Even with primitive engineering capabilities a simple gun-and-target configuration like that in Hiroshima’s Little Boy can be constructed with as few as 70 pounds of 90% enriched uranium-235.
Cono was sweating under the weight as his struggling brain did the division. Enough for two and a half devices. How much was Timur planning to trade to the jihadis? He saw Katerina’s angry face as she smashed her hand against the water, the child divers playing in the far end of the pool.
He held onto the ladder with his free hand, squeezing upward through the hole. At the top he readjusted the load and carried it out of the pit toward the door next to the stairs to the cockpit. Only then did he let it drop. As he sucked for air through the shirt protecting his nose and mouth, he realized he didn’t need it anymore. He put the shirt back on and climbed the stairs to the control room.
Soon the belts were whining again, and the engine of the main crusher was humming. Cono returned to ground level, hoisted the canister, and carried it through the door leading to the rock-filled receiving bin. At the edge of the great tilted funnel he raised the container over his head and looked up at the fading punctures in the heavens that were the stars. With a loud grunt he heaved the canister into the curtain of chains guarding the mouth of the crusher.
The gobbling sound was different this time. First a series of clunks, then a searing train of screams accompanied by sparks dancing behind the chains. The screams became shorter and shorter until the steady hungry hum resumed. In less than a minute, more screams came from the subsidiary crushers, but at a higher pitch, and they ended almost as soon as Cono heard them.
He went back up to the cockpit and pressed the feed lever until the crusher was chewing furiously on hunks of ancient earth that would join and mix with distributed bits of the uranium that had been so painstakingly extracted and refined. “Dust to dust,” Cono said out loud.
Enough. He shut off the crusher feed, keeping the other machinery running, and went back down to the hole to get another canister.
He could see his task clearly now, and with any luck he’d be well out of the quarry before any of the other party guests arrived. Let them thrash it out among themselves, fight over who betrayed whom or didn’t come through. He was done with corrupt Almaty. Done with Timur and his deadly machinations, done with Katerina working on behalf of the greedy Americans, done with Zheng working on behalf of the greedy Chinese. He was done. Thirty more minutes and he’d be out of here forever.
He had just climbed out of the pit with his second load when he saw a shadow at the door leading to the crusher. He shifted the canister to hold it in front of him with both hands, his fingers gripping the raised ribs in the middle. Then, eyes steady on the door, he crabbed sideways until the suspended armature of the drilling machine allowed him some protection from whoever might be outside.
“Welcome to the palace, brother.” Timur strode through the doorway with a pistol in hand.
Cono held the canister like a shield, uncomfortably aware of the weight taxing his arms and back. “The last time I saw you, my friend,” he said, moving farther to the left, “I had just saved your life. So you’ve come to thank me?”
“Enough of your bullshit, Cono.” Timur swept his arm from one side of the hanging armature to the other, searching for a clear shot. “Now you’re working for the jihadis? Who the fuck are you working for? The Americans? Ah, yes, for the Americans.”
“Brother, there are times when one must work for charity, harvest some karma. You could use some yourself.” Cono managed a smile despite the tension throughout his body from holding the canister.
“Fuck the karma. The tart was just a trick, right? An excuse to get you here, get you into my pants, fuck up my plans.”
“I came to help her. That’s all. It’s you who made me stay.” Cono adjusted his stance to each slight angling of the gun barrel. The container was leaden in his arms.
Timur registered his former friend’s exhaustion. He’d seen Cono in only two modes over the years since they’d met: focused, speedy, and lethal; and laughing, boisterous, joking around. This was a new mode: tired. Tired, uncertain, and off his game.
Timur smiled. Welcome to the real world.
“Put it down, swifty. No need to fight anymore. The tart is finished. Your Ukrainian bitch turned her over to the Kitai, along with some other local girl. We’ve been listening in. The deal’s been brewing for a few days. The bitch must have been very happy when you sprung your whore; you finally gave her something to trade. The Kitai made her big promises. Protection, family, yeah, yeah. She must be desperate. Like you right about now.”
