Oppenheimer’s voice came through the half-open door, as angry as Connolly had ever heard it. “You picked one hell of a time, Jeff,” he was saying, his tone almost witheringly sharp.
“It’s the right time,” a voice answered, so young it seemed adolescent. “There’ll never be a better one.”
Connolly could see Oppenheimer standing behind his desk, holding a bulletin board notice. “ ‘The Gadget and the Future,’ ” he read disdainfully. “And just what the hell do you expect to accomplish with this little town meeting? Where do you think we are, Palo Alto?”
“We can’t just ignore it, Oppie,” the young man said, holding his ground. “There are issues. The scientific community has a right to a voice in this. While there’s still time.”
“There isn’t any time. We’ve got people working twenty-four hours a day. We don’t have time for seminars on civilization and its discontents.”
“We should.”
Oppenheimer, at any rate, must be working around the clock, Connolly thought. His frame, always frail, was now alarmingly thin, the eyes set deeply in their sockets, the bony fingers clutching the cigarette nearly skeletal. His voice, dry and scratchy, seemed to cry out for rest, but instead his body was in constant motion, pacing edgily, his arms jerking involuntarily to relieve the tension of being awake.
“Is Leo behind this?” he said suddenly.
“Leo?”
“Szilard. In Chicago. You know very well what Leo. Don’t fence with me, Jeff.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Oppie.”
Oppenheimer looked up, suddenly embarrassed. “You don’t? Sorry. I thought he might be, that’s all. He’s circulating a petition. No doubt you’ll want to sign it. Meanwhile, I’d appreciate it if you’d cancel this damn-fool meeting.”
“Why?”
“Security wouldn’t like it.”
“So what?”
“It upsets them. This is a sensitive time, Jeff, you know that as well as anyone. Let’s not make it more complicated than it is.”
“Oppie, we’re talking about scientists getting together to discuss the implications of what we’re doing. That’s all.”
“I know what we’re talking about,” Oppenheimer snapped, taking a puff on his cigarette. “I’m talking about a test scheduled for today that’s now two weeks late. I’m counting hours. Kisty’s down at S Site fixing the explosive lenses himself. You know that. In fact, why aren’t you down there helping, instead of-instead of-” His voice sputtered, caught by the look on the man’s face.
“What?”
“Scheduled for today? The glorious Fourth? What was the idea-the biggest fireworks ever?”
“Don’t be a jerk. Not precisely the Fourth. This week. Nobody thought about fireworks.” He stopped and smiled to himself. “In fact, nobody did think about that. Odd. Anyway, what’s the difference? We didn’t make it.”
“Oppie, are you ordering me not to have this meeting?” the man said calmly.
Oppenheimer lit a fresh cigarette from the end of the other, his body visibly backing down. “No,” he said finally, “I wouldn’t order you to do that.”
“You were the one who started the open meetings.”
“Yes.”
“And to hell with the security bozos, remember?”
“All right, Jeff, if the men want it-”
“So what happened? We haven’t had a meeting in quite a while.”
Oppenheimer looked at him, his eyes flaring in anger again. “I got busy, Jeff. I’m busy now, in fact.”
“You’re welcome to attend, by the way. In fact, people would really like that-to hear what you have to say. We’re not trying to hurt the project.”
“I know,” Oppenheimer said gently.
Connolly knocked on the open door.
“Speak of the devil,” Oppenheimer said. “One of your security bozos, in the flesh.”
Jeff, a young scientist in horn-rimmed glasses, flushed.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Connolly said breezily. “We don’t listen at keyholes.”
“Yet,” Oppenheimer said quickly.
“Sunday,” Jeff said, turning to leave. “If you can make it.”
Oppenheimer watched him go, then looked back. “Mr. Connolly,” he said wearily. “Pleasant trip?”
“What was that all about?”
“It’s beginning to dawn on them that the gadget has implications,” he said, his voice still taut.
“What hath God wrought?”
“I haven’t been called that yet. No, they think we might be in league with the other one. Implications. Where has everyone been? The implications were there from the start. Now the hand-wringing. The Chicago lab wants to talk to the President-the President, if you please-about a demonstration for the Japanese. Blow up some little island somewhere and the emperor and the rest of the samurai will fall to their knees, begging for terms. And no one gets hurt.”
