“You’re wasting time,” Groves said. “I don’t have to trust you. If Dr. Oppenheimer says it’s true, then it is. We have to do something.”
“Then let me finish what I started. You know as well as I do that once they get hold of this, we’ll have a Chinese fire drill around here. Everybody’ll want to do something. I can hear them already. ‘Why didn’t you tighten security? How could it happen?’ You’ve got a new President. Do you know him? Is he going to back you up when everybody starts jumping up and down? He’d have to do something. Maybe he’d start at the top.”
Groves frowned, not saying anything.
“The point is, we don’t know. But the odds are they won’t be able to fix anything and they’ll make one hell of a mess trying.”
Oppenheimer looked over at Groves, waiting.
Groves stared at the ground, moving his foot in thought. “You’re a good talker,” he said to Connolly, “but you don’t know what you’re asking. I can’t do it. I have to tell him.”
“Maybe. But not quite yet. All I’ve raised is a suspicion. You’d have to investigate to find out if there’s anything to it. You’re not putting the project itself in danger. This isn’t about sabotage. And you don’t want to send out any false alarms. If there’s the possibility of a security leak, you’d have to try and plug it. It’s your project-you’d have to decide the best way to go about that.”
“And that’s you.”
“It’s not them. It’s a chance, I know. But we’ll never get it if this goes beyond the three of us. I could delay telling you,” he said, looking directly at Groves. “I’m independent. Maybe I didn’t want to come to you until I had more to go on. I should have, but-”
“It would be your head,” Groves said.
“Yes.”
“I wouldn’t have any choice.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“You’d do that?”
“I’m not in the army. It’s easier for me. I just-wanted to close the case.”
Groves looked around, glancing over toward the Jemez Mountains. “But you weren’t the only one there. That leaves you, Robert.”
Oppenheimer took a drag on his cigarette, then looked at Groves. “We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Connolly. We wouldn’t know any of it. Under the circumstances-” He paused. “I think he might be given a little more rope.”
Groves was silent. “You hang yourself with it,” he said finally. “Dr. Oppenheimer’s out of it. That understood?”
Connolly nodded. “You’ll have everything you need for the record. If you need it. I just delayed telling you. Both of you.”
“I don’t like this,” Oppenheimer said.
“No, he’s right,” Connolly said. “You can’t have anything to do with this. You know, it could have happened this way,” he said, turning to Groves. “You wouldn’t know anything about it if I hadn’t told you.”
“Why did you?” Groves said.
“I need your help.”
He had been looking at Groves, but it was Oppenheimer who said, “What do you have in mind?”
“First, some classified papers, something to hook him. Something Eisler’s already handed over, so they know it’s real, but that somebody else might have access to. Bait. Could you do that?”
Oppenheimer nodded.
“Wait a minute,” Groves said. “You want to pass classified documents?”
“Something they already have,” Connolly said. “Or Eisler said they have. If we believe him. But we do believe him, don’t we?”
“I can’t allow this. Do you know what it means if-”
“Yes, but I won’t get caught. I’m not planning to go to jail.”
“How about first telling me what in God’s name is going on?” Groves said irritably, wiping his forehead. “And do we have to stand out here in the sun?”
Connolly nodded and began leading them toward the shade of the water tower. “There’s only one way to do this. We have to give him another Eisler. We don’t know how they put people here. Maybe there isn’t anybody else. But either way, they’re going to need a new source. It’s late. They’re hungry.”
“Just who did you have in mind?” Oppenheimer said.
“I’ve been thinking about that. Ideally, a scientist, of course, but it’s too tricky and there isn’t enough time. We have to assume they’ve got a list of the scientists working on the project-that would be the first thing they’d ask for.”
Groves groaned out loud.
“So it’s too easy to check,” Connolly continued. “They’d spot a marker right away, just from the list. Who’s the new guy? Never heard of him. And of course if they do have somebody else up here, he’d spot it as a ghost. Then there’s the background. We say our man’s from Berkeley, they check Berkeley. It’s a fairly small community, isn’t it? It’s unlikely you’d have a spare physicist up here nobody’s ever heard of.”
“Quite,” Oppenheimer said. “Are you proposing to use a real person?”
