The situation was awkward for a moment, until Rossi's chuckle broke the awkward atmosphere. "As for the information and stuff, I think it's easier to ask the agent directly. What do you think, Agent Harry Tasker?"
The middle-aged agent, "Arnold," or rather, Harry Tasker, remained frozen in place. Jack could clearly see the slight arch of his oversized leather shoes, clearly digging his toes into the ground with embarrassment.
Fortunately, his partner, Gibson, after a few chuckles, intervened. "Ah, well, let me introduce you to these two FBI agents. This is the renowned David Rossi, and this is Agent Jack Tawalla."
After a few stilted pleasantries, the two FBI agents were ushered into a conference room. Besides Harry and Gibson, there was also an Indian man with curly black hair named Fisher, busy at his computer.
Since Rossi had already briefed everyone on their intentions, they got straight to the point after they took their seats. Fisher, the Indian man, turned on the projector and outlined Omega's current situation.
"A week ago, we stole the owner's secret bank account from his personal computer in a villa at the foot of the Alps in Geneva."
"Who's the owner?" Rossi asked before a photo appeared on the screen.
Gibson continued, "Jamal Khaled, a notorious terrorism supporter. He and his family are at least partially 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 influence in Iran. "
Fisher pulled up a long list of account information on his computer. "We've identified a total of $100 million in suspected fund flows, all of which were transferred to accounts linked to the terrorist organization 'Dark Jihad.'"
"'Dark Jihad'? This organization has been active again lately?" Jack exclaimed in surprise.
Harry, who had been secretly observing him, asked in a deep voice, "Why? Have you dealt with them?"
"I guess so." Jack's expression was rather indescribable. Two years had passed, and parts of Central Park hadn't yet fully recovered. (Chapter 753)
Harry's eyes flickered, but he didn't press the issue.
Instead, he continued to explain their findings. "We've linked the $100 million to the three W-80 nuclear warheads that went missing five years ago. We have reason to suspect that Jamal Khaled paid for them and intended to transport them into the United States through the 'Dark Jihad' to carry out terrorist attacks."
Jack was stunned and quickly stopped him. "Wait, did I hear correctly? You're saying we lost three W-80s five years ago?"
The W-80 is a miniaturized thermonuclear warhead currently in service in the United States. It has been a key component of NATO's nuclear arsenal since the Cold War, primarily used in air-launched cruise missiles.
Perhaps in the common perception, nuclear weapons, such a national treasure, must be subject to extremely strict procedures for supervision and preservation. Losing them is simply unthinkable.
However, the truth is, declassified documents from the US Department of Defense alone reveal 32 instances of lost nuclear weapons, known as "Broken Arrow," with at least six of these weapons remaining unrecovered.
Therefore, Jack's real surprise wasn't that the US had lost three nuclear warheads five years ago, but rather that, as Hollywood screenwriters tend to do, nuclear weapons like these appearing on the black market were likely lost during the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Fortunately, someone has been hit by a lot of boomerangs lately, so he simply expressed some emotion.
Even the "Omega" team didn't know the specifics. They only knew that the three nuclear warheads, originally intended for AGM-86 air-launched cruise missiles, were last seen in Afghanistan during a famous emergency evacuation.
Ten AGM-86s were lost, and although a special operation deployed by the military later recovered all the missiles, only five of the warheads were recovered.
The CIA suspected the warheads had been smuggled to Iran, but subsequent targeted investigations yielded no results.
Only recently, vague intelligence reports emerged that the warheads had been hidden in Afghanistan for years. The CIA immediately dispatched a large number of elite operatives, but their efforts proved elusive.
The military and the CIA only managed to capture two of the warheads, which were used as a decoy. The remaining three mysteriously disappeared at a Turkish port, rumored to have been shipped to Greece.
Despite a thorough search of Greece, the CIA still could not find any trace of the three nuclear weapons.
Rossi, perhaps having heard this before or perhaps simply experienced it frequently, asked calmly, "Is there any solid evidence that these three warheads have entered our territory?"
"For now, it's just a suspicion, but this $100 million is the most closely linked to terrorist activity we've recently traced,"
Harry explained. "We're focusing our suspicions on Dark Jihad because we've discovered that almost all of their core members overseas have disappeared recently."
"What do you think, Jack?" Rossi looked at Jack.
After the Central Park bombing, Jack had handed over the Dark Jihad investigation.
After all, the mastermind behind the attack had been confirmed dead by him, and the few remaining Dark Jihad cells in the country had been virtually wiped out in the FBI-led crackdown.
Since neither the BAU nor the Most Wanted Squad were dedicated counterterrorism units, they naturally wouldn't be tasked with the long-term surveillance required.
However, having clashed with the Dark Jihad numerous times, Jack occasionally kept an eye on the group's progress, hoping to prevent a resurgence within the country.
"I haven't heard anything about the Dark Jihad in the country lately," Jack recounted the recent information he'd reviewed. But when faced with the slightly disappointed looks from the three Omega agents, he changed the subject.
"But I agree with the Omega guys. Detonating a nuclear bomb is no easy task. Even if a regular terrorist organization were given the PAL authorization code, let alone smuggling one into the country, they wouldn't know how to operate it.
I don't know if the Dark Jihad possesses the capability to detonate a nuclear bomb, but they at least have the motivation and operational experience to do so."
Whether a nuclear bomb is delivered directly from a bomber or mounted on an air-launched missile like the W-80, multiple safeguards are implemented.
Detonating a nuclear bomb isn't as simple as entering a code on a dial and turning a key, as in Hollywood movies.
