 
# Final Victory

### Published by Philip Bosshardt at Smashwords

### Copyright 2014 Philip Bosshardt

### Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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PROLOGUE

San Francisco, California

7:35 p.m.

The Present

Detective Captain Wade Brogan, Jr. squatted down next to the body and studied the face of the dead man, making mental notes. _Caucasian male, maybe early seventies. Several days' worth of beard_. _Small eyes. A few tufts of greasy almost reddish hair. Bull's neck, thick and ropy at the jawline. Scar under the left chin. Dirty misshapen teeth, with a few gold fillings._

"What've we got here, Captain?" Lieutenant Skip Thorne was new to Investigations. A puppy with an eager face. Brogan had taken Thorney under his wing for the time being.

Brogan scowled, stood up. "ME says he died of natural causes. No obvious signs of trauma I can see."

"OD? Crackhead, maybe?"

Brogan shook his head. "No needle marks on the arms. Nostrils are clear...no heroin. Tenderloin's thick with crack now. But, offhand, I'd say this poor sod just expired. Checked out for the duration."

Thorne was puzzled. "So how'd we get called in on a vagrant death? Couldn't Metro or Golden Gate handle this?"

Brogan didn't reply at first. He was a senior detective with Investigations Bureau, San Francisco Police Department, had been for ten years now, and he knew the Field guys sometimes got in a hurry. If they couldn't pin down a suspicious death on a readily evident cause right away, they often signed it off to Investigations. It made their caseload look better. The Bureau officially frowned on the practice, but what could you do?

"Probably..." Brogan scanned the dilapidated boarding room, letting his eyes massage every corner, every shadow, every item in view. The best evidence to break a case was always in plain sight, if you knew how to look for it.

Brogan and Thorne had been working the night watch out of Investigations, manning the Im/Forn desk at Personal Crimes Division, when the call came in. Im/Forn was department slang for immigrants and foreign nationals. The dispatch sheet was devoid of anything but the barest essentials:

Jefferson Hotel, 155 Eddy Street. Tenderloin district. White Caucasian male, dead in his room, found by the cleaning lady. Place stank to heaven, full of scraps of takeout food, boxes of noodles, shoeboxes of papers and maps strewn all over the place....

Shoeboxes of papers. It hit Brogan like a hammer. Where were these damned shoeboxes?

Cautiously, Brogan circled the room, carefully noting positions and angles. Everything was a clue. Small brown table, thick with coffee cup stains. A chest top drawer half open, gray T-shirts and underwear spilling out. A metal trunk next to it.

Brogan eased the lid of the trunk back with the toe of his shoe. Inside were boxes. Shoeboxes. The investigating officers had mentioned them. Brogan pulled out a few, untied the cord securing one, and emptied the contents onto the floor. Thorne watched, from somewhere behind, while Lieutenant Shriver showed up at the door.

Shriver was a five-year man, transferred over from Metro Division. He was a good detective, to Brogan's way of thinking, if a bit stiff. "Bag boys are here, Captain. ME wants to claim the body...get an autopsy started tonight."

Brogan nodded, now kneeling over the contents of the shoebox. "Hold up a sec, boys...let's just see what this crap's all about." He picked gingerly through the papers.

Some were in English. There were references to the Army. To the Manhattan Engineer District. Fading Army letterhead...official-looking letters. Drawings and sketches too. A few papers were in other languages. Brogan recognized one of them. It was Russian.

He dug into other boxes, while Thorne and Shriver readied the corpse for removal. More papers. More sketches. Some of them were stamped SECRET, the red stamp ink now faded into the brown of dried blood. Brogan spread out a few of the larger sheets...they were maps, pieces of maps. By the corner of the trunk, a shriveled carton of half-eaten meat and bean stew lay on its side. The carton had a cross emblem on the side... _our boy's been taking his meals at St. Vincent's lately_ , he realized. St. Vincent's was a Franciscan mission around the corner.

"What is all that stuff, Captain?" Thorne bent down beside the detective.

Brogan rifled quickly through several sheafs of fading pages, bound with twine. Sketches and details. His eyes caught odd words, snatches of official phraseology.

_Los Alamos...the Gadget... Trinity and Site Y. Alberta. Silverplate_. _Tinian._

One word in Russian stood out, scribbled along a few of the margins. Working for SFPD, you picked up stuff over the years. He knew a smattering of Spanish and Chinese, a few words of German, some gutter Russian, even a little Ukrainian. He could curse like a sailor in five languages.

Pobeda. The writer—was it the deceased slob behind them?—had scribbled it all over several pages. Pobeda... _POBEDA...pobeda...._

Brogan racked his brain. Victory...something like that.

He felt a nudge from Thorne. "Hey, Captain...what's got you so spooked? What the hell is that stuff?"

Brogan shook his head. "I don't know exactly."

"You look kinda pale...seen a ghost around here?" Thorne chuckled, got up as the Medical Examiner's staff swished into the walkup room to retrieve the dead derelict.

Brogan didn't answer. Something...was it the guy's face?—all beaten-down, like leather left out in the sun too long. The papers...some of them classified material. Maybe from the atom bomb project. The Manhattan Project. Brogan watched as the techs grunted and struggled, lifting the heavy body into a bag, finally zipping it up.

Something was bugging him. A connection not quite there. He squinted, jammed his hands into his coat pockets. Turned back to the papers he had spilled all over the floor.

Thorne and Shriver helped the techs work the vagrant's stiff body through the door. Brogan stared back at the trunk, filled with papers and old shoeboxes.

_Pop does the same damn thing_ , he muttered. They were about the same age. Mid to late seventies. Same generation. The Greatest Generation, Tom Brokaw had called them. Saved the world and all that. They saved everything, every little scrap. Hoarded papers and stuff like precious stones. Maybe they were precious, at that. He hadn't seen Pop for a couple of weeks now. Every time he crossed the Bay Bridge and drove over to Manor Vista, Pop had been worse. The docs tried to be sympathetic _. Alzheimer's is a progressive disease, you understand. Plaque builds up around the brain's neurons. More and more memory loss every month. Subtle at times, but progressive._ It made Brogan depressed.

Had the derelict—Brogan had mentally tagged him as Russian, even named him _Nikita_ , with his looks, the oiniony smell of the room, the feverish scribblings—expired the same way? What the hell was Nikita doing in a trashy, flea-bitten walkup room of the Jefferson Hotel with papers and drawings from nearly sixty years ago, stuff from the atom bomb project?

It gnawed at him for several more minutes, but only because Detective Captain Wade Brogan Jr. had lingered for awhile in Room 515, poking into every corner, scouring the place for clues as to what Nikita was all about, like any good detective. He had to admit it...his interest had been piqued. What he didn't admit—at least not right away, until it slammed him in the face—was the link that had been there lurking in Room 515 all along...the link between Nikita, a dead Russian derelict and his own Pop, stuffed in a bright and airy but depressing nursing home in Oakland, California.

He hadn't admitted what his eyes told him because he didn't really want to know. But he couldn't ignore it now. There was just one thing he had to know now. One piece of the puzzle.

What was Nikita's real name? ET's from Metro had already lifted the man's prints. No doubt they were already being run now. With any luck, he'd have an answer before the shift was over.

He wasn't sure he really wanted to know.

Pop had been muttering a lot of things lately. The visits were getting harder. He could see the Colonel deteriorating every time he came to Oakland. Lately, he wasn't real sure Pop knew him, knew who he was. Somehow, seeing this room, seeing the papers with the scribbled Russian, seeing Nikita's scarred and stubbly face, made him think of Pop. There was just something there...something Pop had been saying lately...like he knew the guy, like he should know more about the Russian than he did. Pop had talked about Russians a lot on the last visit. Russian agents...NKVD agents...counter-intelligence operations...most of the time it made no sense.

He knew Colonel Brogan had worked on the atom bomb project during the war. He knew he'd been a security officer. He knew his own Mother—Kate was her name—had been mixed up in the same stuff.

Captain Brogan had never been sure of what to believe. What could you believe of an aging parent with late-stage Alzheimer's? What Pop muttered to him was sometimes so fantastic as to defy belief.

_Your mother...Kate...she was a Soviet agent, see...she was a handler...working a half a dozen operatives...she was a packager...collecting and preparing stuff for delivery to the NKVD...it's all right there, son...all right there in black and white...I wrote it all out just last week...so you'd know the truth_ —

But the pages the Colonel handed to him were just doodles and illegible scribblings.

_There was this Russian agent, see. And Kate and me were dating, but she left with this agent, see...and they went north, by car, all the way up into Canada...into British Columbia. The Soviets had a base up there, in the deep woods_ —

For the last few years, in dribs and drabs, Wade Jr. had been able to pull together a few pieces of Pop's wartime past. And the great crime his own mother, Kate, had supposedly committed. It seemed almost too fantastic to be true and Wade Jr., had started a diary, taking notes and recording everything Pop said.

"This I gotta investigate further," he told himself. The story of his father's wartime exploits with the Manhattan Project and his mother's apparently heinous crime became an obsession with Wade Jr. He wanted to know the truth, had _to know the full truth,_ before Pop passed on. Before, his memory dissolved completely into nonsense scraps and bits no one could connect. His real mother, Kate, had already died in 1963. Now, more than ever, Captain Wade Brogan Jr. had to know the full story.

Pop was deteriorating fast now. He'd seen that the last time he visited Manor Vista. Getting the truth was a race against time now, with Colonel Brogan's stories becoming ever more fantastic as time went on. Wade Jr. found himself rushing to record everything, but not sure how much to believe. How much of the story was real? How much was Pop's feverish imagination, now in the death grip of Alzheimer's?

He knew what he needed most was real, tangible evidence.

And now, after getting the call from Metro to investigate the mysterious death of a vagrant Russian immigrant at the fleabag Jefferson Hotel, Captain Brogan knew with a chilling certainty that he couldn't explain that he had run head-on into just such evidence, headlong into the truth of his very own murky past.

For the first time, Captain Brogan realized that the story his Pop had been mumbling about at the Manor Vista nursing home in Oakland was probably true. Here, finally, was someone who may have actually participated in it.

"Captain, the body's in the ME's custody now." It was Skip Thorne, returned from the street. Thorne saw the pale frown on Brogan's face. "Hey, you okay? You don't look so hot. It is kind of ripe in here."

Brogan stood up, gathering loose papers back into a shoebox. "I'll live."

Thorne was scanning the room. "You look like you've just seen a ghost."

Brogan snorted. "Maybe I have, Lieutenant. Maybe I have. You got any evidence bags with you?"

Thorne radioed down to Shriver, with the ambulance below. The radio crackled with scratchy voices. "Captain wants a few more bags up here. We're taking some homework back to the station."

Brogan stared intently at the trunk. "The truth's in there, Lieutenant. Let's bag all of it."

Thorne just shrugged. "He was a vagrant, for Christ's sake. The ME'll establish cause of death. What do we need all that crap for? It'll just clutter up the evidence shelves in the basement."

Brogan was already carefully extracting the remaining shoeboxes and lining them up on the dingy bed. "'Cause I'm curious. I'm a detective. I'm nosy and I like to butt into people's business...that's why. You hungry?"

Resigned, Lieutenant Thorne came over and started helping. "I could go for some of that crumb cake and a coffee at Pano's, since you're offering."

Brogan snorted. "I was asking, not offering. But Pano's sounds good to me."

Thorne was curious. "So what's eating you, Captain? Something's bugging you about this fellow. You want to spill it so we'll all know?"

Brogan took the handful of evidence bags Lieutenant Shriver had just brought up and began sealing them over each shoebox. There were nearly a dozen, each one crammed to bursting with moldy papers, letters, maps, and scraps of pages.

"Let's get this stuff down to the station and I'll meet you two clowns at Pano's. Eleven o'clock?"

"Your treat?" Thorne asked hopefully.

Brogan scowled at the both of them. "You guys are like my girlfriend's kids...always wanting a handout. My treat."

"Yipppeee..." Thorne smiled. They slipped under the crime scene tape barrier and headed down to Eddy Street.

Pano's was a typical North Beach cop hangout in the shadow of Telegraph Hill, vaguely Italian with the best bakery this side of Market Street and thankfully devoid of all the grimy flop houses and massage parlors the Im/Forn squad seemed to spend most of its time around. Normal looking people, with normal dress—or what passed for normal in Frisco—inhabited the streets and cafes and during the day, Union Street was thick with snorting herds of bankers and stockbrokers and other financial types.

Plus the owner, Gino Cappelletti, served the best crumb cake and cappuccino this side of the San Andreas fault. As a result, half the Metro and Golden Gate Divisions could be found within five minutes drive of the place pretty much around the clock.

Brogan came in, and found Thorne with Shriver and Lieutenant Mike Floyd, a refugee from Narcotics/Vice, there as well. The detective squeezed into the booth.

"Word gets around when the old man's buying, huh, Mike?"

Floyd just winked. "Gino's whipping up a special deal for us even as we wait. Smells heavenly, don't it?"

Thorne sipped at a coffee, his face wreathed in steam. "So what's eating you, Captain? ME's preliminary on that Russian vagrant was a heart attack. It's not even a murder. Why all the sudden interest? Did you know the guy or something?"

Brogan waited until he had his own coffee, black with two sugars, and a dipping doughnut on the side. He tenderly sipped the scalding liquid.

"There's a possibility I might have heard of him before, yeah."

Thorne was immediately intrigued. "So talk, already. Don't keep us in suspense. You been hanging out in the Tenderloin after hours or something?"

Brogan shook his head. "Nothing quite so tawdry as that. Actually, it's kind of a long story."

"We're all ears," Mike Floyd said.

Brogan swirled a spoon through his coffee, watching a few crumbs dancing around the spoon.

"Well, this is going to take some time."

Then Captain Wade Brogan Jr. proceeded to relate to his colleagues the most extraordinary tale they had ever heard.
CHAPTER 1

Tuesday, May 8, 1945

Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory

10:00 p.m.

As parties went, the V-E day bash that night at Fuller Lodge was fairly subdued. Oppie had already spoken that afternoon, before a huge throng, right out there in front of T Building, several hundred of them at least. Jammed all along Trinity Drive, even onto the muddy shores of the Pond...a throbbing, buzzing crowd, alive with excitement. Hitler was dead, the Nazis defeated, Germany had surrendered.

Parties and gatherings had erupted all over the Hill that afternoon and evening. Knots of people gesturing and laughing, even singing, clotted the dusty avenues between the buildings. The Cryogenics Lab, down by the canyon rim, had even put on an impromptu dinner and dance, catered bucket-brigade fashion all the way up from the commissary.

So why the hell was Edvard Tolkach so morose, sitting in the corner of the lodge's great room below a rack of stuffed coyotes over the huge stone fireplace? Hans Bethe, head of T Division, had put out the word: there'll be another party at Fuller tonight... _we're all gathering there after nine...come as you are...we'll snack and drink and laugh...we'll show 'em T Division knows how to put on a real affair—_

It was that kind of night on the Hill at Los Alamos.

Fuller Lodge was a rambling wood frame building, an overgrown log cabin with a large veranda out front and twin chimneys on the sides. Night had come to the tech area but lights blazed up and down Trinity Drive and Central Avenue and Canyon Road. People still gathered in clusters of three and four, whispering and laughing into the wee hours of the morning.

Somehow, the dinner, dance and the piano playing seemed forced, even sad, to Edvard Tolkach. He sat out most of the late-evening festivities and the sing-alongs and hunkered down in a corner of the smoky, stifling, great room with several glasses of his favorite schnapps and a fresh pack of Lucky Strikes. While the others laughed and waltzed and joked across the parquet floor, Tolkach smoked and sipped his schnapps, indifferent to all the gaiety swirling around him. For the better part of three hours, he became little more than furniture, a brooding fixture rooted to the darkest corners of the hall.

Henry Graebel noticed him, several times. Two minutes to ten, he decided to do something about the dour Czech physicist who sat like a bespectacled Sphinx on a tattered bar stool.

"Edvard, you've not sang a single song with us. What's the matter with you tonight? It's a glorious day...victory in Europe, the Nazis defeated."

Tolkach sniffed at the dregs of his schnapps, wanting more.

"I'm bored."

"You're always bored at parties. Didn't you go to parties in Czechoslovakia? Why do you come, if you're bored?"

Tolkach shrugged, looked up. "Bethe said I should be here. You know how it is...comradely spirit, all that. He said Oppie might show up."

Graebel sipped at his own scotch and water. "Oppie's gone to bed. The man's exhausted. He looks like Death itself. He needs his rest." Graebel was an Englishman. He'd known Rutherford himself, had come across the 'pond' to work on the Gadget and contribute a little expertise in radiation studies. He was accustomed to the melancholy moods of the Central Europeans. _Maybe it's the dark forests_ , he liked to say. He made a show of counting all the empty schnapps glasses, clucking at Tolkach. "Five glasses...that's nearly a whole bottle, Edvard. You leave any schnapps for me?"

Tolkach snorted. "You don't like schnapps, Henry."

"Neither will you, in about two hours. You eat anything tonight? Got something on your stomach?"

Tolkach scowled and downed the last drops defiantly. He made an elaborate show of how precisely he could situate the glass with the others on the bar.

Graebel squeezed the physicist's shoulder. He knew Tolkach still had a heavy heart. Liesel was gone...what was it now? Less than two months. Tragic was the only word. Los Alamos didn't see many suicides.

"You've been plotting the end of the world again, haven't you?"

Tolkach shrugged him off, eyed a husky man in a buckskin jacket over at the bar. The man had been following every move he'd made all evening, not so discreetly. "I'm okay. It's a bit stuffy in here, that's all."

Graebel lit a cigarette, a Camel, and offered one to Tolkach. He took it and lit up, blowing smoke hard through his nostrils.

"Let's go outside, Edvard. It's cooler and the air's fresh with pine scent. Parties are winding down anyway. People still have to go to work tomorrow."

The two of them squeezed through some diehard jitterbugging couples and went out into the backyard of the lodge, finding a wooden porch railing overlooking a dusty fenced-in enclosure and beyond that more dust...Central Avenue and yet another throng of revelers. A faint Tommy Dorsey tune wafted on the cool night breeze, a car radio at the end of the drive. Inside, two shadows moved languidly, embraced in love.

Tolkach's face glowed in the red light of the cigarette tip. He faced Graebel and smoothed back the bushy side lobes of his hair. The man in the buckskin jacket had moved outside as well, lingering at the end of the veranda, engaged in conversation with a pretty secretary in a sweater.

"You know, Henry, it's like I said before: there's a lot of unfinished work to do. Oppie said the same thing this afternoon. The war's going to be over before the Gadget's finished."

Graebel had heard it in the hallways and the PX a thousand times before. _The Nazis were finished. The Japs were the enemy now._ "Men are still dying in the Pacific. The war's still on."

"The Japanese are crumbling fast. What happens if they surrender before we test...before Trinity?"

"Maybe we shouldn't concern ourselves with that, Edvard. I hear Truman's a reasonable man. He'll do the right thing. We should just concern ourselves with our own problems...hell, we've got bloody enough of those to deal with."

Tolkach started to say something but stopped. "Raymond" had been pushy lately. _WINDWARD_ too. Kate had been nervous about it _. They always want more, more information. Drawings. Details. When is the test? We need sketches, specifications. Fuses, detonators, circuit diagrams. More and more. Always more._

It made Tolkach nervous too. Giving birth was never easy...you couldn't rush it. The Gadget had its own timetable. It didn't help that they were watching him too. _Official suspicion_ was the term. It was like a low-grade headache, always there in the background, never quite going away. Only Bethe and Oppie had managed to keep him from being kicked off the Hill.

Trouble was...the war might be over before it was born.

Graebel sniffed. "The pressure's getting to us, all of us." The Englishman had come to the Hill by way of the Met Lab. He was one of Compton's boys. "We need to unwind like this, more often, don't you think."

Tolkach snapped. "I don't know what to think anymore. I—" He stopped abruptly when several couples joined them on the porch, seeking cooler air.

Graebel nodded to Helmut Witmer, head of T Division's instrument lab and his pretty Danish wife Ingrid. Witmer nursed a cocktail, his eyebrows arching inquisitively. "Did I interrupt something here? A serious technical discussion?"

Graebel grabbed Tolkach's elbow. "Dr. Witmer. Mrs. Witmer. A pleasure to see you tonight. We were just on our way out for a little stroll." He guided Tolkach off the porch and around the front of the lodge. They headed for Trinity Drive. To their right, white gateposts of the East Road security gate shone in bright floodlights. MP's lounged in Jeeps all about the entrance. Traffic had dwindled to a trickle around the East Gate as the evening wore on. The MP's paid them no attention.

Tolkach and Graebel turned right onto Trinity, heading up the street past the vast T building, home to the base administration, with its Physics and Chemistry Lab wings. Bathtub Row was still brightly lit up tonight, as sounds of more parties drifted on light breezes. At the 15th Street intersection, they made a left and strolled on in semi-darkness between rows of Quonset huts and aluminum shacks, past wooden signs labeled _Machine Shop, Metrology Lab,_ and _Physical Chemistry._ The heart of the tech area was normally awash in pedestrian traffic by day but the streets were emptying out as the gatherings moved indoors. Laughter sprinkled with shouts and a few car horns honked in the distance. It had been a crazy day, when the news of the surrender had come in, and the night promised more of the same.

The men paused as a pair of white-helmeted MP's sauntered by. They nodded, half-saluting, with the sort of smirk the physicists had come to expect. Soldiers thought Los Alamos was a freak show, full of funny-looking people with strange accents. Sometimes, Tolkach thought they were right. The MP's snickered and turned down an alley between two shacks.

As he turned back, Tolkach checked the end of the street. As expected, the tail was still there, strolling along in the company of two women, arm in arm. The man in the buckskin jacket. _Davy Crockett_ , Tolkach had taken to calling him. He'd seen the man before, a number of times. Security was funny that way. They seemed to rotate the duty, always coming back to the same faces in a few days. The Army was like that. It was strangely comforting.

Tolkach turned back, sucked harder on his cigarette. "Henry...tell me the truth. You think we should drop the bomb on the Japanese?"

Graebel shrugged, invisible in the darkness. "If you mean: did I see the petition that's going around, the answer is yes. Do I agree with it...I mean, with the theory we should demonstrate the bomb first before we use it on a target..." Graebel jammed his hands in his pockets. "I've not made up my mind on that one."

"It's the only moral thing to do."

"Maybe. But we've not tested the thing ourselves yet. What if it's a dud? Say we invite the Jap leaders to some small island in the Pacific and set off the bomb there and it fizzles. What then?"

"It won't fizzle," Tolkach was sure. "The test'll go off just fine. When are you heading down to the Site?"

Graebel flicked his cigarette butt into the dust and squashed it with the heel of his shoe. "Day after tomorrow. I'm with the Herzl and the rest of the fusing people. There's a bloody lot of wiring to run before the Gadget comes. How about you?"

Tolkach could feel Davy Crockett's eyes burning through the back of his head. He forced himself to focus straight ahead, and not turn about. "I've going back East, remember. Liesel's estate—"

"Ah, yes...you did tell me. Permission and all?"

Tolkach nodded. Getting off the Hill was just about as hard as getting on it. The estate lawyers were meeting in New York City. Groves himself had to approve the trip, with strict time and travel limits. Security was stifling as the days counted down to the Trinity shot. Tolkach was sure he'd have plenty of company.

"I'm signing some papers, that's all. Just a formality. I'll be back in two days, maybe three."

"What about the children? Kristen and—your young one--?"

"Jurgen's the youngster. They're still with the Shurers. Wilfrid and Betty love them...I'm grateful." Tolkach twisted slightly, caught a side glimpse of Davy Crockett, moving up closer. The secretaries were gone. Another man had joined him. "Very grateful—"

Graebel was impressed. "I'm surprised Groves approved it...at this point in the Project. What with security getting tighter every day."

"They can strangle us with security," Tolkach muttered. "In the long run, it won't matter. Knowledge of all this—the Gadget, the physics, the techniques—can't be kept hidden. We should be sharing it, with our allies, with the world."

Graebel snorted. "Idealistic poppycock, Edvard and you know it. Just watch what you say around here. Just the other day, a machinist was picked up for questioning. He'd been mouthing off too much in the bar, the one in the Big House. I heard the bartender works for the Army."

They strolled on down into the heart of the tech area, slipping between the boiler house and a small tin-roofed hut that served as a clinic, drawn inexorably toward still-raucous knots and clusters of late-night revelers. A car radio blared a Glenn Miller medley while in the pools of spotlights, a dance line of T-Division technicians and clerks had formed, a big pinwheel undulating across the dust. Laughter and shrieks punctuated the night. MP's cruised the perimeter, trying to keep a semblance of order.

Fifty yards behind the scientists, "Dog" Brogan paused on the edge of the gathering, clapping his hands in time to the music, while his target ambled on into the darkness. Tolkach and Graebel made another turn at the patrol road fence, and headed back toward Trinity, toward the trading post.

Running surveillance was tricky at times. He knew Tolkach was well aware of the tail—in fact, that was part of the plan. But you didn't want to crowd a target. Give him room to feel comfortable and he'd lead you to the nest every time...that was the general idea. Brogan smiled at the dancing, while his partner, Andy Perkins, slipped down a dark alley to keep an eye on their friends. Switching off didn't hurt, either. A target could get used to a tail, almost like they were dancing themselves, and work the tail to his own ends. _Sort of like the tail wagging the dog,_ was how Colonel Cates liked to put it.

Brogan waited a few moments, then hustled to keep up with _Quantum_. He saw Perkins hand wave him over from the shadows by a stack of lumber.

"Looks like they're heading back," Perkins offered.

"To the Lodge?"

"Maybe...there are so many people out tonight, it's hard to stay up with them."

"Better for us," Brogan reminded him. "I've just got a feeling, Cactus. Tonight's the night. Something's going to pop...I can just feel it."

"Could be my bladder," Perkins said. "After all those drinks—"

"Shhh---"

They eased out into the light and began sauntering north, toward Trinity Drive and the bungalows, to all intents and purposes a pair of scientists engaged in heated argument over some obscure point of theoretical physics.

Brogan knew full well there were at least one, maybe more, Soviet agents on the Hill. Since coming to Los Alamos, it was his job to be professionally suspicious of everyone. That was what Counter-Intelligence Corps agents did. But from late March, at the direction of Cates and his boss Colonel Parsons, Tolkach had gotten the lion's share of attention.

It was a ticklish operation. A machinist from T Division, name of Gray Givens, had already been arrested and expelled from the Hill. He'd been caught with papers in his quarters he didn't have clearance for. Tolkach was a different animal, though. He had arrived in February '43, one of the earliest émigré physicists to set up shop. He was tight with Oppenheimer and Hans Bethe. Impeccable credentials. Worked with Fermi in Chicago. Rutherford in England. World expert in shock wave physics.

He was proving a very hard nut to crack indeed, not the least because he had high-level protection from Oppie himself. _Critical to the project...critical to national security_ , were the words he remembered.

Edvard Tolkach had sufficient clearance to handle sensitive ordnance-related papers, materials and components, things like fuses and detonator designs but he was too canny to get caught with materials outside his clearance. Searches of his quarters routinely turned up nothing incriminating. Still, surveillance had on more than one occasion observed Tolkach (code named "Quantum") bargaining with the PX manager for odd items, such as unusual quantities of paper (for coded reports, maybe?) and an unusual number of keys and locking devices. Odd things for a physicist to be getting from the base PX.

Word had come down to the Detachment directly from Groves on 10 April: put _Quantum_ under 24-hour surveillance until further notice. Since CIC Los Alamos Detachment wasn't blessed with a huge pool of agents, the order put a strain on operations. Everyone had to pitch in, even Col. Cates. Brogan had even left his undercover position as a stock clerk at the PX and gone on watch full time. It was boring as hell but potentially rewarding as there was growing evidence that a major Soviet spy ring was working the Hill and Dr. Tolkach was involved.

In between surveillance shifts and making out reports and other routine duties, Brogan contrived to spend as much time as he could with Kate. But the pressure of activity on the Hill and tightened security made seeing her more than once every few weeks difficult. He was growing frustrated and anxious for something to break, _anything_. The strain was getting to everyone.

Tolkach waved off Graebel and headed back to his own dormitory, a low rambling structure not far from the Big House up on Nectar Street. Brogan and Perkins followed at a discreet distance, negotiating several more street gatherings, horns honking and radios blaring. Tolkach disappeared inside for nearly an hour, while the CIC agents marked time outside, then the Czech physicist re-appeared suddenly and flung several bags into a nearby Dodge. He fired up the engine and spun off down the street in a swirl of dust, turning left at Central.

Brogan watched from the shadows of a telephone pole. "Ten bucks says he's out the East Gate and on his way to Santa Fe. Better let _Coyote_ know he's rolling."

Perkins nodded. "MP's can follow him to the train station. _Coyote'll_ pick him up there. What time's the _Starliner_ leave?"

Brogan was already heading back to the Detachment command post, a rude hut behind T Building that everyone called the "log cabin." "Schedule says there's a train departing at midnight. All-nighter to Chicago. We think he'll make a change there before going on to New York."

"New York's the end of the trail?"

Brogan was hurrying now, almost in a trot across the dusty street, dodging some crazy Jeep driver, who had to swerve to avoid them. "New York's the Emerald City...the place is crawling with Russians. With Tolkach on the move, this game's in the fourth quarter. We nab _Quantum_ with his fingers in the cookie jar and we could win the whole ball game...smash up the Soviets and their whole network for good. But we can't let him out of sight for even a moment."

Perkins finally caught up with Brogan as both agents rushed toward the brightly lit 'log cabin.'

Edvard Tolkach cleared Security at the East Gate with a minimum of fuss. He had the right papers, the right signatures. He headed off onto the darkened road—rutty old Highway 502 to Pojoacque, then south on 84 to Santa Fe. He squinted at the cones of his headlights, trying to stay on the road through all the blind twists and turns. It was a cloudy, moonless, but mild night. He took several deep breaths, forced himself to slow down, to concentrate.

It was a critical trip, but not for the reasons one might suspect.

Finally, he'd get to meet the right people. No more of this working through underlings and intermediaries and 'handlers'. Finally, he'd meet face to face with _WINDWARD_ himself and set things straight between them. Explain once and for all why he had agreed to do all this. Why sharing information with Allies was so important. This constant pressure for more—more drawings, more sketches, more details and information—was insane. It was going to blow up on all of them and soon. People would get hurt. Some already had. No, _WINDWARD_ would understand, once it was explained to him.

He would have to understand.

He made Santa Fe and the train station in good order, just after 11:30 and parked his car on the curb at the Cerrilos Road entrance. Inside, hustling two small bags, he bought his tickets and waited nervously on Platform 3, chain-smoking Lucky Strikes, while the station crews made the _Starliner_ ready for boarding. At a quarter to twelve, the conductor whistled three toots and called _alllll...aaboooooard_. Tolkach queued up and climbed up into the car, settling into a seat in the back, a seat he had all to himself. That was good. He was jittery and half-nauseated—Graebel had been right about the schnapps on an empty stomach—and he didn't want to face anybody else tonight. Just snooze and think, think about what he would say to _WINDWARD_ when they finally met.

Five minutes after twelve, the Atchinson, Topeka and Santa Fe's pride and joy, the _Midwest Starliner_ , strained and rumbled and hissed and finally got underway, easing out of the station onto northbound tracks, heading north for the Dixon Gap, paralleling the Rio Grande itself. In a few hours time, they'd be in Colorado, turning northeast across the great plains for Chicago and a speed run into the Windy City.

Tolkach dozed lightly. He was unaware that he had company. _Coyote_ sat just two seats ahead, facing aft, fully awake beneath his black fedora, chin buried in a light wool jacket, keenly attuned to every snort and sniffle the Czech physicist made that night. There was no way in hell that CIC was going to let this big a fish give them the slip now.

Chicago came and went and Tolkach changed trains in a dim foggy blur of half-sleep, boarding the _Gotham Express_ a little before eleven the next morning. He tried to check around for obvious surveillance and didn't see any. The train pulled out for Manhattan a little after one. _Coyote_ was still there, half a car away on the opposite side of the aisle this time. Major Matthew Delaney had made the train only moments after Tolkach, flashing his CIC badge for the conductor and squeezing past a couple engrossed in a long sloppy goodbye at the steps. He eased into his seat, hiked up a tattered copy of the _Tribune_ , lowered his fedora and waited.

_Quantum_ gave no evidence he noticed anything at all. He was fast asleep in minutes and _Gotham Express_ was rolling across the north Indiana farm country inside of an hour, speeding east through a humid, cloudy early spring day toward Manhattan.

Grand Central Station was chaos, as usual. Remnants of the V-E day celebrations littered the concourse, piled into piles by the sanitation crews. Streamers and banners and hand-lettered signs and pieces of paper American flags and confetti and cups and all manner of debris covered the tile plaza. It was as if a great balloon had burst overhead, raining down paper in sheets and torrents onto the platforms. Victory disease had struck New York hard and fastened its grip on the city, as thousands of commuters and pedestrians surged back and forth along the sidewalks and streets, great rivers of smiling, kissing, shouting humanity. Manhattan was one vast college fraternity bubbling over with excitement and abandon. It looked like it might go on for days.

Tolkach dropped his bags on the side of the platform and fished in his coat pocket for a single scrap of paper. He found it and opened it: _108 East 34_ th _Street, across from Vanderbilt Hotel and Fourth._ The address was the agreed-upon meeting place. A week before he'd left Los Alamos, he'd worked out with his handler in Santa Fe where to meet _WINDWARD_. It was a place called Schinemann's Deli.

Tolkach hoisted up his bags and located a taxi stand up at street level. Twenty minutes later, he was pushing his way into the deli.

_Back booth...last one on the right...he'll be wearing a gray parka with a Yankees ball cap..._ he remembered Kate's instructions almost to the letter. He had memorized them; she was firm about not writing anything down. _Too dangerous_ , she said. _Could fall into the wrong hands._

He hadn't seen any obvious tail on the taxi ride, but that meant little. The Army was clever. For all he knew, they could well have planted agents inside Schinemann's, though how they would have known, he couldn't say.

And there he was...short, rather stout, dark-rimmed glasses buried in the sports section of the _Times_. Coffee and a cigarette, plate of half-eaten tuna fish sandwich.

Tolkach went over, dropped his bags. Their eyes met. Kate had made him memorize the introduction.

"Yankees don't have any pitching this year. They'll never get the pennant without pitching."

The stout man removed his Yankees ball cap and wearily rubbed a nearly bald head. His eyes said _sit down._ Tolkach sat down.

A gloomy dour face with button black eyes regarded him coldly. Tolkach wet his lips, felt the urge to say something, anything. Had he made a terrible mistake? He swallowed hard, then found a few words and forced them out.

"You're just as Kate described you. Finally, I meet _WINDWARD_." He extended a hand across the table. The gloomy man did nothing.

"You take great risks coming here like this. You know you've been followed?"

Tolkach retracted his hand, looked at it as if it were contaminated. He pulled his smaller bag up into his lap and unzipped it, removing a folder. "I know that. I have information for you. And we need to speak."

The bald man sipped thoughtfully at the dregs of his coffee. His eyes narrowed, darting about the deli and kitchen. "I'm not _WINDWARD_. And don't use names like that in public."

Tolkach jerked as if stung. "But—"

"For now...call me _BISHOP_. That's all you need to know. Why have you come? You've violated every procedure coming here, especially with sensitive information."

Tolkach's mouth worked but words nearly escaped him. "But ACORN, er...Kate—she said she would arrange it...I mean—I am supposed to meet WIND—" he stopped, mindful of the warning. "You know—"

"He doesn't meet— _colleagues_ —in public. You have to work through the right channels. Much safer that way. More secure. The Army's suspicious...you know that."

"Yes, yes...I'm well aware of their suspicions. They've searched my place half a dozen times, followed me night and day. I've brought information...about the test. About Trinity. And other things. But I must see _WINDWARD_...immediately."

_BISHOP_ scowled. "Why?"

Tolkach let the waitress take his order. He got a coffee and sandwich, realizing he was starving. When she had moved off, he passed an envelope across the table. _BISHOP_ glared at it, without moving. "Give that to _WINDWARD_. It's a schematic of the detonator layout...the explosive lens and their geometry. For the bomb. It proves I'm serious. Kate said he wanted it."

_BISHOP's_ lips tightened and he shook his head, a quick almost furtive nod. "This is not the time or the place. Put it away. I'll tell you what to do with it later. Not here. Just tell me: why must you see _WINDWARD_?"

Tolkach swallowed hard. He had thought about this very question, for days, weeks. "Look, I'm not a traitor. I'm not a spy. America is a wonderful country. Like a big bear...clumsy but strong. Misguided at times. This—" he waved the envelope, before stuffing it back in his bag—"this kind of knowledge is powerful. We ought be sharing it with our Allies. Science doesn't work in a closet. Scientists need to talk, argue, swap theories, criticize each other. All this security makes that impossible. And now, with the Nazis gone, Germany defeated, it makes even less sense. I want to tell _WINDWARD_ that, tell him—"he groped for the right words—"to stop pushing so hard. We're under a lot of pressure out there. The big test is coming up. It's just a few months away, maybe a few weeks. It depends on things. And I want to set things straight."

"Straight? How do you mean?"

"Straight between him and me. Why I agreed to give him this kind of information in the first place. I'm no Communist. I just wanted to do everything I could to make sure Germany was defeated."

_BISHOP_ was thoughtful. "You agreed to help us. You said you would help out. The best way to help is to give them the information they want."

"Yes, but they keep pushing for more and more. It's getting harder, with all the long hours, the tests, the calculations. Security's tighter than ever. I just want _WINDWARD_ to back off, leave me alone for awhile. Look, the whole reason I agreed to come to Los Alamos was to work on the project. We all thought the Germans were ahead. They had Hahn, they had Heisenberg, they had heavy water from Norway. We couldn't be sure. Now Germany's defeated. There's no need for this kind of pressure anymore."

"What about the Japanese?"

Tolkach scoffed. "The Japanese are on their last legs. Read the papers...it's right there in black and white...anybody could see it. But the Project goes on...they want to do the test and drop the bomb, on _somebody_ , before the war's over. It's the only way all the expense and the secrecy can be justified. Japan could capitulate at any time. There's serious talk around the Hill that we should offer to demonstrate it to them, before using it." Tolkach shrugged, let the waitress set down his ham and Swiss. "I think it's a good idea."

_BISHOP_ was considering several angles, none of which concerned Tolkach. "I'll talk to _WINDWARD_ tonight. You mentioned the test. When is it? When will the thing be ready for use?"

Tolkach devoured the sandwich. Between bites, lettuce dribbling out of the corner of his mouth, he said, "Sometime in July, probably. The date hasn't been set. There are other tests and experiments first. More calculations have to be done, then they have to be checked by others. It all takes time. I don't see us with anything useful as a bomb until the fall...unless everything goes perfectly. Japan will be defeated by then."

_BISHOP_ was already thinking ahead. Tolkach didn't know it but Harry Wellmann—nee _BISHOP_ —was working both sides of the street, and it was lucrative as hell so long as eggheads like the Czech physicist didn't muck it up for everybody. Even _WINDWARD_ and the Russians didn't know the full story. The whole business was like a carnival house of mirrors, with everything reflecting everything, and Wellmann was the only one who knew the way out. Every scrap of intelligence he had procured for _WINDWARD_ over the last two years, had also been provided to a contact at the Japanese Embassy in Switzerland. The fees were quite handsome. Wellmann had just put a down payment on a house up in Chappaqua, north of the city, and he had plenty left to bankroll the furnishings.

He glared back at Tolkach, sitting there with mayonnaise on his chin, sweating like an overgrown child about to be spanked. The poor clod had brains and credentials and morals and ethical principles about world peace and he might as well have been theorizing about it to the orangutans at the Bronx Zoo, for all he cared. Tolkach and his type were slugs to be stepped on, grease for the wheels, cows to be milked. They didn't know a whit about the way the world really worked.

Wellmann—he assumed the persona of _BISHOP_ on special occasions like this—had been paid handsomely by the Japanese for years. He worked for the Soviets on principle. He studied Tolkach for a moment.

"When I give the word, go into the men's room with your envelope. Anything else you have for _WINDWARD_ too. Wait in the first stall—close the door—for five minutes. I'll come in and occupy the second stall."

"You'll tell _WINDWARD_ I want to talk, to see him?"

"Sure, sure...tonight. Maybe tomorrow morning." Wellmann looked about, systematically eliminating each and every patron at Schinemann's as a tail. Finally, he made a show of slurping up the rest of his coffee. His mouth was hidden by the cup, but his words were unmistakable. "Okay, Tolkach...now. Go on...now."

The scientist paused for a moment, until _BISHOP_ 's eyes screamed at him over the rim of the cup. Startled, he got up and went to the restroom. As instructed, he entered the first stall and locked the door behind him. He waited, tapping his feet nervously, for what seemed like an hour. Several men came, did their business and went.

Presently, he heard _BISHOP_ rustling into the second stall beside him.

His voice was thick and low. "Tolkach...is that you? Are you there?"

"I'm here. What took you so long?"

"Never mind that...pass me the envelope. Quickly...I don't have all day."

Tolkach did as he was told.

And the exchange was done in seconds. "What do you want me to do now?"

_BISHOP_ was already exiting the stall. His voice was firm, a low hiss. "Leave the diner. Go south on Madison. There's a hotel called Prince George. Somewhere around Twenty-Eighth. Go into the lobby. Be at the bar at 8:00 tonight. I'll have instructions for you then."

"You'll be there."

"Me or someone else. Now...wait in here for five more minutes. Then leave the deli. I've already paid the bill."

And he was gone...with no further word.

Tolkach sat on the toilet for a few more minutes, his head swimming. He was sleepy, confused. _WINDWARD_ was the key. He had to meet _WINDWARD_ , explain things. There was no need for all this secrecy and invisible ink letters and code names, not anymore. The enemy was defeated. The Nazis were dust. If _WINDWARD_ would just back off and stop pushing, the American Army would relax its suffocating security procedures and then everyone could behave like civilized people. Scientists could meet in conferences, exchange data, chat and theorize. It would be like Prague back in the Thirties, like Tubingen, before the Nazis.

Tolkach had a pounding headache when he left the diner. It was late afternoon, close on to five p.m., and the streets were still thick with shouts and impromptu gatherings. Taxis roared west on 34th Street, streaming American flags, serviceman clinging to the bumpers and running boards like leeches. Across the street, a small crowd was cheering as two GI's shinnied up adjacent lampposts in some sort of vertical race to the top. Tolkach walked west, then south on Madison in a fog, buffeted left and right by rivers of people streaming in all directions at once.

He had walked five blocks before he even remembered to check for surveillance. He paused at a newsstand, bought a copy of the _Times_ , and looked around. It was hopeless, he quickly realized. There were just too many people. A whole Army could have been after him and he'd never know it in this chaotic stew. Dejected, he plodded on toward the hotel _BISHOP_ had mentioned.

Harry Wellmann, for his part, was by now on the other side of Manhattan, riding in a taxi up to the train station at West End Avenue, by Columbia University. He'd buy his steamship tickets there, then take the train on up to Chappaqua, and pack tonight in the splendor of his new Tudor-style brick two-story, just a stone's throw from the emerald beauty of the Hudson River valley. With any luck, he'd be aboard ship tomorrow and pulling out of New York harbor by late afternoon. The Mendoza Line had always been his preferred means of passage across the Atlantic. With the convoys gone and the war in Europe now over, he ought to be able to make Lisbon in five or six days. After that, a quick train trip through Spain and France and he'd been in Berne in no time.

Count Okushiri Sasebo would pay handsomely indeed for the information Tolkach had brought him.

Watching the street dancing and the general madness of the post-V-E day celebrations through the dingy cab window, Wellmann knew that the Big Day had to be coming up soon. A test of the new bomb seemed to be only weeks away, at most. Tolkach had mentioned there were even plans for multiple bombs to be produced and shipped to the Pacific, if the test was successful.

This kind of information would be extremely useful to the Japanese, he had no doubt of that. Count Sasebo would be pleased. But there was much work to do. Once he got to Chappaqua, he'd have to write down everything Tolkach had said, write it with the special lemon-extract ink _WINDWARD_ had furnished him last fall. And he'd have to carefully cut and fold the schematics Tolkach had given him too, so they'd fit properly in the hidden slots of his suitcase.

Of course, he'd furnish the same information to the Russians as well, slightly altered and take his fee from them too. That was the beauty of the arrangement. The Japanese and the Russians both paid well for critical information about what the Americans were up to. All you had to do was slightly re-format the stuff and then pass it along as fresh intelligence. The only risk was if the Russians and the Japanese got together and started comparing notes. He figured that was about as likely as seeing dinosaurs marching down Broadway.

The fisherman's job was easy if you had the right bait and enough lines in the water.
CHAPTER 2

Tuesday, May 15, 1945

Vladivostok, U.S.S.R.

2:30 p.m.

Vice Admiral Hiro Ushenda glowered at the assembled team of Russian diplomats across the table. He had no use for the Russians and no use for this hare-brained scheme of a trip to Vladivostok. The idea of using the Russians as intermediaries to broker better peace terms with the Americans and British was ludicrous.

But the peace faction had the Emperor's ear and Ushenda, as a representative of the Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff, had been ordered along. The Sacred Voice of the Crane was not to be denied, even if His Majesty suffered with the advice of cowards and traitors.

Molotov was speaking, droning on, and Ushenda listened desultorily to the translation. The People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs looked like a schoolteacher, his tuft of gray moustache twitching and pince-nez glasses sliding down his nose. Sitting next to Molotov was the deputy commissar, Solomon Lozovsky, who had handled the bulk of the negotiations. The Russians had already spent three hours finding evermore obscure and pedantic ways of saying no.

The Japanese delegation listened politely, without emotion. Naotake Sato, the Japanese Ambassador to Moscow, was head of the delegation. Koki Hirota, the Home Foreign Minister, had also come along. Commander Yoshiro Fujimura, idly fiddling with a pencil whose point he had already gnawed down to a stump, sat next to Ushenda. Fujimura had come from Switzerland, had spent fruitless hours in secret meetings with Allen Dulles and others from the American O.S.S., trying to find honorable ways to end the slaughter in the Pacific.

Fujimura had brought the Japanese Ambassador to Switzerland, Shunichi Kase, with him from Berne. Captain Kaoru Takeuchi of the Imperial Navy General Staff rounded out the delegation.

The meeting had been an exercise in frustration.

"The Soviet Government," Molotov was explaining, "seeks to have correct relations with all parties to his conflict." His finger waggled in the air, and Ushenda found himself fascinated with the stubby digit, watching it trace imaginary diagrams, punctuating each phrase as the People's Commissar made his points. "I remind the assembled delegates from the Empire of Japan that the Government of the U.S.S.R. finds that the views stated in your proposal dated 11 May are quite general in form and contain no concrete proposals. The proposed mission of the Imperial special envoy, Prince Konoye, is also not clear to my Government.

"The Government of the U.S.S.R. accordingly, is unable to give any definite answer either as to the message of the Emperor of Japan or to the proposals herewith tendered." Molotov read the prepared response word for word, then put the sheet down and glowered back at the Japanese. "Of course, I always avail myself of any opportunity to express to you and to your Emperor my highest regards and esteem."

As one, the Japanese smiled and bowed slightly, as the translation came through. Speaking as the senior representative, Ambassador Sato then extracted his own prepared statement and read its contents back to the Soviets. Ushenda half-dozed, wishing he were anywhere but here.

"Our country is standing at the crossroads of destiny," Sato intoned, waiting momentarily for the translation to be made. "If we were to continue the war under the present circumstances, the citizens would willingly die with the satisfaction of having truly served their country loyally and patriotically but the country itself would be on the verge of ruin. Although it is possible to remain loyal to the great and just aims of the Greater East Asia War to the very end, it is meaningless to insist on them to the extent of destroying the state. We should protect the survival of our country even by enduring every kind of sacrifice."

Ushenda knew the whole exercise was pointless. It was the mush-headed peace faction that had insisted on sounding the Russians out. Sato himself had requested the meeting, under some pressure from the Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo—an informal get-together, as he had termed it—to find out where the Russians really stood. Would they help or not? Would they declare war on Japan or not?

The purpose of the meeting was to see where the Soviets' true intentions lay. Ushenda had to admit there was strategic value in that knowledge. The Kwantung Army on the Manchurian border with the Soviet Union was a shell, no longer a capable fighting force. Had they not seen with their own eyes on the ride from the port to the Ministry offices on Partizansky Street, the troop trains and tanks staged for embarkation, thousands of men and hundreds of armored vehicles, moving forward to be ready for action against the Japanese in Manchuria and Mongolia?

Japan's position was weak. She needed to prevent the Russians from entering the war. Prime Minister Suzuki and Togo and the rest of the peace faction wanted the Russians to negotiate as middlemen, to broker a negotiated peace with the Americans, on better terms than "unconditional surrender. " Japan wanted the Americans to let them keep the Emperor as head of state. She wanted to keep Okinawa as a province and to have guaranteed access to oil and minerals in Southeast Asia and the Dutch East Indies. The Russians wanted Sakhalin Island and part of Hokkaido.

It was a futile trip and Ushenda found his mind wandering to details of home island defenses he had seen before leaving Etajima. _That_ was where he needed to be now...developing plans for the final, glorious Decisive Battle, where the enemy would be slaughtered on the beaches and in the streets of the cities. Not here, in some dreary conference with rambling diplomats—

"—we cannot accept unconditional surrender in any situation," Sato was saying. "Although it is apparent that there will be more casualties if the war is prolonged, we will stand united as one nation against the enemy, if the enemy forcibly demands our unconditional surrender. It is, however, our intention with Soviet assistance, to achieve a peace not of the unconditional nature, in order to avoid such a situation which is not in accordance with His Majesty's desire. Due to rather complicated internal relations—" here, Ambassador Sato cast a sideways glance at Ushenda and Takeuchi, the military representatives—"it is impossible for Japan to directly ask the Soviet Union for assistance in obtaining a proper peace. However, His Majesty wishes to assure the representatives of the Soviet Government that it is his most earnest desire to participate in a conference in which the Soviet Government will act as an honest mediator with the United States and Great Britain."

And so it went, for several more hours.

The meeting ended at 5:00, with the Russians and the Japanese exchanging formal pleasantries, agreeing to meet again. Nothing had been accomplished. Nothing had been agreed to. The Japanese delegation left the Ministry offices and boarded their cars. The convoy was escorted back to the airfield, where the Nakajima Type 97 transport awaited them, its engines belching smoke and props turning.

The delegation climbed on board and seated themselves for the flight. It was to be a low-altitude flight, hugging the earth, following a twisting evasive course, first over the Taebeck Mountains of Korea, then a wave-top speed run into Kasumigaura airfield, some twenty miles northeast of Tokyo. It was the only way the transport could avoid being shot down, by the hordes of American P-51s that swarmed across the home islands unopposed day and night.

The Nakajima lumbered down the runway and lurched into the air, disappearing into a low cloud bank, as the pilot banked left and took them out across the dark oily brown waters of the Zolotoy Rog. The Golden Horn was Vladivostok's excuse for a bay and Ushenda spent several minutes blowing his nose to get the stench out of his nostrils.

"A complete waste of time," Captain Takeuchi offered, from the seat adjacent to Ushenda's. Ushenda blew his nose again and nodded.

"We should be spending our days building defenses for the Final Battle," Ushenda agreed. "The Russians will never agree to help us. That should be obvious by now. And why should they? They're allied with the Americans and the British."

Koki Hirota overheard them. "The Emperor wishes to explore every avenue to bring the war to a conclusion—without needless slaughter."

Ushenda was annoyed. "Needless slaughter—talk to the Americans about that. They're the ones who are firebombing our cities."

Takeuchi was glum. "Nagoya was hit again last night. Thousands were killed. The fires are out of control...they can't be stopped, I heard from _Domei_."

Sato's eyes were closed, as if the Ambassador were sleeping. "The Russians are our best hope—"

"Nonsense," Ushenda interrupted. "There are too many people in the government with no sense of _Yamato_...no fighting spirit. I see it everywhere. Defeatists are poisoning the air, infecting everything. What can the Americans do against the combined efforts of the One Hundred Million?"

"Probably more of the same," Sato said wearily. "Every night, another city in flames. The harvest is in ruins. Our people are starving. There's no oil to cook, no power to run the factories."

"The fighting must stop—"Hirota agreed. "The Emperor has said so—"

"With all respects," Ushenda said, "the Emperor receives poor advice. I'm telling you the truth...the Decisive Battle is yet to come." He lowered his voice. "Just within the last few days, my section's gotten some interesting intelligence...one of our sources in Portugal...about the Americans."

"What sources?" Ambassador Sato asked. He had lit up a _Kinshi_ cigarette and was puffing away furiously, nervously clinging to the seat back as the Nakajima maneuvered south along the Korean coastline in bumpy weather. "I know of no sources in Portugal."

Ushenda scowled back. "The Foreign Ministry is not the only department with intelligence operations. Third Bureau gets snippets from time to time. We stay in contact with Count Sasebo."

Sato scoffed, his bullet head enveloped in cigarette smoke. "Okashiri Sasebo?" He laughed, coughing. "He was posted to Portugal to get him out of the Foreign Minister's hair. A congenital liar."

"Even with intelligence from an American spy?"

"What spy?"

"His name is Harry Wellmann. New York." Ushenda stared out the aircraft window, at the boiling clouds. Another storm front was moving offshore into the Sea of Japan, and they were headed right into it. "The last dispatch was most intriguing. Apparently, the Americans have a new and terrible weapon. Even now they're making preparations at a base in the Marshall Islands—a place they just captured, it's called Tinian—to receive and prepare to use this weapon against us."

"What kind of weapon? What can they do they haven't already done to our cities?"

"It's called _genshi bakudan_...what the Americans call an _atomic_ bomb. Our own scientists have investigated similar devices. It seems the Americans already have one. The Count indicates there are plans to use it against us...soon, perhaps even against Tokyo itself."

"There's nothing left for them to bomb," said Koki Hirota. "We have no defenses as it is."

"That's not true," Ushenda snapped. "I've taken the liberty of planning details of a special attack mission against the Tinian base. We'll use our Special Naval Landing Force troops to either seize one of the new bombs or, if we cannot, then destroy them all and prevent their use against Japan."

Sato was appalled. "This is outrageous, Admiral. To undertake such a mission against the enemy now, at a time when delicate moves are being made, peace negotiations are underway...it violates His Majesty's own wishes. His own pronouncements."

Ushenda was adamant. "Ambassador, unless I am mistaken, we are still at war with England and America. We must defend ourselves...every officer in the Imperial Navy and Army has taken the oath...it's our sacred duty to the Emperor."

"Stop this at once," Sato said. "No special attack mission to this base. It'll only make things worse. The government is trying to negotiate with the Americans for better terms. You'll only make them more determined to finish us."

Ushenda's nostrils flared in anger. "The government is full of traitors, Ambassador. The Emperor is surrounded by them, whispering in his ear, betraying the nation and our ancestors. Japan must do whatever she can to protect herself. Can't you see that? We've not yet met the enemy in a decisive battle."

"This 'decisive battle' you keep talking of," Sato spat out, "may well bring utter destruction to the homeland."

"We can do no less," Ushenda was firm. "I'm a warrior. The plans are done, anyway. The details are determined. The mission needs only Cabinet approval now. And the Emperor's blessing."

Sato and Ushenda glared at each other for a few more minutes, until the plane's maneuvering made it impossible to do anything but return to their seats and strap in.

It was going to be a bumpy, teeth-jarring ride across the sea and into Kasumigaura.

Tuesday, May 15, 1945

Wendover Army Airfield, Utah

8:40 a.m.

Colonel Paul Tibbets moistened his cracked and dry lips as the pilot banked _Straight Flush_ hard to port for the final run-in to the target drop zone. The huge B-29 dipped her left wings and bit deeper into the air as the sound of her huge Wright Cyclone radials roared through the cockpit's birdcage. Ahead through the windscreen, the ocher and mauve colors of the northern Utah desert shone hard and bright in the morning sunshine.

"One minute to drop zone," Bombardier Lieutenant George Eckerd called up from the 'pit', the bombardier's station at the feet of the flight crew.

"You have the aircraft," announced Major Louis Finneran. Finneran was the pilot. He raised his hands away from the controls, as Eckerd took control of the aircraft, tweaking knobs on the side of the Norden bombsight.

Behind Finneran, temporarily filling the flight engineer's seat was the 509th commander, Colonel Paul Tibbets. Despite their altitude of 30,000 feet, Tibbets felt a cold trickle of sweat on the back of his neck.

_It's got to work this time. It_ has _to work. We can't keep missing the target by so much—_

_Straight Flush_ finished her left-hand bank and straightened out. Ahead, the Utah desert was sharp and crystal clear. Huge black circles had been laid out on the sand floor of the Great Salt Desert...concentric rings denoting the corridors of the bombing range. Eckerd was gently steering the aircraft right down the middle of the parallel rows of circles.

"...right down the pike..." the bombardier muttered over the intercom. "...correcting left two degrees...picking up some crosswind....twenty seconds to drop—"

Tibbets, and ahead of him Finneran and his co-pilot Captain Ray Billings, wet their lips, silently praying that _this_ time, _Straight Flush_ would make a good run. It was already their fourth time "in the barrel" and the accuracy scores hadn't been getting any better.

"...ten seconds...arming sequence complete...get ready for tone—"

Behind Eckerd's shoulder, Finneran found himself rubbing his gloved hands on the sides of his seat.

Suddenly, _Straight Flush_ shuddered from nose to tail and lurched upward. Finneran expected the maneuver and grabbed the control wheel, beginning the sharp 155-degree bank to starboard.

"Bomb away!" Eckerd called out. A clear tone that had been sounding through everyone's headsets abruptly shut off, indicating the bomb had left the bomb bay.

And below the birdcage, the cockpit crew saw the 10,000-pound test device plummeting away toward the desert range, its rear casing fins wobbling slightly as the bomb picked up speed.

"Executing escape maneuver!" Finneran called out. He banked _Straight Flush_ hard right, and bumped up the throttle settings on the Wright engines. The huge B-29 made a high-speed diving turn away from the target zone, shuddering in crosswinds as Finneran rode the rudder hard and the aircraft bit into the airstream like a bucking stallion. A minute passed, then another, with scarcely a word as _Straight Flush_ clawed her way around and leveled out on a compass heading 180 degrees from her bomb run. Only after the aircraft had been trimmed and her throttles eased back, did Finneran bother to take a breath. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a sickly smile on the face of his co-pilot.

Ray Billings' eyes rolled upward in a _that was a doozey_ kind of arc. Both officers were well aware of the radio chatter now beginning to fill the crew circuit. Tibbets was right behind Billings, listening intently to reports from the ground spotters.

The test device was a weight and shape double for the first atomic bomb, minus all explosive detonators and the active 'physics package', as the scientists liked to call the fissionable core of the bomb. In all other respects, thought, the test bomb duplicated the dimensions and weight of the Gadget that the 509th had been training for weeks to carry and drop, and to drop precisely on target. Precision from this high an altitude was critical if the bomb, which scuttlebutt had was nicknamed Little Boy, was to be effective, yet such precision was damnably difficult to achieve.

Tibbets bit his lips and swore under his breath when word came in from the ground spotters.

" _Test Oh-Three impacted approximately one point four miles off center, Colonel...we'll have exact miss distance in a few minutes—"_

Tibbets slammed his fist into a side panel of the flight engineer's station.

"God _damn_ it, Major! Goddamn it to hell and back...what in hell is going on here?"

Finneran flexed his fingers anxiously on his control wheel. "I—well, sir, I'm not sure...maybe it was the crosswind—"

"That's bullshit and you know it!" Tibbets released himself from the flight engineer's station and crawled forward on his knees, to where he was between Finneran and Billing, leaning over the bombardier's shoulder as Lieutenant Eckerd set-up the Norden and his other instruments for what he knew was going to be a fifth attempt that morning. "Eckerd...for the love of Mike...what are you _doing_ down there...that one missed by nearly a mile and a half. You're getting worse."

Eckerd threw up his hands in exasperation. "I don't know, Colonel. I really don't know." He tapped the Norden. "It's this contraption...I had the target in the sight...I had the aircraft and she was steady...I was just nudging the knobs here—" he tapped the control knobs that enabled him to operate _Straight Flush's_ flight controls.

Tibbets was furious, then frustrated. "Get out of there...let me look at this pile of junk—"

"Gladly, sir." Eckerd unhooked himself from oxygen and radio and squeezed up and aft of the Colonel, who took his place. Eckerd's face was pale, and he shook his head ruefully, with a slight shrug, at Finneran. The bombardier took a seat on the hatch top behind the pilot's red brake levers, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief despite the chill air in the cockpit.

Tibbets eased himself down into the bombardier's station, and for the fourth time, did an inspection of every knob, button and dial at the station, scrutinizing the Norden unit with a skeptical scowl on his face. _Cantankerous, worthless pile of scrap_ , he thought, but he didn't say that aloud.

"This crew will never make a front-line bomber crew in my outfit, Major Finneran," came Tibbets' muffled voice. The Colonel had twisted himself to follow an electrical wire to the underside of the Norden. "Not until you can hit your targets. How many crews we got up here, Major?"

Finneran blinked. "Sir?"

"How many crews we got on the range this morning?"

Silently, Finneran ticked them off on his fingers: there was _Bockscar, Big Stink, Laggin' Dragon, Top Secret, Great Artiste._ Six crews in all, with _Straight Flush_. Practically the whole second division of the 509th.

"Six in all, sir."

"And how many runs have these crews made over the range?"

Finneran counted quickly. "Uh, well, sir, if my math is right, three each. That's eighteen. Plus this is our fourth. Nineteen in all."

Tibbets' head suddenly jerked out from under the Norden. He sat upright in Eckerd's seat, which was still warm. "And not a single one of you has come within half a mile of the drop zone target. Nineteen separate runs. You'd think, law of averages, that at least one of you would have put their bomb inside half a mile, just by sheer coincidence, wouldn't you, Major? How do you explain such a piss-poor performance?"

Finneran was flustered. "I...well, sir...I can't...exactly, sir." He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, which by now was becoming unbearably hard as brick on his ass. "We did follow the mission profile exactly, sir. Precisely on my airspeed and altitude marks at each checkpoint on the approach—"

Tibbets climbed out of the bombardier's pit and squatted between Eckerd, Finneran and Billing. He looked each one in the eye. Fortunately, the Colonel wasn't the type to stay mad for long. He was a short fuse...quick to blow and quick to get over it.

"I know you did, Lou. I know it."

Eckerd thought of something. "Colonel, I pickled the bomb away at the exactly the point indicated on the Norden. It's got to be that device, sir...something's cockeyed inside all them wires and wheels and gears."

The discussion bubbled on for another few minutes, while _Straight Flush_ flew out to the eastern end of the bombing range to turn around for another run.

"Maybe it's some kind of tricky winds we're not accounting for," Billing offered.

"Yeah," said Finneran. "Desert's got all kind of tricks at this altitude. Wasatch Range may be funneling the air somehow, knocking us off course just enough...or carrying the bomb further than the tables allow for."

"Or there could be some kind of bias in the Norden itself," Eckerd suggested. "I mean, after all, what kind of history does this gizmo have anyway?"

Tibbets was doubtful. "Enough history for us, I'm afraid. Hell, the Eighth Air Force has been using this exact same model over Europe since last fall, with damn few errors. Great results, so I hear. We've changed out every bombsight in the squadron twice...hell, they can't _all_ be defective, can they?" Tibbets shook his head. "No, it's got to be in the procedure." He looked up at Eckerd, squatting on the hatch cover like it was a commode. "It's something you're doing, George. Something in your procedures."

Eckerd shrugged helplessly. "I've been a bombardier for two years, Colonel. It ain't like I never did this before."

"I know, I know." Tibbets crawled up into the cockpit, and sat down at the flight engineer's station again. "Keep your hats on, fellas. Let's try it again. I'll watch every move you make this time. You get back down there and I'll squat behind you."

On Tibbets' orders, the Wendover range was cleared for _Straight Flush_ to make another approach. They had no test bomb in their bomb bay but Tibbets wanted the crew to set up their run and execute the 'drop' anyway, so he could watch Eckerd and the others, try to see just what the hell was going wrong.

As Finneran throttled up the four Wright Cyclone engines to approach power, Tibbets took a deep breath. Inside, he was growing more and more frustrated. He knew time was short and getting shorter. It was already the middle of May. They'd been at Wendover for weeks now, after a short break practicing over-water navigation and fuel management into and out of Cuba, and not a single crew had come closer than half a mile of its target. It hadn't been three months since General Groves had personally told him the device needed half-mile or better accuracy to ensure best results.

At this rate, the war would be over before his men were ready to deliver the Gadget.

Thank God, the scientists were behind in their schedule as well.

Now, if only the Japanese would keep on fighting for awhile longer.
CHAPTER 3

Thursday, May 17, 1945

Tokyo

6:30 p.m.

For Hiro Ushenda, the air raid sirens had long since become nothing more than a nuisance. He had been gathering up his papers for the ride over to the Imperial Household Ministry inside the Imperial Palace grounds—summoned by no less than the Chief of Staff, Admiral Toyoda—when the one-minute alert sounded overhead. Ushenda, like his fellow staffers, worked in the subterranean three-story underground bomb shelter at Kojimachi, which prior to May 5 had been headquarters for the Imperial Navy Combined Fleet, the _Nihon Kaigun_. On that dark day, the Ministry building had been blasted into rubble by the cursed American B-29s. Much of the remnants of the Navy staff labored on in the weeks afterward in the rathole of the bomb shelter below the piles of rubble.

Ordinarily, Ushenda would have paid no attention to the short, sharp blasts of the air raid horn. The one-minute signal meant only that the enemy was in the skies nearby, not necessarily that there was to be an attack. After all, military logic would have to prevail. The truth was that central Tokyo offered little left to attack anyway. Since the last week of March, when the capital was firebombed into rubble and ash, more than sixteen square miles of the center of the city had been reduced to blackened cinders and the ever-present ash heaps. No, there was no reason to be alarmed, even though Ushenda knew that a Ministry car was waiting on him topside, waiting to bear him to the meeting at the Household Ministry.

Ushenda snapped his briefcase shut and was headed for the iron staircase outside the 3rd Bureau offices when he ran into Captain Takeuchi, the commander of 3rd Bureau. Takeuchi looked hollow and pale.

"Admiral, surely you're not going up there—"

Ushenda straightened his cap and jacket. "I've been summoned, Captain. The Chief of Staff wants me to present details of the operation...the Supreme Council, you know. They're meeting now. This may be our best shot."

"But the sirens—"

Ushenda brushed it off. "It's only an alert. The Americans—" then he stopped. The next sound was what all Tokyo had learned to dread: a long blast of the air raid horn, followed by five shorter blasts, each one four seconds in duration. Attack was imminent. Take cover immediately.

"There...you see? Admiral, it's too dangerous—"

"Nonsense, Takeuchi. Get a hold of yourself. Light up a cigarette. Sing the _Kimigayo_. I can't very well ignore a direct summons from the Chief of Staff, can I?"

Takeuchi looked like a spanked puppy. Third Bureau had essentially ceased to exist when the Ministry building had been destroyed. Takeuchi was a dog without a pack. Only Ushenda kept the section together now. Ushenda and his burning revenge to hammer the Americans in a Decisive Battle. Ushenda and his plans. Takeuchi wasn't the only staffer to whisper in the corners of the sweltering bomb shelter: _"Ushenda's mad, mad as a rabid dog. Ushenda has the true_ seishin _, the warrior's spirit. Bushido's in his blood...follow Ushenda...somehow we'll beat the enemy back—"_

He brushed past poor Takeuchi and climbed the iron stairs, reaching the surface in half a minute, jostling past streams of staffers and officers pouring down from ground level, seeking shelter. Topside, he looked about through the scurrying throngs for the Ministry car, but the driver must have been spooked and driven away. Only people swarmed through the still-smoldering pile of rubble that had once been Kojimachi, headquarters of the proud and invincible _Nihon Kaigun_. If you could call the skeletal, hollow-eyed, emaciated walking dead of Tokyo people at all.

He would have to walk.

Kojimachi was about a mile west of the Imperial Palace grounds. It was a mid-spring evening and twilight was upon ancient Edo, a twilight lit from all around by flickering flames of cooking fires and lingering smoke from an attack two nights before. Walking eastward, past the mangled ruins of an elevated rail line at Shinjuku, Ushenda kept a wary eye on the skies. The night was clear, there was even a half moon dawdling low on the eastern horizon, over the Bay, but the stars were dimmed by the pall of ash still in the air. There wasn't much to see anyway and Ushenda pushed on through knots and clusters of people making their way to shelters.

The streets were blacked out as well as burned out. They weren't exactly deserted, but neither were the streets as crowded as they might have been before the war, when a spring evening would have brought out strollers and window shoppers by the thousands.

Dimly visible forms materialized in the sooty gloom like wraiths from a nightmare, shuffling along, numb and broken, their heads down, driven to the shelters by the insistent bleets of the air raid sirens as if they were cattle heading for slaughter pens.

Up close, Ushenda could see their tired and drawn faces, with sunken eyes and cracked lips and pale skins dingy in the wan light of the district. Most wore tattered pieces of a drab and dismal costume which was called 'the national uniform.' For most men, it was a simple khaki suit with wrap-around leggings and a peaked, military-style cap. For women, it was a bloomer-style outfit, with baggy legs, called _mompei,_ much like the traditional dress of peasants. At the beginning of the war, the government had encouraged everyone to dress in the uniform. Now, because of fabric shortages, fewer and fewer citizens bothered.

Much of central Tokyo for several miles around the Imperial Palace was nothing but a blasted wasteland of debris piles, rubbly fields and ash heaps. Once there had been stores and banks and offices and theaters. Now Tokyo was a black and endless plain of lean-to shacks and countless cooking fires. Concrete structures were little more than blackened shells, though some were still in use as shops and beer halls. When there were no air raid alerts, men queued up outside these burned hulks of buildings, waiting their turn to enter.

Occasionally, a charcoal-burning, steam-powered bus would chug slowly by, usually burdened with riders, picking its way through rubble-strewn, pot-holed streets. They moved at a steady speed of ten to fifteen miles an hour on level ground. But on hills, the passengers had to get off and push the bus up, so underpowered were the vehicles. Navigating anywhere in the middle of Tokyo was difficult. Crowds and rubble and pulverized streets made many trips long, circuitous adventures. Often it took three hours to go a mile. Ushenda didn't mind walking, even with the threat of American planes in the skies. Most of the topside crowds around Kojimachi and Shinjuku seemed resigned to whatever fate would bring them.

Ushenda pushed on and in time, came at last to the bridge of the Sakeshita Gate. A dark and oily moat passed languidly beneath the moss-covered stone bridge and Ushenda was stopped by a stern sergeant of the Imperial Guard, who examined his papers. The _gunso_ had the fresh face of a schoolchild but the wrinkled eyes of an older man, perhaps he was in his late twenties, old before his time, witness to destruction and death on a scale few his age could have imagined. As the _gunso_ consulted his logbook, he summoned an official escort for Admiral Ushenda. In seconds, the escort—four soldiers armed with assault rifles, insignia of General Mori's First Division—appeared at the gate house. They were led by a captain, nervous and quick. While the escort formed up and heard the _gunso's_ orders barked out, Ushenda noticed faint sprigs of color along the banks of the moat. Cherry blossoms. He stifled a smile; it was an auspicious omen for this visit to the Supreme Council for Direction of the War.

The cherry blossom had long been an emblem of the Imperial Navy. Ushenda fell in behind the escort as they marched onto the palace grounds, humming in the back of his mind an old tune from his Academy days—the _Doki no Sakura_. Cherry blossoms of the same rank...it was a tune he'd often sung with his classmates at Etajima.

The escort marched quickly across the Fukiage Gardens, along a winding path, deeper into the cool, still woods of ash, pine and cedar. Presently, they came to a massive stone building, a three-story hexagonal behemoth that was home to the Imperial Household Ministry. The structure had been damaged by bombs and fire a month ago, thus much of the work of the Ministry was being done in subterranean chambers and shelters below ground.

The Imperial Guard escort stopped at the end of a winding dirt path, a few dozen yards north of the main building, where a large steel door had been set on top of a low circle of bricks. This was the exterior entrance to the Ministry's bomb shelter. A wooden door below the steel creaked slightly as it opened, to brusque knocks by the captain of the guard. A chamberlain of the Ministry appeared like a mole's face from the underground tunnel that suddenly opened up.

"Admiral Ushenda is here," the captain of the guard announced. He stiffly thrust the official papers of the summons into the chamberlain's hands, who nodded faintly and waved Ushenda down, into the vault.

Ushenda's eyes adjusted to the dim lighting and found himself following the chamberlain down a spiraling flight of stairs perhaps fifty feet deep, deep into the earth beneath the Ministry building. They were alone for many minutes—though Ushenda could hear muffled voices from all around. The chamberlain led him on into a narrow cement passageway, through several doors and eventually to a plain, ten by twenty foot concrete-walled conference room. Here, he formally presented the Admiral to the assembled members of the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War.

Inside the room, the air was stuffy and humid, with slick spots of condensation running down the walls. The air conditioning system was not working at all, and as Ushenda bowed and saluted, he was waved impatiently into the room by Baron Suzuki himself, His Majesty's Prime Minister.

"Come, come, Admiral...don't keep us waiting. The Emperor wants a report by 1900 hours. Come tell us about this operation Toyoda keeps mentioning."

Ushenda came in.

The room was dominated by a long, rectangular table, covered in green damask. Maps of the home islands and surrounding waters were strewn around the table. Arranged in chairs, were Prime Minister Suzuki, General Korechika Anami, the War Minister who sat straight and erect in his chair ("A straight backbone is good for a man's health," he liked to say), General Umezu, bald and bullet-headed, the Imperial Army's chief of staff, Navy Minister Mitsumasa Yonai, the Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo and Admiral Toyoda, Ushenda's own immediate superior, who looked rather like a theater usher than the chief of the Navy staff. Toyoda had close-cropped black hair and a fat face, with a faint hint of moustache crowning rather expressive full, almost feminine lips.

Ushenda stood at attention at the head of the table. An easel was in the other corner.

"Well, now, Ushenda," said Toyoda, with a sweep of his hand, "you've got the details of this operation, this Operation _Shori_ , with you?"

Ushenda indicated that he did. "Yes, Admiral. This folder has all the details, as well as the intelligence assessments it's based on."

"Is this the same crap Hirota told me about?" asked Togo, the Foreign Minister. "There was discussion on the flight back from Vladivostok...the Ambassador and Hirota got into an argument over this notion of a Decisive Battle."

Toyoda cut in. "Begging the Minister's pardon, but this _notion_ you refer to is not just idle talk. Ask General Anami. All of our planning is focused on engaging the Americans on the beaches of our home islands, where we have a great superiority in men and weapons."

"We'll bloody the Americans good then," Anami agreed.

Togo shook his head wearily. He was already fatigued and sore from hours of fruitless negotiations with these cretins. Couldn't they see what was going on around them? Tokyo was in ruins. The whole country was in ruins. They had to hold meetings underground, like rats, hiding from predators who stalked the skies, raining death throughout the land day and night.

"All right," Togo shrugged, waved his hands. "It's up to the Baron."

Suzuki had been appointed Prime Minister in a government shakeup a few months ago. He took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose where the glasses had rubbed a numb spot. "I don't see the point of any more presentations and speeches, gentlemen. We know what we have to do. The Emperor expects our unanimous recommendations tonight. The war is over. Japan is finished. We have—"

Anami cleared his throat, stiffening his back even further. Ushenda thought the War Minister might snap in two. "Excuse me for interrupting, Baron, but I want to hear what the Navy has to offer. We are a long way from being finished. Indeed, the true battle has yet to be fought."

"And when will that be, General?" asked Togo. "When the Americans march across the Nijubashi Gate and arrest the Emperor? What will we fight the enemy with? We have no planes. We have no ships."

"We have one hundred million soldiers," Anami snapped. "Every one of them filled with the martial spirit of Yamato, ready to die for their Emperor. The Americans have nothing to match their determination. They will be slaughtered on the beaches of Kyushu and Shikoku."

"Rubbish," said Togo. He stuck his jaw out, sank back in his seat and threw up his hands. "Very well, then. What miracles has the Admiral got for us?"

Toyoda nodded at Ushenda, who open his briefcase and laid out his papers. He pinned a small map to the easel. It was a map of the central Pacific, with Nihon at the leftmost edge. Ushenda passed papers around the room.

Ushenda cleared his throat, bowed slightly at the assembled dignitaries and began.

"The military situation is well known to all of us. Okinawa and the rest of the Ryuku Islands are under assault now. The Americans call this Operation Iceberg. They are pounding our men and making progress. But General Ushijima is putting up a tough defense. The fate of Okinawa is not decided yet. The Americans may yet tire of the casualties they're taking."

"And I suppose spring flowers will bloom in the middle of Tokyo," said Togo.

But Baron Suzuki waved the Foreign Minister quiet. "We also are taking tremendous casualties, Admiral."

"Every soldier and marine serving in Okinawa is sworn to defend our sacred soil to the death," Ushenda insisted. Toyoda beamed with approval, his glance over at Togo saying _, not all of us have conceded defeat_. "It's to our advantage that the Americans are not as quick to die for their President. Even their new President Harry Truman."

"Get to the point!" Umezu snapped.

Ushenda re-focused on his papers. He bit his tongue, silently cursed himself. In the presence of senior officers, he couldn't afford to lose his temper.

"It's well known now that the Americans are massing troops and supplies in the Philippines for an invasion of the home islands."

"Yes, yes," Anami agreed. "Operation Coronet. We know all about this, Admiral."

"And our talks with the Russians have so far proven fruitless," Ushenda went on.

"The situation is desperate," Togo said.

"That is not necessarily so," Ushenda corrected the Foreign Minister, then looked for approval from Toyoda. The Navy chief of staff nodded in encouragement. "All is not lost, not when we have new intelligence. Intelligence showing that the Americans are assembling a new and terrible bomb in the Marshall Islands...here—" he pointed to a small island on the map. "A place called Tinian. Recently captured from our _Kokutai_ troops. Even now they are making plans to use this new weapon against us, against the home islands."

"Exactly how," asked Navy Minister Yonai, with a questioning look at Toyoda, "does this knowledge improve our situation?"

"Ah," said Ushenda, "that is easy to answer." He indicated the assembled officers should review the papers he had passed out. As they scowled and scanned the details, Ushenda waited a minute before speaking again. First, Togo looked up, a puzzled look on his face. Then Anami and Umezu. At the right moment, he continued.

"It is called Operation _Shori_. Victory. If this plan is successful, it will mean final, absolute and ultimate victory for Nihon in this war."

Anami didn't know whether to be impressed or simply amused. "If I read these details correctly, Admiral, your operation proposes to assault this Tinian island base. And _seize_ these weapons, or destroy them? Is this correct?"

Ushenda stiffened. "That is correct, General. I propose to form an assault force from our _Kokutai_ , the Special Naval Landing Force troops. I have already made arrangements with 1st Sasebo _Kokutai_ to form special assault squads for the operation. They are training now, at the base. There are beaches and marshes nearby, suitable for training."

Anami grunted, seemingly satisfied. "This operation has not been authorized by the Council."

Admiral Toyoda cut in. "The plans are being finalized. As Ushenda says, Operation _Shori_ allows us to strike back at the enemy, deal him a terrible blow, just as he makes ready his invasion plans. The Council must approve this mission—" Toyoda banged a hand on the table, making water glasses and cups jump—"at once!"

Baron Suzuki exchanged glances with Togo and the Navy Minister. Mitsumasa Yonai was part of the 'peace' faction. He was mildly embarrassed at the presence of such a bold mission in his own ministry, more that he knew nothing of it.

Yonai stirred uneasily. "This will require study. Careful analysis. The Council needs more information."

For Ushenda, as the debate swirled around the room, the timidity and spinelessness of Togo and Suzuki and the 'peace' faction was sickening. They were all worms, traitors to the Emperor, betrayers of the spirit of _Yamato_ , 'Badoglios', even. _Shori_ was brilliant and audacious, worthy of Yamamoto himself, and the courageous way he'd sent the _Kido Butai_ into Hawaiian waters into the very mouth of the enemy. _Shori_ would be Japan's ultimate decisive battle, her final victory.

And, though he scarcely admitted it even to himself, one last chance at redemption. Another chance to save face and regain the honor he had lost inside _Nihon Kaigun_. The Imperial Navy had been his whole life but his career had suffered greatly from inept leadership and incompetent use of his talents. How many times had he felt the sting of disgrace—drifting back to shore after the _Miyazu_ had gone down, clinging to splintered deck planking—the enemy had been cunning, treacherous, baiting them on, until the torpedoes had slammed into her hull broadsides—it was a disgrace to serve the Emperor with such thick-headed morons. His Majesty deserved better, demanded that every warrior contribute that which he did best.

_Shori_ would be his greatest contribution. The stupid cows around this table had to see that and approve it.

Arguments swirled about the room for hours.

"This is getting us nowhere," General Anami announced. He stretched his arms behind his head. "I recommend we take a recess for a few hours. Come back in the morning."

Toyoda dismissed Ushenda with a wave. "Return to Kojimachi. Wait for me there."

Ushenda bowed deeply, gathered up his papers and maps, stuffed them into his briefcase and left the conference room still bowing and saluting. He was brusquely escorted back to the surface by a pair of Imperial Guard privates.

He walked in a fog through the soot-filled night air all the way back to the Navy Ministry.

Soemu Toyoda wasn't far behind. The Chief of Staff caught up to Ushenda in his tiny office, overlooking the open 'bullpen' of 3rd Bureau, the intelligence arm of the Navy general staff. Only 5th section, Takeuchi's American analysts, was manned tonight. All other staff in the bureau had retired to their quarters for the night.

Toyoda was weary, his mouth hung down from the exertion of the walk from the Imperial Palace. His eyes were bloodshot.

Ushenda was pensive. "Will the Council approve _Shori_ , Admiral? Preparations are well underway, as I told you yesterday. I just came from Sasebo this morning. It needs only final approval."

Toyoda closed his eyes for a moment, standing straight and still, as if listening for something. But it was only fatigue. Presently, his eyes opened. "You'll get approval, Ushenda. Don't worry about that. For now, get your papers together. All the details...which units are involved, their equipment, their training, how they'll be transported, weapons and tactics. Anami wants the whole show, at his official residence, in two hours."

Ushenda's heart skipped a beat. " _Hai_! Yes, sir...at once!" Korechika Anami was the most influential man on the Council. The War Minister's opinion could sway the others, bring the rest of the Council around, even influence the Emperor himself. "A briefing at Miyakezaki?"

Toyoda nodded wearily, yawning, checking his watch. "At 0200 hours, I'm afraid. Anami seems to like the midwatch."

Ushenda was already freshening up his tattered uniform, checking papers inside his briefcase. Anami was the key. The War Minister's reputation and influence were legendary.

If Ushenda could show the value of _Shori_ to Korechika Anami, then Supreme Council blessing would be a foregone conclusion.

The house where Anami resided, around the corner from the Diet Building on the hill at Miyakezaki, had once been the home of the minister's deputy, but American bombs had destroyed his official residence, so Anami had moved into the smaller residence. It was a modest home, surrounded by well-tended trees and shrubs. There was a glass-enclosed corridor on the north side of the house, offering a full view of the wide moat, slanted stone walls and towering linden trees of the Imperial Palace's still-undamaged southern side. It also offered a full view, on either side of the palace walls, of the burned-out ruins of central Tokyo.

When Toyoda and Ushenda arrived at 0200 hours the next morning, lights still burned brightly on Miyakezaki hill. General Anami, still in uniform, was sitting cross-legged at his low dining table, drinking a cup of sake after a late dinner, when the admirals were shown in. Anami had more cups and sake brought out, along with a few plates of toast with _miso_ (salted bean paste) to eat. Toyoda and Ushenda sat down too.

"This operation is a bold, almost reckless move," Anami announced. "It reminds me of the briefings Yamamoto gave us, in September and October of '41. Nobody thought it would ever be possible to move the _Kido Butai_ —imagine it: six carriers, over three hundred planes, all the way across the Pacific and strike at Pearl Harbor with surprise. The Army was quite skeptical...I remember Tojo almost laughing at the idea."

"Yet the operation was a success," Toyoda said. "I'm sure we can do the same with _Shori_."

Anami sat stiffly, as if planted in the wooden planks of the floor, as if he were himself a tree surrounded by _tatami_ mats. "Ushenda, what makes you think you can even get an assault force near this Tinian island? The Americans have hundreds of ships and aircraft buzzing around the islands there. Thousands of troops."

"There is no assurance, General," Ushenda told him truthfully. "The enemy's defenses are strong, but not impregnable. I've worked out a scheme, with several of our submarines, on how to approach the island, from the west, away from the populated areas. In fact, we are in radio contact with units still hiding out in caves on the island, giving us information everyday. We know how the enemy has set up his defenses."

Anami grunted, downed the rest of his sake, and parked the cup with a firm rap on the table. "Very well, then, suppose you manage to insert an assault force on the island. How do you know where these terrible weapons—these...what are they called--?"

"Atomic bombs, sir—"

"—yes, how do you where these bombs are kept? You have intelligence on their bunkers, the defenses, how to get to them?"

"We have all that, General, and we have more. Third Bureau has sources inside the organization that makes the bombs. We know when they will be shipped, how, by what they route they will travel, and roughly when they will be at Tinian Island. Our plans are based on this intelligence."

Anami glared across the table at Ushenda. "And you believe it? You can corroborate this information? What if the enemy is deceiving you, distracting all of us, with some imaginary weapon, while he storms ashore on our beaches behind our backs."

Ushenda wet his lips. "With all respects, General, the intelligence is highly credible. We have checked many ways to make sure of that. Our sources have proven their reliability."

Anami regarded Toyoda coolly. "The Army will not oppose this operation. All of my staff, from Umezu on down, believe we cannot possibly surrender, under the terms the Americans are offering. It would bring eternal disgrace to Japan, to the Emperor, to our ancestors. No, we have not yet engaged the enemy in a decisive way. Suzuki and Togo and Marquis Kido can't see that. They have the Emperor's ear, they make up lies and encourage him to stop the war now, before the One Hundred Million have made their final stand."

"It's disgraceful," Toyoda agreed. "They should be shot as traitors."

Anami sniffed at the last drops of sake in the bottom of his cup. "Watch what you say around here...it may come to that. I'll do what I can with the Council. Anything we recommend to the Emperor must be unanimous. They know the Army will never agree to the conditions Togo and Suzuki are proposing."

"Nor will the Navy," Toyoda acknowledged.

Anami reached into his unbuttoned jacket and withdrew a tattered, yellow booklet. He opened it and flipped through several pages. "I review this from time to time...it makes for good reading. The Imperial Army Field Service Code. The last paragraph is entitled 'The Conviction to Win.'" Anami read it aloud:

" _Faith is strength. He who has faith in combat is always the victor. The conviction to win grows from constant and rigorous training. Develop the strength to conquer the enemy by every possible effort and by improving every possible moment._

" _The destiny of the Empire rests upon victory or defeat in battle. Do not give up under any circumstances, keeping in mind your responsibility not to tarnish the glorious history of the Imperial Army with its tradition of invincibility."_

Anami closed the booklet and turned back to Ushenda. "Proceed with the mission, Ushenda. The Army won't oppose it. I'll pass on the details to Umezu. He can inform the right people on the staff. That should cool some of the hotheads a little. But keep it quiet...secrecy is essential."

"The details are quite closely held, General. I promise you we will surprise the Americans just as Yamamoto and Nagumo did."

Anami nodded faintly. "The peace faction—Togo, Suzuki, your own Navy Minister, Marquis Kido—all of them have to be watched. They're trying to convince the Emperor to sue for peace now, broker with the Russians, accept the Allies' terms. We can't let that happen—not while we still have strength and courage to defend the homeland. We mustn't give them any more ammunition."

Toyoda retrieved the pot of sake and poured another round for the three of them.

"To Operation _Shori_ , then," he raised his cup.

" _Shori_..." repeated Anami, tossing back half the cup in one throw. "Yes...to our final and complete victory over the enemy. I just hope your little operation is well-named, Ushenda."

Thursday, May 17, 1945

Aboard NKVD Special Train #1, _Pobeda,_ near the Black Sea coast

9:45 p.m.

Josef Vissarionovich Stalin especially enjoyed American movies and particularly enjoyed Gary Cooper and Cary Grant. He had boarded the special armored train, Unit #1 code-named _Pobeda_ (Victory) at the train station outside Foros, on the Black Sea coast, just after noon. A few days at the seashore, even in the midst of a cold Russian spring, was always good for the soul. The great Russian _Vozhd_ had eaten a light lunch—herring and _blini_ , washed down with Georgian brandy and slept for three hours and awakened just as the sun was going down over the southern Caucasus and _Pobeda_ was speeding north into the dark Russian night, through tobacco fields and rice paddies, across the broad coastal delta flats of the Don River. Like many predators, it was only a night that Stalin seemed to come alive. His eyes burned a bit brighter, his gestures grew more animated, his voice deepened and the feral leer of a well-honed nocturnal hunter descended over a face pocked and scarred with age and battle scars.

Stalin had settled back, shortly after 5 p.m., brandy and cigars at hand, in his compartment and ordered his valet Dmitri to start up a Russian-subtitled version of the classic American war movie "Destination Tokyo." He was troubled lately, and needed the distraction. And he also knew that _Pobeda_ would be making a stop shortly at the station in Rostov, where she would board an important passenger bearing vital news for the Generalissimo and Protector of all the Russias. Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov had telephoned from Vladivostok the day before to request an audience.

"I have interesting news, Josef Vissarionovich. I must see you at once." So it had been arranged that Molotov's aircraft would fly all night and drop off the People's Commissar in Rostov, hard by the black and oily Don River. _Pobeda_ would be leaving at noon from the well-guarded dacha compound at Foros. The engineer would make a simple track change west of Krasnodar and pull into Rostov Station sometime after 8 p.m.

Just enough time for _Gaspadeen_ Cary Grant to torpedo all the enemies of the state once more, Stalin thought. He settled back in the leather couch, and sipped at the brandy, watching the stoic naval officer stalk his Japanese prey all the way across the Pacific, right into Tokyo Bay itself.

Stalin had not slept well during the day. He was sorely troubled by the question of what to do about the Japanese, and the way events were developing in that distant land on the edge of Russia's Pacific frontier. No doubt, Molotov's meeting in Vladivostok with representatives of the Japanese Government was the reason he wished an early meeting. The military situation was favorable—in fact, the Americans and their British and Australian and Dutch stooges had recently routed and severely mauled the Japanese hordes in the Philippines and at some god-forsaken place called Iwo Jima . Nonetheless, Stalin was uneasy about the apparent success of the Americans in the Pacific. Though he not yet met Truman—there was talk of a conference in Berlin in a month or so, among the ruins of the Nazi Reich—he knew from intelligence that Truman was as hungry as a rabid dog and he figured that once the little tailor from Missouri got a whiff of victory, he would follow and harass the Japanese all the way back to Tokyo itself, as indeed _Gaspadeen_ Cary Grant was doing on the movie screen.

There were several problems with that and Stalin found both distasteful. Stalin despised Truman and the Americans but he had a grudging respect for their weapons, especially this new device—what was it called? an _atomic_ bomb. The Japanese were too fanatical to see that their cause was lost. Still, there was danger in pressing too soon for total victory, unconditional surrender. The worth of this atomic bomb was not yet proven. A watch would have to be kept on the massive project the Americans were running to fashion the device and put it to use. It wouldn't do for the Americans to annihilate the Japanese enemy too soon, before the Red Army could enter the conflict and secure a few spoils, as they had in Europe. It wouldn't do at all.

No, Stalin knew caution was in order in dealing with the Japanese. Truman seemed blind to that essential fact. You didn't chase a bear through the forest with a knife too small to dispatch the beast. If you succeeded only in wounding a dangerous animal, you made him more dangerous for everybody. Didn't the damned Americans see that? Stalin subconsciously tried out a few faces, imitating Cary Grant's scowl, setting his shoulders just so, aping the swagger of the invincible Captain stalking his prey.

The truth was simple enough. The Japanese Government had been probing Russian intentions for some months now, trying to finagle Moscow into brokering better peace terms with the Allied Powers. Stalin had no intention of doing any such thing...it would be suicide and exceedingly dangerous. No, the smart thing to do was simply string the Japanese along, then attack in the late summer, perhaps August, in Manchuria and the Kuriles, seizing as much Japanese territory as possible and establishing a firm presence for the future. He was quite certain the Japanese would eventually be defeated, and soon, by the Americans.

The real conundrum was how to replicate in the Far East what he had managed to accomplish in eastern Europe.

It was all very troubling. He wondered how Cary Grant would handle such a quandary. Stalin squinted at the Russian subtitles, but they really weren't needed. He knew the story. Strong and successful submarine captain, with adoring wife, puts to sea on a hazardous mission into Japanese home waters...right into Tokyo Bay, in fact, to gather data for the courageous Doolittle raid to come, the first American bombing mission over Japanese territory of the war...Stalin was soon engrossed in the battle scenes, seething at the perfidy of the Japanese, impressed with Cary Grant's stoic acceptance of risk as he captained the boat right into the very teeth of the enemy, dodging destroyers, enduring nerve-shattering depth charge attacks, surely... _here_ was a man who was a model for all commanders in battle. In the end, the stalwart courage of Cary Grant pulls the crew through its hazardous mission...Cary Grant, manning the ramparts of his conning tower while all around him cower in fear, saving the day and beating off the Japanese attack.

Stalin absorbed the lesson and puffed on a black cigar, quite certain that the only way to deal with the Japanese was to be firm, to be brave and unyielding, just like Cary Grant. Strength and determination—that was the lesson. In truth, he thought as Dmitri came in to rewind the film and thread another into the projector, the movie's submarine crew wasn't all that different from the Kremlin itself.

The train had started slowing noticeably as Dmitri worked with the projector and Stalin parted the curtains to see outside. The land was dark and flat—mostly tobacco country in this part of the Kuban—and Stalin imagined he could smell the pungent aroma of the curing sheds racing by at sixty-five miles an hour. Only a narrow ribbon of light divided the night sky from the dark ground below.

That would be the outskirts of Rostov. Indeed, the phone rang and Stalin snatched it up. Engineer of Railway Troops Colonel Akubanov was on the line.

"Comrade Marshal, we are approaching Rostov. Track sixteen. I'm slowing to allow our escorts time to position themselves in front of us. Troops have already secured the platform. Both Commissar Molotov and Commissar Beria are waiting. We should be arriving in about five minutes."

_Beria_? Stalin was momentarily puzzled as to why Beria was waiting on the platform at Rostov. Then he remembered. Lavrenti Pavlovich had flown all the way from Berlin—he had been debriefing agents and spies in the shattered ruins of the Nazi capital, just as Molotov had been hearing out the Japanese in Vladivostok. Beria also had news to report.

"Very well," Stalin grunted. Dmitri came over and held out a tray of spicy sausages in one hand and two film tapes in the other, awaiting the Generalissimo's choice. Stalin selected several items to eat and chose "Casablanca" for his next movie. "And get me that Ukrainian vodka, Dmitri Yushkevich. The _spertsem_. Beria likes that crap. May as well feed our puppies what they like, eh?"

"As you wish, Marshal. Shall I start the movie?"

"Wait until we start moving again. I'll enjoy comparing Humphrey Bogart and Molotov tonight."

In time, _Pobeda_ whistled, shrieked and shuddered to a halt at Platform 1, and the two People's Commissars were shown aboard. They made their way aft to the Generalissimo's sealed compartment, nodding brusquely to the red-collared troops of the Ninth Guards Directorate stationed in the chilly cupolas between the train cars. Beria and Molotov found Stalin slouched down in his leather divan testing his newly-poured _spertsem_ and half-watching Humphrey Bogart strut across the flickering screen.

He nodded faintly as Beria followed Molotov into the compartment and closed the door behind him.

Molotov took off his fedora. "I have important news, Josef Vissarionovich. From Vladivostok."

Stalin's gray head was enveloped in thick cigar smoke. "Watch this, comrades. Bogart's lying through his teeth to that woman...can't she see that? She's so blind with love for this American, she can't see through his story. And then Rick—never let emotions blind you to what the capitalists are doing, right behind your back. So, what is this important news, anyway?"

Beria poured himself a shot of the Ukrainian vodka while Molotov related the results of the meeting with the Japanese delegation. The NKVD chief held up the bottle, eyeing the peppers soaking at the bottom with a critical eye.

"The Japanese are desperate," Molotov was saying. "They want to send a special envoy to Moscow, to meet with us. To negotiate with us."

Stalin sniffed. "What is there to negotiate? The Americans may well finish them off in the next few months."

"That's exactly my point," Molotov said. "If we are to get anything positive out of entering this war in the Far East, we'll have to do it soon. The Japanese want us to broker better peace terms with the Americans and the British."

That brought a tight smile to Stalin's lips. He waved his hand in the beam of the projector—it was a pre-arranged signal with Dmitri—and instantly the sound was lowered to a quiet murmur. Humphrey Bogart was putting the make on Ingrid Bergman.

"And what do they offer in return, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich?"

Molotov snorted. 'A part of their 'Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere'...what's left of it. I think they may be willing to trade some territory for our efforts."

Stalin was intrigued. "The Kuriles? Sakhalin Island?"

"Possibly. No specifics were mentioned."

"Of course," Stalin muttered, "we could just seize them. It's our territory anyway, stolen from us in the 1905 war. We made a promise to the Americans to enter the Pacific war three months after the Hitlerists were defeated. That means Truman expects us to fight the Japanese in August."

"The war may well be over before that," Beria said. "I've got news too...from sources in America. I've been in Berlin, going over intelligence reports."

"Which sources?"

"Several...' _Antenna_ ', for one. And ' _Quantum_.' The Americans are making progress on their super weapon...the atomic bomb, as it is called. One of our operatives, _Windward_ , insists that the first test of this bomb is near, perhaps a matter of weeks away."

Stalin mulled that over. "This new weapon gives Truman a sledgehammer to beat us over the head with."

"Not only that, Marshal," Beria went on, with an eye toward Molotov, "we have sources in Tokyo as well. One of them—it's _Tabletop,_ one of our best—tells us that the Japanese have become aware of this as well. There are individuals in the highest circles of the Japanese government that know of the American bomb. _Tabletop_ has just sent intelligence indicating that a faction in the Japanese government wants to seize one

of the American super weapons and use it to threaten the Americans for better terms."

At this, Stalin suddenly sat up straight and carefully put his cigar down in a tray. " _Seize_ one of these bombs?" He squinted through the smoke at Molotov. "Any word of this from the delegation?"

The People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs shook his head. "None. The talk was all in vague generalities. I indicated we would need more concrete proposals before we could decide anything."

"Good. Stall them as long as possible." Now Stalin's eyes were flickering, calculating, seeking angles and possibilities. "So Truman has this new bomb coming along. And the Japanese know about it. Gentlemen, how can we use this to help ourselves?"

Beria had a proposal. "It's risky. We don't want to get caught leaning too far to either side. The Americans want us to come into the Pacific war. The Japanese want us to help broker better peace terms. We want improve our influence in the Far East, secure bases for the future, help Comrade Mao in China, recover our stolen territories...all without getting our fingers burned."

Stalin leaned back in the divan, eyes half closed. "I'm listening. Go on."

"Suppose we let the Japanese government know that we have knowledge of their little plan to seize an American atomic bomb. We let this be known, through the right people, to the right elements in their Government."

"And what do we gain by this little subterfuge?"

Beria sniffed the last dregs of the _spertsem_. "A chance to have an early and close look at the American bomb, if the Japanese are successful."

Stalin was skeptical. "And why would anyone think the Japanese would succeed in this improbable plot of theirs? Surely, the Americans will guard their bomb carefully."

"They'll be successful," Beria announced, "because we will help them."

At that, both Stalin and Molotov cleared their throats at the same time. Stalin stubbed out his cigar and ordered another round of vodka and brandy, with _pirozkis_ from Dmitri. Room was cleared on a low table in the center of the compartment, where Beria laid out the details of his plan. All but forgotten, the mute face of Humphrey Bogart flickered across the screen as the rest of the movie played out, ignored by the three men.

Beria was bold...Stalin had to admit that. You didn't last in the Commissariat of Internal Affairs without having at least some balls.

"Josef Vissarionovich," Beria went on, now properly refreshed with Georgian brandy, "this could advance our own atomic efforts by years, with relatively little cost. Think what Kurchatov could do with this information...actual pictures of the new bomb, dimensions, specifications, samples of materials."

Stalin was increasingly intrigued. The men hashed out the pros and cons.

"It's risky," Molotov offered. "Japan will be a defeated nation in a few months. We want to be on the winning side. We want a free hand in advancing our interests in the Far East."

Stalin rubbed at his beard. He hadn't shaven in several days. The compartment was beginning to smell a little ripe as well. Beria was like that, the pig.

"I told Roosevelt and Churchill what we wanted at Yalta last February," he said. He remembered the conference at the Black Sea resort, remembered Churchill's slippery oratory, Roosevelt trying to be the peacemaker. "The Americans didn't object."

"That's true," Beria observed, "but did Roosevelt offer to share all of America's secrets with you...his greatest secret...the one that may help the Americans dominate the world when this war is over?"

Stalin was annoyed. _No he did not_. "We have our own sources, inside their project. They won't keep the secret long. You yourself know what _Quantum_ and _Bishop_ and the rest are giving us...Kurchatov won't take long to duplicate it."

"And in the meantime, the Americans rule Japan and Korea and the Far East, and maybe keep China for Chiang Kai-shek's warlords. Can we afford to wait, Marshal? Can we afford to ignore the opportunity the Japanese are giving us?"

The plan was simple enough, as they worked out the details, picked apart each other's objections and settled on the best course. Though not without risk, it seemed safe enough, "as long as we can deny our part in this," Stalin cautioned them both.

By the time NKVD Special Train #1 had reached the outskirts of Moscow, and was slowing to approach the Yaroslavsky Station, the decision had been made.

The Russians would let their Japanese counterparts know, through diplomatic channels, that they knew about this so-called Operation _Shori_ , as the Japanese admiral Ushenda had termed it.

"We want to help," was how Beria put it. "They'll understand what our interest is."

"And if the Japanese can pull this off...if they can actually seize one of the bombs—we know the Americans are working on several designs—we get to study it?"

"Precisely, Josef Vissarionovich. It's a priceless opportunity...we can't pass it up. We help the Japanese with their plan—of course, we'll need to see and approve all the details—then we take advantage of the moment to photograph, sample, document and began reverse-engineering the key parts of the device....as we're already doing with the B-29 bombers we've impounded in the Far East."

Stalin nodded. It was _he_ who had ordered the American bombers—aircraft shot up on missions over Japan that had ditched at Spassk Dalniy and other Soviet Far East airfields—be impounded for the duration, and with their crews interned—so Tupolev and his engineers could study the planes and make copies.

"I'm sure Kurchatov can do as well as Tupolev...all our Red Banner Hero of Socialist Labor engineers are good at copying things."

"My sources tell me the Japanese want to use this bomb, if they can seize it, to threaten America, perhaps one of their West Coast cities."

" _That_ ," Beria said firmly, "we will have nothing to do with. When we're done studying the bomb, we simply back out of the operation and wash our hands of the whole affair."

"Then what, Lavrenti Pavlovich? Do we just let the Japanese go ahead with their plan...drop this super bomb they've stolen on the Americans?"

"Then, we launch our invasion of Manchuria and Korea in August, as Josef Vissarionovich promised the Allies, and fulfill our obligations as a member of the war effort. What the Japanese do after that is irrelevant, so long as we get our share of the spoils."

Stalin winked at Molotov, with a slight smirk. "I believe that none of the gray wolves in Siberia are as cunning as our comrade Beria, eh?"

Final details were worked out. By the time, _Pobeda_ had chugged and whistled and shuddered to a stop at the Yaroslavsky Station, the first light of dawn was breaking over the red lights of the Kremlin's Spasskaya Tower and Beria's idea had been approved.

"Go ahead and find out if the Japanese will agree to cooperate in this matter," Stalin told him. "As long as our part ends well in advance of any actual use of the bomb, nothing can be traced back to us by the Allied Powers. That is vital."

"Don't worry, comrades...our engineers are even better at picking carcasses than your gray wolves."

"Someone has to be in charge of the operation," Stalin mused. "Someone daring, courageous, someone we can trust. Quick on his feet, nimble in combat, ruthless and relentless."

"Another wolf?" Molotov asked.

"Even better," Beria told them. "I know just the man. He's one of Zhukov's boys, a major of commandos with the 20th Diversionary Brigade. Many decorations, even Hero of the Soviet Union. Lots of experience behind enemy lines. He harried the Hitlerists without mercy in the final weeks of the Third Reich."

"Excellent...where is this Great Soviet War Hero?"

Beria adjusted his pince-nez glasses. "Berlin. With the Red Army garrison at Marienbad. I'll make arrangements to travel there at once."

"Who is this fellow?"

"In the ranks, he's known as _spiritsy_ , like he was a ghost or a spirit. It's said he can disappear in plain view and you'll never find him. His real name is Vasily Alexeyevich Kalugin."

Monday, May 21, 1945

Marienbad, Germany

11:15 p.m.

Until Koniev's Second Guards Army had pulverized the desperate remnants of the Wehrmacht in the last days of the Reich, Marienbad had been a pleasant enough suburb of the Nazi capital. Located in lush, forested country some twelve kilometers from the inferno swirling around the Kufurstendamm and the Reichstag in the center of Berlin, Marienbad was by comparison a quiet, even stolid Prussian sanctuary on the edge of the Lichterfelde woods, dotted with estate houses and farms, bisected by the curving silver necklace of the Landwehr Canal.

From the heights of the district's tallest linden trees, before the artillery barrages had leveled the thickest parts of the forest, it was said you could see the Brandenberg Gate in the misty distance. Now, had anyone been so inclined, a quick shimmy up the barren, limbless hulks of the remaining trees would have afforded the sightseer only misery and desolation in every direction. Berlin itself was still on fire, smothered in smoke and soot, from countless scores of buildings still burning, from the cooking fires of the homeless legions, armies of street people surging back and forth across the rubble piles that now defined the architecture of central Berlin.

The country estate of Baron Herr Joachim von Teufel und Grunewald, hard by an eastward bend of the canal, was by comparison an oasis of calm solitude in an otherwise hellish landscape of wreckage and ruin and desperate refugees roaming the fields in search of warmth and shelter and something to eat.

The motorcade of staff cars roared into the gated entrance of the von Teufel estate, known to all around as Tegelwald, and followed the cobblestone drive along the curve of the canal until the great house itself had been reached. The convoy, flanked fore and aft with motorcycle squads and several trucks of infantrymen, stopped at the wide stone plaza and steps of the entrance. The center car discharged a barrel-chested, light blond man, resplendent in the olive dress greatcoat of a Red Army Marshal of the Soviet Union. The Marshal paid little attention to the orderly ranks of his infantry escort and walked briskly up the flagstone steps and into the mansion.

Inside, ascending several sets of carpeted stairs, Marshal Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov was followed by a platoon of staff aides and assistants, hurrying to keep up. At the end of a second floor hall, Zhukov paused at a heavy oak door, regarding the barrier to the second floor master suite as a personal affront. Through the door, squeals and moans could be heard coming from the other side. Bedsprings seemed to be squeaking.

Zhukov's nose wrinkled in disgust and he tried the door. It was locked. He turned to an aide, who snapped his fingers. Instantly, two riflemen appeared. At the Marshal's signal, they stepped forward and battered the solid door off its hinges with the butts of their assault rifles. Zhukov stepped in and found exactly what he had feared he would find.

The bed was a four-poster, draped in purple canopies, its uprights carved with the scowling images of wolves and bears. Major Vasily Kalugin's naked butt was arched high in the air in the middle of the tousled sheets and pillow cases, his erect penis stiff as a bayonet, as he prepared to finish his assault on the enemy position.

The enemy, however, was not in any mood to be assaulted.

Zhukov figured she was all of seventeen, if that. The young German girl was naked and shivering, covering her breasts with her arms, as wet blond hair clung to her face. Her eyes were wide with terror, flicking from Kalugin's surprised face, half turned in astonishment at the assembled on-lookers, to Zhukov's and back, imploring, pleading for help.

"Comrade Major," Zhukov barked, "if you please..."

Kalugin's assault was finished. The major scrambled and stumbled out of the bed, taking the rest of the sheets with him as his conquest sat up and covered herself with what was left. Kalugin stood at some semblance of attention, draped like Julius Caesar in a toga, while snickers tittered around the room.

"C-Comrade Marshal...um...I...yes, sir, I—"

"Get dressed at once," Zhukov snapped. "See me downstairs in precisely one minute." He scowled, surveying the furnishings of the master suite with an appraising eye. "If you can find your uniform, that is." He turned to leave, then turned back, nodding to his aide. "And see that the girl is removed from the premises. Get her clothes together."

The aide, Major Feklisov, saluted. "At once, Comrade Marshal." Feklisov snapped his fingers again and assistants swarmed around the bed to assist the _madchen_. Zhukov stalked out.

In exactly one minute, as ordered, Major Vasily Kalugin appeared in the porticoed doors to the von Teufel study, where Zhukov had been rifling the drawers of the huge oak desk. Zhukov told the major to pull the doors shut behind him. They were alone together, the Marshal leaning back in the great chair, his bullet head framed by an oil portrait of Bismarck over the mantel behind.

Kalugin remained standing, at attention, his breeches not fully stuffed into his black boots.

Zhukov sat back in the leather chair and let his eyes follow the ornate cabinetry that lined two walls of the study, the shelves crammed with leather bound volumes and stacks of papers. He squinted up at Kalugin.

"You found this place all by yourself, Major?"

Kalugin stared straight ahead, eyes focused on Bismarck's fierce glare. "No, comrade Marshal. Tegelwald was tactical headquarters for the 20th Diversionary in the last few weeks of the assault. General Vasiliev used this very room as command post."

"Indeed." Zhukov knew about 'Vlad' Vasiliev, commanding officer of the most decorated of the Red Army's diversionary commando brigades. Rumor had it that Kalugin himself was Vasiliev's own pet project...picked from a Moscow street gang and molded into some kind of revolutionary hero of the anti-fascist Hitlerist war. "And the girl...spoils of war, I suppose?"

Kalugin swallowed but kept his composure. "Heike was an undercover operative for the Black Foxes—my unit, comrade Marshal—and the Moskva Squad. She gave us daily accounts on the movements of certain...SS commanders. Second Army had targeted them for elimination...Heike provided intelligence on their whereabouts, their habits, routines...all vital to the mission."

"I'm sure she's vital to the mission," Zhukov repeated solemnly. He regarded Kalugin's ill-fitting left boot, reminding himself of the man's infirmity. "And the leg...how is it?"

Kalugin had injured his left foot and leg on a Black Fox mission behind Finnish lines, near Karelian in February 1940. A satchel charge for a bridge had gone off too soon. He'd spent months at the Red Army's Polyclinic Number 9 near Moscow's Gorky Park, winding up having to have surgery on the foot. Later, after infection, it had to be amputated, along with part of his left leg, below the shin. Eventually, he had a prosthetic foot fitted and spent six months recovering and learning to walk all over again. The _spiritsy_ of the Black Foxes had not been a model patient, so the story went. Kalugin had been a terror for the rehab nurses, especially one Irina Medvikova, a blond beauty he'd taken a special liking to.

On the last day of May that year, he'd managed to corner her on a utility closet, prosthetic foot and all. Kalugin raped the nurse and she had fled bleeding and in tears from the clinic.

"Well enough, sir. It pains me in bad weather...sometimes in snow, when I'm outside for long times. Otherwise—"

Zhukov suddenly stood up. He'd had enough of the man's attitude. The stories of Vasily Kalugin were too numerous to count and growing throughout the whole of the Red Army, the stuff of legend and barroom banter and whispered tales in foxholes and tents from Karelia on the Finnish border to Sevastopol on the Black Sea. Somehow, Vasiliev had managed to make something special out of this street urchin.

After being discharged from the polyclinic—he'd been in disciplinary detention in a secure wing after the 'incident'—Zhukov knew from the files that Vasiliev had come to visit Kalugin in July of that year. Zhukov knew from the reports, knew from having Vasiliev brief him before arriving in Berlin, that Vasily Kalugin was a temperamental instrument of the State, one who needed stroking and polishing to be suitable for Red Army operations. By now, Zhukov knew that Vasiliev had long ago decided Kalugin would be 'his' special project. Indeed, word had even reached Commissar Beria and the Internal Affairs troops. Vasiliev recognized the man's extraordinary abilities, his courage and resourcefulness. He also recognized that he had to get Kalugin well and into the field, or those very same talents and abilities would get him jailed, or worse.

He had in mind a little mission for the farm boy from Tumanichovo.

"Major, your exploits have been exemplary," Zhukov told him. "Vasiliev and Konev both briefed me on what you did, with the Black Foxes and the Moskva Squad, behind the fascist lines the last few months. Now, we have a new mission for you."

Kalugin breathed a silent thanks. He could have been shot for what he'd done to Heike upstairs. Others had been shot or carted off to the gulags for less.

"Of course, comrade Marshal. I'm ready to serve the State and the Party with all my strength and soul."

_Horse manure,_ thought Zhukov, but he didn't say that. He stood before Kalugin, sizing up the man. Kalugin was easily four inches taller, with a doughy face scarred from years of battle. His tired eyes looked like raisins in a pudding—the files actually said that—but his most prominent feature was a scar under his left chin at the jaw line—a reminder of his days on the streets of Moscow as a youngster fresh from the farm, when he'd gotten into a tussle with the Red Blades over some prime pick pocketing turf near Sokolniki Park.

"Commissar Beria's coming here...day after tomorrow, Major. You know of Beria?"

Kalugin said, "Yes, sir. People's Commissar of Internal Affairs. Staunch defender of socialism and our morals. Steadfast foe of all enemies of the State."

"Of course. Comrade Beria's also a jackal. He can make your life miserable. God knows, he's made mine that way enough times. Beria's coming here...to Marienbad. To Second Army headquarters. You will meet with him."

"Me, sir?" Kalugin's eyes narrowed. "Why does the commissar wish to me with me?"

"Some kind of new mission, Vasily Alexeyevich, that's all I know. I don't have the details. Present yourself at headquarters the day after tomorrow...0700 hours sharp." Zhukov circled the commando, examining Kalugin's bearing like he was critiquing a statue. "It would be best if you would clean yourself up and be presentable, Major. If you value your neck."

"Of course, comrade Marshal."

And that was true enough, Zhukov thought. Already, the NKVD was rounding up

thousands of suspected disloyal Soviet soldiers—wounded, repatriated, ex-POWs—and either summarily executing them or shipping them back east to the gulags.

Zhukov dismissed Kalugin and the major left the study to gather the rest of his gear. He'd found a place to bunk a few miles away, a _gasthaus_ partially demolished by artillery barrages but with several coach houses still intact in a courtyard behind the main building. The _gasthaus_ was a four-level hostelry on the Zindwerfe road into the center of Berlin. Kalugin pulled the rattling old Wehrmacht staff car he'd commandeered the week before into the courtyard and braked to a halt.

So Beria wanted to see him. A new mission. Kalugin went inside, nodded brusquely to the bored young _starsiy serzhant_ at the duty desk and climbed two flights of stairs to his quarters, a small flat overlooking the courtyard in the back.

He was breezily unworried about the People's Commissar. Kalugin had long been accustomed to being his own boss, answering to no one but himself when he was in the field, under deep cover, on a mission. Normally, such an attitude might have gotten him in trouble—when he returned from missions, it usually did—but the _spiritsy_ of the Black Foxes had done so much for Mother Russia and his reputation had become so great not even a Marshal of the Soviet Union could touch him.

As long as there was at least one more mission, Vasily Kalugin could continue his individualistic, unorthodox and free-lance, free-wheeling kind of style. It was the kind of outlook that would have gotten a lesser soldier shot. Defenders of Socialism did not demonstrate initiative or resourcefulness in combat. But Kalugin was no ordinary soldier. Even Zhukov would have to admit that.

In the back of a small closet in his quarters, hidden under a quilt, Kalugin poked around and found the small chest he had stashed there a few days ago. He pulled it out and keyed open the lock—the key was hidden in a small notch he had had carved out of the bottom of his wooden foot. Inside, he quickly rummaged through the jewelry and antique knives and coins and silver cutlery and gold blocks he had pilfered from Tegelwald. It was all there, undisturbed, just as he had left it. Treasure from the Nazis. And while Berlin burned just beyond the trees, who would miss it? Who would complain?

This chest would be his ticket to a new life. If and when the time came, Vasily Kalugin had long ago decided he wasn't going back to the kind of regimented life he'd lived in Tumanichovo. He had rubbed too many high-level people the wrong way. The Black Foxes had sacrificed a hell of a lot for the _Rodina_ , and the chest in the closet was part of the reward. A well-deserved reward. As Heike had been too.

Kalugin fondled one of the gilt-edged hunting knives. It was an ornate piece...its hilt carved into the leer of a wolf's head, the edge sharp enough to draw blood at a touch. No, the _Rodina_ had never seen a warrior such as Vasily Kalugin. It was safe to say Zhukov and Konev and the entire Red Army would not have smashed the _Wehrmacht_ and crushed the breath out of the German Reich by now had it not been for the Black Foxes and the heroic things they had done behind enemy lines.

Much of what they had done would never be known. And Kalugin hoped to keep it that way.

In the period between March and June 1941, Kalugin had made several forays into Nazi-occupied Poland, as a commando _leytenant_ with the 20th Diversionary Troops, each time barely escaping the Germans, each time returning in a different disguise. Each time, he had come back with valuable military intelligence. But it was the game, the sport of it all, that always intrigued him. When he heard from a staff officer to General Vasiliev that there were stories and rumors going around _Wehrmacht_ about some kind of 'rogue, bandit Pole,' a sort of Slavic superman with superhuman powers (like the American Superman, Clark Kent), a wraith or chameleon able to slip through the lines without detection, this only fed his ego.

It was during this time that Kalugin began to fashion himself as a ' _spiritsy_ ,' a sort of primeval blood ghost able to accomplish anything. This was when Kalugin realized he did have extraordinary abilities as a commando, plus enough style to build on his reputation with the enemy and enhance it. This kind of individual aggrandizement didn't bother General Vasiliev, but it did bother the poor constipated _zampolits_ , the political officers of the 20th, who harassed Kalugin about this without letup. The _zampolits_ considered this kind of attitude egotistical and anti-collective, even anti-Soviet. But all the while, because he was fearless and invaluable in reconnaissance against the Nazis, Vasiliev had let it go, in effect sheltering Kalugin from the political storm that at times gathered around him.

All of this had come to an end in June, 1941, on the day the _Wehrmacht_ had invaded the Soviet Union.

In the weeks of panic following the invasion, the Red Army was thrown back hundreds of miles in defeat and disarray and confusion. Initially, Kalugin was not surprised at the German move, only at its extraordinary success. He was however, bitter that the intelligence he had risked his life to provide, clearly pointing to German capabilities and intentions, had been ignored at the highest levels.

And, now, four years and hundreds of thousands of lives later, the end had come and the Red Army had finally throttled the Nazis into silence. Now, Kalugin knew his days of freedom were numbered. Before Zhukov had come and told him to get ready for a new mission—Commissar Beria himself would spell out the details—Kalugin had known he would be recalled to Russia and posted to some godforsaken outpost on the Arctic Circle. Or, what was more likely, Beria's goons would arrest him and stand him up before a wall and a firing squad. It was inevitable.

But the chest in the closet was his ticket out. That and the chance for just one more mission.

Vasily Kalugin, _spiritsy_ of the Black Fox, commando major of the 20th Diversionary Brigade of the Second Guards Army, gang enforcer of the Red Blades of Sokolniki and the Manezh, first son of collective farm engineer Boris Gaminovich Kalugin had always been most comfortable in disguise, pretending to be somebody else. "All my life," he liked to say over vodka and peppers, "I've been behind enemy lines."

_We'll see what Commissar Beria has to offer, what kind of mission this is. And when this last mission for our beloved Rodina is accomplished,_ Vasily Alexeyevich Kalugin told himself as he carefully re-stowed the chest in the closet and covered it up, _the spiritsy will either disappear in one final blaze of glory or maybe just melt away into the forests and make his way to the American lines on the other side of the Elbe River_.

Surely such a man of limitless disguise could make a new life for himself in a place like America.
CHAPTER 4

Tuesday, May 22, 1945

Washington, D.C.

10:00 a.m.

General Leslie Groves rapped on the table with his knuckles and called the meeting to order in Room 4E22 of the new Pentagon Building.

"Gentlemen, its 1000 hours...let's get started." Groves waited a few moments for the banter to die down. "As you know, this is a special session of the Target Committee. We have the task of making final recommendations to the Secretary of War here—" the general nodded in the direction of Henry Stimson, pipe clenched between his teeth, sitting at the far end of the table "—regarding the first use of the gadget, which targets are available and how they've been ranked for selection. The Secretary will make the final decisions this morning as to which targets are primary and which secondary." Groves shuffled some notes. "I'd like to thank Dr. Oppenheimer for coming all the way from Los Alamos to be here and also Dr. Stearns, who couldn't be here, for his part in putting the target list together."

It was a cool, but otherwise pleasant early spring day in Washington. Groves had been able to see a few remaining cherry blossoms dotting the grassy sward of the Mall on his ride over the Potomac—he'd been bunking in quarters the War Department had leased from a New York law firm out on Connecticut Avenue—but his mind was focused on the business at hand.

Today was the day the final target list would be approved. The Secretary of War himself would be on hand and would make the selection. There was bound to be discussion, possibly rancorous argument over the list. Oppenheimer and Compton and some of the scientists wanted to demonstrate the bomb first, set up some kind of public show on an island in the Pacific. Groves and his deputy Brigadier General Thomas Farrell, also attending, Vannevar Bush, the scientific research director and Dr. James Conant, president of M.I.T. wanted to use the device as quickly and devastatingly as possible, on a Japanese city, for as much impact and effect as possible.

Where the Secretary stood, Groves wasn't sure. It was his job to persuade Mr. Stimson of the military logic of the situation, and not let the misguided, woolly-headed thinking of the eggheads get in the way of winning the war.

Secretary Stimson regarded Groves evenly from across the table. "This list...it's finalized? All the arguments, for and against, they're in here?" He tapped the file folders in front of him.

"They are, Mr. Secretary. Should we begin with the list?"

"Please do."

Groves stood up and went to an easel in the corner of the room. Windows were open opposite the easel and a slight breeze filtered in, ruffling papers on the table, rattling the blinds. Groves indicated the large topographic map of Japan he had pinned to the easel.

"Mr. Secretary, as you can see, the Target Committee recommends the following targets for selection, in order of priority." Groves tapped the side of the map, where the list had been lettered in.

Kyoto

Hiroshima

Yokohama

Kokura Arsenal

Niigata

"As you can see from your folder," Groves went on, "each target has qualifications, certain strengths and weaknesses. We chose Kyoto as the preferred and recommended first target."

"Not all of us agree with that," Oppenheimer interrupted. The scientific director of Project "Y", as the effort was code-named, went on. "I have an addendum I want to add to the minutes of this meeting—"

"Dr. Oppenhimer...please—" Groves attempted to shut off the debate he had heard so many times before. "This has all been—"

But Stimson waved him silent. "No, no, that's all right, General. This is serious business we're about here. I want to hear all sides. Go on, Doctor."

Oppenheimer cleared his throat, momentarily convulsed in a wracking cough. He'd been smoking four packs a day the last two years and his throat and lungs were on fire.

"I have an addendum from many of the scientists, Mr. Secretary. It's a petition to you, to the Government, actually to the President as well. In this petition, if I may summarize, these scientists insist that the best first use of the gadget is in a public demonstration before the eyes of the whole world. They are proposing a test, at a neutral site, maybe an uninhabited island in the Pacific, to demonstrate the power of the weapon. Frankly, sir, to frighten the Japanese into suing for peace."

Groves gritted his teeth, while Bush and Farrell stirred uneasily. "We've been over this ground before, Mr. Secretary. Simply put, there are several reasons why this is a bad idea."

"I'm listening, General," Stimson fiddled with his pipe, trying to get it lit.

"Well, sir, to be truthful, until we test the device at Trinity site, there's no assurance the thing'll work. What if it's a dud? What would the Japanese and the rest of the world think then?"

"An important point, I'll concede. Go on."

"Also, Mr. Secretary, what we've seen of Japanese defenses in the last few months—at Saipan, Iwo Jima, Manila—leads me to question whether any demonstration, no matter how impressive, will have any effect on such fanatical, suicidal determination to fight to the last man. Frankly, sir, I cannot imagine that an enemy that sends teenaged pilots barely out of flight school on kamikaze mission into our ships would even remotely consider suing for peace on the basis of some _demonstration_." Groves said the word with a taste of disgust.

"Granted." Stimson let the discussion proceed for several more minutes, before interrupting. "Gentlemen, I spent some time myself in Japan back in the Twenties. Toured Tokyo, Kyoto...lovely place, Kyoto, Kobe...a lot of places. I was Governor-General in the Philippines at the time, right there with MacArthur. Based on what I know of Japanese character, they're a proud, honorable people, with gracious traditions and a fierce desire to hang on to them. One of their traditions comes from the samurai, the code of the _Bushido_. You've heard of this?"

There was a smattering of murmurs and head nods.

Stimson stoked his pipe and puffed vigorously. Soon his gray, parchment-thin hair and face were enveloped in pungent smoke. "It's all about honor. Honor and face. To a Jap, the greatest honor is dying in glorious combat. Giving up, giving in, surrender...none of that means a thing to them. They abhor things like that. They look down on the very idea of surrender...at least the men who're in charge now. They're all raised the same way. Bushido's in their blood." Stimson shook his head. "My reading of the Japanese is that they'd view the kind of demonstration Dr. Oppenheimer's talking about as a trick or some kind of diversion or deception. Men like Tojo and Yamamoto can't even conceive of surrendering, let alone entering negotiations based on a show like we're talking about. No—" the Secretary clenched his pipe firmly in his teeth. "—such a demonstration would be quite useless for the purpose suggested...I'm sure of that. We've got no choice but to pursue a military use for the bomb. Otherwise—" he looked around the room, "we've spent a hell of a lot of the taxpayers' money for nothing."

