Janice and I, hand in hand, entered the laboratory.
It was clinically white and intensely bright. Everywhere there were signs of work being done, and a slight whirring of small instruments. There was a lathe in one corner, and farther off a door that led to a room labeled "CNC" - which I knew stood for Computer Numerically Controlled, and meant precision shaping of metal parts. Those machines were noisy, I knew, and since it was relatively quiet I guessed it was not running at the moment. Stainless steel tables and chrome fixtures glinted in the bright, white light.
Curiously, also, there were warning signs regarding the safe handling of nuclear materials.
Nuclear materials?!? What the?!?
Rick was speaking now, obviously somewhat agitated. Janice was responding, firm and insistent. Rick used the strange language he knew I would not understand, while Janice - for my benefit - spoke in English. She was convincing him, commanding him, really, to tell her everything and in my presence. And in English.
"What do you know about the manufacture of nuclear weapons?" Rick asked, finally acquiescing, although each word was as reluctant to leave his mouth as a teenager from his warm bed.
"Not very much," I admitted. "I learned a little about it in my physics classes, and there's the basic information that anyone can access. Other than that, I've not given them much thought."
"Nuclear weapons are divided into two different types, based on the kind of reaction generated in the explosion. The first is fission. This is energy that is released from nuclear material - usually uranium - when the natural decay of the material is increased rapidly through the introduction of additional neutrons. This is what was used on Hiroshima. The next type, fusion, is based on imploding nuclear material upon itself, using the power of the nuclear explosion to fuse atoms - isotopes, really - of hydrogen together into helium. This is the kind of weapon dropped on Nagasaki. The amount of energy resulting from such an explosion is usually significantly greater than that of the fission type. Nagasaki experienced twice the effect that Hiroshima did, for example. Fission type materials are generally more accessible, while creating the Deuterium and Tritium necessary for a sustained fusion type reaction requires specialized gear and training to create. It is also much more volatile and dangerous.
"Generation of material used in these reactions can be done in two ways. The most common..."
"Is in nuclear reactors," I interrupted. This was something I knew about, having studied it extensively in my doctoral work. "The Soviet model of the nuclear power reactor was specifically designed to create material for use in nuclear weapons, and energy was just a by-product. The western model was different. Because it is water cooled, it is at once much safer, and it produces less volatile waste. Waste is still produced, however, and no one knows exactly what to do with it."
"That may have been true before. We are changing the rules," Rick said.
An incredible chill crept through my bones. What did he just say?
"So this is..." I began.
"Where we design OUR nuclear weapons. But ours are unlike anything the world has ever seen."
He picked up a three ring binder, stuffed with sleeve-type page protectors. Flipping to the first page, Rick pointed to a diagram.
"This was our inspiration," he said. "This is a tactical artillery shell, used by only two military forces in the world - the United States and Russia. The US has abandoned the production of these weapons because they are at once too dangerous to use and also to terrible to employ. The US still maintains an unknown number of these weapons, just in case." A sardonic grin crept onto his face.
"Learning about the practical uses of such a weapon, its expected yield and ease of deployment - anyone with the right gun can fire this thing, to apocalyptic effect - we came to realize that in the game of military might this was, quite literally, the nuclear option. It is why there is such incredible inequities in the military forces of the world. Ultimately, no one would ever dare invade the United States, because they know that the price to pay would be too great. The United States remains the only country to use nuclear weapons on an enemy."
"That is true, but Germany, Japan, and other countries have used other weapons of mass destruction - chemical and biological weapons," I pointed out.
"Yes, but nothing compares with the bomb."
No argument there.
"We realized that the smaller countries of the world could never gain access to this kind of weapon," Rick continued, "because the cost of creating it, storing it, and guarding it becomes too great. Even the possession of such a weapon presents a risk because there's always the off chance that someone will attempt to steal it to put to their own purposes. With large weapons it is relatively easy to inventory and safeguard them. With smaller ones..."
"But even the artillery shells are relatively large," I said. "And since - as you pointed out - so few were made, it would be easy to keep track of them."
"Yes. Thirty years ago it would have been impossible to do what we are doing quite easily today."