“It’s an idea.”
“Don’t be a fool. It’s already decided.” The answer, quick as whiplash, stung Connolly, as if he had been sent to the children’s table. Sometime during the technical crises and the drought regulations and the personal tantrums, Oppenheimer had been to Washington and watched while someone drew a target circle around a city. Already decided.
“You don’t think it would work,” Connolly said tentatively.
“They’re fanatics,” Oppenheimer said flatly. “If it’s a dud, we’d actually end up prolonging the war.”
“You don’t believe that-that it’s a dud.”
“I don’t know. Nobody does. Right now all we’ve got are numbers on paper. Numbers on paper. Yes?” he said to his secretary, who’d appeared in the door.
“General Groves on the line for you.”
Connolly made a sign question- Do you want me to go? — but Oppenheimer waved his hand dismissively and pointed to the chair.
“One minute,” he mumbled and picked up the phone, turning his body halfway to the left, creating the privacy of an imaginary booth. “General. Yes, thanks. It’s the lens castings-hairline cracks, even a few bubbles. I don’t know what the hell they thought they were doing. We’ve got accuracy to one thirtieth and we need one three-hundredth just to be safe. We’re going to need a few more days.” A burst of talk from the other end. “No, it’s not just a snag,” Oppenheimer said waspishly. “It’s a problem. I’ve got Kisty working on it now. He’s down there himself. He might make it, he might not.” Another burst. “I don’t think you understand. He’s working with dentist drills and tweezers and anything he can lay his hands on. Filling in the bubbles. Just to get one decent set of explosive lenses. Two more days.” His face, already drawn, seemed to grow even tighter as he listened to Groves’s reply. A dressing-down, Connolly guessed, or at least a frustrated sputtering. “I know we’ve moved it once already.” And then he didn’t speak again, staring out the window at the Tech Area as Groves went on. He’d clearly not expected an argument or he wouldn’t have asked Connolly to stay, and now he was stuck with an audience.
Connolly stood up and walked over to study the photos on the wall. With Lawrence at the Berkeley cyclotron. A group shot of the Tech Area division heads. Eisler looked straight at the camera, his eyes dreamy and benign.
Finally Oppenheimer was giving in. “Well, that’s that, then. We’ll do what we can. No, I understand. It’s a risk-you should know that. Yes, the sixteenth. You’ll be here, I assume.” And then he was putting down the receiver, still looking out the window.
“The President wants to tell the Russians at the meeting in Germany,” he said, partly to himself.
“But they already know.”
“They don’t know that we know they know,” he said, toying with it, a word game. “For that matter, what do they know? Only that we’re trying. He wants to tell them we’ve done it. At the meeting. Ready or not. So we’ll be ready.”
“Why at the meeting?”
Oppenheimer shrugged. “To give him some height at the table, I suppose.”
“But if they already know-”
Oppenheimer turned to face him. “The President doesn’t know that, remember? Nobody does. You know it, if you can prove it. Can you do that before they sit down at Potsdam?”
Connolly said nothing.
Oppenheimer smiled. “But they’re sitting down anyway. So there’s your deadline too.”
“It’s out of my hands at this point, you know.”
Oppenheimer nodded. “Mine too.” He turned to the papers on his desk. “And I still have a picnic to get to. They’ll want a speech. What is it now, a hundred and sixty-nine years? What do you do with a number like that? We were supposed to be having the test today, not eating watermelon and making speeches. History will have to wait a little. Today we deal with cookouts. That was the good general’s thought for today-no cookouts. The whole mesa’s dry as dust. A spark would do it. I suppose he’s got visions of the whole project going up in flames because of one Fourth of July hot dog. I have to say, the man thinks of everything. One minute international conferences, the next lemonade and egg salad. So. Now we’ve got campfire patrol.” He looked up, as if he’d noticed Connolly for the first time. “Anyway, what was it you wanted?”
“You wanted to see me.”
Oppenheimer looked puzzled for a moment, then, remembering, frowned. “Yes, right.” He lit another cigarette. “About this trip.”
“Thanks for the Pullman.”
Oppenheimer frowned again. “I know this is none of my business.”
“You want a report? I thought we agreed to keep you in the dark till we had something.”
