Stealing Trinity (20 page)

He pulled a suitcase from under the bed and unlocked it. Inside was everything, a year's worth of work -- documents, drawings, film, and the camera. He had considered something more secure, perhaps devising a secret compartment somewhere in the room, but Heinrich eventually decided it would be of little use. If he fell under suspicion, the Americans would tear the place apart. His only regular concern was the cleaning lady who came twice a week, a Zuni Indian woman who, if she could get by the lock, probably couldn't even read. Heinrich simply had to be careful.

He set today's stack on his working table and spent the first thirty minutes deciding which documents were worthy. Quietly, so as not to wake the Nobel Laureate next door, Heinrich dragged a shepherd's hook floor lamp across the room until it was over the table, then mounted the Leica camera. At the beginning he'd managed the Leica and documents by hand, an awkward series of repetitive movements that begged for better efficiency. He had fashioned a mount for the camera that attached to the frame of the lamp -- the engineers would have been proud -- and this simple advance had nearly doubled his progress. In a good hour he could take a hundred pictures, and by his most recent estimate there were at least nine thousand photographs, documents, drawings, and prints in his bulging little suitcase, covering every aspect of the Manhattan Project. Plutonium production, canning of uranium slugs, measurement of detonation waves. In all, three years of work fueled by the world's greatest minds.

Tonight Heinrich would concentrate on the arrangements for the actual test -- design of the tower, capture of data for yield estimation, and the layout of radiation monitors. He discarded the sections on range safety and security, which were handled by the Army and seemed obvious enough.

The shutter began to click, and as Heinrich shuffled documents through his fingers his thoughts drifted ahead. After tonight, only one vital vein would remain to be mined -- the results of the test, the world's first atomic explosion. It would take place in two weeks, and the data was of critical importance. He wondered if he would still be here, still have access. But soon the larger question flooded his thoughts -- the one that had bothered him increasingly over the last months. What would he do with it all?

Heinrich read the newspapers each day and the latest headlines could not be more grim. The Reich had been dealt a terrible blow. He had no doubts that it would reemerge -- but how, and where? Such uncertainty. Still, Heinrich held faith. The cause was right, and pure -- particularly ridding the world of the filthy Jews.

As he focused the Leica on a diagram -- a layout of seismographs, spectrographs, and ionization chambers -- his thoughts drifted to Santa Fe. The day was fast approaching when he would reach for the last thread that connected him to the old country. Would his new contact be there? Karl Heinrich sighed as the camera clicked. It had to be so.

It had to be.

Chapter 25.

The outline of downtown Chicago was just visible in the haze behind them. Braun concentrated on correlating details on the map in his hand to the features below. Once again, the instructor had taken the right seat, the student the left.

This flight had gone deeper into the subject of navigation, with a few stall recoveries at the outset. They had practiced landings yesterday evening in South Bend, just before dusk. After seven touch-and-go's Braun had become comfortable, if not completely proficient, and at the end he noticed Mitchells hands did not hover over the controls as they neared each touchdown. The student was making progress.

After the last landing, they'd taken a room at a boarding house near the airport. Braun had drifted to sleep wondering if the authorities in Newport had found the Buick Special stashed in the hangar.

This morning he and Mitchell had risen early. After stuffing down a sugary Danish and a tar-like cup of coffee, the journey had resumed.

"Route Sixty-one," Mitchell said, tapping on the map. "That'll take us northwest through Wisconsin."

Braun nodded as he held the controls. Until now, the terrain below had been the same for hundreds of miles -- an endless layout of farms, pancake flat, and arranged in orderly squares by roads that were true to the cardinal directions of the compass. Mitchell called them section lines. Here, though, the contours began to change. Carpets of forest, deep green in mid-summer foliage, swallowed the landscape, and soft hills provided basins for white pockets of early morning mist.

"The future's right down there," the old man remarked.

"What future would that be?"

"Trees. Lumber. This war's gonna be over soon, and all the boys will be coming home. When they get back they'll start families. A family needs a house. And for a house you need wood. Lots of it."

