most basic structure in the universe, the atom. Have I lost you?”
“No, General, I’m standing right in front of you.”
“See if you can stay in front of this. We’re building two kinds of atomic bombs, using two
different heavy metals. One bomb uses plutonium, one uses a very rare isotope – type – of
uranium called U-235. Both plutonium and U-235 are very very scarce. The uranium bomb is
relatively simple. The plutonium bomb is not. Getting it to go off is like setting fire to a bucket
of water. Everything depends on sixty-four perfectly shaped charges set in a perfect circle
around a perfect sphere of plutonium. If the charges go off simultaneously – and by God I’m
talking about hundred-millionths of a second! – the plutonium will be evenly imploded, critical
mass will be reached, and BANG! Still with me?”
Finn nodded, although all he was certain of was that he was getting more hard information
about Manhattan in two minutes than he had in two years of digging.
“Now, we’ve had hell’s own time getting the plutonium’s charges to go off together. The only
way to be sure we’ve got the engineering right is to test the bomb. The scientists want that. The
sob sisters want that. The gun soldiers want that because they think it won’t work and then they’ll
get their goddamn invasion. But I don’t want the test because once that fat round bomb goes off
we only have one atomic bomb left.”
“For the love of Christ – you can’t win a war with one bomb, no matter how powerful it is. You
Page 16
are crazy, General!”
“Maybe,” agreed Groves as he picked a piece of chocolate out of the box. “We won’t have
enough plutonium to make a second plutonium bomb until August. So we’ll wait until then to
drop the uranium bomb. That way, if one atomic bomb doesn’t convince the Japs, we’ll have a
plutonium bomb to follow up. But one bomb should do it.” Groves looked up at Finn. “That’s
what you’ll be guarding. The bomb that will end World War II.”
“If the bomb works.”
“You better pray it does, gun soldier.”
Finn looked away from the General. The smell of chocolate seemed the only real thing left in the
room. The past ten minutes were as disjointed and bizarre as any he had ever survived. Two
impossibly powerful bombs made of metals he had never heard of; one bomb slated for a test
and one for Japan, and a third one not even built yet. Tactics that seemed foolish, if not
diastrous, a demonstration that wasted half an arsenal for no better reason than politics.
“What you’ve told me doesn’t make sense,” said Finn, his voice flat.
“It doesn’t have to – you’re a captain, not a general. All you have to know is what to do. First:
you will get that Jap spy in place no later than 2200, July 15th. Second: you will drive to Fort
Bliss, get on the C-46 that will be waiting and fly over the test. Third: you will be in Hunters
Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco by 0700 of the 16th of July.”
“There’s only one of me, General. I can’t be sure Kestrel stays in place unless I stick with him.
That doesn’t give me much time to get to Bliss and then to Trinity, and then fly on to San
Francisco.”
Groves shrugged irritably. “I didn’t say you had to lead the damn Jap up the mountain. Just give
him enough information that he can’t stay away and follow him long enough to be sure he’s
going in the right direction. Then get your ass to Fort Bliss.”
“And when I get to Hunters Point?”
Groves smiled. “Beginning at 0700 of the 16th, you’ll stand guard over a billion dollars’ worth
of uranium 235, the guts of the only atomic bomb that will be left in the world. The uranium will
be loaded on the battleship Indianapolis by 0700. The ship will weigh anchor at 0800. You will
sit on that uranium until you deliver it to Colonel Paul Tibbets on a Pacific island called Tinian.
Then he, not you, will become the most important man in the world. Do you understand your
orders?”
“Yes. But why send me to Hunters Point? I don’t know a damn thing about atomic bombs or
battleships.”
“You’re a survivor, Captain. You should have died twenty times in Burma or Mexico, but you
didn’t. If the Indianapolis is attacked and men with their skin on fire and their guts hanging out
run around screaming, you wouldn’t panic. You’d get that uranium into the special raft we’re
shipping with you. You wouldn’t stop to play Good Samaritan, you wouldn’t let wounded
survivors into the raft with you, you wouldn’t do one fucking thing but keep that uranium afloat.
There aren’t many men I could say that about. But I’ve read the reports about you. I’ve watched
you. You’re as fast and nasty as those rattlers you grew up with. You’ll get the job done no
matter who you have to kill. Is that clear enough for you?”
“Yes, sir. Very clear.”
