By the time they reached the plane, Gunnar had already uploaded the picture of the assassin emerging from her car into the facial-recognition program he’d used to track the Hoyl through four historical incarnations and trace the Scarecrow to her formative years as a test subject at the Edgewood Arsenal. With any luck, he’d be able to find something they could use to lead them to the Dragon. Unfortunately, such miracles took time, and that was one thing they simply lacked.
Gunnar had also arranged for the delivery of a fresh pot of coffee, replacements for the beverages they’d consumed from the minifridge, and foodstuffs less offensive to Ramses’s highly refined palate. He sat across from Mason, swilling Devils Backbone Vienna Lager and eating Cheetos from the bag.
“What about working backward from the weapon?” he said. “If I can’t get one, that means it can’t be gotten, so either the Dragon has a government source that deals with him exclusively or he made it himself.”
“The forensics tech at the hospital seemed to think something like that could be made using a plasma laser and a combination of cesium and hafnium isotopes,” Layne said. “Radiation detectors picked up traces of both on Langbroek’s yacht and in Marchment’s room.”
“Anyone experienced with nuclear chemistry could easily acquire a ready supply of cesium-137 from the by-products of the radioactive decay of uranium-235,” Gunnar said. “The hafnium is trickier, though. It’s in high demand since it’s used in filaments and electrodes and in the control rods of nuclear reactors due to its ability to absorb neutron radiation and prevent it from triggering a chain reaction, a trait that makes it the perfect choice for weaponization. It can hold a disproportionately large amount of gamma radiation while still remaining relatively stable in isotopic form. The problem is that demand greatly exceeds supply, with annual production worldwide of less than eighty tons, which is why it sells for nearly two grand a pound.”
“Have there been any strange fluctuations in the market?” Mason asked. “Something that might hint at someone attempting to stockpile it for mass production of this weapon?”
“Nothing so overt, but you’d likely see such fluctuations in either the zircon or zirconium markets. Anyone looking to acquire mass amounts of hafnium would be better served producing it himself than fighting over such small existing quantities. You see, hafnium can be refined from zirconium, which is expensive, but not especially difficult to find since it has a wide range of applications in the industrial, biomedical, and nuclear industries. It’s produced from the refinement of zircon, an orangish mineral found in high concentrations in granite and igneous rock, which is even cheaper and easier to acquire.”
“So someone with ready access to a large amount of zircon in any form could produce it himself.”
“If he had the right background and experience, I’d imagine it could be done,” Gunnar said. He switched screens on his computer and scanned through a series of scientific articles as he spoke. “Refining zirconium from zircon sand is a fairly simple process requiring chlorine and heat, but producing weaponized hafnium from there is much more complex. It involves separating hafnium chloride from the zirconium, reducing it, purifying it, and bombarding it with protons in a particle accelerator to create the isomer hafnium-178, one gram of which contains the same amount of energy as six hundred pounds of TNT. More important, it has a half-life of thirty-one years, which means it’s stable enough that you could practically hold it in your bare hands, even with it containing all of that gamma radiation, just waiting for some form of energy to come along and trigger its release.”
“Do you think someone with the right skill set could convert it into a directed-energy weapon?”
“If he were able to harness a strong enough energy source to cause the hafnium to release its gamma rays, I can’t see why not. He’d just have to be exceedingly careful, because hafnium’s highly explosive in its powdered form.”
“You said something about zircon coming from granite and igneous rock,” Layne said. She looked up from her phone and chewed on her lower lip. “If someone didn’t want people to know what he was doing, could he extract it himself?”
“If he were looking to produce just enough for his own purposes and was willing to put in the work, it wouldn’t be all that difficult. Why?”
Layne held up her phone. On the screen stood a mountain of solid granite, riddled with erosion and framed by pine trees buried in snow.
“This is Taganay National Park in the southern Ural Mountains,” she said. “It’s just west of Omsk, where Yamaguchi was photographed with the orange snow, which just happens to be the same color as the zircon you’d need to produce hafnium. So I tracked down the report from the Ministry of Emergency Situations, which stated that the snow contained four times the normal levels of acids, nitrates, and iron and speculated that it was the result of an explosion at a nearby metallurgical plant the previous week.”
