Impatient over a wait measured in minutes, he asked, "What did the study conclude?"
"Korea Electric Power's Dr. Nam U-je got us started with a briefing on what the old Weapons Exploitation Committee had learned back in the early seventies," Dr. Shin said.
After six months of patient digging, the group produced a report recommending the Republic of Korea initiate a project that would provide all of the necessary facilities for a nuclear weapons program over the next several years. Insofar as the technology was available to them, the equipment needed in the production of weapons would be built and placed in the facilities on a standby basis.
"Secrecy was a prime consideration," Dr. Shin said. "What we were advocating ran counter to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It would have been economic suicide to alienate our trading partners, so security had to be absolute. This meant concealing the facilities in some way or designing them with the appearance of having other uses. We had no access to the fissile materials required for making bombs, but with the proper reprocessing systems, the wastes from our nuclear power stations could provide the raw materials."
Jerry recalled the details Brittany Pickerel had provided from her research into the Reijeo plant. The timing seemed to fit. "Was that when Reijeo began construction at Chuwangsan?"
"Right. The top officials of Reijeo were involved with the president and the prime minister in approving the project. It was given a special code name and the highest priority."
The big chaebol would use Chuwangsan to hide a weapons fabrication facility as part of a plant that would manufacture conventional high explosives.
To acquire weapons grade uranium, Dr. Shin said, two procedures would be needed for making the recovery from spent nuclear power fuel. First the uranium and plutonium would be separated, then an enrichment process used to upgrade its isotopic purity. Nuclear power fuel contained only about four percent uranium-235, one of the isotopes used to create the chain reaction for a fission explosion. The rest was uranium-238, which would assist in the operation of a power reactor but exert a negative effect in the core of a bomb.
"The extraction of uranium and plutonium from the waste is a relatively simple chemical solvent process called Purex," he said. "Reijeo built a facility equipped for the Purex process, disguising it as a fertilizer plant."
"Purex stands for 'plutonium-uranium extraction,' doesn't it?" Jerry asked.
Dr. Shin had a surprised look. "How did you know that?"
"I didn't start out in the public relations business. My degree is in chemical engineering."
"Then you probably know about all this."
"Sorry. My nuclear knowledge is pretty limited. What about the enrichment process?"
"Much more difficult. And the most critical. The amount of fissile material required for a weapon depends upon its purity and design. A uranium-235 content of more than ninety percent is necessary for an efficient device."
"And nuclear power fuel has only four percent?"
"Yes. The International Atomic Energy Agency considers anything with an enrichment of more than twenty percent as Special Nuclear Materials, requring strict accountability."
"How do you get high enrichment?"
Two basic processes have been used for enrichment, he said. The United States built huge complexes to enrich uranium by the gaseous diffusion method, such as the one at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which helped produce the fissile material used in the bomb at Hiroshima. Jerry was quite familiar with that one. The gas centrifuge process also required a large facility, with vacuum pumps and piping to move uranium hexafluoride gas between hundreds of centrifuges. However, Dr. Shin continued, a new process had been developed over the past few years and was only recently put into production. It was called laser isotope separation.
"A laser enrichment facility is fairly small," he explained. "It requires a relatively low expenditure of capital and the operating cost is modest. Israel has done a great deal of work with this process."
Jerry's eyes widened. "Has Korea acquired the technology from Israel?"
Dr. Shin leaned forward on the desk. "As you can imagine, Mr. Chan, that kind of information is a closely guarded secret. I do know that we have some talented people who have done very advanced work with lasers. I cannot say with certainty, but from what I have seen and heard, I believe there is a laser enrichment facility adjacent to the Kanggu nuclear power plant."
Jerry studied the Dr. Shin with a new intensity. The conspiracy was beginning to come into focus, like the image slowly taking shape in a Polaroid photo. It had all begun to make sense. "Have you been working in the weapons fabrication plant?" he asked.
"Yes. Since last summer. I continued to believe it was necessary to protect our country. I did not trust promises from the Democratic Peoples Republic to permit inspection of their nuclear facilities. They might show some harmless process, but they would surely keep their real weapons production line hidden. Then came the incident in Pyongyang that killed Kim Il-sung and his son."
"What happened then?"
"When it became evident the North was no longer a threat, I expected the weapons program to be shut down. But it went right ahead as vigorously as ever. I started raising questions. The management said Pyongyang wasn't the only threat. They said it was vital to the nation's interests to continue the project. When I started talking to others about holding a meeting to organize a protest, I was fired. That was about three weeks ago."
Dr. Shin wasn't aware of what had happened since early November, but he said the project had been on target to have a weapon ready for testing the first of the year. He had no doubt that goal would be met. There was enough highly enriched uranium available — he didn't know its origin — to fabricate several additional weapons. And with the amount of spent nuclear power fuel available in the storage area at Kanggu, the whole production process should be under way within weeks, turning out an increasing supply of weapons grade uranium. Over the long term, the plan was to convert to the use of plutonium, which would permit more powerful weapons with smaller amounts of radioactive metal.
"Did the French or the Israelis send over scientists to help with weapons design or fabrication?" Jerry asked.
"It wasn't necessary," said Dr. Shin with a shrug. "We had something better."
"Something better?"
"Several Korean-Americans who had worked in U.S. Energy Department weapons programs joined us some months ago. From both the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore laboratories. One had been a key person on the team that developed the B61 warhead at Los Alamos."
Jerry shook his head in amazement. That was probably the greatest shocker of them all. But how did the Koreans plan to deliver their nuclear weapons, he wondered? "Are these things intended as bombs or as warheads for missiles?"
"Warheads."
"Damn!" Jerry pounded a fist against his hand. "With that capability, they could pose a threat to anybody in the region."
"They do, Mr. Chan. They do. I hope your coalition can manage some way to stop them."
His coalition was sitting in the Oval Office at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And what could the President do? Blow the whistle on Seoul? No doubt they would deny it right up to the minute they set off a test explosion. They would claim America was inventing things out of pique over South Korea's dropping the U.S. as one of its principal trading partners. Unless… unless what? Unless Dr. Shin Man-ki were paraded before the press to reveal all the gory details of South Korea's treacherous plot dating back to the mid-eighties.