I nod. “Catch you later.”
Herman leaves and closes the door behind him.
I turn on the television, unpack my bags, and take a shower. I am drying myself with a towel as I call the front desk and leave a wake-up call for seven that evening. Then I slip between the covers, lower the television volume a bit, and take a nap to the muted sounds of a soap opera in Spanish playing in the background.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Judgment day had finally arrived. Yakov Nitikin had made his deal with the devil, and now it was time to perform.
Early that morning, Alim Afundi allowed two of the FARC rebels, a man and a woman Nitikin had known for years and whom he trusted, to escort his daughter, Maricela, back to Medellín and from there to her home in Costa Rica.
Nitikin kissed his daughter good-bye. She was crying. She knew she would not see him again. Yakov slipped a folded piece of paper into her hand and made her promise not to open it or read it until she arrived home in San José. After reading it she was to keep the contents to herself. “Do you promise?”
She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. She nodded.
He smiled. “We will see each other again.” He told her that he loved her, and kissed her once more, this time on the forehead. Then he watched as she boarded the truck and climbed into the middle of the front seat. Yakov stood in the dust at the side of the road and waved as the truck carrying his daughter to safety pulled away and disappeared in the distance.
But now there was no time for sorrow or tears. Now there was work to be done. In addition to allowing Maricela to leave the compound, Afundi had relented, agreeing to allow one of the other FARC soldiers, a twenty-six-year-old Colombian named Tomas to assist Nitikin in the final assembly of the device, on two conditions: that the work commence immediately, that morning; and that Nitikin verbally communicate each step in the process by using a walkie-talkie and explaining it to an interpreter who would in turn communicate it to Alim.
The Russian agreed to begin immediately, but tried to argue that it was impossible to brief Alim as they proceeded, that it would only serve to distract them and make the process more dangerous. But Alim insisted, and finally Nitikin agreed.
As he had suspected, Alim’s own nuclear expert tried to hitch a ride on the early morning truck with Maricela and her two guards. He was plucked off the truck by one of Alim’s men. The technician offered some lame excuse about supplies he needed to obtain in Medellín. Alim told him the supplies could wait. He wanted the man close at hand to answer technical questions that Alim might have as the assembly of the device proceeded.
By ten that morning, Nitikin and Tomas, his Colombian assistant, were locked away in the wooden hut with the innards of the gun device spread out before them on a large table in the center of the room.
Against one wall, another table, supported by three sturdy sawhorses, bore the weight of two lead caskets. These containers shielded the two men from radiation emitted from the uranium projectile in one casket and the four uranium target disks in the other.
The first stage, assembly of the gun itself, involved mere mechanics. Except for the precision of certain measurements involving alignment of the barrel, it was no more complicated than installing minor motor parts in an automobile. The work should have taken less than an hour. It stretched out, consuming more than two hours because of the constant need to communicate with Alim through the walkie-talkie and to answer the endless stream of questions he posed through the interpreter.
Nitikin knew what Afundi was up to. He was having one of his men write it all down, so that if he needed to, he could dispense with the Russian’s services whenever he wanted. Except for one thing; Nitikin had no intention of telling him everything. He would let the Iranian know this only when he was finished with the preliminary assembly of the device.
There were certain aspects of the process involving safety features and final arming that only Nitikin would know. Yakov had no intention of allowing them to take the device that he had guarded for decades, and detonate it at some undisclosed location without his express consent and participation. Alim and his men might kill him when they were done, but not before.
Gun-type devices, while being the most rudimentary and reliable of nuclear weapons, were also the most dangerous. The simplicity of design was what made it hazardous. A plutonium implosion device, unlike Nitikin’s, while potentially far more destructive, required the intricate and precise alignment of a number of elements before criticality could be achieved. The failure or inhibition of any one of these would neutralize the bomb. But a single subcritical uranium projectile, like Nitikin’s, being fired down a tube at high speed by a conventional explosive charge into a larger target of uranium, meant that a simple premature detonation of the firing charge would result in a full-yield nuclear explosion.
Alim had insisted on installing two items himself: the cordite charge, which involved the simple removal of a breech plug from the back end of the gun tube and the insertion of the cordite; and the setting of the timing device that would initiate the firing of the gun. Nitikin had warned Alim not to install the newly acquired cordite charge in the chamber of the gun, behind the uranium projectile, until the last moment. This would be done on-site and could be performed by virtually anyone. In fact, Yakov did not even have possession of the cordite. That was held by Alim.
Apart from a full-yield detonation, the next fear was a high-explosive fizzle. This could occur in the event that the projectile slides down the barrel at a reduced speed. It could happen as a result of gravity if the projectile is not properly installed, or because of kinetic energy following a collision with the vehicle transporting the bomb. In actuality the risk of this happening to Nitikin’s device was virtually nonexistent because of its design, though this was not something Yakov shared with Alim.
Nitikin’s device incorporated safety features, including compression bands installed around the projectile to secure it firmly in the gun barrel, and a mechanical saving device that blocked the projectile once it was installed in the barrel. This saving mechanism had to be disengaged before firing, and only Nitikin knew the proper sequence for doing so.
Once the safety device was in place, if the gun was fired, the worst that would happen was a fizzle. The device would be blown apart before the two elements of uranium could achieve critical mass and establish a chain reaction. The explosion would kill anyone in close proximity to the device. Depending on the force of the blast, wind velocity, and other factors, it could shower any person within hundreds and up to thousands of feet with a deadly dose of radiation.
The problem was that none of these safety features could be installed until after the uranium target was bolted in place and the projectile was prepared and inserted down the muzzle of the smooth bore tube.
To make things worse, all of this had to be done with precision and speed. During training, in his youth, Yakov had performed the procedure at least eight times and had done so each time in under eight minutes.
While Nitikin and his helper would have the protection of lead-lined suits and gloves, including hoods, face shields, and breathing apparatuses, these garments only provided partial protection. Once they opened the lead coffins containing the uranium, their bodies would begin absorbing radiation.
According to Nitikin’s calculations, they had slightly more than twenty minutes to bolt the target in place, prepare and load the projectile, install the saving mechanism, and seal the gun tube assembly inside its lead-shielded case. Anything beyond twenty-five minutes and the burden of radiation their bodies would be absorbing could become lethal.