Los Alamos

by Joseph Kanon

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “No, I’m asking you for a favor. Let us out of the war.”

  Groves paused, then looked at his watch again. “I don’t have time to argue with you.” Then, looking directly at him, “You’re sure you’ve told me everything?”

  Connolly nodded. “You can close the file.”

  A loudspeaker interrupted with the weather report, jolting the room into activity.

  “You’d better get up to the hill if you want to see anything,” Groves said. “I don’t make deals, Mr. Connolly. I can’t.”

  “Your word is good enough for me.”

  “I haven’t given it.”

  Connolly nodded again. “By the way, what’s S 10,000?”

  “Ten thousand yards south. Of the gadget,” Groves said automatically, distracted by the question. “The south bunker.” He paused. “You didn’t know that?”

  “General,” Connolly said, “I don’t know anything.”

  By the time he got to Compania Hill, the wind had died down to the still hush before dawn. Busloads of scientists and visitors lined the sandy ridge, talking in groups around the jeeps and trucks like guests at a tailgate party. Some were looking southeast, toward the small tower in the distance, waiting for the signal flares. The rockets’ red glare, Connolly thought, the bombs bursting—a macabre new version of the song. Someone handed him a piece of welding glass and he held it up, the barely visible light disappearing completely behind the tinted square. Was it really necessary? Did anyone know? Some of the scientists had smeared their faces with suntan oil, so their skins gleamed. He recognized Teller, pulling on heavy gloves like a good boy bundling up for the storm. They were twenty miles from the gadget. Could it really burn the air, like the ball of fire over Hamburg, sucking breath out of lungs? Carpet bombing? But this was supposed to be something else.

  Most of the men had been there all night and were stiff with cold and waiting. Now they grew quiet, fiddling with the squares of welding glass, stamping their feet warm. There was nothing left to say. Cameras had been set up at N 10,000. Here there were only people, knotting together on a sandy grandstand, anxious and expectant, like Romans at a blood sport. Connolly thought about the first time he’d seen the Tech Area—secretaries passing through the fence, men darting in and out of lab buildings as if they were late for class, everyone too busy to stop, an endless film loop. Now, finally, they were at an end, waiting to see their work, all those meetings and calculations, go up in smoke.

  Mills handed him a Thermos cup of coffee. “They say you’re not supposed to look,” he said. “Even this far. What’s that?”

  “The rocket. Five minutes.”

  “Jesus, this stuff goes right through you, doesn’t it?” he said, agitated.

  “Dark glass, everyone,” someone shouted down the line.

  “The hell with that,” one of the scientists said, excited. “I’m going to see this. Even if it’s the last thing I see.”

  “That’s a possibility, Howard.” A gruff Hungarian voice.

  Connolly picked up his welding glass. “What’s the matter?” he said to Mills, who was shaking.

  “Goddamnit,” he said. “I have to take a leak.”

  Connolly smiled. “Just turn around. I won’t look.”

  “Now?”

  “I’ll tell you if you miss anything.”

  “Fuck,” Mills said, then whirled around and took a step away. Connolly heard the tear of a zipper, then the splashing on the ground, and smiled to himself, wondering if years from now, in Winnetka, Mills would tell his children how he peed the night they exploded the gadget, or whether that story would have to be changed too.

  No one else seemed to hear. They stood as still as stone, looking straight ahead. The second rocket. Connolly was aware of Mills beside him again, holding the welding glass up like a mask. There was nothing to see. Black space, the tiny light of the tower. They passed the last minute. But it didn’t go off. Nothing moved.

  Suddenly there was a pinprick, whiter than magnesium, a photographer’s bulb, and he was blinded with light. It flashed through his body, filling all the space around them, so that even the air disappeared. Just the light. He closed his eyes for a second, but it was there anyway, this amazing light, as if it didn’t need sight to exist. Its center spread outward, eating air, turning everything into light. What if Fermi was right? What if it never stopped? And light was heat. Bodies would melt. Now a vast ball, still blinding, gathering up the desert at its base into a skirt that held it in place, like a mesa made entirely of light. The ball grew, glowing hotter, traces of yellow and then suddenly violet, eerie and terrifying, an unearthly violet Connolly knew instantly no one had ever seen before. Eisler’s light. His heart stopped. He wanted to turn away, but the hypnotic light froze him. He felt his mouth open in a cartoon surprise. Then the light took on definition, pulling up the earth into its rolling bright cloud, a stem connecting it to the ground.

