The Peace Bomb

By Marcus Gibson

How much would you be willing to sacrifice for peace?
Freedom?
Love?
Life?
As a UN weapons inspector, it's Sam Palmer's job to disarm nuclear dictatorships. When Sam is asked to recruit a North Korean refugee, to sneak her back into the country that tortured her, and murdered her son and husband, a radical new weapon is unleashed that is vastly more powerful than a conventional atomic bomb. Sam is caught in a deadly race to save the world from destruction, and rescue the woman he loves. He has given his whole life to the cause of peace. But he is about to discover there are others who are willing to give much more...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marcus Gibson
• Release date: Oct 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9780987166494

Marcus Gibson

My first novel was published in paperback 1995. A literary thriller titled 'D', the 10,000 copy print run sold out in several weeks, and with publication a few weeks after my 22nd birthday, 'D' broke the standing Guinness World Record for the world's 'youngest novelist writing adult-themed work' by 2 years. Prior to publication of 'D', I was recognised in several short story and poetry competitions. 'D' received favourable reviews, and I made media appearances in print and on radio and live television. I'm now 42 and live in Melbourne, Australia. My professional career has spanned construction worker, script editor, presenter, corporate spokesperson, producer, software developer, business analyst, knowledge manager, sustainability advisor, and environmental manager in a range of sectors including IT, pharmaceuticals, property and finance, civil engineering, and construction. I have two more titles - 15 years in the making - now on Smashwords.

Book preview

THE PEACE BOMB

By Marcus Gibson

Copyright 2011 Marcus Gibson

Smashwords Edition (v2)

Cover illustration and diagrams by Marcus Gibson

First published in ebook (2011)

ISBN 978-0-9871664-9-4

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. People Inquiries should be addressed to the author.

If you would like to share this book with another person, an additional copy must be purchased for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to Smashwords.com and buy your own copy.

