Joseph Kanon - Los Alamos

“And?”

“I had to get rid of a body. I had to get rid of a car. And I had to get home.”

“I’d say you did a pretty good job.”

“I was lucky too. Nobody saw. The one thing I couldn’t imagine, though, was Karl. If I’d wanted to kill him, I would have done it somewhere else. Why go to San Isidro to see him? Answer: I didn’t.”

Mills thought for a minute. “But he was there anyway. Another accident?”

“No. He followed me.”

“Now you’re really guessing.”

“Why not? He was security, wasn’t he? He was used to tailing people.”

“There isn’t much of that. We go with people. Guards. We don’t usually tail them. That’s FBI stuff.”

“But Karl might. He was capable of that, wasn’t he?” Mills hesitated. “Yes,” he said finally.

Connolly looked at him. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“He did tail people, didn’t he?”

“I guess so. He knew things-where people went, things like that. He liked knowing things. He’d say something once in a while. How else would he know? I guess he must have been following them. I never thought about it before.”

“Yes you did.”

“All right, I did. But it wasn’t official, so what was it? I figured it was just Karl. He liked being the sheriff. You learn not to pay too much attention to things like that.”

“That’s a hell of a thing for a security officer to say. You’re supposed to pay attention.”

“Yeah, well, how did I know he was going to get himself killed, for Christ’s sake? I just thought he was a nut like the rest of them.”

“The rest of who?”

“Security. They’re all a little nuts. Maybe you too. How do I know? Look, I didn’t ask for this assignment. I don’t get shot and I keep my head down. You stick it out and there’s always somebody ready to chop it off. You never know what anybody’s up to. For all I knew, Karl was FBI-he sure acted like it. So you don’t look too closely. Just keep your head down and stay out of the way.”

“He wasn’t FBI.”

“You know that for sure?”

“Groves would have told me.”

“Yeah.” Mills laughed. “Just like he told Lansdale about you, right? You’ve got the head of project security sitting there in Washington and his boss puts an outside man in and he doesn’t know what the hell is going on. He’s a little nuts already. Now how do you think he feels?”

“I don’t know,” Connolly said quietly. “How does he?”

Mills looked ahead at the road, saying nothing.

“He asked you to report on me, didn’t he?” Connolly said, his voice low. Mills still said nothing. “Didn’t he?”

“I’m sorry, Mike.”

“Jesus Christ.” He felt disgust mingled with irrational fear, the way he had felt the time his apartment had been burgled. There was nothing to steal. It was just the fact of someone’s having been there at all. But now there was something. He imagined Emma’s name sitting in a Washington file. “Tell him anything interesting?”

“No, nothing like that,” Mills said. “It’s just the case, Mike. He wants to know what’s going on. He thinks Groves should have put him in charge.”

“So your boss tells you to spy on me so he can spy on his boss. All in the family. Nice.”

“I was ordered, Mike,” he said quietly.

“What a fucking waste of time. And who’s checking up on you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you. That’s what it’s like. Maybe Karl was.”

Connolly thought for a minute. “Is that possible? Would he be asked to do something like that? Unofficially?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t think they trusted him that way.”

“The way they trust you. Why not?”

“He was foreign.”

“Everybody here’s foreign.”

“That’s what makes them crazy. They can’t trust anyone. Mike, look, I have to ask. Anything I tell you—”

“You can trust me,” Connolly said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

They were driving around the bottom of the mesa, away from the canyon where the car had been hidden, back toward the east gate. Connolly looked out the window, again imagining the drive that night.

“I don’t want any trouble,” Mills said.

But Connolly was lost in his own thoughts. “You have to admit, he’d be ideal from their point of view.”

“No. You don’t know them. He was too smart for them.”

“You weren’t.”

“They didn’t have much choice. I’m the only one you’re working with. Anyway, I’m not a Communist. Karl might have been. For a while, anyway. That makes them crazier than anything.”

“I thought he was tortured by them. Or was that a lie too?”

“No, there’s no question about that. He hated them. But there it was in his file. They’re not going to use anybody with that in his file. I know. They had me on the clearance files the first few months I was here. Lansdale’s like a maniac with that stuff. Van Drasek’s worse. You met him yet? He’s a real cutie. Crazy.”

Connolly smiled. “Pretty high opinion of your colleagues.”

“They’re just following orders too. But look who’s giving them. Van Drasek’s specialty is Reds, so he keeps busy. You know what it’s like here. Half the Berkeley crowd were parlor pinks. The unions, the Negroes-the usual. It doesn’t amount to a damn thing, but try to tell old Van Drasek that. He’s on a mission. He’s out at Lawrence’s lab again-goes through the place over and over.”

“Maybe he’s just trying to get away from his wife.”

“We’d all be better off. He’s serious, though. I’ve seen him deny clearance to scientists here and then call the university to get them fired. A real vindictive prick. And he’s got Lawrence running in every direction, scared shitless they’ll stop his funding. He’s got files on everyone. I know.”

“You know a lot,” Connolly said, thinking of that first night, Mills’s shiny head bobbing at the square dance. “Why doesn’t Oppenheimer put a stop to it?”

“Are you kidding? He’s the one they want most. They’ve all got the knives out for Oppenheimer. You should see the file they’ve got on him.”

“I have seen it.”

“Not all of it, you haven’t. Every meeting. Every check for the Spanish refugees. His brother. The girlfriend-she was a party member. His wife used to be married to one. His students-any kid that’s left of Roosevelt they blame on him. It just piles up. Van Drasek wouldn’t even clear him until Groves told him to fuck off and just pushed it through himself.”

“But why? What does he think Oppenheimer’s doing, working for the Russians?”

“Why. He’s crazy. He’d love it if Oppie were working for them-that would be perfect. Actually, what it is, Oppenheimer thinks it’s bullshit and they know he thinks it. Which means he thinks they’re bullshit. Which they are. But they can’t touch him as long as he’s building their damn bomb and Groves protects him. And the more he tries to get along with them, the more they hate him. They’re all obsessed with him-the crazies, anyway. I think that’s why Karl was following him. He was a little obsessed too.”

“What?”

“Well, if he was. I don’t know for sure. You’re the one who thought he was following somebody.”

“I never thought it was Oppenheimer.”

“I know, it doesn’t fit your story. But he’s the only one I can ever remember Karl talking about. He was interested in Oppie.”

“Why?”

“I think because they were. Karl was ambitious, you know? Maybe he thought if he could get something on Oppie, he’d angle himself a nice big promotion. Be one of the big boys. Of course, that’s where he was crazy, because they didn’t trust him either.”