Braun shrugged. "I suppose so." There would be an epidemic of cheap housing, he thought. Row after row of uninspired boxes stamped out in a frenzy of construction, as if from one of Mr. Ford's assembly lines. But the deeper irony of Mitchell's observation was notable. They were getting close to Braun's home, the land he remembered, flush with the rich timber that had so distracted his father. Of course, if it hadn't been the timber, it would have been something else.

Braun's father had always been the chief designer of his misery. The man had come across the ocean a classic immigrant, arriving penniless from Germany in 1912. He'd seen land, opportunity. And he stopped at nothing to take his share. The first tract had been small, the trees taken down by hand, hauled by horses. But the old man was relentless. By the time the Depression hit, there were hundreds of acres, mechanized transportation, and a mill. The early thirties were hard -- parcels had to be sold and the mill closed -- yet his father survived, recovering all his losses before the war came around. As was always the case, however, success came at a price.

The elder Braun rarely found time for his family. He was a virtual stranger in his home, and when he wasn't at the office he was at Schmitt's, the corner bar that pulled authentic German beer for the neighborhood. While Alex's father was gone to pursue either the riches he demanded or a good pint, his mother was left to bear the load at home.

So it was, when a new sister came into the world two months early, it was Alex who was forced to run six miles to town in a violent snowstorm to fetch the doctor. When the two eventually made it back, hours later, the newborn and mother were both still, the bed drenched in blood. Ten-year-old Alex had been inconsolable, and when his father finally showed up that night, obviously drunk, Alex had struck him the best blow he could muster. His father, through some mix of whiskey and guilt, had responded by beating his surviving child senseless. Only the doctor's intervention had saved Alex's life.

Any ties that had ever existed between the two were ended that night. Alex was committed to a series of boarding schools, rarely seeing his father, and the divide only cemented their estrangement. Holidays were spent in dormitories, and each year on his birthday Alex received a remittance of ten dollars, the handwriting on the envelope that of his father's secretary. As time passed, most of what he learned about his father was garnered from the newspapers and school gossip -- his elder was becoming richer and more prominent. This, at least, was something appreciated around Alex's preparatory school, and the teachers, administrators, and other students allowed him a certain status of acceptance.

And then there was the matter of Alex's acceptance to Harvard. His grades had been decent, but somewhat erratic. He strongly suspected his father had arranged the admission, just before selling his holdings and fleeing back to Germany. The question was why. To offer his sole issue an elite education? Or was it simply a business move on his father's part, a card to be later played in some arcane game? Young Alex Braun chose not to dwell on the matter. Instead, he simply took what he could, a precept that would harden severely over the next five years.

A familiar voice drove away the memories.

"Yep," Mitchell continued, "lots of boys coming back. By the way, what did you do during the war, son?"

For those who had stayed behind it was the hard question, the one that could not be taken without a certain underlying sharpness. Braun's answer was pre-forged and sturdy. "I served in Europe. I'm only back for a few weeks before I head out to the Pacific. That's why I need to get to Minnesota in such a hurry."

Mitchell seemed convinced, yet Braun was curious as to why he had suddenly turned conversational. The previous 8.4 hours of flight, so precisely measured on the aircraft's Hobbs meter, had been entirely business. The instructor taught, the student performed. Braun decided it was a display of confidence, an affirmation that he was indeed flying the aircraft well.

"That's the Mississippi over there," Mitchell announced, pointing off in the distance. "Follow that for an hour and it'll take us right to downtown Minneapolis."

Braun saw the meandering river ahead, a heavy vein on the earth's surface to move her life's blood.

"How long will you need in Minneapolis?" Mitchell asked.

"My business should only take an hour or two. We can start back East this afternoon." Braun's hands were steady on the controls. The altimeter read a perfect five thousand feet.

"Okay. Maybe we can get back home tonight. My wife promised to bake an apple pie -- her way of getting me back home!" Mitchell cackled. "And by the time we get back, you'll be ready to solo."

Braun looked out at the forest below. It was punctuated by countless small lakes that mirrored the low eastern sun, like a thousand diamonds shining against an emerald blanket. He saw only one small town, distant to the west. Braun looked at his instructor and smiled.

