First Team by Jim DeFelice, Larry Bond Read Free Book Online Page B

and more?” asked Ferguson. “I wasn’t reckless before? I thought that was a job requirement.”
     
    Slott made a grinding noise with his teeth. Recognizing that he would get no real details from Ferguson—and admitting to himself that he probably didn’t want any—he changed the subject. “Have you found out what’s going on?”
     
    “Working on it.”
     
    “Did they take uranium or what?”
     
    “I don’t think so. The way it looks, the most likely accounting for the discrepancy is two casks of the control rods,” said Ferg. “But that’s only that one trip. I’m not really sure.”
     
    “When will you know?”
     
    “Not sure. We’re working on it.”
     
    “Well work faster.”
     
    “Aye-aye, Captain Bligh.” Ferg leaned forward and took hold of his glass. “If you’re through busting my chops, I’d appreciate talking to Corrigan again.”
     
    There was a click. Corrigan came on the line with an apology.
     
    “Yeah, yeah,” Ferguson told him. “You run through the satellite photos?”
     
    “We have it narrowed down to six possible spurs,” said Corrigan.
     
    “Just six?” said Ferg. “Not twelve?”
     
    “Actually, it is more like twelve. But I had them arbitrarily lop off some.”
     
    “Who the fuck is doing the analysis for you, Corrigan? Monkeys?”
     
    “Monkeys would be faster,” said the deskman. “We’ve been screwed since Nancy left. I need someone who can coordinate this stuff for me.”
     
    Special Demands was essentially a client to the analytic side of the Agency, which could supply a variety of intelligence reports, processed or unprocessed. The staffer who had worked to coordinate the reports—and had the more difficult job of assessing them—had gone on maternity leave two weeks before, and had not yet been replaced.
     
    “You’ve been moaning about this for days, Corrigan. Get somebody.”
     
    “Easy for you to say. Just finding a warm body that has something approaching the background and clearances—”
     
    “Man, you’re a whiner.” Ferg glanced at his watch. “We’ll look at them all.”
     
    Having lost their source in Kyrgyzstan, they were back to grunt work—looking at all of the places where something might have been taken from the containment cars. It seemed logical that it had happened at a siding, and there were twelve between the last sensor and the border. The Team had extremely sensitive radiation meters—detectors based on gallium-arsenic chips that were as sensitive as gas-tube Geiger counters but fit in the palm of the hand—that would detect trace radioactivity. Unfortunately, this was likely to find something only if the material had been handled or some stray waste had attached to the train and been deposited accidentally.
     
    “So tell me who Sergiv Kruknokov is,” Ferguson said, sliding around in the seat. “You’ve had enough time to write the guy’s biography.”
     
    “I keep telling you, I need someone to handle real-time intelligence. I literally got this as your call came through.”
     
    “Whine, whine, whine,” Ferguson told him. “You have it or not?”
     
    “Yes.”
     
    “So?”
     
    Conners gave him a thumbs-up from the side; the others had finally come in. Ferg waved to him, and Conners left to make sure the others had no problem getting settled.
     
    “Antiterrorism division of the Federal Security Bureau. High-level guy,” said Corrigan, who was scanning a paper report.
     
    “I didn’t think he handled shoplifting.”
     
    “Yeah, well, listen to this. He was involved in a case in 1996 involving a plot to explode a dirty bomb in Moscow.”
     
    “Whoa, no shit. Give me the details.”
     
    “Chechens wanted to blow up a dirty bomb in Moscow. They broke it before the bomb went off.”
     
    “Dirty bomb. What kind of waste?”
     
    “Um, that was cesium, I think. Medical stuff. Nowhere near as dangerous as spent uranium or the control rods you’re after.”
     
    “Nasty stuff