“Ten …”
Better crouch …
“Nine …”
Don’t look …
“Eight …”
Breathe slowly …
“Seven …”
Not alone …
“Six …”
Don’t panic …
“Five …”
Head down!
“Four …”
Glass up!
“Three …”
Please God …
“Two …”
Let this work …
“One …”
Please?
“Now!”
CHAPTER 39
THE STARS VANISHED, THE NIGHT VANISHED, AND THE LIGHT OF UNTOLD suns blinded us. I’d never known such brightness, no human ever had. It was as if the universe had become nothing but light—now no galaxies, no planets, no earth, no mountains, no humans, only light. This brilliant, celestial light absorbed all of us. For an instant, we ceased to exist as individuals and we disappeared into the light, transformed into energy, beautiful and boundless, never-ending. I was no longer Ellis Voigt, wretched schemer—I wasn’t a human being at all. Neither was Brode, neither was Oppenheimer. To even conceive of ourselves as individuals seemed stupendously wrongheaded, for the bomb transcended all known frames of reference. No ego could shield itself from the bomb’s transformative power. The bomb hadn’t ripped the angels from heaven, it had made us angels.
But only for an instant.
The rumbling blast slammed into us with breathtaking ferocity that shook the earth. The force wrenched us out of the light and hurled us back to earth as our former selves, frail and vulnerable beings. The blast upended me, sent me hurtling backward from my crouch like a mad gymnast somersaulting uncontrollably. The darkened glass I’d been clenching flew off into the air. A berm stopped me and I rose unsteadily, gasping, blinking, besmirched with wet dirt. Had I the lung power, I might well have wailed like a newborn, a primordial cry the only way to respond to my admittance into this terrifying world, for with the blast came heat, as intense as a stoked furnace. I could barely breathe, the hot air scorching my lungs. The bomb had lifted us high only to let us plummet.
Oppenheimer had pinwheeled off the post he’d been clutching and had fallen to his knees. He, too, came to his feet shakily.
The blast had flung Kistiakowsky into a mud puddle. He scrambled to his feet and hugged Oppenheimer.
“We did it, Oppie, we did it!” he shouted.
“And now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,” I heard Oppenheimer say.
The other scientists all stood, unhurt, though one—I recognized him as Richard Feynman, the mathematician we had interrogated the previous day—was blinking furiously and waving his hand in front of his eyes. “I can’t see, I can’t see,” he exclaimed.
No one tried to help or comfort him—we were awestruck by the clouds billowing across the now dark horizon. No sunset had ever colored the sky so vividly. Orange became green, green became red, red became purple. This rainbow of clouds rolled like an avalanche as three gigantic smoke rings ascended from their center. We gaped, and groped for words. “Jesus Christ,” a scientist murmured. “What have we done?” asked another. No one responded. “My God, it’s beautiful” was answered with “No, it’s terrible.” Bainbridge approached Oppenheimer. “Well, now we’re all sons of bitches,” he said. Oppenheimer merely nodded. He hadn’t spoken since his comment about becoming death, the destroyer of worlds. A quote of some sort, I guessed, but I’d never heard it before.
The shelter observers gathered around us to watch the clouds.
“Check on the MPs!” Latham shouted at Foley, who rushed toward the photo shelter.
The order jolted me back into the here and now. Where was Brode? I wheeled around to look atop the shelter—he wasn’t there. I scanned the crowd—he was nowhere to be seen. A wonderful, terrible thought excited me: Had the blast killed him, swept him off his feet and broken his neck? How perfect would that be if Brode died, a casualty of his own creation and hubris, his day on the beach his last on earth! His death would be a windfall to my plan to trick the Russians and extricate myself from their grasp.
Yes, I was once again a wretched schemer.
BUT BRODE HADN’T BEEN KILLED. THE BLAST HAD KNOCKED HIM OFF THE shelter and thrown him like a rag doll to the ground, but his only injury was, remarkably, a sprained wrist. That didn’t prevent Latham from ordering him to be handcuffed as we arrested him.