“Good. Now come with me. I want you to see the material you’ll be guarding. Uranium 235 has
some special characteristics you should be aware of.” Groves laughed as though he had made a
joke, but did not explain the punchline. “Captain.”
“Yes?”
“If that uranium goes to the bottom of the Pacific, I’d advise you to go with it all the way. And
don’t bother holding your breath.”
This time General Groves did not laugh.
Moscow
97 Hours Before Trinity
Page 17
(Excerpt from NKVD document sent by courier to Vanessa Lyons. Decoded.)
COMMENCE IMMEDIATELY FINAL STAGES OF BRONX INTERCEPT. DO NOT
FAIL. STALINGRAD WILL BE AVENGED. LAVRENTI BERIA
Los Alamos
97 Hours Before Trinity
Silently, Finn followed General Groves through the administrative building. Once it had been a
dormitory for wealthy boys. Now it was a warren of small offices. Beyond the windows, the
Jemez Mountains lifted their rugged faces to the sky.
There was a stretch of dusty gravel lined by rectangular government-issue buildings. To the east,
the sky grew lighter second by second; a lemon-colored dawn was bleaching into a white desert
day. Lights in all the buildings were still on. They had been on when Finn arrived at midnight.
Los Alamos recognized neither night nor day, only the consuming imperatives of war.
Once the plateau had been a beautiful setting for a boarding school. The cabins remained, but
were surrounded by angular buildings and signs that said, RESTRICTED, MOST
RESTRICTED, or POSITIVELY NO ADMITTANCE. A high fence enclosed Los Alamos,
giving it the appearance of a prison camp, an appearance reinforced by guards who patrolled the
perimeter of the fence with dogs and automatic weapons.
The faint scent of heat and dust gave way to something more subtle, more pervasive. Finn’s neck
prickled. He could almost smell the acrid sweat of tension, of sleeplessness, of fear. It was the
odor of men living under inhuman pressure because each day brought more impossible
demands, demands that must be met because the alternative was unthinkable.
“Until seven months ago,” said Groves, as they walked, “we were afraid that the Germans
would build an atomic bomb before we did. England couldn’t have held out against that. The
English Channel would have become a German bathtub. That would have made the Normandy
invasion impossible. If the Germans had put the bomb together first, there would have been no
V-E Day.”
The General kept his voice low out of habit. Finn sensed a terrible strain in it. He tried to
imagine what it was like to know that the future of many nations quite literally depended on your
own success or failure. It was the kind of responsibility that could erode a man’s nerve and
ultimately his sanity. Then he realized that it was precisely the kind of responsibility Groves had
wished on him. Suddenly Finn felt as though he was back in the jungle again, walking a narrow
trail into ambush. Only this time much more was at risk than his personal survival.
“Fortunately,” said Groves, “the Germans didn’t get a chance to make the bomb.”
“Were they close?”
Groves shrugged. “Not as close as we are. Hitler was too stupid to know the bomb was his best
chance for victory. He kept meddling with his scientists. Roosevelt had more sense. He didn’t
care how we got it done, just so we did it. Truman is the same way, when gun soldiers and sob
sisters leave him alone.”
“What about the Japanese?” said Finn.
“They’re working on two weapons. The first, called Project A, is an atomic bomb. They aren’t as
close as the Germans were to building one. Hitler didn’t give the Japs any help. He didn’t trust
his little yellow brothers. The Japs worked long enough to understand the engineering problems
of the bomb. They decided that a bomb was possible, but there was no way any country could
build a workable bomb before 1950. On my worst days I agree with them.” Groves grimaced.
“The Japs figured the war would be over by 1950, so they put all their efforts into Project B.”
“Do we know what that is?”
“A weapon that kills with light.”
“What?”
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“Light. Like a flashlight, only a million times more intense.”
“Does it work?”
“Yes. But OSS says the weapon is too cumbersome to take into battle. It’s just a matter of time,
though. Like the bomb.”
There was a long silence that ended in Groves’ sigh. “Christ,” he muttered. Then, “You’ve
studied the Japs so long you’re practically one yourself. Do you think they’ll ever accept
unconditional surrender? They’ve got to know that they’re losing the war.”
“Losing face is worse than death. They won’t – can’t – accept unconditional surrender. It would
be racial suicide. But in Juarez, I’ve heard rumors of peace feelers from Tokyo.”
“That’s all they are – rumors. Stalin told the President that the Japanese overtures to Russia were
too vague to act on.”
