Free Perilous Panacea by Ronald Klueh Page B

here,” Spanner said. “Besides, if I read you right, the stuff these people got is a lot easier to turn into bombs than a boat load of uranium ore. How much stuff was stolen, all totaled?”
    “Enough for fifteen, perhaps twenty atomic-type bombs,” Kraft said. “Hiroshima- or Nagasaki-type bombs.”
    “Twenty atomic bombs?”
    “It only takes fifteen pounds or so to make an atomic bomb,” Kraft said. “That assumes they know how to use the material efficiently, which is highly unlikely. They also got some other radioactive material they’ll have a hard time turning into bombs. In fact, if they’re not careful with it, it’ll burn them good.”
    “This is supposed to be 2011, not 1970,” Spanner said. “Back in the seventies, the Bureau and the old Atomic Energy Commission worried about somebody stealing nuclear material. These days, DOE has a security system second to none, invulnerable. At least that’s what you’ve been telling people.”
    Saul enjoyed watching Spanner cut through the bullshit. Although Saul hadn’t seen much of Spanner, he’d heard Harry Bryson’s story that Spanner, among others, had DOed— diversified out. According to Bryson, the diversity policy drove promotions at Spanner’s level, so most mid-level, middle-aged white men hit a dead end. Morale for most agents suffered when they discovered they’d topped out because older white men at the very top had to justify their professed diversity policy. Many of the DOed quit or retired. For Spanner, however, being DOed gave him freedom to deal head-on with the bureaucratic chicken shit that came down the pike.
    “Our security is excellent,” Kraft said. “We knew we had a few problems given the funding restrictions we’ve operated under the last couple of years.”
    “We don’t think they’re terrorists,” Logson said. “Or else we would have heard from them by now.”
    “They wouldn’t have had to steal that much material to pull a terrorist act,” Kraft said.
    Watching Kraft operate made Saul pull himself upright. Kraft’s upper body never moved. All business, hands resting on the table, he sat as if he had a steel rod shoved up his ass.
    “So it’s a foreign country, like my people,” Saul said, remembering to smile. Mary insisted a Jekyll-and-Hyde character hid in the intensity of his dark-brown, deep-set eyes, and his charm only broke through in the carefree youthfulness of the smiling curly haired boy that first attracted her to him. Critical comments by her seemed to come more frequently lately, perhaps because his smiles didn’t break through to her as often as they used to.
    Logson’s smile flickered. “I didn’t mean your people to be taken personally. We agree. Either a foreign agency is behind it, or some enterprise hijacked it to sell to a foreign country.”
    “Who: Iran? North Korea? Venezuela?”
    Logson shrugged. “We’ve got the CIA making discreet inquiries.”
    “You’ve what?” Spanner asked, almost coming out of his chair. “You called the CIA in before us, too?”
    “Well, if a foreign country’s involved…The White House suggested the CIA. Their man runs the agency.”
    After a brief silence, Kraft glanced at Saul, sighed, and spoke to Spanner. “George, you know it’s always like this in Washington. You’re asked to do a job, and then you don’t get the money to do it. Cost cutting is the latest bureaucratic buzzword. My budget was cut twenty percent since I took over two years ago. Before this happened, the administration talked about more cuts. I don’t have the people to do the job right. We protested, but nobody remembers that when something like this happens. If the media gets a hint of this, I’m through.”
    The bottom line, Saul thought. Kraft and Logson were stuck in the quagmire Uncle Nathan was trying to suck Saul into: a political career. Thanks to Uncle Nathan, Mary was already trapped. He should never have let her take the job on the Senator’s staff. As if he