Amerika (37 page)

I studied the spaghetti-like diagram of the gas diffusion system with its paper-thin membranes mysteriously able to allow certain atoms of certain electrons to pass through while keeping others out. ‘Ever think Mother Nature was telling you to stay the hell out of her back yard?’

‘Wished we had.’

‘Too late now.’

Archie said, ‘But not too late for us to slow things down long enough to get America into the war and drive that madman out of Berlin.’

Fatt snapped, ‘And into a pine box.’

Friedman nodded. ‘Better him than the millions he’s already killed and plans to kill; Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, the mentally disturbed, anybody who doesn’t fit the Nazi idea of a superior race sees the inside of a gas chamber.’

‘I thought that was just propaganda.’

Friedman’s face grew still, like when the wind stops on a pond and everything becomes mirror-clear. ‘Every day men, women and children are rounded up and put onto trains and sent to so-called labor camps. Except for the young, the old, and the feeble, there is no labor to do except to take off your clothing and go to the showers and never return. What kind of country would do this to its citizens?’

None of us had an answer.

Friedman continued, his voice quiet but relentless. ‘I’ll tell you what kind. One that has lost its way, one that believes in a nightmare named Adolf Hitler and is afraid to wake up for fear it will die along with the others he’s already exterminated.’ He leaned forward. ‘That is why America must grab Germany by the shoulders and shake it until it awakens and sees the world – not as Hitler sees it – but as it truly is. Only then can it re-join the human race.’

The humid, August heat of the day had not dissipated with the sun going down. If anything it got worse. Professor Friedman and Mason assembled the bomb in the ordnance hut while Fatt, Orlando and I watched them work. Amazing how simple it is to create something so destructive:

‘Insert flange A into groove B; twist until hand tight, then torque-wrench to seventy-five pounds, while maintaining proper alignment, etc…’

Drops of perspiration fell from Mason’s reddened face – now the same shade as his hair - onto the bomb casing as he worked, staining its smooth gray surface with dark dots.

Orlando said softly, ‘For such a deadly thing, it’s beautiful to behold.’

Friedman said, ‘Germans are elegant people. Unfortunately we practice it in the wrong places sometimes.’

A long silence followed while Mason fitted the nose-cap to the front unit with surgical precision. 

Orlando whispered, ‘Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.’

Fatt said, ‘Ours too.’

Orlando touched the bomb.  ‘Innocent people will die when this explodes.’

Fatt soothed, ‘We’ve done our best to make sure that injuries will be minimized. Certain friends of our cause at the plant will scram the reactor about an hour before we arrive on target.’

He saw the blank look on my face, so he explained, ‘They’ll let the reactor reach critical levels by adjusting the carbon control rods so that it’ll look like the core is going to melt down, even though it won’t. They’ll hit the alarm, the whole place will evacuate, and BOOM, we drop the bomb. It’s a hell of a sweet idea.’

Orlando said, ‘Providing it works.’

He shrugged. ‘If it doesn’t then too damn bad. You’ve got to break eggs to make omelets.’

‘Easy for you to say at ten thousand feet.’

He gave him a long deadly look. ‘You got any other bright ideas, reverend? We’re dealing with the devil himself, not just one of his sinners.’

Orlando started to say something, but then shook his head.

Mason cleared his throat. ‘Do you gentleman mind taking your moral dilemmas outside? We’ve got us a bomb to build.’

That silenced them.

Mason then showed us the bomb trigger: a cleverly-designed miniature radio altimeter that worked in concert with the more conventional barometric one; each cross-checking the other to get a mutually agreeable answer as to the proper height above ground wherein the contacts would close, the high-explosive spherical shell surrounding the plutonium would detonate, crushing the fissile material and triggering an uncontrolled chain reaction that released a violent burst of energy outward, consuming everything it its white-hot, radioactive fist.

Fatt said. ‘Wouldn’t mind having a warehouse full of these babies.’ Friedman said, ‘This is the last one.’

‘For now.’

He sighed. ‘For a very long time, I hope.’

Fatt snorted. ‘If we manage to pull this off and American enters the war, don’t you think General Patton and his boys will want these weapons as fast as possible?’

‘Wanting is not the same thing as having.  America has the fissile material but Germany has the technology to construct bombs with it.’

‘Then we’ll steal your scientists the same way we got you.’

He smiled. ‘After this, I am out of the bomb business, permanently.’

‘What about the others?’

He shrugged. ‘I cannot speak for them, but I am certain that they, like me, will pray that America will defeat Germany with conventional weapons long before enough plutonium is manufactured to construct more nuclear ones. If that happens, then we can put atomic energy to peaceful uses instead.’

Fatt laughed. ‘You actually think you can tame this shit?’

‘We have developed plans for nuclear power plants. And other civilian uses as well.’

Orlando said, ‘The lion shall lie down with the lamb?’ Friedman said, ‘That is my fondest dream.’

Fatt pointed his cigar at the bomb. ‘Dream on professor. I’m betting on the lion.’

