“Okay, everyone,” Carlucci said above the noise of the conversations. “If I could have your attention, let’s get seated and discuss a few things.”
The large room’s chairs and couches were arranged in a long oval, but all offered a view of a wall-sized flat panel display. Carlucci took a seat to the right of the display, Karen Chushi to his left in a club chair, then Klugendorf, who occupied a small sofa, barely fitting into it. A sofa had been claimed by Hogshead and Shingles, then another chair occupied by Jehoshaphat Taylor, then a couch with Pacino, Allende and Menendez. A second couch seated Rob Catardi and Grayson Rand.
“I’ve asked you here to brief you on an operation that is about to commence, and to watch the progress of it in real time if you’d like, although we may have some time to wait before the real action happens. You’re all cleared for ‘Fractal Chaos’ now, and I don’t have to remind you of how secret this all is. Admiral Catardi, could you present your portion of the operation for us? I took the liberty of having some slides made up in anticipation of what you’d be talking about. You haven’t seen the presentation, but you can ad-lib based on what the slide shows.”
Catardi stood and the display screen came to life. The first slide that Carlucci selected was a standard security statement of the extreme level of classification of the slide deck. Then a photograph of earth from high earth orbit zoomed slowly down over the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea until the screen was filled with the Gulf of Oman, the Strait of Hormuz, with the northward-pointing triangle of Dubai on the south side of the strait and the Iranian Navy’s Bandar Abbas base on the north side.
“Well,” Catardi began, “What you’re seeing is the Bandar Abbas base of the Iranian Navy.”
Carlucci’s view zoomed far in to show the protected basins of the base, the larger warships on one side, the smaller patrol boats on the other, drydocks and building ways on the northeast side, with a floating drydock shown, an oblong black shape in it. The view then zoomed closer so the floating drydock occupied the entire screen.
“This is an Iranian Kilo-class diesel-electric submarine, built by the Russians for export sale.”
Carlucci’s slide changed to show a profile view of the Kilo-class submarine, the outside skin of the submarine graphically melting away to show a drawing of the interior.
“The Kilo has been considered one of Russia’s greatest submarine construction achievements. It’s quiet, fast, capable, reliable, has extended battery endurance and can carry 22 torpedoes or Kalibr cruise missiles.”
The drawing in the slide suddenly split into two pieces, a forward section with the torpedo compartment and the second compartment with the control room beneath the conning tower, and the aft section that contained the diesel ship’s service generator and the larger diesel propulsion generator, the latter electrically connected to the large main motor that drove the shaft and the single propeller. The gap of empty space between the compartments flashed red for a moment.
“We think the Iranians, with Russian help, have split the Kilo hull as shown here, with the combat spaces forward and the propulsion plant aft. They intend to fill that space with a new module.”
A cylinder appeared between the hull sections. A darker red piece of equipment appeared in the front section of the cylinder.
“This is a new Russian-designed liquid-metal cooled nuclear reactor, fueled by bomb-grade plutonium. It’s what physicists call a ‘fast reactor,’ in that it needs no ‘moderator’ to slow down the neutrons produced from the fission of the heavy elements of plutonium, and those neutrons go directly on to create the next generation of fissions. The heat produced by the fissions goes to heat a liquid metal piping system, which then heats water in the steam generators — the boilers — to make steam.”
Two new vertical cylinders appeared near the reactor, with piping connecting them. “What you see next to the reactor are steam generators — boilers — where the hot liquid metal heats water that then boils.”
The animation then showed piping emerging from the steam generators and running aft to a large piece of equipment, bigger by far than the reactor itself. “This is the steam propulsion turbine and generator that will now put power — nuclear power — to the ship’s main motor for propulsion. A second, smaller steam turbine, will supply electricity to the ship’s service generator. So now, the main motor can either be driven by the diesel propulsion generator or the new steam turbine generator or the batteries, and the ship’s electricity can either come from the batteries, the diesel generators or the new ship’s service steam turbine generator.”
In the animation, all three hull sections rejoined themselves together, and the skin reappeared, turning the profile view into a longer, more slender submarine.
“The Iranians have renamed this submarine Panther, which was also the name of the entire program. Integrated together, the modified Kilo is now a nuclear submarine.”
The view changed again to show the Bandar Abbas base, the view zooming back out to show the Gulf of Oman. A red dotted line extended from Bandar Abbas southeast into the gulf. “The submarine will be tested far south of here, either in the southern Arabian Sea or in the Indian Ocean.” The view zoomed farther out, until the Saudi Peninsula shrank in size and the Indian Ocean was screen center between the east coast of Africa and the west coast of India. The dotted line ended in an “X” slightly north of the equator.
The slide returned to showing the new module to be inserted into the Kilo submarine. Carlucci spoke up for the first time.
“Rob, tell the crowd here why this nuclear fast reactor is of such interest to us.”
“Yes, Mr. President.” Catardi turned from the display toward the cabinet members and the VP. “This reactor is revolutionary, a giant leap forward in technology. In fact, we don’t understand how it can function without, well, exploding. If the Russians have managed to make this work, reliably and safely, it revolutionizes everything. This reactor is smaller than a refrigerator in the average home, yet produces enough power to pull a mile-long train at eighty miles per over the Rocky Mountains. The applications are endless. They could use it in space for their moon base. They could power up the Arctic remote areas. And their future submarines will be world-beaters. Compared to their current pressurized water reactors, this has five times the power with an sixth of the weight and a third of the volume. We want to know what makes this reactor tick.”
VP Karen “The Voice” Chushi looked at Margo Allende and frowned. “So, couldn’t Margo’s spies just, I don’t know, bring us the plans? We could study them and figure out what’s going on.”
“Not so easy,” the CIA director said. “But we already did it.” Menendez nodded, as if there were a story there he was remembering.
“The plans gave us more questions than answers,” Catardi said.
“Wait a minute,” Klugendorf said, holding his fat hand up like a child in school. Pacino looked at him, thinking that academic circles were where the Secretary of State had spent his career, eventually making his way to becoming dean of faculty at the Harvard Kennedy School. “If this is a Russian creation and it’s to be tested, why aren’t the Russians testing it? Siberia somewhere, or Novaya Zemlya where they dropped that hundred megaton monster hydrogen bomb? Why would they entrust it to the Iranians?”
“Mr. Secretary,” Catardi said, “From studying the plans, this reactor could be unstable. It could blow itself apart in a dirty radioactive cloud. Or it could go so ‘prompt critical’ that it could blow up in a nuclear explosion — not a big one, maybe ten to twenty kilotons, but that’s on the order of the bombs dropped on Japan. Big enough to vaporize the submarine and all the technicians testing it. But it’s more than that. It’s national prestige. The Russians don’t want a nuclear failure or to be accused of intentionally making another Chernobyl. They’re hiding in the skirts of the Iranians, who are all too happy to test the reactor for them. If it’s a success, Iran gets itself a nuclear-powered attack submarine. Imagine the mischief they could get into with that. If it fails, well, it was just another hare-brained Iranian nuclear project.”