Rip the Angels from Heaven

by David Krugler

  “Classified materials improperly logged. Safes left open.”

  “Colonel, I’m keenly aware, as are all my colleagues in the division, that any and all observations relating to said problems must be immediately reported to your office. Therefore, I propose that we dispense with pretense and you ask me whatever it is you really want to.”

  If Ackerly was expecting a retort or a lecture on the importance of security measures, he didn’t get it. Latham calmly asked, “Doctor Ackerly, have you ever failed to correctly log classified materials and return them to their assigned safe and properly secure the lock?”

  He had a Ph.D. too! Appearance, work, education—Ackerly shared three traits with the spy. And his tone of voice and the words he used strikingly resembled the man I’d heard in D.C. Arrogant, confident, officious. The professorial phrasing. Any and all … said problems … therefore.

  “No, Colonel, to my knowledge I have never failed to properly handle classified materials.”

  Was he the man? I badly wanted to say yes, but something didn’t feel right. I needed to hear more. Catching Latham’s eye, I circled a forefinger in the air. Keep him talking.

  “Very well, thank you,” Latham said to Ackerly. “Next question: Have you been out to Trinity recently?”

  A smirk. “Like a competent trial attorney, you already know the answer to that question, Colonel.”

  “Let’s pretend I’m not a competent trial attorney.”

  “It so happens I was at Trinity a week ago Tuesday,” the scientist said.

  “For how long?”

  “Just a day, thankfully, the conditions are beyond wretched. I cannot fathom how we’re expected to work in that heat and dust.”

  Something wasn’t quite right, he had an enunciation that didn’t jibe with the spy’s. Ackerly didn’t draw out his words, as Feynman did, but he did hit second syllables like some people smack staplers. Wret-CHED … fath-UHM. The man at the Automat had the same verbal tic, hadn’t he? I couldn’t be certain, too much time had passed. If only I could ask where he’d gone to college, if only I could find out if he was a Yale man. Told myself to concentrate. Ackerly continued to complain about the terrible conditions at this place called Trinity, some site in the desert. Finally I thought to close my eyes and imagined myself back in D.C., the headset over my ears, the spy’s voice right there, then and now … in a coupla months, maybe less, the whole world’s gonna find out what a big, big bang of a success we’ve pulled off … as Ackerly droned on in the background … “time and again we have lodged our complaints with Robert and he has promised to get the general to do something, but nothing has changed, not a thing!”

  I opened my eyes, looked at Latham, and shook my head. Contractions: the man I’d heard used them, Ackerly didn’t. We have lodged … he has promised. For all the apparent similarities, Ackerly wasn’t the spy.

  Latham dismissed Ackerly, who barely looked at me on his way out. If I was important, surely I would’ve been seated at the table. Would have been seated.

  The three men facing me had noticed my hesitation; they’d seen me close my eyes to concentrate. Latham said, “Bringing any of these men back in will raise their suspicions, Voigt.” Translation: This is your only shot to get it right.

  “I understand, sir. I just needed to listen a little longer, that’s all. Ackerly has a similar way of talking to the man I heard in Washington. But it’s not him. The man I heard uses contractions, Ackerly doesn’t, plus the inflection is a little off.”

  Slater shook his head in disgust. “Colonel, we’re not rehearsing characters for a play here. Voigt’s obviously incapable of identifying the spy.” Another way of accusing me of being a liar.

  “We’re down to just two men,” Latham replied. “If Voigt leaves us empty-handed, we’ll consider doing things your way.”

  The colonel didn’t so much as glance at me, but that statement was a definite shot across my bow. Speaking as if I wasn’t in the room, giving Slater encouragement—Latham was letting me know that if I didn’t come through, I was finished at Site Y. And Slater’s “way” might well include detaining me on suspicion of being a Red agent. I was utterly alone—Paslett couldn’t protect me, not here.

  My blood pressure shot up when the fifth man, Paul Scheppel, came in. He was stout, short—and completely bald. His shaved head caught the overhead light as he sat. I tried to hide my dismay, had to appear to concentrate. No one knows you saw the spy, so listen hard. Scheppel worked in the Chemistry Division, he was asked about a laboratory accident. Looked surprised, said he’d already been asked about that; Latham told him they needed to go over it again. Scheppel shrugged, said okay, talked. East Coast accent, Boston or Rhode Island—what did it matter? Five men had come in—I hadn’t recognized one.

