to take down anything Horn might instruct her to. She ignored the Arabs
completely, her attention on Horn's eyepatch.
Jalloud said, 'Herr Horn, allow me to introduce my companions. To my
right is Major Ilyas Karami, senior military adviser to Our Esteemed
Leader. He is understandably out of uniform.'
The tall, mustached Arab wearing robes stood and nodded solemnly.
'To my left,' Jalloud continued, 'is Dr. Hamid Sabri, our nuclear
physicist. Do not let his youth mislead you. In ou country he is the
preeminent expert in his field.'
A bookish young man wearing a business suit stood and bowed his head.
'And finally,' Jalloud concluded, 'All Jumah, my personal interpreter.
He speaks excellent German and humbly waits to serve you.'
'Excellent,' Horn said in German. Until now they had all spoken a very
uncomfortable.English.
'And I,' the robed Arab said proudly, 'am Abdul Salam Jalloud, prime
minister of my country.'
'Of course,' Horn said ' 'Do you mind if I smoke?'
Instantly the Arabs brought out packs of American cigarettes and lit up.
Horn accepted an Upmann cigar from Smuts's@ pocket supply. As Smuts lit
the cigar, Horn noticed a rectangular swatch of color emblazoned on
Major Karami's gold lighter. A solid field of blue-green-the flag of
Libya. A military man to his bones, Horn thought. The homeland is
never far from his mind. A quick glance at Smuts told Horn that his
security chief had also noticed the lighter.
'Perhaps you gentlemen should begin by stating your requirements,' Horn
suggested. 'That should give us a clear idea of where we stand.'
Jailoud yielded the floor to Dr. Sabri, the physicist. The
bespectacled young Libyan spoke soft, precise Arabic.
Jumah the interpreter translated whenever he paused for breath.
'What we need,' Dr. Sabri began, 'is fissile material. Either highly
enriched uranium (U-235) or plutonium (Pu-239). We need as much of
either isotope as you can supply, both if possible. At the very least,
we need fifteen kilograms of uranium or five kilograms of plutonium. By
'highly enriched' I mean uranium enriched to at least eighty percent
purity. Anything less is useless to us. We also need triggers@ither
lens or krytron types-and sculpted steel support tubes.'
He paused nervously. 'These are our requirements,' he concluded, and
resumed his seat.
When the interpreter's voice faded, there was silence in the room.
The Libyans, watching Horn closely, failed to notice the shock whiten
Ilse's face as she realized the implications of the young scientist's
words. She had not seen the Libyan flag emblazoned on Major Karami's
lighter, and even if she had, she wouldn't have recognized it. But she
knew enough science to understand that these men were discussing atomic
weapons. It took all of her willpower to remain seated and silent.
She watched the remainder of the meeting through a gauzy haze of
unreality, like someone who has stumbled onto the scene of a bloody
traffic accident. Alfred Horn, however, watched the Libyans as affably
as if he were negotiating the price of Arabian horses.
Prime Minister Jalloud finally broke the silence. 'We are prepared to
pay any reasonable price for these items, Herr Horn. In the currency of
your choice, of course. Dinars, dollars, pounds, marks, ECUS, rand ...
even gold bullion. The question is, are these items available at any
price? Do you actually have access to them?'
Alfred Horn smiled. This was the moment he had been waiting for-not for
weeks or months or years, but for decades. For a lifetime.
He could barely suppress the excitement he felt on the threshold of
realizing his life's work.
'Gentlemen,' he said softly. 'Allow me to be frank.'
The Libyans nodded and leaned forward. Ilse held her breath, praying
she would awaken from the nightmare.
Pieter Smuts remained impassive as ever, his gray eyes glued to his
master's face.
'For over a decade,' said Horn, 'your leader has sought to obtain
nuclear weapons. He has attempted to develop a manufacturing capability
in your home country, and also to purchase weapons ready-made from other
nations. The first avenue proved impossible; students from your country
aren't even allowed to study nuclear physics in the great universities
of the world. And the second option, while theoretically possible, has
proved to be an embarrassing circus of bribery, scandal, and hoaxes. The
Chinese sent you packing in 'seventy-nine. India backed out of a
proposed deal and refused to fulfill her obligations to you, even after
you cut oil shipments to New Delhi by one million tons. Belgium yielded
to U.S. pressure, and Brazil has refused to give any valuable
assistance, in spite of the fact that you sold them massive amounts of
arms in 'eighty-two . .
The Arabs tensed in fury, but Horn continued reeling off his grocer's
list of Libyan misadventures in a voice that was its own arbiter of
truth. Finally Prime Minister Jalloud, white with indignation, rose
from his chair.
'We did not come here to be insulted, sir! If you have nothing but
words for us, there are other suppliers!'
'Like Edwin Wilson?' Horn countered. 'And his grubby Belgian
compatriot Armand Donnay? The uranium they offered you might-I.say
might-have been worth using as nose-weights for jets, but I doubt it.
You'rr lucky you had young Sabri to recognize Wilson's proposition as
garbage.'
The young physicist nodded modestly, but Major Karami said, 'Perhaps we
planned to irradiate their uranium at our Tajoura reactor, to produce
plutonium for a weapon of our own.'
Dr. Sabri's sarcastic expression instantly undercut this feeble attempt
to save face.
'Gentlemen,' Horn said soothingly, 'I did not bring you here to insult
you. I merely state these facts so that the true basis of our
negotiations will be plain, and so that you will understand the
necessity of paying the price I ask.'
The mention of money placated the Arabs somewhat. It suggested that the
man in the wheelchair-whatever his opinion of them-might actually have
access to the materials they had come to purchase. And that was all
