The Cassiopeia Contract

By Frederic Roux

THE CASSIOPEIA CONTRACT
Fascists and militia target the United Nations and European Union over what they call an unholy alliance of leftists and Zionist supremacists who are deploying the full might of the European Union and United Nations to impose migration, multi-ethnicity, multiculturalism and miscegenation on nations world-wide. Inspired by tweets of Donald Trump, fascists start to hit back, first at the polls in Europe, now in Brazil, by letter-bombs and shootings in the USA, and now with a nuke.
A US-based investigative news organization, The Centre for Public Integrity reports that South Africa has enough ingots of highly-enriched fission fuel to produce six atom bombs and that experts fear that it may be stolen and used in a terrorist attack.
When a witness in a treason trial in the Supreme Court tells the court that the apartheid regime developed a mini nuke for the howitzer, officials discover an ingot is missing. The outgoing President of the apartheid regime told Parliament in 1989 that his government had dismantled six-and-a-half atom bombs and everything apropos the bombs had been destroyed but he made no mention of a mini nuke. Since the ANC government who has turned sharply left since Nelson Mandela died fears it may become a target for the missing nuke, its agents round up outspoken and right-wing Afrikaners. The controversial ‘expropriation of land without compensation’ has Afrikaners hot under the collar. ‘South Africa is a political volcano about to erupt’ is how the BBC describes the situation.
Rian Schröder is ordered to investigate the murders of retired apartheid soldiers but meets with physical obstruction from the military, for agents of military intelligence question his integrity since he too is an Afrikaner. Before long agents from every conceivable nation are after the device. As the search intensifies Rian and FBI Special Agent Marlui Vigueras, a profiler sent to help him identify the killer, become targets of agents of military intelligence, of foreign agents, and of right-wing militia.
On a murdered soldier’s computer Rian and Marlui find two vital clues―Cassiopeia and Bommer. Cassiopeia is a supernova in the northern hemisphere, remains of a star explosion, whereas in Greek mythology Cassiopeia boasted that her daughter Andromeda was more beautiful than the sea nymphs. Bommer was the nickname for the hero of one of the major battles in Angola during which the mobile G-6 howitzer played a major role in wiping out a complete brigade of FAPLA, Cuban and Russian soldiers.
However, ‘Bommer’, expert on the howitzer, is nowhere to be found.
Rian deduces that a supernova denotes a nuclear device, and that Andromeda chained to a rock in the ocean means that the nuclear device was sold to an overseas party and that Bommer would deliver it personally (Perseus on his winged horse Pegasus saved Andromeda). When Rian and Marlui head for the USA, FBI Director orders Marlui to New York in the belief that the United Nations building is the target.
Following his instincts Rian and Marlui fly to Los Angeles. ‘Where else,’ Rian asks, ‘will you find a star explosion, and women who are even more beautiful than the sea nymphs, than at the film industry’s Annual Academy Awards presentation in the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles?’ They come under fire from the militia who acquired the nuke. When Rian is taken captive by Bertrand Tremblay, leader of Order of Bertrand et Raton, a militia from New Mexico, will the bomb be found, and if so, who can disarm it before it can be detonated in front of a television audience of one billion people?
As a hissing sound suddenly fills the auditorium, the audience look up to watch awestricken as the massive Millennium Falcon slowly swings out over them, totally unaware that they are doomed like Cassiopeia to be banned to the stars forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frederic Roux
• Release date: Jul 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463836392

Book preview

PROLOGUE

In 1989, five years before a democratically elected government took over, the President of the apartheid regime announced in Parliament that South African physicists had dismantled six fully and one partially completed atomic bombs. The country in general was stunned by the news that South Africa had built atomic bombs. Validation that the bombs had been dismantled came in 1994, from the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington think-tank, and the International Atomic Energy Agency. A few months later the Oxford Research Group (a group of British physicists) submitted a report to the Nuclear-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference held February 1995 in New York that stated emphatically that South Africa did have the know-how to develop advanced neutron and plutonium warheads, not just atomic bombs. Special mention was also made of the development by South African physicists of a successful uranium enrichment process using laser isotopes, an innovative development that stunned the scientific world.

