Chapter 73: King of explosives

"Fcker, couldn't you explain that before?! Why beat around the bush, just why?!"

Seeing Sia was getting enraged Sk intervened and asked her to calm down. Even Simon was surprised by Ron's knowledge about PENTA. What he said was exactly true. Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate is actually a lipid-soluble polyol ester of nitric acid belonging to the family of nitrovasodilators that exhibit vasodilatory property. Years ago terrorist used such explosives to cause terror throughout America. 

After many delegations and considerations the World Govt banned the production of such explosives, and gave out exclusive license to defense forces of different countries.

Before becoming a poacher Simon used to work in the French Army, and getting such explosives from the laboratory was a child's play for him.

Even after retiring from Army he could get his hands on this powder thanks to the connection he had made earlier during his service time. 

Back to the topic, Pentaerythritol tetranitrate releases free nitric oxide (NO) after denitration reaction, which triggers NO-dependent signaling transduction involving soluble guanylate cyclase (sGC). NO binds reversibly to the ferrous-heme center of sGC, thereby causes conformational change and activates the enzyme.

Activation results in increasing cellular levels of cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) within vascular smooth muscle, which results in vasodilation mediated by cGMP-dependent protein kinases. Furthermore, this agent causes arterial and venous bed dilation in a dose-dependent manner.

Thanks to all these reactions it got its title of a Super Explosive. Years ago when Simon formed his current team he had hid some amount of powder in everyone's shoes.

The reason was to use it in a state of emergency, like the one they were currently in. Sk was the only person having knowledge of this powder in everyone's shoes, and that too by chance.

Later on when she asked Simon showing him the powder she got to know about it.

Simon was planning to collect all the packets and ignite them at once. The result would have been obvious, no need to tell about it.

A big BOOM!!

End of the Great Wolf and end of the other arctic wolves surrounding them.

Ron didn't wait for Simon to explain his plan and took out two shoes from his shoes. The other too followed the same and gathered all the small packets hidden in their shoes.

A total of sixteen packets were collected out of a total of eight members including Sk and Simon.

"Hmm… This much should be okay."

Simon was talking to himself and formulating a plan when Sia asked him about the plan. Even Sk wasn't sure about his plan.

She only knew once ignited it would go BOOM!!

Who will ignite?

When will they ignite?

She had no idea about it.

Till then Simon was sitting on ground holding his other leg in hands. For some reason he was convinced that his leg can be attached. It was just a hollow hope that he had been breeding in his mind.

SK and the others had already noticed it. Simon hadn't recovered from his trauma, yet. Even then he was wrecking his head to get a way out of there.

Suddenly an idea flashed through his mind. Simon stared at his leg that he had kept on his lap then started at the big giant wolf before then.

The idea was pretty simple and without any delay he posed it before his teammates.

"Guys we will apply the B & B tactics"

Ron, "…"

Sk, "…"

Other memebrs, "…"

"Ahem, Sir Simon care to explain this B & B tactics of yours," Sia asked in a sweet voice.

Though it was sweet on the above she internally she was getting pissed of their current situation. She was having a nice sleep when that cave collapsed thanks to her younger cousin.

She was fine even though her cousin got caught in it. The thing causing her trouble was her half coursed sleep.

Before Jia, Sia was guarding the camp. After Jia took up the duty Sia went for her much awaited night sleep.

Not even an hour passed when they heard that explosion sound out of somewhere. In short she was fond of sleeping, and someone didn't allow her to sleep in peace.

She was getting even more frustrated cause she was in a life and death situation with those wolves while her cousin was taking a nice nap in her camp.

"Cough, cough. Cough, cough!"

Hearing the sound of coughing Sia's contemplation broke at the middle, and she was dragged back to their current situation.

"Girl, did you understand a single thing  I explained now?" Simon asked with a frown.

When Sia was thinking and regretting about her sleep Simon was explaining about his plan of escape. He was just about to end when he noticed Sia was in a daze, for some reason.

"Eh… Hehehe, boss you just order around I will follow whatever you say."

Hearing her reply everyone face-palmed and thought it would have been better if Jia were here instead of Sia. She could at least hear and give some suggestions.

"AAhhh," Simon groaned in anger and showed a packet of powder to Sia.

"Do you know what this is?"

"No, no idea at all."

"Sigh… Hear me out clearly. I will explain only once this time."

"Okay…  Go on!"

Simon showed her that small packet of powder again and snuggled it like the last time. Later he revealed it was the king of explosives, made from the combination of five different super explosives powder.

The first in line was was TNT.

Trinitrotoluene (TNT) is the most useful military high explosive. Although it had been known for many years and was used extensively in the dye industry, it was not employed as an explosive until the late nineteenth ecntuary. It is an excellent military explosive in itself, but its most valuable property is that it can be safely melted and cast either alone or as a slurry with other explosives. This is because there is a wide spread between its melting point and its decomposition temperature. 

It has two shortcomings: first, it is extremely insensitive in the cast form, and second, it is difficult to cast without air holes. The first problem can be overcome by drilling a hole, about 2.5 centimetres (1 inch) in diameter, the length of the charge in the shell and filling it with trinitrophenylmethylnitramine (tetryl); the second, by using a mixture of 40 percent trinitroxylene (TNX) and 60 percent TNT. 

This mixture not only casts perfectly but can be detonated with a smaller tetryl booster. 

The second powder used was the PENTA or PETN mentioned before. According to Simon PENTA was one of the chemicals to balance out the short comings of TNT.

The third chemical used in it was the TATP.

The chemical TATP belongs to a group of molecules named peroxides, which contain weak and unstable oxygen-oxygen bonds, and that are not found in TNT. This means that TATP is a lot less stable and more prone to spontaneously exploding.

TATP is also known as the "mother of satan" and with good reason – its explosions are known to be about 80% as strong as TNT, but the substance is much harder to handle. A firm shock or knock is enough to trigger an explosion, which means it's quite easy to accidentally blow yourself up in the process of making it.

Simon paused for a second then move onto the fourth chemical, RDX. A "nitrogen explosive", meaning that its explosive properties are due to the presence of many nitrogen-nitrogen bonds, rather than oxygen.

These bonds are extremely unstable, since nitrogen atoms always want to come together to produce nitrogen gas because the triple bond in nitrogen is very strong and stable. And the more nitrogen-nitrogen bonds a molecules has, like RDX, typically the more explosive it is.

Since TNT doesn't contain any unstable nitrogen-nitrogen bonds, RDX packs more power – but it is often mixed with other chemicals to produce different effects, such as making it less sensitive and less likely to explode unexpectedly. It is also commonly used in controlled demolition of buildings.

This time Sia was understating fourty percent of the things told by Simon. In comparison to Ron, Simon was way much better at explaining.

The last chemical used to make that powder was Aziroazide azide.

Among the least stable nitrogen-explosives is aziroazide azide which has 14 nitrogen atoms, with most of them bonded to each other in successive, unstable nitrogen-nitrogen bonds – making them prone to explosion.

Attempts to touch or handle this chemical (and some may say so much as even look at) can cause it to detonate, breaking those bonds and turning them into multiple molecules of rapidly expanding nitrogen gas.

The reaction creates a huge amount of heat and so only tiny amounts of this chemical have ever been synthesised for testing – which have blown up inside expensive pieces of analysis equipment on many occasions. You'd have to be pretty crazy to create large amounts and explains why it hasn't yet found any use.