Fitzduane smiled somewhat grimly. "It seems probable, gentlemen, that I'm going to need it."
Jaeger was well into his stride.
"George Bull was a Canadian genius who believed that a gun could do much of what a rocket can do, only more efficiently. He argued that a focused explosion contained within a barrel is inherently more efficient than something like a rocket, which dissipates much of its energy into the general neighborhood.
"So don't think of the supergun as a giant artillery piece. Think instead of it as being the equivalent of a first-stage rocket, with the projectile – the missile – being the second stage. The supergun gives the missile an initial momentum and then, once it is partially released from the gravitational field, the missile's own small motor takes over. The significant point here is that, weight for weight, the supergun can do the same job with a fraction of the energy and at a fraction of the cost."
"Theoretically?" said Fitzduane.
"Actually," said Jaeger. "I told you I'd built a hydrogen-powered gun. Well, we didn’t just screw it together. We carried out a full firing program."
There was silence in the room.
"So you've built a weapon," said Fitzduane slowly, similar to whatever they have built in Mexico."
Jaeger shook his head. "Ours is not a weapon," he said. "Our gizmo is designed to ferry materials into space at about one-twentieth the cost of a rocket. The cost of putting materials into space is currently greater than their weight in gold, which concentrates the mind, does not overly please Congress, and ticks off the electorate. We've tested it. We've fired it, and it works. If fact, it works exceptionally well."
Fitzduane looked dubious. The interchange was giving him time to think.
"Look," continued Jaeger, "rockets were right at the time and continue to have advantages. Human beings are not too well adapted to being fired out of a gun barrel into space. But equipment, supplies, and so one are another matter. They don't care how they get up there. It is just a matter of physics, and the bottom line is that a supergun can do it much cheaper than a rocket. But not with gunpowder. That's where Bull was wrong. Gunpowder works okay, but it is expensive, slow to load, and hell to clean up. No, the way to go is hydrogen."
"And that is what you used at Livermore?" said Fitzduane. "Or is it ‘use’?"
"More or less," said Jaeger. He grinned. "To both."
Fitzduane nodded. "My understanding from the media is that a supergun is too unwieldy to be a weapon. We're in the age of maneuver warfare. You can't put one of these things on the back of a Humvee and go and hide under a palm tree. And anyway, a thermal imager will see right through the leaves. Privacy is not what it was."
Jaeger looked at the CIA Deputy Director. William Martin took over. It was Jaeger's job to explain the science. The use to which the end result might be put required a different mind-set.
"What you're saying is the conventional wisdom," said Martin, "but our underlying assumption is that Quintana is an intelligent man and he must have been as aware of the limitations as we were. Yet he proceeded on the endeavor and committed very substantial resources.
"So, what is he up to? Leaving out his political motivations for the moment, why would he consider that the supergun can be made an effective weapon when others have dismissed it?
"The most significant new factor in the equation is the scientist behind Quintana's weapon. He has been identified as Dr. Edgar Rheiman, a very interesting man indeed.
"Rheiman worked for George Bull for some years and was regarded as a major talent, but they fell out over women and science. Bull was attractive to women. Rheiman was not. Rheiman fell deeply for a lab assistant called Gloria Engleman. Unfortunately, Gloria preferred Bull. She slept with Rheiman but worshipped Bull from afar. If she had kept that to herself, it would not have mattered. Unfortunately, she uttered Bull's name during an intimate moment.
"That slight preyed on Rheiman's mind. Two days later, he marched into the rather busy lab – there were eight witnesses – and, after a diatribe, blew Gloria's head off with both barrels of a twelve-gauge from a range of approximately eight inches. The defense argued it was a crime of passion. The prosecution said it showed clear premeditation. Any sane observer would have supported both viewpoints, but the upshot was that Rheiman was sent for psychiatric assessment before sentencing and escaped from the secure facility in the hospital after killing a nurse. By all accounts, he killed twice more before getting out of the country. Each time the victim looked something like Gloria: Brunette, strong-featured, leggy, and in her thirties. Both were strangled."
Fitzduane's mind was focused on dredging up everything he know on the supergun, and for the moment the CIA Deputy Director's words did not register. When they did, a cold chill ran through him. Kathleen! He was describing Kathleen.
"Perhaps more interesting than Rheiman's rather aggressive approach to women," continued Martin, "were his scientific views. He advanced three ideas of particular relevance."
"First, he argued that the use of hydrogen as a propellant was vastly preferable to traditional gunpowder. Second, he said that a hydrogen-based supergun could be used as a weapon if it focused on low-earth satellites which could be brought down on command on the enemy. Third, to offset the intrinsically unwieldy nature of an individual supergun, he advocated the construction of multiple tubes using cheap, readily available raw materials. His point was that since a supergun requires a long slow explosion, traditional gun-barrel materials would not be required. So you could offset the lack of mobility with a high rate of fire – thanks to hydrogen – and multiple installations."
"Concrete!" breathed Fitzduane as understanding hit. "The sample of special concrete brought out by Patricio Nicanor. But then, why make the first gun out of maraging steel when he could have used superhard concrete sewer pipes?"
Jaeger laughed. "His concrete is just a shade more exotic than that – but essentially you've got a point."
"Quintana has a reputation for not suffering fools gladly," said Martin. "Our assumption is that the first supergun – made out of steel – is proof of principle, and in using such a high grade of material, Rheiman is sensibly covering his ass. Concrete barrels are unproven. A split barrel on an initial test firing would be embarrassing for him. Fatally so if Quintana was present."
"Has the supergun been test-fired yet?" said Fitzduane.
The CIA Deputy Director shook his head. "We're pretty sure not," he said. "These things make a big bang. If it had been fired we'd have picked it up on satellite. As it is, what I have said is all based upon our analysis. We could be wrong." He smiled ruefully. "It has been known to happen. We could be looking at some kind of specialized oil-extraction facility, but given the characters involved, we doubt that."
"Guilt by association?" said Fitzduane.
"Damn right," said Cochrane.
"So you want us to check it out and if it looks antisocial, blow it up," said Fitzduane. "How big is this thing?"
Martin looked at Jaeger. "Trust me with your secret, John," he said. "If we are going to waste this thing, it would be nice to know if we need a Swiss Army knife or a two-thousand-pound bomb."
Jaeger took a breath. "The supergun in the Devil's Footprint – if that is what it is – would appear to be two hundred meters long. That is about the height of a sixty-story skyscraper. It weighs, we estimate, just over twenty-one hundred tons."
Fitzduane's face rarely expressed total surprise, but this time it did. "And how the fuck are we going to destroy something that size?" he snarled. "Especially with a brigade of unfriendly troops looking on. We're not talking a weapon here. We're talking about a goddamn monument."