He flipped the pages of the binder to expose a picture of what appeared to be a hand grenade - a small, knobby metallic object about the size of a fist (based on the ruler placed next to it) and complete with a ring and pin and spoon, all in the immediately recognizable hand grenade configuration.
"You have no idea what this is," Rick said. He was practically crowing with delight and pride. He turned the page to show what looked like the remains of a concrete bunker - bits of concrete here and there, and some rebar sticking up at odd, twisted angles. The remains of the foundation hinted at walls of concrete that appeared to be 18 inches thick.
"This was one of our first attempts," Rick said. "It was before we had adequate precautions in place. Seven men were killed in this explosion. They were three hundred yards away when the remotely detonated hand grenade exploded. The men were killed instantly by the blast.
"Large nuclear devices carry also the problem of residual fallout and radiation sickness. Our smaller weapons are small enough that that is not as big of a problem. That should please you."
"Frankly, it frightens me," I said. "Just what kind of an operation is this? Are you funded by the government?"
At this point Janice spoke up. She had been silent, obviously taking it all in as well. But when she spoke, there was an odd cadence to her voice, as though she were repeating something learned long ago but forgotten. Something ingrained from childhood.
"With these kinds of weapons, we would be able to radically shift the balance of military power in the world. By distributing these weapons to rebel forces, we could overthrow dictators and tyrants. Freedom would be that much easier to attain, and defense of one's needs and goals would be easier for everyone. Diplomacy would also not be so one sided, with the nuclear nations controlling the talks and demanding what they wanted. This kind of thing would really level the playing field. Just look what one hand grenade did!"
She had a strange light in her eyes, something I'd never seen before. It was the most frightening thing I'd seen today. And that was saying something.
"So you're just going to start handing out crates of these things, regardless of the costs?"
"Yes," Rick and Janice intoned together.
"But that's not all," Rick said. I was really getting creeped out....
"Let me guess - gintsu knives?" I mocked. No one responded.
Flipping a few more pages in the binder, he pointed to an array of what appeared to be bullets.
"Using state of the art computer guided milling and machining techniques, as well as nanotechnology, we have devised a bullet-sized nuclear weapon that has amazing results."
He turned to a nearby computer and accessed a video program. The screen displayed what appeared to be an armored vehicle. Then the screen cut to a shot of a man, about 200 yards away, pointing a machine gun at the vehicle. A puff of smoke indicated that he had fired the weapon, and the screen cut away again, showing the vehicle. It was obviously some kind of slow-motion capture, because the thing literally disintegrated.
I was stunned.
"How many rounds was that?" I asked.
"One."
The possibilities of what I had just seen ran through my brain. Isn't it amazing how quickly your brain works in such cases, running though all kinds of scenarios, each as unlikely as the rest...
Lives of thousands of people passed before me, while just a few people carried these ultra-weapons.
"This cannot be!" I exclaimed. "Someone will stop you!"
"No one even knows we are here," Rick said. "And trust me, we are very well defended."
Thinking about what I'd just seen, I was inclined to agree with him.
"But what about nuclear material? It's a pretty difficult thing to get the quantity of material you'd need to generate these kinds of weapons, no matter how small."
"That's true. But we have found a solution to that."
He turned back to the computer and accessed the security monitoring system. He expanded a camera view to show me something that caused my heart to melt into my shoes and make me feel as though all the bones had been removed from my body.
There were row upon row of casks. Each bore the distinctive international sign indicating radiation danger. And each bore the same label - nuclear waste.
Rick started to chuckle. He was actually amused by this.
"You find this amusing?" I demanded.
"Yes! You see, these are supposed to be in Yucca Mountain. The government is paying our company to dig what amounts to an empty hole over there, while over here we are putting the waste to use. And the government is paying us through the nose to do it! HAHA!"
"So you're using the nuclear waste to provide fuel for your small arms nuclear munitions, and using tax payer money to do it?"
"A very succinct summation, Michael. Janice, you certainly picked a bright one," Rick chuckled. I couldn't tell if he was mocking me or not.
