the car behind the van.
The sound of Refugo’s unsilenced .45 shattered the early-morning calm. Glass exploded and
bullets screamed off metal. Ana woke up in a rush of adrenaline, disoriented by the heavy smell
of roses, thinking she was a child again, awakened by firecrackers thrown by her brothers to
frighten her. Then she remembered where she was, and why.
Three more shots came, sounds so loud that Ana suppressed a scream only by biting her
knuckles. She desperately hoped that the shots were not related to Refugio or Kestrel and hence
to her, but she knew hope was false and fear was true. Kestrel was far away and she was here,
afraid.
She eased aside the curtain and stared out the windshield. At first she saw only gray light and fog
dripping onto the pavement, shining in the middle of the street. Then she realized that it was
glass, not moisture glistening on concrete. Halfway up the block stood a car, its door open,
something black huddled against the side. Farther up the street was a car with darkness where
windows should be, and something black huddled against the back of the car.
Shots came like sharp blows.
Vanessa was flattened on the pavement; shards of glass winked in her hair. She tasted blood and
fear and anger all at once. Her silenced gun spat several times before it was empty. She had used
too many bullets on the man who should have been Refugio.
She knew if she stayed she would die. She knew she would die if she tried to get the uranium. She
knew Masarek was dead as certainly as if she had killed him herself. She also knew how far it was
to the border. Many things could happen, many people could die. Refugio would be one of
them – if she could get out of this rancid gutter.
Vanessa squirmed backward until she was beneath a parked car. She did not notice the macadam
tearing her hands or the rivulets of blood on her face from the first explosion of glass. She had
only one thought in her mind: The man who had killed Masarek was trying to kill her.
With an eel-like motion, she squirmed from beneath the car, feinted toward the sidewalk, then
spun on one foot as a shot exploded off the curb. Instantly she crouched over, weaving toward
the green car.
Refugio swore and tried again, but as Vanessa crossed to the street side of the parked cars, she
put the back of the van across Refugio’s sights. He dragged himself over to the driver’s side of
the van. Vanessa was already inside her car. He heard an engine rev; tires shrieked on moist
pavement. She turned the car around and was accelerating away from him. He pulled the trigger
but no sound came. The gun was empty. He reloaded, but it was too late. She was gone.
Ana ducked reflexively as Vanessa’s car careened by, then looked up the street toward the van.
A shout rang out as clear as a shot. Ana looked in the sideview mirror. Behind her, far down the
block, an old, fat man in a gray watchman’s uniform was waving his arm to someone behind
him. The watchman must have realized what a fine target he made on the suddenly empty street.
He ducked back into the cover of the brick building he was guarding.
Ana wanted to follow his example, to retreat like a snail behind a protective coil of shell. She did
not want to climb into the driver’s seat, start the van and drive past shattered glass up to the
laundry truck. She did not want to do anything except hide. But she started the van and drove up
to the laundry truck anyway. Kestrel had taught her that there was more to life than fear.
She leaned across the seat, rolled down the window on the far side, and called out softly:
“Refugio?”
If Ana’s hair had been any color except black, she would have died in Refugio’s first startled
reflex. As it was, Refugio hesitated, then spoke in rapid Spanish.
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“Ana? Is it you, Ana?”
“Yes. How are you?”
It was not an idle greeting. Ana was concerned by the thready sound of Refugio’s voice.
“Fine,” Refugio said, lying.
Refugio heaved himself over the seat into the back of the van, swearing volubly. Sweating, dizzy,
he bent over the two canvas bags containing the uranium. He wanted Ana’s help now, but she
was only a woman; if she saw the bloody mess inside the van, she might run away. He needed
her. She must drive for him, because he knew that the pain he felt now was nothing to what he
would feel when the first shock of being wounded wore off.
“Refugio?” said Ana. She could not see him, could only hear him. “Do you need help?”
Refugio tried to pick up both sacks at once, but could not. The pieces of metal thumped
together in their sacks, bounced, then rested against each other, separated only by two layers of
canvas. The cloth blushed with a vague blue light. The heavier sack slipped out of his grasp. The
blue light faded.
“Refugio?” asked Ana again.
