chance that Stalin would discover her secret assignment. At that moment, an NKVD assassin
would be given Vanessa’s name.
She looked through the glass as she had all night. No lights had shown in the Fragrant Petal, no
cars had parked nearby, no one had gone into the shop since the Japanese soldier yesterday
afternoon. She had not seen him come out.
The appearance of a Nisei officer at a flower shop owned by the cousin of the man who had
betrayed her and killed Masarek was too remarkable to be taken for mere coincidence. She had
immediately tried to find reinforcements but the two numbers she had called were answered by
people who gave her coded warnings instead of recognition signals. A third call, to a safe house
in Los Angeles, had been properly answered. She was told that the FBI was openly watching
every known or suspected agent in the Bay Area.
One of the Los Angeles agents was on his way to San Francisco to help her, but until he arrived,
Hecht was all she had. The thought both angered and depressed her.
A light knock on the door brought her out of the chair. With her silenced pistol in one hand, she
opened the door a crack, then admitted Hecht.
“Are you armed?” said Vanessa before he could speak.
“Armed?” asked Hecht, his voice rising. “You mean a gun?” He looked confused and tired, as
though he had not slept well.
“This is an armed struggle, comrade,” said Vanessa. “Surely even you understand that much.
You’re a communist, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” replied Hecht. “I’ve read all of Marx and Lenin and Stalin.” The litany of names
seemed to comfort him. His voice became more calm. “It’s just that we’re not used to the armed
struggle here in the United States. We’re not as advanced morally as our Soviet comrades.”
There was no derision in his voice; only self-pity.
“Pistols don’t recognize advancement in revolution or morality. Are you armed?”
Hecht shook his head. “I don’t even know how to use a gun.”
For an instant, Vanessa pitied Hecht almost as much as she despised him. There were many
American communists like him, naive idealists playing at revolution. They hated, but only
weakly. Few of them had the toughness of mind or body to bring down a government.
But Hecht was all she had to work with right now. She would use him until a real agent arrived,
and then she would kill him.
“What the Party requires of you is simple,” she said. “You will go buy a wreath for your father’s
funeral.”
Sonoma County
26 Hours 59 Minutes After Trinity
The Sonoma County sheriffs office was nearly as old as the middle-aged deputy who was typing
up a burglary report. The typewriter he used stuck with monotonous regularity, impeding a
process already slowed by the deputy’s lack of skill and interest.
“Damn,” sighed Deputy Anthony Branscomb, reaching yet again to untangle keys.
The telephone rang. Branscomb grabbed it, relieved to set aside the report.
“Sheriffs office. Branscomb,” he answered.
“Riley. FBI,” said a hoarse voice. “You had any wineries robbed in the last twenty-four hours?”
“FBI? How the hell did you find out so fast? I haven’t even typed up the report yet!”
“How much lead foil was taken?”
“How did you know – “ Branscomb realized he was repeating himself. “Hey, is this some kind
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of gag?”
“Less than twenty pounds. They’d been bottling a vat of red and – “
“Give me directions to the winery from San Francisco.”
“What’s so damned important about a few pounds of foil?”
“We’re at war, remember?”
Branscomb sighed and gave directions with a county sheriffs intimate knowledge of short cuts.
“Right,” said Riley. “Meet us there in an hour.”
“Weren’t you listening?” said Branscomb. “That’s at least eighty miles – eight zero – and it’s
rush hour down where you are.”
“One hour, deputy. And tell the local speed traps to stay clear of a black Ford coupe driven by
a wild man in a cowboy hat.”
San Francisco
27 Hours 4 Minutes After Trinity
Hecht stood irresolutely in front of the Fragrant Petal. The card in the window said OPEN, but
no one was working at the counter where flowers were piled, waiting to be made into bouquets.
He took a fast drag on his cigaret, threw it into the gutter and pushed tentatively on the shop
door.
The door opened without the sound of the customary shopkeeper’s bell. Hecht looked around
nervously, expecting someone to challenge his presence. No one did.
With increasing confidence, Hecht walked past the counter and into the rear of the shop. There
were more flowers bunched in tin pails, mounds of greenery under wet towels, pottery frogs of
all sizes, florist’s shears, tape, pins, soft clay, everything but the human hands needed to
transform chaos into an aesthetic whole.
Hecht hesitated, knowing he would be questioned carefully by the woman whose name he did
not even know. His footsteps sounded loud as he walked toward the door leading into the
garage. He had been told to be particularly interested in the garage. He reached for the door,
then froze. He could hear voices, a man and a woman speaking a language he did not recognize.
