Free Scimitar SL-2 by Patrick Robinson

involving hexafluoride, and Ravi was not looking forward to this close proximity with living death.
    Shaking himself out of such grim thoughts, he turned around and, grinning encouragingly at young Ahmed Sabah, his own wife’s beloved brother, he concentrated instead on the missiles. Could the North Koreans deliver on their promise to use their own technology to convert their one-stage medium-range Nodong-1 missile into a submarine-launched RADUGA? They were approximately the same size and dimension, and had successfully been sold to the Iranians—the Shahab-3 —but it was open to question whether the North Koreans could engineer the more refined rocket motor, the rocket’s automatic wings, and the correct components to affix to a nuclear warhead.
    They had sworn they could and had been sufficiently honest to admit their weakness with regard to the software for the automatic guidance system. But Ravi had successfully bargained with the Chinese, who agreed to fit these anonymous but expensive and critical finishing touches to the missile’s preprogrammed navigational computers. Most of the technology was American in origin.
    So far as Ravi had been informed, the missiles were complete, ready for shipping to the North Korean seaport of Nampo. All he needed to do was conclude the payments, and accept delivery. The Koreans may have been fugitives from the international community, but no one had ever questioned their business methods or their reliability.
    The sun was sinking fast behind the mountains now, and it was beginning to rain. Up ahead, Ravi and Ahmed could see lights and what looked like a long, high chain-link fence. They were bumping over a rough and hilly surface, and they could see the big gates folded right across the track, floodlit, the rain glistening off the metal, armed guards standing directly in front of the high steel structure. It would have required a full-blown U.S. M-60 tank to smash its way through there and you would not have put your life savings on its success.
    Ravi’s driver drew the juggernaut to a halt and wound down the window on the driver’s side. The guard, who was obviously expecting the big military truck, held out his hand for papers, stuffed them inside his raincoat, and walked to the front and rear of the vehicle, checking the registration numbers. Then he walked over to the guardhouse and inspected the papers under a light, where it was dry, before walking back out and handing over the documents. The big gates were already being swung back by two other guards. The original man waved them through and the driver continued on up the track in driving rain and pitch dark.
    They passed several more guardhouses on either side of the stony, pitted causeway to Kwanmo-bong and stopped again by another set of high metal gates after about seven miles. The inspection procedures were much the same as before, and again they were waved through, grinding their way up the mountain.
    The last five miles were easily the most arduous. The track became steeper, and the rain, if anything, worsened, slashing down out of the northwest, head-on into the windshield of the lurching army truck. You didn’t hear many compliments about the cars made in the Qingming Automobile Company in the old Chinese capital of Chongqing. But on the way up Kwanmo-bong, Ravi found a new respect for the Chinese car factory.
    “Ahmed,” he said in English, “I guess those guys know how to make a mean automobile in Chongqing. This thing has taken some kind of a pounding, and somehow we’re still going.”
    “I didn’t even know the Chinese made automobiles,” replied Ahmed. “I thought they bought shiploads of them, secondhand, piled on all decks from the U.S.A.
    “No, that’s the Russians. The Chinese have a huge manufacturing plant in Chongqing.”
    “Where the hell’s that, Ravi?” asked Ahmed.
    “It’s very deep in the interior. Sichuan. They somehow built this damn great city halfway up a mountain overlooking