“Naturally.” Duff felt better. “You’d want him to keep right on doing whatever he may be doing. He’s probably innocent. The Yates family knows him mighty well. He doubtless thinks he’s keeping something for a friend.”
“Could be.”
“And by watching him, you’d be led to some group that’s stealing not just atomic secrets but actual bombs.”
“The trouble is,” Higgins answered slowly, “that, except for a trace stolen during the war, and a bit some character took home for a collection, we’ve never lost any uranium, Bogan. Nothing remotely approaching the quantity that would make the lump you described.”
Duff’s pale blue eyes were surprised. “No! Are they sure? Couldn’t they make a mistake?”
Higgins chuckled without mirth. “Brother, can’t you conceive the guarding and checking and cross-checking that goes into protecting something worth maybe half a hundred thousand bucks a pound? Something that we’ve spent billions to be able to make? They can tell you where every thousandth of an ounce is, every day, every minute!”
Duffs reaction was one of humiliation. “Then I must have pulled a boner at the lab!
Maybe — having got that cockeyed notion — I saw what I wanted to see, in my tests.”
The G-man’s eyes were unsympathetic. “Probably. But you came in here and told us.
We’re used to that. Stories and rumors of A-bomb spies come in here as thick as reports of flying saucers. And we waste our lives on ’em all. Thanks, however. Provisionally.”