While Jack didn't know the exact circumstances surrounding the bomb's loss, the process itself was bizarre.
American nuclear weapons utilize a "dual-key" system. This doesn't mean a single nuclear device has two keys, but rather that the nuclear warhead and delivery vehicle (missile) are controlled by different units.
Furthermore, under normal circumstances, not only are the warheads and missiles stored separately, but their "cores" (plutonium/uranium components), conventional explosives, and electronic systems are also stored separately.
Therefore, Jack had every reason to suspect there was something fishy going on in the bomb's disappearance. The most likely scenario was not an accident during transportation, but rather an incident involving a B-52G bomber on combat readiness duty or conducting a so-called "deterrence" flight.
A B-52G bomber can carry up to 20 AGM-86 cruise missiles at a time. The loss of ten missiles at once was beyond Jack's comprehension.
Of course, the precise nature of the nuclear bomb's disappearance is irrelevant to the current threat of attack. Their current situation is that three suspected fully assembled nuclear warheads have entered the continental United States.
While the threat seems imminent, the reason everyone remains calm in the conference room is precisely because of the "PAL" authorization code Jack mentioned earlier.
"PAL" stands for "Permissive Action Link," and is often used to specifically refer to the activation link for nuclear weapons.
The PAL authorization code is dynamically generated and typically tied to mission instructions, but it's only one link in the "strong chain" of safety safeguards. Other safeguards include biometrics, the warhead's own anti-tamper and anti-tamper mechanisms, and a self-destruct mechanism.
Furthermore, there are "weak chain" safety safeguards. For example, the B61 nuclear bomb, typically gravity-delivered by stealth bombers, includes an accelerometer to ensure it only disarms when properly delivered.
Everyone present has received basic training; in fact, Jack learned similar knowledge in high school in his previous life.
The principle of the atomic bomb, once enjoyed by ordinary people, was simple. Two pieces of highly enriched uranium were placed together and then "banged" together by the force of explosives. When the mass exceeded a critical mass, a fission reaction would naturally be triggered.
The hydrogen bomb, invented later, was slightly more complex, requiring the high temperature and pressure generated by the fission reaction to further trigger a fusion reaction.
In the 1966 Palomares nuclear accident in Spain, a B-52 bomber and a KC-135 tanker collided mid-air over the village of Palomares in southern Spain.
They were carrying four B28RI hydrogen bombs, each with a yield of 1.5 megatons of TNT.
Both aircraft exploded and disintegrated on the spot. Two of the four hydrogen bombs, one in the Mediterranean and the other in a river, remained intact.
The conventional explosives in the remaining two hydrogen bombs detonated, but due to the activation of safety devices, the fission devices, which served as the "nuclear trigger," did not react, resulting in the release of only radioactive elements.
Therefore, the complexity of detonating a W-80 missile is far from something a liberal arts screenwriter could easily figure out by reading some information. Simply cracking the PAL code would require national resources.
This means the three missing warheads are likely in a complete, theoretically detonable form. If they were lost from a nuclear arsenal, the CIA could simply target the suspected countries, without having to consider terrorist organizations.
Even so, successfully detonating all three intact warheads would be challenging, requiring at least a trained engineer to deactivate the bomb's safety and bypass the original detonation mechanism, using a crude method to detonate the trigger.
Jack supports Omega's theory, both because he knew foresight that a missile had actually been detonated in the original series and because of his own personal experience.
He still vividly remembered the ambulance that had dug a huge hole in Central Park. It wasn't just C4 explosives that were inside. According to Red's subsequent analysis, Dark Jihad's explosives experts had also stuffed a large amount of chromate, red mercury, and other substances inside.
The person who constructed the massive bomb was identified as the bald man killed by Jack himself, a member of the Durango cartel, who was collaborating with Dark Jihad.
But that didn't mean Dark Jihad didn't have professional explosives experts.
Later investigations revealed that, aside from the C4 explosives, which were imported into the United States by the Durango cartel through their drug trafficking routes, the rest of the explosives were purchased domestically by Dark Jihad.
Procuring just one or two dangerous goods isn't difficult, considering the US's regulations on this matter. Of the ten black market dealers involved, at least five are undercover ATF (Agents for the Administration of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives), with the remaining four likely coming from other federal agencies.
Yet, the "Dark Jihad" managed to evade the ATF, acquiring seven or eight hazardous chemicals in small, multiple batches, and then mixing them in precise proportions. Clearly, a skilled chemist was behind this.
After careful analysis, Jack concluded, "Even if we disregard the possibility of a successful nuclear bomb detonation, given the capabilities demonstrated by the "Dark Jihad," detonating them as a large-scale 'dirty bomb' seems straightforward."
Remember, in the Palomares nuclear accident, while the two hydrogen bombs that exploded didn't react, they still released approximately 20 grams of plutonium and uranium fragments.
The Americans, however, were relatively conscientious back then, deploying over 1,600 soldiers and scientists to cordon off the site and conduct a cleanup operation that lasted approximately three months.
"Imagine a truck with a lead-sealed box to block radiation detection drives into Wall Street, then explodes, spreading radioactive dust across half of Manhattan Island. What would the consequences be?"
Hearing Jack's hypothesis, the people present looked at each other in surprise, then shuddered subconsciously. Compared to that, what was 9/11?
Rossi, coming to his senses, glared at him, telling him to stop being so sensational.
"So what does this nuclear crisis we're in 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, "It all started with a tango."
(End of this chapter)