_I couldn't have said it better myself_ , Groves thought.

Stimson waved his pipe at Groves to continue.

The General resumed his stance by the easel. "I've already talked with General LeMay about these targets. All are relatively undamaged by his bombers. We want them to stay that way...the effects of the bomb will be magnified if it's used against a fresh target. For the next three months, LeMay has agreed that 20th Army Air Forces won't target any of these locations. That gives us a window of time to work with...and a free hand."

"General," Stimson asked, "why is Kyoto at the top of the list?"

Groves looked to General Farrell, who rifled through some papers. Farrell answered.

"The city is presently undamaged by 20th Air Force. It's a major symbolic and religious shrine city, as I'm sure you know, Mr. Secretary." Farrell ticked off the particulars. "Large urban and industrial area. Population of about 100,000. Former capital of Japan. Plus it's a center of intellectuals and learning...just the kind of place where the significance, the impact, of the weapon, would be best appreciated. Kyoto meets every qualification as the first target."

Stimson had closed his eyes, yet he was staring at the blinds being rattled by slight breezes flowing up from the river, staring at things only he could see. "General, those are the very reasons I'd have struck Kyoto from the list. Have you ever been there?"

"Uh, no, sir...can't say that I have, sir."

"I have. Lovely city, believe me. Your description is accurate, but—" he shrugged, smiled faintly, eyes still closed, "there's so much more there. Did you know there are over thirty Buddhist shrines, and over two hundred Shinto shrines in the city?"

"No, sir, I was unaware of that."

"Kyoto was the capital of Japan for nearly eleven hundred years. Some of the sights there—Nijo Castle, for example. Exquisite. And the Kiyomizu Temple—" Stimson shook his head in admiration. "Did you know the Japanese have a saying: ' _To jump from the veranda of Kiyomizu Temple.'_ It means to do something especially daring." The Secretary's reverie abruptly vanished and he sat up straighter in his chair. He pointed at the map with the stem of his pipe. "As we are doing here. Gentlemen, I've been to Kyoto. To destroy such a fine ancient city would only enrage the Japanese and make them enemies of America for all time. We're going to win this war, God willing, and we're going to have to live with the Japs afterward. I want Kyoto stricken from the list altogether."

Groves started to say something. "But Mr. Secretary—" but he stopped, seeing it was hopeless. Silently, he found a marker and crossed the word 'Kyoto' off the side of the map. "Kyoto is removed from consideration."

Stimson said, "Thank you, General."

"That leaves Hiroshima as the next target on the list."

Stimson sat back, pipe in his mouth and steepled his hands, having made his point. "Tell me about Hiroshima."

The meeting adjourned just at noon, with Groves, followed by Stimson, personally thanking each member of the committee. After some last minute consultations, Room 4E22 was at last quiet, its oaken conference table cleared of most papers. But three stayed behind.

Oppenheimer and Groves wanted to meet privately with the Secretary of War. Stimson stood before the map of Japan, fingering distances from LeMay's bases in the Marianas to various targets.

"General, when is this test you keep talking about? When will we know the damn thing works?"

Groves' eyes met Oppenheimer's. "Trinity site's being prepped right now, sir. The basic base camp has already been set up. There's even a post office on site. The tower and shot cab construction are well underway."

Oppenheimer added a few details. "We've got observation posts and a control dugout going in. Trenches for instrumentation and wiring. Photography stands. We've taken over an old ranch house as a command post."

Stimson smiled faintly. "I'm sure all that's going fine. That wasn't my question. I wanted to know when. _When_ will the test be?"

Groves and Oppenheimer looked at each other a second time, each expecting the other to speak. Finally, both spoke at once. Stimson held up his hand.

"Please, one at a time—"

"Mr. Secretary, it all depends. We're doing tests of the detonator geometry right now. The lenses help focus the blast shock wave...it's got to be just right or the thing'll be a big dud. And we're trucking a big steel container—they call it 'Jumbo'—into the site now. We're going to pack it with conventional explosives, mostly TNT, and set it off, just to calibrate things." The gaunt physicist shrugged. "If all goes well, and our calculations pan out, we should be able to test fire the gadget sometime in July...maybe the first half of July. But there's a lot of work yet to be done."

Stimson was thoughtful, studying the map, running his fingers around the edges of Honshu, then Kyushu, as if he could feel the terrain right there in Room 4E22.

"I don't have to remind both you of the need for absolute security and secrecy in all this. We're in a critical phase now in the Pacific war. The President is most insistent on this...nothing is to be released or revealed to anyone not on the approved lists. We all know the Russians and probably the Japanese have spies in this country, probably working overtime. If the device is to work, and be effective, and most importantly, bring this cursed war to an end, the secret has to be preserved right up to the moment it's dropped. The psychology of the moment, the shock of the moment, has to favor us, not the Japanese."

Groves was glad he had covered security matters at the Hill and Trinity Site with Lt. Colonel William Parsons just the day before.

"The project's buttoned up tighter than a whore's ass, if you'll pardon the expression, Mr. Secretary. We've got Counter-intelligence Corps surveillance on all known operatives of the Soviet Union and Japan right now. CIC and the FBI have already rolled up several links of a Soviet network in the last month, and they're pursuing other leads right now. I can have full report on your desk this afternoon."

"It's the unknown ones I worry about," Stimson said pointedly.

Groves nodded. "Yes, sir, that is always a concern for us too. However, I am confident we've got effective, multiple layers of security around all critical operations and components. With Parsons and the Los Alamos Detachment—Colonel Cates and his men—I'm sure we can deal with anything that turns up."

Stimson turned to Oppenheimer. "Doctor, you think this infernal Gadget will really work?"

Oppenheimer suppressed a wan smile. He was quiet and thoughtful for a moment, as if calculating the probabilities, analyzing things. "I'd give the test shot a 50-50 chance of complete success."

"Oh come now, Doctor," Groves said. "That's not what you've told me." To Stimson: "He's been considerably more upbeat in all our talks and meetings."

Oppenheimer conceded the point. "So I have, General. However, one has to consider the audience, doesn't one? Back on the Hill, I'm the chief salesman, babysitter, disciplinarian and devil's advocate, all in one. Here—" he shrugged, "I suppose I'm—"

"On the spot?" Stimson asked, then chuckled softly. "I see your point, though." He sighed, went to the window to peer through the blinds and Washington's midday sun at the river traffic on the Potomac, noting the Coast Guard barks working their way upstream, guarding the river's western banks from curious sightseers. He sniffed. "They still can't believe the size of this Pentagon Building, can they? Well, I suppose neither can I. Hell of an achievement, General. And a hell of a budget." He turned back from the window. "Gentlemen, I hope this thing works, for all of us. Otherwise the country has spent billions of dollars for nothing."

"Mr. Secretary," Groves said, "even the most optimistic projections on casualties for Operation Coronet and Olympic say that tens of thousands of GIs, Marines, sailors and airmen will die when we invade Japan itself. If the bomb can cut that down, even a little, a hell of a lot of American mothers are going to be a lot happier. The money will have been well spent."

"Agreed, and amen to that," Stimson acknowledged. "You know there are still factions inside the Japanese Government that are trying to find an honorable way to succeed."

"Anything we can do to help them, sir?"

Stimson's face darkened. "It's a tricky business, this end-of-war diplomacy, General. A real hall of mirrors. We're working through several intermediaries now to encourage this faction to take the last steps toward surrender, some kind of surrender at least. Anything less than unconditional surrender won't be acceptable to our Allies."

"Nor should it be," Groves concluded. "After Pearl Harbor, and all that's happened—"

"You might as well know, General, that we've got some confidential intercepts recently, from O.S.S. people—Donovan's boys—in Switzerland. They've been picking Japanese signals right out of the wireless and cable traffic, have been for years—" Stimson shuddered at the prospect "—you know it still gives me the creeps that we read each other's mail like that. It seems the Russians are not, in the end, going to help the Japanese broker a peace with the Allies. It looks like the war faction is strengthening its hold on the Imperial War Cabinet."

Oppenheimer shook his head. "That's bad, Mr. Secretary. Bad news indeed."

"Well, the President thinks so too. Just the other day, Donovan or one of his fair-haired boys here in Washington went to the Oval Office with a proposal: they wanted to put a clandestine team of assassin/commandos ashore in Japan, to take out some of the more hardline Cabinet members. The hope was that would give the peace faction a better shot."

"They're an imaginative group, I'll give them that," Groves said.

Stimson shuddered again. He closed the windows, as the breeze off the river had picked up. "Ridiculous idea. The President doesn't like it either. He said so at the Cabinet meeting yesterday. No...it's going to be unconditional surrender, all the way now. Nothing less is possible."

The three men in Room 4E22 regarded each other with looks of grave concern. They realized that at that moment, with the target list finalized, a great divide had finally been crossed.

For better or worse, the world was about to enter the Atomic Age.
CHAPTER 5

Monday, May 28, 1945

Trinity Site, New Mexico

1:30 p.m.

Oppenheimer and Groves flew back to New Mexico aboard an Army Air Forces C-46, landing late that night at the airport in Santa Fe. There was still a lot of work to be done to prepare the Trinity Site.

The two men rode back to the Hill in an unmarked car, with an MP escort.

"I want to talk to Farrell about shipping the things," Groves said. He stared out at the darkened moonscape of the Jemez Mountains as the convoy bumped along the rutted highway to Los Alamos. "See what arrangements have been done, what else I can do to expedite." The general was nervous, worrying with a gem clip in his hands. "As soon as you test, we've got to be able to get the gadgets out to Tinian, get them into Tibbets' hands so he can use 'em. The way LeMay's going, the Japs'll be bombed back into the Stone Age before we drop our bombs."

"They may surrender before we can drop, General. That'd be a hell of a thing, wouldn't it--after all this work—"

Groves growled. "I hope to hell not, Professor. My job's not done until I deliver three bombs ready for military use by the 509th." Left unsaid by the man who had built the Pentagon in two years was the assertion that one way or another, he _would_ finish the job.

"I'm going to Trinity tomorrow," Oppenheimer said, "with Kistiakowsky and a few others. I want to see how the shot setup's going, see what they've built to handle the device. Bainbridge wants to show me the bunkers and instrument shacks too."

"Crack heads down there, Doctor, if you have to. No more delays. No more theoretical discussions either. I promised the President and Secretary Byrnes we'd have something to take to Potsdam by the middle of July. I don't like disappointing the Commander in Chief. It's not good for my health."

The two men parted company inside Los Alamos East Gate, shortly after midnight.

The next day, Oppenheimer rode down to Trinity Site in a small caravan of Army sedans and trucks. The trip took nearly six hours, most of it along dust-choked Highway 60, across an endless hardpan of gypsum salt desert. Crystalline peaks of ocher mountains lined the western horizon, poking in and out of boiling early summer thunderclouds most of the day. It was just after noon when the caravan pulled into the compound.

Trinity site was a flat, desolate scrubland sixty miles northwest of the town of Alamogordo, a bowl of desert known to its earliest Spanish explorers as the Jornada del Muerto...the Journey of Death, or better put in English: Dead Man's Trail. The compound site was an eighteen by twenty-four mile range, seized in part from a rancher named McDonald, and laid out in the form of a lopsided X, with spider webs of electrical wire strung for miles in every direction along marching rows of T-shaped wooden posts set down in the desert.

The Jornada was poorly vegetated, being home to small furrows and clumps of hard bitter mesquite bush, to yucca with blades sharp as swords, to centipedes and scorpions that soldiers shook out of their boots every morning, to legions of fire ants, the occasional tarantula and most exciting of all, nests of rattlesnakes. MP's who had set up the base camp in early spring hunted antelope with machine guns once a week, for meals and for sport. The first residents of the austere base camp had only cold water for showers. Drinking water was drawn from wells, thick with gypsum, giving most of the camp a steady bout of diarrhea. Used for wash, it made their hair stiff and brittle.

Oppenheimer knew most of the brief history of Trinity Site. The jeep and truck convoy turned off the highway and onto a lumpy blacktop paved in the middle of the desert. Ahead in the distance, the skeletal frame of the shot tower had risen like a mirage in shimmering heat, some 3400 yards northwest of the old McDonald ranch. The shot tower had been built by contractors, trucked down to the site and erected in sections of prefabricated steel. Concrete footings had been poured into the hard desert caliche twenty feet down into the earth, supporting its four legs. Braced with struts, the tower soared a hundred feet into the air, and was topped with an oak platform and three-sided cabin roofed and sheltered with sheets of corrugated iron. One side of the 'cabin' was open to the air, facing camera bunkers to the west, and Compania Hill, some twenty miles away, set aside for visitors and observers. The cabin had a removable floor, through which the gadget would be hoisted from the ground when it arrived at the site.

_If it ever gets here_ , Oppenheimer thought. He alighted from the Jeep, and took in the austere vista of the desert in the hard May sunshine.

The shot tower represented Ground Zero, where the device would be detonated, God and the laws of physics willing. From that point, at compass points roughly north, west and south, spaced at distances up to 10,000 yards, the Corps of Engineers had built earth-sheltered bunkers with concrete slab roofs supported by oak beams thick as railroad ties. Bunker N-10000, nearly six miles north of Zero would house recording instruments and searchlights. W-10000 would house more searchlights and banks of cameras. To the south, S-10000 would serve as the control bunker. Five miles south of that, along one axis of the lop-sided X, the Army's base camp of tents and barracks had been erected.

Oppenheimer chatted with technicians at the base of the tower for a few minutes, then climbed a hundred feet into the air to the shot cab at the top. From the cab, he paused a moment to take in the view. Throughout the site, people scurried back and forth like armies of ants, feverishly running wires all over the desert, fabricating dozens of little huts for instruments and cameras. From his vantage point, Oppenheimer could see ranks and rows of T-poles snaking off in every direction, some five hundred miles of wire in all.

Kenneth Bainbridge, a Harvard-trained physicist who had overseen much of the compound's construction, met Oppenheimer at the top.

"Impressive from this height, isn't it, Professor?"

Oppenheimer removed his pork-pie hat and wiped his forehead with a dirty handkerchief.

_My God, he looks like Death itself_ , Bainbridge thought. Oppie had been working himself seven days a week, had suffered pneumonia and other ills, had driven himself practically to the brink of exhaustion. The demands of General Groves and security matters around the gadget hadn't helped either.

"All this wiring..." the Berkeley professor muttered, wiping down his face and lips. "How do you keep from tripping over it?"

Another man at the edge of the cab, working wire through a harness and snaking it toward a chest of terminal boards, piped up. "We eat, sleep and dream wiring connections, Professor. Red to red, black to black, neutral to ground, P1 to T1...you see, I even talk that way. A new language."

Bainbridge chuckled. "This is Dr. Edvard Tolkach...one of Bethe's boys, Professor. He's working with detonation circuitry, there."

Oppenheimer nodded, regarding the Czech physicist with curiosity. He was a short stocky man, with tufts of sparse white hair, plastered to his forehead in the building heat. A salt and pepper goatee framed a face heavy with sagging jowls and sad, watery eyes. Tolkach clenched an unlit pipe in his teeth.

"Indeed," Oppenheimer smiled. "I'll have to be especially kind to you, Herr Doctor Tolkach. I wouldn't want anything to distract you, make you run wires wrong. The gadget might not blow at all."

Tolkach nodded. "Or blow at the wrong time, eh Professor. The Army wouldn't like that at all."

"So how goes it up here?" Oppenheimer asked, of no one in particular.

"We have a great view of nothing," Bainbridge said. "The tower's just about done...tomorrow, the contractors will be installing the winch down there—" he pointed to a concrete piling at the base of the tower. "We've got some test casings and things to practice with, make sure we can lift stuff up here, through the hatch."

Tolkach went back to his wiring work, while Oppenheimer and Bainbridge went over what still had to be done at Ground Zero. Two other men were in the shot cab at the moment as well, both Army signalmen, pulling wire for Tolkach up into the cab for connection.

As he meticulously fed wire through the harness and inched it toward the terminal boards, Tolkach felt subconsciously in his pocket for the folded sheaf of papers. All morning, he had been discreetly making quick and furtive sketches of the site layout: the shot tower here, the bunkers there, the ranch house and base camp here and here, marking each location with an 'x' and a few scribbled notes. It was nerve-wracking, and he resented the way BISHOP and his local contacts, Fortney and Leonas, had been pushing harder and harder, for ever more information about the bomb, about Trinity, about everything. They were insatiable and it was beginning to interfere with his real work.

The trip to New York, explaining things to BISHOP, had done no good whatsoever. Still, he'd already committed himself to helping them out and rationalized it as 'for the good of mankind.' He couldn't very well stop now, could he? Not when the test and the end were so close.

Tolkach fumbled with a bundle of wire, dropping the leads and the entire handful nearly slipped right off the shot cab floor, before the Army sergeant working with him snagged them. Had the wire fallen the hundred feet to the desert, serious injury might have resulted to the people around the base of the tower.

"Hey...watch it, Doctor Tolkach." Sergeant Carnes was the Signal Corps electrician assigned to work with him on the detonation circuitry. All the wires they were running would be use to 'light the fuse', as Carnes put it, run current to the explosive lenses that would set off the chain reaction in the plutonium sphere in the middle of the bomb, by collapsing inward, compressing the ball. "We don't want to drop that."

Tolkach was sweating profusely, and removed his jacket, careful not to ruffle the papers in his pants pocket. "No, sergeant, you're right...I'm sorry....it just slipped."

Carnes stood up and stretched his back and neck. It was grinding and tedious work, pulling wire to that height with enough slack to make hundreds of precise connections.

"Take a break...get a load off...we're almost done with this section anyway."

Tolkach nodded absent-mindedly. His mind was elsewhere, silently reading from memory the strange letter that T-Division director Hans Bethe had given to him before he'd motored down to Trinity Site. The letter had bothered him all morning.

The director had given him an odd assignment: _On your way back to the Hill_ (he was due to ride back with Kistiakowsky and some others in an Army convoy tomorrow), _I want you to meet a new arrival...a Dr. Anton from the Cavendish Lab in England...another Czech immigrant. Security's providing several MPs too. Greet him at the Santa Fe train station, and escort him back to the Hill. Anton's an expert in shock wave propagation...we need him on our implosion studies...I'm sure he'll appreciate a fellow countryman helping him get settled...._

It wasn't just that Security was tighter than a drum nowadays and side trips away from the Hill had to be approved at the highest levels. Tolkach was deep into experiments with Lieutenant Commander Bradbury and the Special Engineering Detachment on explosive lens design...every moment was critical, Groves had said as much. There were important tests coming up. How was it that now, of all times, he could suddenly spared for chaperon duty? It didn't make sense. Unless—

Tolkach was acutely aware of the weight of the sketches in his pocket. He watched Sergeant Carnes on the other side of the shot cab, kneeling over the edge, hauling up more wire, yelling down for slack to get the cabling up into the cab. Tolkach knew perfectly well the Army suspected him of disloyalty at least, perhaps even espionage. He knew from the way things had been disturbed in his quarters, the way the dresser drawer had been left ajar, the way medicines had been re-arranged in the bathroom, his night slippers under the bed instead of beside it. Like it had been intentional...a message: _we know what you're up to...we just can't prove it yet. But we're watching._ So, he was under surveillance.

He was sure there was surveillance even here, at Trinity, this godforsaken outpost in the middle of the New Mexico desert. But who? Carnes, maybe? Tolkach studied the sergeant. Sure enough, Carnes peeked over just as Tolkach was fingering the sketches. Quickly, he withdrew his hands, and examined them, as if they had a mind of their own. Carnes quickly bent back to his work.

Maybe it _was_ Carnes. Maybe not. Who, then? He'd have to be nearby, inconspicuous, seemingly one of the crew assigned to duties at Ground Zero. Tolkach silently ticked off the people he knew. Carnes, Kistiakowsky, the freckled lab tech from Metallurgy...what was his name?

He took a deep breath, realizing he was angry, though not about the surveillance. It was the Soviets, or more specifically ACORN, his contact in Santa Fe. CAESAR was tasking them all with more and more intelligence requirements, more information, about everything, even useless stuff unrelated to the gadget. BISHOP had implied as much when he'd met the man in New York. "They're like sponges," BISHOP had said. "They want everything. Photos, lab notes, sketches, specifications."

"A lot of what they're asking for isn't even remotely related to the device, or the program," Tolkach complained.

"It doesn't matter," BISHOP told him. "Just give them what they want...their own people will sort it out."

Tolkach would never understand it. And now, with permission for a trip to Santa Fe, maybe it was time to meet with ACORN, really get face to face with her and explain what problems this incessant demand for more and more was causing. It was risky, dangerous, the whole thing could blow up in their faces. Why, now, after months of feeding information through ACORN to sources back East, presumably all the way back to Moscow, had the beast suddenly developed a greater appetite?

Oh, yes, he was angry and as he took more wire leads from Carnes—their eyes met for a minute...Carnes almost _had_ to be the tail—and cinched them up to remove the slack, pulling them up the terminal panels for connection—he finally made up his mind. Once and for all, he would confront ACORN and lay down some guidelines, remind her that he was in this not for money or glory or some misguided sense of adventure, but because the good of the world demanded Allies share what they knew of this fearsome device.

If ACORN wanted more and more information, he'd just give it to her. He'd give his contacts and handlers more details than they could ever handle...overwhelm them with facts, about everything, just to get them off his back for awhile.

Tolkach still had a job to do and he didn't need the kind of interference ACORN's demands caused. He didn't have a death wish and he had no wish to be further investigated by the Army. The plain truth was that if the investigations went much further, and Oppie and Bethe and Groves no longer vouched for him, he could imprisoned or deported on a moment's notice.

And that just wouldn't do at all.

"Sergeant, I'm just about done with panel L-4 and L-5. How much more wire have they got down there?"

Carnes wiped sweat from his eyebrows. He was a youngish blond fellow, rather bland face, with a big American grin. His Army regulation T-shirt was soaked with perspiration.

"Looks like the spools are running low. Last I heard, the truck was heading back to the ranch for more. You want to take a little break, get out of this heat?"

Tolkach nodded, patted down his own florid and flushed face. The midday sun was high and bright and fierce. Temperatures would no doubt climb well into the 90s by midafternoon. "I need to go back to the ranch myself. Can you handle this for about an hour?"

"Sure thing, Doc. Need help getting down?"

The Czech physicist was already backing down the long, hundred-foot ladder bolted to the frame of the tower, carefully, hand over hand, as he had been taught. He wanted to pay a little visit to the MP command post at the base camp. It was a ten-mile drive away. Maybe he could catch a jeep or a truck heading south.

"No thanks, Sergeant. I can manage." He resisted looking back up at Carnes, but he wondered if Carnes was the only tail today.

Tolkach caught a jeep ride from a pair of Signal Corps soldiers and was pulling into the perimeter of the base camp half an hour later. The command post of the 4817th Military Police Detachment was a crude, clapboard hut on masonry block foundations, surrounded by a few open lean-to tents for on-duty guards. Horses for the mounted patrols were tied to hitching posts in front... _just_ _like a Wild West saloon,_ Tolkach thought. He was suddenly aware of stares and uneasy shifting among a gathering of MPs outside the post, as he climbed out of the jeep. One corporal unslung his M-1 and strolled over to confront the physicist.

"Uh, sir, you got the wrong color badge for this area...you need a yellow one for south camp, inside the fence—"

Tolkach had forgotten about the badge system. He had a red badge. He had access to the ranch and Ground Zero, plus the mess hall and a few other buildings around the base camp. But not south camp, and not the command post.

"Sorry, soldier...I didn't remember....I have this letter, you see—" he pulled Bethe's letter out. "I am supposed to have an escort to Santa Fe tomorrow—"

The corporal held out his hand. "Let's see that." He took the letter, scanned it frowning, and handed it back. "You need to see the Lieutenant. Follow me." He went inside the post. Tolkach followed.

The Lieutenant turned out to be Lieutenant Van DeRitter. Tolkach had never been inside the command post before. It was a spartan single room of cluttered metal desks and creaky wooden chairs, with one wall lined with filing cabinets. An armory locker, stoutly padlocked stood sentinel in the corner behind DeRitter's desk.

Tolkach gave him the letter and explained what he knew of Bethe's request.

DeRitter was noncommittal. "Not to worry, Doc. I've got the orders right here, right from Detachment—" he patted a stack of papers in an in-box. "We've got a convoy heading north at 0700 hours tomorrow morning. You're assigned a spot."

"The letter says I am to go to Santa Fe, to the train station."

"Yes, sir, that it does. When we get to Santa Fe and the highway junction, my boys will take a right onto Cordova and take you to the train station. I see this Dr. Anton's coming on the _Prairie Express_ at 1130 hours."

"That seems to be correct, Lieutenant. Will your officers be coming with me to the station?"

Lieutenant DeRitter's lips tightened slightly. His orders were specific... _do not let the subject out of your sight even for a second._ But the 'mission' required the subject to have a longer leash, a taste of freedom, as bait. Colonel Cates at Los Alamos had been adamant on that. The theory was the subject would hang himself, given a long enough rope.

"Well, Doc, we haven't worked that one out yet. My men have to be at the Hill at 1400 hours. But there's another detail assigned to you from Los Alamos Detachment. Two Military Police officers will contact you in the train station, then give you and Dr. Anton a lift to Los Alamos. Of course, Dr. Anton still has to be processed at East Palace. Mrs. McKibben'll see to that. Then, you come to the Hill. That's what my orders say, at any rate."

Tolkach understood. Even as he left the command post, his mind was racing. They were going to drop him off at the station and leave. Another escort detail would meet him there. That left a gap, a gap of time, perhaps just enough to do what he had to do.

Visit with ACORN, drop off his sketches, and firmly explain to his handler that he could honor no more requests for the next few weeks. The press of work at the Hill and at Trinity was too great. The Gadget was consuming everybody these days.

The trip up to Santa Fe took about four hours. Tolkach rode shotgun with three MP's from the 4817th, who left the convoy as it entered Cerillos and followed Highway 85 northeast into the capital city. The train station, a vaguely Moorish complex, with fake minarets mixed in with stucco décor loomed ahead on the left. The driver, a Sergeant Parks, pulled up out front.

"This is it, Doc. The train station. Detachment said there'd be another detail here to hook up with you."

Tolkach's backseat passenger was a swarthy New Jersey kid corporal named Herkowitz. "Yeah...good luck finding 'em. Hey, two bucks says they're schmoozing with the USO girls at the canteen."

Parks helped Tolkach with his bags. "Yeah, check there first. If you don't see 'em with the dames, try the service club. Dames and food....that's what MP's go for."

Parks climbed back into the Army sedan and sped off toward Los Alamos.

Tolkach stood on the corner of Cerrilos and St. Francis, like some vagrant spying new territory. A steady stream of passengers filed in and out of the station, many in olive drab or khaki; half the traffic seemed to be Army, heavy for a Tuesday morning. He studied the throngs of travelers for a moment, looking for obvious surveillance, then scanned the intersection.

A few delivery trucks were lined up further down the street. Two cars, a Plymouth and a Merc were back to back across Cerrilos, though both seemed empty. Through the light, an Army Ford was idling, smoke curling into the warm air from its exhaust. There were several men inside, probably soldiers. One was reading a newspaper. Tolkach hoisted his bags and made his way down the street for a closer look, then decided the sedan couldn't be surveillance. Two more soldiers, officers all, strolled up and began chatting with the occupants through an open window. None wore the black armbands of MPs.

Maybe there was no tail here. If that were so, Tolkach realized he had the opportunity he had been looking for. He checked his watch. Anton wasn't due for another two hours. There was no reason to hurry into the station and locate his MP detail. Before heading inside, he decided to hail a taxi and pay a little visit to ACORN herself.

The Pueblo Gift and Craft shop was an adobe mission-style box tucked away in a cul-de-sac off Alameda, near Don Gaspar Street and its garish _cantinas_ and pueblo-style five-and-dimes. Street traffic was light in the shaded cool of acacia and pinon trees that lined both sides of the street, mostly military off-duty and a few Mexican _rancheros_. Behind the shop, a small cottage was partly hidden, a white frame studio with bright blue shutters and trellises thick with flowers.

Tolkach strolled up to the shop and went inside, depositing his bags in a vestibule cluttered with Mexican and Indian knickknacks. He rang a bell bolted to an inside doorframe.

"Anybody home?"

Soft music issued from the shop interior, itself cluttered with bric-a-brac: scuffed tables and chairs, tattered pillows, art frames lying about at crazy angles, a torn _piñata_ dangling from a ceiling joist. Wind chimes rustled in the faint breeze, competing with the liquid tones of "Mood Indigo" issuing from a radio in the back. Movie posters adorned a near wall...multiple poses of Rita Hayworth and Katherine Hepburn were popular.

A woman appeared from around a tall oak chest. It was ACORN. She saw Tolkach and stopped, her mouth open in startled, then choked-off surprise. She toweled wet pottery clay from her hands. Her eyes narrowed, looked furtively around for other shoppers. There were none.

"What are—why did you come here? You didn't tell me you were coming by the shop." Her eyes accused him, brown eyes he noticed again, with odd yellow streaks that punctuated a high forehead and long, oval cheekbones. Her hair was dark brown, a slight reddish tint, a peaked upswept crown over her high forehead.

"We need to speak," Tolkach muttered. He started to reach for a bag, then stopped.

"No—don't...not here—" She lunged forward, quickly took one of the physicist's bags, motioned with a toss of her head for him to grab the other. "Come on...in the back. I don't want anyone...come _on_ , quickly. We must get you out of sight."

Tolkach helped her with the bags. "I'm not being tailed," he assured her, bumping first his suitcase, then his knee into a table as he followed her.

"Don't be so sure about that. The Army already has you under suspicion." He followed her through the shop and out a screen door, across a breezeway formed from pine branches and into the cottage. "You should never have come here...not now. Not in the middle of the day."

"We must talk," Tolkach insisted. He dropped his suitcase inside the cottage door, shut it behind him. ACORN whirled around, her eyes blazing, hands on her hips. She tossed her hair back with a snap of her head, a gesture that always got glances at the canteen at the train station. She'd volunteered for the USO for several years. "I've brought information, sketches. From Trinity. And I've got things to say, things you need to know."

Kate Wellesley sighed, wiped hair from her eyes, and made a pout with her red lips. She had a prominent and highlighted arch to her eyebrows, giving her a perpetually questioning look.

"It's not good to come here...too risky. Very unprofessional of you, Doctor. What things?" She took another gaze out the shuttered window, hearing a car pull past the shop, then went to the windows, checked out the noise and pulled the blinds shut. The room was dark and musty, her perfume faint on the breeze. "You want some coffee...some tea?" She was nervous, her hands fluttering, and busied herself with coffee beans, hot water and some tea bags. A scuffed table with china leaned over lopsided on uneven legs next to the stove, crumbs of a just-finished sandwich strewn about.

Tolkach bent down to rummage through his bags, withdrew the tiny notebook full of sketches of the base camp and Ground Zero installations at Trinity. He pressed the notebook into her hands.

"Here..." he held up his hand. "I know, I know, it's not procedure to hand this over like this, but since I'm here..."

Kate got the water boiling and began steeping tea bags in the liquid, dunking them rhythmically up and down. She was always in motion, thought best in motion. Stillness was death to Kate Wellesley. _Idle hands are the devil's own_ , her father--God rest the bastard's soul--had taught her once. "You know the rules...and get away from that window." She shooed him away, grabbed a sleeve and pulled him to the table. "Here...sit. At least, sitting down, no one can see you. People get nervous when I have company. So why are you here, against every rule? Don't you have a shred of common sense? And why'd you go to New York? BISHOP told me about it. You can't just go off like that and expect to meet people. That's not how this business works."

"This business—"Tolkach finally accepted a steaming porcelain cup of tea—it was minted—"is getting completely out of hand. I'm not a spy. I just have a conscience, that's all. I just want to help...information should be shared. Allies are allies. It's not good if one side has knowledge and makes discoveries that could end the war, and doesn't share with allies. Not good at all."

"So you've told me." Kate sat down herself at the table, found an apple and took a noisy bite. "But you still haven't answered my question...why couldn't this—" she fingered the notebook he had given her, she had laid it carefully in the center of the table "have come the usual way?"

Tolkach shrugged. "You probably heard about Fortney...the Army requested he be moved out of T-Division. Very hush-hush, as you say. He might be charged with something. But nobody's talking. Everybody's afraid. Suspicion, security, paranoia. The walls have ears. It's giving everybody the--the—" he stumbled, hunting for the right word in English.

"The creeps."

"Yes, creeps. Fortney was my courier. Plus—" his face softened. Kate was a beautiful woman. It was hard to be stern and demanding in her presence.

"Yes?"

"—well, it's just that the demands are getting quite onerous now. Quite too much of a burden. The messages you leave me, that Fortney was leaving me, requesting certain kinds of information and more and more of it, they're becoming quite impossible, you know. You've no idea what it's like on the Hill now. The Army's clamping down. Things are coming to a boil. The big test is weeks away, maybe sooner. After that—"

Kate picked at her sandwich crumbs with manicured fingers. Her nails were also bright red, matching her lipstick, glistening wet, freshly applied it seemed, in the kitchen light.

"I know," she said. "I know. Demands on all of us have increased. Something must be up. The amount, the detail, the specifics—"

"And not only that...the requests are sometimes for specific things...a critical dimension, a weight or a thickness or material chart or something...and it might be something I don't even have access to. It's all very compartmented on the Hill. If you ask to me obtain information and it's in an area I don't work in, I have to take great risks to get it, if I can get it at all."

Kate nodded. "They wouldn't be asking for all this information if it weren't important." CAESAR had used almost those same words on her just a few days ago. Something was definitely up, he was sure of it. They'd all felt the pressure for more and more information.

"I have a proposition," Tolkach said at last. "The real reason I came here." He went to his briefcase, pulled out a small pouch tied with a drawstring. It was crammed with papers, scraps of paper. "Here..." he dumped the contents on the kitchen table. Kate recoiled from the papers as if they were contaminated.

"What are you...not _here_ , Doctor...not on the—" She backed away, stood up, began stuffing the papers in an empty wash pail by the door. "Are you crazy...all this...it's got to be put into code...don't _ever_ flash this stuff around like that."

"I want you to promise me something."

Kate was still shoveling papers into the pail, picking up loose sheets from the linoleum floor. "What?"

"Don't make any more requests on me for the next three weeks. Our work is at a critical stage. And the Army's already too suspicious. First Fortney, who knows what will happen now? Already, they search my quarters every other day. And they don't even bother to hide it...they _want_ me to know. They follow me everywhere. I—" Tolkach rubbed his own hands nervously, finally folded them behind his back, locked them in place. "—I want to stay in America. Land of liberty and freedom. I came here to get away from the Nazis, away from midnight searches and arrests and identity papers. Now—" he shrugged, "I endure the same things I had back in Prague. What have I gained?" A flush of emotion came to his face. "I'm glad my poor Liesel's not around to see it...they killed her, you know. The Army, the pressure, the fears...that's what drove her to—" but he couldn't say it.

"Doctor," Kate was sympathetic, "I can't promise anything like that. You know I'm just a go-between. The requests come from WINDWARD—"

"Yes, I tried to meet him."

"Surely there are reasons for these demands. We have to do our duty, Doctor. It's the war. Everybody sacrifices." She set the pail, now full of papers, aside, and came to Tolkach, placing a hand on his arm. "You know I volunteer two nights a week at the USO canteen at the train station. I see all kinds of soldiers. Coming home, shipping out, on leave. Some of them are spooked. They know they might not come back. The girls—well," Kate smiled a quick, furtive smile, "—you know, we're not supposed...um, fraternize too much with the boys, but it's hard, you know. You see a guy, and he's maybe nineteen, fresh off the farm in Iowa, and he's shipping out, and he's scared. You can see it in his eyes, even though he won't say it. So the girls...we kind of—" she shrugged, another sheepish half-grin "—give 'em a little extra, you know? 'Cause they're making a sacrifice...in some cases, a big sacrifice. You get this lump in your throat, knowing the guy you just were talking to might not ever come back." Her eyes were distant, focused on something only she could see. "It's all about sacrifice, Doctor." She squeezed his arm a little harder. "I know I can count on you."

Tolkach glared at her with a bulldog ferocity he couldn't sustain. What was she... all of twenty-five years old? She hadn't seen battalions of _panzergruppen_ troops marching through Vienna, knocking down signs and old women and children, looting shops and homes, like he had. Finally, he took a big breath, covered her hands with his. "Perhaps I know even more about such things than you, _fraulein_. I must insist you stop making so many demands of me, especially now. I will comply with any request, but in my own time. No more deadlines."

Kate was suddenly anxious to be rid of this stubborn old man. Another car had passed by the shop, this one slowly, as if looking for someone. Through the slits in the blinds, she could see heads bobbing around in the shop.

"Look, let's discuss this another time, okay? I've got customers. I'll take your stuff—"she indicated the pail, "and get it off to WINDWARD, the usual way. You've given me a lot this time...maybe that'll suffice. You know...keep him happy for awhile. I'll think about what you said too. But for now...just go. Go on your way...no, no, this way. I can't have you seen leaving the cottage in broad daylight. Here—there's another way." She grabbed his wrist, as he hoisted up his bag and briefcase, and pulled him out of the kitchen, down a hall, to a set of stairs inside a small closet. She found a flashlight, still carrying the pail, and picked her way down the stairs, the Czech physicist close behind. It was a coal cellar, grimy with soot, the air thick with dust. A seam of light shone from somewhere up ahead. He heard her fiddling with a padlock, then the seam widened into bright May sunshine as Kate pushed open the outer cellar doors.

"Go—" she hissed. "Through the trees...take a right to get back to Alameda. There's a fence. A narrow path through the bushes. Go!" She shut the cellar door and was gone.

Tolkach stood there in the garden behind the cottage, hands clutching his bags, his suit and face rumpled and caked with coal dust. It hadn't gone well at all. She hadn't even listened and now he was out on the street and smelling like a coal cellar. A train hooted in the distance, startling him, reminding him of why he'd been allowed to come into Santa Fe at all. He'd have to hustle to make it back to the station and get cleaned up, before meeting Anton.

And he had to make contact with his escort detail too and soon. If he didn't show up in a reasonable time, there'd be hell to pay back at the Hill...he was sure of that.

He walked back to the train station, angry at himself for not being more firm with her, more insistent. She had that effect on everybody. Muttering to himself, Tolkach never saw the Army sedan that Kate had seen cruising back and forth in front of the shop. It was the same olive drab Ford he had noticed two blocks away, parked on Cordova. The one with the soldier and the newspaper. This time, the newspaper was gone.

Lt. Col. Wade 'Dog' Brogan lowered himself below the steering wheel as Edvard Tolkach stalked across the street, lugging his bags, obviously heading for the station entrance. He was miffed, annoyed, pissed, and any number of other words. Brogan flicked half a Camel butt out the window and swallowed his chewing gum, as he watched Tolkach cross the street. How the hell was he going to explain this to Colonel Cates back at Detachment? _Sorry, sir, it was a slipup. Just your basic incompetent operational mistake? Somehow, after Quantum had been let off at the train station by the guys from 4817_ th _, the target gave us the slip and disappeared for an hour._

Except he hadn't exactly disappeared, had he? He'd been with Kate Wellesley at her shop the whole time. And that, more than anything else, was what galled Dog Brogan now.

Tolkach disappeared into the station. Brogan climbed out of his sedan and went in behind him. No way _Quantum_ was going to disappear this time.

Intelligence said Tolkach was a key node in the whole Soviet network. He was in a sensitive position and had already been seen passing classified materials to recipients who didn't have authorization, worms like that Fortney guy. It was common practice in CIC to let such big dogs sniff around for awhile, so evidence could be accumulated and other links in the network ferreted out. Then, one by one, you arrested the bastards and rolled up the whole shebang, one agent at a time.

Trouble was, Detachment had let _Quantum_ sniff around in the backyard for too long as it was. Now, with the big test just weeks away, and first deployment shortly afterward, they couldn't afford to have known Soviet agents prowling around the Hill free as a bird.

Tolkach had to be nabbed and soon, if security was to remain intact in the critical days ahead. That was why Cates and the Detachment had concocted this scheme to bait _Quantum_ , give him enough rope to hang himself. It was risky, to be sure but with the physicist's unexpected excursion across Santa Fe to the Pueblo Gift Shop already noted and logged, Brogan figured they now had the evidence they needed. It was just a matter of picking the man up.

He followed Tolkach into the station, down a short plaza lined with Moorish columns and glistening tile, and stopped at the ramp that led down to the platforms. The Czech physicist was already in the clutches of the MP detail Cates had sent from the Hill. Three armed soldiers had fallen in with Tolkach as he approached Platform 2, the three of them waiting for the _Prairie Express_ to arrive. Brogan recognized one of them; his name was Blakely something-or-other, a sergeant with the Los Alamos Detachment. He checked his watch. 1230 hours. The train was late, over an hour late. That wasn't like the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe.

Brogan watched as the men milled about the platform for awhile, then as a group, they moved off toward the USO canteen on the mezzanine level. Coffee and doughnuts, he surmised. MPs had a thing for coffee and doughnuts. It was the nature of the breed.

He decided Tolkach was secure enough for the moment, and leaned against one of the columns, unsure what to do next.

What the hell was a known Soviet agent doing messing around Kate? That had bugged him from the moment he'd caught up with Tolkach at the shop. He'd been stunned for a few minutes when he'd seen _Quantum_ disappear into the shop. Coincidence? Maybe the man had a hankering for Indian pottery...who knew? He'd been surveilling _Quantum_ for weeks now, around the Hill, into and out of his quarters, into and out of his desk and locker at night, up and down Trinity Drive and the T-building, the shops, the commissary, around the Pond, the cyclotron and explosives bunker, everywhere the man went. He figured he pretty well knew the daily routine and habits of Edvard Tolkach. But as happened, once in awhile the target threw you a curve and went off in a new direction.

And this direction had taken him to one Kate Wellesley. Brogan practically bit his lip at the thought of some greasy foreign egghead in the same room with his girl.

There was only one thing to do. Brogan left the train station and drove back to the Pueblo Shop. He hadn't seen Kate in several weeks as it was, what with surveillance operations and other CIC matters. Maybe they could go grab a burger and a shake at Scalini's Malt Shop.

He went inside, pushing through a curtain of Indian beads that he'd always hated; they tinkled and clacked something awful in even the slightest breeze. There she was...making a pitch to some unsuspecting customer over a beat-up chair she'd most likely pinched from some grandmother's attic in Albuquerque. She glanced up when he came in, and her eyes flashed—a quick smile, tight around those delicious red lips, but it wasn't a friendly smile, he thought—and went back to her customer, her fingers ever so lightly touching the woman's arm, pressing flesh, emphasizing the chair's particulars with each tap of her fingers. The tactic worked—it always worked, didn't it? Who could resist a dish like Kate with her Empress of Morocco perfume and her smooth honey voice and her hands tickling your arms like a spring breeze?

Certainly not Wade Brogan. The poor woman customer never had a chance.

"I'll have it boxed for you this afternoon. We usually ship twice a week but for you, honey, I'll give the delivery man a big smooch and get him to bring it out Friday...will that be okay?"

"Oh, quite," said the woman, all furs and rings and eyelashes. She smiled tentatively as Brogan moved in a little closer, hope in her eyes, until Kate intervened.

"Hi, Wade...didn't hear you come in. This is Mrs. Marsden....she's from Taos. She just loves this old piece...it came from Flagstaff, I believe. A bit of Empire, with a hint of Federal in the scrollwork...I fell in love with it myself when I saw it."

"Hello, ma'am," Brogan had already taken off his fedora. He was in civvies today, as most CIC agents were now. Light brown slacks, double-breasted wool jacket, shoes shined to a military polish. "A pleasure—"

"Likewise," gushed Mrs. Marsden. "You two know each other?"

Kate was dragging the chair from its perch over to an empty corner, a rarity in the general clutter of the shop. "We're friends, Mrs. Marsden. Wade's the most gallant guy I ever met, at least since I joined the USO. We met six months ago, when I was working the booth. He spoils me."

"So you're an Army man?"

Brogan nodded faintly. No sense hiding it. Women could smell that out. "Kind of—I work with the supply end of things. Beans and bombs, I like to say."

"Oh, my," Mrs. Marsden chuckled. She brought a white-gloved hand to her mouth, not quite hiding the gap in her upper teeth. "Goodness knows how important that is...well, I'll be going now. Oh, Kate--?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Be a dear, won't you, and see that those arms are well padded when you box it up. I love the piece, even those nicks and chips. But that one arm is loose. Wouldn't want it tear off."

"No, ma'am...I'll make a note of it."

Mrs. Marsden was already sauntering out, pushing her way effortlessly through the bead curtain. "Well, that'll be all for me today. You two have a pleasant afternoon." She smirked with a knowing nod and disappeared onto the street. The way she said 'pleasant' spoke volumes about what she imagined was coming next.

Kate threw herself into Brogan's arms and they kissed for a few minutes.

"God, you smell especially delicious today," the CIC agent said. "What's for lunch?"

Kate peeled herself away. "Well, not me, that's for sure. I can't compete with a ham and rye. But I've got some, and that hot mustard you like, in the kitchen, if you're up for it."

"Lead on, master," he let her take him by the hand. Moments later, they had crossed the breezeway now fragrant with pine needles and entered the cottage. In the kitchen, Kate bustled about, making him a ham sandwich, with a Coke. She pulled her last clean china out of the cabinet and smiled. She'd always loved the embossment of blue wings on the china set; she'd always had an eye for design and decoration, and every corner of her little cottage reflected her eclectic tastes, from the embroidered rope blinds she'd gotten on her last trip to the Navajo reservation to the wing table she now set out her dishes on. While Wade washed up in the bathroom, she fixed herself an apple and raisin salad and poured a glass of milk.

Brogan splashed his face with water again and toweled off. Just seeing Kate made anybody's day brighter and it was when he was combing his hair back with a few wet fingers to help that he remembered why he'd been in such a funk when he'd arrived.

Edvard Tolkach had been in the very same cottage not an hour ago. Tolkach was a physicist on the Hill, worked for Bethe, something to do with detonator design and explosive lens calculations. And Tolkach was a suspected Soviet agent. Why on earth would a suspected Soviet agent made a special trip in a taxi, probably realizing he was under surveillance, all the way across town to come to a small, struggling craft shop owned by Kate Wellesley?

It didn't make any sense.

Brogan finished tidying himself up in the bathroom and was headed up the short hall to the kitchen, when something caught his eye. He'd been all over the cottage, especially in her tiny bedroom, in the last six months and he thought he knew the place, probably better than his own quarters at Los Alamos. He paused at a small door halfway up the hall, puzzled. The door was slightly ajar. He'd always assumed the door was a closet, but he'd never checked it out. Now, curious, he fingered the door partially open and peered into a dusty black void. The smell of coal hit him in the face. It was a coal cellar. Odd for such a small place, yet that's what it was.

"Hey, what is this--?" Carefully, he felt with his toes for ground ahead and landed with a _thunk_ on the first step of the stairs. A line of light was visible in the blackness ahead.

"What did you say—oh, _that_. It's just a coal cellar, honey—" came her voice. She was still in the kitchen. He could hear dishes clatter. She was making him a doozey of a sandwich.

"Never knew you had one...kind of odd, isn't it? I mean, here in the middle of the desert."

"The original owner...Mrs. Renfroe had it put in," came her voice, slightly muffled. She had stepped outside, through the screen door...he heard the door slam.

At the same moment the screen door creaked and slammed shut, Brogan's foot connected with something—something metal and it went clattering across the cellar. What the hell--? Sounded like a bucket, or a pail. He groped around, mindful of the dust everywhere and found it. Backing his way up the stairs toward the light of the hall, he found it _was_ a metal pail and it was crammed with papers, some of them ready to fall out. He stooped down, to stuff them back in when his eye caught a fragment of a word visible on top of one of the papers. His neck hairs stood up when he realized what it said.

CLASSIFIED MOST TOP SECRET

Kate was still outside, tending to something in the small garden off the breezeway. Her could hear her humming some popular tune; she was probably gathering flowers to dress up the table...she was like that. Everything had to be just so.

Brogan pulled the page up into the light where he could read it better. His blood ran cold when he realized what he was looking at. It was a list of specifications for explosive lens design, part of the detonation system for the gadget. What the hell--?

Brogan took a deep breath. He rifled through the pail more; it was crammed with papers and sketches. All of them classified. All materials from the Hill. Thinking fast, he replaced the papers and carefully set the pail upright.

Kate's muffled voice came through the walls, all the way from the kitchen.

"Honey, you okay? What was that noise?"

Brogan suddenly wanted to get the hell out of there. It just couldn't be...not Kate. He picked his way through the darkness back to the stairs and made it to the top.

"Just something I kicked...hey, what is that? Smells great." He hurried out of the coal cellar, shut the door behind him.

In the kitchen, Kate was finished setting the table. A bouquet of flowers from the garden decorated the center, fresh azalea stems she had just picked. Two plates of sandwiches, two Cokes and a bag of chips completed the table.

Brogan came in and she took his hand, swung him around and planted a big kiss on his face. "Lunch's ready, sweetie. I didn't know what you wanted for dessert." But right away, she felt something different. She cocked her head, a quizzical grin on her face. "Something wrong—you look like you just saw a ghost."

Brogan slipped out of her arms and sat himself down, sampling the ham and rye. He concentrated on adding dollops of hot mustard with a spoon, then looked up at her with a forced smile.

"Huh...oh...I was just thinking...about something—"

Kate sat down too, fixing her napkin just so, before taking a swig of the Coke. It was warm, but she liked it that way. "Me, I hope..."

Brogan could no longer force the smile. He just nodded, bent to his sandwich. His mind churned. He didn't know what to do, what to say, where to go. Kate—

"Yeah, honey...only you."

Kate frowned, tapped her lower lip with the Coke bottle. "Okay, soldier...out with it. What's eating you already?"

Suddenly, Wade Brogan wanted to be anywhere but here. He stood up abruptly.

"Gotta run, Kate. Just remembered...Colonel Cates called a briefing for 1600 hours on the Hill. I just slipped my mind completely....sorry, sweetie."

" _Now_? You just got here...I haven't seen you in two weeks...and your lunch--" Her eyebrows arched in just the way he loved and she brushed back an errant lock of hair from her forehead. It wasn't like Wade to pass up a meal. "What's going on with you...it is something I said? Something I did?"

But Brogan was already hunting around for his fedora. "I'll call you, Kate. I will...you know that. It's just this briefing—" He pecked her on the cheek, ignoring lips that wanted to be kissed hard, and stumbled out the cottage door.

She stood there puzzled, hurt, for a few minutes. Odd. What the hell had gotten into him? She supposed it was the war, the job...everybody around Santa Fe was like that now...crazy, delirious, VE-Day fever and all. Absent-mindedly, she munched on a few chips, then decided to go find that antique volume of prints she had left in the back. Maybe she'd rummage through that and find a few that could be framed, sold as separate pieces. She hated to tear things out of books, but some of the prints were so lovely—

She headed toward the bedroom and passed the coal cellar door, noting out of the corner of her eye that it wasn't closed fully. She peered in...Wade must have wandered in here. Her eye caught something flash in the dark, down at the foot of the stairs. Curious, she stepped gingerly down the creaking steps and then she stopped suddenly, stopped cold and stood shaking, right where she was.

It was the pail, the wash pail she had stuffed with all the papers _QUANTUM_ had given her. She'd accidentally left it in the cellar when she shooed the Czech physicist out.

Wade had probably seen it.

Her heart leaped into her mouth and she sat down on the stairs, blood roaring in her ears.

Wade had seen the pail. All the classified papers.

That's why he left so suddenly.

After getting over the shock, the only thing Kate could think of to do was remove the papers to a more secure place, in her bedroom vanity beneath her lingerie. Then she went all around the cottage, making sure every door was locked, every window screen shut and secure, blinds and drapes drawn. _QUANTUM_ had dumped a ton of stuff on her that afternoon and she had hours of work ahead, transcribing it onto the special paper _BISHOP_ had given her, with the lemon ink she'd been trained to use. The sooner she got this stuff off to her handler, the better. For everybody.

Wade Brogan, she could handle. A few winks and wiggles and he'd come around, she was sure of that. But _BISHOP_ was another story.

She wasn't afraid of _BISHOP_ , but if she didn't get this stuff 'packaged' properly and sent off to New York fast, there'd be hell to pay and a lot of innocent people might get hurt. She'd had a lot of lovers over the last few years and Wade Brogan was just about the best of them. But she also had a conscience and, unlike Army men, she had to live with that every day of her life.

She'd never be able to forgive herself if she failed her conscience and thousands of people died because of it.

Never.
CHAPTER 6

Thursday, May 31, 1945

Somewhere over the Sea of Japan

Dawn

_Awesome Avenger_ was in deep trouble and Major Scott Vickery knew it. He wrestled with the controls, his arms and shoulders aching with the strain, holding thirty degrees left yaw and bank, trying to keep the crippled bomber in the air a little further... _just a little further, please God, another few minutes...._

"Anything on radar yet, Mike?"

The B-29 co-pilot, Captain Mike Luke, tapped the scope with a gloved finger. "Echo once in awhile...something's there...first I see an outline, then it gets all fuzzy. I dunno, Skipper...I'm not sure anything's there...this thing's gone bonkers."

"Jesus Christ, we ought to be making landfall soon...we've been limping along for hours."

"Yeah," agreed Luke, "but where?"

_That was a very good question_ , Vickery thought, and he knew didn't have an answer.

_Avenger_ had been shot up pretty bad over Nagoya what now seemed like days ago. They'd had a good bomb run—flak was bad, accurate too, but they'd seen worse. Sweeney, the bombardier, had control of the aircraft and the Mitsubishi factory complex was in view, obscured intermittently in nighttime smoke and fog, but Sweeney claimed to have a fix. They'd dumped their load of incendiaries and roofbusters, and had just made their left turn over the harbor—Jesus, it had been lit up like the Fourth of July, ships exploding, ammo dumps cooking off red and white streamers in every direction, infernos and rivers of fire boiling in every direction like a thing alive—when the Jap gunners had gotten lucky and bracketed them but good.

The B-29 had suddenly slammed hard left and shuddered as simultaneous rounds of flak had detonated right below them. The birdcage windows had cracked and a few had blown out, sending shrapnel flying through the cockpit. Perkins had been the lucky one. The navigator had died instantly, nearly decapitated with slicing shards of metal. Blood was everywhere, now frozen into frosty brown patches on every surface. They'd dragged the body aft, stuffed Perkins in the tube to the bomb bay for the time being. Vickery had taken cuts to his face, Luke to his chest. Tibby, the engineer, was making worrisome rattling noises every time he breathed, and he was starting to cough up blood.

_Avenger_ had lost a hell of lot of fuel. Her portside tanks had been holed, the hydraulics too and Vickery had to crank in twenty, then thirty degrees of stick just to keep her level. Something was banging like a garbage can aft, and Rickles, the aft gunner, radioed up a disheartening report on the tail...half the rudder had been shot away. _Avenger_ banked like a wounded cow and seemed to hang in the air by sheer force of will.

Somehow, Vickery had managed to hold her together and keep them airborne. With a useless left arm, Tibby nudged the throttles forward and _Avenger's_ huge Wright Cyclones groaned and shrieked as they clawed for altitude, exiting the target zone, still buffeted and thrashed by accurate Jap flak from the ground.

Vickery declared an emergency and peeled off from the formation, easing her nose around to the right. No way they could make Tinian or Guam now. Even Iwo would be a struggle. Nobody wanted to ditch at night into the cold north Pacific.

"We'll go east," Vickery decided, and radioed the squadron commander in the lead plane. Colonel Hawkins was miles away, but his voice sounded resigned to losing yet another good plane and crew for the 794th.

"Good luck, son...hang in, there. Transmit your position every half an hour. I'll contact the Navy, see if we can get a sub or a boat to you, if you have to ditch."

Vickery had no intention of putting _Awesome Avenger_ , tail number 26225, into the drink. " _Phantom Leader_ , we're gonna head for China, maybe Korea. If I can get some more altitude, I think we can make it—"

"Very well.... _Phantom Leader_ out. And Godspeed, son."

That had been hours ago and somehow, some way, he had managed to nurse the crippled bomber all the way across the Sea of Japan, losing fuel all the way out of Nagoya, in an aircraft just barely controllable. The controls that were left were mushy, then increasingly frozen. They had instrument damage in the cockpit and a cold, freezing wind whistled through the ragged holes of the Perspex windows.

He wanted to head east, to China, maybe Korea, but Perkins was dead and it was an ordeal just keeping _Avenger_ in the air, with he and Luke alternating at the controls, each spelling the other in half-hour shifts. They had dead-reckoned by the stars toward what he hoped was northern China but strong winds aloft at twenty-thousand feet had blown them steadily north, further and further off whatever course he tried to maintain.

Hours later, the sun was just beginning to lighten the eastern horizon on their tail. Somehow, nursing a sick and dying aircraft, they had managed to make landfall. Vickery called back to Smitty and told the radioman to power up the set and begin broadcasting, in the clear.

Soon, the clouds parted and they could see green and beige streaks of land below. The radar was still on the fritz but the sight of land was a welcome view, lightening everybody's spirits. Moments later, Smitty called up to the cockpit.

"Got something, Skipper...I'm not sure what, but definite voices."

Vickery had dozed off but came fully awake. "Patch it through. Is it English? Chinese?"

"No, sir...well, sir, I'm not sure what it is. It almost sounds like—"

"Like what, Smitty?"

"Like Russian, sir."

That was when Mike Luke called bingo on the starboard fuel tanks.

Vickery got on the crew circuit to announce the good news. "This is the pilot...listen up, guys. We're pretty much out of gas now...just fumes left. I'm going to be feathering three and four in a minute. We're over land—somewhere—and Smitty's in contact with authorities on the ground. Looks like we're over Russia...must have been the winds. If we can find a spot, I'll set her down. At least, we won't be swimming home—prepare yourselves for a hard one...emergency procedures. Pilot, out—"

_And now for the grand finale_ , he muttered to himself.

"Smitty, patch that through up here—"

The radioman switched channels. Momentarily, Vickery and Luke heard staticky chatter, cutting in and out.

"... _samolyot taeenstvennye...samolyot Amerikantsy...letet dva tree pyat...praeezvadeet pasahdkoo Spassk Dalniy—"_

The pilot and co-pilot looked at each other.

"Ain't no Jersey accent there, Skipper," Luke said.

Vickery checked his altimeter. Six thousand feet, breaking through scattered clouds. The countryside was a treeless, tawny brown, late-winter barren, even though it was the end of May. Silver glinted off water below them; a huge oval lake, enveloped in morning fog lay off to the west. Scattered columns of smoke drifted skyward, signifying small villages, isolated farms and collectives.

"Tibby, what's our fuel status?" Vickery called to the engineer, who sat directly behind Luke, manning a panel full of dials and buttons.

"All gauges at zero, Skipper. I don't know why one and two haven't dropped out yet."

As if on cue, engine number two, outboard starboard, sputtered and died off, its propeller spinning down, then wind milling in the airstream. _Awesome Avenger_ dropped a few hundred feet, buffeted by crosswinds from the mountains to the west, and Vickery eased back on the wheel a hair, praying for lift.

"—won't be long now," Luke observed. "Want me to take over awhile?"

Vickery shook his head. He was the pilot; he'd damned well get this crate and her crew on the ground one way or another.

"Smitty, I don't know who that is but get them back on the line. Broadcast Mayday in the clear, every channel. Inflight emergency...we're out of gas and we got to land...and soon—"

"Roger—" came the reply. Then: "Any station, any station, this is United States Army Air Forces two-six-two-two-five...call sign _Awesome Avenger_...we are declaring an in-flight emergency...Mayday, Mayday, Mayday...any station, any station, this aircraft needs a vector to any airfield in the area—"

The radio exploded with chatter and static. More Russian. Different voices. Chirps and whistles, like someone was keying the mike.

"—samolyot Amerikantsy—"

"— _aeradrom Spassk Dalniy—"_

"— _spoosteetsa tysyacha pyatsot—"_

"Come on, fellows," Vickery mumbled, leaning on the wheel to keep _Avenger_ level and flying, "doesn't _anybody_ down there speak English?"

Then a new voice, deeper, older, burst through the babble.

"American aircraft...Americantsy aircraft _dva shest dva dva pyat_ , do you read this transmission? Over—"

Vickery keyed the mike. "Affirmative...roger...I read you loud and clear...we are running out of gas, whoever you are. We need a vector to a runway real bad—"

Static filled the airwaves, then: "Americantsy aircraft _Awesome Avenger_ , I read your transmission. Steer left two one five degrees. Descend to one thousand five hundred meters and prepare for landing. You will be escorted in—"

"Understand," Vickery acknowledged. He shoved the wheel forward.

" _Meters_ , he said, Skipper," Luke pointed out. "Meters. Fifteen hundred meters."

"Meters? Jesus Christ, what am I...a mathematician? What the hell—"

Tibby had already made the conversion. "That's about twenty four hundred feet, Skipper."

"Thanks, Tibby."

Cautiously, shuddering as she bit into deeper air, _Awesome Avenger_ drifted lower and lower, turning laboriously onto a southwesterly heading. They broke free of scattered clouds at twenty five hundred and burst into the clear. Bit by bit, the Russian controller guided them through a series of turns, all the way coaxing them lower and lower. Soon, valleys sprinkled with colorful yellow and red patches loomed below them.

Rickles, the tail gunner, came over the intercom, excitement in his voice. "Hey, Skipper...looks like we got company...two o'clock high, closing fast. A whole mess of 'em. Want me to blast 'em?"

Vickery craned around and squinted through the morning sunlight, finally resolving four dots moving against the underside of the clouds.

"Yaks!" someone yelled. "Look at those SOB's move!" In seconds, the flight of Soviet fighters had closed the distance, approaching the B-29 from the rear, and taken up positions off both wings. One Russian fighter moved in for a closer inspection of _Avenger_ 's wing damage.

"Our escorts—" Vickery theorized. "Rickles...keep your hands off that damn trigger. Nobody do anything threatening. They're just checking us out." One look at the twin 20-mm cannon armament on the closest escort made Vickery realize they'd be quickly shot out of the sky, if he didn't comply with instructions.

That's when engine number one finally died.

"Russian ground control, this is _Avenger_. Our last engine just quit. We're a big, fat glider now. Is there a runway around here anywhere?"

A long pause was followed by the English-speaking controller's voice. Mike Luke was already calling him 'Humphrey.'

"Americantsy aircraft, you are being escorted to Spassk Dalniy. Make one turn, please, to one six five degrees. Descend immediately...five hundred meters. You will see the runway—"

"Here's hoping—" Vickery gritted out, using Luke's help to arm wrestle the stricken bomber into her final turn. "We've got just enough altitude to make a half-assed approach. Then we're setting down—"

"—one way or another," Luke agreed.

_Awesome Avenger_ shuddered like a sick cow, sinking fast, plowing deeper into heavier air.

"Flaps, Skipper?"

"No...leave 'em up. We may have to goose this one in but I want as much airspeed for as long as I can hold it."

" _There!_ —" it was Sweeney, the bombardier, still hunched down in his pit below the flight deck. "There, Major...dead ahead...either that's a runway or I'm Kilroy himself...right between those lakes--!"

And he was right. Vickery saw it too.

"Russian control...this is _Avenger_...I've got a runway in sight. I'm descending now...through eight hundred feet...we'll have to dead stick this one..." He switched to the intercom. "Gear down—" His command was followed by a satisfying clunk as the wheel bogeys dropped into the airstream.

"Five hundred feet, Skipper," came Luke's voice, hoarse and thick from the cold air streaming into the cockpit. "Looks like you're centered okay for now."

"I'm fighting that crosswind, Mike...give me a hand—"

"Four hundred feet...slipping to the right--"

Steadily, _Awesome Avenger_ settled lower and lower. Meadows and lakes and thatch cottages raced by below them, followed by ravines and low hills. A steady twenty-five knot crosswind drove them west, off centerline. Vickery cursed, strained and fought the wheel.

Come on, baby, come on...one more time for Papa—

"Two hundred feet, still sliding right—"

Vickery jammed the wheel hard left with all this strength and _Avenger_ bucked and wobbled, catching a gust under her portside wing. The gust flipped them back, driving them further off course.

"We're not gonna make it!" Sweeney cried from the pit.

"Shut up!" Vickery growled. "Mike, pull for God's sake, pull _NOW_!"

_Avenger_ groaned and something banged hard along the fuselage. A piece of the wing...a flap, maybe? Vickery didn't have time to wonder. He bit his lips, willed the bomber to ease her 81,000-pound bulk left, left, _more left! Come on, baby, give me left_ —until at last the ground came rushing up faster than any of them could have believed.

"Under a hundred—"

Two seconds after Luke spat out the final altimeter call, _Awesome Avenger_ bumped once and then pancaked hard onto the black tarmac of Spassk Dalniy's Runway 20 Left and screamed at nearly two hundred miles an hour down the stretch of concrete and macadam.

" _Hold on_!" Luke yelled. The starboard gear buckled and collapsed and _Avenger'_ s wing slammed into the ground. The force torqued the entire aircraft sideways and she cartwheeled and spun level the rest of the way, sliding and grinding on concrete in a shower of sparks and smoke to a screeching, groaning halt some five hundred feet from the end of the runway.

When the dust had settled and the aircraft had come to a complete stop, Vickery was already unstrapping himself, while Tibby and Luke struggled with the ground hatch cover at the rear of the flight deck.

"Out! Everybody out _NOW_!" Vickery yelled.

And, one by one, the crew of _Avenger_ plunged down the ladder and dropped onto the ramp, breaking into a dead run to clear the aircraft in case the fuel vapors cooked off. They ran madly, ducking and falling onto the wet grass, then stopped short, when they realized the Russians had surrounded _Avenger_ with several halftracks of infantry troops, every one of them dismounted and kneeling, sighting his rifle at the fleeing Americans. Behind the ring of soldiers, four huge T-34 tanks snorted and belched black diesel fumes in the crisp morning air, their cannon trained on the aircraft.

The garrison commander was Major Dmitri Reshetnikov, of the 55th Guards Tank Division. He watched stoically as the American crewmen stumbled toward him. As they approached, riflemen raised their weapons and took aim at the visitors.

" _Nyet_!" he barked to his infantrymen. "Lower your weapons!"

Vickery was bleeding from a facial gash he'd sustained escaping from the aircraft. Mike Luke helped him along and the two of them limped up to Reshetnikov. Behind them, Smitty, the radioman had already pulled out his crewman's phrase book. It had salutations and greetings in Chinese, Japanese, Russian and French.

" _Ya Amerikantsky_ —?" Smitty flipped through his book, trying phrases. He looked up hopefully.

Reshetnikov stifled a smirk. He himself had taken honors in two languages at the academy, English and German.

"You have landed on Soviet territory," he told them. He waved several of his men forward, to help the injured. Presently, litters were produced, then an American-style Jeep drove up. "Your aircraft is impounded for security reasons. In the name of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, I take possession of this aircraft."

Vickery was surprised at the fluid English of the Soviet commander. "My men—we have injured—I need to get a message back to my base—"

Reshetnikov was already giving orders. His men helped _Avenger's_ injured into the Jeep. "Take them to the infirmary. You are in command—?" he nodded at Vickery.

Vickery half-saluted, while he was being helped into the Jeep. "Major Scott Vickery...29th Bomb Group, 20th U.S. Army Air Force. Our aircraft was shot up pretty bad and—"

Reshetnikov was already motioning the firefighting and emergency crews forward. Soon, _Awesome Avenger_ was covered with foam and water as the Soviets doused fires before the remaining fuel could detonate. Huge columns of white smoke billowed skyward. The bomber was quickly surrounded by trucks and shouting men.

"You are lucky," Reshetnikov observed, surveying the damage.

Vickery winced as a medic applied a caustic agent and bandage to his facial cuts. "I lost several engines and half my stabilizer and rudder to Jap flak. Looks like the wing's okay. But I'll bet we holed the belly good when our gear collapsed. We'll need some help getting her shipshape again."

Reshetnikov offered no expression. He knew that neither Vickery nor his crew nor the B-29 bomber that had just fallen into his lap would be going anywhere soon. "There will be questions, Major. Your word is...what?— _debriefings_ , I believe. First, you go to the infirmary. Medical assistance. Then, we will talk."

"Can I at least get a message back to Squadron...let 'em know we made it down okay?"

Reshetnikov nodded at the Jeep driver, who started up and pulled away. "All in good time, Major. All in good time."

The Jeep sped off, followed by several trucks bearing the American crewmen and their escorts. Reshetnikov had already issued orders that the intruders were to be held at the infirmary until he had talked with the Division commander, Marshal Stepanov, at District headquarters. He had already taken measures to ready the stockade behind the hangars for their visitors, anticipating that Stepanov would wish the Americans held for the time being.

_You will all be guests of the Soviet Union for the time being_ , he told himself.

Then he marched across the damp field toward the still-smoldering American bomber, to investigate just what the fates had dropped into his lap this morning. It was quite a prize, this American Superfortress bomber; its range and bomb load had been the talk of the ready rooms around Spassk Dalniy for months. Now, luck had delivered one of the airplanes right to his doorstep...essentially intact, perhaps even flyable, with repairs.

The first order of business would be to inform Marshal Stepanov.

Several hours after Reshetnikov fired a message off to District headquarters in Khabarovsk, a small convoy of staff cars descended on the airfield at Spassk Dalniy. One of the cars bore the assistant division commander, General Major Luganin, who had come to the base with a small retinue of aides to see this American bomber.

Upon entering the base complex, a single black Moskva sedan pulled out from behind the Red Army convoy and sped off across the ramp toward Runway 20 Left. The sedan was quickly intercepted by a pair of Jeeps, bearing riflemen guarding the aircraft. The riflemen surrounded the sedan with their weapons aimed until the passengers produced identification papers. Upon realizing who was inside the sedan, the riflemen suddenly snapped to attention and saluted. The sedan continued on toward _Awesome Avenger_ , stopping only a few hundred feet from the ring of debris that surrounded the plane.

One man got out of the car and regarded the huge bomber.

Colonel Arkady Kleptomanov had been NKVD _rezident_ for the Far Eastern Military District for only three months, but he recognized what an extraordinary opportunity the American bomber represented...an intelligence windfall of the highest order, and not coincidentally, a plum accomplishment for such a young and ambitious operative in the State Security apparatus. Taking possession of the plane for the State, Kleptomanov circled the bomber gawking at her fittings, her gun mounts and construction details for many minutes.

_Moscow Center will want a full report, with pictures_ , he realized. He'd have to commandeer a photographer from the base and then get his report off to the Commissariat quickly, before these Red Army buffoons made a wreck of the thing. It was just possible the plane could still be salvaged. Kleptomanov was well aware of Comrade Stalin's standing directive to have any American military equipment that wound up in Soviet territory be confiscated and studied carefully, especially tanks and aircraft. He knew a special squadron just for this purpose had been organized at Izmailovo, a restricted airfield near Moscow where planes were tested.

He decided to commandeer the base commander's office to get on the phone back to Moscow Center. Speed was essential. The People's Commissar should know of this at once.

But before the sedan could speed off again, two Jeeps appeared. One bore Major Reshetnikov, who immediately recognized the _rezident_. The officers saluted as they approached each other. Kleptomanov waved at _Avenger_.

"Move your men, back, Major. State Security troops will be arriving shortly. This aircraft is now under the control of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs. We'll handle it from here. And I need to use your phone, to inform Moscow."

Reshetnikov knew there was no point in arguing. But his backseat passenger wasn't so circumspect.

Captain Ivan Nakhimov bounded out of the Jeep. "Comrade Colonel, first there must be a safety inspection. We'll have to make sure the airplane is safe and secure before it can be released."

Reshetnikov looked at Nakhimov like he'd just escaped from an asylum. "A safety inspection—"

"Of course, Major...it's standard procedure." Nakhimov was already striding toward the bomber, his eyes taking in every detail of her battered fuselage. Nakhimov was a combat ace and highly decorated Shturmovik pilot with the 78th Frontal Air Army, co-located at Spassk Dalniy with Reshetnikov's tank platoons. He'd watched _Avenger's_ perilous descent onto the runway with grudging admiration for the flying skills of the _Amerikantsy_ pilot. "The controls must be checked out...the engines inspected, the wings, everything...the armament safed. It's all quite normal—"

Kleptomanov was skeptical. He hustled off to keep up with Nakhimov, who was already gawking at the jagged edges of the bomber's vertical stabilizer, where Jap flak had chewed off half the surface. "Excuse me, Comrade Major, but State Security has priority here—" he followed the pilot down the starboard side of the plane, ducking around sheets of fuselage skin that had peeled off, picking his way through debris, dried foam, chunks of tire and pools of water.

Nakhimov reached the forward hatch ladder, running right into a trio of Reshetnikov's riflemen. Abruptly, they blocked his way.

Nakhimov shoved the barrel of an AK rifle aside. "Major...do you mind? I need to see what damage has been done to the cockpit—"

Reshetnikov was incredulous. _Major, you're a bigger fool than I thought_. _What kind of game are you playing here?_ To play with an NKVD Colonel like this was suicide...finally he shrugged, waved the guards away. Nakhimov hauled himself up the ladder.

Kleptomanov was growing more and more irritated by the moment. "Major—tell your men to _secure_ this aircraft at once or I'll have you arrested!"

Reshetnikov couldn't believe what was happening. _Pilots_...aviatori... _they were like children at a playground._ Nakhimov had always been high-strung and neurotic...probably that's what made him a top ace.

"I'll talk some sense to the Major," Reshetnikov cautioned the _rezident_. "He's just excited...after all, an American plane...a B-29, no less." He shrugged off Kleptomanov's glare, and hauled himself up the ladder and through the hatch.

He found Nakhimov already sitting in the pilot's seat, flexing his fingers around the control yoke.

"What's the matter with you?" Reshetnikov hissed. "Don't you realize who that _is_ down there?"

But Nakhimov paid him no attention. He was mesmerized by the profusion of dials and switches around the cockpit, ignoring for the moment, the wind whistling in through shrapnel holes in the Perspex screen of the birdcage.

Mouth agape, Nakhimov had an enchanted smile on his face. "Dmitri Yushkevich, this is wonderful...I tell you, it's incredible, I wouldn't have imagined...it's just amazing. Look at all the controls..." His mouth was firmly set as he motioned for the Major to take the co-pilot's seat.

"Somehow, Comrade Major, some way, I must fly this bird."

Wednesday, May 30, 1945

Los Alamos

6:00 p.m.

Brogan drove back to the train station. His mind was whirling... _Kate...the pail full of papers...MOST TOP SECRET...Edvard Tolkach...Trinity...._ it didn't make any sense. He didn't want it to make any sense.

Inside the station, he spotted Tolkach, waiting on Platform 2 for the _Prairie Express._ The train was late. He knew the MP's assigned to escort duty with Tolkach; two of them were posted to Los Alamos. He'd seen them around the Hill. The third was probably assigned to Alamogordo, maybe even Trinity Site. All were good men. No way _Quantum_ was going to give them the slip now.

For the briefest moment, Brogan fought back the urge to pull out his service .45 and get rid of the Czech physicist once and for all. The man was a menace...a foreign national mixed up with Soviet spies— _he'd been caught trying to get away, died tragically resisting arrest—who could prove otherwise?_...and now he'd somehow gotten Kate involved. Didn't he know what that could mean? _Quantum_ was living on borrowed time anyway. The whole surveillance operation had been ordered by Groves himself. _Give the man enough rope to hang himself, implicate others. We can roll up this network just like an old carpet._

The trouble was that innocent people always got in the way.

His mind was racing...go back to Kate, demand an answer. Go back to the Hill, go through Tolkach's things...was there anything that might implicate her? He and Kate had been dating off and on for nearly six months...since that weekend at the Golden Sage in Santa Fe last October. Some kind of USO function. They'd danced. They'd drank. Mostly they talked.

For weeks afterward, he'd been utterly enthralled with her. The void in the middle of his life that had grown into something like a New Mexico gorge had vanished. Kate was smart, sassy, irreverent, and the sex wasn't the half of it. They'd spent practically every day together for several weeks afterward, until Brogan got a new assignment from Cates and had to leave the Hill again.

That had been tough, he admitted to himself. He bought himself a coffee and sandwich from a small café on the mezzanine level and found a table, positioning it so he could keep one eye on _Quantum_. Next to him, another man was reading the _Santa Fe New Mexican._ Bold headlines blared out at him:

" _Marines Battering Jap Forces on Okinawa_."

Was he in love with Kate Wellesley? Did it matter that much? Had he missed something, a sign or a signal somewhere? Two weeks after they'd met at the USO dance, Cates had assigned him to two months of grunt work, traveling around the country conducting background checks on key scientific and engineering personnel among the hundreds who were pouring into Los Alamos every month. A real dream job _that_ had been...every CIC agent's fondest hope. It had been a daunting task, made all the more problematic by the sheer volume of people, especially immigrants, coming in. Brogan had spent several days out of every week in and around the tech area on the Hill, asking questions, watching, digging through personnel files, passports, immigration papers, mountains of paperwork. The rest of the time he spent on the road, tracking down people who knew the subject, asking more questions, following up leads and suspicions. For Wade Brogan, it was mind-numbing work, albeit necessary to the Project.

He couldn't wait to get back to Los Alamos and find a reason to head over to Santa Fe and see Kate.

One of their favorite activities had always been to drive and picnic or hike in the Jemez Mountains, surrounding Los Alamos. Just getting off the Hill was exhilarating enough and Brogan was acutely conscious of the jealousy of others, whenever he secured a pass or when official business allowed him to leave. He usually had no trouble securing the use of an Army car for a few hours, on the pretense of following up an interview with 'someone' in Santa Fe or Albuquerque. He and Kate had often spent many Sundays in decent weather (and sometimes not so decent) that way, just driving back roads around the mesas and canyons of San Miguel and Macimiento Park. It wasn't unusual for the two of them to find a secluded turnoff with a scenic view of some spectacular gorge and fool around in the backseat of the Ford sedan all afternoon.

The word love never came up, somehow. It was like something you saw from the corner of your eye...you know it was there but when you turned to look, it was gone. Neither found the need to explain anything. Just being together was explanation enough. Brogan didn't know if Kate loved him or not. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. All he wanted was to be with her, to love her and protect her.

And that's when he realized he still had his right hand fingering the .45 in his shoulder holster. Brogan shook himself out of the fog and willed his hands to return to the sandwich. He downed it in four bites, slurped the rest of the coffee and left the station in a hurry, before he did something foolish.

He got back in the Ford and screeched away from the train station, twisting and turning through Santa Fe in a blind daze... _right on Cordova, left on Cerrilos, watch that curb, Dog, watch the curb..._ before finally deciding he'd better head back to the Hill. He rolled down the window once he'd made Highway 285 and let the crisp pine and pinon scented breeze of the nighttime countryside fill the car's interior.

Wade Brogan didn't know what to do...what to feel now. Anger...mostly at _Quantum_ for even daring to show up at the gift shop. Fear, maybe a little betrayal. What the hell was Kate mixed up in? She was a smart girl; though she sometimes acted airy and helpless, she was anything but. _Christ...she's a show girl, for crying out loud_. She had to have known what handling classified material would mean. And what had _Quantum_ done to drag her into the case...threats, coercion, violence? Brogan's blood boiled and he had to tell himself to relax his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. Subconsciously, he pressed harder on the gas pedal, forcing himself to concentrate harder on the twisting, rutted road ahead, so other thoughts wouldn't intrude.

Now she was part of the case. Right or wrong, whether he wanted it or not, Kate Wellesley was involved. It made him sick. Regulations said he should list Kate as a possible suspect, based on the evidence he'd seen at the shop. But he just couldn't do it. Kate was no enemy spy. She'd come into his life last fall as a breath of fresh air—flirtatious, coy, understanding and willing to try things. Willing to talk and listen. Always the mischievous smirk, the lifted eyebrow, _just try that again, soldier and see what it gets you...._

Halfway between Los Alamos and White Rock, after nearly careening over a cliff at the Bandolier bend, he'd made up his mind, gritting his teeth, narrowing his eyes to slits _, focus, Dog, focus_! on the cones of light cast by his headlamps. He wouldn't turn in a report on Kate, not just yet. Somehow, some way, he'd handle it himself. He'd follow the evidence trail wherever it went and confront her himself, and not involve CIC.

Not just yet.

He roared through East Gate after checking in with the MP detail and bumped along the dusty hardpan of Central Avenue, spying the haze of light through the trees that always heralded the tech area. Civilians and soldiers traveled the streets of the tech area night and day, twenty-four hours a day and he slowed at last when he spotted the long T-Division building, to search for a spot. He parked the Ford and headed back to the Detachment command post, nestled behind the building. Everyone called it 'the log cabin.'

It was just after 2200 hours.

The log cabin was three rooms and a latrine. A small room in the back was Colonel Cates' office. The light inside was on, the door pulled partly shut. _The Old Man must be in,_ Brogan thought. The largest room housed several rows of battered metal desks for rest of the Detachment. A table in the back held the coffee pot and the remnants of stale doughnuts from the commissary. Lt. Col. Derrick Merrill was at the pot, trying to scrape out the dregs of the day's coffee so he could brew a new pot. Skunky looked up when Brogan came in.

"Dog, what an unpleasant surprise. I thought you were in California, running down leads on the circus." 'Circus' was informal slang for the case they were trying to build against _Quantum_ and other suspected agents on the Hill.

Brogan grunted, went to the desk in the corner he used and searched the drawers for a file folder he had deposited there several days ago.

"Us dogs just keep coming back, I guess. Hey...you seen the logs we made last week on _Quantum_?"

Skunky Merrill finished with the coffee pot and finally got the thing perking. "Surveillance logs? Sure...they're in the secure cabinet...where we always put 'em. Why?"

Brogan wasn't thinking clearly. He'd forgotten...surveillance logs always got secured, no later than twenty-four hours after they were written. It was the rule. Cates was strict about it too. "Nothing...just wanted to check something on our boy."

"Like what, fr'instance?" He offered the box of doughnut crumbs but Brogan shook his head. Merrill shrugged, then sank wearily into the seat and propped his feet up on the desk. The surface of the desk was completely bare, save for scuff marks and shoe polish.

"Couple of weeks ago, when the suspect was en route to New York—" Brogan started over to the front file room, where the secure cabinets were located, but he stopped when Colonel Cates himself emerged from his office.

Cates was a stocky, dark-haired man, a perpetual scowl on his face and an annoying tic in his left eye that always captured your attention when you first met him. He'd run the Los Alamos Detachment in no-nonsense fashion for nearly two years, handpicked by Parsons. He had a direct line to Groves in Washington, too and plenty of encouragement to do what he loved to do best: quote rules and regs as if they were Holy Scripture. Behind his back, most of the agents on the Hill called him "Moses."

"Brogan, glad you dropped by...I've got good news for a change—" Cates motioned for Merrill and two other agents to gather around a water cooler that burbled along the wall. Above the cooler, a recently hung picture of President Truman was mounted with precise symmetry between other photos of Los Alamos construction scenes from '43.

"What's that, sir?"

Cates opened the spigot and poured himself a Dixie cup of water. "Just got word from the District (that was Cates-speak for General Groves himself) that _Quantum_ 's been designated a primary threat. It's a Class 1 national security case, now, gentlemen. That means we have approval to pick up the suspect immediately and take him into custody for questioning."

Brogan smiled for the first time since he'd left Santa Fe. "Is that on the level, sir? No more surveillance?"

Cates nodded, sipping at his water. His eyes were weak and watery; like everyone else, the Colonel had been putting in long days lately, with Trinity and other matters coming up. "That's correct, Brogan. As soon as Tolkach returns to the Hill, we're authorized to take him into custody. He'll be incarcerated for the time being in the south brig. We'll have to re-locate a few inmates to make room, but this guy's a keeper, at least for the time being."

Merrill whistled. "Nice view of the foundry down there, huh, Colonel? Only trouble is the place's just a stone's throw from the patrol road."

"I'm beefing up security in that sector anyway," Cates told them.

Brogan was feeling better. "Are we making formal charges yet, sir?"

Cates shook his head. "Not yet. He's just to be questioned. I've got Parsons' guidelines on my desk. I'll brief the whole Detachment at 0600 hours tomorrow. CIC just wants to put a little more pressure on the Soviet network...see what pops up. Maybe we'll get lucky. If we can put enough pressure on _Quantum_ , he may talk and give us more, and we can use that to go after even bigger fish, unravel the whole shebang."

"How long can we hold him?"

"Five days, on military security violations, but of course, he won't know that. So far, we've got him on mishandling classified information and conspiracy to commit espionage. We'll give him a taste of our hospitality and see what he says after a few days of living like a rat. By the way, I've talked with the foreman of the foundry too. Told him to make as much noise as he wants this week. Get those drop presses and forges going full blast...that's enough to rattle a dead man."

The men chuckled. Cates was known for a grisly sense of humor.

Brogan's mind was racing. "That is good news, sir. The surveillance detail's been getting a little antsy lately, waiting for something to pop." He shrugged. "You can only watch a man pick his nose so much, before you want to scream."

"Foreign slobs," Merrill spat out. "Greasers...Jesus, the place is full of 'em."

"The scientists and technicians are here to do a critical job, Merrill. They're all handpicked. It's our job to see they keep their eyes on the ball, and do their jobs without interference." Cates could always be counted on to sound like a sermon. The Colonel turned to leave. "0600 hours tomorrow, gentlemen. We'll hold the briefing right here. Now, I'm going to get me a little sack time." He headed out the door, to a chorus of "yessirs" and salutes and disappeared into the night.

Merrill studied Brogan. "So we finally get a chance to chat with the old boy? How many million questions have you got for the wog?"

Brogan was thoughtful. Was there anything that would implicate Kate? Could he find it in time? "I guess we better get some shuteye, Skunky. Tomorrow, you and me and Stokes better go over all the logs, make sure we've got the basics down."

"Yeah, I guess you're right...Colonel will be wanting to check our homework...Jeez, my Dad didn't correct spelling as often as Cates."

Brogan had an idea. "Where's the key to Tolkach's quarters?"

"It's in the safe, in Cates' office. Why? We been over the place so many times I know the cockroaches by name."

"Just a thought. Who's got the combination—Giles, you can get into the secure safe, can't you?"

Major Lou Giles was meticulously cleaning his revolver on a cloth he'd spread out on a desk. Parts were scattered around the desktop. "I think so. But Colonel won't like it. He don't like anyone messing around in that safe but him."

"Yeah, yeah, I know but you're the duty officer tonight, aren't you? I got a need to know. I'm top dog anyway, this week. Just log it, okay. 'Lead surveillance officer requested a last search of the suspect's quarters.' Call it, hell...I don't know, call it a hunch. Something to wave in front of _Quantum's_ eyes. I'm just looking for an edge, anything we can use to snare the guy."

Giles shrugged. "It's your skin. But Colonel won't like it." They went into the Detachment commander's tiny office and Giles flicked through the combination, swinging the safe door open. A rack of keys hung on one side. Brogan retrieved the one he wanted. It opened Room 2E5, North Bachelor Barracks, a two-story wood frame building off Canyon Road.

"I won't be long," Brogan told him. "Just one more look for anything we can use—" He left the command post and walked on foot north through the tech area, around the Pond and up to Canyon Road and the residential areas.

North Bachelor Barracks was an apt description of the dormitory where Tolkach lived, with several dozen other scientists and technicians. He'd moved into the building after Liesel had committed suicide in April; the kids Jurgen and Kristen had moved in with Dr. Wilfrid Shurer for the time being. It was a temporary arrangement, at best. Security had wanted to use the suicide to move Tolkach off base but that had been nixed by Oppie himself. _Critical to the project_ , was the wording used, Brogan remembered seeing it several times. After Trinity, after the gadget was deployed, Tolkach was sure, the Army would send him packing.

The barracks was a simple building, long and slapped together in the great rush to build housing for the hundreds of workers who had moved to the Hill in '44. Tolkach had secured a two-room suite on the second floor, toward the end of a long hall. Brogan's key worked, and the CIC agent let himself in to the musty, sparsely furnished quarters, shutting the door behind him. The place had only recently been occupied and still smelled of mothballs and disinfectant.

He didn't know what he was looking for, only that if it was there, he had to find it. He let his eyes roam the room in the fading sunlight of early evening, adjusting the blinds to let in more light. He'd gone over Tolkach's quarters several times already, and had come to be familiar with the physicist's habits: the way he arranged his shoes in the closet, the way books and papers were arranged on the tiny desk in the corner, even whether the pencils in the cup were sharpened or not. All of it spoke volumes to a trained eye; Brogan had long contended you could learn a lot about a man by the way he kept his personal belongings.

A quick reconnaissance of the room revealed nothing out of the ordinary. The bed itself was still made, unwrinkled, as if unslept in for several days.

To be sure, Brogan rifled through drawers in the single pine chest, then the drawers of the desk, looking for anything that might implicate Kate. He found little...a few receipts from the commissary he'd seen before, hardware items mostly, a torn ticket from the laundry, some uncompleted crossword puzzles. Puzzles seemed to be a passion with the Czech physicist. In the desk drawers, on the bookshelf, even under the bed pillow, were dozens of crossword puzzles, books of them, _New York Times, Reader's Digest,_ every conceivable brand. Some were finished, some partially so, a few unstarted.

Brogan went to the closet, feeling in the pockets of his hang-up clothes, looking for anything out of the ordinary. More puzzles, small booklets of them, were stuffed in one jacket. Even around his lab space, Brogan recalled, Tolkach always seemed to have a few handy.

_When the hell does he have time to do puzzles_? Unless....

CIC had already looked at some of them, analyzing them for hidden codes and ciphers. Nothing had been found so far and the consensus was that the puzzles were little more than a diversion for Tolkach, though Brogan was only now beginning to appreciate how much. Perhaps, they were like FDR's stamps, a hobby or a quiet passion.

Brogan rifled through the rest of the closet space. Suits, a few pairs of socks, and a small tie rack completed the arrangement. An empty suitcase he had examined several times was stashed in the corner. For good measure, he opened it, looking for the umpteenth time for hidden pockets. There seemed to be none. A small jar of dental powder tumbled out; he had seen that before as well. On the top shelf, he pulled down a stack of sweaters, finding little.

There seemed to be nothing he hadn't seen before, nothing that he could definitively tie back to Kate Wellesley. In one of the desk drawers, a few trinkets and pieces of Indian jewelry had been stashed. He'd seen those before. They might have come from Kate's shop, but Skunky Merrill was certain they belonged to _Frau_ Tolkach and Edvard had collected them when she had died. The pieces had been closely examined and put back.

Brogan examined the necklace for a moment, wondering. He and Merrill and Giles and Colonel Cates had used up plenty of paper pads diagramming the intricacies of the Soviet spy network known to be operating in and around the Hill, imagining connections, examining the evidence and the surveillance logs, trying to fit the pieces together. Nowhere had the Pueblo Gift and Craft shop turned up, in evidence, in intercepts, interrogations, nowhere. Was this a node they had somehow overlooked?

Or was Edvard Tolkach truly a collector of Indian curios?

Brogan was increasingly annoyed at the Czech physicist. He spent most of the last few months getting to know the scientist's habits and acquaintances. Now, somehow, Kate Wellesley was involved; he was sure of it, but he couldn't prove it. And that annoyed him even more.

Cates had gotten authority from Washington to pick Tolkach up for questioning. Trouble was, if Kate was involved, that would come out in the questioning. Brogan put the necklace back in its place. Somehow, he had to find a way of getting to Tolkach before any formal interrogation began. Question him about Kate.

Brogan left the room and walked back to the Detachment command post, lost in thought. Though it was late, after 11:00, the dusty streets were still active, soldiers and secretaries and technicians scurrying up and down Central Avenue. The T-building was ablaze with lights and Brogan could see shadows and forms moving across the windows. The Hill was humming, with the Big Test only a few weeks away.

Brogan was in a quandary: what if Tolkach talked and implicated Kate directly? Would his relationship with her come out? Did Tolkach even know about it? How could he 'manage' the interrogation so that Kate's part, if there was one, didn't come out?

Brogan reached the command post and decided to have a cigarette. He lit up and leaned against a telephone pole, watching people come and go across the quadrangle and the side street that ran back to the shops behind the Chemistry wing. He sucked hard on the Camel; it tasted coppery and he stubbed it out after a few draws. Maybe he needed some coffee.

Maybe he just needed to walk. Walk and think. Wade Brogan set off up Trinity Avenue, hands jammed in his pockets.

There had to be a way of getting to Tolkach before he got Kate Wellesley all mixed up in this mess. Before it got any worse. When he had reached the end of the road where the canyon rim dropped off and the street turned south toward the Sigma Building and the warehouses, he had an idea.

He hustled back to the 'log cabin', thinking _it might just work at that_.

Wednesday, May 30, 1945

Los Alamos

11:30 p.m.

Wade Brogan secured a jeep from the Detachment motor pool and drove back to the East Gate. The MP's at the gate were detailed from the 4817th; there were four, a normal arrangement lately. Two operated the gate, and two examined passengers and documents for vehicles coming through along East Jemez Road. Brogan parked in the turnoff beside the plywood sentry box and went inside.

A sergeant in fatigues abruptly stood up, tossing aside a tattered copy of _Stars and Stripes._

"Sorry, sir....didn't see you coming." The sergeant was a freckled redhead, with rather full, almost feminine lips. His name plate read _Perkins_.

"At ease, Sergeant." Brogan hadn't been inside the spartan gatehouse in months. He spied the logbook. "I just wanted to check your entries for the last few hours."

"Sure thing, Colonel." Perkins stumbled all over himself trying to help Brogan with the ledger. "Last admittance was just twenty minutes ago...a truck with commissary supplies. Nice cuts of beef on that one, sir."

Brogan ignored him. "I'm trying to see if Dr. Tolkach has returned from Santa Fe. He was detailed with a squad from the 4817th to pick up a Dr. Anton at the train station, escort him back to the Hill. Have they come through yet?"

Perkins scanned the logbook himself, scratching his red hair. "Don't think so, sir...I would've remembered any of our guys coming through. When are they expected?"

Brogan didn't know. "It could be anytime now, Sergeant."

"Is there a problem, Colonel?"

Brogan had spent the last hour concocting an answer to this very question. "There's been an emergency in the Tolkach family...I can't go into the details here. I need to intercept Tolkach here at the gate, escort him to the command post. The others can go on to see Mrs. McKibbin's people, get Dr. Anton through in-processing, paperwork and all."

Both men saw headlights approaching at the far turn of East Jemez, approaching East Gate. The MPs outside moved to secure the gate and began waving the car to a halt. Moments later, it was apparent that there were two cars in a convoy. The lead car contained Dr. Tolkach and Dr. Anton, with an MP driver. The following car carried the rest of the detail.

Perkins and Brogan exited the gatehouse. While the gate guards, Sloan and Stivic, examined passes and IDs, Brogan saw Edvard Tolkach behind the darkened windows, his face illuminated by the flare of a cigarette lighter. He went around and motioned for the window to be lowered.

"Dr. Tolkach—"

Tolkach was grim and tight-lipped. "Colonel Brogan...I didn't expect—"

But Brogan cut him off. "Dr. Tolkach, I'm afraid there's been an emergency. With your family—"

Tolkach's face drained. "What kind of emergency? Kristen...Jurgen...they're all right? Is there--?"

Brogan was already opening the door. Perkins hovered right behind him. "I can't explain now, Dr. Tolkach. You need to come with me, right away. I've got orders to get you to the command post at once."

Tolkach seemed flustered, confused. His mind was swirling. _ACORN...he had left all the papers with her, hadn't he? And the film..._ "What's this about. Colonel? I—"

But Brogan was already hauling the Czech physicist out of the back seat by the arm. "You can leave your bags. These guys'll deliver them to your quarters."

"Sure thing, Doc," Perkins chimed in. "We'll see your stuff gets squared away...you live at North Barracks, don't you? B Barracks?"

Tolkach was half in and half out of the car. "Sure...yes, I mean, yes, that's where I live..." He managed to stand upright, after Brogan released his arm. He brushed himself off, straightened his tie and black fedora. "Room 2E5...you must know that by now. You've been there often enough."

Brogan ignored the jibe. "This way, Doc...my Jeep's right over there."

Tolkach turned to Vaclav Anton, a short, rotund, bearded man leaning across the backseat. "I'm sorry, Dr. Anton...I don't know what's going on here."

"Not to worry," Anton muttered. "I'm sure I'll be in good hands...where shall we meet?"

Tolkach was still re-arranging himself. "The commissary tomorrow morning, say about eight? Ask anyone...they'll direct you."

"Yeah," Perkins wisecracked. "Just follow the smell of diesel fumes."

Brogan was insistent. "Come on, Doc...we don't have much time."

Tolkach accompanied him to the Jeep. Brogan fired up the engine and spun in the gravel as he peeled off down Trinity Drive.

They drove for a few minutes. Brogan swerved several times, traveling too fast, to avoid knots of late night strollers. The evening was warm, thick with pine and machine oil. A light breeze swirled dust along the road as they negotiated several turns, passing the angled Gamma Building and the bright lights of the T-Building, where Tolkach worked on detonation physics for the Gadget. Beyond, reflections off Ashley Pond lent a rustic air to the road, remnants of the original campsite that had occupied the grounds.

Brogan sped by the narrow alley that angled behind the T-Building toward the Detachment's 'log cabin' command post. He headed further out Trinity, past labs and machine shops ablaze with light, past the water tower, past the PX and the dispensary. Tolkach stirred uneasily.

"Colonel, wasn't that the alley to your headquarters back there?"

Brogan was stewing, trying to hold back his anger, concentrating on the road. For a moment, he said nothing, and took the South Patrol Road cutoff too fast, careening the Jeep on its two right wheels as the chasm of the canyon rim yawned ahead of them. A mounted detail of MPs clipclopped along the side of the road and Brogan had to brake hard and swerve to avoid hitting the horses. Beside him, Tolkach was holding his breath, his knuckles white on the door handle and seat.

"Sorry, Doc...I was taking another route..."

Tolkach sank back in the seat as the Jeep bumped along the rutted patrol road that formed the outer perimeter of the hill. To their left, fencing and barbed wire rolls cordoned off the compound. To their right, the Hill sloped away into black ravines filled with rock hollows, thick stands of sagebrush and juniper and the occasional streambed. The Jeep's headlights careened and rocked as Brogan steered left, then left and left again, bouncing along the dusty road. After a few minutes, they came back to civilization and Tolkach recognized the red glow of the foundry and iron shop, tucked behind a thicket of pine trees. The foundry hummed night and day, turning out raw iron ingots and steel alloy for the machine shops on the other side of the Hill.

The South Patrol road bent left in a hairpin turn. Tolkach saw the south gate come up fast but Brogan hardly slowed. Instead, he continued along the road, winding back right until the rear of the X Building, the cyclotron building, came into view. Here, Brogan began slowing, hunting for the narrow alley he knew had to be there. Several hundred yards behind the wood frame complex that housed the atom smasher the Army had moved from Harvard two years ago, Brogan turned off the jeep's lights and coasted to a stop, crunching through gravel and dirt and halting outside a dark cul-de-sac, one of several turnarounds the Corps of Engineers had built along the narrow patrol road.

He switched off the engine and stared ahead through the pines at shadowy figures moving from window to window inside the building.

"What's in that building, Doc? What goes on there?"

Tolkach gathered himself and took a deep breath. Whatever this Colonel wanted, it wasn't any family emergency. Tolkach let his eyes range around the terrain, wondering what would happen if he slipped out and started running. There was a line of brush not too far away--

"It's the cyclotron building. Where atoms are accelerated, smashed into each other. We study the results of nuclear collisions there."

"Hmmm." Brogan hadn't really practiced this. What could you say to a traitor who'd gotten your girl mixed up in espionage?

"We're not going to your headquarters, are we, Colonel?" It wasn't really a question. More like an observation.

Brogan turned to face the Czech physicist. "Tolkach, there's no need to play games here. We both know what's going on...what's at stake here."

Tolkach cleared his throat. "I'm not sure what you're implying—"

"Doc—" Brogan straightened himself up to his full six foot two inch height, trying to intimidate the foreign weasel next to him. "Doc, I won't mince words here. I know you're spying for the Russians. We've got plenty of evidence."

Tolkach started to interrupt but Brogan held up his hand, chopped the air for emphasis. He swallowed his words and was quiet.

"—like I said, the evidence is there. I shouldn't tell you this, but we've got permission to take you into custody. For questioning."

Tolkach steamed. "I'm under arrest, then?"

Brogan smiled. "Not just yet. This is a little...let's just call it a preliminary hearing, okay? I talk and you listen."

Tolkach's eyes narrowed. He'd given up trying to escape, trying to scoot off into the brush. In the dark, he knew he'd probably lose his footing, wind up entangled in the barbed wire, or somersaulting down the hillside into god knew what.

"I'm listening, Colonel." He knew there were procedures. Rights. Americans loved their rights. Brogan wasn't interested in any of that; his tone of voice said so.

"So, you're spying for the Russians. How long?"

Tolkach said nothing. _He wanted me to listen, so I listen_.

"—doesn't matter. We've got evidence. Just tell me this—who _else_ do you work with? Who else is involved?"

Tolkach stirred uneasily, shifting around in the jeep seat. It was a warm night, but a cool breeze sometimes blew up onto the Hill, funneled by distant notches in the Sangro de Cristo Mountains. Pine needles rained down on them in the open jeep. "I don't know what you're talking about. You've followed me for weeks. You've searched my quarters, my things. My office. Humiliated me in front of my colleagues. What do you want from me?"

Brogan snorted. "How about 'to vanish without a trace?'"

Tolkach knew enough acquaintances in Prague and Vienna who had done just that. "Where I come from, Colonel, that sort of thing happens. I rather thought Americans would be different from Nazis."

"So you admit you work for the Russians?"

"I admit nothing," Tolkach said. "I know my rights...probably better than you, Colonel. I had to pass a written test on the American Constitution...can you recite the amendments?"

Brogan stifled an urge to sock the weasel in the face. He sat on his fists for good measure.

"Okay, Doc...we'll go about this a different way. Tomorrow morning, you'll be picked up for formal questioning. The charge will be conspiracy to commit espionage. Don't play innocent with me, either. We both know what's at stake here. Look, all I want to do is help you. But to do that, you've got to help me."

"Help me?" Tolkach almost laughed. "Is that why you've taken me into this isolated spot, Colonel? To help me?" The physicist snorted. "Like your people helped me when Liesel died? If it hadn't been for Dr. Oppenheimer, I would have been deported immediately. This is how you treat immigrants trying to help win the war? This is how you treat a man who just lost his wife." Tolkach looked down nervously at his hands in the shadowy light. They seemed to belong somewhere else, to someone else. "I don't need that kind of help."

"I think you need more help than you realize, Doc. The Hill's not some college campus. It's a military base in wartime and you've been aiding and abetting the enemy."

"The Russians are not—" Tolkach bit his lips, cutting off his own words. "What's this about? I'm tired and I want to get some rest. And Dr. Oppenheimer asked me to help Anton get settled in."

Brogan was tired of being nice to the weasel. He decided to get to the point. "I've seen you myself in Santa Fe. What connection do you have with Kate Wellesley?"

Tolkach extracted his pipe from his coat pocket and clamped his teeth around the stem. "I don't know her...what's the name?"

"Don't play games with me, pal. I've seen you at the shop." To make his point, Brogan pulled out the tiny clay figurine he'd lifted from Tolkach's quarters. It was a small Indian in war paint and feathery headdress, his bow raised to fire. "I suppose you picked this little gem up at the PX, huh?"

Tolkach examined the curio, then remembered purchasing the gift at Pueblo, something for Jurgen. Jurgen loved cowboys and Indians. "Where did you get that?"

"Your quarters. On the chest—" Brogan saw no reason to hide the obvious. _We've been in there half a dozen times, pal, rummaging through your fancy underwear_. "So what's your answer, Doc? Where'd this little item come from?"

"I don't remember."

"Baloney. We both know where you got this."

Tolkach shrugged. "I visit a lot of places when I go to Santa Fe. My children like gifts...you have children, Colonel?"

Brogan ignored him. "I'm asking the questions." He extracted his Colt sidearm from inside his jacket, laid it on the seat beside his leg. Tolkach stared at it as if it were a thing alive, as if it might leap into the air of its own accord. "How about it--?"

The Czech physicist shrugged. "I visit different shops. There's one, near the train station. I don't remember the street."

"It's called Alameda—" Brogan pulled out a small battered memo pad, flipped through some pages. "Let's see...surveillance placed you inside the Pueblo Gift and Craft Shop at approximately 1200 hours yesterday. You were inside for about forty five minutes. Went in with all your bags—you'd ridden up from Trinity Site that morning—what did you exchange inside, Doc? What was said? You want me to go into more details?"

Tolkach clenched the pipe stem so hard his teeth hurt. "No need. Yes...I was there. I like the art in that shop...my children, like I said. My boy likes Indian things—"

"Sure." Brogan ran his finger along the muzzle of the .45, feeling the cold steel with the tip of his index finger. A pool of light from floodlights surrounding the cyclotron building illuminated the weapon. Tolkach tried to ignore it.

"Colonel Brogan, I really must insist. It's late. It's been a long day and I'm tired. If you're going to arrest me, should we not get on with it?"

"The woman in the shop. I know you exchanged things with her. Papers. Classified papers—"

"Oh, come now, Colonel...it's a gift shop. Indian artifacts. Clay pots. Figurines. True, there are a lot of odd things in there, but classified papers—" Tolkach shook his head.

Brogan's voice dropped to a low menace. "And wash pails. Stuffed with papers. Papers stamped with TOP SECRET stamps. Right from the labs on the Hill. Army letterhead. Project notes. Drawings. Doc—" He smiled, tickled the Colt revolver again. "Let's at least be adults about this."

Tolkach's blood ran cold. The pail...yes, he _did_ remember that. ACORN had gathered up the package, crammed it into a metal pail. But the pail...she'd taken the pail and—what?

Brogan saw the physicist's face blanch. _Gotcha, you little prick. Bingo_. "Her name's Kate Wellesley. What role does she play in all of this?" He heard himself say the words, and hated every syllable. Kate? Not possible...and yet—and yet—"What is she...your handler? A courier? Go-between, maybe? Contact? Where does Kate Wellesley fit into all this?"

Tolkach was suddenly very cold, even as beads of sweat broke out on the forehead of the CIC Colonel. That didn't seem right. The suspect was supposed to be sweating. Yet Edvard Tolkach was chilled and cold. Somewhere in the back of his mind, it was Vienna and it was January and the storm troopers were goose-stepping across the Ringstrasse...the _Anschluss_ had begun. Liesel had gathered the children, but Kristen squirmed away, wanting to watch the soldiers—

"I will answer no more questions tonight, Colonel," Tolkach decided. "If I am under arrest, then so be it. Otherwise, take me back to my quarters." He started to lift the door handle but stopped...the gun had come to life, now poking right into the side of his ribs. He turned slowly, carefully—

Brogan cocked the trigger. "Don't leave so soon, Doc...the night's young. There's so much we can discuss. And take your hands off that handle. Keep them where I can see 'em." He half-chuckled. "I can see the report now: ' _Killed resisting arrest.'_ Who's going to argue?"

Tolkach moved back and folded his hands into his lap. Now he knew for certain the CIC agent was mad.

"This is harassment, Colonel. You know I can report this."

Brogan stiffened. "Yeah? To who? General Groves, maybe? Colonel Cates? I don't think so. Nope, pal, we've had our eyes on your since March '43, one of your patented trips to Santa Fe." Brogan looked up at the night sky. There were no stars, the floodlights washed out all but the pine branches, still raining needles on them. "Let's see...does the name Anatoli Skvorets mean anything to you?"

_WINDWARD_? Tolkach wondered but he said nothing.

"The truth is I don't trust you, Dr. Tolkach. If it weren't for Oppenheimer and Bethe and a few other bigwigs, you'd be in Leavenworth now. Or deported already."

"I came to help America. I was asked. They insisted—I knew Hahn and Heisenberg, I knew what the Germans were doing with uranium."

"Help America," Brogan parroted. "And everybody else too, is that it?"

"You want something, Colonel. I can see that. What is it you want?"

Brogan thought about that for a moment, retracting the revolver, laying it on the seat again. There were voices on the wind—someone was coming, through the brush. Mounted patrol? Technicians from the shop? It wouldn't do to be seen holding a gun on Edvard Tolkach. Trouble was, the bastard was right. Oppie and Bethe and others _had_ protected him, for months. CIC would have to be sure of its facts to make anything stick. And then there was Kate—

He cleared his throat, knew he was treading on soft ground here. He'd already tipped off the suspect to the interrogation. Now he was about to suborn testimony. How many regulations and statutes did that break? But he didn't care. The prick had somehow gotten Kate mixed up in all this and that had to stop.

"Two things, Doc. Only two things."

"I'm listening."

"Don't mention any involvement with Kate Wellesley at the formal hearing tomorrow. Trust me, your health depends on it. You keep the girl out of this, completely. Or I'll see you never leave Los Alamos alive. Got that?"

Tolkach stared straight ahead. He'd seen movement beyond the tree line himself. Technicians from the cyclotron, sauntering along the fence, out for an evening smoke. Two of them, heading this way.

"Is that all?"

"No." Brogan looked around, as if he were missing something. _Common sense, maybe,_ he thought. _What the hell am I doing here?_ "No...one more thing. Stop seeing Kate...Miss Wellesley. Don't go back to that shop. Don't send her anything else, not even a post card or a thank you note. Got _that_? She's not involved in this. I don't want you two anywhere near each other."

Tolkach started to mention ACORN, but thought better of it. The man had a gun, he was agitated, on edge.

"Colonel, I admit nothing. This is not a hearing, as you call it."

Brogan jammed the gun back into his ribs with meaning. "I don't like you, Tolkach. If it was up to me, I'd finish you off right here and now and dump the body down the ravine. And I can do it too. 'Assaulting a CIC officer' is a serious offense. Self defense and all that. If you suddenly disappeared, it would solve a lot of problems."

"Would it, now? Who then would you harass and insult, Colonel? It's no secret what you Army people think about us, those who come from other countries. 'Eggheads. Wops. Greasers. I've got ears. I've heard all that, and more. The fact is we're giving up our lives, our families, in many cases our countries, to help America beat the Nazis. You don't seem to appreciate that."

"And maybe you don't appreciate _this_ —" he jammed the gun more firmly into Tolkach's ribs. "When a man is given access to top secret information, in the middle of a war, and he goes off selling it to the enemy, he's putting everyone in danger. I'd be doing the whole country a favor if I shot you right here and now, for what you've done."

But before he could carry out the threat, the technicians from X Building had seen them and wandered over to the edge of the fence, peering into the shadows.

"Hey...who's that?"

"Who's over there?"

"What's going on...my God, is that a gun he's got—"

Brogan climbed out of the jeep. "Easy boys, take it easy." He pulled out his ID folder. "CIC...project security."

The technicians both wore greasy white coveralls. One was blond, with a blond moustache. The other was shorter, mousy, dark-haired. The blond had a name patch sewn on his coveralls. It read _Franks._

Franks stared through the limbs of the bush at Tolkach. "What's going on over here anyway?"

Brogan had already pocketed the gun. He did the same with his credentials and pass. "Just a little friendly talk, that's all. You men have a reason to be here?"

Franks looked miffed. "Late shift on the 'tron, that's all. I already put in my twelve hours today. I just heard this commotion—"

Mousy cut in. "We came to see what the deal was."

Brogan wondered. "And what did you see, exactly?"

Franks looked at his colleague. Something in the way the security officer said it. "Well, actually, nothing really. See, the mounted guys come by here all the time. Thought there might be a problem."

Brogan was firm. "There's no problem here, boys. Go on about your business."

Franks nodded, agreeable to the idea. "Sure thing, mister. Not a problem. We're just taking a break...they're getting ready to fire her up in half an hour. This place'll be humming then."

Mousy added, rubbing his head, "Yeah, it makes my hair stand up, what with all that static electricity."

Brogan waved them on and went back to the jeep.

With scarcely a word, he drove them back along the south patrol road. They turned north at the cryo lab and headed for the blaze of lights that outlined Trinity Drive. Machine shops fronted the massive T Building. Streams of people trudged along both sides of the road— _shift change, from the looks of it_. Brogan braked the jeep to a halt there.

"Go back to your quarters, Doc," Brogan advised. He gave the physicist the tiny figurine of Geronimo back. "For your boy. Since he likes Indian stuff, tell him this for me: the Indians lost the war. They were on the wrong side of history."

Tolkach hoisted up his bags and climbed out. His neck, and his ribs, were sore. "A great thing to tell an eight-year old, don't you think? I'll keep that it mind."

Brogan leaned across the seat and put his hand on Tolkach's bag, preventing the physicist from removing it. "Keep this in mind too: _Kate Wellesley stays out of this...or else."_

Tolkach wrestled the bag out of the jeep and stalked off.

Brogan wheeled the vehicle around and headed for his own quarters, Charlie Barracks up on Rose Street. As he sped along the road, dodging pedestrians and half-ton trucks, he was left to wonder:

What had Franks and the mousy guy at the cyclotron building actually seen? What had they overheard?

And what would Edvard Tolkach really do tomorrow at the formal hearing?

Thursday, June 7, 1945

Tokyo

2:30 a.m.

Vasily Kalugin met the Japanese Imperial Navy officers at the airfield outside Niigata in a drizzling mist. He had ridden the train from Moscow's Yaroslavl station after receiving his orders, arriving at Vladivostok after three days crossing Siberia, only the morning before. Because of the threat from American aircraft roaming the skies over Japan at will, shooting up trains and ships and convoys with little opposition, the Ambassador had set up a night flight across the Sea of Japan from Vladivostok to the airfield at Niigata. There, Kalugin was to meet representatives from the Imperial Navy, who would escort the Red Army _maior_ to Tokyo.

_And there_ , Kalugin reflected, as he boarded the special military train at Niigata's Terao Station, overlooking a forlorn vegetable garden being picked over by wraith-like peasants by the light of a few torches, _I meet one Admiral Hiro Ushenda and see what this bizarre Japanese notion of dealing the Americans a decisive blow is all about._

The Navy officers had introduced themselves on the airfield tarmac, as soon as Kalugin had exited the unmarked Ilyushin bomber and exchanged salutes. The taller man, Captain Riusu Yoshimura, was lean, hardfaced, with a scar on his chin and a fierce gleam in his eye. The second officer was short and thick, with a bull neck and bulging eyes...Commander Korechika Inaba. Yoshimura was clearly in charge.

"Welcome to _Nihon_ , Major," the officer snapped off. Yoshimura barely concealed the contempt he had for all Russians. Forty years before, Admiral Togo had routed the Russian fleet at Tsushima, and a few weeks later, the Czar had been forced to sue for peace. Yoshimura had studied the tactics of that glorious engagement at the academy at Etajima, earning top marks for his incisive analysis. To actually meet a Russian officer now, so many years later....Yoshimura could now well understand how Togo had defeated the animals. Still Admirals Toyoda and Ushenda had given him the job of escorting this officer safely to the bunker at Kojimachi and he intended to do just that.

Kalugin boarded the train and watched as the darkened streets and buildings of Niigata slipped behind them. In moments, they were in the countryside, winding through misty valleys of terraced rice paddies, low hills and thick stands of cedar and pine. According to Yoshimura, the trip to Tokyo would take three hours.

"The Americans rule our skies," he said, bitterly. "To go in the daylight is suicide. My orders are to get you safely to Kojimachi before sunup." He left little doubt he would have rather been fighting the Americans in combat action.

_Dead or alive_? Kalugin wondered, but he didn't say anything, only nodded perfunctorily.

Vasily Kalugin was still drowsy and fatigued from a five day trip that had begun in the commandeered office of Baron von Teufel at Tegelwald, in front of Marshal Zhukov himself. "Some kind of new mission—" Zhukov had growled. "Beria himself will be in Berlin...he wants to see you tomorrow morning...0700 hours. You'd best clean yourself up and be presentable...if you know what's good for you."

Indeed, it was a new mission and for that, Vasily Alexandrovich Kalugin was most grateful. In truth, absent the fatigue, he'd been exhilarated when Commissar Beria had removed his tiny pince-nez frames and glared at him across the desk strewn with papers and folders, laying out the details of the long trip he would be taking.

Just to be on a mission again was reward enough, Kalugin thought. And to be trusted to represent the Soviet Union abroad, to deal with the Japanese directly on their own soil, was particularly gratifying. The thought that he was now on Japanese soil, in the very mouth of the _enemy_ (as Beria had assured him they soon would be) still amazed Kalugin and despite his fatigue, he forced his eyes to remain open and take in all that could be seen of the darkened countryside sliding by outside the blackout curtains.

He had no doubt that the legendary _spiritsy_ of the 20th Diversionary Commandos would learn much from this mission, much that would help him later.

Yoshimura and Inaba said little during the train ride, preferring to stare straight ahead through the walls of the compartment, as if seeing things only they could see. _Perhaps planning future battles_ , Kalugin snorted, though with what he couldn't imagine. In June, 1945, the Imperial Navy was a fighting force in name only, a paper Navy unworthy of the name. He was certain the _Morskoi Flot_ would finish off that remnant of a force and quickly, if the Americans didn't beat them to it.

In time, the train slowed, twisting through the darkened outer districts of Tokyo. Kalugin peeked through the blackout curtains from time to time, earning further sneers and contempt from Yohimura, though he did nothing to stop him. Tokyo seemed to stretch on forever...a vast plain of smoldering ruins, piles of rubble, endless cooking fires and shadowy figures trudging like the condemned through potholed and bomb-cratered streets. He had seen their faces before...in the homeless hordes pouring into and out of Berlin in the days and weeks after the fascist surrender.

The people were different. But the faces were the same.

At last, the train chugged and shuddered to a stop. Yoshimura shot up, announcing they had arrived at Shinjuku station.

"A short walk from here to the bunker, Major." Kalugin hoisted up his bag and followed the Navy officers out to the platform, then through a crowded terminal with a shot-up roof now sagging from its beams. Smoke and dust swirled through jagged holes above, into the night sky. Small flashlight beams swept back and forth, illuminating islands of bare and blackened floor between throngs of waiting passengers, as they made their way outside. Through jostling crowds, Kalugin hustled to keep up with Yoshimura and Inaba, who had set off down a crowded street thick with smoke from dozens of fires blazing from pots ands pans and cans and anything that could hold wood or charcoal. Somewhere behind them, a bus wheezed and coughed sooty steam as it bumped over the potholes. Passengers filled the entire vehicle and clung like flies to every perch outside...bumpers, windows, door frames. They were soon engulfed in a seething tidal surge of humanity.

Everywhere, a pall of ash and dust choked the air. After what seemed like hours, they came to a broad slope of rubble surrounding several rows of still-standing columns, a forest of columns proudly upright amid the ruins of war. For nearly half an hour, Kalugin had observed an increase in the number of uniformed men surging around the area. Clearly, the military was in command of this district. Yoshimura stopped them at the far end of the columns. Several large iron grates covered openings in the ground. Dim red light illuminated a tunnel into the ground.

"This way, Major, and down the stairs. The walls are wet."

Kalugin followed Yoshimura through the iron grate, which two soldiers had obligingly raised, and down a spiral of stairs fixed into cement walls. Moisture running with ash streamed down the walls. They descended several levels deeper into the Imperial Navy's underground bunker complex at Kojimachi.

Yoshimura and Inaba were joined by several yeoman and conducted through a dizzying maze of narrow cement passageways, past dimly lit rooms, through several steel doors and eventually into a plain, concrete-walled bullpen area lit with flickering bulbs. Several rows of desks and tables were crammed into the space, and papers spilled onto the floor from tables. Maps, Kalugin noted. The place was full of maps and newspapers.

One table was surrounded by several men. Yoshimura approached a short, bald and bespectacled senior officer who was poring over a map of the Pacific Ocean, filled with pencil lines.

"Admiral Ushenda, _sir_ , I have brought the Russian officer from Niigata, as you requested." Yoshimura saluted and stood at attention, Inaba beside him.

Kalugin saluted as well. Ushenda straightened up, scowled through his spectacles and gave the Russian a bemused nod, rubbing his stubbly cheeks with nervous hands.

"Major Vasily Alexandrovich Kalugin, sir. Twentieth Diversionary Commandos of the Second Guards Army. _Armeyeeah Sovyet Soyuz Sozialistische Respublika..._ I have been ordered to report to you, sir."

Ushenda regarded Kalugin coldly. He dismissed Inaba with a wave and the commander disappeared. Yoshimura stayed behind. The admiral motioned for the Russian to follow with a nod of his head. They went into a small cubbyhole of an office beyond the bullpen. A fourth man, an Imperial Navy captain joined them.

Ushenda made perfunctory introductions. "Captain Kaoru Takeuchi, of our American section." Takeuchi was a slight man, lean and gaunt. "Yoshimura, I believe you already know. Sit, gentlemen, sit." Ushenda waved at them. He fell wearily into a creaky chair behind the desk.

They were jammed elbow to ear in Ushenda's office and the murmur outside made it hard for Kalugin to concentrate on what was being said.

Ushenda steepled his fingers, peering at the Russian through the triangle as if studying some new specimen through a microscope. "Admiral Toyoda told me we would be receiving a Russian delegation. Are there others, Major?"

Time and again on the train ride across Siberia, on the night flight to Niigata, even on the train into Tokyo, Kalugin had gone over Comrade Beria's instructions, committing them to memory. _Inform the Japanese that their plan to seize an American atom bomb is known to the Soviet Union. Test their intentions. Make the offer: we will assist you if you give us a chance to study the bomb, take pictures, make measurements...a joint effort has the best chance of success..._

Kalugin studied his audience. Ushenda had a baby's face, with fat cheeks, small ears and black, almost fathomless eyes. A stub of a cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth. Takeuchi was tall, thin, almost a skeleton, sad eyes and a dog's ears, erect and alert to everything around them. Yoshimura, whom Kalugin had taken an instant dislike to in Niigata, was a thug with a scarface. His hands twitched steadily, as if he were grasping imaginary swords, ready to strike.

"Only myself, comrade Admiral. I've come alone, with a message from my government." Kalugin extracted the small envelope containing Beria's proposal, countersigned by Stalin. He handed it to Ushenda. The admiral promptly handed it to Yoshimura, who produced a knife and slit the flimsy open, handing it back. Ushenda scowled as he read. Kalugin watched his nostrils flare as his eyes scanned the proposal.

Ushenda studied the front and back of the paper, looking for more. The proposal was in Russian and Japanese—typical Beria, short, blunt and to the point. The admiral looked up with quizzical sort of half smile, carefully placing the proposal down in the middle of one of his maps. His lips tightened.

"This is some sort of threat, Major?"

Kalugin shook his head. "Not at all, sir. My government has obtained information—through our sources—that a plan is being developed here in Tokyo...a plan to strike a decisive blow at the Americans, with one of their own super weapons. An _atomic_ bomb, I believe it is called."

Ushenda was noncommittal. "Go on."

"Sir, as you can see, my government is making a proposal. If such a mission is planned, a mission to seize one of these superbombs and use it against the Americans, the Soviet Union has certain...shall we say, capabilities that could be useful. We know American tactics. American equipment and methods. We are simply proposing to offer assistance in the mission."

"—in exchange for a chance to examine this atomic bomb? Study it completely...so you can make bombs like it?"

Kalugin offered the briefest of smiles. "Something like that, sir...that is our proposal."

Ushenda leaned back in his chair, which creaked loudly. Beside him, Yoshimura stood rigidly still like a menacing predator, sizing up his prey, ready to pounce. Kalugin was aware that the presence of a Soviet Red Army officer had stirred up the underground bunker. Whispers and bursts of voluble Japanese rattled around behind him.

Ushenda was uneasy at the Russian's revelations. Instinctively, he would have denied any such mission existed. How could the Russians know of such a plan as Operation _Shori_? The mere idea of its existence was a closely kept secret, known only to himself and a few aides, plus the Supreme War Council. He studied the Russian's face: he had ruddy cheeks, even a few freckles, surprisingly delicate, almost feminine lips, a rust-colored crew cut. But there were lines around the Russian's eyes that spoke volumes. A man of experience, a man of quick wits and quicker fists. His neck told more, revealing great stores of inner strength with its thick, ropy sinews. Dull gold caps on several teeth were visible behind expressive lips. Ushenda decided against denying the existence of _Shori_. His own instincts about men told him it would be futile.

"Let us suppose, Major, for the sake of argument, that your sources are worthwhile. And that this is a legitimate proposal, made in good faith—" Ushenda's voice belied the doubts he had about _that_. "What specifically can you offer? And why should we accept your offer? Or for that matter, even believe you?"

Kalugin had expected resistance. Beria had coached him on it. "My government is prepared to help you plan and execute this mission. We have intelligence on American tactics that improves the chances of success. We have aircraft, weapons, other supplies that are perfect for such special missions." Kalugin offered a furtive smile. "I myself have experience with special missions behind enemy lines."

Ushenda had already received background on this Major Kalugin; his exploits with the 20th Diversionary Commandos had become well known enough to the _Wehrmacht_ in the dying weeks of the Third Reich to have made it into dispatches from the Japanese ambassador in Berlin.

"Indeed." Ushenda regarded the Russian carefully. "What kind of aircraft do you talk of here?"

Kalugin had received specific approval to reveal the existence of the captured B-29s. "American aircraft, comrade Admiral. American B-29 Superfortress bombers. We have several in our custody. They made emergency landings near Vladivostok, after missions over your homeland."

Yoshimura spat. "Burning out the middle of our cities, you mean."

Ushenda was intrigued. "If you know as much as you say, then you must feel such aircraft would be useful to us."

Kalugin decided to be direct. "Admiral, what other aircraft can carry such an awesome weapon?"

Ushenda stood up abruptly. He tapped his finger on the map in front of them. "Tinian island, Major. Here—" he circled the Marianas chain of islands with his finger. "The Americans captured this island from our forces last fall. They use it as one vast airbase. But we still have forces of our own there. They give us intelligence. Tinian, Major—that's where our intelligence says the Americans will launch their special atomic strike mission from. That is where the bombs will be." He looked up at Kalugin, who was studying the map closely. " _That_ is where we must go too. It's heavily defended, surrounded by hundreds of ships of the American Navy. Somehow, we must breach those defenses, if we're going to grab one of the bombs."

Kalugin was warming to the idea. "Suppose you succeed, Admiral. What then? How can you deliver such a device against an American target?"

