Critical Mass

by Steve Martini

“The problem with the Russians,” said the naval officer, “is that their early warning system is shredded. There’s no money for maintenance, and their stations in Latvia are gone. They’re a nuclear giant stumbling around blind. If there’s a detonation somewhere in a population center in this country, their first inclination may be a preemptive launch rather than waiting to see if we sort things out.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem,” said the FBI. “The president made a statement six months ago that Russian missiles were no longer aimed at American cities.”

  “They’re not,” said Sloan.

  “Then we would have time to contact them and give them assurances,” said the FBI.

  “You don’t understand,” said Hirshberg. “Russia’s nuclear missiles are configured in such a way that even if the Russians removed the targets from the missiles’ computerized guidance systems, if they’re launched, the missiles are programmed to immediately reacquire their last known targets.”

  The president’s assurances aside, they were living in a fool’s paradise.

  NINETEEN

  FRIDAY HARBOR, WA

  Joss stood looking at the mess in her office, this time in the cold light of morning. If anything, it looked worse than the night before.

  By nature she was not well organized. She generally worked from piles of papers that to the average eye might appear disheveled. It was her own kind of filing system. Usually these stacks rested on her desk and any other flat surface that was available. She knew where everything was and could usually stick her hand in any of a dozen of these document heaps and come up with whatever was needed. The problem now was that these stacks had been scattered all over the floor, some of them torn up.

  “What in the world?”

  Joss turned to see Samantha outside, standing in the doorway. She was examining the splintered wood around the lock of the office’s front door.

  “I had visitors last night,” said Joselyn.

  “I can see.” Sam wandered in looking at the tall blond guy standing in the reception area, holding some loose pieces of paper he’d picked up off the floor.

  Joss made the introduction. “Samantha Hawthorne, Gideon van Ry.”

  They shook hands. Samantha eyed him, making a careful and slow appraisal, then looked around the office again. “They really did trash the place.”

  “Sam’s my landlady,” Joselyn told Gideon.

  “You have my condolences,” he told her.

  “I hope insurance will cover this. What happened?”

  “I came back from Seattle last night and found it as you see it. Somebody broke in,” said Joss. “Trashed the place and left.”

  “Kids, you think?” said Samantha.

  “I doubt it.”

  “You sound like you know who did this.”

  “Not really,” said Joss.

  “Have you called the sheriff?”

  “A deputy just left. He took the report. Of course they’ll investigate.”

  “We’ll need it for insurance if nothing else,” said Sam. She was still surveying the damage. “Is anything missing?”

  Joss gave her a shrug, like she couldn’t be sure. She had also used the opportunity with the sheriff’s deputy to report the incident on the ferry the night before. When she did, the cop looked at her askance, like this clearly wasn’t her day. Still he didn’t seem driven by the coincidence to link the two events or ask many questions. Joselyn was sure she would be hearing more from them, but at least for the moment they seemed satisfied.

  Gideon had spent the night in a small motel by the airport just on the fringes of town. Given the events of the day, they agreed that it was not wise for her to go home. She took a room just a few doors away.

  Van Ry seemed straight-arrow. That morning Joselyn had slipped away from him long enough to call the phone number down in California that was on his business card. They vouched for him and provided information about the institute, which seemed to correspond with what he’d told her the night before.

  Now he disappeared into her inner office and was lifting the two filing cabinets off the floor and positioning them against the wall where they belonged.

  “Who is he?” Samantha whispered in Joselyn’s ear.

  “He’s here about Belden’s business.”

  Sam looked at her as if the name didn’t register.

  “The guy with the desperate phone calls.”

  “Ah. That one.”

  Samantha craned her neck to peek around the doorway for one more look at Gideon. “Not bad,” she whispered. “You can send him to my office to clean up when he’s finished here.”

  “He’s here on business. Belden’s dead.”

  This took Samantha’s attention away from the doorway and the tall blond. She looked at Joselyn wide-eyed. “How did it happen?”

  Instead of answering, Joss unfolded a copy of the Seattle paper with the story on an inside page. It was sparse on details and attributed Belden’s death to an accident that was still under investigation.

  “You flew down on this plane with him to Seattle?”

  Joselyn nodded.

  Sam slumped into a couch in the corner. “You could have been killed.”

  “That’s not the worst of it.”

  Sam looked at her.

  “His death was no accident. I can’t tell you anything more. Not right now.”

  “He was murdered?”

  “It looks that way.”

  Suddenly the light clicked on in Sam’s eyes. “You think this is connected?” She meant the tossing of Joselyn’s office.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You should go to the sheriff. You told them that he was murdered, didn’t you?”

  “No. I don’t have any evidence.”

  “Start with this, what happened to your office, the fact that your client is dead, the fact that you were on the plane with him earlier in the day. I think they’ll be able to connect the dots.”

  “I don’t want to get into it right now. Can we talk later?”

