How to build a dirty bomb

How to Build a Dirty Bomb





By Jacob Oreshan, III





This is a fictional story. Any relation to actual events or person(s), past, present or future is merely coincidental.
2006









He was sitting there, looking at the walls, waiting. God he hated white walls. As he stood he adjusted his tie, straightened his suit pants and waited. The foot steps echoed down the hallway. The closer they came, the larger the knot in his stomach became. He had never shown fear, until now. As they entered the room, four men the size of giants, chains in hand, John knew this was the beginning of his end.






John Jackson, better known as Yashmir Kalaza to his small circle of friends, was just looking to fit in, to be part of something special, a family. At 23, he woke each day to the same old grind, take a leak, shave, shower and dress for work. Day in and day out, week after week, month after month, year after year, nothing changes. The same walk to the bus stop, the same seat on the bus, the same faces, everything just blurs together. But today was different. Today would be the beginning of the end.





It was a quarter past 5 in the morning when John woke. He was restless. Unable to sleep for more than a few hours, he decided it was time to go. As he rose from bed, he looked at himself in the mirror. What a pathetic sight. At five foot, six inches, John was less then average height. He could stand to watch what he ate, less hamburgers and fast food, more salad. But in a few hours, it wouldn’t make a difference.
Into the bathroom to shower and shave. “How easy it would be to end this now”, he thought, staring into the mirror. John liked mirrors; in fact, he had them in every room of his apartment. He liked the way things looked in them. Real, but somehow a dream or an altered reality. What he saw was indeed himself, but he could imagine a safer place. A warmer time. An end to the madness.
As he showered he planned his day, breakfast, and coffee on the way to the bus, and then his masterpiece. John dried himself off and dressed in khakis and an oversized sweatshirt. He grabbed a jacket and his knapsack on the way out the door. The bus was late as usual, and the coffee was old. If there was anything in this world John hated, that was it. Old coffee. As he took his seat on the bus, the normal dirt bags and pieces of shit smiled their fake smiles and read their fake newspapers. All bullshit, if they would only open their eyes they would see it. If they would only open their minds they would believe it. If they only knew why, today, he was smiling back at them. The ten minute ride to midtown seemed like hours. He couldn’t wait to get off this fucking bus and get to work. As the doors swung open and the riders exited the bus, John stopped at the driver. Placing his hand on the drivers shoulder, the driver handed him a brown bag. John smiled, placed the brown bag in his backpack and walked off the bus.



It was spring time in the metropolis, for a change there actually was spring. The park lawns were starting to awaken from their wintry slumber and green themselves to life. The trees were just budding and the birds had returned from a warm southern winter. Just a two block walk to the subway, but every person he walked by pissed him off. If he made it to the platform without killing someone it would be a miracle.
As he descended in to the subterranean lair of the man, the warmth hit him in the face like a violent slap. Through the turnstile and onto the platform to wait.
Wait.
It seemed like John did an awful lot of waiting his whole, short life. He always had to wait. In line at the movies, wait. In line at the dry cleaners, wait. In line at the store, wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. No more, not after today. Johns days of waiting were over. He was going to the head of the line, to meet Allah himself.
He could hear the train screech into the station, stopping to drop its load of zombies. How could people live like this? How could a democratic society like America be so blind? Don’t the American people see what they are doing to themselves? How they have become so complacent? So reliant upon the man? John hated these people, his “people” were nothing like this, and they were quiet and deep thinkers. John learned to be like the rest of his people by the time he had finished the Koran for the first time. By accepting the Islam religion, John accepted the holy war as part of his religious duty. A war in which he was more than ready to wage.
John entered the first train and took the seat across from the conductors’ door. As the cars filled, John couldn’t help but think about what brought him to this glorious day. How the society he had grown up loving could be in such shambles. Heroes like
John Kennedy and Harry Truman were replaced with martyrs like Zarkowie and bin Laden. For a brief moment John wondered, really wondered, what the hell he was doing. The moment passed and he was once again focused on the task at hand. Gently cradling his backpack, with its precious cargo safely tucked away, the train pulled out of the station. The next stop was the Canal Street terminal.
As the train pulled into the station, the conductors’ door opened and a middle aged male smiled at John and placed a small thermos on the floor. As quick as the door opened, it shut. John leaned forward, taking a quick but subtle glance over his shoulder, and picked up the thermos, placing it inside his backpack. He rose and exited the train, melting into anonymity once again as he walked through the station. As usual, there were cops everywhere, the normal scene since 9/11. What bothered John the most were the dogs. Would they know what was hiding in his backpack? He took extra precautions to avoid these hounds of hell as he made his way to the exit, and on the street.
Walking onto Canal Street, John would make the short trip to Soho on foot. He couldn’t take the chance that a cabbie might be remember him.
Once he got to Soho, John found a nice spot to sit and wait. It didn’t take long before he had company. A nice dressed woman in her 30’s sat down next to him. Close enough so he could smell her fragrance, but far enough to be an unassuming figure. She only stayed a minute or two, but as she got up to leave she gave John a quick smile and walked away. On the seat where she had been sitting was a shopping bag. John rose from the bench, picked up the bag and headed downtown.


