"You may recall I have heeded your advice in that regard."

  "And Norm Graham is filling the personal gap very well. I couldn't be more pleased with that situation, or his adjustment there. But now we're talking about his professional mentors. Are you sure this is really necessary? I know the prospect of having the CIA this much in your debt is tempting, but you're taking a big risk. You manipulated him into taking this assignment. If you had really been serious about giving him a choice, you'd have spoken to him alone first."

  Waverly neither denied nor acknowledge the accusation, remaining unpreturbed. "That reactor must be destroyed. At the very least, the CIA must have those plans. I am in full concurrence with them on the impact a major proliferation in Soviet plutonium production would have on the arms race with this country. The danger to the free world is real. And, on a more personal level, it is not just my debt the CIA will incur."

  "Yes, they'll owe Illya, too. I only hope the debt is worth what it's going to cost our agent. You're pushing him too hard, Alexander. He's not ready for this." He shrugged in irritation. "But I don't expect you to listen to me. You didn't about the number two slot."

  "Mr. Kuryakin has performed admirably. And his qualifications—"

  "I know how we evaluate agents. I helped set it up. Marksmanship, ordinance, technical skills, analytical skills, intelligence, professional degrees—all quantifiable, and all things Kuryakin excels at. There's no question he's brilliant, a scientist, and a highly skilled field agent. But, despite our best intentions, he has only the barest notion of how to function as an ordinary American citizen. Or any experience at normal life for that matter. He's never had a stable family existence, never attended a normal school until his university classes. He's seen everyone he's loved die, and he's been trained to kill—and been killing people—since he was four years old. His adjustment with the Grahams and Solo's evaluations aside, he is still far from acclimated to American life."

  "This assignment is in the Soviet Union."

  "Don't be glib, Alexander. It doesn't suit you. I can tell when your mind is made up. But I'm going to hold you to our prior agreement. We've never let an agent get this far in the organization without a full psychological evaluation. I've let him slide by with the basic tests—as long as he was functioning well— with the understanding that you weren't going to rattle his skeletons. If you're going to break that agreement, then so must I. When this assignment is over, I'm going to pull him."

  Waverly sat back, his expression dark. "I see no need for that."

  "You've got a twenty-six-year-old defector functioning as Asst. Chief of Enforcement for U.N.C.L.E. North America. The age factor alone is an issue; he's younger than the majority of agents in Section Two. Most of our young agents begin in Section Three. You dumped Kuryakin into Section Two, gave him serious cases from day one. And then there's his personal situation. He hadn't begun to adjust to this culture, had barely found his feet as a Section Two enforcement agent, when you dumped this additional responsibility in his lap. His background leaves him nothing even remotely in common with the people he works with. He is seriously deficient in his understanding of American culture and he hardly has time for even a crash course, considering his assignments. Even the language still stumps him on a daily basis."

  "Mr. Kuryakin is completely fluent—"

  "I'm not talking about grammar, I'm talking the daily colloquialisms of American speech. You don't socialize with him, so you don't see it. When he can't avoid people—and he doesn't have the nickname the Ice Prince for nothing—he appears coldly formal. He's still trying to figure out how to interact with people, what is permissible in the States. Solo has become his personal cultural translator. Without him, he'd be in much worse shape."

  "Nonsense. I have not been aware of any problems."

  "All the degrees in the world won't help him understand locker room talk, or even the daily chatter in the cafeteria. He's constantly being confused. He knows your expectations; he's undoubtedly frustrated every time it happens, whether he shows it or not. He's has to be worried that his lack of understanding will someday cost him an assignment. He's on a furious catch-up program with life or death the result. And if you think he's not dealing with a fair amount of anti-Soviet feeling, you don't know your own organization. Not even U.N.C.L.E. is immune to that, not in these times. He's under a tremendous additional strain, on top of the stress just inherent in the job. You're pushing him too hard. I still think he needed another year or two to adjust to American life before you appointed him Number Two."