“I don’t mean that,” Oppenheimer said quickly. “I thought this trip was work.”
“It was.”
“You didn’t tell me you were taking a lady. I hear you’re quite a dancer.”
“You’re right,” Connolly said evenly, “it’s none of your business.”
“It is when you’re carrying on with one of the scientists’ wives. That’s all we need right now-a jealous husband. I’m surprised at you.”
“The trip was work. She was part of it.”
Oppenheimer raised his eyebrows. “Is that the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Are you trying to tell me there’s nothing going on?”
“No,” Connolly said, meeting his stare. “I didn’t say that.”
“I see.” Oppenheimer put down the paper in his hand. “It wouldn’t be the first time, you know. Put people together and there’s always a certain amount of interest generated. You have to expect that. You have to expect trouble, too. He’s a good man.”
“I’ve met him.”
“And that didn’t deter you in the slightest.” Connolly paused. “No.”
Oppenheimer smiled. “At least you’re honest. I guess. May I ask what she’s got to do with all this?”
“If you ask, I’ll tell you, but I’d rather you didn’t ask. Not yet.”
Oppenheimer put out his cigarette. “I used to know everything that went on here. Looks like I wasn’t as well informed as I thought. Murder. Adultery. A vipers’ nest, it turns out. Cookouts.”
“You’re forgetting espionage.”
“Yes,” Oppenheimer said, looking at him, “how could I forget that?” He picked up the paper again. “Now what do I do with this? ‘Dereliction of duty. Misuse of government funds. Authorized travel for personal purposes. Sexual’-what do they call it?” He referred to the paper. “ ‘Sexual indiscretions with project personnel.’ Indiscretions.”
“Ignore it. You’re a busy man.”
“Not half as busy as you, it seems. I can’t ignore a security request. They want you out of here.”
“They’re just blowing smoke. Ignore them.”
“They won’t let up, you know.”
“You take your friends in security too seriously,” Connolly said, thinking of the young scientist and his meeting.
“My friends,” Oppenheimer said. “You seem to think they’re a joke. Did you know they refused to give me a clearance until Groves personally vouched for me? Me. Did you know they still investigate my old associates, my family? They’ve put my brother through hell.” He saw the look in Connolly’s eyes. “But you knew that. He was a member of the party at Stanford. Given that, we both must be disloyal. They keep my file active-they never close it. So I’ve learned to be a little sensitive about our friends. I try not to annoy them.”
Connolly got up. “The lady in question helped me make contact with someone I hope will lead to Karl’s killer. The money was mine. She shared my hotel room, but I was sleeping there anyway. Our friends in security think we were off on a toot and it’s just what I want them to think. You’re not buying any favors with them, you know. You’ll always scare them. You’re everything they’re not.”
Oppenheimer was quiet for a minute, then smiled faintly, a tic. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
“A small one.”
“You want me to vouch for you, then.”
“Groves vouched for you.”
“You forget I have a certain amount of responsibility to keep this project secure.”
“So did Groves.”
Oppenheimer paused. “So he did,” he said, taking the paper and letting it flutter to the wastebasket. “Now will you do something for me? Keep your indiscretions discreet, will you? This particular husband is too valuable right now to be worrying about his wife.”
“I don’t think he knows. He’s at Trinity most of the time.”
Oppenheimer started and then jotted something down. “Thank you for reminding me. I almost forgot about the cables.”
“Cables?”
“Coaxial cables. The rats are chewing the wires at the site. We have to patrol the whole damn desert floor now, night and day. Miles of wire. It’s got everybody jumpy.” He caught Connolly’s look. “Sorry, what were we saying?”
“Nothing. I was going to be more discreet.”
“Yes, that’s right.” Oppenheimer paused. “Be careful. They usually do know.”
“Who?”
“Kitty was married when we met. We thought her husband didn’t know, but he did.”
Connolly looked up at him, surprised, then let it go. “You ought to get some sleep,” he said.
“Everybody says that, but nobody tells me how.”
