Steve Martini - Guardian of Lies

The two subcritical elements of uranium, the projectile and the four concentric rings of the target, had been machined to precision and stored in their separate sealed lead-contained vaults while the weapon was still in the Soviet Union, before it had ever been shipped to Cuba. They had never been removed.

Nitikin had never even seen them, but he knew they were there from the periodic Geiger readings he took through the test vents in each of the lead cases. From these readings he knew that the two separated elements of weapons-grade uranium, the target and the projectile, neither of which alone possessed critical mass sufficient to cause a chain reaction, would, when combined under pressure at the proper velocity down the gun barrel, result in a massive chain-reaction detonation.

If it worked properly, the entire sequence, from detonation of the cordite initiator launching the uranium bullet down the barrel, to the flash of light hotter and more brilliant than the core of the sun, would take but the barest fraction of a second.

The parts were relatively easy to assemble as long as you had the proper tools, protective gear, and, most important, a deft touch with the tongs needed to position each of the elements while they were bolted or fitted into place.

For Nitikin it was this last part that had become the problem. He had developed a slight palsy in his hands. Over the past few years it had worsened. He knew that he could no longer manipulate the metal tongs either to load the gun with the subcritical uranium projectile or to fasten the uranium target rings to the tungsten carbide tamper at the muzzle end of the barrel.

Nitikin had told no one about this, least of all Alim or any of his cadre. He was afraid of what they might do if they knew, not for himself, but for Maricela, his daughter.

Nitikin, at least in his mind if not his heart, remained the staunch warrior. But he knew that Maricela was afraid, fearful of what was happening. He kept the details from her for her own safety. But she was not stupid. How much she knew, he couldn’t be sure. He told her not to ask any questions and to remain out of sight as much as possible.

She had asked him to leave with her on her last trip, to go back to Costa Rica and to live with her and her children there. For Nitikin it was strange. For the first time in recent memory, he actually wanted to go. But by then it was too late. Alim and his men had arrived with money for the FARC rebels and funds for the cartel in Mexico. Alim knew about the device. Nitikin was trapped.

For himself he did not care. Living and hiding with the bomb had been the purpose of his life for so many years that it no longer mattered. But he loved Maricela and did not want her harmed.

He had stalled for time, hoping Alim would allow her to leave, to go back home to her family. Twice he had asked Alim to permit men from the FARC whom he trusted to see her home safely and twice Alim had put him off. Nitikin had already told Maricela that if they permitted her to go, she was never to return to visit him again, under any circumstance. Though the thought crushed his heart, he would say good-bye to his daughter and never lay eyes on her again in this life. Yakov Nitikin knew he was a dead man. If age did not take him soon, Alim would, the moment his usefulness ended and his knowledge became a burden.

If the study of crime is a science, its first rule of physics is the law of opportunity. Every cop on the beat will do two things first: nail down the time frame for the crime, and then cast his net over the universe of possible suspects and start trolling for calendars.

If you kept your appointments, and your social agenda for the evening didn’t include sticking knives in Emerson Pike, they would cross your name off the list.

When they are done, the police will zero in on the names that are left, concentrating on people like me who don’t have an alibi for the night in question. It may not be rocket science, but it works.

I have scoured my calendars, the one at work as well as my personal Outlook file from my smartphone, the cellular I carry on my belt. There are no entries on either for the night that Pike was killed, nothing but blank space. I have gone so far as to check my phone records to see if I might have made calls from the house or my cell phone during the period that the police believe the crimes were committed, a rough ninety-minute time frame between nine and ten thirty. I am left to conclude that after hours I lead a dull life. I could find nothing.

Some people would at least slap their computers around, send an e-mail to a friend. Generally I don’t even do that. If I’m not prepping for a case, I’m reading or watching a movie on cable. With my daughter, Sarah, away at college, widowed and living alone as I do, unless a nosy neighbor peeked at me through a window, I have no way of proving where I was that night.

“You worry too much,” Harry tells me.

This afternoon I am driving over the bay, on the bridge from Coronado to the courthouse downtown, Harry in the passenger seat. We have an order-shortening time, allowing us an early hearing on a Brady motion. We are going after Katia’s photographs. True to his word, Templeton has filed no objection.

“You don’t think it’s strange the cops never came back and asked me what I was doing that night, where I was at the time of the murders?”

“Cops screw up,” he says. “It’s the order of the universe.” According to Harry, “They probably just forgot. They talked to you once. Maybe they just didn’t go back and look at their notes, figured they had everything they needed. Don’t go kicking a sleeping dog,” he tells me.

“This particular dog is four feet tall and the last time I looked he wasn’t sleeping. Templeton didn’t forget. If homicide didn’t come back and ask me for an alibi, it’s because the Dwarf told them not to.”

“And why would he do that?”

“You tell me.”

“You’re getting paranoid,” says Harry.

“Then what was all that chatter from Templeton about the stream of men following Katia around, the fact that she was a man magnet, and oh, by the way, isn’t that how you met her?”

“That’s just the Dwarf jerking you around. He’s trying to get under your skin,” says Harry.

“Then you can tell him he’s succeeded.”

“If you’re that worried, check your credit card statements, your ATM card. Chances are, if you went anywhere that night you might have used plastic to buy something. That’ll put you someplace other than Del Mar. We can send a copy of the receipt to Templeton and you can start sleeping again at night.”

I have already done this and come up empty. I don’t tell Harry because I have a bigger problem.

“Forget about it,” he says. “I mean, there’s no reason to worry, right?”

I look over at Harry in the passenger seat. “Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”

“What I mean to say is, you know you didn’t do anything.”

“Is that a question or a statement?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth. You tell me you didn’t do anything. You say you talked to her once in the grocery store, and I believe you. That’s the end of it. Let’s just get this thing done. Get the photos, see what’s in them, and maybe we can make this whole mess go away. Besides, if you ask me, Templeton’s whole theory of a co-conspirator is screwy. You can take every one of his facts, turn them around, and explain them away based on the killer coming in through the back door as Katia went out through the garage.”

“I’d agree with you except for one thing. Juries don’t like scenarios that hang on good fortune and serendipity. Templeton’s theory that two people did it would be much easier to sell.”