“Not done playing question and answer, Colonel?” Brode said, showing no sign of distress or even pain.
Latham ignored him. He ordered Jarowsky to sit in the Plymouth with Brode while he briefed me.
“Oppie now has the diagram. He’ll work with Doctor Fuchs to alter it. When they’re done, we’ll make arrangements for your return to Washington, Voigt, so you can deliver it to the Russians.”
“Yessir. What about Brode?” I asked.
“Agent Slater and I will conduct the interrogation—it’s best if you’re not present.”
“Understood.”
Keeping me out was sound protocol—by obtaining the diagram from Brode, my task had been completed—but I dreaded to think what Brode would tell Slater. The physicist would sense that Slater didn’t trust me, and he’d worm his way into the F.B.I. agent’s mind, feeding his doubts and suspicions. Brode would see through the elaborate ruse we’d just carried out. Voigt claimed to be a Red agent, but what if that’s really true? he’d say to Slater. What if the Russians sent him here to double-cross me and you? Brode would immediately understand that we’d tricked him into giving me a diagram of the bomb in order to fudge it before we let it get into the Russians’ hands, but he could raise pointed questions about my role. What if Voigt took a photo of the diagram before he handed it over, what if he gives that photo to the Russians? What if the Russians want you to think they’ve accepted a false diagram so your security services breathe easy? One of the surest ways to trip up an intelligence agency was to convince its officers that the other side’s credulity was actually calculated deception. Worst of all, Slater now knew that I knew the N.K.V.D.’s recruitment challenge: “Are you ready to say good-bye to your family forever?” Believing he now had all the proof necessary to arrest me, Slater wouldn’t wait—he’d insist that I be detained immediately. I had to convince Latham to send me back to Washington as soon as possible.
“How long do you think it’ll take them to doctor the diagram, sir?”
“I have no idea, Voigt, I’m not a physicist. They can’t just change a few lines or equations—it’s gotta look like the best way to build such a bomb, otherwise the Russians will know it’s a fake straightaway.”
I couldn’t dispute that fact, so I said nothing more. I could only hope that Fuchs and Oppenheimer were, like Brode, quick draftsmen who would finish their task before Latham and Slater finished theirs.
I rode back to Site Y with the same MPs I’d arrived with—Latham didn’t want me in the car with Brode. Again, good protocol, but also another reminder that I had absolutely no control over what Brode would now do or say. The MPs were subdued but still talkative. They shared stories of what they’d experienced. “Jesus, that heat,” one said, “it was like a ball of fire going right over me.” “I thought for sure I’d gone blind,” said another. “Had my eyes closed and the glass covering them but it still felt like I was staring straight at the sun.” They spoke of a comrade who had been blown out of his trench. “Bet he wasn’t lying down,” the MP with the Southern accent said. “Probably stuck his fat head up and that wind jes picked him like a big ole balloon.”
I learned from the MPs how the Army was explaining the flash, blast, and clouds to area residents. An official statement already released claimed that a “remotely located ammunition magazine” had accidently exploded, detonating a “large amount” of high explosives. The MPs had a good laugh about that cover. “Ain’t nobody gonna believe that horseshit,” the Southerner said. H
e didn’t have to explain why: Anyone living near Trinity or Site Y had seen too much secrecy, resources, and personnel for the last three years to believe that it was all for an ammunition magazine.
