Independence Day by Ben Coes Page B

made in 1953, approximately thirty kilotons. It’s an old bomb, relatively small and light, originally designed to drop from a plane and take out a submarine. It would, if detonated, destroy a big area. Most of Manhattan. All of Boston. This is not a tactical weapon; we’re talking about the real deal here.”
    “How long ago did the scans degrade?” asked Brubaker.
    “The last hard reading from Milstar was three days ago,” said Parizeau. “It could’ve been moved at any point during that time.”
    “Is this one of the devices controlled by former Ukrainian military?” asked Calibrisi.
    “That’s right. General Vladimir Bokolov.”
    “Piper, get Bruckheimer on that immediately,” said Calibrisi, referring to Jim Bruckheimer, who ran the NSA’s Signals Intelligence Directorate. “We need to find Bokolov.”
    “I’m on it,” said Redgrave.
    “Will, how long to break down the bomb and harvest the physics package?” asked Polk.
    “Why is that relevant?” asked Brubaker.
    “It’ll determine how they’re moving it,” said Polk. “If they can pit it in a few hours, the bomb will be light enough to stick in a pickup truck. If that’s the case, then trying to find it is a waste of time.”
    “It would take at least forty-eight hours to execute a clean removal of the physics package,” said Parizeau.
    “So what does that mean?” asked Brubaker.
    “It means they’re going to get it to water as quickly as possible,” said Polk. “The alternative is going inland in a semitruck that will be Geigered at the border. They’re not going to risk doing that.”
    Raditz moved to the wall, where a large plasma screen lay dark.
    “Will, can you live-wire what you’re looking at? Put it on IAB thirty-three. Put it on everyone’s screen.”
    A moment later, a strikingly colorful three-dimensional horizontal map of Ukraine splashed onto Raditz’s plasma screen, along with the screens of everyone on the call.
    “That’s Kiev,” said Parizeau, narrating, focusing in on a line of lights.
    Near the top of the screen, just above a red digital line representing the atmosphere, was a flashing red, white, and blue object, which represented the U.S. Milstar satellite.
    “Are we watching this in real time?” asked Polk.
    “Yes,” said Parizeau.
    “Spotlight the routes on every road to the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov,” said Polk.
    Suddenly, a spiderweb of yellow lines branched southeast from Kiev. These were the roads leading to the coast. There were at least a dozen different roads heading to the water.
    “Will, correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re able to focus in on these devices because of radioactive emissions, right?” asked Raditz.
    “Plutonium, uranium, or tritium.”
    “Can you look at a moving truck and get an accurate enough reading to detect it?” asked Raditz.
    “It would take a decent amount of luck, to be honest,” said Parizeau.
    “What’s a decent amount?”
    “One in a thousand. The movement of the truck dissipates the strength of the radioactive emissions. We readjust to try and compensate by looking for a lower reading, but we don’t know how fast or slow the driver is going. So we’re probably going to be wrong.”
    “Not to mention any sort of cloaking measures they might employ to hide the imprint,” added Calibrisi.
    “If their only option is getting it out of the country by water, let’s send everything to the coast,” said Raditz. “I want every satellite we have close to the theater focused on finding that nuke. Repurpose any assets we have in the sky over Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova. Immediately. Blanket the ports, especially Sevastopol and Odessa.”
    “Should we inform Russia?” asked Brubaker.
    Silence took over the call. It was a tricky question.
    On the one hand, the Russian Federation might be able to help stop the people who had the bomb. Russia would have a deeper knowledge of the players in the area to draw on.
    On the