loading with that kind of acceleration.”
“What is it, a couple hundred Gs?”
“A couple thousand.”
LB whistled.
“And the electricity required to launch a projectile at such distances and speeds is immense. Miniaturizing the power source is a huge challenge in making an EML deployable. Right now, the generators are the size of a car. And a wall of them is needed. So at the moment, only naval ships and static installations are possible.”
LB stood to stretch his legs. He walked away from the glow rising from the circle of Iris’s crossed legs, to gaze off into the blackness of the cargo hold.
“Lady, everything you just told me I can get off the Internet. That’s not classified.”
“That’s as far as I can go.”
“What about the drones? The radar?”
She dismissed the other railcars with a flick of her wrist. “I know nothing about them. I’ve never even looked under the tarpaulins.”
He walked another step away from her light. “You’re gonna have to do better.” LB spoke into the darkness, implying he might just keep walking. “Where’s it all going?”
“That’s the real secret, Sergeant.”
LB spun to stamp back to Iris Cherlina.
“You see this blood on my shoulders? One guy’s already taken a bullet for that secret. He didn’t know where this stuff was going either. But I’m not Bojan—it’s not my job to defend these machines. Mine is to defend my country. I got a suspicion the US is involved here somehow. But until I know for sure, I’m not sticking my neck out for somebody else’s undercover deal. Tell me who’s getting all this crap, or I go worry about myself and you’re on your own.” LB had bent at the waist to speak. He straightened to glare down at her. “Try me.”
“You won’t like the answer.”
“Big surprise there.”
Iris Cherlina steepled fingertips under her chin, considering. After moments, she clapped once and decided.
“Did you know Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was once the head of Iran’s electromagnetic research program?” She gazed up at him. “Close your mouth, Sergeant. You’re gaping.”
LB clamped his teeth before speaking. “Iran?”
“Yes. He’s actually an engineer. He wants this machine very badly.”
“You’re not ten years away, are you?”
“No. I am not.”
LB sat back down beside her. “Holy shit.”
Iris laid a hand on his knee while LB came to grips with sending this kind of technology to Iran under the table.
She asked, “You’ve heard of the Stuxnet worm?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Stuxnet was a computer cybermissile developed by Israel and the United States in 2009 that knocked out almost a fifth of the centrifuges, almost a thousand of them, at Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility.
Iris continued. “There have also been assassinations of nuclear physicists in Tehran, and so on. Iran has finally realized they will never be allowed to develop a nuclear device. Israel and the West will prevent it. So Iran has accepted a deal.”
“Whose deal?”
“Who else but your United States could drag along Israel and Russia into such a thing? They have persuaded Iran to trade in their nuclear weapons program for the contents of this ship. Iran has entered the EML sweepstakes to see who can develop and deploy a railgun first.”
“They’re going conventional. That explains the radar and drones.”
“Yes, it would seem. In return, an announcement will be made later this year that the embargoes on Iran have been lifted. It’s bare-knuckle politics at its best, really.”
It all made sense. The whole reason Iran was trying for a nuke was to get a seat at the table, show the world they were someone to be reckoned with. But Iran was never going to be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, period. Letting them in on the race for a railgun in trade for standing down their nuclear research? That was clever. Iran could puff out their chests on the Arab street, and the West and Israel would breathe easier for a while with a non-nuclear Iran. They’d find a way to beat them out of this deal later, when the time came.
Even though it added up, the whole trade was just kicking the can down the road. If somehow Iran actually developed the first deployable railgun, what country in the Middle East could stand up to them? No one. LB bit back his aggravation that, in the revolutionized warfare of the future, America’s warriors would likely be on the front lines again, sorting all this out.
For now, his duty was clear, if unsavory. Protect these machines. The United States was driving this deal, and though it was supposed to be a secret, now