“Is this showmanship really necessary?”.
Alontov canted his head slightly to one side shrugging a resigned “Yeah, well” by way of apology.
Over-flying the city, the viewers were swept southwards with Nob Hill and Union Square close by their flight path.
Serge had to allow that the quality of the virtual scenery was awesome. Pedestrians and traffic cast their own shadows, light reflected from windows and pools and smog tinged the horizon a light tinge of brown. A CNN ‘eye in the sky’ helicopter and SFPDs ‘Sky One’ hovered above some drama unfolding on the ground. Even birds took to the air in fright at their approach.
The Minister for Cultural Affairs nudged his neighbour, pointing to the left of the screen and exclaiming animatedly that a distant relative lived just over there, in China Town and with that an alarm bell rang inside Alontov’s head. He berated himself for not spotting that potentially damaging item. During the choosing of a scenario to convince the Chinese the effectiveness of their plan, they had overlooked the presence of that large enclave, housing as it did the numerous Chinese residents of that city. He noticed several politburo heads turn to regard him with suspicion; he could almost read their thoughts,
“Are the Russians subconsciously indicating the ease with which they would kill Chinese?” However, the die was cast and Serge determined to cross that particular hurdle in all good time, there was nothing he could do about it now. The viewers were now approaching Route 101 and the course adjusted to follow the raised Highway toward San Francisco International. Small shapes of aircraft, taking off and landing, grew larger and more defined as the scene raced southwards. The complex, spaghetti-like elevated junction with Route 280 flashed beneath, followed by the off ramp to Bayview. On passing the hill which was Bayview Park the view ahead suddenly shot skywards, passing back through the clouds but decelerating rapidly and emulating a craft performing an Immelman turn, the view rotated sickeningly to the left until facing back earthwards. Dropping once more through the clouds the viewer’s found themselves heading directly for the northbound traffic lanes on the Highway. Vehicles could be clearly seen travelling at their varied speeds, some changing lanes. The viewers all came to realise that they appeared to be approaching one vehicle singled out from the remainder, a bright red pickup truck. When it was close enough that the bed of the truck almost filled the screen, everyone in the room could clearly see a large aluminium suitcase with a large, ostentatiously obvious ‘Ban the Bomb’ sticker upon it, the pickup then dropped away as the view seemingly gained altitude. Keeping the pick-up in the centre of the screen the viewers reached and maintained an altitude comparable with 1000ft ’. The red pickup continued upon its journey for several miles, with it the viewers retraced their steps back past the Route 280 junction. The red vehicle motored on. Passing between the impressive San Francisco Hospital and Potrero Hill it swung west and appeared to be aiming for the off ramp at Dubose and Mission when the two-kiloton device in a Cobalt sleeve to produce a ‘dirty’ explosion, detonated.
Every person in the room, including the Russians who had all seen this scenario and others several times before, reacted to the light which flash covered the screen. No digital simulation could hope to imitate even the effect of an ordinary common or garden flash bulb, certainly not the instantaneous photonic release of a hundred suns. However, the talented O’Connor had created enough of a pixel whiteout, and then its reversal, revealing a convincing enough nuclear fireball to have all comers jump in their seats. Expanding to approximately 700m in diameter it would have attained, briefly, a temperature of about 10,000,000’ centigrade, it would flash vaporise all metal and of course flesh to a distance of 1000 ft. As far away as 16th and Valencia to the south, and north to Market and Van Ness every single brick, steel girder, vehicle, man, woman and child would either vanish in a cloud of heat and ions or as pulverised dust, to be sucked up into the atmosphere and scattered as highly irradiated particles downwind. Iron and steel for a further 300m would simply melt in place. On screen the effects decreased progressively with distance, but a mile away in Buena Vista Park, real sunbathers would have received instantaneous first-degree burns. It would be explained later, to those who did not already know, that such a bomb would only expend about 33 % of its energy in radiated heat.
The remaining energy expenditure would be in heavy Gamma ray, Alpha and Beta ray radiation to a lesser degree but the bulk would be heat-generated blast.
A frighteningly realistic simulation of the first had played out in about one second of virtual real-time onscreen. However, the hammer blow dealt the city by the 670 mile an hour blast wave charged with debris made even the soldiers amongst the audience blanche. As far away as City Hall, state of the art earthquake proof buildings were shown torn asunder by an element not catered for in their design. Lesser structures were simply erased from the face of the planet, the materials of their make-up joining the hail of near-supersonic shrapnel. The images of the Bell Jet Ranger helicopters of San Francisco Police Department and CNN had at first become tiny twins of the nuclear fireball. Every single item in their construction, from fuel to the very aluminium of their airframes reached flash point in 0.0018 of a second. Just 0.087 of a second later they were swatted from existence by the blast wave.
After Ms O’Connor had completed her contract, more orthodox programmers using United States census details and fifty years of data from atomic testing completed the project. It would not have been secure to request O’Connor to add the damage assessment features to her program.
Now, as the Politburo studied the computer-generated projection of a runaway firestorm completing the destruction of a very sizeable portion of San Francisco, a dropdown window spelt out the estimated butchers bill. The view increased in elevation to a height that encompassed the scene of the city from the south ramp of the Golden Gate to San Francisco International.
Premier Chiu swung away from the screen. The other members caught the movement and all eyes were back on Serge. Sat the other side of the table from him, Peridenko was studying his hands with deliberation, knowing that the most audacious part of their proposed plan was to be revealed. Would the Chinese go for it?
“Comrade Colonel General” began the premier “You preceded this display by stating the devices were moving into position, one hundred devices?”
Serge nodded in answer.
“From where have these toys come from?” Premier Chiu asked, pausing before pointing a finger at the Russian soldier.
“Surely the Americans are not so easily hoodwinked. Yeltsin handed over the complete inventory for inspection like a scolded child surrendering his catapult to a grown-up?” Chiu finished with a note of censure in his tone.
A door opened at the end of the room and an aide quietly approached Peridenko and whispered in his ear. Whatever had been said caused the man’s face to harden.
Svetlana awoke at 9.30am after just three hours’ sleep and lay looking at the ceiling. Alyssa, her neighbour from above, had a new boyfriend and from the noise both Alyssa and the bed were making the honeymoon stage had not yet palled. With an exasperated huff she swung from the bed, electing to go to the paper shop before they began experimenting with the chandelier and power tools. Pulling on jeans and tee shirt, she ran a brush through her long hair, slipped on a pair of old trainers and headed out the door.
Half an hour later with a still warm loaf of bread under one arm, Sunday tabloids under the other, and a warm croissant gripped between her teeth, she let herself back in. Walking along the hallway past the living room, she kicked off her loose trainers and headed for the kitchen. The bass thumping from above indicated Alyssa and stud probably now doing it to heavy rock. Oh well, she thought, at least someone is getting some. It was a bright sunny day and she wondered if there would be an early spring.