The Hamlet Warning (25 page)

“Unpack,” Loomis told him. “We’ve got the war ended.” 

“Oh shit, Loomis. Don’t you understand anything? We’ve got our orders. There’s nothing we can do.”

“Wait for me there,” Loomis said. “I’ll be out to get you in thirty minutes. Pull your electronic gear and experts off that plane.”

Johnson sighed to catch his breath. “Loomis, this plane leaves in fifteen minutes. It’s the last train from Boot Hill. The embassy is closed. The last of the personnel is on the way out here now. Everyone has plans for a big night stateside. I’ve wired my wife to bring the kids and meet me in Miami. I don’t see how I can ask any of these people to step off the plane.”

“Don’t ask them. Tell them.”

“Give it up, Loomis. We’re too late.”

“I’ve just talked to Ramón. His men are staying in place to help. We’ll have an hour, maybe an hour and a half.”

“Not enough.”

“But it
might
be. Coon said the thing’s probably on a rooftop. While the Dominicans hunt, we can take a chopper and go right down on the deck.”

“And get our balls shot off.”

“The Dominicans will start the search within the hour, just as soon as they get organized. They won’t have time to cover all the downtown section. But we probably can check every rooftop from the air.”

“Loomis, I’ve got my orders. I can’t countermand them. You know that.”

“I also know you are given a lot of latitude in the field. This is a new situation. And we need your expert to disconnect the thing when we find it.”

Johnson’s end of the line was silent for a moment. Loomis waited.

“All right,” Johnson said. “I’ll call for volunteers. Coon is nutty enough to go with us. But I’m not conning anybody. I personally think you’re going to have one hell of a roman candle here in about three hours.” 

“Maybe. But consider this, Johnson. If we
do
find it, you may not have to worry so much about the next one.”

“You’ve got a point there, ol’ buddy. But I can’t keep from remembering the old standing general order on what to do in case of an atomic attack.”

“What?”

“Oh, hell, Loomis. That one has whiskers: put your fingers in your ears, put your head between your legs, and kiss your ass goodbye.”

*

Minus
01
:
56
Hours

Long experienced in revolution, the residents of the Dominican Republic usually were as sensitive to danger as alley cats. But for once their built-in radar failed them. As word of the cease-fire spread quickly from the military to civilians, the population swarmed into the streets to celebrate.

El Jefe rode from the
palacio
toward exile through jubilant crowds waving Dominican flags. He sat with his brother Manuel and María Elena in the back seat of the chauffeured limousine. Loomis was perched in the jump seat, facing them. The rest of the De la Torre family had been sent to safety in the home of friends near San Cristóbal, thirty kilometers to the southwest. Manuel and María Elena were to join them there after seeing El Jefe off to exile.

The brothers, never close, obviously were disturbed over the developments that now clearly delineated them as opponents. Loomis felt the strain between them. María Elena, studying her hands at rest on her knees, seemed unusually subdued, lost in thought.

Loomis felt concern for her. The strain of the last few days showed. She was thinner, and the darkness around her eyes was not from eye shadow. She looked up once, met his gaze, and smiled ruefully. They’d had little time alone since her return from Ramón’s camp.

As the car made its way slowly through the narrow streets toward the airport expressway, El Jefe kept his face averted, studying the crowds outside the window.

“Maybe we should go ahead and make a public announcement about the bomb,” he said.

“Washington believes panic would take a considerable toll,” Loomis told him. “They advise waiting until the last possible moment.”

“Washington advises,” El Jefe said. “Perhaps we have listened too much to what Washington advises. The whole world is operated on what Washington thinks. And no one stops to consider that the United States can’t even run its own government properly.”

“An announcement probably would bring the people in from the suburbs to watch,” Manuel said. “They would rationalize that one doesn’t have the opportunity to see an atomic explosion every day.”

“Papa!” María Elena chided. “The people are not that
estúpido
.”

“They may be that bored,” Manuel said. “Sometimes I think boredom contributes more to revolutions than principles.”

El Jefe ignored the exchange. The car entered the expressway and picked up speed. They rode the rest of the way in silence.

At the airport, the car was driven straight to the plane, a Boeing 707 outfitted for presidential use. The flight plan called for a landing in Caracas, then a nonstop trip to Madrid.

El Jefe stepped out of the car, glanced at the plane, then turned to take one last look in the direction of Santo Domingo.

“What a beautiful day for such tragedy,” he said. “If I never return, I will always remember the Dominican Republic for its perfect days, for all the flowers and greenness. The gods must have great humor, to place such poverty and suffering in such surroundings.”

