Cali interrupted. “Hahn wasn’t a Nazi, and he refused to work on Germany’s nuclear bomb program, so when Einstein contacted him about Chester Bowie he made arrangements for Bowie’s return to the United States the fastest way possible — the airship Hindenburg.”
“Are you telling me he was on the Hindenburg when it exploded?”
Mercer nodded. “Which makes me think that maybe the conspiracy theorists are right and the zeppelin was sabotaged. Only it wasn’t about discrediting the Nazis, but about preventing Bowie from giving the sample of plutonium to Einstein.”
“Jesus,” Ira exclaimed. “Who? How?”
“My money’s on the Germans themselves and here’s why. In the last few pages of his diary Bowie said an officer came to his cabin. He killed the officer, believing that the Germans had found out who he was and weren’t going to let him off the airship. That’s when he wrote down his story and tucked it in the safe. He tied Einstein’s name to a tag on the outside and heaved it out the window. But what makes me think it was the Germans and Bowie wasn’t being paranoid is that the airship was delayed coming into Lakehurst because of a storm. But what if the captain was ordered to wait because the Nazi higher-ups were trying to think of a way to destroy it? I don’t know if you’re aware, but after the Hindenburg blew up the Germans refused to let anyone help clean up the debris. They sent over teams themselves to haul the zeppelin’s skeleton back to Germany. That could have been cover to find Bowie’s safe in the wreckage, only he was a step ahead of them and heaved it over the side above Waretown, New Jersey.”
“I think it was the Janissaries,” Cali offered. “I think they realized they’d made a mistake letting Bowie go in Brazzaville, somehow learned he was going to be on the Hindenburg, and had someone in the United States in place to take it out.”
Ira scratched his bald head. “I might have a third candidate, one that might squirrel all your theories.” He reached into the middle drawer of his desk and placed an item on the blotter.
Mercer recognized it at once. “That’s the bullet the old woman gave me in Africa.”
“I sent it to the FBI lab at Quantico,” Ira said. “This, my friend, isn’t a German round but a 7.65-by-25 shell casing from either a pistol or a PP Sh submachine gun, which if you aren’t aware, was the standard automatic weapon for the Soviet Army during World War Two.”
“The Soviets?” Mercer and Cali said as one and then fell silent.
Mercer hadn’t expected this at all. He was certain that it was the Germans who were after Bowie. As far as he knew the Soviet Union didn’t even have a nuclear program until spies infiltrated the Manhattan Project in the 1940s, so why would they want plutonium five years earlier? He was about to mention this when Cali spoke up.
“It makes perfect sense,” she said. “We know the Soviet Union had spies at Los Alamos, which is how they got the plans for the bomb. Stalin knew more about it than Truman when they met at Potsdam and the President mentioned we had a weapon that would end the war. What has never made sense to me and a lot of people who studied the history was how the Soviets were able to create their own bomb so soon after the Japanese surrender. Rather than the decades we expected to have nuclear dominance, we lost it in just four years.
“The entire western third of Russia had been devastated by the war,” Cali went on. “Whole cities were destroyed and millions of people were left homeless. The Soviets didn’t receive any of the aid we gave to Europe to rebuild. In fact they had to spend money to shore up their holdings in Eastern Europe. I know Stalin was a ruthless tyrant, but the economics don’t pan out. They didn’t have the resources to keep their people from starving while trying to rebuild their own country, occupy Eastern Europe all the way to Germany, and spend a hundred billion dollars building their own bomb. Even with the plans provided by Stalin’s spies, it takes a tremendous amount of sophistication and resources to refine fissionable materials.” She caught Mercer’s eye. “But what if he already had those materials? If the Russians had some of the ore, it would dramatically reduce the amount of time and the cost it would take to build an atomic bomb. They could easily do it in four years and still do everything else I mentioned.”
“Makes sense,” Ira said thoughtfully. “I’ve got a lot of contacts in Russia, and since the collapse they’ve been pretty forthcoming with information from the bad old days. I’ll ask around to see if what you surmise is true.” He looked at Mercer. “What about you? Where do you want to take this?”
“Cali spoke with her supervisor at NEST. We’ve got them tracing the disappearance of the Wetherby.”
“How do you know she disappeared?”
“Simple. Nowhere in the history books does it say Enrico Fermi experimented with plutonium ore in the 1930s, so he must have never received the samples, ergo the Wetherby vanished. Also I think someone should take a look at that stele Cali and I saw in Africa. There could be clues on it about how much ore Alexander’s people mined.”
“Is that important?” Ira asked. “I mean come on, we’re talking ancient history.”
“If we’re only right about Alexander possessing a radiological bomb or dispersal device, then I’d agree, but the Janissaries who nabbed Cali last night act as though the alembic is lying around for someone to find.”
“You told me over dinner that you think that part of the Central African Republic is still pretty hot. I don’t want to send a team in there unless you’re sure it’s important.”
Mercer silently cursed Ira, though he didn’t believe his old friend was deliberately putting the responsibility for a potentially dangerous operation on his shoulders. He was just being cautious. But Mercer knew the ultimate responsibility would fall on him if something went wrong. Like Serena’s death and the others at the casino. Like Tisa’s and dozens more — he felt the weight of it all pressing down on him. It would be so easy to just tell Ira to forget it, that he didn’t need to send a Special Forces team into the middle of a war zone. He could crawl out from under a little of his guilt. But Mercer also knew it would be wrong.
It didn’t matter if the stele turned out to be nothing more than a marker saying the equivalent of “Kilroy was here.” He had to know, no matter the cost.
“Yeah,” Mercer finally said. “It’s important.”
“Consider it done,” Ira replied with finality.
Buffalo, New York
Mercer opened the door of the Cessna Citation executive jet as soon as the wheels stopped rolling. Mist that was almost rain swept Buffalo Niagara International Airport, making the runway lights blur into the distance. Dawn was just a ruddy promise hunkered low against the eastern horizon. He grabbed his leather hand grip but didn’t bother pulling up the hood of his North Face rain jacket. As soon as he stepped from the aircraft, water glittered like jewels in his thick hair.
“Dr. Mercer?” a man’s voice called from the rear of the airport’s general aviation gate.
“I’m Mercer,” he replied and strode across the tarmac, paying scant attention to the multimillion-dollar jets parked all around. A throaty roar swallowed the man’s next sentence as a Boeing 737 hauled itself into the dark sky. “What was that?” Mercer asked as he reached the protection of a glass enclosure that led into the building.
“I said you have a car waiting to take you to the docks.”
“Thank you,” Mercer said and followed the executive jet service employee through the lounge. They walked across the quiet airport and eventually reached an exit. A black Town Car idled at the curb, its driver waiting expectantly in the front seat.