The sun shone into the car, and hot wind rushed through the open windows. General Groves had insisted on strict observance of all speed limits. Fox fidgeted, and increased his speed anyway.
An hour later Fox found them leaving the small town of Socorro, a smudge of a village that marked the last town of any appreciable size before the site. Ten miles south of Socorro the MPs had Fox slow down for the three buildings called “San Antonio, New Mexico,” a laughable image of its Texas namesake. No sooner had Fox turned off the highway than the military policemen exchanged looks.
The man stretched out in back pushed his head up next to Fox’s. “Ah, Dr. Fox, you know once we get to Trinity, we’ll be stuck with mess hall food.”
The MP in front twisted his body and joined the conversation. “And since it’s one o’clock, that means at least another four hours until we get to eat.” The backseat MP grinned. “And we would hate for one
of the lead Project scientists to go hungry.”
“Especially with such an important test coming up.”
Fox slowed the car down. On the left a small adobe house sat with a sign dangling on rusted chains from a wooden arch.
The backseat MP said, “Why, look, Dr. Fox. There’s a restaurant right now!”
His partner responded too quickly. “Good idea!”
Fox badly needed to stretch, though he didn’t feel very hungry. His stomach had been upset for days. “How much farther to the site?”
“Uh, at least another hour.”
“Maybe two.”
“If not more.”
Fox hesitated. “The orders were not to stop—”
“Except for necessary bathroom stops and emergencies.”
“And this certainly qualifies, doesn’t it?” The two MPs looked at Fox hopefully. “You’re the driver, though.”
The two couldn’t have been older than twenty, not at all like the steely-eyed G-2 agents he imagined them to be. They were really just adolescents. Growing boys. Fox pulled into the dusty clearing in front of the Owl Cafe.
Minutes later they sat in the dim bar, the only customers in the place. A large dark-skinned man grinned at them from the grill. Long tangled hair hung around his shoulders and gold-plated teeth filled his mouth. Turquoise hung from his neck and adorned his rings. He flipped three half-pound hamburgers, scraping with his spatula and sizzling them back on the grill. The MPs and Fox sipped on long-necked bottles of Mexican beer.
The cook slipped dripping green-chili burgers in front of the men, and both MPs grabbed for theirs. Huge cut french fries filled the remainder of the plate. Fox picked his up, looked around for a napkin, but found none. He wrapped his mouth around the bun; biting down and feeling hot juices squirt into his mouth. American food.
The Indian leaned back against a post that bisected the bar. “Lot of visitors coming through lately. You fellas lucky to catch me open today.”
Fox swallowed a mouthful of chili before answering. “What’s the occasion?” He had to catch a gulp of beer to wash down the burning in his throat.
The Indian nodded to a row of bottles behind the bar. “I’m moving them to the rear of the cafe\ Some Army types told me they all might get knocked down the next couple of weeks by some sort of explosion. Never can tell what they’re doing out in the middle of the desert. Know what that desert’s called? Jornada del Muerto—The Journey of Death. Dead Man’s Trail. Don’t know what they’re doing out there.”
Fox choked on his food. The two MPs ignored the exchange and kept to their lunch. Fox finished chewing so he could swallow, then asked innocently, “When did you hear about this?”
“The explosion?” The Indian picked his teeth and shrugged. “Let’s see—one, maybe two weeks ago.”
“And when is it supposed to happen?” Fox tried to sound disinterested so that he wouldn’t raise suspicion. One of the MPs kicked him under the table.
“Sometime this month. Doesn’t matter to me. That’s the Alamogordo Bombing Range out there anyway, always something blowing up.” The large Indian laughed. He leaned forward, propped his elbows on the bar and whispered loudly, “They say they are building windshield wipers for submarines, or an electric airplane.” He made a small circle in the air with his finger next to his ear. “I think they are putting me on, so I figure that I might humor them.” He straightened and spoke louder. “And if moving my bottles keeps bringing the Army guys in, hey, what does it matter?”
Fox smiled and nodded. Releasing knowledge of the impending explosion was strictly forbidden, but warnings were always mixed with the “official” cover stories and staged rumors that filled the streets of Santa Fe.
But the whole incident left Fox certain of one thing: the MPs were definitely not G-2 agents—otherwise they would have shut the Indian up the second he had mentioned an explosion. Perhaps the two young men were exactly what they appeared to be, simple military escorts.
Fox muttered a thanks to the Indian and pushed back from the bar, leaving half his meal on the plate. The MPs looked up at him, their mouths full of hamburger.
“I’ll be by the car. Just need to stretch my legs a bit. All that driving, you know.” Fox left before the men could answer.
He stepped into the dusty road. The blue sky arched out in front of him. To the west enormous thunderclouds built up on the horizon, the top of their anvil-shaped heads spread out as far north as he could see. It looked like they were going to get one hell of a cloudburst by the end of the day, which was unusual for late autumn. They should be able to make it the rest of the way to Trinity before the rain started.
Fox lit up a cigarette and drew in a lungful of smoke. The exchange with the Indian had set him to thinking. How many people really suspected that something big was going to happen here? The through traffic alone would have set off the residents of sleepy San Antonio.
The village wasn’t more than a hundred yards long—some of the other scientists had used the term “spitting distance.” How many trucks, jeeps, and unmarked cars had passed through on their way out to the Trinity Site? How many people connected with the atomic bomb test had made unofficial stops at the Owl Cafe?
And if the residents of this flyspeck town knew about the test, then how many others would know? It seemed to prove something to Fox: no matter how much the government wanted to clamp down on keeping the information secret, people were still going to find out, one way or another.
He drew on his cigarette. An atomic bomb. Unleashing the unimaginable forces that held all matter together—how could any person be trusted with such power, much less someone like General Groves? As the frenzied campaigning between Dewey and Roosevelt showed, with American politics throwing a new President on the scene every four years, it would be only a matter of time before some man got elected who wanted to take over the world.
Oppenheimer kept trying to wash his hands of responsibility, claiming that the scientists’ job was simply to design and build the thing, to let other people decide how to use it. But now that they were so close to having the bomb, what would happen next? Would every country want to have its own weapon?
Germany had the capability. With the Allied invasion of Normandy a few months before, piercing Fortress Europe and driving the German army back, with the Allied landing in southern France in August, with Romania and Bulgaria also declaring war on Germany, the Nazi house of cards was crumbling. And if they still refused to use the atomic weapon that they must have…