Contents

Author’s Note

Maps

Glossary

Unit Conversions

Chapter 1. Nilore, Pakistan – Night

Chapter 2. Virginia, United States – Afternoon

Chapter 3. Tehran, Iran – Morning

Chapter 4. Washington D.C., United States – Morning

Chapter 5. Islamabad, Pakistan – Evening

Chapter 6. Washington D.C., United States – Day

Chapter 7. Washington D.C., United States – Evening

Chapter 8. Khasan, Russia – Night

Chapter 9. Pyongyang, North Korea – Sunrise

Chapter 10. Wah, Pakistan – Evening

Chapter 11. Islamabad, Pakistan – Evening

Chapter 12. Bagram, Afghanistan – Evening

Chapter 13. Pyongyang, North Korea – Night

Chapter 14. New York, United States – Day

Chapter 15. Pyongyang, North Korea – Night

Chapter 16. Virginia, United States – Afternoon

Chapter 17. Pyongyang, North Korea – Night

Chapter 18. Bagram, Afghanistan – Night

Chapter 19. North Atlantic – Night

Chapter 20. Islamabad, Pakistan – Morning

Chapter 21. Kabul, Afghanistan – Night

Chapter 22. Pyongyang, North Korea – Morning

Chapter 23. Pyongyang, North Korea – Day

Chapter 24. Islamabad, Pakistan – Night

Chapter 25. Lahore, Pakistan – Morning

Chapter 26. Chongjin, North Korea – Evening

Chapter 27. Bagram, Afghanistan – Morning

Chapter 28. Bagram, Afghanistan – Morning

Chapter 29. Komusan Dong, North Korea – Night

Chapter 30. Beijing, China – Day

Chapter 31. Bagram, Afghanistan – Night

Chapter 32. Yanji, China – Morning

Chapter 33. Islamabad, Pakistan – Day

Chapter 34. Beijing, China – Evening

Chapter 35. Kabul, Afghanistan – Day

Chapter 36. Bagram, Afghanistan – Afternoon

Chapter 37. Bagram, Afghanistan – Afternoon

Chapter 38. New York, United States – Day

Chapter 39. Kwajalein, Marshall Islands – Afternoon

Chapter 40. Rakneh-ye Jamshidi, Afghanistan – Evening

Chapter 41. Bagram, Afghanistan – Evening

Chapter 42. Islamabad, Pakistan – Day

Chapter 43. Bagram, Afghanistan – Afternoon

Chapter 44. Kwajalein, Marshall Islands – Evening

Chapter 45. Eslam Qal’eh, Afghanistan – Evening

Chapter 46. Ebeye Island, Marshall Islands – Night

Chapter 47. Bagram, Afghanistan – Evening

Chapter 48. Kwajalein, Marshall Islands – Morning

Chapter 49. Bagram, Afghanistan – Evening

Chapter 50. Islamabad, Pakistan – Night

Chapter 51. Bagram, Afghanistan – Night

Chapter 52. Islamabad, Pakistan – Day

Chapter 53. New York, United States – Morning

Chapter 54. Oak Ridge, United States – Day

Chapter 55. Islamabad, Pakistan – Day

Chapter 56. Khasan, Russia – Night

Chapter 57. Santa Barbara, United States – Day

Chapter 58. Bagram, Afghanistan – Day

Chapter 59. New York, United States – Day

About The Author

Sample Chapter – ‘The Dead See’

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the friends and loved ones who’ve endured. I’m optimistic about the future, owing to the men and women of character, imagination, and compassion I’ve been fortunate enough to count as friends along the way. Special thanks to the exemplars; Michael, Nick, Joe, Chris, Albany, Kylie, Christine, and especially my brother Jon.

Author’s Note

In 1914, under the looming cloud of the Great War, author Herbert George Wells published a novel ‘The World Set Free’, in which he described the invention of a weapon so deadly that the world had no option but enduring peace.

Wells’ description of this ‘atomic’ weapon led directly to the invention of the real-world atomic bomb.

Twenty years after the publication of ‘The World Set Free’ an emigrant Jewish scientist named Leo Szilárd read Wells’ novel, and realized the theoretical bomb was possible. Szilárd filed the original patent for the atomic bomb on July 4, 1934, and immediately tried to warn the British government of the consequences if the bomb was ever used in aggression. After being ignored in the United Kingdom, he drafted the famous Einstein-Szilárd letter to President Roosevelt, informing the Commander-in-Chief of the weapon’s dire potential in the hands of Nazi Germany. Szilárd dared to hope that George Wells’ other prediction – world peace – might still come true. He proposed the atomic bomb be demonstrated peacefully without loss of life, in front of a gathering of world leaders, and a worldwide ceasefire be proposed. However, President Truman opted for more chilling demonstrations of the weapon’s power, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

For the past 65 years, the atomic bomb has threatened to become the unmanageable weapon that H. G. Wells first conceived. The possibility it might fall into the wrong hands is still, even now, cause for war. And yet, we have managed to straddle Wells’ and Szilárd’s dilemma: Total peace, or utter destruction.

At the time of the writing of this novel, there are some 3,000 tonnes of weapons-grade, highly-enriched uranium and plutonium stored in military, transitional, and civilian stockpiles around the world. This is enough fissile material to manufacture warheads equivalent to 18 billion tonnes of TNT – or 2.5 tonnes of high explosives for each man, woman, and child on the planet.

Per person, this is one-and-a-half times the destructive power of the bomb used in the Oklahoma City bombing. Or, about 17,500 hand grenades, per person. Worldwide.

A third of all nuclear material is unsecured.

Still, there remains another danger greater than nuclear proliferation: That a more deadly weapon supersedes the 80-year-old atomic bomb.

Many of the characters in this novel are based on real people. Some of their names have been changed to protect their identities. But the historical events, locations, facilities, and technology are all real.

Extract from ‘The World Set Free’:

Certainly it seems now that nothing could have been more obvious to the people of the earlier twentieth century than the rapidity with which war was becoming impossible…

They did not see it until the atomic bombs burst in their fumbling hands…

All through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the amount of energy that men were able to command was continually increasing. Applied to warfare that meant that the power to inflict a blow, the power to destroy, was continually increasing. There was no increase whatever in the ability to escape…

Destruction was becoming so facile that any little body of malcontents could use it…

Before the last war began it was a matter of common knowledge that a man could carry about in a handbag an amount of latent energy sufficient to wreck half a city.

Herbert George Wells, 1914

Maps

Glossary

AB, AFB (Air Base, Air Force Base): Common abbreviation used in reference to US military installations, e.g.: Bagram AFB.

