Читаем Barracuda: Final Bearing полностью

“You have a way to destroy these missiles without physical destruction? I think we are all confused, General.” Gotoh lowered the projection screen and tapped into the disk player. “This disk doesn’t have a soundtrack, gentlemen,” Gotoh said, stepping up to the screen with a pointer. A computer image of a cruise missile materialized on the screen. The missile grew until its nose cone filled the image and the weapon became transparent, revealing numerous components inside. “In the last four years we have perfected a new weapon that causes destruction without blowing anything up. We call this missile the Hiroshima. The warhead itself is called the Scorpion. The warhead components are separate chemicals and gases that are dispersed into a cloud and react in midair to form a polymer emulsion — a glue, if you will. This glue rains down on the land below and adheres to every surface. Mixed in with the glue is this substance shown in the blue container. These are fine filings of plutonium, one of the most poisonous substances on the planet. The glue liquid and plutonium form a matrix that contaminates the area below the activation of the warhead.

The effective zone of contamination varies with glue load, plutonium weight and missile altitude. We can dial in the area of contamination.

Once contaminated, the area below, while physically the same, must be abandoned. Any human life in the effective zone dies from radiation effects. Other personnel entering the scene will die. An on-scene commander would soon deduce the cause of deaths in the effective zone, and the area would be cordoned off. Decontamination is not possible. The glue is essentially permanent, it doesn’t wash off with water or chemicals. Nothing short of scraping every square millimeter with a chisel can clean up the area. If this weapon detonates over the Tamga bunker, the area will be condemned for many years and use of the weapons will be impossible.” The picture darkened and the screen retracted into the ceiling above. “We plan to deploy a Hiroshima missile with a Scorpion warhead such as this against the Tamga weapons depot.” Foreign Minister Yoshida shook his head. “So you plan to deploy a nuclear weapon against the Greater Manchurians because they have nuclear weapons?”

“No,

Minister Yoshida, that is not true. This warhead is not a nuclear weapon.”

“It causes widespread radioactive contamination, killing the targeted city with radiation poisoning. It is a nuclear weapon.”

“No. It is a plutonium poison weapon, and yes, it kills. But the target is not a city, it is a bunker. Anyone inside will be a professional soldier taking the risks that soldiers take. We estimate only two hundred casualties.”

“Our people died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki from radiation.

No Japanese weapon should exist that does this. General Gotoh.”

“Our people also died in the Pacific from bullets and bombs and fires.

Minister Yoshida. That has not stopped us from using and making bullets and bombs and incendiary devices. All this talk about the nuclear destruction in 1945 has to stop. That was three generations ago. It was war. That is what happens in a war. This scenario is very different. We are surgically removing a threat. There will be deaths, but no spectacular flaming mushroom cloud, no babies dying in their mother’s arms, no shadows of pedestrians carved into the walls of buildings, no walls of flame for thirty miles from ground zero. It will not be a pretty scene inside the effective zone, but for this operation the effective zone will be a few hundred meters in diameter.”

“A practical question. General,” Kurita said. “The weapons are stored inside a bunker. How will this glue matrix contaminate them under the cover of the bunker roof?”

“First, the entire complex will be contaminated. No one will be able to get close, even if the weapons themselves are uncontaminated. But the ventilation systems will spread enough of the glue and plutonium to contaminate the surfaces of the interior. We have done tests. The missiles will be rendered useless.” Gotoh went on to explain technical details of the weapon, comfortable now that he was discussing machines instead of morality. After he had spoken for another twenty minutes, uninterrupted by Yoshida, Kurita called for a break. The council members filed out to consider. When the members returned, the meeting began where it had left off. “So you believe an attack with these weapons is truly justified?” Yoshida asked Kurita directly. “It is not just I, Minister Yoshida,” Kurita replied to the foreign minister.

“The council members believe it to be justified. If I understand the thinking of the group, they feel that the Greater Manchurian weapons are sufficiently offensive that their mere existence in an operational status, and within the unstable rogue government of this state, merit the contemplation of a military strike to make the missiles ineffective.