The Silent Man

Nasiji had asked Bernard to try again. And only yesterday, in a coded e-mail message, Bernard reported he’d made contact with a man who might be able to provide the stuff. But Nasiji wasn’t at all sure Bernard would come through. In the meantime, they’d have to plan on using a simpler material, something they could pick up in Rochester or Buffalo without attracting too much attention. Tungsten carbide would probably be too much for Bashir to forge. In the end, steel would probably have to do. With that thought, Nasiji spent several hours calculating the optimal thickness of a steel reflector.

The calculation was complex, but the necessary variables were available: the neutron multiplication number for steel, the average number of collisions before capture, the likelihood of a neutron emerging from a collision. He found in the end that the tamper ought to be about twenty centimeters thick — about what he would have guessed before he’d done any of the math.

Finally, he designed the uranium core and the steel tamper around it. Basically, the bomb would look like a cannonball with a hole on the top. They would weld the artillery barrel into the hole and then fire the uranium plug down the barrel into the hole. The plug would slide over the uranium core in the middle of the barrel, and— Boom.

At 3 a.m. that night, Nasiji was done. He had a basic design, not fancy, but a start. Bashir and Yusuf could get to work forging the molds for the reflector and the core.

WHEN NASIJI EMERGED from the stairs, blinking in the light of the kitchen, he expected to be alone. But they’d waited up for him. Tried to, anyway. Bashir dozed on a rickety wooden chair, a half-eaten plate of hummus and baked chicken on the table before him. Yusuf curled up on the rug under the kitchen table.

They jerked up as he walked in.

“It’s done,” Nasiji said.

“What’s done?” Bashir said, running a hand across his mouth to wipe away the sleep.

“I’ve finished the design.”

“But. you said last night it wasn’t possible.” This from Yusuf.

“I can’t guarantee it will work. We’ll see.” Over and over, Nasiji had run the numbers, tried to calculate whether the thirty-two kilos they had would be enough for a chain reaction inside a steel reflector. But the equations required a level of detail about the subatomic properties of iron and uranium that he didn’t have, and the math got messy. Forty kilos would be enough, he was sure. Twenty wouldn’t. Thirty-two? They wouldn’t know until they pulled the trigger.

24

A solid bronze knocker shaped like a lion sat in the center of the front door of Bernard Kygeli’s house. Wells swung the knocker against the heavy black wood, picked it up and clanged it again.

“Hullo! Anyone home!” he shouted. “It’s Roland.”

“Ja?” a woman’s voice said. Then a few questions in German. A woman’s face, framed by a headscarf, peeked out at Wells. He was dressed for the occasion, holding a briefcase and wearing black gloves and a new gray suit he’d bought at the fancy department store downtown.

“I don’t speak German. Sprechen Deutsch nicht! And I’m freezing my stones off out here.” Wells was hardly exaggerating. For days, the weather in Hamburg and Warsaw had been miserable, a hard wind driving sheets of rain and sleet horizontally through the streets. Wells knocked again, hard. “Stupid woman. Is Helmut home?”

“Helmut?” The door opened a notch, revealing a middle-aged woman who wore a long-sleeved jacket that was tailored, black with gold filigree, modest but stylish. Wells put his shoulder to the door and popped it open. Its edge caught the woman and she stumbled back and dropped to a knee. Wells stepped inside and shoved the door shut. The woman yelled at him in German, less frightened than angry. He pulled her up, a hand under her elbow, and put a finger to his lips.

“Shh! I’m not here to hurt you.” Wells wasn’t sure what he would do if the woman didn’t quiet down. But she did. Her stare was angry but not quite furious, as if she thought he might have the right to enter the house.

“Where’s Helmut? Upstairs?” Wells pointed at the stairs.

“Helmut—” she pointed at the door.

“What about Bernard?”

“Bernard—” again at the door.

“Good, then,” Wells said. “Now be a decent girl and get me a Hefeweizen.” He pantomimed raising a bottle to his lips. Once again, Wells found the character of Roland Albert, beryllium-dealing Rhodesian mercenary, only too easy to take on. A shrink, or Exley, would no doubt have a field day watching him put his conscience aside for an hour and order this woman around. Bad guys had all the fun.

“Hefeweizen? Bier? Nein.”

“Right. You people don’t drink. Fine. I’ll make myself at home then.” Wells reached into his suit pocket, found the handcuffs he’d tucked inside it, then reconsidered. “Whyn’t you show me around? Otherwise I’ll have to hook you to a doorknob or some such nonsense.” Wells pantomimed that he wanted to look around the house.

She seemed to understand and walked beside him as he wandered through the first floor. She was far more relaxed than most American or European women would be under similar circumstances. Wells had seen this passivity before in women in Afghanistan. As far as he could tell, the attitude came both from fatalism and a deep- in-the-bones understanding that whatever Wells wanted with her husband was men’s business and didn’t include her. The average self-respecting Western woman would have a very hard time reaching the same conclusion.

The house was expensively furnished, Persian rugs, wood-paneled walls, leather couches and bookcases loaded with texts in German and Turkish. But there were no photographs or art of any kind, aside from a few framed Quranic verses and a single photo of the Kaaba, the black stone at the center of Mecca. The lack of artwork was a sign of Bernard’s piety. Observant Muslims believed that the Quran forbade the display of images, which competed unnecessarily with Allah’s majesty. That prohibition didn’t apply to televisions. A massive Sony flat-panel was tacked to the living room wall.

Bernard’s wife — Wells still didn’t know her name — acted up only once, when Wells started to open a door at the back of the living room. “Nein,” she said. She wagged a finger at him. “Verboten.”

“Verboten? You funning me?” Wells pressed on the door’s handle. Locked, with a simple push-button mechanism. He slipped a credit card from his wallet and popped it.

Inside, a small office, neatly organized, two file cabinets and a fine brown desk, a map of the world with shipping routes outlined from Hamburg to Istanbul and Lagos and Accra and Cape Town and Dubai, though none to the United States. Two thick leather-bound volumes with ships etched into their covers, one called Seerecht, the other Gesetz von der See. Wells figured they had something to do with maritime law. A coffee cup with the logo of the Penn State University soccer team, the Nittany Lions. Wells picked it up, looked at it curiously, set it down. A fancy pen-and-pencil set. The base for an IBM ThinkPad, though the laptop itself was nowhere in sight. A handful of papers stacked in a tray. Wells leafed through them, finding nothing of interest except a bill from a New York law firm, Snyder, Gonzalez, and Lein—$32,000 for “insurance recovery.” Bernard’s wife watched him crossly from the doorway. Evidently she’d been warned never to enter the office.

Wells tugged on the filing cabinets and was slightly surprised when they opened. Inside, neat rows of hanging folders, stacked by year. One cabinet appeared to have nothing but German tax records, the other invoices for shipments and customs forms. No nuclear weapons blueprints, though the tax forms were plenty frightening. Wells lifted the cabinets, wiggled them forward an inch and peeked behind them, ran his hand under the desk, then ducked his head under it to examine its bottom for hidden compartments. He pulled the map off the wall, checked for a safe. Nothing anywhere. The floor and walls seemed solid, though he’d need much more time to be sure and he didn’t want to press his luck. The real prize was the computer and Bernard was keeping that close. “Let’s go,” he said. He left the door to the office open, but Bernard’s wife closed it.

In the living room, Wells sat on the couch, stretched his feet on the glass coffee table. From his new