“Don’t tell me they’ve been destroyed,” I say.
“No, at least not as far as we know.”
“What do you mean as far as you know? Listen,” says Harry, “either deliver them up or tell us where they are.”
“That’s the problem. I can’t.”
“Why not?” I say.
“I can’t tell you that either. What I can tell you is that you would be wise to take the matter into court at your earliest opportunity. File a Brady motion. I won’t oppose it. Give you my word. Get a ruling from the court if you can.”
Brady v. Maryland is the seminal case in criminal discovery. Under the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the government is required to deliver to the defense any and all exculpatory evidence. Even if the evidence by itself may not prove innocence, if it tends in that direction the state must turn it over.
“Personally, I think the photos are probably irrelevant and immaterial,” says Templeton. “It’s hard to see how you could fashion a defense around six photographs. Of course, I don’t know what the photos represent. Maybe you could enlighten me,” he says.
“Last time I looked, Brady is a one-way street,” says Harry. “We don’t have to truck information in your direction.”
“I just thought as long as we were sharing things,” says Templeton. “And, of course, as far as I’m concerned you’re entitled to look at the photographs.”
“But you can’t just give them to us?”
“Sorry,” he says.
“I don’t get it,” I tell him. “If you think the photos are immaterial, why wouldn’t you oppose a Brady motion?”
“File it and find out,” says Templeton. “That’s all I can tell you. You won’t get the photographs any other way.”
TWENTY-ONE
Anyone familiar with such things might have been skeptical, but Nitikin knew that regardless of the passage of time, more than forty years, the device itself was virtually pristine.
The reason for this was the manner in which it was stored. Soviet physicists had long known that the greatest threat of deterioration to a gun-type nuclear device would be from oxidation and corrosion of the metal parts, and degradation of weapons-grade uranium if it were subjected to oxygen and hydrogen in the atmosphere for long periods.
Corrosion resulted from the close proximity of highly enriched uranium and ferrous metals, in this case tungsten carbide steel. Separate the uranium from the steel, and store each of them properly, in the case of uranium in a vacuum-sealed container, avoiding moisture and humidity, and the shelf life for a weapon of this kind would be extended geometrically, almost indefinitely.
The two subcritical elements of uranium, the projectile and the four concentric rings of the target, had been machined to precision and stored in their separate sealed lead-contained vaults while the weapon was still in the Soviet Union, before it had ever been shipped to Cuba. They had never been removed.
Nitikin had never even seen them, but he knew they were there from the periodic Geiger readings he took through the test vents in each of the lead cases. From these readings he knew that the two separated elements of weapons-grade uranium, the target and the projectile, neither of which alone possessed critical mass sufficient to cause a chain reaction, would, when combined under pressure at the proper velocity down the gun barrel, result in a massive chain-reaction detonation.
If it worked properly, the entire sequence, from detonation of the cordite initiator launching the uranium bullet down the barrel, to the flash of light hotter and more brilliant than the core of the sun, would take but the barest fraction of a second.
The parts were relatively easy to assemble as long as you had the proper tools, protective gear, and, most important, a deft touch with the tongs needed to position each of the elements while they were bolted or fitted into place.
For Nitikin it was this last part that had become the problem. He had developed a slight palsy in his hands. Over the past few years it had worsened. He knew that he could no longer manipulate the metal tongs either to load the gun with the subcritical uranium projectile or to fasten the uranium target rings to the tungsten carbide tamper at the muzzle end of the barrel.
Nitikin had told no one about this, least of all Alim or any of his cadre. He was afraid of what they might do if they knew, not for himself, but for Maricela, his daughter.
Nitikin, at least in his mind if not his heart, remained the staunch warrior. But he knew that Maricela was afraid, fearful of what was happening. He kept the details from her for her own safety. But she was not stupid. How much she knew, he couldn’t be sure. He told her not to ask any questions and to remain out of sight as much as possible.
She had asked him to leave with her on her last trip, to go back to Costa Rica and to live with her and her children there. For Nitikin it was strange. For the first time in recent memory, he actually wanted to go. But by then it was too late. Alim and his men had arrived with money for the FARC rebels and funds for the cartel in Mexico. Alim knew about the device. Nitikin was trapped.
For himself he did not care. Living and hiding with the bomb had been the purpose of his life for so many years that it no longer mattered. But he loved Maricela and did not want her harmed.
He had stalled for time, hoping Alim would allow her to leave, to go back home to her family. Twice he had asked Alim to permit men from the FARC whom he trusted to see her home safely and twice Alim had put him off. Nitikin had already told Maricela that if they permitted her to go, she was never to return to visit him again, under any circumstance. Though the thought crushed his heart, he would say good-bye to his daughter and never lay eyes on her again in this life. Yakov Nitikin knew he was a dead man. If age did not take him soon, Alim would, the moment his usefulness ended and his knowledge became a burden.
TWENTY-TWO
If the study of crime is a science, its first rule of physics is the law of opportunity. Every cop on the beat will do two things first: nail down the time frame for the crime, and then cast his net over the universe of possible suspects and start trolling for calendars.
If you kept your appointments, and your social agenda for the evening didn’t include sticking knives in Emerson Pike, they would cross your name off the list.
When they are done, the police will zero in on the names that are left, concentrating on people like me who don’t have an alibi for the night in question. It may not be rocket science, but it works.
I have scoured my calendars, the one at work as well as my personal Outlook file from my smartphone, the cellular I carry on my belt. There are no entries on either for the night that Pike was killed, nothing but blank space. I have gone so far as to check my phone records to see if I might have made calls from the house or my cell phone during the period that the police believe the crimes were committed, a rough ninety-minute time frame between nine and ten thirty. I am left to conclude that after hours I lead a dull life. I could find nothing.
Some people would at least slap their computers around, send an e-mail to a friend. Generally I don’t even do that. If I’m not prepping for a case, I’m reading or watching a movie on cable. With my daughter, Sarah, away at college, widowed and living alone as I do, unless a nosy neighbor peeked at me through a window, I have no way of proving where I was that night.