“I was doing some diving off the coast of Japan and got hit by a boat. Spent some time in a coma as a John Doe in a hospital near the coast.”

It wasn’t a perfect cover story, but so far everyone was buying it.

“Jesus, man. I’m sorry. Not as bad as that time I went overboard in the strait, though. At least the Sea of Japan’s warm.”

Smith grinned by way of response. Maple was a naval academy graduate and former sub driver who had gone on to get a PhD in nuclear engineering. Now he consulted for various defense contractors designing the power plants for a variety of seagoing weapons systems. If anyone understood the ways atomic containment could fail, it was Greg Maple.

“Hey, what do you say I take you to lunch, Jon? Celebrate your narrow escape from the Grim Reaper?”

“Sounds great,” Smith said, holding up the briefcase gripped in his good hand. “But before that, I was hoping you could look at something for me.”

“Sure. What is it?”

“First, you have to agree that this is just between us.”

“Okay.”

“Seriously, Greg. You can’t talk to anyone about this. Not your wife, not your mother, not your priest. Are we clear?”

“Jesus, Jon. Fine. Scout’s honor.”

Smith handed him the case and he was about to open it when Smith stopped him. “It’s radioactive.”

“Radioactive? A little out of your wheelhouse, isn’t it?”

“Let’s just say I’m branching out.”

“Okay. No problem.”

They walked to the other end of the lab and Maple put the briefcase into a lead glass enclosure. He used a couple of joysticks to control the mechanical arms inside with impressive precision. A moment later the latches were popped and the case was open.

“It looks like garbage,” he said, raising the bag of debris and laying it on a small platform.

“It’s steel, concrete, and plastic,” Smith said. “Try to break it. Hit it with something.”

Maple glanced at him, a little confused, but then he used the mechanical claw to tap a piece of concrete about the size of a golf ball. It immediately crumbled. Similar tests on the steel and plastic provided the same results.

“What happened to it?” Maple asked.

“You tell me.”

He put a few pieces of debris on a tray. “Let’s take a look through the scope.”

There was a monitor and keyboard next to the joysticks and Maple punched in a few commands. A moment later a hazy image came up.

“This is the steel,” Maple said, tapping the screen. “High-quality stuff. But look to the left where the texture changes. Let’s zoom in a little more.”

Oddly, as the magnification increased the image came into better focus. What had looked like haze from a distance read as countless individual pockmarks up close.

“Hello…” Maple said, squinting at the image.