  How long did it take for the sound to follow? The hours of light were only a blink of seconds and then the sound, bouncing between the mountains, roared up the valley toward them, tearing the air. He staggered, almost crying out. What was it like near the blast? A violence without limit, inescapable. No one would survive. Then he dropped the piece of welding glass, squinting, and watched the cloud climb higher, rolling over on itself, on and on, its stem widening until the cloud finally seemed too heavy and everything collapsed into the indeterminate smoke. He stared without thinking. Behind it now he could see the faint glimmer of dawn, shy behind the mountain, its old wonder reduced to background lighting.

  He turned to Mills, but Mills had dropped to the ground as if he’d been knocked over by the blast, had lost whatever strength it took to stand. His eyes seemed fixed, mesmerized by their glimpse of the supernatural. Connolly heard shouts, loud whoops and spurts of spontaneous applause, and looked at the crowd. Scientists shook hands or hugged. Someone danced. But it was only a reflex, the expected thing, for then it grew quiet again, solemn, and people just stared at the cloud, wondering what they had seen. He felt an urge to swallow, to make some connection with his body. What had he thought it would be—a bigger explosion? A giant bonfire? All this time on the Hill they had talked in euphemisms. What was it but a larger version of the terrible things they already knew? A sharper spear. A better bow and arrow. But now he had seen it. Not just a weapon. He felt himself shaking. Oppenheimer must have known. Maybe nobody knew. It didn’t have a name yet. Not death. People had ideas about death. Pyramids and indulgences and metaphors for journeys. Connolly saw, looking out at the cloud in the desert, that none of it was true, that all those ideas, everything we thought we knew, were nothing more than stories to rewrite insignificance. This was the real secret. Annihilation. Nothing else. A chemical pulse that dissolved finally in violet light. No stories. Now we would always be frightened.

  He heard a retching sound and looked over toward the trucks, where one of the scientists was doubled over, throwing up on the other side of the hood. A relief from the long tension. Perhaps the first of the night terrors to follow. The men nearby turned their heads away, comforting him with privacy.

  After a while people began getting into buses for the long drive back to Los Alamos. There would be a party tonight. The pulse would reassert itself. Otherwise they would have to admit to the fear. In the morning light, people looked haggard and drained, pale under the shiny lotion, their faces scratchy now with morning stubble. They shuffled unsteadily, like guests at an all-night party finally ready for bed. But Connolly couldn’t move. This is what they had been doing here, all of them. The cloud was beginning to disappear. He stood watching it drift into the atmosphere, not moving until he could pretend it hadn’t really been there.

  Mills, still dazed and vacant, drove him back to base camp without saying a word. Here, on the outer rim of the explosion, there were twisted bits of metal and debris pulverized by the blast. Toward the center there was nothing at all. The morni
ng, almost defiantly, was lovely. By noon Trinity would be baking again, the desert shimmering as it had that first time, but everything would be dead. Connolly looked at things without thinking, as exhausted as the scientists, and wondered why he had come back.

  Everything that concerned him now seemed inconsequential. This could never be a secret, so what had it all been about? A murder solved. Would Oppenheimer care? And it was Oppenheimer he wanted to see. One last thing.

  He’d forgotten about Daniel. They passed the group of soldiers outside the base, collecting sensors and measuring devices in the desert, then stood idly at the camp, not quite sure where to go next. When the man approached him, he did not, for a minute, remember who he was. The project had aged him. Connolly had thought of him as young, a gentle student. Now his face was sharp and stern, as if the blast had pulled back his skin, leaving the cheekbones and receding hairline of an older man.

  “Oppie said you wanted to see me.”

