Nelson winked. "I met your grandfather a time or two, back in the day."
The director’s comment would ordinarily be of interest to Sam. Today, he could barely register what the man was saying. He was supposed to be on a “treasure hunt,” but he had no idea what exactly he was looking for or where to start.
"Mr. Nelson, I hate to be so direct, but do you have any idea what I'm supposed to be doing here?"
"Not the slightest." The idea didn't seem to worry Nelson much. And yet Sam didn't get the sense that the man was a mental lightweight.
"Aren't you afraid of getting nuked?"
Nelson grimaced comically. "Son, I've lived under the threat of all kinds of bombs going off around me for longer than you and your father have been alive. Of course, I'm concerned. But afraid? No. My grandchildren and great-grandchildren all live on the other coast. They'll be fine, that's what's most important to me."
Behind him, the expression on Marge Toben’s face looked pained. She rolled her eyes and shook her head. Sam decided to let it go and move on with more important matters.
In order to be able to act, Sam needed to gather more information. He needed to keep the terrorist placated by pretending to go through the motions of the treasure hunt — but he also needed to find a way to thwart the mastermind’s plans, and he couldn't do that by just playing along.
He checked his phone again, hoping that he'd missed another text message, but no such luck.
"What's the exhibit that's been changed most recently?" he asked. Sam felt the madman had been making plans over at least the last five years, so any clues that he'd left would risk being spotted if he'd left them alone for too long.
"Why, our latest big overhaul was in this room, Mr. Reilly. We took down the planes and — "
“— I'm sorry, Director, but that was two years ago," Ms. Toben interrupted him. "The most recent display is in the Special Exhibits Gallery, which is updated on a regular basis. It covers the early days of the Atomic Age, from Soddy and Rutherford in 1901 to the Manhattan Project, the Cold War, and— ” Her brown eyes met his, questioningly, “Yes?"
"Heisenberg," Sam said.
"Yes, of course," Ms. Toben said. "We mention the Uranium club, the Alsos Mission, and more."
"Take me there, quickly. Right now!"
Ms. Toben received a thoughtful nod of approval from Director Nelson. Then she slipped off her high-heeled shoes, and started running down the hall with Sam in tow.
Chapter Twenty-One
The exhibit held a replica of Fat Man, or Mark-III atomic bomb, in yellow and black. The enormous bomb stood as high as a man and had been painted disturbingly like a famous cartoon character's yellow-and-black shirt — due to the black liquid asphalt that had been sprayed over the bomb casing's seams. A Mark-36 bomb casing from the 1950s, green and yellow, sat nearby. Advertising materials for Atomic Energy and You, paper dolls in a paper fallout shelter, an Atomic Chief badge and mask, and more were displayed around the room.
"It's something in this room," Sam said.
Ms. Toben turned around slowly in a circle, blowing a tense breath from her pink cheeks. "I've looked over everything in the room so often that it looks more like interior décor than history."
One of the displays caught his eye, a model of an early nuclear pile surrounded by miniature figures of the scientists who had worked on it. Something about it called to him. He walked toward it with his hands deep in his pants pockets.
"What in the world?" Ms. Toben strode past him, reaching the display before him. The exhibit was set on a broad, open table covered by a chest-high acrylic shield. Without hesitation, she climbed up on the edge of the table and stepped over the acrylic shield. It made her look like the Atomic Woman.
“Make sure you don’t disturb anything. It might be important.”
“I won’t.”
"This is a model of the Chicago Pile-One, the earliest working nuclear reactor pile," Ms. Toben said, squatting over the display. "What on earth is this man doing in here?"
She pulled a foam-core, printed black-and-white model of a man off the floor of the display, squinting at it.
Sam recognized the man's features. Light-colored eyes that sparkled with humor, a long nose, high forehead, thin lips.
Werner Heisenberg.
“Oh!” Ms. Toben seemed to recognize him at the same time.
Referring to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle of being unable to measure an object's position and velocity at the same time with absolute accuracy, she said drily, "It seems we have lost the ability to track Mr. Heisenberg's location within this museum. He's not even supposed to have a figurine in this exhibit."
Surprising himself, Sam laughed at her joke. "Where do you think it came from?"
"Until we can review the security tapes, your guess is as good as mine."
Sam helped Ms. Toben climb safely back out of the exhibit, then held out a hand for the figurine.
"It looks like one of the well-known photographs of the man. I wonder if anything else in the exhibit changed?"
"May I please have a look?" he asked.
“By all means,” she said, handing him the model.
Sam carefully studied the small plastic figurine. Despite its likeness to Werner Heisenberg, it could have been a kid’s toy. Its weight suggested it was made entirely of plastic — there were no electronic parts or mechanical pieces that might hold some sort of hidden code or message. Sam pocketed the toy and continued reviewing the exhibit.
Director Nelson arrived and joined the search, circling the room, examining each section of the display closely. Sam found himself staring at the text of a short article. It was posted on the wall under a photograph of what looked like another nuclear pile on the aborted German nuclear project known as the Uranium Club.
In 1943, the first working nuclear fission bomb was produced at Haigerloch, whimsically named “Die Koloratursoubrette,” after a class of operatic soprano. The bomb was never used, nor tested. It was lost during Operation BIG in 1945, in which American teams captured or destroyed much of the information related to Germany's nuclear fission program, in which a peaceful agenda was its stated purpose.
“So, the Haigerloch Research Reactor was actually used to construct a bomb,” Sam said, reading the text. "I didn't know that. But it sounds like —”
Ms. Tober and the director, arguing with each other about the article on the panel, strode up beside him. The director appeared to be taking the issue personally.
“I don't know how something so inaccurate could be left up for so long!” he said, accusingly. “This article has been here for at least a week, Ms. Tober!”
“What is it?” Sam asked.
Director Nelson’s eyes narrowed. “That's not the authorized text.”
Hoping to prevent a diplomatic meltdown, Sam said, “Maybe it's a clue.”
“What?" Ms. Tober asked.
Studying the written display, he began to warm to the idea. "The foam board that the information is printed on looks slightly different than the others,” he said. “I mean, I don't have an artist's eye or anything, but —”
“But the fonts and right-hand justification is to a slightly different margin," Ms. Toben said. "Yes, I see your point."
The three of them stared at the board the text was printed on.
"What else?" Sam asked himself.
Ms. Toben cleared her throat and looked toward Nelson. "There is one other thing we spotted."
They led him to an exhibit on the first Soviet nuclear bomb, First Lightning or RDS-1. In the photographs, it was very similar in appearance to the Fat Man bomb the U.S. had created, except that the coloration was a solid gray.