  “Sure, if that’s what you want. But I’ll tell you, I wouldn’t wait. Can I help you clean up?”

  “It’s pretty much a one-person job. And I’ve got… ” Joss gestured toward the door to her office and Gideon. She could hear metal drawers sliding into their hardware.

  “Call me if you need me. I’ll be right next door.” Sam took one last look at her, then slipped down the corridor to the next office.

  Joss headed toward her office and the mess that was inside.

  “I am just putting all the files in a stack on your desk.” Gideon looked up at her. He was on his hands and knees behind the desk.

  “There’s no need for you to do that.”

  “As long as I’m here, I may as well be of some help.”

  “Really.” She went over behind the desk and started taking the papers and folders out of his hand. “I can do this. Please.”

  He got up from behind the desk.

  “Tell me,” said Joselyn, “how did you get my name?”

  He picked up her office swivel chair, which was flipped over behind the desk. “You were listed as one of the corporate officers for Belden Electronics—with your State Department of Licensing.”

  “Of course. The corporate formation.” Suddenly Joselyn started wondering. If van Ry could find her from the documents of incorporation, so could anyone else. Belden’s associates, the ones McCally warned her about. Maybe that’s how they found her on the ferry and located her office.

  “I assume you were simply acting for your client?” said Gideon.

  “Hmm?”

  “In creating the corporation.”

  “Of course.”

  “So you weren’t involved in any actual management activities?”

  “No.”

  “What do you think they were looking for? The people who did this?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they weren’t sure themselves.”

  “Ah, what do you call it?” Gideon thought
for a second. “A fishing expedition.”

  She nodded but didn’t look terribly convinced.

  “I would say you are in a great deal of trouble,” said Gideon.

  “Why?”

  “Because the people who did this are very dangerous,” said Gideon. “I do not think they were on some idle search for the unknown in your office.”

  “All of my papers relating to Belden and his business went to the bottom of the sound with the car.” She had told him about the incident the night before. “Maybe that’s what they were looking for.”

  “It’s possible, but I doubt it.”

  “Why?”

  “Put yourself in their shoes. You go down to represent your client Mr. Belden before the grand jury. You would take the Belden file with you, wouldn’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “They would figure that much out themselves. They attempt to kill you on the ferry. As far as we know, they are satisfied that they succeeded. You are silenced. The file was with you in the car. They can surmise as much. And still, they come here and do this.” He wrinkled his eyebrows. “The question being, why?”

  Joselyn shook her head. She didn’t have a clue.

  “Let’s start with your client’s business.”

  Joss was no longer in the mood to protect client confidences. She wondered if she’d made a big mistake in refusing to cooperate with McCally. She wasn’t going to make the same error twice.

  “He said he was in electronics. I had no reason to question it.”

  “What kind of electronics?”

  “Something about switches. Programming for security systems or something. I don’t remember all the details.”

  “Did he ever take you to his place of business?”

  “No.”

  “Did he give you an address?”

  “He said he was just getting set up. I’m not sure he’d found a place.” Joselyn slumped into the swivel chair behind her desk as Gideon pushed one of the client chairs into position across from her and took a seat.

  “In other words, you’re not certain he was in business at all.”

  She shook her head. “Why would he come to me to set up a business if he didn’t need it?”

  “Why indeed?” said Gideon. “What did he look like?”

  She gave him a quick description and then told him about the investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and McCally’s warning that Belden had used many aliases, that the government believed he was involved in moving dangerous munitions. Gideon took it all in, made a few notes, and didn’t look up at her until she mentioned the small plastic device that the authorities found floating in the water at the site of Belden’s plane crash.

  “What did it look like?”

  “Small, white, about the size of a square wristwatch.”

  “And they said it was for measuring radiation?”

  She nodded.

  “A dosimeter,” said Gideon

  “That’s it.”

  “Did you get a good look at it?”

  “He showed it to me.”

  “The paper inside the square,” said Gideon. “Was it discolored?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember. I didn’t look that closely. Besides, they pulled it out of the water.”

  “Yes. That could have affected it. Also the heat of the blast. You said the plane exploded?”

  “The biggest damn fireball you ever saw,” said Joselyn. “I’ve got melted nylons to prove it.”

  “So we are back to where we started.”

  She shot him a quizzical look.

  “What were they after? The people who did this.” Gideon was glancing around her office again like he coveted whatever it was they were looking for, the missing piece to a puzzle.

  “Like I said, there was nothing here to find.”

  “My guess is that if you did not know the item or items were significant, you would not have hidden them. They would have been in your files or on your desk.” He ignored this disclaimer and seemed to think out loud to himself. “That means that whatever it is, they probably found it. So we are left with a simple process of elimination.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We account for all of your files and materials. And whatever is missing … ” He looked at her from under arched eyebrows.

  “Read my lips. There was nothing here. Besides, going through all the files would take all day.”

  “You have other things to do today?”

