Lomax rose, stretched, reached down, and pulled his guest to his feet.
“No, son, last November.”
* * *
Martin drove back down the mountain and glanced at his watch. Midday. EightP.M. in London. Paxman would have left his desk and gone home. Martin did not have his home number.
He could wait twelve hours in San Francisco to telephone, or he could fly. He decided to fly. Martin landed at Heathrow at eleven on the morning of January 28 and was with Paxman at twelve-thirty. By twoP.M. , Steve Laing was talking urgently to Harry Sinclair at the embassy in Grosvenor Square and an hour later the CIA’s London Station Head was on a direct and very secure line to Deputy Director (Operations) Bill Stewart.
It was not until the morning of January 30 that Bill Stewart was able to produce a full report for the DCI, William Webster.
“It checks out,” he told the former Kansas judge. “I’ve had men down at that cabin near Cedar Mountain, and the old man, Lomax, confirmed it all. We’ve traced his original paper.—it was filed. The records from Oak Ridge confirm that these disks are calutrons.”
“How on earth did it happen?” asked the DCI. “How come we never noticed?”
“Well, the idea probably came from Jaafar Al-Jaafar, the Iraqi boss of their program. Apart from Harwell in England, he also trained at CERN, outside Geneva. It’s a giant particle accelerator.”
“So?”
“Calutrons are particle accelerators. Anyway, all calutron technology was declassified in 1949. It’s been available on request ever since.”
“And the calutrons—where were they bought?”
“In bits, mainly from Austria and France. The purchases raised no eyebrows because of the antiquated nature of the technology. The plant was built by Yugoslavs under contract. They said they wanted plans to build on, so the Iraqis simply gave them the plans of Oak Ridge—that’s why Tarmiya is a replica.”
“When was all this?” asked the DCI.
“Nineteen eighty-two.”
“So what this agent, what’s his name—”
“Jericho,” said Stewart.
“What he said was not a lie?”
“Jericho only reported what he claims he heard Saddam Hussein say at a closed conference. I’m afraid we can no longer exclude the conclusion that this time the man was actually telling the truth.”
“And we have kicked Jericho out of play?”
“He was demanding a million dollars for his information. We have never paid that amount, and at the time—”
“For God’s sake, Bill, it’s cheap at the price!”
The DCI rose and went over to the picture windows. The aspens were bare now, not as they had been in August, and in the valley the Potomac swept past on its way to the sea.
“Bill, I want you to get Chip Barber back into Riyadh. See if there is any way of reestablishing contact with this Jericho.”
“There is a conduit, sir. A British agent inside Baghdad. He passes for an Arab. But we suggested that the Century people pull him out of there.”
“Just pray they haven’t, Bill. We need Jericho back. Never mind the funds—I’ll authorize them.
Wherever this device is secreted, we have to find it and bomb it into oblivion before it is too late.”
“Yes. Er—who is going to tell the generals?”
The Director sighed. “I’m seeing Colin Powell and Brent Scowcroft in two hours.”
Rather you than me, thought Stewart as he left.