At the time of the President’s announcement however, the general impression created was that everything apropos the atomic bombs had been destroyed. This was what the public believed. But this was not the case. What in actual fact happened was that the bombs were dismantled and the weapons-grade nuclear fuel melted down, cast into ingots and stored in a silver vault at the Pelindaba Nuclear Research Centre west of Pretoria. Casings for these atomic bombs can be viewed on Wikipedia.

Confirmation that the weapons-grade nuclear fuel was in fact not destroyed comes from a recent report by The Centre for Public Integrity, a U.S.-based investigative news organization. According to this report South Africa has enough highly-enriched uranium fuel to produce six nuclear dispersion devices. Special mention is made in the report that experts are concerned about the vulnerability of these ingots since they fear that it could be stolen by militants and used in a terrorist attack. The report furthermore asseverates that U.S. President Barack Obama twice asked South African President Jacob Zuma to relinquish this weapons-grade material to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The South African government meanwhile has remained mum about these ingots, which poses the question ― does South Africa still have these weapons-grade nuclear ingots, or have they been traded for ― what?

***

Chapter 1

There could be no happier woman than Mariechen Thiart. Or so she felt on that first Monday of a ten-day stay here in this hotel on the romantic island of Ko Phuket. At breakfast in their suite Rian Schröder had asked her to marry him and put a ring on her finger. Shortly after they met she decided she wanted this man’s child. He was tall, well-built, fit and good-looking with strong features, short light hair and blue eyes that turned a darker shade when he was angry or upset. His calm and gentle nature was misleading for nothing seemed to daunt him. On top of that, he was a lover par excellence. The two of them were here because they decided to spend ten days together to see ‘how things worked out between them.’ For months while Rian was compelled to give evidence in various courts a suitable date had been a hit-and-miss affair, but eventually they made it and now he had surprised her and she was happily wearing his ring.

Many years ago her family, like many other elite Stellenbosch families spent their holidays in Still Bay, a coastal resort, and she was one of a pack of teenagers who had experimented with cigarettes, liquor and sex. In those early days, hard drugs were not big in rural towns but she took a puff at pot, marihuana, twice, and gave it up because it made her nauseous. Of the three she discovered that she enjoyed sex, enjoyed it too much, and as a consequence a mistake slipped in. Her father took her to London for an abortion and upon her return she turned her back on the pack. For a long time thereafter she had confined herself to her studies and her work (far too long as she was now finding out) and now she was a successful business woman, partner of an all-women auditing firm, WCW Accountants.

Except for two uneventful affairs at university, for more than a decade thereafter Rian was the first man with whom she has had sex. He was away so often, her relationship with him could have gone the same way as that of the university students, except for the fact that he was an extraordinary lover, intercourse being but the consummation of love-making. This seemed to have unleashed all the pent-up sexual desires that had built up since her pregnancy. It scared her a little for at times it felt as if she had too much concupiscence bottled up and that this presaged an eruption. This was why she had been susceptible to Dingiswayo’s seduction at the hotel on the Vaal River where she was spending the night in eager anticipation of Rian who was to join her the next day. This much she knew. Dingiswayo who had wanted to blackmail Rian had been cleverly playing her along, but had fortuitously met an untimely death before any real harm was done.

Nevertheless, she had met the man of her dreams and from the moment that he proposed she had stopped taking the pill. Now she could make up for the child she gave up so many years ago. Or rather, this was her assumption. What pleased her most though was that when they talked about it, Rian, whose wife had left him for greener pastures in Paris, proved to be as eager as she was to have children.

Brigadier Rian Schröder was head of NOU, the National Operational Unit of the South African Police Services created with the sole purpose to investigate sensitive political cases, and he reported directly to the Minister and Commissioner of Police Services. And this was the crux of the matter. For it was now Thursday evening, three days after he had put that ring on her finger and here they were on their way back to South Africa. Not just the Minister, but the President had called Rian personally, telling him he was needed back home.

An attractive woman had fetched them and they were flown by helicopter from their hotel to Phuket International Airport. When they boarded a private executive jet it came as a bit of a surprise to Mariechen to note Rian’s familiarity with a crew who from their greeting appeared to be Russian.

After the plane took off Rian had gone to the cockpit and a moment later Mariechen saw him appear and she heard a woman behind him say, … but first I am curious to meet the woman you are going to marry.

Rian had looked at her, chuckled and when the two stepped into the cabin he introduced them. Mariechen meet Larisa … Larisa meet Mariechen.