Slowly, Hecht retreated. As he did, he saw another door, this one appearing to lead from the
back room of the flower shop to the funeral home next door. The connection between the two
businesses was not apparent from the street. He tiptoed toward the door.
The embalming room was harshly lit. It smelled of formaldehyde and death. At either end of the
room was a porcelain table with an inset drain to carry off body fluids. Near the table next to the
door was a sheet-covered corpse on a gurney. On the porcelain table was a gray-white mass that
Hecht immediately assumed was a human brain.
He closed his eyes, afraid if he saw any more he would be sick. Then the corpse stirred and tried
to sit up, but could not. There was a large red stain on the sheet. Hecht froze, paralyzed.
“Ana?” asked Refugio, seeing only Hecht*s dark shape in the doorway.
Hecht forced himself to walk a few steps into the room.
“Ana?” asked Refugio again, as much a groan as a name. “Water…”
Hecht looked at the man’s slack face, closed eyes, thick sweep of eyebrows. The corpse was
alive. He glanced around, wondering what else was not as it seemed. The gray-white mass: it was
not a brain.
Voices came from the flower shop.
“What are you doing in here?”
Hecht turned toward the voice and was confronted by a Japanese wearing the uniform of an
American Army officer.
“What do you want?”
“I’m – uh – flowers,” said Hecht, finally remembering the lie he was supposed to tell if he was
caught. “It’s – uh – it’s my mother’s birthday.”
“Julio!”
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Julio Rincón carne in from the flower shop.
“Sell this man some yellow roses,” the Japanese said. “It’s his mother’s birthday, so make sure he
doesn’t get lost.” He looked back at Hecht. “Go with Julio.”
Hecht followed Julio, paid for the roses and then nearly forgot them in his rush to get out of the
shop. He did not look back, so he did not see Julio step out of the store and follow him.
Vanessa saw the man following Hecht. She watched from her window, but the Mexican kept
walking down the street when Hecht turned into the apartment building. Frowning, still
suspicious, Vanessa released the curtain. She opened the door before Hecht could knock.
“Well?” she said, shutting the door.
Hecht dumped the yellow roses on a chest.
“There wasn’t anyone in the front of the shop,” he said. “The door was open. I walked toward
the back. The garage, like you told me.” He talked very fast. He wanted to complete his mission,
to be free of this preposterous experience and of the blond woman whose eyes reminded him of
crushed blue marbles. “Before I got to the back door, I heard voices. A man and a woman. I
couldn’t hear words. I backed up and saw another door. It led into the funeral home.”
Hecht paused, trying to decide how to go on without appearing a total fool.
“It was the embalming room. There was a corpse under a sheet and a brain on the table, at least
that’s what I thought until he – “
“He?” interrupted Vanessa sharply.
“The corpse. Only he wasn’t. He said something – “
“What?”
“A name. Ann or Ana or something like that, and then he asked for water.”
“Describe the man.”
“Uh, he was sick. Real sick.”
“Hair color? Eyes? Skin? Height?” snapped Vanessa, her voice like a lash.
“Dark,” said Hecht, trying to recall things he had not really noticed at the time. “Black hair and
big thick eyebrows. Yellow skin, but that’s because he was sick, I think. He looked Mexican.”
Vanessa felt the first stirrings of victory, a sensual excitement.
“Sick?” Vanessa asked, thinking of Refugio’s furry eyebrows. Had she managed to shoot the
Mexican after all? “How sick?”
“Bad,” said Hecht, trying not to stare at Vanessa’s moist smile. “There was blood on the sheet
and he looked feverish.”
“Good.”
Hecht moved nervously, like an animal on a leash.
“Did you see anything that looked like a milk can?” asked Vanessa. “Metal, about two feet
high?”
“Uh, no. Just flower pails.”
“Anything unusual? Anything metallic?”
“The brain,” blurted Hecht. “That is, the gray-white stuff that I thought was a brain. It was on
the embalming table and it was kind of shaped like a brain.”
“Go on.”
“It wasn’t a brain.”
“What was it?”
“I don’t know. A gray-white chunk of something or other. Metal. Smooth.”
Vanessa smiled, then laughed aloud. “It’s there!” Her voice, like her laugh, was elated. The
incredible power of the atomic bomb was within her grasp. “Did you see anything else?” she
demanded. “How many people were there?” She waited, daring to hope that it would be
possible for her alone to recover the uranium.