“Russians have less to gain from peace than we do,” said Finn.
“Cynical soul, aren’t you?”
“So is Stalin.”
“And Truman is a realist. After Pearl Harbor, the voters would have his nuts if he gave the Japs
an easy peace.” Groves knuckled his eyes. The skin around them was slack, darkened by fatigue,
the same fatigue that had eroded his military posture. Yet as he straightened, he again exuded a
sense of unswerving, almost fanatical purpose. “It always comes down to the bomb. So be it.”
Groves walked toward a building that had a sign in front of it stating:
G Division
Omega Site Gamma Building
POSITIVELY NO ADMITTANCE
The sign was small, plain, unobtrusive. The building was new, almost raw. The guard saluted
Groves, then looked from him to Finn.
“He’s clear, soldier,” said Groves. “His name is Finn.”
“Yes, sir.”
The guard got out two small cardboard badges and wrote a name on each. Inside each badge
was a strip of undeveloped film.
“Turn this in when you leave, sir.”
The guard clipped one cardboard square onto the General’s collar and one onto Finn’s. When
they had moved beyond the hearing of the guard, Groves spoke quietly.
“I want you to appreciate just what you are guarding. Words like rare and scarce don’t really
describe it. Irreplacable comes close. The guts of the bomb is about eight kilos of U-235.”
“Less than twenty-five pounds?” asked Finn. “Is that all that you need to make a 20,000-ton
bang?”
“Yes, but we’re dealing with one of the rarest elements on earth,” said Groves. “To get it, you
start with an ore called pitchblende. There’s about an ounce of pure uranium in each tone of ore,
but that’s the least of the problem. There are two kinds of uranium. We only use one kind,
U-235. We have to separate it from the U-238 atom by atom. To get seven pounds of U-235, we
have to process half a ton of U-238. It’s an engineering nightmare.”
Finn listened while his eyes checked off doors that were closed and open. The smell of tension
was stronger here, enclosed by pale green corridors and rooms. Then he realized that the smell
of tension was on his own body, too.
“We’re not separating uranium here,” said Groves. “That’s done in Tennessee. Here we just
assemble the bomb.”
“How does the separated uranium get from Tennessee to Los Alamos?”
“Convoy. Well-guarded but discreet. The fewer people who even suspect there’s something
valuable being shipped, the better I sleep. We only get a few micrograms at a time, anyway.”
“How does the uranium get from here to Hunters Point?”
Page 19
“No. No one knows that yet, not even the men who will take it there. And I won’t tell anybody
else until they’re beyond Los Alamos and whatever goddamn Russian spies we haven’t caught
yet.”
Groves gestured Finn into a long, narrow room that overlooked a laboratory. Between the
room and the lab was a lead-lined, chest-high wall topped by a row of leaded glass windows.
Every detail of the lab was outlined by cold light pouring down from ranks of fluorescent lamps.
“We can hear them,” said Groves, gesturing to a ceiling speaker, “but they can’t hear us.”
Inside the laboratory stood a container that resembled a nickel-plated milk can. The top was off,
revealing a thick lead lining.
“See that can?” asked Groves. “That’s what the uranium will be shipped in. It will be welded to a
cabin floor of the Indianapolis.”
Finn looked at the cylinder. It was about eighteen inches in diameter and about two feet high.
The top had a curved metal handle like the lid of a garbage can. The container did not look big
enough to hold the future of the world.
Finn looked beyond the can. There were only three men in the laboratory. Two of them were
seated at a table against the far wall, apparently taking notes. They had the look of men who had
been up all night. The third man looked equally tired. He was seated on a high stool near the
center of the room. In front of him was a table. On the table was a black metal box with dials,
meters and what looked like a long narrow microphone attached by a cord to the box.
The table also held a glass-walled container that looked like an ordinary aquarium turned on end.
At the bottom of the container, in about three feet of water, was a lump of white metal. A
smaller piece of the same metal was suspended above the water from a tripod that straddled the
aquarium.
“Those two pieces are all the pure uranium-235 in the world,” said Groves.
Finn looked at the metal. He could have held both pieces in his hands at once. They did not look
powerful enough to blow up the room, much less Japan.
“How tricky is uranium to handle? Is it like nitroglycerin?”
“No. It won’t explode if you drop it. Uranium is more subtle. It’s radioactive, which means it