The ordnance team transported the assembled bomb to the dock area, where the
Dixie Clipper
floated serenely beneath a canopy of camouflage netting hiding it from the prying eyes of compliance fighters droning overhead, heading east and west on their patrol missions in search of neutrality violators trying to slip through their tight little net along the Gulf Coast.

While Fatt and I watched from the shore, the team carefully winched the bomb onto a small barge and floated it out to the clipper’s open bomb bay doors beneath its swooping tail.

Fatt puffed contentedly on his cigar. ‘Who would have thought the day would come when that sweet bird would take off with an atomic bomb up her ass.’

‘Providing we adjust for center of gravity. Otherwise she’ll drag her tail until kingdom come and never get unstuck.’

‘Then I suggest you damn well make sure we perform correct weights and balances, captain. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life taxiing back and forth across Lake Salvador like a Mixmaster.’

With that, he spun on his heel and was gone. I checked my watch. Time to make the call.

‘Hi, honey, it’s daddy.’

Abby’s voice mixed with the long distance rush of static. ‘Where are you and when are you coming home?’

‘A little tied up on the charter job. A few more days, sorry.’

‘How many?’

‘Don’t know. A week maybe.’

‘Daddy, you promised.’

‘Sorry, honey. Really I am.’

A long pause.

‘Abby?’

Rosie’s voice came on the line instead. ‘What did you say to her?’

‘Nothing, Just that I was going to be gone a few more days than I thought.’

‘We’ve got bills piling up here. You getting paid?’

‘What about the money Trippe gave you?’

‘Long gone. Hangar rental’s due. Installment on the plane. Want the whole list?’

‘I’ll see if I can wire you some cash. That’ll help.’

‘It’ll help your business, but not your daughter. You’ve got to make up your mind; you either save what’s left of your family or watch that child drift off in between charters.’

‘Let me talk to her again.’

‘She’s run off somewhere.’

‘What’s today? Tuesday? I’ll be back Friday at the latest. Promise.’

‘What exactly are you doing?’

‘Can’t tell you.’

A long pause. ‘Samuel Carter, if you’re involved with breaking the law, I swear I’ll -’

‘Mom, it’s on the level, I promise. My client insists on confidentiality, that’s all.’

‘Still that Ava James woman?’

‘Yes.’

‘I knew it. You watch out for her, hear?’

‘Thought you liked her.’

‘I do. Just keep an eye out, that’s all.’

‘Promise.’

‘Got to go find out where that child ran off to.’

‘Tell her I’ll be home Friday.’

‘You’d better be.’

Minutes later I met up with Ava and Ziggy walking along the wooden dock that paralleled the
Dixie Clipper’s
mooring. As I began making my case for more money, she touched my arm. ‘I’ll have Ziggy wire it from New Orleans. How much?’

‘You promised me a thousand if we found the gold. Rosie said the bills were piling up and…’

‘Done.’

She kissed Ziggy on his forehead. ‘Be a dear, zip up to New Orleans and take care of this for me, will you?’

‘But I thought I was invited to dinner.’

‘You’ll miss cocktail hour, that’s all.’

‘What am I doing, riding a skyrocket? New Orleans is a ways off.’

‘You’re taking Uncle Georgie’s boat, silly.’

She pointed to a flat black, low-slung torpedo boat moored on the dock.

‘In that?’

‘It’s a Higgins eighty-footer. Twelve-hundred horsepower Packard engines, top speed fifty knots. They’re about to make a run to pick him up. You’ll both be back in a jiffy. Now scoot.’

The boat’s engines burbled softly into life, betraying the fact that they would soon be roaring like panthers as they hurtled the plywood craft across Lake Salvador to the Big Easy.

Ziggy gingerly climbed on board, made his way to the wheelhouse, and weakly saluted the captain. He clutched onto a fifty-caliber machine gun mount and hung on for dear life as the PT boat opened her engines wide and raced away, leaving a curving white arc of foaming water to mark her passage.

Ava took my arm. ‘Doing anything?’

‘Getting ready for tomorrow.’

‘All caught up are you?’

‘That’ll never happen.’

‘Then all the better to take a break and have dinner with us up at the house.’

‘I’d rather not. Besides, I’m not dressed.’

She brushed her dust-covered khaki shirt and laughed, ‘Who is?’

‘What’s the occasion?’

‘Sort of a going-away party.’

‘Wish it were a coming-home party instead.’

We walked in silence for a while, aware of the hustle and bustle going on around us, but content to not add to it with unnecessary chatter. The wooden sidewalk around the parade ground gave way to grass and then to the finely crushed gravel of the curving walkway lined with towering pines that led to the stately Longstreet mansion, its white columns glowing silver in the fading light.

I laughed. ‘Looks like
Gone with the Wind
.’

‘It does, doesn’t it?’

‘You’d have made a great Scarlett O’Hara.’

‘I wish.’

‘Try out for it?’

‘Like everybody else in Hollywood. Paulette Goddard, Jeanie Arthur. Me.’

‘Vivian Leigh’s a brit. Doesn’t make sense.’

‘Viv’s mad as a hatter. She deserved the part. And Selznick deserved her. They drove each other crazy.’