Upon later reflection, he was most certainly mocking me.
It was clinically white and intensely bright. Everywhere there were signs of work being done, and a slight whirring of small instruments. There was a lathe in one corner, and farther off a door that led to a room labeled "CNC" - which I knew stood for Computer Numerically Controlled, and meant precision shaping of metal parts. Those machines were noisy, I knew, and since it was relatively quiet I guessed it was not running at the moment. Stainless steel tables and chrome fixtures glinted in the bright, white light.
Curiously, also, there were warning signs regarding the safe handling of nuclear materials.
Nuclear materials?!? What the?!?
Rick was speaking now, obviously somewhat agitated. Janice was responding, firm and insistent. Rick used the strange language he knew I would not understand, while Janice - for my benefit - spoke in English. She was convincing him, commanding him, really, to tell her everything and in my presence. And in English.
"What do you know about the manufacture of nuclear weapons?" Rick asked, finally acquiescing, although each word was as reluctant to leave his mouth as a teenager from his warm bed.
"Not very much," I admitted. "I learned a little about it in my physics classes, and there's the basic information that anyone can access. Other than that, I've not given them much thought."
"Nuclear weapons are divided into two different types, based on the kind of reaction generated in the explosion. The first is fission. This is energy that is released from nuclear material - usually uranium - when the natural decay of the material is increased rapidly through the introduction of additional neutrons. This is what was used on Hiroshima. The next type, fusion, is based on imploding nuclear material upon itself, using the power of the nuclear explosion to fuse atoms - isotopes, really - of hydrogen together into helium. This is the kind of weapon dropped on Nagasaki. The amount of energy resulting from such an explosion is usually significantly greater than that of the fission type. Nagasaki experienced twice the effect that Hiroshima did, for example. Fission type materials are generally more accessible, while creating the Deuterium and Tritium necessary for a sustained fusion type reaction requires specialized gear and training to create. It is also much more volatile and dangerous.
"Generation of material used in these reactions can be done in two ways. The most common..."
"Is in nuclear reactors," I interrupted. This was something I knew about, having studied it extensively in my doctoral work. "The Soviet model of the nuclear power reactor was specifically designed to create material for use in nuclear weapons, and energy was just a by-product. The western model was different. Because it is water cooled, it is at once much safer, and it produces less volatile waste. Waste is still produced, however, and no one knows exactly what to do with it."
"That may have been true before. We are changing the rules," Rick said.
An incredible chill crept through my bones. What did he just say?
"So this is..." I began.
"Where we design OUR nuclear weapons. But ours are unlike anything the world has ever seen."
He picked up a three ring binder, stuffed with sleeve-type page protectors. Flipping to the first page, Rick pointed to a diagram.
"This was our inspiration," he said. "This is a tactical artillery shell, used by only two military forces in the world - the United States and Russia. The US has abandoned the production of these weapons because they are at once too dangerous to use and also to terrible to employ. The US still maintains an unknown number of these weapons, just in case." A sardonic grin crept onto his face.
"Learning about the practical uses of such a weapon, its expected yield and ease of deployment - anyone with the right gun can fire this thing, to apocalyptic effect - we came to realize that in the game of military might this was, quite literally, the nuclear option. It is why there is such incredible inequities in the military forces of the world. Ultimately, no one would ever dare invade the United States, because they know that the price to pay would be too great. The United States remains the only country to use nuclear weapons on an enemy."
"That is true, but Germany, Japan, and other countries have used other weapons of mass destruction - chemical and biological weapons," I pointed out.
"Yes, but nothing compares with the bomb."
No argument there.
"We realized that the smaller countries of the world could never gain access to this kind of weapon," Rick continued, "because the cost of creating it, storing it, and guarding it becomes too great. Even the possession of such a weapon presents a risk because there's always the off chance that someone will attempt to steal it to put to their own purposes. With large weapons it is relatively easy to inventory and safeguard them. With smaller ones..."
"But even the artillery shells are relatively large," I said. "And since - as you pointed out - so few were made, it would be easy to keep track of them."
"Yes. Thirty years ago it would have been impossible to do what we are doing quite easily today."
