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morning. FBI confirms it was radiation and that she’d been to Helsinki.”
    â€œI’m guessing she had a belly button ring,” Thibodaux said.
    â€œThat means more material out there for another dirty bomb,” Quinn said. “Odd. It’s as if they want the mules to be found—otherwise they could have just killed them when they off-loaded the merchandise.”
    â€œUncertainty spreads terror almost as well as violence,” Palmer said. “But that’s not the worst of it.”
    Thibodaux gazed across the field of crosses, shaking his head. “There’s something worse than people eatin’ plutonium?”
    â€œOne week ago we received two encrypted texts from an agent in Uzbekistan. The first was five words long: ‘ Contact made. Suspect Yaderni Renit. ’ ”
    Thibodaux’s head snapped around. “A portable nuke?”
    Palmer raised a sandy eyebrow. “I had no idea you spoke Russian, Jacques.”
    â€œAs a point of fact, I do not, sir.” Thibodaux shook his head. “But I do speak threat . I can understand ‘Kill the Amercanski’ and ‘Let’s cut his ass’ in fifteen languages. Nuclear bombs fall into that category.”
    â€œYou said there were two texts?” Quinn prodded. He knew Palmer liked being prompted to ensure people were engaged in the conversation.
    Palmer gave a deep sigh. “Looks like he was cut off mid-message. ‘ Martel theory appears corre . . . ’ ”
    â€œMartel?” Quinn mused. “Like Charles Martel—the Hammer that stopped the Muslim invasion into Western Europe at Poitiers?”
    â€œThat’s the one. Charlemagne’s granddad,” the national security advisor said. “Code name for Russian agent Mikhail Ivanovich Polzin. Polzin was known for his belief in the existence of a powerful, man-portable nuke from the Cold War days. If he was correct as the text suggests, Baba Yaga has been found.”
    â€œBaba Yaga?” Thibodaux tilted his head as if trying to call back pertinent memory. “Sounds familiar . . .”
    â€œAn evil witch from a Russian fairy tale,” Palmer said. “Intelligence sources back in the seventies picked up chatter about a Soviet nuclear device code-named Baba Yaga. Small and portable enough to be moved by a single man, it was thought to be double the power of similar known devices. Langley believes it to be as much as five kilotons.”
    â€œYou said we’re dealing with dirty bombs,” Quinn mused. “A man-portable nuke is another thing altogether. Does your agent in Uzbekistan have any more information?”
    â€œDamned little, I’m afraid.” Palmer tipped his head toward a freshly covered grave in the distance. “I just presented a flag to his mother.”
    Thibodaux released a captive breath.
    They’d all lost far too many brothers and sisters at arms over the last decade.
    â€œCooper was a good man,” Palmer whispered. “Worldly-wise and innocent at the same time. His father’s a Virginia state trooper.”
    â€œWait,” Quinn said. “Are we talking about Riley Cooper? OSI, stationed at Manas?”
    â€œHe was one of mine.” Palmer nodded. “We used to hunt birds together when Riley was a boy. . . .”
    Quinn gave a low whistle. “I thought I knew Riley Cooper pretty well. He was two years behind me at the Academy, but he beat me to OSI because I did Combat Rescue first. He graduated from FLETC in the OSI Basic ahead of me but came back to visit when we got our B’s and C’s.”
    FLETC was the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center near Brunswick, Georgia. B’s and C’s were badges and credentials, presented at graduation from OSI Basic.
    â€œI wish I’d known,” Quinn said, put out that Palmer hadn’t seen fit to mention the death of a fellow agent until now. “I could have