  Based on the mess in her office, the answer was obvious.

  “So the sooner we get started … ” Gideon was back down on the floor, rummaging around, picking up files and loose papers from the floor, trying to figure out which papers went with which files.

  She took them out of his hand and put them on the desk. “You stack. I’ll sort,” said Joss.

  TWENTY

  DEER HARBOR, ORCAS ISLAND, WA

  The pit was composed of less than thirty pounds of pure plutonium, surrounded by a casing. Grigori Chenko worked in a tent shrouded by heavy-mil plastic. In the roof was a vacuum hose and high micron filter intended to create a slight negative air pressure inside the enclosure. This would keep any of the friable particles of plutonium from escaping, hopefully trapping them in the filter.

  To protect himself the Russian wore a hazmat suit of yellow neoprene. It was equipped with a breathing apparatus containing fine micron filters. Chenko was sweating inside the hot suit, the plastic face piece continually fogging over. It was not the kind of forced-air breathing apparatus they used at Sandia and other high-tech labs but something Chaney had acquired on the open market.

  He took a break, stepped outside the tent, and removed the headgear so he could clear it to see. His hands were sweating inside the neoprene gloves, his back aching from bending over the small table he’d set up inside. The work was slow and tedious, punctuated by moments of intense anxiety as when he removed the plastic explosives from around the core.

  The garage had been evacuated and Chenko’s footsteps cast an eerie echo from concrete floor to metal walls as he paced about and stretched to loosen his body. The others waited outside until he was finished and the device was secured in its new metal casing.

  Chaney had fabricated the casing from pieces of two old military fighter wing tanks that he found in a scrapyard on the mainland. Working from photographs of the original device, Chaney demonstrated his skill with a welding torch, reshaping the metal and adding touches like rivets for realism. The Russian could not tell the reproduction from the original on display. They were peas in a pod from a large photograph that had been taken a month earlier and brought back to the island by Thorn himself. The plan was ingenious.

  He donned the headgear and ducked back through the slit in the plastic tent. To the untrained eye, the device on the table looked like a soccer ball. It was composed of thirty-two individual pie-shaped pieces of plutonium. Each was cut at a forty-five-degree angle. These were formed into a sphere and surrounded a beryllium/polonium core.

  The entire package was wrapped in conventional plastic explosives that contained multiple detonators. It was this, the plastic explosives and the detonators, that drew Chenko’s attention. They were old and presented the greatest risk of failure. The simultaneous timing of the detonators was critical. The nuclear reaction was a given, an immutable matter of physics, but only if the plastic explosive that triggered it was timed to one ten-millionth of a second. The pressure giving rise to implosion would have to be precisely uniform around the entire outer ring of the sphere. Only then would critical mass be achieved, setting up the nuclear chain reaction.

  It was a small bomb, as nuclear devices went, but at its core, at the instant of ignition, temperatures would reach one million degrees, hotter than the surface of the sun. The high temperatures would release massive amounts of electromagnetic radiation. Objects in the immediate vicinity would be vaporized instantly.

  The radiation would be absorbed by the air immediately
around the bomb. This in turn would be heated to incandescence, creating a fireball that would expand at velocities approaching the speed of light until its temperature dropped below 300,000 degrees. Then it would slow to the point where the mammoth shock wave created by the compression of air in the atmosphere would overtake the fireball, flattening structures and knocking down trees. Within a second, the fireball would reach the same area, igniting every flammable surface, melting metal, and turning human bodies into instant steam.

  The shock wave would travel more than two and a quarter miles in ten seconds and result in maximum devastation of the affected area. The luminosity of the fireball would fade. The violent overpressure of the shock wave would pass. Out of the violent sphere of fire, the forbidding mushroom cloud would raise its deadly head toward the stratosphere, cooling as it climbed, creating its own violent convections of air. There would be lightning from within, and if conditions were right, a deadly downpour of highly radioactive particles, a rain shower of agonizing death.

  It took Chenko more than two hours to check and replace detonators. He did this by cannibalizing and using the spare parts of the other device, the first one the fishermen brought in, missing its deadly plutonium core.

  He then took the assembled device and bolted it into the open half of the bomb casing that Chaney had built. He stepped out of the plastic tent and lifted the hood of the hazmat suit from his head. Sweat dripped down his forehead into his eyes and ran in rivulets down his neck into the suit.

  He walked toward the large sliding door of the metal garage and slid it open with a rattle. The men outside turned from their conversations to look. A few of them dropped cigarettes into the dirt and stamped them out.

  Chaney and Thorn were off to one side, by the old battered pickup truck Thorn was using. The Russian joined them, unzipping his suit as he walked.

  “It is finished.”

  “Good,” said Thorn. “And the lead wires for the electronic detonator?”

  “As you requested. I have left them exposed through the small opening near the tail fins. You can replace the hatch cover when you are finished. Touch up the paint, and it is ready.”

  “Excellent. You do good work.”