“Come again?” Raditz said.

“There’s a nuclear bomb missing. This is one of four devices we believe Ukraine still possesses.”

“Where and when were the last hard readings made?”

“As of four days ago, the two bombs we believe to be housed at a warehouse south of Kiev were both present and accounted for. Plutonium depletion levels have dropped by fifty percent as of two this morning. One of the bombs is gone, sir.”

Raditz took a last puff on his cigarette. He lifted his left foot and stubbed the cigarette out on the bottom of his boot.

“Will, I’m about to walk into Harry Black’s office across the hall from mine,” said Raditz, referring to the secretary of defense. “In turn, Secretary Black will call the president of the United States. Are you one hundred percent goddam motherfucking absolutely sure your math is correct?”

“Yes, I am.”

Raditz took a deep breath.

“Stay on the line,” he said. “I want to patch in interagency.”

Raditz hit another button on the phone.

“Get me Josh Brubaker over at the White House,” Raditz told his assistant. “Then get Torey Krug at EUCOM. I also need Hector Calibrisi, Piper Redgrave, and Arden Mason. Better get Sarah Greene at 4th Space Operations Squadron too. Hurry.”

“Is everything okay, Mark?” Beth asked, fear in her voice.

Raditz paused and stared at the phone.

“No. Everything is not okay.”

*   *   *

Within eight minutes, a dedicated, highly secure communications link had been established among the Pentagon, the Defense Intelligence Agency, Langley, the National Security Agency, Joint Special Operations Command Eurasia Directorate, 4th Space Operations Squadron, the Department of Homeland Security, and the White House.

Raditz and Parizeau were joined by Lieutenant Colonel Sarah Greene at Schriever Air Force Base. Greene was in charge of all Milstar satellites, commanding the hardware group from a highly secure facility located inside a mountain a few miles outside Colorado Springs. They were joined by General Torey Krug, commander of the United States European Command, one of nine Unified Combatant Commands of the U.S. military. Piper Redgrave, the director of the National Security Agency, hopped on a moment later. The head of the Department of Homeland Security, Arden Mason, called in from the border of Mexico. Last on was Calibrisi, who was joined by Bill Polk, who ran National Clandestine Services for the CIA.

A variety of other senior-level staffers from the different agencies were on as well. Finally, Josh Brubaker, White House national security advisor, came on the line from the West Wing.

“Hi, everyone,” said Brubaker. “What do we got, Mark?”

“Ukraine,” answered Raditz. “We have a nuclear device that’s on the move. Will, give everyone the details.”

“Milstar night scans picked up material geographic displacement,” said Parizeau, “signifying the movement of a nuclear device. This is an RDS-4, one of the so-called Tatyana bombs, made in 1953, approximately thirty kilotons. It’s an old bomb, relatively small and light, originally designed to drop from a plane and take out a submarine. It would, if detonated, destroy a big area. Most of Manhattan. All of Boston. This is not a tactical weapon; we’re talking about the real deal here.”

“How long ago did the scans degrade?” asked Brubaker.

“The last hard reading from Milstar was three days ago,” said Parizeau. “It could’ve been moved at any point during that time.”

“Is this one of the devices controlled by former Ukrainian military?” asked Calibrisi.

“That’s right. General Vladimir Bokolov.”

“Piper, get Bruckheimer on that immediately,” said Calibrisi, referring to Jim Bruckheimer, who ran the NSA’s Signals Intelligence Directorate. “We need to find Bokolov.”

“I’m on it,” said Redgrave.

“Will, how long to break down the bomb and harvest the physics package?” asked Polk.

“Why is that relevant?” asked Brubaker.

“It’ll determine how they’re moving it,” said Polk. “If they can pit it in a few hours, the bomb will be light enough to stick in a pickup truck. If that’s the case, then trying to find it is a waste of time.”

“It would take at least forty-eight hours to execute a clean removal of the physics package,” said Parizeau.

“So what does that mean?” asked Brubaker.

“It means they’re going to get it to water as quickly as possible,” said Polk. “The alternative is going inland in a semitruck that will be Geigered at the border. They’re not going to risk doing that.”

Raditz moved to the wall, where a large plasma screen lay dark.

“Will, can you live-wire what you’re looking at? Put it on IAB thirty-three. Put it on everyone’s screen.”

A moment later, a strikingly colorful three-dimensional horizontal map of Ukraine splashed onto Raditz’s plasma screen, along with the screens of everyone on the call.

“That’s Kiev,” said Parizeau, narrating, focusing in on a line of lights.

Near the top of the screen, just above a red digital line representing the atmosphere, was a flashing red, white, and blue object, which represented the U.S. Milstar satellite.

“Are we watching this in real time?” asked Polk.

“Yes,” said Parizeau.

“Spotlight the routes on every road to the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov,” said Polk.

Suddenly, a spiderweb of yellow lines branched southeast from Kiev. These were the roads leading to the coast. There were at least a dozen different roads heading to the water.

“Will, correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re able to focus in on these devices because of radioactive emissions, right?” asked Raditz.

“Plutonium, uranium, or tritium.”

“Can you look at a moving truck and get an accurate enough reading to detect it?” asked Raditz.

“It would take a decent amount of luck, to be honest,” said Parizeau.

“What’s a decent amount?”

“One in a thousand. The movement of the truck dissipates the strength of the radioactive emissions. We readjust to try and compensate by looking for a lower reading, but we don’t know how fast or slow the driver is going. So we’re probably going to be wrong.”

“Not to mention any sort of cloaking measures they might employ to hide the imprint,” added Calibrisi.

“If their only option is getting it out of the country by water, let’s send everything to the coast,” said Raditz. “I want every satellite we have close to the theater focused on finding that nuke. Repurpose any assets we have in the sky over Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova. Immediately. Blanket the ports, especially Sevastopol and Odessa.”

“Should we inform Russia?” asked Brubaker.

Silence took over the call. It was a tricky question.

On the one hand, the Russian Federation might be able to help stop the people who had the bomb. Russia would have a deeper knowledge of the players in the area to draw on.

On the other hand, a deep mistrust inhabited the upper echelons of America’s military and intelligence infrastructure. After all, Russia had spent decades denying the existence of the four nuclear devices inside Ukraine. In addition, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, was a former top-level assassin within the KGB. Deep down, beyond all the diplomatic words, all the summits and state dinners, the United States and Russia hated each other. For many in Russia, the loss of the Cold War stung every bit as much today as it did then, perhaps more so.

Calibrisi spoke first.

“No way do we tell Moscow,” the CIA chief said. “That’s a recipe for wasting a lot of time and energy that could be used to find this bomb. We ask for help, they deny the existence of it, we’re forced to try and prove our case that there are still nukes inside Ukraine, and all of a sudden we will have burned three days trying to win a debate instead of hunting this thing down.”