The Colonel shook his head. "No. But the most credible is that our man stumbled into something both real and extremely sensitive. Sensitive enough to kill for. A secret nuclear-weapons program is that sensitive, is it not?"

"Arguably, yes." The Colonel was showing the sort of loyalty to his people that KGB expected, Golovko noted.

He was also thinking over the alternatives and presenting his best estimate of the situation.

"Have you sent your technical people to Sarova yet?"

"Day after tomorrow. My best man was sick, just got out of the hospital - broke his leg in a fall down some stairs."

"Have him carried there if necessary. I want a worst-case estimate of plutonium production at the DDK power stations. Send another man to Kyshtym to back-check the people at Sarova. Pull in the other people you sent to Germany. We'll restart the investigation more carefully. Two-man teams, and the backup man is to be armed that is dangerous." Golovko said on reflection.

"General, it takes a lot of time and money to train my field people. I will need two years to replace Feodorov, two whole years. You can't just pull an officer out of another branch and drop him into this line of work. These people must understand what they are looking for. Assets like that should be protected."

"You are correct. I will clear it with the Chairman and send experienced officers maybe some people from the Academy credential them like German police officials ?"

"I like that, Sergey Nikolay'ch."

"Good man, Pavel Ivan'ch. And on Feodorov?"

"Maybe he'll turn up. Thirty days before he's declared missing, then I'll have to see his wife. Very well, I'll pull my people in and start planning the next phase of the operation. When will I have a list of the escort officers?"

"Tomorrow morning."

"Very well, General, thank you for your time."

Golovko shook the man's hand and remained standing until the door closed. He had ten minutes until his next appointment.

"Damn," he said to his desktop.

"More delays?"

Fromm did not quite manage to hide his disgust. "We are saving time! The material we will be working on has machining characteristics similar to stainless steel. We must also manufacture blanks for the casting process. Here."

Fromm unfolded his working drawings.

"We have here a folded cylinder of plutonium. Around the plutonium. is a cylinder of beryllium, which is a godsend for our purposes. It is very light, very stiff, an X-ray window, and a neutron reflector. Unfortunately, it is also rather difficult to machine. We must use cubic boron-nitride tools, essentially an analog to industrial diamond. Steel or carbon tools would have results you do not wish to contemplate. We also have health considerations."

"Beryllium is not toxic," Ghosn said. "I checked."

"True, but the dust resulting from the machining process converts to beryllium oxide, which when inspired converts again to beryllium hydroxide, and that causes berylliosis, which is uniformly fatal." Fromm paused, staring at Ghosn like a schoolmaster before going on.