Incendiary Dispatch. Don Pendleton

So I know what the state of the art is in weaponized nanothermites.” He set the device on the table, now in pieces, and waved a hand at it. “This is beyond what we thought of as state of the art.”

      Hal Brognola, sitting at his desk in Washington, edged forward in his seat and adjusted a camera on one of his displays to focus on the device. “Weaponized nanothermites aren’t new.”

      “No way,” Schwarz said. “They’ve been tested for years. They’re looking at using MICs as primer in small arms. Not even for performance improvements. They want primers that won’t release vaporized lead every time a round is fired.”

      “And this is an MIC?” Price asked.

      Kissinger shook his head. “It’s not.”

      “It’s not?” Schwarz echoed.

      “It’s not a composite—not in the way everyone thinks of an MIC, a Metastable Intermolecular Composite,” Kissinger said. “The standard assumption is that MICs are laminated composites. It puts an ultrathin, nanoscale layer of aluminum or some other metal fuel atop a layer of an oxidizer. The two materials are exothermically reactive, and the proximity is so close that the diffusion of the oxidizer and fuel happens much more quickly and energetically. The rate of reaction is much, much faster. We’ve been working on tuning nanolaminated pyrotechnics to achieve different results. Different metals used in the nanolayers, different fillers used to separate and encase the laminates, give you interesting results. And the reaction time is far superior to a simple mixture of the old powders used in more standard incendiaries.”

      “So how’s this different?” Schwarz demanded.

      “Particle size, for one. We’re working with 100 to 200 nanometer-diameter particles when making the MICs. The particles in these devices are much, much smaller. They’re in the range of one-quarter to one-half of one nanometer in size.”

      “They can do that?” Schwarz asked.

      “Can we do that, you mean?” Kissinger asked. “Yeah. Maybe. Maybe in a lab. Or maybe not.”

      “So layers of particles that fine,” Price said, “would be that much closer together. The reaction is that much faster.”

      “Much faster,” Kissinger confirmed. “Here’s where it gets interesting. There are no layers in this device. Instead of a layer of fuel and a layer of oxidizer, the particles are conjoined.”

      “Conjoined?” Price queried.

      “No way!” Schwarz said. “They can do that?”

      “Can we do that, you mean?” Kissinger repeated. “No way. They can, obviously. And they did.”

      “Conjoined—layers?” Kurtzman asked. “I think I’m a few steps back.”

      “You’re not the only one,” Brognola muttered loudly. “I’ve been lost for the past five minutes.”

      “Conjoined particles. Take one particle of fuel—at 0.5 nanometer in diameter. Take one particle of oxidizer, same size. Adhere them so they’re conjoined. They’re glued together. The reaction time is far faster than any incendiary device we’ve seen before.”

      “And this is not something that has been accomplished before?” Brognola challenged. “Not by the U.S.? Not by anybody?”

      Kissinger shrugged. “Not by anybody as far as I know.”

      “This is good news, right?” Carl Lyons said, speaking for the first time. “Specialty item needs special people or special equipment to be made. Now we have something to go on. Right? So let’s get going.”

      “You’re right, Carl,” Kissinger said. “This is indeed specialty technology. There are a few companies out there working on nanoparticles in this range, and a few university labs, as well. One of them is here in the United States. Company in Texas. Name is—get this—NanoPlasPulse LLC. Brains behind the operation is the CEO, Harry Envoi. They’re using his patents.”

      “Ugh. This sounds like a familiar situation,” Rosario Blancanales growled. “Like the Georgia lab.”

      “Yeah, I thought the same thing at first,” Kissinger continued. “Then I checked the guy out. He’s got the credibility that your friend in Georgia did not have.” Kissinger tapped a stapled white stack of pages that lay in front of him.

      Brognola tried to read the title through his video. “What is that?”

      Schwarz raised the stack and read the cover sheet. “‘Production Technique Studies on Conjoined Nanopowder Particulates for Metastable Intermolecular Composite Alternatives.’”

      “Sorry I asked,” Brognola said.

      “Envoi wrote it. He’s written several papers throughout the years. He’s demonstrated long-term expertise and pioneering development in the creation of creating unagglomerated nanopowders.”

      “Unagglomerated means ‘not glommed together,’ I assume,” Brognola said.

      “Right,” Kissinger said. “Think of it this way. The smaller the particle, and the closer a particle is to a complementary but different particle, the more the complementary effect will be—whether that effect is an incendiary reaction or, say, metal flexibility.”

      “So could Envoi be the guy who created the devices?” Lyons asked. “If so, what’s his home address?”

      “I’m not going to rule him out,” Kissinger said. “I’ll let you all do that. But here’s the rub—at the same time we were doing a quick evaluation of this device, other devices were being evaluated in other parts of the world.”

      They had already received the news of other devices being discovered around the world. Tokaido’s quick work had left many of the units in place and unactivated, and large-scale search efforts were turning them up.

      “Twenty minutes before I came into this meeting, DARPA identified this material and set up a classified conference call with Harry Envoi. He’s agreed to be a consultant on the investigation. I want to be in on that call.”