Free Goliath by Steve Alten

of the H-bomb generates twenty to fifty megatons, or 50 million tons of TNT, the equivalent of two to three thousand Hiroshima-size bombs. A pure-fusion bomb generates a far greater damage volume per unit weight. It would only take a cluster of half-kiloton pure-fusion bombs to equal the military impact of a thirty-megaton H-bomb. That’s a tenth of a ton of pure-fusion TNT to equal a megaton of the conventional nuke. Let me quantify that for you in another way. If you wanted to wipe out a whole continent’s population … say, that of Europe, the job could feasibly be accomplished using only six to twelve well-placed Trident II (D5) nuclear missiles whose warheads had been converted to a swarm of pure-fusion weapons.”
    Gasps from the crowd.
    A reporter from the Trenton Times raises his hand. “Dr. Goode, are you saying these pure-fusion bombs already exist?”
    “We have the bomb, the key to the technology is in its triggering mechanism. Both the United States and France have been working illegally on the problem for decades. Los Alamos is rumored to be only months away from testing a magnetized target fusion driver. In magnetized target fusion, an initial plasma is created by electromagnetic means. Conventional high explosives then compress the plasma, creating the conditions necessary for pure-fusion ignition.”
    Another hand is raised. “Exactly what do you mean by illegally?”
    “Actually, I meant that subjectively. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty of 1996 bans all nuclear explosions. Unfortunately, the CTBT never formally defined the term ‘explosion,’ since it assumed only fission triggers, and so testing goes on. It’s a loophole our government refuses to close.”
    A heavyset man in the fourth row stands, pausing to allow the television cameras to focus. Dr. Goode recognizes the Republican lobbyist from her visits on Capitol Hill. “Come now, Ms. Goode, aren’t you overplaying the part of antinuke alarmist just a bit? No country has ever announced the goal of building these pure-fusion weapons. And even if they were conceived, no country would ever use them.”
    Goode stares at the man with a look to kill. “First off, Mr. Johnston, no country would be stupid enough to announce pure fusion as a goal. Second and most importantly, what you’re failing to mention is the real danger of
these weapons. When it comes to acquiring thermonuclear devices, the biggest obstacle to rogue nations and terrorists up to now has been their inability to obtain sufficient quantities of enriched uranium or plutonium. By contrast, deuterium is abundant in seawater and tritium is easily made in a college physics lab.”
    “Come on, Ms. Goode—”
    “It’s DOCTOR Goode, Mr. Johnston, now sit your Republican-leased fat ass down.”
    A smattering of applause as she grabs the microphone and turns to face the cameras. “If you listen to nothing else I say, listen to this. The most frightening thing about pure-fusion weapons is what attracted the military to them in the first place—and that is their much smaller yields and relative lack of radioactive fallout. By eliminating the harmful aftereffects of the bomb, you reduce the political unacceptability of using the weapon while increasing its relative lethality.
    “In other words, humanity is on the brink of eliminating its own nuclear stalemate.”
     
    Dr. Goode inches her way through the crowded lobby to a waiting elevator. The doors shut, sealing off the mob. She presses the button for Parking Level Three.
    Three-thirty. With any luck, I’ll miss rush-hour traffic and be back in Wilmington before Duncan and Ian get home from school.
    The elevator doors open. She hurries to her car, a two-year-old Lincoln Town Car she has converted to fuel cells. Using her key chain, she deactivates the security device—
    —as the two FBI agents approach from behind, flashing their badges.

“Sometime in the next thirty years, very quietly one day we will cease to be the