Chapter 1244 The Missing Nuclear Warhead (2 in 1 Chapter)

The scene was awkward for a moment, until Rossi smiled and broke the weird atmosphere. "As for information and stuff, I think it would be more convenient to ask the person directly if there are any questions. What do you think, Agent Harry Tasker?"

"Arnold", or the middle-aged agent who should be called Harry Tasker now, was still standing there in a daze. Jack clearly saw that the uppers of his large leather shoes were slightly arched, and he was obviously so embarrassed that he was literally digging his toes into the ground.

Fortunately, as his partner, Gibson helped him out after laughing for a while, "Ah, well, let me introduce you, these two are agents from the FBI, this is the famous David Rossi, and this is Agent Jack Tawalla."

After a round of "insincere" greetings, the two FBI agents were invited into a conference room. In addition to Harry and Gibson, there was an Indian guy with black curly hair named Fisher who was busy in front of a computer.

Because Rossi had already informed everyone of the intention before, everyone got straight to the point after they sat down. The Indian guy Fisher turned on the projector and introduced the current situation of "Omega".

"A week ago, we stole the secret bank account number of the villa owner from his personal computer in a villa at the foot of the Alps in Geneva."

"Who is the owner of the villa?" Before Rossi finished speaking, a photo appeared on the screen.

Gibson went on to introduce, "Jamal Khaled is a notorious supporter of terrorism. He and his family are more or less behind the extremist terrorist organizations that have emerged in the past two decades."

Rossi nodded. "I've heard of the Khaled family. They have considerable sectarian power in Iran."

Fisher pulled up a long list of account information on the computer. "We have screened out a total of $100 million in suspected fund flows, all of which were transferred to accounts related to the terrorist organization 'Dark Jihad'."

"'Dark Jihad'? This organization has become active again recently?" Jack asked in surprise.

Harry, who had been observing him secretly, asked in a deep voice, "Why? Have you dealt with them?"

"We've fought each other, I guess." Jack's expression was a bit indescribable. Two years have passed, and some parts of Central Park have not yet fully recovered. (Chapter 753)

Harry's eyes flickered, but he didn't ask any further questions. Instead, he continued to introduce their current discoveries.

"We have linked the $3 million to the three W-80 nuclear warheads that disappeared five years ago. We have reason to suspect that Jamal Khaled paid for these warheads and intended to transport them into the United States through 'Dark Jihad' to carry out terrorist attacks."

Jack was stunned when he heard this and quickly stopped talking. "Wait, did I hear you right? Are you saying that we lost three W-3 nuclear bombs five years ago?"

The W-80 is a miniaturized thermonuclear warhead currently in service in the United States. It has been an important part of NATO's nuclear arsenal since the Cold War and is mainly used in air-launched cruise missiles.

Perhaps in the perception of ordinary people, nuclear bombs, which are national treasures, must be subject to extremely strict procedures for supervision and preservation, and losing them is simply unimaginable.

However, in fact, there were 32 nuclear weapon loss accidents known as "Broken Arrow" incidents revealed in the publicly declassified documents of the US Department of Defense alone, and at least six nuclear bombs have not been recovered to date.

Therefore, what really surprised Jack was not that the Americans had lost three nuclear warheads ten years ago and had not been able to recover them, but that according to common sense, these nuclear weapons that could appear on the black market should generally have been lost during the so-called disintegration of the Soviet Union, right?

Fortunately, someone has been hit by a lot of boomerangs recently, so he just expressed some feelings about it.

Even the "Omega" team did not know the specific information. They only knew that the three nuclear warheads that were supposed to be installed on AGM-86 air-launched cruise missiles were last seen in Afghanistan, but were accidentally lost during a famous emergency retreat.

A total of 10 AGM-86 missiles were lost at the time. Although all the missiles were recovered in a special operation urgently deployed by the military, only the warheads of 5 of them were found.

The CIA suspected that the warheads were smuggled to Iran, but subsequent targeted investigations yielded nothing.

It was only recently that vague intelligence was reported that these warheads had actually been hidden in Afghanistan all these years. The CIA immediately dispatched a large number of elite action agents, but they were caught in a trap.