ABP: Afghan Border Police, Afghan Border Patrol

AFCRC: Air Force Control and Reporting Centre, directs flight operations out of Bagram.

BAF (Bagram AFB): Further abbreviation of Bagram AFB, located near Kabul in Afghanistan.

BMR-600: Spanish six-wheel-drive amphibious armoured personnel carrier.

C-17: C-17 Globemaster III, large military transport aircraft

C-40B: Military version of the 737-700 Boeing Business Jet, designated for high-priority personnel transport.

CIC: Commander-in-Chief

COIL (Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser): Long-range weapons-scale laser as used to destroy a missile in flight.

cps: counts per second

CRT (Cathode Ray Tube): Outmoded vacuum-tube technology used in televisions and display monitors.

DLA (Defence Logistic Agency): Agency providing supplies and services to US military forces worldwide, headquartered at Fort Belvoir, Northern Virginia.

DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea): Official name for North Korea

DS (Deputy Secretary): Also DepSec

DSS: Deputy Secretary of State

DTRA (Defence Threat Reduction Agency): Co-located with the DLA in Fort Belvoir, Northern Virginia, an agency within the Department of Defence tasked with reducing the threat of WMDs.

EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal): Military bomb disposal unit

HMMVV (High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle): Also Humvee.

HUD: Heads Up Display

IAEA (International Atomic Energy Authority): Intergovernmental organisation promoting scientific development of nuclear technology, and safeguarding against misuse, reporting to the UN General Assembly and Security Council.

ICBM: Intercontinental Ballistic Missile

IDC (International Data Centre): Office within the DTRA responsible for data gathering

IED: Improvised Explosive Device

IntOps: Intelligence Operations

IR: Infrared

IRIS (Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology): Global network on seismology stations established to monitor for nuclear detonations.

KSRS (Korean Seismic Research Station): Seismic detection facility located in Wonju, South Korea.

M1A2: M1A2 Abrams Tank

MRAP JERRV: Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Joint Explosive Ordnance Disposal Rapid Response Vehicle, nicknamed ‘Rhino’.

NACSUPPFAC: Naval Support Facility

NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation): Military alliance of 28 democratic states in Europe and North America.

NoKo: Common abbreviation for ‘North Korea’

NtoF (Neutron Time of Flight): Method for measuring neutron pulses, used in a variety of experiments, primarily to determine the strength of the pulse.

NV: Night Vision

OOA: Out Of Action

Orraloy: Nickname given to Uranium 235 coined during the Manhattan Project, short for ‘Oak Ridge alloy’.

PKM (Pulemet Kalashnikova Modernizirovanniy): Russian for ‘Modernised Kalashnikov machinegun’

PMD: Personal Radiation Monitoring Dosimeter

POF: Pakistan Ordnance Factory

RAAF: Royal Australian Air Force

RASA (Radionuclide Aerosol Sampler Analyser): Device for detecting radioactive particle in air

RDSS (Research and Development Support Services): Project of the Space and Missile Defence Command, providing a central database of resources for use in nuclear explosion monitoring.

SABRS (Space Atmospheric Burst Reporting System): Satellite-based nuclear detonation detection system.

SAG (Strategic Advisory Group): Senior committee providing scientific, technical, intelligence, and policy-related advice to the Commander of USSTRATCOM.

SCC WMD (USSTRATCOM Centre for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction): Branch of the US Strategic Command tasked with combating biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons.

SKS (Samozaryadniy Karabin sistemi Simonova): Russian-made self-loading rifle

SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement): An agreement between the US military and a foreign government regarding conditions for the operation of a non-domestic military base.

TMSS (Temporary Mobile Support Structure): Modular, trailer-mounted mobile tents in the US Army’s Standard Integrated Command Post System.

U-235: Enriched uranium capable of causing a fissile reaction. Naturally occurring uranium consists of 99.28% U-238, 0.72% U-235, and traces of U-234, formed by the decay of U-238.

UNSCOM (United Nations Special Commission on Iraq): Inspection authority created by the United Nations Security Council to locate Iraqi weapons of mass destruction after Desert Storm, and chaired by Australian Richard Butler from 1997.

USAKA (United States Army Kwajalein Atoll): US Army installation operating the missile range and test facility in the Marshall Islands.