For a moment the two women speculatively sized each other up. Hairs were perhaps not quite bristling, Rian thought, but he could see Mariechen, with what he called a woman’s built-in radar, recognise Larisa for who she was.

With a sweet smile Larisa said, Mariechen, it is a pleasure to meet you. Taken-aback Mariechen could only nod. Larisa meanwhile turned back to Rian and said, Your boss, the Minister of Police called Jenna-Wade and told her to tell you to get back asp, but she said she did not know where you were. Apparently he told her he did not care, the President said he must get you back. So Jenna-Wade got in touch with a man called Wiseman.

The bastard, Rian said, but with a grin. Head of police intelligence in the Western Cape.

Why do I detect a clash of personalities here? I bet it’s over a woman. It’s always over a woman.

Rian’s grin widened but he did not comment.

Watching the two, the shaken Mariechen recalled Rian telling her in order to rescue Maria, wife of the American President who had been kidnapped while on holiday in Cape Town, a Ukrainian had flown him to America incognito. Putting two-and-two together she realised this must be the same plane, hence his intimacy with the crew. But Rian had not told her who this person was, nor that it was a woman, especially not that she was beautiful. Mariechen was not even sure it was this woman, because her English was impeccable. In any case, when Rian told you a story, always careful not to reveal what should stay under wraps, as this could be used in court, he never went into too much detail. She was becoming used to this, but still, Larisa was an exceptionally striking woman and this lodged a boding of uncertainty in her nous.

Larisa meanwhile carried on, Anyway, Wiseman traced your flights and told her you were on the island of Phuket. The minister then wanted to know how long it would take to get you back. Jenna-Wade made enquiries, called the minister back and said if they could find you … and that was if … not less than forty-eight hours. They would have to send a plane and they would have no guarantee that you would be on board. That was not good enough, your minister shouted so she told him to leave it to her. A most ingenious woman, your aide. She called our offices in Johannesburg and spoke to Yelena … Yelena called me … and I called Roong, the young lady who contacted you.

Roong, Yuzovka’s station chief for Thailand.

Exactly. It did not take Roong long to find your love nest. I called Jenna-Wade and told her since I was nearby I would pick you up and drop you off in Cape Town in time for breakfast tomorrow morning. This would be more than a day earlier than what she told the minister. So, here I am.

I take it you were up north in China, he said.

How astute of you, she said affectionately taking his arm, in Kunming, to be exact, capital of the Chinese Yunnan Province. Only two hours from Phuket.

Mariechen could not help but notice with what intimacy Larisa handled Rian.

Doing what? Negotiating the purchase of Chincom AK-47’s?

You don’t expect me to answer that, she said, smiling sweetly as she gave his arm a squeeze.

And Methamphetamine too, I suppose, he said, commonly known as ‘speed’, for distribution in southern Africa via your airfield in Zimbabwe.

My but you have done your homework, Larisa said. Releasing his arm, she put out a hand to Mariechen and said, Come, let’s go and make something to eat.

Frowning and feeling jolted Mariechen slowly climbed to her feet.

Nice ring, Larisa said taking her arm. Don’t worry darling, I am a gangster, Larisa said and with a glance at Rian added, I can’t take him away from you even if I tried … in fact I did make a play for him but he turned me down. She turned back to Mariechen. I am filthy rich, I can spend a billion U.S. dollars on anything without having to account for it to anybody … and I would happily pay that to have the few days you just had with him … even though I know the nefarious organisation I work for will probably kill me afterwards. You see, this is what you and I have in common, we both love the same man. But I can never be anything else but a gangster and this man with his high morals … the only man I ever met that I would give my life for … turned me down. Mariechen could see tears brimming in her eyes. I am so happy for his sake that he’s found you. He’s a treasure, look after him, give him children, and he will look after you.

A stunned Mariechen was staring at Larisa with an open mouth. And while her glance went from Larisa to Rian and back she fingered the ring on her finger subconsciously, seeking a measure of self-assurance.

