“Your pal. How else could it be? They’d love to get their hands on him, wouldn’t they? That would be quite a catch.”
“There’s no reason to believe-”
“Of course there isn’t. But they’ll hound him anyway. Well, that’s between you and him. Just don’t hound me. You close that file and I close this one. Neat and tidy, like you say.” He paused. “And one other. A woman. She almost died today-yesterday. I think you owe her.”
Groves raised his eyebrows.
“Don’t ask why. Just close her file too. They’ll be interested in her, and she doesn’t need any more trouble. Erase us both.”
“Like that.”
“You can do it. I trust you.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you’re good at keeping secrets. Look at this,” Connolly said, spreading his hand toward the room. “A whole city. This one’s just a little secret.”
“Mr. Connolly,” Groves said with exaggerated patience, “this is a military project. That means there are going to be procedures-”
“Yeah, I know, you play it by the book. But the book stinks. It’s going to eat you up. Not me.”
Groves squinted a little. “Anybody would think you had something to hide.”
Connolly looked up at him. “Don’t even be tempted. You put those goons on me again, or the lady-The papers would have a field day with this story. Any way I want to tell it. Believe me. I know.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No, I’m asking you for a favor. Let us out of the war.”
Groves paused, then looked at his watch again. “I don’t have time to argue with you.” Then, looking directly at him, “You’re sure you’ve told me everything?”
Connolly nodded. “You can close the file.”
A loudspeaker interrupted with the weather report, jolting the room into activity.
“You’d better get up to the hill if you want to see anything,” Groves said. “I don’t make deals, Mr. Connolly. I can’t.”
“Your word is good enough for me.”
“I haven’t given it.”
Connolly nodded again. “By the way, what’s S 10,000?”
“Ten thousand yards south. Of the gadget,” Groves said automatically, distracted by the question. “The south bunker.” He paused. “You didn’t know that?”
“General,” Connolly said, “I don’t know anything.”
By the time he got to Compania Hill, the wind had died down to the still hush before dawn. Busloads of scientists and visitors lined the sandy ridge, talking in groups around the jeeps and trucks like guests at a tailgate party. Some were looking southeast, toward the small tower in the distance, waiting for the signal flares. The rockets’ red glare, Connolly thought, the bombs bursting-a macabre new version of the song. Someone handed him a piece of welding glass and he held it up, the barely visible light disappearing completely behind the tinted square. Was it really necessary? Did anyone know? Some of the scientists had smeared their faces with suntan oil, so their skins gleamed. He recognized Teller, pulling on heavy gloves like a good boy bundling up for the storm. They were twenty miles from the gadget. Could it really burn the air, like the ball of fire over Hamburg, sucking breath out of lungs? Carpet bombing? But this was supposed to be something else.
Most of the men had been there all night and were stiff with cold and waiting. Now they grew quiet, fiddling with the squares of welding glass, stamping their feet warm. There was nothing left to say. Cameras had been set up at N 10,000. Here there were only people, knotting together on a sandy grandstand, anxious and expectant, like Romans at a blood sport. Connolly thought about the first time he’d seen the Tech Area-secretaries passing through the fence, men darting in and out of lab buildings as if they were late for class, everyone too busy to stop, an endless film loop. Now, finally, they were at an end, waiting to see their work, all those meetings and calculations, go up in smoke.
Mills handed him a Thermos cup of coffee. “They say you’re not supposed to look,” he said. “Even this far. What’s that?”
“The rocket. Five minutes.”
“Jesus, this stuff goes right through you, doesn’t it?” he said, agitated.
“Dark glass, everyone,” someone shouted down the line.
“The hell with that,” one of the scientists said, excited. “I’m going to see this. Even if it’s the last thing I see.”
“That’s a possibility, Howard.” A gruff Hungarian voice.
Connolly picked up his welding glass. “What’s the matter?” he said to Mills, who was shaking.
“Goddamnit,” he said. “I have to take a leak.”
Connolly smiled. “Just turn around. I won’t look.”
“Now?”
“I’ll tell you if you miss anything.”
“Fuck,” Mills said, then whirled around and took a step away. Connolly heard the tear of a zipper, then the splashing on the ground, and smiled to himself, wondering if years from now, in Winnetka, Mills would tell his children how he peed the night they exploded the gadget, or whether that story would have to be changed too.