USSTRATCOM (United States Strategic Command): Joint army, navy, air force, and marine command responsible for space operations, information warfare, missile defence, surveillance, global strike and strategic deterrence - including the United States nuclear arsenal - and combating weapons of mass destruction.

UXB: Unexploded bomb

VH-3A: Sikorsky Sea King VH-3A helicopter as designated ‘Marine One’, also used to transport high-priority personnel.

WC-135: Specially equipped plane for detecting airborne radiation from nuclear detonations, also known as a ‘Sniffer’.

Y-12: Secure Uranium storage, processing, and research facility located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA.

Unit Conversions

1 Foot = 0.30 Metres

1 Metre = 3.28 Feet

1 Kilometres= 0.62 Miles

1 Miles = 1.61 Kilometres

Chapter 1. – Nilore, Pakistan – Night

The delicate array shook, as a tremor ran through the bedrock...

Three-hundred feet below ground, in an eight-foot long missile-shaped casing, a small brass weight hung suspended on tiny springs, trembling with the quake.

The signal from the tiny mass ran along a slender cable via a metal-sheathed borehole, up to the surface where a white-washed timber box stood mounted on a concrete pier, on an isolated hillside, forty miles south-east of Islamabad.

Inside the moonlit cabinet, a KS-54000-IRIS broadband seismometer transferred the measurements along a suspended wire, across the grassy slope to a small fibre-cement shack at the end of a narrow dirt path.

Inside the darkened hut, a crazed needle plotted the seismic reading on a paper spool, scribbling frantically. An electronic signal travelled across the cluttered room via modem to a phone line, and from there was transmitted to other stations in the IRIS Global Seismographic Network: Overland to Karachi… through a switch to a submarine cable along the floor of the Arabian Sea… north, up the coast of Saudi Arabia… west to the Red Sea… north to the Suez Canal… overland again to the Mediterranean… across France to an Atlantic submarine cable.

Within moments of the original tremor, the signal arrived at the US Geological Survey headquarters in Reston Virginia, south of Washington, and was relayed to workstations at several nearby government agencies.

One of these workstations was a few miles south, in the office of the Centre for Monitoring Research at the Defence Threat Reduction Agency at Fort Belvoir.

News of the greatest disaster in history, had travelled from Nilore to Virginia in less than four seconds.

Chapter 2. – Virginia, United States – Afternoon

A seismic reading from Pakistan arrives in the Defence Threat Reduction Agency at Fort Belvoir, Virginia…

The five-storey DLA headquarters bordered a placid lake. A dense stand of conifers protected the pale, semicircular building from the prying eyes of passing traffic.

On the fifth floor in the south wing, a dozen nondescript cubicles with speckled blue carpeting, waist-high wood trimmed partitions, and rows of neatly stacked, colour-coded binders hosted the DLA International Data Centre.

Data Analyst Jacob Branch was a studious-looking, clean-cut 28-year-old in button-down shirt cuffs, and heavy-rimmed glasses. His fingers clacked busily at the keyboard as he habitually composed his weekly report.

There were no personal effects on Jacob’s desk. No photos, no postcards, no knick-knacks, no decorations of any kind. Not even a pencil cup. Workstations were shared between day and night shifts. Each item in the cubicle was clearly labelled and had its proper place... Every binder was shelved in numerical order. Every computer file had a fifteen-character filename identifying the author, reviewer, purpose, version, date, and time. Jacob was acutely aware of the impersonal environment – everything just as he had left it. Today, like every other day, he would take everything with him that he had brought to work: The only personal items in the cubicle were a sports bag and black, scarred CCM U+ Ovechkin ice hockey stick, propped against the file cabinet.

Hockey practice in 45 minutes...

As Jacob typed his report, the workstation displayed a constant flow of graphical and numerical data from seismic, hydro-acoustic, infrasound, and radionuclide stations across southern Asia.

The IDC processed data from more than 100 such stations. Jacob’s sole purpose was to identify signals of atmospheric, underground or underwater nuclear tests in the continent of Asia. Customised software processed signals from each source as it arrived. The data was ‘manually interrogated’ for the slightest anomaly. For twelve hours a day, that was Jacob’s task. Such was the rigor of the process, teasing out the smallest twitch in a needle, on a chart on the far side of the world, that the notion of discovering an event had long since been lost in procedure... Fill in the shift report by rote. Compile the weekly report. Explain outliers. Weekend. Rinse, repeat.