He shook his head sadly, and Loomis saw tears welling up. “I tried so hard,” he said. “I tried to do right. I wonder where I did wrong. I suppose I shall always wonder.”

He turned to Loomis. “I wish you would come with me,” he said. “I still need you, as a friend, if not as a protector. If you change your mind, you only have to let me know. You will always have a place with me.”

“Thank you,” Loomis said. “I’ve never been one to look ahead. I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“In the accounting from my regime, there will be a special gift for you,” El Jefe said. “Consider it only a small gesture toward expressing my immense appreciation for all you have done.”

Before Loomis could reply, El Jefe seized him in a warm
abrazo
, then turned to María Elena.

“I will be a lonely old man, wherever I am,” El Jefe said. “Come see me.”

“We will,” María Elena said, kissing him.

The two brothers stood for a moment, words failing both. They shook hands solemnly and exchanged quick
abrazos
. El Jefe then climbed the ramp into the plane without looking back.

Within a minute the ramp was pulled away, the engines started, and the ship began trundling along the taxi strip. Loomis, María Elena, and her father stood watching until the plane was airborne, banking toward Caracas.

De la Torre walked back to the car. María Elena lingered for a moment. “Your job is done,” she said. “You don’t have to go back. Please, please come to San Cristóbal with us.”

“You know I can’t do that,” Loomis said.

She put a hand on his arm. “That’s what worries me. I do know you. I’m afraid you won’t leave in time.”

“I’ll leave,” he said. “I have a lot to live for.” 

They walked back to the car. María Elena kissed him with an intensity that took him by surprise.

“Be careful,” she said. She turned and entered the car.

De la Torre reached out to shake hands.

“I don’t know what is going to happen, Loomis,” he said. “Find the bomb if you can. But don’t take undue risks. Pass the word to those concerned to make the announcement to evacuate when most feasible. We can rebuild the city from the ashes. But we must save as many people as we possibly can.”

He closed the door. Loomis watched the car move away, gathering speed. María Elena turned once and waved through the rear window. Then the car turned a corner and passed out of view.

Feeling in his stomach the old familiar tightness of impending combat, Loomis walked hurriedly to the helicopter pad where the crew was readying his bird for flight.

Part Four

Chapter 28

Minus
01
:
32
Hours

Several slats were missing on the west side of the old water-cooling tower. Through a gap at eye level, Zaloudek could see the National Palace less than a mile away. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and leaned against the wooden corner post. The inside of the tower was a furnace. Despite the height, no breeze stirred inside the louvered box. Zaloudek was tempted to remove more slats for ventilation, but each time he considered doing so he felt far greater concern for his own safety.

Thirty minutes ago the shooting had stopped, and from the roof they had heard yelling and cheering in the streets six stories below. For a time, Arnheiter had feared that the bomb plot had been discovered and that the war had been halted for a search. But the signs of celebration eased his mind. Now, Arnheiter was worried about the time, carping continually, driving Zaloudek to distraction.

With only thirty minutes remaining before noon and their departure for the border of Haiti, Zaloudek was beginning the final stages of assembly. He had fitted the components together in his mind a thousand times. He knew them by heart, each micromillimeter notch and bevel. But the long preparation was over. He now began the work of love.

The transfer of the nuclear materials from the shop to the roof had been surprisingly easy — aside from the work itself. Most of the fighting the night before seemed concentrated several blocks to the south. Shortly after dawn, Zaloudek, Arnheiter, and the four gunmen made several trips with the panel truck, carefully repainted and bearing a hand-lettered sign:
El
Mickey
,
el
Acondicionador
de
Aire
. Piece by piece, they had carried the material into the building. Since the electric power was off, they were unable to use the old elevator. They had to carry the material laboriously up the stairway to the fifth floor. From there they struggled up the narrow half-flight into the superstructure and the door that led onto the roof.

Now the van was parked on the street below. Arnheiter’s gunmen, armed with automatic weapons and hand-held transceivers, were stationed at strategic points, guarding all approaches to the building. They were to remain on watch until Zaloudek completed the bomb. Then they all were to walk quietly to the van, return to the shop, change clothes, and separate into three groups for the dash to the Haitian border.

Zaloudek was tired. The heat was rapidly sapping his energy. He again mopped the sweat from his forehead, and studied the mass of uranium at his feet. He had waited more than twenty years to get his hands on that grapefruit-sized chunk of metal. And now he would show the world what he could do. Several of the scientific community’s most illustrious physicists would be reminded that this was the Zaloudek that they had relegated to Bunsen burners and Kipp generators, while lesser minds were given choice assignments.

