Andy McDermott - The Midas Legacy

‘You think we came here as a ruse ?’

He smirked. ‘Come now. I imagine Howard MacNeer played upon your patriotism and your desire to save the world yet again. He is as predictable as he is dull-minded. No doubt he had Oswald to support him. Poor Oswald, I shall miss him. A good friend, but he was always a diligent follower of policy, never a man with the determination to make it.’

‘We came here of our own accord,’ Nina insisted.

Mikkelsson turned his gaze to what she held in her hand. ‘The Crucible. I assume there is a tracking device artfully hidden in the case? But I doubt it will be able to transmit through a hundred metres of solid rock.’ He took it from her and placed it carefully upon a desk.

Nina decided to play out her deception for as long as possible. ‘There’s nothing in it but the Crucible. We came here to sell it to someone who could actually make use of it.’

‘Thanks for letting us know they were interested, by the way,’ Eddie added.

‘If you can profit from it,’ Nina went on, ‘I don’t see why we shouldn’t too.’

Mikkelsson’s response was a mocking shake of the head. ‘Oh, Nina. You are not a good actress — I imagine that is why the producers of your movie did not ask you to play yourself. After all those times you insisted that you would not take your seat in the Legacy because you did not want money, you did not need money… now you expect me to believe that you have turned mercenary overnight?’ He tutted. ‘Even your husband, whom I know used to be a mercenary, could not have convinced me. He is too much of a white knight. And giving North Korea the power to build an unlimited number of hydrogen bombs would not be the act of such a man.’

‘So what kind of man does that make you?’ Nina demanded.

‘A man who sees through the hypocrisy of the United States, and its puppets at the United Nations,’ he replied. ‘The longer I worked for the IAEA, the more I realised that I was being used. The assertion that nuclear weapons are a destabilising force is a myth, a lie. The US works tirelessly to prevent others from developing what it already has, in numbers sufficient to wipe out the population of the world several times over. It is not interested in peace, only in preserving its own hegemony.’

‘So letting a bunch of nuts like North Korea have nukes is good for world peace?’ asked Eddie sarcastically. ‘No offence,’ he added to Kang and Bok. ‘But you’re pointing guns at me, so I reckon that entitles me to gob off.’

‘They provide security,’ said Mikkelsson. ‘The threat of mutually assured destruction kept the peace for fifty years.’

‘Except for, y’know, little things like the Korean War,’ Nina pointed out. ‘The Vietnam War, the Gulf War…’

‘Precisely! Small wars, proxy wars, held in check by the Soviet Union and its own arsenal. The global balance of terror was maintained. Once the Soviet Union collapsed, America believed it had the power to act unchecked. And look at the result! An arrogant giant could stamp freely all over the world — until it stepped on a wasps’ nest and was stung. Then, in its blind pain and rage, it caused more damage and chaos than its enemies could ever have wished. New tyrants rose, freedoms were destroyed, countless innocents died, because there was no deterrent. But this’ — he gestured at whatever was beyond the windows — ‘will bring back that deterrent.’

‘And what is this?’ said Eddie. ‘It’s pretty retro. Looks like we’re on the set of Space: 1999 .’

Bewilderment from the Koreans, but Mikkelsson gestured for Nina and Eddie to join him at the windows. Warily, they did so, the soldiers’ guns tracking them. ‘This is North Korea’s newest and largest particle accelerator,’ he proclaimed.
Circular tunnels led out of each side of the large chamber below. Running through them was a thick tube of polished metal, its slight curvature hinting that it formed a loop several hundred metres in diameter. The accelerator was supported by a series of heavy-duty braces almost buried amongst a dense tangle of pipework and wiring: housings for the powerful electromagnets used to guide the particle beams.

Protruding from the accelerator directly before the control room was a set of heavy hinged panels, opened and closed by hydraulic pistons. They were currently in the former position, revealing that the accelerator passed through the shielded box. A large metal framework was mounted on tracks so it could be rolled towards the metal tube — which split into two, one branch continuing uninterrupted while the other had a gap in it. That surprised Nina, whose research had told her the particle beams needed to be contained in a vacuum to be brought almost to the speed of light.

A partial explanation came when she saw what was inside the framework.

The Crucible.

The larger of the two crystal spheres squatted within a high-tech copy of the cage that had formerly held it. The whole arrangement, particle accelerator and all, was nothing less than a man-made version of the natural nuclear reactor high in the Himalayas; once the accelerator was running at full power, the Crucible — containing uranium rather than mercury — would be slid into the beam’s path to trigger the transmutation process. Nature was being duplicated in steel and concrete.

Mikkelsson could tell that she had understood its purpose. ‘Yes, they have replicated the Midas Cave.’

‘How’d they do it so fast?’ Eddie asked. ‘You only just gave them the bloody thing!’

The Icelander chuckled. ‘Did you think I make everything up as I go, like you? I have planned this for some time. The accelerator had already been built; the Koreans intended to use it to transmute uranium to plutonium, ironically enough. But the Crucible will let them do so far more quickly and efficiently. I told them the principles after the discovery of the Secret Codex provided a way to find the Midas Cave. I intended to use my security clearance and friendship with Oswald to read the IHA’s files with the intent of locating the cave myself, but you, Nina, saved me the trouble. Once you described the Crucible in detail, I quickly designed an articulation frame to hold it. They have done a very good job of modifying the accelerator to accept it. It works perfectly.’

It took a moment for the full import of his words to sink in. ‘It’s already working ?’ said Nina, shocked.

‘You are just in time for a demonstration,’ Mikkelsson replied.

Kang straightened proudly. ‘We have plutonium for two warheads. Now we make three.’

‘Uh-oh,’ muttered Eddie. ‘I just remembered how many warheadless missiles they’ve got parked upstairs.’

Kang issued an order. The technicians went to their stations, two scurrying down a flight of steps to a lower level. A series of confirmations as instruments and readouts were checked, then the lead technician, with a degree of ceremony, pressed a switch. The lights flickered and a low thrumming sound echoed up from the chamber below, rising gradually in pitch and volume.

‘The accelerator is building up power,’ said Mikkelsson, peering at the monitors. ‘When it reaches four teraelectronvolts, the particle beam will be redirected from the main loop down the branch’ — he pointed at the tube with the gap — ‘and into the Crucible. Once the intensity is high enough to trigger a neutron burst, the uranium will be transmuted into plutonium.’

Eddie eyed the system. ‘Should I have brought my lead-lined underpants?’

‘The panels form a radiation shield. After the uranium sphere is in position, the shield will be closed. We are quite safe.’ As he spoke, the two technicians came into view below. They were pushing a trolley, on which sat an orange-sized sphere of a dull grey metal. Despite its small dimensions, it was obvious from the men’s movements that it was extremely heavy. ‘Uranium-238,’ Mikkelsson went on. ‘In itself, useless as nuclear fuel or for nuclear weapons. But it can be converted into plutonium-239. By normal means it would contain a large number of undesirable contaminants, such as plutonium-240.’