So when Michael Shrimpton claimed that the games would be struck by a nuclear warhead, his words carried weight. A nuclear device had been stolen from the wreck of the Russian submarine Kursk, and smuggled into the United Kingdom. Some were mounted on tall buildings near the Olympic Park in urban neighbourhoods, the first such deployment inside London since World War II. A day later, Shrimpton told the same apocalyptic tale to British MP David Lidington. “It forced us to siphon off our efforts to investigate legitimate threats,” one former British defence official told Soldier of Fortune.