Those world-famous scientists had ignored him, and they had ignored his warning. Now, he would show them the true destruction of nuclear power — an example that would awaken the world to the fact that mankind was moving relentlessly toward nuclear Armageddon. Unless the two great powers disarmed, destroyed all nuclear weapons, and ceased making weapons-grade nuclear materials, then small nations, even small groups, would soon have nuclear capability. Once that point was reached, there would be no turning back. Zaloudek was convinced of that. He had to warn the world before it was too late.

The old water-cooling tower was ideal for his purpose. Zaloudek could not have asked for anything better.

The tower itself was obsolete. New equipment with air-cooled coils had been installed several years ago on another part of the roof. The building’s owner had left the old tower intact to avoid the expense of removal. It had not been used for years. Eight feet high, it was built on a platform six feet above the roof. Zaloudek would have preferred more altitude for his bomb — an airplane, perhaps — but the tower would tend to minimize the shadow effect of the surrounding buildings. The tower itself of course would be vaporized in the first millisecond of ignition. From his line of sight, Zaloudek could see that the resulting fireball would have access to a much wider section of the city than if the bomb were sitting on the roof. Peeping through a broken slat, Zaloudek attempted to estimate how far the fireball would reach.

Arnheiter’s yell jarred him from his reverie. “What in hell are you doing up there?” Arnheiter asked.

“Catching my breath,” Zaloudek said. “It’s hot in this thing.”

Arnheiter looked at his watch in exasperation. “It’s eleven-thirty,” he said. “We’re not going to make it! And you just keep fucking around!”

“I’m on schedule,” Zaloudek said. “There’s nothing left to do but to put it together. Just like reassembling a rifle.” 

“Is there anything I could be doing while you piddle around?”

Zaloudek hesitated. Arnheiter was nervous, impatient, a constant source of irritation. He simply didn’t understand the need for rigid safety factors and painstaking measurements. But if Arnheiter had something to do, maybe he would quit pacing the roof, worrying.

“You can drill the holes for the frame,” Zaloudek said. “I’ve marked the places.”

Arnheiter climbed the ladder and stepped over the coaming into the tower. Zaloudek handed him the brace and bit. While Arnheiter drilled the holes through the two-by-six floorboards, Zaloudek located and carefully distributed the bolts, lockwashers, and nuts that would secure the nuclear device to the tower.

By the time Arnheiter completed the last hole, he was sweating, too.

“I don’t see why you have to bolt the damned thing down,” he said. “You’ve already said that when it goes off, the tower will flat disappear.”

Zaloudek had no logical reason. The bolts simply fitted into his orderly working methods. He liked everything nailed down. He quickly made up an explanation.

“When the cannon fires, the recoil might conceivably jar things out of kilter,” he said.

The possibility even sounded plausible to himself, but he knew the logic was deceiving. Criticality would come virtually simultaneously with the gun’s explosion. In the next instant there would be no gun barrel for recoil, nor framework to be jarred. The gun and the steel frame would be vaporized — along with the building and most everything for at least a block in each direction.

“We’re ready for the frame,” he told Arnheiter.

They struggled the heavy base into position. Zaloudek then sent Arnheiter down to the roof with a crescent wrench to hold each bolt while he tightened the nut. He then called Arnheiter back into the tower to help him fit the cannon onto the frame. The thick-barreled gun was heavy. They could barely lift it. They made three separate attempts before the holes were lined up and Zaloudek was able to slip the bolts through.

Arnheiter staggered to the side of the tower, fighting for breath. He removed a louver and put his face close to the opening.

“Eleven forty-two,” he said. “We’ll never make it.”

Zaloudek wiped his face and hands on a grease rag. “We’re past the most difficult part,” he said. “We will be off the roof by twelve noon. I promise you.”

He worked the uranium target into place, carefully checking the alignment. He then fitted the reflector onto its track, and began working it toward the uranium, centimeter by centimeter, monitoring the buildup of neutrons.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Arnheiter asked. Zaloudek attempted to explain. “I’ve got to get this just exactly right,” he said. “There’s no margin for error. The trick is to hold the mass just below criticality without going over. That’s why I must measure the number of free neutrons, every move I make.”

The explanation did nothing for Arnheiter’s nerves. “You mean that thing is about to go off? Right now?”

“Almost,” Zaloudek said, monitoring the radiation with his equipment. “Theoretically, at least, some unexpected external source could send it over the brink. A burst of radar waves from a passing plane. A burst of cosmic rays. Or a minor mathematical error on my part.”

