Keith Thomson - Once a spy

Gaznavi helped himself to just a single cinnamon roll. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m on a diet.” Fielding had known that ahead of time too, otherwise he would have had the head chef recalled from vacation so the kitchen could ready the A menu.

“How’s your appetite for treasure?” Fielding asked.

“Much stronger,” Gaznavi said.

In the world of treasure hunting, as little as an anchor from a lesser-known shipwreck could net six figures and land the diver on magazine covers. Fielding’s in-box brimmed with fat checks written by complete strangers more interested in a share of the glory than investment. They never asked where the money went. There were no regulations beyond taxes, and Fielding paid his taxes in full and without fail. Nowhere in his filings, though, did he mention the gifts certain investors received: illegal munitions.

“The gift that I hope will persuade you to invest in the Treasure of San Isidro Expedition, LLC,” he told Gaznavi, “is a Soviet-made atomic demolition munition.”

“I’m interested,” said the Indian, who was the chief benefactor of the United Liberation Front of the Punjab, a violent Islamic separatist group. But he seemed no more interested than he was in his cinnamon roll-he’d taken only a token nibble. His droopy eyes and sagging cheeks were set so that, even when jolly, he appeared sullen.

This guy must clean up at poker, Fielding thought.

Fielding snapped into salesman mode. Smiling to warm the table a degree or two, he said, “It has a ten-kiloton yield and it’s portable. During the Cold War, the Soviets’ invasion plan for Europe called for deployment of these babies at bridges and dams, to keep defending armies at bay-that sort of thing. And if the West came East, the Russkies had ADMs waiting in underground chambers-think nuclear land mines.”

Squinting through shimmering bands of light projected by the pool, Gaznavi asked, “Is it one of the Karimovs?” He was referring to the two bombs Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov admitted had gone missing during the Soviet Union’s dissolution.

Fielding saw an opportunity to impress with his expertise and, at the same time, discredit his competitors. “Actually, there are no Karimovs,” he said.

Gaznavi flicked a speck of frosting off his lapel. “I saw the speech myself.”

“President Karimov’s speech?”

“It was on CNN.”

“I saw it too. He said a couple of nukes had been misplaced.”

“I’m confused, Mr. Fielding.”

“Call me Nick. If I had friends, they would.”

“Nick, if you heard him say nukes had been misplaced…?”

“If a politician in that part of the world says something on the record, that proves it’s untrue,” Fielding said.

Gaznavi emitted a phlegmy chuckle.

Pleased, Fielding added, “There’s no way that a nuclear weapon could be misplaced, if you think about it.”

“I don’t know. Hundreds upon hundreds were transported from the outlying republics on ancient coal-powered trains and Russian trucks that stall every other kilometer. For all to have made it home safe and sound would be an unprecedented logistical feat-and the Russians are famous for tripping over their own red tape.”

“Except when it comes to a nuclear warhead. Losing one would be tantamount to NASA forgetting where it parked one of the space shuttles.”

“What about the three suitcases?” Gaznavi said. He meant the three suitcase-sized nuclear bombs reportedly pilfered from an undermanned Eastern European storage facility in the late 1990s by members of a Russian organized crime family, then sold in the Middle East.

“A fairy tale, Mr. Gaznavi. What chance is there that over ten years, as little as a firecracker would go undetonated in the Middle East?”

“Please call me Prabhakar,” Gaznavi said, tearing into his cinnamon roll. “Now tell me this, Nick: You make it sound impossible to obtain a Russian nuclear weapon. So how’d you obtain one?”

“A little while back, a Moscow military insider sold me AK-seventy-four bullets from the Ukrainian stockpiles for ten cents each. He put them on the books as ‘vended to a private party at eight cents apiece’ and pocketed the difference, which added up to a hundred million rubles. Then he tried to buy himself a summer place in Yevpatoriya and found that, real estate exploding like everything else there, a hundred-million rubles could no longer buy much more than a peasant’s izba.”

“So he started thinking bigger than bullets,” Gaznavi said through a mouthful.

“Exactly. The trouble with nukes is there are extensive records for each one, including serial numbers for even the most insignificant screw, plus the Russians keep Bible-length logbooks. We made every last bookkeeper wealthy enough to afford a seaside home in Yevpatoriya. As a result, a two-hundred-kilo crate of artillery shells at the storage facility in-Dombarovskiy, let’s say-now has the curriculum vitae of a uranium implosion Aftscharka Model ADM. And I have a two-hundred kilo crate that really contains the Aftscharka.”

“An awful lot of work.”

“If only being a bum-kneed, middle-aged surfer paid as well.”

“So what is the number that you have in mind?” Gaznavi asked. He appeared more interested in the handle of his teaspoon.

Fielding wasn’t fooled. Not only was Gaznavi’s sentence clumsy, it was also the first in which he’d passed up the opportunity to contract verbs, indicating that he’d scripted and rehearsed the line in his head, maybe even in front of his mirror this morning.

“Nothing,” Fielding said. “It’s free-if you invest just ninety million dollars in the treasure hunt.”

“I am interested,” Gaznavi said.

Despite the dispassion-again Gaznavi’s delivery was as flat as the pool-Fielding heard the words as a song, in large part because Gaznavi ate the remainder of his cinnamon roll in one gulp, then helped himself to another.

All that remained was the inspection. Gaznavi had brought along a crack nuclear physicist, who was currently in the arcade, wowing the staff with his PlayStation prowess. Fielding was about to suggest they fly right now to the bomb’s hiding spot, when Alberto set a latte before him, a signal-Fielding never drank any sort of coffee.

Fielding decoded the message on the accompanying napkin, two sentences penciled in tiny letters on the border. He told Gaznavi, “I can take you to the Aftscharka but not until tomorrow morning.”

Gaznavi’s brow fell in such a way that there was no mistaking his disappointment. “The more minutes I spend here, the greater the chance of actionable intelligence that can be used against the ULFP.”

“Not to mention against good old Trader Nick,” Fielding added. His much greater concern was that Gaznavi’s feet would get cold.

“You must have one hot date,” Gaznavi said.

The devout Muslim would regret his words a short while later, when one of Fielding’s assistants revealed to him that the delay was due to the death of Norman Korey, who’d been a father figure to Fielding.

Korey was a beloved husband, father of four, grandfather of eleven, championship Little League coach, and a district vice president of the Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks. He had succumbed to pneumonia at eighty-eight. His funeral service would fill the First Baptist Church in Waynesboro, Virginia.

Fielding had never heard of him. The news of the funeral resulted from the assistant’s search of today’s Virginia area services that were crowded enough that Fielding could lose Gaznavi’s people and anyone else keeping tabs on him.

His actual engagement was forty miles away, in Monroeville.

Although he had a Pilates physique and the latest scruffy-chic haircut, the waiter’s frilly blouse and loose-fitting knickers gave him the appearance of having just stepped out of the eighteenth century. He led two men in contemporary business attire into the tea parlor and over to Isadora’s table. With a start, Charlie recognized the pair as the too-jolly gunman and the pale driver last seen at the intersection of Fillmore and Utica in Brooklyn.