Gunnar smirked. He appeared more than a little impressed.
“The process of refining zircon from igneous rock produces zirconium acetate and nitrate, and leaves behind plenty of iron. If they were still in the experimental stages and inadvertently created any amount of hafnium powder, which is so unstable that you could ignite it with static electricity, they could have easily created an explosion powerful enough to fill the sky with all kinds of by-products.”
“Is there anything significant about Omsk itself?” Layne asked.
“Its proximity to Novosibirsk, a city with thirteen universities, any number of which offer access to particle accelerators or colliders,” Gunnar said. “I’m guessing it also served as the home base of the Konets Mira, whose original founder, Kiyohide Hayakawa, if you remember, had in his possession at the time of his arrest schematics for a directed-energy weapon, technical drawings of a fission device small enough to fit in a suitcase, blueprints for a nuclear-powered high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle, and a map to an arms market within the city.”
“So that’s where we should start,” Mason said. “If you can get your Russian contact to confirm at least that much, then maybe we can—”
Mason’s phone buzzed. The screen again displayed the NO CALLER ID message, just as it had when Archer called earlier. He walked down the aisle to Gunnar’s bedroom before answering.
“Special Agent Mason,” he said.
There was a long pause.
“James,” his father finally said. “I don’t have very long, but I wanted to take this opportunity to call you.”
“Where are you?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m going to talk and I need you to listen. I mean, really listen. Can you do that for me?”
There was something about his father’s voice, a faint tremor he’d never heard there before, one that might have passed for fear in anyone else’s.
“What’s happen—?”
“Damn it, James. Would you just listen to me for once in your life?”
Mason remained silent and waited for the senator to proceed.
“I haven’t been the perfect father. Lord knows I didn’t have one of those in my life, either. I’ll never admit this to another soul, but your mother’s death broke me. I don’t know how else to explain it. She was the one great love of my life. Losing her—and especially in that manner—was more than I could bear. I know you blame me for driving her to drink. Nothing could be further from the truth, but I decided long ago that I’d rather you hate me than taint her memory in your eyes.”
“Dad, I—”
“I failed her, son. Hell, I failed you, too. I sent you away to school at a time when you needed your family—needed me—the most. We all grieve in different ways, as you know better than most. You’ve experienced more loss than anyone should have to. Unfortunately, it’s that loss that defines us.”
Mason heard voices in the background, followed by the rustling sound of his father covering the receiver with his palm.
“Talk to me, Dad. What’s going on?”
“You need to promise me something, James.”
“If it’s within my power—”
The senator cut him off with a laugh.
“You would have made a fantastic lawyer,” his father said. “Just do this one thing for me, okay? It’s important. Promise me you’ll stay away from the District.”
“Tell me what’s going on.”
“Promise me, James.”
Mason didn’t want to lie to his father, so he waited him out.
“Just one minute,” the senator said. Again, there were muffled voices in the background. “I’m out of time, James. They’re ready for me now. I just want you to know how proud I am of you. I should have told you that long before now. You’re the best of both your mother and me. I love you, son.”
His father terminated the call, leaving Mason staring at his phone in confusion and disbelief.
“What the hell was that?” Ramses asked.
He leaned against the frame of the door with his head cocked and a beer in his hand. Mason hadn’t known he was there.
“I don’t have the slightest idea. It almost sounded like my dad was saying good-bye.”
“That’s what people do when they end a call.”
“No … I mean, he told me that he was proud of me and that he loved me.”
“That’s not a good sign.”
“You’re telling me.”
Gunnar slipped past Ramses and sat on the edge of his bed, tracing his chin with his fingertips.
“What else did he say?”
“He asked me to stay away from the Capitol.”
“And?”
“He told me he was out of time. That they were ready for him now.”
Gunnar was silent for several seconds. Mason could almost see the gears turning behind his friend’s eyes.
“We should turn around,” he finally said.
“Why?” Mason asked.
“Because we’re already too late.”