Pitt gave Sandecker a glacial stare. “Don’t you think you’re asking a bit much?”
“Over fifty scientists and engineers in universities, government, and high-tech industries joined together on a crash program to develop Arizona, and take my word for it, they’ve created a perfect diagram for success.”
“How can they be so sure?” said Giordino. “No one has ever dumped a thirty-five-ton deep-sea vehicle out of an aircraft and into the ocean before.”
“Every factor was calculated and evaluated until all probability of failure was worked out,” said Sandecker, eyeing his expensive cigar in Giordino’s mouth. “You should hit the water as lightly as a falling leaf on a sleeping cat.”
“I’d feel more comfortable jumping from a diving board into a dish rag,” grumbled Giordino.
Sandecker gazed at him with forbearance. “I am aware of the dangers, and I sympathize with your misgivings, but we can do without your Cassandran attitude.”
Giordino looked at Pitt questioningly. “What attitude?”
“Someone who predicts misfortune,” explained Pitt.
Giordino shrugged moodily. “I was only trying to express honest feelings.”
“Too bad we can’t ease Big Ben down a ramp off a ship and let it drift to the bottom with variable pressure tanks, as we did with Big John over Soggy Acres.”
Sandecker said indulgently, “We can’t afford the two weeks it took to get your DSMV here by sea.”
“May I ask just who the hell is going to instruct us how to remove an atomic bomb from tangled wreckage and detonate it?” demanded Pitt.
Sandecker handed them both folders holding forty pages of photos, diagrams, and instructions. “It’s all in here. You’ll have plenty of time to study and practice procedures between now and when we reach the drop zone.”
“The bomb has been under water inside a mangled aircraft for fifty years. How can anyone be certain it’s still in any condition to be detonated?”
“The photos from the Pyramider imaging system show the fuselage of the B-Twenty-nine to be intact, indicating the bomb was undamaged during the crash. Mother’s Breath was designed to be jettisoned in water and recovered. The armored components of its ballistic casing were precision cast with machine finishing and fit together with tolerances that were guaranteed to keep the interior waterproof. The men still living who built it swear it could remain on the bottom of the sea and be detonated five hundred years from now.”
Giordino wore a very sour look. “The explosion will be set with a timer, I hope.”
“You’ll have an hour before detonation,” Sandecker answered. “Big Ben’s top speed has been increased over Big John’s. You should be well away from any effects of the blast.”
“What’s well away?” Pitt pursued.
“Twelve kilometers.”
“What is the end result?” Pitt put to Sandecker.
“The concept is to induce a submarine earthquake with the old atomic bomb and cause a set of circumstances similar to the one that destroyed Soggy Acres.”
“A totally different situation. The explosion on the surface may have caused a sub-bottom quake, but our habitat was wiped out by a resulting avalanche combined with thousands of kilograms of water pressure. Those forces don’t apply on ground above the surface.”
“The water pressure, no. The avalanche, yes.” Sandecker tapped his finger on the chart. “Soseki Island was formed millions of years ago by a long extinct volcano that erupted just off the coast of Japan and spewed a river of lava far out into the sea. At one time this immense lava bed was an arm of the Japanese mainland, rising above the water to a height of two hundred meters. It rested, however, on soft layers of ancient sediment. Gradually, gravity forced it down into the softer silt until it fell beneath the water surface with only its lighter and less massive tip remaining above sea level.”
“Soseki?”
“Yes.”
Pitt studied the chart and said slowly, “If I get this right, the bomb’s shock waves and resulting submarine quake will shift and weaken the underlying sediment until the weight of the island pushes it under the sea.”
“Similar to standing in the surfline while the wave action slowly buries your feet in the sand.”
“It all sounds too simple.”
Sandecker shook his head. “That’s only the half of it. The shock waves alone aren’t enough to do the job. That’s why the bomb must be moved ten kilometers from the plane before it’s detonated.”
“To where?”
“The slope of a deep trench that travels parallel to the island. Besides producing a subocean shock, the magnitude of the atomic explosion is expected to tear loose a section of the trench wall. The tremendous energy, as millions of tons of sediment avalanche down the side of the trench in unison with the shock waves from the bomb, will create one of the most destructive forces of nature.”
“A tsunami,” Pitt anticipated the admiral. “A seismic sea wave.
“As the island begins to sink from the seismic shocks,” Sandecker continued, “it will be dealt a knockout blow by the wave, which will have achieved a height of ten meters and a speed between three and four hundred kilometers an hour. Whatever is left of Soseki Island above the surface will be completely forced under, inundating the Dragon Center.”
“We are going to unleash this monster?” Giordino asked suspiciously. “The two of us?”
“And Big Ben. It was a rush job, no way around it, but the vehicle has been modified to do whatever is demanded.”
“The Japanese mainland,” Pitt said. “A heavy quake followed by a tsunami smashing into the shore could kill thousands of people.”
Sandecker shook his head. “No such tragedy will occur. Soft sediments out to sea will absorb most of the shock waves. Nearby ports and cities along the coast will feel no more than a few tremors. The seismic wave will be small on the scale of most tsunamis.”
“How can you be sure of the ten-meter crest? Tsunamis have been known to go as high as a twelve-story building.”
“Computer projections put the wave crest that strikes the island at less than ten meters. And because Soseki is so close to the epicenter, its mass will act as a barrier and blunt the effects of the wave’s momentum. By the time the first mass of water reaches the coast, at low tide I might add, its crest will have diminished to only one and a half meters, hardly enough for serious damage.”
Pitt mentally measured the distance from the bomber to the spot marked on the slope of the underwater trench for the detonation. He judged it to be about twenty-eight kilometers. An incredible distance to drag an unstable forty-eight-year-old atomic bomb across rugged and unknown terrain.
“After the party,” wondered Pitt, “what happens to us?”
“You drive Big Ben onto the nearest shore, where a Special Forces team will be waiting to evacuate you.”
Pitt sighed heavily.
“Do you have a problem with any part of the plan?” Sandecker asked him.
Pitt’s eyes reflected an undercurrent of doubt. “This has to be the craziest scheme I’ve ever heard in my life. In fact it’s worse than that. It’s damn right suicidal.”
66
RUNNING AT ITS MAXIMUM cruising speed of 460 knots per hour, the C-5 Galaxy ate up the kilometers as darkness fell over the North Pacific. In the cargo bay, Giordino ran through a checklist of Big Ben’s electronic and power systems. Sandecker worked in the office compartment, providing updates on information and responding to questions raised by the President and his National Security Council, who were sweating out the operation in the Situation Room. The admiral was also in constant communication with geophysicists who supplied new data on seafloor geology, along with Payload Percy, who answered Pitt’s inquiries on the bomb removal from the aircraft and its detonation.
