PU-239 and Other Russian Fantasies

PU-239 and Other Russian Fantasies Read Free Page A

Book: PU-239 and Other Russian Fantasies Read Free
Author: Ken Kalfus
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existence of the city, a scientific complex established by the military, had once been so secret that it was left undocumented on the Red Army’s own field maps. Even its name, which was meant to indicate that it lay sixteen kilometers from the original Skotoprigonyevsk, was a deception: the two cities were nearly two hundred kilometers apart. Without permission from the KGB, it had been impossible to enter or leave 16. Until two years earlier, Timofey had never been outside, not once in twenty-three years. He now realized, as he would have realized if he hadn’t been so distracted by the events of the past week, that it wasn’t enough to find a criminal. He needed someone with brains, someone who had read a newspaper in the last five years.
    “Now look at the other papers. See, this is my pass to the Strategic Production Facility.”
    “Comrade,” Shiv said sarcastically, “if you think I’m buying some fancy documents—”
    “Listen to me. My unit’s principal task is the supply of the strategic weapons force. Our reactor produces Pu-239
as a fission by-product for manufacture into warheads. These operations have been curtailed, but the reactors must be kept functioning. Decommissioning them would be even more costly than maintaining them—and we can’t even do that properly.” Timofey’s voice fell to an angry whisper. “There have been many lapses in the administration of safety procedure.”
    Timofey looked intently at Shiv, to see if he understood. But Shiv wasn’t listening; he didn’t like to be lectured and especially didn’t like to be told to read things, even identity papers. The world was full of men who knew more than Shiv did, and he hated each one of them. A murderous black cloud rose from the stained orange carpeting at his feet and occulted his vision. The more Timofey talked, the more Shiv wanted to hurt him. But at the same time, starting from the moment he heard the name Skotoprigonyevsk-16, Shiv gradually became aware that he was onto something big, bigger than anything he had ever done before. He was nudged by an incipient awareness that perhaps it was even too big for him.
    In flat, clipped sentences, Timofey spoke: “There was an accident. I was contaminated. I have a wife and child, and nothing to leave them. This is why I’m here.”
    “Don’t tell me about your wife and child. You can fuck them both to hell. I’m a businessman.”
    For a moment, Timofey was shocked by the violence in the young man’s voice. But then he reminded himself that, in coming to Moscow for the first time in twentyfive years, he had entered a country where violence was the most stable and valuable currency. Maybe this was
the right guy for the deal after all. There was no room for sentimentality.
    He braced himself. “All right then. Here’s what you need to know. I have diverted a small quantity of fissile material. I’m here to sell it.”
    Shiv removed his handkerchief again and savagely wiped his nose. He had a cold, Timofey observed. Acute radiation exposure severely compromised the immune system, commonly leading to fatal bacterial infection. He wondered if the hoodlum’s germs were the ones fated to kill him.
    Timofey said, “Well, are you interested?”
    To counteract any impression of weakness given by the handkerchief, Shiv tugged a mouthful of smoke from his cigarette.
    “In what?”
    “Are you listening to anything I’m saying? I have a little more than three hundred grams of weapons-grade plutonium. It can be used to make an atomic bomb. I want thirty thousand dollars for it.”
    As a matter of principle, Shiv laughed. He always laughed when a mark named a price. But a chill seeped through him as far down as his testicles.
    “It will fetch many times that on the market. Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea all have nuclear weapons programs, but they don’t have the technology to produce enriched fissile material. They’re desperate for it; there’s no price Saddam Hussein

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