  Slater couldn’t contain his triumph when I shook my head after Scheppel left.

  “At this point, Colonel, I have to wonder why we’re even bothering to bring these men in. Voigt is playing a game, trying to stall us to keep us from digging further into what he’s been up to.”

  Latham regarded him coolly, like a teacher who’s had it with a bright but obnoxious pupil.

  “Perhaps. There is also the possibility that the man Voigt heard didn’t come from here.”

  Slater’s look of surprise was no consolation to me. Like me, the F.B.I. agent assumed Site Y was the sole location of this weapons project. But if the sixth man wasn’t the spy, no way in hell was Latham or General Groves authorizing me to travel to another secret site. Latham would hustle me off the base, Slater on my heels. I’d report back to Paslett, but why would he back me after I’d failed so miserably? And the Bureau wasn’t even my greatest threat—the Russians were.

  “Anyway, let’s finish this,” Latham told Slater. To me he said, “Depending on how this last examination turns out, you may be confined to quarters, Voigt. This is a standard security measure here for personnel without an assigned duty, and it would just be temporary until I receive instructions.”

  “I understand, sir,” I answered the colonel. That line about standard procedure was complete bullshit, we all knew it, even the steno, who suddenly lowered her head when I noticed her looking at me; but what could I do? Lose my temper, put on an act, storm about?

  The final man was brought in: Mason Adams Brode. He eyed me over as he entered; I kept my gaze disinterested. He was well dressed. Brown sport coat, white shirt, striped tie, tan trousers. Freshly shined wingtips. Thick eyebrows accentuated an intense gaze and dark eyes. A smoothly planed face, not quite handsome, but striking. Average height, slight build, a shade too thin. I watched as he sat and placed his hands on the table, his cuffs sliding up. Long, slender fingers; delicate wrists.

  The spy had arrived! His first words confirmed my visual identification:

  “Colonel, your timing couldn’t be worse.” The pitch of his voice, his enunciation, the accentless American English—Mason Adams Brode was the man I’d seen and heard in Washington. The man who’d turned over a schematic of the weapon being built at Site Y, the man who’d said, To diffuse the Uranium-235, use uranium hexafluoride and a metal filter with submicroscopic perforations, do not use a mass spectrometer, was now seated not six feet away.

  “We won’t be long, Doctor Brode. We just need to ask some questions about security measures in your division.”

  “Ah, the familiar song-and-dance routine, and me without my top hat and cane.” He must have smiled at the steno, because she looked down at her machine. Click-click, click-click-click.

  “Have you ever failed to secure classified materials in their assigned safe?”

  “Maybe you should ask Feynman that question, he’s the one with the light fingers.” I couldn’t tell if he was smirking, but he didn’t need to—his sarcastic tone told us he knew Feynman had been called in, too.

  “Just answer the question, Doctor.”

  “No, never.”

  “Have you witnessed the mishandling of classified materials during your work
in the Tech Area?”

  “No, never.” Brode drummed his fingers—tap-tap, tap—as he spoke. Playing games.

  Latham kept his cool. “Have you found classified materials where they shouldn’t be?”

  “Colonel, you have to know that’s a difficult question to answer, quite leading. How should I, a lowly physicist, know where all classified materials should be at all times? We have quite the galaxy of classified stars and planets, as it were, here, don’t we?”

  The more I listened, the more familiar he sounded. Not just his voice, but the breezy arrogance. Where Feynman had been playful and Ackerly imperious, Brode was flat-out sassy.

  He blithely answered Latham’s last few questions and accepted his dismissal with “Toodle-loo.” Gave me another eyeover as he exited, but I wasn’t worried—no way he’d seen me at the Automat, because I’d viewed him through the kitchen door window.

  “What did he mean that your timing couldn’t be worse?” Slater asked.

  Latham ignored him, looked straight at me.

  I nodded firmly. “No doubt about it, he’s the spy—he’s the man I heard in Washington.”