  "Most of Mr. Kuryakin's assignments have been outside of the United States. You might as well fault Mr. Solo for not speaking fluent Russian."

  "And I would if you had Solo in charge of U.N.C.L.E. Moscow, if we ever get a branch there. Most of the people you have Kuryakin supervising are Americans. He's still unsure of the rules and you have him half running the show. I've heard of sink or swim, but what you are doing to that young man is vicious, whether you realize it or not. And it's going to catch up with him. You've put him in a situation even the KGB couldn't rival. You'd better watch out before he decides he has to defect from you."

  "That's enough," Waverly said coldly. "Mr. Kuryakin earned his position by virtue of his performance in the very criteria you assisted in establishing. I see no reason to deny him the post due to mistaken ethnocentrisms on your part. His performance has been entirely satisfactory. I have no grounds for any change. As for this assignment, Mr. Kuryakin was informed it was on a voluntary basis and he accepted it with no reservations. You've offered me nothing to convince me of his lack of fitness or ability to perform this assignment, beyond your own personal impressions, which I do not share. If you have nothing further, then I have other tasks."

  Lawrence stood. "I have nothing further, now. But when he comes back, if he comes back, I'm going to give him the full psychological evaluation he should have had at the start. And then, Alexander, he'll sink or swim on my criteria."

  ***

  "I hate these technical assignments."

  Kuryakin looked up at the sight of the Chief Enforcement Agent standing by the corner of his desk. "Now you know how I feel when the assignment is largely political."

  "That's crap, Kuryakin and you know it. You may not have an intuitive knack for those type of assignments."

  "As you do."

  Solo didn't argue. "And you may not prefer them. But you can do them and you've gotten better at them. There is no possibility of my ever understanding these technical specifications."

  "It's not as if you have to impersonate this physicist. You have nothing to do with the technical aspects."

  "Tell that to the five feet of Atomic Energy Commission specs burying my desk. Everything you never wanted to know about plutonium fast breeder reactors and were too bored to ask. Why are they there?"

  "Research is just being thorough. Don't worry, anything you want to know, I can tell you. I've already read those reports."

  "This afternoon?"

  "Of course not. I am a physicist, Napoleon. Covering AEC developments is part of my regular duties. Commission proceedings can be great stuff for putting one to sleep. Of course, it can give one the occasional nightmare."

  "I thought the AEC was in charge of developing peaceful uses for the atom?"

  "Yes, indeed. They are both watchdog for safety as well as promoter, two tasks that occasionally come into conflict, with the promoter usually winning."

  "Illya." Solo was exquisitely patient. "We deal with enough nasties trying to blow up the world. Are you telling me that my own government, through an agency my tax dollars is supporting, is risking the same thing?"

  "This is a very new science. Why do you think the insurance companies won't cover losses from nuclear accidents? They back only sure bets. There is very little sure, yet, about nuclear power."

  Solo stared at him and then wearily shrugged. "Now I know I don't want to read those reports. In fact, I wish we had never had this conversation. Why don't you just tell me what I need to know for this assignment?"

  "What do you want to know?"

  "Frankly, as little as possible. I'm no scientist. Whatever Waverly wants me to know."

  "How would I know what that was?"

  Solo sighed and slouched gracelessly into Kuryakin's lone spare chair. "Don't be difficult, Illya. For a start, tell me about reactors, about breeder reactors, about why this one is different."

  "How much do you know about physics?"

  "I seem to recall that in high school physics class we played with magnets and feathers, though the reasons escape me. I hated physics. College philosophy majors don't take physics. For my science requirement, I took an astronomy course so I could sail the Pursang by the stars. Now that was a useful class. A far cry from your Soviet nuclear subs and your Ph.D. in quantum mechanics."

  Kuryakin shrugged. "A nuclear reactor is simply designed to produce a controlled nuclear chain reaction. This reaction generates heat. In utility power reactors, the heat is usually used to boil water, to create steam, to spin turbines, which generate electricity."

