Cassie Miles - Footprints in the Snow

“Aspen?” He gave her a puzzled look. “You won’t find much of anything in that sleepy little town.”

Of course not. The development of Aspen into a glittering, world-class ski resort took place after World War II. If she remembered correctly, returning soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division were largely responsible for that growth.

The door to the office swung open and a stocky man dressed in old-fashioned ski knickers strode inside. “I have been looking for you, Luke. You promised to show me the best trails.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We will leave soon. Very soon.” His accent was Italian. His dark eyes sparkled when he noticed Shana. “But first I must meet this charming young lady. You are?”

“Shana Parisi,” she said. “Buon giorno.”

Obviously delighted, he responded in Italian. Shana used rudimentary Italian she’d learned from her grandmother to make polite conversation about the weather and the scenery.

He took her hand and lifted it to his lips in a courtly gesture. “I am Enrico Fermi.”

“The Nobel Prize winner?”

“You know my work?”

“Absolutely.”

He was one of the most brilliant physicists of all time, the father of nuclear fission. She’d studied his theories, seen his face in textbooks. Fermi worked on the Manhattan project and had been at Los Alamos where the atom bomb was developed.

A realization struck her. The first atomic bomb test had taken place in 1945 at Alamogordo, New Mexico. Shana even recalled the date because it was the same as her sister’s birthday, and their father always called her sister a bombshell. July 16, 1945.

“What’s the date today?”

“May seventh,” Luke said.

In two months, Dr. Enrico Fermi and the other scientists at Los Alamos would change the world.

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