“ Yes,” he said wearily. “ Come to the back of the van.”
Refugio opened the back door just enough to hand out the sack containing the smaller piece of
uranium.
“Put it in your truck.”
Ana reached for the bag before she realized that the hand holding it was smeared with blood.
“You’re hurt.”
“The bag!” said Refugio savagely. “Take it!”
Ana snatched the bag, flung it into the flower truck and ran back just as Refugio was trying to
climb out the rear of the laundry truck. Her horrified glance went from his leg to the corpses in
the van. She closed her eyes and did not open them until she turned her back on the bloody van.
“Can you walk?” she asked.
“Take the bag.”
The second laundry sack was heavier than the first had been, and liberally smeared with blood.
Ana flung the bag into the flower truck, slammed the door shut and rushed back to help
Refugio.
The second bag thumped to a rest against a wicker flower stand in the rear of the truck. The first
bag lay partway under the passenger seat. Only gray light relieved the gloomy interior of the van.
In the distance sirens keened. Ana remembered the night watchman. She had no doubt that the
sirens were coming to the waterfront; they were drawn by death as unerringly as vultures
spiraling down hot desert air.
With a strength that surprised Refugio, she boosted him into the passenger seat of the flower
truck, slammed shut the engine compartment and leaped into the driver’s seat.
The van turned around and raced along the waterfront. Ana did not notice the car parked along
the street leading to the bridge, nor the driver blotting up blood that dripped into her eyes,
making driving more dangerous than hiding.
When the cream-colored van loomed out of the fog, Vanessa thought that Refugio had followed
her to finish her off. She grabbed her reloaded pistol and aimed toward the driver’s side of the
oncoming van. Refugio would have to slow down to get off a telling shot. When he slowed, she
would fire.
The van swept by without pausing, but not before Vanessa recognized the man slumped against
the window – Refugio. Automatically she memorized the truck’s license plate. When the van
turned the corner, she followed, trying to keep the van in sight without revealing her own
presence. Mist and morning traffic defeated her. Before she reached the Bay Bridge, the van had
disappeared into fog that would not burn off until noon.
Vanessa turned the car toward the waterfront, wondering where Masarek was and whether he
was still alive. How had Refugio escaped him? Where had the second truck come from, and who
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had driven Refugio away? But most of all – where was the uranium?
Sirens ululated through the mist, converging on the waterfront. A police car ran a stop sign at
right angles to Vanessa’s car and roared down the street leading to the Good Luck laundry van.
A second squad car quickly followed. She eased out into the intersection until she could see the
van. Both squad cars jerked to a stop near it. Policemen leaped out, guns drawn. They yanked
open the van’s doors. No shots were fired. No one came out of it.
Vanessa drove by the entrance to the waterfront. If Masarek were in the van there was nothing
she could do for him. If the uranium were there – Resolutely, she examined the possibilities of
the situation. Either Masarek was alive and had escaped with the uranium, in which case he
would call the prearranged number to re-establish contact with her, or he was dead and the
uranium was in the van. If the latter were true, the uranium was lost to her and to Russia, and she
would soon be as dead as Masarek. Beria did not tolerate failures.
There was, however, a third possibility. Refugio might have managed to escape with the
uranium. He had proved to be a more formidable man that either she or Masarek expected. But
now she was warned; she would find Refugio, kill him and take back the uranium.
Vanessa nodded, choosing to act on the third possibility. She must find Refugio quickly, before
he realized that what he had stolen could be sold back to the Americans for more money than
his greedy peasant mind could imagine. The truck was her only lead. Somehow she must trace
the truck.
Jornada del Muerto, New Mexico
5 Hours 14 Minutes After Trinity
Kestrel drove the narrow desert with fierce concentration. Heat made his Indio makeup blur
and run, but there was no one close enough to notice. Even so, he would have to pull off and
change his clothes. A flimsy disguise was dangerous, and the need for this one was gone.
He sped toward El Paso and a public telephone that he could use to call Takagura again. The
telephone call would be risky but necessary. He must have a reply to the message he had sent. If
new orders had been issued he must have those, too.
