"You mean you didn't know Slovetski was planning violence?"
She shook her head. "And even now, I think, perhaps you heard wrong, perhaps there was a mistake."
I stood up and leaned over her. "Rena, listen to me. There was no mistake. They're working on that casing. Tell me what you know!"
She shook her head, weeping freely.
I raged: "This is asinine! What can there be that you will not tell? The Company supply base that Slovetski hopes to raid to get a bomb? The officers he plans to bribe, to divert some other nation's quota of plutonium?"
She took a deep breath. "Not that, Tom."
"Then what? You don't mean to say that he has a complete underground separator plant—that he is making his own plutonium!"
She was silent for a long time, looking at me. Then she sighed. "I will tell you, Tom. No, he does not have a plant. He doesn't need one, you see. He already has a bomb."
I straightened. "That's impossible."