Rip the Angels from Heaven

by David Krugler

  “The other thing is, I’ve been working the Reds long enough that I’ve built up some credibility with them—they’ve been eyeing me as a possible turncoat for a while.”

  “Does Slater know any of this?”

  “Hell no, sir—we wouldn’t let the Bureau within ten miles of this operation.”

  “What about any other agencies?”

  I assumed he meant the O.S.S. I shook my head.

  “So is that why Slater’s convinced you’re a Red, because of your flirtations with the N.K.V.D.?”

  An innocent-sounding question, and a trap.

  “Nosir,” I answered without hesitation. “Slater and the Bureau are after me for the reasons he gave—they really do think I became a commie as a kid.” That was without a doubt, the rashest, most reckless thing I’d ever said: I’d just told an Army intelligence officer how I’d become a traitor! Is a confession for real if no one hears it as such?

  Oppie honored my hazard with a laugh. “You aren’t the only one, friend.”

  Latham shot him a look, then said to me, “Why didn’t you or Paslett tell General Groves and me about your undercover assignment?”

  “We didn’t want that detail traveling across even a secure line, sir.”

  “What about after you arrived?”

  “These things get out, sir, they always do.”

  Latham closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and briefly rubbed his temples as if he had a crushing headache. I expected a tongue-lashing. Instead:

  “Brode, Voigt, Trinity … Brode, Voigt, Trinity,” he murmured. Then he fell silent, but his eyes remained shut.

  This was even stranger than a talking cat.

  “Is he—is that meditation?” I whispered to Oppie, who looked amused.

  “Jim, are you meditating?”

  “You know I’m not,” Latham said to the ceiling.

  Oppie took a long drag on his cigarette. “When someone meditates, he doesn’t speak. He’s just thinking through the problems your revelation has caused.”

  “Not anymore,” Latham sighed, straightening his head and opening his eyes. He looked at me, he looked at Oppie. Then back at me. “You”—now pointing—“show up claiming one of my top physicists is a Russian spy. Your evidence? You overheard a man with a similar voice brief a Soviet agent at a meeting in Washington in May. According to you, the spy also passed an envelope to that Soviet agent, who is now missing, along with the envelope. Also according to you, you’re now posing as a Soviet spy in order to trick Brode into replacing the missing materials.”

  “Sir, check with Commander Paslett—”

  “Don’t interrupt me, Lieutenant.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Then I have a special agent from the F.B.I. show up claiming that you are in fact a Soviet spy. According to him, you were recruited by a communist immigrant, the father of your high school sweetheart who was shot by the police at a violent strike years before the war. So far, so good?”

  “Well, no, sir, I wouldn’t say anything Slater’s said is good, it’s all—”

  “I’m not asking you to dispute the facts, Voigt, just to acknowledge if my summary of the situation, as I see it, is accurate.”

  “Understood, sir. Yes, so far, so good.”

  “And then, while you’re in Santa Fe, you have an assignation with an attractive woman who Slater claims is your liaison to the Soviets and who you claim is just a tourist you met in a bar. Is that correct?”

  “Assignation?” I asked.

  “Sexual encounter,” Oppie piped up.

  “Well, uh, yes, all correct.”

  “Now, it is impossible for both you and Slater to be telling the truth. Either you are for real a Soviet spy, or you aren’t; and either the woman you met in Santa Fe is your liaison to the Soviets, or she isn’t.”

  “Two tautologies, Jim, nicely done,” Oppie said with a smile.

  I had no idea what he was talking about, and Latham ignored the comment.

  I said, “I can make it very easy for you to determine who’s telling the truth, sir.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “If I’m a Soviet spy, as Slater claims, would I ask you to have your scientists doctor the plan I get from Brode and pass on bum information to the Reds?”

  “Indeed you might, in order to save your own skin and prevent your exposure as a Red spy. Your continued, undetected placement in naval intelligence might be worth more to the Soviets than obtaining an accurate replacement of the missing material from Brode.”

  Jesus H., he was good—he was seeing the problem from every side, like all good intelligence men do. Fortunately, knowing so much about how the Russians worked gave me an edge.