Ushenda was wary but the Russian seemed genuinely interested. The background report had told incredible tales of Kalugin's exploits behind German lines in Poland and Germany. How much could be believed and how much was Red propaganda, he couldn't say. If even a fourth of it was true, however—

"We have ideas. Detonate the device at Tinian itself, destroy the American base. Perhaps store the bomb on a ship or a submarine hull, and take it into an American port city. There are several possibilities."

"Using an American B-29, in American colors and insignia, offers certain advantages," Kalugin observed. "Surprise, deception, the possibility of pinpoint targeting...for maximum effect."

"We know little about this new bomb," Ushenda admitted. "But our sources tell us the Americans are spending millions of dollars developing it, and proceeding in a great rush."

Kalugin knew some of the reports. He was himself skeptical. But Beria and Stalin obviously thought otherwise. He couldn't reveal all the details Beria had coached him on—that once the Russians got their hands on the bomb, once they had studied and thoroughly documented it, the joint mission would be dropped and the Russians would quickly back out. _Stalin's promised Truman and Churchill we'll invade Manchuria by August 15,_ Beria had admitted. _We're going to keep our promise—they are Allies, after all. And a new eastern front may give us back the Kurile Islands and other territory lost to the Japanese in the 1905 war._

Ushenda was thoughtful. Having an American aircraft deliver the bomb _was_ a good idea, with many tactical possibilities. Perhaps this Russian would be good for something after all. But the biggest problem of all was breaching Tinian and grabbing the thing.

"Perhaps you have ideas about the initial assault, Major."

Kalugin shrugged. "I'm instructed to offer any assistance I can...and to communicate my government's interest in collaborating on this special mission."

Yoshimura sneered at the Russian. "Admiral, this Russian can't possibly know as much about American tactics as he says. After all, _Nihon Kaigun_ has been fighting the Americans for four years."

Ushenda stifled a rebuke. "Forgive my dear Captain Yoshimura, Major. You're in Third Bureau here...Intelligence matters. The _taisa_ is head of our seventh section...Russian and Chinese affairs. It's been a long war for him—"

The other staffer, Captain Takeuchi, was more cautious. "I'm head of third section, Major. American affairs. I've seen intelligence indicating the Americans have formed a special attack unit in their air force, just for bombing missions with this new bomb. Can you corroborate this?"

Kalugin shook his head. "No. I'm a commando, not a pilot. Or a spy."

"Then why does your government send someone like you to make this proposal?"

Kalugin shrugged. "Probably to get rid of me." The attempt at humor fell flat. The Red Army Major became more serious. "I have a history of taking on missions no one else thinks will work. I have way—I suppose—a different way, of understanding an enemy, getting inside his mind and preying on his worst fears."

Ushenda nodded. "I've read some of your background. We too have our sources. In Japanese, there is a word... _kage_...I believe in English, you would say _shadow_. The reports on you, Major, say you are like that. Sort of a spirit, a presence. There and not there...until time to strike. Is that an accurate assessment?"

Kalugin was smug. His reputation had somehow preceded him, even to an underground bunker of the Imperial Japanese Navy. It _was_ a small war, after all.

"To capture the essence of the missions I've led behind enemy lines, the sacrifices, the risks, the bloodshed and destruction, the days I've laid buried in snow, barely breathing while all around me a fascist Panzer regiment marched past, to explain that in words in a report, is not an easy thing to do." Kalugin leveled an even glare at Yoshimura, who stiffened, and glared back. "I'm a people's soldier in the Red Army, defending my beloved _Rodina_ from the _fascisti_ animals who've raped and bloodied her for four years...that's all. My methods and tactics work. I've killed scores of Germans, some with my bare hands." He looked at the calluses and scars on his left hand, remembering...the long one under the thumb had been a Panzer _gruppenfuhrer_ with a hunting knife...quite a struggle that had been—"I am what I have done. And I have been quite successful at what I have done." Kalugin stuck his chin out. "Ask the Germans."

Ushenda steepled his hands again. "Tinian is the nut we must crack. You understand, Major, that I must consult with my superiors about this. It's an interesting offer—all the more so since it's obvious either we have a leak around here or Soviet intelligence is more skilled than I imagined." He took a glance at his two Captains. Both squirmed a bit. "I'll have an answer for you in twenty four hours."

"Where will I be billeted during that time?" Kalugin asked.

"Yoshimura and Takeuchi will see that you're taken care of. Get your gear, Major." To Yoshimura, the admiral barked out a stream of guttural Japanese. Yoshimura saluted and bowed, saying " _Hai!_ " He nodded brusquely at Kalugin with his head, as if he were a dog going on a walk, indicating it was time to leave Ushenda's tiny office. Takeuchi followed behind. The three wound their way back across the bullpen of 3rd Bureau and disappeared into a cement-lined passageway.

Kalugin would bunk in the officers' quarters one floor down...where the stench of rat droppings made even breathing difficult, Ushenda reflected. If he was a real commando, such conditions would be no problem.

When they were gone, the admiral lit up another _Hikari_ cigarette, wincing at the raw, sour taste of the brand. Who the hell was making this stuff? He hadn't tasted decent tobacco for two years—

Ushenda sighed and gritted through a few more puffs. Everyone had to sacrifice for the war. He spread out the map of the Pacific, focusing on Tinian and its surrounding islands, the seaward approaches. There was another map—there, under the ashtray. Army topographical details...the island itself. Clipped to the top corner were crude sketches that had come from remnants of the _rikusentai_ , the Special Naval Landing Force troops holed up in caves in the central hills. Nearly a whole platoon had been wiped out getting the sketches off the island when American planes had bombed the submarine _I-81_ , while the reconnaissance force had tried to swim out. But here they were, burnt from fire and still mildly wet with salt residue...the best intelligence on defensive positions around the island they were likely to get for quite awhile.

It wasn't much but it would have to do.

The Russian was a curious factor in the whole operation. How could they know of _Shori_...in any detail? It was simply not believable, but there it was. _We leak like a sponge around here,_ Ushenda thought. Tobacco wasn't the only thing that had gone to hell.

If the Russian offer was legitimate, Ushenda knew he was inclined to accept it. Undoubtedly, this was the best hope for Japan...perhaps even a blessing from the gods. Think of it: an atom bomb in Japan's possession. Finally, the decisive battle would be at hand and _Nihon Kaigun_ could sortie forth and deal the enemy a defeat from which he would never recover. The Emperor would be pleased. Even more, with the Russians involved, even secretly, the Allied Powers would have to be more generous in their peace terms. They could scarcely afford not to; if things worked out, the Russians might even become members of the Co-Prosperity Sphere, especially if Truman and Churchill pressed them too hard.

But that was all speculation at the moment. Ushenda reached for his jacket and cap, realizing he had to hurry. It was nearly sunrise and he'd called a strategy meeting aboard the destroyer _Oyama_ in Yokahama harbor for 0700 hours. There were more details to work out with the _rikusentai_ commanders and others about the Tinian assault. And he'd have to report to Toyoda and Anami on the Russian offer as well.

Ushenda headed for the stairs that led up to the surface, nodding brusquely as staffers parted to allow him through. Shafts of steamy June sunrise filtered down from the iron grates as he climbed. At least, the blasted American B-29s rarely struck in daylight anymore. Most of central Tokyo had long since been burned out. Like true devils, the Americans preferred to work at night.

The Russian's offer was most timely, if unexpected. If the Russians could be trusted--

Ushenda strongly believed the offer should be accepted.

MEMORANDUM

To: Honorable Baron Admiral _Kantaro Suzuki_ , Prime Minister

From: General _Yoshijiro Umezu_ , Chief of Staff, Imperial Army

Date: 23 June 1945 (20 Showa)

Concerning: Okinawa and the Greater Kerama Islands, Tokyo Prefecture

Most Honorable Prime Minister:

It is with deepest embarrassment and regret that the General Staff must inform you of developments concerning the defense of our prefectural entities in Okinawa and the Greater Kerama Islands.

The General Staff has received no further communications from Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima, commanding officer Thirty-Second Army, which has been responsible for the glorious and courageous defense of these islands against the American intruders.

Our last radio message came from _Taisho_ Ushijima on the evening of 21 June, and its contents were not hopeful, regarding defense efforts along the third line of resistance at Yoza-Dake ridge.

We have been monitoring all frequencies diligently since this time, without results. The American army has also been broadcasting news of interest, stating most arrogantly that final pockets of our brave fighters have been cut off and effective resistance has ended. Of course, we of the General Staff doubt this very much as even to the last man, a Japanese soldier will not surrender but choose death according to our custom. However, there have been several disturbing developments in the last day which I feel compelled to bring to your attention.

The American broadcasts speak of a diary or letter which they claim to have seized. This letter was written by an adjutant captured by the Americans and supposedly describes the final moments of General Ushijima and his chief of staff General Cho. The letter is likely a complete fabrication and propaganda put out by the enemy in a futile attempt to demoralize our forces into surrendering. I am confident that, in this, the enemy will fail utterly.

According to the American broadcasts which NHK has intercepted, the letter reads:

"I, Colonel Yahara, alone survived at the express orders of the General, who told me that someone had to survive to tell the world the truth about this battle for Okinawa and the glories of the 32nd Army. I was shamed but my superior refused my request to join he and General Cho in the final act of loyalty to His Majesty. ' _Bear the temporary shame...endure it, Yahara. This is an order from your commander!'_

"Just after 2200 hours, Generals Ushijima and Cho sat down inside the cave to a great meal of rice, salmon, canned meats and potatoes, bean-curd soup, fresh cabbage, pineapples and sake. After the dinner, the generals exchanged many toasts with their staff, using Scotch whiskey which General Cho had brought from Shuri Castle.

"At 0400 hours the next morning, preparations began for their final duty to the Emperor. Four o'clock...is that not the true hour of _hari-kiri_? Even in their final hours, our courageous generals observed all the traditions and rituals of great Nihon, even as bombs and grenades exploded all around us.

"The commanding general was dressed in his full field uniform, with all medals and decorations. The chief of staff was dressed in a simple white kimono. General Cho left the cave first, and was heard to say as he departed, ' _Well, Commanding General Ushijima, as the way ahead may be dark, I, Cho, will lead the way.'_

"And the Commanding General Ushijima replied, ' _Please do so. I will take along my fan, as it is getting warm already.'_ And honorable Ushijima then hoisted up an Okinawan _kuba_ fan and began calmly fanning himself.

"Please understand that these were calm and composed minds that faced death. All of us had faced death many times since the Americans landed. To face death caused no fear. We welcomed it. The generals passed slowly by the row of assembled staff at attention, as if they were immortals.

"The moon had been shining that glorious night, but now it sank below the waves of the western sea. Dawn had not yet come. At 0410 hours, both generals appeared in the mouth of the cave. Four meters from the mouth of the cave, a sheet of white cloth was placed on a quilt. This would be the ritual place for the generals to commit the _hari-kiri._

"The commanding general and his chief of staff sat down on the quilt and bowed in reverence toward the eastern sky. The adjutant then quietly presented the sword. By this time, the Americans were quite nearby, as shells and grenades exploded just outside the cave. Neither man was disturbed in the least by these noises. The solemnity of the moment was thus preserved.

"The two generals calmly proceeded with the rituals, completely in the manner prescribed by custom. Each man bared his stomach for disembowelment by the ceremonial knife, at the same time bowing his head for decapitation by the adjutant's drawn sword. The final act was swift and sure; the adjutant was skilled and confident.

"There was a shout and a simultaneous flash of the sword, then another shout and another flash, and then there was only silence, as blood flowed through the rocks and crevices away from the quilt. Both generals nobly performed their final duties to His Majesty, the Emperor."

"Honorable Prime Minister, it is very likely that such an account is a complete fabrication made up by the enemy to destroy the morale of our valiant fighting men still battling the enemy on Okinawa. We have no way as yet of determining whether any of this tale is true.

"However, if it is true, I feel compelled to offer my most solemn, heart-felt apologies for the loss of this Japanese territory, the first of our home islands to suffer such a fate. If these words are true and do account for the final hours of Ushijima and Cho, then we must re-double our efforts at once to take the battle to the enemy and engage him in the Decisive Battle.

"I, Umezu, vow that not a single meter more of Japanese soil will be given up to the enemy without extracting the maximum price in blood. Let every Japanese man, woman and child kill ten Americans! The planes of the Divine Wind and the _renraku tei_ boats have shown us the way! Courage and daring will be our weapons.

"The Hundred Million cannot be defeated if we are united in defending our glorious homeland! Final victory will be our reward, now or in the hereafter!

Regards...

Umezu Y.

Baron Suzuki folded the memorandum carefully and laid it on the table, beside the sake cup. He lifted the cup and tasted the fiery liquid, then finished it off, letting it burn all the way down. Outside the _shoji_ screens, a stiff breeze stirred the poplar trees, momentarily hiding the desolation and destruction of central Tokyo beyond. If he lowered his eyes to slits, he could almost imagine in his mind's eye old Edo, before the war, with her miles and miles of gray tiled roofs, magnificent buildings, theaters and restaurants, and bustling crowds. A Tokyo of the mind....indeed all that was left of her now that the enemy had blasted the ancient capital into ruin and rubble.

Suzuki closed his eyes completely. Umezu's declaration: _the Hundred Million cannot be defeated!...final victory will be our reward!_...tolled like the bells at Yasukuni shrine in the back of his mind.

He knew the end was near now. It was time for the Supreme War Council and the Cabinet to stop fooling themselves.

It was time to approach the enemy with serious intent and sue for peace.

Before it was too late.
CHAPTER 7

Monday, July 16, 1945

Alamogordo, NM

5:09 a.m.

"I'm setting the automatic sequence timer for twenty minutes... _now_."

Physicist Joseph McKibben was tall, lanky, Missouri-born and responsible for the final minutes of the countdown. Moments before, Kenneth Bainbridge had unlocked the main sequence timing switches with a small key he carried on a chain around his neck. Bainbridge was the test director for the Trinity shot and he was nervous as he watched McKibben set the timer.

"All done," McKibben muttered. A clock had started ticking, counting down the last minutes and seconds until the Gadget was detonated. Outside the earth and concrete south bunker known as S-10000, the weather was alive, charged with electricity, as early morning thunderstorms danced around the horizon. Veins of lightning crackled behind thick rolling clouds; the chief meteorologist Jack Hubbard had predicted a hole in the storm front about 5:30. He told General Groves "any time after five a.m. should be okay."

Groves was sour, nervous and pacing about the cramped confines of the bunker. "You better be right on this, Jack. Or I'll hang you." He ordered the met team to sign off on their forecast, then ordered the shot set for 5:30 a.m. Then he went back to pacing.

Outside S-10000, Edvard Tolkach and Henry Graebel kept well clear of Groves and his staff. Oppenheimer was there too, haggard, pre-occupied, his pork-pie hat rumpled and greasy. Oppie had wasted away to practically nothing. He looked emaciated, a bare skeleton after recent bouts with chicken pox and months of late nights and seven-day weeks. General Thomas Farrell stood rigidly by the bunker's north-facing opening, fiddling with a piece of welder's glass he'd been given. The stockroom sticker was still on it: _Lincoln Super-Visibility Lens, Shade #10._ Farrell was Groves' deputy. It was his job to see the boss didn't have a heart attack banging heads together.

Tolkach was nervous, restless, anxious for the shot to go well. He was anxious for other reasons as well. It had been five weeks since CIC had taken him into custody back at the Hill for several days of questions. _Who are you working for? Where do you send classified material? Who tells you what to look for?_ For two days the questions had barraged him, relentless, unending, rolling over him like ocean waves. There had been two men, no...there had been three, later two...even now, he couldn't remember exactly. Ten hours the first day, twelve the second. Two breaks for a smoke and a toilet trip. Water and crackers. _The Nazis were much better at this sort of thing_ , he told himself, in between sessions. But it had been an ordeal, all the same.

He wasn't sure, in the end, what he had told them. He'd never mentioned ACORN, never mentioned Miss Wellesley (wasn't that her name?), aware of the glare of Colonel Brogan from the corner of the stuffy room in the back of the 'log cabin.' He hadn't mentioned WINDWARD, either. Nor BISHOP. Never implicated anyone. He was certain he'd never admitted to dealing in classified stuff; after all, he had a TOP SECRET clearance as it was. He was cleared.

"But you _aren't_ cleared for matters outside T Division," Colonel Cates had drummed into him time and again, like a chant. "You aren't cleared for Ordnance—you aren't cleared for--" and so it went, hour after suffocating hour.

They claimed to have caught him with papers he wasn't cleared for. It was a gray area, but he couldn't make them see that. His job was to calculate how the explosive shock waves would propagate, how they would compress the plutonium sphere at the center of the bomb. You couldn't do that unless you know what was exploding, thus Ordnance _had_ to furnish him with facts about Composition B, the high explosive that even now formed a lens around the core of the gadget sitting like a swollen pineapple on top of the hundred-foot tower ten miles north of the bunker. But he couldn't make Cates and Brogan and Merrill and the others see that at all.

In the end, they threatened him with prison. "Thirty years in Leavenworth...that's what you'll get," Brogan seethed at him. He'd never heard of the place, but they often spoke about it to him. They threatened him with deportation. Even hanging...or the firing squad. _That's what we do to spies and traitors around here...just ask those stupid Krauts that landed in Florida and Long Island._

It was two days of hell but they couldn't hold him any longer. Tolkach knew only his usefulness to the Project and the intervention (again) of Oppenheimer and Bethe had kept him out of prison.

He had no illusions about what would happen once Trinity went off. In fact, they had made no bones about the surveillance to come. " _My men will be sticking to you tighter than a whore's ass,_ Cates had promised. And so it had turned out. Brogan himself, and the officer they called 'Skunky' were right there with him at the south bunker, anxious like everyone else, wide-eyed at the enormity of the moment, but careful never to let Tolkach out of their sight, not even for a second.

He'd grabbed Graebel by the arm and practically dragged him outside, to get a little air. "It's a bit stuffy inside, Henry," he said, and his eyes rolled over to the CIC agents lurking in the back, fiddling with sunglasses and sun lotion and welder's glass of their own. Graebel nodded and followed him.

The countdown continued, broadcast over a radio circuit by another physicist named Allison. His voice was dry but tinged with something...days later, it would called _dramatic timbre_ , a quaver like an opera tenor, punctuating the deeper calls of the minutes as they slid by. With the beginning of the final count, General Groves had left for the Base Camp, ten miles further south. By consent, in case something went wrong, he wanted to be physically separated from Oppenheimer and Farrell.

"Five minutes to zero," came the tenor's voice, like a metronome. Eyes involuntarily went to clocks and watches, as if synchronizing themselves. More people began to apply sun tan lotion. Outside along the concrete wall, good-natured jockeying for position rippled along the line of observers. From a hundred yards away, a green warning rocket sizzled off into the night sky, followed by the wail of a siren from the Base Camp south of them. A steady stream of observers piled out of the bunker, scratching shallow trenches in the sand hills around the complex. Brogan and Skunky Merrill followed, their eyes steady on Tolkach and Graebel, over by the edge of the porch, having a last smoke.

Tolkach had pressed close to his colleague. "It _will_ work, Henry. All I'm asking is for you to trust me. Have we not trusted each other for almost two years now?"

Graebel was tight-lipped. "Edvard, I want to trust you...I do. Look, I don't know what you've done, exactly." He held up a hand. "Let me finish. But _this_...it's...it seems so dramatic, so childish. It can't possibly work. Why can't you just sit down with these men, get yourself a lawyer, and work all this out?"

"Because," Tolkach hissed, lowering his voice, "they've made up their minds about me. I'm the enemy. They won't listen. And if you don't help me, now, I'll be in a prison cell when we get back to Los Alamos. For God's sake, Henry, I've got two kids. Do this for them. Do it for Jurgen and Kristen, if you won't do it for me."

Graebel was sorely troubled, and his eyes met Brogan's, less than thirty feet away, leaning against the door to the bunker, his own cigarette glowing in the semi-darkness. He took a deep breath.

"It's the most cockamamie scheme I've ever heard of. Don't you think they'll search this place completely if you turn up missing. Hell, they'll turn the place inside out, probably make us all strip."

"They won't," Tolkach insisted. "They won't because they'll be watching the thing go off, same as everyone else."

" _Four minutes to zero,"_ came the metronome voice again. Conversation had ceased. Chatter had died off. A solemn silence had descended over the observers at south bunker.

Graebel chewed over the dilemma Tolkach had so thoughtlessly put him in. Why _now_ , of all times? Of course, he was sorry for Tolkach. The man had been through so much. _So have we all_ , he realized. Without knowing quite why, he reached into his pockets, extracted the keys to the '39 Mercury the Lab had given him for the drive down from Los Alamos. Quietly, he dropped them into Tolkach's hands.

"Be quick about it."

Tolkach took the keys and pocketed them. His surveillance seemed to have noticed nothing.

Outside the S-10000 bunker, the two-minute warning rocket fizzled. Someone muttered, " _I hope that's not an omen."_

A long wail from the Base Camp siren signaled the time. The one-minute warning rocket fired off at precisely 0529. Tolkach moved through a knot of people, pressing forward, squeezing into position to look the beast in the eye when it went off. He heard the raspy voice of Oppenheimer, somewhere around the entrance.

"Lord, these affairs are hard on the heart."

He broke free of the crowd, wandered down a line of cars parked in front of the wooden beams bracing the back of the bunker, and lit up another cigarette. Where was Brogan? The security agent didn't seem to be in sight.

Must be still inside. There was another agent with him. His name was Merrill somethingorother. Tolkach quickly scanned the gathering crowd; bodies surged forward as the countdown approached one minute to go. He didn't see the other agent. But he found Graebel's car, went to it and unlocked the trunk with the keys, leaving the lid slightly ajar. No one noticed. Silently, Tolkach slipped through the bodies, back toward the open end of the bunker. Graebel was there, climbing up a sand embankment with his welder's glass and sunglasses, determined to fix his eyes at the precise coordinates of the aim point. Tolkach caught up to him, gave the keys back.

Graebel's eyes met Tolkach. _I hope you know what you're doing,_ they said. Both men were aware of the crush of people moving forward. Tolkach squeezed his shoulder.

"In Santa Fe," he whispered in Graebel's ear. "I only need a few seconds...." He squeezed his colleague's shoulder. _Thanks_.

McKibben had just turned on a more precise automatic timer.

" _Forty five seconds_ ," the voice intoned.

A physicist named Donald Hornig hovered over a switch inside the bunker that would cut the connection between the charging unit at the tower and the bomb if anything went wrong. It was the last physical link to the device. At thirty seconds, four red lights flashed on the console in front of him and a voltmeter needle flipped from left to right, registering a full charge. Hornig breathed a silent sigh of thanks. Behind him, near the bunker door, Edvard Tolkach slipped out and eased his way, step by step, back toward Graebel's car. He kept one eye on Brogan as he did so, coming to a halt, as the agent turned, his eyes flitting around the area, trying to locate the doctor.

For a brief instant, their eyes met. Brogan's narrowed. Harsh floodlamps lit the area, casting deep shadows. Tolkach wasn't sure what Brogan could see. Heads and faces bobbed between them. A steady flow of observers surged into and around the earthen mound that topped the bunker. Brogan twisted and ducked to get free of the crowd. As he slid sideways, trying to regain visual contact with the subject, he ran right into Oppenheimer himself, nearly knocking the frail physicist down.

"Ooops—sorry, er, sorry about that, Dr. Oppenheimer—" hands reached out to catch the physicist before he stumbled backward. Oppenheimer lost his hat. Someone found it and handed it back. The celebrated director of the Lab brushed himself off, regarded Brogan with disgust, but said nothing. His face was a mask of tension and he grabbed a post to steady himself. Brogan winced and continued easing himself outside.

At ten seconds, a gong sounded in the bunker. The air was still, broken only by an occasional cough, a breath sucked in. Outside above the dugout, dozens of people lay face forward in shallow trenches, like bodies stacked for burial, fiddling with glasses, gloves, hats, various paraphernalia, making last bets with neighbors, examining scraps of paper with flashlights. One man took a swig off a bottle of whiskey.

Henry Graebel found himself a small hollow and lay down, never imagining the final seconds could take so long. He checked his watch—

"— _ten seconds to zero_ " came the voice.

\--then lowered his head into the sand bank in such a way that a slight rise in the ground would completely shield him from the flash of the explosion. He pulled out his welder's glass and placed it over the right lens of his sunglasses, then covered the left lens with an opaque cardboard shield. He craned around, wondering, would Edvard really go through with it? Could he be so reckless?

"— _five seconds—"_

\--and he told himself in those final moments that desperate things were done by desperate men. Why else would a nation at war spend billions of dollars on such a mad scheme as the Gadget? Why else would a confused physicist from Prague attempt to vanish from sight, on this night of all nights?

" _Four_."

\--he had never really understood Edvard Tolkach...how he could have involved himself in such harebrained schemes, how he could have ever thought the Army would ignore what he was doing, how he could have ever thought such nonsense _real Allies don't keep secrets from each other...the world will better off if this is shared among friends._

" _Three."_

Outside the bunker, Wade Brogan moved away from the crowd, having momentarily lost contact with the subject. He felt a brief moment of panic, felt the reassuring heft of his service .45 inside his jacket and bolted down the line of cars, oblivious to the drama that was about to unfold. He did not see the trunk lid of Henry Graebel's '39 Mercury snap shut. He knew only that the subject was gone from sight, though it was unlikely he would have gone far. He pulled up at the edge of the bunker compound, shuffling through mounds of desert sand, suddenly remembering what was about to happen, how exposed he was. He turned and walked back.

" _Two."_

Inside, Donald Hornig watched the voltmeter needle flicker, his heart skipping a beat. It was his job, if voltage fluctuated between the charging unit and the Gadget, to stab a knife switch and kill the test shot cold before anything unplanned could happen. No one really knew what "unplanned" meant, only that it was bad. He had told himself only ten minutes before that he had to react, react _fast_ , if the voltage dropped too soon. He knew he could react in about half a second—he'd practiced it countless times in the last few weeks, seeing just how close to zero he could get before he could reach his finger out and press the button. Half a second was the best he could do; he didn't even realize he'd stopped breathing nearly sixty seconds before. Now his only reality was the timer and the knife switch, that and the metronome of the voice counting down the last seconds. He fixed his eyes, watery and unblinking, on the voltmeter, and rested his hand lightly on the button.

" _One."_

The timer made a final tick. The voltmeter needle flicked and dropped to zero.

The time was 0529:45.

The only sound at first was the hiss of static crackling over the loudspeaker.

The firing circuit closed. On top of the shot tower ten miles north of them, the charging unit discharged its current into a ring of thirty two detonators, firing all of them simultaneously. Once fired, they ignited the outer shells of the Composition B high explosive. The detonation waves, whose physics Edvard Tolkach and Henry Graebel had labored over for nearly two years, separately rammed inward, encountering embedded focusing structures, merged, slowed, curved, turned inside out, then merged again into a single spherical shock front, speeding inward at stupendous speed. The shock front soon passed into a second shell of Comp B explosive and accelerated. It slammed into a wall of dense uranium known as the tamper and became a second shock wave, then squeezed, liquefying, moving through the wall. It hit the nickel plating of the plutonium core itself and squeezed more. The small sphere shrinking, collapsing in on itself, became an eyeball of atomic chain reaction. Fractions of a second later, the shock wave reached the very center of the bomb, called the initiator. Made of polonium, spiked with irregularities to mix its beryllium with the polonium, it began spitting out neutrons from an ever-accelerating chain reaction, more and more neutrons to kick-start the fissioning process into action. First one, two, seven, nine, then geometrically expanding, neutrons drilled into the surrounding plutonium and there found fertile ground to continue the explosion. Atomic fission multiplied its prodigious energy release through eighty generations in scant millionths of a second, tens of millions of degrees, millions of pounds of pressure. Before the first light of its radiation began leaking away, conditions within the swelling eyeball of fire briefly resembled the state of the Universe itself, in the first seconds after its primordial explosion.

Instantly, the sunrise ground burst flashed a bubble of light on the horizon, lighting up the Jornada del Muerto for hundreds of miles around. The main explosion followed split seconds later, still without sound, as the force of the detonation thrust a vast ball of roiling flame thousands of feet upward, like a meteor heading the wrong way. The bubble of light flared and flattened out, obliterating the sun itself for prominence on the northern horizon. Then, as if it had been a balloon punctured by a pin, the bubble of light exploded.

"Beautiful....just _beautiful_!" someone breathed behind Graebel.

"--look at that sucker go!"

And down below the earthen berm, among the several dozen cars parked outside the bunker, Edvard Tolkach wished to God he hadn't shut the lid so soon. Inside the cramped and stuffy trunk, spears of flickering light flashed through cracks where the lid mated to the car. A coruscating auroral flame seemed to dance around the top of the compartment, mere shadows of the main event outside. He closed his eyes, but the flickers continued even through his eyelids.

Ten miles away on the desert floor, a maelstrom of swirling flame boiled upward, red, purple, and white clouds erupting in slow motion from the zero point. The clouds twisted upward, churning and coiling. From the center of the boiling mass of clouds, a column of white smoke fingered upward at a faster rate, climbing to 20,000 feet in seconds, and from its top emerged the shape of a mushroom cloud. Initially, the cloud surged upward at a speed of nearly 100 miles a minute. Eventually it topped out and flattened into an anvil at a height of more than 40,000 feet. Towering over the desert like some genie escaped from a bottle, the cloud kept boiling, growing, spreading, changing colors, like a thing alive. The mushroom head broadened further as it rose, eventually widening out to two miles before it sheered off into the upper stratosphere and floated off to the east.

Then the sounds came. From somewhere deep in the bowels of the earth, a primal rumble vibrated the air, a low-grade buzz, deepening after a few seconds to a steady roar. Flags and pennants and jackets flapped steadily in a freshening breeze building out of the north.

The blast had annihilated only a few grams of matter, converting it into energy. The total energy released was enormous, however. In an infinitesimal fraction of time, literally one ten-millionth of a second, Trinity had liberated the explosive energy of nearly 18,000 tons of TNT, 18 kilotons, a yield even greater than calculated at the pre-shot briefings two days ago. The surface temperature of the fireball was over 100,000 degrees Fahrenheit, hotter than the surface of the sun, itself just now peeking over the eastern horizon.

"Like watching the birth of a star," muttered Graebel, adjusting his goggles, then raising them to watch the cloud bubbling skyward, now beginning to gain a noticeable tilt to the east.

"Birth and death," someone said, "all in a single instant."

"Alpha and omega in a span of a few seconds," Hornig said. "The light of a thousand suns. A light not of this earth."

Kenneth Bainbridge sought out Oppenheimer. The Lab director was in awe of the spectacle now unfolding on the desert floor ten miles north of them. Without thinking, an ancient Hindu saying came to mind:

" _Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds...."_

Bainbridge slapped Oppenheimer on the back, pumping his hand with congratulations.

"Robert, look...we did it! We did it!" he exulted. "Now we're all sons of bitches together."

Oppenheimer could only stare transfixed at the billowing, flickering mushroom cloud as it towered over the Jornada del Muerto like a giant fist.

Outside the bunker, Wade Brogan finally caught up with Skunky Merrill.

"He's gone—"

Merrill's gaze switched back and forth, from Brogan's face to the glowering monster that Trinity had now become, rattling the beams of the bunker with wave after wave of thunder.

"Gone...what do you mean gone?"

"I had him in sight—he was right _there_ —" Brogan pointed to the row of cars. "Then the bomb went off and everybody was watching that...when I turned around, he was gone."

Merrill frowned. Colonel Cates would eat them alive if the subject disappeared again. "He can't be far. You check the cars?"

Brogan was on the move. "Heading that way now."

The two of them paced up one side and down the other, peering into each car by the light of the bunker's floodlamps, that and the fading shadows of the mushroom cloud. Several MP's noticed them and came over.

"What's up, Colonel?" said one.

Brogan swore under his breath. Tolkach could not possibly have vanished. "He must be in the bunker—"

"—or out in front," Merrill offered, indicating the earthen embankment where clusters of people were climbing down. "You don't suppose he'd wander off into the desert?"

"Not unless he's got a death wish. Come on—" Brogan led the squad of MPs on a circuit up and around the sand hills that covered the north face of the S-10000 bunker, peering intently into the faint dawnlight out in the desert. Ten miles away, the mushroom cloud had begun to lean to the east, corkscrewing as upper level winds twisted the smoke column. To the east, the first glow of the sun had re-established its primacy as the source of light. People were out there, in ones and twos, gesturing, talking. Tolkach had to be out there. Brogan broke into a trot.

They headed out into the desert, accompanied by a squad of MPs, away from the bunker, circulating among the scientists, asking questions, looking, canvassing. Tolkach was nowhere to be seen. Everybody's attention was on the spectacle of the mushroom cloud, the effects of the blast.

"You don't suppose he left for Base Camp, Dog?" Merrill asked. They went back to the bunker. "Several cars left half an hour before zero...General Groves was in one."

Brogan was furious. "It's possible. Look—" he gathered the rest of the MPs around. "Sergeant, set up a perimeter, cover all the usual checkpoints. Secure this site, dammit! Check all the logs...if Tolkach left, somewhere there should be a log entry. Make sure we've got somebody at every road into this place. Skunky, you and me are going to check every truck and jeep at this bunker, inside and out. Come on—"

After half an hour, Brogan met up with Merrill and Giles at the entrance to the dugout. One look at the others' faces told the story.

"No luck, Dog," Merrill was saying. He waved at some small shacks off in the distance. "We didn't check those places."

Brogan squinted in the early morning haze. "What are they?"

"Instruments, according to what I heard. Cameras and such, recording the blast. They're supposed to be unmanned until Mr. Bainbridge gives the okay to retrieve them...somebody's checking radiation now."

Brogan fumed, "What the hell does that mean? Could our friend be out there in one of those shacks?"

Merrill shrugged. "Anything's possible, I guess. Be kind of dangerous, though...all exposed like that."

Brogan looked around. Scientists and technicians and Army people were milling about, congratulating themselves, slurping bad coffee and munching on something from the mess kitchen that Brogan wasn't interested in. They'd checked out every car they could get to, but Merrill was sure a few cars had already taken off for Base Camp, or Compania Hill, where more observers had set up. He'd tried to secure the site fast enough to check every vehicle coming and going, but with the bomb going off...in all the confusion—

He swore silently under his breath. _This stinks_...their primary target had vanished right out from under them, almost as if he'd been vaporized by the bomb. Brogan was sure Tolkach was here, somewhere at south bunker or at Base Camp. He had to be.

" _Think_...." Brogan told himself. "Think like your target—"

"What was that?"

Merrill was still nearby.

Brogan tapped his head. "We've got to think like Tolkach. Where would be go? Who was he with when we last had him under positive surveillance?"

Both men watched the zero site for a few minutes as the sun began to burn off ground haze from the night's rains. A seething globe of reddish dust still churned ten miles away, remnants of the initial detonation, now backlit from the east by the sun. Something sparkled inside the cloud like particles of glass caught in a whirlwind, a million Christmas lights winking on and off in the middle of July. Aloft, the last of the mushroom cloud had broken apart like a bent corkscrew, drifting to the southeast, toward El Paso.

Then Brogan had a thought--

"Skunky, I got an idea."

"Glad to hear it. I'm fresh out, pal."

"Where'd we last have positive sighting of the target?"

Merrill considered the question. "He was with Dr. Graebel, wasn't he? Inside the bunker—"

Brogan nodded, ticking off fingers on the palm of his hand. "I saw him and Graebel move outside, right about over there—" he indicated a sandbagged revetment a hundred yards from the main dugout, where cabling from the instrument shacks converged from out in the desert. "—around that shack."

"So?"

"So I'm thinking like Tolkach now—"Brogan warmed to the task. "—I would want to get out of this area anyway I could. He couldn't go north..."

"Not without being vaporized in the blast."

"And there's nothing east but more desert and mountains."

"Yeah...nearest town's Carizozo...and that's fifty miles away."

Brogan leaned against one of the massive beams supporting the south façade of the bunker. He lit up a cigarette, inhaled deeply and continued ticking off points with his fingers. "That leaves west and south, assuming he's not here."

Merrill scuffed at some dirt around the beam, built up imaginary hills with the toe of his shoe. "So far so good. South takes you to Base Camp."

"And maybe on to El Paso," Brogan said. "Maybe even Mexico."

"Why Mexico?"

Brogan shrugged. "He knows we've got him on a short leash. Probably already senses he's about to be picked up anyway...if it weren't for Dr. Oppenheimer, he'd already be in a cell by now...and we'd be well on our way to cracking this nest of spies wide open."

"What about west?"

"West takes you to San Marcial...and the highway. Back to Santa Fe, maybe. Or south...Las Cruces. I'm wagering our boy's either headed south or north, or planning to."

"We got logs of every car coming and going for the last two days. All sites, N-10000, this bunker, Base Camp, Compania Hill. Everybody's seen the alert, everybody's seen the photos we've circulated. So where's the good doctor?"

Brogan nearly bit off the end of his Lucky Strike. "He's got to be at one of the sites, Skunky. He _has_ to be."

"Then we'd better get back to Base Camp, let the Colonel know what's happened."

Brogan agreed. "I'll ask Cates if we can lockdown the whole place for a couple of hours, start a thorough search."

Merrill was already shaking his head as they headed for the jeep. "Colonel's not going to like that—"

The jeep ride back to Base Camp took half an hour. Brogan phoned Cates, who was predictably furious.

"The man can't just vanish into thin air!" the Colonel's voice boiled out of the phone receiver. Brogan held the phone away from his ears. They could both well imagine the little red vein on the Colonel's forehead throbbing like it did when he got angry.

"No, sir—"

They discussed possibilities, and Cates told them he'd be in touch. Half an hour later, Merrill and Brogan received a summons to see General Groves himself, in the command post. The CP was another log and beam cabin one 'street' over from the Detachment headquarters. Groves glowered behind his metal desk like a bear just out of hibernation, sweat beading up on his forehead as the morning sun began turning the Jornada into a blast furnace. Beside his desk, his deputy Brigadier General Thomas Farrell was perusing a map with Dr. Oppenheimer and Dr. Bainbridge, the test director, penciling in the effects of the blast.

Groves popped chocolate cherries from a glass jar on his desk. "Now, then, boys, what the hell is all this about?"

Brogan explained the situation and delicately asked the general for permission to close the Base Camp to start a thorough search for Tolkach.

Groves sneered down at them. "Close the Base Camp...today, of all days? You men must be out of your mind. I've heard of this Tolkach...Colonel Parsons keeps me informed. What makes you think this fellow's here?"

"Begging the General's pardon, sir, but all the evidence is that Dr. Tolkach left south bunker, a few minutes after you did, and returned to this location."

Groves wasn't convinced. "Anybody seen him?"

"No, sir...not that we've been able to determine. That's why we want to start a more thorough search. Odds are good that's he's here somewhere, hiding, waiting for a chance to make a break for it. Only there's no place to make a break for from here at Trinity."

"We think he'll try and make El Paso, General," Merrill said. "Or maybe head back north somehow to Santa Fe. We don't think he'll try to re-enter the Hill, not now."

Groves shook his head. "I can't have a suspected Soviet spy running loose around Trinity. Not today, of all days. But if I let you lockdown this place and search it like you're asking, I'll have a real riot on my hands from all the scientists. They want to get to their instruments—hell, Dr. Oppenheimer's already arranged a little visit day after tomorrow to the zero point in his fancy new armored personnel carrier. Fellows—" the general started to down another handful of chocolates, but thought better of it, setting for a single one. "you're putting me in a damned difficult position. Damned if I do and damned if I don't."

"Yes, sir," Brogan sympathized. "But CIC's been working this source for almost a year now. If we can bag him, we think the whole network'll crumble pretty quick. We could deal the Russians a real blow, really gum up their espionage works for a long time."

"And that's valuable in itself," Groves admitted. "Colonel, I'll give you twelve hours to search. Starting at 0900 hours this morning, you can lock down this place tighter than a drum. Close the gates, search every hut and shack and jeep, whatever you need. I don't want to alarm the scientists—we'll call it a routine security sweep. Standard procedure. Come 2100 hours tonight, I'm opening the gates back up. I've got to let the scientists get to their instruments, do their measurements and stuff. They need that to figure the yield of the bomb, so we'll know what we're giving Tibbets' boys."

"Yes, sir," Brogan saluted. "We'll get on it right away—" Both men spun about and left the command shack to draw up a search plan, and then get the Base Camp and all the other Trinity sites buttoned up tight.

The search for Edvard Tolkach proved frustrating and fruitless for the 4817th and by 2100 hours, Brogan was ready to punch someone. The entire Detachment had been mustered for the operation. All traffic into and out of Base Camp and the bunkers was tightly restricted, setting off a chain reaction of angry grumbling, phone calls, heated arguments and traffic jams around the gates. Inside each site, every structure was turned out and searched inside and out, the same with all vehicles...trucks, jeeps and cars, even the lead-lined armored personnel carrier that would trundle out to the zero point the next day with Oppenheimer and a select handful of scientists to witness firsthand the destruction wrought the by the Gadget.

Groves himself came to the Detachment command post shortly before the lockdown was set to expire. He glowered at the MPs and their officers, as one by one, final reports came in from all posts and stations.

Nothing. Edvard Tolkach was nowhere to be found. Henry Graebel, known to be a close associate of the Czech physicist, was interrogated several times. Each time, his story was consistent and held up. "I last saw him at south bunker, right before the shot went off. He was going back to Base Camp." No amount of questioning could shake Graebel's story, though Brogan detected something—more of a forced sincerity than anything else—that he couldn't quite pin down.

"You'd think he'd be more concerned about the whereabouts of a close colleague," Brogan muttered after one interview. "I mean,what if Tolkach were off injured in the desert somewhere—"

But Graebel insisted he'd hadn't seen Tolkach since before the shot.

Groves had had enough. "I'm pulling the plug, gentlemen. Continue your search the best you can. I'll notify the authorities in El Paso and Santa Fe. If Tolkach is a fugitive, then the FBI needs to be involved too. Meanwhile, I've got a job to do here."

The drive back north to Los Alamos was a long, sullen four-hour trip. The convoy was eight vehicles in all, all cars save for MP jeeps at the front and rear. The next to last car was driven by Henry Graebel. For company, Graebel had Richard Feynman from T Division and several technicians. Only Graebel knew they were carrying an extra passenger, in the trunk.

Edvard Tolkach soon realized how cramped and stuffy the old Mercury's trunk could be. Graebel had told him they would be stopping at 109 East Palace Street in Santa Fe, along with an escort from the 4817th, to pick up another newcomer, "some fellow named Weisenberg, physical chemist, I think. Knows about metallurgy and things...Bethe thinks he can help with the plutonium, squeeze out more product somehow." When he had heard about this side trip, Tolkach had gathered his briefcase and a few personal items and decided now was the time to disappear.

With any luck, he'd find a way to slip away from the car once they were in Santa Fe.

It was a bumpy, uncomfortable ride back north along Highway 60, across the bleached salt flats of the Socorro plain, through the dusty towns of San Marcial, La Joya and Las Lunas. The convoy was led and followed by several cars of Army MP's and plainclothes security agents from the Project. No one was allowed to stop or pull off without permission.

Tolkach passed the time trying to get comfortable in the cramped compartment, fighting claustrophobia, mentally ticking off what he could offer the Russians. He'd made copies of wiring diagrams for the detonators, as well as the arrangement of explosive lenses, developments he had worked on personally. He'd managed to find some chemical analyses of the plutonium core, as well as a few experimental records detailing how the tamper was fashioned out of uranium, how the polonium was shaped and machined into an initiator to give the chain reaction its initial kick of neutrons. Anything he thought might be useful—things ACORN had told him their 'customer' was looking for. He'd even copied a few memos about shipping preparations. There had been a lot of talk lately about that—would the Army really go through with the bomb? Couldn't there be a demonstration first? Shouldn't we share the secret of the Gadget with our Allies?

With any luck, he could use the material in his briefcase with ACORN, to negotiate. Edvard Tolkach had made up his mind after Colonel Brogan had put him through the latest session at the 'log cabin.' He would not allow himself to be subjected to that kind of humiliation again. America didn't need him. America didn't want him. Liesel had been right all along. They should have stayed in England, with the Cavendish Lab.

Tolkach wanted to return to Czechoslovakia, or what was left of her. He was sure ACORN could arrange this. Only concern for the children, for what would happen to Jurgen and Kristen, had held him back. He was sure, with the right kind of persuading, that ACORN could prevail on her Russian handlers to help him get out of the country, especially now that he was about to become a fugitive. As for payment—Tolkach felt the battered sides of his briefcase again. It was crammed with papers and drawings and memos.

This would be his ticket out of America.

They made the outskirts of Santa Fe just before noon. Feynman handled the shortwave radio the military had given them and coordinated with one of the Jeeps following.

The radio crackled to life inside the car. It was Sergeant Kinard in the vehicle behind them.

" _Touchdown..._ this is _Third Base..._ the turnoff to Central Avenue is about a mile ahead. You know the way to the Palace Restaurant?"

Feynman shot Graebel a quizzical glance. "Henry...how many times have you been to East Palace?"

Graebel snorted. "Only about two dozen times in the last few months. Tell him we know the area quite well."

Feynman passed the information along. Kinard's voice crackled back through the speaker.

"We'll follow you to _Rose Bowl—_ " both scientists stifled a chuckle at the Army's choice of code words—"and hang out around the restaurant. You pick up your package and then we'll head north."

Feynman winked at the others. "Roger that, Sergeant. _Touchdown_ out...."

Graebel turned right onto Central Avenue, reminding himself they were carrying an extra passenger. Just what the hell did Edvard think he was going to do? And what would happen if he were discovered?

Graebel didn't want to think about it.

The Palace Restaurant was something of a confused mixture of styles, part saloon and part country restaurant, as if it couldn't quite make up its mind what to be. It was a popular enough hangout for soldiers and others associated with the Project, though not for the food or the décor. The real reason so many people on the Hill knew the Palace so well could be found in the non-descript single-story colonnaded building across the street, known simply as 109 East Palace. It was here that Dorothy McKibbin and a small staff of secretaries did initial processing and paperwork for all newcomers to the compound at Los Alamos. Most of them never knew what their final destination was, or that Mrs. McKibbin had been employed by the Manhattan Engineer District and the Army for years.

Graebel checked the rear-view mirror as he turned them onto Palace Street. Sure enough, Sergeant Kinard was right on their tail, with a full squad of MP's in battle gear, their M-1's slung around their shoulders as they disembarked at the curb.

The scientists and the soldiers got out and stretched a bit. Several lit up cigarettes.

"How long's this going to take?" Kinard asked. He was a gangly crewcutted twenty-year old, with a prominent Adam's apple that wiggled when he talked.

Graebel kept his eyes on the trunk. _Not now, Edvard. Not now_. "As long as it takes, Sergeant. You know how Mrs. McKibbin is. I don't even know whether Weisenberg's here yet. We may have to wait."

That made Kinard's lips pucker. "No good. We're due back at the Hill at 1600 hours."

"I'm sorry, Sergeant. Why don't you men get a bite to eat?"

Kinard mulled that over. "I guess we could do with some chow. I'll leave a detail out here—Mertz, you and Gammon, come with me. Stivic, it's your turn to play guard dog...stay here with the vehicles. Make sure nobody interferes. Come on—" he left his weapon in the back of the Jeep, as did the other two. The three MPs headed off to the restaurant.

Feynman shrugged. "I suppose we'd better go inside, see if this Weisenberg fellow's arrived yet."

Graebel was thinking fast. He had to clear the area, long enough for Edvard to get out and disappear. "You go ahead. I want to get something out of the trunk."

"Suits me. I could use a little walk." Feynman took the two technicians with him and disappeared into 109 East Palace. That left only Corporal Stivic and Graebel outside.

"Need any help with the trunk, Doc?" Stivic sauntered over to the Merc, slinging his M-1 to the opposite shoulder.

Graebel froze. "Uh...no, not at all, Corporal. In fact, why don't you take a break? Go for a walk...get a bite too?"

Stivic smiled. "I'd love to, Doc, but Sarge says I gotta stay put. I do need to take a leak though. Maybe I could—"

"Sure...go ahead, Corporal. I'll wait for you right here...maybe I could use a little help...papers and all for the newcomers. You know how the Army is—"

Stivic nodded. "Yeah, sure...just be a sec." He trotted off to the restaurant, disappeared inside.

Now was the time.

Graebel bent to the trunk and whispered as loud as he dared. "Edvard... _Edvard_ , the coast is clear. There's nobody in sight. You've got to get out now...if you're going to go anywhere...here...I'll unlock the trunk—" He keyed the lid and it lifted cautiously, as Tolkach poked his head up, blinking furiously in the bright sunshine. His white hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat and his suit was rumpled and wrinkled. He groaned, stepped out with Graebel's help and tried to stretch.

"That's all you've got?" Graebel asked, dusting off Tolkach's jacket.

Tolkach straightened up, rubbing his eyes and neck. He grasped the briefcase even tighter. "It's all I need."

"I won't ask what's in there. Where will you go?"

"Don't ask, Henry...it's better you don't know. I'm doing what I think's best."

"It's dangerous...for both of us...if you're caught. There's got to be a better way."

Tolkach looked around, watching the restaurant entrance closely. Stivic was still inside. "There isn't. The Army's going to arrest me when we get back to the Hill. Brogan said as much. Once Trinity was done, Oppie and Bethe wouldn't be able to protect me anymore. They think I'm a spy for the Russians, Henry."

"Aren't you? What you're doing is espionage is most people's book."

Tolkach grabbed Graebel at both shoulders. "Henry, you of all people should know better. I'm only doing what a lot of us have talked about. We all know America shouldn't keep this thing secret...we've got to share it with our Allies. It's too dangerous to keep under wraps like this."

"I know, Edvard, but Jesus...nobody's gone this far—"

Tolkach put fingers to his own lips. "Shhh. Don't be so sure."

"What about the children?"

Tolkach was ready to leave. He stopped short, almost in mid-step. "Jurgen and Kristen are staying with the Shurers. Wilfred and Betty are almost like grandparents to them. I—" he didn't know what to say, tried several words, but in the end, just shook his head. "Tell them—tell Wilfred, I'll be back. I know it's not right, leaving like this, but the Army's given me no choice. If the Army sends me to prison, I still won't be able to see my children. This way—at least I have a chance. Someday—"

They shook hands, then embraced.

"Goodbye, Edvard. You've been the conscience for all of us...I just hope you know what you're doing."

"Don't worry about me, Henry." And with that, Tolkach turned and swept around the corner, disappearing into a copse of trees lining Santa Rosa Street.

Graebel was startled by a voice. It was Corporal Stivic.

"Who was that, Doc? Who was that man you were talking too?" Stivic's face was all business, a hard edge belying the youthful lopsided grin of a few minutes before.

Graebel busied himself with re-arranging items in the trunk...a few pieces of wooden stake, some rope and a tire jack. "Oh... _him_...must have been some vagrant...he wandered by asking for directions to the train station...now where did I put that case?"

Stivic peered after the fading shape of Tolkach, a suspicious squint to his eyes. Tolkach's back finally was lost in the pedestrian flow along the sidewalk.

"Come on, Doc...let's see what's keeping the others." The tone of Stivic's voice had changed, brooking no dissent. He fingered Graebel toward the entrance to 109 East Palace. "Sarge told me there's no way this detail can be late getting back. Colonel will have all our heads."

Graebel reluctantly complied, willing himself not to look back one last time, wondering if he'd ever really understood Edvard Tolkach at all.

Tolkach walked on for a few minutes, before pausing at an intersection to get his bearings. It was hot along the street, well into the mid-90s, and he was perspiring heavily under his jacket and fedora.

Which way to the Pueblo Craft Shop? He spied a taxi one block ahead and headed for it.

Kate Wellesley pressed an understanding hand on the arm of Mrs. Reilly.

"Honestly, I think the piece would look great in your living room. It's got a certain dash to it that can really spice up a dreary room—" when Mrs. Reilly's eyebrow lifted, Kate added, "—not that your living room's dreary...not at all, it's just that any room would be inspired by something like this."

Kate and Mrs. Reilly were studying a clay figurine, an Indian piece she'd picked up at some roadside stand in Arizona last year. Kate checked her watch. She knew she had to be at the Mesa Verde Hotel at 5 p.m., sharp—the message had been quite explicit, at least if she'd decoded the thing right. _Five o'clock...Mesa Verde Hotel...the Red River Saloon, back booth to the right_...she had memorized the words, and puzzled over them all day. Now, with time running out, Mrs. Frederick Reilly, a long time customer, had come in and, as usual, was having a hard time making a decision.

"Do you think so...maybe I should put it by the long window...that's the one that looks out over my garden...the petunias are spectacular this spring. You really must come by, sweetie, and see them...you've got such good ideas....did you ever think of becoming a decorator?" she patted Kate on the cheek.

"Thank you, Mrs. Reilly...that's so kind of you." She gently nudged the heavy-set woman toward the cash register. "Shall I ring this up for you?"

The woman allowed herself to be herded toward completing the sale, then her eye was caught by a tapestry hanging on the wall behind the cash register.

"Haven't seen that one before...where'd you get it?"

Kate took a breath. _Patience is a virtue, Mama always said. Sit still and be a saint._ "Oh that little thing...I think I got it at a garage sale last month...Albuquerque, if I remember right." She'd been hanging out around bars, trying to pick up tidbits from flyboys out of Kirtland Army Air Base. _WINDWARD_ had given her the idea. "—makes a decent wall covering, for the right location."

Mrs. Reilly fondled the woven strands and beads of the tapestry, then finally decided she'd done enough shopping. Gratefully, Kate rang up the figurine, then wrapped it in cloth and paper.

"Thank you so much, Mrs. Reilly. You're such a dear customer of the shop."

"Well..." Edna Reilly blushed slightly, fingering the large gold star she wore proudly on her light jacket. "Ever since Rodney was killed at Peli...Peli--...you see, I can't even say it—"

"Peliliu, I think it's pronounced."

"...exactly...ever since then, my husband Rick's been just moping around the house. I've tried to get him interested in sculpting and stuff...he used to dabble in it...I'm hoping this'll do the trick."

Kate handed her the bundled package, tossing back her reddish brown hair—all day long, one persistent strand had been dropping into her left eye and driving her crazy...she'd have to fix _that_ before heading off to the Mesa Verde—and propped her hands on her hips. "I'm sure it'll lift his spirits, Mrs. Reilly. You take care now—"

Edna Reilly left the Pueblo gift shop just as a taxi was pulling up to the curb outside. Kate paid no attention and ducked back through the canopied breezeway to her small cottage. Time was short and she still had her latest batch of coded documents to wrap up. She decided against changing her outfit. The blue skirt and pumps would have to do, but she would simply have to change the blouse—she rummaged through her closet, shoving hangers left and right, maybe _that_ one—the pale blue one with the frilly cuffs—

The idea that _WINDWARD_ himself—she couldn't remember his full name...Kosta—something-or-other, was here in Santa Fe...had come to see _her_ , to meet and talk, still made her head spin. Something had to be up. The number one rule of handling classified materials—hadn't Richard Leonas drummed it into her head for months a few years ago?—was not to make explicit connections between the parts of the network. Don't give the authorities anything—a name, an address, anything—to tie one agent with another. That's why _WINDWARD_ showing up so unexpectedly was hard to fathom.

Had she done something wrong? Violated some rule? She'd been a 'packager' for several years now, handling materials sent to her from multiple sources around the Southwest, mostly New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. She did her business with dispatch, not because she was disloyal but because Leonas and _WINDWARD_ had convinced her that sharing information between Allies was critical to beating the Nazis. That made sense, didn't it? Anybody could understand that.

Kate pulled out the pale blue blouse, and changed, slipping into a new black bra as well, the one that lifted and separated her breasts ("they need all the help they can get," she sometimes whispered in GIs' ears at the USO canteen; she loved the smile she always got back). She patted down her skirt and wriggled her feet into shiny black pumps. They hurt her toes like hell but her legs looked good and that was all that mattered.

How long had it been since she'd seen _WINDW ARD_...maybe two years? She could barely remember what the man looked like.

Vaguely, she was aware of a door swinging open...it was the screen door to the shop. It creaked at the hinges, making an excellent door bell, since the place had never been wired for one. _Shit_...another customer...she'd forgotten to hang up the CLOSED sign. She briefly debated...should she go over and deal with them or not?

She checked her watch again. Maybe ten minutes, not a second longer. The Number Seven bus was usually never more than two minutes late at the Cordova Street stop. She'd have to make it if she hoped to be at the hotel by five.

Annoyed, she patted some rouge on her cheeks, primped her errant eyelashes, and ducked back through the breezeway.

The best she remembered, _WINDWARD_ was short and balding, spoke passable English and exuded a distinct air of menace. He drooled as he talked and his voice was abrupt and guttural, in English or Russian. She'd sat mesmerized, along with Richard Leonas, as the Russian described the desperate situation in Russia, how the Red Army had been taking horrendous casualties as it made a last-ditch stand defending the ramparts of Moscow. They'd been at a bar, in the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. May, 1943, it had been. Leonas had finally brought her there to shop and see the sights, but also to close the gap and bring his "poor little rich girl from Philly" into the inner circle of the NKVD's American network.

At this meeting in the smoke-filled bar at the Waldorf, Kate's political maturity was assessed and found to be satisfactory. _WINDWARD_ himself had validated Leonas's judgment and pronounced Kate "a true workers' friend." At this meeting, he had deputized her to act as a central contact point, a ' _mailman_ ' was the word he'd used, a packager of information from operatives all around New Mexico, west Texas, Arizona and Utah. Targets of interest, according to the Russian, were Holloman and Kirtland air bases, Fort Bliss at El Paso, a new arsenal going up outside of Denver and something the Americans were calling Manhattan, though it had nothing to do with New York.

Her duties were spelled out right there in Tony's Bar. She would receive raw intelligence and re-format it for delivery to contacts in New York or Washington. _WINDWARD_ was brusque and no-nonsense in laying out the details and the rules of contact. She would have to learn some tradecraft, how to spot and shake surveillance, how to set up and work with dead drops, mostly how to encode and decode information with the special inks they would give her, and a few other things.

Kate was eager to learn and Leonas promised to be a good teacher. That said, _WINDWARD_ indicated that they must never meet in person again.

Kate pushed through the screen door, wondering. _What has changed? What's happened that made WINDWARD break his own most important rule_?

Inside the shop, she stopped short, her mouth open. There at the door into the other room, bead curtains clinking all around him was none other than _QUANTUM_ himself.

It was Edvard Tolkach, in person.

Kate's eyes narrowed. "What the hell are _you_ doing here? You know you're not supposed to—"

Tolkach spun around startled. Kate stopped in mid-sentence. The man looked deranged, as if he were a crazed killer stalking a victim. His dark gray suit was wrinkled and baggy like a clown's outfit, the white corner of a handkerchief in the breast pocket an incongruous touch of fashion. His fedora was off, held in a shaking hand, and she could see dirt, grease, _something_ , plastered all over his cheeks. His eyes were wide, blood-shot and the dark shadow of an unshaven stubble covered his pale face. For the first time, Kate saw the man was _mutilated_ , for God's sake...his right index finger was gone, only a throbbing stump remained. She hadn't seen that before.

"Ma'am...Miss Wellesley—" Tolkach came toward her, fedora in hand, but Kate backed away and stepped behind an old leather wing chair she'd picked up at a going-out-of-business sale in Flagstaff.

"Don't come near me," she hissed. She looked around, peered through the blinds, twisting to see if the man had been followed. "You should've never come here...you _know_ that! It's too dangerous...it's against all the rules—"

"See here, young lady," Tolkach was constantly surprised at the tart tongues of young American women...in Prague, no woman would have talked like this one. "I came because—"

" _Shut up_...come...let's get you out of sight—" she motioned him toward the shop door, as if she were coaxing a wary animal, out the door, through the breezeway and into her small cottage. Mindlessly, she gestured at a seat by the kitchen table, and Tolkach sat gratefully, like a heavy sack, placing his hat on the checkered tablecloth just so. Kate scurried about the kitchen, closing blinds, checking the doors, setting the water to boil in the tea kettle. She saw _QUANTUM_ eyeing the fruit bowl, and snatched an apple, sectioning and peeling it for him with practiced hands. Soon the tea kettle whistled.

"I'm sorry, Miss Wellesley...I had no choice...I know it's against procedures, but—"

Kate poured hot water into a mug and dropped in two tea bags, letting them steep for a minute, then gave the mug to Tolkach. He sipped cautiously, gratefully, then devoured the apple sections. Kate washed her hands, then leaned against the wall as she dried them, shaking her head.

"This is _such_ a bad time for you to show up...you've got the worst timing of any man I've ever met. What do you want...and hurry up...I'm late for an appointment downtown."

Tolkach seemed at a loss for words. "I'm...I want help. Your help. I want to get out. Leave...leave America—"

"What? What are you saying?"

Tolkach could scarcely believe his own voice. "Please...understand me...I'm not a spy...I just wanted to share the information—"

"As do we all...go on...go on—"

"The Army plans to arrest me...it was only Oppenheimer, a few others, who kept them from doing it. They've had me under watch for months...they're suspicious...when they're watching you, they find things. Twist the truth. Anyway, they told me...a week ago, that after the test...the big test at Trinity...I'd be arrested. I wasn't useful to them and they said I had materials I wasn't cleared for...I think they know about you, about us—"

Kate stood up straight, hearing that. "What are you saying? They don't know anything. They can't—" but even as she said it, she knew he might be right. "You've endangered both of us coming here like this, again. In broad daylight. Don't you know the rules?"

Tolkach shook his head, sipped at the scalding hot tea. "I don't care. I need help. I want to get out of America...your contacts...the Russians...they can help me. I want to go back."

"Go back...back where?"

"To Czechoslovakia. To Prague. Home."

Kate's head was spinning. Her watch said a quarter to five; Bus Number Seven would probably be approaching now; she couldn't miss it. If she missed _WINDWARD_ , after the emergency signal had come, she didn't know what might happen. But _QUANTUM_...the man wasn't making any sense. He was babbling like a child, out of breath, after a long run—

"I don't think—"

She was startled when Edvard Tolkach stood up abruptly. "Please...you must... _here_ —" he snatched a small battered briefcase from the floor, slapped it with a _thunk_ onto the table, spilling his tea. "I have papers here...drawings, diagrams, anything I could find, and copy. I'll trade, negotiate, barter...anything you want—" His eyes were pleading, his hands shaking, a fist dribbling papers and scraps of papers all over the floor. Kate was mortified.

"What—" She lurched forward. _What is it with this man and his papers_? "Here...put those away—" she helped him stuff them back into his briefcase, then stood up, took a deep breath, and whistled through the damnable lock of hair that kept falling into her eyes. "Look...I'm late...I'm supposed to be downtown...I've got a meeting—"

"I'll stay here...I can hide...I've been in the trunk of a car for the past four hours."

"No," it was against her better judgment, but she'd already made up her mind. _QUANTUM_ was a key source. Always, he'd produced just what was asked, often grumbling, sometimes rebelling, but he could usually be counted on to turn over critical information. She looked at his briefcase. It was crammed with papers. _WINDWARD's_ eyes would pop at such a haul. She didn't know why the Russian was in town, but to drop such a cache of documents in his lap certainly couldn't hurt, could it? Maybe, she'd get a bigger assignment. Travel around the country. Meet good-looking guys. Besides, to further the cause of worker solidarity and improve the lives of the working class, it was necessary for the Soviet Union to be as strong as possible...Richard Leonas was always saying that. When that happened, Leonas had assured her, reactionary elements in the United States would come around.

"No—" she went on, "No, I've got a better idea. You come with me."

"Come with—where? I can't go back outside...they're looking for me now—"

Kate fumed. "Don't you have a spit of sense about you...you've learned nothing about how to shake off a tail? You brought them _here_ \--?"

"No, no, no—" Tolkach assured her. He explained how he had ridden all the way from the Trinity base camp to Santa Fe, how he had slipped away with Henry Graebel's help while the MP escort was inside the Palace Restaurant.

Kate was listened with growing unease. Tolkach was like a plague. The man was to be avoided at all costs. Still, he was here...something would have to be done. Her mind was racing, ticking off possibilities. "I've got an idea. I've missed my bus already. And my ration card for gas is all used up too. You got any money?"

Tolkach nodded. "Some."

"We'll take a taxi."

"But where are we going?"

Kate explained the emergency signal she'd gotten from _WINDWARD_. "If I'm more than an hour late, the usual procedure is the meeting's called off. Then I go to my signal drop—it's a fence post out along Canyon Road...there's a row of cowboy shops there...western wear, hats, boots and so forth. I check for a message every day at a certain time for a week. If there's none, I wait for my contact to get in touch with me." She pursed her lips, tasting the lipstick she'd been in the middle of applying. "Sometimes that takes several months."

"This contact...who is he?"

Kate shrugged. "I know him as _WINDWARD_."

Tolkach froze. He'd gone to New York not two months ago to see the very same man. Instead, he'd been intercepted, steered away. _BISHOP_ had met him instead.

"I know of this man."

Kate checked her watch again. "Then we'd better get a move on...I'll call a taxi. Get your briefcase. And for heaven's sake, let's at least get you cleaned up." She steered him by the arm toward the bathroom.

After freshening up, they caught a taxi out front of the shop. The cabbie was swarthy and obese, and reeked of garlic.

"Where to, lady?"

"Mesa Verde Hotel," Kate told him. The dark green Chevy jerked into motion as the cabbie gunned the V-8 and swung out into traffic. A few stops and heart-pounding lane changes later, the cabbie took them out into moderate Monday afternoon traffic on Candelaria Road.

Mesa Verde was a faded lodge of frontier relics and Western bric-a-brac. The carpet was a dingy beige, depressing enough save for the walls, mounted with dilapidated carcasses of bear and wolf and something Kate assumed had once been a coyote. Dim lighting deepened an already gloomy atmosphere, in contrast to the bright desert sun outside.

_WINDWARD's_ message had said he would be in the restaurant inside the hotel. Kate and Tolkach went inside and got their bearings for a moment.

"You know what this gentlemen looks like, I assume," Tolkach muttered.

Kate shook her head. "Not really. I mean, we met once, in New York. Two years ago, and only for a few minutes."

Tolkach spied the front desk and headed for it. He asked about the restaurant.

The clerk absent-mindedly indicated a location up the stairs. "You can't miss it."

The two of them climbed the flagstone stairs, found the _Red River Saloon_ and were ushered inside.

Lighting was dim but Kate was able to see well enough. The hostess offered to seat them but Kate begged off.

"I believe I see a colleague of mine." Sure enough, the back booth on the right...it had to be him. A balding man, older than she remembered, was hunched over some ribs, napkins and towels strewn all over the wooden table, some onto the floor.

She led Tolkach back, in her mind practicing the verbal challenge _WINDWARD_ had given her for just such meetings.

"The Yankees don't have the pitching to take the pennant this year—"

Dmitri Kostelnikov looked up from his ribs, barbecue sauce dribbling from the corners of his mouth. His eyes narrowed. Kate realized he had expected her to come alone.

"I...um...I brought someone...someone you should meet."

_WINDWARD_ dabbed the sauce on his lips with exaggerated care and stiffened. _What the hell did she think she was doing? Who was this rumpled white-haired man_?

Warily, he answered with the expected response: "We'll see who's on top at the end of September—"

Kate mentally processed the words, finding them as she had been taught to expect. A furtive smile crossed her lips. "I guess you're wondering—"

Now, for reasons she would understand only later, _WINDWARD's_ face softened. "Please—sit...sit. A drink for both of you—" There was no point in making a scene about it. _ACORN_ had committed a serious violation of tradecraft bringing an unknown party to a public meet. But smart field operatives learned to make the best of the situation. The Russian eyed Tolkach with barely disguised suspicion as the two of them slipped in together across the table.

A waitress came by and drinks and dinner were ordered. _WINDWARD_ regarded Kate coolly.

"You disobeyed the rules, Kate. You were to come alone. I assume there is a reason—"

Kate was nervous, fidgety, thankful the drinks came quickly enough. The Russian seemed to have lost most of the heavy accent she remembered. Or was that for show too? She sipped at the Scotch and let the liquid calm her down.

"I'm sorry...I...well, actually, this is Mr. Edvard Tolkach. From the Lab."

Tolkach and _WINDWARD_ nodded perfunctorily at each other. The Russian picked at the remains of his ribs. "You're almost an hour late, too. I was just about to leave."

Kate swallowed hard. "Mr. Tolkach came by the shop...that's why I was delayed getting here. He wanted...or rather, he's asked to—"

Tolkach adjusted a dusty tie and brushed his woolen jacket off. "So you are _WINDWARD_?"

Dmitri Kostelnikov scowled. His voice lowered. "I'll only ask you once...not to use such phrases in this place. Not here. For now, call me...Dmitri."

"Very well, Dmitri—" Tolkach still had the air of the Old World professor he had once been: austere, stern and unforgiving. "I tried to meet with you in New York...two months ago."

"I was aware of your efforts. My position doesn't permit me the luxury of being seen in public with my colleagues."

Tolkach seemed mollified. "I'm not a spy, you understand. I've helped you along because I thought our Allies should know what we know." He hoisted up his briefcase and was unlatching it when the Russian quickly recoiled.

Dmitri looked pained. "Please...not here," he warned them. "Not now." He scanned the light restaurant crowd. FBI and military security agents made up half the population of New Mexico, he was sure. It paid to be careful. "After dinner, in my room here at the hotel. Let's eat now. Then we'll separate, shake hands, say goodbye, as good friends would. Give me half an hour. Then one at a time, you both come up. Got that?"

Kate nodded eagerly. "Which room?"

Dmitri smiled. "I don't know yet...I haven't reserved it. I'll let you know."

Both of them nodded, a bit eagerly, he thought. _My friends, this is not a game_. He tried a reassuring smile on _ACORN_. "It's good to have both of you on the team. We need you. The whole world needs people like you."

Kate blushed, and smiled back at him. "Thanks...it's been a struggle—you've no idea—"

She stopped when the waitress showed up, bearing steak and potatoes for the two of them, a plate of apple pie for the Russian. Kate was still nervous, her heart hammering away in her rib cage. She sipped at the dinner wine, munched indifferently on a light cottage cheese salad. Tolkach picked at his own dinner, shoving steak around the plate, making patterns. Dmitri devoured two helpings of pie. It was nearly eight o'clock when they finished and waiters were already stacking chairs on top of tables.

Dmitri excused himself and disappeared for a moment, presumably to reserve a room.

Tolkach fussed with a pipe, sipped at coffee. "Russians..." he spat out. "They're insects...you can't trust them."

"Maybe so, but he's here for some reason. Maybe there's a new job for us."

Tolkach sniffed, assuming a professorial look. "My dear Miss Wellesley, this is not like working at some office job at the University, or selling clay pots from Indians. This is serious business, to be taken seriously."

"You think I don't take it seriously?" Kate lit up a cigarette of her own, blew smoke rings across the table. "If we do our jobs right, a lot of people may just live long enough to have children. This business is too big for one country to own it. It belongs to the world. And, for your information, those 'clay pots' are fertility symbols. Quite exquisite and rare, by the way. Collectors pay top dollar for the right kinds."

Dmitri returned, just long enough to collect his coat and pay the bill. He wrote the room number on a napkin and gave it to Kate.

"Come up separately," he told them. "One at a time. Half hour between you." The Russian left and disappeared into an elevator.

As instructed, Kate and Tolkach each made their way separately to Room 308. It was a plain, efficiently furnished unit: single bed and nightstand, small desk with a lamp and chair. The window overlooked the sluggish and muddy Santa Fe River. Kate and Tolkach sat on the side of the bed, while Dmitri fussed with desk and chest drawer, checking the walls and behind the picture frames, seeking bugs and other surveillance devices.

"Routine," he assured them. Satisfied they were clear, he sat down at the desk, fingering the small Bible he had found inside one drawer, and regarded both of them with bemused curiosity. "I assume there is a reason for Dr. Tolkach to be here."

The Czech physicist opened up his briefcase and spread out a sheaf of papers. Every one was stamped in bright red :TOP SECRET. Tolkach watched the Russian's thick eyebrows lift.

"I want to go back to Czechoslovakia. Can you help me?"

Dmitri flipped through some of the papers, impressed. "Is this a bribe?"

"A down payment. Miss Wellesley will corroborate everything I say." Tolkach didn't even know where to begin. The last few months had been a nightmare.

"The Army plans to arrest me. I'm actually a fugitive now. I was at the bomb test site...it's called Trinity—"

Dmitri knew of the site, from Fuchs and other operatives, but he didn't say that. "Go on--"

"They know what I'm doing—passing classified materials, things I'm not cleared for."

Dmitri's face hardened. He looked accusingly at Kate. "And you brought him here?"

Kate shrugged. "I couldn't just leave him...I mean, he had no place to go—"

"I rode back to Santa Fe in the trunk of a car...I managed, somehow, I don't know how, to elude the police... the men following me."

Dmitri's lips tightened. "I see. And you want to get out of the country, is that it? You want my help?"

Tolkach nodded. "I know you have ways of doing this. I brought along everything I could...to show I was serious. To...pay for my passage, in a way—"

Dmitri nodded, seeming to understand. "This is quite irregular, you understand. We don't work this way. There are officials who have to—" he paused, taking a moment to read several of Tolkach's papers. "This one—where did you get this?"

Tolkach leaned over to see. The sheet was a manifest, describing how the bombs were to be prepared for shipment to the Pacific, how they were to be safed, braced and crated for the long trip to the war theater.

"I have a friend in J Division...I've sent materials from him before. It's Project Alberta...the ones who are shipping out to the Pacific, to that island..."

"Tinian?"

"That's it. There's more...the routes the gadgets will take, security precautions. I don't have times or anything like that but—"

Suddenly, Dmitri's face had changed. Bemused curiosity had evolved into something harder, colder, more calculating. His thick black eyebrows converged into a fierce "V" over the bridge of his nose. "This is important. Very important. In fact—it goes right to the heart of why I have come here."

"You mean the bombs...how they're to be shipped?"

The truth was Dmitri Kostelnikov knew that he knew only a small piece of the puzzle. Moscow Center had been adamant and firm in its instructions: _the methods of shipment, the routes, the vehicles—aircraft, trucks, rail—the times, the security forces accompanying the bombs, how they were to be made ready for shipping...it was all critical, priority one intelligence. From the highest levels...it was said the Commissar himself had signed the orders. First Directorate had been in an uproar for several weeks...the Secretary had minced no words about it..._

"That...and other things. Miss Wellesley, it appears that fate has smiled on us today. I was bringing a new assignment for you, a critical one. We've discussed your case...we think you're ready for it."

Kate bit her lips. Her heart missed a beat. She smiled, cleared her throat, tried to project a professional air. "I want to help...anything I can do, just name it."

Dmitri smiled. "Someday, your contributions to world peace will be appreciated. The Center needs new types of information. The war is in a critical phase now and, because of that, it's vital that this information be obtained and quickly. Lives may depend on it."

"What kind of information?"

Dmitri's eyes narrowed. "Moscow is asking for more detailed information on how the bombs are to be shipped—like this material—" he indicated the sheets Tolkach had shown him. "—more on how they are to be deployed to the Pacific...where, when, how. The vehicles. The routes and timing."

"That's closely held, and well guarded, I'm sure," Tolkach said. "I can't go back to Los Alamos, anyway. The Army doesn't share that kind of thing with physicists in T Division."

"How can we get that kind of information?" Kate asked.

"There are others working for us...inside the Project. As far as you're concerned, Miss Wellesley, continue as before. You'll be receiving drops of materials from several sources—their names aren't important. I'll go over where and how these documents will come. Code them as before—I've got new code books for you, and send them to me the usual way. Time is short and the need for this information is urgent...I can't emphasize that enough."

Tolkach, not to be left out, said, "I have more information than this...more details about the bomb design. Machining specifications for the plutonium core...it exact geometry, plus the final layout of the focusing lenses, the placement of the Comp B explosives—"

Dmitri held up a hand. "Dr. Tolkach, be assured that the Soviet Union regards you as a friend...don't worry about that. But your usefulness inside the Project is over—I'm sure you can see the dilemma. What you're offering is—"

"—only the beginning," Tolkach interrupted. "You won't get these kinds of details from anyone else. I know that because some of this design is mine. I ask only that—"

Dmitri chopped the air, cutting off the Czech physicist in mid-sentence. "I know what you're asking. Believe me when I say we regard your offer quite seriously. I'll have to communicate with my superiors—" _(and probably Moscow Center,_ he thought to himself) "—it's quite irregular what you're asking for. Moscow doesn't usually help field people disappear...it's risky...it exposes too many others—"

"Then tell them I have highly specialized knowledge," Tolkach dickered. "Tell them I know of ways to improve the yield of the bomb. Or make it a dud, as the Americans say."

Dmitri considered that. "Even if I believed you, I would still have to consult with my superiors. Be patient. What you're asking can't be arranged overnight."

Tolkach was anything but patient. He looked imploringly at Kate. "I'm dependent on the kindness of this woman. And your efforts. I'm a fugitive now. The Army is no doubt looking for me."

"Probably the FBI as well," Dmitri said. "You can assist Dr. Tolkach, for a few days, can't you, Miss Wellesley?"

Kate wanted to say no. She didn't want to attract any more attention to herself than she already had. And there was Wade—already suspicious. It was playing with fire to do this—

"I'm not sure...I mean, sure, I can put him up for a few days...but my boyfriend—" she shrugged. "He's already suspicious. And he's an Army investigator."

Dmitri rubbed at his thick eyebrows. "Ah, yes...the boyfriend. Always an obstacle, no? Look, let's be straight with each other. I need certain kinds of information. The need is critical, urgent and immediate. Miss Wellesley can still help us, with her coding, decoding, acting as a 'mailman,' as it were. We still have sources inside the Project, perhaps they'll be able to obtain this information...they have their orders. As for you, Dr. Tolkach, you've been a faithful friend of the Soviet Union, and peace-loving peoples everywhere for many months. We've had our differences— _BISHOP_ told me of your trip to New York. But your information has been of use and your efforts have been appreciated. Now you want my help getting out of the country. You have—" he waved at the briefcase Tolkach still clutched "— _this_ to offer me. I must put this to my superiors. Perhaps, you could let me have this information—at least some of it, as a sort of down payment?"

Tolkach knew he had little room to negotiate. He rummaged through folders of papers inside the briefcase, withdrew several and pressed them into the Russian's hand. "Take these...it's what I learned about preshipment checkout and crating of the bomb. The casing and the core will be shipped separately, for safety and security reasons. Here's some of what I know...tell your superiors there's more, in here" he pointed to the briefcase and then to his head, "—and in here."

"Fair enough." Dmitri stood up abruptly, straightening out his dark gray wool trousers, folding the papers Tolkach had given him into a concealed pocket of his jacket. Miss Wellesley, you can help Dr. Tolkach for a few days?"

Kate nodded, not sure of what she was getting herself into, but anxious to help. "I'm sure we can arrange something. It's just that I do have a business to run...I can't let him be seen by my customers...they're mostly nosy old women and they talk a lot. A lot of questions would be asked if they saw an older man staying at the cottage, or helping out around the shop, questions I'd just as soon not have to answer."

"Then you must make the doctor invisible," Dmitri was gathering his hat, preparing to leave the room. "You'll have an answer from me in a few days. Check the drop location, everyday exactly at five p.m. Drop location _Appletree_ , Miss Wellesley. You know the one."

"I remember—"

"Now, I'm going to leave the hotel," the Russian announced. "You must not be seen leaving with me. You both know the procedure...follow it exactly. Wait half an hour, then one at a time, leave. Leave separately. Don't be seen together for at least three hours. After that, follow the procedure for shaking surveillance, as I've taught you, and you're on your own."

With that Dmitri Kostelnikov left, shutting the door behind him. For a few minutes, Kate and Edvard Tolkach could only look at each other, saying nothing. Silently, each checked and re-checked watches. Time slowed down. Doors opened and shut somewhere down the hall. The floorboards creaked outside their room as people came and went.

Half an hour later, Kate stood up, patting down the wrinkles on her dress. In the wan afternoon sunlight, she thought her legs looked pale and skinny. _What I wouldn't give for a good pair of nylons, now,_ she told herself. She'd grown tired of stenciling in panty lines with black pen the last few years, as so many women had done. _A girl's got to have nylon, war or no war._

"Come on," she said. "I'll go downstairs to the bar and have a taxi called. You got any money...I'm down to quarters now."

Tolkach said he did. He snapped his briefcase shut, wondering if he'd ever hear from _WINDWARD_ again. Maybe he'd made a mistake leaving the Hill so soon. The children needed him and he'd shut off any chance to obtain more information...that was the key, wasn't it? Information was the currency and he had suddenly become a very poor man. Now all he could hope for was that _WINDWARD_ and his bosses liked what he'd given them, and wanted more. He had nothing else to trade.

"I'll wait a few minutes."

"Good. Meet me in front of the hotel—"they checked their watches "—I'll be inside the taxi, waiting. And don't be late." She glared at him, not sure what she would do, not sure what she'd agreed to. Then she opened the door and stalked off down the hall.

By half past nine, they were back inside Kate's tiny cottage. She'd turned off all the lights, save for the kitchen and made sure the drapes were pulled and the doors locked. There were cars on the street, but she didn't think any were occupied.

"So, maybe we'll be lucky tonight," she muttered, busying herself about the kitchen, making tea, scrounging through the pantry for bread, bologna, some crackers. "No uninvited guests around—"

Tolkach sipped at the scalding hot tea, watched her arranging the table just so, even finding a small geranium from a wine goblet full of water she'd been using as a flower vase.

"Except for me."

Kate stood up from buttering some toast, hands on her hips, and pursed her lips. Her lipstick had dried, flaked off. "What _am_ I going to do with you? I seem to be attracting strange and dangerous men these days."

Tolkach accepted the plate of cold cuts and made himself a passable sandwich. He hadn't each much at the Red River Saloon. Cowboy fare had never agreed with his stomach.

"You're much too young and pretty to be involved in such a sordid business."

Kate snorted at that. "We each have our reasons, I'm sure. What's yours, mister? How'd you get involved trying to save the world?"

Tolkach shook his head. "A long and tragic tale. Europe is full of them...the Hill is full of them. So many of us fled the Nazis...Los Alamos is like a big camp of refugees. Refugees with big heads...and bigger egos. I once heard General Groves say there was enough raw intellect around the place to start a chain reaction."

"You're Czech? I heard you say you wanted to go back...why go back?" She leaned against the counter, sipping her own cup of tea.

Tolkach shrugged. "There's nothing for me here now. My work's mostly done. The big test went off this morning...it's only a matter of time before the bombs are used against the enemy."

"No wife, no children?"

Tolkach stared straight ahead, through the walls, seeing things only he could see. "My wife Liesel died three months ago. I have two children, Kristen and Jurgen. They're staying with friends now."

"What happened...with your wife?"

Tolkach explained, choosing his words carefully. "Liesel was German. We met at the University, at Tubingen. I had been quite sick, working with Herr Professor Volk, I was a candidate in Theoretical Physics. Scarlet fever I had...I nearly died myself. I lived in a basement flat, rented from the Volk family. Liesel was the youngest daughter...she helped me, helped me pull through. We were married a few years after that."

"You said she died a few months ago."

"Yes...suicide. Liesel never wanted to come to America. She couldn't get used to Los Alamos either...all the secrecy, the restrictions, the Army way of doing things. It reminded her too much of the Nazis. She was very depressed. Last April...she—" Tolkach stopped, busied himself finishing his sandwich. "It was quite a shock...I came back to our quarters late one night...I'd been all day at the Lab...we were working long hours, experiments, trying to get the right lens design...she was in the bathtub...she had cut her wrists. They couldn't save her...too much blood lost—"

"God," Kate sympathized. "And your children--?"

"Liesel had allowed them to play late with the Shurers' children...two boys. They were a few blocks away...when the ambulance came. I'm glad they didn't see what I saw...she had been depressed for months, had medicines from the clinic, but they weren't working." Tolkach dabbed up sandwich crumbs with his index fingers, sucked on his finger for a moment. "Maybe it was a release for her...she so wanted to go home."

Kate thought about the scene for a moment. "And now you do too?"

Tolkach shrugged again; his hands seemed not to know what to do...they rearranged plates and utensils, sorted salt and pepper. "What else can I do? My usefulness to the Project is at an end. I'm wanted by the Army...I am a fugitive, I believe you would say."

"But your children...they need their father—"

"What good would I be to them in a prison? No—" Tolkach straightened himself up, forced his hands to be still by clasping them together in his lap. "—this is the best way. I need your help, Miss Wellesley...yours and the Russian's. Once I'm out of the country...back in Prague, perhaps back at Charles University—that's where I'd like to go—I can send for Jurgen and Kristen. It may take some time—the war and so forth—"

"I don't know how much I can help you...you can't stay here for long...a few days at most."

"I would be most grateful—"

Kate smiled at the physicist. He was a tired and defeated old man, she realized, yet she also knew that he was a renowned physicist with impeccable credentials...and he'd played an important part in designing the Gadget. He seemed to shift from one to the other every few minutes, as if he were trying on new clothes.

"I'll do what I can—" she stopped, when the beam of a car's headlights played through the blinds, slowly creeping down the window. A car had pulled into the circular drive to the shop and was slowly rolling along the driveway. Kate doused the remaining light over the sink and plunged the kitchen into darkness. She opened the blinds, peering out.

It was a Santa Fe police car, its searchlight playing across the front of the cottage and the shop behind. Kate froze, motioning Tolkach to get down. A distant radio voice crackled from inside the car.

_Don't stop_ , she pleaded silently. _Please don't stop_ _here._

Perhaps cruising for vagrants or curfew violators, the cruiser continued on around the circular drive and bumped back onto Alameda Street. It eased its way down the street slowly, still apparently looking for someone, or something.

Kate counted out sixty seconds, peered out again and saw nothing on the street, save for a stray dog nosing through some bushes under a streetlight. Cautiously, she flipped the kitchen light back on. Tolkach sat up again.

"A prowler?"

She shook her head, took off the checked apron and cleaned up the dishes, hurriedly rinsing and drying them in the sink. "I don't think so...it was a police car...must have been looking for bums or something...he drove on down the street."

"We must be careful, you and me."

Kate smiled ruefully, drying her hands on the towel. "You're telling me."

"And what about you, Miss Wellesley? How did you become mixed up in such a business as this?"

Kate lit up a candle on the small table and placed it in a brass holder. Then she killed the overhead light. "Makes less light. Me—" she sat down, folding and re-folding several towels into perfect little squares. "—I guess I'm a dreamer. I basically ran away from home...I'm from Philadelphia, by the way. Little rich girl...that's what they called me in school. My father was a doctor. Life at home was—" she sniffed. "—I guess you could say my father was strict. I was headstrong, independent. I just thought differently, had my own ideas. We had a big family: three girls, two boys. I was last...my sister 'Becca called me "the caboose of the Wellesley line." Kate grinned at the memory, began rearranging the geraniums she had put into the wine goblet, splaying their blossoms just so. "See...my family is blue-blood Philadelphia royalty...we can trace our blood right back to William Penn himself, so Daddy said. My family are all like heroic statues...that's how I imagine all of them...poised and triumphant...paragons of virtue and cold as granite to each other." A frown fell across her lips. "I had to get out of there."

"You came to the desert...here in New Mexico?"

Kate nodded. "Eventually...by a roundabout path. I sort of ran away...several times. And just to make my father mad, I got mixed up in some workers' rallies in Philly...he always said I was born to shock and annoy people...that's how I fought for attention as a little girl...being the caboose on the train, so to speak. Anyway, I liked the rallies...I liked the people, all the passion, even the danger, I guess. It wasn't such a leap from handing out leaflets and protesting for better working conditions to making signs for the socialists. I joined right after I left school."

"The Communists?"

Kate half-laughed. "Close enough. That really did it with my Dad...I guess I was like you...I sort of _had_ to run away then... So I wound up here, working for the Renfroes, right over there in the Pueblo Craft Shop. Mrs. Renfroe was such a dear lady...she was awfully kind to a young, messed-up girl."

"You've been working for the Russians a long time?"

"Not so long. I met this guy—he was so gorgeous, those dreamy eyes—" Kate closed her own eyes, her mouth ready to be kissed by an imaginary lover—"anyway, his name was Michael Bentley. He was a ranch hand, of all things, basically a cowboy, like in the movies. Worked at the Flying Bar Ranch, just outside of town. I didn't know anything...hell, I was a foolish city girl. Anyway, I fell for him, hard. We were together for a year, then we broke up. I was so mad, I needed someone to belong to, some _thing_ to belong to...I was lonely, guilty about leaving Philly...I joined the New Mexico Workers Alliance...just to stay busy, you know, so I could forget. This was back in '39. I got sucked in, sure, but I wanted to be sucked in. I knew what I was doing. Right after Christmas that year—the war had started in Europe, already—I went to a meeting right here in Santa Fe. It was the local Party cell...all very hush hush. That's where I met Richard Leonas."

Tolkach had heard the name; the mechanic Robert Fortney at T-Division had mentioned him. "I've heard of him...he's a contact, isn't he?"

Kate rolled her eyes. The shadows of the flickering candle washed across her face. "More than that. He's an agent... he works for the Soviet Union. I went with him to New York...let's see, that would have been February of '43. I'd been doing low-level things for him all along: getting railroad schedules on Army train movements, that sort of thing. I even traveled around the western states, you know, supposedly looking for knickknacks for the shop, but I was always near Army bases. I even spent a weekend at the Pinon Hotel in Albuquerque, getting off-duty pilots drunk, then into bed. It wasn't too hard—" she smiled sheepishly, "you'd be surprised what a drunk Army pilot will say while he makes love. I took notes and gave it all to Leonas."

"You became a spy to spite your father?"

"Not really. I just wanted to belong, to be needed. I still remember when Richard said one thing—this was way back in '40, right after the May Day meeting and rally. We were in these really drab offices in downtown Albuquerque, where the chapter did all its pamphlets and stuff, and Richard kind of cornered me there...I thought he was going to come on to me...I was ready, too. But instead, he said, ' _Help me with some tasks the Party has assigned the chapter. I know you're ready for this. The Party needs you.'_ " Kate finished with her flowers and folded her hands neatly on the table, then started filing her nails with a file. "I guess I needed to be needed. Three years later, I find myself in New York, meeting _WINDWARD_."

"The Russian called you a ' _mailman_.'"

She chuckled at that. "My little nom de guerre, I guess. I suppose it fits." Her eyes met Tolkach's. "Tell me...what was it like this morning? The bomb went off okay?"

Tolkach had not actually seen the detonation, only the shadows of the fireball inside Graebel's car trunk. He described what he had seen and heard.

"The earth was rumbling, almost growling. There was a vibration that came up into the car from the ground, a low vibration. Even though I was inside the trunk, I could still see the glare...it must have been as fierce as the sun. Theoretical calculations have long estimated the temperatures at the center of the fireball to be similar to the sun."

Kate was trying to imagine it. "The radio said the Army had reported an ammunition dump went up...there were a lot of calls, people felt an earthquake, saw lights in the sky, bottles fell off shelves. Something woke me up too...I thought it was a nightmare of some kind, maybe an animal outside my window...I remember listening for something scratching in the bushes—we've had wolves and coyotes in town once in a while, but there was nothing."

"The implosion device works...I don't know what kind of yield but it doesn't matter...it works. The Army will be moving quickly to use it...before the Japanese surrender."

"And _WINDWARD_ said he needed information on how the Army's shipping the bombs. Why do you suppose that's so critical now—do you think—"

Tolkach shook his head. "There's no reason for the Russians to try and stop it, or sabotage it. They have no love for the Japanese. Word is they're going to go to war against them pretty soon. I don't know—"

Kate yawned, realized she was more fatigued than she had thought. "I guess we should try to get some rest. Tell me...what will you do if the Russians can't help you? You can't stay here forever."

Tolkach had a blank stare on his face. "Honestly, I don't know. Are you expecting anyone here tomorrow?"

Kate checked her watch, stood up. "Customers, I hope. Business has been a little slow lately. Oh...and my boyfriend...he'll probably come by, if he can."

"Your friend is in the Army...an investigator, I believe." It wasn't a question.

"That's right...he's probably on a case now—" she realized she'd better police the whole cottage and shop, make sure that closet by the cellar stairs was empty. Her code books and ink bottles were still in there. "But he usually finds a way to stop by about once a week." _And we've got a little making up to do ourselves_.

"Colonel Brogan--."

"Sure. How did you know his name?"

Tolkach just shook his head sadly.

"Unfortunately, Colonel Brogan and I know each other quite well."
CHAPTER 8

Thursday, July 19, 1945

_Nihon Kaigun_ First Fleet Naval Base

Yokohama, Japan

10:45 p.m.

Admiral Hiro Ushenda glared skyward at the sound of the B-29 bombers droning overhead. He was furious, livid, all the more so because the port's defenses were so impotent. Searchlights swept back and forth across the bellies of the swollen clouds, only occasionally pinning the silver underbellies of the damnable _hikoki_ as they slipped in and out of view. Sporadic bursts of 75mm anti-aircraft fire peppered the night sky, mostly ineffective, even though the American planes were low tonight.

"Where are they headed tonight, Admiral?" asked Captain Watanabe, skipper of _Mushio_ , on whose battle bridge catwalk the two officers were standing.

Ushenda seethed with rage. _How dare they violate our sacred skies like this._ "How the hell should I know...ask Third Bureau...Takeuchi's supposed to have his fingers on things like that! Look at them, Watanabe...not a single interceptor up there in the sky to fight them...it's disgraceful."

Watanabe knew Ushenda was in a foul mood tonight; he had been ever since coming aboard the huge battleship, now permanently moored at Yamashita Pier in sight of the city's patron shrine, the wooden _torii_ gate of Iseyama, miraculously still standing on a hill overlooking the harbor, after the city and docklands had been pounded into rubble by the Americans several nights before. _Mushio_ had herself become something of a shrine. Hull damage from an American submarine attack off Okinawa had disabled her stern compartments and main shafts beyond the port's ability to repair. Now, she served by sitting, a floating command post for 1st Fleet.

Ushenda lit up a cigarette and pointed at one of the bombers. "Look at them, Watanabe! They fly low to piss in our face...daring our gunners. They know how impotent we are...if First Air Flotilla had any planes...if the Supreme Council would stop hoarding them for the invasion and just give me a few Gekkos or Dragon Killers, even a Zero, for Heaven's sake, I'd make the bastards pay...."

Watanabe sighed, silently thankful the bombers seemed to be heading for targets further north. "Maybe Niigata, Admiral...or Koriyama. They haven't been hit lately."

"There's nothing left to bomb in Tokyo, that much is certain." Ushenda counted bombers as they popped in and out of the low clouds, timing the interval. "See...just as I said...it's the same formation as before...same as Tokyo and Nagoya and Osaka. Incendiaries...firebombing. They're mad...barbarians of the sky—and the ministers won't release even a squad of Violet Lightning to oppose them....I don't know who's more criminal—"

Watanabe winced at Ushenda's words...it wasn't safe to talk like that, even aboard mighty _Mushio_. The bulkheads had ears. The Kempetai was everywhere. The door opened behind them and a baby-faced yeoman appeared on the catwalk.

"Captain...the visitors are here...at the gangway."

Watanabe and Ushenda both leaned out over the rail, peering through the light fog at the ship's gangway three stories below them. A knot of men had gathered, examining the credentials of two visitors who had just arrived at dockside in a snorting, steam-powered taxi.

Watanabe brusquely ordered the yeoman to have them escorted aboard. "Quickly, Yeoman...have them taken belowdecks—" the captain inquired of Ushenda, "—to my stateroom?"

Ushenda nodded. "That will be suitable."

The yeoman saluted. " _Hai_!", then disappeared back into the bridge.

"These men, Admiral...they're part of the special operation?"

Ushenda nodded, still glaring up at the steady stream of B-29s droning low over the city, oblivious to the ineffectual bursts of flak. Beyond the docks, the shadowy ruins of central Yokohama flickered in the glow of thousands of cooking fires. "They will command the two parts of _Shori_ , Captain. The air attack unit and the island assault unit. I picked them myself...I've spent the last several days going over personnel folders and combat records. Exceptional men, both of them."

Watanabe nodded gravely. "I'll see you have complete privacy...and security," he added in a low voice. Both men were aware that the Kempetai secret police had placed spies aboard _Mushio_ , ever since she had become a floating office building. Watanabe was powerless to stop them, but at least he could post a marine guard around the stateroom for the next few hours.

Ushenda left the battle bridge and descended several flights of stairs, stepping through two bulkhead doors before entering the cooler, carpeted hallway of officers' country. Through the hull, the staccato burp of anti-aircraft guns echoed with hollow thumps. _Useless_ , Ushenda muttered to himself. _Utterly useless. We should be swarming those barbarians with every plane at our disposal._

The captain's stateroom was at the end, already surrounded by port naval landing force troops, part of Watanabe's contribution to the operation. Ushenda nodded coldly at their stiff salutes and barged into the stateroom.

Two men stood before Watanabe's simple Shinto shrine at the far bulkhead. A single candle burned atop a small wooden table, casting shadows on two framed portraits, both of young sailors in dress whites. Watanabe's sons, both killed at Leyte Gulf six months ago, Ushenda reflected.

The visitors saluted and Ushenda responded perfunctorily. He waved at another small table next to the bunk, already covered with several maps and log books. "Sit. I'll go over the details of _Shori_." Just then, a particularly loud thump rang through the ship's hull; perhaps an anti-aircraft gun had scored a hit. Ushenda paused for a solemn moment before the shrine, bowing slightly at the pictures. "This operation may be our last chance to do something to really hurt the Americans...give them something to think about...on their home grounds. Now--" he came and sat at the table, "—to business."

Commander ( _Chusa_ ) Sado Fumori had been called "Big Ears" for as long as he could remember. He had a high, oval forehead, and his ears jutted out like extra hands, earning him his nickname practically from the moment he'd joined the 25th _Koku Sentai_ at Rabaul in the summer of '42. Now assigned to First Fleet, Second Air Squadron, Fumori was an experienced pilot with hundreds of hours in the J1N1 Gekko...and a burning desire to avenge all his dead comrades. His eyes lifted to the compartment ceiling every time a barrage of anti-aircraft guns went off, silently willing the rounds to hit their mark, mentally blasting apart B-29's in his mind's eye. Ushenda could see the determination in Fumori's face, in his eyes, even his fingers twitched as if already depressing imaginary triggers.

By contrast, Lieutenant Commander ( _Shosa_ ) Saburu Toronaga was an infantryman, pure and simple, what Fumori would have called a ground slug, had he been anywhere else but in front of a Vice Admiral. Toronaga was squat, muscular, a close stubble of black hair on a bullet-shaped head and slit eyes that narrowed with each deafening burst of shells overhead. Ushenda had lifted Toronaga from his billet as an assault squad commander with 1st Sasebo Special Naval Landing Force, the famed _rikusentai_ of Malayan campaign fame. Toronaga's folder spelled it all out: the man was a beast, a ruthless killing machine. He'd fought the American marines savagely at New Georgia, assigned with the 8th _rikusentai_ , earning enough injuries to require amputation of his right foot, after being grenaded charging down a hillside against an American machine gun nest. Somehow, much to his own chagrin, Toronaga had lived. Later, he'd gone on to fight the Americans at Saipan. When selected, he'd been training _kaiten_ and other special attack units for the inevitable invasion of the home islands that everyone expected soon.

Ushenda took a peek at Toronaga's right foot, wondering just what was left of his foot, inside the boot.

"You two have been selected for a special mission of extreme importance to the Emperor," Ushenda began. He spread out a map of the central Pacific. "Toronaga...you've spent time at Saipan, have you not?"

Toronaga nodded. " _Hai_! Yes, Admiral...I fought with First Sasebo...my home unit."

Ushenda had memorized the personnel file on the man. "You were captured by the Americans...how did this happen?"

Toronaga hung his head. Shamed, his lips tightened. "It was trick, sir...in the cave...all of us had agreed, we would charge out, attack the marines as one, but they threw grenades in. Two were killed...Mino and Hitaka...the rest—the marines were on us quickly...we were captured...we had no chance to—"

Ushenda grunted. "It's for the best... _bushido_ has room for you to live and fight another day. The Emperor has a greater mission for both of you."

Both men's eyes lit up. Fumori indicated the maps. "A special attack mission, Admiral?"

Ushenda explained the nature of Operation _Shori_ , all the details and the risks, using the maps on the table. "It's imperative, for the sake of the Emperor, for the sake of our beloved Nihon, that we get better terms from the Americans. _Shori_ is the only way."

The men studied the plan. There would be two teams, one called _Sacred Sword_ , the other to be known as _Valiant Warrior_. Ushenda explained.

" _Sword_ has a critical mission. This one's for you, Toronaga...it's just the sort of thing you like. A small force will be inserted covertly onto the Pacific coast of Mexico. You'll make your way north, enter the United States. Your ultimate goal is to seize certain components of a fearsome new weapon the Americans are working on, and take these parts out of America...north again, into Canada."

Toronaga's eyes widened. "What kind of weapon is this, Admiral?"

"It's called _genshi bakudan_...atomic bomb...don't ask me to explain it. The Americans hope to bludgeon us into surrender with it. But we will never surrender."

Fumori agreed with that. "No Japanese warrior has ever disgraced himself with surrender."

"Admiral, what will we do with this weapon?"

Ushenda unfolded another map, this one of North America. "I'm getting to that. You, Fumori, will be a pilot. A B-29 pilot, in fact."

Fumori's eyes widened. "The Silver Eagle—" he looked up at the ceiling, thinking of the waves of Superforts that had just passed over Yokohama harbor. "—same as --?"

"The same. There will be a second assault team. A leader has already been picked...he's on his way here now. Lieutenant Tsugihiro Osaki, of the Kure _rikusentai_."

Toronaga nodded. "I know of him. A good man...he was wounded at Saipan, wasn't he? I thought he was still in the hospital."

"A cover story...put out by the Navy to distract the enemy. Osaki will lead a special attack mission...here—" Ushenda put his finger directly on Tinian Island, on the Pacific map. "Osaki knows these islands...he knows how the Americans are deployed. His mission is to seize other parts of this new _genshi bakudan_ weapon...important parts.... His squad will be called _Valiant Warrior._ "

Toronaga was puzzled. "Begging the Admiral's pardon, but how will Osaki's team, or my squad get to our destinations?"

" _Sacred Sword_ will be put ashore along a deserted stretch of the Mexican coast by submarine. The _I-81_ has been assigned...I know her captain. Your team, Toronaga, will also travel by submarine. It's called the _K-44_."

Toronaga's face screwed up into a question. "The _K-44_? I don't understand, sir...is this a new kind of submarine?"

Ushenda shook his head. "It's a Russian submarine."

" _Russian_?" Both men said, in unison.

Ushenda explained. "This aspect of Operation _Shori_ is the most confidential of all. You will say nothing of this to anyone outside this room...is that understood?"

Both men hurriedly nodded.

"The Russians are cooperating with us on the operation. In exchange for helping to seize the weapon, we're allowing them to study it for a day or so, take pictures, make measurements. The _roshia no_ are very interested in what the Americans are doing. I'm told they're anxious to learn as much as they can."

"The _roshia no_ \--?" Fumori shook his head. From the day of his commissioning, he'd been taught that the Bolsheviks were the enemy.

"It's hard to believe" agreed Toronaga. He grunted, not sure what to make of it all. "How do they cooperate with us, Admiral?"

Ushenda got up and paced the small stateroom restlessly, hands folded behind his back. "Tomorrow, both of you will travel by aircraft to Manchukuo. From Harbin, you will go by train...right across the border, into Russia itself. You will go to Vladivostok, where you'll meet a Soviet commando major named Kalugin. He will be your contact. Osaki will be there as well, coming by a different route, so as not to attract suspicion. We know Chinese intelligence has spies throughout the region...they tell the Americans everything. We must be careful...nothing unusual about a trio of naval officers traveling around, inspecting things. That will be your cover. You'll have papers from the Minister himself."

Fumori had a question. "Admiral, you said I would fly an American B-29."

"And so you shall, Fumori. Major Kalugin was here not long ago. He informed me that the Russians have in their possession several of the American bombers that were damaged and had to make emergency landings in Russian territory. They were damaged but the Russians are making them flyable."

"But where will I fly the B-29? What will be my mission, sir?"

Ushenda stopped pacing and stood beside the captain's simple Shinto shrine. He bowed slightly as the candle guttered. "You will take the weapon we have seized from the Americans, Fumori, and fly it right into America itself. You will bomb San Francisco."

For a moment, Toronaga and Fumori stared back at the Admiral as if he were mad. _Perhaps I am_ , Ushenda thought. _But that's what these days call for. No more of this defeatism and talk of surrender._ He glared back at them.

"A bold plan, Admiral," said Fumori softly. His eyes flitted about the room, imagining all the possibilities. "A daring plan, striking at the enemy on his own soil."

Ushenda snorted. "Some would even say foolhardy and absurd. Perhaps. But with the help of the Russians, we can pull it off. Time is short, and there is talk of capitulating in the air. Defeatists have the ear of His Majesty and we can't afford to waste a second. _Yamato damashii_ won't be still...we Japanese are warriors...it's our spirit...it's our blood." Ushenda's pince-nez glasses gleamed in the reflected light of the candle, washing out his eyes, giving him a glassy-eyed appearance. He reached into his jacket and extracted a small lurid pamphlet. Its cover said _Society of the Cherry Blossom._ Red swords slashed frowning faces across the bottom of the cover. Ushenda withdrew the pamphlet and slapped it down on the map table.

" _Sakurakai_!" he bellowed at them. "Here is the true spirit of Japan...not those constipated old men in the Palace, bending the Emperor's ear. All my life, even in the Navy, I've fought for this...the purity of Yamato, the purity of our people, our right to be strong and free of the white man's interference. This is what _Shori_ is all about, men. _This_ is what you're fighting for."

Toronaga and Fumori bowed quickly. "Hai!" It was clear that there was a lot more to Vice Admiral Hiro Ushenda than they'd been led to believe. Here, at least, was a man willing to fight the enemy to the death.

Ushenda glowered at them both. "The Russians have shared some of their intelligence with Third Bureau. Takeuchi's not completely hopeless, it turns out. The Americans have just tested the _genshi bakudan_ —this week, I'm told—in their western desert. Components of the weapon are even now being assembled for shipment to the Pacific...to this Tinian Island. I'm relying on Major Kalugin, and Takeuchi's contacts inside Russia to know the location and disposition of these components. Everything indicates the bombs will be shipped soon. Our plans must be finalized and elements and assets like yourselves put in place quickly, a matter of weeks, to make the operation work."

Toronaga and Fumori both bowed deeply. "We will fight and die most honorably for His Majesty, for Japan, for all of us."

Ushenda fingered the pamphlet, then decided to retrieve it and put it back inside his jacket. It wouldn't do for such subversive literature to be found onboard one of His Majesty's vessels. "I know you will, "he said quietly.

Just then, a knock came at the door. It opened a crack, the moonface of Captain Watanabe appearing.

"Admiral--?"

"Yes, Watanabe...what is it?"

The captain looked pained. "Admiral, our radar picket ship _Nihama_ has located another formation of the American B-29s. They're headed this way, low altitude. They may strike the harbor, perhaps south at Yokusuka, or the Chiba peninsula."

Ushenda scowled. "I'm sure our gunners will be as prepared as ever," he said sourly. "Alert the crew...the other ships nearby as well."

" _Hai_! At once—" he departed, shutting the stateroom door.

"Admiral—" Fumori had an idea. "How long before the B-29s arrive?"

Ushenda shrugged. "Hard to say. Usually, we position _Nihama_ to give us a few hours warning. Of course, they could change course. Why?"

Fumori had a sly smile on his face. "I still have a serviceable plane at Atsugi. It's a Gekko, a three-seater. I should get back there now...perhaps we can still put up a fight if the enemy comes this way."

Ushenda shook his head. "You are now assigned to this operation. Get your gear and report to Haneda airport by 0600 hours tomorrow. Same for you, Toronaga."

"Admiral—" Fumori pleaded, "Atsugi is on the way...the squadron needs every pilot we can get." His sly smile returned. "There's room for one more, too, Admiral."

"What are you saying, Fumori. I will instruct you when and how to die for the Emperor."

"Sir, if the B-29s come to Yokohama, we still have two hours. Perhaps, the Admiral would like a chance to see one up close, in the air?"

Ushenda then realized what the young _chusa_ was saying. A chance to fly in the wake of one of the huge American beasts, wingtip to wingtip, maybe even get off a few rounds and bring one of them down in flames. Ushenda took a deep breath. There was so much work to do...but Fumori was right. It was the chance of a lifetime.

"I'll tell Captain Watanabe to bring a car around to the gangway. How long to the base?"

Fumori grinned in triumph. "One hour, tops, Admiral, if we don't go downtown. We'll have to hurry...perhaps with an escort—"

Ushenda was already folding up his maps. "I'll see what I can do. Get your gear. Meet me on the dock. Toronaga, you be at Haneda tomorrow morning. I'll see this young colt gets back safely."

Fumori and Toronaga snapped off smart salutes and disappeared

The drive to Atsugi airbase northwest of Tokyo took an hour and a half, owing to long streams of refugees filling both sides of the highway heading north from the port. The skies were quiet, but a reddish glare reflected off low-hanging clouds, swollen with rain. Legions of refugees mixed with long lines of walking dead everywhere, a thick stew of humanity boiling across the Kanto Plain crisscrossing the ash and rubble that had once been the Imperial Capital.

Atsugi was in blackout when the car bearing Hiro Ushenda and Sado Fumori chugged and wheezed its way onto the base proper, pulling up behind a row of dilapidated hangars. Out on the ramp, several planes were spinning up, their Nakajima engines belching smoke and tongues of flame, the smell of acrid burning oil in the air. Fuel had been tight for years, Ushenda knew. There was no telling what sort of crap the engines were burning now. It smelled like cow dung.

Fumori leaped out of the car, and jogged off toward the flight line. "There she is, Admiral!" he gestured to a single J1N1 Gekko night fighter at the end of the line. "I call her _Shukujo..._ Graceful Lady!" The lieutenant commander rounded up a few mechanics and soon had his aircraft fueled and her twin engines coughing and spooling up. Ushenda walked briskly through the dark and made his way to the aircraft, saluting startled crewmen who weren't used to having three-star flag officers walking the flight line. He stood beside the roaring, shaking aircraft while Fumori located his rear gunner and scrounged up gear and goggles for the Admiral.

"Dispatch just passed the word!" Fumori yelled over the engine noise into Ushenda's ear, "—the B-29 formation is still headed this way! They think it's Yokasuka tonight...we're in luck!" He helped Ushenda with his leather helmet and goggles, then the jacket and web belts. Beside them, _Graceful Lady_ shuddered and backfired as her engines finally caught. Back wash from her twin props blew clouds of dust and ash along the ground, forcing Ushenda to duck and cover his face, quickly affixing his goggles. A crewman helped him up the rickety ladder and he slid on his stomach over the edge of the cockpit and let more arms pull him inside. The arms belonged to Warrant Officer Enji Mitsuda, the Lady's rear gunner.

Mitsuda made sure the Admiral was strapped in, handsignaling to be understood over the roar of the engines, while in front, Fumori expertly hoisted himself up and over into the pilot's seat. Moments later, the cockpit was slammed shut and latched and _Shukujo_ was rolling and bouncing along a dusty grass field toward the runway.

Fumori gave a hand wave and slammed the throttles forward. Ushenda was surprised at the power of the engines and was thrown back in his seat. The night fighter accelerated down the runway, swerving to miss several craters and leaped into the night sky, nosing upward into the underbellies of the clouds. Seconds later, they were completely enveloped in dense fog.

Fumori banked them steeply right and poured on the throttle to gain altitude, while behind him, Mitsuda unlocked his guns and triggered off a test burst of 30mm rounds, ripping the air. _Shukujo_ was flexing her muscles, growling and getting ready to pounce.

"We'll steer southeast for awhile," came Fumori's tinny voice over the intercom. "Heading one one five degrees. Dispatch said that was the best last intercept course, based on radar."

Ushenda marveled at the power of the aircraft, and Fumori's deft touch with the controls. She was big but surprisingly agile once airborne. He swallowed hard, tasting copper in the back of his throat. Tonight, they were going right into the mouth of the beast.

With any luck, Sado Fumori would be doing the same thing in a few weeks, in the cockpit of a stolen B-29, bearing down on the city of San Francisco.

Dispatch handed several more vectors off to Fumori but it was quickly apparent to Ushenda that they were on their own, a winged hunter alone in the night sky to confront the massed firepower of nearly two hundred American bombers. _Shukujo_ accelerated skyward through thickening clouds on her twin Nakajima engines, while Fumori tried different courses and altitudes, all the while listening on radio frequencies, trying to catch a whiff of American chatter among the airwaves.

_Shukujo_ cruised up and down the length of the Chiba Peninsula, westward across Sagami Bay, and back north again, skirting Yokohama City itself, hunting and listening. Presently, they topped out at nearly 21,000 feet, just above the moonlit cloud deck. Fumori's frustrated voice crackled through Ushenda's earphones.

"Admiral, we're not having much luck tonight. The bombers must have changed course. Dispatch can't give me a good fix."

Ushenda shrugged. "It's a big sky up here. I'm not hearing a lot on the air either."

Mitsuda chipped in. "The Americans are unusually quiet tonight. Most of the time, they chatter like songbirds. We often home in on them that way."

"Perhaps," Ushenda suggested, visualizing the terrain of Honshu in his mind, "we should think more like the enemy. The juiciest targets are west of here...at least, the ones not yet firebombed into ashes."

Fumori accepted that. "I'll change course...steering now two five oh degrees," _Graceful Lady_ dipped her wings to port, and heeled over toward the west. "Maybe we'll be luckier."

"Commander," Ushenda was curious, "have you ever flown anything larger than this aircraft—like a bomber?"

Fumori keyed the mike, thinking out loud. "No, sir...I once rode second seat in a Type 97—the Americans call her Kate, I think, just like the ones that _Kido Butai_ used in the Hawaii Operation back in '41. She rode like a fat pig...I like the smaller, quicker aircraft...the Type 0...now _there_ was a beauty. Even _Shukujo_ handles well for a big plane—see?" He waggled Graceful Lady's wings, momentarily startling Ushenda. "Admiral, are we really going to get our hands on a B-29...one we can fly?"

Ushenda was lost in thought, mentally ticking off all the things that had to happen right for Fumori's wish to come true. "If the gods are with us, Fumori. If the gods are with us."

Just then, Mitsuda's excited voice broke in. "Commander, I saw a reflection...some kind of glint or flash...there it is again!—to nine o'clock. Up high... see there? Silhouetted against the moon—"

Fumori and Ushenda both saw it. _Stupid Americans,_ Fumori thought... _careless of them to fly a course that way. Another sign of their criminal arrogance. We'll make them pay for that--_ He started to heel _Shukujo_ over and line her up for a rear approach, then remembered his extra passenger. He eased back on the stick, realizing he dare not take such chances with the life of a vice-admiral.

"Sorry, sir...it was habit. I was maneuvering for a rear shot—"

Ushenda studied the formation from their distance of several miles. They were black specks against the white glare of moonlight, yet even at this distance, there was a majestic air of menace about them, with their black wings and silvery underbellies, like great predators winging in on some unsuspecting target.

"Commander Fumori...do your duty! At once...we're all warriors here. It's our duty to die for the Emperor!"

Fumori wasn't sure he'd heard the Admiral correctly. "Begging the Admiral's pardon, sir...I thought you only wanted to see the great beasts up close, sir."

Ushenda had made up his mind. It would be glorious and fitting that they all die this way, as warriors should. "Not at all, Fumori. Execute a normal attack. If we only knock down one of these planes, we've done a great service. Each one of them carries tons of bombs...we may spare lives on the ground. No...we must attack....now...while we have them in sight! Our lives are like cherry blossoms...we bloom once and fall to earth!"

Fumori needed no further encouragement. He tightened his cap and gripped the control stick, easing them onto a slightly different heading. "Very well, sir...we'll execute a rear approach from below...come up on them blind and give them some lead from our 20mm...Mitsuda?"

" _Hai_! My guns are ready, Commander...my fingers too!"

Fumori chuckled. If they were all cherry blossoms, Mitsuda was the brightest of all.

_Shukujo_ was alone in her approach, though Fumori had already broadcast news of their sighting on several frequencies. Soon, like swarming hornets, the Home Defense Command would fill the skies with aircraft, dueling across the cloud tops with the hated B-29s. Steadily, they closed the gap, minute by minute stalking their prey. Fumori had already told him that _Shukujo_ was designed to approach from below and behind...it was the B-29's most vulnerable angle.

"They have nasty tail guns, Admiral. High approaches are dangerous and don't do a lot of good. For months, we've been trying head-on shots, but closing speeds are high and you've got to have a steady hand to get off a good shot. No...this is better...we can work our way in and shred their bellies and wing tanks before they even know what hit them."

And indeed, _Shukujo's_ forward twin-cannon mounts were sited on top of her fuselage at a 30-degree angle for just that purpose.

Several hundred yards behind and below the formation, _Shukujo_ rocked and bobbed in the wash of the American bombers, forcing Fumori to keep a tight grip on his control stick. Steadily they closed the distance, seemingly undetected, while Ushenda craned up in his seat, studying the nearest bomber.

_Magnificent beast,_ he thought, studying her lines. A great black "Z" had been painted on her tail. He could see the outlines of a head below...the tail gunner in his cupola, keeping a sharp eye out for bandits. _Not sharp enough tonight_ , Ushenda muttered. He knew from reports that her belly had two bomb bays; lately, the Americans had been packing incendiaries as well as fragmentation and high explosive bombs, the better to burn out the heart of the Empire. As Fumori jinked and wobbled, trying to work in closer to give Mitsuda the best shot, Ushenda tried to visualize Fumori himself up forward in the birdcage cockpit, driving the huge beast onward, bearing toward some unsuspecting American city—perhaps San Francisco, perhaps Seattle—bearing the stolen superbomb the Americans themselves were even now staging for use against His Majesty's warriors.

It was divine justice, indeed, he told himself, like the true _Kamikaze_ that had scattered the Mongol fleet a thousand years ago, and for whom the Divine Wind Special Attack Corps had been named. Divine justice that the Americans' own weapon would soon be used against them.

"Almost there, Mitsuda...I can't get us much closer and hold position—"

"Five more seconds, Commander—" the gunner's voice was down to a whisper. "Hold it...hold it steady....right there... _NOW_!"

Mitsuda squeezed off a staccato burst of 20mm from the overhead guns and the air ripped like a torn blanket. Tracers bore into the wings and underside of the nearest bomber, shredding skin like fabric being unzipped. Gouts of flame erupted from the wings as fuel poured from the hit, igniting into a red ball of fire in a split second.

In seconds, the sky was filled with tracer fire, spiderwebbing the stars with stitches of fire as a volley of return fire came back at them.

Mitsuda squeezed off several more rounds, then released the trigger, as Fumori shifted crazily, rolling and jinking to evade fire, and sight them onto another target. Ushenda's head slammed the side of the cockpit in the wild roll and he fought back a wave of nausea as Fumori righted them, evading still more cannon fire and tucked in close to a second bomber, while Mitsuda went back to work.

To their left, the first bomber suddenly lost a wing. The fireball sent flaming fuel and parts in all directions, with the stricken bomber nosing over into a flat, cartwheeling spin. Debris streamed back, pelting _Shukujo_ 's cockpit. Ushenda ducked and Fumori quickly steered them out of the maelstrom.

"Good shooting, Mitsuda!" Fumori shouted.

" _Daijobu_!" exulted the gunner. "Get me in close again and I'll bag another

one--"

Fumori proceeded to do just that, slipping back to half a mile to avoid tracer fire that was lighting up the area, then dropping his altitude and easing back in toward the next bomber. Like always, the Americans preferred a diamond-formation of four-aircraft elements, all of them tucked in tight to maximize the effects of their incendiaries.

"Admiral, those beasts go up like firecrackers when we hit their bomb bays!"

Ushenda was thrilled with it all. Stalking the huge bombers was not unlike the naval maneuvers he'd studied at Etajima, or Kurita and Halsey stalking one another at Leyte Gulf last fall. It was all about position and tactical advantage...bringing your speed and firepower to bear before the enemy could. Fumori was a tiger in the air; he would be an asset to _Shori_...Ushenda could see that much already.

"Here we go—" Fumori closed in once again, stoking his engines, tickling the controls, driving _Shukujo_ steadily forward toward the underside of the second bomber, another 'facet' of the American diamond in his sights.

Ushenda could see frantic movements inside the waist and tail gunner's blisters, as the American gunners swung their 50-mm mounts around to fight off the attack. The clouds flashed with gunfire, as tracers streamed out from all directions. Every bomber in the formation had joined in, spraying rounds aft, trying to put _Shukujo_ out of action. Undaunted, Fumori drove them closer and closer.

"Now....Mitsuda... _NOW_!!"

_Shukujo'_ s gunner squeezed off several bursts of their topside 20-mm, short bursts of tracer as he judged his accuracy and compensated for Fumori's jinking. Several more bursts flew out, mixed with return fire, and the bellies of the clouds lit up with the firefight as both sides exchanged bursts.

More bursts from Mitsuda and a flash of fire erupted along the portside wing of the bomber.

" _Soka_...that's it! That's it!" Fumori yelled. "Let the bastards have it--!"

Just then, a stream of rounds from the bomber's tail gunner sliced through _Shukujo's_ right wing, severing control cables and shearing off part of the flaps. The Nakajima shuddered with the impact and started rolling. Fumori grabbed the control stick and held on.

"Watch out! Hang on...." He peeled away from the attack and wrestled with the controls, trying to keep the aircraft level enough for Mitsuda to get off more shots, but it was hopeless. "I've lost roll...I'm sideslipping--!"

Ushenda grabbed his seat harness and bit his lips, clinging hard to anything that would help.

_Shukujo_ spun to the right, snap-rolled over and over, and nosed toward the ground.

They dove through thickening clouds, twisting and turning, while Fumori grunted, fighting the controls, trying more stick, then _more stick_ , kicking his pedals until his feet hurt, whipping the Nakajima hard left, feathering one engine, then the other, trying anything he could think of—

Mitsuda had been thrown against the side of the rear gunner's cockpit window, and knocked nearly senseless in _Shukujo's_ first violent spasm. With a groan, he came to and stared out at the flapping skin panels covering the right wing.

"Commander...the wing...it's almost gone...it shedding pieces—" even as he spoke, they could all feel and hear pieces of wing, bolts, struts and who knew what else banging against the fuselage. _Shukujo_ shed damaged parts like a wet dog, bucking and slewing first one way, then another, as she corkscrewed around and around, heading down.

Ushenda had no fear of death, only regrets. Regrets that Operation _Shori_ might be go uncompleted, the Americans perhaps spared the fury of the Decisive Blow that would wrest Japan away from defeat and catapult her toward final victory. While Fumori grunted and struggled with the controls, fighting desperately to bring them out of the dive, Ushenda made a sort of peace with his ancestors, begging forgiveness from his honorable father, the port customs inspector at Yamashita Docks, in Yokohama City. _I have tried my utmost to live up to your expectations, O' father, yet in this I have failed. Forgive my failings, my limitations...I offer up my life in your honor...and for the greater glory of the Emperor and our beloved Nihon...._

Somehow, some way, Fumori was able to stop their corkscrewing spin and gradually ease _Shukujo_ out of her dive, leveling out at an altitude of less than two thousand feet. They burst out of the lower cloud deck and found themselves staring down at the black featureless murk of Sagami Bay, southwest of Yokohama. The dim silhouettes of several freighters could be seen by their wakes; their running lights blacked out to avoid night attack. Ahead of him, Ushenda could sense the relief in Fumori's shoulders, as he studied his instruments and tried to figure out where they were.

"I guess the gods don't want us yet, Admiral. Still, we bagged one B-29...maybe another—" He patted the top of his instrument panel affectionately. " _Shukujo_...she's one good ship, she is. She's been through a lot."

Ushenda was shaken from the attack but quickly recovered his bearing. "We have other duties tonight, Fumori. You and Mitsuda did good work. Now, take us home. Back to Atsugi—"

On any other night, Sado Fumori would have felt disappointed to still be alive, after clawing with the American beasts once again. Every warrior must give his life for the Emperor...to continue returning, night after night, to the airfield was almost a disgrace, you could see it in the faces of the crewmen and the mechanics, though Fumori figured that the gods had their reasons and his time of glory would come soon enough. But tonight, he found those feelings subdued. Instead, he was more curious than disappointed. Curious at what this strange admiral from the General Staff's Third Bureau had in store for him.

"Admiral, when will _I_ get to fly a B-29? Those bastards _are_ magnificent birds, in spite of all they've done."

Ushenda was deep in thought. "Soon enough, Fumori. Soon enough. First, we must get you across the border into Russia, hook you up with Major Kalugin...he'll be your contact."

Fumori sank back in his seat and closed his eyes for a brief moment. He could feel _Shukujo's_ needs through the stick; she'd always talked to him through the stick. She'd be able to get them back to Atsugi now...he was sure of it. He tried to imagine himself in the pilot's seat of one of the great B-29s, peering out through the birdcage windows at the world below. It was a delicious image indeed. He could hardly wait.

Sado Fumori took a deep breath and puffed out his chest, now more certain than ever that the gods had spared him so far for this very reason.

He and he alone would deliver the final blow that would win the war for Japan.

Fumori smiled to himself in the darkened cockpit. As _Shukujo_ limped along at two hundred miles an hour, and eight thousand feet altitude, heading for the rutted grassy strips of Atsugi airbase, he smiled more widely.

Not bad for the best pilot of First Fleet's _Genzan Kokutai_ , the 22nd Air Flotilla. Not bad for the fifth son of a fisherman from Kure.

Eternal glory and honor would soon surround the very name Fumori, he imagined in his mind's eye, immortalized for all time. Centuries from now, even small schoolchildren would revere the name of Fumori, the great warrior who had blackened the eye of America and won for Nihon the greatest victory of all.

Thursday, July 19, 1945

Santa Fe, New Mexico

5:30 p.m.

Kate Wellesley got off the Number Nine city bus at the intersection of Canyon Road and Taos Highway and checked the time. Just after five. Had she been a tourist from back East, she would have been suitably impressed by the backdrop of the Jemez Mountains, still covered with snow at their highest elevations off in the distance, the rugged peaks framing Canyon Road's 'cowboy mile' of western wear shops and _bodegas_ , like some picture postcard from the Old West.

