Clive Cussler - Dragon

Yaeger was disturbed. Pitt could see it.

“You’re telling me we may be sitting on a nuclear bomb?”

“Probably within a few blocks of one,” said Pitt.

“It’s unthinkable,” Yaeger muttered angrily. “How many have they smuggled into the country?”

“We don’t know yet,” Pitt replied. “It could be as many as a hundred. Also, we’re not the only country. They’re spread all over the world.”

“It gets worse,” said Percy. “If the bombs have indeed been smuggled into major international cities, the Japanese possess total assured destruction. It’s an efficient setup. Once the bombs are in place, the chance of accidental or unauthorized launch of a missile is voided. There is no defense against them, no time to react, no star wars system to stop incoming warheads, no alert, no second strike. When they push the button, the strike is instantaneous.”

“Good God, what can we do?”

“Find them,” said Pitt. “The idea is the bombs are brought in by auto ship carriers. I’m guessing hidden inside the imported cars. With your computer smarts, we’re going to try and figure out how.”

“If they’re coming in by ship,” Yaeger said decisively, “customs inspectors searching for drugs would pick them out.”

Pitt shook his head. “This is a sophisticated operation, run by high-tech professionals. They know their business. They’ll design the bomb to be an integral part of the car to throw off an elaborate search. Customs inspectors are wary of tires, gas tanks, upholstery, anyplace where there’s an air space. So it has to be secreted in such a way that even the wiliest inspector would miss it.”

“Totally foolproof to known discovery techniques,” Yaeger agreed.

Percy thoughtfully stared at the floor. “All right, now let’s talk about size.”

“That’s your department.” Pitt smiled.

“Give me a break, nephew. I at least have to know the model of the car, and I’m not a follower of Japanese machinery.”

“If it’s a Murmoto, it’s probably a sport sedan.”

The jovial look on Percy’s face went dead serious. “To sum up, we’re looking at a compact nuclear device in the neighborhood of ten kilograms that’s undetectable inside a medium-sized sedan.”

“That can be primed and detonated from a great distance,” Pitt added.

“Unless the driver is suicidal, that goes without saying.”

“What size bomb are we thinking about?” asked Yaeger innocently.

“They can vary in shape and size from an oil barrel to a baseball,” answered Percy.

“A baseball,” Yaeger murmured incredulously. “But can one that small cause substantial destruction?”

Percy stared up at the ceiling as if seeing the devastation. “If the warhead was high yield, say around three kilotons, it could probably level the heart of Denver, Colorado, with huge conflagrations ignited by the explosion spreading far out into the suburbs.”

“The ultimate in car bombings,” said Yaeger. “Not a pretty thought.”

“A sickening possibility, but one that has to be faced as more third-world nations possess atomic weapons.” Percy gestured toward the empty display screen. “What do we use as a model to dissect?”

“My family’s eighty-nine Ford Taurus,” replied Yaeger. “As an experiment I inserted its entire parts manual into the computer’s intelligence. I can give you blown-up images of specific parts or the completed solid form.”

“A Taurus will make a good match-up,” Pitt agreed.

Yaeger’s fingers flew over the keyboard for several seconds, and then he sat back with his arms folded. An image appeared on the screen, a three-D rendering in vivid color. Another command by Yaeger and a metallic burgundy red Ford Taurus four-door sedan revolved on different angles as if on a turntable that went from horizontal to vertical.

“Can you take us inside?” asked Pitt.

“Entering,” Yaeger acknowledged. A touch of a button and they seemed to flow through solid metal into sectioned views of the interior chassis and body. Like ghosts floating through walls, they clearly viewed every welded seam, every nut and bolt. Yaeger took them inside the differential and up the driveshaft through the gears of the transmission into the heart of the engine.

“Astonishing,” Percy muttered admiringly. “Like flying through a generating plant. If only we’d had this contrivance back in forty-two. We could have ended both the European and Pacific theaters of war two years early.”

“Lucky for the Germans you didn’t have the bomb by nineteen forty-four,” Yaeger goaded Percy.

Percy gave him a stern stare for a moment and then turned his attention back to the image on the screen.

“See anything interesting?” Pitt put to him.

Percy tugged at his beard. “The transmission casing would make a good container.”

“No good. Can’t be in the engine or drivetrain. The car must be capable of being driven normally.

“That eliminates a gutted battery or radiator,” said Yaeger. “Maybe the shock absorbers.”

Percy gave a brief shake of his head. “Okay for a plastic explosive pipe bomb but too narrow a diameter for a nuclear device.”

They studied the cutaway image silently for the next few minutes as Yaeger’s keyboard skills took them on a journey through an automobile few people ever experience. Axle and bearing assemblies, brake system, starter motor, and alternator, all were probed and rejected.

“We’re down to the optional accessories,” said Yaeger.

Pitt yawned and stretched. Despite his concentration, he could hardly keep his eyes open. “Any chance of it being in the heating unit?”

“Configuration isn’t right,” replied Percy. “The windshield washer bottle?”

Yaeger shook his head. “Too obvious.”

Suddenly Pitt stiffened. “The air conditioner!” he burst out. “The compressor in the air conditioner.”

Yaeger quickly programmed the computer to illustrate an interior view. “The car can be driven, and no customs inspector would waste two hours dismantling the compressor to see why it didn’t put out cold air.”

“Remove the guts and you’ve got an ideal casing to hold a bomb,” Pitt said, examining the computer image. “What do you think, Percy?”

“The condenser coils could be altered to include a receiving unit to prime and detonate,” Percy confirmed. “A neat package, a very neat package. More than enough volume to house a device capable of blasting a large area. Nice work, gentlemen, I think we’ve solved the mystery.”

Pitt walked over to an unoccupied desk and picked up the phone. He dialed the safe-line number given out by Kern at the MAIT team briefing. When a voice answered on the other end, he said, “This is Mr. Stutz. Please tell Mr. Lincoln the problem lies in his car’s air conditioner. Goodbye.”

Percy gave Pitt a humorous look. “You really know how to stick it to people, don’t you?”

“I do what I can.”

Yaeger sat gazing at the interior of the compressor he’d enlarged on the display screen. “There’s a fly in the soup,” he said quietly.

“What?” asked Percy. “What is that?”

“So we piss Japan off and they punch out our lights. They can’t eliminate all of our defenses, especially our nuclear submarines. Our retaliation force would disintegrate their entire island chain. If you want my opinion, I think this thing is unfeasible and suicidal. It’s one big bluff.”

“There’s one small problem with your theory,” Percy said, smiling patiently at Yaeger. “The Japanese have outfoxed the best intelligence brains in the business and caught the world powers in their Achilles’ heel. From their viewpoint the consequences are not all that catastrophic. We contracted with the Japanese to help research the strategic defense system for the destruction of incoming missile warheads. While our leaders wrote it off as too costly and unworkable, they went ahead with their usual hightech proficiency and perfected a working system.”