  “Yes,” Connolly said, surprised and then embarrassed. Had he really asked to see him? He seemed a figure from before, when nothing was inconsequential. “I thought you’d need a lift back. To the hospital.”

  “You’re very solicitous,” Pawlowski said stiffly.

  “She thinks you’re already on your way,” Connolly said. “She’ll be worried. You can tell her they sealed the base. It’s true enough.”

  Pawlowski narrowed his eyes. “I thought you were there. Wasn’t that enough?” he said, his voice unexpectedly arch.

  “She asked for you,” Connolly said. “Stop blaming her.”

  “I don’t blame her,” he said slowly. “I blame you.”

  Connolly shrugged. “You want to take a poke at me? It’s a good time for it. I assure you, I wouldn’t feel a thing.”

  “Is that why you came here? To fight?”

  “No, I came to help.”

  “Help me?”

  “Mills over there can drive you,” Connolly said, nodding his head toward the car. “You’d never forgive yourself. What are you trying to do, get even with me? I don’t matter.”

  Pawlowski glanced over at the car, then back again. “I wish that were true,” he said, his body slumping a little, tired. “So. A car. Is that the American custom?”

  “It’s just a car.”

  “And you think I would accept this from you?”

  “Just go see her. She needs to see you.”

  “So she can tell me everything? The guilty conscience? I already know, Mr. Connolly. I always know. You. The others. Do you think you’re the first?”

  “But you stay.”

  He paused. “Yes, I stay,” he said quietly. “You wonder how I can do that.”

  “No. I think you’re in love with her.”

  Pawlowski stared at him, his eyes dull with fatigue. “Why have you come here?”

  Connolly said nothing.

  “So it’s over. Now the apologies.”

  “No. It’s not over,” Connolly said pointedly.

  Pawlowski moved toward the building and leaned against it, deflated. “She wants to leave me?”

  “She wants you to let her go.”

  He looked down at the ground, then up at Connolly, a last spurt of anger. “For you? And I have no feelings in the matter. Is that what you think?”

  “No,” Connolly said quietly.

  For a minute Pawlowski said nothing, looking at the drying street. “I was right,” he said finally. “You’re not like the others. It’s not enough for you, just to take? You want—what? A collaborator?”

  “I want her to be happy. She won’t be happy if she hurts you.”

  “So you want me to pretend?”

  “Sometimes it’s better.”

  Pawlowski looked at him, the faint trace of an ironic smile on his lips. “Than the truth? Yes,” he said slowly. “Perhaps. Each time, you know, I thought, ‘Why am I not enough?’ Each time.” He pulled himself up, moving away from the building. “You’re embarrassed? To hear this? You want me to pretend to you too?”

  “I’m sorry,” Connolly said.

  “Maybe it’s a relief for me, to say it once.” Pawlowski straightened himself to go. “Emma’s not a prisoner. She’s free to do as she likes.” He looked out toward the blast area. “It seems a small point now.”

  “Not to her. Help her.”

  He looked straight at Connolly and then over toward Mills. “Ah,” he said wearily, “I forgot. In America, always the happy ending. Better than the truth. And so easy. Even a car and driver.” He took a step, then turned. “But always there’s the loose end, you know. Even here.” He looked away, then pointed to a jeep farther along the road. “That needs to go back to the bunker. You’ll return it?”

  Connolly nodded.

  “Straight out that road. You can’t miss it. There’s nothing else there now.”

  Connolly watched him walk heavily over to the car and open the back door, nodding to Mills as he got in, not turning around.

  The road to S 10,000 was busy with vehicles, visitors returning from the blast area, and soldiers still collecting sensors. Connolly saw Oppenheimer’s porkpie hat outside the door of the control station, bobbing in a sea of heads. Somebody was taking a picture. He parked the jeep and sat for a few minutes, not wanting to interrupt, looking out across the waste. When the group broke up, Oppenheimer spotted him and walked over, his face no longer pale, as if it had colored with excitement and was just calming down.

  “How about a lift?” he said.

  “Sure. Where?”

  “Out there,” Oppenheimer said, indicating the far edge of the blast area. “I want to get away for a bit. It’s quite safe as long as we don’t go near the crater. You need a lead-lined tank for that.”

