Joseph Kanon - Los Alamos

“I want to offer some rent to collect.”

Groves stopped and looked at him, his face squinting in appraisal. “What do you mean by that?”

But Oppenheimer, lighting a fresh cigarette, was already there. “I think Mr. Connolly means he wants to go into the spying business,” he said, smiling.

“Forget it,” Groves said quickly.

“We’re already in it,” Connolly said, smiling back at Oppenheimer.

But Groves had drawn in his breath, swelling his chest, so that involuntarily Connolly thought of the storybook pig, huffing and puffing.

“Hold on. Both of you,” he said. “The last time I listened to you,” he said to Oppenheimer, “Connolly here was going to pull the rabbit out of the hat. Leave him alone, you said. Eisler’ll talk to him. Well, he didn’t. And now he’s dead, and so is our last chance of getting anything out of him. You’re not FBI,” he said to Connolly. “You’re not even Army Intelligence. So it’s my own fault, I guess. I don’t know what I was thinking about. But I know enough not to make the same mistake twice.”

“G.G.—” Oppenheimer began, but Connolly interrupted.

“General, I’ve just spent two weeks watching a man die. There’s nothing anybody could have done to him-he’d already done it to himself. Maybe that’s why he did it, who knows? You can’t torture a man who’s already in that kind of pain. It wasn’t going to get any better. He knew that. If he didn’t want to say anything, nothing on God’s earth was going to make him.”

“Who said anything about torture?” Groves said.

“That’s right, I forgot. Only the enemy does that. Maybe Eisler couldn’t see the difference.”

“Mister, that’s out of line.”

“Let’s everyone calm down, shall we?” Oppenheimer said. “General, we’re all disappointed about Eisler. It’s a great pity. But that’s all very spilt milk now. The question is—”

“I know what the question is. We’ve spent billions of dollars to create a strategic advantage to end this war. Now the whole project’s being undermined and Connolly here wants to play cops and robbers.”

“General,” Oppenheimer said soberly, “you’ve still got your strategic advantage, unless the war ends before we can use it. Nothing’s been undermined. What exactly is your concern?”

“And afterward?”

“Well, afterward. That’s a very interesting question. But it’s not the question before us right now. Not yet.”

“I suppose it doesn’t bother you that somebody’s selling us out to the Russians right under your nose. Maybe you’d like to tell the President we’ve been handing this stuff to the enemy. I know I’m not looking forward to it.”

“You’re wrong. I mind very much,” Oppenheimer said slowly, almost to himself. Then he turned to Groves. “I didn’t realize we thought Russia was the enemy. Or are we just planning ahead?”

“I don’t know about that. And don’t go putting words in my mouth. I’m just doing a job here, and so are you. You can think about policy on your own time. But I’ll tell you this: whoever has this thing won’t have any enemies.”

Oppenheimer looked up at him, smoking. “That’s a comforting thought.”

Connolly had watched this exchange as if it were the volley of a tennis match. Now, looking at each other, they seemed stuck, or at least reluctant to press an advantage.

“Don’t tell him,” Connolly said, breaking the moment. Groves turned to him, puzzled.

“Who?”

“The President. Don’t tell him.”

They both looked at him, shocked. It was Oppenheimer, finally, who spoke. “He has to, Mr. Connolly,” he said, as if he were being patient with a child.

They now stood together in front of him, and Connolly saw in that instant a couple locked in some strange union that would always supersede quarrels and irritation, married, finally, to the project.

“Why?” Connolly said.

“I’m going to forget you said that, mister,” Groves said. “This is the army. Don’t you forget that.”

“I’m not suggesting anything-disloyal.”

“What do you call it?”

Connolly hesitated for a minute. “A strategic advantage.”

Groves glared at him, then backed down. “You’ve got two minutes. And keep it simple. I’m just a soldier.”

“Look,” Connolly began, speaking to Oppenheimer, “you asked me to think about what we should do here. I have thought about it. And every time I come back to where we started. Karl.” He turned to include Groves. “You sent me here to find out who killed Karl. Eisler didn’t kill him, any more than that kid they’ve got locked up down in Albuquerque did. We still don’t know who killed Karl. But now we know something else, something even more important, and it turns out the one leads to the other. The same guy. Get who killed Karl and we get the link outside. Agreed? Up until now, we’ve been looking for a murderer. Instead we found a spy. Karl led us to Eisler. And now we’re stuck. So we have to turn the thing around. It’s like a crossword, see? We’ve been doing the horizontal, and we’re out of clues. So we’ve got to work downward instead. Fill it in that way. Look for a spy to find a murderer.”

“This make any sense to you,” Groves said to Oppenheimer, “or am I the only one who still doesn’t know what he’s talking about?”

“Let him finish,” Oppenheimer said, interested.

“What exactly am I not supposed to tell the President?” Groves said.

“Well, what exactly do you tell him?” Connolly answered. “We can’t prove anything. I made a lucky guess and Eisler confessed. Maybe he was crazy. This is a guy who kills himself with radiation, so how reliable is he? Maybe I’m crazy. You’ve only got my word that he said anything.”

“He talked to me too,” Oppenheimer said, playing devil’s advocate.

“And maybe he was lying. For whatever reason. Who knows why? Maybe none of it happened. Can we prove it did?”

“He wasn’t lying,” Oppenheimer said.

“No. He wasn’t. But we’re the only ones who know that. Look around,” Connolly said, sweeping his hand toward the sunny mesa. “Anything seem wrong to you? Any reason to think-any proof- that something’s wrong? What do you believe, General? Do you believe me? Do you think I was taken in by a crazy man telling stories? Maybe I’m telling stories-that’s what I get paid to do. All you’ve got is my word. Do you trust me that much?”

“You’re wasting time,” Groves said. “I don’t have to trust you. If Dr. Oppenheimer says it’s true, then it is. We have to do something.”

“Then let me finish what I started. You know as well as I do that once they get hold of this, we’ll have a Chinese fire drill around here. Everybody’ll want to do something. I can hear them already. ‘Why didn’t you tighten security? How could it happen?’ You’ve got a new President. Do you know him? Is he going to back you up when everybody starts jumping up and down? He’d have to do something. Maybe he’d start at the top.”

Groves frowned, not saying anything.

“The point is, we don’t know. But the odds are they won’t be able to fix anything and they’ll make one hell of a mess trying.”

Oppenheimer looked over at Groves, waiting.

Groves stared at the ground, moving his foot in thought. “You’re a good talker,” he said to Connolly, “but you don’t know what you’re asking. I can’t do it. I have to tell him.”

“Maybe. But not quite yet. All I’ve raised is a suspicion. You’d have to investigate to find out if there’s anything to it. You’re not putting the project itself in danger. This isn’t about sabotage. And you don’t want to send out any false alarms. If there’s the possibility of a security leak, you’d have to try and plug it. It’s your project-you’d have to decide the best way to go about that.”