The military and the CIA only intercepted two warheads that were used to cover up their tracks. The remaining three mysteriously disappeared at a Turkish port. There were rumors that they were sent to Greece by sea.

However, even though the CIA turned Greece upside down, it still could not find any trace of the three nuclear bombs.

Rossi didn't know whether he had heard of this before or had experienced similar things many times, so he asked calmly, "Is there any conclusive evidence to prove that these three warheads have entered our country?"

"For now, it's just suspicions in a few words, but this $100 million is the most deeply linked amount of money we have tracked recently to terrorist activities."

Harry explained, "The reason why we focus our suspicion on the Dark Jihad organization is that we found that almost all of their core members who are still overseas have disappeared recently."

"What do you think, Jack?" Rossi looked at Jack.

After the Central Park bombing, Jack handed over the investigation into the Dark Jihad organization.

After all, the culprit who organized the attack at that time has been confirmed to have been killed by him, and the few remaining forces of "Dark Jihad" in the country were almost wiped out in the cleanup operation led by the FBI.

Neither the BAU nor the Most Wanted Squad are dedicated anti-terrorism units, so they are naturally not needed to do the remaining tasks that require long-term surveillance.

However, as someone who has fought against the "Dark Jihad" many times, Jack would occasionally pay attention to the organization's latest developments to prevent them from reviving in the country.

"I haven't heard of any movement from 'Dark Jihad' in the country recently." Jack quickly reviewed the information he had read some time ago in his mind, but faced with the slightly disappointed looks of the three "Omega" agents, he immediately changed the subject.

"But I agree with everyone at Omega. It's not easy to detonate a nuclear bomb. If it were an ordinary terrorist organization, let alone smuggling it into the country, even if they were given the PAL authorization code, they wouldn't know how to operate it.

I don’t know if Dark Jihad has the capability to detonate a nuclear bomb, but they at least have the motivation and operational experience to do so.”

Whether it is a nuclear bomb dropped directly by a bomber or a nuclear warhead installed on an air-launched missile like the W-80, it has multiple insurances.

Detonating a nuclear bomb is not as simple as entering a code on a dial and turning a key as shown in Hollywood movies.

Although Jack was not clear about the specific circumstances under which the nuclear bomb was lost, the process of loss itself was bizarre.

Because the US nuclear weapons adopt a "dual key" system, this does not mean that a nuclear device has two keys, but that the nuclear warhead and the delivery vehicle (missile) are controlled by different forces.

And under normal circumstances, not only nuclear warheads and missiles should be stored in separate warehouses, but also their "cores" (plutonium/uranium components) and conventional explosives and electronic systems should all be stored in separate warehouses.

Therefore, Jack had enough reason to suspect that there was definitely a "shady deal" behind the loss of the nuclear bomb. The most likely possibility was that it was not "accidentally lost" during transportation, but that something unexpected happened to a B-52G bomber that was on combat readiness duty or performing a so-called "deterrence" flight.

A B-52G bomber can carry up to 20 AGM-86 cruise missiles at a time. If ten were lost at once, Jack could not think of any other possibility except that the bomber had an accident.

Of course, how the nuclear bomb was lost has little to do with the threat of attack at this time. What they are facing now is that three suspected assembled nuclear warheads have entered the US mainland.

It seems that the terrifying threat is imminent, but the reason why everyone can still sit calmly in the conference room and discuss at this moment is precisely because of the "PAL" authorization password that Jack just mentioned.

"PAL" is the abbreviation of "Permissive Action Link", which literally means "authorized action link" and is usually used to refer specifically to the nuclear weapon activation connection device.

The "PAL" authorization code is dynamically generated and usually bound to the mission instructions, but this is only one link in the "strong chain" of security. In addition, there are biometrics, the anti-disassembly and anti-tampering mechanism of the warhead itself, and the self-destruct device.

There is no mistake in the poem, post, content, and read the book on 6, 9, and bar!

There are also "weak-link" safeties. For example, the B61 nuclear bomb, which is usually gravity-delivered directly from a stealth bomber, includes an accelerometer to ensure that the safety is only released when it is correctly dropped.

Everyone present had received basic training. In fact, Jack had learned similar knowledge in high school in his previous life.