As it was, Kate was nervous and she willed her self to be calm, taking several deep breaths. She looked around, trying to remember _WINDWARD'_ s advice on how to spot and shake a tail. There were a few pedestrians along the road, but she saw no one she thought looked like an agent. She walked a few blocks, stopped at a newsstand to browse the magazine racks, crossed the street, all the time checking and re-checking, but still she saw no one she could identify as part of a surveillance team.

_I've got to get a hold of myself,_ she muttered. _This is ridiculous_ \--

At length, she headed west on Canyon Road until she reached the last of the shops—it was called The Laramie Shop. Here the pine log fence started, heralding a sharp bend in the road. She began counting fence posts, kicking along in the dust until at last, her count had reached thirty three. She stopped.

The post looked as before, just like all the others. Kate checked her watch again. Time after time, _WINDWARD_ had cautioned her against lingering around the post. Sucking up her nerve, she brushed hair out of her eyes, checked for traffic and, when she was certain there was none, reached under the top cornice of the post and felt for a parcel, tucked into a tiny cutout, as she had once a day, every day this week.

Her heart skipped a beat...this time, it _was_ there. _WINDWARD_ had come at last.

Kate snatched the small parcel—it was a tiny cardboard tube about six inches long. She stuffed it down the front of her blouse, then turned around, self-consciously scanning for anyone nearby and saw nothing. A car zoomed past, squealing as it took the sharp bend. Kate hustled back toward the shops and the bus stop, occasionally checking behind her. She did a hurried check for a tail, then parked herself at the bus stop, along with several other people, and fidgeted, lighting up a cigarette and checking her watch.

Inside of an hour, she was back at the Pueblo shop on Alameda Street.

As she walked along the breezeway, she heard the radio on inside the cottage. That had been her idea; Wade Brogan himself had mentioned it one night, after they'd made love, that agents sometimes bugged offices and homes. "We have to have permission," Wade had told her, absent-mindedly stroking the inside of her thighs. "And changing the tapes is a bitch...the range of the transmitter is maybe a hundred yards. But you'd be surprised what you hear from people, what you can learn from their sounds."

Ever since, she'd been careful to cover herself by turning up the radio, just in case Wade or someone had planted a device. When she'd left for the bus stop that afternoon, she'd sworn Tolkach to keep the radio up high.

She came inside, to the dulcet crooning of the Andrews Sisters...it sounded like _Rum and Coca Cola_. Tolkach was in the tiny living room, jacket off, black glasses down at the end of his nose, engrossed in a section of the _Santa Fe New Mexican_. He'd found the whiskey Wade had brought a few weeks ago; the bottle and a snifter were on the table next to him.

Kate was wearing a sunny flower print dress and a matching hat; she had stuck a rose in the hat band as an afterthought before leaving for Canyon Road. She took the hat off, with her white gloves and dropped the lot onto a sofa. Tolkach looked up over the edge of the paper. He hadn't shaved in several days and the stubble made his moustache and salt-and-pepper goatee look dirty. The smell didn't help either.

"Anything?"

Kate pulled the cardboard tube from her dress. "This—it's the first drop I've seen there in weeks."

Tolkach was curious. He held out his hand. Kate handed it to him and the Czech physicist examined the tube. There were several sheets of paper inside. He tapped them out, studied them with a squint, turning the pages over and upside down. "They're blank—"

"Here—" Kate took them back. "It's a special ink _WINDWARD_ uses. Almost invisible. I have to dip the pages in a solution to bring out the letters." She went back to the tiny closet and stepped inside, pulling the light chain. A single bulb glowed from overhead. Tolkach followed.

Inside a small box, Kate withdrew a small pan and several jars of cloudy liquid. She poured an inch of the liquid in the pan and let it sit for a few moments, stirring the solution with a straw. Then, gingerly, she laid the first page from the tube flat inside the pan, like a photo being developed, and let the solution wash over it. She timed herself—two minutes was the usual.

"I hope this is good news, Dr. Tolkach. The weekend's coming up. I've not heard from Wade but that's not surprising. He sometimes shows up unannounced. We can't have you hanging around if he does."

Tolkach scratched the balding back of his head, roughing up his fringe of gray-white hair. "No, of course not. Miss Wellesley, I appreciate what you've done for me. I can never re-pay you for this."

"Sure you can—just leave quietly. No one'll ever know you've been here." She winced— _that_ sounded awfully harsh. She put a sympathetic hand on his arm. "I didn't mean that the way it came out...I'm sorry. You've been through a lot. It's just—"

Tolkach put up a hand. He had long fingers, a pianist's hand, she realized. "No need to explain. You're right. You and I....we're soldiers in this war too. It's just that our uniforms are different."

Kate let it drop. The paper seemed ready and she extracted it, letting it drip, then air dry. Carefully, she laid it down on the back of another pan. Faintly visible in the glare of the light bulb, a jumble of letters, making no sense, began to materialize.

Tolkach craned over to examine them. "I can't make any sense of it. It's gibberish."

Kate smiled, placing the second paper in the pan of solution. "It _is_ gibberish. Actually...it's code." She reached into a heavy coat hanging in the back of the closet. She untwisted some threads closing up a sewn pocket, nearly invisible, inside the coat, and withdrew a small, dog-eared booklet. "Here's the code. They change this about once every four to six months." She took the first page and went out to the dining room table, smoothing out the edges of the paper and laying open the code book beside it. With a sharp pencil, she sat down and went to work.

Tolkach brought the second page to her when she figured it was ready. She hummed lightly to herself with the radio as accompaniment, tapping her fingers on the table to the syncopated rhythms of _G.I. Jive_ , while Tolkach watched, fascinated. It was obvious she was quite practiced at the whole business. Inside of half an hour, she had the two-page message decoded and penciled in.

They both read it together.

Kate was the first to finish. "Good news, I guess, Dr. Tolkach...at least, it looks that way."

Tolkach re-read the message carefully, word for word.

\-- _QUANTUM is crucial to future operations...arrangements are being made...contact is in Seattle, Washington...code will follow...QUANTUM will come out through British Columbia, Canada...operation to evade surveillance planned...details to follow in three days...arrange for a taxi at 2300 hours, 25 July...Fox Cab Company...ask for driver number five...there will be an accident—_

Tolkach scanned more, becoming increasingly uneasy. "They are going to stage an accident. I am going to die—"

Kate made a moue with her mouth. "So it seems. A car accident—" then she snapped her fingers. "Of course! It makes sense. If you 'die' in an accident, and it's all official and everything, the Army will stop following you. No sense following a dead man, is there?"

Tolkach looked pale. "What kind of accident...what will happen?"

"I don't know...but I'm sure _WINDWARD's_ worked out the details. That's what has taken them so long." Kate took the pages and re-read them herself. "It says you're to turn over all materials to me immediately. Then I'm to leave a message at the outgoing drop, telling them you've done that. Once I do that, things will start to happen automatically."

"Next Wednesday," Tolkach murmured, thinking. "Through Canada—" He shook his head. "Why not Mexico?"

"Maybe it's easier going north. I'm sure he has his reasons." Kate squeezed Tolkach on the shoulder. "Congratulations, I guess. You've gotten what you wanted...but—"

"But what?"

Kate shrugged. "I was just thinking...about your children. How will you contact them? How you will get them out of America?"

Tolkach's mind was already considering a million details. "What—oh, I—well, I'm not sure yet...exactly. I'll have to get a message to the Shurers...perhaps, if I wrote a letter...you could see that—"

Kate was quick to agree. "I'll make sure they get it. I've got ways to mail stuff, so it can't be traced back here..." she winked. "The USO...every soldier likes to get candy, stuff from home...we've got lots of ways, believe me."

"I do believe you—" Tolkach sank down in the chair where he had been reading. "My materials...ah, yes...I'll get them together...they're scattered in my bags. Only be a minute—" he got up, and stood there oddly, his mouth on the verge of words, but he seemed to think better of it, and started off. Down the hall, he turned around—Kate was reading the message for the fifth time, puzzling. "Miss Wellesley--?"

"Yes...I'm sorry...yes, what is it?"

Tolkach came back into the dining room, placed his hands on the back of a wing chair, then folded them behind his back. "Miss Wellesley...I don't suppose—" he half-laughed, shook his head. "No...silly idea...foolish idea...even to think of it—"

"What is it, Dr. Tolkach? Anything at all."

"Well, I was thinking...you and I...we've made a sort of friendship here, haven't we?...the last few days...soldiers in this war, as it were. We both realize what's at stake here."

"Yes?"

Tolkach cleared his throat, not sure what to do with his hands. Finally, he jammed them into his pockets. "Miss Wellesley...I was wondering if you would consider—"

"Consider what, Dr. Tolkach?"

"-consider leaving—all this—" he swept his arms around the dining room. "That is...leaving the shop. Obviously, the Russians think very highly of you too. You should just come along...would you think about it?...coming along with me?"

The idea hit her like a freight train. Kate just stood there, her mouth open, not sure what to do or say.
CHAPTER 9

Spassk Dalniy Army Aviation Forces Base

Vladivostok, U.S.S.R.

July 23, 1945

9: 15 a.m.

Commander Sado Fumori eased the control wheel left, feeling the handles talk back to him, as _Awesome Avenger_ banked to port. A sly smile spread across his face. It was amazing, this huge American bird, simply amazing how well she handled. She was almost as nimble as the Gekko night fighter he'd flown against these same aircraft a week before, when Admiral Ushenda had tagged along.

Fumori almost laughed out loud. "It's so smooth...I can hardly believe how well she handles."

Guards Major Ivan Nakhimov, of the 240th Fighter Air Regiment, agreed. "For an aircraft weighing nearly thirty-four thousand kilos empty, she handles like a dream, better in some respects than my old Shturmovik." Nakhimov was sitting in _Avenger's_ right hand seat while the Japanese ace checked out their newly repaired B-29. Nearly two months ago, an unfortunate American crew had crash-landed _Avenger_ at Spassk Dalniy one foggy morning, after having been shot up on a run over Nagoya, handing the Russians a gift in the form of a nearly intact bomber. Two months of repairs had made the Superfort serviceable and flyable again. Word around the base was that _Avenger_ would be dedicated to a special mission. After she'd been checked out and test flown, she was towed to a hangar at the far end of the airfield and declared off limits. Major Reshetnikov was powerless to rescind the order...it had come from the local NKVD _rezident_ , Colonel Kleptomanov himself. State Security had commandeered _Awesome Avenger_ and that was that.

Two days ago, Ivan Nakhimov found out why.

Fumori flew the huge bomber around the outskirts of Vladivostok harbor, banking, descending, changing power settings, cycling the bomb bay doors, just getting a feel for the way she handled. The day was bright, sunny, unusual for the old port city. Through light clouds, both pilots could see the crooked finger of the Zolotoy Rog ten thousand feet below them, the 'Golden Horn,' and ship traffic was heavy along the channel. Vladivostok's hills poked up through the morning mists like silent sentinels. Nakhimov knew that much of the ship traffic was military, staging men and supplies forward for the coming invasion...the Red Army would be launching an offensive against the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria in a matter of weeks. He said nothing of this to Fumori. Fate or politics had decreed that a Russian pilot and a Japanese pilot would work together to learn how to fly an American bomber.

That was all that mattered to Nakhimov.

"It's still hard to believe, is it not, Ivan Alekseyevich? You and I...working together. A special mission...with this American plane."

To Ivan Nakhimov, flying was life itself, akin to breathing or eating. "Politics...and war...make a strange stew, don't they? Turn back to the west...there's a high-altitude corridor we use for training on long-range missions. Thirty minutes north of here...it's north of Lake Khanka."

"Good idea, Major. I want to see how she handles up higher, in thin air. I've never flown an aircraft that had a pressurized cockpit before."

"Americans..." Nakhimov said. "They love their luxuries."

The trip up to Lake Khanka took half an hour. The scenery was hilly, green with moss, glints off silvery streams and smaller lakes. Khanka itself was an egg-shaped body, due north of Vladivostok harbor. With Nakhimov's direction and guidance from Spassk Dalniy air traffic control, Fumori maneuvered _Avenger_ into the corridor. Nakhimov ordered their flight engineer, a Ukrainian named Kasparian, to run the Wright Cyclone engines up to ninety percent power. Momentarily, the bomber began a slow but steady climb skyward, eventually poking up above a thin cloud deck at nearly thirty thousand feet.

Fumori was impressed.

"This mission, Commander--," Nakhimov was curious, "—I know only a few sketchy details. Kleptomanov hasn't told us anything. And there's a Red Army officer here from Berlin...arrogant fellow but he seems to have a lot of clout. Kalugin is his name."

Fumori was mindful that a briefing had been called for 1200 hours that very morning. Toronaga would be there, and the others Ushenda had picked.

"Japan and Russia are not at war," he said, carefully. _At least, not yet_. There was a worrisome buildup along the Manchurian frontier, but most of the General Staff figured that was just posturing, Stalin trying to influence peace negotiations. "However, the Americans and their stooges the British, are making things difficult for us now. The Americans just released a declaration calling for us to surrender, _unconditionally_. They insist we must allow ourselves to be occupied, our leaders tried as war criminals and His Majesty the Emperor removed. This we will never permit."

Nakhimov considered that. Fumori's tone of voice brooked no disagreement. "But are not the Americans laying waste to your cities, even as we speak?"

Fumori was grim, resting his hands lightly on the Superfort's control wheel. "The Americans can destroy every single city in Japan. But they cannot defeat us in spirit. When they send their marines to land on our beaches—intelligence I've heard says it's only a few months away—they will be slaughtered. It will be the Decisive Battle. Blood will run in torrents through the gutters and streets of our cities. One hundred million defenders...that's what we bring to the battle. The Americans don't realize yet what they are walking into."

"Then why is this special mission so important? What's the target?"

Fumori had to be careful in what he said. He didn't know how much this Russian pilot knew, how much he was _supposed_ to know. "Our leaders wish to discuss terms for ending the war, _better_ terms. Terms that will allow us the dignity and respect we deserve. The Americans forced this war on us, anyway...when they shut off our trade, shut off our oil supplies. We're fighting for what's ours, for our rightful place in Asia...the white man has been in charge long enough. Japan fought this war to push the colonial aggressors and imperialists out of Asia once and for all."

"There's a rumor," Nakhimov said, "—a rumor that this bomber's going to be used against the Americans themselves. Against an American city somewhere, or an American base."

"Major, I don't know where you got that information...but it's not a rumor." Fumori looked over at the Russian. "I expect the briefing will explain everything better."

Nakhimov was persistent. "Which base, Commander? Which target?"

Fumori figured in a few hours, it wouldn't matter anyway. Ushenda had told them the Russians would be full partners in Operation _Shori_. "It's a city, actually. San Francisco, I'm told. And we'll be carrying some kind of superbomb."

"What kind of superbomb...incendiary...fragmentation--?"

"I'm told it has more to do with atoms...splitting atoms."

The briefing was started promptly at 1200 hours, in a small ready room inside the main hangar at Spassk Dalniy. Initially, the Japanese occupied one side of the sweltering room, the Russians the other side. Both groups eyed each other suspiciously for much of the briefing. State Security officers were prominent at each entrance. Kleptomanov, the _rezident_ , hung back in the shadows, regarding the Japanese delegation cautiously. He took cryptic notes on a small pad.

A husky, broad-shouldered Red Army commando officer started talking beside a map hung from an easel.

"My name is Major Vasily Alexandrovich Kalugin. My unit is the 20th Diversionary Brigade, 5th Guards Army, currently based in Berlin, occupied Germany."

Kalugin was a thick bear of a man. He had a prominent scar under his left chin, a snub nose and a ropy, sinewy neck. Rough, calloused hands were folded behind his back. He glowered at the assembled men.

"This briefing concerns a mission of great importance to the Soviet Union. And to the Empire of Japan," he added, with a perfunctory nod to the Japanese. "The mission is vital to both of us. We are not allies in this...we are partners, as neutrals should be. Leave politics out of this mission." Kalugin leveled an even gaze at Kleptomanov in the back. "The mission I will brief you on is vital...and has the attention of the highest authorities. I am in command of this mission. Here—" he extracted a small piece of paper, "—is a message from Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov—" He read a short greeting from the Marshal, mostly paeans to the glorious Red Army for its victory over the Hitlerite fascists.

The Japanese delegation squirmed a bit uncomfortably. Finally, Kalugin stowed the paper. "Welcome to our comrades from the Empire of Japan." In rapid fashion, he introduced Commander Sado Fumori and Lieutenant Commander Saburu Toranaga.

Kalugin indicated a map of the Pacific Ocean. "I begin with this: it is well enough known that the war in the Far East is in its final days. The Americans and the British and their allies are advancing on all fronts. Our Japanese comrades are putting up a valiant defense but the enemy is strong and clever. New tactics are called for. In these critical last days, there are reasons for Japan and the Soviet Union to cooperate on a special mission, which I will detail in a few moments. This cooperation is not an alliance." Kalugin referred to some notes Kleptomanov had given him, reciting word for word the official rationale for the briefing. The wording had come all the way from Moscow Center.

"Our nations are not at war. We are neutrals to each other. But neither side is blind to the realities of geography and conflict either. Japan wishes to strike a massive, decisive blow at the Americans, to end the war on the most favorable terms. The Soviet Union, for its part, wishes to maintain a balance of power in the world. A satisfactory end to the war in the Pacific is in our interests as well. Moreover, no one nation should have powers or weapons that threaten all other nations." Kalugin scowled at the assembled men, all of them pilots and soldiers. "Our interests have converged in recent months. That led to a proposal, accepted by both sides, for a mission, _this_ mission. It's called _Pobeda_ , in Russian. In Japanese, it is known as _Shori_. They mean the same thing...Victory."

Kalugin tapped at a point on the map. "This is Tinian Island. The Americans have built a vast airbase there. From here, they bomb the Japanese home islands every day. It is also here that the Americans are assembling a superweapon, an _atomic_ bomb it is called, to wreak even greater devastation on Japan." Kalugin paused, as the assembled men stirred uneasily. "The target of this mission is that atomic bomb."

The men shifted and looked at each other, murmuring quietly. The Japanese sat rigidly still, while two _serzhants_ helped Kalugin put up more maps on separate easels.

Kalugin went on.

" _Pobeda_ is a daring mission, make no mistake about that. I have many years in diversionary and special operations, many of them behind enemy lines. In my experience, this mission is the riskiest and boldest mission I have ever been asked to lead. But understand one thing: with planning and courage, _any_ mission can be accomplished. That's why we're here now."

There was a commotion from the rear and a stout bald-headed man came forward from the shadows. Kleptomanov cleared his throat and spoke up. "I am Colonel Arkady Kleptomanov, People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. I represent Moscow here...and I want to be clear on one thing—" he went to the small podium on which Kalugin was standing and took over the meeting, much to Kalugin's annoyance.

"There is one purpose to the _Pobeda_ operation and that is to seize an American atomic bomb, right out from under the Americans' noses." Kleptomanov raised his hand to silence the murmuring. "The Soviet Union has only peaceful intentions here. The Americans have spent billions of rubles and years developing this superweapon. Yet they haven't bothered to inform their allies about it. Once the fighting has stopped, the Americans think they and they alone will have this bomb. But they're mistaken. The Soviet Union also has such a program. We only want to take a look at this weapon, a close look. Take pictures, make measurements, all in the interest of ensuring that no one nation has this kind of power alone. A balance of power, that's what we seek here. Our Japanese comrades, on the other hand, have a different use in mind for this bomb. Major—" He ceded the podium back to Kalugin, who glared at the _rezident_ with scarcely concealed annoyance.

Kalugin was about to continue the briefing, but he stopped. Kleptomanov was right; _Pobeda_ was about convergence. Two nations, two objectives, yet through history or fate they had become melded and intertwined into one mission. He waved at Commander Fumori.

"—perhaps our Japanese comrades would like to explain their objectives in this mission--?"

At first, Fumori was reluctant, but Kalugin was persistent. Even Nakhimov gave him a wink and a nod. Fumori went up to the podium, addressed the briefing stiffly, in halting Russian.

" _Do bree ve cher_! Good evening to all of you...and congratulations on your glorious victory in Europe." He tried a tight smile on the curious Russians staring up at him, conscious of the irony of his words. _No need to mention how many years Japan and Germany were treaty allies._

A few smiles and nods. Mostly curiosity. Fumori was aware that few of the Russians had ever seen an officer of the _Nihon Kaigun_. He resolved to impress them all the more.

"I must be truthful with you...the situation for Japan is grave. Our air defenses are outgunned and outnumbered. The enemy savages our home islands with impunity everyday. Recently, the enemy issued demands for unconditional surrender. This we will never agree to. Our objectives in this mission are to collaborate with you on seizing one of these fearsome new weapons the Americans are developing. And to turn around and use the _very same weapon_ against them...against an American target." That brought a quick hush to the briefing room. Fumori's voice lowered. He tapped one side of the Pacific map, his finger on the coastline of California. "We have chosen San Francisco as our target. Using such a weapon against this American city will, if reports about this bomb are accurate, give pause to the Americans. It will shake them up, we hope. And from the shock that such a mission will undoubtedly have on the Americans, we believe we can negotiate a more honorable end to the war, on terms much better for Japan. This will cause the Americans to come to their senses."

Fumori looked over a Kalugin, bowed smartly, then returned to his seat. There was a restless quiet in the room, until Kalugin returned to the podium.

"You've all been specially selected for this mission," the Russian major went on. "Both nations have sent their best here. A lot will be expected... _Pobeda_ is no sure thing, believe me. I've studied the targets and the objectives. Planning and hard training are ahead and we don't have much time."

A hand went up in the crowd. It was Major Ivan Nakhimov.

"Major, how is this bomb to be seized? Surely, the Americans guard their secrets well."

Kalugin considered that. "A fair question. The operation is divided into two teams. One team will be headed by myself and Lieutenant Commander Toranaga—there—" he indicated the Japanese officer. "This team is to be known as Sacred Sword. Their objective is difficult...it'll require cunning, courage, speed and quick thinking, at all times. Sacred Sword's objective is to enter the United States, from Mexico, and seize a critical part of the bomb. This part is being shipped separately and will eventually wind up on Tinian Island, to be assembled with the rest of the bomb. The bomb will not work properly without this part. It's the heart of the device. This team will cooperate with operatives already inside America. We know how this critical part will be shipped, from where and we also know where the part will go." Kalugin dragged another easel to the front. He indicated Kleptomanov. "Perhaps the Colonel would like to give a short class on how the bomb is designed?"

Kleptomanov came forward again and launched into a brief lecture on what was known from intelligence about the plutonium core, the detonation system, and the bomb casing. When he was done, he said, "The Sacred Sword team must seize this core and carry it out of the country, north to a base we're building now. The Major has the details." He returned to his doorpost at the back.

"The second team is called Valiant Warrior. Their mission is the assault on Tinian Island itself. The rest of the bomb the Colonel described is or soon will be there. The plutonium core is to be shipped there. Final assembly will be there...our Japanese comrades have men still on the island, feeding us weekly intelligence on American forces, how they're deployed, what strength, that sort of thing. You'll have the latest information before the assault starts."

Nakhimov wet his lips nervously. "Then, Major, the second team must seize the rest of this bomb, the parts that are at the island?"

"Correct. You'll be put ashore by submarine. When you have the parts, and you must seize all of them, you'll be removed by submarine as well."

Another Russian, this one a Red Army Major with rifleman's insignia, spoke up. "These parts, these two teams...surely they come together. The Colonel mentioned a base. Where is this base?"

Kalugin tapped the map. "North. In Canada. British Columbia, to be exact. Both teams will make their way to this base, with their separate parts of the bomb. There, our experts will examine the device. After they are done taking pictures and making measurements, the bomb will be assembled—I'm told our own experts will be on hand to assist—and the mission proceeds from that point."

"And we do not take part in the...er, delivery of the bomb, is that correct?"

Kalugin nodded. "That is so. Our Japanese comrades will continue the mission from that point." He was careful with his words, aware that Kleptomanov was still making notes. Officially at least, that was true. But Vasily Kalugin hadn't been twice decorated with the Order of Lenin and Hero of the Soviet Union by being stupid. Publicly and officially, the Russians would have no part of the strike against the American city. But Vasily Kalugin knew that any rule could be broken, if you were clever enough.

And he still had that stash of jewelry and artworks from the Nazi general's mansion at Tegelwald to grease the way, perhaps make a new life for himself.

The next day, the assault teams began training for their missions. Kalugin collected Toranaga from the barracks and the two of them watched the _Valiant Warrior_ team practice mock assaults on an abandoned hangar at the end of Spassk Dalniy's flight line. From the cab of a one-ton truck, the two officers studied the tactics and the coordination of the Japanese-Soviet team, as it probed, flanked and rushed the target again and again, firing real weapons.

Toranaga was cautiously optimistic. He peeked out of the corner of his eye, hoping to catch the reaction of the Soviet officer. Kalugin, however, was dour and impassive, sucking on a foul-smelling _papirosi_ as the team went about its task.

Finally, Toranaga spoke. "A strange sight, Major...watching Russian and Japanese soldiers cooperating."

Kalugin grunted. "A sign of the times, comrade." He indicated the team, now re-forming in a small circle around the hangar doors, while a Russian _maior_ named Simonets lashed out, harshly criticizing their performance. "They've got a long way to go...to become a real team."

Toranaga thought about that. "Can Russians and Japanese soldiers ever work as one?"

Kalugin shrugged. "If they're led right...properly motivated. I often had missions behind enemy lines, with Kazakhs, Poles, Ukrainians...you name it. Half my job was keeping them from each other's throats. Usually, once the enemy starts firing on you, you forget all your differences."

Toranaga was curious. "Fumori and I rode a train here. We traveled across a lot of Manchukuo...Manchuria, I suppose you would say. The border was filled with troops. Hundreds of tanks, too. We saw aircraft thick as flocks of birds." Toranaga had learned one thing well as an officer in His Majesty's Imperial Army: you studied your superior's every eyeblink and facial tic, for signs of meaning. Kalugin seemed to be more approachable than most. "Will your army really cross the border, Major? Will the Russians really attack our Kwantung Army?"

Kalugin let a few moments pass, while the assault team formed up for another try at approaching a prepared position, flanking the enemy, creating a diversion and quickly storming the target. They would have only one chance at this once they reached Tinian Island. Shock and surprise would be their best weapons against the Americans. Valiant Warrior was sure to be outmanned and outgunned at the point of attack. For this mission to succeed, they would have to rely on stealth, speed and surprise.

_Same as any mission behind the lines,_ he thought.

Toranaga was still waiting for an answer, his head cocked slightly.

"My opinion is of no consequence, Commander," the Russian said. He flicked his _papirosi_ roll away. "Forty years ago, Russians fought Japanese. We may fight again. Perhaps it will be soon...perhaps not." He shrugged. "Such decisions are not for me to make."

Toranaga was persistent. "But you have an opinion, Major?"

Kalugin was growing annoyed at the blunt Japanese naval landing force officer. Toranaga was a squat bull of a man, with tiny slit eyes, wide nose, thick lips and round cheeks. He snorted like a bull too.

"Soldiers do not have opinions. They have only missions. I suggest we concentrate on ours."

Toranaga stiffened. No one had ever questioned his abilities as a warrior, certainly not a Russian. Kalugin was an enemy, he concluded. At least, a potential future enemy. For now, the Americans were the more immediate threat.

_Valiant Warrior_ made several more mock assaults on the hangar. To Toranaga's eye, the team performed better with each effort. Their moves were crisper, more assured. Fire coordination was cleaner. Approach and assault times were shorter. Simonets would lead the unit onto Tinian, along with another _kokusentai_ officer named Osaki, a veteran, like Toranaga, of the debacle on Saipan a year ago.

_We should have both died in banzai charges_ , Toranaga reflected. Only bad luck had left them partially wounded, prisoners of the American marines. Even now, Toranaga could not rightly say why he had not done the honorable thing and committed seppuku when the American squad showed up at the cave entrance.

Cowardice? He had asked himself that question a thousand times since the capture and a thousand times, the answer had been no. What was it then? He and Osaki had both been part of the 1st Sasebo _kokusentai_ , both had been captured alive, and both had managed to escape a few days later, in a driving rain storm when flooding waters had washed away the makeshift fence surrounding their camp.

Osaki thought the gods themselves had intervened, saving them for important missions to come. Toranaga wasn't so sure.

Was _this_ why they had been spared?

Toranaga couldn't help but be impressed with the weapons the Russians had furnished the assault teams.

"Your infantry rifles are worthy weapons, Major."

Kalugin nodded. "Accurate to a thousand meters. Fairly light-weight, well-balanced, without too much recoil. The Kalishnikovs are good short-range weapons." He slapped his side holster. "I prefer this—" he tapped the handle of his Tokarev pistol. "It's quiet, rapid-fire...it does what I ask of it."

"They have seen much action?"

"Without them, the Germans would still be killing my people."

"Major, I know little of your background. It was said that you were with diversionary troops, a commando behind the enemy's lines."

Kalugin wanted nothing so much as to stuff a rag in the mouth of this talkative Japanese. But he had his orders. "Twentieth Diversionary Troops. I conducted missions ahead of the main front."

"What kinds of missions did you conduct?"

"Whatever I was assigned, Commander. Sabotage, assassination, diversions, reconnaissance. Diversionary troops learn to live off the land. Live among the enemy, move as shadows, strike suddenly, without warning, then disappear back into the forests."

"As will these men," Toranaga observed. "If our mission is successful. Do you think we'll be successful, Major? Do you think Russian and Japanese soldiers can work together to make this mission succeed?"

Kalugin turned to face the Japanese officer directly. "Sometimes, the boldest mission, the most daring mission, the most seemingly reckless mission that the enemy would never expect...is the one that breaks his spirit. If a target is considered impregnable by everybody, and you succeed in destroying that target anyway, the enemy loses morale. He thinks you have powers you may not have. He sees you behind every tree, behind every rock, in a thousand places, even if you are few. Strike the impossible target, breach the unbreachable defense, and you win the most important battle." Kalugin tapped the side of his head. "The battle up here. From here, all other victories will follow."

It was not so much his words as the way he said it that left Toranaga with a better sense of Kalugin the man. A cunning and relentless bear, stalking his prey. The Russians seemed to have chosen their leader with care.

The question was: would the warriors of Nihon follow him?

The afternoon was filled with briefings on the targets, held in the same cramped, stuffy space as before, in the pilots' ready room of the main hangar. A short midday meal of potatoes and onions with mineral water refreshed the teams before the briefing got underway.

The first speaker was Colonel Kleptomanov, the NKVD officer.

"Timing and coordination are essential in this mission," Kleptomanov was saying. He looked out over the assembled soldiers, noting with some amusement that the morning's drills and practice assaults had broken down some of the barriers. A few Russians sat on the Japanese side, with two Japanese _heftai_ returning the favor, sitting among new comrades themselves.

"The Sacred Swords will work closely with operatives inside America. Even as I speak—"Kleptomanov snapped his fingers and a gangly red-haired _serzhant_ quickly tacked up a map of the United States on the board—"our operatives are arranging to intercept the aircraft carrying the bomb core and force it down...roughly here—" he tapped a pointer in the center of a place called Nevada. "Our intelligence tells us that the bomb core—an object about the size of a large grapefruit—" he made the dimensions with his hands—"is to be carried by truck from here—the factory and base at Los Alamos, New Mexico to an air base near the town of Albuquerque. From there, the device is flown by transport plane to Hamilton Field, near San Francisco, transferred to a ship...we believe she is the _Indianapolis_ —at Hunters Point Naval base and ferried out to Tinian Island aboard. It's imperative that the bomb core be intercepted and seized before being loaded aboard the ship. Accordingly, we have arranged to create a sort of 'accident' aboard the plane from Albuquerque, an accident that will force it down in the desert...here." He tapped Nevada again. "It is an isolated area, far from any roads and towns." Kleptomanov leveled an even gaze at Kalugin and Toranaga.

"It will be your job, with the Sacred Sword, to be there at this location, with two trucks, when the plane is forced down."

Kalugin already knew the broad outlines. Now he wanted specifics. His eyes narrowed. "These operatives...we will know them? We can meet them?"

"No, you cannot," Kleptomanov said. "Their identities are known to only a few people."

"Then how will we coordinate with them?"

Kleptomanov clucked. "You are too impatient, Major. I have the details. During your training here, I'll provide the details when you need them."

_Officious little prick_. Kalugin swallowed his annoyance at the NKVD officer. Staff was like that, always waving their lists and charts around, as if the enemy always behaved like a piece of paper. _Just get a few rounds fired at you in earnest, my friend, and you'll soon learn what pieces of paper are good for_.

Kleptomanov went on with the briefing, describing the hijack operation, its timing, the elements and how they would be employed. It was apparent to Kalugin that the Commissariat had a larger cadre of agents in America than he realized. Were the Americans that dense? Or were they just too trusting of their wartime allies?

"One of the first things you must do," he was telling Kalugin, "is secure two trucks. You'll be put ashore along the Pacific coast of Mexico. However, you should wait until you reach San Diego before obtaining the trucks."

"This base in Canada...in British Columbia, you have a location, I presume."

Kleptomanov snapped his fingers and the _serzhant_ swapped out maps, tacking up a more detailed map of North America. The NKVD officer put his finger on a spot in the center of British Columbia.

"This is Kitticut. It's near a provincial park, heavily forested. Even as I speak, we have agents in the area, negotiating with logging and timber companies, clearing a runway and building a base complex. Before you leave two days from now, you'll have specific driving directions and coordinates for locating this facility. That's all you need to know for now."

Toranaga had a question. "Begging the Major's pardon, but how will the bomb be delivered against the American city?"

Kleptomanov smirked. "The Americans have thoughtfully seen to that detail already. Your own comrade, Commander Fumori, can answer that."

Fumori was one of the Japanese sitting on the Russian side of the ready room. Next to him was Ivan Nakhimov. Patiently, Fumori described _Awesome Avenger_ , and how she had been restored to flight condition by the Russians.

"A fantastic plane, Toranaga-san...you have to see it to believe it. It'll be a pleasure to use it against the Americans."

Kleptomanov went on. "Your training will be over in two days. In that time, each team must make several practice assaults on their targets. The teams must jell together as one, work and live as one. Behind enemy lines, you'll have only yourselves to rely on." He checked his watch. "At 2300 hours on Wednesday, both teams will depart for the port. You will both board Soviet submarines for deployment. And Operation _Pobeda_ will at last be underway. _Slava, Krasnaye Armee_! _Glory to the Red Army_!"

" _Slava, Sovetskogo Soyuz_!" came a chorus of replies.

Kleptomanov did not ask for questions. The faces of the Russian and Japanese soldiers before him told him what he needed to know. His eyes met Kalugin's. _Make these men ready, Major...or else._

The next two days were a frantic blur of mock assaults on the empty hangar, practice at search and seizure of the bomb core aboard an aircraft—they used a Soviet Lend-Lease C-46 as a training target, reviewing equipment and tactics, hashing out the chain of command, breaking up a few fights and wrestling matches and time enough for a few rounds of vodka and _spertsem_ at the end of each day.

Kalugin would be paired with Toranaga and the Sacred Swords, while a Japanese navy lieutenant named Osaki and the Russian major named Simonets would run the Valiant Warrior team. After some discussion, it was decided that a split command would never work. The Soviets had more experience operating clandestinely inside America, with their extensive network of agents and operatives. Kalugin was given command of the Swords, whose mission would be to seize the bomb core in the Nevada desert. On Tinian Island itself, the Japanese had years of experience with the terrain of the island and had recently fought the American marines for it. The Valiant Warrior team whose mission it was to seize the rest of the bomb and make off with it aboard the Soviet submarine would be commanded by Lieutenant Osaki.

Initially, Japanese soldiers were reluctant to take orders from Russian commanders. Equally so, the Russian soldiers knew full well they would likely be in combat against the Japanese in a matter of weeks—if they survived this mission—thus a certain disdain for their erstwhile comrades was hard to conceal.

Awkward moments during the training came up almost hourly, requiring Kalugin and Kleptomanov to huddle with Toranaga and Osaki and Fumori, to settle things down, smooth over differences and sometimes, to simply order their men back into action. Each side had its own preferred tactics and each side was convinced its way was best. When the Japanese marines assigned to Valiant Warrior insisted that their way of assaulting prepared American positions was better because it had been used on Tinian in the last year, one annoyed Russian _soldat_ complained, "And see what it got you...a thorough thrashing and defeat. Our way is better...just ask all the dead Germans at Kursk and Minsk."

Gradually, through repetition and fatigue, the brittle conflicts were worn down and smoothed over and by Wednesday morning, Kalugin began to feel that maybe, just maybe, the whole thing might work. Somehow, a year's worth of training had to be condensed into a few days and made to stick. At the end of each exercise, he gathered the teams together for a debriefing. He looked in the eyes of each man, looking for that special gleam, the leer of the predator, that he knew from experience every commando had to have.

By Wednesday morning, through a mixture of shouting and curses, punches and kicks, cajoling and threats, humor and shame, he had begun to see that gleam in the eyes of more and more men. Each time they debriefed, Kalugin saw himself in the anxious, sweaty faces of the men looking back at him. It had been only seven years before that he had been in the very same position himself.

It had been June, 1938, that Private Kalugin and a few others had reported to Special Diversionary Brigade Camp Number 7, at Rostov, near the Don River. It was the first time Kalugin had ever seen the Don, and its rich and humid bottomlands.

For over a year, until July 1939, Kalugin had been assigned to the Twentieth Special Diversionary Brigade. He trained and trained hard, everything from sniper's techniques to artillery spotting, to demolitions and radio and covert communications, targeted assassination, kidnapping and interrogation techniques, reconnaissance and surveillance methods, field operations behind enemy lines and many other trades.

The most memorable of all had been the graduating field exercise held in May 1939, on the Russian-Polish border. Kalugin, by now part of 2nd Company of the 20th Diversionary, was assigned to lead a six-man squad across the border into Polish territory, reconnoiter Polish Army positions, troop concentrations, armor and artillery dispositions, and if possible, seize a Polish officer for transport back across the border for interrogation.

It was a real live mission with real live consequences against a real adversary. Kalugin couldn't wait.

In early May, he slipped across the border, through the Pripet Marshes, with his squad, who called themselves (at Kalugin's insistence) the _Krasnaye Volk_...the Red Wolves. The exercise was intended to last about two weeks. He graduated if he returned with intelligence on the enemy's forces and a Polish officer and didn't get himself killed.

The Red Wolves mission went well for the first week, but carelessness on the part of a Private Luganin tipped off their spotter's position overlooking a Polish Army tank camp and a firefight ensued. This was on the last day of May. With the Poles alerted, the Wolves had to withdraw deeper into the forest and hide from scouts that scoured the woods, with dogs, to flush them out. Over the next few days, the Poles managed to flush the Wolves from cover three times, killing a soldier each time. On the third day, they were surrounded, down to three men, including Kalugin.

The predicament called for quick and bold thinking on the part of the squad leader. Vasily Kalugin was equal to the task.

By this time, Kalugin was a master of disguise. Stalking a Polish Army fire team, Kalugin and a comrade named Volynov killed three Poles and made off with their uniforms. Kalugin dressed himself up as a Polish corporal and marched right into a small camp of Poles bivouacked in the woods, with fantastic tales of how he had been wounded, captured, and managed to escape from the Russian soldiers. Hiding his accent with faked mouth injuries—he had Volynov punch him a few times—he gave false directions to the Polish sergeant, sending the entire scout force off in the wrong direction.

In this way, the last of the Red Wolves managed to make their escape from encirclement. Now, they still had to find a Polish officer to kidnap and bring back across the border. Kalugin had an idea and they silently followed the very same squad they had managed to deceive, right back to the company headquarters several miles away.

That night, Kalugin and Volynov stole into the perimeter of the camp, after another member of the squad had created a diversion in the other direction, and in the chaos, seized a young, almost teen-aged Polish Army lieutenant and took him captive. His name was Lieutenant Wroniecka and he struggled for awhile, but Kalugin used his talents as a Moscow gang enforcer and the Pole soon submitted. He was dragged back across the border and taken all the way back to the exfiltration point, on the other side of the Pripet Marshes.

Kalugin passed the field exercise and was in June 1939, commissioned a lieutenant in the 20th Diversionary Brigade of the Second Army. Three months later, Hitler invaded Poland from the west and in weeks, the Red Army had moved in to begin biting off chunks of Poland's eastern frontier. Thanks to Kalugin and the _Krasnaye Volk_ , the generals had a good idea of how Polish defenses were arranged.

By Wednesday at dusk, Kalugin decided he was satisfied with the progress of the two teams. Of the two, he estimated the Tinian Island group, the Valiant Warriors, had the mission of greatest difficulty. He wanted more than anything to lead that team but Kleptomanov had overruled him.

"You've got extensive experience behind enemy lines, Vasily Alexeyevich," the NKVD officer had reminded him. "You're needed more in America...and that comes from the very top. This is a very ticklish operation. The Japanese want to use the bomb. We just want to study it. The Americans are allies...for now. And Josef Vissarionovich already promised Truman that we'll fight the Japanese in Manchuria in a few weeks. Beria wants someone on the scene who can keep his head."

Kalugin could do little but obey. Truth was...when the time came for the Japanese to depart on their part of the mission, he knew he might very well decide to hitch a ride.

The teams were assembled in front of their truck transport for a final briefing. Kalugin gave an accounting of their combined training, pointing out certain deficiencies, things to remember, reminders on tactics. Purposely, he singled out several Japanese soldiers, Privates Akita and Murotawa, for special energy and resourcefulness. Hearing praise from the Russian commander brought furtive nods and beaming faces from all the Japanese. The accolade had its desired effect.

"These two teams are like a pack of wolves," Kalugin told them, strutting around in front of the men, mustered at attention in ranks. "Wolves are true predators. Inside the pack, we're brothers in blood. Outside the pack, we hunt and kill the enemy." Kalugin's voice lowered to a menacing whisper. "Any brother who disturbs the pack, for whatever reason...is an enemy." He let the implied threat stand, hanging in the air for a moment, then turned the assembly over to Kleptomanov.

Behind them, the trucks that would take them to the port of Vladivostok, warmed up their engines.

Kleptomanov was brusque and mercifully short. "I don't have to remind you of the consequences of failing. The outcome of the war, the direction of the future, depends on each of you, each man doing his duty. Our two nations cooperate because the mission is vital to both. Remember that: no matter what happens, the mission comes first." Kleptomanov glared at the assembled men.

"Slava Sovetskogo Soyuz!"

"Glory to the Red Army!" replied the Russians.

_And to Nihon Kaigun,_ thought Saburu Toranaga.

As the assault teams boarded the trucks, Sado Fumori and Ivan Nakhimov watched from a distance, standing outside the hangar where _Awesome Avenger_ was even now being prepared for the first leg of her journey.

Fumori puffed on a Kinshi cigarette. Nakhimov had one too, having decided to give the Japanese brand a try.

"A strange day, is it not?" Fumori thought out loud. "From my first days at Etajima, when I was a cadet, I never thought I would see Japanese soldiers and Russian soldiers working together on a mission."

Nakhimov agreed. "Especially now." It was an open secret inside the Red Army that the order to cross the Manchurian frontier and engage the Kwantung Army was only a few weeks away at most. Nakhimov's own 240th Fighter Air Regiment had already deployed to a crude forward air base outside Blagoveshchensk in the last few days. Only Operation _Pobeda_ kept Nakhimov from going with them. He didn't know whether to be happy or sad about it. Combat was the true test of a fighter pilot. On the other hand, it wasn't everyday you had the chance to fly an American bomber across the ocean either.

"We still have a lot of work to do," Fumori said. "The aircraft must be ready by 0000 hours tomorrow. The engines need testing, the instruments, all the guns and sights..."

"I know—" Nakhimov blew a smoke ring, which the wind promptly extinguished. "The last check ride turned up more problems than we had before."

"At least she flies...as long as she can get into the air, I can get her to the target."

Nakhimov was mildly annoyed. "It won't be you alone, comrade, that gets our big _Belka_ to the target. Don't forget the rest of your crew."

"I wouldn't dream of it, Major. Every flight crew is a team. But the final mission will be a Japanese effort. The ultimate target is ours. Your own Colonel Kleptomanov said as much."

That had grated on Nakhimov from the very beginning. Suddenly the Kinshi smoke didn't taste so good. He flicked the Japanese butt away and pulled out another papirosi tube to roll a proper Russian cigarette. _No sense giving the man any more satisfaction than necessary._

The trucks made the port of Vladivostok in good time. Toranaga and Osaki dismounted and took in the sights and sounds of the busy naval pier, while the rest of the teams collected their gear and assembled in ranks along the wharf for a brief ceremony. All around them, cranes and trucks shipped cargo, stores and ordnance aboard a long line of surface vessels. At the north end of the pier, two slips were especially well guarded. Each surrounded a Soviet K-class diesel submarine. The K-44 and the K-81 seemed to all outward appearances virtually identical. Both were loaded with a full torpedo complement and stores for a normal wartime mission.

The assault teams Valiant Warrior and Sacred Sword headed for their rides.

Toranaga admired the green hills dotting the horizon, making the Zolotoy Rog and the port district into a huge mist-filled bowl. On top of a nearby hill, the crenellated battlements of the Amursky Hotel rose skyward like some medieval fortress. A red star winked on and off through light evening fog. All around the hills, the lights of the city were winking on in the gloom.

"I hear San Francisco looks like this," Tsugihiri Osaki muttered, as he wrestled his sea bag toward the gangway to the K-44.

Toranaga grunted. "Maybe so, but I'll never see it. We won't go anywhere near San Francisco."

"And you wouldn't want to anyway," Osaki said. "If the gods are willing, there won't be much left, from what I hear."

"You think this crazy stunt will really work?"

"It has to," Osaki reminded the rifleman. "The Emperor is depending on us. One Hundred Million depend on us."

Toranaga steeled himself and took a breath before stepping up to K-81's gangway. "Then, we won't disappoint His Majesty. It's an honor to die for Nihon. Amaterasu smiles on us, Tsugi-san."

Osaki snorted. "Finally, our time has come. The true Decisive Battle. It must be the reason the fates have kept us alive this long."

They dropped their sea bags and saluted each other smartly, then hugged. Each man had just eaten a traditional pre-battle meal of rice, soybean soup, dry chestnuts and sake, saved in a small mess kit for just this purpose, while the trucks had driven them from Spassk Dalniy.

"I'll see you at theYasukuni shrine," called Osaki across the chop of the pier waters. "In the great beyond—"

Toranaga waved at him and disappeared down the hatch, lugging his sea bag behind him.

Osaki took one last look at dry land before doing the same. Russian sailors swarmed over the foredeck of the K-44, checking moorings and fittings, loading stores bucket-brigade style down a forward logistics hatch. Major Simonets and Captain Yerevan were the Russian officers assigned to Valiant Warrior. They were nowhere in sight, having left the day before, heading for Guam, ostensibly on a goodwill mission to American airbases in the Marianas, guests of the U.S. 20th Air Force. With a little luck, the timing of their visit to Tinian Island would put them at the huge base the afternoon before Osaki's men surfaced in the K-44 and put out for shore. The two Russians were the team's eyes and ears, locating the bunker where the atom bomb parts were stored, sizing up the enemy's defenses and getting that information back to the Japanese.

Osaki shivered in the chill early evening breeze. The next time he saw dry land would be in five days, when the _kokusentai_ sloshed ashore at Tinian Island's rocky, coral-infested north beach...in the dead of what he hoped would be a very black and moonless night.

Kirtland Army Air Forces Base

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Tuesday, July 24, 1945

8:45 p.m.

For Wade Brogan, the assignment was punishment, pure and simple. He glanced over at Lt. Col. 'Skunky' Merrill as they drove south toward Albuquerque and barked like a dog.

"Woof, woof, Skunky...that's all I got to say about it. Woof woof—"

Merrill was tall, dark-haired, darling of the ladies at the USO socials. He shook his head, watched the fading sunlight dance across the crowns of the rust-colored Bernalillo Hills as they sped south along Highway 45 in the Army sedan.

"So you think we're in the Colonel's dog house again?"

Brogan shrugged. "What else could it be? Why else send the two of us out on this cattle chase...hell, they already shipped Little Boy a week ago and nothing happened. I'm telling you, it's punishment and that's all it is."

"Well, what do you expect...we had our mitts halfway around a known Soviet agent working on the Hill and he just up and disappears right out from under us. Colonel's pissed...hell, _I'm_ pissed."

"He's taking us off the case, only he hasn't told us yet."

Merrill wasn't so sure. "There's still two gadgets to ship. It's not like CIC has a whole army of security men to move around. I'm betting we're still on the case. Colonel's just trying to get a point across."

Brogan sulked behind the wheel. Traffic was picking up. They were pulling into Albuquerque just at sunset, and the trucks had taken over the highway. Car traffic was light; though rationing was still officially in effect, people were getting out more and more and the black market in stamps was thriving. If you were willing to pay, you could get as much Hi-test as you wanted. Ever since V-E Day, a lot of the wartime restrictions had been loosened.

But a war was still raging in the Pacific. And the Army still made most of the rules around town.

Brogan spied the Lomas Road sign and made a left turn, heading southeast, toward Kirtland Field. _Doghouse, my ass_ , he thought to himself _. Colonel just wanted us out of his sight for a day or so._

Cates had sent them on a security check, known around the Detachment as a cattle run. Follow the road route the convoy from the Hill would follow. Look for possible ambush points. Check every major intersection, road conditions, signage, signals, traffic choke points. Make sure the convoy bearing the gadgets can get through to the airfield with a minimum of disruption.

Brogan shook his head at that. It would have taken a _panzer_ division to stop the convoy that had taken Little Boy's active core out to the base for shipment.

Still, with the Soviets active in the area and the war in the Pacific roaring at full blast, you couldn't be too careful. The enemy was fanatical, willing to try anything. Just ask the Navy sailors about the _kamikazes_.

So, they drove the route for the umpteenth time and soon enough, found themselves being checked in through the main gate at Kirtland Army Air Forces base. Nighttime floodlights lit up the airfield like a circus midway and through the glare, the tails of aircraft could be made out lined up along the ramp, most of them C-46s and other transports. Somewhere out there, Brogan knew, a pair of '46s were parked off by themselves, surrounded by several platoons of MPs and CIC men. They'd given one of them the nickname of Old Betsy, for some reason he'd never known.

If all went well, in a day or two, Old Betsy would be making another trip up to Hamilton Field, hard by San Francisco Bay, bearing the bomb core of one of the two remaining devices, in her case, the active heart of Big Fella. The route was an exact duplicate of the one Little Boy had taken only a few days before:

By truck convoy to Kirtland Field. By C-46 air transport to Hamilton Field, California. By truck convoy to Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. By ship to Tinian Island.

Brogan had memorized the details and even the official manifest, since CIC had to sign off on the shipment before it left the gates of Los Alamos.

a. 1 box, wt about 300 pounds, containing active core material for implosion-type bomb

b. 1 box, wt about 300 pounds, containing special tools and scientific instruments

c. 1 box, wt about 10,000 pounds, containing inert parts for a complete implosion-type bomb

Brogan saluted the sentry, signed the log, and drove on deeper into the base. He knew the route through the compound by heart and in minutes, had pulled the sedan up to the corner parking lot of a hangar at the end of the flight line. Bright lights surrounded two aircraft parked off by themselves.

"Looks like Old Betsy's in the spotlights again, Skunky."

"And tonight, she's got a co-star."

They got out and went over to the security checkpoint, a small wooden table set up outside a wire fence temporarily rigged around the plane. Brogan knew the commander of the detail well.

"Evening, Burnsy. Seen any stray cattle around here?"

Major Glenn Burns squinted through the lights at the faces of Brogan and Merrill. His face twisted into a cockeyed grin.

"Well, well...look who's riding the range tonight. Hello, boys. Welcome to Grand Central Station. Colonel's scraping the bottom of the barrel again, I see."

Brogan wasn't amused. "Very funny. Is the crew here yet?"

Burns jerked his thumb toward the aircraft. "Old Betsy's has...just logged through. I think they're doing their pre-flight right now."

"Which one's the pilot?"

"Short guy, over by the tire. Delany's the name. Colonel Delaney. I hear he's got a short fuse too."

"I'll try not to set him off." Brogan and Merrill headed out across the tarmac, intending to check with the pilot, verify the names and ID's of the crew, then make a quick look around the two planes and get the hell back to the Los Alamos to get some sleep.

Old Betsy had been designated to carry the bomb core for Big Fella. The other transport, several hundred yards away, itself surrounded by floodlights, a security fence and armed sentries from the MP detachment, would carry Fat Man. Both implosion devices were due to follow their cousin Little Boy out to the Pacific tomorrow night, following separate routes for security reasons.

Brogan knew that any hiccup on the Los Alamos to Kirtland to Hamilton Field to Hunters Point route would come back to bite him.

But after losing Edvard Tolkach, he had no intention of letting either one these buggers get away from him.

They approached Delany and introduced themselves.

"Colonel...got a minute?"

Delany looked up from the strut he'd been examining. He was tall, lean, blond crewcut with a sunburned face. He squinted in the lights at Merrill and Brogan.

"Not much more than that, guys. We're running behind schedule here."

Brogan was curious. "Is there a problem?"

Delany wiped sweat from his sunburned forehead, reddened even in the ramp lights at night.

"I hope not. We nearly had a collapsed strut on our portside landing gear a few days ago. Mechanic checked her out and couldn't find anything. I'm just giving her a look-see myself."

"Mind if we look around too? A last run-through of all our security procedures would help me sleep better at night."

Delany half-smiled. "Amen to that. Once we take off with our load, it wouldn't do to have the gear collapse when we land."

"Where's the crew?"

"Most of 'em are back in the hangar. I think my flight engineer and navigator are aboard. I told them all I'd buy them a drink at the O Club at 2100 hours...kind of an old tradition we have."

Brogan approached the ladder leading up into the forward compartment. "May I?"

Delany shrugged. "As long as you stay out of the way. We got a plane to pre-flight."

Brogan hoisted himself up the ladder, while Merrill stayed on the ramp, chatting with Delany.

There wasn't much room in the compartment. Two men were at their stations. The navigator, Lieutenant Wilcox, was a sallow-faced kid, barely old enough to shave, it looked like. He was twiddling dials and recording something on a chart. Forward of the bulkhead, Lieutenant Vaughn Malloy sat hunched over a tangle of wiring pulled from beneath the flight engineer's desk.

Brogan stuck his head up between the pilot and co-pilot seat.

Malloy was momentarily startled, then spied Brogan's insignia. "'Evening, Colonel. You looking for something?"

Brogan introduced himself, explained why he was there. "Just checking security arrangements one last time. This has all got to go like clockwork tomorrow night."

Malloy shrugged. "It worked last week with Little Boy...don't see why it won't again."

_That's why you're there and I'm here,_ Brogan thought.

"Everything checking out?"

It wasn't what Malloy said so much as what his hands did that caught Brogan's eye. Over the years, as a CIC investigator, he'd developed a sixth sense for things that looked out of the ordinary...the quick, furtive movement, a face that turned momentarily pale, a slight stutter, a reply that was too smooth to be spontaneous...you saw it all the time. People gave themselves away all the time, especially to the trained eye.

So it was that when Vaughn Malloy hurriedly stuffed a few of the wire bundles he had out back under the engineer's table, Wade Brogan's trained eye noticed the movement and logged it...something not quite right. Something out of the ordinary.

Something to look into.

Malloy was probably never aware that Brogan had seen it...perhaps he wasn't even aware he'd done it. Sometimes it was instinctive, like a flinch when faced with a pistol.

Brogan kept the wire bundle and Malloy's hands...now nervously kneading the wires to no apparent purpose—he had caught the Lieutenant doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing...he was now sure of that—in the bottom of his vision. Outwardly, he tried to appear professionally nonchalant.

Everything checking out so far?" he repeated.

Malloy shook himself and smiled back sheepishly. "Sorry, Colonel...I thought...it seemed for a moment that there was a break in the insulation...I was just feeling along...this temp gauge was shorting out on our last flight in."

"Those wires—"Brogan said, "—you know what each of them does?"

"Backwards and forward, Colonel...I just re-wired a lot of this panel a few weeks ago."

Brogan couldn't shake the kid's story, but something wasn't right. "I'm just checking...we can't be too careful."

"No, sir."

"How long you going to be up here?"

Malloy checked his watch. "I have to finish the fuel and engine circuits...check continuity, power sources, that sort of thing. After that, I'm hitting the sack."

It sounded like a good idea to Brogan. "You know about the buddy rule...where's your partner?"

The buddy rule had been pushed by CIC for critical jobs. It said you couldn't be by yourself in sensitive areas...ever.

"Wilcox...back there...he and I are buddies." Wilcox was the navigator, still drawing lines on a chart at his station behind the bulkhead.

Every base was covered. Brogan knew he'd seen something but not enough to take action. He slipped out of the cockpit and climbed back down the ladder. The pilot was nowhere to be seen but the MPs were in place...a cordon detailed from the Detachment to keep Old Betsy company all night, indeed until the very moment Big Fella was packed aboard and the plane was ready to taxi.

Skunky Merrill appeared from out of the shadows. He'd been kibbitzing with the detail commander.

"Everything copacetic, Dog?"

Brogan shrugged. "Far as I can tell." The truth was he was dead tired. He needed about a week of sack time. The Project was wearing everybody down, fraying nerves, clouding judgment. It was exactly the kind of atmosphere where people made mistakes.

_In this business_ , Brogan reminded himself, as he and Merrill hiked back to their Jeep, _a single mistake could kill you_.

By all rights, Brogan knew he should peel off and re-check the personnel records of Old Betsy's crew, especially that creepy flight engineer Malloy. Brogan couldn't quite put his finger on it, but an inner sense was screaming something was wrong, and Brogan had long ago learned to pay attention to that sense.

Maybe tomorrow, he'd come back down to the base and run through the files and service records on both crews, Old Betsy and her companion plane that would be flying parts of Fat Man to San Francisco. Never leave loose ends. Malloy had been nervous, fidgety, furtive...like he was hiding something. Was it real? Hell, everybody was like that around the Hill nowadays.

Brogan let Merrill do the driving back to Los Alamos. Out on the highway, the cool night breeze and the drumming of the tires soothed him into a foggy half-doze, images of the Trinity explosion mixed in with the crackle of lightning, dancing across the mountain tops to their west. Something, he wasn't quite sure what, still gnawed at his mind, only he couldn't quite get a bite on it.

Back at Kirtland, Lieutenant Malloy was breathing easier.

"I'm going aft," Wilcox mumbled from behind his desk. He hoisted himself up and wriggled into the transfer tube that led back to the forward bomb bay. "Something's not quite kosher with my antennas. You staying put?"

Malloy said, "Yeah...I'll be here awhile." He looked up, saw the lower half of the navigator disappear into the tube. For the moment, at least, he was alone.

Now...now was the time. That CIC agent had surprised him and Malloy's fingers were still nervous from the encounter. He took a few deep breaths and willed his hands to be still.

Quickly, he stripped insulation from a single cable inside the bundle of wiring he'd pulled from below the panel. With a knife, he placed a few knicks in the outer sheath of the cable, then massaged the insulation back into place, pressing hard so any evidence of tampering would he hard to find. It was all done in less than a minute. No one would ever know.

Vaughn Malloy had just sabotaged a critical fuel transfer pump control circuit for the aircraft. The plan had been well thought out and in a perverse sort of way, he was quite proud of the idea. The Russian seemed impressed, had offered him even more money than he expected, and encouraged him to go ahead with his idea.

"The whole world will applaud what you've done someday, comrade," he had said at the last meeting they'd had, the one at the cowboy shop on Canyon Drive. "Your courage will mean peace and better understanding among all the Allies...and the people who try to keep secrets will never know why they failed."

The money was nice—almost five hundred dollars...the Army never dangled _that_ kind of dough in front of first lieutenants. But it was the satisfaction, finally, that made the difference. The understanding that for once, in this godforsaken place in the middle of the desert at the ass-end of a war that should have been over months ago but for the hotheads at the top, he would be able to make a difference, that he Vaughn Emory Malloy, would finally amount to something.

Now, the only piece of business left was to make himself sick enough so that he could get relieved from Old Betsy's flight crew tomorrow, before she made the run up to Hamilton Field, California. No way was he going to make the flight now.

For the truth was that Old Betsy would never make her special delivery of parts for the Big Fella bomb. Lieutenant Vaughn Malloy had seen to that.

By stripping layers off the control cable beneath the flight engineer's station, he had made sure that the C-46 aircraft would not be able to transfer fuel from her starboard auxiliary tanks during the flight. She was thus not have enough useable fuel to make it all the way to California.

If Malloy had done his calculations right, somewhere over the Nevada desert, Old Betsy's twin Pratt and Whitney engines would run dry and Colonel Delany would have no choice but to set her down somewhere fast. He'd try to make Nellis or Indian Springs, in all likelihood, but with any luck Old Betsy would be sucking fumes in an area devoid of airbases. Delany would have no choice but to pancake her down on the hard desert floor; fortunately, the terrain was flat and sandy enough for emergency landings.

After that Vaughn Malloy didn't care what happened. Truth was, he didn't know.

The Russian had paid him well for his expertise and for his silence. Along with the money, he'd also have the satisfaction of knowing he'd done something big for world peace and the future of mankind as well.

Not bad for a pimply kid from Des Moines who'd barely made his Army physical a year and a half ago.
CHAPTER 10

Potsdam, Occupied Germany

July 24, 1945

9:30 a.m.

Harry Truman was somber as he watched smoldering piles of rubble and debris slide by the limousine window while the big black Packard negotiated the narrow streets of Babelsberg. He had just left the "Little White House" at Number 2, Kaiserstrasse, and was due at the Cecilienhof Palace at ten o'clock, there to meet once again with Winston Churchill and Joe Stalin.

"You know, Jimmy, it's like poker...this business of dealing with the Russians. Manhattan gives us a pretty strong hand, don't you think?"

Secretary of State James Byrnes ran a hand through thinning hair and shrugged. "I do. I'm just wondering if today might be the day to play our hand."

Truman sank back in the seat, let the rubble of war outside his window fade into leafy green estates as the motorcade wound its way along the Ruhenstrasse toward Potsdam. A short fifteen minute drive would put them outside the ivy-covered main entrance to the Cecilienhof Palace, once home to Crown Prince William of Germany in another day and time, and which the Red Army had decorated with floral displays of red stars and hammer and sickle emblems. Zhukov's troops were everywhere, a not-so-subtle display of force to remind everyone who was really in charge here.

Truman sucked at his lower lip thoughtfully. "You're thinking we ought to break the news to Joe Stalin today?"

Byrnes nodded. "You read Stimson's message this morning. The bombs will be ready to use against the Japs by August 4th or 5th, at the latest. If you don't tell him pretty soon, he'll be reading about it in the papers."

Truman clucked. "Maybe that would be better. Churchill thinks I should have already told him. But he's no poker player, Jimmy. You got a winning hand, you don't want to play it right away. I just don't know if today's the best day."

Byrnes watched the Russian soldiers sprint toward the slowing motorcade as it turned into the grounds of the palace and eased along the gravel drive toward the circular drive in front. From a side alley, several motorcycles suddenly appeared, gunning their engines, to accompany the President's limousine. Truman and Byrnes had grown increasingly amused by the pomp and ceremony.

"Looks like we have some different boys today, Jimmy. But isn't that Ivan over there....on that bike?" By the end of the first week of meetings, they'd both started giving nicknames to Red Army soldiers that re-appeared in their escort.

"I believe it is Mr. President."

The motorcade rolled to a stop outside the vaulted breezeway that formed the main entrance to Cecilienhof Palace. Just wide enough for a horse and carriage, it opened onto a circular courtyard dominated in the middle by a floral display of marigolds forming the image of a huge red star. Secret Service agents swung the Packard's doors open and Truman and Byrnes climbed out.

There standing in the center of the arch was Generalissimo Josef Stalin, resplendent in black trousers with blue piping and a white field jacket festooned with medals and ribbons. His left arm was cocked at an awkward angle, the result of a childhood accident. He extended his other hand in greeting, beaming as Truman and his Secretary of State approached, gold-capped teeth setting off a leathery face pocked with scars.

"He just loves playing soldier..." Truman wisecracked to Byrnes as they walked toward the Soviet retinue.

"Yes, sir...and playing with whole nations too, Mr. President."

Truman smiled warmly and shook hands with the Russian leader.

"General, a pleasure as always." He pumped Stalin's hand like he was a Kansas City ward boss. "Fine day for a meeting...your troops always show up smart and well-turned out. Impressive as hell—"

Stalin was flanked by Molotov, the Foreign Minister and several Red Army generals, as well as his interpreter. He grinned broadly as the interpreter finished with Truman's words.

" _Do braye ootra...pazhalsta...prakhadetee_ —" He swept his arm toward the courtyard, like a proud homeowner, eager to show off. "Please...come with me." Red Army troops lined the courtyard in parade formation. Stalin conducted Truman and Byrnes along the graveled drive, the same sort of miniature review he always performed at the beginning of each day's meeting. Truman had grown weary of the ceremony, but out of courtesy, forced a smile and went along.

It was Joe Stalin's way of reminding everyone they were well inside the Soviet zone of occupation.

A short while later, the British contingent showed up, and the entire ceremony was repeated. Churchill was decked out in his best field marshal's uniform, cigar in hand, beaming for the cameras and showing no worry whatsoever about the upcoming elections in Britain, now scheduled for two days away. Truman knew otherwise. Privately, the PM had confided to the President on Sunday that the Tories were in trouble and "God help England if that cocker spaniel Attlee wins the game."

The three Allied leaders were gently assembled around three chairs set up on a grassy sward in the courtyard, where they sat and chatted while the world's photographers snapped endless rounds of pictures. Truman had always found the formalities rather tiresome, but he knew the drill. He whispered to Churchill in the glare of popping flashbulbs that his cheek muscles ached from holding a smile for so long.

Churchill patted a barely visible flask in a side pocket of his uniform jacket. "Mr. President, sometimes a little lubrication does wonders."

At a pre-arranged signal, the photography stopped and the Big Three went inside, taking their seats around a large circular wooden table, covered in black felt, situated in a great banquet hall with a view of more formal gardens through beaded windows.

As before, the meeting followed a strict agenda, with opening statements and counter-statements, and much paper shuffling and consulting with aides. By agreement, each day's session was presided over by one of the three leaders, in rotation. Today's chairman was Truman himself. Sessions always ran a bit more briskly when Truman was in charge.

The first two hours concerned setting new borders for Poland and other east European nations, a point of contention and friction between the Russians and the western Allies. Truman found his attention wandering while Churchill droned on about the rights of man and silently slipped a piece of paper from his briefcase to re-read the words printed on it.

It was a telex from George Harrison, special assistant to War Secretary Stimson, that Truman had received only a week ago, last Tuesday July 17. Written in a form of code, it seemed to speak of the birth of a new child.

Doctor has just returned most enthusiastic and confident that the little boy is as husky as his big brother. The light in his eyes discernible from here to High Hold and I could have heard his screams from here to my farm.

Truman folded the page thoughtfully and slid it back inside a folder. _Little boy, indeed,_ he thought quietly. _This was one child with the power to remake the entire world._

It had taken Henry Stimson himself to explain the code to the President. The "Doctor" was none other than General Groves himself, who after the Trinity shot last Monday, was convinced the implosion bomb ("little boy") was as powerful as the uranium gun-type bomb ("his big brother"). The physical proof of its power was the fact that the light of the explosion was visible for 250 miles (the distance from Washington D.C. to Stimson's summer home at High Hold on Long Island. Its sound was heard for 50 miles (the distance from Washington to Harrison's farm in Upperville, Virginia.)

For the rest of the week, Harry Truman had been sobered by the reality of what was about to be unleashed on the Japanese. But America was at war and he had told Jim Byrnes several times since then that "I regard the bomb as a military weapon and I have no doubts it should be used, if the Japanese don't surrender."

With any luck, the Big Three would be able to hammer out the final details of a proclamation to the Japanese about the terms of that surrender before the week was out.

By noon, the basics of the proclamation had been worked out. Truman suggested to Churchill and Stalin that lunch be brought in for a working meal and the two leaders agreed.

"If we work hard, gentlemen, we can get this thing wrapped up in a few hours and maybe take off a little early."

Churchill, big Havana cigar planted in the corner of his mouth, winked at his Foreign Minister Ernest Bevan. "Undoubtedly, Mr. President, I should find the doors locked if I tried them. We are completely at your mercy."

Lunch was a roast beef and potato affair, with an assortment of teas, waters and wines.

As the break was winding down, aides and assistants were shuffling around the room, adding more papers to the briefs already cluttering the table. Truman took the opportunity to get up and stretch a bit, then conferred quietly with James Byrnes.

"Look over there, Jimmy...look at old Joe Stalin—"

The Generalissimo was deep in animated talks with Molotov and a few other aides. Stalin was gesturing pointedly with his right hand, chopping the air for emphasis.

"They're probably dividing up Europe between them."

Truman had an idea. "Watch this—" The President strolled nonchalantly around the table, approaching the knot of arguing Russians.

He was momentarily intercepted by Stalin's interpreter Viktor Khamanev. Khamenev was cherubic, baby-faced and nearly bald, a perpetual smirk on his lips.

"Good day, Mr. President," he said in perfect accent-less English. It was said that Khamenev had studied for years at Harvard and Stanford Universities. "Would you like to speak with the Marshal?"

"Will you tell the Generalissimo that we have recently perfected a very powerful explosive which we are going to use against the Japanese? We think it will end the war."

Stalin had seen Truman's approach and risen to greet the President. When Khamenev relayed Truman's message, the Soviet leader showed no expression. His reply was cool, almost indifferent.

"Very good news, Mr. President. I hope that America will make good use of it against Japan."

The two leaders exchanged pleasantries for a few more minutes. Stalin promised once again that the Soviet Union would enter the war in the Far East no later than August 15.

Truman thanked him for that and soon departed. A short recess had been called and Stalin was preparing to depart for his quarters, on the other side of the Cecilienhof Palace. Truman shook hands with the Russian leader, not really sure he had fully understood what Truman had told him. He had scrupulously avoided using the word _atomic_ —maybe that had been a mistake. Stalin left with his entourage and Truman sought out the British Prime Minister.

He was in a far corner, regaling aides with a bawdy story. He stopped when Truman came up, and the aides discreetly withdrew.

"How did it go?" Churchill asked.

Truman shook his head. "I don't know. He never asked a question. I'm not sure he really understood what I was saying."

Churchill wasn't so sure. "I believe he understood."

After leaving the great banquet hall for an hour's recess, Josef Stalin had retired to his quarters, tucked in a corner of the south wing of the Tudor-style palace. Floor to ceiling windows looked out on a formal garden brilliant with marigolds and zinnias, but Stalin did not enjoy the splendor of the mid-summer gardens. His mind was spinning, for the full import of what Harry Truman had just told him was quite clear indeed.

Molotov and Marshal Zhukov came in and stood together beside the door. Stalin had poured himself several fingers worth of _spertsem_ in a cup and cut the Georgian brandy with mineral water.

He related what Truman had told him.

"I didn't let on that I knew anything," the Generalissimo said. He downed the contents of the cup in one swallow.

Zhukov was agitated. Suddenly the calculus of forces seemed all wrong. "A bomb like that...the Americans will be all over us. They might even try to push us out of Poland."

Molotov scoffed. "Let them try. We'll have a talk with Kurchatov. Get him to speed things up. It won't be long before we have our own bomb."

Stalin was thoughtful. "Indeed. It may be sooner than you think. Where's Beria? He supposed to be here."

Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria was summoned and he came at once to the ornate quarters. The Commissar of Internal Affairs had been in his own office, compiling notes from department reports.

"What of Operation _Pobeda_ , Lavrenti Pavlovich? Is there any news for me?"

Beria glanced nervously at Zhukov. The Marshal always looked like a stuffed pig in his uniform, Beria thought. _Suitable for roasting over a spit_ , he added. Given half a chance, he would have gladly obliged.

"All our penetration efforts are bearing fruit, Josef Vissarionovich. I was just preparing a report—"

"Give us the details now."

"Of course..." Beria adjusted his pince-nez glasses. "In America, operative "Charles" is returning excellent information on a regular basis. We have details of the bomb's construction already in Kurchatov's hands, fabrication techniques, basic dimensions, things of that nature. Operative "Quantum" also continues to provide us with good information...specifically about recent testing, and how the bomb is to be shipped to the combat zone."

"Testing-?" Stalin mulled that over, chewing on the end of his moustache. "That must be what Truman was referring to. He said the Americans had recently completed a test. And _Pobeda_...what of _Pobeda_?"

"Major Vasily Kalugin has been overseeing the training of the combined assault teams at Spassk Dalniy. There are two teams, with about ten Japanese soldiers involved. There are also Japanese pilots ready to work with our Red Army pilots, using an American B-29 that an unfortunate crew unexpectedly delivered to us a few months ago. The faction in Tokyo that wants to fight on, fight to the death even, seems to have the upper hand now."

"Stupid fools," Stalin spat.

"The teams are ready to depart on their mission," Beria went on. "Only your final approval is needed."

"You have my approval, Lavrenti Pavlovich. Draw up the necessary orders with Zhukov here and I'll sign them now."

"You think Truman will use this new bomb against the Japanese?" Zhukov asked.

"Of course he will," Stalin told them all. He lay back on a couch, resting his head on the armrest and rubbed his eyes. "I would myself. He wants to intimidate us." The barest hint of a smirk came over his face. "But it won't work. We already know all about the bomb, don't we?"

"I'd like to know more," Zhukov muttered.

"And you will, Georgi Konstantinovich. I want a look at one of these big American bombs myself. When this war is over, whoever has these bombs will be able to dictate their wishes to the rest of the world." The smirk vanished, replaced by a feral scowl, a predator's squint.

"I will never allow our beloved _Rodina_ to be dictated to by Harry Truman."

The proclamation was finished the next day. In honor of the occasion, the Big Three gathered once again outside the palace in the formal gardens, arranged themselves to be seated in large overstuffed wicker divans and posed for pictures. The world would see three very different leaders before the popping of the flashbulbs and the whir of the newsreel cameras.

There was Joe Stalin in his white marshal's jacket and dark trousers, jovial and avuncular, a genial host by all accounts highly satisfied with the proceedings. His Red Army had already seized half of Europe and even as the men posed, were making off with spoils of war to re-capitalize Russia's shattered industries.

There was Winston Churchill, beaming, mugging for the photographers, with a few more wrinkles of worry than usual creasing his massive forehead. The news from Downing Street wasn't good and early election polls showed a good chance the Tories would be tossed from power at the very pinnacle of their success. For Churchill, it seemed the height of ingratitude, at the least.

And there was Harry Truman, the rookie in the center, a confidence buoyed by the knowledge that the war was nearly over and America had a fearsome new weapon in her back pocket. Truman had the sun beating down on his face, washing out his eyes behind their spectacles, but there was no mistaking the swagger of the new kid on the block.

Harry Truman chuckled as he thumbed through the photographs James Byrnes had just brought to him. The two men were on an early evening stroll through the landscaped grounds of the Little White House, through rows of linden trees and meticulously pruned hydrangeas and roses. Any stroll with Harry Truman was more a brisk walk than a leisurely pace and Byrnes had to hustle to catch up.

"From my expression, you'd think I was sitting on a thorn or something, Jimmy."

"It was the bright sun, Mr. President. The photographers didn't account for that when they took the pictures."

"All three of us are squinting." He handed the batch of photos back. "Makes us look kind of sinister, if you ask me. Bunch of Missouri politicians plotting schemes."

Byrnes re-pocketed the photos and withdrew a telex flimsy. "I also have a message here from General Groves."

Truman turned a sharp corner and doubled back along the gravel path to the mansion. He walked with an exaggerated arm swing, pumping his arms for extra effort. Byrnes eyed the Secret Service detail following at a discreet distance. The familiar face of George Drescher, head of the White House detail, led the team of three agents.

"What's the General want?"

"Actually, it's a request. He wants your authorization to begin final preparations to use the new bomb against the Japs."

Truman slowed slightly. "And the targets?"

Byrnes read them off. "Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki."

Truman's lips were tight, even though his brow was beaded with sweat. It was humid and fragrant in the garden and bees droned over their heads.

"We have enough bombs?"

Byrnes perused the message. "The General says here there are finished components for two devices ready to ship out. Components for a third and a fourth are now being assembled at Los Alamos."

"These bombs...how are they going to the Pacific, Jimmy?"

Byrnes explained the route. Henry Stimson had filled him in before the War Secretary had returned to the States.

"Basically the cores and the casings are going separately, for security reasons. Stimson said both sets are being trucked from Santa Fe to Albuquerque under heavy guard, to an air base there. Then they're flying separately to Hamilton Field, near San Francisco. They go by truck to Hunters Point and are loaded on board a Navy ship. I believe it's the _Indianapolis_ , sir. From that point, Tinian Island is about ten days sailing time."

Truman finally reached the veranda of the mansion and climbed the stairs. An Army mess sergeant was already waiting with a platter of iced tea and sweets. Truman mopped his forehead, selected a tall glass and found a couch to sit down. Byrnes did the same.

"I've been working on an announcement, Jimmy. Something I could write up ahead of time and have it released when the bombs are dropped." He pulled out a few damp pieces of paper from a shirt pocket. "I'd like your thoughts on it—" He handed the sheets to Byrnes.

"Certainly—if I may—" Byrnes pulled out his reading glasses and began to scan the President's scribbling.

Sixteen hours ago, an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. That bomb had more than two thousand times the blast power of the British 'Grand Slam' which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare.

It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July (TBD) was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders must accept this proposal. If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth. Behind this air attack will follow sea and land forces in such number and power as they have not yet seen and with the fighting skill of which they are already well aware...

Byrnes finished scanning the writing, stumbling a bit over Truman's illegible handwriting. "Strong words, Mr. President. Stirring words. You're planning to have this released after the first bomb is dropped?"

Truman nodded, sipping thoughtfully at his iced tea. His glasses were fogged from the exertion of the walk and he took them off, wiping them down with his handkerchief.

"I am. If I send it by pouch to Leahy, the White House can release it at the right time, regardless of where I might be. People need to know what to expect from us."

Byrnes needed something a little stronger than tea. "Are we ready for this, Mr. President? Is the world ready for this?"

"We don't have any choice, Jimmy. Every estimate I've seen about the casualties we can expect from Coronet and Olympic means thousands of American boys may die. If there's even a remote chance we can get the Japs to surrender without invading, I'd be foolish not to explore it. I keep thinking of all those mothers of sons out in the Pacific, on those ships, waiting for word to hit the beaches. Right now, their sons are still alive. A few months from now, if the Japs don't give up, General Marshall's going to be signing a helluva a lot of official condolences from Uncle Sam."

"I guess you're right. What about General Groves' request?"

"Get me some stationery, Jimmy. I'll handwrite my approval. As far as I'm concerned, Groves and his people—what's that unit he put together--?"

"The 509th Composite Group, I believe it is, sir."

"Right, the 509th. I'm authorizing them to conduct atomic strikes anytime weather and conditions permit after August 1."

Truman's lips were set. He glared at Byrnes with the bulldog tenacity the Secretary of State had come to expect from the man when his mind was made up.

For better or worse, Byrnes thought, the die was now cast.
CHAPTER 11

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Tuesday, July 24, 1945

6:30 p.m.

Wade Brogan knew it was high time he face the matter head on. He'd seen classified materials in Kate's shop and no...he hadn't imagined it. That had been almost two months ago. He'd tried intimidating Edvard Tolkach before he'd been picked up—and subsequently lost by the Detachment—putting the squeeze on the Czech physicist to avoid implicating Kate in any investigation. He'd phoned Kate a few times, watched her smiling and flirting with lonely GI's at the USO club at the train station, even been by the gift shop once, just for a short stay, just to keep up acquaintances. That had been two months ago.

Things had cooled off between them. There was no getting around it. Brogan blamed work. The pressure was getting to everybody. He'd spent long hours on the road, investigating security threats, following up leads, tracking down suspects, in surveillance operations. That was his excuse. He knew Kate didn't buy it, not a penny of it.

He wasn't even very good at fooling himself anymore.

_This is stupid_ , he told himself. After he and Skunky Merrill had done the final security run-through for the shipment of the Little Boy device...checked out the routes, the security arrangements at Kirtland, gone through the crew's files for the twentieth time, he'd made a decision.

Today, finally, he would stop by the Pueblo Gift Shop and confront Kate about what he had seen.

The afternoon sun was still blazing hot coming through the pine and pinon trees as he pulled up to the curb in front of the shop. The lights were on inside, but the CLOSED sign was already hanging in the front window. Kate liked to close up at five, unless she had customers in the shop.

Brogan got out of the car and went around the shop, through the breezeway, to her cottage behind. He hesitated a moment, then rapped loudly on the screen door. KSEM was playing some Duke Ellington tune on the radio and the sultry voice wafted through the mesh of the door.

Kate's face appeared behind the screen. She had cream on her cheeks and her hair was down, unpinned, loose at her shoulders. She was barefooted, wearing a white slip.

At first, she was startled, but Kate recovered and just stared out at the CIC agent, by turns exasperated and sympathetic. Her mouth made her little pout, which made her nose crinkle. Wade had always loved that.

"Well...you _could_ have called."

Brogan shrugged, kicked at imaginary dirt clods on the stone walkway. It was always swept clean.

"I didn't know if you'd be here. Sometimes...you know—you're at—"

"I know...the USO Club. I have a job there."

Brogan shrugged. With suspects, with traitors and enemy agents, he was famous around the Detachment for being direct, brusque, to-the-point. With Kate, he felt lost. He wanted to be lost with her.

"So can I come in? There's stuff...stuff we need to talk about."

Kate tossed her hair back. It was lightly damp, as if she had just come from the shower. Some of the spray came through the screen, hitting him in the face. It was scented, some kind of lilac fragrance. He'd smelled it before.

"I don't usually let strangers in my house."

"Kate—"

She unlatched the screen door and swung it wide. Brogan stepped through and in the blur of the moment, they were in each other's arms, hugging, squeezing hard. His lips were all over hers and she kissed him back hard. As one, they side stepped into the den and collapsed, half laughing in a heap on the sofa.

They kissed and groped for several minutes, enveloped in each other. Brogan tried to push her back into the sofa, to climb on top of her, but she resisted him and he finally stopped, took a deep breath and sat back, his hair tousled and khaki shirt half-unbuttoned. She tucked her legs under her as she straightened her own hair and giggled.

"What so funny?"

"Your tie, soldier...it's crooked—looks pretty sloppy for a GI."

Brogan grinned back at her and took the tie completely off, slinging it onto the floor. For good measure, he finished unbuttoning his shirt and slipped out of it, exposing his white chest, firm enough but not overly muscled, a blond thatch of chest hair sticking up like a rabbit's tail. Kate's eyebrows lifted as she stroked her hair dry.

"Think you're just some horny GI...gonna have your way with me, is that it?"

Brogan nodded, his eyes caressing every curve of her neck and shoulders. Already, the bulge in his own pants had become noticeable, a fact that had not escaped her attention.

"I see I have no choice in the matter...just give me a moment, soldier...I'm not through drying off yet—"

But she never got the chance.

They rushed together and rolled into the cool cushions of the sofa and in seconds, a white slip and a khaki uniform lay entwined in a heap on the floor, while their owners coupled with a hunger born of two months of separation.

Kate Wellesley and Wade Brogan lost track of time. How long they made love that night, neither could have said exactly. It was a time out of time, even beyond time, only sweat and groans and hard violent kisses and moans and long embraces and lilac scents and Old Spice and wet sloppy tongues mattered.

In time, they fell asleep in each other's arms, entangled like their empty clothes on the floor, arms locked in arms, tucked like children beneath light blankets against the cushions of the sofa.

A faint bell tolling in the distance finally penetrated the fog that had clouded Wade Brogan and he came awake, swimming lazily in that netherworld between sleep and the world of the upright. He lay there for how long he couldn't say, then with a start, realized Kate wasn't on the sofa anymore. He sat up, then heard the tolling again, and realized the sound had come from her wind chimes hanging just outside the cottage above the screen door, stirred into tinkling by a light breeze. It was dark outside, still apparently night, and breezy and the cottage was dark, save for a yellow glow in the kitchen.

Kate was in there, humming, and a gurgling sound told him the coffee pot was going. He stretched and got up, hunting through the pile for his clothes. He satisfied himself with his boxer shorts and shirt and trod barefoot into the kitchen, wearing half the uniform of a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army with his white underwear.

"How long have you been up?"

Kate turned and smiled back at him. Big earrings clinked as she turned around. They were her horse earrings; he'd given them to her for Christmas, at the USO dance. Her hair was pinned up into a pony tail, and she slid around the linoleum in furry slippers and a blue terrycloth robe, attending to scrambled eggs and bacon, while the coffee burbled and a stack of already browned toast lay on a plate readied to be buttered.

"A while, honey...not long. You slept like you were dead."

He smiled back, a bit ruefully. "Somebody wore me out last night."

Kate clucked. "I doubt that. You're just out of practice."

"And whose fault is that? You got a spare washrag and some toothpaste? My mouth feels like a desert."

"In the closet. I'm through in the bathroom...for the moment."

Wade Brogan went back to the tiny bathroom, groped around for a razor and some cream and shaved, then wet down his face and swished mouthwash. He toweled himself dry, then on a hunch, peeked into the closet outside the bath.

No wash pail there, no bins or boxes stuffed with papers. He remembered kicking the pail over in the coal cellar downstairs and gave some thought to wandering down into the dank basement but thought better of it.

He went back to the kitchen.

"Kate, whatever happened to that old wash pail you used to have? Wasn't it in the closet?"

For a moment, she didn't reply, but continued stirring eggs in the pan. Her lips tightened almost imperceptibly.

"Oh, that old thing? I probably threw it out last month...I was in a mood to re-decorate, you know. A girl's got to have new stuff once in awhile, even if there's a war on."

Brogan wasn't sure he believed any of that; it was more the way she said it. He sat down at the table, began buttering some toast, testing the coffee she had just poured for him. It was hot and black. He winced, added two sugar cubes and stirred. And decided there was no other way to get through this but to plunge ahead.

"Kate...honey...two months ago, I practically tripped on that wash pail downstairs, in the basement. When I looked into it, it was full of papers. Papers that you shouldn't have had around here. Some of them were marked classified...Army stuff. What the hell was that?"

At first, she didn't respond, but continued stirring the eggs. Her face darkened and she swallowed hard, then cleared her throat.

"You must be mistaken, Wade. I don't remember having any wash pail around here. If I did, it's gone. What's the big deal?"

Brogan wanted so much to believe that. "I practically fell down the stairs to the basement over it...remember?...all that noise."

Kate said nothing. She continued stirring the eggs, a little more concentration on her face.

"Kate...you've got to tell me what you were doing with all those papers...you shouldn't have that stuff around."

She poked at the eggs, taste-tested them. "You want yours runny or dry?"

Brogan came over to her, tried to hug her. She turned away.

"Why did you come over here anyway? You don't come for weeks, barely call, and then just show up?"

Brogan stood there, hands out. They looked like they didn't belong...he didn't know what to do with them.

"I had assignments. I had to be out of town. You know my job. Besides, you weren't exactly lonely, were you, all those soldiers at the USO Club. I've seen what you do over there, how you flirt—"

"That's _my_ job, for your information. The USO expects that. Oh, they don't say it in so many words, but that's what they expect—"

"Don't change the subject." Brogan inched closer. Kate stood her ground, wielding the spatula like a weapon. Hot grease popped onto her arm and she flinched.

"I don't know what you're insinuating," she said evenly. "It doesn't sound very nice." She tried a half smile, a forced smile. Hadn't they just made love not two hours ago? It seemed like a year ago now. "Look, I know you're under pressure. Everybody around here knows it. The job's tough...it's getting to you, taking over."

"Kate!" The way he said it made her jump. She dropped the spatula onto the linoleum. Brogan waved his hands, then willed them still, _stand at attention, mister_. "Kate—" he tried again, more softly. "Kate, I have to know."

"Why did you come here? You're imagining things, look at you: you're jumpy as a skittish cat. I have to tiptoe around my own home, so you won't fly off the handle. What papers are you talking about?"

Brogan wanted to strangle her. Was she right? Had he imagined them? No, dammit! He had _not_. He'd practically kicked that pail across the basement. Moreover, he'd suborned Edvard Tolkach into changing his testimony when questioned, he'd probably tampered with evidence, they could string him up on any number of charges.

No, he had most definitely not imagined seeing classified materials relating to the Project inside this cottage.

It was like there was a wall between them now. Somehow, he'd have to find a way through, over or around it.

"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about. Look, you know what I am...you know who I work for. If I have to, I can get a warrant, get this place searched...."

For the first time, Kate Wellesley looked at him square in the face. Her own face was...what? Hard... her high oval cheekbones sharp as knives in the pale light of the kitchen. Flushed? Her lips were fresh with red ruby lipstick, even at 3 am in the morning, quivering with fear, concern, anger, a flickering movie screen of feelings all playing out below her fine, upturned nose. Her hair was down, the remnants of Tuesday's crown still not combed out over her forehead. She tossed hair out of her eyes with a characteristic head snap; Brogan had always loved that, and glared back at him.

"Mister, before you go off getting all official and high and mighty on me, there's something you ought to know first—"

"What's that?"

She screwed up enough courage to say, "I think I'm pregnant."

Brogan at first didn't respond. When her words sank in, he stood there three feet from her face, in shock, confused into frozen paralysis. He stood there like a statue in white boxers and a khaki shirt, half-buttoned.

"What--?"

"You heard me. I went to the doctor two weeks ago. I was feeling nauseated a lot. He did some tests."

Brogan finally took a breath. "Pregnant? How—I mean...do you know--?"

A faint, condescending smile flashed across her lips. She picked up the spatula. "Oh, yes. I know. And you know too."

Brogan groped for a chair at the small wicker table and sat down. "I..it's...it can't be...I mean—" He was stunned. One minute before, he was all but accusing her of being a spy. Now, she was telling him...

She turned off the stove and brought the eggs over, scraping them out onto his plate. The bacon was next, and a fresh pot of coffee. Brogan watched numbly as she busied herself assembling the perfect breakfast—she was always perfect—and finally, she sat herself down in the opposite chair, her face elegant even in the harsh light of the kitchen, half-hidden behind a mason jar of marigolds she had picked only moments before. She regarded him coolly over a wreath of steam from her coffee.

"You look like you saw a ghost."

"Maybe I did. You're sure...I mean—"

"Yes...to both of the questions you're trying to ask. I'm pregnant. The doc called me Monday morning. And—" she forced a smile. "I guess you're going to be a daddy. If you want to be, that is—" Her voice choked on the last two words. Her eyes glistened and she hurriedly sipped at her coffee, determined not to be weak in front of her soldier man.

Brogan swallowed hard. All thoughts of subversive affiliations had evaporated. He knew perfectly well he had seen classified papers in this cottage. He knew, with a certainty he dared not plumb, that Kate was mixed up in something she shouldn't be. Hell, he'd already jeopardized his own career, maybe even the security of the United States, to keep official eyes away from her, to shield her, to protect her... _if you want to be, that is,_ she had said...the words echoing in his brain like catcalls from the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

"Kate...truly...I don't know what to say. It's good news, I guess, no—" he held up his hand, seeing the hurt on her face—"it _is_ good news, really, I mean that. We have some talking to do, about this. It's just...I don't know, all so much, so sudden."

"For me too," she said quietly.

Brogan half-laughed.

"What so funny?"

"I don't know. You, I guess. Somehow...when I'm around you...it's like I start off down one road and end up on another. And I don't know how."

"I guess that's love. Oh... _Wade Brogan_ —" she started to get up, hesitated, then _to hell with it_! stood up and came over, sitting on his lap. She threw her arms around his neck and they kissed, dribbling coffee and egg on each other's chins. "—what the hell am I going to do with you?"

"You want the baby, I suppose?"

"Hell, yes, I want the baby! Don't you--?" She gripped his chin with her hand, forced his eyes to meet hers. "Don't you?"

A slight nod, almost imperceptible. "Yeah...yeah, 'course I do. It's just—you know, the war, the Project...I'm gone all the time."

"We can work that out, can't we, honey?" she clung to him tightly, wrapping herself around him. "We can work through anything."

_Even dirty Japs and devious Russians?_ he wondered, but he didn't say that.

They finished breakfast, listened to Ella Fitzgerald crooning something on the radio, while Kate chatted happily about all that had to be done to prepare for the blessed event. Brogan half listened, in a blurry daze, thoughts of Edvard Tolkach and the bulging case files on suspected Soviet agents back at the 'log cabin' mixed in with images of diapers and long convoys hurtling down dusty roads and Kate's wash pail and the way her hair smelled so fresh after a shower and in the background, the throbbing red, white and purple mushroom cloud of Trinity surmounting it all, leering back at him like a demon now released into the world.

He mumbled things back to her that he hoped were right, at least encouraging, not really paying attention to the plans she was making for the coming weeks. She cried a little and he comforted her, then carried her into the bedroom and lay her gently down in bed, opening the windows to let the still-warm night breezes blow the lace curtains apart and swirl around in the room, rattling pearl necklaces hanging from a stand on her vanity. He turned the kitchen light off and joined her, and was soon fast asleep, a deep dreamless but restless sleep, telling himself as he drifted off that in the morning, he would awaken before Kate and give the cottage a good looking-over, every closet and every drawer, just to satisfy himself the papers were or were not here.

Now, he was no longer sure what he had seen.

It seemed only minutes later that Kate was hovering over him, shaking him awake.

"Wade...Wade...wake up—get up...there's a phone call. For you—"

"What—?" He stirred groggily, sat up on one elbow and rubbed sleep crystals from his eyes. "What—a call?"

"It's the phone. They're asking for you...somebody knew you were here—" She sounded worried.

He groaned and slid out of bed, padding into the den, where a table lamp was on and the phone off the hook.

"Hello—"

"Colonel Brogan...Dog, is that you?"

"I think so...who's this?"

"It's me, Merrill...I been looking for hours, trying to find you. Detachment's got a small army out trying to find you."

"Skunky..what the hell...what's going on—"

Merrill's voice was strained, tinged with worry. Even over the phone, Brogan could hear it.

"Bad news."

"What news?"

"Remember _Old Betsy_ , the plane we just checked out at Kirtland. The one carrying Big Fella?"

The hairs on the back of Brogan's neck stood up instantly. "Hey, Skunky, ain't this an open line? You know the rules about—"

"Forget that. Old Betsy went down three hours ago."

"Down? Down where?"

"Somewhere in Nevada, I heard."

The C-46 transport carrying the fissionable core of the Big Fella device had disappeared over the Nevada desert, and was presumed lost. Search crews were assembling at Nellis Field even now.

Blood drained from Brogan's face, just as Kate came over to the table. She placed a concerned hand on his shoulder, felt the tension building. He was now fully awake. "Christ Almighty...I'll meet you at the Detachment in an hour."

July 25, 1945

Near Tinian Island

9:10 a.m.

It felt good to Colonel Paul Tibbets to have his hands on the controls of a B-29 once again. The commander of the 509th spent most of his day in an office now, with luck managing to squeeze in some hangar time and still get in a few check rides in the Group's Superforts once or twice a week. Today, he'd commandeered Claude Eatherley's _Straight Flush_ for a little target practice on an unsuspecting spit of an island several hundred miles south. Actually the target was an unnamed coral reef shaped like a crooked finger just west of Rota, about an hour's flying time from Tinian's North Field.

He'd been hearing scuttlebutt around the hangar that _Straight Flush's_ Norden was acting up again—her bombing accuracy figures were beginning to slide-- and he decided to take the opportunity to "fly" a regular "pumpkin" mission and check her out. His right-seater today was Major Chip Burton, who was normally Eatherly's co-pilot on this aircraft. Loaded behind them in the forward bomb bay was yet another Pumpkin, the less-than-affectionate name the crews had given the dummy bomb they practiced with all the time.

For months, from Wendover Air Field in the States to the week the bombers had touched down at Tinian in mid-June, Tibbets had driven his crews hard and long to practice and perfect the oddball mission they'd been assigned...dropping the 10,000-pound, orange-colored pumpkin from 31,000 feet and then making a diving turn 135 degrees to starboard and running up the engines to get away from the drop zone as fast as possible. Day after day, they flew the same routine, until the men could practically fly the mission in their sleep, always aiming to hit their drops with less than half-mile accuracy and putting at least ten miles between them and the bomb in less than sixty seconds.

By the end of July, the wisecracks about the Colonel's sanity had become too numerous to ignore.

Tibbets chewed grimly on a toothpick as he gripped _Straight Flush's_ wheel. _Just a few more days, boys...a few more days and you'll know why we do this._ He patted the chest pocket of his life preserver and felt for a wadded-up piece of paper. On it, he'd been scribbling notes and phrases he intended to use when the time came. And it had apparently just come that very morning, for when Tibbets reported to the ready room to lay out the day's flight schedule, a staff sergeant had handed him a sealed envelope.

General Carl "Tooey" Spaatz was said to be on his way from the War Department in Washington. He'd left just yesterday. Tibbets was ordered to fly down to Guam on Sunday, the 29th, to receive operational orders for a new mission.

Tibbets had gone ahead with the day's briefing, saying nothing to the assembled crews about the letter. But in the back of his mind, he knew this was the big one. It was all beginning to make sense now. Last night, at the barbecue on the beach, the base commander himself had quietly advised him that a Navy cruiser, the _Indianapolis_ , was due to drop anchor off Tinian's west shore tomorrow.

"She's manifesting special cargo, Colonel," the commander had told him.

"Destination?"

"The 509th special ops area."

This had to be it.

Tibbets was about to get on the intercom and advise the crew to button up for their first bombing run on the coral reef when Chip Burton blurted out.

"Hey, Colonel...take a look...down there...about two o'clock—between those clouds—" Burton's fingers pointed off through a light cumulous deck to starboard, down to the ocean surface. "Is that what I think it is?"

Tibbets craned for a better look. After adjusting his eyes, he saw a faint wake on the ocean, barely visible, but unmistakably man-made.

"Looks like a sub...running on the surface...which way's he heading?"

Burton did some figuring. "I make it about zero eight oh degrees, almost due east. Is he one of ours?"

"Hard to say...from this altitude."

"You know, I heard some scuttlebutt from a Seabee the other day, about Jap subs still infesting these waters. Think we ought to drop down, take a closer look? If he's a Jap, we ought to call it in."

Tibbets knew he was right. But dammit! They had a mission to fly and _Straight Flush_ wasn't pulling her weight in the practice runs. There was little they could do anyway, loaded as they were with a bright orange dummy bomb.

"No...Chip, we'd better stay up here. Call it in anyway...give 'em our position and altitude and your best bearing."

"Will do, Skipper." Burton unstrapped himself to slide back to the navigator's table. "What I wouldn't give for a couple of thousand-pounders, though. I'm kinda tired of lugging these pumpkins around for joy rides."

"It's all for a purpose, Chip...all for a purpose." Secretly, Tibbets felt the same way. He wondered about that sub, taking another peek through the thickening clouds. He'd heard the same stories about Jap subs hunting unsuspecting auxiliaries and merchant bottoms in these waters, picking off stragglers late at night.

_I'd sure hate for some of our guys to get creamed by a sub we could have identified, if it is a Jap boat_.

He decided that after they made their drop, they'd circle back and drop down for a closer look, just to satisfy their curiosity.

"Hey, Chip, mark that bearing real good, will you? I think we'll circle around and do a little recon of that sub once we've made our run."

"You bet, Colonel."

They made the run in to the target site and tossed their pumpkin in good order. Tibbets made the escape turn and swung _Straight Flush_ around like she was a P-51, picking up speed in a shallow dive as he rolled them back to a northeasterly compass heading.

It wasn't the best drop in history, but Tibbets figured they'd put the orange dud within a mile of the calculated target point and on a windy morning like this one, that was good enough to clear the Norden of any guilt.

"Don't see how we could have come that close, Colonel--," said the bombardier Jude Tomkins from his prone perch in the nose of the aircraft, "—if the bombsight was biased."

"Me neither," Tibbets agreed. "Unless we're damned lucky. No, there's something else going on here. We'll have to make a few more runs, see if we can puzzle it out. Every plane's different. Every crew's different." _At least we're doing a damned sight better than we did back at Wendover,_ he thought to himself.

Groves and Parsons and the rest of the eggheads had always maintained inside a mile, better yet half a mile, was essential for the Special Bomb to have best effects.

"Want to go sub-hunting, Skipper?" Burton asked hopefully.

Tibbets nodded. He checked the fuel. More than fifty percent; they could have flown to Iwo and back with that kind of load. "We got plenty of gas. Swing us around to the last reported bearing. Curly, punch up the engines...give us eighty percent."

_Straight Flush_ accelerated in the cold, thin west Pacific air, droning off to the northeast, bearing toward a necklace of lacy clouds on the horizon that signified land ahead...the Marianas chain.

Forty minutes later, their luck held again.

"Bingo," crackled top gunner Ronald Stivic over the intercom. "Ship's wake ahead...real faint...eleven o'clock, off the port side...there's definitely something down there."

Tibbets lowered them smartly down to fifteen thousand feet and slowed, easing them onto a better heading to skirt some clouds and get good visibility. They smacked through several thunderstorm clouds and the plane rattled and shook like a wet dog. Then, in bright morning sunlight, they popped below the cloud deck and the dimpled surface of the Pacific Ocean shone bright and smooth, like a copper washboard.

Tibbets followed the faint wake like he was tracking a buck through thick low-country bush.

Burton and several other crewmen had their binoculars on the boat.

"Definitely a sub, Colonel...I make the bearing as zero seven two degrees, heading northeast."

That made Tibbets uneasy. _Right for Tinian Island_. They were still over a hundred miles away.

"Does it seem unusual to you, Chip...that an American sub would be operating in these waters, on the surface, on this heading?"

Burton nodded, "Does to me, Colonel. I'm not a squid or anything but I got a creepy feeling about this guy."

Then, even as they watched, the sub's lookouts must have spotted _Straight Flush_ , as the ocean began washing across her deck.

"She's diving!" Burton yelled.

"Mark the bearing," Tibbets ordered. "How far are we to Tinian?"

"I've got North Field tower on the air now, Colonel." Radioman Paul Prescott called up.

"Tinian's about eighty miles out, on this same bearing."

Tibbets was uneasy. "I've got a bad feeling about this guy. Tell North Field they'd better notify the Navy and fast."

Fifteen thousand feet below them, the Soviet submarine K-81, bearing Lieutenant Osaki and Major Simonets and the rest of the _Valiant Warrior_ assault team, had completely submerged. Only her periscope left a faint trace of a wake in the choppy waters. Moments later, even that had disappeared.

The cockpit crew said little as Tibbets executed a direct visual approach to Tinian's North Field. _Straight Flush_ bumped down onto the tarmac of the 10,000-foot runway and taxied toward the Lenox Avenue ramp on the northwest side of the island, where the 509th had its hangar and barracks, behind chain-link fences and sentries armed with M-1s.

Chip Burton was thoughtful as Tibbets maneuvered the 133,000-pound bomber to its final position. Ramp crewmen swung wheel chocks into place and Jeeps full of MPs drew up around the aircraft as, one by one, its engines were cut and the props spun down.

"Colonel, are we going to get to do any real bombing anytime soon? The men...well, sir—I mean--"

Tibbets knew what was coming. "Well, what--?"

"Well, sir, the men are taking a lot of ribbing down on Chinatown Strip, and at all the ball games and all. There's even a little ditty going around...frankly, it's kind of embarrassing."

Tibbets feigned concentration as he secured the aircraft. "I've heard it. Just ignore it. What's your point, Chip?"

Burton wet his lips, assisted with the post-flight checklist. "Well, sir, the men are just anxious for some real combat, real missions against a real enemy. We lose good men to this war everyday and the guys see that. They want to contribute. They don't think they're pulling their weight, what with all these "pumpkin" missions. They're champing at the bit to go kill some Japs."

"I know, I know. You just have to be patient."

Tibbets followed Burton and the rest of the birdcage crew down the cockpit ladder and dropped onto the concrete. Both men stretched a bit. The crew gathered around as Burton tried to press home the point.

"When are we going to know something, Colonel?"

Tibbets felt the same way. "Fellas, I'm sympathetic to all your bitching and griping. Really, I am. For your information, I've been ordered to fly down to Guam this Sunday. I don't know the exact reason. But General Spaatz is coming all the way from Washington for a briefing. I don't think the Army would send Tooey Spaatz without good reason."

That set off a round of murmuring. "Something's got to be up, Skipper," said Prescott. "It doesn't make sense otherwise."

Tibbets agreed. "You'll get your chance soon enough, boys. Unofficially, I _can_ tell you one thing: the special devices we'll be carrying on our real missions are already on their way."

July 24, 1945

Near Tonopah, Nevada

5:55 p.m.

Colonel Doyle Delaney knew there was a problem when the flight engineer swore under his breath. He'd just instructed Lieutenant Skip Bosko to transfer fuel from auxiliaries to the main tanks, so _Honeybee One_ would have enough gas to make the Nevada-California leg of her flight. Old Betsy, call sign _Honeybee One_ , was bearing critical cargo to Hamilton Field...the active parts of a new bomb the engineers all referred to as Big Fella. He didn't want to run out of gas west of Tonopah. There was nothing but bleak moonscape-like desert for hundreds of miles after they made the turn there.

But Bosko's cursing made the whole cockpit crew sit up and take notice.

"What's going on?" Delaney asked over the intercom. He turned slightly in his seat; at the engineer's station, Bosko was ripping through switches left and right.

"I don't know, Colonel...something's happened to the transfer circuit. I've got no juice."

"No juice...what the hell does that mean?"

"It means all the fuel's still in the auxiliaries. I've got port auxiliary open but the starboard one's stuck."

Two minutes later, the starboard Pratt and Whitney radial coughed, sputtered and died off, starved of fuel. The prop spun down and began windmilling in the airstream.

That's when Doyle Delaney knew Bosko wasn't kidding.

"How much fuel we got left, Skip?"

"Half an hour, maybe more, Colonel...I'm trying everything I can think of." Bosko even unscrewed a panel cover and poked around in the dark through wires and cables, hunting for the problem.

Shit.

Delaney decided he'd better call in their predicament. They'd already passed Nellis Field but the tower might still be in range.

"Morris—" he raised the radioman on the intercom—"get Nellis back on the line, will you? Tell 'em we got a problem...we may have to put down somewhere—"

"Roger that, sir," came the reply.

_Honeybee's_ co-pilot was Major Paul Lannigan. "Lanny" had already pulled out the charts. "I'll see if there's a field anywhere around here."

Delaney was biting his lip as he cranked in extra yaw on the rudder, compensating for the loss of _Honeybee's_ starboard engine. He'd be damned if a critical mission like this one was going to go south on his watch.

Delaney studied the forbidding terrain below them. To the west, the blood red flanks of the Monte Cristo range marched off toward a dusty sunset. Behind them, the Monitor Range caught the last spears of fading light in the hard desert air. Directly below them, twenty-two thousand feet below to be exact, the rutted and dusty ribbon of Highway 6 switched back and forth across a sere and desolate valley floor.

_Not a hell of a lot of places to set Old Betsy down_ , he muttered to himself. Maybe if they kept the highway in sight, they might be able to find a strip of land flat and long enough to deadstick the 45,000-pound transport in to some kind of survivable landing.

"Morris, you got Nellis yet?" Somehow, someway, they had to call the problem in. _Honeybee_ was bearing cargo critical to the war and they had a tight schedule to make Hamilton Field by midnight tonight.

"Scratchy and fading in and out...I told 'em we might have to put down. I'm not sure if they got it."

"Okay, keep trying...and then start putting Maydays out, all frequencies."

'Yes, sir—"

That's when Old Betsy's portside engine quit.

Delaney took a deep breath, got on the intercom and told the rest of the crew the obvious.

"Okay, guys...listen up. Somehow, we can't transfer fuel from our auxiliaries. Engineer's still working on it...but right now, we're one big glider and we're heading down. There's relatively flat land along a highway directly below us, so I'm going to follow it for awhile, then circle and try to put us down on or next to it. Get squared away for a crash landing...and secure the cargo the best you can."

He wasn't real sure what would happen to Big Fella if the plane made a hard landing. The ordnance people from Los Alamos had been evasive on that minor detail. He really would have preferred not to find out too. But that was no longer possible.

_Honeybee_ sank steadily on her hundred-foot wings, an eerie whistling filling the cargo hold and cockpit now that both engines had quit. The air was still and Delaney found he could hold her in a shallow glide for long stretches of time. The tawny brown tableland of the desert below came up fast and they were soon slipping under a thousand feet, and dropping fast. Delaney got Lanny's help shallowing out the dive, while he scrutinized the ground for a level patch. There—beyond a small hillock at ten o'clock—that was about as good a patch as they seemed likely to find. There was no more time to look.

Lanny agreed and they banked left to line up the makeshift landing strip as best they could judge it.

Down and down _Honeybee_ went, plummeting at a steeper angle, as Delaney dropped her gear. The bogies would likely collapse before they'd rolled very far but it might cushion the impact for a critical few seconds. He wanted to do everything he could to protect their cargo for as long as he could.

The C-46 slammed onto the ground and immediately pitched nose-first, as her portside gear collapsed. The torque put them into a flat ground spin and the aircraft began sliding and cart wheeling through sand and dirt and rocks, metal rending all around them. The crew were thrown violently against their straps and something cracked a forward window, sending glass shards flying like missiles. A wing snapped and their spin increased, then just as the body of the aircraft started to roll, it was stopped by the impact of the remaining wing against an outcrop of rock and the entire aircraft ground and shuddered to a wrenching halt, half-buried in sand, several dozen yards off Highway 6.

" _Everybody out_!" Delaney yelled, as he frantically unstrapped himself. He stepped aft and nearly fainted from pain as his leg gave way. He glanced back at his right ankle as Lanny helped him down the ladder. It was twisted wrong, and swelling fast.

"My ankle—"

"Hold on, Colonel...hold on...we got you—" Lanny's arms maneuvered him over the hatch and down he went, into more arms, Bosko's and Morris'. They half –carried, half dragged him away from the smoldering wreckage of Old Betsy, over a mound of dirt and into a dried-up arroyo nearby. The rest of the crew seemed all right, as, one by one, they staggered and fell into the arroyo.

"Is she gonna blow?" someone asked.

They peered over the lip of the bed at what was left of Old Betsy. Minus her portside wing and half her rudder, she looked like a silvery junk heap, but there was no flame, though fuel vapors were thick in the air.

"I don't know, but we better stay here for now...'til the vapors disperse."

"What about the cargo, Colonel? " Lanny asked. He was nursing cuts and lacerations to his face and neck. "What happens if she blows...will that stuff cook off too?"

"Hell if I know—"

"Hey—"a crewman yelled out. Two crewmen stood up and began waving. "It's a truck...two of them—" Farther back down the highway to the east, backstopped by the sheer basaltic cliffs of the Monte Cristo, a rooster tail of dust was visible. Two vehicles were making their way westward, heading toward their position.

The crewmen slipped and clawed their way up the embankment to the highway, to wave, trying to flag down the trucks as they approached.

Delaney figured they needed to get word back to Kirtland that Old Betsy had gone down. If their cargo had survived the landing, it would have to be removed and trucked or flown on to Hamilton Field. He scrambled up the bank and waved with the rest of them.

About half a mile from the crash site, the two trucks stopped. A dozen or so men disembarked, gestured at _Honeybee's_ crewmen, conferred among themselves and began approaching the downed airmen, walking line abreast through scrub and acacia bushes. At some unseen signal, the truckers began spreading out, a few of them moving off to the south, to approach from another direction.

"Who are these guys anyway?" Lanny asked, squinting in the hard sunlight.

"Ranchers, probably—"someone said.

"Armed with M-1's?"

Sure enough several truckers were picking their way through the brush, carrying assault rifles. The group that had detached itself and moved south was working their way across a series of dry gullies. Still several hundred yards away, they stopped at a massive boulder, seeming to wait for something. The remaining truckers continued a deliberate approach along the edge of the highway, wary and alert. One of them hung back, climbed a low rise off the highway and seemed to scout for any traffic coming along the road. There was none.

Delaney moved out and waved them forward. " _We've got injured up here...our plane went down...hard landing...can you—"_

They didn't look like truckers and they didn't look like ranchers. Several had oriental features. Chinese, maybe? Or—

The 'truckers' stopped a hundred yards away. Delaney now saw that most of them were armed, and with military-issue weapons from the looks of it. He urged them on.

"Can you help us please...we've got injured...I need to get a message back to my base—"

One man stepped to the front. He was short and muscular, with a rusty crewcut and prominent scars along the left side of his chin. He called out in heavily-accented English.

"Your plane...it is a military plane--?"

Delaney nodded. _What was it about this guy_? "Army Air Forces. Our fuel pumps froze and we ran out of gas." In the back of his mind, Delaney had dubbed the fellow Bluto...he looked like Popeye's nemesis, with his massive forearms.

'Bluto' came forward cautiously. Behind him, the truckers had spread out, their weapons ready. Delaney had the impression these were no ordinary truckers, or ranchers. From their movements, the way they handled their weapons, they acted like a squad of trained soldiers.

"What is in the plane?"

_Nothing you need worry about, pal_. Delaney mentally ticked off _Honeybee's_ cargo manifest: a fifteen-foot, three-hundred pound wooden crate with bomb parts for Big Fella and a lead-lined box, about two feet high and eighteen inches long, inside of which was the plutonium sphere for the bomb's core.

"Spare parts, mostly," he lied. "We were bound for California." He had already told 'Bluto' more than he should. "We need help with our injured. Is there a hospital around here? Maybe a Western Union office?"

'Bluto's face seemed to come to a decision. He hand-waved his men forward and the truckers closed the distance, shouldering their weapons and gathering to help the most critically injured of the crewmen. While Delaney and two of them fashioned a makeshift litter from life vests tied together, 'Bluto' and a stout man with tiny slit eyes and oriental features wandered across the wreckage toward the still-smoldering fuselage of _Honeybee_. Using some broken wing spars, they pried open the portside cargo hatch, buckled from impact and hanging by its hinges, and peered inside. What they saw interested them very much. The oriental man became visibly excited. 'Bluto' surveyed the scene for a moment, as his men helped load the injured onto litters, or bandage open wounds.

Beyond the crash site, Highway 6 was empty, falling into deep shadows as the afternoon sun slid lower behind the burnished peaks of the Monte Cristo range. The skies were deep blue, no aircraft in sight. Vasily Kalugin, known to Colonel Delaney informally as 'Bluto', knew from the maps that the nearest town east of them was Tonopah, a good half an hour ride over the rutted, dusty road. West was Coaldale, perhaps thirty miles. And to the south, along the narrow pike the maps called Highway 265, miles and miles of hard desert caliche giving way to salt marshes and empty wasteland as Nevada's Esmeralda County merged over the state line with Death Valley, California.

_Aptly named_ , thought Kalugin. _It is a bleak place, this Nevada, fit for nothing but scorpions and snakes._ His eyes narrowed when Toronaga made a quick hand gesture to some of the Sacred Sword squad: _fan out!_ g _et in position!_ _quickly_! When Colonel Delaney saw them peering inside the cargo hold, he immediately came over to protest.

"Fellas, that's classified in there. Look, could we maybe borrow one of your trucks, get the worst of the injured back to the nearest—"

But Doyle Delaney never finished his sentence. His words hung in mid-air, while one of Toronaga's men, a corporal named Matsumoto pumped five rounds into the American colonel's back with a Tokarev pistol.

The next few moments were a blur of shots, shouts and screams, staccato bursts from M-1's set on auto and flashing knives. When the melee was done, _Honeybee's_ crewmen lay dead or dying up and down the banks of the arroyo. Sacred Sword had done its work with dispatch and deadly efficiency.

Moments later, the two trucks roared up and screeched to a halt just above the shallow valley where Old Betsy had come to rest. More men got out, the rest of the assault team.

Vasily Kalugin didn't know exactly how the planners of Operation _Pobeda_ had arranged for this particular aircraft to go down in this remote spot in the American desert. Perhaps, as Kleptomanov had said at Spassk Dalniy, there were other agents and operatives inside America, working on the same operation. Whatever they had arranged had worked to near perfection. The Swords had made only a short ride up from Las Vegas to the general coordinates predicted and it was one of Topanga's men who had seen the plane in trouble, descending rapidly out of the sky. Whether fate or planning or sheer luck, Kalugin couldn't say. As a matter of practice, the _spiritsy_ of the 20th Diversionary Brigade didn't believe in luck. But this—surely Josef Vissarionovich himself would smile at this.

But enough congratulations...they had work to do.

Toranaga supervised the awkward removal of the heavy crate from _Honeybee's_ cargo hold, barking at his men in guttural Japanese to _hurry up, keep moving, don't drop the thing, watch your step!_ Ever inventive, the Japanese had fashioned a heavy-duty pallet from pieces of fuselage and managed to push, pull and roll the crate across the arroyo and up to the roadside, like Egyptian slaves building Pharaoh's pyramid. Hoisting the thing into the back of the truck was another matter but a pulley and tackle arrangement brought along for the purpose helped out.

While that was going on, Kalugin oversaw the careful removal of the lead-lined box. It was small in dimension, made of pine boards on the outside, sheeted with lead on the inside, and surprisingly heavy. His own men had fashioned a sort of litter made of lengths of pipe from _Honeybee's_ engine cowling, strapped together with cord.

Carefully, they backed out of the hold and ferried the box up to the nearest truck. By the time the box was in the back, secure under a heavy canvas tarpaulin, the heavier crate had been shoved into the back of the other truck and made fast.

Kalugin made a quick search with Toranaga and several others inside the plane's cargo space, searching for other cargo. A few other small metal trunks were located and removed. The plane was lightly loaded but Kalugin knew what she had been carrying was critical to the war all the same.

"That seems to be all of it, comrade," he said to Toranaga.

The Japanese _shosa_ grunted, squinting against the glare at the road and the skies. Both were empty. "We should leave now. While we still can...the Americans are sure to send a search party in here."

Kalugin snorted. "Have you no interest in this most scenic part of your mortal enemy's homeland?"

Toranaga snorted. "I have only interest in completing the mission of the Sacred Sword. As should you—"

Kalugin had long enjoyed needling the brusque Japanese marine. It was like poking a stick at a rabid dog, just to get him foaming more. He dropped to the ground from _Honeybee's_ portside wing and went to the lifeless form of the American colonel, bending over Doyle Delaney's blood-spattered body. He rifled through the colonel's pockets, pulled out a wallet and clucked approvingly at the pictures of Delaney's sweetheart, soon to be a war widow back in Tennessee. He removed a few bills of paper currency from the wallet, and stuck them in his own pocket. They might be useful in the days ahead.

Sacred Sword had a long way to go to cross the border. Kalugin knew Toranaga was right, though he hated giving the _shosa_ credit for that. They had best be getting underway. Still, he lingered at the crash scene, while the rest of the men boarded their trucks.

This America was a curious place. They had entered the country near San Diego, driven across the southern Mojave and found themselves following a dying airplane across as bleak and lifeless a landscape as he had ever seen. Now, they would head south again, this time for Mexico, and rendezvous, with any luck, with the Valiant Warrior team along a sparsely inhabited stretch of the Baja coast.

There seemed to be little evidence anywhere he had seen of the greater war beyond America's borders. The small dusty towns, the narrow roads of broken asphalt, the farms and ranches and orange groves, looked as if they had existed forever, little touched by the fascist holocaust that had engulfed all of Kalugin's world. He wondered: _should I come back to America_? It was a vast country, certainly there were great cities and rivers and forests beyond what he had glimpsed from the truck. What kind of place was it, really? Could he be at home here?

Vasily Kalugin took a deep breath. For years, he wasn't sure he could be at home anywhere. Most of his adult life, he had spent behind enemy lines. Was this any different?

Was he behind enemy lines now?

Or was he home, and didn't yet understand it?

Toranaga's voice interrupted his thoughts.

" _Shosa_ Kalugin...are you daydreaming? We have a mission to complete—"

In another time and place, Kalugin would have garroted the smug little Japanese officer with pleasure. For now, though, he knew Toranaga was right. His own superiors had decided he would collaborate with the pigs, steal America's deepest secret and make it available for study.

But when the time was right, Kalugin thought, as he swung himself onto the running board of the accelerating truck, he would dispatch Toranaga with the same ruthless pleasure he had felt welcoming so many fascists to the infernal regions, and take his chances with this America.

The small convoy roared westward along Highway 6 for another half an hour, encountering no one, then turned left onto Highway 265 and the trackless wastes of the open desert. They would keep to the back roads and long-forgotten trails of Nevada and California for the rest of the journey south into Mexico.
CHAPTER 12

July 25, 1945

Santa Fe, New Mexico

11:00 p.m.

Edvard Tolkach dumped his bags in the trunk of the taxi and climbed in. It was just nicely dark and Kate Wellesley had made sure the shop and her cottage were dark as well, though he knew she was likely looking on from a window.

"That it, mac?" asked the cabbie. He was swarthy, Mediterranean by the looks of it, and smacking gum.

"That is all...yes, no more." Tolkach settled back in the seat. He had lit and doused several cigarettes, fumbling with matches, until he gave up, his nerves shot to hell. Tonight would be the night.

Tonight was the night that Edvard Tolkach would die.

The cabbie climbed in, wrote something on his dispatch sheet, then took a long look in the mirror at Tolkach. Their eyes met. The cabbie half-laughed, then fired up the dark green Chevy and pulled out into light traffic, heading for Old Pecos Road and the turnoff to Cerrilos.

"Don't worry, pal. You look like you just saw a ghost. I'll get you where you need to be." The cabbie snickered and Tolkach wondered if he had done everything the way _WINDWARD_ had specified:

... _arrange for a taxi at 2300 hours, 25 July...Fox Cab Company...ask for driver number five...there will be an accident—_

The question was: was this driver number five?

_WINDWARD_ had assured him the subterfuge was necessary. _You've been a true friend of the Soviet Union. Not to worry...we'll get you out...you'll come out through Seattle, then into Canada..._

Tolkach closed his eyes. He didn't know the details of how the 'accident' was to be staged. He didn't want to know.

They rode for ten minutes through an industrial area of east Santa Fe, street after street of metal sheds and buildings, then through a middle-class residential quarter, before turning south onto Cerrilos, paralleling the tracks. Soon, the semi-gothic edifice of the train station flashed by. The cabbie seemed to know where he was going. From the dashboard, the radio crackled from time to time, the dispatcher directing taxis to all parts of the city for pickups.

Tolkach couldn't relax. Every intersection they came to, every car and truck that came near made him flinch, and he wondered. Was this it? Was this how it was to happen? _WINDWARD_ had given no details. Perhaps that was better.

The impact when it came, startled him all the more. A delivery truck sideswiped them as the cab made a lane change near the intersection with St. Michaels. The cabbie swerved, slowed down, then deliberately ran them into a gully along the side of the road.

"Hang on!" he yelled back. "I'm putting us into that fence ahead—"

Tolkach barely had time to brace himself. He raised his arms to shield his face, and held his breath. It wasn't a jarring impact, more of a rattling thump-bump. The taxi careened on its right-side wheels for a moment, then shuddered and slid fully over on its right side, the metal grinding into the sandy soil. Tolkach fell into the door, which sprung open, but was pinned closed by contact with the ground.

They slid for a hundred feet, then came to a rest against a fence post, with the bent metal post of someone's mailbox hanging incongruously over the windows. Even in the faint moonlight, he could make out the name: _Watkins_.

Tolkach finally took a breath.

The cabbie wheeled around and peered into the backseat. "You okay, mac? I tried to make that as soft a landing as possible."

Tolkach had a sore shoulder from being thrown against the door, but he was otherwise unhurt.

"Okay..." he gritted out.

"Super...just sit still for awhile. Ambulance should be along any minute. I'm supposed to be seriously injured."

"And what of me?"

"You...you're dead, pal. Dead as dirt."

The ambulance pulled up five minutes later, timed almost to the second. It's flashing red lights strobed the ground and gully with syncopated pulses of light, while radios barked in the still-hot late evening air. Tolkach waited impatiently, rubbing his shoulder, anxious to get out of the sweltering wreckage.

A face peered in the side window of the overturned taxi. It was a young blond man, thin moustache twitching like a curious rabbit...an emergency technician from the ambulance.

"You...you're okay?"

Tolkach nodded.

"Dr. Edvard Tolkach?"

"Yes, that's correct—"

The technician tugged and pulled at the door, which was jammed, then with help manage to wrench it open. He extended a hand. "Here, let me help you up...step on that tunnel down there...you can climb up—"

Tolkach worked himself up and out of the cab and stood on the side of the road in the glare of the flashing lights. A litter lay on the ground, holding another body, a pale, lifeless body with a white shirt and dark jacket soaked in red...was that blood? It wasn't the cab driver. Who was it?

"Over here, Doctor—" a voice called to him. It was another vehicle, unmarked, sitting on the side of the road, its engine running, behind the ambulance. A man he didn't recognize beckoned him on. While Tolkach retrieved his bags from the ambulance technician, the cab driver was sitting propped against the cab bumper, having something applied to his face. "—quickly, if you please. We've got to leave the scene."

Tolkach hustled off in the direction of the voice, but not before stopping to watch as the ambulance technicians hoisted up the lifeless body from the litter and eased it into the open door he had just emerged from, putting the body into the backseat of the cab. For a moment, the face of the corpse caught the light of the ambulance headlights. Tolkach froze.

It was him. It was...but it wasn't.

"It's a body double, Dr. Tolkach," Hands pulled him forward, out of the light, toward the waiting sedan. "You're a dead man now. Come on, please—"

Tolkach stopped at the rear door of the car before getting in, squinting to get a look at his rescuer.

He was thin, almost frail, a gray fedora pulled low over a forehead creased with worry. His face was birdlike, with a sharp upturned nose, fine lips and shallow, almost sunken cheeks. He regarded Tolkach with impatience.

"My name's not important. But I've got a job to do." For a second, the hard planes of his cheeks relaxed. " _WINDWARD_ sent me. Don't worry—I'll see you get away."