How would the Army tamp down the inevitable speculation and news reports? Hundreds, if not thousands, had witnessed that flash, had felt the heat and the blast. As capacious as Trinity was, it wasn’t big enough to contain the full-blown effects of the gadget. Now I understood Oppenheimer’s distinction: We can predict, but not imagine, what will happen. I wondered what went through his mind at the moment of detonation. Did he feel any thrill or excitement, was he ecstatic? I knew nothing of the mechanics of the gadget, other than that it required Uranium-235, but it didn’t take a genius to know that the science involved had required marshaling the finest minds in the field, giving them unlimited resources and plenty of time. Even so, success hadn’t been guaranteed, so it seemed unlikely that Oppenheimer didn’t feel some pride in what he had helped create. And yet his words at the moment of creation: “And now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Destroyer indeed. If Oppenheimer and his team had built one workable gadget, they could build another, and another. How many total? Three, five, ten? Was it possible to detonate them aerially? For that, of course, had to be the primary purpose in building such a weapon: to finish off the Germans and the Japs. The Nazis had surrendered more than two months earlier, but the Japs fought on. In Washington, the subject of the final assault of Japan dominated all conversations. When, and where, would the first amphibious landings take place? How many troops were needed, how many would die if the Japs fought as hard as they had at Iwo Jima and Okinawa? And the biggest question of all: What would just one of these bombs do to Tokyo, or any other Jap city? We had sheltered five miles from the zero point and still had been blown off our feet. What were the blast and heat like at the center of the explosion? Even if the destructive radius was only—only!—three miles, one bomb could level most of a major city. In Washington, such a bomb, detonated near the White House, would utterly destroy the Pentagon, the Capitol, Union Station, downtown, and so much more. My own apartment was less than two miles from the White House. If the Germans had built such a weapon and used it, I would have been incinerated, along with tens of thousands of other Washingtonians.
After what the Japs had done in this war so far, I—along with all other Americans—had no reason whatsoever to show them kindness, but I still hoped Hirohito and his generals would come to their senses and surrender soon to spare the untold number of women and children who would die unspeakable deaths when these bombs were used. Or was it better for humanity in the long run for one of these bombs to fall, so that all the world could witness the top-secret horror of Site Y and Trinity and collectively resolve that never again should such a weapon be used?
The truck had just clattered to a stop at Site Y’s gate when the significance of something Latham had said finally dawned on me. Dr. Klaus Fuchs, whom we’d questioned yesterday and cleared, was going to doctor the diagram along with Oppenheimer. If Oppenheimer was, in fact, a Red agent, he wouldn’t falsify the diagram—he’d guarantee it was accurate!
But that panicky thought quickly vanished. Obviously Oppenheimer couldn’t leave the diagram untouched without Fuchs, who was also a physicist, knowing. And Oppenheimer couldn’t pressure Fuchs to cooperate without exposing himself. The conclusion was obvious: despite his Red-checkered past, Oppenheimer wasn’t a Russian agent. Only Brode was.
And me.
CHAPTER 40
MY RELIEF AT FIGURING OUT THAT OPPENHEIMER WAS CLEAN DIDN’T last long. Slater was waiting for me as soon as I stepped off the truck.
“You and me, we need to talk,” he greeted me.
“Sure.” The conversation wasn’t going to be pleasant, but it would delay his interrogation of Brode, giving Oppenheimer and Fuchs more time to falsify the bomb diagram.
I followed him to the building where we’d questioned the suspects the day before. It was still early, but the streets of Site Y were crowded with people excitedly discussing the Trinity test. The sight of three young mothers talking on the porch of a residence brought a realization: no women had been present at Trinity. General Groves must have prohibited them, in case the test went terribly wrong. Last act of chivalry in our old world, I thought.
Slater had appropriated a messy, cramped office in the Administration building. Folders bulged from open file cabinet drawers, a miniature mountain range of papers and books dominated the desktop. The only chair was behind the desk, but Slater didn’t sit, choosing to lean against the desk. I closed the door and lit up a cigarette.
“Nifty trick you pulled on Colonel Latham, Lieutenant, convincing him we should arrest Ackerly.”
“It worked, didn’t it? We got Brode to talk.”
“You got Brode to talk. I’m awful interested to hear what he has to say about your conversation out there in the desert.” Slater was baiting me, hoping I’d get defensive and rush to give him my version of what had been said. Which was exactly what a guilty man would do to bolster the appearance of innocence. I had to behave like a loyal officer who had only pretended to be a Red spy.
