ne short of the Secretary of War and the Chief of
Ordnance and certain of their selected subordinates knows that my
experiments have been successful and that the United States is in a
position to manufacture radite in almost unlimited quantities from the
pitchblende ore deposits of Wyoming and Nevada. The effects of radite
will be catastrophic on the unfortunate victim on whom it is first
used. The only thing left to do was to develop a gun from which radite
shells could be fired with safety and precision.

"Ordinary propellant powders are too variable for this purpose, but I
found that radite B, one form of my new explosive, can be used for
propelling the shells from a gun. The ordinary gun will last only two
or three rounds, due to the erosive action of the radite charge on the
barrel, and ordinary ordnance is heavier and more cumbersome than is
necessary. When this was found to be the case, the Chief of Ordnance
detailed Lieutenant Breslau, the army's greatest expert on gun design,
to work with me in an attempt to develop a suitable weapon. Breslau is
a wizard at that sort of work and he has made a miniature working
model of a gun with a vitrilene-lined barrel which is capable of being
fired with a miniature shell. The gun will stand up under the repeated
firing of radite charges and is very light and compact and gives an
accuracy of fire control heretofore deemed impossible. From this he
planned to construct a larger weapon which would fire a shell
containing an explosive charge of two and one-half ounces of radite at
a rate of fire of two hundred shots per minute. The destructive effect
of each shell will be greater than that of the ordinary high-explosive
shell fired from a sixteen-inch mortar, and all of the shells can be
landed inside a two-hundred foot circle at a range of fifteen miles.
The weight of the completed gun will be less than half a ton,
exclusive of the firing platform. It is Breslau's working model which
has been stolen."

* * * * *

Carnes whistled softly between his teeth.

"The matter will have to be handled pretty delicately to avoid
international complications," he said. "It's hard to tell just where
to look. There are a great many nations who would give any amount for
a model of such a weapon."

"The matter must be handled delicately and also in absolute secrecy,
Carnes. We are not yet ready to announce to the world the fact that we
have such a weapon in o