Reichminister Speer handed over the letter. “Once again we are very satisfied with what you have done for our efforts. The Fuhrer himself has seen to it that you receive a medal of commendation.”
Speer sat down without being asked. He folded his hands in his lap, and his bright eyes took on a sudden focused intensity. “Now then, tell me how soon we can have these other weapons in production. I must have results and I must have them soon.”
Esau felt his throat go dry. “But have you not been informed of what happened at Dachau? We can no longer produce anything! Our uranium is gone, our graphite is destroyed, our reactor has burned. We have no more material to work with!”
Speer froze and, without moving in his seat, his knuckles whitened. He spoke again, keeping his voice low, the pacing of his words even. “I cannot accept that answer, Professor Esau. The Fuhrer wants these bombs. He must have the results soon—it could well be the last chance for the Third Reich. It is my responsibility as Reichminister for Armaments.”
Speer pursed his lips and remained silent. Esau felt too distressed to say anything.
“If I tell the Fuhrer to forget his only hope, I have no doubt that I will be removed from office. I believe I am his friend and confidant, and he depends on me. My predecessor in this post was killed in a sabotaged plane. I don’t want to end up in the same fashion—and believe me, if that fate is in store for me, I will make sure it is in store for you as well.”
Esau felt his skin grow damp and clammy. He sat down behind his own desk—Heisenberg’s old desk. He answered slowly, making up the phrases as he spoke. “I will have to… discover new methods of working. I will have to obtain new resources of purified graphite. I will have to command all production from the Joachimstal uranium mines.”
“You shall have it,” Speer said.
Esau cleared his throat, but averted his eyes. “You realize that the Americans are no doubt much farther along than we are. We have had numerous setbacks. Now that we have used our weapon, you can be sure the Americans will use theirs before long. We have no defense against it.”
“That is why we must hurry.” Speer stood. “Do not let me down.” He turned to leave, then stopped. “And by the way, congratulations on your commendation.”
Esau sat staring at the clean top of his desk until long after he heard Speer’s staff car drive out of the courtyard. He could not do it! He had no way! They had no heavy water, no uranium, no supplies, no graphite. The remaining researchers were tired and ready to snap—and now they no longer had Heisenberg or Hahn, not even Diebner!
Esau removed some of the progress report files from the cabinet. He stared at the calculations, the projections, the overoptimistic estimates of all their work, cheerily faithful from the days when their biggest worry had been to get more attention, more priority, more funding. Now he wished he could take it all back.
Heisenberg himself had managed to fool everyone for a long time because of the mistakes in his calculations, because of neglecting certain ideas. Esau stared at the complicated numbers. Few people could understand all this. He himself needed to work very hard to put all the pieces together.
It had worked for Heisenberg.
He considered the idea again.
No one would know. It would buy him time. Esau needed time right now, although he didn’t know what to hope for. Perhaps another miracle. Perhaps the end of the war.
He took his pen and stared down at the numbers in the calculations and followed them with his fingertip.
As unobtrusively as he could, Professor Abraham Esau began to alter the data.
25
Trinity Site
November 1944
“As I lay there in the final seconds, I thought only of what I would do if the countdown got to zero and nothing happened.”
“It was like the grand finale of a mighty symphony of elements… It was as though the earth had opened and the skies split. One felt as though he had been privileged to witness the birth of the world.”
Elizabeth woke at the sound. Opening her eyes on the cot, huddled under an Army-issue blanket, she looked at Dick Feynman standing in the doorway. A few of the other VIPs had stayed in the refurbished rooms of the McDonald ranch house; the rest of the building had been turned into administrative headquarters for the Trinity test. Feynman cleared his throat a second time to make sure he had Elizabeth’s attention.
“What’s the matter?” She struggled to an elbow. As her sheet fell from about her, she glanced down. Mrs. Canapelli insisted that she wear a nightgown in the dorm, though Elizabeth had normally slept naked, back in her old timeline. She saw she was still wearing her comfortable clothes, though. It took her a moment to understand where she was, what was going on.
“The test. It’s going to be back on,” Feynman said. “It stopped raining. I thought you were just going to take a nap.”
Elizabeth tried to clear the sleep from her mind. She had been dreaming about something… Livermore, and the protest. Jeff had been with her; he had refused to get arrested. Why had she dreamed of that? It had been years since the demonstration.
And then she remembered where she was—Trinity site, the Gadget, World War II. This was the day! They had postponed the midnight shot because of a freak rainstorm across the desert. And now, by the darkness outside…
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Time to get up. They’ll restart the countdown soon, and we’ll have to get back out to the main bunker.”
She rubbed her arms, getting herself moving. The night before, everyone had been mesmerized by the whole thing, swept up in the final excitement that surrounded the test… and then about eleven o’clock the rain had come. Boiling clouds thousands of feet high had rolled over the dry Jornada del Muerto; lightning bolts lit up the sky, and the thunder tried to compete with the explosion men were waiting to make.
Elizabeth remembered now, the disappointment, the short tempers, the impatience among the scientists. Oppie and General Groves had gotten into a genuine shouting match at the bunker. Elizabeth herself had been dragging, depressed, uncertain. She felt her conscience clamoring, at war with itself. Nobody else knew what was about to happen, what new path they would set the human race on. And she had helped them with it. All her protesting to stop nuclear weapons after it was too late—and now she had had a chance to stop it from the beginning, and she had failed. She had become a part of what she hated… or had she just been brainwashed by the situation? Or had she been brainwashed before? She didn’t know how she could ever tell.
She had not slept well for several nights at the site. In the test bunker, with the countdown halted under the pouring rain and the scientists fidgeting, grumbling to each other, she had just sulked. Dick Feynman had encouraged her to go lie down when the rest of them traveled back to the ranch house to wait out the storm.
When she had leaned back on the old canvas cot, listening to water trickle through leaks in the old roof, smelling the drenched desert, she knew the test could not take place. The weather would have to be perfect. General Groves would want nothing to ruin his display.