Hakim was surprised at the complete absence of sound, even though he’d known what to expect. Every man within the bunker seemed to be holding his breath. The silence stretched on and on and on as that first blindingly intense light faded, replaced by the angry yellow-orange glare from the rising fireball. The shock wave became visible, a blurring against the growing pillar of light. Ground wave and sound reached the bunker at the same moment, almost a full minute after the first searing flash. Suddenly, Hakim was leaning into a windstorm, sand and grit burning the unprotected skin of his face. The thunder of the detonation was muted by the roar of the wind.
Pandemonium broke loose within the claustrophobic confines of the bunker. At his elbow, Shapur was dancing and clapping his hands, a look of triumph on his face, but Hakim could hear nothing but the shout of God Himself, rolling on and on and on … And this, Hakim thought, this was only a five-kiloton tactical device, with an explosive force of a quarter of the weapon exploded by the Americans over Hiroshima!
The blinding light faded, and Hakim removed his goggles. In the desert, a roiling cloud of sand and debris boiled skyward, spreading near the top into the familiar, flattened mushroom shape, its upper reaches high enough now that it caught the rays of the sun from beyond the horizon and reflected them, blood-red and ominous.
Surely it was a sign from God, a holy sign … but was it blessing or curse for his country, his people? Hakim could not be sure.
He watched the cloud continue to crawl toward heaven in blood-red splendor.
The room was wood-paneled and richly furnished, dominated by a large conference table and an array of executive-style leather chairs. One wall could open at the touch of a button to reveal display screens or maps. That wall was closed now, however, flanked by the flag of the United States and the Presidential Seal. The room, one of many, was located some dozens of feet beneath the Executive Building within the network of underground corridors that connected with the White House basement.
The men waiting around the table stood as Phillip Buchalter entered the room. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said in a brisk voice. “Thank you for coming on such short notice. We seem to have a situation here.”
As National Security Advisor, Buchalter was responsible for the day-to-day operation of the National Security Council.
In 1989, President Bush had organized the NSC into three subgroups.
Senior of these was the Principals Committee. It was currently chaired by Buchalter, and its members included Ronald Hemminger, the Secretary of Defense; James A. Schellenberg, the Secretary of State; General Amos C. Caldwell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs; Victor Marlowe, Director of Central Intelligence and head of the NSA and the rest of the U.S. intelligence network; and George Hall, White House Chief of Staff.
There were others in the room, aides and secretaries for the most part.
The ID card pinned to the breast pocket of one elderly man identified him as Dr. Walter Montrose of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Buchalter stood at the end of the table, hands braced on the wooden surface. “Gentlemen, we are facing a NUCFLASH crisis.”
There was an uneasy stir around the table, followed by an absolute and unnerving silence. NUCFLASH was the flag-word on an OPREP-3 PINNACLE message which indicated that a serious risk of nuclear war existed.
Normally, the coded alert was concerned with accidents, launchings, overflights, or malfunctions that could lead to war with the Soviet Union. A NUCFLASH alert could also apply, however, to any unauthorized or unexplained nuclear detonation.
“Just over two hours ago, several of our NDDS orbital packages detected a nuclear explosion in the Pakistan desert near Derawar Fort, about three hundred fifty miles northeast of Karachi. We calculate the yield at about five kilotons.”
“Damn,” General Caldwell said in the silence that followed. “They’ve finally gone and done it.”
“They have indeed,” Buchalter said. “We know Pakistan has been working to develop a nuclear capability since 1972. It was believed that their research reactor facility outside of Islamabad had the potential for assembling warheads for the past several years. “Only a screwdriver away,” as they say.” He gave a wan smile. “Their test this morning confirms it.”
“Five kilotons,” Schellenberg said. “That’s not very big. Strictly tactical stuff.”
“Nuclear artillery shells … atomic warheads on Frog 7 missiles?”
Caldwell pointed out. “That’s plenty bad enough, Mr. Secretary, believe me.”
“It’s worse than that, gentlemen,” Dr. Montrose said. He carefully folded his hands on the table top before him. “The orbital sensors gave us quite precise data on the device, precise enough that we were able to make some educated guesses about its employment. The Derawar blast was almost certainly the field test of a nuclear trigger.”
The reactions of the men around the table ran the gamut from surprise to outright shock. “A trigger!” Hemminger said. “You mean-“
“For a thermonuclear device.” Montrose nodded. “Yes. The low-yield trigger is used to create the temperature and pressure necessary to induce nuclear fusion. They might well have the capability of manufacturing nuclear devices in the megaton range, a thousand times more powerful than the blast we detected this morning.”
“That’s ridiculous,” George Hall said. “You’re saying the Pakistanis are leaping straight to H-bombs and superpower status in one jump.
That’s just not possible!”
“I’m afraid it is,” Marlowe said, shaking his head. “We’ve been expecting this for years, you know. Our old friend Qaddafi has poured millions of dollars into Pakistan’s atomic research program since the seventies … and supplied them with uranium from his territorial acquisitions in Chad as well. The theory is simple enough. The hard part, as I understand it, is purely technical, separation and purification of the uranium and so on. They were bound to get it sooner or later.”
Hemminger pursed his lips. “I find the timing of this … this test somewhat coincidental. Anyone else here concur on that?”
Marlowe nodded. “My people are looking into that, but I think I can tell you the result now. Pakistan has probably had the capability to assemble a thermonuclear bomb for at least the past five years. It is possible they have been hiding the fact even from the Libyans … who, of course, would expect some return on their investment in the form of several complete warheads.”
George Hall shuddered. “The Libyans with nuclear weapons. God help us.”
“God help the world,” Buchalter said. A shiver ran down his spine. He remembered watching a televised interview with Qaddafi. Libya’s dictator had been insisting that had he possessed nuclear weapons, he would have used them to retaliate for the 1986 bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi by Navy and Air Force jets. “Wait a sec, Victor. You say they were hiding their capabilities from the Libyans?”
“Yes, sir.” He gave a dry chuckle. “Pakistan gets several billion dollars of aid from us every year. They know damn well they’re not likely to stay on the gravy train if they turn nukes over to a flake like Qaddafi. But the Indian attack may have changed things over there.
India is a thermonuclear power too, remember, has been since 1974.
Pakistan has its back up against the wall. They could do something … extreme.”
Hemminger’s eyes widened. “Are you suggesting that we could be looking at a nuclear war over there?”
“Mr. Secretary, we think that the detonation this morning was a test … and a warning. They did nothing to try to hide it. They set it off on the surface instead of underground, where the shock could have been blamed on an earthquake, or out at sea, where they could have denied any knowledge of it. We think that it was meant as a clear signal to the Indians: “Back off. We have nukes too.’”