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apartment. One main decision they reached while discussing their plans was not to start a family until the smoke, literally, cleared out.

Chapter 3
    January 30 th , Los Alamos National Laboratory
    Nagib, who was no longer supervised by Dr. Brian LeClerk, resumed work in his new position as the head of the section in charge of developing better analytical procedures to determine the isotopic composition and state of the fissile materials, the enriched uranium and plutonium, used in the nuclear warheads. This was part of the stockpile stewardship project for which the Lab was responsible. It was well known that nuclear weapons had a limited lifetime mainly due to the natural decay of the radioactive materials of construction as well as to chemical processes like corrosion or degradation. Therefore samples had to be taken periodically from warheads that were dismantled for this purpose. By "better analytical procedures" the management meant more accurate, more robust, higher throughput, faster and less expensive analytical methods. Nagib seized the opportunity to call for a meeting with the people from the operations division who were responsible for sending the samples and explained that no analytical result was worth the paper it was printed on (not literally, of course, as results were conveyed by computer software and electronic spreadsheets) if the sample was not a true representative of the bulk of the material. He insisted on having his own laboratory team collecting the samples. The operations division people, especially their manager Dr. Max Level, automatically objected saying that the responsibility for sampling was theirs, as had been the custom for decades. The argument went on and on for several minutes with each side insisting that they should be in charge of the sample collection and as they could not reach an agreement they decided to go to the senior management for a ruling and made an appointment with the Deputy Director of the Lab for the next day.
    Nagib returned home that evening and told Alia about the debate and explained that by getting responsibility for sampling he would gain access to the actual warheads and the storage area which could help facilitate their plans. Alia said that the name of Dr. Max Level sounded very familiar but could not recall from where. She asked Nagib if he wanted tea or coffee and went into the kitchen to switch on the electric kettle and make two cups of tea. Suddenly Nagib heard her laughing hysterically and when he rushed into the kitchen he saw her bent over the kitchen counter and holding her belly. Nagib thought that she was ill or suffering cramps but saw that her right hand was pointing at the kettle and wondered if she had been electrocuted so quickly unplugged the kettle. With great difficulty, still laughing hysterically, Alia stood upright and pointed to the line signifying the maximum amount of water that should be used to boil water. He looked closely at the line that prescribed the words Max Level and also burst out laughing.     
     
    January 31 st , Los Alamos National Laboratory
    Nagib and Max Level presented their arguments about taking the responsibility for sample collection and the Deputy Director listened impatiently to both of them and after ten minutes cut them short and said that he had more important things on his agenda. He ruled that for a trial period of five weeks samples would be collected by Nagib's laboratory personnel and if this led to improved results they would continue this practice but if no significant progress was found then the old procedures would be reestablished. Nagib and Max were both displeased with this decision which probably indicated that it was a wise one. When they left the Deputy Director's office they set an appointment with their senior staff members to discuss the details for implementing the decision.
    Nagib brought his chief analytical chemist who was in charge of carrying out the analyses and his senior