  Slater started to protest, but Latham waved his hand angrily to cut him off.

  “You’re sure, Voigt, absolutely sure?”

  “Yessir. The voices are the same, the way he talks, even his manner, his, uh, way of being overbearing, a know-it-all—that’s the man I heard in Washington. Colonel, believe me, once you arrest him and put the heat on, your interrogation will prove I’m right.”

  I took a deep breath. Jesus H., that had been close! Why couldn’t Brode have been the first man on the list, or even the fourth? Having him come in sixth had sweated me but good. Yet my mantra had held. Plan’s solid, stay steady. In mere minutes, Brode would be swept up by MPs and locked down in isolation. In a day or so, I’d be on my way back to D.C.—maybe I could even talk my way onto a transport plane to Washington. I’d doctor up the schematic I had hidden and turn it over to the Russians. Plan’s solid, stay steady. Or so I was thinking until Latham responded:

  “That’s the problem, Voigt—we can’t arrest Brode, not now.”

  “Maybe not ever,” Dahlen added ruefully.

  I was so stunned I didn’t even notice this was the first time Dahlen had spoken since we started the lineup.

  CHAPTER 31

  YOU CAN’T ARREST HIM?!”—“YOU’RE LETTING HIM WALK AWAY?!” Simultaneous outbursts from me and Slater. We glared at one another, but he got the jump on me.

  “Colonel, setting aside the question of whether or not Voigt’s telling the truth about Brode, why can’t you arrest him? Any of these men can be locked up, there’s nothing legally preventing a precautionary detention.”

  “You don’t think I know that, Agent Slater?” Latham shot back, finally losing his temper. “This has nothing to do with the law!”

  “Do you know who Mason Adams Brode is?” Dahlen asked quietly.

  Slater asked, “He’s not related to the senator, is he?”

  Latham and Dahlen nodded; I groaned; Slater, for once, had nothing to say. Senator Harrison Wright Brode was a Washington giant, an American legend, a character not even William Dean Howells or Mark Twain could have conjured up. Now in his seventies, Brode claimed his parents had been killed by marauding Sioux in the Dakota Territory when he was an infant. He claimed the Indians took him, reared him as their own until he ran away at age thirteen. Hell, maybe it was true—he spoke the Sioux language. Brode claimed he found work following railroad track gangs, toting buckets of water and beer for the Chinese and Irish laborers. The bejeweled cane the old man was never without now was needed, he claimed, because of the damage done to his young spine from bearing a yoke day after day. The cane itself was famous—carved from a rare wood that could only be found in Paraguay, it featured a snake’s head with rubies for eyes.

  Hence the name everyone knew Brode by but dared not say to his face. Snake Eyes. No future in being a human ox, the boy decided; he ditched the railroad for Colorado’s boomtowns. He had a head for numbers, nerves of steel—a gift, he liked to say, from the stoic and brave Sioux—and quick, nimble hands. First cards, then dice; and only dice after his first big roll. He amassed a fortune before he was eighteen. He grew tall and had broad shoulders, and, it was said, his eyes were as blue as the Western sky. After Colorado, he settled in Wyoming. No long-term future in gambling, either, the young man realized. He’d seen too many card sharks, rollers, and casino operators meet violent, premature deaths. (And, it was said, he’d delivered that fate to more than one rival.) The real action was in the sanctioned rackets, law enforcement and politics. So, Sheriff Brode. Then, Mayor Brode. Then, Water Commissioner Brode (apparently a powerful position in a state like Wyoming). While still in his thirties, he became Senator Brode. Scourge of the Monopolies, Champion of the Working Man, Friend of the Red Man—he could have worn the appellations he collected during his decades on Capitol Hill like service ribbons on a uniform—but that one nickname told you all you needed to know. Snake Eyes.