How remarkably alike the two women were, Rian thought, both in looks and build. Both were tall and slender, yet with a good figure and very shapely legs. They were fair of skin and hair and both had blue eyes, only Larisa’s eyes were lighter. Is this why he had asked Mariechen to marry him, because she was so much like Larisa, he wondered? Was he in fact in love with Larisa but since marrying her was out of the question, Mariechen was second option? Rubbish! He gave her the ring because his sister Letta, forever the matchmaker, pleaded with him to do it. But originally the idea was that the two of them would go away for ten days to see how things worked out between them. For the same reason the petit Birke Behrens had given him a key to her apartment some time ago, only he had never used it. In looks and build Larisa and Mariechen may be alike, he cogitated, but their natures were poles apart. Larisa was characterised by a physical forcefulness which was reflected in her cold blue eyes and stern lines of her face, whereas Mariechen had an affectionate and loving nature, and that too was reflected in her eyes and the softer lines of her face. In spite of the differences in nature, he was attracted to both, and he loved ― well both.

What can be so urgent back home that they had to call you in? he asked. I mean, this is going to cost our taxpayer an arm and a leg.

This one is on the house.

He stared at her in silence for a second. I see, not money but payment in kind. He chuckled. The minister did make some ridiculous remark about civil war on the phone, but I took it for granted that was just to get my attention.

Well according to some reports civil war has broken out in South Africa, Larisa said.

What? both Rian and Mariechen exclaimed.

South Africa is a political volcano that is about to erupt … this is how the BBC described the current situation in your country, Larisa said. A mini nuke developed by scientists of the regime is missing and now your government, bolstered by the lefties, the Commies and the trade unions, fears right-wing militia are liable to use the nuke on them. That is, if I got the story right.

A missing nuke? Rian said. That’s impossible. Before the 1994 democratic election, the President announced in Parliament that South Africa had produced six-and-a-half atomic bombs and that he had given instructions for them to be destroyed. In fact, on Wikipedia you can find pictures of casings for more than six of these atomic bombs. But there was never any mention of a mini nuke.

This evidently came out in a court case where three Afrikaners are being tried for treason, Larisa said, It seems the bombs may have been dismantled but the weapons-grade nuclear fuel was cast into ingots and never destroyed. If I understand this right it is not the six ingots that are a problem, they are still there, no, it is the weapons-grade material from the partially completed bomb. What has happened to that? According to news reports this is the weapons-grade material that was used to produce a mini nuke. And speculation has it that this mini nuke can fit into a suitcase. This has caused such panic nationally that unruly mobs are going about burning the homes and farms of far-right Afrikaners, and looting Afrikaner businesses. The government is doing little to stop them. And, to add fuel to the fire, security forces are going about rounding up known outspoken Afrikaners. Prison camps are being erected all over the country to accommodate them.

Mm, Rian said, the British concentration camps of the 1899-1902 South African War all over again.

***

Chapter 2

The flight plan was changed en route and instead of Cape Town International Airport the Falcon 900 landed at the Hoedspruit Air Force Base in Limpopo Province. This was in the northeast corner of the country, nearly 1500 kilometres from Cape Town, less than 200 kilometres from the Zimbabwe border and less than 100 from Mozambique.

You go ahead, Larisa said, I’ll see that Mariechen gets home safely.

Rian gave Mariechen a quick kiss and grabbing his bag walked down the steps to where Colonel Jenna-Wade Knapton, his aide, stood waiting. She pointed to a police helicopter and they walked to it. As they climbed in Rian looked back and saw the Falcon 900 take off.

Where are we going? Rian asked over the intercom after strapping himself in.

To a farm on the Swaziland border, Jenna-Wade replied. The owner, Colonel Rudolph Lambrecht was the duty officer at the laboratory where the mini nuke was developed. He and his wife Sarah retired to this farm and they have been murdered.

Okay, this is murder, that’s why we are called in. Apart from that I don’t know why we are here. The military must find their own damn bomb.

This was a Cabinet decision Rian. But we’ll talk when we are on the ground. What I can tell you is that for some people these two murders are of secondary importance.

I can imagine that they will not be happy with a cop in their patch.

Some of our team are on site. I sent them ahead while I waited for you. I had to leave some of the team back in Cape Town to carry on with the reports.

Good.

Not good. You are creating too much paper-work.

I don’t go about looking for murders.

No, but you attract it like a magnet.

What I don’t understand is why the Hoedspruit Air Force Base? Isn’t O.R. Tambo International Airport closer to the Swaziland border than Hoedspruit?

Distance was not the main reason. Security was. The alleged missing miniature atomic bomb has caught the world’s attention and the world’s media have descended on this country like hyenas. Now everybody is looking for mini nukes. And not only the press.