  “Colonel, without knowing exactly what is being built here at Site Y, I can say without hesitation that whatever it might be, it is worth much more to the Russians than any single agent they might or might not have in our military. Now, I am not one of their agents, but if I were, they would not hesitate to kill me if I failed to return from New Mexico with what they want.”

  “He’s got you there, Jim.”

  “Oppie, please!”

  “Oh c’mon, having been on the receiving end of these chitchats, it’s fun to watch one.”

  “Watch, yes; comment on, no.”

  Oppie shrugged ambivalently. His interruption was helpful—any distraction of Latham allowed me to press my case.

  “Colonel, consider why Henry Himmel, the Russian who Brode met in Washington, is missing. We know the N.K.V.D. didn’t kill him, otherwise they wouldn’t need to replace the envelope. Our best explanation for why Himmel’s missing is that he’s in hiding, sir. He’s been in the States an awful long time, we know—he knows—the Reds have a nasty reputation for getting rid of their people who’ve been in a foreign country for a while. He’s worried his bosses will have him killed after he serves his purpose, so he’s laying low until he can figure out a way to surface and give the N.K.V.D. the envelope without losing his head after the exchange.”

  Latham asked, “Any evidence Himmel has fled?”

  “No hard evidence. Just precedent.” I resisted the urge to keep talking. Latham might be quirky, an egghead, but he wouldn’t be head of Army intelligence at Site Y if he didn’t know what he was doing. He received the same reports O.N.I. did, and according to a recent memo from the O.S.S., the Russians had “liquidated a substantial share of their U.S. assets since late 1944.” Not a phrase you easily forgot, not when “assets” meant “people” and “liquidated” meant “killed.” After all, I was one of those assets—reading that report had brought sleepless nights.

  A long, difficult silence. Then Latham said, “If you’re correct, then Himmel can’t afford to wait much longer to reestablish contact.”

  “Nosir.”

  “You’re proposing we allow Brode to pass on the data to you, then skew it before you give it to the Russians.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Say we set this up. How will Brode know you’re a Soviet spy? What if he suspects the truth, that you’re an American posing as a spy? If he balks, we get nothing.”

  I felt as if I was trapped in an amusement park fun house, staring at trick mirrors. I was a Soviet spy, posing as an American intelligence officer, desperately trying to break free of my treason and become an honest man by posing as a Soviet spy to fool another spy. All my identities reflected back on me, warped and distorted; and yet I needed to see everything with clarity and precision. The colonel’s instincts were excellent—Brode might smell a trap and play dumb.

  “That’s why you’re gonna have Agent Slater arrest Gary Ackerly, sir.”

  “Explain.”

  “Every man we questioned today knows he’s a suspect. Soon as they hear someone else has been identified as a spy, they relax.”

  “An old trick, that. Brode’s too smart to fall for it.”

  “Not when I tell him I set Ackerly up so that I could approach Brode.”

  “Again, he’ll see it as p
art of the ruse.”

  “Not after he hears what the N.K.V.D. ordered me to do if he doesn’t cooperate.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Kill him.”

  I’d hoped this line would land like a knockout punch in the tenth round—it did. Latham flinched, Oppie whispered Jesus.

  “For real?” Latham asked quietly.

  “Absolutely. In Washington, I heard Brode tell Himmel that he was out, that he was done spying for them. The Reds aren’t happy about that, not at all, and they told me to kill Brode if he doesn’t cough up another copy. Brode thinks the Russians can’t touch him as long as he’s at Site Y. If I show up, identify myself as a Red spy, and tell him the Russians want me to kill him if he doesn’t produce a copy, he’ll be too rattled to think it’s all part of a sting.” That wasn’t true—I hadn’t been ordered to kill Brode—but it sounded plausible, given the way the Russians worked.

  Latham thought for a moment. “Even if this works, what happens if Himmel comes forward and gives the Soviets the original data? Or they take it from Himmel if they find him. Then they’ll know what you gave them is baloney.”

