. This so enraged Ollie that David thought for a moment he would have a seizure and die on the spot, thus escaping justice.

  June 20th, Tel Aviv

  The celebration was not exuberant and attended only by the chiefs of the Israel Security Agency, the Israel Atomic Energy Commission and Mossad and a few senior managers from these government agencies. The Prime Minister himself was there to personally thank the people responsible for preventing the catastrophe that could have occurred if Ollie had succeeded. As usual, the speeches were short and except for the PM only the current Deputy Director, and soon to be the new chief of Mossad spoke. Haim Shimony gave the short version of the events that led to the capture of Ollie and to the dismantling of the improvised nuclear device and commended David Avivi for his exceptionally astute coordination of the hunt to neutralize the most dangerous threat to the State of Israel and perhaps to the entire Western Civilization. No one mentioned that the difference between success and failure of Ollie's mission was so small that there must have been some divine intervention to correct the stupid errors of judgment made by humans.

  David made an announcement telling everybody that the uranium-233 had been recovered and its decay product actinium-225 would be used as a source for bismuth-213 to be deployed to treat cancer. He proudly said that this was a demonstration of Isaiah's biblical prophecy: "they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks". He then boarded a flight to Vienna to inform his colleagues of the International Task Force in person about the latest developments, and to spend a well deserved week long vacation with Orna.

  Acknowledgments

  There are many books that are published every day on Amazon Kindle and it is easy to get confused and not see the trees in the forest. For unknown authors, who are not famous, the best way to stand out from the crowd is to have their book reviewed by the people who read them, and hopefully enjoyed them. So, please write a review, an honest review, and post it on the Amazon website.

  First and foremost I would like to thank you for reading this book. I hope you enjoyed it despite the scientific jargon that I really tried to minimize.

  I dearly appreciate your comments, so please send them to: charleszdavid1@gmail.com

  This book would not have been possible without the help of Dr. Wikipedia and Professor Google. I also found a wealth of information in the 8 volumes of "Swords of Armageddon – US nuclear weapon secret history" by Chuck Hansen, in Carey Sublette's chapters on "Nuclear weapons" and in the book entitled "Nuclear forensic analysis – Second edition" by K. J. Moody, P. M. Grant and I. D. Hutcheon from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. I also learned about the development of nuclear devices from Richard Rhodes' two books "The making of the atomic bomb" and "Dark sun". However, any misinterpretation of the technical and geographical information from those sources is my own responsibility. I have also found inspiration in several other scientific publications and textbooks but I alone can be held accountable for any conclusions that I may have drawn from them. Needless t
o say that no one has produced fissile uranium-233 by gamma irradiation of thorium and any serious physicist would immediately tell you that it is impossible in the real world. However in a book of fiction anything is possible as you have witnessed. As a chemist, a real one not an alchemist, I am happy that the dreadful alchemist turned out to be a physicist and not one of us.

  Professor Modena, the fictitious alchemist, can be tagged as a naïve "mad scientist" but certainly not as "dreadful". This dubious title is rightfully owned by people who would detonate a nuclear device in the heart of a city that is the cradle of monotheism and among a local population that includes Muslims, Jews and Christians.

  I have visited an elk farm at Bjurholm and liked it, as well as many other locations mentioned in the book, and am aware of no improper activities in these nice and friendly places. On the whole, I strongly recommend a visit to these sites.

  It is unnecessary to declare that this book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to real events or people is not to be understood as anything but a coincidence. I apologize in advance in case any person feels offended by the plot.

  Finally, I am grateful to my good friend Debbie Zelnik for editing this book, to Nira Bar for designing the original beautiful cover and to my family and friends who read the manuscript and enabled me to improve the text thanks to their astute comments.

  You may want to read the Prologue of my next book, The Dreadful Renegade, due in November, 2015 on Amazon.