Gauntlet by Richard Aaron

changes. These changes would then release an enormous amount of energy; a process that would sustain and build a shock wave, which would travel at a supersonic velocity, producing rapidly expanding hot gasses in its wake. In that brief instant of detonation, the shock wave would turn out pressures of up to half a million atmospheres, traveling at ten kilometers per second. Temperatures would reach 5,000 degrees Celsius, with power approaching 20 billion watts per square centimeter. Modern science still did not understand all that happened on the edge of such a chemical reaction, which was why a team from Livermore Laboratories was hoping to be present in the desert for the Semtex detonation.
    It wasn’t anyone’s fault when the explosion didn’t go as expected. No one could have taken into account McMurray’s positioning of the blasting caps, or the lens-like effect they would have, especially within a pyramid-shaped mass. This was just one of the reasons that Turbee’s calculations on the crater size turned out to be a little off. No one fully appreciated how much explosive 660 tons of Semtex really was. Until now.
    The pressure wave, traveling at a little less than six miles per second, arrived at the control area in less than a second. Richard, McMurray, and their men were sheltered behind a small convoy of Humvees. The shock almost lifted the heavy vehicles off the ground, and they were all shoved back a few inches. Cameramen foolhardy enough to be standing in unprotected areas were knocked off their feet. General Minyar’s tent almost became unattached, and received an unwelcome storm of sand in its interior.
    It took 15 seconds more for the sound to reach the encampment. It came as a sharp crash, followed by a low rumbling that sounded like thunder. The initial pressure wave had created a dust storm, and it took several minutes for the cloud to subside. Looking toward Ground Zero, McMurray could see a well-defined mushroom cloud, reaching to a height of more than a mile above the blast site. Seismographs as far away as Tel Aviv and Ankara picked up the blast. The only feature distinguishing the detonation from a nuclear warhead was the lack of radiation. They hoped.
    “Holy shit, Richard,” McMurray breathed.
    Richard was likewise impressed. The Livermore Labs and the Army and Air Force high explosive research facilities were going to have a lot to analyze. And beyond that, the planning gnomes in the Pentagon would be looking at this. It wouldn’t cost a lot of money (in Pentagon terms) to detonate a few thousand kilos of high explosives. The military could have bombs as powerful as small nuclear devices, without all the unpleasant publicity that using that kind of weapon created. As Richard watched the aftermath, he realized what else this explosion might mean. He quailed at the thought of anyone other than the American government ever getting their hands on that much explosive, or even a fraction of it. If he was right, and there was Semtex missing . . . who had it, and what terrible things might they be planning to do with it? If someone had taken the time to steal Semtex, they probably already had a move in mind. It was bad enough that this particular explosion had taken place in Libya, one of the most aggressive terrorist nations in the world.
    Richard retrieved his tallies, which he’d dropped during the chaos of the explosion. What White House idiot had decided to keep this much explosive sitting around in the Middle East, anyhow? He grunted to himself, pressing his fingers against his eyes and trying to think. Those assholes had been asking for trouble from the start.
    Minyar himself, as he was picking himself up off his tent floor and shaking the sand out of his hair, felt a twinge of regret. What if he had packed the stuff on a barge and sent it up the Thames to the British Parliament buildings? Or across the Atlantic, to be detonated underneath the Brooklyn Bridge? Had he passed up the opportunity to