Read Online The Pakistan Conspiracy, A Novel Of Espionage by Francesca Salerno - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Francesca Salerno
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secrets of their arsenal with us. But I’ve got a detailed knowledge of the American Mk-54 Special Atomic Demolition Munition, the SADM. The physics package was about a cubic foot and a half in size, perhaps a bit bigger. With the surrounding housing and electronic gear, it fit in a portable container about the size of a footlocker. The principles are the same for these miniature atomic bombs. They are all implosion-type plutonium bombs with energy release in the double-digit kiloton range.”
“This is quite similar,” LeClerc said, “but larger than Mk-54, both in terms of the weight and the yield. I think a day or two with the RA-211 and you’ll be able to draw the appropriate parallels. The plutonium/beryllium core is kept in a separate location in Moscow. I saw it, but I had no way of telling whether it was functional. It was heavily shielded.”
“With the physics package, it’s mainly a question of making sure the symmetrical explosive charges are in order—the explosive lenses, as they are called.”
“I’m leaving all that to you. All I want to know is that when all the parts are mated back together it will explode when the right button is pressed. I do not plan to become a nuclear physicist myself.”
Wantree did not raise the question of his fee until after lunch and dessert, when the waiter had served two espressos and retreated to the kitchen. LeClerc’s reply surprised him.
“I’ll pay you whatever you think is reasonable,” LeClerc said. “No quibbling. But there are two conditions. First, you must undertake to me in writing that I am buying an operable nuclear weapon, with the understanding that I will pass this guarantee on to the buyer with your name on it. Second, you must agree to serve as the technical consultant to the buyer, at my expense, so that the buyer will have all the technical help right there, with him, necessary to detonate the weapon.”
Wantree took this in carefully, sipping his coffee. LeClerc did not need to state the consequences of failure. Wantree did not so much fear LeClerc, but he knew that LeClerc’s buyer would be someone whose tolerance for mistakes was low, possibly the sort of person who beheaded enemies with a scimitar while videotaping it.
Also, one had to ask oneself, if terrorists set off a nuclear bomb, to what lengths would the world’s intelligence services go to round up whoever had played a role in its deployment? Should his name ever become public, he would become one of the most reviled and hunted human beings on the planet.
With no haggling at all, LeClerc agreed to a fee of two million euros, payable to a numbered account in Zurich, ten per cent upon his return from Moscow, forty per cent upon completion of the sale of the weapon, and the remainder when Wantree had returned from his consultation with the buyer. So there was likely to be one million euros in the bank before he had to make a final decision to go join the crazies and help them detonate their bomb.
Wantree privately concluded, as he left in a taxi for Le Bourget and his flight back to England, that he would likely collect only 200,000 euros of his fee. He expected that he would be obliged to report to LeClerc that the weapon Marchenko had offered for sale was a dud, and that the remainder of the deal was not a ‘go.’ That did not trouble him, as becoming the target of MI-6 and CIA and the Mossad did not greatly appeal to him.
***
Djabel Rabia was an Algerian banker who had spent much of his early career, in the late 1980s, with the now-defunct Bank of Credit and Commerce, International (BCCI), based mainly in Paris and Toronto. Back in those days he had assisted the Pakistani brigadier Inam ul-Haq and a Pakistani-born Canadian who was in the import-export business ship quantities of beryllium and high-strength maraging steel, known as 350-steel, from suppliers in Philadelphia to Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) in
“This is quite similar,” LeClerc said, “but larger than Mk-54, both in terms of the weight and the yield. I think a day or two with the RA-211 and you’ll be able to draw the appropriate parallels. The plutonium/beryllium core is kept in a separate location in Moscow. I saw it, but I had no way of telling whether it was functional. It was heavily shielded.”
“With the physics package, it’s mainly a question of making sure the symmetrical explosive charges are in order—the explosive lenses, as they are called.”
“I’m leaving all that to you. All I want to know is that when all the parts are mated back together it will explode when the right button is pressed. I do not plan to become a nuclear physicist myself.”
Wantree did not raise the question of his fee until after lunch and dessert, when the waiter had served two espressos and retreated to the kitchen. LeClerc’s reply surprised him.
“I’ll pay you whatever you think is reasonable,” LeClerc said. “No quibbling. But there are two conditions. First, you must undertake to me in writing that I am buying an operable nuclear weapon, with the understanding that I will pass this guarantee on to the buyer with your name on it. Second, you must agree to serve as the technical consultant to the buyer, at my expense, so that the buyer will have all the technical help right there, with him, necessary to detonate the weapon.”
Wantree took this in carefully, sipping his coffee. LeClerc did not need to state the consequences of failure. Wantree did not so much fear LeClerc, but he knew that LeClerc’s buyer would be someone whose tolerance for mistakes was low, possibly the sort of person who beheaded enemies with a scimitar while videotaping it.
Also, one had to ask oneself, if terrorists set off a nuclear bomb, to what lengths would the world’s intelligence services go to round up whoever had played a role in its deployment? Should his name ever become public, he would become one of the most reviled and hunted human beings on the planet.
With no haggling at all, LeClerc agreed to a fee of two million euros, payable to a numbered account in Zurich, ten per cent upon his return from Moscow, forty per cent upon completion of the sale of the weapon, and the remainder when Wantree had returned from his consultation with the buyer. So there was likely to be one million euros in the bank before he had to make a final decision to go join the crazies and help them detonate their bomb.
Wantree privately concluded, as he left in a taxi for Le Bourget and his flight back to England, that he would likely collect only 200,000 euros of his fee. He expected that he would be obliged to report to LeClerc that the weapon Marchenko had offered for sale was a dud, and that the remainder of the deal was not a ‘go.’ That did not trouble him, as becoming the target of MI-6 and CIA and the Mossad did not greatly appeal to him.
***
Djabel Rabia was an Algerian banker who had spent much of his early career, in the late 1980s, with the now-defunct Bank of Credit and Commerce, International (BCCI), based mainly in Paris and Toronto. Back in those days he had assisted the Pakistani brigadier Inam ul-Haq and a Pakistani-born Canadian who was in the import-export business ship quantities of beryllium and high-strength maraging steel, known as 350-steel, from suppliers in Philadelphia to Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) in
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