John Burdett - The Last Six Million Seconds

Chan wished he could conduct the conversation over a cigarette. “The case is a puzzle. If this evidence was carefully wiped, that would at least help to confirm the nature of the puzzle.”

Vivian was gazing at him again, that American stare that tested ego.

“Would you like to go outside where you can smoke? I did some lab assistance work once to help pay for my graduate degree. Nicotine on rats, withdrawal et cetera. You’re showing all the signs.”

“You must have learned a lot about people, working with rats.”

Outside they walked across an open space to the canteen. Over a Styrofoam mug of coffee, a cigarette in his right hand, Chan watched the youth of Hong Kong. There were a few foreigners, Americans and Europeans, the odd Indian and quite a few Eurasians; the vast majority, though, were local Chinese. He wondered how they felt, growing up under one of the most aggressive capitalist systems in the world, knowing that within two months they would have to learn a new system under new masters. Probably they felt the way he felt: cheated and scared.

“What do the kids say, about June?”

Vivian looked around at the young faces in the canteen. “That they’ll have to adjust. Mostly they’re glad to be free of the stigma of colonial rule, but they know it’s not going to be easy. I guess they don’t realize how tough, though.”

“You do?”

“I saw corruption in the Chinese community in the States before I came back. I can guess what it’s like over the border. No one seriously expects anything else here after June thirtieth.”

“These kids look so innocent.”

“Actually, they are. Compared to the States, they’re pure beings who only aspire to develop their minds, be good sons and daughters, bring up their children in the traditional way. They hardly drink or smoke; the drug problem is mostly related to other nationalities; they’re careful about sex. I came back here from a research post in Berkeley like a good Chinese because my parents wanted me with them. I was kind of ashamed how many vices I’d managed to pick up in the States. Compared with these people, I’m contaminated by the wicked West. Tell me about your puzzle.”

Chan continued to gaze at the students. He had always been envious of people with university educations. He imagined unlimited opportunity to climb up a ladder of thought built by giants to an intellectual garden of curiosities where one spent three or four years in perpetual fascination. How Chinese. What Westerner would be that naive? He sipped his coffee.

“Let’s assume there are no prints on the items in your collection. If that’s so, we have almost a perfect crime. The assassins minced up three bodies and left the remains in a vat. At first I thought that indicated stupidity or arrogance. Then I saw it was clever. Once they’d minced up the bodies, practically all identification was impossible. So why take further risks in disposing of the remains? DNA is eaten by bacteria. With luck the remains might be consumed before they were found, but even if they were not, what’s the use of DNA without evidence to match against it? All clothing had been removed from the bodies first and probably burned. The state of the warehouse where the vat was left bears out my theory. There’s not a print anywhere near the vat, no signs of struggle. Then we have the weapons and the uranium. It was a billion to one chance that we found them under a hundred and fifty feet of water near the Chinese border. From the point of view of the perpetrators, dumping those items there was an acceptable risk. Likewise the mincer. So, we have a crime by sophisticated professionals with considerable resources at their disposal, perfectly executed, except for one flaw. Against basic common sense they place three heads in a plastic bag and dump it in the sea for a tourist to discover. Thanks to the heads, we know the name of one of the victims.”

“The girl?”

“Yes. An American.”

“And the other two victims?”

“Chinese. Identities unknown.”

“Well, that only leaves about one point four billion possibilities. Good luck. Can I make a suggestion?” Chan inhaled, nodded. “Did you ever think that maybe someone just fucked up? Sorry about the American.”

Chan shrugged. “Most crimes are committed by fools. But those kind of fools don’t have access to Skorpions or uranium. I’m out of my depth. Would you mind telling me about the uranium?”

Vivian Ip took a long swig of coffee, thrust her head back as if she were reading a text from the sky. “Uranium two-three-five is a rare isotope. When you build a bomb, you want to have two subcritical masses that, when brought together using conventional explosives, become supercritical. Nothing does it like uranium two-three-five or plutonium two-three-nine. The problem is getting hold of them. What the Manhattan Project was really about-the group of physicists and mathematicians under Oppenheimer who developed the atom bomb in New Mexico during World War Two-was getting hold of enough uranium two-three-five or plutonium two-three-nine. The bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima was uranium two-three-five. Fat Boy, the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, was plutonium two-three-nine.”

“Extracting the uranium two-three-five is what it’s all about?”

Vivian shrugged. “There are plenty of ways to sophisticate and economize on your core. The U.S. has improved the yield-to-weight ratio and the yield-to-volume ratio enormously since the fifties. But for a really crude bomb, yes, all you need is enough uranium two-three-five.” She looked at him. “To be threatening, without necessarily having a whole bomb, all you’d need is proof that you had, say, twenty-five kilograms of two-three-five so long as it was highly enriched. The stuff you found is ninety percent-nearly the best.”

“And how much is in that lead case?”

“About three kilos.”

They looked at each other.

“Where could it have come from?”

She looked into her plastic cup, then into his eyes. “In theory, quite a few reasonably developed countries. France, England, India, Pakistan, China, Israel, United States-the list gets longer every few years.”

“In practice?”

“In practice, nuclear arms development is one of the few genuine security successes of most governments. Even democratic governments illegally assassinate scientists or others who leak atomic secrets, never mind sell two-three-five. You’d have to look to a country whose security has totally collapsed.”

“Russia?”

“The word is that people with the right connections can buy anything there. Anything at all. Even weapons-grade uranium and plutonium.”

“What sort of people have the right connections?”

“You tell me, Chief Inspector. Sounds like a policing problem. But there’s one thing that occurs to me. Okay, on first sight, all that stuff they found in that trunk on the bottom of the ocean, the guns, uranium, et cetera, it all looks pretty impressive. But if you think about it, it’s all junk.”

“Junk?”

“Sure. There’s no ammunition for the guns, and in any case, three guns don’t make an arsenal. Fragmentation grenades can be bought on the black market, I’m sure. The uranium is exotic, but three kilos are useless to anyone wanting to build a bomb. Gold aside, that trunk contained a bunch of extremely illegal, highly exotic junk. The only smart thing to do with it was to dump it. Or if it wasn’t junk, how about samples?”

“Samples?”

“Why not? Suppose a criminal traveling salesman, showing samples of what he can deliver to selected clients. I guess even crooks need to have some kind of sales promotion.”

Chan listened with concentration. Truly, a disciplined mind was a wonderful tool. It made him proud that she was Chinese, nervous that she was a woman, disturbed that the power of her intellect seemed to have something to do with her liberated American background.