The next misstep involved one of his previous works, relating to the projection of mixed nuclei in a radiant beam. Errors were discovered in Heinrich's methods by another Jew (a graduate student no less), and while the basic principals were solid, a year's work previously thought to be groundbreaking had fallen suspect. Full tenure never came at Hamburg, and Heinrich began a nomadic series of "Guest Lecturer" appointments. It was in Bremen that he attended his first National Socialist rally. The message fed his suspicions about Jews. They were evil, inbred thieves. Destroyers.
On Hitler's usurping of the Sudetenland, Heinrich had found himself at Oxford, a German patriot watching from the other side of the fence. Two years on he was invited to Columbia University in America, and it was in early 1943, with the eastern war going badly for Germany, that Heinrich was invited by a colleague to join a group of scientists working on a "war project."
At the outset there were standard questions from the Army about Heinrich's sympathies, his political leanings — but here he was rescued by his friends. The scientists of Los Alamos, dozens of nationalities among them, were a network of intellectuals who considered themselves above borders and politics. They righteously vouched for one another with blind confidence. In the end, it was this support, along with Heinrich's command of theoretical physics, that carried him past the Army and into the heart of the Manhattan Project.
He opened the door to his quarters and stepped inside, pausing to catch his breath. First the dancing, then the climbing — if he didn't slow down, he thought, he was going to have a heart attack. The walk to his room had been uphill, and even after a year he was not used to the thin air at 7,300 feet above sea level. He would not miss it. Indeed, the entirety of this desert he would not miss. It was clearly America's dustbin, good as nothing more than a place to hide her defeated indigenous people. Round them up and put them on "reservations." Such a nice word, he'd always thought, as if a maitre d' was holding a table at a fine restaurant. The Germans used a different word, and of course it involved Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals. Still, Heinrich reasoned, the concept was the same. And in all practicality, he did understand why the Manhattan Project had found its home here. Heat, dirt, wind — who would bother looking for the world's greatest secret in such a place?
The room was a single, modest in size, situated at the end of a row of four identical dwellings. The adjacent apartment was occupied infrequently by Enrico Fermi, the Italian physicist from the University of Chicago. Fermi had spent most of the last year at his university lab, and traveling to the other facilities in Tennessee and Washington. Lately, however, he'd been more of a regular at Los Alamos, probably because the project was reaching fruition. It made Heinrich's work that much more difficult.
He set a pot of coffee to brew on his electric hot plate before starting to work on the curtain. There was only one window in the place, and Heinrich was meticulous about sealing it off whenever he worked. Having lived for a year in England during the blitz, he was an expert at the task.
When he finished, the coffee was ready. Heinrich poured a cup and added a hearty serving of sugar. The mix gave him energy, acting as a catalyst to shift his mental transmission into a different gear. It was time to put the evening's frivolity behind.
Tonight would be strictly photography. At the start, a year ago, he had copied the critical elements of each document by hand before resorting to the camera. If the film should go bad or become damaged, he had reasoned, there would be a backup. Now there was simply no time. With the war nearing its end, Heinrich's days at Los Alamos were numbered. Over the last two weeks he had taken many risks, scouring records and files, secreting bundles to his room. The scientists here regularly brought work to their rooms — though it was officially forbidden — but none on the scale Karl Heinrich managed.
He pulled a suitcase from under the bed and unlocked it. Inside was everything, a year's worth of work — documents, drawings, film, and the camera. He had considered something more secure, perhaps devising a secret compartment somewhere in the room, but Heinrich eventually decided it would be of little use. If he fell under suspicion, the Americans would tear the place apart. His only regular concern was the cleaning lady who came twice a week, a Zuni Indian woman who, if she could get by the lock, probably couldn't even read. Heinrich simply had to be careful.
He set today's stack on his working table and spent the first thirty minutes deciding which documents were worthy. Quietly, so as not to wake the Nobel Laureate next door, Heinrich dragged a shepherd's hook floor lamp across the room until it was over the table, then mounted the Leica camera. At the beginning he'd managed the Leica and documents by hand, an awkward series of repetitive movements that begged for better efficiency. He had fashioned a mount for the camera that attached to the frame of the lamp — the engineers would have been proud — and this simple advance had nearly doubled his progress. In a good hour he could take a hundred pictures, and by his most recent estimate there were at least nine thousand photographs, documents, drawings, and prints in his bulging little suitcase, covering every aspect of the Manhattan Project. Plutonium production, canning of uranium slugs, measurement of detonation waves. In all, three years of work fueled by the world's greatest minds.
Tonight Heinrich would concentrate on the arrangements for the actual test — design of the tower, capture of data for yield estimation, and the layout of radiation monitors. He discarded the sections on range safety and security, which were handled by the Army and seemed obvious enough.
The shutter began to click, and as Heinrich shuffled documents through his fingers his thoughts drifted ahead. After tonight, only one vital vein would remain to be mined — the results of the test, the world's first atomic explosion. It would take place in two weeks, and the data was of critical importance. He wondered if he would still be here, still have access. But soon the larger question flooded his thoughts — the one that had bothered him increasingly over the last months. What would he do with it all?
Heinrich read the newspapers each day and the latest headlines could not be more grim. The Reich had been dealt a terrible blow. He had no doubts that it would reemerge — but how, and where? Such uncertainty. Still, Heinrich held faith. The cause was right, and pure — particularly ridding the world of the filthy Jews.
As he focused the Leica on a diagram — a layout of seismographs, spectrographs, and ionization chambers — his thoughts drifted to Santa Fe. The day was fast approaching when he would reach for the last thread that connected him to the old country. Would his new contact be there? Karl Heinrich sighed as the camera clicked. It had to be so.
It had to be.
Chapter 25
The outline of downtown Chicago was just visible in the haze behind them. Braun concentrated on correlating details on the map in his hand to the features below. Once again, the instructor had taken the right seat, the student the left.
This flight had gone deeper into the subject of navigation, with a few stall recoveries at the outset. They had practiced landings yesterday evening in South Bend, just before dusk. After seven touch-and-go's Braun had become comfortable, if not completely proficient, and at the end he noticed Mitchells hands did not hover over the controls as they neared each touchdown. The student was making progress.
After the last landing, they'd taken a room at a boarding house near the airport. Braun had drifted to sleep wondering if the authorities in Newport had found the Buick Special stashed in the hangar.