Joseph Kanon - Los Alamos

“And that’s you.”

“It’s not them. It’s a chance, I know. But we’ll never get it if this goes beyond the three of us. I could delay telling you,” he said, looking directly at Groves. “I’m independent. Maybe I didn’t want to come to you until I had more to go on. I should have, but—”

“It would be your head,” Groves said.

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t have any choice.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“You’d do that?”

“I’m not in the army. It’s easier for me. I just-wanted to close the case.”

Groves looked around, glancing over toward the Jemez Mountains. “But you weren’t the only one there. That leaves you, Robert.”

Oppenheimer took a drag on his cigarette, then looked at Groves. “We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Connolly. We wouldn’t know any of it. Under the circumstances—” He paused. “I think he might be given a little more rope.”

Groves was silent. “You hang yourself with it,” he said finally. “Dr. Oppenheimer’s out of it. That understood?”

Connolly nodded. “You’ll have everything you need for the record. If you need it. I just delayed telling you. Both of you.”

“I don’t like this,” Oppenheimer said.

“No, he’s right,” Connolly said. “You can’t have anything to do with this. You know, it could have happened this way,” he said, turning to Groves. “You wouldn’t know anything about it if I hadn’t told you.”

“Why did you?” Groves said.

“I need your help.”

He had been looking at Groves, but it was Oppenheimer who said, “What do you have in mind?”

“First, some classified papers, something to hook him. Something Eisler’s already handed over, so they know it’s real, but that somebody else might have access to. Bait. Could you do that?”

Oppenheimer nodded.

“Wait a minute,” Groves said. “You want to pass classified documents?”

“Something they already have,” Connolly said. “Or Eisler said they have. If we believe him. But we do believe him, don’t we?”

“I can’t allow this. Do you know what it means if—”

“Yes, but I won’t get caught. I’m not planning to go to jail.”

“How about first telling me what in God’s name is going on?” Groves said irritably, wiping his forehead. “And do we have to stand out here in the sun?”

Connolly nodded and began leading them toward the shade of the water tower. “There’s only one way to do this. We have to give him another Eisler. We don’t know how they put people here. Maybe there isn’t anybody else. But either way, they’re going to need a new source. It’s late. They’re hungry.”

“Just who did you have in mind?” Oppenheimer said.

“I’ve been thinking about that. Ideally, a scientist, of course, but it’s too tricky and there isn’t enough time. We have to assume they’ve got a list of the scientists working on the project-that would be the first thing they’d ask for.”

Groves groaned out loud.

“So it’s too easy to check,” Connolly continued. “They’d spot a marker right away, just from the list. Who’s the new guy? Never heard of him. And of course if they do have somebody else up here, he’d spot it as a ghost. Then there’s the background. We say our man’s from Berkeley, they check Berkeley. It’s a fairly small community, isn’t it? It’s unlikely you’d have a spare physicist up here nobody’s ever heard of.”

“Quite,” Oppenheimer said. “Are you proposing to use a real person?”

“No. You’ve got four thousand people up here. Technical support comes and goes. We make up a dummy file in one of these areas. Maybe the Special Engineering Detachment. There are always new SEDs coming in. But someone who could put his hands on the papers. An idealist,” he said to Groves, who was watching him with growing discomfort. “You could set up some army records, couldn’t you? I’ll make up a project folder-bio, clearance, the usual. Just put it in the files. If we’ve got a leak up here, he’ll know where to go and we’ll have it all ready for him.” He looked up at the giant tower, crisscrossed wooden slats rising to support the broad tank, Los Alamos’s Empire State Building. “Maybe we’ll call him Waterman.”

“There’s a Waterman in metallurgy,” Oppenheimer said.

“Okay, Waters, then. Steve, I think. That sounds about right. Corporal Steve Waters, SED. The rat.”

“You think this is funny?” Groves said impatiently. “I fail to see anything funny about it. I don’t know what we’re playing at here. This isn’t some petty crime anymore.”

Connolly reddened at the schoolboy reprimand. “What makes a crime petty-the amount you steal?”

“Don’t start with me.”

“It’s the same,” Connolly said. “Same people who knock over a liquor store. Calling them agents doesn’t make them smarter. Who do you think does this, anyway? Masterminds? I’m not trying to break up the rackets, I’m just looking for a guy who got jumpy with a tire iron.”

Groves snorted and looked away, his eyes following a coal delivery truck rumbling toward Boiler No. 1.

“There’s only one thing I don’t understand,” Oppenheimer said, as if nothing had happened. “Your phantom Corporal Waters has some valuable papers to offer. How do you let them know? Put an ad in the papers?”

“I assume there’s a network. Our rent collector may be only one link, but no one works alone on that end. You know, like the numbers,” he said, looking at Groves. “I need to get access to the network, someone to pass on the invitation. If they’re as efficient as we think they are, they’ll come calling.”

“You know someone like that?” Groves said. “Why don’t we just haul him in?”

“Anyone can pass a message. I thought of your brother,” he said to Oppenheimer, then turned to Groves. “But I suspect you’re already having him watched. That would complicate things.”

No one said a word. Groves, already red and sweating, flushed and looked away.

“Frank left the party,” Oppenheimer said quietly. “Some time ago.”

“And they’d probably think it was all a little too good to be true,” Connolly continued. “They’d want to be very careful with anyone close to you, and we don’t have time for that. There’s someone else. I don’t know if he’s involved in the party’s extracurricular activities or not. I doubt it. But he’d know someone who is, or someone who knows someone. We just need to get the ball started and hope they pick it up and run with it. It may not work. It’s only a chance.”

“He’d be taking a chance too, your friend,” Oppenheimer said thoughtfully. “He’d have to trust you. Would he?”

Connolly met his gaze. “Yes, he would.”

“He’s here?” Oppenheimer said tentatively.

“No. That’s where I need your help, General,” Connolly said, drawing the still sulking Groves back to the conversation. “I assume you could get a Section 1042 file without raising any eyebrows? That’s alien registration.”

“I know what it is.”

“I need an address. Current.”

“Name?”

Connolly looked at him. “Are we on with this or not?”

Groves hesitated for another minute, then sighed. “Name?”

“Matthew Lawson,” Connolly said. “Brit. Here since before the war. New York, maybe. Can you get it?”

Groves nodded. “If they’ve got him on file, I can get it. Who is he?”

“You don’t want to know that. In fact, from now on you don’t want to know anything. You don’t want to know what I’m doing. You’d need to be able to say that. Honestly. I’m just-late telling you about Eisler. That’s all.”

Groves nodded again, then folded his arms across his chest. “One thing. If I don’t know, I won’t be able to say anything to Army Intelligence. If they should get the idea to put you under surveillance. I can’t call them off.”