Hiram Mitchell smiled back at his student, thinking he'd add a scoop of ice cream to the apple pie. He was happy with the boy's progress, happy that he'd taken the job. It was the easiest two hundred dollars he had ever earned. Mitchell decided to use part of the money to take his bride to the Poconos for a week --it had been nearly a year since they'd gotten away. The rest would go for an engine overhaul on the Avion, which was already overdue. Yep, he thought, easy money. He leaned forward for a chart.

It came out of nowhere. The pain was excruciating, like a sledgehammer had smashed between his eyes. Mitchell tried to push himself up, but his limbs wouldn't respond. What was happening? His hands groped awkwardly, clawing for a grip, anything to right himself. His head spun and his vision was blurred. And then he felt the oddest sensation, something warm spreading across his face. "What--" There was no time to finish the question. The second blow, to the side of his head, brought only stars.

Mitchells world faded. Time stopped. The next sensation was movement, his body being shoved and tugged, back and forth. He tried to get his bearings, to understand, but the pain was agonizing. Suddenly he felt wind, and then his stomach lurched in freefall. It was like being on the roller coaster at Coney Island. His arms and legs flailed, and the wind came stronger -- a hurricane all around. He'd always had dreams about falling, spinning down through an endless void. But when Mitchell wrenched a hand to his face and wiped the blood from his eyes, he saw that there was indeed an end. The forest rushed up at him, larger and larger, filling his view until there was nothing else.

Hiram Mitchell screamed.

Thatcher led Tomas Jones across the back lawn of Harrold House. The FBI man had arrived early, but been buttonholed by the local police detective before Thatcher was able to usher him outside for privacy. Meandering the walking paths, the two found common ground for the first time.

"Looks like this Sargent Cole is some rich sunnava bitch," Jones noted crassly.

Thatcher eyed the manicured surroundings with equal distaste. "Perhaps it has something to do with why Braun ended up here."

Jones chewed on the remark. "So somebody at Harvard told you he'd be here?"

"A fellow student told me he was involved with the girl, Lydia. I came to talk to her, but I never suspected Braun might actually be here."

"That was pretty dumb, just going right up and banging on the door."

Thatchers blood rose, but he let it go. He deserved that one. They paused on reaching the ocean, the waves breaking just below, the air laced in a salty tang.

"Have your people taken over the search?" Thatcher asked.

"The FBI? Hell no!"

"But Braun was just here -- he's killed a man!"

"We don t know that for sure. He shoved that girl down the stairs, and roughed up you and the butler. Stole a car too, I guess, but that doesn't make it a federal case."

"He's a Nazi spy -- you know how he got here! His mission involves your precious Manhattan Project!"

"Does it? Then why the hell is he diddling around here playing Jay Gatsby?"

Thatcher fell silent for a moment. "Maybe he needed money. He came ashore with nothing."

"So he kills this gal's husband to weasel his way into the family fortune? Today a funeral, tomorrow a wedding? That's a new way to fund sabotage. Come on, Thatcher, you're better than that."

He fumed, trying to see a way around the American's logic.

Jones said, "He may have been delivered here as a spy, Major, but the war is over. He knows that as well as we do." He turned toward the house. A rack at the edge of the lawn displayed a neat array of colored croquet mallets. Jones lifted out the red one and walked to where a wooden ball sat on the grass waiting to be sent through a wire hoop twenty feet away. He swung and scuffed his effort badly. "And the fact that he was laying around this goofy amusement park only proves it -- he ain't a threat. At least not to our national security."

"So you won't pursue it?"

"Oh, we'll get involved. If there's been a murder, we'll find him. But it's not a high priority."

"Not a priority? Listen --"

Jones swung the mallet down to the turf like an axe splitting a log, then pointed it at Thatcher's head. "No, Major, you listen! You get out of my hair. We'll find this guy in time, but we'll do it our way. That's it!" Jones tossed the mallet onto the perfectly trimmed, sunlit lawn, and headed for the house.