There was a small smudge on the poster. Sam rubbed his finger over it, discovering what was left of a sticky patch from two-sided tape. Something that had been here was missing.
They led him over to the main display of the Chicago Pile-One and pointed out one of the figures. This one wore a baggy suit, commonly seen on Soviet scientists, and a Soviet flag.
"That's Andrei Sakharov," Ms. Toben said. "The chief engineer overseeing the Soviet nuclear design program at the time."
Sam ran his fingers over the display, discovering the tape mark where Werner Heisenberg had been fastened to the table — right next to Sakharov.
"Did the two men know each other?" Sam asked. "Sakharov and Heisenberg?"
"No, they never met," Ms. Toben assured him with the certainty of a well-read historian, no doubt holding a PhD.
Director Nelson cleared his throat. They both turned his way.
"I've heard — " He shook his head. "I've heard that Operation BIG buried more than a few secrets. We can't discount the possibility that the information we're finding here has some basis in truth."
"That's ridiculous!" Ms. Toben exclaimed.
"It wouldn't be the first time that we've uncovered history that shook us to the core," Nelson said gently. He reached out and patted Ms. Toben's trembling hand.
"But to threaten a nuclear explosion if that history wasn't revealed? What kind of psychopath could even do such a thing? Surely not a historian!"
"There, there," Nelson said, still patting her hand. He sounded as though he'd had experience with some less-than-sane military experts from time to time.
Sam shook his head. If he was following the insinuations that the terrorist was implying, then the German nuclear program was much further along than military historians had portrayed it. It seemed possible and seemed even likely that both the Soviets and the Americans had stolen far more research from the Germans than they had admitted.
Somehow Heisenberg was involved with both programs.
Had Heisenberg been a traitor to the Nazis? Had he acted in such a way to ensure that neither the U.S. nor the U.S.S.R. possessed a nuclear monopoly?
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tom Bower scratched his chin as he put down the phone.
Wasn’t this one for the record? The man who'd called was supposedly the pilot of a Cessna Sam had used to fly into D.C. in order to face down the terrorist who was holding them all hostage with a World War II-era German bomb that shouldn't exist.
Sam Reilly, what have you gotten yourself into now? Everything’s normal in our world.
The somewhat hysterical pilot told him a wild story — after calling to ensure his wife was okay, which she was. He had asked Tom to arrange a place for him to stay near the Capital Mall. Also, to help him find a way to keep the police from seizing his plane or arresting him for not filing a flight plan.
Tom had talked the guy off the ledge, so to speak. A few phone calls later, he’d arranged accommodation for the nervous airman during the lockdown, a makeshift hanger to temporarily store his plane, and a “get out of jail free” card from the Department of Defense.
Tom grinned. Not bad for a morning’s work.
Meanwhile, the Maria Helena, the Deep Sea Expeditions ship he and Sam Reilly generally called home, had been moving into position. The vessel was now anchored off the Chesapeake Bay, near the mouth of the Potomac.
Sam was in D.C. and he made sure Tom knew it. Clearly, the terrorist had informed Sam that he wasn't allowed to communicate with anyone, or his friend would have phoned by now.
It was Tom’s job to decide what to do about that.
Sam's phone had been recovered — or rather it had been delivered via courier to a Deep Sea Expeditions representative in Manhattan. No clue who had sent it. Elise was trying to track the delivery service back to the original client.
Tom didn't expect much from the search. Even a miracle-worker like Elise couldn't track someone with enough smarts not to leave digital footprints behind.
He walked into the room that Elise used as her onboard computer lab. "Find anything about that courier yet?"
The petite woman wore headphones and a sour expression on her open, strikingly attractive face.
"No," she said, sliding the headphone away from her ear.
"Anything about Goodson's past?"
"A few things. I do know that the guy doesn't fit the profile of a terrorist. A spy, maybe."
"How so?"
"Remember the KGB Spy Schools?” At his blank look she continued, “In the 1950’s during the Cold War, the Russians used to immerse their spies into American life before they were sent to America to blend in. They had training camps with specially constructed towns mimicking American life. You know, Fords and Chevrolets parked in driveways with their windows down? Drive-in movie theaters, girls sipping milkshakes at their local diner while listening to the Beach Boys on the Jukebox? Does this sound familiar?”
"Oh, yeah. I guess so. Probably from a TV documentary I once watched."
"The guy reminds me of that. He claimed to be a German immigrant who arrived before 1946, but he doesn't have any supporting records before then — not that people back then would have known that. They would have had to go to a records office and pay a fee to look through that kind of stuff. Nobody's got that kind of time. He seems the kind of person who, without constant contact, you wouldn’t notice the gaps in his story. Even then, you wouldn’t guess his past."
"But now?"
"Now that kind of information is just a search query away."
"So, he was a spy?"
"I don't think so."
"No? The Germans sent him over here to bomb D.C., which means, he was definitely something."
"I believe he was a soldier, a German pilot — not a terrorist. Even the CIA didn’t suspect him of being a spy. He would have contacted the Germans again after the war if he was covertly sending information. But there's no indication that he did."
"Okay," Tom said.
"I know that it's not the same thing as proof that he wasn’t spying," Elise added, "But I can't find any signs of clandestine behavior or connection. All evidence suggests he was a grateful immigrant who just happened to be using a fake passport."
"Maybe he didn't like the Nazis?"
"He was willing to bomb for them, though."
"Sometimes people change their minds when they have to face real human beings instead of political propaganda. There’s also another alternative."
Elise made a wry smile. “Which is?”
“Wilhelm Gutwein used his bombing run to escape Nazi Germany. His could be a fairytale defection story to even challenge Sean Connery in the Hunt for Red October.”
She cocked an amused eyebrow. “You think Gutwein was defecting?”
Tom shrugged. “It’s a possibility.”
“Then what happened to the bomb? If he relinquished it to the U.S. government, something like that couldn’t have stayed hidden for very long, could it?”
“Actually, if he did hand the bomb over to the U.S. State Department, back in 1945, it’s precisely the sort of thing that would remain permanently buried.”
Elise leaned back, crossed her arms across her chest. “What are you saying?”
“What would the U.S. government have done if it was given a working nuclear bomb in January 1945?”
Elise shook her head. “That’s nearly six months before the Manhattan Project successfully tested its first nuclear bomb at Alamogordo, New Mexico.”