On November 1, 2006 Alexander Litvinenko, a former lieutenant colonel of Russia’s Federal Security Service, suddenly fell ill and was hospitalized. Three weeks later, he was dead, a victim of a toxic substance identified as polonium-210, a radio isotope that caused a painful death. He had been poisoned, and it wasn’t by fast food he had eaten on a London street corner. He had become a victim of a toxic substance, a poison, given to him by someone who obviously wanted him dead.