The Saudi accepted the translation with a preoccupied nod. He muttered something to the secretary, who said: “He asks how large?”
“How much radioactive waste would be required?”
“He says to you a tenth of a short ton to start with.”
“Where would he want it delivered?”
“At a site to be specified in Afghanistan.”
“I would need to consult my associates before setting a price. Off the top of my head, I should think we are talking about something in the neighborhood of a million dollars U.S., a down payment in cash when I have located the spent pits, the rest to be paid into a numbered account in an offshore bank.”
“He asks is it so that nuclear bombs can be fitted into something the size of a common valise.”
“He’s referring to what the Americans have designated the MK-47. The Soviets are said to have constructed several hundred of these devices. Imagine something shaped like an army canteen, only larger, roughly the size of a bulging valise, with an automobile gas cap on the top and two metal handles on either side. Because of its size and mobility, the nuclear device can be easily smuggled into a target city and exploded by a crude timing mechanism. The MK-47s contain twenty-two pounds of uranium which, when exploded, is equivalent to one thousand tons of conventional TNT, one twentieth the size of the first Hiroshima atomic bomb.”
“He asks about the shelf life of these valise-bombs.”
“The Russians have been miniaturizing their nuclear payloads since the mid 1980s. Whatever they have in their stockpiles could be expected to function for ten to fifteen years.”
“He wants to know if such a valise-bomb can be acquired?”
“For obvious reasons, the Russian military keep these devices under lock and key, with a high degree of command and control accountability. But if someone were to offer an enormous sum of money, plus safe passage out of Russia for the seller, it is conceivable that something might be worked out.”
“He asks how much money is an enormous sum.”
“Again, off the top of my head, I would say something in the neighborhood of three to five million U.S for each valise-bomb.”
The Saudi sank back into the cushion fastened to the wall behind him and scratched absently at his upper arm and his ribs. Lincoln noticed that the Saudi was sweating despite the chill in the room; that the sweat on his brow seemed to crystalize into a fine white powder.
“He says to you that for the time being we will concentrate on the spent plutonium or uranium pits. He says that nobody can say what the future holds. Perhaps one day he will raise the subject of the valise-bomb again with you.”
Lincoln smiled and nodded. “It’s your call.”
There was a large glass bowl filled with fruit, and another overflowing with nuts, near the Saudi. He pointed first to one and then the other with a hand turned palm up, offering something to eat to his guest. Lincoln reached out to help himself to some nuts.
“He notes that it turns cold at night out here,” the secretary translated. “He asks if you and your friend would like some herbal tea.”
Lincoln looked at Leroy over his shoulder and said, “He is offering us hot herbal tea.”
“Ask ’em if they got anythin’ slightly more alcoholic,” Leroy said.
“Leroy, these people don’t drink alcohol. It’s against their religion.”
“Goddamn. How can they expect folks to convert to a dry religion?”
The Saudi apparently caught the gist of Leroy’s remark because he replied in Arabic without waiting for the secretary to translate. The secretary said: “He tells the story of the czar who converted Russia to Christianity—it was near the end of the first millennium. Vladimir I of Kiev was tempted by Islam but decided against it because he did not think Russians could get through their cruel winters without something the Arab chemists who developed the technique of distillation called al-kuhl. History might have turned out differently if the Prophet had not abstained from alcohol—the long cold war would have been between Christianity and Islam.”
Lincoln said, “With the collapse of the Soviet Union, perhaps there will be another cold war—a new struggle for Jerusalem between the spiritual descendants of Richard the Lion Hearted and the heirs of the Sultan Saladin.”
Listening to the translation, the Saudi reached for a glass filled with water and, popping two large oval pills into his mouth, washed them down with a long swig. Lincoln watched his Adam’s apple bob in his long neck. Wiping his lips with the fabric on the back of a wrist, the Saudi said, in labored English, “A new struggle is surely a possibility.”
“You speak English?” Lincoln asked him directly.
The Saudi responded in Arabic and the secretary translated. “He says to you he speaks English as well as you speak Arabic.”
Lincoln grinned. “I understand four words of Arabic: Allah Akbar and Inch’Allah.”
“He compliments you. He says to you the person who understands only these four words grasps the heart of the holy Koran. He says to you there are pious men, descendants of the Prophet, who can recite all one hundred and fourteen suras from memory but do not hold in their hearts the significance of these four words.”
Lincoln looked at the Saudi. “Are you pious? Do you practice your religion?”
“He says to you he practices as much of it as needs to be practiced to be a faithful Muslim. He says to you that he resides in what Muslim’s call dar al-harb, the home of war; above all other things he practices jihad. He would have you know that waging war on behalf of Islam and Allah against the infidel is a Koranic obligation.”
Lincoln nodded at the Saudi, who inclined his head in a sign of esteem for the foreigner who appeared to respect him.
“What happened then?” Crystal Quest demanded when Lincoln, back in Washington, described the meeting at the training camp in the Brazilian mato graso.
“He threw questions at me for another twenty minutes and I fielded them. It was all very low keyed. At one point he got into a long discussion with the Egyptian, Daoud; for five or so minutes it was almost as if I didn’t exist. Then, without saying another word to me, the Saudi climbed to his feet and departed. I heard the motors of three or four cars kick into life behind the building and saw their headlights sweep into and out of the room as they headed deeper into the mato graso. Daoud signaled that the meeting had come to an end and ushered Leroy and me back to his Mercedes and we started back toward Foz do Iguaçú. The Egyptian told me I had made a good impression on the Saudi. He said I was to return to the United States and organize the purchase and delivery of the ammonium nitrate at mid month to an abandoned hangar off the Pulaski Skyway in New Jersey.” Lincoln produced a page that had been torn out of a lined notebook. “The address is written here.”
Quest snatched the scrap of paper. “What about the Saudi and his radioactive waste?” she asked.
“Daoud invited me to return to Boa Vista on the night of the new moon to meet the Saudi and organize with him the delivery of the two hundred pounds of spent plutonium.”
“Describe the Saudi again, Lincoln.”
“It’s all in my mission report. His name was never mentioned, either by Daoud or by the secretary translating for him at the meeting in Boa Vista. I would estimate he was roughly six foot five and in his middle thirties—”