Cono’s hold on the canister weakened for an instant, but a surge of disgust brought strength back to his arms. “The Chinese man is making promises to many people,” he said, raising his voice above the hum of the crusher. “I’m glad I was able to make him see you as you are, an able puppet.”
Timur smiled, and as he did so Cono saw the final tension of his finger on the trigger. Cono took a step back, preparing to dive to the side, but before he could dodge, a loud clap resounded within the steel-sheeted confines of the building. The force from the canister in front of his chest slammed Cono backward, but he kept his footing and felt no penetration. The bullet must have hit the ingot inside.
There was a flash on the drilling armature as another bullet ricocheted near Cono’s ear. Then another clap and a whizzing sound on the other side of his head. Cono lunged out from behind the drilling machine and hurled the canister at Timur. A shot went off as Timur was hit just below the chin by the container and fell backward.
Timur was down, firing off two wild shots as Cono came toward him. But now, a few steps away, a glance at Timur’s eyes told Cono his aim was confident this time. Cono dove back behind the drilling machine. The shot hit Cono’s shoe, twisting his foot in midair. Cono rolled and hit the base of one of the standing gas cylinders. Timur was on his feet now, walking slowly around the driller.
“You were such a good friend,” Timur said. “All your talk about shutting two eyes. And all the while you were just working for the Americans. Cultivating me, as they say. Here, get your rocks off on this.”
Cono was already scrambling on all fours when the bullet grazed his left thigh. He skittered behind the troop of cylinders before the next two shots pinged off the steel casings; he wedged into a small space between them, near the wall. Hidden behind the cylinders, Cono could make out Timur’s movements through the narrow gaps.
“So, admit it,” Timur barked.
Cono remained silent.
“And your Kitai whore. She sure is good at sucking dick. You hear that, Cono? Even better than Gula and Petra. Remember them, Cono? Yes, sure you do. Back in the good times. You must have been working on me even then. Your American friends spotted me as a star and sent you my way. Such a friendly, fun guy you were.” The gun appeared in another gap between the cylinders as Timur sidestepped slowly.
“Hey, Cono, your tart wasn’t as good as the ones I bring here. You saw the leashes downstairs, I’m sure. They suck better when they know they’re slaves, when they hear the machines.”
Cono heard Timur’s steps advancing around the barrier of cylinders.
“Are you keeping two eyes shut now, Cono? You’re a connoisseur. You should try it that way some time. Chain your favorite tart in a cave. Feed her every three days. Make her hungry for you. Maybe you’ve done it already. Friends. Brothers. Peas in a pod. Fruits in the same crate.”
Timur had almost made it to the edge of the group of cylinders, to the space against the wall that Cono had crawled through.
“Come on out. I’d like to offer a talented friend like you a high position in my kingdom. Minister of Pimps would suit you.”
Cono was on his rump, his feet poised against the two cylinders nearest the wall. A slice of Timur’s face suddenly appeared between the tops of the cylinders. Cono slammed his feet against the heavy steel. The cylinders crashed against Timur, one of them momen
tarily pinning him to the ground. Cono pounced. His forearm smashed into the downed man’s larynx as the gun in Timur’s hand exploded with a stray shot. Timur tried to twist away, but was trapped on both sides by the cylinders. Cono wrenched the pistol from him, crammed the gun muzzle into his mouth, and pressed hard until Timur was gagging.
“Hear this while you’re alive,” Cono said. “I am a free man. No one owns me. Not the Americans, not the Kitais, not the jihadis, not you.” Timur was writhing, choking on the barrel, trying to breathe. One hand was grasping for Cono’s throat; the other was trying to maneuver so he could extract the gun wedged into his belt.
Cono thought of Zheng and the Makarov he had forced into Cono’s mouth. “Brother, how did it come to this?” He pushed the barrel deeper, until Timur convulsed again and again and passed out, oozing vomit from his mouth. Cono kept the gun planted between Timur’s lips as he reached beneath Timur’s back and withdrew the second gun. In this position Cono’s face was against Timur’s ear, as if they were exchanging intimacies.