  "They use the nuclear reaction to boil water?" Solo asked, startled.

  "Yes, indeed. Prosaic result for such technology, isn't it?"

  Solo let that pass. "How do you create a nuclear chain reaction?"

  "To create a controlled or moderated nuclear chain reaction, such as is used for power production, one commonly uses enriched uranium, usually U-235. Occasionally the more sluggish U-238 is used. How much U-238 you can use depends on the design of the reactor, the coolant and the moderator."

  "Let me guess. The moderator is not some guy sitting at a conference table, introducing the speakers and keeping the panel members from a free-for-all?"

  "Actually, that's a good description, if you need a human analogy for the process. In a breeder reactor, for example, a core of enriched U-235 is surrounded by a blanket of U-238. When the control rods are gradually removed, neutrons from the U-235 smash into the U-238 blanket and create plutonium-239. Eventually, the plutonium will be recovered and used for weapons production or to replace the U-235 in the core of a new reactor. The short term result of the reaction is tremendous heat. The chain reaction is simple, controlling it is more difficult. Uncontrolled, the elements might combine too abruptly. If too much heat is generated too quickly a disastrous situation can result."

  "A nuclear explosion?"

  Kuryakin shrugged. "Not necessarily. The pressurized water reactors, or PWRs, commonly used for power generation in the U.S., don't have the capability of creating a critical mass. They call it a superprompt critical power excursion, by the way, or just a 'prompt critical', not a nuclear explosion. The power industry tries to avoid that terminology. If there was an uncontrolled reaction in a water reactor, the fuel would simply melt from the tremendous heat generated. To prevent that, a coolant is used to carry off the heat of the reaction, usually air or water. Then you need something to slow the free neutrons so they have a better chance of hitting the U-238. That is the moderator and which moderator is chosen depends on the reactor type. Graphite, boron, sodium, water, anything that soaks up the free neutrons and keeps them from hitting the U-238, will slow or poison the chain reaction. Antipov's breeder reactor is different because it uses liquid sodium as a coolant and to moderate the chain reaction. I can understand why Antipov would have been concerned with mechanical engineering flaws."

  "Why is that?"

  "Most reactors in this country are PWRs and use ordinary water as a coolant. Cool water rushes through the main reactor core, carries the heat away. It in turn is used to heat a secondary water source, which becomes steam. The steam spins the electrical generating turbines. Now, this water runs through pipes. While the possibility of a major loss of coolant is a serious consideration, a small leak would not necessarily be a perilous problem. A radiation hazard, certainly, if the leak was in the primary loop, but controllable if small. There would be a backup system too, to cover any loss of coolant."

  "And with sodium? That's salt, right?"

  Kuryakin grimaced slightly. "Liquid sodium is a metal, actually. It heats the secondary coolant, water. The water heats a third water source which turns to steam and spins the turbines. But liquid sodium will explode or flash into fire instantly on any contact with water or air. Argon gas is used to keep the sodium away from the air. But the smallest leak could result in an explosion, a fire and probably a meltdown situation."

  Solo frowned. "Meltdown. When the fuel melts. You mentioned that before. That's serious?"

  "Very serious. With the coolant gone in a pressurized water reactor, the uranium becomes so hot from the unmoderated chain reaction that it melts through its containment structure, through concrete, through steel, through the earth, leaking radiation—fallout—all the while. When it hits the water table, the steam explosion created would generate serious radioactive fallout. It would travel downwind and according to a recent research report, would devastate an area the size of Pennsylvania. Of course, the larger the reactor, the bigger the fallout."

  "What would the fallout do? Would it be the same as the fallout from a bomb?"

  "In many respects it is worse, because there is much more fissionable material in a reactor. Also, in a nuclear burst, the fission products are blown straight up into the atmosphere, whereas the fallout from a containment breach would just spread slowly along the ground, riding the wind, contaminating a larger area. Without protection or evacuation, those in the immediate area would die fairly quickly, certainly within days. In outlying areas, the fallout would kill more slowly, creating cancers, etc. The nucleotides would enter the food chain, contaminate the milk supply, the animals, the crops. None could be used."

