Los Alamos

He handed a sheaf of papers to the woman. “We haven’t got much time, so let’s not waste any. I’ve got to catch a plane in Albuquerque, and it’s a heck of a drive getting there. Betty, you’ll make sure the car’s ready? These are all okayed and ready to go. Be sure you get copies of the first two to Dr. Oppenheimer tomorrow-he’s been waiting. I’ll phone you from Washington about the plumbing contracts. Connolly?”

The office was simple, about the size of a large dormitory room, with a window looking out onto the busy main street and the Tech Area fence. There was nothing personal on the walls, just a photograph of Roosevelt and a map of the country, and the desk, piled with folders and contracts and a picture of a woman with two little girls, could have been that of any bureaucrat. Only the two black telephones, a wartime luxury, suggested any importance. Connolly knew instinctively that his real office in the Pentagon was probably no different-plain, pared down, as if he were determined to remove anything that could distract him from the job. In the wastepaper basket at the side of the desk Connolly saw the incongruous shiny brown of a Hershey bar wrapper.

“Sit down,” he said, gesturing to the only chair. “Please. I apologize for not seeing you in Washington, but I was out on the road, as usual. They say the war’s winding down, but I don’t see it. Now. You’ve been briefed?”

“On Karl Bruner’s death, yes.”

Even the sound of the name seemed to make him uncomfortable.

“Yes,” he said, throwing a folder on the pile and resting his hands on the back of his chair. “First time anything like this has happened on the project. Terrible thing, any way you look at it. The question is, how do we look at it?”

“Sir?”

“I mean, is there more here than meets the eye? Less? Do we have a problem?”

“Well, you’ve got a dead body.”

“Correction. The Santa Fe police have a dead body. What we’ve got is a missing security officer. That could be a heck of a lot more serious.”

“Any idea how serious?”

Groves glared for a minute, then sighed. “No. Maybe we don’t even have a problem. Maybe it was just-something that could happen to anyone. Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with the project or his being on the Hill. Maybe. But we need to be sure. And we’re going to be.” He stopped and looked straight at Connolly. “I’ve seen that look a million times before, so don’t waste it. Groves going off the deep end again. Spies under the bed. Paranoid. In fact,” he said, smiling a little, “I can almost guarantee you that’s what you’ll hear from my friend Dr. Oppenheimer. Says it to me all the time. But sometimes I think Robert’s too trusting for his own good, so where do we draw the line? I can’t change the way I feel-somebody’s got to worry about things. Right from the start people here treated security like a joke. They’re brilliant men, I’m the first to say it, but sometimes they’re like kids-irresponsible, you know, maybe even looking for a little trouble. Some of them used to play pranks with the mail-can you imagine that? Grown men? They used to cut holes in the fence just to see if they could get in and out without anybody noticing. Grown men. Brilliant men. So somebody’s got to play principal, and I guess that’s me. I don’t care what anyone says so long as the project’s safe.”

He stopped suddenly, looking a little surprised at himself for having run on.

“I’m not a policeman,” Connolly said, a question.

“I don’t want a policeman. Tommy McManus tells me you’re a good man and I can trust you. If Tommy says it, that’s it. He doesn’t know how you ended up at OWI in the first place. He also tells me you can snoop around without upsetting the horses.”

“That why you wanted a civilian?”

Groves smiled. “Partly. The scientists are allergic to uniforms. It’s very important to keep things running smoothly now. We’re coming to the end of the project. I’ve got a lot of nervous types up here-sometimes I think the smarter they are, the more nervous they are. You never know what’s going to set them off. I’m not going to stand for anyone running around digging up dirt that doesn’t mean a thing. We take care of ourselves. Do you know how many security incidents we’ve investigated since this project began? Over a thousand. Wives talking at cocktail parties about how brilliant their husbands are. Factory workers in Tennessee bragging about their paychecks. Newspapermen get curious, so we have to make sure they don’t get too curious.”

“General, I think you should know that McManus recommended me because I’ve spent the last two years in Washington keeping you out of the papers. That’s part of my beat-the blackout on the project. Scientific journals. Everything.”

“So you understand the science?” Groves asked, curious.

“Does anybody understand the science?”

Groves looked at him.

“A little,” Connolly said apologetically. “Enough to know what can’t be said. Which is just about everything. Right down to the word atom. Anyway, I’m familiar with the operation.”