The vomit stank of stomach acid and alcohol. Cono pulled the gun muzzle away and grasped Timur’s face by the chin, turning his head to the side. His old friend was still breathing, faintly.
Why not kill him now? For some reason, or for no reason, the reflex said no.
Cono stood up and wedged the two pistols into his belt. With hose from the acetylene tanks he tied Timur’s ankles, then his wrists, and finally made two loops around his face, pushing the hose into Timur’s open mouth before tying it off in a bulky knot. Maybe within a few minutes’ time, Cono would have an inspiration as to how to finish him off. The machines, perhaps. Easy burials …
The hum of the crusher returned to Cono’s ears as he rounded the troop of cylinders. He brushed a hand against his grazed thigh: very little blood. The shoe that had been hit was missing only part of the sole beneath the toe. Cono rolled the yellow canister that had shielded him. There was a clean bullet hole on one side, in the midsection, but no exit hole. Saved by high-U. Cono was too mentally exhausted for the irony to register.
The guns pressing against his abdomen would be a nuisance while carrying the canisters, so he placed them near the stairs to the cockpit. Bending over to pick up the canister seemed an impossible task—the fight with Timur had drained what strength he had left.
For a moment Cono lost track of where he was and why. He stopped suddenly, motionless except for his eyes, which swept the cavernous building. The rapid thudding of his heart told him that he was in danger, but he couldn’t grasp the source of it. He squatted and lowered his head between his legs. Gradually, the extra blood flow to his brain relieved the dizziness and helped him make sense of what he saw. Now he recognized the yellow barrel in front of him, the drilling armature, the pit wired with explosives. He began to hoist the canister that had saved his life, when the import of Timur’s words came back to him in a rush. Katerina had turned. Xiao Li and Dimira were in Zheng’s hands.
Cono had to find them.
He felt for one of his mobile phones. He punched in the number Katerina had given him at the pool. He called again and again, with no answer. What if Timur had been lying? But why? It served him no purpose, except to ridicule Cono for the trust he had put in Katerina. He tried the number three more times. Nothing.
Cono looked again at the canister and ran his hand over the clean hole the bullet had made. Why was he going on with this? He could leave the quarry now. Why risk more? What did he care if someone put the uranium to use?
He hadn’t learned from schools or religions or books why so many dead people would be such a bad thing. They died every day by the thousands. When he’d lived by himself as a boy in the forest, death was everywhere. He had killed to fill his empty stomach countless times—birds and coatis, young capybaras and tapirs, a monkey once. He’d felt their squirming in his hands, their bites, the fast beating of their hearts, the subtle step-by-step crunching of cartilage as he broke their necks and looked into their eyes. He ate them raw when the rains made a fire impossible, their blood and juices smearing his nakedness. Wasn’t death the way of this world?
Besides, maybe the people who wanted the high-U so badly had a rationale that was simply beyond his crude knowledge. He felt trapped by his ignorance. Trapped and angered.
Back in California, Todd the mathematician had told him that the Americans had dropped nuclear bombs on Japan to save millions of Japanese lives, but Cono had no way of knowing if it was true, unlike people who had been to school. Muktar the painter—he had been a loner but a good friend, and he had chosen to join the religious fanatics, those with a twisted purpose in a wasteland of no purpose. Could Cono say he was a bad man? And Katerina, who had railed about the terrible tragedy of a uranium detonation—she had given him that high-minded sermon at the same time that she was selling him out and condemning his friends to a beast, to Zheng. Why go on with this?
He could stop now, try to find Xiao Li and Dimira; they wouldn’t last long in Zheng’s hands. He could leave the whole stinking high-U mess to forces he couldn’t control anyway. He was one man diving in the sea on an empty tank, trying to wrestle with a giant octopus a hundred feet below the surface.