  A man of iron will who chewed grudges like terriers break rats, Brode’s allegiances were mercurial, shifting. Teddy Roosevelt had believed he had Brode’s support for a certain conservation bill until something transpired between the two men. An argument, an affront, a forgotten favor, no one knew for sure. But Brode suddenly killed the bill. T.R. raged, he fumed, he stormed; he unleashed his power and allies like a winter blizzard against Brode, who refused to yield. Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover—one president after another had taken on Brode and failed, on issues ranging from tariffs to torts, Versailles to farmers. Only the other Roosevelt had figured out how to deal with Brode: Don’t stand in his way. With his swept-back silver hair and weathered, creased face, the still-sparkling blue eyes, Brode was the very embodiment of a senator, a Cicero of the Prairie.

  He had married late in life, in his fifties. Janice Adams was a descendant of those Adamses, a striking beauty with raven hair and an elegant manner. Her marriage to Brode had stunned the Social Register, which considered the union scandalous (she was just twenty-eight), though no one had the guts to say that in print, mindful of Brode’s peerless talent for visiting ruin upon his enemies. Only one child, the man we’d just seen, Mason Adams Brode. No wonder he was so self-assured and confident—being that senator’s son was akin to being the favored offspring of Zeus.

  “If the questioning is done in camera, the senator won’t even know what’s happening,” Slater suggested.

  “The senator regularly corresponds with his son,” Dahlen said. “Letters every three, four days.” Translation: Mason was the apple of his father’s eye, and he couldn’t be held incommunicado without attracting the senator’s attention—and wrath.

  “Don’t forget, the senator is chairman of the appropriations subcommittee of the Senate Interior Department Committee,” I added. During my stint undercover in Washington, I’d learned that the tremendous costs of the Site Y project were concealed as Interior Department expenditures.

  “I know that,” Slater snapped. “So what? A coupla days is all we need to interrogate Mason Brode, and as soon as we have his confession, not even his father will be able to protect him or interfere with what’s happening here.”

  “And if he doesn’t confess?” I asked Slater. “Do you wanna be at Hoover’s side when the senator demands to know why his son was arrested as a suspected Red spy?”

  His clenched jaw was all the reply we needed. Rumor was, J. Edgar Hoover—the man who had incriminating files on all of Washington’s rich and powerful, including presidents—was himself compromised by certain information and evidence held by none other than the senator. Who also chaired the appropriations subcommittee of the Senate Justice Department Committee, as well as the naval appropriations subcommittee.

  “What the senator can or can’t do to us is irrelevant,” Latham piped up. We all looked at him; he sighed. “Miss Imes, you can go, thank you,” he said to the steno.

&n
bsp; She nodded, gathered up her machine, and left.

  “We can’t arrest Brode right now because he’s indispensable to Trinity,” Latham explained.

  Trinity. Latham had asked Ackerly if he had been to Trinity recently. The scientist had said yes, he’d complained about the conditions, the heat and dust. Trinity must be a branch of Site Y, I guessed, within driving distance but even more remote, without even the simple amenities of Site Y. With all the resources here, why was another base even needed? Again, I recalled what the spy had said in Washington: In a coupla months, maybe less, the whole world’s gonna find out what a big, big bang of a success we’ve pulled off. Remembering how Brode had uttered that line had allowed me to eliminate Ackerly as the spy—and now it answered my question. The weapon being built was too dangerous to handle here. They needed a test site, a proving ground, far enough from Site Y to keep the main base safe in case something went wrong. Big, big bang …

  “Colonel, before you go on, I think it would be prudent to dismiss Voigt,” Slater said.

  Latham gave me a long look as he considered the suggestion. I checked the urge to protest—that wouldn’t help me. I’d managed to convince the colonel the Bureau had ulterior motives for sending Slater to Site Y, that Hoover wanted a permanent detail of his boys on the base. As an intelligence officer, Latham knew that the affidavits Slater had brought concerning my long-ago relationship with Delphine and her father were circumstantial. If the Bureau had hard evidence of me being a Red spy, they’d have used it already. And thanks to Mara holding fast to her cover identity, I’d managed to brush off my encounter with her in Santa Fe. But now that I’d served my purpose—identification of the spy who’d come to Washington—Latham didn’t need me. Letting me know why Mason Adams Brode was so important to the Site Y project wouldn’t help Latham figure out what to do. And what if Slater and the Bureau were right, what if I was compromised? The smart move, the only move for Latham, was to get me out of the way, send me packing. It’s what I would have done if I were the colonel.