In 9 years at the IDC, there had been only two nuclear tests anywhere in the world – both at the same location, in North Korea – and neither had happened on Jacob’s shift. If that wasn’t bad enough, North Korea had warned China 20 minutes before the 2006 test. Beijing sent an alert to Washington via the embassy. The President had been informed by National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, that the unsanctioned test was imminent. And a full three minutes before the bomb detonated, night-shift analysts in the IDC were reading about it in a memo.

Never had their mission felt so redundant. When the warning screens finally flashed, they served only to punctuate the deflating realisation that none of them needed to be there.

On the 25th of May, a year ago, a second weapon had been detonated in the same location in North Korea. This time, there had been no warning. The IDC picked up the magnitude 4.7 seismic disturbance in the Mantapsan Mountains. An hour later, Pyongyang confirmed the second test, and – an hour after that – Jacob arrived at the office to hear the news second-hand as he set down his bag.

He’d missed the whole thing.

The clock in the bottom corner of his screen now, read 16:49.

Time to go...

A red dialog box popped up unexpectedly on the second monitor – showing a bold figure ‘9’, accompanied by a muted warning tone. Bong.

Jacob jolted.

He clicked the dialog box – opening a scrolling window.

The frantic blur of the Nilore seismometer coloured the screen black.

What the hell?

Jacob opened new two windows for the IRIS stations in Pallekele, Sri Lanka and Alibek, Turkmenistan... and plotted the numbers into a triangulation tool, calculating the latitude on a map... 33.7694444, and longitude: 72.7719444.

JEEZUS! he gasped loudly.

Analysts in the two nearest workstations rose out of their seats. What?

Similar warning tones sounded on terminals across the room.

Shit! Jacob opened a comms window, and clicked a button marked ‘EMERGENCY PAGE - TRANSMIT’ sending out a beeper message to senior DTRA officials. The Director and Deputy-Director would receive instant messages on their BlackBerrys.

"—the hell?" mumbled Jacob.

Must be an error.

Analysts at the surrounding desks peered around their monitors.

A bright red number ‘9’ flashed on Jacob’s screen. "Nine—?!"

In the past hundred years, there had only been five megathrust earthquakes with a magnitude of nine on the Richter scale. The most recent had triggered the Fukushima nuclear disaster on Honshu, Japan in March 2011. Never had a ‘9’ struck with an epicentre in a populated area. The closest thing Jacob could imagine was the ‘7’ in Armenia, in December 1988 that killed 55,000 people.

This was worse. Much worse.

The IRIS stations at Nilore, Pallekele, and Alibek stations all suddenly triggered secondary alerts...

...Aftershocks?

No. Jacob checked the clock. The tremor had occurred less than five minutes ago. The seismic wave had travelled all the way around the planet, and registered a second time on the same sensors.

Suddenly, every computer terminal on the floor was beeping, like crickets in a field. Every screen flashed. Every analyst hurriedly cross-checked their alarms against secondary stations, with the same results.

"What the heck is going on?"

It can’t be an earthquake.

It can’t be a test! answered Jacob. Not a nuclear test. It was too big... waay too big!

Analysts began abandoning their cubicles, and crowding around the Central Asia desk – Jacob’s station. None of them, nobody alive, had ever seen a ‘9’ so close to an IRIS station...

If it is a test… whispered someone.

It can’t be. Jacob tapped the handset of his phone. C’mon! Ring!

"How big would it need to be?"

I don’t know.

See if there’s anything on the RDSS database. Pakistan...? What time is it there?

Jacob logged into the database of satellite imagery, shared by departments in the Centre. He entered the coordinates. It’s dark... there’s cloud cover.

Get thermal IR!

The phone next to Jacob’s keyboard rang musically.

Sir?

Jacob? It was Deputy-Director Odierno, his boss’s-boss.

"Sir, I have an incident. Thirty miles out of Islamabad. I don’t have imagery yet—"

A third wave of automated alerts began appearing on Jacob’s screens, and rolled around the data centre. "Jeezus..."