So I shrugged. “Not really my concern what he says—I did what I was supposed to do.”
“And how did you do that, Voigt? D’you just say to Brode, ‘Hey, I’m working for the Russians too, let’s work together’?”
I checked the urge for sarcasm. You’re beat, you haven’t slept, you’re a man with nothing to hide—play that part.
“Like you said, Slater, Brode’s gonna tell you all about it.”
“But you don’t wanna tell your side? Awful suspicious, wouldn’t you say?”
“It’ll all be in my report to Paslett and Latham. M’sure the colonel will give you a copy.”
“How are we supposed to know if Brode’s lying if we don’t have your account?”
His trap, sprung. Latham didn’t need my side of the story because he believed I had only pretended to be a Red spy in order to deceive Brode. The purpose of the interrogation was to determine how much Brode had compromised the bomb project, not to analyze my methods; and Slater knew that. What would an innocent man say?
“You wait for my report, Slater, like everybody else.”
He shook his head in disgust. “You think you’re gonna come outta this a hero, don’t you? Won’t make the papers, a’course, but you’re banking on being the darling of O.N.I. and the Army for what you did down here. Do you really think that’s enough insurance, Voigt? Think that’ll protect you when the evidence I have now about who you really are comes out?”
His questions sliced right through me. Jesus, he was good—he’d sussed out my scheme. He believed I was a Red, so he’d asked himself, What would I do in Voigt’s shoes to keep my secret? But if he actually had evidence, he already would have arrested me. So how does an innocent man respond?
I took a drag and studied the curved, long ash drooping from my cigarette’s ember. Without an ashtray, I hadn’t been able to tap it.
“Put this out for me, will you?” I said, flicking the Lucky at Slater. He instinctively shirked backward into the desk. The mountain of papers and books began cascading to the floor, almost causing him to lose his balance. His flailing arms only knocked more items off the desk.
I turned and left, calmly shutting the door on his stream of curses.
MY LAST HOURS AT SITE Y FLEW BY. I WENT STRAIGHT TO THE OFFICERS’ mess and wolfed down a breakfast of eggs, sausage, and oatmeal. Skipped the coffee, for I wanted nothing more than to sleep the sleep of the dead. Though considering what I’d witnessed that morning, perhaps that wasn’t the right turn of phrase. I was worried Latham might find me and dress me down for the stunt I’d pulled with Slater, but either the F.B.I. agent didn’t tell him about his embarrassment or Latham simply didn’t care. He had a much greater concern. The success of both the Trinity test and our mission to deceive the Russians didn’t erase his failure to identify t
he spy in his domain. Colonel Latham had a lot of explaining to do to General Groves as soon as the hoopla over the bomb died down.
I was asleep mere seconds after pulling my shoes off. A hard knock on the door rousted me around 1300. I padded to the door, disoriented and disheveled, with a tremendous thirst. Unfortunately, the MP waking me up hadn’t brought a tall glass of water, only an announcement that he was there to take me to Colonel Latham and that I should bring my kit with me. We had a terse exchange about whether or not I had time to get cleaned up and change my clothes; I prevailed. The hot shower and shave and change of clothes left me feeling like a new man. I packed hurriedly and was at Latham’s office by 1340. He was alone and put me at ease, motioning me to sit.
“We haven’t got much time—you’re on a transport plane bound for D.C. that leaves in half an hour.”
“So Oppenheimer and Fuchs finished the diagram alteration, sir?”
He held up his hand. “We’ll get to that. I’ve briefed General Groves, and he has some concerns.”
“About what?”
“How you’re going to approach the Russians, for one.”
Told myself not to get impatient. Groves had every right to be worried, considering the stakes, but I didn’t want him taking over the operation.
“Well, sir, you can tell General Groves I’m not gonna approach the Russians—that’s not how these things work. I’ll wait for them to find me.”
Latham frowned. “How long will that take?”
“Not long at all. They’re awful eager to have the diagram.”
“That brings me to the general’s next concern: How will you present the diagram?”
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