Though he seemed gaunt, even frail, his grip was surprisingly strong. He shoved Tolkach toward the door and the Czech physicist half-fell into the back seat. His luggage followed him into the seat and the door was slammed shut. Birdy climbed in the front seat and threw the car into reverse, squealing on the asphalt as he jerked backward out onto Cerrilos and swung them around.

"Please stay down, Dr. Tolkach. Keep your head down and out of sight. You're dead now. And the Army's got spies all over the place."

Tolkach did as he was told.

They drove for many minutes—in what direction, Tolkach couldn't say. The lights of the city fell behind and the dark suffocating cloak of a mid-summer desert night descended over the road. Tolkach cautiously sat up, saw the highway sliding at high speed beneath the cones of the front lights. Birdy was hunched over the wheel, deep in concentration. For a few moments, he wondered if he had been kidnapped. Perhaps, _WINDWARD_ had arranged for him to disappear in the middle of nowhere.

In time, Birdy seemed to notice him in the rear-view mirror. By the faint light of the dashboard, he seemed reptilian and menacing, yet a faint smile came to his lips.

"Albuquerque."

Tolkach cleared his throat. "I beg your pardon?"

"You were going to ask me where we're going. We're headed for Albuquerque. This is kind of a back road, not used very much. It's Highway 10. We just left the city."

Tolkach said nothing for a few minutes. The finality of the moment hit him. No longer was he a physicist in T Division, working on shock wave equations. No longer was he a fugitive from the Army's investigators, a suspected traitor and foreign agent. Now he was dead, or so the plan went.

"What happens after Albuquerque?"

Birdy shrugged. "Not my department. I'm to drop you off at a house in Albuquerque...that's all I know."

Tolkach thought about that. "What happens there?"

Birdy was impatient with his passenger. "Like I said, I don't know."

Tolkach was growing uneasy with the whole business. How much could he really trust _WINDWARD?_ The man was Russian, after all. And Birdy—the truth was Birdy could stop anywhere along this desert highway and dispatch him with ease. The authorities wouldn't find his body for days. Tolkach shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He really hadn't worked all this out with the Russians, had he?

No, the thing to do was go back to Santa Fe. Find _ACORN_ , find Kate Wellesley. There was safety in her company. She might yet be willing to come along. After all, she was as mixed up in this as he was, more perhaps. It made sense.

"Driver, take me back to Santa Fe."

At first, Birdy didn't respond. Tolkach leaned forward, poked him in the shoulder.

Birdy flinched, concentrated on the light cones illuminating the highway. They were flying; Tolkach caught a glimpse of the speedometer: nearly eighty.

More insistent. "Turn the car around. Take me back to Santa Fe."

Birdy's lips tightened. They seemed to be speeding up. "My instructions are to get you to a safe house...corner of Wyoming and Central. No stops or detours. That's all I know."

"Whose instructions are that?"

"You know who."

He supposed it was the Russian. "I've changed my mind. I need to get back to Santa Fe."

"You'll have to do better than that."

"I'm serious...there's something I left. It's critical...to the project. _WINDWARD_ needs it."

Mentioning Kostelnikov's name made Birdy flinch slightly. The car slowed noticeably. "It's dangerous...too dangerous. You might be seen."

"It's night, for God's sake, man. I've got to—look, just turn us around. It'll only take an hour or two...the way you drive this thing."

Birdy checked his watch. He slowed some more. "We don't have much time. You have to be at the house by 0200 hours, at the latest. What the hell do you need to go back to Santa Fe for?"

Tolkach decided to be honest. " _ACORN_ wants to come with me."

Birdy shook his head, a slight almost imperceptible nod. "I don't know the name."

" _WINDWARD_ does. She has critical information. And she's in danger."

"He didn't say anything about it."

Tolkach was exasperated. "Maybe he forgot to tell you. But _I'm_ telling you—turn the car around now and go back."

Birdy calculated the impact on their schedule. Be at the safe house by 0200 hours, a few hours to alter _QUANTUM's_ appearance, get packed and get him off to the train station by 0700 hours. He didn't know it yet, but Edvard Tolkach had tickets on the _Prairie Express_ to Denver that very morning.

'I don't know about all this—"

Tolkach was becoming impatient. "Look, every moment you delay takes us farther away."

Birdy slammed on the brakes and their tires squealed, ripping long black skid marks on the highway. They swerved to a stop. Birdy leaned over the back of the seat, glared at the Czech physicist.

Tolkach's expression said everything. " _ACORN_ has to come with me. It was part of the agreement." That was lie but Birdy didn't need to know it.

"I don't like it. Why didn't he tell me?"

"Ask him yourself, sir. You know how _WINDWARD_ is...everything isolated. Nobody knows anybody's identity. It's for protection."

Birdy smirked. "Yeah... _his protection_." He made up his mind. "You know where this person lives?"

"I do. Off of Alameda, on the east side of town. Right behind a gift shop."

Birdy mulled over what Tolkach was asking. It wasn't part of the plan; he was sure of that. Get _QUANTUM_ to the safe house, then to the train station. That was the plan. Why the hell did he want risk everything to go back? Had he been doubled? Was he leading them back into a trap? He finally looked up at Tolkach, at the fierce eyes, the shock of gray-white hair, the goatee that need trimming. The man was a cocked weapon, ready to go off at the slightest shake.

Judgment said no. Good field craft and common sense practice said no. You didn't change plans like this on a whim. They were worked out in detail, timed to the minute. Deviations meant disaster. _WINDWARD_ knew what he was doing. He knew perfectly well what was at stake. Still--

"Okay," he said, though he wasn't sure why. Some sixth sense about Tolkach, maybe. Unease about _WINDWARD_ , about the Russian's motives. He'd hung others out to dry before. Birdy turned the car around, not easily on the narrow highway. Soon, they were topping eighty again, heading northeast into the dark night, the tires thrumming on the asphalt. Rain drops began to spatter on the windshield, big drops, heralding a storm. They could both see veins of lightning dancing along the crown of the Bernalillo Hills.

Tolkach sank back in the seat, imagining to himself what he would say to Kate. _You're at risk. You'd better get out while you can. The Army suspects you too_. Really, what could he say that hadn't already been said?

Why _did_ he want Kate to come along? Making a break would be so much easier alone.

He wondered as they sped through the rainy night back toward Santa Fe how the rest of the operation was going.

Wednesday, July 25, 1945

Tinian Island, the Marianas

7:30 p.m.

Major Anatoli Simonets winced as he tried a sip of the fiery American drink. A gathering of officers filled the Coral Club, as Colonel Kent Duggan plied his Russian guests with liquid hospitality from the base's favorite watering hole.

"It's called a Manhattan," Duggan suggested.

Simonets screwed up a look of disgust as he swallowed the concoction. "Perhaps this is used for fuel for your planes, no?"

Chuckles and laughs erupted around the bar and among the palm trees of the open-air club. The Coral Club faced Unai Dankalu beach a few hundred yards away, where smoking barbecue pits gave off billowing clouds of smoke before a hissing turquoise surf.

Tonight's bartender, Lieutenant Joiner, smirked. "Of course, we juice it up a little out here in the islands, don't we, boys?"

A chorus of agreement came back. Simonets nodded to his comrade, Captain Semyon Yerevan. "With this, the enemy has no chance at all—" He swallowed a another few fingers in an audible gulp. Sweat had broken out on his forehead.

Duggan checked his watch. "Better get going, fellas. The show'll be starting at the drive-in in half an hour."

Simonets and Yerevan had come to the Marianas as official guests of the U.S. Army Air Forces, and Duggan was their host, and chaperon. Ostensibly to exchange information on tactics and intelligence about their common enemy, Duggan's real job was to showcase the massive American buildup in the Marianas and impress upon the Russians that the Americans were fully capable of defeating the Japs on their own. It was common knowledge that old Joe Stalin would be declaring war on Japan any day now. It was also common knowledge that the Americans would do everything in their power to smash Japan into surrender before the Russians could bite off any pieces of her empire, the way they had in Europe.

Duggan had worked out an itinerary for the two Russians that would keep them busy with ceremonies, and parties and conferences without really revealing anything. _Tonight was hospitality night_ , he told himself, as he sheparded the Russian officers toward a waiting jeep. A few rounds of drinks, a big dinner followed by more drinks, a movie at the outdoor theater up by 110th Street—Tinian had been laid out by the Seabees in a vast grid, something like a tropical Manhattan...there was even a Broadway down the middle of the island—that should pretty well shoot the whole evening, Duggan figured.

Then a visit tomorrow to the hangar complex at North Field to watch the salvo takeoffs of the dawn missions up north, a few more conferences, lunch and more sightseeing around the twelve-by-six mile island, and he could wash his hands of these jokers once and for all and get back to business. Business, in the case of Kent Duggan, was flying. Flying a B-29 named _Simply Suzie_ back and forth to the Japanese Home Islands and bombing the bejeezus out of the enemy.

Simonets and Yerevan squeezed into the backseat of the Jeep and Duggan waved the driver on. A second jeep, filled with MPs, followed not so discreetly behind— _we've still got nests of Japs around the island,_ Duggan had explained, and _they like to take occasional potshots at the current landlords._

The caravan pulled out of the mess area, surrounded by barracks and the palm-fringed Coral Club and sped north on a coral-topped highway called Broadway, past acres of tents and Quonset huts. Duggan pointed out a few sights, yelling over the wind.

"That's West Field!—" he pointed off to their left. Through the cane fields and low scrub, the Russians spied an endless plain of hangars and aircraft revetted off the ramps into individual parking spots, surrounded by low sand hills.

Simonets' eye was caught by a glimpse through the palms of a series of low bunkers to their right. "And that, Colonel?—"

Duggan swiveled in his seat. "Bomb dump," he explained. "Ordnance assembly and checkout. We put our duds and unexploded stuff out there, in case something cooks off. There's a blast barrier around most of it."

"How many planes are here?" Yerevan asked.

Duggan smiled, shrugged. Truth was he had no idea. Even if he did, it would have been classified. "Hard to say, gentlemen. Probably thousands."

Yerevan's eyebrows lifted. Indeed, the Americans were massing stupendous forces for the coming invasion of Japan. The reports he'd seen at Spassk Dalniy weren't even close to the truth.

They drove north for a few more minutes, then the jeeps slowed, taking a turn at a hospital at 110th Street. Road signs at the interchange read _Times Square: eight thousand miles_ with an arrow pointing east.

"The theater's just a few minutes away. I checked the schedule this morning. Tonight they're showing _To Have and Have Not_. Bogie. And Lauren Bacall."

The Russians both smiled broadly at that. Simonets glanced at Yerevan when they were sure the Americans weren't looking. Both had the same thought. Just locating the bunker where the atom bombs were housed wasn't going to be easy, let alone assaulting the place and making off with the components. It was a crazy idea—

Still—they had their orders.

"Up there—" Simonets pointed to the north. "There is another airfield?"

"There is," Duggan agreed. "North Field. Probably the busiest airfield in the world right now."

"And some special aircraft, I have been told."

At that, Duggan's eyes narrowed. Not sure what the Russian was referring to, he let the comment slide. _Maybe they had a more detailed briefing at Guam than I realized._ He wasn't sure how far to go with this. Had one of LeMay's staffers told them about the 509th? It didn't seem likely, with all the security around that section of the base. That outfit was about as hush-hush as you could get. People with loose tongues found themselves shipped off to Alaska if they even whispered the name.

"Ah...I'm not sure about that. We've got lots of aircraft on this island—ah...here we are. Movie time at last."

The jeeps pulled up at the edge of a cleared sand field covered with ragged carpeting and fronting a massive wooden stage. A large canvas screen had been dropped down the front of the stage. A truck trailer with projection equipment had been parked nearby. American soldiers and airmen had already started to gather around the area, many nursing drinks. Beyond the stage, twin humps of distant coral hills framed a darkening seascape off to the east.

Clearly, Simonets thought, from the American's reaction, North Field and its outlying bunkers were the place they had to reconnoiter. What little intelligence they had was from renegade Japanese marines still holed up in caves and ravines along Tinian's east and west coasts. In recent days, said the reports, great numbers of security forces had surrounded a rectangular plot of land at the southwest corner of North Field. Scouts had reported back that Seabees and construction troops had been ringing the area with extra barbed wire and foot patrols had been tripled.

Something was up, Simonets realized and the mysterious compound southwest of North Field, was probably their target.

The question now, was how to get inside. Yerevan stood gawking at the vast arch of the stage before them, but Simonets knew he was thinking too. They had two days, less than forty hours actually, to pinpoint the location of the American atom bomb and finalize the diversionary assault with the local Japanese forces.

With any luck, the diversion would draw away enough firepower from the compound and the rest of Valiant Warrior could slip inside. Simonets mentally ticked off the details still to be worked out: the timing of the assault, the exact route into the compound and the best route to the bomb bunker, the means of transporting the bomb parts—they would clearly have to commandeer a truck of some type—then, the exfiltration, the best route back to the beach landing site, linking up with the rest of Osaki's men and securing the components aboard whatever the Japanese had fashioned as a floating craft.

Somehow, in the dead of night, if all went well, Simonets imagined them all paddling some rickety wooden raft through heavy surf and ferocious machine gun fire toward the waiting hatch of the K-44, wallowing in the swells several thousand yards offshore.

It would be a miracle if any of them survived.

The Russians were made guests of honor at the movie and feted with toasts and handshakes from the assembled crowd. By sundown, all had settled in and the screen blazed into life with huge flickering images of Bogart and Bacall. Simonets watched the unfolding story perfunctorily, his mind churning with tactical details and the growing sense of time being wasted.

_Tonight_ , his eyes told Semyon Yerevan's, at a particularly poignant part of the movie. _Tonight, we must go hunting_.

Yerevan's lips clenched. He nodded grimly.

It was after midnight when Colonel Duggan bade farewell to the Russians at their barracks at 70th Street, in an area the Americans called _The Big Easy_. Twin bunks in a detached wood frame hut, the accommodations were relatively luxurious for the area, with a personal toilet and running water. Even an electric fan stirred the thick tropical air, flapping heavy gauze curtains in the two windows.

"I'll be by at 0700 hours tomorrow morning. We'll go up to North Field, watch the dawn missions taking off. It's impressive as hell. You need anything, just yell for one these guys—" he pointed to a small squad of MPs, sitting in two jeeps outside the hut. He left.

Two hours later, the Russians had worked out a plan of sorts, whispering inside the toilet room, to keep from being overheard by the Americans just outside.

Dawn over Tinian Island brought the roar of three hundred B-29 bombers warming up along the ramps and taxiways of North Field. As promised, Colonel Duggan picked the Russians up and escorted them to the control tower, where they witnessed surge takeoffs at thirty second intervals.

"It's Nagoya and Kobe today," Duggan explained over the din. "The Mitsubishi engine works and several munitions factories. This is the 393rd today."

Simonets was keeping his own field glasses trained on the airfield, trying to distract Duggan. Behind them, Yerevan had field glasses too, but he wasn't watching the takeoffs. Less than a mile to their west, he had spotted the secured compound of the 509th, the special group that State Security had identified as likely to deliver the atom bomb on the Japanese. A great deal of activity surrounded a single building near the southern boundary of the compound. Large crates were being delivered. And a single B-29 was being towed into position over a shallow pit nearby.

Carefully, Yerevan noted the surrounding details of terrain: the layout of roads and ramps, the placement and shape of nearby buildings, and committed them to memory. Later, he would sketch what he had seen and that sketch would become Valiant Warrior's tactical map for the next day's assault. It was a lucky break that Duggan had brought them into the control tower and furnished them with glasses. With the noise of the 393rd's mission being launched at North Field, the Russian had been able to slide around the tower, always keeping behind his escorts, for a little long-range visual recon of the target.

It was probably the best they were going to get.

Yerevan and Simonets took turns chatting with the tower crew and Colonel Duggan, one of them always careful to keep the Americans from noticing how carefully at least one of the Russians was studying the goings-on a mile away.

The rest of the morning was taken up with a quick visit to the squadron ready room a few buildings away, listening in while a briefing was given by the operations officer on upcoming missions. Duggan led the Russians out to the flight line to meet one of the crews. Simonets practiced his English to much amusement, carefully reciting the plane's nickname— _Hellzapoppin'_ —several times, while the crew showed off their prize bird.

The afternoon was taken up with more briefings and visits and a nighttime luau was held on the cliffs above Kammer Beach, along Tinian's southwest coast, near the harbor, complete with fire dances, roasting pig, endless kegs of beer and Jimmy Dorsey swing time tunes blaring over the loudspeakers.

"An odd way to wage war," Simonets observed to Duggan at one point, during the evening. "Massive machines flying thousands of kilometers, destroying whole cities, yet the men here act as if they were in a tropical paradise, not going into combat everyday."

"Americans," Duggan shrugged, with a half smile, as if that explained everything. "We love our creature comforts. Even in battle—"

The Russians were dropped off at their barracks at 2200 hours.

Duggan advised them to be ready early the next morning. "Your plane back to Guam departs West Field at 0800 hours. I'll come by about 0630. Be packed and ready. We can get a bite from the mess hall on the way down there."

Simonets saluted and waved the American off. Duggan's jeep sped off into the darkness. The MPs remained...two jeeps of them.

Simonets ducked back inside the merciful cool of the hut.

Yerevan was at a nearby table, carefully sketching out what they had both observed of the layout inside the secure compound. For half an hour, they discussed, erased, re-sketched and finally agreed on the details, committing the arrangements to a piece of paper. Before the sun rose over Tinian's eastern beaches the next morning, that paper would have to be delivered to Lieutenant Osaki. Sometime after midnight, if the assault was on schedule, the Japanese would be departing the K-44 and making their way onto the coral-strewn beaches south of Hilo Point. Simonets and Yerevan would have to find a way to be there to link up with them.

At 0230 hours, the next morning, the Russians executed their plan.

Simonets drew open the curtains, noting the sleepy MPs lounging in their jeeps. A single American soldier trudged wearily in a semi-circular path around the front and side of the hut. The Russian snatched open the door and called out.

"Come...come quickly, please! The captain...Semyon Alexeyevich...something's wrong...he is choking--!"

At once, the MPs startled awake. One man, a sergeant, half fell out of his jeep seat.

"What's up, pal? What's going on?" He motioned the rest of the detail into wakefulness. Men piled out of the jeeps.

Simonets motioned the sergeant inside. His name plate read Benecky.

"A...how do you say?...a medic we need. Semyon Alexeyevich started choking—"

Benecky rushed inside, followed by two MPs.

On the bunk, Yerevan had managed a decent facsimile of a man choking to death, turning purple, wracked with coughs, spitting up a little blood (they had pricked Simonets' finger and captured enough to show to good effect.) Benecky bent over him, took a long look, then waved at the corporal standing silhouetted in the door. "Get on the radio. Alert the hospital. We better get this guy over there pronto."

"Sure thing, Sarge." Outside, a radio crackled into life. Simonets helped Benecky and another soldier lift the gasping Yerevan and litter him outside, placing him into the back seat of the Jeep.

"You ride in the other Jeep," Benecky directed, shoving Simonets away from Yerevan. "The hospital's about ten minutes away." Beside him, Yerevan wheezed and gasped, straining red and shaking. It was a very convincing show and the Americans bought it completely.

Now, thought Simonets, we are deployed for the next stage.

The two Jeeps peeled off through sand and gravel and fishtailed at high speed onto Broadway, speeding north. They never made it to the hospital.

The assault, when it came, proceeded with lightning speed, exactly according to the plans the Russians had worked out.

Each Jeep carried four men, one Russian, an American driver and two soldiers. Nearly in synchrony, Yerevan and Simonets shoved one of the soldiers out of their jeeps, sending the hapless American GIs' cartwheeling through the air, then bumping and flailing along the coral road as the Jeeps swerved left and right. Too startled to immediately react, the front seat MPs had barely enough time to unsling their M-1s before the Russians had each in a secure head grip, using their fingers to gouge the eyes of the Americans. Furious wrestling followed, careening the two Jeeps back and forth across the darkened road. Fortunately, there was no oncoming traffic.

Within a few seconds of each other, the Russians had managed to disable their American escorts. Simonets managed to kick the front seater out of his Jeep. The American struck a signpost broadside with his body at nearly eighty miles an hour, a sickening thump that broke his neck and back instantly. In the Jeep ahead Yerevan had a more desperate struggle, wrestling with the American until Simonets took aim with the M-1 he had snatched from the falling MP and tapped several rounds into the back of the American's head.

Blood spurted into the wind and the American went limp. Yerevan cast off the body and it fell heavily into the rear seat.

Yerevan's driver had already slammed on the brakes and was slowing the jeep when the Russian produced a small Tokarev pistol and pressed it into the side of the corporal's head.

"Stop here... _now_!"

The jeep skidded to a halt and pulled off over the edge of a shallow culvert. Behind them, Simonets had forced his own driver to do the same.

Both drivers were ordered to climb out and gathered together beside the culvert. Yerevan made a show of gesturing at them to get their hands up, while he patted them down, rifling their pockets, seizing their ID folders and wallets.

Moments later, Simonets pumped four rounds into the backs of their heads, two apiece. The drivers were both young corporals attached to the 1027th Air Material Squadron. The Americans jolted from the impact of the slugs and pitched forward face down into the culvert. Yerevan finished off each with a pistol shot to the head, then helped his comrade drag their bodies into the cane bush alongside the road.

The Russians took a moment to get their bearings. Up and down the length of Broadway, lights shone in the dark, acres of huts and cabins and barracks. They had even passed a post exchange half a mile back with a hand-lettered wooden sign reading _Macy's Department Store_ , but no traffic came their way. Broadway was dark and empty though Tinian never slept. To the north, aircraft engines roared all night long, helping cover their movements.

"Two jeeps," Yerevan observed.

"And six dead or missing American soldiers," Simonets added. "Now we need a truck. Large enough to carry the bomb parts."

They both remembered it at the same time. Behind the PX, the nose of a deuce and a half truck had stuck out, parked there for early morning deliveries from the supply docks at Tinian harbor.

Together, they drove cautiously back south to the PX, which was deserted, closed for the evening, and bathed in the yellow glow of a single lamp near the wooden steps of the front entrance. The post exchange was a low flat, wood frame building, an enlarged cabin, really, with rough cut posts and a wide porch out front, surrounded by rough-cut railing.

_Like something from an American western movie,_ thought Simonets as he climbed out of the jeep.

The place was deserted and the Russians went immediately to the truck around back. There was no key but that wasn't an obstacle. Simonets had worked with enough tractors and combines at the Uspenskoye collective as a child to know how to jump start motors. Two minutes later, the truck coughed, turned over and the engine belched smoke, raggedly settling into operation, while acrid diesel fumes covered the ground.

Now they had to make their way north by northwest, using rough maps of the island furnished by the Japanese. North along Broadway, west at 86th Street hard by a motor pool staging yard and then due west to the coast road, called Riverside Drive. Turning north onto Riverside, the impromptu convoy would shut off their lights and attempt to gingerly make their way to a point exactly one half mile south of Hilo Point. The coast was rocky and high in that sector, the ravines honeycombed with caves. The remnants of the Nihon Kaigun's starving marines were holed up in these caves, only venturing out late at night to forage and lately, to reconnoiter for this critical mission. Somewhere down there among the brambles, Tsugihiro Osaki and his warriors should have come ashore and would be waiting.

The challenge word was classic Japanese, memorized by the Russians: _gaishin shotan._ It meant "sleep on kindling wood and kick ass." More generally, it meant Valiant Warrior would sacrifice everything for this glorious effort.

Riverside turned out to be a twisting, narrow coral and asphalt lane, carved out of the cliffs, with blind turns and sweeping vistas out to sea, where the nighttime Pacific hissed and thundered with unceasing power.

The Russians had ditched one of the jeeps behind the PX. Now, Yerevan drove the big truck, skidding and swerving to stay on the road without headlights, while Simonets followed in the other jeep. Cautiously, they crept forward, aware of the bright lights streaming in and out of North Field's runways, less than two miles away, as B-29 bombers landed and took off at all hours of the day and night. The unending din and light of the airfield helped cover the noise of the truck. Still Yerevan worried. The Americans had told them they still ran patrols into these hills, trying to bait the surviving Japanese out into the open. Hopefully, tonight would not be one of those nights. If they encountered a U.S. patrol along the road now—

Yerevan coasted to a stop at a sharp turn in the road and climbed out. Surf crashed on the rocks below. He stood there, squinting into the darkened sea. Somewhere out there, the K-44 was nearby, probably submerged, running along the fifty-fathom line of the shelf. Simonets came up.

"Here?" he asked. "Can they hear us over all that racket?"

"They'll have to," Yerevan muttered. "Come—" The two Russians walked along the road, certain they had adequately silhouetted themselves, cautiously picking their way along brambles and loose coral at the edge of the road.

Simonets stopped, cupped his hands and yelled out: " _Gaishin shotan! Gaishin shotan!"_

For many minutes, they walked on, and nothing happened. But both men had the unshakeable impression they were being watched, even stalked.

Osaki was being careful, which was smart. Simonets realized they couldn't wait too long to get the assault underway. It was a moonless night but he knew the sun would rise rapidly in just a few hours. Tropical sunrises were abrupt at this latitude.

A sharp cry from Yerevan behind him made him turn. The Russian had been dragged over the edge of the roadbed by unseen hands and was tumbling into the brush. Muffled groans followed. Simonets froze.

Then a face appeared out of the dark, blackened with camouflage and helmeted, the helmet draped with brush and limbs secured to the liner. Simonets hardly took a breath. The face smiled, then grinned.

It was Tsugihiro Osaki, scrambling up onto the road. He saluted smartly.

" _Do braye ootra_!" the lieutenant rattled off in crude Russian. He bowed, then grabbed Simonets' hand and pumped it vigorously up and down.

Simonets finally breathed in relief, lowering his American M-1. " _Gaishin shotan_ , " he replied in halting Japanese. Both men laughed, as the rest of the team scrambled up onto the roadbed, and others too. Ragged, emaciated but smiling men. The survivors of the _rikusentai_ marines who had savaged the Americans last fall but still lost the island. There were salutes, backslaps, handshakes all around.

"We don't have much time," Simonets said. He pulled out the crude map and Osaki illuminated it with a tiny flashlight, covering the glow with his helmet. Simonets and Yerevan fingered the enemy's defenses and the layout of the secure compound where the atom bomb was being prepared.

"The enemy has barricades all around here—" he outlined the perimeter of the compound. "Multiple levels."

Osaki motioned one of the surviving marines over. "Toshio has scouted the area many times. _Oi_! Tell the major what you saw."

Toshio launched into a tirade of guttural Japanese, hurriedly translated by Osaki, describing the troop deployment around the compound, some of the aircraft and vehicle movements inside, even sketching a crude layout of the main buildings in the dirt, surmising from his night time recon trips what each building was for. He tapped a scratched and bleeding finger on one building, looking up at Osaki with big eyes, and spread his hands wide, indicating something big.

Osaki said, "The bomb. _Genshi bakudan_? It's here?"

Toshio nodded vigorously. " _Hai_! Three nights ago. Many trucks. Many soldiers."

"That's where we have to go." Simonets agreed. "We have a truck and a jeep. Now we need a diversion."

The men discussed possibilities. It was Toshio, and a fellow marine named Abe, who outlined the best plan.

It was simple enough in concept. Simonets knew it would be damnably hard to pull off. Still, Valiant Warrior had trained for this moment and the moment had come. Toshio and Abe, working through Osaki's translation, laid out the details of a diversionary assault to take place the very next night, at 0200 hours local time.

"We've been harassing the enemy in this sector lately," Toshio indicated, running his finger along the westernmost shores of the island, near West Field and the harbor. "Hit and run tactics. We throw a few grenades, lob a few mortar shells, get off a few rounds, maybe try to blow up an ammunition truck or a fuel tank, then retreat. There are caves along this side of the island."

Simonets was thoughtful. "And the Americans—how do they respond?"

Toshio sneered. "They're lazy. They fire back. But they're afraid of the night. When daylight comes, they send out patrols. They never find us."

Osaki said, "The Americans may react a little more vigorously to probes in the north. The northern field is their busiest. And the compound is there."

"That could help us," Simonets said. "The compound's well guarded. If we coordinate right, a little action up here—" he fingered the northwest bluffs of the island, north of Hilo Point—"may be just what we need to breach the gates here."

"But you'll have to move fast, Major," Osaki said. "And know right where you're going. Any delay, any mistake—"

Simonets shrugged. "We trained the assault a dozen times at Spassk Dalniy, didn't we? I could make my way through that course blind."

"You may have to. And if your intelligence is not accurate—"

"Look," Simonets said, "you handle the diversion and let me handle the main assault. Russian soldiers won't let you down."

Osaki stiffened. 'Nor will _Nihon Kaigun_ , Major. These men know the island and this enemy better than anyone. We should use them."

"And we will, Lieutenant. We will."

They discussed the rest of the details, assigning men and weapons to each task, splitting the force to best effect.

"Start your assault exactly at 0200 hours," Simonets told Toshio and Abe. "Use everything you've got...rifles, grenades, mortars. Make a big show of it."

Toshio suggested diversionary attacks from several directions, to give the impression of greater force. Simonets agreed.

"But remember...the main goal is to draw away as much defense from the main gate in the east as possible. Attack from the west and the northwest. Don't attack from the east. Osaki and I will be here—"he tapped a position along 116th Street, east of the central bomb dump and the intersection with Broadway—"by 0130 hours. There are cane fields along the road. We can hide the truck and the jeep there. Just before you open up, give me a signal."

"A flare...we have flares in stock."

"Fire them all, everything at once, say about 0150 hours. That'll give us ten minutes to get moving toward the main gate. With any luck, the roads will be full of confused troops moving toward your position. Maybe they'll ignore us. Plus it should be well dark."

"And aircraft operations at North Field will cover a lot too," Osaki reminded him.

"Then it's set," Simonets said. The men bowed and shook hands, then parted, with Osaki remaining behind and Toshio, Abe and the rest of the _rikusentai_ scrambling back down the rugged cliffs, disappearing into light fog swelling up from the beaches. After they had gone, Simonets added, "Let's get this truck back to the commissary, before anyone misses it."

"Maybe we should take the battery or disable it when we leave...so no one moves it before tomorrow night."

"Good idea," Simonets agreed. This Japanese officer did have a good idea once in awhile. "We'll hide the jeep in the cane fields nearby and disperse ourselves for the day." Already, the first purple fingers of dawn were creasing the eastern horizon. "The sun will be up soon. Let's get going."

They drove back south on Broadway through light traffic and parked the truck just where they had commandeered it, behind the PX building, covering tire tracks and other evidence of its use with brush as best they could. Then the Valiant Warrior team piled into the jeep and set off through thick cane brush, bearing on the rubble of a shattered temple a few hundred yards off the road. A quick reconnoiter of the ruins showed the place to be abandoned and the team dug in and hid themselves from view.

Twenty two hours to go before they moved out again. Simonets found himself a shadowy overhang near a bomb-pocked outside wall, fingering the small craters in the crumbling coral and cement structure. No doubt the battle around the temple had been a fierce one. There were no bodies anymore but fading blood stains on the walls spoke of the ferocity of the fighting.

Simonets closed his eyes, covering his face with his helmet liner. The _rikusentai_ —men like Toshio and Abe—were fanatics, dedicated fanatics. Were they really different from Konev's Stalingrad defenders? Month after month of fanatical, savage, house-to-house, street-by-street, fighting had reduced Stalin's city to smoldering ash and rubble, slick with blood and intestines. The Germans had called them animals, beasts. He supposed that was true. But it was equally true that one man's fanatic was another man's liberator. Simonets admitted to himself a grudging respect for the Japanese defenders.

Maybe this was their own Stalingrad.

Wednesday, July 25, passed without incident. North of their position, wave after wave of B-29 bombers took off and landed, pounding the home islands with tons and tons of frag and incendiaries, leveling cities and incinerating Japanese civilians by the thousands. Simonets watched Osaki's reaction over the brim of his helmet. Each roar of a B-29 brought increasing tightness to the Lieutenant's lips. He fidgeted, turned and shifted positions often, restless and agitated. He was ready for action, cocked tighter than his own Type 38 carbine, which he fondled like a geisha girl for hours on end. Simonets knew the feeling. The rest of the men stirred often as well, seeking relief from the tropical midday heat, hurriedly smoking cigarettes—sipping at canteens and chewing thoughtfully on bare rations of miso and toast and sugar cane stalks.

Mercifully, sundown came at last, a resplendent lavender and orange equatorial sky plumed with late afternoon thunderstorms and veins of distant lightning. By 2100 hours, the ruins and surrounding cane fields were dark enough to risk exposure. Simonets and Osaki gathered the men around them, just outside the crumbling remnants of the shrine and ran through the operation, moment by moment, one last time.

While Osaki talked, Simonets regarded the men, each in turn. Yerevan, the only other Russian, was not a soldier by training, but an engineer. He was one of 'Kurchatov's' men, along for technical support once they'd seized the bomb parts. Still, he was tough and determined. Simonets knew the Armenian had seen fierce action in the climactic battles for Berlin, attached as he was to Zhukov's army for the dash into the heart of the Reich. It had been Yerevan's job to ferret out the Reich's own atom bomb

program, and get there before the Americans. It was Yerevan who'd nabbed one of Heisenberg's top assistants and spirited him off to the waiting clutches of an NKVD special action team in Magdeburg. He was ruthless, even sadistic, when he had to be.

The rest were Japanese _rikusentai_ —special naval landing force troops. Osaki's men, and he was rough and abrasive with them. Sergeant Kunichi Mori had fought at Saipan, been captured and somehow escaped. He was short, stocky, a burr cut head and slit eyes that revealed little. Mori gave the impression he could as easily snap your neck as offer you a smoke.

Then there was Corporal Maizu Yano, a slender reed of a man, almost a child. Feminine hands, delicate lips. Osaki said Yano had fought with Yamashita—the Tiger of Malaysia—and won several decorations in action against the British at Singapore. He barely looked old enough for puberty, but Simonets had seen what the boy could do with a carbine in training assaults at Spassk Dalniy. He was uncannily accurate as a marksman and sniper, and he could field strip and re-assemble any weapon in a manner of seconds, never laying eyes on the piece the whole time.

Last was Corporal Shojiro Ota, a jolly bear of a man, with a dark black moustache and a double chin that reminded Simonets of some of the clowns with Moscow Circus. Ota was jovial enough, and often good for a prank, but he was also a steady, rugged, unwavering soldier. One he was told to take and hold a position, Simonets knew he could count on Ota to occupy the ground like Mount Fuji itself, solid and unmovable. Ota was slow to anger, sometimes even slow to move when speed was called for. But he was relentless and physically powerful. In hand-to-hand combat training at Spassk Dalniy, he'd never been thrown, even by a Russian opponent. In the back of his mind, Simonets thought of Ota as _the Wrestler._

Just after 0100 hours, Simonets gave the signal and Valiant Warrior began moving out. The jeep was fired up and they eased it carefully through thick, snapping cane brush until making Broadway again, and turning south. The narrow coral road was dark, save for the distant glow of airfield lights. Once more, West and North Fields roared with activity. The sky was dense with the sound of engines and bombers circling overhead to form up their assaults and head north for the Home Islands.

Osaki concentrated on driving the jeep. They headed for the PX a few miles away. The truck was right where they had left it the night before. Yerevan re-installed and hooked up the battery. In moments, the diesel engine sputtered to life.

The rest of the assault squad piled into the back of the truck, with Sergeant Mori driving, Osaki right beside him in the cab. They followed the jeep back out onto Broadway and headed north.

Approaching 110th Street, they saw the lights of the Army hospital through cane brush and banyan trees. Mori slowed and just then, the sky beyond the trees was lit up with a shower of flares, white phosphorous and orange signaling flares blossoming over the treetops like the Emperor's Birthday celebrations at Fukiage Gardens. Mori slowed behind the jeep; both vehicles pulled off to the side of the road.

Simonets counted off the minutes. Just on the stroke of 0200 hours, he hand-signaled Mori to start up again. The two vehicles eased passed the central bomb dump, where sentries prowled uneasily around the wooden gate and made a left onto Lennox Avenue. Simonets studied the crude map Toshio and the _rikusentai_ had given him. Just ahead...if the drawing was right—just ahead was the entrance.

The sign materialized out of the night. It read simply _509_ th _Composite Group, 313_ th _Bombardment Wing, 20_ th _United States Army Air Force._ Beyond the sign, the road veered left toward a barbed wire fence and small gate house, with a striped pole lying across the approach. Lights blazed from inside the small hut and MP's armed with M-1s sauntered up and down the lane.

Simonets waved the two vehicles past the gatehouse and further north along Lennox Road, around a bend and out of sight. He climbed out and went back to the truck, huddling with Osaki and his men.

The plan was simple enough in description. Simonets reviewed the details, the timing, occasionally looking up to see more flares, this time further to the north. Toshio and Abe were doing their part, creating diversions from several directions. Now it was up to them.

" _Daijobu_!" Corporal Yano growled from the back. He shouldered his Type 99 carbine and snapped the bolt down with a flourish. "We're ready now...let's get moving."

So they did.

With Corporal Ota now driving the truck, the rest of the men took up their positions in the bottom of the cargo bed, each man securing the best firing position he could find. Behind the truck, Yerevan drove the jeep. Simonets's fingers twitched on the trigger of his Kalishnikov. The last few yards' approach to the gatehouse seemed to take hours.

Ota rammed the truck through the striped pole at forty miles an hour, sending sentries and MPs diving for cover. Immediately, the gate detail opened up on the rear of the truck with automatic weapons and BARs, spraying the back with murderous fire. As Ota swerved onto the service road, the _rikusentai_ returned fire from their covered positions.

Yano exulted in his first kill. " _Wah...wah_! Take that, _oyagi_!" The slim, but deadly accurate sniper systematically picked off GIs from the careening truck, one...then another...then another, as fast as his hand could cycle the action of the carbine. Behind the truck, Yerevan swerved to avoid American fire, while Simonets propped himself against the rear seat and answered back with withering fire of his own.

In seconds, they were out of range of the gatehouse. Surveillance had established that the Americans had a normal practice of stationing two jeeps at the gate, for pursuit. One of them had already been disabled by fire from Mori and Osaki, but the second jeep was undamaged.

_It won't be long now_ , Simonets figured. And indeed, seconds later, as Ota swerved them off the service road and barreled through another fence onto a perimeter road that formed a great square around the middle of the compound, the lights of the pursuing jeep could be seen coming up fast.

The 509th compound at Tinian formed a huge square, hacked out of cane brush and coral in the northwest corner of the island. Crisscrossed with service roads, the compound featured a circular drive in the very middle, like a great bulls-eye, where the Ops hangar, the radar and machine shops and the engine shop and the ready rooms and the electrical shop were located. From Toshio's surveillance, Simonets knew their target was a hangar near the southeast corner of the square, off by itself and accessible by a single well-guarded road. The road split in two directions several hundred yards south of the hangar. To the east, the road led to an open concrete paddock off an aircraft ramp, in the middle of which a small pit had been dug, slightly larger than a gravesite. Hoists and other lifting gear lined the paddock off to one side. The _rikusentai_ had recently seen aircraft taxiing onto the paddock and up to the pit, then being towed away back to the flight apron a quarter mile away. To the west, the access road ran parallel to the service road that surrounded the entire compound, eventually merging into a small community of barracks and Quonset huts, where enlisted men bunked.

Somehow, someway, the _Valiant Warrior_ team had to make their way onto the hangar road and find their way to the hangar. It was there, Simonets knew from intelligence, that the device—at least the parts of it he was responsible for—were housed.

He clung tenaciously to the sides of the jeep as Yerevan swerved back and forth, following the truck through the black night. Bullets spanged off the rear trunk and doors, as the Americans began gaining ground. Simonets took aim as best he could, bouncing and jolting along, and returned fire, peppering the Americans' vehicle just above the headlamps.

Instantly, he knew he'd struck home. The jeep's lights careened crazily, and swerved sideways. The sound of metal on asphalt sent a shower of sparks into the air, as the jeep flipped onto its side and skidded into a bank of brush and trees. Cries and shouts filled the air. The jeep fuel tank split open and a spark lit off the vapors, rending the air with a deafening explosion. Red and orange flames billowed skyward, blocking the road with flaming debris and injured men.

Simonets breathed a silent thanks for the lucky shot. Yerevan swerved again and began slowing, as Ota driving the truck ahead hunted in the darkness for the entrance to the hangar.

Suddenly the truck screeched to a halt and turned hard right. Before Ota could straighten out, the road ahead lit up with small-arms fire, a barrage that sent Yerevan swerving off to the side, plowing his jeep up onto an embankment of coral slag, nearly flipping them over. The truck plowed ahead, through a tunnel of tracer fire, which shredded the tires and shattered the windows. Still Ota barreled on and in seconds, had crashed through a complex barrier of wooden gate arms and fencing.

Simonets followed close behind in the jeep, swerving to avoid debris cartwheeling through the air.

Dead ahead, lights blazed around a cluster of buildings.

_The hangar_! Simonets realized. He pointed it out to Yerevan, who turned the jeep toward the glow. Ahead of them, Ota began slowing and in seconds, both vehicles had skidded to a stop in front of a large aluminum and wood frame building with light streaming out of a massive door. Inside, figures scurried across the entrance, in the stark glare and shadow of the lights. Shouts rang out. Then shots ripped the air.

A squad of MP's had been warned of their approach and had taken positions around the perimeter of the hangar. Someone had sited a heavy machine gun near the hangar opening. Even before the truck and the jeep had fully stopped, the night sky was filled with a barrage of tracer fire.

Inside the truck, the _rikusentai_ lay prone, keeping themselves as low as possible. Mori, Yano and Ota squirmed under the withering fire, while Osaki, up in the cab, hugged the floorboard. Large caliber rounds peppered the doors, windows and canvas sheeting of the cargo bed.

Ota winced and forced a wry smile at the sweating face of Yano. The boy's moustache hairs were almost tickling the Wrestler's face.

"Just like Saipan, eh? Remember the _takotsubo_...those damned foxholes we hacked out of the coral?"

"I remember. And how it rained shells on us night and day for two weeks. How much ammunition do these guys have?"

"'More bullets than the beach has sand...that's what Watanabe said—"

"We've got to move, get out of here," Sergeant Mori hissed. "We'll be chewed to pieces!"

It was Lieutenant Osaki who had the idea. "Get your grenades ready!" he yelled into the back of the truck. Quickly, he described what he was going to do. By hand signal, he passed the word on to Yerevan and Simonets. Both Russians were puzzled, skeptical, but out of ideas. The Americans were still firing, hosing down both vehicles with M-1 and pistol rounds, pinning the Valiant Warrior team in position, while heavier firepower was summoned. It was only a matter of time before the team was annihilated within yards of their objective.

On shredded tires, Osaki gunned the truck engine and began a squealing circle of the drive in front of the hangar. The truck shuddered and peeled counterclockwise, mostly on two wheels, while the marines in the back, squeezed off short bursts of carbine fire of their own, forcing the Americans back into cover. As signaled, Yerevan maneuvered the jeep inside of Osaki's turn, riding the right front bumper in a concentric circle around and around. Simonets lay across the rear seat, firing at will.

As the truck and the jeep orbited like mad dogs in front of the hangar, the Americans retreated to more defensible positions behind stands of brush. Several times each orbit, Corporal Ota tossed a grenade toward them. The grenade detonated with a deafening pyre of orange and white flame, sending the Americans scattering further into the bush.

Three times, Osaki made the circuit, each time driving the Americans further away from the front of the hangar. At the end of the third circuit, as planned, Yerevan veered off from the wild ride and plunged the jeep right through the hangar doors, with Simonets pumping Kalishnikov rounds in all directions.

In the harsh glare of the hangar lights, the maneuver had the desired effect. Technicians scattered in every direction. The MPs who had covered the entrance earlier had been silenced and only sporadic fire volleyed across the hangar. As he had thought, the Americans curtailed their defense inside; the contents of the hangar were too valuable to risk damage in a crossfire.

Yerevan gave a shout and swerved them hard right. He had seen the dolly and crating off to one side. The target—the _bomb_! There it was...or at least, the casing, he suspected. He braked the jeep hard and pulled up alongside the device. Other vehicles were nearby, one was a truck was a sturdy winch and pulley hoist mounted on an open bed, less than thirty feet away.

Outside the hangar, Osaki continued circling the drive, firing at anything that moved. Grenades went off once a minute, and the concussions ripped the air. In the back of the truck, Ota ran out of ammo and slung his carbine away in disgust.

"Those damned _roshiajin_...what the hell's taking them so long!"

"I'm out too!" yelled Mori. He picked up his last two grenades. " _Chui_!" He yelled up to the Lieutenant.

Osaki heard him. He knew their ammo wouldn't last long. The Americans would realize that soon enough too. And reinforcements couldn't be far away. On impulse, he swerved the shattered truck from its course and dived into the hangar, skidding to a stop just behind the jeep.

Seconds later, enemy fire erupted from the hangar door as the Americans moved forward. Several GI's slipped inside the hangar, scurrying and crawling behind crates and pallets, squeezing off shots at the Russians and Japanese crouching around the bomb.

Yerevan directed the work. He gestured Osaki to the truck with the hoist. "Get it started...back it up here!" he waved at the bomb. Simonets saw what he was trying to do. He climbed into Osaki's truck, the engine still running and moved to position it so the Americans had no clear shot at the lift truck. Ota and Yano hand pushed the jeep to complete the screen. Behind the vehicles, the rest of the team grimly set to work.

Time slowed to a crawl. It was a race for the prize and Osaki knew they would be surrounded and hopelessly outgunned in minutes, if they didn't hurry up. Starting the lift truck seemed to take forever, but finally Mori managed to spark the diesel into life. Quickly it was backed around to the bomb cradle, while Ota and Yano and Mori and Simonets held off the enemy with return fire. The Americans were much more careful in their firing, aware of what was stored in the hangar. The trick was to keep them from flanking and getting behind the team.

Sporadic shouts and shots rang out as the hoist groaned and squealed with the weight of the bomb casing. Yerevan had estimated from intelligence the NKVD had provided that the casing alone would weigh in at something less than ten thousand pounds.

_How the hell we're going to get this beast out to the K-44 a thousand yards offshore is beyond me_ , he thought, as he shoved and pulled and grunted to steady the swaying mass. Eventually, amid a flurry of shouts and a volley of small arms fire, he and Osaki got the thing stabilized and lowered into a cradle on the back of the truck. A perfect fit. The Americans had cleverly left the right vehicle at the right place, just for _Valiant Warrior_ , he thought to himself.

Hurriedly, they lashed the huge oblong casing down by slipping heavy rope through padeyes welded to the shell and made her as fast as they could.

A commotion outside momentarily distracted them.

"Reinforcements!" Simonets hissed. Three jeeps and another truck full of troops had pulled up to the hangar entrance, completely blocking their way out. Desperately, the Russian scanned the rest of the hangar, looking for anything that might help them.

"The truck!" the Russian shouted to Osaki. "Get in—we'll use it as a battering ram!"

At first, the Japanese lieutenant was incredulous, but the swarm of Americans scurrying into the hangar convinced him they had no choice. He nodded _Hai!_ and climbed into the cab of their original truck, now littered with glass and spent cartridges, gaping holes in the floorboard. The engine had somehow stayed running throughout the hail of gunfire.

The assault team split up, some in the shot-up truck from the PX, the rest crammed into the cab of the lift truck. Ota had one last grenade, which he now tossed at the hangar entrance. It whistled through the air, detonating even before it reached the ground, sending men scattering in all directions.

At the same time, the two trucks formed up a convoy and trundled across the hangar floor, knocking over pallets of supplies and tool boxes, clipping the front bumper of another truck, heading straight for the hangar wall. Behind them, the Americans ran and fired, trying to stop the escape. Rounds whistled and spanged off equipment carts and shelves and the walls crazily.

The American Seabees had fashioned the hangar from a wood frame, and strung aluminum sheet to make the walls, reinforcing the structure with a few cast iron beams in strategic places.

Osaki gritted his teeth and aimed for what he prayed was a weak spot in the wall. The truck cab crashed into the sheeting and ripped it completely off its beams. Torn sections of sheet clung like metal wings to the truck, clanking and clattering across the ground. Through the jagged hole he had just made, Yerevan drove the lift truck.

They burst into the open, crashed through stands of cane brush and swerved onto a dirt path. Shouts and shots rang out behind them, as American jeeps gunned their engines to catch up, to cut them off. Osaki wheeled his truck around and gunned the engine, then leaped from the cab and fell rolling and tumbling into the cane stalks, shredding his skin. He felt nothing, though he was streaked with blood and dirt by the time he reached the cab of the lift truck. The other truck coasted toward the Americans, now driverless, scattering the GIs in all directions. It was a welcome distraction. Osaki was out of breath when he made the cab of the lift truck.

Strong arms hauled him aboard, as Yerevan crashed onward, heading by instinct east and south, switching roads at every intersection to confuse the pursuit.

In moments, they were rocking and speeding southward down Broadway, the Russian engineer hunting in the black night for a road that would take them west, west toward the cliffs and the beach, toward Toshio's men and the landing strip. Toward the K-44.

"Where the hell _is_ it?" he muttered. For the moment, they were alone, but sirens screeched in the distance, even as the roar of takeoffs continued behind them...North Field was as busy now as it ever was in the middle of the day.

They drove down Broadway and circled back several times, before Sergeant Mori spotted the lights of the Army hospital, blazing away through the banyan trees. Yerevan swung them onto 110th street, a narrow asphalt lane, and plowed ahead, keeping the truck headlamps off, hurtling into the dark with no way to see what was ahead of them.

"Salt air!" Ota breathed, from the back of the cab. "The ocean—"

Yerevan slowed down hard, creeping ahead for the coast road. The last thing he wanted now was to go hurtling off a hundred-foot cliff into the rocks below. Soon enough, his eyes had adapted enough to the dark to make out the faint outlines of another road crossing ahead.

It was Riverside, on the American maps they had studied for so long. The coast road.

Gently, Yerevan eased the truck into a left turn and crept forward until the road bent left. He stopped at the bend. The rest of the team climbed out.

It was pitch black, with heavy surf crashing against the rocks below, punctuated only by the incessant roar of the B-29's thundering aloft from North Field. The team crept along the ridge line, feeling their way along, trying to find Toshio and the rest of the surviving marines. The _rikusentai_ were holed up in a scattering of caves and hollows all along the cliff.

"Oi!" Osaki called out. "Oi, Toshio-san!"

For a few moments, there was nothing but the surf and the planes. Then, gradually, shapes materialized along the edge of the cliff. It was Toshio. Sergeant Mori had spotted them. In seconds, the gravelly path was filled with ragged, emaciated but smiling men,

Osaki gestured toward the truck. "We got it, Toshio! We got it... _Genshi bakudan_! Right there...in the back!"

Toshio's pencil moustache twitched like a mouse, his lips splitting wide into a grin. At last...they had hit the Americans hard. He embraced Osaki for a moment. There were backslaps and handshakes all around.

Simonets scowled. Stupid Japanese...they were like children. "Let's get the hell out of here...before we have company."

Toshio reported contacts with the submarine. "We made a signal lantern from an American jeep headlamp and some cloth. They've been signaling us."

Osaki studied the situation. "The bomb's very heavy, nearly ten thousand pounds. We can't carry it down this steep cliff."

Toshio smirked. "You won't have to...there's a trail up ahead. It may be wide enough to drive down in the truck."

Osaki's eyes widened. "A trail? Show me."

Yerevan drove the truck, carefully creeping forward along the ridge road, which was really no more than a dirt and coral shell path, barely ten feet wide. At each turn, the truck's right wheels swung out over the edge and spun in the air, tilting the vehicle precariously, until Yerevan could swing back onto the road. Fifteen minutes of cautious creeping brought them to a notch in the cliff. Below, barely visible in the scattered starlight was a steep, rutted path switching back and forth across the westward face of the cliff, all the way down to a tiny spit of a beach.

"How far are we from our landing site?" Osaki asked.

Toshio shrugged. "Maybe half a mile south. This is the only way down for a vehicle, on this side of the harbor."

Osaki tested the incline, kicking rubble and dirt as he half slid down to a tree stump some ten feet below the road bed. It was steep and covered with loose ashy soil. The truck could easily pitch forward and plummet the remaining hundred and fifty feet to the rocks below, or just as likely slide sideways, and with its heavy cargo, overturn and roll down the cliffside. It was suicide to even try it.

" _Tai_!...Lieutenant!" Hoarse voices rang out from above. It was Yano, with Ota next to him, peering over the ledge. "Lights! There are lights coming!"

"It's the Americans!" Simonets growled. "Let's go—"

Osaki scrambled and clawed his way back up to the road. He waved at Yerevan, who gingerly maneuvered the truck over to the notch.

"Let's try backing it down, everyone behind to steady and guide the truck," Osaki called out.

The Russians thought he was mad. But the sound of vehicles and shouts in the distance, further north along the road, got everyone moving.

Yerevan maneuvered the truck forward and back, each time twisting the wheel, with everyone else trying to steady the vehicle, until it tipped backward and slid out of control for a good thirty feet, careening sideways, until it slammed into an outcrop of coral and tree stumps. Men fell with the truck, sliding and slipping down the slope. One man—it was Mori—lost his footing and plummeted the entire distance to the rocks below. The thump of his body breaking on the rocks sickened Osaki but there was nothing he could do for the boy now.

We'll see each other at the Yasukuni shrine soon enough.

A moment's pause was followed by furious grunting and shoving, as Toshio and the _rikusentai_ struggled the free the truck wheels from their entanglement. Once free, Yerevan slammed the truck into forward gear and spun the wheels, as the five-ton vehicle skidded for purchase, slipping and sliding backward, dropping into ruts and careening backward further down the slope, this time for a good sixty feet. With a crunch and a crash of metal rending, it dropped nearly rolling over onto a narrow ledge of volcanic cinder, spraying dirt and ash everywhere. Miraculously, it hung like a skewered lizard on the outcrop, three of its four wheels spinning madly in the air.

Simonets skidded down after it, shaking his head, wondering what kind of condition the bomb would be in after this was all over. They hadn't had time or terrain at Spassk Dalniy to practice getting the bomb off the island down a sheer precipice.

Just then shouts and lights erupted from overhead. Faces appeared over the edge... _gaijin_! Then shots rang out. Bullets whizzed through the air and tracer fire lit up the night sky.

" _Stay down_!" Simonets yelled. He rolled into a rocky hollow and swung his Kalishnikov around to squeeze off a few rounds. The heads disappeared. But just below his position, a heavier gun boomed out, from behind them. From the sea—

Stark searchlights stabbed through the darkness, playing cones of light across the face of the cliff, sweeping back and forth. It was a ship, a boat. More heavy caliber rounds, cannon rounds, he realized, scoured geysers of dirt and coral from the cliff. Simonets bent around and realized that two American PT boats had come into view, easing around Hilo Point from the south, no doubt alerted to the assault at the 509th's compound, playing searchlights across the cliffside. Standing off to sea a thousand yards, they raked the cliff with three-inch rounds, seeking targets with bright cones of lights from forward search lamps.

Simonets gritted his teeth. _Where the hell's that sub_? he thought. _We're too exposed here. We'll never get down alive._

A grunt and cry of pain pierced the air. One of the Japanese marines was dislodged from his perch by a direct hit. His body cartwheeled into the air and fell like a limp mannequin toward the sea. It was just a matter of time before the boat guns found the truck and blasted it off the side of the cliff.

Simonets pushed himself out of his protective hollow and skidded, half-falling toward the truck. Osaki and the others were frantically trying to free the vehicle from the outcrop. There was still a fifty foot drop to the beach below, but the terrain looked better, not as rutted, shallower. If they could just get unstuck, get the truck's wheels back onto the steep ground, it might work—

"Push!" yelled Simonets. He heaved his own shoulder into the side of the cab. Inside, Yerevan's eyes were wild, afraid he'd be rolled over and go crashing down into the rocks below. Together, in synch, the Japanese and Russians rocked the truck back and forth, dodging bullets and flying debris from three-inch rounds that loosened small rivers of rock and dirt above them and rained the debris on their heads. Ota took a round and spun in the air, crying out in pain, losing his grip. For a split second, his body was precariously balanced on the edge of the outcrop, but he couldn't hold it and crumpled, pitching forward, then rolling down the slope onto the black ash below.

Further out to sea, muzzle flashes lit up the horizon and small spouts of water erupted around the PT boats. Simonets let out a cheer.

" _Get 'em_!" The K-44 had moved closer to shore and opened up on the American craft with her five-inch deck guns. More spouts erupted, then a bright red-orange ball of flame lit up the horizon as one of the rounds found home, cooking off an ammo locker on the boat stern. In seconds, the PT boat was engulfed in roaring flames. Secondary explosions rocked the shoreline and loose rounds rocketed off into the night like a May Day celebration. The second boat heeled about and motored away from the beach, bracketed by more rounds from the K-44.

At that same moment, the truck finally careened off its perch and plummeted backward toward the beach.

Seconds later, the truck slammed into the sand and rolled onto its side. Inside the cab, Semyon Yerevan was thrown headfirst into the windshield, cracking his skull at the forehead. Still carrying momentum from the fall, the truck slid tail first toward the water, finally lodging against an outcrop of black rock. The engine choked into silence and the air was thick with gas fumes.

" _Come on_!" Simonets yelled. Toshio and Osaki and the rest of the _rikusentai_ scrambled down the cliff, still under fire from American troops at the top of the ledge. Small arms rounds whizzed by, thumping into the sand, hissing into the water, while the assault team made its way toward the truck. Groggy and bleeding profusely from his forehead, Yerevan groaned and half fell from the cab onto the sand, his face immediately battered by foam from nearby waves.

While Simonets pulled his comrade from the truck, Osaki directed the marines to secure the truck from sliding further into the water. Unseen by the warriors, deck observers from the submarine K-44 had witnessed what happened. One thousand yards offshore, _Kapitan_ Lev Ponomarev ordered his engine room ahead one third and the four-thousand ton diesel boat eased landward, sounding furiously as the seabed began rising steeply. Her deck guns sprayed fire at the top of the cliff, keeping the American troops pinned down and occupied.

From the conning tower, Ponomarev strained through his binoculars, trying to make out what was happening on the tiny beach. He had seen the truck slide and cartwheel down the cliff and onto the beach.

_It will be a miracle if the bomb is undamaged_ _after that fall._

Still, Ponomarev had his orders from Fleet and he meant to carry them out.

"Sounding?"

The reply was relayed up from the control room fathometer.

"Twelve fathoms, _Kapitan_. Rising quickly—"

Ponomarev wet his lips, wiped salt spray from his eyebrows and wished to God he had a _papyrus_ roll to smoke. He knew full well that one wrong maneuver, a few yards too far and K-44 could find herself holed and run aground on the rocks that shielded the beach. Yet he could see the assault team was in trouble. Some had been picked off by the Americans. And the truck—with her deadly cargo? He didn't even want to think about that.

"Shore detail...stand by!" Ponomarev shouted. Forward of the tower, a small dinghy was tossed into the churning waves and four men, all volunteers, jumped in, carrying carbines, satchel charges and a two-thousand foot line. Just in case. "And keep those troops on the hill down!"

As if in reply, K-44's deck guns opened up again and swept fire all along the top of the ridge. Momentarily at least, the enemy disappeared.

On the beach, Simonets had extricated Yerevan and managed to stanch the bleeding for the moment. The engineer was badly hurt, turning pale. Going into shock, Simonets realized. He made his comrade as comfortable as possible, propping him up against a rocky promontory above the waves, then stumbled to the other side of the truck.

He found Osaki and Toshio arguing about what to do next.

" _Bakayaro_!" Toshio was seething. "Idiot! It will never work...the bomb's too heavy for that!"

Osaki's face was red, plain even in the faint light of the early morning stars. "It has to work...it's the only way."

"What's the problem?" Simonets intervened. Maizu Yano and the rest of the _rikusentai_ had gathered around, sensing a fight.

"He wants to float the bomb...out into the ocean," Toshio hissed. "On these truck tires. But it's too heavy. It will sink as soon as its lowered down."

The Russian studied the situation. They'd had little time to practice any ideas for getting the ten-thousand bomb casing off the island and out to the submarine. K-44 had a small deck shelter welded to her aft coaming, just big enough to store an object of the bomb's dimensions. Operatives inside America had furnished the dimensions in the last few weeks. But getting the bomb to the submarine, through heavy surf, at night, under fire, that was something Spassk Dalniy couldn't teach them.

Simonets shrugged. "Have you got a better idea?"

Toshio glared at him, then at Osaki for a long minute. His fists were balled tight, yet the emaciated marine seemed little more than a few bones held together by leathery shreds of skin. At length, his fists began to relax. He bowed slightly. "No...no better idea. Forgive me, Major. It is shameful to speak as I have. We have a common enemy and he's up there—" Toshio jerked his thumb toward the cliff, which was at the moment mercifully quiet, thanks to the K-44's deck guns. "—not down here."

Osaki gestured at the marines. "Oi! Let's get to work...get those tires off. Let's find some rope, some line, anything—"

Just then, Yano spotted the dinghy from the submarine, plowing through the surf. The warriors hailed the shore detail and helped them beach the small craft. There were hugs and back slaps all around. The leader of the detail was a sturdy Ukrainian chief named Luganin.

" _Kapitan_ was watching from the deck," Luganin explained. "He thought you might need some help."

Simonets grinned. "Indeed we do, Chief. I think we can use that line you've brought."

With sporadic bursts from the steadily closing submarine's deck guns, the Americans were held off awhile longer. Gingerly, K-44 eased shoreward, yard by yard, until the fathometer read less than two fathoms keel depth. _Kapitan_ Ponomarev ordered all stop, then had the helm turned thirty degrees, and the engines restarted astern one third, holding the boat in position against the surging waves. They had stopped less than six hundred yards from the beach. Ponomarev sucked nervously on a cigarette, silently willing the shore parties to move faster. They were terribly vulnerable and exposed and he could feel it in his bones...he half expected to see the bow of an American destroyer nosing around Hilo Point at any moment.

K-44 was caught like a lovesick walrus, with nowhere to dive and nowhere to run.

The beach teams worked furiously, aware that every moment's delay made it more likely the Americans would finally muster enough firepower to shatter the whole operation. Already, the first purplish fingers of dawn were tickling the eastern sky, lighting up thick and building clouds far out at sea.

It was Luganin, studying the physics of the situation, who had the basic idea. On his orders, the dinghy was put back into the water and with two rowers and the line, made its way laboriously back toward the foredeck of the submarine, paying out the line as they went. One end of the line was made fast to K-44's forward mooring cleats. The other end was attached by the Japanese marines to the makeshift raft of truck tires that now lay like a huge ringlet on the sloping edge of the beach.

Inside the truck bed, Simonets found the truck winch no longer operative, but he still managed to sling the hoist around the bomb casing, seemingly intact after its bouncy ride down the side of the cliff, and make it fast. The tire-raft was shoved into position just outside the cargo bed.

Inside, with Simonets guiding, Toshio, Osaki and Yano and three other marines leaned their shoulders into the casing and shoved with all their strength. At first, it wouldn't budge. Then, groaning and scraping against the side of the truck, the casing yielded and slid off the back end with a screech, dropping the last four feet and thumping into the middle of the tires. It started to roll off but quick work by two marines on the beach managed to guide the huge object back onto its tire raft. The casing wobbled and teetered, then finally was still.

" _Hai_!" came a chorus of cheers. _Rikusentai_ slithered over and around the casing, securing it to the raft with electrical wire pulled from the truck, with torn strips of clothing, anything they could find. There was no time to waste. Shouts from above, and the crackle of small arms fire reminded them that the Americans had circled back and were making their way along the cliffs from north and south, slowly closing a trap on the Valiant Warrior team. They had at most only a few more minutes, then it would be fully light and they would be surrounded, maybe cut off.

From the beach, Chief Luganin waved his hand in a circle over his head, signaling the K-44 to begin backing.

At first nothing happened, then slowly, inch by inch, the submarine's engines overcame the sheer inertia of the bomb casing, sitting like a dull black egg on its makeshift raft. The raft shuddered, the casing shifted slightly, then it began to drag and slide toward the water, gouging up rifts of sand. Moments later, the raft floated, sinking slightly, then pitching crazily as waves pounded the small craft. Somehow, the action of the surf kept the raft afloat and steady backpulling by the submarine eventually towed the raft beyond the heaviest surf zone. The raft wobbled and seemed in danger of foundering, but managed somehow to stay afloat and eased steadily seaward, occasionally bouncing off more rocks and underwater reefs.

A great cheer erupted from the beach. Just then, machine gun fire raked the sand and Osaki and Toshio both were hit in the chest. Forty yards away, a squad of GIs had popped out of nowhere, having made their way down the cliffs north of Hilo Point and scrambled along the sheer slopes close enough to bring the operation under fire.

Volley after volley of small arms fire swept the rocks and surf and the remainder of the Japanese marines dove for cover. Caught chest deep in a pool of water while he steadied the tire raft, Simonets took a round in his right shoulder and spun face first into the water. Choking, he thrashed wildly and then found strong arms lifting him up.

It was one of the shore party men, a Russian sailor, who had dived in from the nearby dinghy, and kept him from being swept under. With strong strokes, the sailor kicked them toward the dinghy and Simonets found himself hauled aboard through sloshing salt water into the craft. The bomb casing was less than twenty feet away, steadily moving away from the beach, towed at the end of the line by the backing maneuvers of the submarine. The rowers inside the dinghy struggled to keep up, while American bullets whizzed overhead.

Simonets lay back blind with pain and groaned. Somehow, some way they had done it. His comrade, Yerevan, was still back on the beach, propped up against the engine cowling of the truck. Was he still alive? Simonets wondered. Were any of them still alive back there?

The bullets subsided, replaced by the ceaseless roar of waves, and the grunting of the sailors as they rowed furiously for the submarine. Simonets felt faint, but sporadic inundation with seawater kept him from passing out. The dinghy careened and pitched but all the while, if he lifted his head just a little, he could still see the big bulbous knob of the bomb casing, bobbing like a metallic whale just over the lip of the dinghy. It's not a mirage, he kept telling himself. It's not a mirage—

" _Skoree! Skoree_! Faster...faster..." was all he heard after that. "Skoree!—" and the hiss of crashing waves nearby.

It seemed like hours before anything changed, but a jolt brought him fully alert. He opened his eyes and saw faces, hands, arms, dozens of them, pulling at him. The submarine! They had made it!

Anatoli Simonets was hauled up onto the slick deck of the K-44 and hurriedly wrapped in a dry pea coat. Wobbly and sick, still bleeding from the neck, he was guided toward a hatch but before he ducked through, he took one last look at the scene.

The west beach of Tinian Island was now a mere speck on the horizon, shrouded in thickening haze. K-44 had managed to back astern and pull the tire-raft floating the bomb casing more than half a mile away to the west. Somehow, the dinghy filled with survivors had kept up, rowing until they were limp with exhaustion, and had to be pulled from the craft.

The bomb itself, still floating in its necklace of truck tires, had been made fast to the aft coaming of the boat, and shrouded with tarp, lashed to deck cleats. A small metal hut had been welded further forward, just aft of the conning tower, a space just large enough to house the device in a more or less waterproof enclosure. But _Kapitan_ Ponomarev had already ordered K-44 underway at full ahead, and there was no time to secure the cargo any further. The sun was up and so were the Americans. Already the distant drone of PBYs could be heard. A black line of dots had risen just above the eastern horizon, dozens of aircraft, heading directly for their position.

"Estimating three minutes, sir," announced the officer of the deck. "Deck guns are ready."

But Ponomarev had no intention of hanging around to slug it out with the Americans. He ordered the boat to come about and head for a fog bank several miles away. "I can't dive with that beast banging around on my back," he muttered, scurrying down the ladder toward the control room. "But if I can just lose these planes for half an hour, we can rig our cargo for sea and get the hell out of here."

At the forward hatch, Simonets took a long last look. It was hard to believe, incredible really. Against all odds. But somehow, they had pulled off one of the greatest thefts in history.

As he slipped down the ladder and the hatch was dogged shut, K-44 turned about toward the welcome embrace of a mid-Pacific fog bank, hoping to buy enough time to rig her newfound prize for long-distance cruise.

She still had eight-thousand miles of steaming ahead of her. That and a clandestine rendezvous on the Mexican coast with the plutonium heart of Big Fella.

July 26, 1945

1:30 am

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Birdy pulled the car onto the street and crept slowly along Alameda until Tolkach hissed.

"Stop here—" The car coasted to a stop just in front of the Pueblo Gift Shop. The shop was dark, as was the cottage behind. A sole streetlamp shone a yellow pool of light on the gravel walk up to the shop.

Tolkach got out. "I'll only be a few minutes. Wait here."

Birdy was annoyed, sucking hard on a Camel. The tip glowed red in the dark, followed by smoke rings. "Be quick, will you? I'm supposed to have you in Albuquerque at 0200 hours."

Tolkach walked around back, rapped lightly on the front door of the cottage.

For several long minutes, nothing happened, though the Czech physicist had the distinct feeling he was being watched. He stepped back, cupped his hands and in a loud and hoarse whisper called out.

"Kate...Kate Wellesley—"

Instantly, the door burst open. Behind the screen, Kate was swathed in a light blue terry cloth robe, several curlers hanging from her dark red hair.

"What are you _doing_ here?" she swore at him, cinching up the robe tighter, though the night was sultry and warm.

Tolkach couldn't think of what to do with his hands—they seemed to have a mind of their own. Finally, he jammed them in his coat pocket, aware of what he must look like after the staged accident.

"Kate—Kate, I'm sorry, I came back...to see if you would come. Come with me. The Army suspects you too—you must know that. It's dangerous to stay here. You're terribly at risk—" that sounded melodramatic but it was true, dammit! "Get out of here...while you can...with me."

Kate scrunched up her eyes in a disbelieving squint, as if she were having a nightmare. With a snap of her head, she motioned him inside. Tolkach entered the darkened living room, bumping immediately into side table. She had re-arranged things over the last day or so. He felt his way through the room, following the sound of her robe swishing, into the kitchen.

She pulled open the oven, letting its light illuminate a corner of the kitchen. Wordlessly, she made coffee, her moves self-guided, like she was a machine on automatic...put in the filter, measure out a few cups of coffee, dump in the water and start the thing perking. Almost without thinking, she popped several slices of toast in the toaster, and set a spread of napkins, jam and butter on the table. Then she slumped against the wall, waiting for the coffee, her eyes mere slits, yawning widely.

"I'm must be dreaming...Dr. Tolkach, you keep showing up at my door, at the worst possible moment. What the hell is it with you? Even my father wasn't like this."

Tolkach sat down, pulled off his rumpled tweed jacket and draped it over his legs. "You're in danger, Kate. Staying here isn't wise. Very grave danger. I—" he shrugged, looked down at the swirls in the linoleum. "—it's hard to say, exactly. But I wouldn't want anything to happen to you—because of me. You've been awfully kind to me. You've risked a lot."

Kate's eyes narrowed. Maybe it was his tone of voice, maybe it was something else. _Is he in love with me or something_? The thought sent a chill down her back. _Is that what this is about?_

"I guess I'm just a sympathetic girl," she said evenly. She found the fridge, poured herself half a cup of orange juice and sipped at it, eyeing the physicist over the rim of the cup. "Occupational hazard. USO girls are like that." And it was true. She'd long ago learned how to handle love-starved GIs about to ship out. A few winks, a furtive hand on their arms, a peck on the cheek...you couldn't let it go any further than that. It wasn't fair; hell, how often had she had the same talk with the other girls. _They're just kids, teen-agers...some of them had never made love to a woman...some would die before the next chance...just once, please...what could it hurt_ —

It took a weird mixture of hard heart and sympathy to pull off an all-night gig at the train station canteen. Your heart went out to those boys, really it did, but you just couldn't let yourself get too involved.

Tolkach was like that, she thought to herself. Another soldier in the war, older, dressed in a different uniform, but his face showed fatigue from a hundred battles. A soldier all the same. Like he said once to her: _"We're all soldiers in this war."_

"We've all risked a lot, Dr. Tolkach," she said. The toast popped up and the coffee was done at the same time. Kate found a hair pin, uncurled the rest of her hair curlers and pinned her hair back. Then she served them both toast and jam on eggshell plates from the cupboard. "She sat down sideways on a chair and propped her elbows on the backrest, chewing toast thoughtfully, mindlessly twirling errant strands of hair with a finger. "I guess I've made my peace with it."

"But the Army must be suspicious of you."

She smiled at that. "If they are, it's because you keep showing up."

"But your boyfriend—"

"Wade—"she smiled at some inner thought. The smell of his cologne, the feel of the fine blond hairs on the back of his neck—"Yeah, maybe he is a little suspicious. But I can handle that. I can handle Colonel Brogan just fine." She grinned, covered her mouth self-consciously. "I think I'll be doing a lot of that from now on."

"Kate, it isn't safe for you here any longer. The Russians are giving me a way out. Come with me. For your own safety."

Kate took a deep breath. "My own safety isn't that important." She patted her belly gently. "But there is someone else to consider."

"You're in love with this Colonel Brogan...I can see it in your face."

Kate sniffed. "And with the little Colonel here—" she rubbed her belly.

Tolkach stared unblinking at her. "You're pregnant?"

Kate nodded. "It seems that way. I can't just up and leave anymore, Doctor. Things are a bit more complicated than that. Five years ago—" she shrugged, "who knows? I'm not quite the vagabond I was before." She laughed at that. "My father--the Eminent and Highly Proper Dr. Wellesley—would find that amusing, I'm sure." Then the smile vanished. "If he were alive—"

Tolkach tried another tack. "You still have a duty, Kate. To the Revolution. To the victory of the people. You _are_ a soldier, whether you like it or not. You've made promises, commitments. People depend on you. The future of the world depends on what we do here."

Kate stiffened at that. "Pamphlet words, that's what that is. Don't talk to me about duty, Doctor. I've got bills to pay. I'm going to be raising a child soon. The oppressed masses can't change diapers every morning. Or put food in a child's mouth."

"Kate, they're won't be any children to feed if we fail in our duty. You and I are critical to keeping the peace of the world, whether we like it or not."

Kate shook her head and her hair pin fell out, clattering against the refrigerator door. Her hair cascaded around her face and she shook it out of her eyes with disgust. "You're trying to make me feel guilty, Doctor. You're just like my father. That look, that tone of voice, all the expectations. Jesus..." she shuddered, shrugging off an imaginary cloak. "It smothered me when I was a child. But I'm a big girl now. I make my own decisions."

"And what will you decide today, Kate Wellesley?"

Kate got up abruptly and shut the oven door, plunging the kitchen into darkness. Only the glare of the streetlamp reflecting off the curtain swags made a little light, diffuse, shadowy. She sat down and propped her elbows on the table, jarring the china, cupping her chin with her hands, dark red hair falling over most of her face.

"I don't know," she said. She took a sip of the coffee, made a face and shoved the cup away. "I love Wade Brogan. I know that now. And with his child—"

Tolkach suddenly reached across the table and took her fidgeting hands in his own. "You are a child of the Revolution. You must know that. You were born in struggle, raised to fight oppression—look at your own life. How often have you said this to me? Your own family didn't want you, cast you out. The Party and the Cause became your family...the Party took you in, gave you meaning and hope for the future—"

Kate pulled her hands free with exasperation. "Dammit...I know all that. It's just—" She took a deep breath. "I can't explain it. Wade Brogan gives me—I don't know, a sense of security. Peace. Contentment....I know that sounds corny, but it's true. I never got that from the Cause. And I certainly never got that at home."

Tolkach couldn't really read her face in the darkness but her words etched a vivid picture in his mind...a picture of hunger, a hunger to belong, to be a part of something greater. "Kate, the Cause is your home. Come with me. This is your life now...you know that."

She sniffed at that. "I'm going to be a mother...I can't believe it. I don't know what to think...except it makes me feel fulfilled somehow...like it was meant to be. Scared too."

"You can mother so much more. You have one child there. But there are millions of children out there who have no mother. War makes orphans of us all. People die. People are born. But the things we fight for live on. Come with me and help me bring a new future into this world. You can't be a greater mother than that."

Kate shrugged. "I don't know...it doesn't sound right to me. You're talking duty. Duty versus love."

"Duty is love. They're the same. You have a great gift, Kate and it is your duty to use it for the good of the world. This war's going to be over soon—we both know that—but there are forces gathering even now that will shape the future. We—you and me—can affect those forces, nudge them in one direction or another, just by what we do."

"Baloney—we're just two soldiers...you said that yourself. And I'm not a soldier. I'm a woman. A pregnant woman who just wants a little love and comfort out of all this. Is that so hard to understand?"

"You want to speak of love, well, then think of it like this: you have a choice, right here and now, Kate. You can have love. You can have the love of one man. Or you can have the love and affection of millions. What does your conscience tell you?"

Kate pushed back from the table and got up. She peered cautiously out the side window, at the pool of light from the streetlamp. Alameda Street was quiet and peaceful. "I think my conscience is confused. I love Wade...I'm sure of it. I want to start a family. I want to cook dinner for him, and change diapers and go on strolls and make trips to the mountains and wash laundry. Those aren't big things, I want. They're just little things. I don't want the whole world. Just a piece of it...a small corner, right here in Santa Fe. Is that so much to ask for? I have a feeling the world's gonna go right on without me."

"Yes, but it may not be the kind of world you want to live in. Do you want to raise that child in a world of fear and oppression and suspicion and paranoia? Or do you want to raise that child in a world of understanding and cooperation and comradeship?"

"Dr. Tolkach, to say that I or you can affect things like that is silly. We're just two people...not very important people."

"That's where you're wrong, Kate. History has placed us at a place and a moment in time where we can affect things. Your own handlers have said that, haven't they?"

She thought of all her conflicting feelings for Richard Leonas—she could never think of him as just _Sightglass_ or _Caesar_ or any of the other aliases he affected—and how he was always saying things like _"—the most important thing is to further the cause of worker solidarity, improve the lives of the working class...it's necessary for the Soviet Union to be as strong as possible. When that happens—"_ he always assured her with a strong clench of her shoulders – _"the reactionary elements in the U.S. will come around. Things will be better then."_

Pamphlet words, to be sure. She'd written them herself, almost verbatim in scores of pamphlets for four years. But they sounded different coming from Leonas.

"This isn't fair," she said at last, a few tears welling up in the corner of her eyes. She turned back to the window, talking to the Czech physicist through the curtains. "It just isn't fair. Finally, my life comes together. The shop's doing well, I've got a boyfriend and I'm pregnant. The war's almost over and we should be able to see each other more. Get married. Raise a family and just be normal, for Christ's sake. That's all I want from life now. Just to have a life, a normal life."

Tolkach stood up too. He folded his arms behind his back, speaking to the dim outline of the young woman he had long known only as _ACORN_. "You have to decide, Kate. Tonight. You have to decide where your true loyalties lie."

She fluttered with her hands. "I _can't_! It's too much right now. I'm—oh, I don't know—I'm—see what you've done? Now you've gone and stirred things all up again. I had my—it was under control—"

"Your what?"

She just shook her head sadly. "My feelings. My emotions. My past. The little shadow that follows me around, always saying _straighten up, girl. Fly right. Don't do that. Get your hands out of that. Stop looking like that._ My nemesis, I guess."

"And what does this shadow say now?"

Kate smiled faintly, twirling the curtain draw cord around her face, making an impromptu moustache with it. "Mostly to behave. Be a good girl. I never wanted to be a good girl. I was into all kinds of trouble as a child. I couldn't do anything right, by my father. I guess—" she dropped the cord suddenly—"I guess I just wanted him to love me, love me for what I was. Not for what he thought I should be. All my life—other people have wanted me to be something else. They couldn't accept me for what I was." She sniffed. "Even Richard Leonas. Wade Brogan...it must be why I love him so much—he doesn't want me to be anybody but me. He loves me—at least, I think he loves me—for what I am. It's so damn refreshing it hurts. Part of me still doesn't want to believe it."

"And the shadow--?"

"I've been trying to bury it for years. But it keeps coming back. You want to know what it says, don't you?"

Tolkach said nothing.

Kate went on. "It has my father's voice and it says what it always says, in one form or another: _Be a good girl_."

"Which means--?"

Kate's shoulders slumped. What was the use? She couldn't fight it. She'd never been able to fight it.

"I'll need a few minutes to pack up some stuff. We're going north?"

Tolkach nodded. " _WINDWARD's_ note said Canada."

"Why are they taking you out through Canada? Mexico's only a day's drive from here?"

Tolkach shrugged, finished off the coffee. "We meet a comrade in Seattle, I'm told. After that, I'm not sure."

"Tell me one thing, Dr. Tolkach?"

"What is that?"

"Why do you really want me to come with you? Is it because of your children? Or your wife?"

The physicist thought it an odd question. "Perhaps I have become a lonely old man. Don't get the wrong idea, Miss Wellesley. I came to America for several reasons. I wanted a better life for my family. And I wanted to practice my profession in peace. The Nazis made that impossible in Austria and Germany, throughout Europe."

"But now you work against America. You steal secrets and give them to the Russians. Is that how you repay your adopted country?"

"The Russians are allies. We're in this war together. The world will be a safer place if this knowledge is shared among allies."

"Maybe that's a decision that we're not in a position to make, Dr. Tolkach. Maybe the President or Congress should decide that."

"On the contrary...I would argue that we are the _best_ people to make that decision. We know what this bomb can do...we saw it at Trinity Site. We know what power it has. And for the world to be a safe place for you to raise your child, that kind of knowledge can't be a monopoly. That is wrong and that is what you and I are trying to fix."

"You have children too, Dr. Tolkach. Are you really just going to leave them behind?"

Tolkach winced. Not a day went by that he didn't hear Liesel's accusing voice saying the same thing. _What about Kristen and Jurgen?_ With the Army now hunting him down as a spy, he had convinced himself they would be safer with the Shurers, He always answered back to Liesel's voice: "It's better this way. I can send for them when I make it back to—" To where? Where, exactly, was he going? To Canada, _WINDWARD_ had said. And after that—England, perhaps Germany, as she rebuilt herself from ashes?

"A temporary separation, at most," he assured her. "I'll send for them when I'm out of America."

Kate didn't believe it. What the hell did she think she was doing, heading off in the middle of the night with some immigrant physicist turned spy she didn't even know very well? It was insane. Leaving Wade behind...and her own unborn child? It made no sense. It was nuts.

Yet she couldn't deny what 'the shadow' had told her, what it always told her.

_Be a good girl_.

"I'll get my bags," she said. She went back to her bedroom and flipped on the light, rummaging quickly through her closets and dressers.

An hour later, after he had gotten rid of Birdy, Edvard Tolkach and Kate Wellesley were hunkered down in the back seat of a taxi as it sped off toward the train station. At Tolkach's suggestion, they traveled as father and daughter, off to visit family in the Pacific Northwest. They gave fake names at the ticket counter and hung back in the shadows of the boarding area as they waited for the _Rocky Mountain Starliner_ to come to a stop, hissing and clanking, as it pulled into the station.

They had to be careful. Tolkach was certain CIC and the FBI were crawling all over the station. He was a fugitive and his face was known by now.

They boarded the train quickly, found their cramped compartment and shut and locked the door, drawing the curtains tight. Half an hour later, the _Starliner_ lurched forward and began sliding out of Santa Fe's station, heading north into the night.

Heading north to Denver and Seattle. North to Canada.
CHAPTER 13

Thursday, July 26, 1945

Near Tonopah, Nevada

Late morning

Wade Brogan hopped down from the truck cab and surveyed the crash site with a sinking feeling of despair. The wreckage from _Honeybee One_ was strewn across several hundred yards of desert scrub, gouging a trench nearly a hundred yards wide alongside the highway. The broken hulk of the fuselage lay on its side like a huge carcass, minus its portside wing and most of the tail assembly. Engine debris and shredded skin panels littered the hollow depression into which the wreckage had finally come to rest. As Brogan watched, T-shirted soldiers of Western Defense Command's 103rd Infantry picked through the wreckage, sifting parts, hunting for clues. Alongside the soldiers, Army medics carefully prepared the corpses of _Honeybee's_ crew for the Graves Registration detail.

A short, florid red Army captain came up. Captain Donnelly headed up Dog Company, mustered from anti-aircraft defense duty out of Nellis Field as soon as word had come in to Battalion that _Honeybee_ had gone down. It was his men who had arrived at the crash site first.

"Bad news, Colonel," Donnelly reported, squinting in the bright desert sun. Temperatures were already well into the 90s and would easily top 110 degrees by midday. "They didn't die in the crash....not a one of them."

Brogan suspected as much. "Explain."

Donnelly waved the senior medic over. He was a young, pock-marked Lieutenant from the Medical Service. His name tag read Quinn.

"This here's Lieutenant Quinn." They exchanged perfunctory salutes.

"What's the verdict, Lieutenant?" Brogan asked.

"Every one of them died from multiple gunshot wounds, Colonel. Close range, small arms most of them, although that big fellow being bagged over there was hit with assault weapon rounds. Higher velocity....you can tell from the entry wounds. Some have been stabbed too. One throat was cut."

Brogan felt his stomach churning. _Honeybee_ had been bearing the physics package and critical parts for the third bomb, Big Fella, although only he knew that. He had a copy of the manifest in his shirt pocket, classified Most Top Secret, to check for certain items. And somebody had called the FBI on the matter too. A dark Chevy sedan had pulled off the side of the highway several trucks ahead. He recognized Don Blount as one of the passengers, making some notes on a pad as he leaned against the rear bumper. He had worked with Blount before—counter-espionage in and around Los Alamos and Berkeley, California, oddball cases where the Army's jurisdiction intersected with the Bureau's. Blount noticed him and waved.

Brogan went over.

They shook hands. "Hell of a mess, isn't it?" Blount observed. "The poor fellows...all of 'em executed right on the scene, cold blooded murder."

"Ranchers?" asked Brogan, half-joking.

Blount snorted. "They weren't killed for trespassing." The agent reached into a pocket and pulled out a battered shell cartridge. He handed it over to Brogan, who examined it in the sunlight. "Know what that is?"

"Doesn't look like one of ours."

"It's from a Russian pistol. Seven point six two millimeter. Tokarev side arm. Standard issue for our Red Army friends."

"Russian?" Brogan's stomach churned some more. "How the hell'd it get out here?"

Blount indicated the broken back of _Honeybee's_ fuselage. "Got that manifest with you?"

_How the--?_ But Brogan stifled his puzzlement. The Bureau had eyes and ears everywhere, same as CIC. He pulled out the pages. They hopped down the embankment and went over to the wreckage.

At Brogan's request, Captain Donnelly had formed up a special squad just to probe _Honeybee's_ interior. Given the nature of her cargo, Brogan didn't want just any GIs poking through the debris. It's was vital that the manifest items be located or their whereabouts determined as fast as possible. Back at Los Alamos, Colonel Cates had been emphatic.

_Find that cargo and get it secured, anyway you can. General Groves is riding my ass on this one. If we don't find that gear and fast, we're all going to be dogmeat_.

Half an hour of poking and picking through the shattered interior of _Honeybee's_ cargo hold produced only loose items: torn netting, splinters of the original crating, a hinge and some bent bolts. Whoever had come by the crash site after _Honeybee_ went down had done a very thorough job. Not a single manifest item was inside, nor anywhere in the vicinity. Donnelly had made sure of that, detailing a small squad to comb through the surrounding scrubland of pinon and sage in expanding search sectors, out to nearly a quarter of a mile. Nothing but wreckage. And the bagged bodies.

Brogan bent down and squeezed his way through a crushed hatch opening toward the aircraft's shattered cockpit. The instruments were a tangle of wire and glass. The seats had been ripped from their mounts and tossed like toys against the fuselage. He crawled on hands and knees up onto the cockpit floor—what was left of it—and retrieved some loose scraps of paper, turning them over in his hand. Flight plan maybe. Power settings. Perhaps from an aircraft manual. It might be a useful clue. Backing out of the cockpit, he ran into Dr. Herbert Strunk, from Los Alamos J-Division. Strunk was an ordnance man, sent out to help secure the site, help secure the bomb core. Only there was no bomb core.

Strunk was drenched with sweat. The air was stifling inside the cargo hold, and thick with the smell of decomposing flesh and aviation fuel. Both men gagged at the same time and hurried outside, into fresher air.

Their worst fears had been confirmed. "My men have been all over the site," Strunk announced. He indicated white-shirted technicians trailing instruments and wiring, systematically probing through a pile of debris nearby. All of them were stripped to their T-shirts, some wore fedoras and other hats, some wore bandannas cinched up around their foreheads.

"And?"

Strunk shook his head, mopped his eyebrows with a handkerchief already soaked. "The core's not here, Colonel. It's been taken away, somehow. I'm sure of it. We're detecting only trace amounts of radioactivity here. If the bomb core were still around, even if it had been shattered by the crash, we'd expect to detect many times more radioactivity. In fact, we did some calculations back at the Hill. I estimate the radiation levels would be fourteen point-two times higher if the bomb were still here. This gully would be hotter than a griddle with neutrons...if—"

Strunk stopped when Dan Blount came up. A pair of wrinkled and sunburned locals were behind him, sporting wide brim sombrero-style hats and rough denim pants.

The FBI agent introduced them as Gonzalez and Blankenship. "They work the San Cristo ranch, so they tell me. Twenty miles east of here, near Tonopah."

Brogan asked the taller man, Gonzalez, what he had seen.

The Mexican took off his hat and wiped his forehead. He had a prominent scar at the hairline.

Gonzalez described how he had been working the western fields of the ranch, repairing fences with a work crew when _Honeybee_ had come screaming out of the morning sun and plowed into the desert alongside Highway 95.

" _Es Diablo_...beeg noise, very beeg noise—" Gonzalez lifted his arms like an explosion. The Mexican had gathered his crew, and headed out across the salt flats toward the column of black oily smoke on the horizon. He had run into Blankenship driving back from town and hitched a ride in his pickup truck. But they had stopped when spotting a small convoy of trucks already heading for the crash.

"What happened then?" Brogan asked.

Blankenship's red-veined eyes got big. "We was way back up there—" he pointed to a slight rise in the ground, topped with a thorny stand of acacia. "—kinda watching, you know? And these trucks pull up, see, and men get out."

"Armed men?"

"You bet!" Blankenship said. "Big rifles...looked like Army rifles, from what I seen."

"And—"

Blankenship wet his lips, looked up at Gonzalez. "They shot all of 'em...every last one of 'em. The men in the trucks did..."

Brogan looked at Blount. "Then what happened?"

Blankenship shrugged. "They went through the wreckage, removed some stuff."

"What stuff—what was removed?"

Blankenship was startled by Brogan's sharp tone of voice. "I dunno...some boxes. Some gear. It was inside the plane."

"Big crates?"

Gonzalez squinted. _What kind of loco hombres were these_? "Pretty big, maybe big as a table."

"Where'd they go...which direction?"

Gonzalez was aware that Captain Donnelly and a squad of American soldiers had surrounded them. Suddenly, he wanted to kick Blanko for dragging him into this mess. He shrugged again. "There were two trucks. They headed that way—" he pointed west along Highway 95.

"Yeah," Blankenship added, "we followed 'em with binoculars, and then they turned south, the stupid asses. Probably tried to take old 265 south down to Lida. But that road's nothing by dirt and ruts now. The sumbitch runs out right into the salt marshes south of Montezuma. They won't get far."

Brogan turned to Donnelly. "Captain, who's the local air commander here?"

Donnelly gave that some thought. "Well, there's Major Winans, down at Nellis Field, I guess. I think Fourth Army Air Force still has a detachment down there. They don't do much though—"

Brogan was already steering Donnelly by the arm toward the lead truck. "Raise 'em on your radio, Captain. We've got to get a search operation going pronto." He turned back to Gonzalez and Blankenship. "How long ago did those trucks leave?"

The Mexican half shrugged. "Maybe two hours."

_Jesus H. Christ!_ Brogan hustled Donnelly over to the truck and got on the radio to Nellis.

As Donnelly had implied, the Nellis Detachment was a shell of an interceptor squadron, left over from the first days of the war, where there were Japs behind every redwood tree in California and tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans were herded into resettlement camps away from the West Coast. After infuriating moments of delay, Major Dan Winans' voice crackled over the radio in the truck cab.

Brogan identified himself, adding the code word _Silverplate_. From the first days of the Project, the mere mention of that code word was enough to move mountains, build cities out of nothing overnight, and make four-star generals cringe in fear. Winans' voice perked up.

"Yes, sir, Colonel. We have fourteen Mustangs right here, P-51Bs in fact. Right off the factory line."

"How many can you scramble in the next ten minutes?"

Winans' voice wavered. "Well, er, Colonel, it's like this. About half our force is down for preventive maintenance."

"So that leaves seven. How soon can you get 'em airborne?"

Again, Winans' voice stumbled. "Uh, Colonel, actually, you see most of the rest of the squadron's been detailed...sort of loaned out."

"Loaned out...where for God's sake?"

"To various bases, sir...mostly to McChord, and Hamilton, and March, bases like that."

Brogan's stomach was doing back flips. He gritted his teeth. _Kate was pregnant. Honeybee was down. And Big Fella was missing._ "Major...exactly how many aircraft do you have on hand...right at this moment?"

"Two, sir."

"And how soon before they can be airborne?"

Winans' voice was chipper. "Within the hour, sir. No sweat."

Brogan explained the situation, describing the trucks as reconnaissance targets likely to have headed south from Tonopah. "Major, get your planes up and looking pronto. If I have to, I'm going to call every airbase around here."

Before he had hung up the phone, Skunky Merrill showed up, jumping out of an Army one-ton truck that had just pulled up, even before it had stopped rolling. Merrill had driven straight up from Nellis, after a harrowing flight from Santa Fe. The CIC agent hustled over with more bad news.

"Colonel Cates wants a full report, right now, Dog. He's already advised Washington that Big Fella's down and missing. Parson's on his way into Los Alamos. General Groves may be coming too."

Brogan was glum, chewing on a piece of weed he'd snatched from nearby bush. "Great. Just great. Parsons will chew us all up and spit out the pieces." Parsons was chief of security for the Manhattan Engineer District, a key advisor to General Groves. He was Cates' boss.

"What do we do now?"

Brogan walked out into the middle of the desert, away from all the crackling radios, away from all the squad leaders shouting orders. He needed space to think, of something. Anything. Merrill followed.

"The only thing we can do, Skunky. That bomb can't be more than two hours from here. By truck...in this terrain...that's maybe a hundred, hundred and twenty miles. You got a map?"

They found one in Donnelly's jeep and spread it out in the shade of a truck cargo bed.

"Draw a circle, make it a hundred and twenty miles radius. How far could they have gotten?"

When completed, the penciled-in circle touched Ely and Carson City and Las Vegas, Nevada, approached Fresno, California and disappeared into the trackless wastes of Death Valley.

"Who the hell are we dealing with?" Merrill asked, of no one in particular.

" _Russians_ ," Brogan spat out. "I'd bet my next month's pay on it. We got spent rounds from a Russian-make pistol all over the place here. The Hill's full of 'em too. Even some of the egghead scientists are in bed with them."

"So, say you're a Russian commando squad, disguised as cattle ranchers or something. And you take our...er, special shipment—" Merrill was aware of all the people around, people who didn't have clearance for the Project. "...and you head out. Which way do you go?"

Brogan studied the map. "Somewhere away from the main roads, somewhere away from towns where people might ask questions, or be curious. But _which_ way—"

"Gotta be south or west," Merrill offered. "North takes you deeper into the desert. East takes you to the Rockies. West could take you toward the coast. And South—"

"Mexico—" they both said at the same time.

The CIC agents spent the next hour combing through the wreckage of _Honeybee_ one more time, hunting for clues, evidence, anything, that might identify the assailants, or indicate why the aircraft had gone down. Brogan reviewed with Merrill the final walk-through the two of them had made at Kirtland, inspecting the aircraft, the transport arrangements, going over the maintenance logs and dossiers of the crew. Nothing had stood out. Everything seemed perfectly ordinary.

Except for one thing. In bits and pieces. Brogan recalled one Lieutenant Vaughn Malloy, the flight engineer he had encountered in the cockpit of Old Betsy, the crew's nickname for the aircraft that had been designated _Honeybee_ for this flight. He described haltingly, to Merrill, what he thought he had seen, the way Malloy had hurriedly stuffed wiring bundles back into a harness when the CIC agent had popped his head up into the cockpit.

"He was hiding something, I was sure of it at the time," Brogan remembered. "I intended to check into his files...but I never got around to it." Kate Wellesley had been the name of that little distraction.

"Wonder if Malloy was onboard? Was he part of the crew?"

"He was supposed to be." Brogan wheeled about, spotted the Graves Registration unit still processing bodies through a makeshift morgue set up beneath a tent near the aircraft. "We ought to be able to find out."

They went to the tent.

Lieutenant Quinn was recording something on a sheaf of forms. Quinn was a gawky medic with a shock of black hair and faint pock marks on his cheeks, remnants of a childhood bout with smallpox.

"Have you been able to make positive ID on any of them?" Brogan asked.

Quinn looked up. "Oh, indeed we have, Colonel. Got personal effects and fingerprints on all of them. I've got a good list here."

Brogan studied the pale face of a well-built, crewcutted man lying on a litter next to Quinn's table. Orderlies were bagging the body while Quinn listed personal effects on a form.

"And this guy--?"

Quinn sniffed, checked the form. "Colonel Doyle Delaney, 18th Airlift Squadron, Air Transport Service. The pilot."

Brogan swallowed hard. He had met Delaney several times, but didn't recognize the man. Death had changed his face somehow, made it harder, more brittle, bringing out cheek lines and facial planes that weren't there in life, as if changing his identity for the next world.

"Lieutenant, I'm checking to see if a Lieutenant Vaughn Malloy was onboard."

Quinn shuffled through some papers, found the one he wanted and checked off names. "Don't see a Malloy listed."

"You've identified everyone aboard?"

Quinn was annoyed at the question. "Yes, sir, all bodies at the crash scene have positively ID'ed. There was nobody identified as Malloy aboard the aircraft."

Brogan rubbed his chin. Merrill's eyebrows lifted at that. "Then who was the flight engineer?"

Quinn went over the list with Brogan and Merrill. "Must have been this guy," Quinn finally decided. His finger pointed to _Lieutenant Skip Bosko._

"Thanks, Lieutenant," Brogan pulled Merrill aside.

Skunky's face was dark. "Malloy...he's the one you suspected from the beginning. A saboteur, maybe."

"Maybe. Get on the radio to the Detachment. See if you can get the Colonel. We gotta phone this one in. And alert Kirtland too. If Malloy's still on base, he's got to be detained for questioning."

"Sure thing." Merrill scooted off to the Army car he'd commandeered at Los Alamos.

Brogan found Don Blount questioning one of the ranchers more closely. Gonzalez was plainly agitated by the questions, his face furrowed with worry. Brogan waved at the FBI agent, snagging his attention. Blount came over.

"More evidence?"

"Maybe," Brogan wasn't sure how much to share with the Bureau. Malloy was Army; technically, this wasn't Bureau territory. On the other hand, he might be a fugitive too, and the Army would need the Bureau's help in apprehending him. He explained his suspicions.

Blount uttered a low whistle. "Can you get me a description and details?"

"Working on that right now. The main problem at the moment is the aircraft's cargo. It was a priority war materiel manifest. We've got to find it, and soon."

"You want to be a little more specific? We should be alerting local law enforcement, sheriff's departments, that sort of thing."

Brogan knew he was right. But _Honeybee's_ cargo was not just some box of bullets. Blount wasn't cleared for details. He couldn't very well tell the man about Big Fella...that the plane had been carrying an atom bomb that could blow up a whole city.

"I'll have to check with Detachment...see how much we can release. I'd like to get a bulletin out...use that joker's descriptions—" he indicated Gonzalez, still shuffling nervously by a big boulder—"alert local police, like you said."

"It would help if they knew what they were looking for."

"Look," Brogan leveled with him, "it's a top-secret payload, see. Critical to the war effort. I need approval to give out anymore. Can you just get on those alerts—" he stopped in mid-sentence. Skunky Merrill was waving at him, waving him over to the car. Brogan hustled off. Blount just shook his head. _Friggin' military...couldn't run an investigation if their lives depended on it._

_Which_ , he reflected, _might just be the case_.

"What's up?" Brogan asked as he trotted up. Merrill was standing by the an open front door, radio mike in hand.

"It's Cates...somehow Nellis patched him through right from the Hill." He handed the mike over.

"Brogan here, Colonel."

Cates's voice was scratchy with whistles and pops but the tone of concern was clear enough. "Brogan...get the crash site secured pronto. And get back here on the double...both of you. Parsons is coming in tonight, with General Groves."

"Sir," Brogan explained, "we're still turning up evidence that could—"

" _Can it_ , Colonel! This case has just gotten a whole lot bigger. Washington's involved now."

"What is it, Colonel? What's happened?"

"Not over an unsecure line. Suffice it say that you're not the only ones working a major theft. Just get back to the Hill....immediately." Cates ended the connection with an abrupt screeching thump. Brogan gave Merrill the mike back.

"Tell Captain Donnelly he's in charge for the moment," Brogan decided. "We'd better get this crate back to Nellis, and scare us up an airplane...before Cates skins us alive."

General Groves _himself_?

The trip back to the Hill took the better part of the day. It was early evening, a pearly glow of crystalline blue sky over darkened earth when the CIC agents roared through East Gate and sped off down Jemez Road toward the Tech Area. They swung behind the Admin Building, glowing like some rustic mountain lodge surrounded by floodlights and electrical lines, braking to a halt at the 'Log Cabin' behind. Cars were parked at every angle around Detachment headquarters. The MP detail had been beefed up too, as helmeted and armed sentries patrolled places nobody had bothered with for months. Brogan and Merrill got out and went inside, hearts thumping.

Something big was definitely up.

Robert Cates was just inside the anteroom, arms folded behind his back, surrounded by uniforms with more brass than Brogan had seen in a long time. Colonel Parsons was there, with his deputy Major McLeod, both Project security from Washington. A wooden table covered with maps and papers occupied one corner, around which everyone had gathered.

"Ah, Brogan. Merrill...at last. You know Colonel Parsons?"

Salutes were exchanged. Parsons was tall, almost regal with a fringe of gray-white hair around the back of his head. He headed up Intelligence and Security Division for the Project. "Gentlemen, you may as well join in the discussions here. We've got a serious situation here...at a critical time for the war effort, I might add."

For the next half an hour, Parsons detailed what was known of the "matter at Tinian Island," as he referred to it. Brogan could hardly believe what he was hearing.

Summing up, Parsons concluded, "The assault at the 509th compound, where critical bomb parts were apparently taken by some kind of kamikaze Jap force was a bold operation of a type we've not seen from the enemy in a long time. Frankly, G2 doesn't believe they did it alone." Parsons nodded in Brogan's direction. "From what Cates and you, Colonel Brogan, tell me, it looks like the Russians are involved as well. Bringing down a transport aircraft bearing the active core of an atom bomb, with more critical parts, now has to be seen as part of the same overall operation. G2 and OSS now believe that _Honeybee_ going down and the assault at Tinian are related parts of a combined operation."

"Colonel," Cates asked, "could this assault at Tinian be some kind of last ditch effort by Jap commandos still hiding out on the island? We know most of these islands haven't been fully cleared of all the enemy."

"We thought that too..." Parsons said. "...until your aircraft went down in Nevada. Frankly, from the reports out of Tinian, there's no way a ragged band of half-starving Jap survivors could have pulled something like this off. They had outside help, lots of it."

Brogan's head was spinning with the implications. "Colonel, putting this all together gives me the willies, I don't mind telling you. If the Tinian reports are accurate, the Japs, and maybe the Russians too, now have the bomb casing and tail components for one of the Gadgets. And if the core survived the crash in Nevada and the same enemy's involved, doesn't that mean they've got all the parts needed to assemble an atom bomb?"

Nobody had an answer for that. Silence thickened until Parsons cleared his throat. "Cates, you'd better get some of the scientists in here. Dr. Oppenheimer, Weisskopf, Bethe, all of them. Maybe they can answer the question. For sure, we need to know what the enemy's now got."

"And what we're going to do about it," Skunky Merrill agreed.

Phone calls were made. Outside, jeeps were fired up to begin hunting down key people around the Hill, many of whom had their dinners interrupted, evening strolls cut short, laundry and commissary runs intercepted. For half an hour, the dirt parking lot in front of the Log Cabin looked like Times Square on New Year's Eve.

"This is bad," Merrill told Brogan, as they stood beside the wooden railing around the Log Cabin's front porch, lighting up cigarettes.

"Bad, my ass, it's critical. Hell, this could change the war completely."

"Hell of a thing, Dog. I wouldn't have thought the Japs could pull it off...a coordinated sabotage or espionage operation, snatching one of our newest bombs, the very Gadgets these jokers have been working on for so long, right out from under our noses."

"Yeah, the one weapon that could really end this war for good, and in a hurry, from what I've seen and heard."

"And now the Japs have one too."

"I'm not so sure they pulled this off by themselves. I'm wagering they had a lot of help and my money's on the Russians."

They both looked at each other, saying the same thing at the same time.

"Edvard Tolkach."

"But that's a dead end trail, Dog. I mean literally. The man got himself killed in a car accident at an awfully convenient time. If it was an accident—"

There was a commotion inside the Cabin. Brogan and Merrill went inside, hearing a short-wave radio crackling at full volume.

Cates was standing next to the set, mounted on a cupboard in the back corner. An Army Signal Corps specialist was tuning the set, trying to center the signal. Cates motioned Brogan over.

"It's Nellis Tower. Apparently they're in contact with one of their planes, down south, near the border. Somebody scrambled out of Nellis...you know a fellow named Winans?"

"Yes, sir...he runs the interceptor squadron there. We talked by radio when I was at the crash site."

Cates nodded. "Looks like one of his boys may have found something—" he bent to catch the scratchy voice fading in and out.

"— _runnin...hard and fast, Major....two of 'em...--to 'escribe...'ucks...'at bed and canopy cover, like produce trucks...'ollowing Highway 111...I think that's Brawley up ahead...High-- 'trol in pursuit but they're way behind_ —"

Brogan scrambled for a map. " _Jesus_ —" he whistled, his finger following a line from Tonopah to the scene the Army pilot had described. "How the hell did they get all the way down here—" his finger tapped a small town in southern California's Imperial Valley. "They're almost to Mexico."

"If that's our target, he's got to be stopped before he crosses the border," Cates said. He studied the map. "Isn't there an airfield at El Centro?"

"I think so, sir."

"Have Nellis contact them...get somebody to intercept those trucks. We can't let them cross the border."

"... _\--to do something fast...I'm dropping down—if I can get under those—"_ there was a loud squeal, followed by screeches, then nothing but a staticky hiss.

The Signal Corps technician adjusted his headset, fiddled with some knobs. His forehead wrinkled.

"Say again, Nellis. Didn't copy your last—"

"What the hell happened?" Cates asked, looking around. "Merrill, Brogan, get on the phone to the Highway Patrol. Border Patrol too. If those trucks get across the border--: but he was interrupted by a hand wave from the technician.

"Nellis has lost contact with him, sir. _Sagebrush One_ may be down—they're trying to contact him now. _Sagebrush Two_ says _One_ hit something, power lines maybe and went down."

Brogan was already dialing up numbers. CIC had a direct line to Border Patrol operations in San Diego. If they had any units around El Centro, maybe, just maybe, the trucks could be intercepted in time.

Colonel Robert Cates couldn't believe what was happening. On his watch, the Army was on the verge of losing the big cahuna, one of the very Gadgets ten thousand people had slaved over for three years, the country's best chance to hammer the Japs into submission and end this blasted war for good. Cates jammed his hands into his pockets and tried to steady himself.

_This can't be happening to me_ , he kept saying. _We had every base covered, all the details ticked off, every scenario played out and accounted for_.

Washington wasn't going to like this. News like this was bad for one's career prospects.

_How the hell did a bunch of Jap kamikazes steal an atom bomb right out from under our noses_?

"I was just wondering that myself, Colonel," a gruff voice cut through the bedlam in the room. All eyes turned toward the door.

Cates realized he had been muttering out loud, almost directly into the ear of the newly arrived General Leslie Groves. The commanding officer, Manhattan Engineer District, glared back at all the staring faces with bulldog eyes.

Groves tossed off his olive jacket, folded his cap into his belt and rolled up his sleeves. "Now tell me what the hell's going on around here?"
CHAPTER 14

Thursday, July 26, 1945

Aboard the U.S.S. _Augusta_ , somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean

9:15 a.m.

Harry S. Truman stood tanned and relaxed at the fantail railing of the cruiser _Augusta_ and admired the clear cloudless blue sky and calm soothing roll of waves in the distance. It was hot, but not suffocatingly so, not just yet, as _Augusta_ made her way steadily westward at some eighteen knots toward the Army port of embarkation at Newport News, Virginia.

The President of the United States was still basking in the afterglow of a successful conference at Potsdam a few days before. He'd buddied up with Joe Stalin enough to take the full measure of the man and had come up with a better understanding of the 'Russian Bear' as Jimmy Byrnes, his Secretary of State, liked to call the Soviet dictator. Churchill had been subdued—"probably worried about the elections in Britain"—as well he should have been. Halfway through the conference, the Tories had gone down to crushing, surprising defeat and Clement Attlee had taken over, flying the very next day to the Cecilienhof Palace to continue talks as the newest Prime Minister, and a Labor man at that.

But just being at sea, away from ringing phones, and news reporters, and endless meetings and memos, was relaxing enough and Harry Truman intended to bask in the peace for as long as it took _Augusta_ to make port.

"I'm really in no hurry, Captain," he had told _Augusta's_ skipper, Jim Foskett, at dinner the night before. "Take all the time you want. This is quite a change for an old Missouri boy like me."

Whereupon Captain Foskett had taken that as a direct order from the Commander-in-Chief, and ordered _Augusta's_ engines throttled back from twenty-two knots to eighteen.

Truman's schedule aboard the cruiser had settled into a comfortable enough routine, four days out of Antwerp, Belgium. The cruise thus far, as part of a two-ship task force under the command of Rear Admiral Allen McCann, had met with ideal weather. The Atlantic had been, day after day, smooth as a mill pond. Occasional light rains whipped the seas on Monday, the day they had departed. Otherwise, the days had dawned sunny and almost tropically warm. Today's forecast was for much of the same, save for intermittent squalls in the area. Captain Foskett had promised to give these a wide berth.

Truman welcomed the respite from the pressures of his office, benefiting tremendously from the rest. Jimmy Byrnes noticed a quicker, broader smile on the President's face, a livelier bounce in his step when he took his legendary after-dinner constitutional hikes around _Augusta's_ crowded foredeck. As always, the President was one of the most energetic men aboard ship, even at the age of sixty-one. Up at the crack of dawn, he had his usual breakfast of ham and eggs by seven, and was out on deck taking a brisk walk not longer afterward. Truman loved talking with ordinary sailors, especially with the gun crews, as an old field artilleryman from World War I. He always made time to take a look at the ship's eight-inch batteries, her secondary five-inchers and her array of anti-aircraft forty-millimeter guns. The President made sure to inspect the ship completely, from topmast to boiler rooms, climbing up and down ladders with the agility of the youngest crewman.

In the afternoons, he napped lightly, taking the sun on deck in between conferences with Byrnes and his naval aides, Captain Vardaman and Admiral Leahy, on the situation in the Pacific. He even sat with crew members in the ship's chapel and listened to chaplain Ken Perkins of Savona, New York pray for the nation's safety and guidance under his leadership.

Truman usually dined in the evening with the other officers in _Augusta's_ wood-paneled wardroom, though once in awhile, he sought out the ship's chief petty officers and select crew members for a quick steak or hamburger in the crew's mess.

All in all, Harry Truman had been a good sailor. He'd suffered once from a slight touch of seasickness on their first day out from Antwerp, but a pill and some bed rest got rid of the nausea readily enough and he was back on deck in a few hours. Under a bright morning sun, the President had enjoyed watching from the ship's topmast high over the main deck, as _Augusta's_ main and secondary batteries thundered salvos at a practice target out at sea.

Secretary of States Jimmy Byrnes was well aware of the fact that Harry Truman had been enjoying himself immensely since leaving Europe Monday morning. Thus he approached the President with some trepidation, bearing the extremely disturbing news he had just received off the ship's wireless from Captain Foskett half an hour before, news that, if true, did not bode well for the future course of the war in the Pacific.

He wasn't sure how much of it to believe himself, but Groves and Marshall had been insistent that Truman be informed.

Somehow, the Japs had managed to steal one of the nation's newest, and deepest secrets...a brand new atom bomb—almost right out from under them.

Truman read the flimsy several times, a dark shadow falling across his face. Sunshine gleamed off his glasses, momentarily hiding his eyes, but there was no mistaking the tightening of his lips beneath the white Panama hat he always wore on deck.

The President mouthed the words once more, in a low voice barely audible over the hiss of the waves.

"...core and components for one of our atom bombs, known to the staff as Big Fella, have been seized in a coordinated enemy operation inside the U.S. and at Tinian Island. Japanese agents are suspected. Soviet assistance is suspected—"

Truman looked up at Byrnes, squinting in the sun. He lowered the brim of his hat. "Jimmy, is this some kind of joke?"

"No, sir. Unfortunately it is not." Byrnes explained what he had read from Marshall's wire. "Secretary Stimson has confirmed the same thing. Even the FBI is involved. Apparently, if I'm to believe all the wires, the Japs now have pieces of one of our atom bombs. A plutonium bomb, I'm told it is called. Like the one that went off at Trinity."

Truman's face was dark, despite the bright sunshine. "God have mercy on all of us." The President was by turns, livid, furious and anxious to do something, anything. With effort, he swallowed his anger _. No sense in blowing up in front of all these fine sailors._ All of a sudden, the peaceful cruise across the Atlantic seemed like a dangerous distraction. He needed to be back in Washington, back in the Oval Office. "Start an immediate hunt for the perpetrators. And any collaborators too...we've got to move on this right now. I can't let the Japs put together an atom bomb and threaten us before we've even assembled one ourselves. How about preparations by Groves and his people? I gave orders they could begin bombing anytime after August 1. What's holding them up?"

"Security arrangements, Mr. President. Plus the garrison commander at Tinian is putting in extra defenses. Groves doesn't want to risk another shipment until a full security check is done on every movement of the parts, core and all."

"Damn it, Jimmy! I ordered the son of a bitch to start bombing Japan with those infernal things. Doesn't he know a direct order when he hears one?"

"I'm sure he does, sir. But they want to be careful. Clearly the Japs, maybe the Soviets too, are a lot more capable than we realized."

Truman jammed his hands in his trousers, glared out at the rolling waves. A dark cloud front had blown up from the west and was scudding their way. "This explains why Joe Stalin was so noncommittal at Potsdam, doesn't it? That wily old Russian bear knew perfectly well he was about to get his hands on a bomb anyway." Truman rubbed his hands together, suddenly chilled as the morning breezes freshened out of the southwest. Whitecaps had started foaming off in the distance and _Augusta_ had developed a pronounced lurch as heavier seas began rolling the fifteen-thousand ton cruiser like some coastal shrimper. "We've got to get that bomb back, Jimmy. Whatever it takes, we've got to get it back. We can't let the Japs put the damn thing together. And _use_ it, for God's sakes."

Byrnes scanned several papers to find the results of the investigation General Marshall had sent him. "By now, from what I'm reading, the casing components and core are probably in Mexico. The parts taken from Tinian disappeared into a submarine—Japanese or Soviet, the Navy thinks. They lost the trail practically right away."

"Mexico..." Truman was thoughtful. He gripped the rail tighter as _Augusta_ pitched and rolled again. A pair of chief petty officers assigned to the President moved onto the deck to suggest the Commander-in-Chief retire to shelter while the ship rode out the swells of the approaching storm. Truman ignored them. "Maybe there's something we can do about that. Jimmy, I want an ultimatum issued—I'll give you the words. Direct to the Mexican government." He dictated some words to himself, trying different combinations. "— _help us conduct a search for this critical cargo along your Pacific coast ports, since we suspect the Japanese will try to take the cargo out that way. Help us or we'll do the job ourselves..._ something along those lines, I think."

"General Marshall forwarded a recommendation from General Groves, sir." He found the Chief of Staff's exact words and read them aloud. " _A special operation could be executed, using Army Ranger forces and O.S.S., to enter Mexico covertly and search and seize any atom bomb components and the perpetrators, if they can be located—"_

Truman stabbed the air. "I like that idea. Put it down for my immediate approval, Jimmy. We don't have a moment to waste."

Byrnes made notes on a small steno pad he always carried in his jacket. "What do you think the Japs are up to?"

Truman scowled at the Navy chiefs, until they beat a retreat back up a ladder and kept a more discreet watch from a catwalk behind the deck. "I don't know for sure. We've got intelligence from Dulles' people in Switzerland and from Harriman in Moscow that the Japs are trying to find a way to surrender, without losing face. I don't know...maybe they figure they can get better terms. We threaten them, they threaten us. Trouble is, they know that we know they have the bomb, or soon will have. Damn it--!" Truman slammed a fist into the palm of his other hand. "How can our security be so lax...this was the most highly classified project in American history. And the sons of bitches just walk right in under our noses and take an atom bomb. It's criminal."

"The Japs didn't do it alone, Mr. President."

"Don't I know that. When this is all over, somebody's sure as hell going to pay. What the hell's Joe Stalin up to anyway? This is no way to treat Allies."

Byrnes eyed the rising seas. The wind was whipping spray onto the deck and a light rain had started failing. "Must be a squall we're coming into, Mr. President. Perhaps—we should go inside."

Truman took the hint. "Jimmy--" he said, as they negotiated the ladder up to the bridge deck. "—I want to send a personal note to General Groves and the Manhattan people. Some kind of encouragement but with a warning too: _Get moving on this now...act with a sense of urgency—"_

Truman hoisted himself up the ladder, fending off the helping hands offered by the Navy chiefs.

"Time is running out...on all of us. We've got to get that bomb back...and use ours...before the enemy can do any more damage."

Thursday, July 26, 1945

Washington, D.C.

Late afternoon

Every time Major General Leslie R. Groves entered the new Pentagon building, he felt physically sick. Not because of the building...even the President himself had termed the five-sided structure the Eighth Wonder of the World and plaudits were still coming in from around the War Department and the Government in bringing the project to completion in a record two years and under budget at that.

Groves knew his reputation as a project manager of high-profile, big-budget enterprises was secure. That was the reason General Styer, who had been chief of staff to the commanding general of the Army's Services of Supply back in '42, had picked Groves in the first place. When the nation's atomic mission was just getting organized, the Army fought hard for and finally achieved control over the whole project, which took the name of the controlling office assigned by the Corps of Engineers: the Manhattan Engineer District. Styer wanted a man proven to get things done on time, to be able to knock heads and kick ass and bring squabbling agencies and departments together in a unified effort for the good of the country. Groves, he had argued forcefully before Secretary Stimson and the President, was just such a man.

The trouble was that Leslie Groves wanted no part of it. Already a Colonel, Groves had grown up in the western U.S, an Army brat constantly traveling from one military post to another. In his youth, he'd often spent hours hanging around his father while grizzled old Indian fighters recounted stirring tales of how the West had been won. The boy had dreamed of conquering new lands, commanding men in desperate battles. When the Japs had attacked Pearl Harbor and the war was on, Groves figured it was only a matter of time before he'd be attacking Nazi machine gun nests and leading his men in fanatical charges against enemy positions.

Instead, he'd wound up in the Corps of Engineers, building commissaries for God's sake.

Every time he came to the Pentagon, where'd managed the world's largest construction workforce for the better part of two years, it gave him no pleasure. Instead, the huge edifice that was now home to tens of thousands of War Department functionaries only reminded him of what he had lost, the opportunities he had been denied. When Styer and Colonel Nichols, and others recommended to head up something called the Manhattan project, he swallowed his pride and saluted like the good soldier he was. That the Army had promoted him to flag rank and given him his first star

as Brigadier General did little to soften the blow.

There were perks in his job to be sure but the last three years had been like trying to herd cats. Now, on the very eve of success, with a successful test at Trinity under their belts, and the first bomb components headed for a showdown with the recalcitrant Japanese in the Pacific, an audacious and daring enemy commando team had somehow penetrated the 509th Bomb Group's compound at Tinian Island and made off with key parts of one of the bombs. And to make matters worse, an Air Transport Service cargo plane had gone down in the Nevada desert bearing the active core of the very same bomb.

Army CIC and the FBI were certain it was a coordinated operation, spearheaded by the Japs, probably with Russian help, to strike one final blow at the Allies, one final kamikaze charge against the impending onslaught of half a million troops. Groves wasn't so sure but he had to admit the evidence pointed in that direction. And the President was said to be livid about the whole thing.

Groves was more annoyed than worried as he bounded down the hallway of the Pentagon's Outer Ring, popping off half-salutes as he sought Room 4E22, home to General George C. Marshall, the Army's Chief of Staff. Anything that interrupted the project schedule, whether technical snags, accidents, or commando raids, was cause for concern to Groves. He treated all of them with the same level of ire.

Marshall half rose from his desk as Groves appeared in his door, snapping off a brisk salute.

"General Groves....come, come...sit down." Marshall was a regal presence in any setting, all the more so compared to the usually slovenly appearance of Leslie Groves, with his dark square of moustache, and protruding paunch. By contrast, the Chief of Staff was the very picture of military bearing and dignity.

Marshall's desk was Spartan and neatly organized in piles, save for a spread of memos laid out like a winning poker hand on the desk blotter. "I presume you've been briefed?"

Groves nodded. "On the flight into National, General. You know the President is quite irritated that we haven't bombed Japan yet."

Marshall leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers under his chin. "So I heard. You have an explanation, I presume?"

Groves said, "It's mostly a matter of weather and logistics, General. Our directive was to beginning bombing anytime after August 1, which is several days away. The first bomb, the Little Boy device we call it, isn't fully assembled at Tinian yet, although all the pieces are all there. _Indianapolis_ delivered the core just yesterday. The scientists are still putting it together, doing all their tests. I've got Deak Parsons out there, too, riding their asses. If it was up to them, they'd test the thing until the end of time. Occasionally, I have to remind them it _is_ a weapon of war and we do have an enemy to defeat."

Marshall smiled faintly. "And the target?"

"As we agreed earlier. Primary is Hiroshima. Secondary is Kokura. The crew and the aircraft are ready....more than ready. All we need now is a completed bomb."

"This device wasn't damaged in the enemy's assault? I read reports that hangar was shot up pretty good."

Groves nodded. "It was. Fortunately for us, the Little Boy device, minus its core, was over at the hoisting pit for fit checks with one of the bombers that night. It was a mile away from all the action. No—" Groves knew they had been damn lucky, "the Japs made off with parts for Big Fella. That's our third gadget, comes after Fat Man. And that's the one whose core went down with that plane in Nevada."

"And may be somewhere in Mexico now," Marshall added ruefully. He closed up the file on his desk with a brusque snap. "Hard to believe the Japs would be capable of pulling off such a stunt, right under our noses."

"Damned embarrassing, if you ask me," Groves admitted. "But the CIC people are working on the case night and day."

"Any chance we can speed up preparations at Tinian and hit the primary earlier?"

Groves honestly didn't know. "I talked with Dr. Oppenheimer right before I came over, posed that very question. He wasn't optimistic. They want to do all their tests, make sure everything survived the trip out to Tinian. The Doctor very pointedly reminded me that we drop the bomb before it's ready and it turns out to be a dud, he doesn't want to be blamed for it."

Marshall sniffed. "And you made a snappy reply, I'm sure."

Groves smiled. "General, I told him if that happened, the Japs wouldn't be the only enemies we'd have to deal with."

Marshall got up and went to a map of the Pacific that hung on the wall behind his desk. Late afternoon July sunlight streamed through blinds from a window, throwing lines of dark relief across the map. "You know, the President has ordered us to conduct a penetration operation inside Mexico, to scout her Pacific ports for Japanese ships or other suspicious activity connected with that plane going down in Nevada. G2 and the FBI both have evidence that the core was taken over the border. We can't let the enemy assemble an atom bomb right on our southern doorsteps."

"No, sir. I've ordered the District's CIC to devote all available resources to cooperating with the mission."

"The 2nd Rangers will run the operation. I've got several men in mind and O.S.S. is briefing them downtown right now. You probably should go too. Rangers will run the show, jump off from San Diego in a few days. I've also directed that Army Air Forces conduct an aerial surveillance of all the ports, from Tijuana south. Hap Arnold's got a special task force forming up now. And I've worked out a deal with Admiral King to have the Navy run a loose blockade of the same ports, as well as anti-submarine picket duty. We know the parts stolen at Tinian were transferred to a submarine, either Jap or Russian. Presumably, it'll show up somewhere. We're calling the whole thing Operation _Touchdown_."

"Probably an apt name, General," Groves admitted. "I'll get back to the Marianas, get with Oppenheimer, Parsons, Tibbets and the rest. Maybe we can shove up the bombing date by a few days. But the weather for the next week looks pretty dicey, from the met reports I've seen. Strong winds aloft, showers and clouds over most of Kyushu and southern Japan. We don't want to try and pull this off in bad weather. The effects have been precisely calibrated from the Trinity shot. Weather gets involved and nobody knows what might happen."

"Agreed," Marshall stood up and they shook hands. "Do what you can and keep me posted. Who's running the investigation from this end for CIC?"

"Colonel Parsons is at Los Alamos right now, General. He's reviewing intelligence and knocking heads to find out what went wrong. Obviously, security screwed up somewhere. I'll arrange to have him work through Nichols, so your office can be kept up to date."

They saluted. As Groves was turning to leave, Marshall added, "One more thing, General."

"Yes, sir?"

"The stakes have been raised in this race the last few days. The Japs, maybe the Russians, are holding a few more cards than they were this time last week. We've got to strike, and strike hard, while we've still got the upper hand."

Groves nodded and left.

_If we still have an upper hand to play at all,_ he thought. He hurried off down the corridor.

Two thousand miles away, Colonel William Parsons was angry. He was seated behind the battered metal desk normally inhabited by Colonel Cates in the back room of the "Log Cabin", headquarters for CIC's Los Alamos detachment. Robert Cates stood hands folded behind his back next to the desk, while Wade Brogan and Skunky Merrill and several others endured the Colonel's harangue and rapid-fire questions. Brogan squirmed slightly, wishing to God he were anywhere but here.

_The Spanish Inquisition couldn't have been as bad as this_ , he reflected. _Parsons should just boil us in oil and be done with it._

Parsons was tall, with a black line of moustache and a high, shiny forehead.

