The slice of pizza was oozing cheese and red sauce through the flimsy napkin. I unfolded my legs and found a plate to put it on, wiped up the tabletop. “I know it’s heresy for a Chicagoan, but I don’t like deep dish. My mother was from Umbria. Thin crust, minimalist toppings. It’s still your turn to explain why you showed up there right after the sheriff arrived. Give me a more entertaining story than a friend of a commanding officer’s second cousin knew you were in the area.”

“That part is true,” Baggetto said. “Before Sea-2-Sea bought the land from the air force, they had it tested. Their crew didn’t turn up any traces of radioactivity. That should have been the end of the story, but you know how it is—people talk. Bram Roswell got worried: if people started thinking that Sea-2-Sea was selling radioactive crops, the company could go toes-up.

“Roswell called the air force, who did a more thorough inspection, going through the silo inch by inch. They found a cylinder with spent fuel rods in it. Do not ask me what that was doing at an abandoned missile base. It didn’t belong there to begin with: nukes aren’t like reactors—they’re not actively generating power, they don’t require fuel rods. Dumping the rods there looked like malicious vandalism by someone who had access to a nuclear facility, either weapons manufacture or a power plant. Before we could analyze them to see where the rods came from, the cylinder disappeared. We’re terrified, frankly.”

“Disappeared from where?” I asked. “Surely the air force’s technical experts didn’t leave the cylinder lying where they found it.”

Baggetto rubbed his neck, buying time: debating how much truth to reveal or what lie to tell.

“They found it on the base. They thought they could leave it inside the silo, which is essentially impregnable without a crane and three different keys. You know. You tried the door when you were there this morning.”

“Without your special knowledge of the number of keys it would take to open,” I said. “But back to the rods—they’re spent, so why are they dangerous?”

“Oh, that.” He made an impatient gesture—even though he knew nothing about nukes, that was apparently a primitive level of knowledge that even kindergartners possess. “Spent rods are still radioactive. They don’t generate enough power to build a big bomb or run a plant, but you could do a lot of damage with them. Just look at Fukushima.”

“So you’re here to find out who walked off with the rods?” I asked.

“My goal is twofold: to find the cylinder and to keep it quiet so we don’t start a public panic,” he warned.

“Okay, I won’t put it on Facebook. I’ll just get a Geiger counter for my next trip to McKinnon’s farm.”