Free Scimitar SL-2 by Patrick Robinson Page B

gates and whatever lay beyond. Ravi and Ahmed just sat still and waited.
    The guard chief ordered the main gates open and their driverdrove forward, headlights on full beam straight at what seemed like a massive wall of rock. It was not until they were quite close up that Ravi saw that the wall was actually solid steel. A small open doorway was set into the steel, and the whole wall suddenly disappeared completely, sliding to the right into the rock face.
    Before him was a yawning dark cavern without a semblance of light. It was like driving into a gigantic tomb. The truck moved forward, and silently the great steel doors behind them slid back into place. Ravi sensed them shutting firmly and felt the chill of enclosure by forces way beyond his control.
    He and his men had sat for just a few seconds when the entire place was lit up by a near-explosion of electric power. This was no tomb, no cavern. This was Main Street Kwanmo-bong—street-lights, central white lines, and lights from shops, or offices, or laboratories. The street was dead straight, and it stretched through the heart of the mountain as far as he could see.
    The General guessed the source of the electricity: nuclear energy gone berserk. North Korea’s biggest underground nuclear facility, blasted out of solid rock.
    A titanic achievement, to be sure, but at what cost had it been built? Ravi wondered. He stared up at the ceiling, which was still, in places, just barren rock face. But the walls were made of concrete, and even now, through the truck windows, he could feel the soft hum of the generators pervading the entire subterranean structure. Somewhere, behind or beneath this vast reinforced cement cave, there must be a huge nuclear reactor providing the power.
    And if anyone wanted to close it down, sealed as it was from the outside world, beneath the 8,000-foot-high peak of Kwanmo-bong, they’d need, well, an atomic bomb. It was, he thought, entirely possible that the only people who could destroy the nuclear facility inside this mountain were the people who built it.
    “Jesus Christ,” whispered Ravi.
    They drove forwards for about 500 yards, and the truck began an elaborate reverse turn into what appeared to be a loading dock. The driver cut the engine and opened his door, at whichpoint four North Korean officials appeared. Two of them wore white laboratory coats, the others were in that curious military garb of the Far Eastern officer—the olive-drab green trousers, and the open-necked shirt, the same color, with a central zipper instead of buttons, epaulettes, rolled cuffs.
    General Rashood and Ahmed joined their driver on the smooth concrete floor and were greeted, in English, by the obvious commandant, who was all business despite the late hour.
    “You will see your merchandise?” he said, bowing medium-low, twice. Like a Japanese double-dome. Then he extended his hand and said, “Greetings, General. We welcome you here—hope this first of many visit.”
    He introduced himself as Colonel Dae-jung, and his colleagues in turn. Then he led the way back around the corner he had come from and into a wide, brightly lit vestibule where two armed guards and a desk clerk were on duty.
    Each man stood to attention and saluted the Colonel, who now led the way along a corridor and up a flight of steps into a wide, bright warehouse with overhead cranes, surrounded by cables leading to great, broad, upwards-sliding steel doors. Ahead of them were two gleaming stainless-steel cylinders about 15 feet high and 6 feet in diameter, known as “flasks” in the trade—heavily constructed Western containers whose sole task on earth was to transport radioactive nuclear material. They were actually perfected at British Nuclear Fuels in England, and were generally considered to be as close to fail-safe as you can get.
    Built of one-inch-thick steel, the flasks were heavy with inbuilt shields to reduce radiation, making them at once safer for passersby and also less