"The Army will be in control of Operation _Touchdown_. General Marshall and General Groves are insistent on that. This is Captain Deavers, 2nd Rangers, Charlie Company." Parsons indicated a beefy crewcutted officer built like a linebacker. "Deavers will be in charge. He gives the orders. I'm seconding CIC and a couple of squads from the 4817th MPs to him."

Brogan was intrigued. "Didn't 2nd Rangers land at Normandy?"

Deavers nodded gruffly. "We did indeed, Colonel. The Battalion won a Presidential Unit Citation too. We just arrived back at Camp Henry in Virginia a few weeks ago." Deavers' lips tightened. "The whole damn unit may be deactivated...a damn shame, if you ask me."

"Colonel—" asked Merrill, "-what exactly are the rules of engagement here? Suppose we find these bomb parts...suppose we find the enemy. Are we authorized to fire on 'em? Are we supposed to take 'em into custody?"

Parsons shrugged. "Your primary orders are to get the components back, anyway you can. Seize them if possible—you'll have a few technicians from J-Division along to help determine what's what. If you can't seize them, then your orders are to render the components useless to the enemy."

"Blow 'em up?"

"Do whatever you have to, Colonel Merrill, to keep them out of the enemy's hands."

"What about the Mexicans?" Deavers asked. "Are they cooperating? Resisting?"

Parsons rifled through the orders, and shrugged. "They've been informed. War Department is working with State Department through the embassy in Mexico City but nobody's sure if any locals have gotten the word. Use your own tactical judgment on that, Captain."

Deavers understood. The Second Rangers had also won the French Croix de Guerre for a brilliant assault on Pointe du Hoc, slicing the German lines in two and cutting off several regiments of infantry in the process. They hadn't achieved that kind of success by underestimating the enemy. "I say we plan for hostile entry," he decided.

"Where are we being inserted?" Merrill continued.

Parsons got up and gathered the group around a tattered map of northern Mexico that he had tacked up on the wall behind Cates' desk.

"Latest recon put the trucks on this road—" he fingered a highway crossing the northern borderlands of Baja California. "Highway 2 runs from Mexicali to Tijuana. We lost 'em in Tijuana. It's possible they may try to ship the parts out from a dock somewhere in this area, maybe as far south as Ensenada. The Navy's moving several ships into the area to look for suspicious activity on the coastal approaches. And Western Defense Command's got some patrol planes out of San Diego flying up and down the coast, just watching. Anything suspicious, we'll hopefully spot it."

"If they make a transfer in broad daylight," Brogan observed.

Parsons acknowledged that. "Let's review all the intelligence we have on the enemy at this point. Cates, you've got those files?"

Cates dumped an armload of manila folders with red and black borders on the desk... _his_ desk, which the chief of security had commandeered. "Got 'em right here, Colonel."

Parsons spread the folders out. "The enemy couldn't have pulled off this kind of caper without inside help, help from right here on the Hill. I want all CIC agents to look over your files again, page by page, all your notes and update your reports. Right here and now. All your contacts, your sources, surveillance logs, evidence reports, everything you've compiled over the last year. Nobody's leaving this building until that's done. I've already ordered sandwiches and coffee from the commissary, so get yourselves comfortable, find a corner somewhere and plan to spend the night if that's what it takes. Operation _Touchdown_ commences at dawn tomorrow morning, soon as Deavers can get his men and their gear loaded onto the planes. You're leaving for Kirtland?"

"Right now, Colonel." The Ranger officer hustled out of the detachment headquarters. He and his staff had a two-hour drive down to Albuquerque.

Cates went on, "Somewhere, the chain of security was breached. Let's backtrack the movements of all shipped parts from the day they were packaged at the lab. And I mean every single part, bolts and screws and all. It was all inventoried and checked off. Where was each part, who handled it, who had access to it? I want names, dates, times and levels of clearance. Gentlemen, we screwed up somewhere and we've got to find out where."

The assembled CIC officers set to work, while outside in front of the building, Captain Deavers huddled with several of his platoon leaders from the 2nd Rangers. They spread out maps on the hood of a Jeep beneath pole-mounted floodlights, and talked tactics and territory.

Brogan retrieved his own files and squatted in a corner near Skunky Merrill, who had already spread out the contents of several folders on the floor. Brogan was nervous, fumbling the folders, spilling papers everywhere.

Merrill watched his partner put the file back together. "Get a hold of yourself, Dog. We'll get to the bottom of this. Those clowns won't get away."

"It's not that I'm worried about."

Merrill offered his pal a cigarette. "Well, what then—you missing a hot date tonight? What's that dame's name anyway, Kate some—"

"Kate Wellesley." Brogan rubbed his eyes. He couldn't hide it any longer. There was no sense in denying what his own eyes had seen. The whole thing had been eating at him for days. He'd meant to confront her, tried to confront her but—then, two days ago, Kate had told him she was pregnant. Now she seemed to be missing. She hadn't answered any of his calls. He'd stopped by her cottage after returning from Nevada, only to find the house empty and some of her dresser and vanity drawers bare. The bags she kept in the closet were gone. She'd left and he didn't know where. True enough: sometimes Kate went on shopping trips around the Southwest, picking up oddities and curios for the shop. But this was different.

He couldn't cover for her any longer. She was mixed up in something she shouldn't be. And now she was gone. Before it was a small matter, an innocent diversion--a horny GI and a luscious USO girl--something he could bury in the back of the file, something to be let out when the time was right, when the war was over, the enemy defeated. Happened all the time, didn't it? But now...now it was different. Now it was a matter of urgent national security. Now, perhaps, the entire war effort was threatened.

"Colonel—" Brogan said softly, "there's something I should talk to you about."

Parsons was bent over files at Cates' desk, comparing notes with another officer...Captain Mike Ramey. He looked up.

"Find something, Brogan?"

"Not exactly, sir, but there's something that's not in the files. It should be but it isn't. And I'm the one to blame."

Parsons squinted through his reading glasses. "What the hell are you talking about, Brogan?"

And Wade Brogan spent the next twenty minutes detailing everything he knew about Kate Wellesley, including his own part. The first date, the wash pail full of classified papers, his suspicions, everything.

Almost everything.

When he was done, Brogan mopped his forehead with a handkerchief already soaked. He felt naked and exposed, sweating in the close confines of the Log Cabin's tiny back office. Suddenly, he had to pee and his throat burned; he needed a Coke, a beer, water, anything to moisten his lips. He was dimly aware of everyone's eyes staring at him, accusingly, _how could you let us down like that? Aren't you aware of the stakes here? You of all people—getting yourself messed up in something like this? What were you thinking? Were you thinking at all?_

Parsons stood cold and aloof behind the desk, hands folded behind his back. "Colonel Brogan, I should relieve you of your duties right here and now and slap you in the stockade. For aiding and abetting the enemy. This could be treason, you understand."

Brogan hung his head. "Yes, sir."

"Any good system of security is like a fence. We in CIC are the fence posts. The others out there—the average soldier, the civilians, the scientists and their families, they're like the slats of the fence. Everything depends on us. We have to be strong and upright. If a fence post falls down, what happens to the fence?"

Brogan didn't want to answer but Parsons was insistent. "It falls too, sir."

Parsons began pacing the room, not an easy task with the crowd of officers. Bodies squirmed and shuffled to get out of his way. "This is a very grave offense, Brogan, against the United States and against the Army. I might add that I and General Groves take this as a personal offense as well. You have a badge and an ID folder--?"

"Yes, sir." He reached into his jacket and pulled out the worn leather case, handing it over.

Parsons took it like a thing contaminated. He slapped it on the desk. "This folder gives you a great deal of power and trust, Colonel. You've abused that trust. You've violated your oath of office and probably committed treason. I'm not going to take you off the case just yet, though—"

"Sir—?"

Parsons sat on the end of the desk, like a disappointed Sunday School teacher, which he had been in civilian life, ticking off Brogan's sins. "By all rights, you've forfeited any consideration due an officer in the U.S. Army. But we're in a crisis here and I need you. For better or worse, you're right in the middle of this investigation, maybe with critical evidence." Parsons handed a tablet of paper and a pen over. "I want you to write down anything and everything you think might be material to the case. "Describe this Kate Wellesley physically. Her full name, address, background, contacts, job, family, what she likes and dislikes. You—" Parsons pointed to Merrill, "—you take notes too. I want corroboration. The files have to be made complete. This just may be the break we need."

For a long moment, the room was silent and stifling, save only breathing and barely suppressed coughs. Parsons glared at the assembled officers.

"Well...what the hell are you waiting for? Get moving...we've got a bomb to find."

At that, bodies accelerated into motion. Merrill and Brogan hunted for a small room elsewhere in the building. They found a utility space where more files and unused furniture was stored. They pulled off dusty covers and found a pair of chairs and a low table, and sat themselves down. Merrill couldn't even look at his partner and busied himself with doodling on the tablet Parsons had given him.

"Jesus, Dog...I—I don't know if—"

"Then don't, Skunky. Don't--just stuff it, will you? I feel bad enough as it is. Maybe I should borrow one of those Rangers and just get it all over with tonight. That's probably what'll happen to me anyway. A firing squad...or maybe I could appeal for the noose. No...firing squad is definitely the way to go. Better for a military man to die that way, don't you think?" He held up his hand. "Don't answer that...sorry."

Their eyes finally met. Brogan was crushed by the look of hurt and betrayal he saw in Merrill. He swallowed hard. Treason. Betrayal. You could betray a entire country in wartime and the law called it treason. But betraying a best friend, a buddy...was there a big, important, official-sounding word for that?

Merrill had a look on his face that couldn't be described in words.

"Let's just start somewhere," Brogan suggested. "I'll make notes and talk. You make notes and ask questions. We got a job to do."

"Sure, Dog." Merrill looked like a puppy that had just been kicked by its owner.

Brogan sank back in the chair, which squeaked loudly anytime he moved. "I guess I first met Kate Wellesley last fall—that would be October '44. Some kind of USO dance at the Golden Sage Hotel in Albuquerque—"

But somehow, Skunky Merrill just couldn't make his fingers work the pen.

Friday, July 27, 1945

Along the Pacific Coast of Mexico

3:30 a.m.

_Kapitan_ Lev Ponomarev was grateful that the night was moonless and mostly cloudy along the Mexican coast, as the submarine K-44 surfaced two miles off the tiny fishing village of Puerto Rosario. This close to the North American mainland, and especially to the big American naval base at San Diego, K-44 had to be careful, staying well away from the approach and transit lanes into and out of the harbor. The sleepy docks of Puerto Rosario were easily a hundred miles south of the Americans' huge base and all the more isolated for being in essence a decrepit waterfront...abandoned by everyone but a few local shrimpers and a ramshackle old marina once used for coastal tours by boisterous and drunken American sailors on shore leave.

Before leaving Vladivostok for the Tinian Island operation, Ponomarev had received coordinates for the Mexican coast landing. It was up to the Sacred Sword team to be at those coordinates at the proper time and day, hopefully with their cargo. The rules allowed the _Kapitan_ to surface and make three attempts to contact Sacred Sword. If, after the third attempt, no contact had been made, K-44 was to abort the mission and return all the way across the Pacific to Vladivostok, with the components they already had.

Fortunately, the signal had come from shore exactly as specified in the mission plan...three short flashes, followed by two shorts and two longs, followed by two more shorts. It was a typical flourish by Vasily Kalugin, one to be expected from such a free-spirit. Ponomarev ordered the landing boats away. One carried the bomb casing sections, the tail assembly, several boxes of switches and fuses and assorted items they had seized from the hangar at Tinian. The other boat, captained by Chief Luganin, carried the surviving members of the Valiant Warrior team: Major Anatoli Simonets and Lieutenant Maizu Yano.

A forty minute paddle brought the two craft into the choppy waters of the wharf area, surrounded by the darkened hulks of rusting shrimpers, a garbage scow and some kind of small passenger ferry, now listing heavily to starboard. A single floodlight shone forlornly at the end of the middle of three piers. Luganin chopped the air, signaling the rowers to ship their oars and drift for a moment. Luganin squinted into the distance, seeking movement, a human form, murmurs on the faint oily breeze , any evidence of life.

Finally, at last, he saw indistinct forms emerge from behind a row of metal drums. A hoarse voice croaked out across the still water:

"— _saitee na berek—"_ A Russian voice. "—land your boats here—"

It was Kalugin.

Luganin waved his oarsmen into action again and ten minutes later, the two boats were tied up alongside the middle pier. Hugs and backslaps greeted the crews.

Vasily Kalugin was irrepressible, beaming at Simonets and Yano as they came up the steps.

"What a sight you two are— like you've been through some kind of grinder...look at you both! Well, anyway... _prevetst'vavat_...welcome, explorers. Welcome to the New World."

Toranaga and Yano bowed deeply to each other, exchanging grunts and hugs. " _Alsatsu...oyagi_!" They laughed in each other's arms. Yano often teased Toronaga about being "the old man."

"Come on," Luganin hissed. "Hurry up! We can't stay here forever." He waved his crewmen to get moving.

Piece by piece, the sections of Big Fella's outer casing, her tail assembly and external junction boxes, plus small crates of electrical gear and wire and a box of special tools were hauled out of one boat and lugged up to the pier.

"You've got a truck...a vehicle of some kind?" Luganin asked. He looked around, saw nothing.

"Better than that," Kalugin said. "Our own freighter."

"What? You're not putting back to sea with this stuff."

"We're doing exactly that," Kalugin insisted. He waved at a small lighter moored two slips away, really little more than a trawler with her crane and hoist mounts removed. The derelict scraped up against the dock pilings with a squeal every time a wave rolled through. "This is our new ride."

Luganin could barely make out the fading red letters of her name, stenciled on the stern: _El Rey Diaz._ He walked down to the slip and was about to haul himself aboard, when something bumped against the gunwales at the water line. Though it was dark, Luganin swallowed hard when he found the source.

Two bodies, tied together by line, floated face down in the water, bumping up against _El Rey Diaz_ like loose flotsam.

Luganin stared down at them for a moment. He whirled, hearing Kalugin approach.

"The captain and the first mate, I believe," Kalugin said evenly. "They met an untimely end, earlier this evening. Quite sad, if I do say so." Kalugin's massive hands clenched into fists, then unclenched just as quickly, as if re-living the moment. He was not yet aware that a surviving member of the freighter's crew, an engineer named Marquez, was still aboard, holed up in a tiny crawl space next to the engine room.

Luganin glared back at him. " _Kapitan_ said nothing about this. I will have to talk with _Kapitan_ Ponomarev. He said nothing about a ship—"

Kalugin blocked his path, with a purpose. His voice lowered. "In the field, comrade, they call me _spiritsy_. Like a ghost. Ask the Hitlerites...you'll hear all the stories. Tell Ponomarev this: there's been a change in plan. The bomb goes on the ship. We're leaving before dawn."

Luganin had been in plenty of fights at ports from Murmansk to Petropavlovsk. But he didn't want to slug it out with this crazy officer. Instead, he shrugged. "I'll inform _Kapitan_. But he won't like it. It's not according to plan."

"Very little that I do is," Kalugin said. "That's the way diversionary operations are...you adjust to the enemy to stay ahead of him. Now...is that all? Are there any more parts?"

"Nothing more, Major," Anatoli Simonets said from behind them. "You've got the core?"

Kalugin nodded. "Come...I'll show you." The two of them ignored Luganin and the K-44 crewmen as they hoisted themselves aboard _El Rey Diaz_. Kalugin led Simonets down a narrow hatch, to a utility space beneath the foredeck. There, amid broken pieces of lumber, oil drums and piles of empty beer bottles, was a small crate, covered with a canvas tarpaulin, and roped down to a pair of two-by-fours for handling. Simonets' eyes widened as he followed Kalugin's flashlight beam.

"It's warm—" he whispered in awe, pulling back the canvas. "I heard it would be. I just wish Semyon Pavlovich were here. He told me much about the device...about the neutrons and how they make energy—" Simonets looked up. "Yerevan was killed in the assault. I had to leave him...on the beach—"

Kulagin's lips tightened imperceptibly, though not from remorse at losing a comrade to the enemy. "We needed Yerevan. He was one of Kurchatov's men. He knows about this thing."

Simonets shuddered. "Then it's all here, isn't it, Vasily Alexeyevich? Everything needed to make it...this atom bomb, as Yerevan called it. It's all here."

But Kalugin's attention was topside. "We've got to get going. Come on—" He whirled and ducked out of the compartment, heading up the ladder.

Luganin and the crewmen from the K-44 were ready to head back to the boat. He waved Kalugin over.

"You're putting to sea with the bomb in that?" He nodded at _El Rey Diaz_.

Kalugin was transferring gear to a Japanese marine at the top of the gangway. "We're going up the coast. It's too dangerous to take the trucks. By now, the Americans will be looking for these trucks." Any commando knew you had to think five moves ahead of the enemy.

"And where are you going?"

Kalugin glared at the Ukrainian chief with contempt. "You have no need to know, _tovarisch_. Where I am going you may not follow. You've done your job. Let me do mine."

Luganin had developed an increasing dislike for this arrogant and elitist prick. "A lot of men died to get those parts here, comrade. It'd be a shame for the Americans to torpedo this tub and bring the mission to an end."

"Then why don't you follow us, like an escort? Shadow us up the coast."

Luganin thought the idea had merit, though he wouldn't have lifted an eyebrow to save Kalugin from going to the bottom of the ocean. He was more worried about the bomb. _Kapitan_ Ponomarev had made it quite clear to the crew of the K-44 that getting these parts to the North American mainland was vital to the war effort. "I'll have to talk to the _Kapitan_."

"You do that, Chief." Kalugin shoved past the burly Ukrainian. "I've got to get us underway, before the Americans show up."

Inside of an hour, _El Rey Diaz_ was fully loaded with the rest of the mission gear and weapons, as well as the core, casing and parts of the Big Fella device. Saburu Toronaga reported that all the surviving team members were aboard. Maizu Yano, the slender lieutenant who'd come from the Tinian operation, had boat-handling experience. He took his position in the wheelhouse, handling the helm of the freighter like an experienced seaman.

Two hours shy of sunrise, _El Rey Diaz_ slipped her moorings and backed out into the placid harbor of Puerto Rosario. Navigating by flashlight, Yano swung her bow around and ordered engines ahead one-third, groping through a channel clogged with refuse and splintered logs as they nosed forward into the mist-shrouded night.

Before departing, Kalugin had talked by radio with Ponomarev aboard the K-44. It was agreed that the submarine would shadow the freighter by half a mile until _El Rey Diaz_ was clear of the harbor and headed north. Kalugin wouldn't disclose his final destination—operational security was something he had learned the value of a long time ago fighting the Germans in the forests of Silesia—but he was nonetheless thankful for the company.

It was a sure bet the American Navy was hovering all around Mexico's Pacific coast, ready to intercept any craft that looked even remotely suspicious.

With any luck, though, _El Rey Diaz_ would raise no suspicions. From all outward appearances, she would appear to be just what she was: a small freighter bearing miscellaneous machine parts and bags of bananas northward, ostensibly for Vancouver, according to the manifest they found in the captain's stateroom.

Only a detailed inspection would reveal that she was also carrying an atom bomb in her cargo hold.

By sunup, Puerto Rosario was no longer a sleepy fishing village sixty miles south of Ensenada. The Mexican _Policia Federal_ had tracked the two stolen trucks into the village and surrounded the place, even calling up a full company of the militia, who had encamped on the road approaches into the village and shut off all traffic into and out of the area.

Then they notified the Americans.

Dog Brogan and the CIC agents rode with Charlie Company of the 2nd Rangers aboard a pair of C-46 transports out of San Diego's North Field once the Mexican authorities had passed word about the trucks. The flight down to the dusty landing strip that passed for an airport outside Puerto Rosario took several hours.

Brogan and Merrill squinted through the blinding sun of the Sonoran desert at the dilapidated tin roofs and rickety wharves of the village from a slight rise alongside the main road from the coast highway.

"What a god-forsaken junk pile of a town," Merrill said. "Plus it's hotter than Hades here...Jesus...it's worse than Los Alamos."

Brogan nodded, scanning the town and the dock area with binoculars. "Perfect for some kind of exchange, I would say. Isolated, out of the way. Nobody would look for an atom bomb in this trash heap. Come on, let's go."

Brogan and Merrill rode with Captain Deavers, who was nominally in charge of the operation, in a convoy of trucks furnished by the Mexican Army, a haughty Major named Guerrerro right by his side.

"A small harmless village, no?" Guerrero offered. His own soldiers accompanied the convoy in a variety of wheezing trucks and cars, commandeered from the locals. "The _Guardia_ spotted them on the highway early last night. A few hours later, they were located at the docks. Reported by some of the villagers—"

Brogan was thoughtful. "Why stop here?" he wondered, out loud. "Why the docks?"

Merrill shrugged. The convoy slowed as it entered a narrow street of broken asphalt, half-naked children and barking dogs. White-washed adobe buildings provided little shade from the blazing sun.

"There's only one reason to come to a place like this. They're meeting up with someone. Maybe it was an exchange of some kind."

"Yeah, but an exchange of what? _Honeybee_ had the active core of the bomb, but most of the rest was shipped ahead."

"Dog, remember what the Colonel said about that attack at Tinian Island? Bomb parts were taken then, casing, tail assembly, all kinds of parts. And the Navy said there was a submarine in the area. G2 has reports from the soldiers that followed the Japs to Tinian's western shore...some kind of gear was floated out to a submarine. Then the Navy lost it."

"A submarine...and a Mexican port." Brogan had a growing sense of unease. _Had Big Fella's core and her casing been mated up here_? "So where the hell are they?"

The convoy stopped at the entrance to the docks. Brogan and Merrill got out and followed Deavers and a squad of Rangers down to the wharf area. Several shrimpers were still tied up in their slips, kept in port by the Mexican authorities, much to the annoyance of their skippers, who yelled curses from their decks, loudly protesting the delay.

Deavers accompanied Major Guerrero to an altercation developing at the end of the middle pier, which was empty. Two locals were being roughed up by _Guardia_ soldiers, both of them pinned down to the rough boards by burly sergeants. Guerrero barked orders and the soldiers released the locals, who stood up unsteadily. Both were cut on the face and neck.

Guerrero stood nose to nose with one of them. He was a grimy, T-shirted _empleo_ of the dock authority, hired for day labor to load fish and tackle and keep the pier clean. His name was Ernesto. He didn't give a last name.

Ernesto and Guerrero argued in Spanish for several minutes. Ernesto gestured at the slip, then at his comrade still picking himself up, then more emphatically at the open sea, visible beyond a rock and cinder block jetty at the other side of the channel. A stubby and crumbling white lighthouse strobed its beacon rhythmically, even in bright sunshine at the tip of the jetty.

"What's he saying?" Captain Deavers intervened.

Guerrero shrugged. "Some nonsense about the boat that normally moors here. She's called _El Rey Diaz_."

"What about her?"

"He says the boat was seized by a—" but Guerrero's explanation was interrupted by a shout. Several Guardia soldiers had spied something in the water, on the other side of the pier. They bent down, then one started shimmying down the wharf post, holding onto a rope, as more soldiers lowered him toward the oily water.

The Americans went running, just in time to see the decomposing body of _El Rey_ _Diaz_ ' first mate being slowly hauled up. It had drifted underneath the pier and become wedged in the pilings. The bumping sound had alerted the soldiers.

"Who's that?" Brogan wondered. Guerrero waved Ernesto over. He was roughly escorted by the burly sergeants, pulling his arms free angrily.

" _Esta aqui_ \--?" Guerrero asked loudly. Ernesto's face blanched and he turned pale at the sight of the first mate's disfigured face, partially chewed off by local crustaceans in the harbor. He nodded vigorously, his face grim and sad. The stench was thick and everyone backed off as a breeze filled the air with the smell of decaying flesh.

Guerrero and Ernesto talked for a few minutes. The Major turned to Deavers and Brogan. "He says this is the first mate of _El Rey Diaz_. He's been shot and stabbed, as you can see. The strange foreigners did this."

"Strange foreigners? What kind of strange foreigners?"

Guerrero asked the question, but Ernesto couldn't take his eyes off the corpse. He just shrugged, mumbling _Santa Maria, Santa Maria_ , crossing himself repeatedly.

"He says they must have taken the boat," Guerrero observed. "As much as I can get out of him—" He signaled for the sergeants to take Ernesto away.

Brogan held up a hand. "Wait! Can he describe these strange foreigners? Did he see which way the boat went?"

Ernesto listened while Major Guerrero translated the _Yanqui's_ questions. The dockhand threw out his hands, imploring Brogan to understand. Guerrero's sergeants tightened their grip.

Guerrero was skeptical. "He says they weren't _nortenos_. From across the sea...they looked... _eastern_ , he says. Some of them did."

"Japs," Merrill hissed. "I'll bet they were Japs."

"What about the boat?"

But Ernesto had no idea which way _El Rey Diaz_ had gone.

Brogan shook his head. "Japs were here. Probably Russians too. That means Big Fella was here too. This place is probably thick with radioactivity."

"And now they've got a boat—hey, maybe they're heading back to Japan."

"Or Russia. Now that they've got the whole works."

Merrill suddenly had another idea. "Or—"

Brogan saw the meaning in Merrill's words. "Or every damn port on the West Coast could be in danger. Captain—" he turned to Deavers. "We've got to word back to Western Defense Command...and to the Navy. They've got to find that boat...and fast."

Deavers was already sprinting back to the truck.
CHAPTER 15

Monday, July 30, 1945

Tinian Island

6:30 a.m.

Colonel Paul Tibbets wanted a cigarette in the worst way but rules were rules and he dared not smoke standing less than ten feet away from the Little Boy atom bomb. He was nervous, fidgety and acutely conscious of time, as he watched his weaponeer—Navy Captain William "Deak" Parsons--finish off his final assembly checklist on the bomb. Parsons was covered with sweat, his khaki shirt stained dark brown, while two other ordnance technicians from J-Division helped out. Parsons stood up straight for a moment and stretched, wincing at a kink in his neck. He smiled ruefully at Tibbets.

"Relax, Colonel. We'll get it done."

Tibbets snorted. "You know, Deak, this ain't the safest thing I've ever seen...handling cordite like that. You're not putting that in the bomb before take-off, are you?"

Parsons shook his head. "Too risky, skipper. Cordite's what drives the uranium slug into the target. If we crash on take-off, or shortly thereafter, we could get anything from a fizzle to a full-yield explosion...vaporize pretty much the whole island. No—" Parsons mopped his forehead, "I'm planning on inserting the cordite after we're airborne and on our way."

"Good." Tibbets was relieved, though only mildly. He wasn't convinced Parsons would be able to complete the complicated and ticklish procedure inside a moving aircraft, especially at altitude in the middle of a cold and drafty bomb bay. Time would tell about that, though.

He scanned the hangar, still being patched up from the Jap assault last Wednesday. Security had been beefed up, with extra MPs, a full infantry platoon outside, forming a secure perimeter and two more outer rings of security at every access point into the compound. Inside the hangar, which resembled a Midwest barn with a steeply pitched roof, Navy Seabees were busily repairing the ruptured walls through which the Japs had driven several trucks, after they had made off with components of the Big Fella device. Other crews were moving equipment around, sweeping up debris and spent shells, and plugging bullet holes from some of the hundreds of rounds that had been expended in the firefight. A waist-high mound of cartridges had been growing by the hour beside the main door.

Tibbets shifted uneasily as he watched Parsons gingerly torquing down a few bolts on a flange inside the guts of Little Boy. He knew the device was a terribly unsafe design. The scientists were so certain the device would work as advertised, the thing had never been tested. Little Boy was a gun-type atom bomb, quite different from Fat Man and Big Fella, both of which were spherical implosion devices. The gun itself was a 3-inch diameter tube inside of an anti-aircraft weapon barrel, itself six and a half feet wide and six feet long. The entire bomb was 126 inches long, 28 inches in diameter and weighed 8900 pounds. Hoisting the thing into the bomb bay of a B-29 required the services of an underground pit, specially dug into the coral and limestone soil of Tinian Island, several thousand yards northwest of the hangar. It was a ticklish operation, requiring good weather, steady hands and no small amount of luck.

Overnight, Paul Tibbets had received an urgent cable from 20th Air Force headquarters, on Guam. In the aftermath of the Jap assault at Tinian, and with the core of Big Fella now missing after its transport plane had gone down in Nevada, Washington was getting nervous. The President was said to be livid about lapses in security, asking every day when the bomb would be used. Marshall and Stimson were anxious to use the device, but Groves and LeMay were insistent that weather and tactical conditions be right. If the bomb failed, turned out to be a dud, or was blown well off course by high winds that were bedeviling LeMay's crews practically everyday, no one really knew what would happen.

"It's got to work and work right the first time," Groves insisted. "We've come too far to mess this up now." Still, the pressure from Washington wouldn't let up.

Tibbets knew that bomb unit L11, the device Parsons was even now bent over, would be the first to go. He hoped their luck would hold out just awhile longer. The 509th crews were increasingly antsy, cooped up in their compound, the butt of jokes and stories from the other crews at Tinian, stories about dropping orange pumpkins instead of live bombs, jokes about blasting the cockroaches to smithereens while LeMay's boys braved fierce flak and suicidal Jap pilots over the skies of the Home Islands. Tibbets had had just about all he could take of the endless days of training and the security blanket that had become so smothering, since the Japs had infiltrated into the compound, shot up the hangar and a few airplanes and made off with parts for the Big Fella bomb.

_It's time to go_ , he muttered to himself. _Time to get off the pot and do what we're supposed to do._

"What's that, Colonel?" A quizzical face belonging to his radar man, Lieutenant Jacob Beser, appeared.

"Oh—hmmm...nothing, Beser. Nothing. Just muttering to myself, I guess." Tibbets fumbled with the checklist Parsons had given him and moved forward to see how his weaponeer was doing. For nearly a year, he had tried to maintain a steady, even keel when dealing with the men of the 509th. Through training flights over the Caribbean, long, hot days at Wendover Field in the middle of the Utah desert, to the deployment to Tinian, Tibbets had been acutely aware that the mission of the 509th was special, though only a few flight crews really understood what was about to happen. Despite the delays, despite the Japs, despite of all the pressure, he couldn't crack...at least not yet.

They still had a mission to perform.

Jacob Beser shrugged and went back to his electronics bench, covered with wiring and switches. When the time came, it would be his job to make sure the Japs didn't try anything funny...like jamming the bomb's radar unit so it couldn't detect altitude. Little Boy was set to go off at 1800 feet above the ground, through a complicated series of radar pulses and timing circuits and barometric switches. Beser intended to make damn good and sure he didn't screw up his end of the deal.

Component parts and active materials for Little Boy had reached the detachment at Tinian only a few days before. Most of the components and the U-235 core had left Los Alamos in mid-July, in the custody of Major Robert Furman, a special projects officer detailed from General Groves' office in Washington and Captain James Nolan, chief medical officer at Los Alamos. They had traveled by automobile from Santa Fe to Albuquerque, then by plane to Hamilton Field, near San Francisco, thence to Hunters Point to be placed aboard the cruiser _Indianapolis_. Crossing the Pacific in record time, the bomb components had reached Tinian last Wednesday, July 26.

That night, before the components could even be properly secured, the Japs had attacked. Tibbets was certain the timing of the attack hadn't been a coincidence, though G2 was mum about the possibility of a saboteur or spy inside the Project.

Several days later, two Los Alamos security officers had brought the rest of Little Boy's parts aboard two C-54 cargo planes, under extremely tight security. By Sunday—yesterday—Parsons and his team had everything they needed.

Tibbets couldn't stand waiting around any longer. He ducked outside the hangar and lit up a cigarette, noting the orange glow of dawn was beginning to brighten the eastern sky. To his left, several thousand yards beyond the compound's new fencing and guard posts, North Field roared all day and night. Even as he watched, he found himself judging the landing performance of a Superfort as it settled lower and lower toward the runway.

_Must have aileron or rudder damage_ , Tibbets thought. The huge bomber waggled unsteadily as it descended, until at touchdown, its portside wing dipped and struck the runway. With a wrenching screech, the bomber swung around and skidded sideways several thousand feet down the runway, lighting off sparks and small fires in the brush nearby. Before the plane had come to a full stop, facing backward in the direction it had come, her landing gear collapsed and she flopped onto her belly for the final roll-out. Crash trucks streamed onto the runway, sirens blaring, while the crippled bomber sat tilted over to port like some wounded beast licking its wounds.

_Get the hell out of there_ , Tibbets muttered. _She's gonna blow_. But miraculously, the explosion he had feared never came. Moments later, the crash teams were swarming all over the plane, while fire trucks hosed and foamed down her wings and belly.

'It's a crazy business," came a voice from the brush. Tibbets turned around. It was Captain Bob Lewis, his probable co-pilot for the upcoming Little Boy mission, though Tibbets had held crew assignments close to the vest. Lewis had been campaigning to get on the crew for days.

Tibbets nodded. "Damn lucky, if you ask me. Must have been low on fuel...otherwise she would have lit off like a firecracker."

"Maybe," Lewis agreed. "Luckier than that pilot that hit the Empire State Building anyway. How many did he kill?"

Tibbets had heard the reports over the radio from San Francisco. "Fourteen or fifteen, I think. Hell of a mess that must have been. Flew right into the 90th floor, two hundred miles an hour—" The Colonel shook his head.

"Damn lucky the whole building didn't get knocked down," Lewis added.

The news had been all over the ready rooms for most of the weekend. An Army Air Forces B-25 pilot had been told to land at Municipal Airport in Queens on Saturday morning but had diverted toward Newark instead. In fog so dense, even the Statue of Liberty's torch was obscured, the plane had somehow plowed into the Empire State Building nine hundred feet above 34th Street in midtown Manhattan. The pilot and two crew members were killed, along with eleven others inside the building. Only because it had been Saturday had the casualties been so light, as most offices weren't fully staffed.

Bob Lewis studied Tibbets for a moment. "Colonel, are we ever going to get to drop this thing? I'm itching to get going, get up to Japan and do some damage. I'm sick and tired of taking all this ribbing at the O Club."

"I know, Bob. I know. All of us are. But we're just not quite ready yet. Deak's putting the bomb together...they'll be testing the rest of the day. Then we've got to load it and secure it in the bomb bay...last time, we had all those alignment problems, remember. I want that done right. I don't want an atom bomb hanging up in the bomb shackles when I try to drop it over a real target. We won't be ready until Wednesday at the earliest. Plus the weather's dicey, too. The meteorology guys say the first four days of August look bad over Kyushu and southern Japan...clouds, high winds aloft, squalls. From Thursday on, it'll probably be a day to day thing."

Lewis dropped his own cigarette butt and stubbed it out with the toe of his boot. "Well, hell, Colonel, that's practically an eternity. We wait around much longer and the Japs might just come back again."

It was a thought that had occurred to Tibbets too. Every day's delay added to the risk. Truman wanted the bomb to be dropped but Groves and the eggheads wanted perfect conditions to measure the effects. Something had to give.

_Probably my patience_ , he told himself. Tibbets ducked back into the hangar, to see if he could hurry Parsons up just a little bit more.

Monday, July 30, 1945

Over the Sea of Okhotsk, U.S.S.R.

9:30 a.m.

_Awesome Avenger_ banked hard and her wings bit into the cold north Pacific air, as Sado Fumori took the wheel from Ivan Nakhimov. The captured B-29 was cruising at twenty-eight thousand feet altitude, on a northeasterly heading, toward the Chukotsky Peninsula and a landing that night at the 240th Fighter Air Regiment base at Pyrkanay. Fumori was exceedingly pleased with himself as he settled in with _Avenger_ and flexed his fingers around the control wheel.

_She's a big ship but she handles well_. He was both proud that he could serve the Emperor in such a glorious mission and not a little bit anxious, wondering if _Avenger_ and her strange brew of Russian and Japanese crewmen would be equal to the task.

The Decisive Battle loomed ahead, finally, and Fumori knew he had been given a great honor, to bear the spirit of Yamato right into the very heartland of the enemy. He gripped the wheel hard, steeling himself for the ordeal to come. On this mission, he would not fail.

_Not bad for the fifth son of a Kure fisherman_ , he had to admit.

"Relax..." murmured Nakhimov. "You'll tear off the wheel if you grip it any harder."

Fumori, sitting upright in the right-hand seat, did as the Russian said. He decided to start acting like a commander, even if Nakhimov was nominally in charge of this leg of the mission.

"Navigator," he barked. "what is our position?"

Directly behind Nakhimov's seat was a bulkhead, on the opposite side of which sat _Serzhant_ Alexei Maximov, the navigator. The Russian's voice crackled in Fumori's earpiece.

"Latitude sixty degrees, fifteen minutes north and longitude one seven one degrees east, Commander. Flight level two eight oh, heading zero six six degrees. Our airspeed is two two five knots...three six zero kilometers per hour. We are on course, just off Kamchatka."

Fumori smiled in spite of himself, avoiding a peek at Nakhimov's face. Japanese airmen issuing orders to Russian crewmen in an American B-29...surely this was a first. Maybe the strange brew could be made to work after all.

Nakhimov, for his part, relaxed in the pilot seat, stretching his arms behind his head. "Six more hours, Sado. And the first leg will be done. I can hardly believe we're finally underway. Until we left Spassk Dalniy, I never really believed this mission would be approved."

Fumori nodded. Below them, dark green valleys dotted the landscape, broken with white clouds and a dark haze from a volcano spitting ash into the sky on the horizon. The morning sun glinted off countless lakes and rivers. In mid-summer, Kamchatka was a cool, ice-free land of fuming vents and rolling meadows.

It was the last time _Avenger's_ crew would see their Russian homeland for a very long time.

The day before _Avenger_ had taken off, a coded radio signal had been received at Spassk Dalniy. The K-44 was underway again, off the west coast of Mexico, this time shadowing a decrepit Mexican freighter as she made her way northward along the coast. On board: the plutonium core and all the components to fashion an atom bomb, along with the surviving members of the Sacred Sword and Valiant Warrior teams.

Viktor Kleptomanov had received the message in his office at the base. As local NKVD _rezident_ for the Far East Military District, it was his job to see that the _Avenger's_ combined crew and the captured American plane were ready for their part of Operation _Pobeda_. K-44's signal was the final piece of the puzzle. All the necessary components of the bomb were now together. Moscow Center's instructions had been clear: begin staging the aircraft from Spassk Dalniy to the clandestine base being hacked out of the northern forests of British Columbia.

Within hours of receiving the message, Ivan Nakhimov and Sado Fumori and the rest of their crew had checked out the B-29 Superfortress, overseen her fueling and provisioning and gathered the rest of her new crew for a quick briefing on the ramp. As one, the crew had boarded the plane and taken the positions they had trained for so long. Moments later, the bomber had lifted off into a clear morning sky on the first leg of her mission, a seven-hour hop up to a crude arctic airfield on the Chukotsky Peninsula in northeastern Siberia.

It was from the cold, windswept field at Pyrkanay that _Awesome Avenger_ would enter American airspace for the first time.

Fumori turned to face Nakhimov. "Major, your army will never succeed in defeating our Kwantung Army. Manchukuo is ours, historically ours, and Nihon will defend it to the death."

Nakhimov snorted. It was the kind of thing Fumori liked to say all the time, out of the blue, for no reason he could see. The Russian had closed his eyes and let the drone of the huge Wright radial engines lull him to sleep. Perhaps the Japanese commander felt saying such things would make them true. Nakhimov knew otherwise. Even as _Awesome Avenger_ flew steadily northward, the leading ace of the 240th smiled to himself. He doubted Fumori truly understood how many rifle and tank divisions were staged on the Ussuri River border with Manchuria, ready to pummel the Japanese into dust at Stalin's word.

"Sado, all the grains of sand at the beach say the same thing to the mighty waves of the ocean...we shall stand and fight to the death. And what does the ocean say to that? ' _So be it.'"_

Fumori was unconvinced. "There's no reason for Japanese and Russian to fight each other. The Americans are the enemy. They and the British have raped Asia for centuries...look what they've done to China. We'd all be better off if the colonialists were run out. The White Race has dictated to us far too long."

Nakhimov's eyes came open and he considered that. "Perhaps so, Commander, but we have our orders. We have to fight the battles we can."

"I'm just saying this: look around you. What do you see? We have a crew of Russian and Japanese airmen, working together for a common goal. On paper, it can't happen. Maybe it shouldn't happen. But here we are—"

Nakhimov grudgingly admitted the Japanese _chusa_ was right. _Avenger's_ new crew was a oddball mixture at best: a Russian pilot and a Japanese co-pilot, and hadn't that arrangement caused heartburn and no small amount of posturing around Spassk Dalniy? Yuri Kasparian was the flight engineer, a burly Byelorussian with engine oil in his veins and a growling voice that sounded like a Wright radial minus a few cylinders. Alexei Maximov was also Russian. The navigator was slim, quiet, his comrades called him 'the Pianist' for his longer slender fingers, but he'd steered aircraft halfway around the world dozens of times in his young career with the Red Army air forces and Nakhimov was certain Alexei could get them to the base in Canada blindfolded.

_Avenger's_ bombardier was Yoshi Hyogo, a short, balding, former Kate bomber crewman who'd lived in the skies over the Solomons several years ago, dropping hundred-pounders on Allied destroyers running up and down The Slot near Guadalcanal. Hyogo had a 'dead eye', blurred vision in his right eye, but his remaining left eye had compensated for the loss and no one was any wiser. The truth was, as Sado Fumori well knew, that Hyogo's feats were legendary around _Nihon Kaigun_ , the Imperial Japanese Navy. The man had an uncanny knack for putting deadly bombs right down the smokestacks of unfortunate enemy ships.

The rest of the crew was a similar blend of Russian and Japanese. Lev Podgorny was the radioman and former Shturmovik pilot himself, fresh from the Kursk front, detailed straight from Zhukov's own staff as a comm technician. All of _Avenger's_ gunners were Japanese: the tail gunner Gunichi Konoye, and the waist gunners Hideki Imamura and Chuichi Saburo.

Nakhimov saw the truth in what Fumori said. "Still, your army in Manchuria is finished. They have no idea what they're up against."

Fumori would have none of it. "No man of Yamato can truly be defeated. I recite from the Field Service Code of all Japanese fighting men: _'Faith is strength. He who has faith in combat is always the victor.'_ That is Bushido. That's why we cannot be defeated. One hundred million will fight to the death for His Imperial Majesty, invincible and unafraid."

"Even if they have no guns?" Nakhimov scoffed at Fumori's words. "The Kwantung Army is beaten. It's a hollow shell. Our glorious _Krasnee Armiya_ will crush the poor souls like so many cockroaches."

"Do not be so sure, my friend. Even wounded foes can inflict great damage."

Nakhimov wouldn't let up. "Japan is on her knees. One hundred million soldiers...Sado, that's poppycock. Propaganda for the masses...we did the same when the Hitlerite fascists were at the gates of Moscow. Look, you say the Americans are the enemy. You've got this great martial spirit, this invincible warrior code, yet the Americans are roaming the skies of Japan at will, blasting towns and factories with no fear of defeat. Why is that? Ask yourself that question. If the Imperial Japanese Army is so superior, how come the Americans are practically swimming in Tokyo Bay?"

Fumori didn't like the tone of the conversation. It made him uncomfortable. "They have many weapons."

"Exactly! Firepower. Weapons. Tanks. Guns. Airplanes and bombs. That's why our army will annihilate yours in Manchuria—"

" _If_ they fight," Fumori corrected him. "There is still time for both sides to back away and see their mutual interests."

"Maybe but what about the Americans? Are you going to fight all their ships and planes and bombs with bamboo sticks carried by old ladies?"

"This mission, Operation _Shori_ —" said Fumori with finality, "is your answer. Just as with the judo, a single blow, delivered at the right place and time, can bring down an opponent of superior strength." Fumori tapped the side of his head, leaving his right hand on _Avenger's_ wheel. "Victory comes with the knowledge of the enemy's weakness...where he is vulnerable."

Nakhimov wasn't convinced. "And where is he vulnerable?"

Fumori put both hands back on the controls. "In America itself, Major. The enemy has sharp teeth here in the Pacific. But he has a soft underbelly at home."

Tuesday, July 31, 1945

Geneva, Switzerland

1:30 p.m.

For Count Okushiri Sasebo and Colonel Fumiharo Onoye, official duty in the city of Geneva, Switzerland was surely as close to paradise as either man was likely to get this side of the Yasukuni Shrine. Both men climbed out of the taxi at the front entrance of the Perle du Lac Restaurant and took a long look around, getting their bearings.

It was a perfect Alpine summer afternoon in the city by the lake. A huge fountain, the Jet d'Eau, splashed spumes of water five hundred feet in the air opposite the Quai du Mont Blanc, forming a rainbow of color that framed the old quarter behind the prow of a small peninsula, the Ile du J.J. Rousseau. Early afternoon pedestrians sauntered along the quay and the waterfront, stopping at small cafes and art and book shops, while single-masted sail craft dotted the placid waters of the lake. Behind the gothic spires of St. Peter's Cathedral, the snow-capped summits of the Jura Mountains made a picture frame landscape suitable for any would-be painter.

But the two Japanese officials had little time to admire the scenery. They were nearly late for a luncheon meeting at the restaurant. It was a critical meeting, critical for Japan and for the course of the war in the Pacific. Sasebo and Onoye hustled inside the Perle du Lac and were quickly seated in a private dining salon, an intimate room with a picturesque view of the southern lakeshore.

Presently, the Count and the Colonel, both of whom reported to the Imperial Household Ministry in Tokyo, were joined by two other men. Dr. Rudolf Klay was a portly, well-dressed deputy with the Swiss Foreign Ministry. Dr. Klay bowed and shook hands with Onoye and Sasebo. Their second visitor was a tall, even regal Swede, a member of Sweden's royal family, and a good friend of the American Allen Dulles, head of the Office of Strategic Services. Crown Prince Arvin Bernadotte seemed ill at ease in the company of the Japanese officials, but he was courteous enough if a bit aloof.

The four men chatted amiably for a few moments, but Dr. Klay was acutely aware that the purpose of the meeting was at great odds with the beauty of the Alpine setting.

"You have met with Mr. Dulles recently?" inquired Count Sasebo. "It's most important we get a message to him...a message of great urgency."

Klay nodded faintly, noncommittal. "Mr. Dulles and I are acquaintances, if that's what you mean. Yes, we know each other."

Colonel Onoye was forever annoyed at the elliptical methods of Count Sasebo. He much preferred the more direct way, the Army way.

"Please, gentlemen, let us not waste time here." He extracted a small envelope from a pouch he had been carrying and handed it to Klay. The Swiss diplomat took the envelope gingerly. "We have a proposal, for the Americans. It's most important that you give this to your contacts. Time is very short."

Klay held the envelope up to the window, letting the sunlight shine through, as if he could divine the contents. "What kind of proposal?"

Onoye glanced at Sasebo. The Count was uneasy, but Onoye's furtive nod said volumes. _Let the Army handle this_.

Onoye straightened his back, glared directly into Klay's eyes. "The enemy threatens our homeland even as we speak. He's gathering troops, planes, ships, all kinds of weapons for the invasion. But the Hundred Million will never surrender. Blood will run like rivers in the streets of Japan, I can assure you of that. The enemy powers must change the terms of their offer."

The Swede, Crown Prince Bernadotte, wrinkled his forehead. "You're referring to the recent declaration from Potsdam."

Onoye nodded. " _Hai_. Yes. The enemy powers, America, Britain, France, Holland, China...all of them...ask too much. They want to destroy _Yamato damashii_ , destroy the very spirit of our nation, obliterate our race—" Onoye closed his eyes, seeing the hated words in his mind—"occupy our territory...enslave us...take His Majesty, the Emperor from us—" Onoye suddenly opened his eyes, gathered himself together with a slight shudder.

"These things we can never permit."

Klay was solemn. Japanese diplomats and attaches throughout Europe had been sounding out the British and the Russians, and indirectly the Americans, for months about getting better terms. Was this really something new...or the same doubletalk and stonewalling he'd seen before. "You know Japan is really not in a position to dictate anything, Colonel."

Onoye seethed. "That is where you are mistaken, Dr. Klay. In recent days, we have conducted a special operation against the enemy. It has been most successful."

"You mean your Divine Wind suicide missions against American ships?" Klay scoffed. "A waste of men and planes...it's disgraceful."

Count Sasebo sucked at his lips. "Perhaps you wouldn't say that if your own nation were threatened with annihilation."

"What is this proposal, then?"

Onoye continued. "The Allied Powers must retract some of their demands. Japan will disarm herself, according to our own schedule. No Japanese territory will be occupied by the enemy. His Majesty, the Emperor, remains head of the state. The Voice of the Crane speaks for Japan. His Imperial Majesty _is_ Japan. We will never yield on these matters. It would be a disgrace to the Imperial Way...to our very being."

Klay regarded the Japanese colonel evenly. "I doubt the Americans will change their demands. There isn't much you can threaten them with now."

"That is where you are wrong," Onoye said. "Even as we speak, the special operation is underway. Ask your contacts among the Americans. Ask Mr. Dulles...you will see that I speak truthfully."

Onoye lowered his voice. "The Allied Powers must grant Japan better terms...removing the conditions I spoke of or many, many people will die."

"The invasion may be only days away. You can't stop it, Colonel, except by accepting their terms."

Onoye shook his head. "I am not speaking of the invasion. I am speaking of a new and terrible weapon. One that perhaps, even you have no knowledge of. If we do not have better terms for ceasing hostilities by the tenth of August, you may be assured that an important American city will be obliterated, by a most cruel bomb of great destructive power. We now have just such a bomb."

Klay stirred uneasily. It was true enough that his contacts with the OSS had casually remarked about an atomic bomb being tested in the western deserts of America. But the Swiss diplomat had discounted the story as just so much American bluster, like their Superman comics. Still—

"What is this bomb?"

Onoye sat back. "I have said enough. Give this proposal to your American contacts. They will know what to do with it. But remember: time is short. By the tenth of August, we must have an answer. Otherwise—" Onoye shrugged, smiled faintly.

Klay saw out of the corner of his eye that Crown Prince Bernadotte was stunned into silence. It was a bold, even audacious move, much like the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. Quick, from an unexpected direction...could they pull it off again? Klay's knowledge of Japan was limited to the few military and naval attaches posted to Berne. All of them seemed honorable men, if hard to read, intense, distant at times. Perhaps ultimately unknowable. Japan had shocked the Americans once before, on December 7, 1941. Could she do it again?

More to the point, could he afford not to pass along what amounted to an ultimatum?

"I'll communicate this to my contacts at once," Klay decided. He nodded to the Swede. Both men rose, their tea barely touched, an excellent dinner served but uneaten. Nearby waiters seemed confused and flustered by the exit, hustling to open doors, but there was no time for delay.

The cool beauty of the Alpine scenery and the roast duck and Riesling were quickly forgotten, as the Swede and the Swissman climbed into a waiting car and sped off.

Inside the Perle du Lac, Colonel Onoye stared fiercely into the amber sparkle of his wine glass, swirling the last drops into a miniature typhoon. Sasebo re-arranged the cutlery around his plate, having barely touched his own _schnitzel_ and calf's liver.

"Well," Sasebo said finally. "It's done."

"It's the only way," Onoye growled, gathering up his hat and cane. "The Hundred Million expect no less. His Majesty demands nothing less."

Sasebo rose. "Perhaps. I only hope that Admiral Ushenda and his men know what they are doing."

Onoye only grunted in reply, as the envoys left the restaurant and climbed into their own car.

It was a long, somber ride back to the Japanese mission at the Place Neuve.
CHAPTER 17

Tuesday, July 31, 1945

Washington, D.C.

8:45 a.m.

General George Marshall pulled hard on the reins of his Arabian stallion and the dappled brown and white mount drew up sharply on the wooded path, coming to a snorting stop only a few feet from the black Packard sedan that had suddenly appeared on the path ahead. Marshall walked his horse around the back of the limousine, while sentries from Fort Myer's Military Police detachment hustled down the slope toward the gathering. A freckled corporal opened the rear door and as Marshall rode around to the other side of the car, the face of War Secretary Henry Stimson was visible in the back seat, gray Homburg still perched on his head.

"Good morning, sir," Marshall acknowledged his boss. Stimson climbed out, with the corporal's help and stood a bit unsteadily among the damp leaves and brush of the woods. The Packard had negotiated a narrow riding path all the way up from the rear gate of Ft. Myer, a normally peaceful patch of woodland reserved for avid riders like the Chief of Staff, in an otherwise busy swath of Arlington, Virginia. "What brings you to the woods this morning?"

Stimson waved a piece of paper in the air. "This, General. Came over the wire last night. It seems the Japs have a little surprise in store for us."

Intrigued, Marshall dismounted and turned the reins of the stallion over to a nearby attendant. The sergeant walked the horse to a small creek nearby and, after letting it slurp up cool water for a few minutes, tied the General's mount to a small tree, where it stood huffing and snorting in the humid morning air.

Marshall took the paper and read. It detailed a message received by the O.S.S. chief of station in Geneva, Switzerland the night before. The message had been hand delivered to a Dr. Rudolf Klay at the Swiss Foreign Ministry, by Japanese naval and military attaches posted to Switzerland. A few hours later, a Swedish count who had also been in contact with the Japanese confirmed the message.

Marshall's face darkened as he read. _A raid on Tinian...a cargo plane down in Nevada...critical pieces of an atom bomb missing...now this...._

"This is for real, Mr. Secretary? It's not a hoax...or some kind of deception?"

Stimson shrugged, then removed his jacket and flung it into the back seat of the limousine. "Who the hell knows, General? Dulles sent along an analysis...OSS seems to think it's real. The facts are well enough known...the Japanese attaches were knowledgeable about the Tinian raid. And about that plane that went down in Nevada." Stimson shuddered, despite the steamy air. "That can't be a coincidence."

"The Russians are in this, up to their Bolshevik eyeballs," Marshall stated. "I'd bet on it. The Japs couldn't have pulled off a coordinated operation like this without some help...a lot of help."

Stimson nodded glumly, clenching an unlit pipe between his teeth. His forehead was now shiny with perspiration, and he removed his hat, tossing it into the Packard as well. "General, I think we have to assume this is not an idle threat. I don't know how or why yet, but somehow the Japs and the Russians have gotten together and pulled off one hell of heist. If there's any truth to this at all, we've got a serious problem here, a very serious problem."

Marshall re-read the note. "Which American city do you suppose they're talking about?"

"OSS thinks it's Washington or New York. But that's just a guess. For all I know, it could be Pocatello, Idaho. Or Walla Walla, Washington, for God's sake."

"I'd better alert Continental Defense," Marshall decided. "The East and West Coast theaters, especially. Hap Arnold should get his interceptors up and snooping around, in case the Japs try to fly in. And the Navy too."

"We'll have to take this to the President," Stimson added. "The FBI, the Border Patrol, civil defense offices...everybody."

"What about Silverplate?"

Stimson wanted to walk, even with his cane. He shambled up the path and Marshall took off after him.

"What about it?"

"The last word I got from Groves is that Tinian still has two operational atomic bombs. That means Hiroshima's still possible. And a second target. Should the 509th proceed with their mission? Should this ultimatum be ignored?"

"And who's in charge in Tokyo anyway?" Stimson added. "We picked up some traffic through radio intercepts out of Formosa that the Emperor had been kidnapped and spirited off to some kind of mountain hideout, kind of like Berchtesgaden and Hitler."

"So this—" Marshall waved the message in the air—"this could be the last gasp of a dying faction?"

"Or maybe some hard-line Army group has taken over and is now calling the shots. Truth is, we just don't know. OSS has theories. But that's all they have. The President's not inclined to back down now. He can't afford to. The Brits and the Dutch and the Chinese won't let him. We all want to get this war over as fast as possible...not the least because we don't want Joe Stalin messing around in the Pacific like he's doing in Europe. But politics is involved, General. Politics mixed in with revenge and justice. It's a potent brew. The President can't let the Japanese get away with anything that rewards the hotheads who started all this at Pearl Harbor. Potsdam's the key...it's that phrase _unconditional surrender_ that's got everybody all riled up. It means different things to different people. The Japanese have their own ideas. We have ours. The Brits have another."

"And nobody knows what the hell's going on in Tokyo."

"Exactly," Stimson admitted. "We're getting mixed messages. One day, we get peace feelers through some two-bit attaché in Portugal. The next day, Asahi Shimbun reports the Japanese government has officially denounced the Potsdam proclamation—I believe the Japanese word was _mokesatsu_...means to ignore with contempt or something like that—and now _this_ —" he held out his hand and Marshall returned the message flimsy. "Back and forth...it changes everyday."

"I'm just a military man, Mr. Secretary. But for my money, I say we proceed as before. Keep the Hiroshima mission on schedule. Maybe it'll shock the Japs into facing reality."

"If it works," Stimson muttered. "But I'm inclined to agree with you, General. We have to proceed on the basis of facts, not rumors and suppositions."

The two men continued walking through the woods of Fort Myer, surrounded at a discreet distance by a platoon of soldiers and security agents. Eventually, they had made a circle and returned by way of the small creek back to the clearing where the Packard limousine was still parked. The MP detail hustled to open its rear doors as Stimson approached.

"I'm meeting with the President this afternoon, General. I want you with me...I'll clear it with Harry Hopkins."

"Yes, sir."

"He'll want recommendations, most of all. Harry Truman is not one to spend a lot of time debating the fine points of philosophy. You and I...we're in agreement?"

"Proceed as before, Mr. Secretary. And alert all Continental Defense commands. This may just be an elaborate bluff, you know."

Stimson lowered himself with difficulty into the backseat of the limousine. His arthritis had been acting up again...when this was all over, he'd already decided to retire to his estate on Long Island and stay in bed for three months straight.

"That thought had occurred to me, General. But somehow I keep remembering a place called Pearl Harbor...my God, we had warning signs for months about that attack and we didn't pay attention. We can't afford to make that mistake again...not when the Japs may have an atom bomb to play with."

Stimson shut the door and the Packard backed carefully down the narrow path to the gate. Marshall watched the War Secretary go, then turned back to Clipper, his stallion, still tied to a post.

I'll take him back to the stable, Sergeant."

"Yes, sir." The sergeant handed the reins over and the Chief of Staff expertly mounted up and trotted off over the hill. A few moments later, he was alone again, just for a few minutes, in the deep woods, clipping along a winding path beside the stream that bisected the riding grounds.

"Clipper—" he spoke out loud to the horse, "—I don't know what you think about all this but we can't afford to give an inch to the Japs...not now, not after Pearl Harbor, and Tarawa, and Iwo and all the rest. I only hope to God that General Groves' gadget works like advertised. If we have to invade the Japanese home islands—"

He didn't finish the thought.

Harry Truman leaned back in his chair and glared at the assembled group crammed into the Oval Office. The President's lips had tightened perceptibly as the presentations went on, and with effort, Truman unclenched his hands from the arms of the chair and removed his glasses, methodically cleaning them with a handkerchief. General George Marshall stood rigidly at near attention next to the door, while War Secretary Stimson outlined the contents of the message from Switzerland.

Truman was livid. "How can this have happened? Our most top-secret project, thousands of security agents and you're telling me the Japs have one of our bombs and the Russians helped them get it?"

Stimson stirred uneasily in his chair. He sat in a red leather wing chair, directly across the huge oak desk from the President. "Mr. President, a massive investigation is underway right now. The Army is putting every available CIC agent on it. The Navy too."

Truman checked his watch. "Groves is on his way right now. I told him to get himself over here on the double...I want explanations. Hoover too. The Bureau's got a lot to answer for, especially if the Russians are involved. I know we're supposed to be allied with Joe Stalin but I wouldn't trust the sonofabitch any further than I could throw him."

"Mr. President, I guess the basic question is how should we respond to the Japanese ultimatum. Should we respond at all?"

Truman steepled his fingers and glared down at a few scattered papers on his desk, idly arranging them into neat piles, then re-arranging them again. "Answering that requires some thought. My gut tells me no. We have the upper hand and they know it. The end is only a matter of time...and more casualties. Can't they see that? One bomb shouldn't make that much difference."

"But this one's atomic," Marshall said.

"I'm convinced military operations should proceed," Truman went on. "Just as if we'd never received the message. Look what they did with the Potsdam declaration. I say we ignore this and forge ahead with what we're doing."

"Including the 509th missions, sir?"

"Of course...them too. _Especially_ them." Truman was warming to the thought. He suddenly sat up straight in his chair. "As soon as weather and tactical conditions permit, resume operations."

Marshall was about to counter, but Secret Service agent James Rowley opened a side door and ushered two men in. J. Edgar Hoover and General Leslie Groves took seats on a sofa along one wall. Groves carried a battered brown attaché case with him, Hoover an armful of folders.

Truman nodded to both. "Gentlemen, we've got a serious problem here. You've got some details for me?"

"Yes, sir," Hoover spoke up, plopping open a folder on the sofa beside him. "These are the latest surveillance reports on several people the Bureau's following. Two men, one woman, all suspected Soviet agents. We've been running twenty-four-a-day tails on all three for months now."

"How the hell did we wind up with so many Soviet agents running around the country?"

Hoover wet his lips. "The Russians have an extensive network, run from their consulate in New York and from the embassy here. We've rolled up several rings of spies and agents but others keep turning up."

"You didn't answer my question—" Truman seethed, '—but never mind. Just find that bomb, gentlemen! The Japanese threat has to be neutralized or millions of innocent Americans may die. Casualties are already an issue. What possible targets would the Japs be considering?"

Marshall had given that much thought over night. In fact, he'd thought of little else. "Possibly Pearl again, or some West Coast city."

Stimson added, "Even New York and Washington could be targets."

"That seems unlikely," Groves thought. "Both are a long way from Japanese forces. The Gadget's big enough to make it damned hard to carry by anything smaller than a B-29. And I believe the Navy would intercept any Japanese ships approaching our East Coast. No....it's the West Coast or the Pacific."

"Let's hope the Navy would be a little less careless than the Army has been," Truman said. Marshall and Groves both winced, wanting to respond but said nothing.

"The Bureau is cooperating with Army CIC and the Navy," Hoover said. "After _Honeybee_ went down in Nevada, our agents developed leads that pointed south, toward Mexico."

"—with Army help," Marshall pointed out.

Hoover ignored him. "Trucks were seen to be leaving the crash site. They were tracked heading into Mexico. Operation Touchdown, which you already know about, was formed to pursue these leads, track down those trucks and recover the bomb components."

"And what have they found?"

Hoover glanced uneasily at Marshall and Groves. "The trucks were tracked to a small village on the Pacific coast of Mexico...a place called—" Hoover rifled through some papers in a folder..."—Puerto Rosario." Hoover looked up. "But we lost 'em there."

Truman snorted. " _Lost 'em_? How the hell do you lose a pair of trucks carrying an atom bomb in a Mexican village?"

Groves had read the reports from Colonel Cates of CIC Los Alamos Detachment a few hours before. "The trucks were located, Mr. President. They were found abandoned in the dock area. Witnesses said a small freighter departed overnight from the village...she's the _El Rey Diaz_. There were even reports of a submarine in the area."

"A submarine..." Truman was incredulous.

"Unsubstantiated reports, Mr. President," Marshall cautioned. "The Navy's looking into that now. It was dark, foggy and the Mexicans are kind of jumpy about this."

"So nobody found the bomb, I take it."

Groves shook his head, looking at Marshall to rescue him. "No, sir, not yet...."

Marshall added, "I've been in contact with Admiral King...he's assured me the Coast Guard and the Navy are hunting for that Mexican freighter right now. She's scuttling up and down the Pacific Coast somewhere, but there's a lot of coastline to investigate. We have descriptions from the Mexican ships registry, and other details. It's just a matter of time."

"In more ways than one," Truman said.

"Mr. President," Groves cut in, "excuse me, sir, but didn't the reports from Tinian identify an enemy submarine off shore?"

Truman re-directed the question and Stimson answered. "That's right. Several thousand yards offshore. The Jap marines were seen heading for it in small craft. I talked with Jim Forrestal yesterday about the details. Unfortunately, there was fog in the area. The Navy had ships in the area but they couldn't reach the sub before she disappeared. She must have submerged in the fog. She was depth charged for two hours afterward, but there was no indication they hit her. Forrestal said the commander on the scene concluded the sub got away."

Groves stabbed the air with a finger. "Maybe that sub was the same one sighted outside the harbor of Puerto Rosario."

"It can't be a coincidence," Marshall agreed.

Groves laid out the case. "If it was, then the bomb casing and tail assembly and detonator assembly and fuses taken from Tinian might well now be married to the plutonium core taken from the plane in Nevada. Assuming nothing was badly damaged, the Japs would have all the parts of a workable implosion atomic bomb. Essentially, they've now got _Big Fella_."

Harry Truman just stared at them all. "We've got to act fast, gentlemen. "Hoover, what about the Russian angle? I'm sure as hell they're involved. Any more evidence?"

"Mr. President—" the Director shuffled more papers on the sofa, rifling through several folders before finding the one he wanted, "our best lead was a man CIC and the Bureau both had under twenty-four surveillance. Edvard Tolkach...physicist out of Los Alamos. He's a Czech national, immigrated here from England and worked at Columbia University before being recruited for the Project. He's close to Bethe and Weisskopf, several others. We've got good evidence he's been feeding classified information to known Soviet agents. He may be part of this whole thing, maybe even a key part."

"So why haven't you arrested him? Espionage is still a crime in this country, isn't it?"

"He died last week, Wednesday to be exact. Car accident near Los Alamos."

"And your investigation?"

Hoover and Groves exchanged glances. "To be honest, Mr. President, the trail has grown cold at the moment. We didn't arrest Tolkach at first because we were following him to see if he would implicate others. That way, we could roll up an entire network at once, really damage the Soviets. But now—" Hoover shrugged, shook his head.

"My CIC boys are still turning up more leads and investigating them," Groves said.

Hoover shot the general an accusing look.

Truman didn't see it. He was steaming mad.

"Time is short, gentlemen, damned short. We all know what's at stake here now. Just _find that bomb_...before a lot of innocent Americans get hurt."
CHAPTER 18

Tuesday, July 31, 1945

Victoria, British Columbia

12 noon

Their contact's name was _Calypso_ and he turned out to be a short, red-haired man, black Homburg pulled jauntily to one side, and wearing a gray wool suit that looked like he'd slept in for a week. Edvard Tolkach had only the barest description of _Calypso_ from _Windward_ , but in the end, it didn't matter.

Meeting them in a coffee shop at Seattle's downtown train station after an all-night ride on the _Rocky Mountain Starliner_ , _Calypso_ casually bumped into the Czech physicist as he perused the headlines of the Post-Intelligencer on newspaper racks near the front door.

"Excuse me, sir, I'm terribly sorry—" at first Tolkach was mildly annoyed, but it was the meaningful look in the eyes of the cheery redhead that caught Tolkach's attention. Kate Wellesley was in the ladies room, freshening up after a cramped night in the tiny, stuffy first class compartment.

"Excuse me..." For a few moments, _Calypso_ joined Tolkach at the racks, pretending to study the sports pages, then he turned casually to the side and added, "Looks like the Yankees might win the pennant this year again—"

Tolkach froze, still groggy from having slept poorly on the train. He caught a glimpse of the fellow out of the corner of his eye. The code phrase _Windward_ had given him was right, but somehow, he'd been expecting someone...different? Taller? More authoritative? More... _Russian_ -looking? At least, more sinister. This fellow could have passed for a shoe salesman at the local Kresge's.

In this fashion, the contact was made and _Quantum_ listened carefully as _Calypso_ —Tolkach had the impression his real name would have been something like O'Hara or Egan...there was a bit of an Irish lilt to his speech—outlined what they were to do next.

A flurry of misunderstandings ensued when Kate returned from the ladies room. _Calypso_ was for awhile suspicious and most annoyed that a woman had accompanied such a high-value operative, especially at such a delicate time when the NKVD was trying to get Tolkach out of the country alive. Some quick explanations by the Czech physicist smoothed things over, but afterward, _Calypso_ was pointedly less ebullient whenever Kate was around.

Several hours later, Tolkach and Kate Wellesley found themselves aboard the Victoria Ferry, chugging determinedly away from the Union Street docks on a three hour run up to the Canadian city. For some reason, the docks, _Calypso_ explained, had looser security than the train station and the airport. "Must be the crowd," the handler theorized. "Lots of loggers and fishermen. Nobody looks for Jap saboteurs among that bunch." Even the roads going north out of Seattle like Highway 530 through Everett and Bellingham were better monitored by the Army and the Border Patrol.

"We'll get you on that ferry no problem," _Calypso_ announced cheerily. He smoothly passed the forged documents into Tolkach's hand, as they drove down to the dock area, announcing to any and all inspectors that Richard Kern , nee Edvard Tolkach, was a Swiss businessman from Los Angeles, on his way up to Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia.

"As for the lady here," _Calypso_ frowned, looking in the rear view mirror of the car, "I'll think of something...I don't know what yet."

"Thanks," Kate was already wondering why she'd decided to come along. "Nice to be thought of as extra baggage."

The second ferry of the day departed at 11:30 am. The run up to Pier Three at Victoria took about three hours. Tolkach and Kate boarded the ship with armloads of baggage, looking like world travelers among the rough loggers, fishermen and truckers who made the trip everyday. They ignored the stares and snickers and went inside the forward compartment, finding a corner where they could stash their bags amidst tackle boxes, oily chain saws and tool belts. Tolkach went to the canteen and bought them both coffee and sandwiches for lunch.

Kate munched on the bologna and rye while standing at the deck windows, as the ferry—her name was actually _Puget Princess_ —stenciled in red and black on her stern sides—eased away from the wharf. The deck vibrated under their feet as her engines rumbled to get the two-thousand ton vessel underway. They turned out of the harbor and steamed north passing the green hump of West Point and Shilshole Bay moments later.

The waters of Puget Sound were white with wind-driven breakers, but otherwise deep blue on what was a partly cloudy day. A stiff twenty-knot wind drove light chop in sheets of spray against the windows, as Kate and Tolkach watched downtown Seattle slide astern.

"Dr. Tolkach...I'm not sure this was such a great idea." Kate slurped some coffee, finding that the midnight departure from Santa Fe, the overnight train ride and the constant fear gnawing at her stomach had given her a ravenous appetite. "I should never have left Santa Fe."

"Nonsense. You're in danger and you deserve the same chance to live as me."

"But _Windward_ doesn't know about this. The Russians are trying to get _you_ out of the country, not me. As far as he knows, I'm still back at the gift shop, coding and mailing documents." Kate shook her head, ran fingers through her dark red hair. It was a mess. She needed a hot shower and some curlers and hairspray in the worst way. "Anyway—" she patted her belly. "I've got someone else to look out for too." She felt guilty about leaving Wade as well, though she didn't say it to Tolkach. The CIC agent was probably sick with worry, wondering what the hell had happened to her. She could well imagine him turning her cottage inside out, checking the train schedules, trying to puzzle out where she had gone. He'd soon enough see her bags missing and put two and two together. Then...what? Would he send a posse after them? Had she endangered Tolkach by coming along, even though the Czech physicist had begged her to?

Kate Wellesley was confused, about everything. She thought of herself as a loyal girl, sincere, caring, conscientious. She'd made the shop go, after Mrs. Renfroe died, really she had. She done her stint at the USO canteen, giving companionship to the GIs about to ship out, or returning from God knew where, all glass-eyed and beat up. Scared little boys, they were, and she'd mothered them when they needed mothering. She'd been faithful to the Cause, methodically handling every document that had come in, coding it, preparing it to go to Long Island or Washington. Even _Windward_ had complimented her on the dispatch and efficiency she had shown. _Our little mailman,_ he sometimes called her.

But for all that, Kate Wellesley was sick with guilt and worry and she couldn't say why. She was anxious, but she couldn't say why exactly. Sure, she was anxious about everything. About Wade...she wanted even now standing at wave-lashed deck windows aboard a Puget Sound ferry—to sit down with Wade and explain things to him.

_But that's stupid, girl...you can't even explain things to yourself_.

She regretted leaving Santa Fe so suddenly, knowing she was carrying Brogan's child. She was worried for the child—the doctor had said she was only in the first trimester, maybe a couple of months along, but still—what _had_ she done now? How would it affect the baby? What would happen...to the baby, to her?

Edvard hadn't told her very much. He seemed more distant now than the night he had shown up at her cottage screen door, begging her to come along. She didn't know why—she couldn't have known he was focused on something only he knew—that _Windward_ had said to him. _You will examine the Bomb when it arrives. Get as much intelligence as you can...the size, the shape, how it works, how it is put together. Don't let the Japanese do something foolish before you get this._ He stood at the windows a few feet from Kate, seeing the same things, yet lost in thought, perhaps seeing more, things only he could see, beyond the whitecaps, the drizzle and fog, and the shadowy humps of the cliffs that slid by as _Puget Princess_ chugged northward. Seeing in his mind's eye, the precise geometry of the detonator ring and the mathematical equations of the shock waves that would radiate outward from the Comp B when the firing signals came from the capacitor bank in the X unit. These things he had committed to memory, these things he had lived and slept with for years now and it was these things that _Windward_ wanted, as a price for getting him out.

"You look like you've seen a ghost." Kate's thick voice penetrated the fog and Tolkach started. "I don't look that bad, do I?"

He smiled faintly, and took a seat nearby, taking care to dab at some grease that streaked the cracked blue leather.

"I was just thinking...we may have quite a journey ahead of us." He smiled a fatherly smile at her. "I am glad you came with me."

Kate forced a smile. "Really?" She shook her head. "I'm not sure I am. What happens when we get to Victoria?"

Tolkach took a deep breath, examined his sandwich critically and took a bite. "I'm supposed to arrange for a truck. _Calypso_ said it would be at a lumber yard on the outskirts of town...I suppose we'll have to take a taxi from the docks. Once I have the truck, I...or rather _we_ —" he smiled politely at her—"drive north...I don't remember the highway. There will be maps in the truck, I'm told. North to a town called Williams Lake."

Kate shivered at the prospect. "Sounds remote. Why drive up there?"

Tolkach finished off his sandwich. " _Windward_ indicated that a small camp is being built in the woods near Williams Lake. Apparently, the Russians expect to bring some components of an atomic bomb to that camp. They want me to help them study it, document it, help them understand how it's assembled. How it works—"

Kate swallowed hard. "I don't like it. When Richard Leonas asked me to help the cause, I agreed to do my part. All I ever did was code and de-code stuff, pass information along. I never agreed to stuff like this. Stealing bombs and stuff." She shook her head, ran her hands through stringy hair and frowned with disgust. "It's not right...I don't think I should be involved in this. You either, Dr. Tolkach. I mean we're at war. America needs us to do our part."

Tolkach sniffed. "America betrayed me. America killed Liesel. I came to this country to do physics. To try and make a new life for me and my family. What has America done for me...hound me day and night, make my children objects of ridicule at school, driven my wife to an early grave. Miss Wellesley, it was America that entered my quarters back at the Hill and rummaged through my drawers of socks and undershirts, every night for two weeks." He shuddered with the memory. "The Army's way of sending a message. It seems they learned all too well from the Nazis."

"Dr. Tolkach, we all have duties. Help the war effort. Help the drives. Buy war bonds and do what we can."

"I am doing what I can. I helped America develop the most horrific weapon the world has ever seen—with my own hands—" he held them out for Kate to see, as if they were stained. "Now...I am going to rectify that mistake."

Kate bit her lip. She folded the wrapping around her sandwich. She wasn't hungry anymore. "I should never have come. I feel bad enough as it is. When we get to Victoria—"

Tolkach was adamant. "Don't think of it. Don't even say such a thing. You have greater responsibilities and duties."

"I'm going to be a mother, Dr. Tolkach. I've got a responsibility to my child. And I've just ridden half way across the country taking him away from his father. How responsible is that? No—" she shook her head—"no...this is never going to work."

Tolkach sat beside her. Was it her imagination? In the play of light and shadow--in the gray light of a cloudy, rainy day on Puget Sound—she could see her father's face. Dr. Truman Wellesley—the chin and nose and the beard, always the beard—Regents Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. _The_ Dr. Wellesley...a walking bloodline of history...Kate could recite the litany from memory. Straightest of the Main Line, bluest blood dating back to the days of William Penn himself. Indeed, it had long been a point of family pride that one ancestor, Josephus Wellesley, had been a neighbor and acquaintance of Ben Franklin. Breeding, proper connections, a gilded history, manners and social standing and grace had long been Wellesley family traits and all the children were expected to be model citizens, even as children, to work at Christmas in the Broad Street Mission, to be academically stellar in their school performance, to be models of virtue and probity for all to witness.

As Kate would say to Mrs. Renfroe when she came to the Pueblo Gift Shop many years later: " all my family are like heroic statues...that's how I see them...poised and triumphant and upright and cold as granite to each other."

"...you have a higher duty, Miss Wellesley—" and it wasn't her father's voice at all but Edvard Tolkach, his hand resting lightly on her right arm.

"Damn it!" she said. "Always duties. Always responsibilities. Can't the Cause get along without me for a few months? I just want to have my baby and be a mother. A normal American mother."

"These aren't normal times," Tolkach observed. Then he stood up and peered through the foggy window. Off the starboard bow, the first misty humps of Clover Point materialized out of the gloom. "Look...Canada. Victoria...up ahead."

_Puget Princess_ docked less than an hour after that, scraping her away along the wharf as the dockhands made the ferry fast and a steel gangway was hoisted into position. Tolkach and Kate waited a few minutes as loggers in jeans and flannel shirts swarmed with businessmen in wool suits and fishermen in slickers to the dockside. The two of them wrestled their luggage down the gangway and soon enough, found the taxi stand. Minutes later, they were barreling along Cook Street toward Oak Bay and the northern suburbs. The cabbie kept up a mindless patter about the weather and the traffic but neither of them paid any attention.

Presently, the taxi bumped to a halt outside the gates of Bayside Lumber Company.

"Here you are, Mac. Need a hand?"

Tolkach paid the man in American dollars, which caused a few mutterings but the driver got out anyway and helped Kate with her bags. He took a look around at the lumber yard and the bait shacks and whitewashed cottages up and down the crumbling asphalt road. "Hope it's a nice honeymoon, pal. I seen better digs than this—"

He drove off, leaving the Czech physicist and the owner of Santa Fe's Pueblo Gift Shop standing by the gate.

"Let's get our bags inside first," Tolkach suggested. They dragged and slid their luggage through the gate and propped everything up against a huge bundle of two-by-four studs just inside. A deep rumble stirred the air and out of the fog came a fork lift bearing down of them, heading right for the bundle.

The driver saw them at the last moment and stood on his brakes. The lift truck skidded sideways on the dirt and gravel and stopped just in time.

A bearded man hopped down from the seat. "You okay...I didn't see ya there...until the last moment....this blasted fog."

Tolkach dusted himself off and introduced himself. "I'm here to see...er...Mr. Porter." For a moment, he had forgotten the name of his contact.

"Mr. Porter?" the driver was young, with tousled hair, and lanky, almost jerky way of walking. He scratched his red hair, and smiled quizzically at Kate Wellesley. "Don't reckon...wait a minute! You must mean Jiggs? Of course...see, we never call him Mr. Porter."

"Yes, he must be the one."

The driver shook his head, studying his visitors for the first time. "Yessirree...Jiggs is our day foreman. Almost forgot he had a last name. Peters...Patterson...but you're right...it _is_ Porter." He squinted at them, even though the fog was still cool and misty to their skins and the sun was a distant memory. "You didn't come here for lumber, I gather."

Tolkach nodded. "Mr. Porter has a vehicle for us, I believe. If you please.."

"Oh, right—" the driver looked at their clothes and their bags. "Well, I really don't have room on the lift here—"

"If you could just notify Mr. Porter," Tolkach suggested, as politely as he could. "...that we're here."

"Sure...of course..." the driver hopped back on his seat and started up the lift. "Right away." He pivoted the truck on its tracks and sped off down a gravelly hill, disappearing in a maze of lumber stacks.

Ten minutes later, a heavier, older man appeared before them from between stacks of plywood sheet. He also had a beard, dense black, scraggly and exuberant, like a bush gone riot. He wore clear goggles and his shirt was caked with wet sawdust.

"I'm Porter. And you...?"

"Dr. Edvard Tolkach." The physicist extended a hand. "I am _Quantum_."

At the sound of the word, Porter's face changed completely, from one of suspicious curiosity to a sort of startled anxiety. The foreman looked around, then grabbed two of the heavier bags and jerked his head.

"Look...I didn't know until yesterday...I mean there was hardly any warning—follow me...quick...and –" He scuttled off, dragging the bags. Tolkach and Kate went along, carrying the lighter pieces that were left.

Porter was now nervous and fidgety. They plodded through the lumber stacks and bundles, like navigating a maze, stumbling over broken pieces, slipping in loose gravel, as a chilly fog settled over the yard. In time, a battered black Chevy truck appeared, a flatbed truck with wooden beams screwed into the sides of the bed and canvas strapping tied down in back. The words "Bayside Lumber" had been hand-scrawled with a paint pen in fading red on the cab doors.

"Here it is...they said you'd need a truck and some gas...lucky this one gets an A card in America...she's got a full tank...I used up a month's allotment getting that. Mind telling me how far you're going?"

Tolkach wrestled his and Kate's luggage off the lift truck and took a breath. " _Calypso_ gave me the directions—" he fumbled in his pocket, extracted a crumpled piece of paper. He handed it to Porter.

The yard foreman whistled. "Williams Lake. Hope this clunker will make it that far."

"Yes? And where is this...Williams Lake, please?"

"Come." Porter motioned the two of them into a tiny shack that served as the office. Kate stepped gingerly across broken gravel in her high heels. Already, she had broken an ankle strap on one shoe.

Inside the shack, a space heater buzzed, putting out enough warmth to dispel the chill in the air. Porter sat down behind a battered desk and produced a map. He gave it to Tolkach, who looked at it doubtfully. With a snort, Porter took the map back and spread it out on the desk. His greasy cut fingers traced a twisting route, north from Vancouver.

"You'll have to take the ferry back to the mainland...to Vancouver. See this highway?" He stabbed a line labeled Highway 99. "That's what you want. Goes north out of Vancouver, up into the high country. The north woods."

Kate shivered. "Sounds remote."

Porter chuckled. "It is, ma'am. Ain't nothing up there but fox and wolf and grizzly. That and a few logging and mining camps. Why the hell you heading up there?"

Tolkach knew that _Windward_ had described a small camp being hacked out of the woods by the Russians...a camp where the stolen atom bomb was being taken to be examined. He decided to be cautious with Porter.

"Our instructions....said to rendezvous near this Williams Lake." He smiled faintly, gathered up the map and stuffed it in his jacket pocket. "That's all I know."

Porter squinted at the two of them. Just who were these clowns? His own instructions, from the same _Calypso_ , had been quite explicit, if a little hurried. _A high-value operative was coming through. Moscow Center wants him out of the States, out of the clutches of the Americans. He'll need transportation, money, some clothing, and directions. He's going north—Calypso_ said that a lot...usually it meant: don't ask any more questions...just do what I say.

Porter eyed the dame. She was cute, looking a little lost and out of sorts, but definitely healthy, the tight curve of her blouse hard to ignore. He chuckled to himself, knowing a few logging camps north of Squamish and Whistler, places known more for boozing and brawling than anything else. Not where you'd want to take a dame like this...if you intended to keep her, that is.

Porter stood up. He'd done what _Calypso_ asked. "Well, then, that's it. Good luck, to both of you." He shook hands with the Czech physicist, nodded to Kate. Where they were going, they'd need every bit of luck they could get.

Porter helped them load their luggage, then gave Tolkach a quick course in starting and operating the truck. It had six forward gears, three reverse, though half of them didn't work. Soon enough, the diesel sputtered and coughed into life. Jerkily, Tolkach maneuvered through the stacks of lumber and bounced out onto the rutted flattop of the road. The truck rumbled on, out of sight, heading south again, back for the ferry docks. Kate had consulted the small brochure she'd picked up in the terminal when they'd docked, and noted the last Vancouver ferry for the day departed at 4:00 p.m.

"We have to make that one," Tolkach decided. He accelerated forward in jerks and stops, struggling with the wheel to stay on the road.

Kate tried to roll up the window, to cut the chill but the crank didn't work. Her hair was soon being streamed by the wind and she shifted over in the seat toward the middle, squeezing against the gear lever. She drew her sweater tighter against the breeze and glared ahead through the front window, biting her lip.

_This was a mistake_ , she told herself _. Cause or not. Revolution and world peace or not, this was a big mistake._ She glanced out of the corner of her eye at Tolkach.

The physicist was concentrating on staying on the road, following the twisting narrow asphalt lane down through the hills toward Victoria city, toward Cook Street and the docklands. Through light fog, he could barely make out the steeply pitched roofs of the houses and cabins that seemed to make up most of Victoria. A few squat towers poked up above the fog, a bank...an insurance company, which thickened as they descended the switchback road in a series of sharp turns and steep drops.

Where were they going...really? She had to admit to herself that she didn't really know. The yard foreman Porter had been incredulous that they were taking this jalopy of a truck as far north as they were. Just how far was it anyway? Kate shuddered and wrapped her arms tighter around herself.

Not feeling well, dependant on Edvard Tolkach for survival, and he seemed remote and distracted, all she could do was go where he took her, and pray that she had done the right thing.

She closed her eyes, trying to make the decision she wanted to make. _When we get back to the docks, I'll do it. I have to. I don't belong here. It was wrong and selfish of me to leave in the first place. The baby deserves better than this... Wade deserves better._

The words came to her clear and well formed. But her mouth wouldn't say them.

She bit her lips and began to cry softly, as the truck bounced onto Cook Street and rocked on toward the docks.

Wednesday, August 1, 1945

Near Kitticut, British Columbia

7:30 p.m.

The deep, primeval forest land of NAACO Lake Provincial Park had long been a favorite hunting ground for the two loggers. Ernie Keithley and 'Punch' Malone had crept out of the Vanderhoof Timber Company's camp six miles north of Alexis Creek just after chow that evening and headed off into the deeply forested hills above Highway 20, looking for fox, looking for wolf, maybe even a little griz', something more exciting than huddling like goddamn worms around that stupid radio in the barracks and listening to Jack Benny or Amos 'n' Andy for the millionth time, slipping deeper and deeper into an alcoholic haze until the last man standing somehow managed to put the lights out.

Punch had been steadily going stir-crazy working the big cedar and hemlock stands on this side of the Cariboo range and he managed to convince Ernie "Big Eyes" Keithley that there sure as hell had to be something better to do on a Wednesday night than play poker and blackjack and pick-me-up games around that wheezing pot-bellied stove that served as a heater and a cookpot for A Barracks at the camp.

So when the rest of the crew had been settling in for another boring listless evening by the fire and the radio, Keithley and Malone had sneaked out to take a leak at the latrine pit and grabbed their packs and their Enfield rifles and scooted off.

Now, a dozen or so miles north, they had been following an old Inuit path along the top of a ridgeline when Punch held up his hand and stopped them on the edge of a hollow thick with ash and spruce and tangled vines, cupping his other hand to one ear.

"You hear that, Big Eyes?"

Keithley stopped in his tracks and stood still, letting the faint sigh of the wind come to him. Both men were well familiar with the sounds of a logging camp: the whine of the chain saws, the shotgun crack of limbs and trunks splitting and falling, the throaty growl of engines and compressors, as British Columbia's wooden gold was steadily chopped down and carted off for the city folks to make their cottages and tool sheds and barns with.

"Don't sound like no loggers to me, Punch."

Indeed it didn't. Faint but unmistakable on the faint breath of wind, came an odd brew of machinery noises...drills, perhaps. Earthmovers. Big trucks. A roar that sounded... like an aircraft engine.

"What the hell is that?"

"Come on...let's see what's up."

Keithley and Malone pushed through the vine and brush, following the ridge line back and forth as it meandered generally northward through thick stands of towering red cedar, hemlock and Douglas fir. Presently, they both became aware of a glow in the distance, faint yet unmistakable in the dwindling twilight. At this latitude, mid-summer evenings were not a time of darkness. Even at midnight, the sun was a bright arc low on the horizon, lending a dusky, almost pearly glow to the sky. Just past eight o'clock locally, the two loggers had plenty of light to pick their way through the brambles and home in on the glow they had seen through the limbs of the trees.

Finally, the underbrush thinned and the two loggers, stopped on the brow of the ridge, overlooking a shallow valley thick with the leafy canopy of more cedar. In the very center of the valley, however, a roughly rectangular opening in the canopy exposed bare ground, black soil ground. And as they moved closer, they saw buildings being erected on the ground, big buildings and small, arranged in a semi-grid pattern along both sides of a straight length of road that spanned the clearing from one end to another.

"What kind of road is that?" Keithley muttered. "Don't look like it goes anywhere...awful lot of trouble to be paving something like that."

"Shhh!" Punch was afraid their voices might carry the same way the equipment sounds had carried. "I don't think that's a road, Big Eyes. Look down there, at the far end...see...?"

It was unmistakably an aircraft, a large one with two engines, and the engines were turning, their propellers a silvery sheen in the flood lamps that lined the perimeter of the camp.

"It's a fuckin' runway, Punch...that's what it is! Right in the middle of the forest...what the hell?"

A glow of floodlights poured skyward from the clearing. Punch and Big Eyes eased forward cautiously, keeping to the tree line, as they made their way closer for a better look. From their distance, figures moved among the buildings and around the aircraft, which looked for all the world like an Army Air Forces C-46 transport.

Unseen, the two loggers began reconnoitering the camp, making mental notes of what they were seeing. After sliding along the curve of the ridge to the north, they came at last to a rocky outcrop. North of their position, moonlight glinted off the cold waters of NAACO Lake. South of them, the ridge opened up onto a shallow valley, with a clearer view of the camp below. Punch whispered back to Big Eyes.

"We got to get back, report what we seen. This is some kind of military base, from the looks of it."

Big Eyes nodded. "Yeah, but whose base? Look at them...ain't no Canucks down there, so far as I can see."

"Hmm...maybe we ought to tell us some Mounties. Where's the nearest town?"

"Probably Kitticut. Maybe six miles...that way, I figure." Big Eyes indicated the dark hills northwest of the cliff. "Can we get any closer? I'd like to see what the hell's going on down there."

"Maybe—" Punch scooted over the cliff, half slid on his britches down a slippery defile and landed on two feet in the bough of an aspen tree at the bottom. He shimmied down from his landing spot and plopped onto hard dirt, waving Big Eyes to follow. Keithley eyed the drop warily, and decided to circle around, taking a less precipitous grade down to the landing. Three minutes later, he was crouching next to Punch Malone, peering across the top of a perimeter fence they had come upon, at the cleared expanse of the base.

Both men crept closer to the fence, wary of being spotted, until at last they came to a fallen trunk which lay athwart one section of the fence. They climbed the trunk and buried themselves in the thick pungent foliage of cedar leaves and branches. Now, for the first time, they had an unobstructed view of the airplane and the nearer buildings.

Most of the buildings were constructed of logs and sheet siding. One was clearly large enough to accommodate the plane. Malone decided it was a hangar.

But why build an airbase in such a remote location?

It was Big Eyes who caught the first whiff of voices. He listened carefully. What he heard made his blood run cold.

It wasn't English.

"Punch," he hissed. "—d'ya hear that? That ain't the King's English, friend."

Malone craned his head, catching faint snatches of a guttural, clipped voice issuing on the cool night breeze.

"Freakin' Japanese or something, 'at's what it sounds like to me."

Indeed, a pair of men, perhaps mechanics, suddenly appeared in a pool of light several dozen yards from the fence, both taking a smoke break. Though the light was mottled by shadows from overhanging branches, both men were short, stocky and clearly Asian.

The more they watched, the more amazed they became. The camp seemed to be crawling with Japanese, and other men too, speaking a language neither Punch nor Big Eyes recognized. A mix of Caucasian and Japanese scuttled around the aircraft, which bore markings like no plane either had ever seen before. A dull red star gleamed on the vertical stabilizer and from underneath both wings. Both engines were running, a throaty roar echoing around the clearing, while her props turned at slow speed. Her wheels were chocked, so the plane wasn't going anywhere. Perhaps an engine test. An overhaul?

What on earth was a Japanese airbase doing in the middle of British Columbia?

"I don't like this," Punch whispered, easing closer to the fence, as the two mechanics finished their cigarettes, flicked the butts away and sauntered back toward the plane. Beyond the C-46—Punch was certain that was what they were seeing—he'd seen enough of them being test-flown out of Boeing Field a few hundred miles south—more men worked unloading crates. "...gives me the creeps."

"We gotta tell somebody," Big Eyes decided.

"Yeah, who? Redkin, maybe? Overton?"

Both men snorted. Billy Redkin was the shift supervisor, half Inuit and half drunk, and about as worthless a piece of shit as a man could possibly be. Jock Overton was a loud mouthed crane operator who aced the barracks every night at poker and always smelled like bear droppings wherever he went.

"Somebody bigger, somebody official. Hell, Punch, this could be a secret enemy base. Maybe the Japs are planning another attack...it happened to Pearl Harbor."

"But why attack Williams Lake, for Chrissakes? And who are those other guys, the ones with the fur caps?"

A branch snapped behind them and both men jumped, startled. Instantly, though the sky was only dusky, a bright flashlight beam glared at them, momentarily blinding them.

"There, there, boys, easy now. Just keep your hands out where we can see 'em."

It wasn't a Japanese accent, or anything foreign. The voice was clearly Canadian, even down to the woodsy accent. A local voice.

Out of the glare, a man emerged, though there were others behind. Punch could make out four faces, and four rifle barrels pointing their way. Enfields, all of them...he could tell from the barrel design. Definitely locals.

The man was tall, wearing a cap and leather jacket. The arms of the jacket were stitched with official Vanderhoof Timber tree crest logos.

A security guard from the Company.

Punch started to rise but the man waved him back. "Take it easy, men. You're trespassing here. You two from the Alexis Creek cut?"

Big Eyes nodded. "Just loggers, we are, pal. Taking a stroll around the woods. You know how it is, get away from all the booze and snoring. We didn't mean no harm."

The guard motioned for them to get up. Out of the glare of his flashlight, Malone and Keithley could see there were six men in all, each armed with a rifle. Several were Vanderhoof guards; you could tell from the jacket logos. They had the Company look too...clean-shaven, a little too young and eager...not woodsmen at all. Office types. They looked like high school kids.

Two of the men were different. One was Asian, possibly Japanese, with a thin moustache punctuating a snarl of a mouth and a shiny bald head. A red scar marked the right side of his face, along the jaw line. In the flickering glare of flashlight beams, the scar seemed to writhe like a snake.

The other man was taller, blue-eyed, with a sharp nose and fine, almost feminine lips. He wore a black fur cap, emblazoned with a red star on both sides. A foul-smelling cigarette dangled from his lips. He scowled at the two loggers, his fingers twitching at the rifle trigger.

"Come on," said their questioner. Malone had already taken to calling the Vanderhoof guard Sniffles, since the man had a case of nasal drip that wouldn't stop. He motioned the two of them out of their hiding place, indicating with his hands that they should keep their hands up.

Punch Malone and Big Eyes Keithley were forcibly marched at gunpoint back up the slope to the ridgeline and there directed onto a narrow footpath that wrapped around the brow of the hill, all the while descending toward the camp. No words were exchanged, only grunts and snorts as the men negotiated the hilly terrain, slipping and sliding in soft muddy soil from recent rains.

No one was sure who made the first move. Punch Malone had glanced sideways at Keithley as the two of them scrambled up one more bank, steadying themselves with hands on the scrappy bark of an aspen tree and made enough eye contact to pass the suggestion along:

The next ravine...the next hill...we make a break for it—

A few eye blinks from Big Eyes—he had a way of flapping his eyelids that was inevitably funny in the saloons of Williams Lake when you'd had about ten beers too many—and Malone knew his meaning was understood.

It happened in a flash. As the prisoners climbed the next bank, Malone lunged over the top and sprinted off to his left, slipping, sliding, tripping and scrambling, burrowing through thick foliage and vine, Keithley loping along right behind him.

"Hey--!! Hey...get back--!"

A rifle shot cracked, then several more, followed by a fusillade of rounds, spanging off limbs and branches but the two loggers had made good their escape, at least for the moment and disappeared into the darkening depths of the forest. They heard branches crashing behind them, voices and expletives, but the rifle fire had died off.

_Stupid twerps_ , Malone thought. They'll probably wind up shooting each other. Nobody knew how to navigate a woods like Punch Malone.

They thrashed and beat their way through the woods for several minutes before pulling up beneath the thick branches of a tree to catch their breath and listen. The thrashing sounds of their pursuit had died off now and only the faint sigh of the wind could be heard, that and a brew of high-frequency motor noises issuing up from the camp.

"Think...we...lost 'em?" wheezed Big Eyes. He grabbed his knees with his hands and sucked in huge gulps of air.

"I dunno—" Punch said. Suddenly, he was sweating hard and was about to wriggle out of his jacket, when he heard branches snap ahead of them. He froze, half out of his jacket, dropping to a crouch.

The first round fired penetrated Punch's forehead just above his right eye, shattering his cranium in a burst of bone fragments lubricated with a geyser of blood. The logger was dead before his body hit the black dirt.

Two more 30-caliber rounds were fired. The first grazed Big Eyes on the shoulder, spinning him about so that he was face to face with the gnarled bark of the huge Douglas fir beneath which they had paused. For a split second, Big Eyes Keithley regarded the swirls and patterns of the bark before his nose as a huge leering eye, almost winking at him. The second round hit dead center into the back of Big Eyes' skull, pitching him forward. He crumpled against the tree, catching an outstretched hand in the V of the split trunk. Falling, his hand became trapped in the V and the motion torqued his body so that he pirouetted like a dancer, before slumping to the ground. He died wordlessly there at the base of the fir, his eyes open, his arms draped like uprooted legs of the trunk over the woody knobs poking up through the soil.

The two loggers had lain still for a few moments, before three men moved into the clearing.

"—wasn't too hard to flank the poor bastards...there's only so many ways you can get through these woods—" said one man. His name was Raines and he too was a Vanderhoof security guard, and a three-time championship marksman, though tonight he had a different employer.

"Of course," said the man with the fur cap and red star. "An excellent shot from that distance." He kicked at Big Eyes, turning his body over with the toe of his boot. " _Do sveehdahnya,_ my friend. What you have seen dies with you..."

"Get the bodies. We'll take 'em to the lake." Sniffles motioned more men to come forward, sliding out of the darkened forest to retrieve the two curious loggers.

"The lake? Chrikey, that's eight miles from here--" a voice complained.

Sniffles wasn't sympathetic. "Doesn't matter. These two have to disappear. Forever."

Two Days Later

Barclay's Saloon

Williams Lake, British Columbia

6:00 p.m.

Inspector Neal Madigan swore by the roast beef lunches at Barclays and made a point of stuffing himself two or three times a week at the saloon at the end of Macalister Street. Even Mounties had to eat and there was no sense in not going about it the right way, was there?

Madigan had just started digging into the hot and tasty sandwich when his eye caught the door opening and Sergeant Burns from the Detachment burst in, followed closely by a pair of furcapped hunters fresh from the trail, it seemed.

Burns came quickly over. "Begging your pardon, sir, but these two fellas just came down from NAACO Lake and stopped by the Detachment. They've quite a tale to tell—" he urged them on. "Go on—give it to the Inspector, same as you just told me."

One hunter was a burly, red-bearded giant named Grimes. His colleague was shorter, if anything stouter, and wheezing out of breath from the run to the saloon. His name was McGregor.

Grimes whistled as he sucked in air, heaving great gulps to get his breath back. "They've been shot, they 'ave, Inspector. Right through the head. Ran six miles to a logging road when we seen 'em."

"—Yeah," McGregor cut in, "...lucky that truck came by."

Neal Madigan calmly put his fork down and dabbed a napkin at his lips. Hunters were always seeing things in the woods around the town...yetis, twenty-foot bears, Sasquatch, whatever the local gutrot put your mind in a state to see, you could be sure someone would see it.

"Now, then, boys...catch your breath and tell me what you saw. Who exactly has been shot?"

Grimes finally got enough breath to talk. "Couple of Vanderhoof loggers, Inspector. We don't know their names. Somebody shot 'em, they did."

"Close up, too," said MacGregor. "Saw the powder burns."

Madigan decided this was no Sasquatch sighting. "Where did you find 'em?"

"Up by NAACO Lake. Me and Mac were getting ready to cast our lines, see, and then we seen these humps. We waded out and it was these two men."

Madigan looked wistfully at his roast beef sandwich and beer. With a big sigh, he pushed back and stood up, reaching for his jacket. He decided he'd better go investigate this after all.

"Okay, boys, take me to it."

Wednesday, August 1, 1945

Aboard the _El Rey Diaz_

9:30 p.m.

Engineer Carlos Guerra Marquez squeezed out of the stores locker he'd been hiding in for the last five days and peeked into the narrow passageway. For the last few hours, he was sure his ship had been wounded, perhaps mortally so, and he couldn't stay still any longer. As ship's engineer, he was used to the sound and feel of her twin diesels chugging underneath his feet as he walked his ship from bow to stern...a satisfying, _thump-thump-thump_ of shafts and gears turning belowdecks, pushing the eight-thousand ton freighter through the water.

But three hours ago, Marquez heard something different. By the sound of the thump, and the ragged vibration that shook through _El Rey's_ hull, he was certain that one of the diesels—it felt like the starboard engine—had dropped out. Now she was limping along on only one engine and the hull vibration had changed to a broken syncopation like an orchestra with horns out of tune. Marquez had listened dolefully to the sound for the better part of three hours, until he could stand it no longer.

The ship, _his_ ship, was crying out for help. He had to go see what was wrong.

_El Rey_ had been hijacked by pirates or some kind of loco foreigners on Wednesday morning, right after she had put into Puerto Rosario for provisions and fuel. It had been the last leg of the usual run down the coast...Vancouver to Portland to Oakland to Long Beach to Puerto Rosario and back...a trip that Marquez had made dozens of times aboard this senile but affectionate tub. Problems she had aplenty, from her peeling paint to her main shaft bearings to her creaky anchor to her barnacled hull plates, but for all that, she was a lovable if petulant ship and Marquez thought of her in many ways as the comfortable but aging spouse he had never taken.

He didn't know who the pirates were, only that they spoke no Spanish or English. From cracked doors, he spied two of them wrestling with large crates, marked in block letters U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS, yet none of the bandits were American. If anything, they were Orientales, perhaps even Japanese spies. The thought sent a shiver down Marquez' neck.

Somehow, someway, he had to find out what was wrong with _El Rey's_ starboard diesel and fix it. Then, he would find a way to take back control of the ship from the hijackers.

He crept along the starboard beam, ducking below the portholes where light spilled out into the night, and went aft, intending to make the shipping hatch near the anchor windlass, and head down from there. The engine room was two levels down and one compartment aft of the hatch. He froze at the sound of human voices, carried on the seabreezes and flattened himself against the bulkhead, trying to pinpoint the sound. Ahead...from the bridge ladder...he heard them again...clipped, guttural, like no language he had ever heard before. He made the ladder, directly below the ship's bridge, and climbed noiselessly until his eyes were even with the starboard porthole, which was open to the night air.

Inside he saw two of the bandits. _Orientales_. One was at the helm, easing _El Rey_ through light chop at a speed Marquez estimated to be about twelve knots. Through the bridge, the engineer could see shore lights on the other side. They were no more than two or three miles from land, navigating too close to shore for his comfort. He watched the _orientale_ at the helm for a few moments, noting that the bandit seemed ill at ease conning the freighter. He had a jerky, almost panicky touch at the helm.

This diablo will run us aground before the night is out.

He clung to the ladder, aware of how exposed he was, but curious, as the two bandits argued in their guttural language over something. Presently, a third bandit entered the bridge from the rear, from the radio room. He looked quite different, taller, quite stocky, a European perhaps. He had a rust-colored crewcut, a thick ropy neck and a prominent scar under his left chin along the jaw line. _Maybe a prizefighter_. He was built with the muscular stance of one. He listened, trying to catch words over the buffeting of the wind.

"She's still astern of us?" asked one of the _orientales_ , an older one with a commanding air about him. He glared at the prizefighter, who shrugged, and withdrew a foul-smelling cigarette, which he proceeded to light and puff on.

"Several miles," said the prizefighter. "He is closing."

The bandit at the helm was nervous. "They are signaling us on the radio. They must be the American Navy."

"Or perhaps their Coast Guard," said the older _orientale_. "We've lost one of the engines. Simonets-san says he can't repair it...I just spoke with him."

The prizefighter glared out the rear bank of windows. "Then we can't outrun them. In another half hour, they'll be alongside. What kind of guns does such a ship have?"

The older _orientale_ , whose name was Toronaga, though Marquez did not know this, snorted. "Bigger than anything we have. You have a plan?"

Vasily Kalugin puffed hard on his cigarette. "We can't be stopped. Or boarded. Not now." He watched the shore lights slide past. "Where are we now?"

The _orientale_ at the helm was Corporal Yano. He kept one hand on the lacquered wooden wheel and fingered a map on a nearby table. "I make our current position here—" his finger traced along the Oregon coastline on the map. "If I'm right, that light there—" he pointed to a strobing light slightly astern of them "—is this lighthouse at North Bend. Up head, will be Coos Bay."

Kalugin was massaging the scar along his chin. He did that when he was thinking, planning. "What's there? Is there a port of some kind? A stretch of isolated shoreline?"

"The map shows a small inlet. There may be some docks...it's hard to say from this."

Toronaga was anxious. "What are you thinking, Kalugin-san? That we hide in this port?"

Before Kalugin could answer, a distant flash and rumble reverberated over the bridge. Seconds later, a whining sound was followed immediately by an explosion off their port bow, and a geyser of water spouted less than fifty yards away. Before they could react, another flash-boom followed, then another. Explosions bracketed _El Rey_ on either side, erupting closer with each whistling concussive boom.

"We're under fire!" Toronaga yelled. He dashed to the window, nearly catching sight of Marquez, before the engineer slid down the ladder and squeezed hard against the bulkhead. "They're firing on us!"

Indeed, even as Marquez watched, prone against the steel plating, more flashes flared behind them. The shells rocketed overhead, and detonated less than thirty yards ahead, sending spray and smoke over the ship's bow. Yano, at the helm, instinctively swerved them to port, then back to starboard, and Marquez was thrown away from the bulkhead toward the railing. He managed to snag a stanchion just in time to keep from being hurled overboard.

_I've got to get to the engine room_ , he realized. If he could secure the portside diesel, _El Rey_ would be dead in the water. Then she would be helpless and easy prey to be boarded. The Americans, or whoever was shelling them, would have no need to bombard his ship anymore. And the bandits would be forced to surrender.

All of these thoughts ran through Marquez' mind as he clambered down ladders and hatches, heading into the bowels of the ship, heading for the engine room.

He had to do whatever he could to save _El Rey Diaz_. He ducked through one hatch after another...the machine room, the pump room, an auxiliary stores locker, and then, _only a little further to go, one more hatch_ , _one more ladder,_ he ran headlong into the last of the bandits, climbing up the final ladder, the one who had been manning the engine room since they'd left Puerto Rosario.

Marquez stopped short, hands out, ready to struggle with the bandit. He was another European, younger, thinner, a black line of a moustache quivering over his lips, and a feral glow in his eyes. In a flash, the muzzle of a pistol was leveled squarely at his head.

For a long moment, the two men glared at each. Then, the Americans fired another salvo that detonated just off _El Rey's_ portside. The concussion knocked both men to the bulkhead. Marquez recovered quicker, and lunged for the bandit's wrist; they struggled for a few moments, and the gun went off, booming in the tight space of the corridor. With a desperate pull, the engineer managed to wrest the weapon from the bandit. He squeezed the trigger twice.

Both rounds struck Major Anatoli Simonets squarely in the chest. He paused in mid-lunge, a look of disgust on his face, then pitched forward into the bulkhead, sliding off down to the deck, bright red arterial blood pumping from two gaping wounds.

Marquez paused only momentarily, then left the dying Russian and made his way to the engine room lower level. The portside diesel was still; only the starboard engine thundered its usual din, its main shaft squealing from bearings in need of long-overdue maintenance. Marquez stopped at the engine control station, checked the telegraph panel to see what the bridge had ordered, then quickly shut off fuel valves down a long row of controls. The starboard engine coughed, chugged, sputtered and finally died off into wheezing and huffing silence, her main shaft and gearing protesting with squealing, grinding finality. Marquez wasn't sure she could ever be restarted without an overhaul. But at the moment, that didn't matter.

Now the bandits would have to surrender to the Americans _. El Rey Diaz_ would be saved.

Topside on the bridge, Corporal Yano felt the starboard engine quit almost immediately.

"Something's happened...I'm losing way...the helm's not responding..."

Toronaga studied the panel of instruments. "You're speed's dropping...what's going on?"

Kalugin felt it too. "The engine. It stopped. I'll ring up Anatoli Semyonovich—" he cranked the telegraph handle, but there was no response from the engine room. "Something's wrong...I'd better go see—"

"What do you want me to do?" Yano said. "I've lost steering."

Kalugin paused at the top of the bridge ladder. "Steer toward the shore. The entrance to the docks has to be somewhere ahead." The Russian commando then dropped down the ladder and disappeared.

Yano tried to comply, with Toronaga's help, but _El Rey_ was sluggish, gradually losing her forward momentum. Two miles astern, the Coast Guard cutter _Dominion Eagle_ had also noticed the Mexican freighter's drop in speed. Thinking she was heaving to, the cutter's captain Harvey Lance, ordered the deck gunners to cease fire.

"She's pulling up, Skipper," said the officer of the deck.

Lance nodded, rubbing his chin. He was uneasy about this one. The reports out of Oakland Dispatch had said there might be Jap spies and saboteurs aboard this beat-up Mexican garbage scow. Lance doubted that very much...not since Pearl in '41 and the invasion scare of the first months of '42 had there been any real threat of Jap naval activity off America's West Coast.

_More likely they're smugglers, carrying contraband somewhere_ , he reflected. Still, it paid to be cautious. He ordered _Dominion Eagle's_ engines throttled back to one-quarter. "And keep the three-inch trained on her stern," he ordered. "In case she tries to make a run for it."

"Looks like she's making for Coos Bay now, Skipper," said the OOD. He had binoculars out, though light fog and the moonless night made visibility difficult. "She's turning toward the harbor entrance."

"Fire another shot across her bow to starboard," Lance ordered. "That harbor's too shallow for us...we need her stopped in deeper water. And tell Lieutenant Capes to get his boarding party ready."

"Aye, sir."

Steadily, _Dominion Eagle_ closed the gap until just shy of 2300 hours, she came to a full stop a thousand yards off the Mexican's stern.

"Yeoman, break out the signal lantern."

Lance composed the words in his mind, while Yeoman First Class Willie Gordon set up the apparatus at _Eagle's_ forward bridge window.

"Lantern all set, sir."

"Very well. Signal: _heave to and prepare to be boarded. Assemble all hands on deck. Do not try to escape. You will be sunk._ Send it."

Gordon flashed the message across the intervening one thousand yards.

Aboard _El Rey Diaz_ , Vasily Kalugin had just returned to the freighter's bridge. He had an assault rifle with him. Yano and Toronaga were struggling with the helm. The freighter wallowed sideways in ten foot swells just off the mouth of Coos Bay's hook-shaped harbor.

"Both engines are shut down," the Russian reported. "And Simonets is dead...shot at close range. There must be a crewmember still aboard...someone we missed at Puerto Rosario."

Toronaga grunted. "The Americans are signaling. Can you decipher, Corporal?"

Yano nodded. "They're sending a boarding party. They say we are not to try to escape."

Kalugin snorted. "We couldn't anyway." He cycled the rifle's action, checked the firing chambers. A full load. "We can't allow anyone to board us. I pulled out more weapons from the crates and brought them to the wardroom. Get below, both of you and arm yourselves with everything you can carry. We'll give the Americans a hot reception when they start boarding."

Toronaga gritted his teeth. The Russian gave orders like a natural leader, curt and to the point. Tactically, it made sense and there was nothing Toronaga would have liked better than to die fighting off an American attack _. I should have died with 1_ st _Sasebo at Saipan, he told himself._ He had a lot of comrades waiting at the Yasukuni Shrine, wondering where he was, what was keeping him. To rendezvous in the other world at the famous shrine was the greatest thing any warrior of Nihon could hope for.

But it galled none the less to take orders from a Russian pig who knew nothing of honor and sacrifice and the way of _Bushido_.

He started to argue that it made more sense to separate themselves strategically, to set up a murderous crossfire across the likeliest boarding spots, when a terrific explosion erupted in a red ball of flame behind them.

Toronaga and Yano watched, with Kalugin halfway down a ladder, as _Dominion Eagle_ was quickly enveloped in smoke and more flame, her ammo bunkers cooking off in deafening secondary explosions that shot flaming debris in graceful arcs through the night sky, like a great fireworks display. Another geyser of flame spouted as more explosions broke the back of the cutter. In less than three minutes, she was severed in two pieces and her bow swung up and angled down hissing and seething into the water. Her stern section took five minutes longer, before it too corkscrewed like a giant bathtub toy and slid beneath the waves.

At the surface, several crewmen had abandoned ship and were floating on broken beams or spars and assorted wreckage, while patches of oily water flared into flames all around them. Even over the explosions, their cries and screams could be heard echoing across the water.

" _Skah tertyoo daroga_!" Kalugin yelled, pumping the air with his fists. "Look at it! A great sight, no?"

Toronaga felt the heat of the flames even aboard _El Rey_. He shielded his eyes, yelling at the top of his voice, " _Wah! Wah! Umai_! Americans burn like paper lanterns!"

But it was Maizu Yano, squinting through the exploding pyre of the broken cutter who saw the real reason _Dominion Eagle_ had suddenly gone up in flames.

"Look! Look there-" he pointed to a spot several thousand yards beyond the trail of flaming debris that had once been the Coast Guard cutter. "—do you see her?"

Toronaga looked too and saw the black shape of a conning tower gliding along the surface, the shadows of flaming debris casting black writhing shapes on her hull.

"A submarine!"

Kalugin saw it finally. "Mother of Stalin....it's Ponomarev!. The K-44!" He slammed a fist into the palm of his other hand, then raced the rest of the way down the ladder and went to the stern rails, waving, yelling at his comrades. "Over here, you idiots! Over here—"

But the K-44 came no closer. She circled the flaming wreckage once. Silhouetted shapes slithered through the shadows on her deck, gunner's mates manning the three-inch mounts fore and aft. Sporadically, the guns opened fire, accompanied by small arms, pistols and rifles from the sound of it. Kalugin watched as the K-44 circled the remains of _Dominion Eagle_ like a shark, methodically picking off survivors from the cutter. When all their cries had been stilled and only the crackle of flaming oil and debris remained, K-44 turned about.

A signal lantern began flashing from her conning tower.

_No more enemy pursuit_ , came the sequence of flashes. _Proceed with mission_.

And after that terse message, _K-44_ turned out to sea and soon disappeared from view.

"Proceed with mission," sniffed Kalugin, leaning over the rail. The waves had begun to wash the first broken wreckage...and bloated corpses...against _El Rey Diaz'_ sides. The thumping made him want to wretch. "How—"

Toronaga showed up beside him. "Yano and I are going hunting. We'll find the crewman who murdered your comrade, Kalugin." The Japanese marine slightly squeezed the Russian's shoulder.

Kalugin flinched momentarily, turned with fists clenched, then slowly willed himself to relax. He faced Toronaga. "Proceed with mission, they said. How—we've got to fix the engines before we can go on."

"Or get to port and unload...where, no doubt, the Americans will be waiting for us."

"I'm a land predator," the Russian admitted. "In the forests, in the Primet marshes, in the hills of Carpathia, the _spiritsy_ moves like a breath of wind. But here—at sea..." Kalugin shook his head. "I am lost."

Toronaga seemed to understand. "We fight different wars, _ruso_. Sometimes, different enemies. But we are both warriors. Wherever we find ourselves, we fight. It's all you and I know."

Kalugin thought about that, about Tegelwald and the Nazi treasure he'd brought along. "Maybe, Toronaga. Maybe. But we fight for different reasons."

Toronaga nodded. " _Hai!_ Perhaps that is so." He called to Yano. " _Gocho!_...you go forward...here take this carbine." He tossed the weapon down to the corporal. "Keep your eyes open. I'll go aft...we'll flush this worm from his hole."

Kalugin was glad to have a job he knew how to do. He unslung his Kalishnikov. "I'll start from the radio room and work my way down. Let's meet back here in half an hour."

The men started to separate, but Kalugin called them back together. "We need a password."

Toronaga gave that some thought. "Your chance to learn my language, eh, _ruso_? How about _tsukkome_?"

Kalugin looked blank. "And what does that mean?"

Toronaga replied, "It's an old _kokusentai_ expression...it means--charge...let's go!"

Kalugin tried out the phrase. "It's settled, then. _Tsukkome_!"

The three of them separated and went hunting.

For nearly an hour, engineer Marquez managed to elude his stalkers. Kalugin headed forward, intending to start in the bow compartments and work his way aft. He thought it likely that the Coast Guard cutter probably got off some kind of alarm before she went to the bottom. It wouldn't be long before the American Navy would be swarming the Oregon coast. Unchallenged submarine actions along her west coast would wake up the Americans for sure.

As he methodically worked his way down corridor after corridor, kicking open doors, Kalugin found himself wishing Ponomarev hadn't shadowed them from Puerto Rosario. To rouse the Americans to a threat in their very own backyard was operational folly. Now, he was sure, they'd have no choice but to find a way to get into some port nearby and get the bomb off the freighter. How that would be done, Kalugin wasn't quite sure.

For the better part of an hour, he probed and listened to the clanks and squeals and groans of _El Rey Diaz_ as he searched for the saboteur he knew had to be aboard. The freighter was a dump, every compartment in need of a thorough mopping, her hatches rusting on their hinges, her corridors reeking of some sickening brew of tequila and cheap beer and ammonia.

_I don't know what kind of cargo you carry_ , he told himself, _but whatever it is, it would probably make thousands sick._

He had worked his way toward the ship's wardroom and was about to check the galley spaces when he heard a commotion echoing through the bulkheads from somewhere aft. Puzzled, he headed in that direction, hearing sounds of a scuffle. Then a shot rang out. Kalugin broke into a run.

The shot had come from a machine room one level below. Kalugin bounded down a ladder and burst into the room, filled with lathes and drills and presses, where he saw Toronaga roughly handling a pale, shaking Mexican by the scruff of his torn shirt. The Mexican was middle-aged, black-mustachioed and his eyes bulged with fear as the Japanese marine rammed the muzzle of his carbine into his side. The shot had come from Toronaga.

"I've found the rat, Kalugin-san. Hiding in the tool locker back there—he must have kicked something over and it made a noise." He hauled the Mexican up and shoved him roughly onto a stool beside the lathe. Kalugin found some tackle rope nearby and bound the man's hands behind him.

The Russian commando seized a handful of the Mexican's black hair and lifted his head up.

"What's happened to the engines, comrade. _Comprende?_ What did you do to them?"

The Mexican stared blankly ahead, his lips a tight line. He shivered as if freezing, though the machine room was clammy and humid. Toronaga placed the butt of his carbine into the man's rubs. He fell from the stool, fell heavily onto his side with an audible grunt. He squeezed his eyes shut and grimaced.

Kalugin hauled him up on the stool again and seated him roughly, holding him there until he was sure he would stay upright. "My friend here has a bad temper. He doesn't like you. Tell me who you are...what you do on this ship...and I'll try to keep him off you—"

A glimmer of hope in the Mexican's eyes betrayed his understanding. Kalugin had interrogated dozens of Germans and Poles and he knew the finer points of getting a prisoner's attention...really, it was finding the right mixture of threats, force and hope. Stoking a man's hope, then dashing it with a cold dousing of fear...that's how you broke a man's dignity and loosened his tongue.

The Mexican spat a little blood and mumbled something inaudible.

Kalugin grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked his head back. "What was that? I didn't hear you."

"... _ingeniero_..." he mumbled, a little louder.

"Engineer," said Toronaga. "Is that what you are? What is your name?"

Kalugin knew a little Spanish from commando school. "Como se llama?"

The Mexican twisted uncomfortably in his ropes, then sighed. "Me llamo Marquez. Ingeniero."

"Ship's engineer?"

He nodded affirmatively.

Kalugin got in his face. Marquez' breath stank of diesel fuel and oil and sweat.

"You sabotaged the engines, didn't you?"

Marquez said nothing, sitting rigidly on the stool.

"He knows something..." Toronaga spat. He shoved Marquez roughly backward, so that he pitched headfirst upside down to the deck. His head slammed against the lathe and blood spurted from a deep cut on the side of his face. The Russian and the Japanese let the Mexican lie there in his own blood for a few moments. Toronaga administered a few more kicks in the ribs.

"We should throw him overboard, Kalugin-san. Get rid of the trash."

Kalugin thought the idea had merit. He hoisted Marquez up again and propped him up against the lathe, where he teetered for a few seconds. The Russian cut off more rope and fastened a noose around the Mexican's neck. "There...a nice fit..." He tightened the noose to apply just a hint of a choking force, forcing a bloody cough from Marquez. Then he jerked the noose and dragged his captive up several ladders and through a hatch topside. Toronaga followed.

Marquez was forced over the rail, squirming with fear, until Kalugin and Toronaga had him nicely balanced on his broken rib, like a lever, ready to be tipped forward and into the dark foam of the Pacific Ocean. Only Toronaga's pull on Marquez' legs kept him upright.

"There," Kalugin said. "We shall watch the sunrise together, no? A lovely night at sea—"

The Pacific was anything but lovely in the chill mists of the pre-dawn hours. A stiff twenty knot wind blew hard from the southwest, driving _El Rey_ steadily closer to the breakwater that jutted out from the entrance to Coos Bay. A string of lighted marker buoys lined the navigation approaches to the ship channel in the harbor. Even in his precarious position, Marquez could see that it was only a matter of time before the wind and currents smashed _El Rey_ against the breakwater. The Mexican engineer couldn't bare the thought of his proud ship suffering such an ignominious fate. He squeezed his eyes shut, dizzy and sick, while Toronaga rocked his body back and forth over the rail like a balance beam.

"Let him go—" Kalugin muttered. "We may as well be done with him...he's no good to us. Let the sharks have their breakfast—"

Toronaga began tipping the Mexican further forward...his body stiffened, anticipating the fall...then—

" _Wait_ , amigos! Wait—" his voice was muffled, a frothy gurgle as he spat more blood. "Un moment—"

Disappointed, Toronaga hauled him back in, letting him drop to the slick deck with a heavy thud.

"I fix—" Marquez squinted up through stinging mist at his captors, his eyes puffy and pleading. "I fix—"

Kalugin glared down at him. "You fix---what does that mean?"

Marquez vomited at the Russian's feet, forcing Kalugin to take a step back. He coughed, retched, then spat more blood, looking up with eyes begging. "—the engines. I can fix—"

Kalugin smiled faintly. His eyes met Toronaga's. _My way is better_ , they said silently to the Japanese marine. Toronaga snarled in disgust, kicking at Marquez's feet for good measure.

"You can fix the engines?"

Marquez nodded hopefully, grimacing as the rope coiled more tightly around his neck. "Si...I can fix—"

Kalugin indicated Toronaga should help him up. For a long moment, the Japanese marine only glared back _. You know nothing of Bushido, ruso. Rikusentai don't bow to insects._ But he pulled the Mexican to his feet.

They went in search of the engine room.

An hour later, Ship's Engineer Marquez had restored the portside engine, and the diesel chugged into life, with a shrill grinding sound and a thick cloud of acrid smoke. Once he was sure the engine would run, Toronaga manipulated the annunciator panel and raised Yano, who was still topside on the bridge.

" _Gocho_! One engine is working. Get us underway...now!

Yano's voice was thick. " _Hai_...at once, _Shosa_! There are lights on the horizon...ship lights. Could be American Navy!"

Toronaga exchanged glances with Kalugin. "On one engine, we can't outrun American Navy ships."

"Into the harbor...it's our only chance," Kalugin decided.

Toronaga knew he was right. He passed orders to Yano. "Take us into that harbor. Quickly. We'll have to find a truck and get the bomb off the ship."

Kalugin was already thinking about the logistics of _that_. "Engineer, we've got cargo in your forward hold. You're going to help us get it off the ship."

Marquez nodded with resignation. He wanted to ask what would be happen to him. But he already knew the answer to that.

Yano managed to dock _El Rey Diaz_ , after much bumping and scraping, at an isolated slip near the end of the wharf. The docks at Coos Bay were mostly empty, by order of the Coast Guard and Western Defense Command, so that ship traffic could be better monitored for enemy activity. There hadn't been a ship or a sub sighting since the scare months of early '42 but the Navy wasn't taking any chances.

As Yano cut her one good engine, Kalugin and Toronaga leaped to the dock to secure the mooring ropes to their cleats. With _El Rey Diaz_ made fast, they reconnoitered the area, mostly dark save for a few weak floodlights near the dispatcher's shack, looking for a truck big enough to take their cargo. A few minutes later, Toronaga grunted with satisfaction—the silhouette of a flatbed truck was poking out from behind a small dark cottage at the end of the road behind the docks. With Yano guarding the Mexican engineer, now securely tied to a chair in a storage locker below the bridge, Toronaga and Kalugin crept forward to the cottage.

The truck was an old but seemingly serviceable Ford. There was no way of telling how much fuel its tank had, if any, but there was a gas pump at the end of the wharf. Kalugin didn't know if marine diesel fuel would work in such an engine, but they couldn't afford to be choosy. Easing open the door, Toronaga felt below the steering column for the latch, which would give access to the ignition wiring harness. Kalugin popped the hood, with a loud screech, and peered into the darkened engine compartment.

Moments later, they had the truck's engine started, and rumbling. Lights snapped on inside the cottage and the two men froze. Only Toronaga had taken his carbine along and it lay on the floorboard of the truck cab. When the cottage front door opened, sending shafts of light their way, the Japanese marine seized his weapon and crouched beside the front left tire. In the doorway, a stout man with his own rifle stepped out into the night.

"Who's there?" came a gruff voice. The stout man realized his truck's engine was running. He stepped onto the dirt path and headed toward them.

Toronaga cycled the action on his carbine, the _clack_ muffled by the deep rumble of the truck engine, and eased forward on his knees, propping the weapon on the tire. At the exact moment the stout man's face came into the pool of light cast by the dock floods, Toronaga squeezed off four rounds. The shots boomed in echo across the docks.

