She and her companions ate quickly and managed to get back on the road before many of the other diners had finished. When they turned south for Trinity, time seemed to slow. The scenery looked blasted and monotonous. She felt eager to get to the place, but also uneasy about being part of the atomic test. Elizabeth kept looking at the driver, trying to urge the man to drive faster, but the desert miles crawled.
Elizabeth squinted at the horizon. A dust storm shrouded the base of the mountains, obscuring the view. The car shook as they drove along the bumpy road, making it even harder for her to see. They crept over a sloping hill, and the dust lowered like a veil. Not more than two miles in front of her stood a metal tower, alone in the middle of the desert.
It rose over a hundred feet from the ground. Four legs supported the structure with pipes crisscrossing the middle. A tent covering of canvas billowed in the wind on the top, shielding whatever the tower held.
Elizabeth’s chest started to hurt; she realized she was holding her breath. She breathed deeply and looked around the car. No one else had seemed to notice the site. Fermi glanced up from his journal.
“Ah, is this the shot tower?” he said in his thick Italian accent.
The driver cleared his throat. “Yup. You shoulda seen it a week ago, when they blew up a test shot. A hundred tons of explosives, they said. Boy oh boy, it looked like Hell on Earth, with dust and smoke flying up into the sky. We were so far away down in the base camp that we couldn’t hear the boom for five seconds or so.” He lowered his voice. “And I heard that’s gonna be nothing compared to this real shot.”
“If it works,” Fermi said.
“It will work,” Elizabeth muttered. Fermi stared at her, but seemed to dismiss her comment.
Elizabeth looked back at the tower. So this is it. Everything they had been working for on the Manhattan Project—and every reason why she had first gotten involved in the antinuclear movement. The Livermore Challenge Group at Berkeley, the United Conscience Group at Santa Fe, she and Jeff climbing down the canyon during the storm to smash the MCG setup… this flimsy tower looked too frail to even hold the weapon.
In the next few days the precious plutonium core would be driven down from Los Alamos under heavy escort. In the desert heat a few men would begin the final assembly of the test device. Until now the tower sat like a rifle with no bullets—it needed to be loaded with the Gadget before it was complete.
The driver proceeded past the front guard shack, then circled around the settled area of the site, keeping at least half a mile from the structure before they pulled up to an old wooden farmhouse in the middle of the barren area. The driver pulled the car to a stop and spoke. “We’re here. Old McDonald’s farm—ha, ha, I mean ranch.”
Elizabeth barely noticed the joke, thinking how glad she was that he had remained quiet during the journey. The driver opened the trunk and started removing their luggage.
“A jeep will come around and take you to the tents. That’s where you’ll be staying until the test.” He nodded to her. “I think Oppie wanted to put you up in the ranch house, ma’am. I’ll get someone to help with the bags.”
A voice came behind them. “No need for that—I’ll take care of it.”
Elizabeth turned, startled. Graham Fox stood with his hands in his pockets, a thin, uncertain smile pressed on his lips.
“Hello, Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth nodded, trying not to show any emotion. “Graham.”
“General Groves mentioned that Oppie had invited you down for the test. He asked me to show you around, take you under my wing, as it were.” Fox put his fingers on Elizabeth’s elbow and steered her away from the others. They walked across the packed brown sand, stepping over clumps of scrub and cactus.
“How thoughtful of him.”
“It wasn’t my idea, Elizabeth.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t.” She stopped and held a hand in front of her eyes to shield them from the sun. They had moved a good twenty yards away from everyone. “Graham—things have changed. I’ve been gone a long time. I don’t know what you expect of me.”
“I know—”
“I just wanted to make sure you knew.”
Fox held up his hands. “Fine. I have no problem with that.” When Elizabeth didn’t react, he nodded away from the ranch house. “Come along, we can talk.”
She followed reluctantly; they walked until they were well away from anyone. She frowned and tried to interpret Fox’s reactions. “Graham, you don’t understand. Our relationship isn’t the only thing that’s changed. I’ve been doing some thinking. About this weapon, what we’ve developed.”
“Yes, you certainly had a hand in its success, didn’t you?” His voice dripped bitterness.
In her mind Elizabeth saw the image of the little girl wailing in the crowded New York subway, sitting cross-legged beside her dead mother. She saw the footage of the plane passing over deserted, poisoned streets.
“You know, I’m not sorry for what I did. Germany hasn’t surrendered yet. For all we know, the Nazis are ready to hit us again with another shower of radioactive dust, if not a bomb of their own.”
“They wouldn’t do that!” Fox said, grabbing her arm. She pulled away. “Every day that passes without Germany using another weapon means that their scientific staff have managed to circumvent Hitler’s wishes! They have controlled themselves. They won’t do it. You know damned well that Hitler isn’t refusing to drop another weapon because he’s a good little boy. Think, Elizabeth. The only reason why we haven’t been hit again is because they have physicists like me over there, people willing to stop this madness—I thought you were one of them too, but I guess I was wrong. They know what’s at stake.”
“Are you sure that’s the reason?”
“It must be! And you know that once the Americans have a working atomic bomb, somebody’s going to drop it. We could have used our own radioactive dust weapon at any time, but we wanted something bigger! More destructive! To show the Germans we could be even more horrible than they were.”
Elizabeth fell silent. She did know what would happen. She knew what the President had done in her timeline. After spending two billion dollars on developing a new weapon, they wanted to make some use out of it.
Fox lowered his voice. “What was it you told me about following your conscience, doing what you had to do? I’m listening to your own advice—or was it all just empty words to console a man you had just slept with?”
Elizabeth stiffened and snapped at him. “Don’t bring that into it! That doesn’t have anything to do—”
Fox shook his head. “No, I suppose it didn’t have anything to do with me, with my thoughts. I suppose it didn’t mean much to you either.” He swallowed and started walking again. When he spoke, he seemed to be talking to himself. “I can’t allow it to happen, Elizabeth. Our German colleagues are risking their lives to prevent their bomb from going further. They’re in a much more dangerous situation than us. I have to do my part.”
Elizabeth snorted. She started walking back toward the ranch house. “So what are you going to do? The test is going to go on, Graham, no matter what you think. I’ve got work to do.”
As she turned, Fox called after her. “Elizabeth…”
She stopped, looking down at the sand, but didn’t turn to face him. “That’s it, Graham. No more.”