The whole mesa seemed on edge, like some extension of Oppenheimer’s nervous system. Connolly had come back west with a sense of relief-the high, dry air was the air he breathed now-but the Hill had changed. It was curiously deserted, with hundreds gone to the test site and the usual traffic at the gates slowed by travel restrictions. Los Alamos was left to bake in the arid July air. The grass had long since dried up, the little patch gardens scraggly and cracked. Children, out of school, played ball in a swirl of dust. Mothers spread blankets over bare dirt for impromptu picnics or sat in the shade of the hutments and prefab houses, fanning themselves. Without being told, they knew something was about to happen. Lab windows were bright all night. With so many gone, the summer should have been quiet and lethargic. Instead, it was anxious, wide awake, as if everyone were waiting for forest fires to break out.
Connolly checked the mail, went for walks, wandered in and out of the Tech Area looking for something to do. Eisler’s books were sold to raise money for the school, his personal effects doled out by Johanna Weber to friends in the emigre community. Connolly had asked her for a picture-the theoretical team on an outing in the Jemez Mountains-and, surprised, she had given it to him with sentimental tears in her eyes. He placed it on the bureau next to the photograph of Karl, two pieces in the puzzle. He saw Emma at the movies, but they stayed away from each other, afraid to divert their attention from the waiting. Finally, after a week, claustrophobic in all the wide space of the mesa, he drove into Santa Fe to see Holliday.
“I’d just about given up on you,” Holliday said pleasantly. “Coffee?”
“In this heat?”
“Old Indian trick. Just pay it no attention and after a while you don’t know it’s there.”
“It’s there,” Connolly said, wiping his neck.
They sat out behind the office where a table had been set up in the shade of a giant cottonwood tree.
“Sorry I haven’t been around. I just haven’t had anything to tell you.”
“That you can tell me, you mean. That’s all right. I figure it’s Hill business now. I don’t ask. Looks like we’ll all know pretty soon.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, not much traffic into town these days. Real quiet. But you got these explosions going off in the canyons every night now. Folks don’t even complain anymore-no point. Meantime, you got every hotel room in town booked for next week. That nice Mrs. McKibben’s onto the boarding houses now, so you must have a crowd coming in. So I figure you’re about to do whatever it is you’re going to do up there.”
Connolly smiled at him. “You’re a good cop.”
“That’s not hard in a small town. Nothing happens. Until you came along, anyway.”
“I guess you’ll be relieved when I go.”
Holliday sipped his coffee, looking at him. “You might be here quite a spell. One thing you learn in police work is how to wait. Now you, you hate to wait. You’d make coffee nervous.”
Connolly smiled again. “So what do you do while you’re waiting?”
“Mostly you turn things over in your mind.”
Connolly looked at him with interest. “Such as?”
“Well, such as that car. Anybody bother it yet? No. But now you’ve got all these explosions going off nearby. You’d think somebody’d want to move it, wouldn’t you?”
“Why should he? Nobody’s found it yet. It’s been months.”
“True. But it’s funny about that car. Easiest thing in the world to drive it somewhere else, then get a bus or something back to the Hill. That way nobody’d connect it at all.”
“Nobody has connected it. As far as he knows, it’s still hidden.”
“Maybe. But that was before they started blowing those canyons all to hell. If it was me, I’d move it.”
“So what are you thinking?”
“Well, the way it makes sense is if he isn’t on the Hill anymore.”
“No, he’s there.”
“You’re sure.”
“He has to be.”
“Has to be isn’t evidence.”
“He’s there,” Connolly said firmly. “I know it.”
Holliday paused. “Well, if you know it. ‘Course, there’s one other way it makes sense.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, I’d move it, but maybe he’s not as smart as I am. That’s another thing you learn in police work-they’re not the brightest bunch of guys. We just like to think so ‘cause it makes us look good.”
Connolly smiled. “What else do you get when you turn things over?”
“Not much. The funny thing about this one is that we’ve got the when and the where and it sounds like you’ve got the why but you’re not telling.” He looked at Connolly, who nodded. “Well, in my experience, at least one of these ought to lead us to who. But not this time.”
“We have to come at it a different way.”
“That why you’ve got my boys watching those churches?”
Connolly nodded. “It might be a waste of time.”
“Well, it won’t do them any harm. Good way to get to know your own town. You take me-I’ve never been to the Governors’ Palace. Pass it every day, but never been inside. But that’s usually the way, isn’t it?”
“You’re leading up to something.”
