“We’ll have to get some of the academics busy on it, Hannibal, but for the moment, Thorpe and Pearson have an estimate. One complex of several geothermal wells in California generates three-quarters of a million kilowatts. That’s enough to run a small city. That’s also slightly better than the output of Hoover Dam.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“Not in the least. Pearson and Thorpe argue that, given German ingenuity and engineering and strong thermal sources, each platform could develop five hundred thousand kilowatts at minimum. That’s twelve million kilowatts for twenty-four platforms. Equal to two Coulee Dams. And that’s the minimum, Hannibal. Thorpe thinks it might run to fourteen or fifteen million on the top end of the estimate range.”
“That’s a hell of a lot of power, Marvin.”
“And it gets cheaper every day they’re in operation. In no time at all, the Germans will not be dependent on imported energy.”
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs grunted, as if he were finally climbing out of bed. “Worse than that, in a conflict situation, they’ve got a strong source of energy that allows them to divert petroleum fuels to military usage. They may, in fact, already be doing that.”
“You’ve seen the tank farms.”
“What would be the next step, Marvin?”
“If it were me, preparing for war on a long-range plan? I’d start hardening the storage sites. Bury the tank farms. For all I know, some of the fuel storage is already underground. I’d probably have pre-sited some kind of platform defenses. SAM and AA units that could be quickly shipped out to the platforms and set up on those oversized chopper pads. It’s a rationale for the large pads. To stave off the superpowers, I’d have some long-range hardware in reserve.”
“Peenemünde?”
“Maybe. We have anything back on that, Hannibal? I haven’t heard from Sheremetevo.”
“Nothing from the CIA or DIA, yet. I’ll put some matches under a few butts. I did see a CIA report that said travel to Germany was becoming more difficult. Stricter controls on issuing visas.”
“The countdown may have started, Hannibal, and all we’re doing is accelerating it.”
“We’ll know when we see what the response is to the attack on the well. If Bonn doesn’t scream like a stuck pig, I’m going to worry.”
“They won’t have any evidence, no place to point a finger, and that may keep them quiet.”
“Perhaps. Okay, any other implications?”
“Yes, a major one. One of the reasons for disguising the wells is to hide the development of a tremendous new power source. But there’s another reason, too. If the court of world opinion knew about the risks of geothermal taps at sea, the Germans would never have gotten the first well drilled.”
“Tell me about the risks, Marvin.”
“First, there’s simple accident. A number of years ago, one of the California geothermal wells blew a wellhead. It’s difficult to control unknown pressures from five miles down. They had steam, boiling water, red-hot mud spewing all over the landscape. Quite a few personal injuries”
“We still drill,” Cross said.
“Sure, because the risks of drilling on land are acceptable. A blowout mostly goes straight up and dissipates. I don’t know about seaborne platforms, Hannibal. Pearson says those wells have anywhere from six hundred to seventeen hundred feet of probably unsupported well casing. Get a major storm in the area, lose an anchor on a platform, break a casing.”
“And?”
“And turn loose an uncontrolled spigot of steam into the Arctic. Up to six hundred and fifty degrees Fahrenheit,” Brackman said.
“Damn. That high?”
“That high. I don’t know what one broken wellhead would do to the ecology, but it wouldn’t help it.”
“And we shot missiles at the son of a bitch?”
“Shot high, Hannibal. But that’s the other risk. Attacking those wells could unleash a catastrophe. Can you imagine twenty or twenty-four uncapped wells pouring hot gases and water into the Arctic?”
“Meltdown?”
“My contact at the University of Colorado, who is also grumbling about being awakened at night, says yes. Within a year, we’d see rising water levels on all Northern European coasts. Half asleep, he still estimated a couple of feet of increased water level, and probably more. That might put some ports out of commission. It would disrupt the North Sea oil fields. The low-lying countries — Holland, the Netherlands — would have long refugee lines. Not to mention the damage to underwater life, both fish and plant life. There’d be environmentalists crawling over the steps of every capital in the world.”
Hannibal Cross was silent for a long moment, then said, “Marvin, I’m going to roust out a few of the heavy brass and a few of the heavier civilians. You get McKenna hot trying to locate a few of the weak spots. If we can’t attack the wells, we’ve got to find somewhere else where the system is vulnerable.”
“That might work for us, Hannibal, but what about Mother Nature? If we just leave the wells alone, sure as hell, someday there’s going to be an earthquake, a tidal wave, a Force Ten gale that will take out those wells and upset a lot of balances.”
Oberst Albert Weismann and Direktor-Assistent Daniel Goldstein climbed down from the scaffolding gingerly. Weismann did not like heights, unless he was in a cockpit, and the top of the scaffolding was eight meters above the concrete floor. His fingers trembled slightly until he reached the floor.
The banks of bright fluorescent lights overhead gave his face an ashen pallor. It made the rosy rash of his skin more noticeable, but Weismann did not think that Goldstein noticed his discomfiture.
When his feet were once again firmly planted on cement, Weismann looked back up at the rocket for several minutes to regain his composure. The rocket was long and sleek, finished in a matte gray, the diameter growing by phases from the tip of the nose to the base. Stubby wings protruded from the first and second stages. The German flag was imprinted on each of the three stages and the nose cone. The rocket was reclining on its side, half encased in a steel-wheeled cradle that mated to the pair of railroad tracks leading under the massive doors on the end of the building.
There were four cradles in this building, two each side by side, and four more in the adjoining building. Six of the cradles were occupied by the thirty-meter-long rockets, but only this one had been certified by the scientists as ready for launch.
Possibly certified.
Every time he had toured the complex, Weismann had been confronted with, “… just one more little problem. A simple glitch, Herr Colonel.”
In the control thrusters or control surfaces. In the hydraulic system. In the fuel pumping system, in the inertial navigation system, in the computer backup software linkage, or in… the list went on forever. There were many complex systems, thousands of places open to potential failure, he had been told more than once.
It was difficult to believe Goldstein when he said, “It is absolutely functional, Colonel. A tribute to those who have designed it and worked upon it.”
“It is more a tribute to the Russians, and perhaps, the German who acquired the blueprints from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, would you not say, Herr Director-Assistant?”
Goldstein gave him a pained look. “There was much to be improved upon over the Soviet design.”
“Is that true? The Russian rocket has been operational for three years, Herr Goldstein. This one has yet to perform a maiden voyage.”
“The Russians have experience and a capable work force, Colonel.”