Staring him right in the face was the Bull, a fixture of American financial opportunities. He had arrived at Wall Street by lunch time, and all though he was hungry, his nerves wouldn’t let him eat. He had a job to do, and it was now time to do it. The streets were filled with the lunch time crowds. Hundreds of people hurrying by, in a rush to grab a quick bite to eat and get back to work. No one looked at him; he was as invisible as the contents of the packages he was carrying. The day was beautiful, for now. John decided to make the short walk to the park around the corner, find a seat and get to work.
As he arrived at the park, he was happy to see that it was no where as busy as the bustling Wall Street had been. In fact, this would work better than he had expected. He took a seat under a tree and placed the shopping bag on his right and his backpack on his left. He opened his backpack and fumbled around inside it, being careful not to remove any of the contents. John emptied the contents of the brown bag, as well as the thermos, into the backpack. He had everything he needed; a cell phone, wire, black powder and blasting caps. John gently removed five bottles from the shopping bag, placing them into the backpack as well. As he carefully opened each bottle, he poured in the black powder and inserted a blasting cap. Once all the bottles were filled, the blasting caps were connected to the wire. John removed the cell phone from the backpack and pried open the case. He connected the wire to the circuit board in the phone, put the case back together and placed the phone back into the backpack. Everything was set; each bottle contained 5000 spent U-235, or uranium hexafluoride marbles. This is the same material that is used to make fuel at nuclear power plants. Twenty-five thousand marbles in all. John started shaking with excitement. The uranium would make for a nice bit of concern, but the real excitement was the hydrogen fluoride gas that would be created when the chemical mixed with the air. For the first time in months, he smiled.
The weather was just perfect, winds blowing moderately from the south and the humidity level was on the rise. If everything went as planned, he would devastate the better part of Manhattan island. All it was going to take now was the final walk back to Wall Street. John had no idea he was about to be come famous, as well as infamous.


He arrived at Wall Street at a 3:15 and decided to wait for the moment of opportunity, closing bell. John sat on the steps of the New York Stock Exchange, just under the enormous American flag. He leaned back and pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket. It was a letter he had written to his parents. A letter telling them who he was now. A letter telling them about the wrongs of society. A letter telling them that he was sorry and he loved them. A letter he never sent. He was startled by the ringing of his cell phone. He looked at the incoming message. It simply read “Yes”.
John rose from the steps, stretch and took one last look around before he walked away. He made his way back to the subway terminal at Canal Street, where he stopped and took his cell phone out. He looked at the time, 4:00. He was now shaking with excitement, fear and desperation. He dialed the number and threw his phone in the trash can. At the bottom of the steps he though he heard it. It was done. It was the beginning of the end. John rushed home and turned on the TV. There it was, every channel showed the chaos, in living and breathing color. It was estimated that the initial explosion killed perhaps a dozen or so. But the cloud, the white cloud of hydrogen fluoride, was spreading like wild fire. The reports indicated that the hospitals were being overwhelmed. People were complaining of burning to their skin, their eyes and in their chest. People were dying in the streets. It was sheer pandemonium. The street of lower Manhattan looked like a war zone, with people screaming.
And crying.
And dying.










In the days that followed, it was estimated that the lower section of Manhattan might be inhabitable for several decades, and the chemical damage was undeterminable. New Yorker’s, in all their resilience, finally resigned to defeat. As the investigation mounted, there was a small scrap of paper with a partial address found at the scene that led investigators to a tiny apartment in the Bronx. As John stepped out of the shower, the front door exploded inward. A loud bang and a blinding flash of light were about all he could remember. The next thing John knew he was being paraded down the front steps of his apartment building. It was a media frenzy. As he waited at the car door, he turned for a moment to the cameras and smiled.
As he sat, waiting for his trial to begin, he looked more like the John Jackson of old, not the Yashmir Kalaza that Americans had grow to hate. He was scared. For the first time, he was really scared. If only because he knew, this was the beginning of the end.