“From a single such detonation, yes,” said the visitor. “Now, Mr. Dyson, or any other physicist who made it out of his sophomore year, would have known about constructive interference—the phenomenon where two wave crests, meeting at a given place and time, will sum to produce a much higher crest. That much is old hat in the world of mathematical physics. But what is different now, as compared to 1962, is that we have computers. Precision guidance systems. Split-second timing and communication technology. So. Our whole mentality around weapon design has changed. In Dyson’s day, a Cold War military planner might have used a nuclear weapon to take out a whole city, just to destroy a single factory. Overkill, to be sure, but the best they could manage with unguided ballistic warheads. Today we would use a cruise missile that would strike a key component of that factory—say, a power transformer or a meeting of senior management—with a precision measured not in meters but centimeters. Much cleaner, much less collateral damage, much cheaper. Likewise, a modern approach to Dyson’s 1962 scenario would be to get rid of the nukes straightaway and stick with those containers full of H.E. Drop those in precisely known locations not far from the target. Detonate them in a precisely timed sequence. The individual waves from any one detonation don’t amount to much. By the way, that’s a feature, not a bug. During a storm they aren’t even detectable. They don’t rise above the noise floor. But if you’ve set it all up right, there is one and only one location where all those waves sum together and create what seems to be a rogue wave, enormously bigger than all the others. If it just happens to cave in the Maeslantkering, why, the North Sea then rushes in and does your work for you.”
Simon paused for a little while. Willem looked around the table. He could tell that some of his Dutch colleagues had known in advance what was going to be said, and others were surprised. Willem was one of the latter. It would take him a few minutes to absorb all this. But it
“Are you suggesting that the flooding of Rotterdam and Zeeland was the result of a military attack by a foreign power!?” asked an incredulous army general. Clearly not one of those who had been briefed in advance. Therefore, just as surprised as Willem. And yet Willem had something of an unfair advantage. The series of weird encounters he’d had with Bo during the previous few weeks had inoculated him.
Simon said, “Yes. A similar attempt was, we think, made on the Thames Estuary, but it wasn’t as effective because that is a more sheltered waterway. You can’t come at it from as many angles.” As Willem and everyone else knew, Simon was engaging in a bit of understatement here. There had been a lot of flooding in the Thames Estuary.
“Is there evidence? Other than this?” asked the general, slapping the Dyson report.
Simon carefully avoided making eye contact, in a way that suggested, to Willem’s perhaps over-sensitive mind, that confidential sources and methods were involved. He would not speak of these. But he had not come unprepared for the question. “You would expect,” he said, “to see seismographic evidence of those detonations. And we have seen it. It’s quite clear. It tells us where we might go and search, were we so inclined, for debris—shattered containers or other residue left on the bottom of the sea. No doubt we shall. We’ll coordinate any such efforts with the Royal Dutch Navy, it goes without saying. But we don’t
“So they—whoever they are—know that we know.”
“I should say so, yes.”
“What’s the
Her counterpart from Dutch foreign intelligence was sitting across the table from her. Janno. Willem had known him for decades. And it was clear that he’d been briefed on all this in advance. “We think it is a political gambit. An effort to sway the public conversation around climate change.”
“But everyone already knows about climate change! Even the right wingers have changed their tune since”—she glanced toward Willem—“since the queen’s speech. About geoengineering.”