  The paved road ended a short distance past the bunker. Out on the dead sand, Connolly looked toward the huge blast crater, the sun reflecting off what seemed to be pieces of green glass.

  “The ground fused. In the heat,” Oppenheimer said calmly.

  There was no destination. After a while they simply stopped and got out, looking around at the empty desert. There was no sound at all in the new silence, not even the faint scratching of lizards and insects. Oppenheimer stood still, looking at nothing.

  “The worst part is, I was pleased,” he said suddenly, still looking away. “When it went off. It worked.”

  Connolly looked down to where the funhouse mirror of the morning glare stretched their shadows out along the ground. “They’ll blame you,” he said.

  Oppenheimer turned to him slowly, surprised. “You think so? Prometheus?”

  “No. Fire was a gift. This is a curse.”

  Oppenheimer was quiet. “It need not be. It doesn’t have to be—this,” he said, spreading his hand.

  “Anyway, it’s the end of war. They won’t dare, now.”

  Oppenheimer looked down. “You’re an optimist, Mr. Connolly. That’s what Alfred Nobel said about dynamite. He was wrong.”

  “I’m not.”

  “We’ll see. I hope so. That would be quite a thing—to be blamed for ending war.”

  “They’ll honor you first. And then—”

  Oppenheimer looked at him, and Connolly saw that his usual ironic glint had faded.

  “Get out while you can,” Connolly said.

  “After this?” Oppenheimer said, looking around again. “Do you want me to leave the generals in charge?”

  “No,” Connolly said reluctantly. “You can’t.” He turned away, kicking at the sand. “Anyway, it worked. Numbers on paper. You found it. Is it what you expected?”

  “It was waiting to be found, Mr. Connolly. A problem.” And then, a trace of smile. “Like yours, perhaps. Waiting to be found. You said you solved it. Is it what you expected?”

  “I didn’t expect anything,” Connolly said. “I just wanted to know.”

  “Yes,” Oppenheimer said, almost to himself. “That’s all I ever wanted too.” He walked away, lighting a cigarette. “And how did it come out? You
were going to tell me.”

  “Groves will fill you in. A worker on the Hill. There’s one thing he doesn’t know.”

  Oppenheimer raised his eyebrows in question.

  “He was working for Hannah Beckman. She was Eisler’s contact.”

  “Hannah,” Oppenheimer said blankly, as if he had misheard.

  “Your old friend.”

  “We used to go riding. When I first came out to the ranch. But it’s impossible. Hannah? She had no politics at all.”

  “It’s possible. It was her.”

  Oppenheimer took this in, not saying anything. “Was?”

  “They’re both dead. There’s no need for anyone to know about her part in it.”

  Oppenheimer looked at him curiously. “Why?”

  “Because you’d be walking into a buzz saw. They’re after you as it is. And this one’s too close to home. You’d be handing them a gun, you and Eisler. If it comes out that the project was being sold out by old friends of yours, they’ll smell the blood all the way to Washington. The truth won’t matter. They’ll destroy you.”

  Oppenheimer held his eyes with a flicker of the old intensity. “According to you, they’re going to do that anyway.”

  “Not with my help, they’re not.”

  Oppenheimer smiled involuntarily, then frowned. “So I just—say nothing?”

  “You don’t know anything to say. You never heard a word.”

  “You want to rewrite history.”

  “Just a little. You’ve made plenty of it to go around. Now just change a little piece for yourself.”

  Oppenheimer looked at him, thinking. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because I want to keep you out of trouble. I think we’re going to need you.”

  Oppenheimer said nothing for a minute, then nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Okay,” Connolly said, holding his eyes and nodding back. Then, uncomfortable, he turned away. “We’d better get back. It’s a great day for the project. You don’t want to miss any of it.”

  “Yes,” Oppenheimer said wearily. “I was pleased,” he said again, still wondering at himself, and then pointed. “The tower was over there. It evaporated. Just—evaporated. Can you imagine that?” He looked around, now lost in his thoughts. “Everything’s dead.”