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little CTC sedan. I watched everybody pile out, fan out. FBI agents and Scotty’s RERT team to scour the dump for the missing resin cask, on the theory the perp panicked and dumped it here. Soliano had already called for a Department of Energy helicopter to search from the air, measuring for radionuclides.
    Miller came over and gave me a bow. “Welcome to Nowheresville.”
    “Not to me. I like the desert.”
    “I see that by your hands. I admire a woman who uses her hands.”
    My hands are chapped, nicked, the unpolished nails cut blunt. I put them in my pockets. Miller’s gaze moved to my face. I fought the urge to wipe away the sweat. Even a good washing, though, would not erase the marks that the years in the field were beginning to leave, despite my devotion to hats and sunscreen. Still and all, if I had to rate my looks on the geological scale, I’d say I was in the uplift phase. I gave Miller a smile.
    Soliano joined us and Miller led the way. I trailed them, gawking at the scenery.
    Earthen embankments rose twenty feet high and extended in rows beyond my field of view. The nearest horizon was a six-foot chainlink fence topped by barbwire. Directly in front of us were the kind of crackerbox buildings that make staff think Nowheresville. Right now, everything glowed. Sunup gilded the dump.
    I spotted the CTC logo on a low-slung warehouse with titanic doors. Underneath, the logo was decoded: Closing The Circle Of The Atom .
    I got it. I wasn’t sure I believed it, though. There’s at least one cask of radioactive resins deserving of closure that’s not getting buried. And if the swap theory’s right, the perp stole a cask from here to fill with talc. And nobody here even noticed, until the swap was derailed with the crash. This place did not inspire great confidence in me. Maybe it was just the stress of the past few hours but I was thinking, this place promises what it cannot deliver. Closing the circle of the atom. They unleash the power of the atom and then try to put it back into the ground but it’s a sitting duck, there waiting for something to go wrong. What kind of earthquake protection do they have? What kind of scumbag protection?
    We passed an embankment with an open trench. It was lined with wooden crates and metal drums six rows deep and ten layers high. A forklift crawled along the trench with a fresh box in its tines, hunting for space for one more.
    “That’s the low-rad stuff.” Miller winked. “Booties and gloves and such.”
    We moved on.
    Ahead was an inner fence with a sign that said Restricted Area, Controlled Access . Miller signed us in at the guardhouse and passed out dosimeters.
    Passing through the gate was like going from kindergarten to college. Now, it got serious. The open trench here was lined with concrete vaults. The package being lowered into the nearest vault was hung on the end of cables. Miller steered us behind a huge wheeled crate full of earth. It was labeled Portable Shield .
    Good idea.
    “Here’s the man,” Miller said, waving, “here’s Mister Radwaste himself. Cassie Oldfield, Hector Soliano, I give you the dump’s own manager—Milton Ballinger.”
    A compact man with the bantam stride of a nervous rooster approached. “Put it away Hap, these people aren’t looking to be entertained, they came with a problem and I got it covered.” Ballinger was middle-aged and boyish-looking. Egg bald, smooth tan from the scalp down, jawline firm to its sharp chin. He could have been an advertisement for the uranium health cures the atomic enthusiasts used to promote.
    Miller said, “Milt himself came up with our motto—closing the circle. Made him a rockstar with the honchos.”
    “We just go by the initials. You know, CTC.” Milt Ballinger’s small eyes shone bright as new pennies.
~
    R oy Jardine was having trouble paying attention to his job. Nerves. Well, he bet outlaws got nervous sometimes.
    He needed to keep up with his recon.
    He watched Ballinger come