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any nukes based on their territory, or if they did, the warheads and arming codes were under firm Russian control. Other states, like Kazakhstan, inherited part of the arsenal but pledged to renounce nuclear weapons. But there were still others, like Ukraine, that felt they needed to keep the nukes based on their territory to maintain their newfound independence, just in case the Russian bear gets hungry again.”
    â€œHell,” MacKenzie said, “even if one of the new governments promises to disassemble all of the weapons it controlled, how could such a promise possibly be monitored?”
    â€œEven more dangerous, though,” Murdock continued, “you have an awful lot of very desperate people running around in a state that has collapsed to near anarchy in some areas. Much of the modern Russian economy—and that means a lot of the government—is controlled by the Russian mafia. It’s an open secret that half a million hard-currency dollars will buy you a small nuke on the weapons black market. And there are generals and scientists and technicians, all of them with access to nukes and all of them knowing that pretty soon they’re not going to have a job. The temptation to sell a few weapons here and there, maybe to some guy from Iran or Libya, must be overwhelming in cases like that.
    â€œAnyway, one of the major nightmares of the people back in the Pentagon whose job it is to think about such things is the one about how easy it will be to slip a small nuclear device into a major U.S. port aboard a freighter, an oil tanker, even a pleasure boat. It wouldn’t even have to be an atomic bomb. A few pounds of plutonium, stolen from a breeder reactor facility somewhere, or purchased from North Korea and scattered on the winds or the waves by a charge of conventional high explosives, could poison hundreds, even thousand of square miles. If that happened inside a major city . . .”
    â€œPlutonium is more than a component of an atomic bomb,” Inge said. “It is the single most toxic substance known to man.”
    â€œAffirmative,” Murdock said. “And if you do have the wherewithal to build a bomb, you don’t need a hell of a lot of the stuff. Modern nukes aren’t quite small enough to fit inside a suitcase . . . but they’re terrifyingly close.”
    â€œI have heard,” Hopke said, “that a bright chemistry student might be able to extract the necessary radioactives to construct a small A-bomb.”
    â€œTheoretically,” Murdock said, nodding. “Still, the preferred method of nuclear-club wannabe states like Libya and of terrorists worldwide is to steal the stuff . . . or to buy it from people who aren’t choosy about who they sell it to. Like some rogue ex-Soviet army officer who’s hard up for cold cash. Or fun states like North Korea.”
    â€œIs that what this Maverick Lance report is about?” Hopke asked. “Someone is trying to smuggle plutonium?”
    â€œOh, we know they’re smuggling plutonium, Lieutenant,” Murdock said. A Maverick Lance alert was part of the ongoing attempt by U.S. military and other government authorities to keep track of the world black market in stolen nuclear material and, where possible, to stop it. “In fact, it’s damned scary just how many groups are involved in the traffic right now. We’re here to try to find out just what it is they’re planning to do with it. The Maverick Lance alert was called because the CIA has identified several North Korean agents operating in Europe, and we think they’re part of the plutonium pipeline.”
    Inge frowned. “So you in America are of the opinion that the North Koreans and the Red Army Faction are all working together somehow? To what end?”
    â€œThat,” Murdock said, “is what we would very much like to know.”
    â€œPerhaps you should tell us, Lieutenant,” Hopke said quietly,