Braun pored over the letter and attachments. Most of the papers were hand-drawn duplicates, but a few originals bore the header: U. S. Army Corps of Engineers — Manhattan District. These were stamped top secret. There was also a second file, regarding a place called Hanford, Washington. The cover letter, again in Heinrichs hand, was titled: Plutonium — the transmutation of u-238. Braun read it, then found himself carrying on to the rest, a thick volume of blueprints, diagrams, and equipment specifications. The project was industrial in nature, different from the artful works of design Braun had studied at Harvard. Yet he recognized enough to see the legitimacy of the information. The scale of this place in Tennessee was unlike anything he had ever seen.
Braun was seized by excitement. He pored over page after page by light of the lantern, checking dimensions, awed by the immensity of it all. 500 million dollars, he thought. For one industrial plant? Had the Americans gone insane? He looked at every page, his heart pulsing by the end. There was so much here — details, calculations. And this was only a sample of what Heinrich possessed. It had to be of value.
Braun stood. His back ached from sitting on the rock. He locked his hands above his head and stretched like a cat. The injured shoulder was better, almost no pain. A look at his watch told him it was nearly five thirty. He'd lost track of time and spent over an hour consuming Heinrich's file. But what good was any of it, he thought, if the whole project was a failure? Dejection stabbed in. Once more, Braun looked across the land. He saw only tranquility — a desert still, silent, and black. And then the sky exploded.
The universe fell ablaze in white light. The brightness was incredible, like nothing he'd ever seen. He instinctively stepped back and turned his head aside — yet Braun forced himself to look. The flash did not fade, but rather grew in intensity, as if the sun had crashed into the desert valley. His eyes adjusted to the light, and he saw a mountain of dust rising into the sky. He stood transfixed as smoke and light churned into a hellish orange fireball, rising up and up. Then Braun saw something else. A wave of destruction sweeping out, rolling across the desert at incredible speed. Rolling right at him. He braced himself.
It hit like a hurricane. Braun tried to stand firm against the pressure. He squinted and his hair was blown back. The sound came now, not an instantaneous crack, but a rumble that grew and grew like a thousand bass drums. It seemed to have no end, pulsing echoes that pounded off the surrounding hills.
Braun stood still. Watching, listening. Stunned.
After what seemed like an eternity, the sounds dampened and were lost. Silence gradually returned, and the tremendous ball of fire ebbed, taking with it the light. In the end there was only one thing — a gigantic column of smoke, a cylinder capped on top by an even wider ball of tumultuous, roiling dust. In the muted dawn it rose up as if trying to black out the heavens. He stared in raw astonishment, and a single number came to Braun's mind. Forty. He was forty miles away.
His lips parted, and the words came in a hoarse whisper.
"Mein Gott!"
Chapter 32
Lydia looked out the window as the train pulled into the station at Albuquerque. The place looked like something straight out of a western movie. The building was a skeleton of heavy wood beams supporting some kind of earthen material. Most of the men on the platform wore cowboy hats, and there was actually a horse tied to a rail in the dirt street.
The women, at least, were a mix. The Indians, with uniformly long, silky black hair, were wrapped in colorful robes, while the white women generally dressed in a more contemporary manner. A few wore skirts and blouses, but most seemed to prefer pants, a few even sporting denim blue jeans of the kind Lydia had only seen men wear. Stepping off the train through a mist of steam, she realized that there was a time in her life when these local fashion trends might have tipped her into the first clothing store. Now, however, she had far greater concerns.
She scanned the platform but saw no sign of Thatcher. She had kept in touch with him by telephone during her journey and he'd promised to meet her. He'd been scouring hotels and hospitals in both Santa Fe and Albuquerque, looking for any trace of a man who had survived a plane crash a week ago. So far he'd come up with nothing, but Lydia had brought her secret weapon — a photograph of Alex Braun. She'd nearly forgotten about it, a group picture of Alex and four other students acting silly on the beach. Her father had taken the negative and had it enlarged, and Lydia hoped it would jog someone's memory.
A look at the station clock told her why Thatcher wasn't here — the train had arrived early. Lydia flagged down a porter, a wide-shouldered Indian boy, and arranged for her trunk to be taken off the train.
She walked into the terminal. The place was busy, but nothing on the order of the big stations back east. Hers was the only train, resting on the only rail. People milled about, but none seemed in a hurry, perhaps slowed by the heavy heat that hung on the breeze. Lydia decided she should go out front, collect her trunk, and wait for Thatcher. As she steered through the light crowd, a hallway took her left, then right, and finally deposited her at the front of the station near the ticket booths. There, the first person she saw was Alex Braun.
He was in a fog. It had taken much of the morning to get back to Albuquerque, paying the innkeeper's brother twenty dollars for a ride to the station. Braun remembered none of it. His mind was completely absorbed by the enormity of what he had seen. It was an image of fire, a wave of destruction rolling across the landscape. A sight he would never forget.
He carried one bag. A change of clothes, a jacket, a razor — and the files Karl Heinrich had left on the hill. There were fewer than a hundred pages, yet the bag seemed heavy in his hand, a wonderful weight. He found himself gripping so hard that his fingers were numb. Of course, this was only a sample of what Die Wespe possessed. How heavy would the fat little scientist's suitcase seem? Braun wondered. How much could the world's greatest secret weigh?
He stood in the ticket line, one man in front of him. Braun had only discovered his destination five minutes ago, the third coin and third telephone operator having provided the answer.
The man in front of him disappeared and Braun edged forward, forcing his attention to the girl behind the window. She was very attractive, and met his eyes directly. Then she smiled. He tried to remember if she had smiled for the last man. He usually noticed such things.
"Where to, sir?"
"San Francisco. I'd like a sleeping compartment."
"We have roomettes in first class — its not much extra."
"That will be fine."
"One way or round trip?"
"One way, please."
Her hands worked, but her eyes darted between the papers and her customer. "So… you won't be coming back?"
He smiled engagingly. She was young, flirtatious. For the first time since this morning Braun entertained a thought other than Trinity. But the notion was fleeting. Carnal lust was an impulse he could control, switched on and off like a light. His impatience, he knew, lay elsewhere. "I'm afraid not. Not anytime soon."