I can imagine. But I thought all the atomic bombs that South Africa produced were destroyed? At least this is what the President told parliament.

There is a news clampdown in South Africa and we have to rely on Aljazeera, CNN, Fox News, BBC and Sky News if we want to know what is going on.

Reminds me of the days when the Nationalist Party government did the same and the response of the English newspapers was to publish long black columns.

In any case, I have been trying to read up on it but it is too complicated for me. It seems everything was not destroyed. The bombs were dismantled and the weapons-grade nuclear fuel was cast into ingots. Now it seems some highly-enriched uranium is missing, more than enough to produce a mini nuke that can fit into a suitcase. And this is what the panic is about.

Is there any evidence that a mini nuke was developed?

The military refuses to comment.

Then how do we know that Colonel Rudolph Lambrecht was the duty officer at the laboratory where the mini nuke was developed?

This comes from our Minister. And that was all he told me.

Good old Charles, Rian said referring to Charles Tshetsha, Minister of Police, throws us into the deep end and we have to sink or swim.

Rian thoughtfully studied the terrain when they crossed over into Mpumalanga Province. As they flew past west of Nelspruit he looked down on the capital of the province without really seeing it. Then he turned back to Jenna-Wade. What it means is this, even though the military refuse to comment, dear old Charles has told us that there was a laboratory. And so … thanks to Charles … reach your own conclusion … if that is the case then a mini nuke was developed … or … attempts were made to develop a mini nuke.

Taking the tablet from Jenna-Wade Rian sat back and read the salient points covering the development of nuclear weapons in South Africa that members of his unit had collected:

***

NOU report on South Africa’s Development of Nuclear Weapons

West of Prince Edward Island (South African territory) in the south Indian Ocean is an area where the ionosphere, which is responsible for the long-distance reception of radio waves, comes close to the earth’s surface, a phenomenon known as Cape Town Anomaly. An article published in the New York Times in 1960 mentions atomic tests carried out in 1958 in secret by the United States in cooperation with South Africa to test the effect of explosions on the ionosphere. A decade later, in July 1970 Prime Minister John Vorster told Parliament that South Africa had developed the ability to produce low-enriched-uranium. The National Nuclear Research Centre of the Atomic Energy Board (later called Atomic Energy Corporation) was located at Pelindaba, 35 kilometres west of Pretoria. Not long after Vorster’s announcement the Y-plant was opened at Velindaba (adjacent to Pelindaba), with the Z-plant a few years later. The Y-plant remained classified for years, until rumours were confirmed that it was producing fission material for nuclear dispersion devices, whereas the Z-plant would later produce low-enriched-uranium for the nuclear reactors of the Koeberg power station near Cape Town.

Three shafts each 90 cm in diameter were meanwhile being built at Vastrap in the Kalahari Desert to carry out underground nuclear tests, with one being completed in 1976, a second early in 1977, and a third shaft was abandoned when it flooded. In June 1977 a Soviet area-survey satellite Cosmos 922 passed over this site and when the photographs were studied a second satellite 69A Cosmos 932 that was launched to study a West German company’s missile test site in Zaire was directed to take photographs of Vastrap. South Africa was not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and in a surprise move on 21 August 1977 Russia’s official news agency Itar-Tass reported that South Africa was planning to carry out an underground test of an atomic bomb in the Kalahari Desert. This stunned the world. The government meanwhile vehemently denied the accusation. Nevertheless, when the French Minister of Foreign Affairs cautioned that delivery of the nuclear reactors for the Koeberg powerstation, due in 1984, may be jeopardised the tests at Vastrap were cancelled. Later that same year, in December 1977 the United Nations passed Resolution 418 imposing a total arms embargo on South Africa. The outcome of this was that in 1978 Kentron Circle, a subsidiary of Armscor, the Armaments Corporation (now known as Denel), took over the nuclear weapons programme at Velindaba. Kentron Circle was later renamed Advena. Here it is worth noting: (i) a document number PEL.224 produced by AEB in 1973 analysed the seismic effects of constructive nuclear explosions on different sites in South Africa and named the Kalahari as a suitable test site; and (ii) in May 1974 the Kentron South plant (previously known as Somchem) in Somerset West, 50 kilometres from Cape Town, tested a gun mechanism for a nuclear dispersion device.