“No, I’m just teaching you how to wait,” Holliday said, his eyes enjoying a private joke. “I’ve been thinking and thinking about it, and damned if I can come up with anything. ‘Course, I don’t know the why.”
Connolly placed his coffee on the table and looked away. “Somebody was passing military secrets and Karl surprised them at the drop. At San Isidro. But you didn’t hear that, okay?”
Holliday looked at him closely, then nodded. “Well, I figured that much.”
“How’s that?”
“Everything top secret and MPs walking around the place and people dropping in from Washington. What the hell else could it be? Still,” he said, smiling, “it’s nice to know. I appreciate that.”
Connolly didn’t say anything.
“And now you’re arranging another drop?” Holliday said quietly.
Connolly got up and paced toward the tree, ignoring him. “When did you figure all this out?”
“Don’t get excited. Not for a long time. See, he had me going there with that queer business. You look at that, you’ve got no reason to look at anything else. Smart. But there’s another thing. How’d he come up with that?”
“It was in the papers.”
“Yeah, but it’s smart. I mean, if he’s too dumb to move the car, how come he’s smart enough to think up something like that?”
Connolly looked at him. “I don’t know. How is he?”
“Well, maybe it’s on his mind, like.”
“You mean he’s a homosexual after all? Doc, we’ve been down that road, and it didn’t get us anywhere. What’s the difference now, anyway?”
“Maybe he just thinks about them. There has to be some way to get to the who. A trail somewhere. Everything counts in a murder. I mean, he thought of it. Now why is that?”
“I don’t know, Doc. Maybe you’d better turn it over some more. I’ll tell you this, though. We got the guy who was passing the secrets.” Holliday looked at him in surprise. “And neither of them liked guys. Not him. Not Karl. It was a blind.”
“Huh,” Holliday said, a grunt of acknowledgment. He sat for a minute, thinking. “What about the one you caught?”
“He’s dead.”
Holliday took another sip of coffee with an almost studied casualness. “You kill him?”
“No.”
“So he’s not the one setting up the meeting?”
“No.”
Holliday mulled this over for a minute, then stood up. “Well, I don’t know. I’m in over my head now. Maybe someday you’ll let me know how this works.”
“I may never be able to do that, Doc,” Connolly said seriously. “You understand that.”
Holliday nodded, then grinned. “You may never catch him, either. Sometimes it happens that way. Even when you wait. You understand that?”
“Then my secret’s safe with you.”
It wasn’t until the next day that, for no specific reason, Holliday’s conversation made Connolly think of Corporal Batchelor.
“He transferred out,” Mills said. “He’s up at Oak Ridge. Why?”
“I just wanted to see how he was doing. Can we get him on the phone?”
“Are you kidding? You can’t call somebody at Oak Ridge just to pass the time of day. Family emergency, maybe. Otherwise, you write.”
“Let’s get him anyway.”
“What’s going on? I’ve never seen you so jumpy.”
“Just call him.”
Mills picked up the phone with a shrug. “You’re the boss. It might take some time, though.”
Amazingly, it took a day. And when Connolly finally heard Batchelor’s voice, wary and apprehensive, he felt foolish for having gone to the trouble. It wasn’t a loose end, just a stray thought.
“The man who beat you up,” he said. “Who was it?” There was no response. “You still there?”
“I don’t know,” Batchelor said, so quietly that Connolly thought it was the connection.
“Look, this is strictly confidential. Off the record. I mean, if you’re worried about that.”
“No, I really don’t know,”
“But someone on the Hill.”
“I don’t know,” he repeated. “Maybe a visitor. I’d never seen him before.”
“A scientist?”
“No.”
Connolly frowned. “Can you describe him?”
“Dark.”
“Mexican, you mean?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Spanish.”
“How do you know? Did you talk to him?”
“I just thought he looked Spanish, is all. He had black eyes.”
Connolly stopped, feeling embarrassed. “Would you recognize him again?”
Batchelor hesitated. “Is this an official call?”
“No, unofficial. Would you?”
“I don’t want you to look for him. Nothing happened.”
“I’m not looking for him. I was just curious.”
“Why?”
Why indeed? “I’m not sure.”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’m sorry. Nothing happened.”
“Okay,” Connolly said. “I understand. But you’d recognize him?”
Batchelor hesitated. “Yes,” he said finally. “If I had to.”