Arnheiter was scarcely breathing. Zaloudek marked his settings with chalk. He backed the reflector a few inches and measured the distance from the mark to the uranium target.

“My calculations are confirmed,” he said. “Now I’ll arm the device.”

With Arnheiter watching nervously, Zaloudek loaded the cannon and carefully fitted its projectile into place. 

He maneuvered the shield back onto its track and began edging it forward again, carefully monitoring the free neutrons with each minuscule move.

“Christ, how do you do it?” Arnheiter asked. “I’m scared shitless.”

Zaloudek paused for a moment. “So am I,” he said. “Only an idiot wouldn’t be scared. But by taking it slowly, measuring the return carefully, we will be all right.”

“What do you mean, ‘return’?”

“The uranium is giving off radiation,” Zaloudek explained patiently. “But at the moment, each chunk is subcritical. This steel reflector is bouncing back neutrons toward the target, contributing to a buildup. When the cannon fires, it will send the projectile into the uranium mass at five hundred feet per second. The projectile itself is uranium. The projectile will plug the hole in the reflector. The shaped charges will meet instantaneously and interlock in a way that increases pressures tremendously. The result will be a fireball.”

“Jesus,” Arnheiter said.

“I’ve hedged the bet a little,” Zaloudek couldn’t keep from boasting. “A little wrinkle of my own. I have glued a wafer of lithium onto the nose of the projectile and some polonium on the target. That’s to boost the level of free neutrons on contact. The idea is sort of like making certain your fireplace catches by pouring gasoline on it. Also, there is a trick to the shape of the charge, the interplay of the mass and projectile, increasing the pressures by several factors.”

“What’s keeping it from going off right now?” Arnheiter asked, his voice strangely subdued.

“My arithmetic, mostly,” Zaloudek said. “If it went now, it would be what is called a fizzle yield, a very low percentile of effectiveness.”

“Does that ever happen?”

“Not anymore. Usually, anyone who works with atomic weapons knows what he’s doing.” 

Arnheiter checked the time. “Twelve to twelve,” he said.

“See? I told you we’d be off the roof by noon,” Zaloudek said. “I’m ready to connect the timer and interlocks. Once I do that, there’s no turning back. This baby’s going to go.”

“I better check and make sure everything is all right,” Arnheiter said.

He picked up his walkie-talkie and clicked the button twice. One by one, the acknowledgments came in by return clicks. First the man in the stairwell on the first floor, monitoring the entrance. Next, the lookout in the apartment building across the way. Then the guard at the door to the roof. And last, the man on the balcony over the truck. The escape route was clear.

“Go ahead,” Arnheiter said. “Set the timer.”

Zaloudek made the first connection before he heard the sound. He looked up. Arnheiter heard it, too.

A helicopter was heading straight toward them, just clearing the rooftops.

Zaloudek leaped to his feet, and was heading for the ladder when Arnheiter grabbed his arm.

“Don’t panic!” he said. “Maybe they’re not hunting us. Keep working! We’re air-conditioning repairmen! We have every right to be here!”

Zaloudek knelt by the bomb, feeling his heart lunging uncontrollably. He fought against instinct to keep from looking up. He picked up a wrench and pretended to be tightening the bolts on the frame, so upset that he stripped the threads on one. He was aware that Arnheiter had moved to the tool kits and was standing within reach of his 9-mm Israeli Uzi.

And the helicopter came toward them, the flap of the rotors filling the tower with sound. 

*

Minus
01
:
12
Hours

As Loomis took the helicopter low over the main business district, Johnson was leaning forward, tense and intent on the search. Coon, relaxed and jovial, appeared to be enjoying the ride.

Through his headset, Loomis monitored the nets on army and police frequencies. The search was floundering. The celebrations in the streets hampered traffic. Stores and offices were closed, blocking vital search areas. Apartments were empty and the doors locked. The routes to many roofs could not be found. Janitors and building engineers had vanished. Under the circumstances, the searchers were authorized to smash doors and chop holes, but those measures simply took too much time.

The air search also seemed doomed. Loomis had never before noticed the number of downtown rooftops in use. Many were bare, but most were not. Although the majority of downtown buildings housed offices and stores on the street level, the upper floors usually contained apartments.

“You ever see so fucking much laundry?” Johnson fumed. “They must have saved up their dirty clothes all through the revolution so they could celebrate today by flying their drawers.”

Coon chortled. Loomis eased back on the cyclic, lowering forward speed, and studied the rooftops. He moved slowly up El Conde, no more than a hundred feet over the highest buildings, carefully watching the telephone poles and the maze of overhead wiring.