“Two men stopped me before I could look around anymore. And I heard at least two other
people talking. One of the men who stopped me was Oriental, but he was wearing an American
uniform. He seemed to be in charge. The Mexican took orders from him.”
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“Oriental? Be more precise. Half the world is Oriental.” Vanessa’s voice was flat again; from
what he had told her, there were too many men in the shop for her to go in alone.
“Uh, I think the guy was Nisei. You know, a first-generation Japanese-American. His English was
as good as mine. No accent.”
“Mexican and Japanese,” Vanessa said. “So that’s how the bastard did it!” In Mexico, Refugio
had an Oriental partner. Apparently he had sold the uranium to Japan. The Nisei must be here to
pick it up. But he would have the same problem she did – how to move the radioactive metal
without being poisoned by it. She smiled, hoping that the Japanese knew as little about
radioactivity as Masarek had. If the Jap was ignorant, it would be easy to take the uranium from
his dead hands.
“You’ll have to be armed,” Vanessa said.
“What?”
“Guns, comrade. Do you understand me?”
Hecht looked away from her hard blue eyes.
“Two .38 caliber pistols – revolvers – and one hundred rounds of ammunition,” continued
Vanessa, her voice as relentless as her eyes. “Have the clerk show you how to use them. You’ll
need to know.”
San Francisco
27 Hours 11 Minutes After Trinity
Refugio dreamed that he was sinking in hot black sand. The dream was so alarming that he
awoke, moaning. After a moment of disorientation, he remembered he was on a gurney in an
embalming room.
He was thirsty, all but smothered by fever and the odor of death. He must get out of here,
breathe clean air again. No wonder he felt weak, lying on a wheeled table surrounded by the
tools of death.
Was it only yesterday he had stolen something unknown and been shot? A shallow wound, but
potent. He felt as though he had spent the last day falling down a deep dry well. Above him was
diffuse blue light. Below him was seamless dry midnight.
Suddenly his body knotted with pain. His stomach, long since emptied of all but nausea,
attempted to throw off even that. He hung his head over the pan beside him. His whole body
convulsed. Nothing came up but a vile taste.
Fever reclaimed him. His mind slid on toward the dark bottom of the well. He was faintly
surprised to find water there, delicious and cool.
Gradually Refugio realized that someone was washing his face and arms. Darkness receded. He
opened his eyes and saw a pair of sure, gentle hands ministering to him with white rags dipped in
cool water.
“Ana…” Refugio blinked and focused on the nearby face with an effort. “Kestrel?”
“How do you feel?” asked Kestrel. His face did not show his horror at the bruises that mottled
Refugio’s red skin, signs of massive internal bleeding brought on by radiation poisoning. Gently,
Kestrel placed another wet cloth on Refugio’s forehead.
“Thirsty,” Refugio sighed.
Kestrel’s hands hesitated. Water would make Refugio vomit again, weakening him even more;
Kestrel needed him for one additional task.
“First,” he said, “you must try to sit up.”
Kestrel braced the gurney against the embalming table while he helped Refugio to sit up.
Refugio retched and trembled. Bruises formed on his skin where Kestrel’s hands held him
upright. After a moment, he was able to sit up without Kestrel’s help.
“Very good,” Kestrel said. “Now you can help me. I won’t take long.”
He eased the gurney closer to the embalming table. He had already laid swaths of thick foil
down the length of the table, stopping just short of the misshapen sphere of uranium. Where the
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edges of the foil were crinkled, the vivid red of the foil’s reverse side showed like flames.
Refugio stared without comprehension as Kestrel locked the gurney’s wheels.
“Listen to me,” Kestrel said. Refugio was weak, but his help in wrapping the uranium would
reduce Kestrel’s risk of radiation poisoning. “Take the metal ball and wrap it in the foil. Try to
put equal amounts of foil on all sides of the metal ball. Do you understand?”
Refugio looked at the uranium and then at the foil edge with a hint of fire. “Wrap . , this” – he
touched the ball – “in… this.” He waved at the foil.
“Yes.”
Refugio tried to pick up the uranium and place it on the foil. The ball was too heavy for him.
“Roll it,” suggested Kestrel. “But be careful!”
The uranium teetered at the raised edge of the embalming table before rolling unevenly onto the
overlapping foil strips. Clumsily, Refugio pulled the foil up and over the uranium. The wrapping
