Read Online Seal Team Seven #19: Field of Fire by Keith Douglass - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Keith Douglass
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batteries and fail, and every bit of data on your computer and the set itself will be totally destroyed. Internal combustion engines with electronic ignitions will stall and roll to a stop. Aircraft with electronics will flame out and crash to the ground. Even ships with electronic and computer steering will turn to toast and the ship will go dead in the water. Only dieselengine cars and trucks will be able to run.
“In effect, all military operations within the FCG area, say a hundred-mile diameter, would be totally blasted out of operation and we would be back in the stone ages throwing rocks at each other instead of missiles.
“One more goodie here for the bad guys. Call it the slo-mo EMP effect. When the original detonation knocked down all communications, the EMP that surged through the electrical systems created localized magnetic fields. When these fields collapse after about fifteen minutes, they cause electric surges to travel through the power and telecommunication infrastructure. This will create strings of explosions and meltdowns hundreds of miles away from the original pulse.”
Admiral Hagerson stood. “Professor, how difficult is it to build one of these flux compression generator bombs?”
“Not difficult at all. Almost any competent physicist with a small lab and the needed tools and equipment could make such a device in two or three weeks. There are no hard-to-get materials, no special machine tools needed.”
“And what would the cost of such a device be?”
“Some experts say one could be built by terrorists for four hundred dollars. I assume that would be for the basic materials. A lab, three physicists, and a willing government could do the job in less time than three weeks. It really is not all that difficult. When contrasted with building a nuclear warhead, the warhead would be over two million times as hard to build as a pulse bomb.”
“Thank you, Professor. Outside you’ll find a car ready to take you to a jet to get you back home.”
When the professor had left, CIA Director Whitley L. Covington stood and pulled down another display. This was a grainy photo of a one-story building surrounded by a semi-desert.
“Gentlemen, our agents in Syria report that they have confirmed that Syria is building, and may already have completed, its first flux compression generator bomb. We’re not sure where this FCG bomb is, or if or when they are going to use it. We do know what their laboratory looks like where they build the weapons. This is it, but we don’t exactly know where it is. That is your job. To enter Syria covertly, to make contact with our agents incountry, and to determine the exact location of the laboratory. Then you will attack it and destroy it and any scientists who are working on the project. We expect total obliteration of any additional weapons in whatever stage of completion, and the destruction of all materials and devices needed to make such bombs. Questions?”
Murdock held up his hand.
“Commander.”
“Sir, has it been determined yet how we are to infiltrate the country?”
“Not entirely. We’ve had only six days lead time on this one. We’re scratching. You came in on day two. Haifa, Israel, will be your base and control point. The carrier
John C. Stennis CVN
74 will be a hundred miles off Israel’s shores to insure that no pulse reaches them, if this is a fifty-mile-radius weapon that Syria is making. It could be larger or smaller, we just don’t know. Israel is the logical target. Your ingress into the country could be partly by chopper over the Golan Heights, meeting a car for transport north to Damascus. Or it could be an airdrop with ground transport the final leg into Damascus. This is all in flux at the present time. We’re working on it in a minute-by-minute scramble.”
“Sir?” Jaybird had his hand up. “What about explosives? This sounds like a smash-and-bash operation and we’re going to need heavy amounts of C-5 or TNAZ and primer
“In effect, all military operations within the FCG area, say a hundred-mile diameter, would be totally blasted out of operation and we would be back in the stone ages throwing rocks at each other instead of missiles.
“One more goodie here for the bad guys. Call it the slo-mo EMP effect. When the original detonation knocked down all communications, the EMP that surged through the electrical systems created localized magnetic fields. When these fields collapse after about fifteen minutes, they cause electric surges to travel through the power and telecommunication infrastructure. This will create strings of explosions and meltdowns hundreds of miles away from the original pulse.”
Admiral Hagerson stood. “Professor, how difficult is it to build one of these flux compression generator bombs?”
“Not difficult at all. Almost any competent physicist with a small lab and the needed tools and equipment could make such a device in two or three weeks. There are no hard-to-get materials, no special machine tools needed.”
“And what would the cost of such a device be?”
“Some experts say one could be built by terrorists for four hundred dollars. I assume that would be for the basic materials. A lab, three physicists, and a willing government could do the job in less time than three weeks. It really is not all that difficult. When contrasted with building a nuclear warhead, the warhead would be over two million times as hard to build as a pulse bomb.”
“Thank you, Professor. Outside you’ll find a car ready to take you to a jet to get you back home.”
When the professor had left, CIA Director Whitley L. Covington stood and pulled down another display. This was a grainy photo of a one-story building surrounded by a semi-desert.
“Gentlemen, our agents in Syria report that they have confirmed that Syria is building, and may already have completed, its first flux compression generator bomb. We’re not sure where this FCG bomb is, or if or when they are going to use it. We do know what their laboratory looks like where they build the weapons. This is it, but we don’t exactly know where it is. That is your job. To enter Syria covertly, to make contact with our agents incountry, and to determine the exact location of the laboratory. Then you will attack it and destroy it and any scientists who are working on the project. We expect total obliteration of any additional weapons in whatever stage of completion, and the destruction of all materials and devices needed to make such bombs. Questions?”
Murdock held up his hand.
“Commander.”
“Sir, has it been determined yet how we are to infiltrate the country?”
“Not entirely. We’ve had only six days lead time on this one. We’re scratching. You came in on day two. Haifa, Israel, will be your base and control point. The carrier
John C. Stennis CVN
74 will be a hundred miles off Israel’s shores to insure that no pulse reaches them, if this is a fifty-mile-radius weapon that Syria is making. It could be larger or smaller, we just don’t know. Israel is the logical target. Your ingress into the country could be partly by chopper over the Golan Heights, meeting a car for transport north to Damascus. Or it could be an airdrop with ground transport the final leg into Damascus. This is all in flux at the present time. We’re working on it in a minute-by-minute scramble.”
“Sir?” Jaybird had his hand up. “What about explosives? This sounds like a smash-and-bash operation and we’re going to need heavy amounts of C-5 or TNAZ and primer
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