The stout man spun with the impact of the rounds and pitched forward into the dirt.

Toronaga ran to the body and kicked the rifle away. The stout man had four gaping wounds in his chest. The Japanese marine put another round into his head for good measure and headed off to the truck. He slammed the vehicle into reverse and backed down to the docks, where _El Rey Diaz_ was moored. Kalugin and Yano joined him there.

"I suppose everyone will know we're here now," the Russian said.

"It was the only way," Toronaga hissed. He leaped aboard and went aft, to set up the hoist and ready the crates for movement. _Big Fella's_ bomb casing weighed several thousand pounds and maneuvering it up and out of the foredeck cargo hold would be tricky. They wanted to have the truck loaded and be out of Coos Bay before the sun came up. Toronaga and Yano grunted and shoved until the largest crate was in position. Topside, Kalugin manned the hoist from its control cabin.

The entire operation took about an hour. Crate by crate, the bomb casing, the fuses and the core were transferred out of _El Rey's_ cargo hold, swung over the railing and lowered to the open cargo bed of the truck. While loading proceeded, Maizu Yano found some sheets of canvas tarpaulin and secured the crates to the bed, covering them with the canvas. Throughout, Toronaga swore at the Russian's thickheaded impulsiveness. The original plan for Operation _Shori_ had the components from Tinian mated with the core at Puerto Rosario and the bomb then trucked north overland to Canada. It was Kalugin's decision to commandeer the Mexican freighter and head to sea, a decision he'd justified by the presence of so many American forces at Puerto Rosario.

"We can't go north by road," he'd said to Toronaga. "We've got to get to Canada another way." It had been Kalugin's idea to steam north to the British Columbia coast and get off a signal to rendezvous with the scientists who would examine the bomb when they left American waters.

_A stupid, haphazard plan_ , Toronaga thought to himself as he attached the last of the crates to the hoist. Didn't the Russian pig understand how finely all the parts of Operation _Shori_ had to mesh, in order for everything to work? If any part failed, the whole plan was worthless. Ushenda himself had said as much in their final briefings.

The Admiral should never have agreed to a split command of the mission, he was sure of that. The Russians couldn't be trusted anyway. They had different objectives. Why should they help Nihon in her greatest hour of need, when they had fifty divisions massed against the Kwantung Army in Manchukuo as it was?

No, Toronaga was certain, Kalugin had different orders from he and Yano. Still, he needed the Russian's help to get the bomb to the base in Canada, to get it ready for mating to the aircraft that he was sure would come. But once that was done, Saburu Toronaga would take great pleasure in breaking the _ruso's_ thick neck with his own hands.

He dogged the hoist bit down and yelled up to Kalugin to lift away. While the last crate was rising, Toronaga climbed several flights of ladders topside, and scampered down the gangway to the dock, where he and Yano waited impatiently for the Russian to maneuver the hoist and swing the crate over. Moments later, it was ratcheted down and covered with a corner of the tarp. For all intents and purposes, the truck was bearing machine parts—compressors and pumps, said a manifest they had stolen from the captain's quarters aboard _El Rey_. Bearing machine parts...to a logging camp in British Columbia. In an odd way, it was even true. Toronaga patted Yano on the shoulder.

"Let's get going."

" _Hai_...And I found maps inside that shack," Yano pointed to the dispatcher's shack at the end of the docks. He pulled out several and showed them to Toronaga.

" _Yushu na,_ Yano-san. Excellent. You will be our driver."

Kalugin came running. "Come on! Get moving! Let's get out of here!"

The three of them piled into the cramped truck cab, with Yano driving. The truck rumbled down the darkened lane to the end of the docks and turned onto Glasgow Road.

"Which way?" Yano asked, squinting to see ahead. He left the headlights off so as not to attract any more attention. The truck eased onto the road and accelerated slowly, while Yano struggled with the gears.

"Inland," Kalugin ordered, before Toronaga could say anything. "Away from the coast. We'll find a road that goes inland and travel it for an hour or so."

"You have the nose of a bloodhound?" Toronaga asked sarcastically. "You can smell your way to our destination?"

"Better than that. I've got Yano's maps--" The Russian couldn't see anything on the maps in the darkened cab. But it didn't matter. _Spiritsy_ could feel the terrain like the curve of a woman's neck. He'd done it often enough chasing the fascists through Silesian forests. "--and a nose for direction," he added, tapping the bridge of his nose.

Toronaga didn't bother to hide his disgust. This _ruso_ will either get us all lost or killed. Probably both. He lay back against the seat and closed his eyes, while Yano followed the Russian's directions, half from the map, half from instinct.

_We may well wind up right back in Mexico if this goes on_ , Toronaga thought. _The war will be over before we find our way._

Even as the first fingers of dawn tickled the eastern sky over the rounded humps of the distant Coast Range, Yano drove them as the Russian commando dictated, slowly at first, then with increasing speed, along a highway that snaked through rising hills and narrow ravines thickly forested with cedar, pine and aspen, punctuated with silvery waterfalls and rushing streams.

An hour later, they had reached the outskirts of a small town called Allegany. The road split into north and south branches there. Kalugin got out of the cab, studied the steep slopes of the terrain, and proclaimed that they would now turn north, parallel to the mountains.

The three surviving members of the Sacred Sword and Valiant Warrior teams huddled tightly together in the truck cab, as Yano pointed them north, speeding along the bumpy macadam.

Through the towering sentinels of the cedars that lined both sides of the road, Toronaga saw the first spray of sunlight bursting through the tree limbs, an imitation of the Rising Sun that had shaped his life for so many years. He swallowed his annoyance at the arrogance of Vasily Kalugin and concentrated on the image, fixing it in his mind.

Perhaps...just perhaps, he willed himself to think...this was finally an omen of good fortune to come.
CHAPTER 19

Thursday, August 2, 1945

Over the Bering Sea

11:50 a.m.

Ivan Nakhimov watched pensively as the icy cliffs of St. Lawrence Island loomed ahead, through broken clouds eighteen thousand feet below them. For the moment, Sado Fumori had control of the aircraft and as _Awesome Avenger_ droned on at one hundred eighty knots, Nakhimov realized that the mission had left Soviet airspace for the last time. Ahead of them was Alaska, Canada, and the whole of North America. Operation _Pobeda_ was now real...he could feel it in the seat of his pants... and no longer some feverish dream or a planner's scribblings on some tactical map mounted on an easel.

They were approaching American airspace and there was no going back now. He swallowed hard, then steeled himself with a resolve he surely didn't feel. But he was determined he would show no nerves or hesitation before this strange mixture of a crew he was leading...and certainly, he would show only true Russian courage in the eyes of his Japanese co-pilot Fumori. He would not let his comrades in the 240th Fighter Air Regiment down and stumble before this Japanese dog.

_Awesome Avenger_ had lifted off from the darkened, rain-soaked airstrip at Pyrkanay some seven hours ago and fifteen hundred miles behind them. The crew had stayed over at the remote airbase on the edge of the Chukotski Peninsula for several days, waiting for word from Kleptomanov at Spassk Dalniy, where operational control of the mission was based, word that _Pobeda_ was on, that the operatives in America had made their moves and the teams with the bomb parts had rendezvoused. Once the first two elements of _Pobeda_ had come together, the third element could move forward. That meant Nakhimov and this fabulous American bomber, the _Awesome Avenger_ , would fly from Pyrkanay and enter American airspace over the west coast of Alaska.

The second leg of the mission was planned as an elaborate ruse, for the Americans' pursuit planes would surely challenge any unknown aircraft approaching her shores.

The plan was simple enough: _Awesome Avenger_ was in fact an American bomber and Kleptomanov had worked out the details to take advantage of that fact. She would enter Alaskan airspace from the southwest, coming in low over Bristol Bay on a heading of zero six five degrees, to all outward appearances a crippled bomber from the 20th Air Force, on an intel mission, shot up over Nagoya and barely flyable, lost and low on fuel. If it worked, and Kleptomanov was counting on making the ruse work, they would find themselves vectored to the nearest airfield from the first point they made contact. Some timely reconnaissance by friendly Eskimo and Inuit scouts had established the position and purpose of a remote airstrip a hundred miles north of Anchorage, a placed called Elasco Field, carved onto a rocky plateau in the heart of the Talkeetna Range, a scenic if lonely outpost of Western Defense Command and the 10th Air Force that overlooked a bend in the Sustina River and was used mainly for emergency landings when Elmendorf and other bases were socked in with bad weather.

Since Nakhimov would control the timing of their first 'emergency' contacts, he could place _Awesome Avenger_ in a position so that the logical vectoring instructions from Anchorage Control would send them to Elasco. The ruse depended on timing and convincing Anchorage that _Avenger_ was just barely flyable and needed to get down right away. If the American air traffic controllers reacted as expected, the bomber would be vectored to the nearest field, which would be Elasco, and told to land there.

Kleptomanov had made sure the Inuit contacts were well supplied with aviation fuel and pumping trucks to refuel the aircraft quickly and get _Avenger_ on her way before the Americans showed up with rescue forces. With timing, boldness and a little luck, the stolen B-29 would be airborne and headed into Canadian airspace before the Americans knew what had happened. Their next stop would be Kitticut, and the rest of the _Pobeda_ team.

Fumori swung _Avenger_ hard to port and they crossed the Alaskan frontier six miles north of the fishing village of Dillingham, barely visible through the scattered cirrus below as a few smoke columns corkscrewed into the air. The Japanese ace and veteran of the Rabaul campaign glanced over at Ivan Nakhimov. Both men were nervous, as they crossed the coastline.

"The Aleutian Islands are over there," Fumori said softly, indicating distant green-brown humps on the starboard horizon. He knew that many troops of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy had died there in Operation AF, back in '42, creating a diversionary assault for the mission against Midway Island. The entire enterprise had been a tragic waste, a complete failure. Toronaga-san himself had been a survivor of the _Hiryu_ , picked up by a Japanese destroyer on its retreat back to the Home Islands. Fumori knew that the _rikusentai_ warrior burned with hatred for the Americans.

_Awesome Avenger_ flew inland for nearly half an hour, with navigator Maximov taking periodic sightings on the sun and ground landmarks. Off to their left, through flat clouds, the snowy peak of Mount McKinley lofted itself over a sea of green and brown trees. Presently, Maximov announced the first waypoint coming up.

"Comrade _Maior_ , the first contact point is five minutes away, on our current heading."

Nakhimov acknowledged the report. He turned to Fumori. "Better head down. Reduce our altitude to ten thousand feet. I'll bank us left and right a few times...make the Americans think we're having control problems. Bring us down to ten thousand, then to eight thousand. We have to give the impression we're in a bad way up here."

" _Hai_. Understood." Sado Fumori nudged the wheel forward and _Avenger_ nosed over, beginning a shallow descent to Angels 10.

"Radioman, warm up the set. You've got the instructions, the words written out?"

_Starzhey Serzhant_ Lev Podgorny came back, crackling over the cabin intercom. "I have the instructions, Comrade _Maior_. The BC-348 radio is ready...I am tuning now...picking up local radio stations—"

"Very well." Nakhimov steered them through a series of left and right banks, even as _Avenger_ leveled off at ten thousand feet. They picked up some light chop, and wispy clouds flecked the birdcage windscreen. "Surely the Americans have us on their radar equipment by now—"

"If they do," Fumori muttered, "I hope they believe we are one of them."

"We may have company before long," Nakhimov admitted. He checked his watch. The plan was precise...at exactly 1150 hours local time, at position sixty four degrees North, one sixty eight degrees west, they would begin broadcasting in the clear, advertising their position to all listeners. The ruse had to work. Once Podgorny began broadcasting, there would be no turning back.

_And if the Eskimos don't have our fuel ready at the airstrip_ , Nakhimov thought, _there will be a spectacular crash in the mountains north of Anchorage_.

The time had come. "Radioman, begin broadcasting now—"

"This is Red Fox One, broadcasting in the clear, Red Fox One broadcasting to any station—come in—"

Nakhimov smiled at the soft Midwestern twang that Podgorny had somehow learned how to affect. The radioman's accent had taken months of practice to get right...and many hours interviewing and listening to the captured American crew whose aircraft _Avenger_ had once been.

"...Red Fox One to any station...we are low on fuel, and barely flyable...Red Fox One to any station...Mayday...Mayday...Mayday...we need a vector. We are going down fast—Red Fox One—"

As if to emphasize the point, Nakhimov gestured to Fumori to drop altitude again. This time, the huge B-29 Superfort pitched over and dropped more steeply, to eight thousand feet.

"Red Fox One...any station...any station...we are an American bomber—"

Podgorny's drawl was suddenly interrupted by a staticky crackle from the ground. Podgorny quickly centered the signal and boosted it.

"—is Anchorage Control...Red Fox One...this is Anchorage Control...squawk your ident, please..."

The aircraft identification code had been learned from Major Scott Vickery, the captured pilot of the _Avenger_ , who was at this moment, sitting in a cold, dark prison cell at Spassk Dalniy. Podgorny wet his lips.

"Uh...Anchorage Control...this is Red Fox One...ident code is Turkey Maestro Crackerjack One Niner Five. We are very low on fuel, Anchorage, and need a vector to land right away."

There was a burst of more static, then a new voice came on the line, clearer, more authoritative.

"Red Fox One, this is Anchorage Terminal Approach Control. Can you make this field? We have you intermittently on radar, under ten thousand. Vector right one seven five degrees and maintain heading for twenty minutes...we'll send up an escort."

Nakhimov shook his head. No...they couldn't have an escort. He unstrapped and went back to Podgorny's station, aft of the ground hatch. The radioman sat wedged into a nook just to the right of the top and bottom gun turret controls. The pilot shook his head, mouthed the words...interrupting Podgorny's study of the carefully written script.

No escort...we're heading down now...running on two engines...need immediate vector...is there another field closer?

Podgorny nodded, fired back the response Nakhimov wanted. He added, "Anchorage Terminal...be advised we are losing altitude fast...fuel low...we are going down—"

There was a pause of a few moments, then "Red Fox One...understood...say your current altitude—"

Podgorny read Nakhimov's lips. "Anchorage Terminal...we are at five thousand and dropping...unable to maintain altitude...have just lost engine number three...and we have stabilizer damage—"

"Ah...Red Fox One, this is Anchorage...turn left immediately to zero four zero degrees. Be advised there is an abandoned airstrip at Elasco...estimating ten minutes north your position. Turn left and descend at once, if possible...we'll try to line you up for a straight-in approach—"

Nakhimov grinned broadly, slapped Podgorny's knee. The Americans were biting, they were almost hooked.

"Anchorage...this is Red Fox One...can you advise weather and visibility of alternate field?"

"That's affirmative...wait one..." there was a pause of twenty seconds, several eruptions of static and crackle, then "Red Fox One, we're reporting visibility five miles, clouds at eight to ten thousand, winds from southwest ten to fifteen knots...you'll have a crosswind behind you—"

"Roger that—" drawled Podgorny. Nakhimov went back to his seat and strapped in. Fumori had already begun the left hand bank and _Avenger_ was soon level at five thousand feet, into bumpy air, pegged right onto the vector Anchorage had just given them. "We are turning now...descending...we are level for the moment, but just barely flyable—"

"Red Fox One, Anchorage...good luck...we're sending aircraft now to help, supplies and tools...report your position when the runway is in sight."

"Roger that...we'll get back to you, Anchorage...standing by, this is Red Fox One—"

With that, Podgorny cut the channel and looked up. Nakhimov was grinning, shaking his fist.

_They had bought the ruse completely. The Americans had fallen for it! Kleptomanov was a genius_.

Now, he just had to get _Avenger_ safely down on the narrow, short runway at Elasco and get re-fueled.

Ground fog thickened as they descended. Ahead of them, Mount McKinley dominated a long ridge of rocky mountains, shrugging shoulders atop a sea of green. Fumori's lips tightened as he released control of the aircraft to the Russian. "I hope this soup clears up soon," he muttered.

"Me too," Nakhimov said. Moments later, _Avenger_ burst through the lower cloud deck. Ahead of them, a narrow beige-colored slash in the middle of the green canopy indicated Elasco's lone runway was drawing near.

"Flaps down twenty...throttle back to fifty percent—"

Fumori complied with both orders, while directly behind the Japanese air ace, flight engineer Yuri Kasparian fiddled with the mixture controls. _Avenger's_ big Wright radials droned on as the one hundred and thirty thousand-pound aircraft settled lower and lower, rocking in the turbulence.

Nakhimov squinted to see through the lightened mist, now brilliantly lit from above by the summer sun and nudged _Avenger's_ wheel to line them up better. They would have one chance to make this landing, and given the treeline ahead, little time for a go-around if he missed. Steadily, the bomber dropped....five hundred feet...four hundred feet...three hundred feet—

"There's the runway—" Fumori cried out.

"I see it...chop the engines! Full flaps!"

_Awesome Avenger_ zoomed past the threshold, narrowly missing the trees and dropped like a rock, pancaking hard onto the runway. Nakhimov applied maximum braking and just barely saw the fuel truck and a scattering of tents along the side of the runway, tucked under a bough of trees as they rocketed past. The huge bomber screamed and screeched as tire smoke billowed from under her wings. The end of the runway came up faster than he expected, and he stood on the brakes with full force.

_Avenger_ squealed and groaned to a halt, skidding slightly sideways, less than four hundred feet from the wall of aspen and fir trees at the end.

The Russian looked over at Fumori and shook his head. That was close, he didn't have to say. He gunned the engines and wheeled the aircraft about, then began taxiing back toward the tents and the fuel truck parked beneath a canopy of trees.

_I hope this is not a trap_ , he thought. Fumori was already readying the signal lamp to challenge the waiting ground crews. _It would be awfully easy to compromise this mission._ They could be easily captured and imprisoned on a lone runway at an abandoned airfield in the middle of the Alaskan tundra, and no one at Spassk Dalniy would be any wiser for it.

Nakhimov swallowed hard as he brought _Avenger_ to a halt alongside the gathering.

He didn't know that it had been one of Edvard Tolkach's duties to help arrange for the fuel truck.
CHAPTER 20

Monday, August 6, 1945

Aboard the _Enola Gay_

6:30 a.m. (local)

Colonel Paul Tibbets was lost in thought, watching bright moonlight reflect off the tops of clouds ten thousand feet below the aircraft when a voice crackled in his headset.

"Colonel, radar shows landmasses ahead...seventy miles."

Tibbets recognized the voice of his navigator Captain Theodore Van Kirk.

"Main islands?"

"Yes, sir...it's probably Shikoku."

"Very well." Tibbets thought about that. The aircraft was trimmed and level, fuel down about forty percent, with plenty of reserves. They were on course, on schedule and so far, they hadn't raised a peep from Jap defenses. That made him more than a little uneasy.

He decided to check again. "Beser, you see anything on your scopes?"

Lieutenant Jacob Beser was radar countermeasures officer aboard the huge B-29. "No, sir, just the usual static...Nippon radio clicking on and off, like they're changing out crystals in their transmitters. No threats I can see." He didn't tell the Colonel that he'd been monitoring the sweep of Jap air defense radars for several hours; more than once, the enemy had locked on. Beser knew the Japs were tracking them but he didn't think it would serve any purpose to alarm the crew.

_The Japs don't see us as threatening_ , Tibbets told himself. That was good, if a little unnerving. After months of bombardment from fleets of 20th Air Force Superforts, the sight of a single B-29 must have seemed re-assuring to the anti-aircraft batteries along the coast.

Even if the B-29 was carrying an atom bomb.

The mission so far had been mercifully uneventful. The crew had received their final briefing just after midnight, back at Tinian, and the weather planes had departed for the target area soon after. Hiroshima was to be the primary target, with Kokura the secondary. The weather planes would make their recommendations just after 0730 hours local time. Just to be sure, a C-54 transport with a technical crew from Los Alamos had flown to Iwo Jima to stand by for any emergencies. If _Enola Gay_ had been unable to complete her mission, she had been directed to land at the makeshift airfield and the Little Boy device would be transferred to a separate B-29 waiting there.

At 0245 hours (Tinian time), the _Enola Gay_ had lifted off the prime runway at Tinian North Field, followed at two-minute intervals by two observation aircraft carrying recording instruments and scientific observers, most of them from the Project. Tibbets' instructions had been to choose the target on the basis on reports from the weather planes. The five-hour run up 'Hirohito Highway' had been smooth and relatively trouble-free.

Tibbets knew his crew well and he knew they were primed and ready for action. At 0300 hours, the bomb specialist, Navy Captain Deak Parsons, had finished loading the gun section of the bomb. By 0730 hours, the red detonating plugs had been inserted and all of Little Boy's electrical systems, including the 'Archies' had been checked out. The Archies were the device's electronic fuses, designed to prime the bomb in a complex series of actions for final detonation. Just to be sure the Jap radars didn't play havoc with the fuses, Lieutenant Beser had a lapful of jamming equipment to shield the bomb's fuzing system from interference.

The Archies had to work right for the bomb to work. For safety reasons, the bomb was set to detonate from a radar signal emitted by the bomb itself. This would give the device time to fall from its release altitude of 30,000 feet, and time for _Enola Gay_ to make a steep diving 155-degree turn and exit the target zone as fast as she could maneuver. If Jap anti-aircraft radars messed up the radar signal received by the bomb, it could detonate prematurely.

Paul Tibbets didn't want to think about the consequences of that at all.

At 0735 hours, a coded message had come in from one of the observation planes miles ahead of them.

_Cloud cover less than three tenths all altitudes. Advice: bomb primary_.

Their target was now set. It would be Hiroshima.

He checked the instrument panel chronometer. Landfall was only minutes away. It was time to put the ship at the right altitude for Major Ferebee, the bombardier, to make his final run.

"I'm starting the climb," Tibbets announced. His co-pilot, Captain Robert Lewis, acknowledged and settled back in his seat. Behind them, the flight engineer Staff Sergeant Wyatt Duzenberry, nudged the throttles forward slightly and the four 2200-horsepower Wright radial engines groaned as the aircraft headed higher in the cold morning sky, crossing Shikoku island a few miles west of the prefectural capital of Kochi. Moments later, they were over the glassy table of the Inland Sea, with the morning sun reflecting brightly off the wave tops.

"Leveling off at 32,700 feet...now," Tibbets announced. _Enola Gay_ nosed over and droned on toward her primary target.

"AP coming up..." Van Kirk announced. The AP, or aiming point, would the Aioi Bridge in the heart of the city. Moments later, he called out "IP."

IP was the initial point. Moments after reaching the start of the bombing run, Tibbets would turn control of the aircraft over to Ferebee. The bombardier wiped his forehead and placed it against the Norden bombsight headrest. The headrest had been fashioned to keep his head steady against buffeting and turbulence, so he could sight accurately.

"Little Boy's ready, Skipper," Parsons reported over the intercom. "Archies all set. Red plugs in. She's ready to dance."

Tibbets knew the next few minutes would be a complicated ballet between Lieutenant Beser, Sergeant Stiborik, the aircraft radar operator, Ferebee and Van Kirk, coordinating the approach to the drop point. If anything went wrong, they had enough fuel to break off the run and make one more attempt. After that, fuel levels dictated that _Enola Gay_ would have abort the mission and head back to Tinian. And Tom Ferebee hadn't been able to re-assure Tibbets they could make a safe landing with Little Boy still onboard, or that he could even safely disarm the thing.

_This one has to work_.

The outline of the city began to appear on the scopes in front of Stiborik and Van Kirk. Van Kirk called out headings and precise closure rates to Ferebee, who then fed the data in the Norden bombsight, all the while twisting knobs on the unit to keep the aircraft on course.

Tibbets made one last announcement to the crew. "On glasses." He snapped his own polarized black goggles down but immediately raised them. _I need to be able to see the instrument panel,_ he decided.

Thirty seconds from bomb release, a tone was activated through their headsets. Tibbets felt a shudder as _Enola Gay's_ bomb bay doors snapped open. Now the bomb hung only by its shackles in the airstream.

"Radar's clear, Skipper," Beser called out. "Japs aren't using any frequencies near ours, on any band."

Ferebee announced, "I've got it, Skipper! I see the target now!"

Tibbets tightened his hands on the control wheel. "You've got it, Tom."

Ferebee switched on the automatic synchronizer, which would give him control of the aircraft for the last fifteen seconds before the drop. On radar, he had spotted the T-shape of the Aioi Bridge, where two branches of the Ota River came together. He locked onto the reference point and made a few final adjustments. The adjustments showed on Tibbets' course direction indicator on the main panel. Tibbets made the indicated course corrections with tiny nudges on the wheel and rudder pedals.

"Ten seconds..." Ferebee announced. "Release point coming up—"

It was approaching 0815 hours local time.

"Bomb away!" Ferebee shouted.

Abruptly, the tone stopped.

At the same moment, _Enola Gay_ lurched upward, suddenly free of Little Boy's ten-thousand pound weight. The time was 08:15:17 hours exactly. The bomb bay doors snapped shut. Immediately, Tibbets shoved the throttles forward, then wheeled the aircraft into a steep, descending, 155-degree turn to the right, in a southwesterly direction, to get away from the blast.

Time seemed suspended. Paul Tibbets silently counted down the seconds, wondering if they had in fact dropped a dud after all.

Then suddenly, the entire horizon burst into a superbrilliant white, followed by an intense purplish-pink flash. The light was blinding bright. A great, gray ball of air began boiling upward, with increasing speed. Moments later, the first wave of superheated air began buffeting the aircraft with incredible force.

"Flak!" Lewis shouted. "Enemy flak—the sons of bitches are shooting at us!"

But there were no Jap aircraft in sight. Wave after wave slapped _Enola Gay_ as Tibbets drove his ship hard to get the hell out of the blast zone as fast as she would go. Behind him, he heard a dim whirring over the unearthly rumble of the blast wave...for a few moments, he couldn't figure out what the noise was. Then he heard the clicks of camera shutters.

Inside the cockpit, the flash lit up the instrument panel until it seemed to glow on its own. The light seemed to have a substance all its own, Tibbets thought, tasting like lead in the back of his mouth.

As he completed the turn and leveled off at twenty thousand feet, he looked back and was awestruck at the sight.

Where once there had been a city of several hundred thousand people, with buildings and roads and bridges, now boiled a seething cauldron of black tarry oil, capped with a rising corkscrewing column of brown smoke and cloud, creeping out in all directions like an ocean wave, enveloping the city and its surrounding hills. The bomb had detonated at 1850 feet altitude and in a millionth of a second, its core had gone critical, releasing forces equivalent to the interior of the Sun itself. From the center of the brownish-black bile sprung a vertical column boiling and bubbling in rainbow hues—purples, oranges, reds—colors whose brilliance Tibbets had never seen before, and hoped he would never see again. The column screwed itself skyward, intense and angry, a mesmerizing sight at once breathtaking and ominous.

He recovered from the shock of the sight long enough to check the condition of the plane. She was handling fine, still trimmed out for level flight. Their fuel supply was just below forty percent, plenty of reserve to make the eight-hour flight back to Tinian. The crew seemed in good spirits, snapping pictures, recording words in diaries, animatedly pointing out sights as they sped away from the blast zone.

"Radioman, send a message—" Tibbets barked.

Pfc Richard Nelson was the crew radio operator, in a tiny alcove directly behind the starboard bulkhead separating him from the flight engineer.

"Ready, sir..."

Tibbets dictated a terse report for General Groves and General Farrell. He knew both men would be back at Tinian, in the control shack, anxiously awaiting word of the drop.

"Okay, Rich...send this: ' _Results clear cut, successful in all respects. Visible results greater than Trinity. Conditions normal in airplane following delivery. Proceeding to Tinian.'_ Code it and get it out now, Rich."

"Yes, sir...I'm coding it now—"

Tibbets settled back in his seat, then noticed a small diary perched on Bob Lewis' lap next to him. The co-pilot was twisted half around in his seat, still gawking at the ever-billowing mushroom cloud, now twenty miles distant, boiling over the horizon behind them like an angry fist. His eye caught the last words Lewis had just scribbled on the diary page—

" _My God, what have we done?"_
CHAPTER 21

Tuesday, August 7, 1945

Tokyo

1:30 p.m.

General Mori's First Division escorts marched quickly across the Fukiage Gardens, along a winding path, deeper into the cool, still woods of ash, pine and cedar. Admiral Hiro Ushenda followed closely behind them. Time was of the essence; with so many enemies swirling around His Majesty, Ushenda knew he couldn't waste a single moment. Even coming to the Imperial Palace was a risk, as Imperial Navy Chief of Staff Admiral Soemu Toyoda had reminded him only last night. Here, in the quiet glades of the Gardens, he knew he was surrounded by implacable foes, traitors all of them. There was uneasy talk of a mutiny in the Army, even a coup. The peace faction would simply have to back down, for the good of the country. It all depended on the Emperor, or more precisely, who had the Emperor's ear.

Presently, they came to a massive stone building, a three-story hexagonal behemoth that was home to the Imperial Household Ministry. The structure had been heavily damaged by bombs and fire a month ago, thus much of the work of the Ministry was being done in subterranean chambers and shelters below ground.

The Imperial Guard escort stopped at the end of a winding dirt path, a few dozen yards north of the main building, where a large steel door had been set on top of a low circle of bricks. This was the exterior entrance to the Ministry's bomb shelter. A wooden door below the steel creaked slightly as it opened, to brusque knocks by the captain of the guard. A chamberlain of the Ministry appeared like a mole's face from the underground tunnel that suddenly opened up.

"Admiral Ushenda is here," the captain of the guard announced. He stiffly thrust the official papers of the summons into the chamberlain's hands, who nodded faintly and waved Ushenda down, into the vault.

Ushenda's eyes adjusted to the dim lighting and found himself following the chamberlain down a spiraling flight of stairs perhaps fifty feet deep, deep into the earth beneath the Ministry building. They were alone for many minutes—though Ushenda could hear muffled voices from all around. The chamberlain led him on into a narrow cement passageway, through several doors and eventually to a plain, ten by twenty foot concrete-walled conference room. Here, he formally presented the Admiral to the assembled members of the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War.

Inside the room, the air was stuffy and humid, with slick spots of condensation running down the walls. The air conditioning system was not working at all, and as Ushenda bowed and saluted, he was waved impatiently into the room by Baron Suzuki himself, His Majesty's Prime Minister.

"Come, come, Admiral...don't keep us waiting. The Emperor wants a report by 1900 hours. Come tell us how this operation _Shori_ is going."

Ushenda came in.

The room was dominated by a long, rectangular table, covered in green damask. Maps of the home islands and surrounding waters were strewn around the table. Arranged in chairs, were Prime Minister Suzuki, General Anami, the War Minister, General Umezu, bald and bullet-headed, the Imperial Army's chief of staff, Navy Minister Mitsumasa Yonai, the Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo and Admiral Toyoda, Ushenda's own immediate superior.

Ushenda stood at attention at the head of the table. An easel was in the other corner.

"Well, now, Ushenda," said Toyoda, with a sweep of his hand, "you've got the details of this operation, this Operation _Shori_ , with you?"

Ushenda bowed deeply to the assembled men. "I do, sir." He unfolded yet more maps and laid them out on the table. "The operation is going well and is on schedule."

Prince Konoye regarded the admiral coldly. "If things are going so well, then perhaps you can explain how it is that the Americans have just yesterday morning managed to obliterate Hiroshima. Reports we are getting—"

"—are inconclusive," cut in General Anami brusquely. "We don't know all the facts yet."

"Nonetheless," Konoye continued, 'Domei News Agency has reporters on the scene, Nakamura for instance. They report a bomb of incredible power—"

Anami shook his head vigorously. "Civilians are unreliable. We have our own people investigating."

"Please," Baron Suzuki waved at Ushenda, anxious to end the discord that befell the Council at practically every meeting now, "please...go on."

Ushenda bowed again slightly. "Our two teams, Sacred Sword and Valiant Warrior, have completed the first phase of their mission. Valiant Warrior has successfully seized critical parts of the new American bomb...the _genshi bakudan_ , it is called—"

"An _atomic_ bomb?" asked Yonai, the Navy Minister. "Is this the same bomb that the Americans dropped on Hiroshima?"

Anami shook his head. "It's not proven. It could have been a large incendiary cluster...we just don't know yet."

Ushenda went on at Suzuki's behest. "In any case, Valiant Warrior conducted a successful operation on Tinian Island. The core of the _genshi bakudan_ was also seized, by a separate team in America itself. This team, Sacred Sword, has rendezvoused with the other team in Mexico. The combined force is currently on its way to a clandestine base here—" he tapped his fingers on a map of North America "—in British Columbia. The delivery aircraft for this bomb has also successfully departed its base in Siberia and is flying to the same location." Ushenda folded his arms behind his back. "We will soon have in our possession America's greatest secret weapon, a bomb equal in power to the one that fell on Hiroshima yesterday morning. With this weapon, we can extract better terms to end the war."

Shigenori Togo, the Foreign Minister, was outraged. His glasses nearly catapulted from the bridge of his nose as he exploded.

"What is this operation _Shori_? We never agreed to any such operation! What have you done? Now any hope for peace is sabotaged! We can't—"

Anami glowered at the Foreign Minister with such ferocity that he stopped in mid-sentence. "Minister, in this very room, we gave the admiral permission to pursue such an effort...you yourself were right here...you heard all the details—"

"This is nonsense," Togo shook his head sadly. "Just this morning, Domei News monitored a radio broadcast from Truman—" Togo fumbled with the paper, extracted and opened the note he had scribbled, then read:

"... _it is an atomic bomb. It is harnessing the basic power of the universe. The force from which the Sun draws its power has been loosed on those who brought war to the Far East._

" _It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July 26 was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth."_

Togo looked up, pale and shaking, his fist grasping the note. "We had a chance to come to terms with the Americans before—"

Anami slammed a fist down on the table. An inkpot nearby overturned, spilling black stain onto the green damask covering. It was hurriedly cleaned up by General Umezu, the Army Chief of Staff.

"—these terms are completely unacceptable!" Anami thundered. "They are humiliating and defeatist. We have not yet been defeated, and we will fight on until His Majesty decides otherwise." Anami seemed almost on the verge of tears. "To even talk this way...it is an abomination. We dishonor the valiant warriors who have fallen defending _Kokutai_ , defending our national essence."

"Nonetheless," Prime Minister Suzuki said, "we must consider all alternatives."

Toyoda, the Navy Minister sniffed, "Admiral Ushenda, by his bold and courageous mission, has given us another alternative. This too must be considered by the Council. Anami is right. We must not disgrace our war dead. Yasukuni Shrine is only a few blocks from here...I pass it every night when I leave the Ministry. We cannot surrender when there is still a chance to bring the Americans to their senses...to get the best terms."

Prince Konoye silently damned the hardheaded pigs of the war faction. _This is getting us nowhere...and we've been getting nowhere since the Potsdam Proclamation_. "Ushenda, how long before this bomb you've stolen will be ready?"

Ushenda consulted some notes. "Three days, maybe less, Your Excellency. The Russians are cooperating with us. They want to take pictures, make measurements. We agreed to allow one day for that. When the bomb is assembled, Operation _Shori_ will proceed to the final phase."

"And that is--?"

Ushenda said, "The Council must agree on minimum terms. These terms have already been sent to the Americans. If they refuse, the bomb will be used against an American city, just as the Americans used one against Hiroshima."

"Which city?"

Ushenda was silent for a moment. The Council regarded him carefully.

"San Francisco is the main target."

"The Americans have our terms," Anami growled. "Count Sasebo and Fumiharo Onoye delivered them to their contacts in Switzerland last week...isn't that true, Ushenda?"

The admiral nodded. "As of this morning, however, the Americans haven't responded officially. They are trying to find their missing bomb now...a massive search operation has been formed. But my sources in Third Bureau tell me that our gallant _rikusentai_ are still eluding the authorities, and still heading toward the Canadian rendezvous point. Success is only a matter of time...then this honorable Council will have an additional alternative to consider."

"We have given an ultimatum to the Americans?" Togo was incredulous.

Ushenda acknowledged the fact. "One week ago today."

"We must decide now," Anami decided, "on the terms we will accept. For instance, Truman wants to get rid of the Emperor. This is completely unacceptable...His Majesty is the very essence of _yamato damashii_."

Umezu continued his superior officer's line of thinking. "And we can never permit American or British troops to occupy our sacred lands. Any disarmament must be done by our own forces."

"What are you saying?" Togo cried. "We don't have the luxury of being so picky. If we don't agree to terms now, the Americans themselves will be marching through the Fukiage Gardens in a few weeks."

"Nonsense," Umezu said. "First Division and the Imperial Guards—"

The discussion dragged on in this fashion for most of the afternoon. Hiro Ushenda stood at attention, pointing out facts and map locations as the discussion required but inside, he was disheartened, even angry at the bickering. _These old pigs bark at each other over meaningless words while brave soldiers and sailors die for Japan_

_every hour they delay._ It was insane...even criminal.

In time, the intransigence of General Anami and the war faction stymied any agreement. There was a sullen acceptance of what Ushenda had done among the peace faction: Konoye, Togo and Suzuki, with Navy Minister Yonai leaning that way. The war faction, principally Anami and Umezu, with support from Toyoda, were simply impatient.

"It is for the Emperor to decide," Suzuki said. His eyes burned and his head swam thick with fatigue in the stuffy room. "Lord Keeper, perhaps we should arrange an audience with His Majesty. Let Admiral Ushenda present these facts."

There was an audible gasp in the room, that such a breech of protocol would even be considered. Staff officers, even flag rank staff, _never_ met His Imperial Majesty in person.

"It's a bold step," Togo said for everyone. "Is this necessary...can we not have Ushenda write down the necessary facts for His Majesty to consider?"

"It's the only way," Suzuki said. _Somehow, we've got to break the impasse. Get moving...perhaps this will be the shock that works_.

Despite grumbling and uneasiness, it was decided that Marquis Kido, the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, would escort Ushenda to a private audience with His Majesty.

They climbed back to the surface and went to the Audience Hall of the Imperial Palace _Gobunko_ , or Library, hidden among the tall trees of the Fukiage Gardens near the North Gate, and miraculously undamaged in the recent firebombings. Inside, Ushenda and Kido were escorted into a small antechamber to await the arrival of the Voice of the Crane. Ushenda fidgeted nervously. Only once before, when Hirohito had reviewed graduating cadets at Etajima had Ushenda seen His August Eminence, and then only from a distance.

Hirohito entered, a small, frail man, with a pale face and a thin moustache. He had weak and watery eyes, magnified by rimless spectacles and he glided to a raised chair covered in brocaded silks, in which he sat. The Marquis and the Admiral remained standing, facing each other at right angles to this chair. To look directly upon the countenance of His Imperial Majesty was never permitted.

Kido did most of the talking, though in an archaic and formal dialect that Ushenda found hard to follow. For twenty minutes, Kido spoke of routine Palace and government matters, while Hirohito listened with little expression. It was difficult to follow Kido, as he spoke in extremely polite circumlocutions, so elaborate and proper in his choice of words that he seemed to talking in circles. The Emperor saw him just about every day, however, partly out of habit and duty (he had been privy seal for over five years now) and partly out of affection, and partly, in recent months, because he was openly certain that Kido was of one mind with him on the subject of peace.

As the privy seal continued, the Emperor did his best to follow him, filling in pauses with an "I see," or "I understand" or "Is that so?" whenever it seemed appropriate. Even when Marquis Kido stopped talking, the Emperor waited expectantly because there was something in the manner of this careful little man that indicated he had more to say. Indeed, from time to time, the Emperor glanced in the direction of Ushenda, and wondered: _Who is this_?

Kido did, in fact, have several other items on his mind, and he debated now how and whether to mention them. He had already heard at the Council meeting of the strange and terrible explosion that had struck Hiroshima the morning before. But he had little details. Should he mention this to His Majesty? The Emperor had often made it clear that nothing was ever to be withheld from him simply because it was too unpleasant. Maybe he should be told immediately, but what, really, was there to tell? Details were sketchy. Hadn't Anami indicated that an official party of military and scientific observers were on their way to the stricken city? Perhaps he should wait on the results of that trip.

Kido sensed that His Majesty was increasingly curious about Admiral Ushenda. He did a ritual introduction, after which Ushenda bowed from the waist, as if presenting the dome of his bald head for inspection.

"Your Highness, the Admiral wishes to convey the details of a new operation which he has devised and put into action."

Hirohito perked up at the idea. "Indeed...tell me about this operation...I am most curious."

Ushenda found that his throat was dry. He steeled himself and launched into a brief description of _Shori_ , why it was necessary, the details of the training, the objectives and the two assault teams. Though he dared not turn and face His Majesty directly, earning a disapproving frown from Kido whenever he started to do so, he could sense from the corner of his eye the Emperor's keen interest in the matter.

"And your final objective, Admiral...what is that?"

Ushenda found his voice a strained and hoarse whisper. Here beside him was the living embodiment of _yamato damashii_ , the spirit of Nihon, descended in an unbroken line of succession from the time of the Tokugawas.

"Your Highness, our final goal is the complete destruction of an American city, if the Americans do not grant us better terms for ending the war."

Hirohito _hmmed_ , stroking his chin. He studied Ushenda as he might examine a flower seed under a microscope—one of his favorite pastimes, in fact—then glanced at Kido.

"You are aware, Admiral, of our efforts to bring this terrible war to an end?"

Ushenda didn't know whether he should reply or not. How did one act in the presence of the Emperor? Kido nodded encouragement.

"Yes, Your Highness, I am aware of the efforts to secure proper terms for ceasing hostilities. Operation _Shori_ was designed to help the process...to encourage the Americans to be a little more..." he struggled for the right word, "understanding. Flexible."

"Flexible." Hirohito let the word drop like a hammer on the tiled floor of the hall. "Why do the waves of the sea roll with such anger when so many cherry blossoms have fallen?"

Ushenda and Kido both said nothing. His Majesty often spoke in poetic terms, which later required a team of interpreters to translate. Hirohito went on.

"Admiral...and Kido, you too...you know of my earnest desire to bring the terrible suffering of my people to an end?"

"We do, Your Highness," Kido said for both of them. Ushenda was silent.

"We must not do anything that prolongs this suffering...already my people have sacrificed too much. Too many families have lost brave sons, daughters, fathers, to the bombs and the fires. Hostilities must cease as soon as practical. That is my desire...you know this. The Supreme Council knows this...yet they argue on over petty details."

"Your Highness—" Kido bowed again, "begging your pardon, but your ministers struggle with details only to secure the most honorable peace. What they do, what they argue over, is how to end hostilities so that Japan is not humiliated."

Hirohito smiled. "Always, we must do the honorable thing. That is our nature, isn't it? As the sparrow chirps and makes nests, we Japanese are creatures of honor. This operation... _Shori_ , as you call it, Admiral—"

Ushenda stiffened, forced himself to face Kido. "Your Highness—"

"...this operation...how far along is it?"

"We have the American bomb, Your Highness...or at least, we have the parts. All that remains is to assemble it, check the connections and then—"

"Then...then, what, Admiral?"

Ushenda suddenly wished he were anywhere but here. "Then the bomb is ready for delivery."

"And what city is the target?"

Ushenda wet his lips, aware of the swirl of controversy over what had just happened to Hiroshima the day before. He wasn't sure how much His Majesty knew of the event.

"San Francisco, Your Highness."

Hirohito sucked in a sharp breath. "A beautiful city, so I am told. This would be a great tragedy."

"It is necessary, Your Highness...necessary to make the Americans more flexible. To secure the best terms—" he stopped as he saw Hirohito's arm rise.

"Enough..." To Kido: "You know my desires in this matter. We must find a way to bring the war to an honorable end at once. I would prefer that the Supreme Council come to this conclusion." To Ushenda: "As for this Operation _Shori_...I am willing to let the operation proceed as planned for now. Let us see what the Allied Powers do with this ultimatum you have sent. Let us see what the Americans think and do...then we must act with dispatch...so that the suffering of my people is ended."

The Emperor rose and turned on his heels. He disappeared behind a gilded screen and moments later, they heard the sound of a door shutting.

Kido and Ushenda bowed from the waist, then bowed once more at the sound of the door.

Kido motioned with his head that they should leave at once.

Hirohito was unwilling to go any further. Ushenda realized that, as he followed the privy seal back to the Household Ministry. Now _Shori_ _had_ to succeed...and quickly, even if San Francisco was destroyed and thousands died. _Shori_ had to succeed if there were to be any chance of preserving the throne and preventing a coup or open warfare at the highest levels of His Majesty's government.

The fate of the Empire now rested in the hands of Toronaga and Fumori...even, incredible though it seemed, in the hands of that crude _roshio no_ commando Vasily Kalugin.

Ushenda scowled, more determined than ever to see the thing through and visit the same destruction on the Americans that they had brought to glorious Nihon.

Tuesday, August 7, 1945

Coos Bay, Oregon

11:30 a.m.

Wade Brogan scowled at the scene as Captain Deavers' 2nd Rangers, Charlie Company, scuttled over and around the docks, getting into position for the assault. The unit had won several commendations for service in France in late '44, assaulting German positions. He figured they knew what they were doing.

But he was anxious all the same. _The jokers could already be gone, with an atom bomb in their pocket._ He was in enough hot water with Colonel Cates as it was. And then there was the matter of Kate Wellesley.

Brogan's eyes stung in the bright sunshine. Two hundred yards away, elements of Charlie Company's Rangers were taking up positions for the assault on the Mexican freighter. Brogan squinted at the rusting hulk. She didn't look like much but the Coast Guard had already lost a cutter to submarine action because of her. A dingy cream and white hull, rusting, badly in need of paint. A single smokestack for her diesels, now blackened from years of soot.

"Hard to believe this could be our prize," he muttered. Skunky Merrill was crouched next to him, behind a low wooden fence that overlooked the dockyard, his eyes behind field glasses. "She looks like a trash barge."

Merrill grunted. "I just hope we're not too late. We've been one step behind these bozos from the beginning."

"See anything...any signs of movement on board?"

Merrill shook his head. "Not a peep." He checked his watch. 1130 hours. Time for the big show to begin.

A pair of white phosphorous flares sizzled into the bright morning sky, signaling the assault to begin. Almost at once, Rangers scurried forward. For the last hour and a half, they had silently but steadily maneuvered into positions along the wharf, surrounding every angle of _El Rey Diaz_ from dockside, covering every possible avenue of escape. Out in the harbor, a Coast Guard cutter lay a thousand yards off shore, having furnished several boarding parties who now made their way across the open stretch of water, under covering fire from the Rangers and from a pair of Navy PT boats anchored off _El Rey's_ stern and bow, who peppered the dilapidated freighter with machine-gun fire from their forward mounts.

It was a precisely timed operation. With the Rangers squeezing forward, cutting off the gangway and securing the ship's mooring lines, and the PT boats suppressing any return fire at the Coast Guard detail, the boarding party sped toward the seaward side of the ship's hull and slammed against her sides. Grappling hooks were tossed aboard and an armed platoon of 'Coasties" began scaling the rope ladders quickly and efficiently.

From the docks, Deavers' men scampered up the gangway, burst onto the deck and fanned out, spraying short bursts of fire from their M-1s and carbines as they poured through the outer catwalks and scaffolds of the ship.

From his vantage point above the docks, behind a wooden fence that bordered the dirt road, Brogan and Merrill watched the assault unfold. In another time, he would have cheered the Rangers as only a fellow Army man could, but the stakes were sky-high and he silently prayed that Deavers' and his Rangers would find _Big Fella_ before it was too late.

The assault lasted about ten minutes, punctuated with sporadic fire. If anybody was onboard, they hadn't offered much resistance. Brogan spotted Deavers waving at them from the top of the gangway. That was the signal.

"Come on," he said, heading down to the docks. "That's the all clear." Merrill scrambled after him. The two CIC agents made the gangway and met Deavers at the top.

Deavers was sweating in full combat gear. Behind him, Rangers steadily secured all compartments of the ship. A pair of troopers had just finished hauling a dead body up a ladder from belowdecks and laid out the poor sap on the deck near the gangway.

Deavers' shook his head. "No resistance, Colonel. Assault went fine. The Coast Guard's checking the bridge for ship's papers right now. We've been everywhere, even the engine room and lower levels, looking for anybody still hiding." He indicated the dead man. "Found this guy in a compartment...the only one aboard."

Brogan bent to examine the man. He was Mexican, from the looks of it. His hair was still damp and sticky with blood from a head wound. "Close range...from what I see."

Deavers agreed. "Yes, sir, it looks that way. Is this one of your spies?"

Brogan doubted it. "Hard to say, Colonel." Merrill was rifling the man's pockets for some kind of identification. "Until we ID him, we won't know for sure. Is the bomb onboard?"

Deavers shook his head. "Sorry, Colonel, but my men don't think so. We found crates and stuff down in the cargo hold. We've looked into a few. But there doesn't seem to be anything like you described. You want to come have a look?"

"Sure." Brogan looked around for Dr. Edwin Murray. Murray was a physicist from the Hill, T-Division. He'd known Tolkach well. Murray and a pair of technicians had come with the CIC agents, bearing a Geiger counter and other gear. The Los Alamos group had stayed well away from the dock area during the assault, holed up in the dispatch shack at the end of the dirt road. He spied the men being escorted from the shack by a detail of Rangers. All of them carried heavy cases full of equipment.

Brogan motioned Murray aboard. The physicist was heavy-set, mid-40's, with thick black hair, a refugee from Berkeley whom Oppie had pulled out of the classroom and moved to the Lab at the very beginning of the Project. He grunted and swore with his heavy case, swinging it up onto the deck, then mopping his forehead with a handkerchief under his white Homburg, a dapper but incongruous sight among the battle fatigues of the Rangers.

"Right heavy, this bugger is—" he brushed his hands off on his trousers. "Now then...what have we got?"

Brogan shrugged. "Pretty much nothing, Doc. That gizmo detects radiation?"

Murray nodded. "It does, indeed. Beta decay across the whole spectrum of energies."

"The Captain's men and the Coasties haven't found anything that looks like a bomb. But that doesn't mean it might not be here, or nearby."

Murray squinted at Brogan and Deavers. "Right...perhaps we should take a look then—" He bent to the case, unlocked it, and opened the top. Inside, the case was crammed with equipment, dials and a long hose, with something that looked like a vacuum cleaner attachment on the end. Murray switched on the set which hummed with power and adjusted a few knobs. In unison, three dials swung their needles far to the right.

"Most interesting—" Murray muttered. "Do you mind—" He gestured at the case, indicating that Brogan or someone should pick it up. The CIC agent found the thing heavy, so he hoisted it into a more comfortable position, propping the case on the end of the gangway. "We'll need to take readings from several points, to get a feel for the background level, before we can be sure. But this... _this_ spike...it can't be normal background...unless there's a uranium mine below the docks. Which I doubt—"

With Brogan lugging the case and the two Los Alamos techs adjusting knobs and reading from dials, Murray led them around by the end of the hose, poking it into hatches and lockers from bow to stern.

Puzzled, he headed down a ladder, while Brogan and the techs gingerly negotiated the descent, trying to keep up. For the next ten minutes, Murray looked for all the world like some kind of animal keeper, leading his beast around by a long snout, sniffing every compartment, hatch and corridor he came to. Amused and intrigued, Captain Deavers followed behind.

Finally, he came to the ship's cargo hold, where after fussing with the gear and probing every corner of the stifling compartment, he stood in the midst of rotting scraps of lumber, old tires, broken crates and heaps of discarded beer bottles, and made a cautious, guarded pronouncement.

"I don't know about any bomb, gentlemen, but this much is certain." He pointed to the three big dials, their needles pegging the far right quadrants of their instruments, quadrants that had been painted red. "There have been active atomic materials in this room, active and recent. The needles are showing plenty of fissioning still going on."

Deavers looked like he'd been stung. "Is that dangerous, Doc?"

"If we stayed down here long enough, yes. You don't see spikes like this unless a lot of plutonium has been around here. And not too long ago either. This stuff has a half-life of twenty four thousand years."

Brogan shook his head. "I'm not sure what all that means but I do know we got a big problem--"

"Yeah—" Merrill added, "like where the hell is _Big Fella_ now?"

Wade Brogan felt sick, physically sick and he knew it wasn't the radiation. Then he had an idea.

"Doc, can you tell how long ago the bomb was here?"

Murray shrugged. "Not precisely...not without doing some calculations."

"Your best guess then."

Murray frowned. "Based on the strength of the returns, I'm showing beta decay that shouldn't be more than six to eight hours old."

Brogan considered that. "It's a cinch the bomb was taken out of here by land."

"Probably a truck, Dog," Merrill suggested. "From what I know, the device is too big to fly out and no car could carry it...hell the casing alone is—" he looked at Dr. Murray.

"...about five feet in diameter," Murray replied. "Twelve feet long, a little more than 10,000 pounds fully ready."

"What about the core?" Brogan asked.

"The core—" Murray half-smiled. "That's the smallest part of all. It's a sphere of something called plutonium, maybe eight inches across. Weighs fifteen pounds tops."

Merrill's eyes widened. "And that's what gives the bomb its kick...something _that_ small?"

Murray nodded. "The power inside the nucleus of a plutonium atom is enormous, when liberated the right way."

"Like Trinity," Brogan remembered the first test of the Gadget several weeks ago. It seemed like a lifetime now.

"Exactly."

Brogan made a fist. "A truck, maybe more than one truck, and a six to eight hour head start. Skunky...you got a map of this area?"

A map was produced by a sergeant from the 2nd Rangers. Brogan studied the lines of narrow roads emanating away from the coast and Coos Bay. "The likeliest route inland would be here—" he fingered Highway 42 on the map "—toward Roseburg. Either that or the coast road, north to Florence and Portland, or south to the California line."

"But where would they go?" Merrill asked. "What's their final destination?"

Brogan seethed with anger. All along, Tolkach had played him for a fool. Even Kate had been involved, using their relationship to help the Russians out, maybe the Japs too. The thought of it, the idea that he had been suckered so long, blinded to the facts, made him sick. But you couldn't keep a Brogan down for long.

"I don't know but it's got to be somewhere on the West Coast. That's the only thing that makes sense. I figure the Russians are involved because they want to look at the bomb, see what we're up to. But the Japs. They can only have one thing in mind."

Merrill blanched. "Jeez...you don't think—I mean, Operation _Touchdown_ \--"

Brogan nodded. "Put it all together, Skunky. Japs and the Russians in bed together. A combined operation to snatch an atom bomb right out from under our noses. The Russians get a quick look and the Japs get a weapon that'll make the Americans sit up and take notice but good."

A cool breeze had fetched up from the harbor and Dr. Murray shivered. "Even if what you say is true, Colonel Brogan, the bomb hasn't been assembled. It's a very ticklish and demanding operation...inserting the core inside the tamper, setting the initiator and wiring everything up together. There are only a few people at Los Alamos who can do it."

Brogan leveled an even gaze at the Doctor. "Are you willing to stake your life, and the lives of thousands of innocent people on that assumption, Doc? The way I figure it, Colonel Cates and the brass in Washington know something's up. This isn't just some bank robbery job."

"You mean the Japs might actually try to use _Big Fella_?" Merrill asked.

Brogan nodded. "Now that Hiroshima's been leveled, the cat's out of the bag. They've got even more incentive to put the parts together and set it off somewhere. But the question is where?"

"We'd better alert the Oregon State Police, right away. What about the FBI?"

"This is an Army matter. Cates didn't say anything about alerting anybody else."

"We gotta do _something_ , Dog. Where do we go from here?"

Brogan jerked his thumb skyward, looking up at the clouds racing by on stiffening seaward breezes. "We go up...into the air...find out who's in charge of Army Air Forces air defense in this sector. Continental defense, Western Defense Command. Get some planes up and look for trucks on the roads leading away from here. And maybe we should alert the State Police."

The gathering dissolved and Brogan hopped a ride into the town of Coos Bay, to the police station. After introducing himself and Merrill to the Chief, Don Willis, he commandeered a few phones and made some calls. Willis and his deputy stood by a bit dazed at the sudden interest of the U.S. Army in his sleepy little seaside town, but he recovered and helped where he could.

The nearest Army Air Forces base was Moffett Field, down by San Francisco Bay. Brogan invoked the magic name of _Silverplate_ and the dispatcher and his superior officer were soon scrambling an entire squadron of P-51s assigned to the 4th Army Air Force's 3rd Pursuit Squadron.

Brogan found himself talking on the police chief's phone to a Major Connolly. "How many planes can you get up here, Major? And how soon? This is a national emergency."

Connolly did some figuring, scanned the ready list. "Twelve...maybe fifteen, Colonel. That's the best I can do. If I may ask, sir, what exactly are they going to be looking for?"

"Just get 'em airborne pronto, Major. I'll fill you in on the details in a few minutes." He hung up, turned to Chief Willis. "I need to get up there too. You guys got an airport around here?"

Willis _hmmed_ , stroked his chin. He was a portly, half-balding officer, which a penchant for cigars. "My brother's got a little Stearman crop-duster. Keeps it out at North Bend field. I don't know if it's flyable—"

"Get him on the line. That little crop-duster's about to be commandeered by the United States Army."

An hour later, Wade Brogan found himself in the front seat of an open cockpit crop-duster, a rickety yellow and black Stearman 100, as Jude Willis cranked her airborne off a grass strip overlooking Coos Bay. Brogan had ridden with the Chief out to the field, where they had found the Chief's brother dozing in the corner of a hangar office, his tattered coveralls black with grease after a long morning replacing piston rings in the engine cylinders of his single-engine plane _Fannie Buster_.

Brogan knew he was probably overstepping his authority in invoking _Silverplate_ to scramble the 4th Air Force for an alert and commandeer someone's private plane for a quick look-see from the air, but he didn't care.

He figured Parsons and Groves would probably court-martial him anyway for dereliction of duty. Security on the Project had been his baby and he'd fumbled it bad, not to mention being in love with a probable Soviet spy. _Might as well go down swinging_ , he figured. If even half of what he feared came true and the Japs really could put their stolen atom bomb together, stepping on a few toes would be the least of his worries.

Jude Willis had listened and squinted at his brother with a scowl of disbelief, while Brogan explained what he wanted the plane for.

"Hell of a lot of roads around here, son. Logging roads, trails, country lanes and county highways."

"The map only shows a few," Brogan said.

Jude Willis snorted. "Yeah....so? Maps is for sissies. You looking for a truck...I'll sniff him out for you." Willis tapped the side of his nose. "I got the scent."

The Police Chief rolled his eyes. "He thinks he's a friggin' bloodhound for Chrissake...hell, he's got enough of 'em."

"Damned straight, pal. I can spot a mouse turd from ten thousand feet. I been dusting these hills and fields so long, I can fly 'em blindfolded."

Brogan wasn't sure he really wanted to hear that, but time was critical. The Japs and the Russians had maybe a six to eight hour head start. They could easily be a couple of hundred miles away by now, in any of several directions.

"Then let's get up there," he told Jude Willis.

From two thousand feet up, the Coast Range east of Coos Bay looked plenty impressive to Wade Brogan. Hulking sentinels of green and brown, thickly forested humps of aspen, birch and cedar, the mountains formed an unbroken line marching north-south along the coastal spine of the state. In between the mountains and the sea, the land was mostly rolling farm country, checkerboarded into rectilinear plots of corn and barley and wheat, Jude Willis country, he figured, for the scroungy old pilot navigated _Fannie Buster_ over the fields with a loving caress on the control stick.

"Like feeling a woman's behind!" he yelled up at Brogan over the roar of the slipstream. "I know every fold and tuck down there for miles around!"

_Great_ , Brogan thought, _just great_. He squinted through ill-fitting goggles at meandering dirt roads below, seeing no vehicles at all, save for an occasional combine squatting in the fields, wondering if this had been such a good idea after all. At least, Moffet Field had some planes up too, wherever they were. The more eyes the better.

He figured they had a narrow window of time to catch the enemy before—

_Before it was too late_ , he forced himself to finish the thought. Then, with effort, he shoved that idea to the back of his mind, along with images of Kate Wellesley and Edvard Tolkach that wouldn't go away and tried to focus on studying the ground below.

Willis piloted _Fannie Buster_ east, then north of Coos Bay, generally following the track of Highway 42. They cruised through bumpy but clear air at a thousand feet, while Brogan scanned the roads and trails for signs of trucks or any vehicle he figured would be big enough to hold _Big Fella_.

He soon realized it would be a futile effort. There were dozens of trucks on the roads leading out of Coos Bay...logging trucks, farm trucks, delivery trucks.

How the hell could you tell from up here?

At Brogan's insistence, Willis dropped them down to a few hundred feet on several unsuspecting targets, whizzing by overhead while Brogan leaned out of the open cockpit to get a better look. In every case, he could see little. One truck, barreling along through a picturesque valley thick with cedar stands northeast of Remote, Oregon, was an open flatbed with large tarp-covered humps lashed down in back.

Willis buzzed the truck several times, approaching from several directions, while the startled driver shook an angry fist at them. Brogan thought briefly of radioing back to the airfield at North Bend, seeing if he could be patched through the Police Chief's office, but thought better of it.

_Skunky's right_ , he realized. The Oregon State Police would have to be notified. Every road coming out of Coos Bay would have to be blocked, and every vehicle stopped and searched. It was the only way.

There was no way of knowing, of course, exactly what the Japs would do with their stolen bomb, or the Russians for that matter. Brogan figured, with all the news about atom bombs and Hiroshima over the last day, the enemy would be looking to find a juicy target somewhere along America's West Coast. The nearest large city was San Francisco, but there were plenty of targets, to be sure.

He let Willis fly further along Highway 42, until they had made the outskirts of Roseburg, then with hand gestures, signaled for the pilot to turn them around and head back.

"Seen enough, have you!" Willis shouted over the wind. "You ain't seen nothing yet! Let me show you the mountains--!"

But Brogan gestured emphatically and craned around in his cockpit. "No time! Get us back to the field!"

Jude Willis shook his head with disgust. With his goggles and leather cap barely covering big floppy ears, he looked like some kind of airborne Jughead. Brogan jerked his thumb back toward the coast. Reluctantly, Willis complied, banking _Fannie Buster_ on her wingtips to gain a new heading. Soon enough, they steadied out at fifteen hundred feet and sped through a narrow defile in the Coast Range, flicking in and out of light clouds and increasing chop as the sun warmed the lower atmosphere and thermals danced through the valley.

Willis sang some incomprehensible song at the top of his lungs, while banking _Fannie Buster_ left and right to the beat of the tune. Brogan, on the verge of airsickness, just grabbed hold of the cockpit and held on.

Truth was, he wanted to kick himself for ever getting involved with Kate Wellesley. All of his life, he'd had a knack for dames in trouble, why he wasn't sure. Maybe it was just the same luck in life he always had at poker. Couldn't play a hand worth a damn. Couldn't stand prosperity. _Give me a nineteen and I'll keep playing, looking for something that wouldn't happen in a million years_. You had to know when to hold and know when to fold. His whole life had been that way.

Wade Brogan watched while Jude Willis maneuvered _Fannie Buster_ lower, circling Coos Bay as he lined up on the single runway at North Bend. Maybe it was a need for attention or something; he had a vague recollection of some Army shrink saying something like that back in the days of Basic. He had come from a big family: brothers Taylor, Wade, Woody and Vince...sisters Belinda and Bernice. Seven kids in all. Jesus, you had to kick and scrap just to get a bite at the table. Maybe it was even true. He'd had to fight for everything...nothing had come easily to Wade Brogan, then or now. When he'd been a cadet in MP school at Fort McLellan back in the spring of '39, he'd started dating a waitress at the Pelican Restaurant in Montgomery, Alabama.

_Arlene Delaney_...he rolled the name around in his head for a few moments.

Even the name brought back feelings he'd tried to bury years ago.

Arlene was a short brunette with big sad brown eyes and a tart tongue, which she didn't mind using. She wasn't your average dame, that was for sure. She was pretty enough and she had a way of cocking her face and mouth, in puzzlement, that made her especially fetching. Wade found more and more reasons to keep going back to the Pelican and after their first date—it was the Roxy Theater in Montgomery, he remembered...some kind of gangster movie—he realized he was more than just a little smitten with the girl.

The best time was Christmas '38 to about May of '39. He thought of it as some kind of Golden Age. He came by the restaurant almost every day, when he could get off base, often studying and spending his time in a back booth, while she waited on customers. After Arlene got off work, they would have a coffee and a shake, maybe a cigarette or two, maybe even share a piece of pie at a diner down the street. Then Wade would drive Arlene back to her parents' house on Sycamore Street in east Montgomery. They would kiss and cuddle as long as she could stay awake, then he'd head back to the BOQ at McLellan. For three or four months, this became a daily routine.

By April '39, Wade Brogan was deeply in love with Arlene Delaney. He was never sure when the idea of marriage came into his head, only that it soon consumed every waking moment. A cadet buddy, Sandy Lowe, urged him to pop the question. But Brogan delayed and delayed, because deep inside, he wasn't sure if she felt the same way. He knew her parents didn't.

On Arlene's off days, usually Mondays, and when Wade could get off post, the two of them liked to go out of town and find a quiet spot by a nearby creek, where Brogan could fish and Arlene could relax with nature and dream of getting away to the big city. She had aspirations of becoming a dancer, maybe entering the ballet and going to New York. She was still taking ballet even as she began dating Wade and Brogan occasionally made it to practices and performances of the small Detwiler Dance Company. She was always thrilled when Wade showed up, even to practice.

By May '39, Wade had gotten up the nerve to ask Arlene the big question. He did it right after she had finished dance practice one night. She was tired, sweaty, pumped up and they headed to a nearby malt shop for a big shake and some fries. Over the table, Wade proposed. Arlene was completely surprised, even flustered by the proposal. She started to cry. She knew her family didn't especially care for the big, bumptious Californian and she knew she couldn't go against the wishes of her family.

It took nearly a week but on the soggy banks of Millers Creek, one Sunday afternoon, Wade Brogan heard the crushing news. Arlene Delaney, though she deeply loved him, just couldn't get married right now. Her parents were against it, she wanted to pursue dance as a career, she just wasn't ready...Arlene put out all kinds of excuses, none of which Wade Brogan believed.

He'd always handled rejection and disappointment by plunging himself into work, losing himself in something bigger. Arlene Delaney...Kate Wellesley...it was all the same.

He was in hot water with Colonel Cates, maybe even General Groves himself and he had to do something about it. This was still a case. Sure he'd screwed up and fallen in love with a Soviet spy and let his feelings blind him to what was going on. Sure he'd been responsible for making sure all the Gadgets got from Los Alamos to Hunters Point and he'd managed to lose one in the crash of _Honeybee_. Sure he'd consistently been a step behind the Russians and the Japs on this case, but dammit it! It was still a case. Didn't matter whether the bad guys were spies or felons or traffic offenders...they left leads, didn't they? They left evidence. Any case could be broken if you were diligent and dedicated and determined...the three "D's" he'd learned at CIC school at Fort Holabird, Maryland.

Brogan waited until Willis had finished taxiing _Fannie Buster_ onto the tiny ramp and parked her beside the dilapidated wooden hangar.

He hopped down from the open cockpit. "Thanks anyway, Mr. Willis." He shook Jughead's calloused hands. "We'll be better off following up leads on the ground."

Jude Willis stuck his thumbs in his jacket pockets. "Never too busy to help the law, son. You need a ride and a look-see from the sky, you just come by anytime. Coos Bay Aviation...number's right there on the fuselage—" he jerked a thumb at the telephone number hand-lettered over _Fannie Buster's_ wings.

Wade Brogan drove his sedan back to the docks. He found an unexpected, but familiar face huddled with Skunky Merrill outside a small cottage at the end of the dirt road overlooking the waterfront.

Don Blount was Bureau through and through, medium-build but stocky, with a tattered Homburg tucked under his arm, and sweat beaded up on his forehead. The sun was high and bright over Coos Bay and as Brogan came up, he saw the special agent along with Merrill and several Rangers standing over a body they had found outside the cottage.

Blount shook hands with Brogan, a professional courtesy that meant little. CIC and the Bureau cooperated at arm's length on investigations but both the Army and the Bureau were jealous of each other and agents seldom fraternized.

"Any luck up in the wild blue yonder?" Skunky Merrill saw the gloom on Brogan's face.

"Nothing I can hang my hat on. Jesus, there must be hundreds of trucks on the roads around here."

Don Blount sniffed. "Well, it _is_ logging country, after all."

Brogan bent to the corpse. Male Caucasian....shot at close range, high-velocity rounds from the look of the gaping chest wounds. A coup de grace had been administered to the poor fellow's head as well. Half of his skull was missing and a blackened mush that had once been a brain had seeped out onto the dirt. "So who's the stiff?"

Blount had the look of hunting dog with the kill in his mouth. "Name's Chester Wynne. Apparently he ran the dock service station. That's his cottage."

Merrill had some of Wynne's personal effects in his hand. "Been here awhile...here's his wallet. Medic from the Rangers said the wounds look like an assault rifle, from the skin and bone damage. Same sort of stuff he worked with in France and Germany."

"We ran the license," Blount added. "You want to hear something interesting?"

"I'm all ears."

Blount smirked. "Oregon State Police checked with their DMV and found that Mr. Wynne has a flatbed Ford, black '38 diesel, registered in his name. And there are tire prints on the far side of the cottage, plus more down at the end of the road. Fresh prints."

Brogan blinked. "A truck. Big enough to carry a ten-thousand bomb casing?"

Merrill nodded. "So it would seem. We've got a description, tag number and vehicle ID."

Brogan swallowed hard. Finally the evidence they needed. "I take it this truck is nowhere to be found."

Blount said, "We've checked the vicinity of the docks, alerted Chief Willis at Coos Bay PD and I'm about to send out a bulletin to the State Police, and to all Bureau field offices. I'm wagering our baby's aboard that truck."

"The only question is where is it?" Merrill asked. "We should alert state police in Oregon, California and Washington, maybe the Border Patrol as well. From what the medic said, this guy got popped less than eight hours ago. That means the truck can't be more than eight hours away."

Brogan did some quick figuring. "Eight hours at say sixty miles an hour. That would be four to five hundred miles, in any direction. Takes in most of the West Coast, Skunky. This is important evidence, but we're still behind. Hell, if it is the Japs and they're heading for a big city, say San Francisco, they'd be there by now."

"It could be Seattle," Blount suggested.

Brogan agreed. "We can't be sure. I've already alerted Western Defense Command...we should give this stuff to General DeWitt and Fourth Army right away. His headquarters can start mobilizing infantry around the bigger cities, start setting up roadblocks and checkpoints. They'll need to coordinate with the state police in the affected areas, be on the lookout for this truck. And this needs to be passed on to Colonel Cates as well."

Blount wrote down a few notes on a small pad. "Colonel, could I have a word with you...privately?" He gestured at the cottage, where a small rickety porch overlooked the dirt road.

Brogan was puzzled. "Sure." He'd always been leery of giving too many details to the Bureau. This was an Army matter and a war-priority case at that. Anything to do with Manhattan and _Silverplate_ was off limits to civilian authorities, excepting orders to the contrary from the higher-ups, which basically meant General Marshall. The Bureau had no need to know about _Big Fella_ , anymore than they already did. The way Cates put it: the Bureau and CIC could climb into the same bed together but there was damn sure not going to be any fooling around.

Brogan waited for the agent. Blount pulled out a cigarette and lit up, blowing smoke through his nostrils.

"The Bureau's not trying to step on any toes, Colonel, but this case has some details I'd like to clear up."

Brogan was noncommittal. "You know I can't get into classified stuff, Don. You'll have to go through General Groves' office in Washington for that."

"I know, I know..." Blount held up a hand. "I'm not fishing...just trying to give you a friendly warning, I guess. You know the old saying about 'where there's smoke, there's fire'?"

Brogan was tight-lipped. "I've heard it."

"Well, you know the Bureau's got a continuing investigation into foreign espionage activity around the country, including the Project sites...Los Alamos, Hanford, Oak Ridge. We've worked on a few cases together over the years, haven't we?"

They had, but Brogan didn't exactly think of Don Blount as a drinking buddy. "A few, I suppose. What about it?"

"Just this." Blount drew closer, lowered his voice. "Albuquerque Field Office checked into a low-level Soviet courier named Kate Wellesley last week. She runs a gift shop in Santa Fe. Legitimate business but it's just a front. She's what we call a 'mailman' or lady, in this case. Packages classified information for dispatch elsewhere, mainly back East to the Embassy or the Soviet consulate on Long Island. Oh, we've known about her for several years...you know how it is, we run occasional tails and wiretaps, just to see what she's up to but she's small fry and we wanted bigger fish. Figured she'd lead us higher into the network, maybe implicate somebody important. That's the funny thing about these spy networks...they're like balls of yarn. You get your hooks into one and start pulling and pretty soon, the whole thing unravels."

Brogan suddenly felt a cold chill down his back. He forced a tight smile. "What of her?"

"Well," Blount went on, "Last week, somewhere along about July 30th or 31st, Miss Wellesley seems to have disappeared. Last Friday, the Bureau paid her house a visit and saw evidence that she'd pulled out. Dresser drawers emptied, cosmetics overturned in the bathroom, that sort of thing. So now, of course, we've become a little concerned. There's a nation-wide alert to all police and law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for Miss Wellesley."

Brogan hadn't realized the Bureau knew so much. "I don't see what this has to do with my case."

"Maybe nothing. But there was one little item our people found in her cottage that intrigued us. Maybe you could shed a little light on it." Blount reached into his jacket and pulled out a photo, slightly smudged, and showed it to Brogan.

Brogan paled as he examined the picture. It was a photo Kate had taken of him on horseback, on a ride up into the Jemez Mountains northwest of Los Alamos last fall, the Sunday they had gone picnicking by the shore of Fenton Lake and come across a palomino that had gotten loose from a nearby ranch. It was the day he'd requisitioned an Army sedan on the pretext of 'following up an interview with a prospective T-division hiree in Santa Fe'. It was the day they had made love in the backseat of the old olive drab Ford, with the horse tied to nearby tree, snorting and stomping its feet the whole time.

Brogan silently handed the photo back to Blount. He wet his lips, looked down toward the docks, where Captain Deavers' 2nd Rangers were continuing to carry bags of evidence from _El Rey Diaz'_ cargo hold.

"I owe you an explanation, I guess."

Blount stifled a smile. "It would seem that you two know each other. A Counter-intelligence Corps agent assigned to Los Alamos, on a nature hike with a known Soviet spy..." Blount whistled quietly through his teeth. "Not the best sense of timing, huh, Colonel. I'm all ears—"

Brogan felt physically sick. He'd long thought the Bureau was closer to the case than he could put a finger on. Sixth sense, cop's instinct, whatever you wanted to call it. Surveillance too...that would mean there was plenty of evidence of his presence at the gift shop, and Kate's cottage, maybe even tapes of what they had said to each other. He thought briefly about using Army security as a screen...after all, it was an active CIC case as well and if the Bureau was found to be interfering—

But even as he thought of it, he knew it wouldn't work. Cates wouldn't buy it and neither would General Groves. And with what he had already confessed to Cates, he'd just be digging his own grave a little deeper.

Reluctantly, with a deep breath, Wade Brogan told Don Blount most of the details of what he knew about Kate Wellesley...about what their relationship had been. Even as he spoke, he seethed inside, his fingers flexing automatically, wishing he could grab the girl by her lovely sensuous neck and shake some sense into her.

Despite what she had done—and she had lied and concealed a hell of a lot, he realized, despite what he gotten himself into, the truth was that he still had strong feelings for Kate.

Jap saboteurs, atom bombs, Russian spies and Kate Wellesley. _Boy_...in the back of his mind, Wade Grogan imitated the gruff voice of his father giving him a stern talking to...the way he often had in the back stockroom of the grocery store... _you have gotten yourself into one hell of a mess._

Wednesday, August 8, 1945

Kitticut, British Columbia

7:30 p.m.

Kate Wellesley watched the towering cedar trees slide by the truck window.

"We're lost, aren't we?" she muttered to her reflection, fractured into funny faces in the window by the drizzle that had been falling for the past few hours.

"No," said Edvard Tolkach, squinting through the gloom ahead. "No, we aren't lost at all. I'm just trying to find those lights we saw. Keep looking."

Kate sat up and peered through the side window. "I still say we should have taken that trail we saw a few miles back."

Tolkach shook his head. "It's not on the map. We must follow directions, Kate. 'Turn at Alexis Creek, head north forty-two miles.'"

"This is crazy....insane," she said back. "You can make an atom bomb but you can't follow a map."

They had been arguing and sniping at each other for most of the last six hours. Kate was cold—the heater in the truck had gone out two days ago—and hungry. She had to pee too but Tolkach was determined to find the camp tonight. The sun had gone down, as far as it ever went in the summer at this latitude and a gray twilight had descended over the forest. They had been bouncing along the narrow, rutted highway for hours.

_A highway to nowhere_ , Kate thought. _We're going to drive this highway until we die of old age._

Finally, Tolkach began braking and the truck came to a stop in the middle of the road. He pulled out the map, took off his glasses and wiped them down with a handkerchief, then scrutinized the markings more closely.

"Perhaps, you are right after all."

Kate snorted. "I'm telling you when we passed that dirt road back there, I saw lights in the woods. Admit it: we're lost and we need help. Even if the lights aren't that silly camp, it must be somebody. We could ask for help."

Tolkach shook his head. "No. We must not attract any attention."

"Oh, great. A Czech physicist and a pregnant American woman driving a truck through the Canadian wilderness to nowhere. I'm sure that'll never attract any attention. Dr. Tolkach...Edvard...face it. We'll never find this place without help."

Without saying or admitting anything, Tolkach backed the truck around and sped off toward the dirt lane they both had noticed. Thank God it was only twilight, though the forest canopy blocked much of the dwindling sunlight. Tolkach slowed down as they hunted for the turnoff.

Ten minutes passed, then twenty, with no sign of the road, if it could even be called that. Kate was growing restless, anxious to be somewhere, _anywhere_ but here. After riding with Edvard Tolkach for the better part of six days, she figured she understood the Czech physicist for what he truly was: a thick-headed, dictatorial jerk. A closet Hitler, even. She had long ago resolved that at the next stop, if there were even the remotest hint of civilization in sight, she would bolt like a penned-up pony and disappear.

Trouble was, they hadn't seen a living soul for hours.

"There...!" Kate saw a notch in the woods and Tolkach eased them to a stop. He switched off the motor and an eerie silence fell over them. He coasted onto the dirt lane and braked to a halt. Both got out to stretch.

Kate couldn't wait any longer. "I've got to use the ladies' room. Excuse me, please?"

Tolkach turned around while Kate made her way into the deeper bush.

"Don't go too far, Kate."

"Don't worry about me!" she called back. _Like I'm your pet or something_. She plunged into the brush and found a flat spot surrounded by thick brambles, a decent enough place to squat and do her business.

While she was peeing, she gradually became aware of sounds in the distance, mechanical sounds. Heavy equipment sounds. Maybe a logging camp or a mine of some type?

Faint but unmistakable on the faint breath of wind, came an odd brew of machinery noises...drills, perhaps. Earthmovers. Big trucks. A roar that sounded... like an aircraft engine.

Kate hiked up her slacks and stood up, listening carefully. She wasn't afraid, not at all. The sounds were a welcome thing to her ears. These sounds meant people, men, civilization, food and warmth, hot coffee. People that could help them.

She went back up the hill to the truck. Tolkach was still studying the map, holding it up to the failing light, trying to divine its deepest secrets.

"Did you hear that, Edvard?"

Tolkach continued studying the map. "Hear what?"

"That noise...it sounds like machinery...nearby too."

Tolkach put down the map and stood still, letting the faint sigh of the wind come to him.

"Heavy machinery."

"Maybe it's the camp," Kate suggested.

Tolkach brushed past her and went deeper into the thick of the forest.

"What the hell is that?" Kate was right behind him.

"Come on...let's see what's up."

Tolkach and Kate pushed through the vine and brush, following a ridge line back and forth as it meandered generally northward through thick stands of towering red cedar, hemlock and Douglas fir. Presently, they both became aware of a glow in the distance, faint yet unmistakable in the dwindling twilight. At this latitude, mid-summer evenings were not a time of darkness. Even at midnight, the sun was a bright arc low on the horizon, lending a dusky, almost pearly glow to the sky. Just past eight o'clock locally, they had plenty of light to pick their way through the brambles and home in on the glow they had seen through the limbs of the trees.

Finally, the underbrush thinned. Tolkach stopped on the brow of the ridge, overlooking a shallow valley thick with the leafy canopy of more cedar. In the very center of the valley, however, a roughly rectangular opening in the canopy exposed bare ground, black soil ground. And as they moved closer, they saw buildings being erected on the ground, big buildings and small, arranged in a semi-grid pattern along both sides of a straight length of road that spanned the clearing from one end to another.

"Look down there," Tolkach whispered. "It must be the camp."

Kate followed his pointing arm and saw something she had never expected to see in the middle of the forests of British Columbia.

It was unmistakably an aircraft, a large one with two engines, and the engines were turning, their propellers a silvery sheen in the floodlamps that lined the perimeter of the camp.

"Look at it, Kate! It's...that's what it is! Right in the middle of the forest...we made it!"

A glow of floodlights poured skyward from the clearing. Tolkach and Kate eased forward cautiously, keeping to the tree line, as they made their way closer for a better look. From their distance, figures moved among the buildings and around the aircraft, which looked for all the world like an Army Air Forces C-46 transport plane.

Unseen, they began reconnoitering the camp, making mental notes of what they were seeing. After sliding along the curve of the ridge to the north, they came at last to a rocky outcrop. North of their position, moonlight glinted off the cold waters of NAACO Lake. South of them, the ridge opened up onto a shallow valley, with a clearer view of the camp below.

Tolkach scooted over the cliff, half slid on his britches down a slippery defile and landed on two feet in the bough of an aspen tree at the bottom. He shimmied down from his landing spot and plopped onto hard dirt, waving Kate to follow. Kate eyed the drop warily, and decided to circle around, taking a less precipitous grade down to the landing. Three minutes later, she was crouching next to Edvard Tolkach peering across the top of a perimeter fence they had come upon, at the cleared expanse of the base.

They crept closer to the fence, wary of being spotted, until at last they came to a fallen trunk which lay athwart one section of the fence. They climbed the trunk and buried themselves in the thick pungent foliage of cedar leaves and branches. Now, for the first time, they had an unobstructed view of the airplane and the nearer buildings.

Most of the buildings were constructed of logs and sheet siding. One was clearly large enough to accommodate the plane. Tolkach decided it was a hangar.

Even as they watched, a pair of men, perhaps mechanics, suddenly appeared in a pool of light several dozen yards from the fence, both taking a smoke break. Though the light was mottled by shadows from overhanging branches, both men were short, stocky and clearly Asian.

The more they watched, the more amazed they became. The camp seemed to be crawling with Japanese. A mix of Caucasian and Japanese scuttled around the aircraft, which bore markings like no plane either had ever seen before. A dull red star gleamed on the vertical stabilizer and from underneath both wings. Two engines were running, a throaty roar echoing around the clearing, while her props turned at slow speed. Her wheels were chocked, so the plane wasn't going anywhere. Perhaps an engine test. An overhaul?

Tolkach smiled to himself, marveling at the sheer audacity of the whole scheme.

No one would ever suspect a Russian airbase in the middle of British Columbia.

A branch snapped behind them and they both jumped, startled. Instantly, though the sky was only dusky, a bright flashlight beam glared at them, momentarily blinding them.

"There, there, folks, easy now. Just keep your hands out where we can see 'em."

It wasn't a Japanese accent, or anything foreign. The voice was clearly Canadian, even down to the woodsy accent. A local voice.

Out of the glare, a man emerged, though there were others behind. Kate could make out four faces, and four rifle barrels pointing their way.

The man was tall, wearing a cap and leather jacket. The arms of the jacket were stitched with official Vanderhoof Timber tree crest logos.

Tolkach straightened up, starting to pull some ID from his jacket. The nearest rifleman cocked his weapon.

"Easy there, mate—"

"I am Edvard Tolkach...I am _Quantum_ ," he announced.

His announcement had a visible effect on the tall man who had spoken. "It's okay, boys. This one's expected." He turned to Kate. "But the dame...nobody said anything about a dame coming along."

Tolkach explained Kate's presence. The tall man, whose name was Kunkle, shrugged, still suspicious. "We'll let the Major sort it out." He waved at them with his rifle. "Well, come on."

Kate and Tolkach were escorted along a faint trail toward the fenced compound. Inside the perimeter, they were taken across a dirt field littered with tree limbs and trunks from the clearing to a small cabin between the hangar and another wooden building. Civilian guards bearing more rifles patrolled the grounds. All wore jackets and fur caps with the Vanderhoof Timber logo. But they weren't locals. A few appeared to be Asian.

_Japs_ , Kate realized. The place was crawling with Japs.

They were shown into the cabin. A short, stocky bald man in khaki shirt and pants came out from behind a desk. Beside him were two more Japs. The bald man introduced himself.

"Major Sergei Vasileyvich Lebedev... _Krasnee Armiya_. Red Army...Twentieth Construction Troops. And you...you must be _Quantum_?"

Tolkach shook hands, introduced Kate Wellesley. "I asked her to come along," he explained. "She has knowledge that could be useful."

Lebedev was clearly skeptical. He sized Kate up, from the tips of her heels to the yellow scarf she'd tied her hair back with. Skeptical, but definitely intrigued. "An American woman...what knowledge does she have?" Kate clenched her teeth to keep from squirming under his gaze. Men were all alike...didn't matter where they came from. It was bad enough she had to look down at the Russian officer; he was shorter by several inches.

"She helped us get intelligence about the bomb out of Los Alamos. She was in danger...and she's knows people. I had to get her out...the Americans are onto us. It was only a matter of time—"

Lebedev sat on the corner of his desk, thoughtful. "It complicates things...but we've got a job to do here first. I'll have to contact my superiors." He saw that Tolkach and Kate were openly curious about the Japanese officers. "Lieutenant Commander Iyesu Kumoda—" Lebedev indicated the nearer officer. Kumoda was as short as Lebedev, but thin, almost emaciated, with a faint smudge of a moustache and fierce glare. "—and Lieutenant Haneda. Both of the Imperial Japanese Navy."

The two officers were clad in drab olive green uniforms, with wraparound puttee leggings but no obvious insignia. As one, they bowed.

"Konichiwa," muttered Kumoda. "First Kure rikusentai—"

Kate glared at them both. Edvard had never said anything about dealing with the enemy like this.

Tolkach looked around, through the windows. "Amazing, what you've done here, Major. I had no idea...just reports, rumors. How long did it take to build this camp?"

Lebedev beamed. "Two weeks...exactly eleven days. We tried to make it resemble a logging camp...except for the runway, of course. There was no way to disguise that."

"Odd that you would need a runway. I was told the bomb parts would come by truck."

Lebedev scowled at the Japanese officers. _He doesn't know_. An imperceptible shake of the head came back. The runway was a concession to the Japanese, to enable Operation _Shori_ to sortie against an American target. The Russians were only interested in studying and photographing this fearsome new weapon. Lebedev had been opposed to building a runway, but had been overruled.

"And the bomb...it's here?" Tolkach asked.

The Red Army officer sighed. "The bomb hasn't come yet. I'm worried...it's late...something may have happened." He checked his watch. "And I can't keep this place concealed for too much longer."

Tolkach rubbed his hands. "I only know a little of the operation, Major. Your comrades told me they could get me out of America, if I helped them examine the bomb, document it, explain the parts, that sort of thing."

Lebedev thought about that. He stared at Kate, who tried staring back, until at last her eyes looked away. "But the woman, Miss Wellesley...this presents a problem. The Colonel made no mention of a woman. I'll have to get approval."

Tolkach moved closer to Kate. "She must come out, the same as me. Where I go, she goes."

_Don't be too sure about that, mister_ , Kate thought.

Lebedev shrugged. "We will see what Spassk Dalniy says."

Tolkach yawned. "We _are_ tired, Major. You have some place for us to rest?"

" _Da_. The officers' barracks." He went to a small window, waved at a guard outside. Momentarily, the guard appeared. " _Serzhant_...take these two to the officers barracks...and their bags. See that they have what they need."

The sergeant snapped off a salute. "At once, _Maior_ Lebedev." He nodded to Tolkach and Kate, indicating the door. "Please...?"

They were escorted across an open field dotted with dirt piles, bundles of lumber and assorted trash heaps. The basic layout of the base was rectangular, perched as it was at the brow of a small ridge. The runway itself, some five thousand feet of dirt and sand had been laid out at the very apex of the ridge. On the far side, lay a large wood frame building with huge doors...a sort of hangar sized to hold several large multi-engine aircraft. On one side of the hangar was a smaller wooden building. When asked, the sergeant indicated the building was a machine shop and storage shed. On the other side of the hangar was a fenced-in compound of metal tanks...fuel tanks, Tolkach concluded. Racks of hoses and pumps were lined along one side of the fence.

On the near side of the runway, were four other wood buildings. The offices were crammed into what amounted to a log cabin. This was where they had met Major Lebedev and the Japanese officers. The second building was larger, easily double the size of the cabin. The sergeant would say nothing more about the structure, but Tolkach had an idea that it would serve as a laboratory for examining the bomb, if the thing ever got here.

On the other side, the two remaining structures were log and wood buildings, hastily set up, that served as barracks for the enlisted men of the small base garrison, and quarters for the officers. The sergeant showed them into hut and pointed to a pair of bunks at the end of a short hall.

"Rest...here," he said in halting English. He smiled, revealing a prominent gap in his front teeth. Off the main hall, he threw back a canvas tarp, and said, "Water...crap..." again a crooked smile, then he turned on his heels and marched out.

"The facilities," Kate muttered, peering in past the tarp to a cramped alcove formed by log joints. A stool, a sink, a piss-hole and a metal drum with some kind of canopy and curtain arrangement mounted on it, for the shower. "Not exactly the Waldorf, if you ask me."

Tolkach arranged their luggage at separate bunks. "You must be wondering if you made the right decision, coming with me. I didn't know...I mean...how crude things would be."

Kate started opening her bag. "Pretty much the whole way from Santa Fe, Dr. Tolkach, if you really want to know. What's a girl like me doing in a place like this?"

"You have every right to hate me, Kate."

"I don't hate you. I just don't understand you. I don't understand myself."

Tolkach stopped unpacking. He started to come over, but stopped in mid-stride, and held his hands out. Aware of how silly he looked, he suddenly jammed them into his pockets. "I hope you don't mistake what this is about, Kate. We both know you were in as much danger as me. The Army was following me, going through my things at Los Alamos. It was only a matter of time before I would have been picked up. Colonel Brogan was planning to do it at the Trinity test...but I got away. Kate...look at me...I'm a fugitive."

"Yeah, and you kept showing up at my door like a lost puppy. You compromised what I was doing for the Cause."

"I'm sorry...I was...I had nowhere else to turn. I just needed to get out."

"You ran out...that's what you did. You abandoned your own children, at a time when they most needed you...when your wife died. What was I thinking--?"

They glared at each other for a full minute, then Kate sighed and went back to her unpacking. "Anyway...what the hell happens now? You brought me up to this godforsaken place...what now?"

Tolkach left the bunk room and peered out a small window at the end of the hall. "The Russians are supposed to bring in the parts of the Big Fella device. My agreement with _Windward_ was to help them document the bomb, explain how it works, and then I would get passage out of the country...eventually back to England, maybe even Czechoslovakia. Kate, you have a decision to make for yourself. Surely you realize you can't go back to America now. The Army will pick you up too...you know what the penalty for espionage is. Where will you go?"

Kate had thought of little else the whole ride up from Santa Fe...aboard the _Prairie Express_ , aboard the ferry, with Tolkach on the long, bumpy ride from Victoria to Kitticut and into this endless northern wilderness. "I don't know. I don't know why I came along...I wasn't part of your deal with _Windward_. It was a stupid decision...now I've somehow got to figure out where I go from here." She smiled wanly at the physicist. "It won't be Czechoslovakia, if that's what you're thinking. Maybe I should go back...for Chrissakes, I'm carrying a child now—and take my chances."

Tolkach continued staring out the window. A small squad of soldiers came into view, emerging from the hangar, quick marching toward the barracks. They were Japanese.

"One thing I don't understand," Tolkach said.

"What's that?" came Kate's voice from the makeshift bathroom.

"Why are there Japanese soldiers here? _Windward_ told me the base was a Russian operation. The Russians wanted to know about the Gadget, everything they could, everything I could tell them. He said nothing about Japanese."

Kate came out into the hall, noting that a pair of Soviet officers were heading their way. Both of them quickly retreated back to the bunk room.

Moments later, the two officers showed their faces from the hall.

"Excuse me, please, I must ask Dr. Tolkach to come. Major Lebedev wishes to talk with him."

Tolkach looked at Kate, then got up and followed the escort back to the cabin that served as headquarters. Lebedev was sitting behind a table that served as a desk. The officers removed their fur caps, with dull red stars, and took positions on either side of the Major. A civilian, in a flannel shirt, heavy vest and dungarees, sat at the table too.

Lebedev made the introductions. "Arkady Gushmanovich Golubko, from Chelyabinsk Unit 20. He is a physicist, working for Kurchatov, in our atom bomb program."

The civilian extended a hand. "Doctor...it will be a pleasure working with you...even though we must necessarily be quick in our work."

Tolkach shook hands with Golubko.

Lebedev indicated the officers. "State Security, Dr. Tolkach." The taller, red-haired officer was a Major Ryabnikov. The shorter, balding officer was a Captain Vladkin. Both men nodded brusquely, frowning at the Czech physicist. "These officers are also part of Kurchatov's team. When the bomb arrives, they'll assist you in recording and measuring and photographing everything. You brought the plans with you?"

Tolkach cleared his throat. "I brought more documents, if that's what you mean. Everything I have provided was furnished to my contacts, to _Windward_ , and others. I did as I was directed. As Miss Wellesley, the woman who came with me, prepared the documents for transport. She's just as much a part of this effort as I am."

"Of course," Lebedev cut in. To Golubko: "Why don't you show the Doctor our lab. He should familiarize himself with the equipment. When the bomb arrives, we must work quickly."

At that moment, a soldier burst into the cabin. "Begging your pardon, Major, but it's another plane! Flying low, just south of here—" the soldier was young and big-eyed, his carbine slung around his shoulders.

Lebedev sprang up and went outside. Just above the treeline southeast of the base, a small two-engine aircraft was droning along, barely two thousand feet up. Lebedev stiffened.

"Sound the alert now, soldier! Two blasts and no more. Everybody take cover...secure the base! And get that plane back in the hangar!"

Instantly, two sharp blasts on a horn echoed around the base. Men scurried in all directions, rounding up loose gear, covering open crates with canvas. A tow tractor started up and began inching the aircraft back inside its huge wooden hangar. Shouts and more men running. As Tolkach watched, it was apparent the concealment effort was a well-rehearsed drill.

Inside of three minutes, the airplane had been secured inside, the runway covered with several trucks carrying cargoes of logs and tree trunks and more pallets and equipment suitable to a logging camp laid out along side the runway and spotted around the open grounds between the cabins.

"He's turning this way," Golubko pointed at the sky. The plane had banked left, its red wing lights strobing on and off as it flew nearer.

Lebedev shouted more orders to his men. Campfires were lit and some of the floodlights were killed. "We're fortunate it's so late...if only the damned sun would go down further. Stir those fires...get some smoke going!"

Golubko turned to Tolkach. "This is the second time in as many days. It seems we're beginning to attract more attention."

At Lebedev's orders, men huddled around the cranes and saws and pallets, or warmed themselves by the light of a scattering of campfires that had been lit off from the trash heaps. Tolkach realized the trash piles had been strategically situated for just this purpose. Golubko pulled the physicist with him and they strolled to a nearby fire.

Moments later, the plane was directly overhead. Lebedev, and at his orders, several other soldiers, waved lazily skyward.

"It's not much of a ruse," muttered Golubko, "but it's worked so far." He waved at the approaching plane as well. "How much longer the Canadians will be fooled...who can say?"

Even a contingent of Japanese soldiers, in their olive drab outfits, came from the far barracks and formed a circle around one of the trash fires. Caught up in the spirit, a few of them hoisted their arms as the plane circled the base.

Tolkach watched the aircraft for several moments. It was a twin-engine plane, bearing a maple leaf emblem and other official insignia, perhaps Army or Mounted Police. Tolkach knew that the 'Mounties' were the law in this part of Canada _. As long as the Americans stay away,_ he thought. At least, the dim twilight air made visibility difficult. The fires and smoke would obscure much of the base; Lebedev was counting on that.

The plane made several turns over the base, staying a thousand feet up, before turning back south. Moments later, it had disappeared through the trees.

Tolkach and Golubko found Lebedev among a circle of his own men, warily eyeing the Japanese. Lieutenant Commander Kumoda and Lieutenant Haneda had come by. There was tension, even a hint of menace in the air. Away from the circle, both Russian and Japanese soldiers had unslung their weapons.

Tolkach and Golubko stopped short of the gathering.

"This was on the radio...you heard this?" Lebedev was saying to Kumoda.

Kumoda nodded ever so slightly. " _Hai_. A radio station in Seattle. Or perhaps Vancouver. An hour ago...on the news."

"Then it's true...all the stories we heard at Spassk Dalniy," said one of Lebedev's staff aides.

"We're at war," agreed Lebedev.

Kumoda had scribbled some notes on a scrap of paper. He read from his own handwriting: "At 1700 hours Pacific War Time, twenty-two divisions of Stalin's Red Army Far Eastern Frontier Forces crossed the Manchurian frontier at multiple points, between Khabarovosk and Blagoveshchensk and engaged elements of the Japanese Kwantung Army. Moscow had formally declared war on the Empire of Japan, as promised to President Truman and Prime Minister Churchill at the Potsdam conference several weeks ago, only a few hours before—" Kumoda looked up, pale and shaken. The note quivered in his fingers. "This means—"

Lebedev frowned, looked around at his own men, and couldn't manage a direct look at the Japanese officers. "—we're enemies. That's what it means. Russians and Japanese are now officially enemies."

Haneda looked glum. "We have trained so hard at Spassk Dalniy...all of us...together. _Nilsan_...like brothers, we have been—"

"Comrades," Lebedev agreed. The men looked at each other, lost, unsure what to do. There were coughs around the gathering, heavy silence, furtive whispers. Without realizing it, the two Japanese officers found themselves surrounded, isolated from the rest of their soldiers, who hung back by the barracks, shifting uneasily.

"The operation... _Shori_ —" Kumoda brought up.

Lebedev's head ached. A decision had to be made. Through fate or politics or bad luck, Valentin Lebedev now found himself in command of a joint mission with soldiers who were now enemies. They had trained and trained hard as comrades. Now, the world had turned again and those same comrades were no longer comrades. By the stroke of a pen, and the command of Marshal Stalin, white was now black and day was now night.

Lebedev swallowed hard and cleared his throat. "There is nothing official yet. The operation must go on. And we've all got work to do. Come on, get those fires out. And lookouts...get into the trees. Start the transmitter again...where the hell is that blasted American bomber—"

Two thousand feet overhead and several miles away, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Inspector Neal Madigan wasn't fooled by the log piles and trash fires of the 'logging' camp he'd been observing off and on the last several days. Something was fishy about the place and he was more sure of it than ever now.

"Head back to Williams Lake," he told the pilot. "I've seen enough." As the pilot banked them south and opened up the throttle to gain altitude over the heavily forested hills of the Nachako Range, Madigan made plans to put together a small force of Mounties from the Detachment and hike up into the hills around Kitticut and NAACO Lake the next day, when lighting was better. It was evident from aerial reconnaissance the last two days that those derelict Vanderhoof Timber loggers that had stumbled into Barclay's Saloon the other day were on to something odd, something mighty odd indeed.

Even in the failing light, Madigan was sure as a moose' nose was cold, that what he had seen was no logging camp, though the occupants had done a respectable job of trying to imitate one.

This kind of extensive camp, high on a ridge north of Williams Lake, in some of the best aspen and birch timbering country in North America, was clearly something military in nature. The buildings were laid out too precisely for loggers. Maybe the Army had hacked out some kind of hush-hush commando training base and nobody bothered to inform the locals. It had happened, all too often, he reflected. There had even been reports of a high-powered radio transmitter in the area, intermittently interfering with reception.

Peering out the windows at the deepening shadows of the forest canopy below, Madigan figured he'd better call this matter into the Superintendent's office first thing in the morning.

Williams Lake Detachment hadn't seen anything like this in a long time.
CHAPTER 22

Wednesday, August 8, 1945

Kitticut, British Columbia

11:45 p.m.

Ivan Nakhimov peered down at the forested hilltops below and wondered. Would _Avenger_ find the clandestine base before she ran out of fuel? With one eye on the fuel gauges and one eye scanning the twilight ground below, he grew more and more restless with every passing moment.

Something would have to happen and soon, or _Awesome Avenger_ and her strange mixture of a crew would perish in a spectacular crash in the deep woods of British Columbia's Nachako Range.

"Have you found that signal again?" he asked radioman Alexei Maximov for the umpteenth time.

Maximov's station was starboard side aft, wedged in next to the gun turret cupola.

"Getting snatches of it, comrade _Maior_. We're close...very close. Please turn right, new heading one four four degrees."

Nakhimov banked the huge aircraft and rolled her out smartly on Maximov's heading. He stole a glance at the face of Sado Fumori as he leveled them out.

The Japanese aviator was impassive, staring straight ahead through the birdcage, as fog and rain continued to envelope the aircraft. A dim gray twilight had descended over the terrain, with the sun little more than a daub of light, rolling around the horizon like a ball on a plate, giving off little enough light in the thickening clouds. After a harrowing landing at Elasco Field and a hurried refueling of the bomber, _Avenger_ had taken off again, now out of American airspace on a direct southeasterly vector toward the middle of British Columbia.

The plan was to fly on a heading of one two five degrees at two hundred knots for several hours. A radio beam should have been transmitting on one hundred sixteen megacycles along that radial. When _Avenger_ crossed the beam, she was to turn right and fly right down the center of the beam. With any luck, the beam would lead them right to the base at Kitticut.

That was the plan. But as usually happened in combat operations, the plan rarely survived its first encounter with reality.

Radioman Maximov had caught snatches and traces of what he thought was the signal, but he couldn't be sure. And he couldn't get a fix long enough to provide a sure vector to Nakhimov. So _Avenger_ had done what every bird of prey did when hunting quarry from the skies. She steered left and right of the last known beam heading, trying to sniff out a faint burst of RF from the purplish northern skies, hoping all the while that the Canadians and the Americans hadn't finally located the base and overrun it, shutting down the transmitter for good.

It had been a bumpy, nerve-wracking ride down from Elasco Field and now they were getting dangerously low on fuel. If Maximov didn't regain that beacon soon, Nakhimov knew he'd have little choice but to hunt for as level a spot as possible and try to ditch.

Given the rugged folds of the mountains passing below them, the prospects for a survivable landing didn't seem too high.

"Comrade _Maior_!" It was Maximov. Fumori startled upright as well.

"What is it...do you have it?"

"I think so...steer right again, one four eight degrees, comrade _Maior_."

Nakhimov tweaked the controls to starboard and _Avenger_ responded, nosing to the right, picking a bit of crosswind in the tricky updrafts over the mountains. Sado Fumori looked over.

"I hope your comrades haven't forgotten about us," he muttered.

Nakhimov shook his head. "I know this Lebedev...he won't give up without a fight. Maximov--?"

The radioman was silent for a long moment. "It's holding steady, comrade _Maior_! Stay on this heading—"

"We should climb a little, perhaps," Fumori observed. "Get out of this turbulence. Get a better signal."

"Not enough fuel," Nakhimov decided. "This _has_ to be it."

Fumori looked over, scowling but said little. The two pilots had been sniping at each other off and on ever since _Avenger_ had left Pyrkanay. _Two combat aces...two prima donnas,_ the Japanese flier thought. The Russian way and the Japanese way...a bear and a crane in the same nest...it couldn't possibly work. Yet it had to.

"Signal is getting stronger," Maximov announced. "We're right on the beam."

Nakhimov took a deep breath. "I'm going lower, see if we can clear this fog and get a better view." He was fully aware that _Avenger_ probably didn't have the fuel to regain much altitude once she went lower. Nervous, but keeping his tongue, Fumori stared ahead, praying there were no tall mountain peaks in the area.

_Awesome Avenger_ plunged deeper into thickening clouds and they soon lost all sight of the ground. For a few minutes, as the bomber hurtled forward at two hundred knots, they seemed suspended in the middle of a murky nothing, with no sense of motion save the drone of the Wright radial engines. Slowly, gradually, Nakhimov drove them down...five thousand feet...four thousand feet...three thousand feet, all the while checking with Maximov at each stage of the descent. They would get one shot at this.

"Still holding steady, comrade _Maior_. In fact, the signal's getting stronger. I think this is it...this is the right heading."

If you're wrong, Alexei Vasilyevich, we're all dead men.

Just then, a crackle came from the intercom. It was Yoshi Hyogo, the bombardier nestled in the nose of the aircraft, peering out at the murk from his bombsight station ten feet ahead of the flight deck.

"I see something! The ground ahead...there's an opening...a big slash in the trees!"

_Avenger_ shuddered in the crosswinds and dropped out of the fog like a wet dog shaking its tail. Sure enough, the Japanese crewman was right. Dead ahead through the windscreen, partially obscured by mist and rain, a brown hole in the dark green canopy of the forest was plainly visible.

"Alexei Vasilyevich...what's your signal say now?"

Maximov was excited. "Beeping loud and clear, comrade _Maior_! Dead on beam...stay on this heading!"

Nakhimov felt his throat go dry. Elasco Field had been easy compared to this.

Steadily dropping through the mist and murk, the brown hole grew larger but not nearly large enough. A few low buildings could be made out but not much else. There was no doubt this was the base Lebedev and his construction troops had hacked out of the forest but the runway—

It looked like a small pencil scratch on a huge green sheet of paper.

There was no way _Awesome Avenger_ would be able to drop into that hole and land.

Even Fumori was skeptical. "It is not possible...the runway is not long enough."

"We don't have much choice," Nakhimov decided. "Flaps down thirty. I'm cutting back the engines to half power—" He manipulated controls, throttled back the Wright Cyclones, and _Avenger_ dropped lower and lower, now seeming scant yards above the treetops.

Involuntarily, Fumori's sphincter tightened. A hundred and sixty feet behind them, tail gunner Gonichi Konoye pee'ed in his pants.

"I'm going to try and make one circle, " Nakhimov decided, wheeling the aircraft over to port. _Avenger_ banked hard in a tight left turn, barely two hundred feet over the trees. Below them, having spotted the aircraft, the base garrison scattered to rescue stations as Lebedev, Kumoda and the rest barked out orders. "Maybe I can get a better angle, come in a little steeper, and cut the engines just at the edge of the trees—"

Fumori, eyeing the fuel gauges, thought that a good idea. "We won't have another chance."

For three minutes, _Awesome Avenger_ swung around in a tight left-hand turn, then following Maximov's signal, lined up again for her final approach.

"Flaps down forty..."

Fumori complied and cranked the flaps further. _Avenger_ bucked and shimmied as the flaps bit deeper into the cool, misty air.

"Gear down."

The entire airframe shuddered as the landing gear bogeys clunked and dropped into the airstream.

"There's the gap...see those trees ahead?" Nakhimov shouted, his hands wrestling the wheel against stiff crosswinds.

"I see them!"

"When I give the word, kill the engines completely!" Against all instincts of every pilot who had ever flown, Ivan Nakhimov planned to pitch them forward for a few seconds, the very instant Fumori cut the engines. _Avenger_ would drop like a rock. Nakhimov prayed he'd have enough airspeed to recover their attitude and flare properly for a wheels-down landing. If they didn't, he'd be pitching them forward into a nose first crash.

_At least, Fumori and I will be the first to go_ , he thought wryly.

The opening in the trees came up fast.

"Now! Kill the engines _now_!"

Fumori slammed the throttles to their stops and the engines coughed and died off, the props windmilling like dervishes in the slipstream.

_Avenger_ plunged toward the ground. Nakhimov pitched the yoke forward, held his breath and counted...one...two... three. The tawny soil of bare ground rushed up at them much too fast. For a long moment, time seemed to stop and _Avenger_ didn't respond as the Russian pilot pulled hard on the yoke, hard back! _All the way back_! The wheel buffeted, right on the knife-edge of a stall--

At the last second, though, the one-hundred and twenty-thousand pound bomber leveled off just enough, and her nose gear slammed onto the dirt runway, nearly collapsing from the weight.

Like a huge lever, the nose gear pulled the rest of _Avenger_ down onto the ground, and her fuselage groaned as the full force of her weight brought her down hard.

As one, Nakhimov and Fumori reversed the props, forgetting for a second that the engines were already chopped, and stood on the brakes. _Awesome Avenger_ fishtailed left and right, riding down the rough and bumpy surface like she was skimming a washboard, her brakes digging hard into the wheels. A plume of dirt rooster-tailed behind the aircraft as she swung to the left. Nakhimov strained to keep her on the runway, leaning on the wheel with all his weight. Her portside landing gear tires suddenly burst into flame and soon shredded off in huge fiery chunks of black rubber.

But, slowly, gouging up long ruts and tears in the dirt surface that had been hacked out of the hilltop, _Avenger_ rolled and skidded to a stop, enveloped in dust and tire smoke. They had less than a hundred feet to spare. Ahead of them loomed the sentinels of giant aspen and birch trees. Three more seconds...

Incredibly, against all odds, and not knowing if they could ever get _Avenger_ airborne again, they had made it.

Nakhimov looked over at Fumori. For a few moments, they laughed hard, streaming sweat from their necks and foreheads, no longer caring who was Russian and who was Japanese. Behind them, the crew burst into shouts of relief.

Outside the windows, Nakhimov saw knots of men running toward the aircraft. Moments later, the cockpit hatch had been dropped and the ladder put into place. Sado Fumori was first out of the aircraft, falling flat onto his face as he dropped to the ground.

He spied Kumoda and Haneda and the three of them hugged tightly.

" _Oyagi_!" Kumoda cried. "I never thought I'd live to see such an old man!"

Fumori slapped him on the back. "I'm even older after _that_ flight! I thought we'd never be able to put this beast down in such a small clearing!" Fumori let his eyes rove around the crude base. How did you do all this?"

Haneda grinned. "With our bare hands."

"And a few axes and saws."

Behind Fumori, the rest of the cockpit crew dropped to the ground: Nakhimov, Kasparian, the flight engineer. Maximov, the navigator and Yoshi Hyogo, the bombardier. Hyogo spied his fellow Japanese and went barreling into them, hugging, laughing.

Nakhimov saluted Major Lebedev, then they embraced. Behind him, Ryabnikov and Vladkin glowered until they too were introduced.

"You are so beautiful, comrade, it brings tears to my eyes," Lebedev admitted. "We're isolated here, surrounded by hostiles, and the Canadians are suspicious. It's only a matter of time before we're overrun."

"Where's the bomb? Can I see it?"

Lebedev looked gloomy, rubbing his bald head. "It's not here yet, Vanya. I'm worried...something's happened. We've had an increase in surveillance lately...planes flying overhead. The other day, our patrols caught a pair of local timbermen snooping around...we had to eliminate them. I'm sure questions have been asked and the Canadians are suspicious. I don't know how much longer we can remain here, without attracting more attention. We need that bomb. If the other unit doesn't get here soon, we'll be overrun before we can photograph it."

Nakhimov led Lebedev around to examine the shredded and burned tire carcass. "She's a fabulous bird, Tolya. The Americans have created a wondrous flying machine."

"We captured this one?"

"An American crew landed at Spassk Dalniy...can you believe that? She was shot up with extensive wing and rudder damage...shot up on a mission over Nagoya. NKVD had taken her over....orders from Moscow, you know." Nakhimov winked, lowering his voice so Ryabnikov wouldn't hear. "I hear Josef Vissarionovich has already assigned some designers to study her...so we can build our own."

Lebedev watched the Japanese crewmen huddle off to one side, gesturing and shouting at each other. They regarded the Russians with evident hostility. "We've got trouble, Vanya. You heard the news?"

"What news?"

Lebedev related the news of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, the declaration of war.

Nakhimov sucked in his breath. "We heard nothing, from Pyrkanay on. I didn't know—" he eyed Hyogo and Fumori warily They had been crewmates aboard _Avenger_...and now, just like that, they were the enemy. "What's going to happen here?"

Lebedev shrugged. "Who knows? We only just got the news ourselves...some of the men heard it on a radio broadcast out of Seattle. Already, there's tension...just before you showed up, I gave them a speech. You know: _There's nothing official...we're in this together...we have a mission to perform..._ that sort of thing. Now, with more Japanese on base...we may have a bigger problem."

Nakhimov's eyes narrowed. "Perhaps...your guards..."

"I've already talked with them. We've separated the men...Russians and Japanese. Just in case. I hated to do it, but I had to. And I told the _serzhant_ to extend their patrols...and to keep an eye on the Japanese. I'm thinking about restricting access to the armory as well...keep the number of weapons to a minimum. For safety's sake...the bomb, I told them."

"Did they agree with that?"

Lebedev shook his head. "Not really. I could see it in their eyes. Kumoda, in particular...he doesn't trust me. He never did and he now he has a reason. Why couldn't Stalin have waited a few more days?"

Nakhimov shrugged. "That's how this war is, comrade."

"In any case," Lebedev went on, "let's get your gear to the barracks. I'll get a detail to go over the plane with you...work out what should be repaired first. When the bomb gets here, I want to have that plane ready to go...give it to the Japanese so we can get out of here before the Mounties arrive. Or the Americans."

They went to the barracks and Nakhimov and his Soviet crewmen dropped their duffel bags. As they were leaving the barracks, Lebedev ordered the tractor driven out to the end of the runway, where its tow bar would be attached to _Avenger's_ forward landing gear. "We'll give you a tow right to the hangar...I think we can just squeeze her inside."

But before the car could head off, Edvard Tolkach appeared in the barracks door. Lebedev hailed the Czech physicist and introduced him to Nakhimov.

"Dr. Tolkach is a comrade...one of our operatives inside America. He made some of the arrangements to get the bomb up here...but lately it's become a bit hot in the oven, hasn't it, Doctor?"

Tolkach shook hands with the Soviet pilot. "Very hot, Major. A pleasure..." he eyed the huge bomber at the end of the runway. "You flew that airplane here?"

Nakhimov nodded. "And I hope it can be flown out in a few days...if your bomb ever arrives. You are an expert on this thing?"

Tolkach nodded. "I worked in T-Division. I was responsible for some of the calculations on the initial detonation shock wave. _Big Fella_ —that's the bomb—works by implosion." Tolkach crumpled his hands together in a tight fist. "Like this, no? Crushed precisely into a smaller space."

"One of Kurchatov's men is here, Vanya," Lebedev explained. "Arkady Golubko, Chelyabinsk Unit 20. He and the Doctor have been speaking in strange tongues ever since they met."

"Just as long as they get what they came for. My orders are to get this aircraft to the base. Then I am to turn it over to the Japanese."

Lebedev was incredulous. "Turn it over? You are joking, Vanya. This magnificent beast...turn it over to the enemy?"

Nakhimov lowered his voice. "Those orders come straight from Regiment. Straight from Moscow, I'm told. The aircraft is to be turned over to Fumori and the Japanese once it arrives here. The mission demands it."

"Our mission is to document the bomb. Then get out of here, with Dr. Tolkach."

" _Our_ mission," Nakhimov reminded him. "Their mission is different." He indicated the knot of Japanese, now excitedly pointing as they circled _Avenger_.

Lebedev was grim. "There were rumors...but nothing official. Then it's true? You have the orders?"

Nakhimov shook his head. "Not on me. We didn't want to risk Operation _Pobeda_ on the chance _Avenger_ would crash and reveal anything written down. But yes, the rumors you've heard are true. The Japanese plan to take the bomb...and use it."

Lebedev's eyes grew wide. "It's...insane. How...what will they do--?"

Nakhimov motioned him to be quiet. "Shhh...not here, comrade. Later. Let's get back to the airplane. I don't want any of those monkeys damaging anything."

Over the next hour, _Awesome Avenger's_ burst tire was temporarily patched and the aircraft towed into the crude wood frame hangar. After some hesitation, the Russian and Japanese crews set to work replacing the tire and checking the wheel and strut mechanism. There was little talk amid wary sideways glances, only the clanging of wrenches and tools as the work was done. Nakhimov inspected the entire airframe of _Avenger_ , noting minor damage still unrepaired from Spassk Dalniy—nicks and gouges from the flak she'd suffered over Japan—but nothing that presented a flying hazard. After an hour's walkaround, he went to Sado Fumori and pronounced himself satisfied.

Fumori was covered with sweat and grease, working with several Japanese soldiers to secure the new tire. By now, crew cohesion was beginning to break down. You could see that Japanese and Russians were reluctant to take orders from any but their own officers.

_A good thing that_ Avenger _will no longer have a mixed crew after today_ , he thought. She was to be turned over to the Japanese for their part of the operation. Nakhimov and the remainder of the Russian garrison, along with Tolkach, would fly out in the second aircraft, now parked on the dirt ramp outside the hangar.

Fumori wiped the grease away and regarded Nakhimov coolly. "We are almost done with the tire," he announced.

Nakhimov had already inspected the work. "A good job, Sado. Your men have done a good job, as usual."

Fumori nodded ever so slightly, accepting the compliment as his due. "Japanese soldiers are dedicated workers."

"I'm sorry for what happened yesterday. I didn't know our Army would cross the Manchurian frontier." That wasn't exactly true but Fumori didn't need to know that.

Fumori's lips tightened. "Their _seishin_ won't waver...your troops will learn, to their regret, I'm afraid. The Kwantung Army is a proud unit. They will fight valiantly."

Nakhimov tried to be informal with his co-pilot but Fumori's reaction was making that difficult. "I'm sure of that, comrade. I just wanted to say—" what exactly _did_ he want to say? "You have been a most capable comrade in flying _Avenger_. A worthy flyer, and I'm certain a courageous warrior."

Fumori smirked. "What do Russians know of _bushido_ , of courage? My country struggles for life today. The enemy is merciless, relentless, barbaric, torching our cities, killing our women and children. He flies these great birds miles high and bombs us with no fear...we don't have the planes to fight him off. But this—" he swept his hand toward _Avenger's_ fuselage—"this...will be our answer. _Yamato damashii_ is unbowed...the spirit of Japan cannot be quenched. We kneel before no enemy." He stood rigidly before the Russian pilot. "No enemy at all."

Nakhimov started to reply but Major Lebedev interrupted. He motioned the pilot to follow. The two officers went outside the hangar, where both lit up cigarettes and let the cool air wash over them. By the dim twilight of a northwoods summer, Lebedev sucked hard on his cigarette until the tip glowed red.

"Tolkach brought an assistant along with him, Vanya. A woman."

"A woman?" Nakhimov was incredulous. "An American woman?"

Lebedev nodded, glancing around nervously. "She's an operative, works for State Security, part of their network, helps the Doctor get information out about the bomb. But I don't like it. Tolkach convinced her somehow to come along. It seems the Americans were on to her as well. He wants safe passage for the woman as well as himself."

"That presents a problem." Nakhimov thought back to the briefings he had received at Spassk Dalniy. Reshetnikov had been firm about the results of Operation _Pobeda_. _Get photos, get measurements and get out. Let the Japanese do what they want. Don't leave anything behind that would implicate us._ It was several weeks later that extracting Edvard Tolkach, nee _Quantum_ , had been added to the mission. But the NKVD officer had said nothing about a woman.

"We'll have to risk contacting headquarters. Code a short transmission on shortwave and send it in the clear."

Nakhimov shook his head. "Too risky. We could use _Avenger's_ radio. Except that the normal frequencies are monitored by their air traffic control." Nakhimov tossed his cigarette away. It tasted sour. He should have brought a roll of papyrus instead. "Podgorny may be able to tinker with it, coax some new frequency out of the radio that we can use. The trouble is, nobody at Spassk Dalniy will be listening for us on some strange frequency."

"Let's go see Tolkach...maybe we can talk some sense into him. We can't take this woman with us." Lebedev led the way to the officers' barracks. Both men looked up at the distant sound of an aircraft. It was far off, just above the horizon, and heading away. The sound of the plane made them quicken their steps.

Inside the barracks, Kate Wellesley couldn't sit still. Tolkach had gone off with that Russian Golubko, to the machine shop he said, to see their instrumentation.

"We must have everything calibrated perfectly," the Czech physicist told her. "Time is short. When the bomb arrives, I want to show Arkady here exactly how it works, let him make his measurements and take his pictures. Then we'll be on our way."

Kate had just smiled wanly at him as he left the barracks. She watched Tolkach stride with his usual limp (was it getting worse or was she imagining that?) across the dirt runway to the buildings on the other side. Then she sat down on the edge of her rough bunk but not for long. She was nervous, anxious.

_Hell, admit it girl...you feel lost and abandoned_. Yes, those were definitely the right words.

She wandered around the barracks, looking for something to eat, to drink. _I'm dying for a smoke._ But she found nothing except duffel bags, rucksacks, helmets and other gear. The place was as spartan as a Boy Scout camp. But these men were no Boy Scouts.

All evening, since they had arrived, she'd felt physically sick. Nauseated. Headachy. Even dizzy. She'd gotten some food from the canteen, if you could call it that...rolls, sausages, onions, some kind of weird bean paste. No wonder the Japs were losing the war. She'd lay down for awhile, drank water, done everything she could, even as she heard her mother's voice telling her what to do, but to no avail.

Was it the baby? Morning sickness? It was way too early for that. She was supposed to be in her first trimester. So she got up, pacing, poking in and out of rooms up and down the hall. Motion, physical activity, seemed to help. She was too keyed-up to sleep, as Tolkach had suggested, and besides the sun really hadn't gone down. It just rolled around the horizon like a yellow ball.

_Maybe I should just leave_.

Even forming the thought sounded ludicrous. Leave to where? She was in the middle of a vast forest with no idea where or how far the nearest town might be. For the baby's sake, for her sake, she felt increasingly that getting out, getting out now, was the best thing to do. Coming along with Tolkach had been a huge mistake— _girl, you've made some doozeys in the past, but_ this _one—_

No, getting away now was the best course of action. She wanted to be back in civilization, to have a hot cup of tea, and a hot shower, to wear clean clothes and pad around the shop at night in her gown and slippers if she wanted to. She'd never signed up for this.

And, she had to admit it, she wanted to see Wade Brogan again. There, she'd said it.

Lebedev had said something about Canadian Mounties in the woods nearby. How close were they? Maybe she could sneak away from the camp and give herself up to the Mounties.

She turned that idea over in her mind as she rummaged through a few lockers at the end of the hall, finding spare boots, folded underwear, olive drab T-shirts and belts. Nothing she could use.

Turn herself over to the Mounties. It could mean rescue. It could also mean a lifetime in jail too. She was a fugitive, a spy on the run. No way she could get around that. But would the Canadian Mounties know that? Still, she might be able to see Wade. He could help her. He'd always helped before.

But she was still stuck in the middle of nowhere. With no idea how to give herself up.

Frustrated, she slammed the locker shut and sat down on the wooden floorboards, crying softly.

_It isn't for me_ , she sobbed to herself. _It's for the baby. The baby deserves a chance. A better chance than I've given her so far._

In the end, she did nothing, paralyzed by indecision. After her eyes dried out, she got up and tried lying down again, but the bed creaked, the sheets were like rough canvas and there was just too much damned light. The curtains were little more than canvas themselves, same as the linens, nailed up to the window frame.

Miserable, not knowing what to do, not knowing if she had made the right decision to come with Tolkach, Kate Wellesley sobbed softly into the starchy oniony smell of the pillow.

One thing was for sure: she no longer felt like the revolutionary Richard Leonas had once dubbed her. She was dead tired, scared and confused.

Abruptly, she stopped sobbing when she heard the sound of voices, Russian voices, outside the window. Someone was coming into the barracks.

Wednesday, August 8, 1945

Los Alamos

12 noon

Wade Brogan flew back to Los Alamos with a renewed sense of urgency. Left behind in Oregon, Skunky Merrill coordinated with Don Blount of the Bureau to organize the state patrols of Oregon, Washington and California. A bulletin was put out for the truck of the missing dock dispatcher...a flatbed Ford, black '38 diesel. With the police thus mobilized, and help from the Army's Western Defense Command organized, Brogan figured he had done as much as he could at Coos Bay.

He decided to head back to the Hill, ostensibly to learn more about the bomb the Japs had stolen. The real reason was more complicated.

Brogan drove the Army sedan at high speed from Kirtland Army Air Forces Base at Albuquerque up to Los Alamos. It was a sweltering, even scalding day in the high desert of northern New Mexico, but the CIC agent barely noticed. The sun was directly overhead and a burnished copper sheen scorched the peaks of the Jemez Mountains to his west. Traffic was mercifully light on Highway 85...a few trucks, and a small Army convoy heading south. _Probably off to Trinity Site_ , he muttered to himself. More tests. The scientists loved tests.

Without realizing it, Brogan zoomed past the cutoff to Los Alamos at Highway 44 just past Bernalillo, doing something over a hundred miles an hour.

Furious at himself, he slammed on the brakes, slowed and turned around. _Boy_ , he mimicked his own Dad's voice, _you'd better straighten up but good._ This time, he slowed down, made the turn properly and sped on westward toward the compound at Los Alamos.

It was just past noon when he pulled into the parking lot at CIC's log cabin office, behind the massive T-Division building.

The truth was he'd come back to Los Alamos to do some more snooping around Kate's place. He didn't know how much the FBI had found during their own search of the gift shop and her cottage but Don Blount had shown him the picture of the picnic and hike he and Kate had taken last fall in the mountains. That was enough to connect him personally with a known Soviet agent. He figured he'd level with Colonel Cates, imply that the Bureau was somehow getting the upper hand in this investigation and wouldn't be nice if CIC could regain control of the case and the evidence?

After all, this _was_ an Army matter, wasn't it? He was fairly certain the Colonel would see it that way too.

Skunky Merrill just shook his head when Brogan told him what he was going to do. "You're playing with fire, Dog. Don't do it, I'm telling you. If Groves gets wind of this, you'll be walking point at some godforsaken outpost in Greenland or something."

"If they don't put a noose around my neck first," Brogan said.

Inside the Detachment headquarters, he found the place a noisy scene of chaos.