Connolly stared at the receiver when they’d finished, wishing he hadn’t called. Now Batchelor would worry about what he’d moved a thousand miles away to forget.
“What are you up to?” Mills said, interrupting the thought.
“Nothing. Chasing my own tail. Can’t we get this damn fan to work?” he said irritably.
“Crazy with the heat, huh?”
“No, stir crazy.”
“Waiting for something?”
Connolly shot him a glance, then looked away. “No.”
“Here,” Mills said, holding out an envelope. “Post office said to give this to you. Who’s Corporal Waters?”
Connolly reached up for the letter, meeting Mills’s eyes as his hand touched it. For an instant he stopped breathing.
“Friend of yours?” Mills said. He held the letter suspended between them.
“One of my aliases,” Connolly said, taking it. “For filthy pictures.”
Mills’s eyes dropped in disappointment. “Oh,” he said, excluded. “Sorry I asked.”
Connolly stared at the envelope in front of him. Typed. No return address. Santa Fe postmark. Now that it was finally here, he couldn’t quite believe it. Why a letter? Absurdly, he realized that he had been expecting the guidebook, page turned down at the corner. Mills, mistaking his hesitation for secrecy, moved away from the desk. Connolly fingered the envelope. Not heavy. No more than a page. No, a single rectangle, like a postcard.
He slit open the envelope. An invitation. A gallery opening on Canyon Road. Sunday, from four to seven. Refreshments served. Two days from now. Connolly turned it over, looking for a message, something scrawled on the print. A public reception, not a private meeting at San Isidro. But what had he been expecting? A conversation in the alley? Had there been a pattern to the other meetings? He thought of Holliday’s men, loitering at churches all over Santa Fe.
He looked up to see Mills standing by the desk.
“Are you going to tell me?” he said simply, his eyes frank and direct.
Connolly slipped the card back into the envelope. “I can’t.”
In fact, there was no one to tell except Emma. He walked her back from the PX, carrying grocery bags.
“You said it would work,” she said. “What’s the matter now?”
“They don’t trust it. Why a party? There’ll be people.”
“They just want to see who you are, see if you’re real.”
“How will they know?”
“You’ll be the one with me.”
He looked at her. “Don’t even think about it,” he said. “I have to do this one alone.” He stopped her before she could interrupt. “He won’t know you anyway. They’d never tell the field contact about you. If anything goes wrong, the chain has to stop with him. They can’t afford to have this traced back. If they believe it.”
“They must. Why would they send the invitation?”
“It’s worth the chance. If it’s a trap, they sacrifice the one guy in the field, that’s all.”
“Then it really doesn’t matter whether I’m there or not.”
“It does to me. We don’t know what might happen. Besides, they’ll be looking for a man alone.”
“For a uniform, you mean. Corporal Waters.”
He stopped and looked at her. “A uniform. If I told you I’d completely forgotten about that, would you think I’d lost my mind?”
She grinned at him. “I was never interested in your mind. See how useful I can be?”
“But I don’t want to have to worry about you,” he said seriously.
“Don’t, then. We’ll arrive separately. I’ll just be a fly on the wall. In case you need me. I don’t want to have to worry about you.”
He decided not to argue the point now. “What sort of crowd is it likely to be?”
“The local gentry. Hats and things. And the arts-and-crafts crowd. A few ladies in sandals and woven skirts. Loomers, I call them.”
“Soldiers?”
“Enlisted men? You must be joking. Don’t worry, he’ll spot you straightaway.”
“But I won’t know who he is.”
“Well, that’s rather the point, isn’t it?”
Mills said nothing that evening when he surprised Connolly at the office trying on the uniform, borrowed from one of the drivers. The fit was baggy, as if Connolly had lost weight. Mills looked him over, then, without a word, went to a locked drawer, fishing a key out of his pocket. Embarrassed, Connolly turned and started to change back into his clothes, so he was in his shorts when Mills handed him the gun and the cartridge of bullets.
“You’d better have these,” he said.
Connolly looked at the gun, not knowing what to say.
“I never think to look in that drawer,” Mills said. “I’d no idea they were gone.”
“You don’t have to do this. I’m not-”
“He’s already killed one man,” Mills said simply. “I’m on your side, you know. I always have been.”