  “That’s the beauty of this plan, sir. As long as we get our documents in the Reds’ hands before Himmel, they’ll believe we gave them the real McCoy. They’ll think Himmel’s materials are false—they’ll suspect him of trying to dupe them. He’s already untrustworthy because he fled. No matter what, they’re going to kill him and tell their scientists that what I gave them is legitimate. Instead of being able to copy what’s being done here at Site Y, the Russians will be headed in the wrong direction.”

  The colonel didn’t answer. As he had done previously, he closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and murmured, this time too softly for Oppie or me to hear. I waited in dread, not daring to look at Oppie. Instead I stared at my hands pressed tight against my thighs.

  Finally, “What do you think, Oppie?”

  “If he can get Brode to play along, we could modify the … nim … item to appear real. As you know, there’s a … nim … process we attempted that was quite time-consuming and ultimately failed, so we could—”

  “Voigt doesn’t need to know about that,” Latham interrupted crisply. Given Oppie’s struggle to find the right words—where others said er or um, he said nim—the subject was clearly sensitive.

  “Right, sorry.”

  To me Latham said, “All right, we’ll do it.”

  “One other thing, sir. To look convincing to Brode, I need to be armed.”

  He nodded. “I’ll order your sidearm returned to you.”

  Oppie crushed his umpteenth cigarette of the evening. “You’re in for a memorable night, my friend.”

  Memorable didn’t even begin to describe it.

  CHAPTER 34

  SHORTLY BEFORE MIDNIGHT, I LEFT SITE Y IN A TRUCK WITH SIX MPs. Get some rest, the colonel had advised when I’d left his office. Fat chance, I’d thought, and yet, as soon as I’d stretched out on my bunk, I’d fallen asleep again, waking only when my alarm rang. I should have been a jangle of nerves, keyed-up and dread-weighted—was I too exhausted physically to appreciate my predicament? Or was I beyond the point of caring, had I resigned myself to failure, to exposure, to ruin, to prison, to the gas chamber? My plan—no, my machinations—seemed so fantastical, so absurd and implausible, that perhaps my body was giving up on my mind and seeking out a last few hours of comfort and timelessness through sleep. During Guadalcanal, the Washington Post had published a story about Marines trudging into battle, submissive and dead-eyed. I still remembered the description that had gotten the correspondent recalled and the desk editor fired: “The men appear resigned to death, their only hope that the end is swift and they feel but fleeting pain.” Had I fallen into such hopelessness?

  Jouncing in the rear of the 4x4 with the MPs, I shook off my selfish self-pity. I wasn’t a nineteen-year-old Marine facing Japs in battle—I was a twenty-five-year-old officer who had made the choice to betray his country. The Marine accepts his orders, even if they guarantee his death, because he must; but I was chasing a golden opportunity. If I succeeded, I would negate my treason. I would, on my own, keep the Russians from learning the secret of Site Y. Brode would be arrested, we’d dupe the Reds with a fake. Wasn’t that enough to absolve me? That I regretted my decision to help the Reds, that I’d repented my sin (if only to myself) wasn’t enough; I must also right the wrongs.

  Our destination was the Alamogordo Bombing Range, but the MPs called it Trinity. They didn’t tell me why, I didn’t ask. My presence had been explained simply as “additional security”; they didn’t ask why a naval officer was riding with them. Indeed, they ignored me during the bumpy ride. The flare of a Zippo or a match lit our faces as we chain-smoked, the only illumination in the dark truck. A light rain tinked the canvas canopy. The MPs weren’t happy about their orders. Apparently they’d just spent a week at Trinity and had only just returned to Site Y. Trinity was hot, really hot—“fucking blazing,” one man muttered. In the middle of the night, with rain falling, it was hard for me to imagine the heat the men were complaining about. “Les jes hope we’re outta thare before that sun’s too high,” an MP drawled. Which told me that whatever was about to happen would happen at dawn. Even before dawn? Why else leave at midnight?

  The truck rattled to a stop at a compound of buildings on flat hard clay traced with countless tire tracks. Metal roofs painted gray, tar-papered walls, casement windows—Army construction, just like at Site Y. Two wooden windmills stood like sentries, the blades turning briskly.

