Countdown: H Hour by Tom Kratman Page B

calls the SS-27 rockets were changed out from single to MIRV—”
    “MIRV?” Janail interrupted.
    “Multiple Independently-targeted Reentry Vehicles,” Mahmood supplied, patiently. In his own sphere, Janail was something of a master, but that sphere didn’t include strategic weapons. “A warhead of separate warheads, each of which goes its own way after a certain point.”
    “Like a shotgun?” asked Janail.
    “Yes,” agreed Mahmood, “if you can imagine that each pellet from a shotgun targets—and hits—a separate organ, one for the left eye, one for the right, one for the heart, one for each lung, two for the kidneys . . . ”
    Valentin chuckled softly. The analogy was rather apt, in its way. “Quite. We—the Russian Federation; as if we could actually afford it—are switching out our older warheads for newer ones, MIRV’s, mostly out of fear of the Chinese. The older warheads were broken down to their components and mostly sent for reprocessing.
    “The inert casings, tritium reservoirs, and sparkplug tubes, I bought for scrap. The conventional explosives I had cast anew. The tritium, deuterium, and plutonium-239 were . . . harder. Note that the tritium cartridges are almost brand new.
    “It’s fortunate that our security procedures have not improved noticeably since Lebed first discovered we were missing over one hundred devices. And security over the components is even worse. For example, the gold around the plutonium had been stripped off and disappeared before I got to it. How whoever did that managed it, no one seemed to know. That, I had to have newly plated on.
    “Oddly, the really hard parts were the krytron switches. Fortunately, in a country that has not really fully overcome socialist principles of accounting, shoddy workmanship to meet an imposed plan, unpaid work days to overproduce, and which further accepts the need to write off a certain percentage of what is produced because it is junk, it was possible to obtain enough. I fear that, someday, one of my country’s warheads will not work because it got the junk while I obtained the good material.
    “Yes, of course a fair amount of money changed hands for each step and piece. Hence my price.” Actually, remarkably little money, in the big scheme of things, and what I spent has very little to do with my price.
    “What about the permissive action link?” Mahmood asked.
    “There are none,” Prokopchenko answered. “Since these are privately produced, I saw no need to add any. Moreover, the world being the way it is, how could any buyer be certain I gave the proper PAL codes?”
    Never mind that I really do want you to have and to use these things. I don’t want you to know that for a certainty.

    The Resurrection had an elevator running right from Prokopchenko ’s office down to an indoor pool, on the next to lowest deck. It only made sense to have had it placed there, Prokopchenko, spending as much time as he did in less than sunny climes. Now the pool was hidden by its mechanical covering, strong enough, in itself, to serve as a dance floor. An oval section of lead shielding had been thrown up around it. More lead plates covered the ceiling, as well as the floor where the water of the pool didn’t provide its own considerable degree of shielding.

    Prokopchenko’s mistress, an extraordinary, utterly stunning, indeed breathtaking, six foot tall Ukrainian girl named Daria, was most put out by the loss of the pool. Worse, the guards wouldn’t even let her off the elevator anymore, not at the pool deck. And all the hatches to the pool area were locked. Inconsiderate bastard. I’d fuck a couple of the guards in revenge, but the religious fanatics would just as likely report me.
    Daria’s mood wasn’t improved by being locked in her quarters, with the guards bringing her her meals, since the day prior. “There are things about my business you are better off not knowing,” Valentin had explained. As if that’s an