The seismic shock had circled the earth twice, and registered again on the seismometer in Nilore.

Jacob toggled the satellite imagery to infrared. —Sir?

What’s going on?

I’m not sure—

Stunned, Jacob searched for the F5 key on his keyboard, refreshing the satellite image – and as the image appeared on his computer screen, the clouds disappeared, and he lost all comprehension of the voice on the other end of the phone…

Four-hundred miles over Pakistan, a cylindrical gold-plated KH-12 keyhole satellite the size of a school bus circled silently in geosynchronous orbit.

In the sensor array – mounted in a circular port in the side of the luminous cylinder – a low-light image intensifier captured the white-hot fireball in Northern Pakistan, above the distinctive triangular subcontinent of India.

At first, the light was a tiny speck, compared to the nearby lights of Lahore and New Delhi. A camera flash. A glint.

Then it began to grow...

The change happened slowly, a trick of the distance, as the edge of the widening disc raced across the sky, vaporising cloud. The satellite’s night-time image resolution improved as the light source grew. The disc burst wide, 100-kilometres in diameter in seconds, filling the KH-12 camera’s view.

The teeming night lights of the Pakistani capital shimmered faintly beside the growing, supernatural corona – a bright mesh of miniaturised streets at the edge of the firestorm.

Jacob watched, frozen.

He knew what he was seeing had already happened, moments ago.

The teeming night lights of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad were slowly consumed by the widening disc of pure white.

The Islamabad metropolitan area was home to 1.5 million people.

Frame-by-frame, Jacob watched in horror as the Pakistani capital was softly, slowly, silently, erased from the face of the earth.

Chapter 3. – Tehran, Iran – Morning

Three weeks before the nuclear blast in Islamabad, International Atomic Energy Authority weapons inspector Sam Palmer is in Tehran…

The streets smelled like VapoRub and raisins.

It was the smell of twitchy fascist militia with cattle-prods, of flipped cars and burning trash piles. The air was ripe with cries of revolution, and the thunk-thunk of tear gas canisters that punctuated city-wide riots on the previous day.

Of course, it was safe now, Sam frowned. The protesters were all in bed asleep. Revolution required coffee.

The sun had barely risen. The streets were still dark, as Sam jogged through the capital, sweat coming off his brow like rain.

Too much time behind a desk…

In a doorway to his right stood a tea vendor, wearing a wife-beater and a gold chain, thumb hooked through the eye socket of a greasy sheep’s head. Cigarette pinched in the man’s lips, the Tehranian twisted to see if someone was chasing the American.

Finding the street empty, the man sneered. Farkeen’ American…

…Probably the only two words of English he knows, mused Sam, head down, concentrating on his dusty joggers. The rhythm of his feet on the pavement was like a lone bass guitar, leading into a familiar song. Bowp-bowp-bowp... He was a million miles now from the athletics track at Cornell. That’s where it started, fifteen years ago, to the same tune. As the only nuclear engineering PhD who could lap Schoellkopf Field in less than a minute, he remembered – though foggily – rounding the end of Schoellkopf Field, and seeing a burly, bearded red-head sitting in the bleachers, sipping a juice box.

Fifteen years later, Sam finally had to do some running for the job, and his legs had turned to jelly.

He stepped around a pool of dried blood on the pavement. A ripped shoe still lay in the gutter.

Sam had never gotten used to these places – where the people lived in universal poverty, corrupt regimes leeching them of their effort. It was the same in Baghdad on his last posting. Before that, Libya. Next, Pakistan or North Korea. There was always another dark manifestation of this same evil. But Sam supposed that even if he’d been warned – by the man with the juice box on that first day at Schoellkopf Field – he’d still have taken the job.

Catching his reflection in the window of a parked car, Sam grimaced at the matching red split polycotton-spandex running shorts, A-shirt, and sweatbands… Like he’d strolled into a Fancy Dress shop and asked for an ‘American Jogger’ costume. It would have been amusing, if there wasn’t a fair chance he’d be shot in the next hour.

Bowp-bowp-bowp...

The bass line was building to the drum solo, around the next corner.

Sam had jogged the same route every morning for two weeks, in preparation for today. On the next corner would be two fat black-clad police in berets sitting outside the Tehran judiciary office, swapping stories in their crooked hutch.