The principle of the atomic bomb that we enjoyed in our daily lives was not complicated. Two pieces of high-purity enriched uranium were put together and "smacked" together using the impact force of the explosives. When the mass exceeded the critical value, the fission reaction would be naturally triggered.

The principle of the hydrogen bomb invented later is slightly more complicated, requiring the high temperature and high pressure generated by the fission reaction to further trigger the fusion reaction.

During the 1966 Palomares nuclear accident, a B-52 bomber and a KC-135 tanker collided in mid-air over the village of Palomares in southern Spain.

The plane was carrying four B4RI hydrogen bombs, each with an equivalent of 28 million tons of TNT.

The two planes exploded and disintegrated on the spot. Two of the four hydrogen bombs, one fell into the Mediterranean Sea and the other fell into the river, all were intact.

The conventional explosives in the remaining two hydrogen bombs exploded, but because the safety device was activated, the fission device serving as the "nuclear trigger" did not react, resulting in the leakage of radioactive elements.

Therefore, the complexity of detonating a W-80 is definitely not something that a liberal arts screenwriter can figure out by just looking at some information and thinking about it. The resources required just to crack the "PAL" code are at the national level.

In other words, the three missing nuclear warheads are very likely to be in a complete form that can be theoretically activated. If they were lost from the nuclear arsenal, the CIA would only need to keep a close eye on the suspected countries and would not need to consider any terrorist organizations at all.

But even so, it is not easy to successfully detonate these three complete nuclear warheads. It requires at least an engineer who has received relevant training, spends a considerable amount of time to release the nuclear bomb safety, and bypasses the original detonation mechanism, using a "primitive method" to detonate the "nuclear trigger."

The reason why Jack supported the speculation of "Omega" was, firstly, that he was a prophet and knew that a bomb had indeed exploded in the original drama, and secondly, it was based on his own personal experience.

He still remembered clearly the ambulance that dug a huge hole in "Central Park". It was filled with more than just C4 explosives. According to Red's subsequent analysis, the "Dark Jihad" blasting experts also stuffed a lot of chromates, red mercury and other things into it.

The guy who made the big bomb at that time was identified as the bald man who was killed by Jack himself. He was a member of the Durango drug cartel that cooperated with "Dark Jihad".

But this does not mean that the "Dark Jihad" does not have professional explosives experts on its hands.

Because according to subsequent investigations, except for the C4 explosives that were transported into the United States by the Durango drug cartel through their drug trafficking routes, the rest of the explosives were all purchased domestically by "Dark Jihad".

It is not difficult to purchase one or two dangerous goods separately. You should know that the control in this regard by the United States is only understood by those who understand. At least five out of ten people engaged in this kind of business on the black market are undercover agents of ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives), and the remaining four may be from other federal departments.

However, "Dark Jihad" managed to deceive the ATF and raised seven or eight kinds of dangerous chemicals in small batches, and then mixed them together in precise proportions. Obviously, there was a chemical expert who specialized in this behind them.

After some analysis, Jack concluded, "Even if we don't consider the issue of the nuclear bomb being successfully detonated, based on the capabilities that Dark Jihad demonstrated, it seems that it would not be difficult to detonate it as a large dirty bomb."

You should know that in the Palomares nuclear accident, although the two hydrogen bombs that exploded did not cause a nuclear reaction, they still leaked about 20 grams of plutonium and uranium fragments.

The Americans back then were still relatively conscientious. They sent a total of more than 1600 soldiers and scientists to seal off the scene and carry out cleanup work that lasted about three months.

"Imagine a truck with a lead-sealed box to block radiation detection drove into Wall Street, then exploded, spreading radioactive dust over half of Manhattan Island. What would the consequences be?"

After hearing Jack's hypothesis, everyone present looked at each other in bewilderment, and then shuddered subconsciously. In comparison, what was "911"?

Rossi came to his senses and glared at him, telling him to stop being so sensational.

"So what does the nuclear crisis we're facing now have to do with what happened at the Mayfair Hotel the night before last?" Rossi said, looking at Harry, the person involved.

Before Harry could answer, his partner Gibson said with a strange expression, "This all started with a tango."