The First Deputy Chairman thought about that for a few seconds. "Poor Ivan'ch, you are an honest man."

"I am a frightened man," the colonel replied.

"Back to Germany."

"Yes. Of the people we suspect were part of the DDK bomb project, three are unaccounted for. All three men and their families are gone. The rest have found other work. Two could possibly be involved in nuclear research with weapons applications, but again, how does one tell? Where is the dividing line between peaceful physics and weapons-related activity? I do not know."

"The three missing ones?"

"One is definitely in South America. The other two are merely missing. I am recommending that we launch a major operation to examine what's happening in Argentina."

"What about the Americans " Golovko mused.

"Nothing definite. I expect they're as much in the dark as we are." The colonel paused. "It is difficult to see how they would have an interest in wider proliferation of nuclear weapons. It's contrary to their government policy."

"Explain Israel, then."

"The Israelis obtained nuclear material from the Americans over twenty years ago, plutonium from their Savannah River plant, and enriched uranium from a depot in Pennsylvania. In both cases the transfers were apparently illegal. The Americans themselves launched an investigation. They believe that the Israeli Mossad pulled off one of the greatest operations in history, aided by Jewish American citizens in sensitive positions. There was no prosecution. What evidence they had came from sources that could not be revealed in court, and it was deemed politically inadvisable to reveal security leaks in so sensitive a government activity. Everything was handled quietly. The Americans and Europeans have been lax in selling nuclear technology to various countries - capitalism at work, there is a huge amount of money involved - but we made the same mistake with China and Germany, did we not? No," the colonel concluded. "I do not believe the Americans have any more interest in seeing German-made nuclear weapons than we do."

"Next step?"

"I don't know, General. We've run all our leads down as well as we can without risk of detection. I think we need to look at activity in South America. Next, some careful inquiries within the German military establishment to see if there is any indication of a nuclear program there."

"If there were, we'd have known by now." Golovko frowned. "Good Lord, did I really say that? What delivery systems are likely?"

"Aircraft. There is no need for ballistic launchers. From Eastern Germany to Moscow is not all that far. They know our air-defense capabilities, don't they? We left enough of our equipment behind."

"Pyotr, just how much more good news will you leave me this afternoon?"

The colonel smiled very grimly indeed. "Nu, and all those Western fools are rhapsodizing about how safe the world has become."

The sintering process for the tungsten-rhenium was simplicity itself. They used a radio-frequency furnace much like a microwave oven. The metallic powder was poured into a mold and slid into the furnace for heating. After it became dazzlingly white hot - unfortunately not hot enough actually to melt the tungsten, which had a very high thermal tolerance - pressure was applied, and the combination of heat and pressure formed it into a mass that while not quite metallically solid was firm enough to treat as such. A total of twelve curved sections were made one after the other. They required machining to modest tolerances of shape and smoothness, and were set aside on their own section of shelving installed in the fabrication plant.