With that, Sir Guy LaRoque turned away and walked with a heavy heart toward his horse. The trustworthy men of the Red Order of the Knights Hospitaller followed.

It had begun.

Chapter Fifty-two

Chapter Fifty-Two

The Warehouse

Baltimore, Maryland

June 15, 3:57 a.m. EST

The big screen above Circe’s MindReader console flashed white and then was filled by the bland face of Mr. Church. Rudy saw Circe’s posture immediately stiffen and the muscles at the corners of her jaw tightened. He wondered if Church noticed it too. And if so, did he care.

“Let’s jump right in,” said Church. “Aunt Sallie tells me that you have problems with the content of the drive. Tell me.”

“First,” interrupted Rudy, “Is Joe okay?”

“He says so,” said Church.

“Yes, but is he?”

“I haven’t had time to personally give him a physical, Dr. Sanchez.”

Rudy held his ground. “I expect a more complete answer as soon as possible.”

“Noted,” Church said with a small twitch of his mouth.

“What do we know about the nukes?” said Circe.

Church smiled faintly. “Based on the photos Rasouli provided, they appear to be Teller–Ulams. We’re running extensive searches through intelligence agencies in thirty countries to see if we can get a line on who might have built them.”

“Can’t a person simply go online and download instructions for making them?” asked Rudy.

“You watch too many movies, Doctor. These are sophisticated and complex machines, and it takes a great deal of skill, the proper equipment, and genuine experts to do it right. From the photos it’s clear that the casings are commercially manufactured, or rather were during the Cold War. These casings are late 1980s, and less than five hundred of this design were made.”

“Five hundred?” echoed Rudy.

“A conservative estimate places the number of active nukes in the world at eight thousand,” said Circe.

“That estimate is very conservative,” said Church. “We know who bought this model openly or through standard military appropriations. We have decades of intelligence and, in some cases, mutual sharing of information. My guess is that we will find that most or all of those devices will be accounted for: still active, mothballed, or dismantled and the parts tracked. The problem is complicated by the fact that fifty-six of these devices were in the Republic of Kazakhstan, and after it became separated from Russia, we have not been able to verify the location or disposition of a third of those devices. This has become a typical, though increasingly frightening, state of affairs since the end of the Cold War.”

“There’s a second problem,” added Circe. “Most of the superpowers have many more devices than have ever appeared on inventories, because they do not want them counted. Nuclear arms limitations agreements, as well intentioned as they are, have driven some countries into policies of secrecy that are truly frightening.”