He flipped the pages of the binder to expose a picture of what appeared to be a hand grenade - a small, knobby metallic object about the size of a fist (based on the ruler placed next to it) and complete with a ring and pin and spoon, all in the immediately recognizable hand grenade configuration.
"You have no idea what this is," Rick said. He was practically crowing with delight and pride. He turned the page to show what looked like the remains of a concrete bunker - bits of concrete here and there, and some rebar sticking up at odd, twisted angles. The remains of the foundation hinted at walls of concrete that appeared to be 18 inches thick.
"This was one of our first attempts," Rick said. "It was before we had adequate precautions in place. Seven men were killed in this explosion. They were three hundred yards away when the remotely detonated hand grenade exploded. The men were killed instantly by the blast.
"Large nuclear devices carry also the problem of residual fallout and radiation sickness. Our smaller weapons are small enough that that is not as big of a problem. That should please you."
"Frankly, it frightens me," I said. "Just what kind of an operation is this? Are you funded by the government?"
At this point Janice spoke up. She had been silent, obviously taking it all in as well. But when she spoke, there was an odd cadence to her voice, as though she were repeating something learned long ago but forgotten. Something ingrained from childhood.
"With these kinds of weapons, we would be able to radically shift the balance of military power in the world. By distributing these weapons to rebel forces, we could overthrow dictators and tyrants. Freedom would be that much easier to attain, and defense of one's needs and goals would be easier for everyone. Diplomacy would also not be so one sided, with the nuclear nations controlling the talks and demanding what they wanted. This kind of thing would really level the playing field. Just look what one hand grenade did!"
She had a strange light in her eyes, something I'd never seen before. It was the most frightening thing I'd seen today. And that was saying something.
"So you're just going to start handing out crates of these things, regardless of the costs?"
"Yes," Rick and Janice intoned together.
"But that's not all," Rick said. I was really getting creeped out....
"Let me guess - gintsu knives?" I mocked. No one responded.
Flipping a few more pages in the binder, he pointed to an array of what appeared to be bullets.
"Using state of the art computer guided milling and machining techniques, as well as nanotechnology, we have devised a bullet-sized nuclear weapon that has amazing results."
He turned to a nearby computer and accessed a video program. The screen displayed what appeared to be an armored vehicle. Then the screen cut to a shot of a man, about 200 yards away, pointing a machine gun at the vehicle. A puff of smoke indicated that he had fired the weapon, and the screen cut away again, showing the vehicle. It was obviously some kind of slow-motion capture, because the thing literally disintegrated.
I was stunned.
"How many rounds was that?" I asked.
"One."
The possibilities of what I had just seen ran through my brain. Isn't it amazing how quickly your brain works in such cases, running though all kinds of scenarios, each as unlikely as the rest...
Lives of thousands of people passed before me, while just a few people carried these ultra-weapons.
"This cannot be!" I exclaimed. "Someone will stop you!"
"No one even knows we are here," Rick said. "And trust me, we are very well defended."
Thinking about what I'd just seen, I was inclined to agree with him.
"But what about nuclear material? It's a pretty difficult thing to get the quantity of material you'd need to generate these kinds of weapons, no matter how small."
"That's true. But we have found a solution to that."
He turned back to the computer and accessed the security monitoring system. He expanded a camera view to show me something that caused my heart to melt into my shoes and make me feel as though all the bones had been removed from my body.
There were row upon row of casks. Each bore the distinctive international sign indicating radiation danger. And each bore the same label - nuclear waste.
Rick started to chuckle. He was actually amused by this.
"You find this amusing?" I demanded.
"Yes! You see, these are supposed to be in Yucca Mountain. The government is paying our company to dig what amounts to an empty hole over there, while over here we are putting the waste to use. And the government is paying us through the nose to do it! HAHA!"
"So you're using the nuclear waste to provide fuel for your small arms nuclear munitions, and using tax payer money to do it?"
"A very succinct summation, Michael. Janice, you certainly picked a bright one," Rick chuckled. I couldn't tell if he was mocking me or not.
Upon later reflection, he was most certainly mocking me.
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