Perhaps Ana had called Takagura, reporting the success or failure of Refugio.
Kestrel noticed his speed and slowed down, watching for side roads. In his haste he had already
become lost once in the maze of dirt tracks threading through the Jornada del Muerto. He had
bumped around for a long time before he had found a road leading back to the main highway.
Now he needed somewhere to hide long enough to shed the Indio disguise.
He spotted a windmill and a dirt road, and swerved off the highway. The dirt track dipped into
an arroyo deep enough to conceal his car. On the lip of the arroyo, the windmill turned lazily,
filling a stock tank with water one deliberate revolution at a time. Scattered cows chewed on
mesquite bushes, undisturbed by the dusty car that had coasted to a stop near the water tank.
Kestrel slid out of the car and watched the dirt track behind him. Nothing moved but thin
spirals of dust rising into the sun. He stripped and scrubbed himself in the tank until no trace
remained of his Indio disguise. The water was clear and surprisingly cold. The listless wind dried
him as he walked back to ?he car. Kestrel watched the dust puff beneath his feet and the horizon
endlessly falling away beneath a hard blue sky. He marveled at the land’s immensity and
austerity, its only inhabitants silver mirages twisting above the sand.
Kestrel stood unmoving in the pouring light, letting heat draw tension out of his body. After a
few moments, he rolled the clothes he had worn and buried them in the arroyo. The cattle stared
at him with languid eyes, then turned away, more interested in mesquite beans than in the
enigmatic motions of man.
Dust from Kestrel’s long drive across the desert had filtered into the car’s trunk, but the clothes
inside the metal-bound suitcase were still clean and neatly creased. Beginning with cotton GI
underwear, Kestrel quickly pulled on the uniform of an American captain. He tied the narrow
black tie in a knot that matched the one in his ID picture, tucked his shirttail in his tan pants,
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adjusted his belt, and unwrapped the shiny black shoes. They were too wide. He tied their laces
so tightly the leather overlapped. He shined the toes on his sleeve in an American gesture he had
acquired from his college roommate.
Smiling, Kestrel buffed the toes one last time, reassured by the ease with which American
mannerisms returned to him. He knew that passing for an American was a matter of body
language as much as English language. He had lived eight years in America. Its patterns were
embedded in him, ready to be used.
Today his life would depend upon using them.
Kestrel unzipped the worn leather shaving kit and pulled out the papers which established that
he was Captain Yokohama, decorated member of America’s Nisei Battalion, on emergency
leave to be at his father’s deathbed. Kestrel studied the print on his papers beneath the merciless
desert light. Considering the haste involved, the papers were quite good.
He folded the papers carefully into a worn GI wallet, hoping they would fool the Army Air
Corps at El Paso. He got back into the car, feeling its heat engulf him. He wondered if Refugio
had killed Masarek yet, and if Vanessa were tied and frightened on the hard floor of a flower
truck, and how Ana was accommodating herself to sudden violence. He wondered what had
been stolen, and if it would turn out to be worth even an assassin’s life.
With a roar that scattered the cattle, Kestrel’s car raced out of the arroyo.
Hunters Point
3 Hours 35 Minutes After Trinity
Finn left the guards at the front gate and drove back toward the mess hall where last night’s
guards were eating. The guards at the gate had been less concerned with checking his credentials
than with proving that they were not responsible for the breach in security. Beneath their
government-issue starch was relief. A sentry was dead, but they were alive. Some new weapon
may be missing, but so what? The war was as good as over. It was only a matter of time.
Time, 2 million casualties and a new Russian world.
Finn felt his anger outstrip his control. He reminded himself that the guards did not know what
had been lost, but that did not calm him. A clock in the back of his head hammered relentlessly,
counting the minutes until 0530, July 18th. He parked the car and stalked into the linoleum and
formica ugliness of a military mess hall. The four guards he wanted were not hard to spot. They
were the only men in the room except for a sailor trailing a worn broom between rows of tables.
The men did not immediately notice Finn. They were in a corner of the long room, heads tilted
over cups of coffee, cigarets pressed between their knuckles.
Finn waited, sizing up the men as he had once sized up jungle trails. By now the guards had told