Sam rounded the bend, huffing loudly.

The soldiers glanced up.

Sam plodded past the guard post, swiping at his brow – hoping the gesture might distract them from the strapping-tape holding a satellite phone under his other arm. Or the International Atomic Energy Authority I.D. in his waistband.

Here it comes…

There was no more time.

He’d waited two weeks, and every piece of information had a shelf-life.

It had to be now.

Sam flipped open the nylon snap-clasp cover on his US Government Marathon Navigator wristwatch. The radioactive dial on the watch was lit by tiny capsules of Tritium gas at the hour markers. In the face, was etched a miniature radiation symbol.

It’s time.

He glanced back up at the street ahead.

Fuck.

Protesters had left a barricade of tyres and broken crates in the street, blocking his detour.

Sam swerved around the ragged obstacles.

The laneway was blocked.

He glanced back at the two soldiers in the hutch. They were watching him darkly.

Sam jogged on the spot, looking for another way into the alley. Bowp-fuck-bowp-fuck-bowp...

Beyond this point, he’d only seen aerial photos. And the shadows of a neighbouring apartment tower had obscured details in the next alley.

Sam glanced over his shoulder again, blinking out the sweat. The two soldiers rose to their feet.

Fuck it.

Sam leapt onto a wooden crate, and bounded over a broken cupboard, landing heavily in the dim laneway beyond.

Drum solo.

Sam broke into a sprint. On the balls of his feet, elbows 90 degrees, hands knifing through the air, Sam sucked air with every second step. His muscles remembered.

Concentrate!

He ran down the blind alley, looking for a way out, when the walls in front of him parted onto a small courtyard, revealing a soldier sitting on a ledge, smoking. The man’s head snapped up, surprised. HEY!

Shit shit shit fuck!

Sam dashed around the corner, leapt an open drain, and bounded down a set of stairs. This way— Is it this way?

Boots clapped on the pavement behind him. ISBER! Stop.

The pavement was slippery. Sam felt a twang in his hamstring, with the strain. He looked skyward for a landmark… The building with the shadow…

Dashing left down another narrow alley, he burst onto the adjacent street.

Suddenly, there was nothing between him, and the metal front of the ‘Petrochemical 4’ warehouse, but a burned-out Peykan pick-up truck.

Sam leapt across the oil-stained pavement, and lunged for the warehouse door, twisting the handle. It was locked. Fuck! Banging with both fists on the sheet-metal door, he yelled: Open the door!

Come on!

He turned and checked the street, still pummelling the front of the warehouse. The backs of his thighs were burning. Goddammit! His head was screaming like a disco. The door cracked open an inch.

Sam shoved his way inside. A surprised Iranian stepped back, snarling. ’EY! Sam checked the man’s hands for a gun. The Iranian was holding a greasy wrench. Dirty coveralls hung off his shoulders like a coat hangar, starved cheekbones protruding from a thin beard.

The warehouse held a greasy workshop filled with broken trucks and the smell of used oil.

Sam strode toward the back office, snapping the plastic I.D. from his waistband, holding the IAEA logo high above his head. "Who is the boss here?! Mudir? Where is your superintendent!"

The limping Iranian shouted, panicked – loud enough to be heard on the next block. MAJIDDD!!!

Sam launched into the cluttered office, holding the IAEA badge high above his head. He doubted anyone here recognised the symbol of the atomic nucleus. However, the encircling blue laurels of the United Nations were fairly unmistakeable.

The three men in the tiny office were on their feet, shouting and waving their arms.

This is a UN-sanctioned inspection! My name is Sam Palmer! I’m an inspector from the International Atomic Energy Authority! You are required under resolution One-Three-Seven-Three of the United Nations Security Council to show me your records!

SPY! shouted one of the men, right off the bat. It was too quick, thought Sam. They’d been coached. That was a good sign – and a bad sign at the same time. Sam rushed forward. "Man az United Nations hastam! I’m an inspector from the International Atomic Energy Authority!"

The first man leapt toward him, raising his hands. He had a deep-creased face, bunched sleeves, and wore a fat, orange tie. "Isber! Isber! You can’t come in here!" His English was better than most Sam had met in Tehran.

"Mudir? Sam side-stepped past, headed for a row of olive-green filing cabinets. Where are your shipping records?"