  “Jesus Christ, it’s gonna storm,” an MP grumbled as he studied the sky. The cloud cover did look low and dense, and the wind was stronger than it had been at Site Y.

  Latham had told me to report to the McDonald House. The MP with the drawl pointed the way. He and his comrades headed to a barracks, their helmets glistening from the rain. No utility lines to be seen, but the compound was well lighted. On eaves, rows of bulbs served as miniature streetlights, illuminating the paths between the buildings. There were no curtains on the windows, and every room was lit, a hive of activity, men in military uniform and civvies crossing back and forth.

  The McDonald House was a home, a ranchstead with a wide veranda. No doubt the McDonalds had been paid off and moved out, whether they wanted to leave or not. A stocky MP checked my badge, grunted for me to wait, and went inside. Latham returned with him and motioned me to follow. We walked through an expansive living room with a plank floor and stucco walls. Flimsy plywood partitions had been put up to create workspaces. Men were bent over folding tables, some using slide rules, others adjusting knobs on consoles with meters. Skeins of cables ran along the baseboards of the halls and dangled from sixteen penny nails.

  “In here,” Latham said.

  I followed him into a small room that must have been a bedroom. Now it held three desks and a safe, and the lone window had been boarded up. An upright metal fan stood in a corner but it wasn’t on. Despite the hour, the room was stuffy—no surprise, since each desk was occupied. Latham pointed as he made terse introductions: Captain Gerald Foley, Lieutenant Paul Jarowsky, Dwayne Meacham. Foley and Jarowsky were Latham’s security liaisons at Trinity; Meacham was one of the assistants to the chief of the Trinity scientific team, Dr. Kenneth Bainbridge.

  “They’ve all been briefed,” Latham said. “Captain Foley will catch you up on the situation here.” He sat in a chair by the door. There was no other place to sit, so I remained standing.

  “Right, okay,” Foley said. He scratched his temple and looked at me before continuing. He looked about thirty. Square-jawed, broad nose, wide forehead, reddish-blond hair parted precisely. “Might as well start with your biggest problem, Lieutenant.” He tried a grin.

  I obliged with a tight smile. He had no idea what my biggest problem was.

  “The problem is, Brode’s in the arming party. Which means, uh, that he and several other individuals, they, uh, they need to—”

&n
bsp; “—they need to complete certain duties in places where you can’t be present, Voigt,” Latham finished for Foley, who looked relieved. Briefing someone at Trinity who didn’t know what was going on was clearly not an everyday occurrence.

  “Which limits my time with Brode,” I said.

  “Exactly.” This from Latham.

  “But we have a solution,” Foley continued. “Dwayne is going to ask Brode to check some figures on the humidity measurements of the H.E.’s at the tower—” He broke off abruptly and looked anxiously at the colonel.

  “Just stick to the facts Voigt needs to know to do his job,” Latham told his subordinate.

  H.E.’s—high explosives. A tower—was it for some kind of new bomb? What other job would an arming party have but to ready a bomb? Distracted, I remembered what Latham had told me when I arrived at Site Y. The purpose of Site Y, what’s being done here, I ask you to put that out of your head.

  Foley’s yessir to Latham brought me back. “So while Brode’s checking these figures, here in the ranch house, you’ll slip into the room where he’s working.”

  “That’ll look fishy,” I said.

  “Everything looks fishy at this point,” Latham said. “You’ve never been to Trinity—Brode’s been here a hundred times if he’s been here once. You only just arrived to Site Y. Brode’s a smart one, and around here, that’s saying a lot. The best we can do is give you a rock-solid reason to be here in the first place.”

  Jarowsky cleared his throat. “And we’ve only had a few hours to come up with that reason.” He was a few years younger than Foley. Black hair in a crew cut, pudgy chin. Narrow-set eyes gave him a slightly malicious appearance. “The challenge is, how do we avoid making it look like you’re a plant, right? As the colonel said, you just got here, so if you suddenly sidle up to Brode and tell him, ‘Hey, guess what, I’m a Red, too!’ he’s not likely to give you the secret handshake no matter how good you are at pretending to be a commie. Right?”