“I guess not.” The bell rang that signaled that the dumbwaiter was on the way up from the kitchen. “I gotta run,” Stone said.
“I’ll see you at the hotel.” Mike hung up.
Felicity came out of the bathroom in a terry robe with a towel around her hair. “I smell sausage,” she said.
Stone took the tray from the dumbwaiter, set it on the bed, and whisked away the covers.
“This is the best hotel I know,” Felicity said, picking up a sausage with her fingers and biting into it.
“Mike Freeman just called,” Stone said. “There’s further news of Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.”
“Do tell.”
Stone told her about the defection of Chang from High Cotton and the work he did in Palo Alto. “His work has now been completed, and someone code-named Algernon is communicating with the trio, setting up a meeting. Mike thinks Algernon may have arrived in California to run the trio.”
“I think that’s a sensible conclusion to draw,” she said. “I’ll check with my people this morning to see if they have anything new to add.”
“We would all appreciate that,” Stone said.
She set the plate of eggs and bacon in her lap and started to work on it. “One way we might be able to help is to go back into our files and see if we’ve ever had an Algernon operating anywhere.”
“Excellent idea. If we knew who he was it might be easier to track them all down.”
“I think we can guess where they’re heading,” Felicity said.
32
When Hamish went to the kitchen for breakfast, Mo was looking very nervous. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing is wrong, it’s just that the material has arrived, and I’m excited. The doctor has been working most of the night.”
Hamish went into the dining room where Dr. Kharl was working and found him on his knees before the open Vuitton trunk, tightening some screws. He was wearing heavy gloves.
The doctor looked up. “Welcome back,” he said.
“Is it finished?” he asked.
“All done, except for completing the three small devices and what you have to do.”
“I?”
“Or whoever will activate the device,” Kharl said. He stood up and retrieved an object resting on top of the trunk. It was made of metal and was a flat plate about half an inch thick, with a teat-shaped closed tube attached to its bottom. “Some of the material is in here,” Kharl said, tapping the teat. He unscrewed the top of the plate. “There is a layer of plastique here, with a threaded hole on top that will admit a detonator.” He dropped the teat end into the tube and screwed it tightly into place, then screwed a small metal tube containing the igniter into the top. “Then close this panel”—he pointed—“insert this key”—he held up one like the ones he had seen for the smaller devices—“then tap into the keypad the elapsed time to ignition, up to ten hours, then turn the key to the right. When the digital clock reaches zero, the blasting cap will set off the plastique, which will fire the tube containing a bullet of enriched uranium into the fissionable material at the bottom of the trunk, creating what is known as a critical mass. You must be many, many miles away by that time.”
Hamish unrolled a map of Los Angeles and pointed to The Arrington’s location with a draftsman’s compass. “What sort of damage can we expect from this device?”
Kharl took the compass and placed it on the scale at the bottom of the map, adjusting it to the correct distance. “Each kiloton of explosive force will decimate everything inside a radius of one nautical mile, or about six thousand feet. This device has an explosive power of about two and a half kilotons, and thus, a destructive range of about two and a half nautical miles, or a little over three statute miles.” Kharl placed the point of the compass on The Arrington’s location and drew a circle around it.
“Now, you see what lies in the path of complete destruction: inside the circle are all of the Bel-Air neighborhood and all of Beverly Hills, to the edges of West Hollywood. To the west, much of the blast will be contained by the Santa Monica Mountains, but there are dense residential neighborhoods within the circle. To the south, complete destruction reaches to about Santa Monica Boulevard, including practically the entire campus of UCLA, and much of Centurion Studios, where movies are made. To the north the mountains will absorb much of the blast, but the dams of both the Stone Canyon upper and lower reservoirs will be breached, allowing something like three and a half billion gallons of water to rush down the mountainside. This will, of course, create its own fairly narrow path of destruction, but it will wash an enormous amount of debris far past Santa Monica Boulevard. You get two catastrophes for the price of one!” Kharl giggled at the thought. “Of course, there will be terrible damage and fires well beyond the three-and-a-half-mile circle of complete destruction, not to mention
the deaths caused by radiation poisoning. It will take Los Angeles decades to recover.”
Hamish’s breath was taken away for a moment; he had not fully comprehended what the device would do.
“Now,” Kharl said, “do you understand what you must do?”
Hamish repeated the process to the doctor. “Is that correct?”
“It is perfectly correct,” the doctor said. “You may stop the process if you insert the key and turn it to the left.” Kharl looked at his wristwatch. “My flight to Dubai departs San Francisco International in three and a half hours,” he said. “I must leave immediately.” He closed the trunk, locked it, and handed the key to Hamish.