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"Age has nothing to do with it. It's all the bullshit."
The former Navy SEAL and the FBI special agent shared a worried look. Reimer said, "You're not really serious, are you?"
"Yep."
"You can't. Someone's got to hang around and tell them how it is."
Rapp tilted his head and asked, "Weren't you at the White House yesterday?"
"I'll never forget it."
"Well, I don't know if you noticed, but they don't seem to be listening to me."
"Don't let this turn you sour, Mitch," McMahon said. "You're better than that. You did some great work this week. Without you, I'd hate to think what could have happened."
"I'll be honest. Things were a hell of a lot easier when I worked in the shadows."
McMahon, never one to listen to anyone complain for more than a second or two said, "Yeah, well you're not anymore, so suck it up. You're too damn young to go quitting on us, and besides, what in the hell would you do?"
"Have babies, play golf I don't know. I'll find something."
"You'd be bored out of your mind in two months," said Reimer. "The only reason I'm leaving is because I'm tapped out after putting three kids through college. I need to make some serious money before my wife and I sail off into the sunset."
Rapp eyed Reimer disbelievingly. "You're not sick of all the B.S. with Homeland Security?"
"Of course I am, but I'm fifty-six. You're only in your mid-thirties. You've got a long way to go before you can say you're burnt-out."
McMahon looked at his watch impatiently. "All right now that we've got all the career counseling out of the way, and we've decided you're staying, can we get down to business?"
"Sure." Rapp smiled.
"Paul's got some interesting information. Stuff he doesn't want disseminated through official channels, and after you hear it, I don't think you're going to be quitting."
McMahon had his attention. Rapp turned to Reimer. "What's up?"
"The Russians have been quietly helpful. The truth is they are every bit as concerned by these Islamic radical fundamentalists as we are. In some ways they're more concerned."
"They should be. Most of them are in their own backyard."
"Yeah, well anyway I've had some interesting conversations with one of my counterparts over in the motherland. All off the record all unofficial. I sent him the particulars on the nuclear material, and he agrees that it's one of theirs."
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"Interesting. Does he have any idea how al-Qaeda got their hands on it?"
"He's looking into it, but he has a theory that sounds plausible to me."
"Let's hear it."
"First of all, he confirmed as best he could without actually seeing the nuclear material, and conducting the tests himself, that the material is in fact one of their prototype atomic demolition munitions that they tested at the Kazakh range in the late sixties. Without looking up the numbers he seemed to remember that approximately twenty of these weapons were tested during that time. Now here's where things get interesting. The Soviets don't advertise this little fact and neither do we." Reimer took on a more serious tone. "Not all of the tests that we conducted worked."
"That doesn't shock me," said Rapp. "Isn't that why they're called tests?"
"Yes, but it's the next part that will shock you. When I say they didn't work, that means that some of them reached critical mass, but didn't obtain their maximum yield, and that there were also others that simply didn't work properly in another way."
"You mean they didn't blow up?"
"Not exactly. The duds, as we so scientifically refer to them, often did blow up. They just never reached critical mass."