South Africa’s missile launch site was in the Lake St. Lucia Nature Reserve on the east coast, where locally developed prototype Israeli missiles were tested having the vast Indian Ocean east thereof as an unlimited testing range. Only too aware that American satellites kept tabs on the launch site to ensure that South Africa did not launch an intercontinental ballistic missile, a secret launch site was built in the De Hoop Nature Reserve on the Cape south coast (Somchem had built a rocket engine test site not far from there in the Hottentots-Holland Mountain Catchment Area near Rooi Els). In order to provide accommodation for the development of the new launch site, people were forcibly evacuated from the village of Skipskop, in this case mostly white people. The first test of a prototype nuclear dispersion device was launched from the De Hoop site in September 1979 and detonated under the cloud over the south Indian Ocean west of Prince Edward Island, and the second a month later. However, what the South Africans tried to avoid happened ― during the second test on 25 October 1979 the cloud opened and an American Vela-satellite picked up the double flash. An atomic bomb has a double flash: a flash of light followed by a fireball that blocks any further light emission by ionizing the air for a period of a few hundredth of a millisecond. Nuclear experts who studied the double flash estimated the blast to have been in the region of 3-kiloton. Atmospheric tests by a number of countries, i.e. Australia, New Zealand, as well as the radio telescope in Puerto Rico, confirmed that it was a nuclear blast. The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico (where the Hiroshima atomic bomb was developed) confirmed that the patch of aurora light detected a few seconds after the Vela flash by Japan’s Syowa Base in the Antarctic came from the electromagnetic pulse of a nuclear blast. US satellites had also tracked Israeli naval ships heading for Prince Edward Island. After receiving confirmation from various sources that an atomic bomb had been detonated over the south Indian Ocean, the United States lodged a formal complaint via diplomatic channels but the South African government denied any knowledge of such explosions. It nevertheless caused an international outcry, giving the call for sanctions further momentum (Scandinavian countries hereupon banned new investments in South Africa). Two books quoting Israeli spokesmen (The Samson Option, by Seymour Hersh, 1991, and Critical Mass, by William E. Burrows and Robert Windrem, 1994) subsequently confirmed that Israel had in fact cooperated with South Africa in testing a total of three nuclear devices in the south Indian Ocean late in 1979.

In May 1981 South Africa finally conceded that it possessed the technology to enrich uranium required for the Koeberg nuclear reactor due to come on-line in 1984, which by implication was an admission that it had the technology to enrich uranium for military purposes. It served as a rebuff for the 1981 Rockefeller Report that assumed South Africa would be dependent on American-supplied nuclear uranium for the Koeberg reactor, thereby giving the Americans a say in South Africa’s affairs. Over a period of a few months a small specially fitted American Embassy plane flew low over Velindaba a number of times measuring radioactive and other emissions. When eventually it was spotted by a security officer, Mirage fighters were scrambled and it was forced down. Three diplomats were arrested and expelled. It caused another political storm with the government lodging strong objections, but it quickly blew over.

Hereafter the story splits and two accounts emerge. The official account jumps from 1982 to 1989, receives validation in 1994, and pops up once more briefly in 2015; whereas after 1979 the second and speculative account is silent for a period of sixteen years before it emerges again in 1995, but thereafter it leaves a long trail of unanswered questions.

The official account: The first deliverable atomic bomb was built in 1982 and production bombs came off the assembly line over the next six years. These were ‘explosion-type’ atomic bombs, also called ‘gun-type’ or ‘cannon-type’ bombs, similar to the one that was dropped on Hiroshima. In 1989 the President told Parliament that six-and-a-half ‘gun-type’ atomic bombs had been dismantled, every scrap of documentation thereof shredded and everything related thereto destroyed. Validation that the bombs had been dismantled came in 1994 ― from the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington think-tank, and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Since then the subject disappeared off the grid. That is, until the recent manifestation by a US-based investigative news organization, The Centre for Public Integrity in America, that South Africa had enough highly-enriched uranium fuel to produce six nuclear dispersion devices. This report further asseverates that the U.S. President twice asked the South African President to relinquish all weapons-grade nuclear material, to no avail, and that experts feared these ingots may be stolen by militants and used in a terrorist attack. Is their concern justified? In an article published recently in an Afrikaans newspaper, a journalist gave an account of how he readily gained access and was able to move about unchallenged