Octopus. What about an octopus? The disorienting whorl of sleeplessness was surrounding him again. Cono’s mother appeared in a half-dream and took his hand—a little hand like one of the hands clutching the edge of the swimming pool, shining with water droplets on skin. His hand in hers, the breeze lifting spray from the waves that were tossing themselves onto the beach …
Cono shook himself. His mother faded away. He picked up a piece of scrap rebar lying in the dirt and pummeled his injured shoulder with it. As he looked down at the circular rim of the canister between his knees, the arguments and rationales vanished. An impulse took over. He picked up the canister.
Raising it above his head was a struggle, and the mouth of the crusher was blurry. His body swayed under the load, but finally he heaved it into the air. The canister barely reached the top of the mound of stones in the bin, but it tipped forward and began rolling down to the mouth; it disappeared. The clomps and screams and sparks jolted Cono.
Like a robot, he climbed the stairs to the control room and pressed the feed lever until another mouthful of stones was greeted by the crusher. Through the cockpit window he saw a wide tinge of pinkish gray on the slanting horizon. Four more to carry. Four, right?
He returned to the square pit and eased down the ladder into the tunnel chamber. He tried not to waste time staring at the chains and the pile of clothes. Just think of the next load, and the next.
He had made it up with the third canister to the pit and was hunched over, changing arms for the carry, when he saw three pairs of legs above him.
“Who are you?” The question was fired at him in Russian, and he looked up into the dark eye of an AK-47 an arm’s length away.
“I am a trusted servant, preparing a delivery,” Cono said, standing up slowly and looking at his wristwatch. “You’re early. But I’m glad you’re here. They’re heavy.”
“Tell me now!” shouted the woman holding the gun. “Who are you?” She searched the vaulted space with darting eyes, never quite meeting Cono’s gaze.
“My name is Dmitry,” Cono said. “And I’m a servant who isn’t afraid of radioactivity, unlike my boss, who pays me well.” He looked at the men on either side of the woman. “You two look strong. Help me with this.”
Cono lifted the canister up from the pit, feigning to almost fall over. One of the men helped to grapple with it. Two guns were still trained on Cono.
“Thanks. It’s heavier than it looks.”
“You’re not from here,” the woman said.
“My boss prefers to import his workers. Says it’s hard to find good help. And he says I’m expendable if I don’t deliver on time.” Cono began to climb out of the pit.
“Stay there. Shoot him if he moves.” The woman reached into a backpack at her feet and pulled out a littl
e metal box with a handgrip and a nozzle. She passed it over and around the canister. The Geiger counter clicked slowly, then faster. When it reached the middle of the canister it trilled like a cicada.
The two young men shuffled a few steps away when they heard the sound.
“Keep your guns on him!” the woman shouted.
“I hope this is what you’re looking for,” Cono said, “because it’s a lot of work.”
“What’s that noise outside?”
“The generator. Keeps the lights on. Can I come up now?” Cono put a hand on the rim of the pit. “The boss said it was dangerous work, but I didn’t expect this.”
“Let him up. Then make him sit.”
“Is here okay?” Cono leaned against the rusted flywheel frame. The young men shifted their footing to keep him in their aim. He saw the stack of boxed explosives out of the corner of his eye and worried that he’d chosen the wrong spot.
The woman put the Geiger counter in the backpack and looked warily at Cono, swinging her weapon until it was pointed at his chest. “Where is the other canister?”
Cono finally saw her eyes straight on. There was something familiar about them—their wide spacing, the extra flesh beneath the eyebrows that pushed the lids down, the broad and protruding forehead above them. Even the way the small muscles at the sides of her eye sockets tugged nervously beneath the skin.
“The other one’s down in the tunnel.” Cono raised an arm in a dramatic gesture and pointed his index finger down at the tunnel entrance. The guns trained on him had summoned what few reserves Cono had left in his brain, but he couldn’t tell if he was giving a cunning performance, or merely acting semi-giddy with fatigue.
“Omar, go down behind him. Not too close. Bring it up. Mansour, back to the door, keep watch.” The woman stared at Cono. “Anyone outside could have seen that the gate was open. It’s an amateur job. It stinks.”
Performance Anomalies Page 18
