“And did they stay in Moscow?”
“She was unable to follow them beyond London, unfortunately. But I think they went to Odessa.”
“Really. And why do you think that, my boy?”
Hugh opened a folder and extracted a file. “I have also received a report from Bob Dunno, our operative at the American consulate in Odessa. As you know, third-world nations are being flooded with surplus arms from the former Soviet states. It’s about the only way the former states have of raising cash, and it’s a buyer’s market. Odessa is home to several high-profile arms dealers, including Pyotr Volk, a.k.a. Peter the Wolf.” He saw the director’s look, and nodded. “Peter’s little joke, he’s a Prokofiev fan.”
“Not his real name?”
Hugh didn’t dignify that question with an answer. “Over the past five years Peter has used the cash flow generated from selling Russian arms in bulk quantities to expand his inventory, which now includes weapons and materiel from every nation that manufactures them, including our own. This of course has led to a certain amount of, well, friction with our security services.”
The director gave his rich chuckle. “I would certainly hope so.”
“Bob Dunno met him at an embassy party they both attended in Moscow.”
“What was the party for?”
Hugh was thrown off his stride. “I, uh, don’t know, sir.”
The director gave a reproving shake of his head. “You know how I savor the details, Hugh.”
“Yes, sir.” Recovering his momentum, Hugh continued his briefing. “Peter has a well-developed sense of self-preservation for an international arms dealer. This occasionally leads him to sell us the odd tidbit of information. He deduced, and rightly, that we’d be more inclined to look away from his activities if he cooperated with us now and then.”
“And he’s hoping we’ll take out his competition with the information he gives us,” the director said.
Hugh smiled because it was expected of him. “And leave him in place, yes, sir. At any rate, Peter contacted Bob on October sixth and passed on the news that two young Asian men who fit the description of the two men Arlene followed had come to Odessa and placed an order.” Hugh passed the director a sheet of paper.
The director read down the list. “What’s cesium?”
“Cesium-137 is one of twenty radioactive isotopes artificially derived from the naturally occurring element cesium.” At the director’s request, Hugh spelled it. “It is used in radiology for medical and industrial purposes.”
“Like X rays?”
“It is used in radiotherapy machines, sir, for the treatment of cancer.”
The director meditated on this for a moment. “My aunt had breast cancer. She had surgery, followed by chemotherapy, followed by radiation therapy. That what we’re talking about here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It actually burned her skin,” the director said. “She looked like a molting lizard for a while there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s it look like? This cesium-137?”
“Not much different from talcum powder.”
“Does it glow in the dark?”
“A luminescent blue, sir,” Hugh said.
The director looked up. The question had been asked in a jocular tone and Hugh’s answer had been dead serious. “I see. And Peter’s report of this purchase of this substance upsets you why?”
“Cesium-137 is one of many substances that would be most effective in the manufacture of a dirty bomb.”
The director sat back. “What kind of damage are we talking about here?”
“Use enough TNT to explode a couple of ounces of cesium, sir, and the fallout would spread a minimum of sixty square blocks. In a city of any size, Los Angeles, say, or New York, or Washington, D.C., such an event could render hundreds of buildings uninhabitable and put hundreds of thousands of people in the hospital with radiation sickness. It would take years and very probably billions of dollars to clean up the mess. The medical and emergency infrastructure of the nation would be overwhelmed. There would be a severe impact on essential services.”
“I imagine someone has done some sort of test scenario.”
“Unnecessary, even if true, sir.”
“What do you mean?”
“In 1987 in Brazil a private medical clinic went belly up and the three doctors who owned it walked away, leaving the building to deteriorate and eventually be looted. It was a cancer clinic. It had a radiotherapy machine which contained a lead canister containing approximately fourteen hundred curies of cesium-137.”
The director gave him a long, level look.
Hugh elaborated. “Enough that when the looters opened the canister adults and children both could rub the powder on their bodies so that they would, as you say, glow in the dark.”
“Why on earth would they do that?”
“They thought it was pretty. Later, the powder transferred from their hands to their food, which was of course toxic when ingested. It was a week before a health care worker who’d had some training diagnosed what four people had already died from and what two hundred forty-four people had been contaminated with on a first-contact basis. The authorities ran a Geiger counter over the people they considered the most likely to have been contaminated, but unfortunately they didn’t take the procedure seriously enough to put their techs into protective gear. They didn’t decontaminate the ambulances used to carry the victims. Homes, businesses, soil-” Hugh shook his head. “Goiania has a population of seven hundred thousand. They ran the Geiger counters over thirty-four thousand people, about all they could fit into the soccer stadium, but… well. It’s got a half-life of thirty years.”
“The people who died. What did they die from, exactly?”
“Radiation destroys human cells, most rapidly those of the skin, hair, gastrointestinal tract, and bone marrow. They died of pneumonia, blood poisoning, and hemorrhaging.”
Hugh used the following silence to tidy up his paperwork.
“A nasty kind of talcum powder,” the director said finally.
“Yes, sir.”
“Is Peter willing and able to give us any further information?”
Hugh hesitated. “I don’t know, sir.”
The director raised an eyebrow.
“This was the last time we heard from him. His office blew up later that same evening.”
“Our Korean friends?”
“We don’t know. It seems likely. They had motive, in wanting to hide their business with him. They certainly had means if they are the people behind the Pattaya bombing. And they had opportunity, being the only business meeting Peter had that day, according to the security guard at the entrance.”
“Is Peter dead?”
“We don’t know, sir. His body wasn’t found, but then there wasn’t a lot left from which to make an identification. The explosion took place after midnight when the building was closed, so he could well have left for the evening. On the other hand, I don’t think Peter keeps banker’s hours.” Hugh raised his shoulders. “If he’s alive, he hasn’t surfaced. Bob Dunno talked to the girlfriend, who knows less than nothing, naturally.” Hugh was sure there was plenty Bob wasn’t telling him about the girlfriend but he refrained from saying so. “I have instructed informants to keep watch in all the likely places. He could be dead, or he could be anywhere.”
“Switzerland?” the director said.
“More likely Nassau, or Brazil, or Seattle.”
The director was startled. “Seattle?”
“He hasn’t broken any American laws, at least not yet, and he has a distant relative in the Russian emigre population there.”
“Mmmm.” The director meditated upon the photographs. “These two young men appear to have no appreciable money problems.”
“Peter was given a phone number in Switzerland. An electronic transfer. I’ve got a source ferreting around, but you know the Swiss.”
There was a brief silence. The director stirred. “Odessa,” he said ruminatively. “Odessa. So that’s where we put Bob Dunno out to pasture.”