The landscape changed as they climbed, sagebrush and stunted junipers giving way to taller pinons and alpine trees. The air smelled fresh, as if it had been rubbed with astringent, and the bright blue sky went on forever. Connolly felt the alertness of higher altitude, awakened from Santa Fe’s timeless nap. There was traffic on the road now, trucks grinding up the steep grade or jerking and halting their way back down, and everything moved quickly. The entire hill was on the march. As they approached the east gate, the activity increased. Cars waited to be passed through security, and beyond the fence Connolly could see a giant water tower and the instant city, a jerry-built ant farm of dull green army-issue buildings, Quonset huts, and barrack apartments. They were still building it. The air itself seemed obscured by dust and tangles of overhead wires, noisy with construction and running motors. Men, mostly civilians, darted through the unpaved dirt streets with the quick steps of people who had somewhere to go. Connolly’s first thought was that a whole college had somehow been dropped accidentally into an army camp. While Santa Fe dreamed on below, up here in the high, cool air, everything was busy.
They passed through the tollbooth checkpoints and parked just outside the Technical Area, a group of buildings surrounded by yet another high wire-mesh fence with two strands of barbed wire running along the top. Connolly glanced up at the watchtowers, where bored MPs gazed out toward the mountains. It was an indifferent concentration camp, too cheerful to inspire any alarm. Girls in short dresses and sweaters, presumably secretaries, passed through the fence, barely flashing badges at the young guards. The two largest buildings were long barracks of offices, connected by a second-story covered passageway over the main road, which gave the town its own form of grand portal. It was late afternoon, and buses were filling with day laborers for the trip back home, down the mesa. Connolly noticed a busload of Indian women, with their stern faces and braided hair, pulling away toward the gate. In the most secret place in the world, there was maid service.
Connolly and his bags were deposited at the security office with Lieutenant Mills, tall, pencil-thin, and prematurely balding in his twenties, who smiled nervously and kept glancing away, as if he wanted to examine his new colleague from an angle before meeting him head on.
“Look, we’ve got a lot to go over, but General Groves wants to see you right away, so it’ll have to wait. I’ll show you around afterward. Colonel Lansdale’s away, as usual, so it’s just us. And the staff, of course.”
“How many?”
“Altogether twenty-eight military and seven civilians in G-2, but only four of us here.”
“Not a lot, then.”
“Well, we’ve never had any security problems before.”
“Do you have one now?”
Mills looked at him and took the bait. “I assume that’s what you’re here to find out.”
“But you haven’t been told?”
“Me? I just run the bodyguards. They don’t have to tell me anything.”
“Who gets the guards?”
“All the top scientists-Oppie, Fermi, Bethe, Kistiakowsky. Anyone considered vital to the project who needs protection outside.”
“Or surveillance.”
This time he didn’t rise to it. “Or surveillance.”
“That must make you popular.”
“The groom at every wedding.”
Connolly laughed. “Yeah, I’ll bet. Well, let’s see the boss. What’s he like, anyway?”
“Straight shooter,” Mills said, leading him out of the building. “Built the Pentagon in a year. Made this place out of nothing. Does drink, doesn’t smoke. Clean living. No detail too small.”
“That easy, huh?”
“Actually, he’s all right. This business with Bruner’s got him spooked, though, so give him a little room.”
“Generals are all alike.”
“Just like happy families.”
Connolly smiled. “You’ve been to school.”
“Here we are. Mind your head,” he said, opening the door.
Inside was a plain anteroom, barely big enough for the desk and the pink middle-aged woman who fluttered behind it.
“Mr. Connolly? Thank goodness you’re here. The general’s got a plane to catch, and he’s been asking for you all afternoon. I’ll just tell him-”
But there was no need, because the door behind her was opened by a big man in khaki who seemed to fill the entire doorframe, absorbing the space. He was not sloppy-he was tucked in as neatly as a hospital corner at inspection-but he had the pudgy flesh of an overweight businessman and his large stomach strained at his belt. There were damp patches under his arms, and Connolly imagined the Washington summers were torture for him. The overall effect was boyish, like someone who had ballooned out at puberty and couldn’t, even now, pass up a jelly doughnut. But the mustache in the middle of his round soft face was surprisingly trimmed and small, the borrowed look of a thin clerk.
“Good, you’re here. Connolly, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
