“I was expecting more people,” he said.
“I am authorized,” said the man in clear English.
Waller noted the sheen of perspiration on his face, the way his eyes wandered the room. And then the Arab snapped his attention back to Waller and Rice.
“HEU,” said the man.
“Highly enriched uranium,” said Waller.
“How can you get it?”
Waller looked puzzled. “This has already been explained.”
“Explain again.”
“The HEU Purchase Agreement between Russia and the United States signed in 1993,” began Waller in a monotone as though set to lecture a class. “It’s a way for the Russians to dismantle their stockpile of nuclear weapons, reduce the uranium to a form that can be used in nuclear reactors and other nonweapon processes. I can bore you with terms like uranium hexafluoride, depleted uranium tails, blendstock, and the like, but the bottom line is the Russians had five hundred tons of HEU they agreed to sell to the Americans. Thus far the Yanks have received about four hundred tons, averaging thirty tons per year. The entire process is monitored by both sides except for the initial dismantling and separation of the HEU metal weapons component from the rest of the nuclear weapon. The Russians perform this initial step on their own. In so doing, it allows certain people with contacts inside this process to help themselves to a bit of nuclear gold.”
“And you have such contacts?” asked the man.
Again, Waller looked perplexed. “If I didn’t I can’t think of a reason why I would be here negotiating with you.” He held up his cell phone. “One call can verify that I do.”
“How much are we talking about?”
“For the weapons or the quantity of HEU?”
“HEU.”
Waller noted that the man was rubbing his fingers together a bit too fiercely. He caught Waller looking at this movement, and the hand disappeared under the table.
“Five hundred tons of the material can be used to arm roughly thirty thousand nuclear warheads, or about as many as the Soviets possessed at the height of the cold war. My contacts can smuggle me two hundred pounds of HEU. That’s enough for two warheads that could devastate a large city or be used to arm a number of smaller improvised devices that can be deployed against multiple targets.”
“So it is very valuable?”
“Let’s put it this way. Iran is spending billions of dollars as we speak to build the facilities, technology, and processes to ultimately achieve what I’m offering to sell to you tonight. The only thing more valuable on earth might be plutonium, but that is impossible to get.”
The Muslim sat forward abruptly. “So the price?”
Waller looked at Rice once more and then back at the man. “And you say you’re authorized to make an agreement?”
“To paraphrase you, I wouldn’t be here if I was not.”
“And your name?”
“Unimportant. The price?”
“Two hundred million British pounds wired to my account.”
Waller was about to say something else when the man said, “Agreed.”
Waller glanced down at the Muslim’s midsection and then sniffed the air. He dropped his cell phone and bent down to pick it up. The next moment Rice fell backward as Waller lifted up the table and pushed it on top of the Muslim. He grabbed Rice’s arm and screamed to his men, “Run!”
The next instant Rice felt himself being flung through a window. A jagged edge caught him on the leg, tore his pants, and then bit into his thigh. Something landed on top of him, driving the wind from him. Then he was jerked up and pulled along, his breath coming in gasps, his injured leg bleeding badly.
The concussive force of the house exploding hurled him ass over head. Debris poured down, even as he felt Waller covering him with his own body, the older man breathing in strained bursts. Once the boards, bricks, shattered glass, and the odd piece of furniture stopped falling, Waller and Rice slowly sat up.
“What the hell,” began Rice as he clutched his injured leg.
Waller rose and dusted off his clothes. “The idiot was a suicide bomber.”