Overkill

which are technically of a much higher security classification than Secret, usually only Negative Vetting is applied. The rationale behind this is that as these consultants would only have a limited view of one aspect of a project, rather than an overview of the whole thing, they do not need to be investigated thoroughly. The truth is that it was felt that the uproar and predictable howls about civil rights which would accompany the Positive Vetting of scientists would be more trouble than the resulting clearance would be worth, and so it is only applied in situations where there really is no other option.

Richter turned in through the open double doors, walked across to a glass-fronted booth labelled ‘Porter’, but found it deserted. On the wall beside the staircase was a list of the building’s inhabitants, and Richter scanned rapidly down it until he found ‘Professor Hillsworth’ listed as having a laboratory on the third floor. The building consisted of a central stairwell, with a long corridor of rooms on each side of the stairs. On the third floor Richter flipped a mental coin and chose the left-hand corridor. It would have been quicker if he’d gone right, but he finally found the door he was looking for by dint of looking at about twenty others that didn’t have ‘Professor Hillsworth’ written on them. Richter knocked, heard a muffled call from inside, and entered.

Richter didn’t know quite what he had been anticipating, but both the room and the man were unexpected. The room because it looked nothing like any laboratory Richter had ever been in. No test tubes, no retorts, no Bunsen burners, not even a slide rule or a calculator. After a moment, Richter realized that he shouldn’t have been surprised; theoretical physics, and particularly theoretical nuclear physics, could only find a very limited use for such mundane equipment. Nuclear reactions in the laboratory are not phenomena to be encouraged.

The room was oblong, one wall consisting almost entirely of large windows, giving the place a light and airy look. Underneath the windows was a built-in table, covered in books, pieces of paper and writing implements of various sorts, and a small photocopier. At one end of the table was a sink and, adjacent to it, a kettle, mugs, instant coffee and a bag of sugar. A milk carton and a box of teabags completed the set.

The chairs at the long table appeared starkly uncomfortable in contrast to the armchairs which comprised the furniture for the rest of the room. At the far end was a partly screened area, in which Richter could see three computer keyboards and monitors, plus a new high-tech wipe board and rather more traditional blackboard. On the walls were three framed photographs, two of elderly and no doubt distinguished scientific gentlemen, and the third showing the typical mushroom cloud of an atomic weapon detonation.

The professor had been sitting in one of the armchairs, a drink in his hand and looking at a copy of Penthouse. He stood up as Richter walked in.

‘Professor Hillsworth?’

‘The same. You must be Mr Richter, from the Ministry of Defence.’ Hillsworth was a short, tubby man, with jet black hair parted on the right-hand side and prominent laughter lines on his face. He looked more like a stand- up comic from a working man’s club than a professor of anything, let alone theoretical nuclear physics. He was casually dressed in a tweed jacket and grey slacks, light blue shirt with dark blue stripes and a dark blue tie bearing a motif which appeared to be a small, but accurately drawn, pig with wings. He waved Richter to a chair. ‘First things first. How do you like your tea?’

‘Coffee, if possible. White, no sugar,’ Richter told him, and Hillsworth busied himself with the kettle, cups and a packet of shortcake biscuits for a couple of minutes.

‘Now,’ he said, when Richter had tasted the drink and declared it to be to his liking, ‘what can I tell you?’

‘What were you told on the telephone, Professor?’

‘Only that a Mr Richter from the Ministry of Defence would be along this afternoon, and that it would be appreciated if I could make myself available. That I have done.’

‘Fine,’ Richter said, and launched into the rather pompous spiel which Simpson had provided in the pink folder inside his briefcase. ‘If I may, I’ll just sketch out the background for you first. The Ministry of Defence, as you are no doubt aware, keeps a watching brief on numerous topics not directly connected with defence. We’ve recently received information which suggests certain developments have been taking place in the field of nuclear research which could have a pronounced effect on our defensive capability. I’ll return to that topic a little later, if I may. First of all, I would be grateful if you could establish the ground rules, as it were, by giving me a brief run- down on the way an atomic weapon works.’

‘Certainly, Mr Richter. Before I start, could you please show me your identification, just in case I trespass into classified areas.’

One point for the professor. Richter pulled out his wallet and selected a card which he passed over to Hillsworth. He looked at it carefully, confirmed Richter’s likeness to the photograph, and then handed it back. ‘Where did your scientific education stop?’

‘At school,’ Richter replied. ‘GCE – Ordinary Level Physics. I passed,’ he added.

‘Well, I suppose that’s something,’ Hillsworth said, doubtfully. He settled back into his chair, drew out a long curved pipe from his pocket, and began filling it from a leather pouch. ‘Let me,’ he said, ‘begin at the beginning.’

Kutuzovskij prospekt, Moscow

Genady Arkenko replaced the telephone receiver carefully, and walked over to the table. He was becoming very concerned. Despite all of Dmitri’s assurances, Podstava kept on changing. The last message he’d received meant that the planned arrival date of the Anton Kirov in Gibraltar had been advanced yet again. Even more worrying was the fact that he hadn’t seen Dmitri – hadn’t even spoken to him on the telephone, apart from repeating the messages – since Monday. Arkenko hoped, desperately, that Dmitri was all right.

The apartment, once so comfortable and secure – a meeting place where the two men could lie together in a familiar embrace – was feeling more and more to Arkenko like a prison. A comfortable prison, but a prison nevertheless.

With a sigh, he reached for his notepad and began to prepare the radio message.

Cambridge

The professor was well established into his lecture. ‘Matter, of course, can neither be created nor destroyed. What can happen is that matter can be converted into other sorts of matter, or into energy, as matter and energy can be considered to be different forms of the same thing. This conversion is what happens when you burn coal on a fire, for example. The energy released when the coal is burnt is the energy stored in the various sorts of chemical bonds holding together the molecules which constitute coal. That’s a simplification, of course, but it’s accurate enough for the purposes of this discussion.

‘As well as the release of energy, the products of the combustion process are radically different from the original components of the coal or whatever the fuel is. Carbon compounds will burn to produce carbon monoxide and dioxide, nitrogen compounds to give various nitrous and nitrogen gases, and so on. But the point is that if you have carbon in the original material, you will have exactly the same amount of carbon in the combustion products. OK?’

Richter nodded, and wondered how long it would be before he started dozing off. ‘Now, in a nuclear reaction, that statement is no longer true. The elements which are present on the left side of the equation are not the same as those on the right. Matter is actually changed from one element to another, just as the old alchemists were trying to do in their search for the Philosopher’s Stone centuries ago. Our sun is a vast nuclear furnace, meshing atoms of hydrogen together to create helium. The same thing happens in the detonation of a nuclear weapon. One element is turned into another, with the release of enormous amounts of energy. And it’s the energy release which marks the practical difference between conventional explosives and nuclear weapons. A suitcase of dynamite could flatten a building. A suitcase of uranium would flatten a city.

‘This fundamental difference between the two types of explosion is because in a conventional explosive, the energy released is that which binds molecules together, whereas in a nuclear blast it’s the forces which hold the very atoms themselves together which are ruptured. The stronger the bond which is broken, the greater the energy released, and the atomic bonds are very, very strong.’ Hillsworth got up and walked over to the wipe board. ‘The actual value of the energy released is given by the mass-energy equation, with which I’ve no doubt you’re familiar.’ He wrote ‘E = mc²’ on the wipe board with a red magic marker, and looked at Richter, who nodded and tried to look intelligent.