  "For how long?"

  "It depends on how bad the contamination is. Some fallout elements have a half-life—that is, the period where half the radioactive contamination is gone—of hours, some have a halflife of tens of thousands of years. Much of the area under the fallout would be uninhabitable." Kuryakin hesitated. "While this would be the case with a pressurized water reactor, the situation would be slightly different with a breeder. In this type of reactor, the fuel is more tightly packed. If the coolant is compromised, or the fuel melts for some other reason, it can rapidly develop a prompt critical situation."

  Solo stared. "A bomb. You're saying the reactor becomes a giant nuclear bomb?"

  The Russian nodded.

  "How big an explosion?"

  Kuryakin shrugged. "It depends on the size of the reactor. Walter McCarthy, Hans Bethe—they are working on the new Fermi reactor—say that in the case of their reactor, it would be the equivalent of 500 pounds of TNT, which the Fermi containment is designed to withstand. There are those who say it could well be 50 times that. It's rather difficult to estimate and of course it is not something anyone would empirically test."

  One corner of Kuryakin's mouth lifted in the ghost of a grim smile. "They chose 500 pounds because, above that, the cost of the containment structure ceases to become 'economically interesting'. This is, of course, a profit-based industry."

  Solo shook his head, his mouth dry. "An explosion that could be the equivalent of 25,000 pounds of TNT? And a nuclear one at that? This sounds like something Thrush would do. Why would anyone build such a thing?"

  "Napoleon, the idea of nuclear power is very seductive to engineers, physicists and investors. It is true that breeder reactors can create more plutonium than they use. The idea of a constantly renewing energy source is very attractive to investors. At one point, this power source was predicted to be 'too cheap to meter'. While the safety problems are extreme, many engineers are attracted by the challenge to develop the engineering solutions. Many nuclear physicists, guilt-ridden over the destructive forces unleashed with the atomic bomb, want to legitimize their efforts by developing this peaceful, theoretically beneficial, application. And, of course, the government wartime investment costs could be justified. At the same time, breeders can help build a large stockpile of plutonium for defensive purposes. So the reasons to develop nuclear power and breeders in particular, are many."

  "You said this Soviet reactor has a twin in the U.S.?"

  "The Fermi breeder reactor is currently fueled and under testing now. It's been planned since 1951. At full power it will produce 1000 megawatts."

  "Where is that?"

  "A town called Lagoona Beach, on Lake Erie, near Detroit."

  "Detroit, Michigan? You have got to be kidding!"

  "Remember, Napoleon, nuclear engineers and the AEC believe the dangers can be reduced to non-existence with good engineering solutions."

  "Don't tell me any more." Solo ran a hand nervously through his hair. "A reactor being built near Detroit that can turn into a giant nuclear bomb. Remind me to tell Waverly never to send me there. I don't want to hear anymore about our reactors or reactor accidents. Let's get back to this assignment. So, Antipov got nervous when the engineers scaled down the safety systems and pulled out. If sodium is so dangerous, then why use it?"

  "For many reasons. It does not boil until over 1600 degrees. That high boiling point allows for lower pressure in the piping. It is also extremely efficient in thermal transfer." Seeing Solo's blank look he added, "the exchange of heat."

  "Right. So, why does the CIA want these reactor plans?"

  "There is concern that somehow there is a leak in security and the Detroit plans were passed to the Soviet Union. It could be that this is an independent development. But I am studying the Detroit reactor's plans to identify any duplications. That's my job, to impersonate young Antipov long enough to either film the reactor plans or learn them well enough to be able to duplicate them. Possibly compromise the reactor construction."

  "They want you to destroy it? Make a nuclear bomb reactor explode? I know the CIA isn't your biggest fan, but isn't that a little drastic?"