“Connolly tells me people listen in my office. Bugs. I know you’d never allow that,” Oppenheimer said, mischievous, “but you know what the intelligence unit is like. Better to indulge them. Interfere with a delusional and they go stark raving. Or so I’m told. Why don’t you take off your jacket?”
Groves, choosing comfort over dignity, flung it over his shoulder and held it with his forefinger. Without the camouflage of the jacket, his stomach strained at his shirt buttons, spilling over his belt.
“You pick one heck of a time to make jokes. We’ve got a real mess on our hands here. I always said this would happen.”
“Yes, you did,” Oppenheimer replied.
“Foreigners and-”
“Would you feel any better if he came from Ohio?”
“All right,” Groves said. “Make your point.”
“These pesky foreigners are making your gadget, so don’t let’s start down that road again. It could have been anybody.”
“Well, you would think that,” he said, backing off but not mollified. “How’s the timetable? Still on track?”
Oppenheimer nodded. “Just. Five minutes’ leeway, give or take a minute. We can’t afford any time off,” he said, directly to Groves.
“That’s why I’m here,” Groves said. “So let’s get started. First, assess the damage. How bad is it? What do they know? Can they make a bomb?”
“No,” said Oppenheimer thoughtfully. “I don’t think so. Eisler was a theoretical physicist. He knew the plans for the implosion bomb. That’s a plus for them. But he can’t build their reactor for them. He didn’t know the purity requirements. He couldn’t alloy plutonium. It’s a complicated metallurgy-five different phases and five different densities. He had nothing to do with that. So, yes, they know, but they don’t know how. They will, though, you know. Sometime.”
“Not on my watch,” Groves said. “How about all those coffee klatches you like to have? Wouldn’t he hear about the alloy requirements there?”
“Yes.” Oppenheimer sighed. “I didn’t say he didn’t know about them. He just wouldn’t know in any meaningful detail.”
“He wouldn’t have to know if he just passed them plans.”
“No. He only had access to theoretical. His own papers.”
“He could steal them.”
“He didn’t. He told me. Yes,” he said, responding to Groves’s questioning look, “I believe him. He was a traitor, but he wasn’t a thief.”
“That’s some difference.”
“At any rate, he didn’t give them that. I don’t mean to minimize what’s happened here. He passed valuable information. We don’t know how valuable because we don’t know where they were starting from. But they need more than what Eisler gave them to actually make a bomb. It’s almost a certainty they don’t have one yet. Of course, the point is they know we do.”
“Wonderful,” Groves said.
“Yes, it’s awkward. Politically.”
“Awkward,” Groves said, almost snorting.
“Not telling them. Of course, if that’s the main concern, we could simply tell them now.”
Groves stared at him as if he had missed the point of a joke. “That’s the kind of thing you say that keeps me up at night.” Then he dropped it and kept walking, forcing them to flank him in a kind of brooding convoy. “What gets me is how easy it all was,” he said finally. “This place is like a sieve. A man walks out, hands over some papers, and that’s it. We wouldn’t even know about it now if they hadn’t killed someone. It shouldn’t be that easy. At least we can plug up a few holes. I want you to cancel all leaves. Nobody goes out anymore.”
“Isn’t it a little late for that? The horse is already out of the barn.”
“I think it’s a good idea,” Connolly said.
Oppenheimer looked at him in surprise. “You do?” he said, displeased.
“What’s on your mind?” Groves said. They both stopped and turned to him.
“It doesn’t end with him.”
“Go on,” Groves said.
“Eisler only had a piece. But what if he wasn’t the only one? What if there are others? The Russians must want all this pretty badly. Why stop at Eisler?”
“How many of us do you suspect?” Oppenheimer said. “Ten? All?”
Groves, who had paled even in the sun, shook his head. “He’s right. The Reds could have people planted all over the Hill. All over.”
“But we don’t know,” Connolly said. “And we’re not going to. Not this way. There’s no point looking on the Hill. We have to find out who Eisler met.”
“You said there was one here,” Groves said.
“Well, I think there is. It still doesn’t make sense, but somebody drove Karl’s car up here. Eisler’s contact? No. Why meet off the Hill in the first place? There has to be an outside guy. But somebody drove the car and then walked in through the west gate. Which means-”
“There were two,” Oppenheimer said quietly.
“Exactly. I don’t know how or why, but it’s the only way the logistics work.”
“Then find them,” Groves said.
“That’s not so easy. The trail really did die with Eisler. We’ve got to find the outside guy. If there’s someone else on the Hill, he’s the key.”
Oppenheimer stopped to light a cigarette. “What makes you say that?” he said thoughtfully, as if he were looking at a math problem. “Why would he know anyone else? If everyone was working in isolation?”
