Joseph Kanon - Los Alamos

“Is that important?” Eisler said. “A few. It was as you say. You seem to know everything.”

“Except who you were meeting.”

“I don’t know the name. I couldn’t help you even if I wanted to.”

“And you don’t want to.”

“No. But it’s useless to pursue this. I do not know.”

“What if you couldn’t make it or had to postpone the meeting? How could you contact him?”

“I couldn’t. Another meeting would be arranged.”

“How?”

“That I don’t know either. That was not my affair. But it’s of no importance. I was there. And Karl-Karl was there too. Foolish, foolish boy,” he said, shaking his head. “It was impossible. We could not allow—” He stopped. “So. He was there. And now I am here. I think I’m a little tired now, if you don’t mind. Is there anything else you want to know?”

“Who killed him.”

Eisler looked up. “I killed him, Mr. Connolly.”

“No, you didn’t.”

Eisler looked at him quizzically.

“It’s a popular murder,” Connolly said. “Everybody wants to confess to it. We’ve got one guy in prison, and I don’t believe him either. You bashed Karl’s head in, then dumped him in the park and drove on home? I don’t think so.”

“You do not have any choice in the matter.”

“I still want to know. Karl was killed in that alley all right. We have the blood samples to prove it. And you were there-I don’t doubt it for a minute. You might even say it was all your fault. You’re so eager for blame, fine, take some. But you never killed him. Your contact did that. Right there. Were you shocked? All that blood. What did it sound like when his skull cracked? That’s not in your line at all. You must have had a disillusioning experience yourself. Which is why you’re here. What I don’t know is why you still want to protect him.”

Eisler bowed his head, staring at his hands. “We were alone, Karl and I,” he said quietly. “The other was only a messenger-already gone.”

“No. He was there. Did you help clean up and shove Karl in the car, or did you just leave right away? That must have been some trip back. Lots of time to think.” He paused. “I know he’s here.”

“Here?” Eisler said, looking up, confused.

“What did you do with the car?”

“The car?” he said, thrown by the question.

“Karl’s car. You didn’t leave it there.”

“No, no. On the streets,” he said, improvising. “Not far. Perhaps it was stolen.”

“No. We found it. It’s in a canyon, just down the road from the west gate.”

Eisler fumbled, his hands nervously picking at his trousers. “I don’t understand.”

“Somebody drove it there. Your friend. You didn’t know? You had to hightail it back here, get away from San Isidro as soon as possible. The usual way, I would guess, through the east gate. It’s closer. Shall we go back to the map? Your friend has to dump the body. He was seen, it turns out. Just him, one man, not you, so I figure he was on his own. You were probably safe and sound back home by then. No risks, just in case. Then he drove Karl’s car up the back way and stashed it close enough so he could walk in. Unless you waited around to give him a lift, but I don’t think so. Why chance it? But you see what this means. You see why I can’t let it go? He’s here.”

“I’m tired,” Eisler said again. “It’s enough.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not possible.”

Eisler sighed wearily. “It is possible, Mr. Connolly. It’s necessary. Surely you see that. To us it’s just a contact, not a person. We aren’t supposed to know. In case-well, of something like this.”

“An interrogation, you mean.”

“Yes. If you are forced. I could not tell you even if you tortured me.”

“We don’t go in for pliers here. That’s your people,” Connolly said.

Eisler looked away. “Please go now. It’s not enough for you, all this? You have your answers. I compromised the project, yes-it’s done. And Karl, that too. You don’t believe in my guilt? It was enough for God. He has already punished me.”

“You were the one playing God. I was there, remember? That’s suicide, not punishment.”

“So,” he said quietly, “you know that too. Maybe I was just helping him.”

“The way you helped the Russians.”

“If you like. I make no apologies. It’s done now.”

Connolly stood up to go. “No apologies. You want to be guilty for everything? That’s just playing God again. Wipe the whole thing away in some-what? Sacrifice? You’re right, it’s not enough for me. You want me to understand. What? How everything was justified? But what was actually done? ‘Compromise’ the project? What is that? Betraying Oppenheimer, an old friend. Betraying your colleagues, all the work they’ve done. Do you know what hell this is going to make for them? Do you think it ends here with you? Prometheus, for Christ’s sake. They’ll have to live with all this shit, the secrecy-the war will never end for them. And Karl? A conniver, a snoop. ‘So unfortunate. We couldn’t allow-’ So you know how they found him?” He saw Eisler wincing now, almost cringing in his chair, but he couldn’t stop. “His head cracked-you knew that. Did you also see him get his face smashed in? Or did your friend do that later, a little goodbye gesture? A kick-several kicks. The poor bastard. They couldn’t recognize his face. But I guess that was the point. Pulp and blood. And his pants yanked down, with his dick sticking out so that everybody would think-So that’s how Karl ended. That’s the way it goes down in the books, one kind of disgrace he had no right to expect. Let’s not even think about the future, all the bombs and God knows what. I just want to know, did you see his face? And for what? Some cause? Your big idea? Your wife? All this. Was it worth it to you?”

Eisler raised his head, his tired eyes filled with tears, as if he were being beaten.

But Connolly couldn’t stop. “Was it worth it?” he said, his voice hoarse. “Was it?”

“I don’t know,” Eisler said, a whisper.

It was the only outburst. He saw Eisler’s face in the night, floating through his sleep like a plea, old and uncertain, and felt ashamed. In the morning they went on as before, a couple who’d had a spat, careful and polite, eager to put things behind them. Connolly couldn’t let go. The radiation poisoning had created a deadline, firm and immediate, so that he felt himself in a race, like the men at Trinity, who worked too fast, with no time for consequences. When had he left the Hill that day. Were they alone at San Isidro before Karl arrived. Describe the contact. Had Karl mentioned anyone else from the early days. How had it been left. Was another meeting scheduled. Were there people in place at Hanford, at Oak Ridge. Describe the contact. But Eisler deteriorated with the meetings, the pain coming swiftly, knotting his face, and Connolly found himself fighting the drugs now as well as time. The lucid periods, fencing with remembered details, became a kind of martyrdom, some final struggle for Eisler’s soul.

They were alone. At first Oppenheimer refused to see Eisler at all, devastated by the betrayal, but Connolly couldn’t ask about the science and there was no one else. But his visits were erratic, stolen time. It was Connolly who kept the vigil. He welcomed the isolation, away from the others’ questions, sealed off from the rest of the Hill. Holliday, Mills, even Emma had to be content with promissory notes. Not now, not yet. He couldn’t leave. One evening, when the pain was very bad, Eisler gripped his hand, and he was startled at the touch, bony, desperate to make any contact, and he felt, oddly, that he had become Eisler’s protector. In the close, sour-smelling room, he was tormentor and guardian, Eisler’s last thread.