You cannot come here! shouted the Iranian, scanning Sam’s face with dark eyes.

Sam stopped and eyeballed the man. His heart was still pounding. What do you see? Sam stared into his pupils.

When you look at me, what do you see? Someone to be afraid of?

This is a sanctioned inspection by an officer of the International Atomic Energy Authority, repeated Sam, firmly. Show me your records.

Why was I not told? argued the superintendent, holding his ground.

"Haven’t you seen the television? What is your name?"

Majid.

"Majid, you’re required under U.N. resolution One-Three-Seven-Three to show me all your records."

The man looked baffled, but held Sam’s gaze. Why are you dressed like this?

I want to see your shipping manifests! Sam walked toward the row of scratched olive-green filing cabinets.

Where are the others? queried Majid, glancing at the door. "You are alone?"

Is this where you keep your manifests? Sam pointed at the cabinets.

The superintendent barked something at the others.

Two of them ran for the door. The third picked up a telephone.

Sam opened the nearest drawer, and flipped through the hanging files with the same walking-finger movement as riffling CDs in a bargain bin.

Majid seized the edge of the drawer: "We don’t have any weapons. We’re just trucks."

Sam tried to make sense of the files. They weren’t in any kind of order.

Then came the sirens.

Already.

The soldiers were here.

Sam scanned the handwritten labels on the drawer handles:

Safina. Persian for ‘ship’.

There was a screech of tyres in the street.

Sam grabbed the handle for the next drawer. The superintendent tried to step between him and the cabinet, but Sam already had the drawer open. He spotted the folder immediately.

It was the only file marked with Asian characters:

Ch'ŏngjin-si.

Bingo.

Sam snatched the folder as Majid threw himself over the file. Stop!

Sam ran back out of the office, into the warehouse. The other men had disappeared. He fought the urge to run, as he crossed the warehouse floor, toward the door to the street – Majid coming after him.

If he ran now, they’d shoot.

Wait! The Iranian rushed after him. "ISBER!"

Holding his ID above his head, Sam pushed through the sheet-metal doorway, out onto the street.

The door clapped against the wall rattling the warehouse.

It was bright outside, much brighter than it had seemed minutes ago— Rough hands grabbed Sam’s sweat-slick arms.

The street had changed. For a moment Sam thought he might have come out through a different door? There were troops in riot gear, forming a cordon past the burned-out Peykan pick-up truck. The sidewalk was crowded with bearded men in assorted berets, clattering weapons and riot shields. A machinegun muzzle was levelled at Sam’s eye. "QATHRA AL WARAQ!"

It wasn’t the first time Sam had a gun poked in his face, and it wouldn’t be the last. But it still messed with his gut like a slithering hand: the tiny black hole… just a small twitch, a spark – POP! – away from a fatal flash.

It focussed his attention.

More hands grabbed at the seized documents. Sam clutched the folder to his chest. Stick to the script. I’m from the International Atomic Energy Authority! I’m taking these records under resolution One-Three-Seven-Three of the United Nations Security Council! Jostled, Sam held his plastic I.D. over his head.

But there were no press here to see what happened. No civilians. Just troops and police.

Then Sam recognised the bald head bobbing out of a brown SUV, and running toward him through the fracas.

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP

Here goes…

Moslidi. Brigadier General Moslidi. Deputy Security Minister. A year ago, Sam had seen Moslidi shoot a man in the street, three-feet in front of a News camera, then stand over the screaming Iranian and watch him squirt blood. Moslidi didn’t have to tell the cameraman to destroy the tape. These were his streets.

Sam tried to step forward, but the soldiers formed a scrum. WAQAFA! WAQAFA!

Moslidi shooed them back, filling the space where the gun muzzle had loomed in Sam’s vision.

I’m Sam Palmer from the International Atomic—

"The site is NOT on LIST! barked Moslidi, his nose touching Sam’s. You are SPY! The spit foamed on Moslidi lips. Hand over papers! Or I shoot you!"

This wasn’t for show… Not like America. Moslidi wasn’t an elected official who could retire to a cushy desk job when his term ran out. There was no public audience. No elections, no press… The title ‘Brigadier General’ was just words. Moslidi was an old-fashioned rabid dog