Cates was there, Parsons too and several men he didn't recognize. Cates was on two telephones at once, talking first in one, then the other. Parsons, the Manhattan District's chief of Security, paced the small room liked a caged animal, puffing hard on a well-chewed pipe. The other two were civilians and Brogan soon realized they were Bureau. That made his neck hairs prickle...now the Bureau had come to Los Alamos.

What the hell did they want here?

Cates hung up one phone and continued talking in the other. _It's Washington_ , Parsons mouthed to him. _Colonel Nichols_.

Brogan nodded. This could not be good. Nichols was the District Engineer, and chief staff assistant to General Groves himself.

Finally Cates finished with Washington and hung up. He saw Brogan and his mouth tightened.

"Colonel...I'm glad you're back. I was just on the phone to Major Merrill and the police chief at Coos Bay."

"Something?"

Cates nodded. "You might say that. Some debris, they think from a submarine, washed onshore south of Coos Bay this morning. The Navy has confirmed engaging an enemy submarine the other day off the Oregon coast. Looks like it's going to be an intelligence gold mine."

"Submarine? Whose sub?"

Cates shrugged, lit himself a cigarette and sat down hard in his squeaky wooden chair. "Too soon to say, but the local Navy commander said he thought it was Jap. We'll know soon enough. You've got the road searches organized?"

"Yes, sir." Brogan related what he and Merrill had worked out with Western Defense Command's Fourteenth Army command and the local police. "The state patrols of all west coast states have been notified, as well as the Border Patrol. Fourth Air Force is still searching from the air for anything suspicious, but our best bet is ground surveillance."

One of the Bureau civilians spoke up. "The Bureau's already alerted our offices in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Portland. We're coordinating with local police to keep everybody on the lookout. The description of that truck's been circulated to all law enforcement agencies over the three states."

Cates saw Brogan was curious about the man. "This is Special Agent Kevin Winslow, Brogan. Albuquerque Field Office. And Agent Donnelly, too." He indicated the second man, shorter and dark-haired. Winslow was tall, thick-necked with an annoying twitch to his right cheek. Brogan silently dubbed him _Chipmunk, Chip_ for short.

The men shook hands.

"We're cooperating with the Bureau fully on the search aspects of this case," Cates told him. "Orders from Washington." The way he said it, clipped and official-sounding, made Brogan feel better. _These guys are the enemy_ , he thought, _as much to the Colonel as to me or the rest of us._ When it came to investigative turf, CIC could be as tenacious as a bulldog in heat.

Winslow had maps of the west coast states spread out across Cates' desk and several nearby file cabinets and tables. He ticked off the Bureau's efforts on his fingertips. "Field offices are now on full alert. This is case number one for the Bureau. Local law enforcement have been advised about the truck—"

"But not the nature of the contents—" Parsons cut in, wanting to make sure. "That's national security. War priority material. That's not to be given out without Army approval."

Winslow nodded quickly. _Touchy bastards_ , he thought. "Understood. For the moment, all they know is to be on the lookout for the black Ford truck. We're debating expanding the bulletin to several other states as well: possibly Nevada and Idaho. What we need from the Army is rules and guidance on what to do if the truck is spotted. Do we engage the perpetrators or not?"

Cates looked at Brogan. "Under no circumstances are you or local cops to try to stop that truck. Is that clear, Agent Winslow? This is critical war priority material that's been stolen. It's dangerous and it needs to be secured by the Army. We have the expertise."

Winslow looked at Cates with a straight face, then at Parsons. "It's atomic, isn't it, Colonel? If my men are in danger around this stuff, I've got a right to know what I'm dealing with."

"Your men won't be in any danger. As long as they follow directions."

Winslow sniffed. "We are fighting the same enemy, Colonel. I have my orders, same as you."

"Just see that they're followed."

At Parsons' urging, the men reviewed logs and notes from recent surveillance of Tolkach and Kate Wellesley. Cates laid out the sheets on a nearby table, muttering, "There's got to be something here...something we missed...something that'll give us a clue as to where they're headed."

"We're assuming they're with the bomb," Parsons observed. "Maybe they aren't."

"Then where?" Winslow asked.

"Look," said Brogan, "from the beginning of the surveillance, Tolkach has been a key man in this operation. We've got evidence of his dealing classified information to the Russians. We know he had unauthorized access to information about how the bombs were to be shipped to the Pacific. There's no reason to think he's not with the bomb—"

"Except as a diversion," Cates said. "Suppose the real operation includes not only getting your hands on an atom bomb or its parts, but also _using_ it. Maybe the Russian angle here is nothing but a smokescreen for what the Japs are planning. The Russians use their networks here in the U.S. to smuggle an atom bomb out, take a few pictures and hand it over to the Japs. They wash their hands of the whole thing, soon as they get what they want. It makes sense, in a cockamamie kind of way. Send us off down dead-end trails chasing Russian spies, while the real mission is somewhere else, run by the Japs."

Winslow shook his head. "I still don't get it. How do the Russians and the Japs wind up in bed together? Especially now...with the Russians fighting the Japs in Manchuria...hell, Stalin just declared war on the yellow bastards...you heard the news."

Parsons tapped the surveillance logs. "The answer is probably in this stack of papers somewhere. I want every word gone over once more...every log, every interview, every note, every tape and transcript." The Manhattan District security chief pointed to Cates' file cabinet. "We got two drawers full of this stuff. Hours of audio tape surveillance...phone calls, all those logs of when the Wellesley girl's place was bugged. And I'm sure the Bureau's got their own. Somewhere, there's got to be a connection between the Russians and the Japs. There's got to be a tip, or a tidbit about where this operation's going, what's the mission, what's the target. Where is the bomb, or its parts being taken." Parsons took a breath, lit up his pipe. "While the police and the Border Patrol are looking for that truck, we're going to keep looking here."

Brogan was uneasy. _Exactly when was it that the Detachment had bugged Kate's place_? He remembered the warrant papers, he remembered the mid-day job to put the devices into place...they'd done it when Kate was on one of her 'shopping' trips out of town. One device in the kitchen, one in the bedroom, buried in the branches of a small plant. Just what was on those tapes? He wasn't sure...he'd seen the transcripts. But had he seen everything?

For several hours, with sandwiches and coffee brought in from the PX, Brogan and the rest pored over the reports and logs. Brogan felt his own stomach churning as he read and read, wondering if someone would come across even more evidence of his own involvement. Cates knew about it, so did Parsons. They said nothing. He wasn't sure what the Bureau creeps had.

Approaching five o'clock, Brogan stood up, stretched and yawned. "Colonel, you mind if I step outside for some fresh air?"

Cates waved him out. Agent Kevin Winslow came too. The two men lit up cigarettes. A sweltering breeze stirred the air and both men lifted their faces, letting the smell of pinon and pine on the wind wash over their tired faces.

Brogan sized up the agent. The annoying facial twitch was grabbing Winslow's right cheek like an invisible hand, momentarily kneading the skin into grotesque shapes, then releasing it. Brogan decided he couldn't look at it and turned to face the distant peaks of the Jemez hills, poking up over the west wing of the T-Division building, all burnished copper and bronze with late afternoon sun. Through strands of electric wire and power poles hastily erected, he thought he could see figures on the side of one hill...hikers, maybe? Unlikely on a Wednesday afternoon, but then you never knew. Time had no meaning on the Hill. The rhythms of the sun and moon, day and night were less important than the endless meetings, and lab sessions, and tests and chalk talks at the blackboard and briefings for the Army, always the briefings.

"Winslow, can I ask you a question?" the words came out before Brogan realized it, before the thought behind them was fully formed.

"It's a free country."

_How, exactly, to put this_? "I'm curious about this Kate Wellesley. What's your take on her?"

Winslow sniffed and shrugged, flicking a cigarette butt away and stabbing it out with the toe of his shoe in the sand. "Same as the Army's, I guess. We've shared some surveillance, some intelligence on her. The Bureau figures she's minor league, basically a relay point in the Russian network. From what you guys have dug up, she's been receiving classified stuff from Tolkach and several others around here, then coding the take for someone higher. Probably someone at the Embassy. Or the New York consulate. The Russians have several recipients we're keeping an eye on."

"What kind of evidence have you got on Wellesley...anything other than what we've seen?"

It was an odd question, not in the words, but in the way the CIC agent put it. He stared quizzically at Brogan. "If you're saying the Bureau's holding something back, you're wrong. At least nothing material."

Brogan shook his head. "I'm not saying anything." _Jesus, what a touchy bastard_. "I'm just wondering if there's something we've overlooked, as far as her involvement, her connection goes."

Winslow jammed his hands into his pockets, maneuvered dirt clods around the sand with his shoes. "You've seen the logs, haven't you?"

"I've seen what I've been shown. I'm wondering if there's more. Maybe...another angle. Other people...you know, I'm sure Wellesley comes into contact with lots of other people."

"You're talking other suspects, aren't you?" Winslow half smiled and Brogan's heart sank. "We've run up a list of names...checked out most of them."

"And?"

"Nothing worth worrying about."

Brogan was screaming inside: _Is my name on that list, you prick_? He swallowed, tried to keep calm. "Any chance I could see that list?"

"It's back at the office. Albuquerque. Colonel Cates and Colonel Parsons have already vetted it. There's nothing there, if that's what you're asking."

Brogan wasn't sure whether to be relieved or not. Was Winslow even telling him everything? There was no way to know, unless he saw that list. And he couldn't very well break into an FBI field office, could he? Somehow, he _had_ to know for sure. What did the Bureau know about him? Did Winslow and Donnelly know what Don Blount already knew? How long would Cates keep him on the case? How long _could_ he keep him on the case? Until he became as hot as Trinity and something had to be done?

"Thanks," was all Brogan could say, and not very convincingly. "Just a thought—" The truth was he'd have to go back to the cottage and the gift shop. The answers were there, the truth was there, it _had_ to be. Kate Wellesley was deeply involved in this whole mess and so was he. Cates had been able to submerge that fact under the covers so far, but things were getting more complicated.

He went back inside, and set to work poring over more logs and reports, but his mind was racing and it was difficult to concentrate. Kate Wellesley was no angel but she was no spy either. He was certain of that. Somehow, Edvard Tolkach had compelled her to help out, compelled her participate in treason and espionage and probably forcibly taken her from Santa Fe. She was in deep, too deep to climb out by herself. He was more and more certain she hadn't left town willingly.

"Colonel, I've got an idea," Brogan came over to the Detachment commander, who was buried in papers behind his desk. "A theory, actually."

"What's that, Brogan?"

"What if I take another look at the girl's cottage and shop? Eyes only, a fresh look."

Cates looked up sourly. _With your clothes on this time_? But he didn't say that. "You've been there plenty of times before, what's to look at? CIC and the Bureau have gone over that place with a fine-toothed comb."

"I know but still, something may have been missed. It's worth a shot...the very clue we're looking for may still be there."

Cates studied Brogan's face. _Your ass is on borrowed time and you know it_. Then he stifled that thought. This was Brogan, after all. Dog Brogan. The man who'd broken _Gearbox_ and _Capstone_ and half a dozen other cases. _Hell, the man's facing a court-martial and just wants to tip the scales in his favor._ Cates watched Winslow and Donnelly, both of them keeping an eye on him as they finger-read through documents, making a few notes.

Cates stood up. "Okay, Brogan...in the back." The two of them slipped into the cramped Detachment commander's office in the back of the cabin.

Cates stood at the window, arms folded behind his back. "Brogan, by rights, I should have you arrested and thrown in the stockade. Why on earth would I trust you to do what you're asking? So you can goober up more evidence? Hell, you're halfway to being a suspect yourself. You know that. Sorry, whatever you're selling, I'm not buying."

"Colonel—" Brogan half-smiled, held out his hands. "You're right, sir and I do know that. It's just—it's hard to put this just right, but well, sir, I _know_ Kate Wellesley."

Cates looked on with a straight face. "I'm sure you do. Better than any of us."

"No, sir, that's not what I meant...sir, I meant...I know how she thinks, what's important to her."

Cates was skeptical. "Where's this going, Brogan?"

"I don't think Kate Wellesley left Santa Fe of her own free will. I think she was coerced."

Cates sniffed. "So? How does that help us find the bomb?"

"Just this way, sir...Kate...I mean, Miss Wellesley, didn't know what Tolkach and the others were planning. I think she may have found out. And if she did, she may have left some clues as to where and how this operation was to occur. If I'm right, and that's why I've got to go back to the cottage, Kate Wellesley may well have left something—I don't know what—that'll tell us where they were going, where Tolkach was taking her. And if I'm right about that, it may well be where the bomb is...or will soon be."

Cates just glared back at him. "That's one hell of a stretch, Brogan. You got any evidence for any of this? Or is this all just speculation?"

"Judgment, sir." Brogan smiled a bit sheepishly. "Based on...er, experience."

Cates stared out the window. Lights were coming on as dusk set in around the compound. Across a dusty side street, the Physics Lab shone brightest of all. _Some kind of experiment,_ Cates noted. _Probing the guts of the atom_. _We do a lot of probing around here._

"I should have my head examined, Brogan, but I'm going to take a chance on you. I don't know why. You're headed for a court-martial as it is. But there's just a chance you're right. I can't afford _not_ to look into it."

"Yes, sir."

"Just to make things look official, I'm sending a couple of MPs along. You try anything funny, and they'll make sure you regret it. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir."

Brogan requisitioned a car from the motor pool and with Sergeants Kinsky and Donoho from the 3817th MPs, headed east for Santa Fe. It was just twilight and the highway was more heavily traveled than he'd seen in several years. The end of the war was near and Hiroshima had raised hopes sky-high. Everywhere, people gathered in knots, listening to radios, snapping up newspapers, even around the Hill. A scent of victory was in the air.

Once they'd made Santa Fe, the streets were thick with pedestrians, going nowhere, just huddling together in twos and threes, excited, gesturing, laughing. Alameda Street was the same. It looked like New Year's Eve had come early.

The Japs are finished now.

Truman's got 'em on the run.

It won't be long now. Just a matter of a few days...

Brogan pulled up to the curb outside Kate's darkened shop. Only he and a few CIC agents knew the real truth.

The Japs were far from finished.

Inside the shop, Brogan switched on the light. The MPs came in too, looked around perfunctorily and stationed themselves at the front door and the back door that led to the cottage.

"Colonel, stay in plain view, would you, please, sir? Colonel Cates was pretty insistent on that." Kinsky was husky, blond, fresh from boot camp, and all business. He'd already popped the flap of his holster, the white handle of the .45 now in plain view.

Brogan waved acknowledgement, let his eyes rove around the pine furniture and Indian artifacts and oils of western scenes, trying to get a sense of what exactly he was looking for.

_More likely, the house_ , he decided. To Kinsky: "I'm going back there—" he pointed to the cottage. "If there's any more evidence, it's probably back there."

Sergeant Donoho went with him and the two of them got the lights on inside the tiny cottage.

"No funny business, Colonel."

Brogan snorted. "I wouldn't dream of it, Sergeant."

The kitchen was neat and orderly, as he had seen before. Kate was that way. He half expected to see a goblet of water with fresh roses on the small table, but the smell of the place indicated it hadn't been occupied for some time. Maybe that in itself was a clue. Kate was meticulous in the way she cared for the house...no decorative knickknacks anywhere he could see. She was always decorating. Now, the kitchen was plain, almost barren. To Wade Brogan, it said only one thing:

She had left quickly, with little warning, without time for the little touches that were so much a part of her life.

Evidence? Perhaps, but he knew it wouldn't help them find the bomb.

_What_ , exactly, was he looking for?

He couldn't say, in words, but there was a feeling, a premonition that somehow, some way, Kate Wellesley had not left this place willingly. And that there would be _something_ , something out of place, a scrap of paper, a blouse hung the wrong way, a drawer askew.

He went down the hall to the cellar door and pulled it open. "I'm going down here, Sergeant. It's a coal cellar..."

Donoho came along. "I'm right behind you, Colonel."

They went down the stairs, the same stairs where weeks before Brogan had accidentally kicked a wash pail, uncovering classified materials Kate had been trying to hide. A single bare light bulb cast deep shadows across the dusty, sooty floor. The air was still thick with coal dust, drifting like clouds in Donoho's flashlight beam. Small metal bins were piled with coal bricks. Shovels on the wall. A broom.

He probed every corner of the cellar, finding nothing. "Come on, Sarge...let's go back up." They returned to the main floor.

Brogan decided to visit Kate's bedroom. It was a room he knew well. He flipped the light on, noting that the bed was unmade—again, unlike her. _She left out of here in a big hurry._ Donoho came in behind him and Brogan had the impression his own name was blazing from a neon marquee over the bed, advertising the many nights he and Kate had tumbled about under the covers. Brogan cleared his throat, caught a glimpse of the Sergeant's face out of the corner of his eyes.

_Maybe the kid has no idea_.

The dresser and vanity drawers were open, but Brogan knew that wasn't Kate. The CIC team that had come to investigate had been thorough but not especially neat in their efforts.

He pulled open the closet doors. Kate had left in a hurry, but for where? He pushed and pulled through hangers of blouses and skirts and assorted sweaters, looking for what, for anything, sniffing a pleasant whiff of her Avalon perfume, still lingering in the closet air.

Then, like a thunderclap, it hit him.

There were no coats in the closet. No jackets.

Wade Brogan knew a lot about Kate Wellesley. She was warm-blooded, for a girl from back East.

_I hated the winters in Philly,_ she had said to him more than once. The girl always had a sweater or a light jacket on, even in mid-summer. Maybe it was the effect of Rita Hayworth—every American girl had sweaters now, the tighter the better. Kate wasn't nearly as busty, but even so, the girl loved sweaters.

Hurriedly, he picked through the clothes again. No jackets. No coats. Only a few sweaters.

She had taken most of them.

She hated the winters back East.

She had taken all of her heavier clothes.

Brogan practically cried out. It was there right in front of him. Absence of evidence was not always evidence of absence. But in this case—

Kate Wellesley had gone somewhere cold. Tolkach had taken her north. The bomb had to be somewhere north.

It was tenuous, even he had to admit that. But it was real and it matched what he knew about Kate.

Excited, Brogan backed out of the closet. "Got to find a phone, Sergeant." He trotted up the hall to the small living room and finally located the phone on an end table by the sofa., Donoho right behind him. His fingers missed the first couple of dial holes and he forced himself to calm down. He hoped the line was still working, that CIC or the Bureau hadn't shut off the phone.

The dial tone told him it was.

He rang up the Detachment office outside line.

Sixty miles away, the Detachment office was in an uproar. Colonel Parsons had just shown the Lab director, Robert Oppenheimer himself, into the log cabin.

Oppenheimer was a bare skeleton of a man, gaunt, pale, his skin a translucent gray pallor from years of twenty-hour days and a lifetime of chain-smoking. His cough was rich, clogged with phlegm and deep. But his eyes burned with the fire of a man who had brought a miracle to life, a man who'd tickled the dragon's tail and lived to tell about it, who'd seen the culmination of a lifetime's work in the seething mushroom cloud that had risen two days before over the doomed city of Hiroshima.

"We're still not sure where it is, Dr. Oppenheimer," Parsons was saying, waving his hands over the spread of maps.

Cates and the Bureau creeps looked on as well.

"What do you mean you're not sure?"

Parsons shrugged. " _Big Fella's_ casing, tail assembly and fins were at Tinian. You already know about that...the Japs made an assault on the assembly hut, right inside the 509th's compound. Took the whole shebang...like they knew what they were looking for."

"And the core was aboard _Honeybee_ ," Cates added, though he might as well have said _put a gun to my head and pull the trigger._ CIC had bungled its security mission and Oppenheimer was said to have been furious.

The Lab director sucked in a rattling breath. He reached for a pack of Pall Malls, tapped one out and stuck it in the corner of his mouth, unlit. "You are searching for the components, I presume. The casing, the core. The core's the thing. Without that, _Big Fella's_ just a big dumb block of steel."

Cates described the search efforts, combined operations with the Army, the state police from three, now four western states, the Army Air Forces and the Border Patrol.

"We think the Russians and the Japs have some kind of combined operation going on here. It's pretty clear what the Russians want...to get their hands on the thing, take pictures, let their scientists study it and measure it."

Oppenheimer turned to face Cates directly, squinting like a mole just sticking his head out of a burrow. "You mentioned the Japs, Colonel. What do you think they want with it...to stop us from using it, I presume."

Cates nodded. "Their goal could be exactly that, sir."

Parsons interjected, "But the Japs may have a greater goal in mind, Dr. Oppenheimer. We've got evidence that the Japs may well try to put _Big Fella_ together and use it."

" _Use it_?" What color there was in Oppenheimer's face drained away. "Use it? On what target?"

"On an American city, Doctor. Probably a West Coast city. We've already passed the word to Western Defense Command in every major city from San Diego to Seattle.

Oppenheimer's mouth worked but no words came out. He wrestled with a thought, images of Trinity flickering in the back of his mind. The flash of that detonation had been seen on the horizon in El Paso, several hundred miles away. Indeed, the Army had issued a press release, describing the flash and the rumbling that had radiated away for hundreds of miles as "an ammo dump accident."

"This is bad, gentlemen. This is very bad. You've got to find _Big Fella_. At least, the core."

Cates had a question. "Dr. Oppenheimer, just how hard is it to put something like _Big Fella_ together? If you had the core, the casing, the fuses, and everything worked...could a bunch of Russian and Jap commandos realistically assemble the device and make it work?"

Oppenheimer shook his head slowly. "We know so little about the Russians' research efforts. I saw an O.S.S. report not long ago---there's a man named Kurchatov—he's kind of like a combination of Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard and General Groves—all in one, who's directing their atomic efforts. But nobody, from what I've seen and heard, really knows what the Russians know."

"They've made plenty of attempts to penetrate the Hill, we know that," Parsons said. "Edvard Tolkach is proof enough of that."

"Back to your question," Oppenheimer went on. "First, there's a big difference between _Little Boy_ —the device we used at Hiroshima, and _Big Fella_. _Little Boy's_ basically a cannon tube...two masses of fissionable uranium 235 at either end. Fire one at the other with enough speed and you go critical, you get a chain reaction. It's not that hard to fabricate and assemble something like that."

" _Big Fella's_ different?" Cates asked.

"Radically. _Big Fella's_ like Trinity. It's like _Fat Boy_...he's out at Tinian right now. He could be used anytime...it's up to Groves and the 509th as to when. It might even be in the papers tomorrow morning. _Big Fella's_ an implosion device. A big steel ball with the core—a core of plutonium, much harder to make, by the way, but infinitely more fissionable if you do it right—at the very center of the sphere. To make _Big Fella_ work, or for that matter the Trinity device, it's very ticklish. Very exacting. I'm not sure it could be assembled outside of extremely controlled conditions. Deak Parsons is trying to do this very thing now out at Tinian. There are some of us here at Los Alamos who wonder whether it can be done at all, outside the lab. The alignment, the fit of the core parts, the detonator wiring and timing...it's all very precisely controlled."

Cates was modestly encouraged. "Sounds like you're saying it's unlikely the Japs and the Russians could make this thing work in the field."

Oppenheimer sighed. "No, I'm not saying that at all. Just that it's damned difficult. But we really need to find that core."

The phone rang in Cates' office. A sergeant answered it, then handed the receiver to Cates.

"For you, Colonel. It's Colonel Brogan."

Cates winced. "Brogan, any luck?"

Brogan's voice was excited. "Colonel, I think I've figured it out—"

Cates bent closer to the earpiece. "Figured what out, Brogan?"

"Where Kate...er, Miss Wellesley went. Where the bomb may be. It's north, someplace cool." He explained his reasoning, the fact that Kate was warm-natured and had taken all her heavier clothes with her.

Cates was skeptical. "That's pretty thin, Brogan." But he couldn't afford to ignore anything, however faint the connection. "Still, it may be something. Keep poking around over there. Then get back here, quick."

"Yes, sir."

Cates hung up and passed on Brogan's find. Parsons was already unfolding more maps, checking distances from Coos Bay, Oregon to likely targets.

"Some place up north..." he was muttering to himself.

"Some place cool, or cold," Cates added.

Parsons ran his finger up the coastline. "Seattle has to be a possibility. It's often cool at night up there. Plus there are navy bases, shipyards, Boeing and a slew of airfields. Might make a juicy target, if I was a Jap with an atom bomb."

"What about Canada?" asked Oppenheimer. "There's Vancouver--"

Both Parsons and Cates scoffed at that idea. "It's cool all right. But north of Seattle, there's nothing worth blowing up...unless you're figuring on Alaska. Even there, it's so remote...who'd notice it?"

Cates was thinking out loud. "Brogan said the Wellesley girl had taken her heavier clothes...like she was headed some place cool. We can't forget about California."

"Maybe, but the cool weather part would seem to rule out San Diego, with all its Navy bases, and Los Angeles."

"But not San Francisco. It's downright chilly there at night."

"We've got to think like a Jap. Frisco's full of bases: the Navy yard, Hunters Point, shipyards and docks all over the place. Lots of people too. Banks and tall buildings. Seattle or San Francisco...that's where I'd put my money."

Cates agreed. "Contact Western Defense Command. General Somerville will need to coordinate with state police and city police in both places. Work up an evacuation plan, start blockading the major roads in and out of both cities. I'll alert General Marshall right away that we've got a lead on the possible target. We'll have to get some infantry into the areas too, just to keep order."

Parsons saw that Oppenheimer had taken a seat by Cates' desk and was reeling, his eyes glazed over.

"Dr. Oppenheimer, are you alright? You're looking faint..." Parsons waved at the sergeant to bring some water from the cooler. The Lab director accepted the cup gratefully, cradling it under his lips, sipping.

"Sorry, Colonel, I was just remembering something I read this morning. It was a transcript of radio intercepts coming out of Tokyo. Japanese army communications back and forth between Tokyo and Hiroshima...or what's left of it. The Japs themselves are estimating fatalities in excess of fifty thousand, probably higher."

"Is _Big Fella_ capable of the same level of destruction?" Cates asked.

"Well--" Oppenheimer finished off the cup of water and crushed the paper cup in his hand. " _Fat Man's_ designed for greater yield than _Little Boy_ , more like the Trinity device. Implosion devices are tricky to assemble but scale up more efficiently to greater yields. Originally, we expected Trinity to yield about twelve to thirteen kilotons, but the last calculation I saw put the probable yield at over twenty...that's the equivalent explosive power of twenty thousand tons of TNT. I guess the real answer to your question is: we just don't know. We'll know more in a day or two, once Kokura or whatever city the Air Force chooses to hit is obliterated."

There was an awkward silence around the room. Oppenheimer's eyes met Cates and Parsons.

The men all understood that the same fate could well befall a major West Coast city shortly afterward.
CHAPTER 23

Wednesday, August 8, 1945

Near Oroville, Washington

9:50 p.m.

A cool, foggy twilight had descended over the Okanogan River valley as the flatbed Ford truck sped northward on Highway 97. Corporal Maizu Yano was drowsy and fighting to keep awake as he drove them steadily closer to the Canadian border. Beside him, Toranaga snored loudly, his compact frame hunched into a ball against the rattling door. In the cargo bed behind, the two Russians, Kalugin and Simonets, he still nursing wounds from the assault at Tinian Island, hugged crates for whatever support they could provide from the endless bouncing and jarring of the truck ride. Between the two Russians, one crate contained the plutonium core of _Big Fella_ , the outer crating distinctly warm to the touch as the deadly metal irradiated its container with a constant stream of nuclear decay products.

At the front of the bed, beneath canvas tarps, was the rest of _Big Fella_ : its outer casing, tail assembly and boxes of wire, racks of fuses and relays and other electrical parts. All that remained was to insert the core into the casing and secure it, unpack and wire up the detonator blocks of Composition B and then, at the very last moment, insert the final conical plug of plutonium into the core to make the thing critical.

Yano shook himself back to wakefulness and suddenly noticed a line of bright lights ahead. He knew they were nearing the border. Could this be it? He tapped the brakes, slowing slightly. Kalugin had insisted on taking this roundabout route north into Canada, so as to avoid crowds, traffic and any possibility of an incident when they crossed the border. Highway 97 was supposed to be deserted, a rural backwater that the stupid Americans would never think of checking, an easy ride into Canada.

To Maizu Yano, the border crossing now looked like anything but easy.

He slowed down more. There was nowhere else to go on the road. The Okanogan River paralleled them to the east, while thickly forested hills blocked any alternate route to the west. This was the only road north in this part of Washington. Come what may, Yano realized, the truck and its cargo and crew would have to cross the border here...or else.

" _Shosa...Shosa..._ wake up! There's trouble...up ahead...the border—"

Toranaga stirred, groaned and sat up abruptly, wincing at the bright lights shining down on the gatehouse. As the truck slowed, he could see a squad of soldiers milling around. Expecting only sleepy Border Patrol or Customs inspectors, he came instantly alert and ordered Yano to keep slowing.

"Don't make any sudden moves, Yano-san. Let's keep our heads about this—"

Toranaga began to think fast. They hadn't planned on an incident, or on having to force their way across the border. Had the enemy somehow anticipated them even here, at this remote location?

Yano brought the truck to a complete stop at the gatehouse, moving up behind a short line of trucks and cars waiting to be inspected. Toranaga thought fast, studying the way the guards were deployed. He counted six of them, most with assault weapons, M-1's from the looks of it. Six or more to four of them in the truck. They were outmanned and probably outgunned.

Their best chance was wait until it was their turn, then spring a surprise.

The Russians were stirring in the cargo bed behind. Kalugin poked his head through the back window and saw what was happening.

"We can't let them inspect us, comrade." He motioned to Simonets to get his own weapon ready. "We'll have to fight our way through and hope we can lose them."

"The odds aren't very good, Kalugin-san."

Kalugin snorted. "Then it will be a glorious battle, won't it, comrade?" He ducked back under the tarps.

Yano moved up slowly, vehicle by vehicle, as the inspectors completed their looks and paperwork was finished.

" _Here we go_ —" he hissed under his breath. Toranaga cycled the action of his own carbine and as Yano braked to a halt, the first Border Patrol team came to the window. The officer was a husky, blond man, a Colt sidearm unholstered at his belt.

"Your license and passports, please, sir—"

At that moment, Toranaga lifted his carbine up and aimed right at the officer's head.

He squeezed the trigger.

The concussion deafened Yano and shattered the side window. The agent's head exploded in a ball of red blood and bone, spraying fragments everywhere. At the same moment, both Kalugin and Simonets popped out from beneath the tarp and hosed down the gatehouse area with machine gun fire, raking the paddock from one end to another. Instantly, two more Border Patrol agents were cut down while two others hit the ground. Both rolled to escape the fusillade and came up firing.

" _Tsukkome_! Go...go...go...!" Toranaga yelled. "Get out of here!"

Yano floored the accelerator. The diesel engine rumbled and whined, and jerked them forward. The truck barreled through the white gate arm, clipping a wooden staircase outside the gatehouse, and tearing off the gatehouse door. The door hung up on the outside mirror of the truck and clattered along with them as they gained speed. After a few hundred yards, it fell off.

Behind them, U.S. Border Patrol opened fire, raking the back of the truck with a volley of rounds. Canadian Mounties rushed out of their own small hut nearby and did the same. A pair of Jeeps was hurriedly started up and Mounties piled in. The vehicles scratched off in the dirt and sped after the truck.

Yano swerved back and forth to avoid the fire, while Kalugin and Simonets unleashed steady return fire at their pursuers. The Jeeps hung back, held off by the ferocity and accuracy of the Russians' fire. The truck struggled up a hill, then crested the ridge and plunged down into a steep twisting ravine. Ahead of them in the gloomy twilight, the road disappeared in a series of switchbacks into a heavily wooded gully, thick with growing fog. Yano was forced to slow down, to negotiate the sharp turns, easing up just enough to keep two wheels on the road, and to keep from leaving the road altogether and plunging straight down a steep defile.

" _Oi_! Faster, Yano-san...faster...!" Toranaga was leaning out his side window, squinting to see the bare outlines of the lead Jeep. "He's catching up!"

"I can't go any faster!" Yano complained, struggling with the wheel and gear levers, as he cycled and stripped through the truck's gears. "Road...it's too sharp...too steep—"

Toranaga yelled back to the Russians. "Aim for the tires, Kalugin-san! Aim low...hit the tires!"

The Russian's head was all he could see but a hand came out and waved acknowledgement. Steadily, the lead Jeep was gaining on them. For awhile, only the front bumper, front tires and part of the windshield was visible in the fog, but as the Jeep gained ground, the roof and the two Mounties inside became visible. One was leaning forward, his weapon braced on the mirror mount. A crack sounded, then another. Toranaga cried out in pain and spun back into the truck cab, blood pouring from a wound in his right shoulder.

" _arrggghhh_ —" Toranaga screwed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth. "I'm hit—"

At that very moment, Kalugin and Simonets both squeezed off rounds and the Jeep's entire front end seem to explode. Tire rubber flew off in huge chunks and a ball of flame erupted from the Jeep's engine. The Jeep leaned right, its fender catching the pavement and the vehicle flipped and cart wheeled in the air, flinging the two Mounties out like mannequins. Two hundred yards behind them, the Jeep catapulted over the edge of the road, through a wooden berm and plunged in a graceful arc into mid-air, a pinwheeling stream of flame like a huge firecracker. It disappeared into the fog, to be followed moments later, by the wrenching squeal of metal caving in as what was left of the wreckage plummeted down the hillside.

The second Jeep had been only yards behind when the Russians' fire hit home. It squealed to a halt amidst the debris and two Mounties leaped out, watching as their colleagues died a fiery death in the dense, foggy woods below.

Yano let off the accelerator, held the wheel with his left hand and tried to help Toranaga with his right.

The _shosa_ was bleeding profusely from a wound in his right shoulder. He sank back in the seat, his face already gray and pale. He was going into shock.

Yano slowed down and brought the truck to a halt at the very bottom of the ravine. The fog was so dense he could barely see the end of the hood. "Here, let me...I'll make a tourniquet, _shosa_. Tie off that arm, so the bleeding will stop."

Toranaga waved his helping arm away. " _Ife_...don't bother with me, Yano-san. I'm ready to die. Get going... _daijobu_ , _daijobu_...I'll be all right...soon enough—" He winced, squeezed his right arm tightly against his chest, and more blood oozed out, staining the seat.

Yano was already tearing off strips of his own shirt to make a binding. " _Kono bakayaro_..."he muttered. "Don't be foolish...we still have a mission. _Shori's_ not done...Ushenda would order you to live—" Gently, he rolled the commander over onto his left side and, studying the wound for a moment, tearing off Toranaga's tunic at the sleeve and binding up the shoulder as tight as he could. Toranaga groaned, tried to jerk away but Yano wouldn't let him go.

Just then, Vasily Kalugin poked his head in the cab. "Is he going to live?"

Yano gently lay the _shosa_ down in the seat and patted his perspiring forehead with strips of his sleeve that he moistened with his own saliva. "I don't know. Get me some water."

Kalugin glared at the two Japanese soldiers for a moment, then in disgust, slinked back to the bed, where he found a canteen and brought it forward.

Toranaga had lost some blood but Yano's tourniquet had stanched the worst of it. The Japanese officer lay pale and shivering in the truck seat. Yano fed him some water from Kalugin's canteen, then cut off some strips of canvas and covered him to keep him warm.

Kalugin and Simonets looked on. "How badly is he hit?"

Yano shrugged. "I don't know. I think the bullet passed through his shoulder...there's a wound on both sides."

Kalugin bent into the cab. "Let me see—" He felt around the makeshift dressing, ignoring Toranaga's groans of pain. "Can you move your arm?"

Toranaga winced, with effort, he managed a little movement.

"Some injury to the muscles. It seems the bullet made a clean exit...right here—" he pointed to the purplish spot, still damp with blood. "Keep pressure on the artery here, by the shoulder," he directed.

"He needs a medic."

Kalugin scowled. "There is no medic. On a mission like this, we have to be the medics."

Yano patted Toranaga's head with a rag. "Be strong, my _shosa_."

"Where are we?" Simonets wondered. He squinted through the fog, seeing nothing, hearing nothing.

Kalugin walked some distance back up the hill that they had just come down. He listened carefully, for anything, but heard no vehicles. He came back to the truck. "We seem to be alone for the moment. The fog is a friend. We must be a few miles inside Canada." He withdrew a crude scribbled map from a back pocket and studied it. Simonets looked on.

"If I'm right," Kalugin said, "we should be about here." His finger tapped a spot north of the border. "This town—Osoyoos—should be just north of us, if we're on this highway. Here's Kelowna, maybe a hundred miles away. And our objective—" he ran his finger up to the coordinates of the clandestine base –"should be here. Maybe four hundred miles...a good day's drive, maybe two."

Yano fed Toranaga more water, then watched him closely. His breathing was more regular, though he was still shivering. "At least everyone will know we're here now. After shooting up the border post—we could have stopped and thought of a better way."

Kalugin was in no mood to be questioned. "We had no choice. We have to get to Kitticut by tomorrow night. The mission depends on it."

" _Your_ mission," Yano grumbled. "Just before we crossed the border, I heard on the radio some news...it may be American propaganda, maybe not. Your Red Army had invaded Manchukuo. They're engaging our Kwantung Army right now. Stalin has declared war on Japan."

Kalugin's face was blank. He had known this would happen, could happen at any time. He had hoped Moscow would wait until Operation _Pobeda_ was over.

"War makes strange allies sometimes, comrade."

"And enemies?" Yano stiffened. "In Nihon Saigon, we have a saying...I remember it from my days at the Academy. We say _gaishin shotan_...'sleep on kindling and lick gall.' We are trained to sacrifice everything for the Emperor when the country is threatened. Perhaps we are now enemies?"

Kalugin went back to the cargo bed and threw off the tarps, intending to check the condition of the bomb and its parts. "Just because you heard it on American radio, Yano-san, don't believe it's true. Our war is right here, right now, getting this bomb to Kitticut and getting the hell out of here."

"Your mission," Yano persisted, "and mine are not the same."

Kalugin climbed into the truck bed and examined every square inch of the bomb casing, the tail assembly, checking the crates of fuses and relays and wiring and the satchels of Comp B for any damage. They'd had a wild ride up from the border post. It would be a crime if after coming all this distance, the bomb had been severely damaged.

"You can't seriously believe you'll be able to use this thing?" the Russian commando said.

Yano stood at the back of the bed, studying the lines of the bomb casing with his own eyes. He knew little of explosives, certainly nothing of this monster. But Admiral Ushenda had been resolute in their briefings at the Yokohama docks:

Shori is our best hope, perhaps our last and only chance, to bring the Americans to their senses. The Hundred Million stand ready defend Nihon...of that have no doubt. They will make Amaterasu proud. The gods will smile on us, even as the streets of old Edo run red with the blood of millions. But Shori is better. Shori must be successful, whatever the cost.

"It's just a bomb, Kalugin-san. Bigger and more powerful, but still a bomb." The truth was he was hardly so sanguine as he implied to the Russian. The Americans had truly created a monster and it would take a miracle to make it work. The Russian was right in that. But _Shori_ was supposed to bring the right men together at the right time, to seize the bomb and make it ready for use. Both Russian and Japanese had to collaborate, whatever happened in Asia. They had to collaborate here and now, or _Shori_ would fail and Ushenda's prophecy would come true.

It would be a glorious battle indeed, fighting the white American hordes in the streets of Tokyo, in the very shadow of the Yasukuni shrine. Glorious—Yano had no doubt of that—but in the corner of his mind, he feared the worst. Futile in the end.

Such an outcome could well mean the extinction of the Japanese race.

"Sometimes bombs fail," Kalugin muttered. He was peering into some of the crates of electrical parts, poking through each one to check for obvious damage. "It remains to be seen if this one can be made to work."

"It's not your mission," Yano said.

"My mission is to get the bomb to Kitticut, and that is all." Kalugin hopped down to the ground. "What happens after that does not concern me." He thought of Tegelwald, back in occupied Berlin, and all the Nazi memorabilia he had stashed away in the carriage house. A ticket to America, if he wanted to take it. He hadn't made up his mind about that yet.

"As long as you don't sabotage the thing," Yano said darkly. "We are now enemies."

Kalugin had heard enough. He came up to Yano and the Japanese corporal quickly whisked out a combat knife, brandishing it at the Russian's chest.

Kalugin stopped short. No Hitlerite pig had ever spoken like that to him. He scowled at the pudgy corporal, his fingers twitching, a wolf ready to pounce on his prey. He was sure he could cut Yano's feet from under him before the soldier could slash with the knife. But he did nothing, save for a menacing stare.

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that."

Simonets sensed trouble and moved closer, his own fingers reaching for the rifle inside the truck bed. Kalugin waved him off.

Yano stiffened. "I can't take any chances, Kalugin-san. _Shori_ has to succeed. You alerted the Americans by firing on them at the border. Perhaps that was deliberate sabotage. How do I know you aren't working with them even now, delaying the mission, just long enough so that Nihon has no choice but to fight to the death? Stabbing her in the back by invading Manchukuo---it all makes sense now."

Kalugin seethed with hatred, ready to lash out at this pig in an instant. The Japanese were worse than the Red Blades he run with at Sokolniki Park back in Moscow before the War. Yano even looked like that piggish courier he'd cut up so badly—what was his name: _Abramov...he had a flat, upturned nose like a swine and a little square moustache, a dainty touch for a pig..._ one snowy afternoon, he'd finally jumped the slime behind a monument in a dark corner of Sokolniki Park, cut him up so bad, he'd bled to death in minutes—

\--the memory of it was as fresh as if he'd just finished the job a few moments ago.

Simonets quietly hoisted the rifle out of the truck bed and cycled the action.

Kalugin's fingers were twitching bad now...he tensed his shoulders, ready to move on the Japanese swine—

"Stop!" came a croaking sound. "Stop..at once..."

All eyes turned to see Saburu Toranaga limping along the side of the truck, his shirt soaked dark red, his right fist balled up.

"Stop now!"

Kalugin stood poised, with Yano still brandishing the knife at the Russian's chest. Inch by inch, they retreated from each other. Yano sheathed his knife and went at once to the _shosa_ , draping his arms around the officer's shoulders.

Toranaga's voice was weak, his breath raspy and rattling. "Put me down, Yano-san." The corporal complied and helped Toranaga sit on the ground, his back to the rear tires of the truck.

"This mission is too important...for politics."

"I have my orders," Kalugin said.

"We all have our orders," Toranaga acknowledged. " _Shori_ is our war, our mission. The Americans have a terrible new weapon. Hiroshima...we all read and heard about that. There may be others. For the sake of our survival and the peace of the world, the Americans must be induced to end this war on honorable terms. There is no other way."

Kalugin had imagined his thick hands around Yano's neck. Now, he wasn't sure what to do with them, so he jammed them in his pockets. "Moscow thinks the Americans shouldn't have a monopoly on such a powerful weapon."

Toranaga struggled for breath. "Then—" he rasped. "Then—we have a common goal. In Manchukuo, Japanese fight Russians. Here, in America, we must cooperate. It's vital we cooperate."

"You're right," Kalugin admitted. Yano glared at him.

Toranaga coughed up blood, and seemed to sag back against the truck even more. Yano helped him stay upright.

"When the Americans...have been...properly bloodied," he whispered hoarsely, "then we may take up our _own_ swords once more—"

His eyes fluttered closed and Saburu Toranaga slumped to the ground.

Yano stared with Kalugin and Simonets at the now prostrate, lifeless body of the _shosa_ of the First Sasebo _rikusentai_. Then he knelt, shaking, and bent down to close the still-open eyes of his commander. He removed a ceremonial knife from Toranaga's waistband and tucked it in his own. _We'll meet again soon, my_ shosa _, at the Yasukuni Shrine._

Then he stood up, facing the two Russians.

"Kalugin-san, let's get moving."
CHAPTER 24

Thursday, August 9, 1945

Aboard _Bock's Car_

9:40 a.m.

Major Chuck Sweeney glanced out the windows of _Bock's Car_ , and silently shook his head. Thirty minutes before, the B-29 Superfort had gone 'feet dry,' crossing the frontiers of the Japanese home island of Kyushu, heading for the target a hundred and sixty miles due north at the very northwest tip of the island. The trip up from Tinian in the cold, pre-dawn darkness had been a harrowing, trouble-plagued ride, as the crew had dealt with defective fuel pumps, poor weather and a botched rendezvous with the observation plane at Yakashima. Approaching Japan, things had seemed for awhile to settle down. But the weather had gone south the last hour and now much of lower Japan was socked in worse than San Francisco.

Sweeney swore under his breath. _Bock's Car_ was carrying the second atom bomb destined for use against the Empire, a bulbous, ten-thousand pound contraption known as _Fat Boy_. Sweeney knew he was under strict orders not to drop the bomb without first visually acquiring the target. To properly assess bomb damage, the target had to be in sight.

He glanced over at his co-pilot, Chuck Albury, and shook his head slowly.

"This ain't looking so good, Chuck."

Albury agreed and checked their position for the fiftieth time.

The target city, Kokura and its huge arsenal, lay dead ahead.

_Bock's Car's_ navigator, Captain Jim Van Pelt, had picked it up on his radar screen only a few minutes before. The morning skies over western Honshu were still hazy, as the weather plane had reported earlier, but now the haze was mixed with broken clouds.

"Initial point coming up, Skipper," Van Pelt reported over the intercom.

"Understood," Sweeney replied. Maybe their luck would hold just long enough to unload _Fat Boy_ and get the hell out of Dodge. Sweeney opened up the crew intercom circuit. "Okay, men, listen up. We're going in. Primary's ahead and the weather may be breaking up. Everybody keep sharp and do your jobs. Pilot, out—"

As _Bock's Car_ approached the target, Van Pelt reported that some of the navigation landmarks were visible—the dull green of the Murasaki River, some outlying factories, the Army Bridge, even streets and parks.

"You see the Arsenal, yet?" Sweeney asked.

"Not yet, Skipper. Haze is too thick. But it should be coming up in about thirty seconds."

_Let's hope so_ , Sweeney muttered to himself. The whole damn mission had been jinxed almost from takeoff, when a balky fuel pump had almost scrubbed everything. They had a reserve supply of nearly six hundred gallons that couldn't be used—bad solenoid in the auxiliary fuel transfer pump, way back in the rear bomb bay fuel bladder-- and they'd lugged the useless fuel load all the way up from Tinian. It had been Sweeney's call and he wondered now if they might soon come to regret it.

"Starting bomb run—" Sweeney called out. He grabbed hold of the wheel to steady _Bock's Car_ in the turbulent crosswinds rocketing across Japan at thirty thousand feet. "Keep your eyes peeled for Japs—"

They bore on at two hundred twenty knots, bumping and shuddering, toward the aiming point. At any second, Captain Kermit Beahan, the bombardier, would announce the target was in view. Sweeney would then hand over control of _Bock's Car_ and the bombardier would guide them to the drop point.

Suddenly, Beahan, who was nestled below Sweeney's feet in the cramped cupola of the bombardier's station, cried out.

"Skipper, I can't see it! I can't see it! There's smoke obscuring the target!"

"What the--? Are you sure, Beahan?"

The fires left over from the bombing of Yawata the night before were still burning out of control and dense black smoke was being lifted over Kokura by winds that had shifted direction since the weather plane's last report an hour before.

The bombardier's voice had risen an octave. "I'm telling you I cannot see the aiming point!"

Sweeney swore again. They had flown nearly three thousand miles through horrendous weather and at the last minute, the primary target, the huge Kokura Arsenal, was hidden below a blanket of smoke and fog.

Sweeney yelled into the intercom. "No drop! Repeat...no drop!"

Even as he spoke, Sweeney banked _Bock's Car_ sharply to the south, to swing around and set up for another approach to the IP. At the same moment, flak bursts peppered the sky all around them—left, right, ahead and behind, the concussions rocking the bomber like invisible hammers.

Tail gunner Pappy Dehart's eyes widened as the flower-petal bursts came closer and closer. "Flak! We got flak! It's wide but the altitude's right on the money. They got us pegged!"

"Roger that, Pappy. Keep your pants on, will ya?" But the gunner was right. The Japanese had set their fuses perfectly, walking the flak right up toward _Bock's Car_ as the ground batteries tried to zero in on the aircraft. Sweeney swallowed hard. He knew he was about to do something bomber pilots never did: make a second run at the target.

Second runs gave the A-A batteries second chances. That kind of thinking tended to make for a short violent life in General LeMay's Twentieth Air Force.

"Let's go up a bit," Albury suggested.

"Good idea." Sweeney goosed the huge Wright radial engines and _Bock's Car_ began a long, laborious climb, straining in the thin air. "It might just bollix up their fusing long enough for another run."

Albury glanced over. "You really planning on making another run at Kokura?"

"I know, I know," Sweeney waved off the incredulous look of his co-pilot. "I know it's crazy but this ain't no ordinary bomb we're carrying. We gotta drop it somewhere." Left unsaid was the knowledge they both had that for _Bock's Car_ to attempt a landing with _Fat Boy_ still onboard was tantamount to suicide.

They wheeled around and proceeded once more toward the aiming point.

Pappy Dehart broke in again, his voice pitched even higher. "This damn flak is right on our tail, Skipper, and it's getting closer!"

Sweeney ignored him. "Forget it, Pappy...we're starting the bomb run." He bore in on the tan haze ahead, praying and swearing that once, just once, the gods would be kind to them and part the clouds long enough to make the drop.

Sweeney waited impatiently for Beahan's signal that he could finally see the target.

_Come on...come on_ —

But the reply, when it came, was bad news again. "I can't see it!" Beahan's frustration made his voice break. "I still can't see it!"

_Crap_. Sweeney wheeled _Bock's Car_ into another sharp turn. "No drop. Repeat...no drop."

Sergeant Ed Buckley came on the line. He was one of the radar operators. "Skipper, we got company up here. Jap Zeros coming up. Looks like about ten."

"I hear you. I'm taking us up another thousand feet, see if we can throw off the flak. We'll try one last time. Come in from a different angle and see if we can find a hole in that soup."

Albury swallowed hard and focused on the ship's instrument panels. _This clown's going to get us all killed._

As _Bock's Car_ turned, Beahan and Van Pelt frantically re-calculated the approach data for the new run.

Flak bursts were now breaking very close and the plane rocked in the concussion waves with each explosion. The sky ahead and all around them was dotted with red and black flower petals.

But the third run proved no more successful that the first two. The aiming point was still obscured. Kuharek, the flight engineer, came on the line after the third aborted approach.

"Fuel's getting critical, Skipper."

"What's the situation, John?"

"Well, we probably have enough to make the secondary target and do one more run. But I don't think we'll have enough to get back to Okinawa. That's the closest base. At best cruise, we're going to come up short by about fifty miles."

Sweeney was about to reply, but Buckley cut in. "Skipper, fighters below! Climbing fast to meet us—"

Lieutenant Jacob Beser, who was monitoring Jap radio frequencies, confirmed the activity on the fighter-director bands.

Sweeney took a deep breath. If _Bock's Car_ hung around for a fourth run at the primary, it was only a matter of time before one of the A-A gunners got lucky. They'd had rotten luck the whole day. Why chance it any further? There wasn't a visible break in the overcast from any direction, for miles around.

Gunner Ray Gallagher muttered into the intercom. "Skipper, let's get the hell out of here!"

"What about Nagasaki? What about Nagasaki? That's the secondary—" It was Abe Spitzer, the radio operator, near panic.

Sweeney keyed his mike. "Hey, cut the chatter! Settle down back there!"

The decision already made, Sweeney banked them sharply to put the aircraft on a southerly heading toward their secondary target, the city of Nagasaki, at the far western tip of the island of Kyushu. He called up Van Pelt on the intercom.

"Jim, give me a heading for Nagasaki."

"Roger." Van Pelt had already completed the calculations. He read the heading information up, then added, "You know, Skipper, this course will take us right over the Kyushu fighter bases."

Sweeney shrugged. "Can't be helped." He knew they couldn't afford the extra fuel it would take to swing out to the west, over the ocean, to avoid the enemy bases. A direct line was the only realistic possibility. Sweeney remembered something he'd heard at a briefing a few weeks before. Some egghead scientist had calculated the performance of a Jap Zero at thirty thousand feet. _At best,_ he had promised the assembled pilots, _a Jap Zero will have about one second to get off a shot at you from thirty thousand feet._ The implication was that the Jap pilot would have to be one hell of a lucky bastard to score a hit under those conditions.

Sweeney smiled ruefully. _With our luck—we'll be the one._

He made some trim adjustments to the flaps to set them on course for the secondary target. Sweeney knew they were now an hour and a half behind schedule. _Fat Man_ was still resting in the forward bomb bay.

He turned to Albury with a wry shake of his head. "Chuck, can any other goddamned thing go wrong?"

As the terraced fields of Kyushu slid by beneath them, mostly hidden in smoke and haze, Sweeney pondered the fuel situation. _Not enough to make Okinawa_...Kuharek had been pretty certain about that. Iwo was a possibility, depending on winds and how well the run went at the secondary. It was a sure bet they'd have to drop at Nagasaki, regardless. _Bock's Car_ didn't have enough fuel for more than one run.

"Secondary coming up, Skipper." It was Buckley again. "I've got it on radar."

Sweeney peered out the forward birdcage and his heart sank. He couldn't believe his eyes.

Nagasaki was almost totally obscured...eighty to ninety percent cumulous cloud cover at six to eight thousand feet. There was no way they could make a visual drop. _Bock's Car_ was approaching from the northwest. Buckley had already informed them they would be at the IP in a few minutes. Sweeney checked the flight engineer one last time.

"John, what's the fuel situation now?"

Kuharek's voice was tense, strained. "We've got enough for a single run, Colonel. Barely enough—"

Sweeney got on the intercom. "Commander Ashworth, come forward to the cockpit immediately—"

Moments later, the weaponeer stuck his head up between the seats.

"What's up, Colonel?"

Sweeney described the situation. "You're in charge of the bomb. If we don't drop this time, I'm flat out of options. We've got about three hundred gallons of fuel left. If we hang around the secondary too long, trying to make more than one bomb run, we may have to ditch, either here in Japan or in the ocean. I'm not too keen on doing that. Or we may have to try and dump the bomb in the ocean."

Ashworth could see how bad the weather was. "Target's almost socked in, Colonel. You heard the briefing, same as I did. We have to see the target, make a visual approach and drop."

Sweeney smiled, like he was talking to a ten-year old. "I'll make this simple for you, Commander. We haven't got the time or the fuel for more than one run. I can guarantee you we come within five hundred feet of the aim point. That's the best I can do, but I _can_ guarantee that." It was a commitment he knew could be made, even though making it happen depended on Buckley, Beahan, and Van Pelt doing their jobs.

"I don't know, Chuck—" Ashworth was reluctant.

"Hell, it's better than dropping it in the ocean."

"Are you sure of the accuracy?"

Sweeney's throat was dry. "I'll take full responsibility for this."

Ashworth could see Sweeney's mind was made up. "Okay, if you can give me five hundred feet—"

"You'll get it."

_Bock's Car_ crossed the IP moments later, shuddering slightly in high-altitude crosswinds. Van Pelt and Buckley began coordinating their approach to the aim point, the AP.

"I've got the city outlines," Van Pelt announced. "—on my scope."

"Me too," Buckley said. He began calling out heading changes and rates of closure up to the cockpit. Below Sweeney's feet, Kermit Beahan started a well-practiced routine, carefully feeding all of the heading data into the Norden bombsight. Below him, thick cloud cover raced by. He prayed silently for a break in the clouds...one small, tiny break.

"Pilot to crew..." Sweeney came on the intercom. "—put your goggles on now." He decided to leave his own off.

_Bock's Car_ droned along on a southeasterly heading, thirty seconds from bomb release.

Sweeney chewed a stick of gum nervously. "Beser, any sign of Jap fighter activity?"

Lieutenant Beser's high-pitched voice squeaked back over the circuit. "Nothing on any band, Skipper. Either they don't see us or they're ignoring us."

Sweeney's lips tightened. He swallowed the gum. "Set the tone now."

The pre-drop tone sounded like a distant siren in all headsets, warning the crew that _Fat Man's_ release system was armed and ready.

_Bock's Car's_ forward bomb bay doors snapped open. The aircraft buffeted as the airstream caught the flat door faces.

Twenty-five seconds.

Suddenly, Kermit Beahan cried out. "I've got it! I've got it...I've got visual!"

Sweeney's heart leaped into his throat. "You own it, son!"

Somehow, the bombardier had spotted a hole in the clouds, and gotten a sighting on the ground, a spot midway between two huge Mitsubishi arms plants in the industrial Urakami valley. The sighting was two miles north of the assigned aim point, away from some densely crowded residential blocks, now shielded by low hills beyond the coastal plain. Beahan locked his sights on a racetrack aim point below and made some fine adjustments in the bombsight vernier dials. The same adjustments were automatically fed to the course direction indicator in front of Sweeney and Albury, up in the cockpit.

Carefully, holding his breath, Sweeney made the necessary adjustments to their heading, speed and altitude. He was still flying _Bock's Car_ manually, and would continue manual control all the way to the release point.

Earlier in the run, Beahan had caught a momentary glimpse of the assigned aim point, but if he had taken over control, as normal procedure dictated, the handoff could have disrupted the radar run. He considered doing this, then changed his mind and decided to stay with the initial run.

Beahen counted down the seconds, and at the precise moment, pressed a red button on his handgrip.

"Bomb away!" he shouted.

_Bock's Car_ lurched upward, suddenly free of _Fat Man's_ ten-thousand pound bulk. Simultaneously, Sweeney banked them sharply to port, a diving, screaming 155-degree turn to get away from the blast that was yet to come.

It was 11:01 a.m., local time.

Time seemed suspended. As the seconds ticked by, Sweeney's stomach did flips. Had they come all this way just to drop a dud?

Suddenly, the entire horizon lit up in a superbrilliant white flash, more intense—Sweeney would say later at the debriefings—even than Hiroshima. A blinding, unearthly light.

Moments later, the first shock wave of superheated air slammed into _Bock's Car_ with unexpected ferocity.

"Hang on!" Albury cried out. The ship buffeted and shook like a wet dog, but stayed airborne.

As _Bock's Car_ completed her escape turn, Sweeney peered back at the scene behind them.

A brownish horizontal cloud had begun to envelope the city and its hazy valleys. _Fat Man_ had detonated at an altitude of 1890 feet, and in less than a millionth of a second, it had compressed its plutonium core into a critical mass. From the center of the brown bile sprung a vertical column, boiling and bubbling like hot tar in rainbow hues—purples, oranges, reds—colors whose brilliance had been seen only once before. The shape of the mushroom began forming like an angry fist, intense, angry, ominous and menacing.

Sweeney swallowed hard, catching Albury's eyes as they both surveyed the carnage building thirty thousand feet below them.

Neither man said anything for several minutes. What was there to say?

Having diverted to their secondary target, there were no observation planes to take pictures and write up a strike report. Sweeney circled the dying city several times, to give Ashworth and Beahan a chance to make notes, then gruffly ordered them to secure their cameras.

"We're getting the hell out of here. Radioman, send a report—"

Abe Spitzer's voice crackled over the intercom. "Ready, Skipper."

"Send this: 'Nagasaki bombed. Results good.' Send it now."

"Right away, sir."

Sweeney took a deep breath and flexed his stiff shoulders and arms. Now he just had to find enough fuel in their tanks to somehow get _Bock's Car_ back home.
CHAPTER 25

Friday, August 10, 1945

Tokyo

5:30 a.m.

Prime Minister Admiral Baron Suzuki blanched as he read the accounts in the wire reports from Domei News. The news from Nagasaki had come through overnight on the wire to the Imperial Palace, news of catastrophe, of unimaginable destruction, thousands dead, a firestorm burning out of control.

"It must be _genshi bakudan_ ," he said. "It has to be...the Americans have used this terrible new bomb twice on our cities."

There were murmurs of agreement around the table, but the War Minister, General Korechika Anami, was having none of it. He banged the table with his fist, and water glasses rattled.

"We don't _know_ this for certain...we must wait for the official report."

Suzuki glared at the War Minister. Anami's balding, bullet-shaped head shone with perspiration in the stuffy room. The sun had not yet risen over the Fukiage Gardens and already the bomb shelter was nearly unbearable.

"And how many more cities will be destroyed before we get that report, General? When will I see this report?"

Anami's lips tightened. "The Army is investigating the 'incident' at Hiroshima at this moment. For all we know, the bomb could have been a large cluster of incendiaries...the Americans love incendiaries. They've burned out dozens of cities with them. We have no strong evidence that this...or Nagasaki, was an _atomic_ bomb. It could be American propaganda."

Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. "Propaganda does not kill a hundred thousand people, General. We must face facts. The Americans have a new bomb—whatever we call it—and they can lay waste to our country at will. We have no way of stopping them. We must arrange for peace before the country is destroyed. The Emperor has already expressed his wishes that the war be brought to an end."

"An honorable end," Anami reminded them all.

Suzuki's head spun. His eyes met those of Hisatsune Sakomizu, the Cabinet Secretary. _Somehow, we've got to come to a decision, something concrete we can present to His Majesty_. Anami and the war faction, Umezu, Toyoda and his lackey Ushenda were dragging out the inevitable...it was plain for everyone to see. Japan was finished. The Americans had the power to annihilate the Yamato race completely, and Suzuki was sure they would, if the war weren't stopped soon. Anami had a death wish...code of Bushido.

"We are not without means to force the Americans to their senses," Anami went on. He nodded toward Admiral Soemu Toyoda, the Navy chief of staff. "We have one of these so-called atomic bombs in our possession, do we not, Ushenda?"

Vice-Admiral Hiro Ushenda replied, "The Sacred Sword team is in Canada at this very moment, bearing the bomb to its launch base. Within the next twenty-four hours, the bomb will be ready."

"And what about the ultimatum, Ushenda?" Suzuki asked. "We warned the Americans in Switzerland that we had _genshi bakudan_ too. Have they replied?"

"No, they haven't...not yet. We've warned them one of their cities would be destroyed." Ushenda looked puzzled at the lack of response. "I don't understand it...there's been no reply at all."

Foreign Minister Togo snorted. "Maybe they have their own code of Bushido. Has anyone thought of that? Has anyone stopped to consider what the Americans' next target might be?" He looked around the stifling little room, one by one, at the assembled members of the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War. Sweating and squirming, he could see in their faces only despair and bewilderment.

"It's Tokyo," Suzuki decided. "It has to be."

Togo went on. "His Majesty's position is clear...we must appeal for peace to the Americans, while we still can. If Tokyo is destroyed, the government—"

Anami would have none of it. "No! The terms are completely unacceptable. The Americans want to occupy our land, put the Emperor on trial as a war criminal...can you live with that? I cannot—" Anami took a deep breath. "Soon, I will see my honorable ancestors...my father was a fisherman, decent and hard-working, you know. If I agree to terms like the Americans have given us, how can I face my father? My name would be dishonored for a thousand generations. The name Anami would be the same as a traitor. No...I won't agree. I cannot agree with the terms."

"Then there is no hope," Suzuki said forlornly. "There's still no agreement we can take to His Majesty."

Togo cut in. "Perhaps we should adjourn for three hours. Get something to eat. Fresh air. Could we meet again at 0900 hours?"

Suzuki was reluctant. Every moment was precious. "We cannot waste time any longer. The hour of decision is here. There could be an American plane on its way to Tokyo even as we speak. By 0900 hours, there might not _be_ a Tokyo."

Anami had slept poorly during the night. "I'm tired. My back is sore. And I'm hungry. Two hours recess..." he started to stand, but the assembled glares of the others forced him to sit back down.

Suzuki relented. "I'll tell Kido we're still deliberating. The Emperor is impatient though...we can't keep putting this off forever. It's unlikely the Americans are going to soften their terms now..."

Toyoda said, "Then we should wait a few hours longer, maybe even another day. Ushenda says the bomb will be ready by then."

Anami seized on the idea. "Perhaps if San Francisco is destroyed tomorrow morning, the Americans will be more flexible."

_Or perhaps they will annihilate a dozen more of our cities_ , Suzuki thought. _We have one bomb. How many does Truman have?_

Reluctantly, he gave in. "We will meet again here at 0900 hours."

Outside the small room, after the meeting had adjourned and the stifling room emptied, Hiro Ushenda was summoned to a furtive mid-corridor gathering of Anami, Navy chief Toyoda and a younger Army officer he had never seen before.

Anami saw the puzzlement on Ushenda's face. He introduced the admiral to his own brother-in-law. "Lieutenant Colonel Masahiko Takeshita, of the Army's Military Affairs Bureau."

Takeshita saluted smartly, then bowed deeply to Ushenda. "Domestic affairs, actually. The home guard and things like that. I've been training housewives to kill Americans with bamboo knives lately."

"My brother-in-law," Anami added.

Takeshita lowered his voice. "A coup is being planned, for tomorrow night." He addressed himself to Toyoda and Ushenda. "The Navy must help us. It's the only way. His Majesty is surrounded by scoundrels and cowards. We know we can defeat the Americans, but we're being stabbed in the back by men like Suzuki and Togo. Kido too."

_A coup_? Ushenda was wary. He looked at Toyoda but the Navy chief's face was blank and impassive. Anami spoke up.

"I haven't given them my blessing, you understand. It's dangerous, what they're planning. Probably treason. But he's right. His Majesty receives bad counsel everyday...he doesn't get the truth."

"The peace faction must be eliminated," Takeshita urged them. "General, you must take control of the government....arrest Suzuki and the cowards tomorrow night. It's our only hope."

Anami shook his head. "I am a loyal soldier, Maso-san. I can't go against the wishes of His Majesty."

"How do you know what His Majesty's wishes are? You only know what Kido and the others report back."

Ushenda spoke up. "Perhaps a coup isn't necessary. If certain key people were...eliminated--"

Takeshita wasn't so sure. "If the War Minister himself came out for us and sided with us, we can't fail." He looked imploringly at Anami. "General, you must decide soon...already we're talking with Mori, and with others."

Anami was aghast. "Mori? The Imperial Guards...he'll never agree. Maso-san, you're a fool. I can't go against the wishes of His Majesty."

Takeshita was growing more desperate. He looked up and down the narrow corridor, anxious to be moving, doing something, anything. Time was running out. The peace faction would have American troops marching through the Ginza in no time. "Admiral Ushenda, what people are you talking about? Who should be eliminated?"

Ushenda wet his lips, unsure of where Toyoda and the Navy stood on the idea of a coup against the government. "The peace faction must be gotten rid of. The Prime Minister, for one. Perhaps Lord Kido, as well. He has the Emperor's ear, doesn't he?"

"He is too close," Takeshita said. "He undermines everything we try to do. He should be shot as a traitor."

"Eliminate these key people, perhaps a few more, and the resistance to stronger defense measures will evaporate like the morning dew. Once they are gone, His Majesty will no longer be susceptible to their machinations. Perhaps, His Majesty should even be encouraged to leave Tokyo...for his own safety, of course."

Takeshita warmed to the idea. "There is an imperial redoubt, carved from a mountainside near Nagano....it could work."

Ushenda didn't want to stick his own neck out too far, not just yet. Not until he was sure of Anami and Toyoda. With their reputations, most of the Army and Navy would fall into line, if the War Minister and the Navy chief supported these extra measures.

"We must speak with General Mori.," Takeshita decided. "See how the Imperial Guards will react to this. But your ideas have merit, Admiral. We must move quickly on this. Once the Emperor is out of Tokyo, the way will be clear to deal with the situation and with the Allied Powers properly."

"And if Tokyo is bombed, "Ushenda said, "at least, His Majesty will be safe." He wasn't sure how much Takeshita knew about Operation _Shori._ Anami was right. One thing was for certain: it would undoubtedly take the annihilation of San Francisco to make the Americans understand the Japanese position. With each passing hour, the lack of response to the ultimatum made that more likely.

General Anami was skeptical. "The Emperor will never agree to leave Tokyo. Your ideas are a fantasy, Admiral. And until I see the results, I'm afraid so is this so-called Operation _Shori_. The only way we will give the Americans pause is when we kill enough of their soldiers on our beaches."

Ushenda knew of Korechika Anami. He had been War Minister since April, and his reputation was sterling, a stern disciplinarian with a warrior's cunning. He had been adamant against the idea of surrender, even going so far as to order the arrest of younger officers who had advocated accepting the Allied terms. _Japan must fight to the end no matter how great the odds against us!_ Ushenda knew he'd best be cautious around Anami.

"Perhaps you're right, General," Ushenda said. "Still shouldn't we explore every advantage we can get, every tactic to fool the enemy or defeat him in a decisive battle? _Shori_ will succeed; I'm confident of this much. _Shori_ will force the Americans to their senses."

"If it works," Anami snapped. He checked his watch. "I'm going back to Ichigaya. I need some sleep..." he rubbed his eyes. "We all need sleep." Before he turned to leave, he added, "In any case, I doubt His Majesty would allow himself to be relocated to the Nagano redoubt."

"Then he must be convinced," Takeshita said. He looked around at the assembled officers for any sign of support. "We must convince him—"

Anami said nothing more and left.

Takeshita implored Ushenda. "We have to _do_ something...we can't wait another minute. If we don't get moving, Suzuki and the cowards will sell out to the Allies."

Ushenda was thoughtful. A coup wasn't necessary. Hotheads like Takeshita would simply make matters worse. He drew Admiral Toyoda aside.

"Now that the ultimatum has been delivered, there's no telling what the Allied Powers may do. If they don't give us better terms, we'll have to use their own _genshi bakudan_ weapon against them."

Toyoda was grim. "If that happens, Tokyo will be next. What's left of her may be destroyed..."

Ushenda acknowledged the possibility. "We have to be prepared for that."

Toyoda silently agreed, glum at the prospects for Japan's future.

Friday, August 10, 1945

Near Kitticut, British Columbia

4:30 p.m.

Almost the entire Williams Lake Detachment had been mustered for the approach to the mysterious compound in the aspen and birch forests north of White Pelican Lake Provincial Park. Inspector Neal Madigan rode in the front seat of the truck, his M-1 Garand rifle cradled in his lap, while the convoy of five vehicles wound its way northward along the old muddy logging road toward the coordinates the RCAF planes had given the Commissioner.

Madigan mulled over the tactical situation as the truck bounced and jerked along the deeply rutted road.

One hundred twenty three degrees West longitude by sixty five degrees north latitude. An open patch of ground carved out of the side of a hill, with a dirt field runway hacked out of the undergrowth, maybe four thousand feet in length. Several aircraft outside, one of them large enough to be an American B-29 Superfort bomber. Hangar-size wooden structures on both sides, plus assorted other log buildings, perhaps barracks, shops, who knew what else. Deep and thickly wooded hills to the south and east, making approach by foot dicey at best. An alert, professional, and apparently trigger-happy guard force to protect the site. And visual evidence of Asiatics on the scene, in all probability Jap soldiers or marines.

Neal Madigan's mouth was dry and it wasn't from the dusty road winding northward from Williams Lake to the provincial park either. He'd seen the compound from the air not three days ago. It was no feverish dream of a bored RCMP inspector, like some at Division had snidely suggested. Once he'd been convinced, Commissioner Doyle had assigned every able-bodied man in the Detachment to the operation, all twelve of them. Their armament consisted of M-1 rifles and Colt .45 sidearms, with one Lee-Enfield 303 in one of the following trucks.

What kind of defenses would they run into? Madigan's imagination conjured up images of bloodthirsty, fanatical Jap defenders, like the ones who'd fought the U.S. Marines to the death at Iwo Jima and Okinawa only a few months before.

Not the kind of mission he'd signed up for when he had joined the RCMP eight years ago. Since January '44, when he'd been posted to the Williams Lake Detachment, Northern District of British Columbia, Madigan had worked mostly theft cases, with a smattering of arson and vandalism, one kidnapping, several Indian civil rights cases and too many drunk and disorderlies to count. Life in Williams Lake, even in the middle of a great world war, was boring. He'd been able to find time to go hunting and fishing a lot. The most exciting case was just four months ago, back in April, when a logger from Quesno had been murdered. There had been a long chase, a stakeout, even a few shots fired. The poor sap had given up because he was hungry.

Now there were Japs in Williams Lake. Japs and maybe Russians too.

Neal Madigan closed his eyes, trying to imagine what he had done to deserve this. Without realizing it, Williams Lake RCMP Detachment had found itself at ground zero of one of the biggest conspiracies and threats the Allies had yet faced during the war.

"Turn off up ahead, Inspector." The truck driver was Sergeant Major Clyde, a rough, nearly bald part-Inuit with the woodland sense of a bear and the physical strength of three bears.

"Slow down..." Madigan waved his hand out of the cab window, a pre-arranged signal. _We're in Indian country...close up and keep your eyes open_.

Clyde wheeled the flat bed onto a bumpy path and downshifted, as the truck's wheels spun for traction in the mud. They slogged along for a few minutes but it was apparent that the truck could go no further and would soon bog down completely. Clyde braked to a halt.

Madigan jumped down and signaled for the rest of the Mounties to gather round. He laid out a crude map on the truck engine hood and gave them the tactical situation.

"Here we are boys...right here—" he tapped a point on the map. "I make us about four, maybe five miles southwest of the coordinates the Air Force gave us." He checked his watch. "It's about five now...the sun will be below the trees the rest of the way. That'll give us some cover, but enough light to see...and be seen, I might add. Clyde here says that an old logger's path near here...we'll use it for the first several miles. After that, we go into the woods, try to get to the west of the base and surprise 'em there. Those loggers from Vanderhoof were found about here—" he tapped another spot—"so we know the enemy's got patrols out at least that far. From this ridgeline here on into the target, it's a combat zone... we go in ready to shoot. Understood?"

There was a chorus of murmurs. Madigan looked up at his men, all of them too young, ready for action, itching to fight somebody and finally get into the war.

"This is no hunting trip, boys. Whoever's up there means business. From recon trips and what we already know, it's some kind of military camp. I saw it myself. It's not Canadian and the Americans say it's not theirs either. The place appears to be crawling with Japs, maybe Russians too. Nobody knows what they're up to, but it can't be a picnic. We've got to find out and stop 'em, if we can."

One Mountie, a lean, red-haired sergeant named Woolsey, piped up. "Inspector, we're ready to have at 'em. Me...I'm just glad we finally get to go after some enemy...I'm tired of arresting drunk loggers, eh."

"All right, then," Madigan closed up his maps. "Get your gear and your guns and let's go. Keep the chatter down and stay together for the time being...no more than twenty yards apart on the trail."

The Detachment moved out smartly along the logging trail that wound its way up into thickly wooded hills above Nazco Lake. Flies and mosquitoes big as a man's finger buzzed around them as they climbed higher and higher toward the crest of the ridge.

The light dimmed as they slogged deeper into the woods, a gray twilight made gloomier by the thick canopy overhead. With recent rains, the leafy underbrush was wet, making footing slippery on many of the steeper slopes but also masking the trod of their feet.

Neal Madigan knew these woods well. He had hiked the trails around Nazco and White Pelican many times, even gone camping with his son Doyle in some of the higher ground overlooking the silvery lakes that gave the park its name. The woods were thick with bear and fox and once, he and Doyle, had even stumbled across a den of cubs, left alone while Mama Bear had gone foraging for food. They watched from behind some brush as they cubs squealed and climbed all over each other. When Mama Bear came crashing through the woods to protect her brood, having caught a whiff of the humans, they beat a hasty retreat.

The Detachment made its way north by northeast, generally following a ridge line that meandered off toward Narcosli creek and the foothills of the Cariboo range to the east. The slopes steepened and the underbrush thickened, slowing the force as they began hacking and slashing their way through birch and aspen stands tangled with hard ropy vine. Two hours after leaving the loggers' trail, Sergeant Clyde, who was manning point, abruptly held up his hand, calling the column to a quick halt.

Madigan came up to see what had halted the column.

Clyde pointed through a triangle of trees at the plateau ahead.

"Lights, Inspector. See down there?" He pointed to a curving arc of lights.

Madigan squinted through his binoculars. Sure enough, the brown slash of the dirt runway was faintly visible in the dusky twilight, with parallel rows of lights on either side.

"That it?" the Inuit asked.

Madigan stowed his binocs. "That's it." He circled his arm, signaling for the column to gather round.

"Let's work our way in closer, toward that runway. There's buildings on each side. I'm wondering what's inside that big one."

Sergeant Major Woolsey crouched next to Madigan. "I see the two planes you mentioned, Inspector. The big one's a bomber, Superfort. That's American markings...the Yanks got something going we don't know about?"

"That's what we're here to find out," Madigan admitted. "District says no, but they may not know everything. Look, men: our mission is recon. Get in as close as we can, look the place over, take some pictures, probe a bit. Maybe it's a training base."

"You said there were Japs." That came from Corporal Cheverley, a rookie just assigned to Williams Lake from Surrey Detachment, near Vancouver. "What do we do if we see Japs?"

Madigan knew what he had heard from the two wild-eyed loggers from Vanderhoof who'd found their campmates murdered. But District hadn't given him any clear directive.

"I don't know yet, Corporal. Wait and see. If that's some kind of Jap base down there, what the hell's an American B-29 doing there? There could be some kind of special commando operation going on we don't know about. The point is we're mainly here to find out. Don't fire unless you're fired on. There's a good chance we're outgunned and I don't want to lose anybody tonight. You men got that?"

There was a chorus of nods and murmurs.

"Right...well, then, let's split up like we planned. Clyde, you take Cheverley and go east, over the ridge. See if you can get up close to those buildings on the other side of the runway. Got your cameras?"

Clyde whipped out his bulky Polaroid. "Bugger weighs a ton but she's ready to go."

"Okay, off with you." The two Mounties scooted into the bush and were rapidly lost to sight.

"Woolsey, you and Parke go north, try to get above the other row of buildings. This ridge goes that way...see if you can get a spot above the area. Get me some pictures and watch for Japs, Yanks, anything out of the ordinary. I want to know what these

buggers are up to. District Super wants hard information, before he goes to Ottawa."

"Right." Woolsey was on his way, all arms and legs, the most acrobatic of the whole Detachment. _Half monkey, that boy is_ , Madigan reflected wryly. Parke lumbered after the redhead.

Madigan had three left: Corporal Dennison, Corporal Wickes, and Staff Sergeant Mason.

"You three follow me. We're going down the other side, into that ravine, see if we can't work our way toward the north end of the runway. With any luck, we'll be able to get close enough to see what's going on with those aircraft, maybe even penetrate a little ways into the compound."

Mason nodded and pushed his two charges toward the slope that plunged down through heavy brush toward a bottomland between the north and south arms of the ridgeline. It was a good plan, he figured. Inspector Madigan knew what he was doing. One team would flank them to the north, pushing out along that arm of the ridgeline. With a good view of the terrain below, and a functioning radio, they'd be able to warn Madigan of any enemy patrols approaching them. The other team would flank to the south, with a similar elevated view.

The only problem was that the ravine turned out to be slightly marshy. And a light ground fog had started to envelope the ground, making footing through the bottomland treacherous. Before they had gone two hundred yards, Wickes and Dennison both had plunged up to their knees in unseen bogs and were swearing under their breath, as they slogged on in damp boots and trousers.

The ravine team probed their way eastward through muddy, marshy woodlands at too slow a pace to satisfy Madigan. To make up time, he quietly radioed Clyde that they were moving north to higher ground.

"It's a quagmire down there, Clyde," Madigan hissed into the radio. "We keep falling into pits and pools up to our waists. Wickes may already have a clogged gun."

"Roger, acknowledged," came Clyde's curt voice. "We'll keep an eye out for you."

_Do that_ , Madigan muttered to himself. The last thing he wanted was to have separate squads of Mounties getting trigger happy and firing on each other in the failing light.

Just as Madigan and the others made a turn north, a rifle shot cracked the air. Then another, and another and soon enough, rounds were zinging through the brush and weeds, splintering tree trunks and whining through the brush like angry bees.

"Get down!" Madigan yelled. The four of them plunged into the soft wet earth.

Just then, more shots rang out. High above them, to their left, Clyde and Cheverly were in their own firefight and from the sounds of it, the enemy they had stumbled on had automatic weapons. The air ripped with heavy caliber rounds.

_This is no bunch of hikers hunting bear_ , Madigan thought. More rounds whizzed by overhead. Military rifles were spraying fire above and ahead of them.

Madigan lifted his head up and leveled his own Lee-Enfield at some motion in the weeds ahead of them. He squeezed off several rounds, quickly followed by Dennison, Wickes and Mason. A whiff of guttural voices came back, followed by return fire, in greater volume than before.

A furious fusillade of rounds shredded trees and vines all around them,

"Stay down!" Madigan yelled. "And spread out—" but it was too late.

A cry rang out and something heavy thudded to the ground. A body. One of the men? Madigan heard the low groaning even as he scuttled on all fours through soft, muddy earth and thick reedy vine, scrambling to his right. He practically fell on top of Wickes.

The corporal had been shot through the throat and shoulders, high-velocity rounds, and bright red arterial blood gushed from the wounds. Wickes thrashed in convulsion and choked on his own blood while Madigan ripped off a sleeve of his uniform and tried to stanch the blood, tightening a tourniquet where the arteries bunched up through the back of his neck.

"Dennison! Give me a hand!" he yelled out. More rounds, then a volley of small arms fire, kept the corporal pinned down. Rounds whizzed and spanged off nearby tree trunks, sending bark and showers of chips everywhere.

"Just a sec, Inspector—!" Dennison let out a whoop and stood up in a half-crouch, pumping out rounds from his M-1, now on semi-auto, spraying the reeds ahead. The lower half of his body was lost in the weeds, enveloped in gray fog, so that only a detached head and shoulders was visible in the mist, the shoulders jerking with each discharge of the rifle.

Ahead of them, more guttural cries, then a yelp! Something crashed to the ground.

"Got the bugger!"

"Dennison...get over here...Wickes' is hit...I need help!"

The detached body turned and seemed to float on top of the mist, while more footsteps thudded and splashed scant yards away. Dennison froze in mid-stride, then wheeled about and began firing again.

Madigan looked up as something slurped through the muck just beyond the nearest tree. Materializing out of the fog was a small, round face, with a gray cap on its head. For a long moment, Madigan stared back.

The face was Asiatic, probably Japanese, with a slash of moustache highlighting full, almost feminine lips set in a round, pock-marked face. The Jap swung his own rifle around to fire—in later debriefings, Madigan would be able to recount the strange look of the enemy weapon—it would prove to be a Type 99 cavalry carbine with a hinged bayonet and a wooden stock---in great detail.

But before he could fire, Dennison had pumped the soldier with several rounds of his own. Madigan froze, watching the boyish face of the Jap contort with pain, as Dennison's rounds slammed into his belly. His narrow black eyes squinted almost shut and he pitched forward into the earth, his weapon falling almost within Madigan's grasp.

Dennison crept up. "Got 'im, Inspector! You okay?" He knelt beside the prostrate, now pale form of Wickes.

Both men kept an eye of the Jap, as his body twitched into the final stillness of death, while Dennison shrugged off his outer jacket and tore off strips for a tourniquet.

"Come on, Wickes—" Madigan patted the corporal on the cheeks, "—stay with me, son. Stay with me—"

"He's turning pale, Inspector—reckon—" but Dennison stopped in mid-sentence. More thrashing sounds could be heard. More guttural voices, lots of them. Instantly, he hoisted up his rifle and was about to stand up, when a single shot from somewhere ahead caught him flush in the face.

Dennison's face exploded in a shower of blood and bone and he pitched violently backward, twisting as he fell into a shallow muddy pool.

" _Totsugeki_!" came a voice, too close.

Madigan froze. Suddenly, the voices seemed all around, coming from the left and the right, coming closer every second. He checked Wickes again. The corporal was still pumping blood from his neck wounds, though less than before. Dennison was dead. The other two squads on the ridge above the valley were engaged in their own firefights with the enemy.

Madigan knew they had to retreat. The Japs and whoever else had built this base in the north woods had them outnumbered.

"Come on, pal—" he hoisted Wickes up to his feet. The corporal groaned, still dripping blood, and Madigan spent a few seconds tying another tourniquet around the shoulder of the boy. "—come on, let's get the hell out of here—"

Balancing the weight of the corporal against him, Madigan turned about and crashed through the weeds, narrowly avoiding several bogs as he slipped and slid and crawled back toward the brow of the ridge. Behind them, he heard more voices. The enemy was out probing through the woods in strength, at least several squads worth, from the sound of the voices. What had tipped them off?

Madigan wrestled and dragged the semi-conscious Corporal Wickes back up the slope to the top of the ridge. Mercifully, their retreat had been partially obscured by the thickening ground fog. Now, at the top of the ridge, they were above the fog, which filled the little valley with a chill mist, whiting out all but the upper canopies of the trees and scattered patches of reed. Even the base itself was increasingly hard to find, its runway lights now only diffuse smudges of light set in the lowering gloom of an early evening twilight.

Madigan found a cedar tree with a bent trunk and propped Wickes up against it, for a few moments' rest. He listened carefully, hearing nothing nearby and hurriedly got on the squad radio.

"Scout 1, this is Mama Bear, come in—"

Static crackled in the clearing. Seconds later, the sound of gunfire erupted from the set and Clyde's strained, out-of-breath voice screeched through.

"—Scout 1....we're taking fire and I'm pulling back—"

"Scout 1, pull back to the trail. I repeat: pull back to the trail. We need reinforcements."

More gunfire, then a cry—someone had been hit—one of his men? Or was it the enemy? Finally, Clyde came back.

"Mama Bear—Cheverley's been hit, but he's not too bad off. I've got two enemy down. Asiatics, probably Japs. There's another wounded nearby, but not Jap. I don't know what he is...but he's in one hell of a lot of pain, I can tell you that."

"Get back to the trucks. I've got to call District, get us some reinforcements now. Whatever the hell this base is, the enemy sure doesn't want us poking around. We need the Army out here now."

"On our way," came Clyde's voice. "Give us about twenty minutes—"

Madigan switched channels and tried raising Scout 2, Woolsey and Parke. They were to have flanked to the south, approaching the base compound from another direction.

"Mama Bear to Scout 2, come in....Mama Bear to Scout 2, come in—"

For five minutes, as he tended to Wickes at the tree trunk, Madigan continued trying to raise Scout 2. There was nothing but static on the channel.

Had they been overrun?

Madigan was in a quandary. He wanted to go south, and find Woolsey and Parke. But Wickes was hurt bad, still bleeding freely and turning a pale, ashen gray. He needed attention soon. Clyde and Cheverley were already on the way.

Scout 2 would have to fend for themselves, he decided. He hoisted Wickes up and draped the corporal's limp and bloody arm around his own shoulder. Together, they dragged and skidded their way back to the logging trail and, inside of fifteen minutes, had made it back to the trucks.

Clyde and Cheverley arrived a minute later.

"Ran into a regular hornets' nest, we did," Clyde told them. Cheverley had a flesh wound at his left knee. He hobbled around, the makeshift bandages bloody and caked with mud, while Madigan laid Wickes down in the backseat of a truck and covered him with tarp and jackets, to keep him warm. His face was still and gray.

"He's going into shock," Madigan said. "We've got to get him back to Williams Lake."

Cheverley leaned against a bumper and tapped out a cigarette, which he lit and sucked on hard. "Friggin' woods is full of Japs, Inspector. Damnedest thing you ever seen, eh? Crawling with Japs." He shook his head.

Madigan had a more powerful radio in the front seat of his truck. He switched on the set and let the tubes warm up. When it hummed, he dialed up the Detachment office dispatcher by the glow of a flashlight, and radioed in a report.

"We are no longer dealing with armed loggers," he told the dispatcher. "From the weapons and tactics of the enemy here, we're dealing with a professional and well-trained military force."

The dispatcher, a Sergeant Maloney, was skeptical. His voice crackled in the cool night air, coming over the set.

"So, Inspector, all's I'm saying is that the Superintendent's not going to believe you, eh? Unless you can bring back some kind of proof."

Clyde spluttered at the dispatcher's words. "Son of a bitch! That bastard—" he reached into a pocket and pulled out a scrap of bloody cloth...it was a piece of a uniform from one of the enemy patrol he and Cheverley had just killed. The scrap had strange figures in script stenciled on it. It was _kanji_ script, though he didn't know that, from the _senninbari_ , the ceremonial belly band worn for good luck around the waist of Japanese _rikusentai_ , the Special Naval Landing Force commandos. "What the bloody hell is this, then--!" He held up the red sash to the radio, as if the dispatcher could examine it over the airwaves.

Madigan took the cloth. It was still damp with blood. "Very well, Sergeant, tell the Superintendent this: we've got physical evidence from one of the enemy killed."

The dispatcher's voice seemed blissfully unconcerned. "Understood. And what kind of evidence is this, Inspector?"

"A piece of a uniform, Sergeant, with a foreign language printed on it. Japanese language, unless I'm mistaken. Tell the Superintendent, there's a base up here about two miles north of Nazco Lake. A military base with a runway and aircraft parked nearby.

" _The base is crawling with Japanese soldiers, right here in the middle of British Columbia."_

In the silence that ensued, Neal Madigan could well imagine the look of consternation that was even now was breaking out on the face of the dispatcher at Williams Lake.

Friday, August 10, 1945

Ottawa, Canada

10:00 p.m.

The lights at 24 Sussex Drive burned brightly through trellises of ivy as Prime Minister Mackenzie King glared at the written report, mouthing the words from RCMP Vancouver District once again as he read and re-read the incredible tale. He sat in a book-lined study on the first floor, behind an ornate wooden desk, carved from the timbers of a sailing ship that had once belonged to Henry Hudson, reading glasses slipped down to the end of his nose. Across the desk, still standing rigidly at near attention was the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Stuart Taylor Wood. Commissioner Wood's sandy blond moustache twitched, but he stayed perfectly still, while the PM went over the report again.

King looked up through his reading glasses. "This is on the level, Commissioner? You've checked this out?"

Wood sniffed. "We have, Prime Minister. I myself talked with Superintendent Davies not an hour ago. He's questioned this Inspector Madigan very closely, examined the cloth, and some of the pictures they took. We had done aerial reconnaissance only the day before, and I looked at some of those photos as well. I'm afraid the Inspector's telling the truth."

King sat back heavily in his chair. He was still in a bathrobe, which he drew up tighter around his bare chest. "Incredible. Hard to believe. How could this happen...a Japanese base on our territory? It would have taken months, just to clear the land, construct things—"

Wood wet his lips. "Prime Minister, we believe the Japs collaborated with a local logging firm, Vanderhoof Timber. Not officially. But there were almost certainly...er, elements of the company, who worked with the Japs to build this base. It was done under the guise of a logging operation...looked very legit for a long time. Nobody seems to have asked any questions."

King steepled his fingers on the desk, staring into a stained glass lamp nearby. His desk was covered with photos and maps of the Williams Lake area.

"Stunning, isn't it? I mean, the audacity of the enemy—"

"It is, sir. It is indeed."

"It seems our defenses need a little shoring up, wouldn't you say?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well," William Lyon MacKenzie King, twelfth Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Canada, decided, "we can't let this go on, can we? I think it's time I gave Harry Truman a call. Maybe the Americans know something about this that we don't."

Even though the hour was late, King got on the phone to the duty officer at the Foreign Office and requested a line to the Canadian Embassy in Washington. Nearly an hour elapsed, but the request worked its way through channels...the Canadian Embassy, the U.S. State Department, the White House communication office. Sometime after midnight, local time, Harry Truman was gently nudged awake by a Navy yeoman in the Lincoln Bedroom and stirred groggily. The orderly explained the reason for being awakened. Sleepy but intrigued, Truman threw on a robe of his own and padded down the hall to a small private office he kept near the sunroom at the South Portico. He sat down to take the call and watched heavy-lidded as the winking red light atop the Washington Monument strobed on and off, on and off, a regular metronome that nearly lulled him back to sleep, while the call was put through.

Mackenzie King exchanged a few pleasantries with the President of the United States, but Truman had never been a man for formalities. He politely cut off the Prime Minister's homilies and requested King please get to the point, in view of the late hour.

"Mr. President, I have some news that you should be made aware of. Apparently, the Japanese are undertaking some kind of commando operation in the middle of British Columbia...they've constructed a clandestine base in the deep woods up there and we've got proof of that. I wanted to ask if you knew of any Japanese activity in the eastern Pacific or Alaskan waters recently?"

With King's news, Harry Truman sat bolt upright in the chair, no longer sleepy. His heart was racing.

This was the break they had all been waiting for.

"Mr. Prime Minister, I'm glad you called. I've been meaning to talk with you...there's something going on you should know about."

For the next ten minutes, Harry Truman explained Operation _Touchdown_ to the Prime Minister of Canada, the assault on Tinian Island, the crash landing of _Honeybee_ , the loss of _Big Fella_ , and the ultimatum from the Japanese.

"We're certain this is a cooperative undertaking, Mr. Prime Minister. The Japs and the Russians are working together, at some level. Discovering this base in British Columbia now helps bring all the pieces together."

King was shaken by the President's news. "If what you're saying is true, then our two nations face a grave crisis."

"The gravest," Truman conceded. "The power of these new bombs is awesome...we've seen that at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this week. Hundreds of thousands dead. Whole cities leveled."

"Do you think the Japanese...can pull this off? And I thought the Russians were allies."

_So did I_ , Truman muttered to himself. _Until Potsdam_..."Mr. Prime Minister, we don't know the answer to that. The _Big Fella_ device was not yet fully assembled. The components were separately seized. With the Russians involved—to what degree, we don't know—my military people say we have to assume the Japs can make it work. Unfortunately, the Russians have penetrated our atomic program and our labs. Their spies had inside information on how the bombs were made, how they were assembled and transported. Now, your people have found a base...what can you tell me about this base?"

King put Commissioner Wood on the line. "Tell the President everything we know about this place."

For the next five minutes, the Commissioner of the RCMP related what Inspector Madigan and the Williams Lake Detachment had found.

"Mr. President, its main purpose seems to be to serve as an airfield. The runway is dirt, about five thousand feet long, hacked right out of the hilltop, and relatively unimproved. But there are two aircraft on site and one of them is an American B-29 bomber."

Truman's blood ran cold. "Commissioner, I have just sent word to have some of my own people come right now to the White House. Put the Prime Minister back on, please—"

"King, here, Mr. President."

"Mr. Prime Minister, within the half hour, I've asked General Marshall and Admiral King, as well as Secretary Stimson and Secretary Forrestal, to come here. I want them to hear all this...this is information we must act on tonight. Could I call you back when these men arrive?"

"Certainly," King said. "I'll be here at the residence throughout the evening. Perhaps, I should assemble some of my own cabinet as well. I'll notify the Governor General too."

Shortly after one a.m., Truman called again. The switchboard operator put the call through directly to MacKenzie King's study. Commissioner Wood was in attendance, along with the Minister of National Defense, the Governor General, and the commanding officers of the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Army. Outside the house at 24 Sussex Drive, additional RCMP protective details had quietly blocked off the street at both ends. Patrols were stepped up, as more government officials assembled.

"Mr. Prime Minister," Truman was saying, "I've been discussing your discoveries with my advisors. I'd like to turn over the talk to General Marshall at this time."

General of the Army George C. Marshall's brow furrowed in concentration as he studied the latest intel from the Los Alamos CIC detachment and the FBI. "Gentlemen, from the available intelligence and what our Canadian colleagues have found out, it looks like the Japs are planning some kind of air strike, presumably to use the _Big Fella_ bomb they've managed to seize. We have to operate with that assumption."

"General Marshall, this is General Andrew McNaughton, Minister of National Defense. What targets might the Japanese have in mind, in your opinion?"

Marshall glanced across the desk at Truman, who nodded. _Go on...tell him_.

"General, it's good to talk with you again." McNaughton had commanded all Canadian forces during Operation _Overlord_ the year before. He'd been promoted to the cabinet not long afterward. "To answer your question, the ultimatum we received from the Japanese, through contacts in Switzerland, stated that an American city would be bombed, if the Allied Powers didn't reduce the terms for surrender. The Japanese are objecting to some of our terms—"

"But we're not budging an inch—" Truman cut in. "Unconditional surrender is the only way to go."

McNaughton considered that. "Perhaps a city on the West Coast...Vancouver or Seattle—"

"Or San Francisco or Los Angeles," King added. "Gentlemen, as this base is an enemy facility on Canadian territory, our Canadian Forces will take the lead in eliminating it. Of course, we welcome the assistance of our American friends."

"That's why I brought General Marshall and Admiral King in," Truman admitted. "The General has a proposal he would like to make—"

"Please, go ahead."

Marshall opened a folder and extracted a paper on which he had hurriedly scribbled some notes on the ride over from his quarters at Fort Myer. "Basically, time is very short. We don't know how long it will be before the Japanese try to do something, but events are moving fast. With Hiroshima and now Nagasaki being bombed, my guess is the Japs will want to move as soon as they can be sure the bomb's ready. We don't know how much help the Russians are providing at this point—"

Truman interrupted, "And be assured, Mr. Prime Minister, that I have lodged the strongest possible protest to Joe Stalin through our Moscow embassy on this matter."

"—but the best response seems to be a combined assault force, jointly American and Canadian, to overrun this base and put it out of commission as quickly as possible. Airborne troops should make the first stage of the assault, supported by P-51s and P-47's from our Fourth Air Force, out of McChord in Washington. Second Interceptor Command can add aircraft as well, as can some of our units from Elmendorf in Alaska. Coordinated with this airborne assault, we should work with Canadian Forces to stage a ground assault to seize or kill any enemy troops we find, disable or destroy the bomb, and take control of the base. A first priority must be to put the two aircraft known to be there out of action. If _Big Fella_ is there, the Japs must be planning to take it out by aircraft. Destroy the aircraft on the ground and that should keep the bomb away from any major population centers."

McNaughton huddled with his Canadian commanders, while King made notes on a pad. The Prime Minister consulted a map of British Columbia.

"My commanders tell me Canadian Forces can contribute several companies of soldiers, right out of Vancouver. Second Royal Canadian Regiment plus some auxiliaries. We have some aircraft as well. We'll need to coordinate any aerial activity with our own people out there."

"Agreed," Truman said. "But we can't lose a minute now. We have to seize and occupy that base. If we don't, one of our West Coast cities could be destroyed."

The two leaders agreed to keep in touch. A separate planning and coordinating meeting was set up to begin at 0600 hours Washington time, only five hours away. Marshall and General Pearson, chief of the Canadian Defense Staff, stayed on the line, working out preliminary details for the combined assault force, which would involve troops from the U.S. Army and Army Air Forces, as well as the Royal Canadian Army and Air Force and the RCMP.

Truman left the small office and padded back to the Lincoln Bedroom to get dressed. He was too keyed up to go back to bed. Bess Truman stirred as he slipped into his trousers. He leaned across the bed and kissed her lightly on the forehead.

"Mmmhhh—anything?—" she mumbled, turning over under the sheets.

Harry Truman slipped on his spectacles. "I hope so...looks like we got more information on that Jap ultimatum tonight. We think we know where the bomb is now. It's in Canada."

At that, Bess's eyes struggled open. She yawned. "Can we get it, Harry? Can we get the bomb?"

Truman slipped on a light gray linen jacket over his white shirt. He turned from the door, the hall light reflecting off his spectacles. "I hope to God we can, Bess. We've got to. If the Japs manage to destroy one of our own cities—"

He stopped in mid-sentence, then pulled the door shut and left for the Oval Office, unable even to finish the thought.
CHAPTER 26

Friday, August 10, 1945

Kitticut, British Columbia

11:30 p.m.

Major Sergei Vasileyevich Lebedev stood alongside two of his men on a woody promontory overlooking the fog-shrouded valley. All three men had heard the whine of a distant truck, making its way up the twisting mountain road toward the plateau where Kitticut base was located. Faint headlights flashed in and out of view through the trees. The sky was dim but not dark. At this latitude, the sun set just below the horizon and rolled around the edge of the sky like a bowling ball, never quite yielding to the night.

Lebedev felt the hard edge of his Kalishnikov rifle trigger with his fingers. He hoisted the weapon up and sighted on the bouncing light, drawing a bead on the vehicle as it wound its way to the crest of the north ridge.

"We fought them off before...we can do it again," he muttered. Beside him, _serzhant_ Ryabnikov and corporal Vladkin said nothing. They waited, anxiously, to see what forces the Canadians would bring up now.

Lebedev willed his pounding heart to be quiet. It was thudding so loud in his chest he was afraid it would claw its way out and drop to the ground.

The real question was: how much longer could they hold off the Canadians?

Two hundred and twenty yards south of Lebedev's position, corporals Kumoda and Haneda, of the _Nihon Saigon_ First Sasebo Special Naval Landing Force _,_ rested the barrels of their carbines on nearby tree limbs atop a slight rise and sighted in on the newest visitor. When the truck reached the top of the ridge and began its descent toward the narrow valley below, Haneda had said, that was the time to open fire, despite what the stupid Russian commander Lebedev had said.

"We take orders only from His Majesty, and from officers of the Imperial Japanese Navy," Haneda had coolly informed the Russian only ten minutes before.

Lebedev figured a war would probably break out inside Kitticut camp any minute now, with Japanese and Russians fighting each other. It was only a matter of time, with their two countries now at war in Manchuria. How much longer could he keep a lid on the pot?

"Just cover that trail from the south," Lebedev told the Japanese _gocho_. _._ "Don't let them get past your position. And keep a watch behind you too. It could be a diversion."

Lebedev scowled and twisted around to get comfortable. There seemed to be only one truck this time, a bigger truck from the sound of the engine. In the dim twilight, it popped in and out of view...a large flatbed with a barrier of wooden boards around an open bed, and some kind of cargo lashed down under a tarpaulin in the back. It didn't appear to be a military vehicle at all.

Lebedev wondered.

"Hold your fire—" he hissed.

They waited and watched as the truck braked coming down the narrow twisting dirt trail. The more Lebedev watched, the more curious he was. If this was the enemy, they had returned in an odd way, a single vehicle, only a few soldiers. Unless it was a trap—

A faint suspicion began to form in his mind--

By the time the truck had reached the bottom of the hill and was bearing down on the camp, Lebedev's suspicion was stronger. He lowered the rifle and stood up, staring through binoculars at the shadowy form bouncing along the rutted path. Now only a few hundred yards away—

Lebedev told Vladkin to signal the Japanese, positioned on the south ridge.

"Hold your fire...this may be our comrades."

Vladkin flicked a flashlight on and off, passing the word by code, to Kumoda and Haneda. He hoped they would understand...and obey.

The truck slowed to a crawl, then stopped just before the last turn into the camp entrance. Several men got out.

Lebedev motioned Vladkin and Ryabnikov to move out. The three of them slithered down the slope of the ridge, creeping from one stand of brush to another, then to a fat cedar tree alongside the road.

Peering through the branches, Lebedev spied Vasily Kalugin prowling ahead of the truck, Tokarev pistol out, cautiously approaching the camp gate.

Kalugin! At long last!

Lebedev's heart leaped and he stepped out from behind the tree.

" _Zdrahstvooite,_ comrade!" he yelled. "Welcome to Gorki Park!" He trotted the last few yards, as Kalugin whirled, surprised. The commando leveled his pistol at Lebedev, then realized who it was. He lowered the pistol, a cockeyed grin splitting his face.

Lebedev rushed up and they embraced, slapping backs. Seconds later, Vladkin and Ryabnikov came up as well. There were hugs, handshakes, salutes all around. Laughter erupted.

More cautiously, the Japanese emerged from their position along the south ridge and came down to the truck too. Only one Japanese soldier emerged from the truck. Corporal Maizu Yano...the sole surviving member of the Valiant Warrior team. Haneda and Kumoda bowed and embraced Yano with tears of joy. They laughed too, poking each other in the ribs.

"You have the bomb?" Lebedev asked.

Kalugin was still dazed at their reception, nodded. "In the back...under the covers. There are several parts....still be assembled. You've got the experts here?"

"We do. Arkady Golubko, from Chelyabinsk...one of Kurchatov's men. And Tolkach...the spy from America. He's the real expert. Arkady Sergeyevich wants to take lots of pictures, lots of measurements, see what makes this beast tick."

"Let's get inside then," Kalugin said, herding everyone out of the way of the truck.

"The Canadians have found us," Lebedev told him. He hopped into the cab with Kalugin. The Russians opened the gate arm and waved them through. Kalugin put the truck into gear and with a sound of grinding metal, they bounced into the camp and headed toward one of the log and board structures. "Pull into here—we can unload under cover...out of sight of our curious visitors."

"How many?" Kalugin asked.

Lebedev described the incursions over the last few days...the nosy loggers from Vanderhoof they had shot, the aerial reconnaissance flights, the brief but vicious firefight earlier that evening.

"We thought you were Canadian forces, coming back. It won't be long, Vasily Alexeyevich, before the Americans show up too. They know about us...I'm sure of it. Soon, these woods will be swarming with troops. We can't hold them off much longer."

Kalugin pulled the truck through the entrance, into the open space of the crude hangar and hopped out of the cab. "Then we've got to hurry...get this thing unloaded and put together so the scientists can take their pictures. The aircraft out there—"

"—arrived a day ago. She's got landing gear damage, probably wings too. The other plane is our trip home." He indicated the battered C-46 twin-engine craft, parked and chocked next to _Awesome Avenger_. "You've got the coordinates for the sub?"

Kalugin tapped his head. "Up here. If Moscow hasn't changed the plans again." Neither men said anything more about the plan for getting out of Kitticut. From the earliest days at Spassk Dalniy, the Russians had intended to fly the C-46 out of Kitticut, head for a rendezvous at sea, where a Soviet submarine would be lurking, and bail out, ditching the plane.

Kalugin was still undecided about whether he would go along.

While Kalugin and the rest were uncovering _Big Fella's_ casing and the crates in the truck bed, two men strolled up. Lebedev, directing a makeshift hoist over the bed, saw Golubko and Tolkach and made the introductions.

Kalugin sized up the Czech physicist. "So you are _QUANTUM_?" One of the objectives of the whole mission now stood before him. State Security had mounted a complicated and expensive operation, involving dozens of men on several continents, just to get this frail and stooped, graying old man out of America.

Tolkach nodded slightly. From childhood in Prague, he'd never trusted Russians. How many times had his own _Vater_ warned him about consorting with bears.

"Edvard Tolkach," he announced stiffly. "I see you have something for me, no?"

Already Kalugin had taken a disliking to the physicist. Scientists were all like that: arrogant, haughty, contemptuous of what others risked to make them look smart. The pale little Czech gnome had no idea what they had gone through to grab _Big Fella_ and get the bomb up here.

"Major Vasily Alexeyevich Kalugin," Kalugin introduced himself. "Fifth Guards Diversionary Special Forces. I'm commanding this operation. And _this_ —" he waved at the huge casing, partially uncovered "—is an atom bomb."

Tolkach nodded impatiently. "Yes, I believe it is, Major. I helped assemble it in Los Alamos." His arm jerked out, pointing at the tail fin assembly. "—and be careful with that! It's a fillet weld, not very strong. You could easily break it off."

Kalugin snapped his arm back as if he'd been stung. He regarded the Czech physicist coldly. "Then come up here and help out. Show us where to position the hoist."

Tolkach and Golubko guided the delicate operation for five minutes: positioning the hoist sling, attaching the hoist, then cautiously lifting the casing, which weighed upwards of eight thousand pounds, out of the truck bed.

"To this cradle over here--" ordered Golubko. The trolley bearing the hoist was manned by Vladkin and Ryabnikov, with the pilot Ivan Nakhimov helping out. The Japanese stood to one side, lined up as if in review, watching, murmuring to themselves.

After some anxious moments, the casing was lowered into its cradle—a makeshift wooden crib fashioned under Golubko's direction, and released.

For the next two hours, Tolkach and the Russian physicist oversaw the removal of each part. Everything was laid out on canvas tarps on a raised plank floor that covered half the interior of the hangar and carefully inventoried. Then, part by part, Tolkach and Golubko made careful measurements and took pictures, recording the information in ruled sheets the Russian extracted from a binder, before precisely placing the part inside the casing and attaching it. Tolkach kept up a running commentary on the purpose of each part, how it had been designed, how it had been machined, how it had to fit together, all for the benefit of a tape recorder, balanced on the side of the cradle, the tapes of which had to be changed out every half hour.

"She's a precision machine, for all her size," Golubko observed. Tolkach had removed his tweed jacket and jammed an unlit pipe in his mouth, rolling up his sleeves, to work inside the casing. Tangles of wiring spilled out of the rear of the casing, as the two of them laboriously attached each wire to the right position on row after row of terminal strips. From time to time, they consulted wiring diagrams that Tolkach produced from a briefcase one of the Russians had fetched from the barracks.

As the night wore on, the air inside the hangar grew tense, hot and stuffy.

The Japanese grew impatient.

Maizu Yano came over to the cradle to observe the assembly more closely.

"You show me how this works?" he asked. "Our mission is not yet finished." Moments later, he was joined by the other _rikusentai_. Fumori appeared too. He had been inside _Awesome Avenger's_ cockpit, running through checks with Nakhimov.

"Tell us how she is detonated," Fumori added.

Tolkach had a flat-bladed screwdriver in his hand. He showed Golubko how and where to finish the wiring.

"Right..." The Czech physicist wiped his hands off on a rag. "The whole idea is that _Big Fella_ is basically a series of concentric spheres, each nested inside the other. It starts here—" he used the screwdriver as a pointer. That's the core...what we call the pit. Just like Fat Man, similar to the Trinity device, it's made of plutonium. See how warm it is--?"

The Japanese bent forward, waving their hands over the gray metal sphere, nodding.

"What is this hole in the sphere?" Fumori asked.

"That's for a plug to be inserted...later," Tolkach explained. "Look inside...you'll see another small metal sphere. It's the initiator. The shell's made of beryllium, with a solid pellet of beryllium inside."

"And this is for what purpose?"

Tolkach explained. "The initiator gives the chain reaction a boost of neutrons, at precisely the right moment. We don't insert the initiator until we're ready to arm the device."

"Once we have taken off?" Fumori asked.

"That _was_ the recommended procedure, yes," said Tolkach. "In practice, I'm not sure you could actually perform this operation in an aircraft in flight. It requires steady hands...not too much vibration...to get the initiator through the hole. _Big Fella_ should be armed by inserting the initiator sphere into the middle, then closing the shell with this plug. When that is done, the core has the right mix of plutonium and beryllium to go critical when the detonators fire."

Yano bent over to peer inside the open pit, down into the guts of _Big Fella_. He squinted, frowning, at the heat emanating from the plutonium. "How do I know you are not sabotaging this bomb even now?"

Tolkach looked pained at the idea. " _Big Fella_ is like a child to me. I helped create all this—" he waved his hand at the ballistic casing of the bomb. "It would make no sense for me to hurt my child..."

Fumori nodded. "We have concerns...this bomb must work. Our mission depends on it. Nihon depends on it—"

"You'll get your bomb," Vasily Kalugin growled. The Soviet major had wandered into the shop from a quick tour of _Awesome Avenger_ , working with Ivan Nakhimov to oversee repairs on the landing gear. "Don't worry about that. But not until I've completed _my_ mission."

Corporal Yano's face was severe. His eyebrows lifted. Reflexively, he felt for the haft of the combat knife tucked underneath his _sennibari_ , the ceremonial waist band he had worn since leaving Japan weeks before. He could kill this arrogant Russian ass with no more thought that he'd give to squashing an insect. A quick nudge from the pilot Fumori dispelled the notion.

"Go on...please," Fumori urged the Czech. "We must know how the bomb works."

"Surrounding the core are several more layers," Tolkach went on. He pointed them out using the screwdriver. Behind him, Golubko wrestled the final wires into position. "Basically, they help amplify the shock wave, boost the chain reaction in the first fractions of a second after the detonation. The tamper is made of uranium."

Yano saw a strange yellow wire sticking out of the side of the opening. "What is this wire? Is it left over?"

"That is cadmium wire," Tolkach explained. "Put together, the pit, which is plutonium and beryllium, and the tamper, which is uranium, make a marginally subcritical system. When the implosion comes, this area—" he waved his hands over the core and plug opening—" becomes compressed into something like four or five critical masses, in other words, it becomes supercritical." Tolkach closed his left hand into a fist and pressed tightly with his right hand. "We don't want that happening until we're ready. This cadmium wire absorbs neutrons from the area and keeps it subcritical, until then. Before the plug is inserted and torqued down, you must pull this wire out."

Fumori nodded gravely. "All these things we must know, before we load the bomb and take off."

Golubko had a question. "Dr. Tolkach, I'm intrigued by your detonation system."

"Ah, yes, the explosive lenses." Tolkach had worked directly on the physics of the shock waves for Bethe and Weisskopf and the others at T Division for the last two years. "My pride and joy."

"You compress all this with explosives, no?"

"Correct. There are thirty two explosive lenses in all. Getting the geometry right was devilishly hard...it took months of experiment and calculations. And getting the lenses to fire symmetrically...timing them to fire at the same time... _ach_ —that was even worse. Very big headache." Tolkach was in his element now, warming to the subject.

Golubko could see the odd hexagonal and pentagonal-shaped pieces forming a sort of outer shell around the core. "What is this explosive you use here?"

"Basically a mixture...something called Composition B, which is sixty percent RDX and forty percent TNT, and another compound called Baratol, which is TNT and barium nitrate. The pieces are precisely machined and toleranced. Complicated wiring is involved...the firing sequence has to be precise to within millionths of a second."

Golubko felt along the wires he had just connected. "Then these wires are—"

"—part of the detonation system...exactly. They are exploding wire detonators, by the way. The wire receives an extremely high level of current, from a capacitor—you see it right there—" Tolkach pointed to a sturdy bank of cells fastened to the inner wall of the casing, "—and the current then vaporizes the wire. This creates a secondary shock wave that explodes the main detonator components."

"And you can time this precisely enough to make it work?" Golubko marveled.

"To millionths of a second, through the use of spark gap switches, which cascade in sequence to trigger the capacitor bank."

_We have nothing like this at Chelyabinsk_ , Golubko told himself. _Kurchatov will be amazed when he sees this._ _Indeed, QUANTUM seems well worth what he has been paid._

"When the bomb is dropped--," Fumori asked. "We must know as much about the procedure as we can."

Tolkach thought for a moment. "I wasn't part of the ordnance unit...I can tell you what I know...that's all I can do."

"Tell us, then, and quickly."

Tolkach thought. "Carried in the aircraft, _Big Fella_ is basically two steel half-ellipsoids bolted to an equatorial band of the explosive assembly. The pit and the tamper are all inside this sphere in the center, as you have seen. The other parts: the capacitor bank, or X-unit, as we call it, the batteries, the firing and fuzing systems, are all these devices located around the front and aft shell."

Fumori spied a quartet of antennas sticking out of the aft shell. Inside, he followed the wiring with his hands, thoughtful. "These antennas...what are these for?"

"The Archies?" Tolkach smiled faintly. "Wartime expediency, I'm afraid. They're nothing but fighter plane radar warning systems, adapted for our purposes. They're activated when the bomb drops, and measure the height of the bomb above ground. The actual fuzing is a redundant system, using both the Archies and a barometric switch. The bomb can't detonate above seven thousand feet, by the design of this switch. That allows the airplane time to get away from the blast."

"Ah..." Fumori smirked. "American pilots aren't so heroic, after all. They don't wish to die for their Emperor Roosevelt...or Truman, it is, now."

There came a shout from the cockpit window of _Avenger_. It was Nakhimov, his head leaning out the co-pilot's side.

"Sado-san, come up here...we've still got to go over the checklists...so you'll know what to do—"

Fumori waved at him. "Thank you, Dr. Tolkach. We must talk more—" He sprinted off toward the cockpit ladder and hauled himself quickly up into the belly of the bomber.

Vasily Kalugin stretched. "I need a shower."

Lebedev pointed through the open shop door. "Use the head in the building to the left. There is more room...and the water's not as cold."

" _Atleechna_..." Kalugin left the shop and went to the crude log and beam structure. Inside, he found the place a single narrow hall with several rooms branching off. The head and shower, such as they were, occupied the end of the hall.

In one of the common rooms, he sat heavily on a bunk and stripped his clothes off, then padded into the shower. The water was held in a tank on the roof. The opened the valve by pulling on a cord. He shivered—Lebedev wasn't kidding...the water was cold—but it felt good in a bracing kind of way. A few pulls of the cord, lather up with a rough bar of soap, then a few more pulls to rinse off.

When he was done, he felt better. After drying off, he heard a faint voice coming through the walls, a higher pitched voice, a woman's voice. Something else too. Static, a crackling, it sounded like a radio.

Hadn't Lebedev said Tolkach had brought a woman with him, an American woman who had spied for the Russians as well?

Curious, still naked and damp, Vasily Kalugin padded out of the head and followed the faint tinny sounds. It was definitely a radio, and being tuned too. Above the echoing staticky voices and snatches of more static, he heard her voice.

It was coming from the room across from where he had stripped down. The door was shut, but not pulled completely to.

Kalugin grabbed a towel from the rack and his Tokarev pistol and eased the door open.

The room had a row of crude bunks, lined up facing a slitted window along the far wall. The woman sat with her back to the door, on the end of the last bunk. She didn't know Kalugin was there, though she must have heard him in the head.

She was thin and tall, this American woman, with dark brown hair, a slight reddish tint to the peaked upswept crown that framed her forehead. A yellow bandanna was wrapped around her hair and forehead. She wore a long-sleeved print dress, with the sleeves rolled up. On her lap, a military radio set was cradled between her knees, and she fiddled with the set, turning various dials, then holding the set to her ear.

Suddenly, she jumped, startled, seeing Kalugin out of the corner of her eyes. She stood up abruptly, knocking the radio to the floor. Her eyes widened, then her hands went to her mouth, as she realized the intruder was completely naked.

Vasily Kalugin dropped the towel, and the pistol and came in, closing the door behind him. Reflexively, the woman backed up against the window wall, feeling behind her.

"Looking for something to bash my brains out?" Kalugin smiled at her.

Kate Wellesley seemed to stiffen, and straighten up, realizing she was trapped in the corner of the room.

"Who are you? What do you want here?"

Kalugin put his hands on his hips, exposing himself fully to the girl. _Go ahead, Amerikantsy woman, take a good look. We are allies, you and me._

"I just came in to take a shower. It's been a long ride getting here."

Kate squinted at the Russian. "I haven't seen you around here...did you come tonight...in that truck? Did you come with the bomb?"

Kalugin nodded. "Vasily Alexeyevich Kalugin, 5th Diversionary Special Forces of the Red Army. And you must be the American spy...a very attractive spy, too."

Kate realized she was trapped in the corner of the room. She'd handled GIs before...drunk GIs, horny GIs, desperate GIs...though not completely naked like this one. Russian, maybe, but still a GI. Her eyes swept the room and the bed, looking for something, anything she could use as a weapon.

"Don't you think you ought to get dressed, soldier?"

Kalugin smirked. "Why go to the trouble...it's much easier this way."

"Easier?"

Kalugin advanced further into the room, shutting the door behind him. A quizzical look came over his face. "American women have smaller breasts than Russian woman...or German woman."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Only that revolutionary justice and world relations demand that we be allies. We are fighting a common enemy."

Kate appraised his manhood, with a smirk. "Russian men aren't so well endowed as they like to think. Don't come any closer."

She was brave, this American woman. Something in the tone of her voice made Kalugin pause.

"In Spetznaz, we are trained to live off the land, like animals. Wolves and bears hunt for prey, take what they want. Whatever is needed to survive, complete the mission, we take."

Kate scowled, stiffening herself into the corner. She had no weapons, save for her own fists and fingernails. "I'm not some little rabbit you can just take a bite of, soldier. Stay where you are...I got enough lungs to be heard all over this base."

The feral glare in his eyes sent an involuntary shiver down her spine. For a long second, their eyes met, but Kate Wellesley would say later, when it was all over, that she saw no humanity in those black button eyes, only the gleam of a predator.

In a second, he was on her, a large calloused hand clamped over her mouth. Kate squirmed mightily, managing to slip down and crawl partly between his legs, but he grabbed her by the hair, and painfully jerked her upright, pinning her to the wall.

She started to scream, tried to scream, but the huge hand smothered her. The Russian smelled of garlic and potatoes and the deep earthy odor of the woods. He shook her violently, so violently her vision blurred, then the room spun crazily and she was thrown to the wooden floor, pinned with his full weight to the rough cut boards. His right hand continued to smother her face, covering most of it, her nose and eyes as well as her mouth. With his left hand, he tore her print dress at the neckline, exposing the white of her breasts, and, just as suddenly, lifted her skirt from the hem, over her head, ripping off her panties.

He was immensely strong and quick, quick as a tiger. She fought back with both fists, pummeling him in the head, boxing his ears, but her blows had no effect, like a child's efforts against a marble statue. Kalugin's body was lean and hard, taut with muscle and his penis was already probing between her legs, hunting for its prey. He pressed his full weight into her chest, crushing the air from her lungs, as he smothered her face with one hand, and blocked her futile blows with the other.

Kate Wellesley never stopped fighting. She was used to being pawed and groped by GIs, but never in her life had she been assaulted by something so strong, so relentless, so overwhelmingly powerful and savage as the Russian. She flailed and tried screaming, kicking and punching as best she could but her dress, now draped over her head like a shroud, was her own enemy. Most of her blows landed ineffectually into the fabric of the dress.

The Russian commando was an expert at subduing an opponent swiftly and surely.

She felt his penis inside her, at first tentatively, as if exploring new terrain, then deeper, more sure of itself, then violently thrusting, ramming, hammering, again and again, a rhythmic wave of force crashing against her pelvic bones. She tensed, squeezed her legs _hard_ , but it was no use. He was inside her, inside to stay, and though she couldn't _not_ resist, she soon found it was hopeless and she stopped struggling quite as hard, still raining blows through the dress, still squirming and kicking, pinching and trying to bite, but with less and less effort, more perfunctory than effective. In the end, he seemed inexhaustible and she simply endured the unendurable, resigned to the assault.

He came in a wave of hot, shuddering release and was spent, momentarily still on top of her as he gathered his breath. She started to shove him back, trying to get enough leverage to kick with her right leg into his face, but he sensed it coming and dodged her foot. There was a grunt of air—she had landed on something after all , maybe his chest—then he was inside her again, this time hard and erect, with renewed ferocity. Her head was shoved back into the floorboards, driven back and held as if she were a lamb to be sacrificed. For a moment, she was afraid her neck would snap. She was afraid she was be smothered and killed right here in the barracks at Kitticut. He was strong enough to do it.

She tried relaxing and as she did so, his grip on her face relaxed as well. He went at her again, then again, seemingly inexhaustible, an animal devouring a fresh kill. When it was all over, time seemed to have no meaning. It seemed like days had passed from the time Kalugin had first forced his way into the room. She was raw, and aching and bleeding freely and the Russian was wrapped in a towel padding out the door.

She lay on her side, trying simply to breathe, to get some air into her lungs. Just breathe, in and out, in and out. She forced herself to lie there on the floor, letting cool, delicious, pine-scented oxygen wash over her. A window was open nearby and the breeze had freshened.

Through the thin plywood walls, she heard noises, banging and realized it was him, Kalugin, in the head, probably getting dressed. Or was he? He could come back. Kate sat up abruptly, shivering, throwing her dress back down. Her panties were on the other side of the room but she ignored them.

Now obsessed with the possibility the beast might return, she staggered to her feet, patted down her dress and tried fluffing out her hair. She had to get out, get out of the barracks now, while the door was open and the way was clear.

She peered down the hall, seeing shadows move on the slatted boards of the door to the head. It _was_ him, she could still smell the trail of garlic and potatoes. Frantic, she slipped out of the room and padded in her bare feet to the flimsy door at the opposite end of the hall. She flung it open and ran, blindly, hurrying, across the loose dirt and loose scraps of lumber, stumbling, toward the first place she could see.

She plunged into the hangar, filled with the huge silvery bulk of _Awesome Avenger_ and saw a gathering of men outside the door to a small shed inside the hangar. A large wheeled dolly was parked nearby and she realized with a start that it was the bomb. There...beside the airplane. She didn't want to face anyone and veered off, toward a ladder hanging down from the belly of the plane. Without thinking, she stopped at the ladder, seeking shelter, seeking escape, and started climbing upward.

Kate Wellesley hoisted herself into the cockpit of _Awesome Avenger_. She reached the top of the ladder, and pulled herself up, falling onto her side. As she started to get up, she came face to face with Sado Fumori. The Japanese pilot was sitting sideways in the pilot's seat, studying a sheaf of checklists balanced on his knee. He looked up, startled to see a barefoot American girl in front of him.

"Oh!" Kate jumped, seeing Fumori shift around. She hadn't realized the cockpit was occupied. She stood up unsteadily and held onto the flight engineer's table for support. Her legs were weak. "I didn't know—I mean—I'm sorry—"

Sado Fumori had heard that a female American spy was on the base. This had to be her. He nodded abruptly, his eyes roving up and down her tattered dress and bruised face.

"You have some business up here?"

"No...um, well, no actually—" she burst into tears, then wiped her eyes angrily. _Why had she done that_? She sat down heavily into the flight engineer's seat, and sobbed.

Fumori's face was cold and severe, but curious at this sobbing American woman. What the hell was the matter with her? "Are you ill? Is something wrong?"

Kate buried her face in her hands, and forced out, "Yes....I mean—" but her voice choked off into more tears.

"You shouldn't be here...this is no place for a woman," Fumori put aside his checklists. "There's work to be done."

"I'm sorry...that Russian...he...he—"

Fumori scowled, realization dawning. "What Russian? Which Russian are you talking about?"

Kate didn't know his name. She mimed the scar she had seen under Kalugin's left jawline. "He had a scar—here—" she drew a jagged line.

And in that moment, Fumori knew who she was talking about. "The Russian...what happened?"

She forced out the words, wincing even as they came out. "He...raped me. Back there---in the barracks." She wiped bleary eyes, aware that she must look like a mess. "I couldn't—"

Fumori's eyes narrowed. "That Russian is a pig. We have a mission. Now is not time for comfort girls."

Kate shivered. "It was horrible—"

"You can't stay here...we have work to do."

Kate's eyes begged him. "Please...just for a few more minutes. I don't want to be alone...I can't face him again. I can't go out there again."

Fumori regarded the American woman. "The aircraft must be ready. Women aren't allowed inside."

Kate wrapped her arms around her shoulders, snuggling deeper into the flight engineer's seat. The bulkhead panel was filled with dials and gauges. "Please...I feel safe up here....just for a few more minutes." She crossed her legs, smiled faintly, and propped her head up on the engineer's table with her hands. She was dizzy and her whole body throbbed with a dull ache. "Maybe some water too. It's so...I don't know how to say it—"

Sado Fumori was embarrassed. He checked his watch. It was late, early morning, and there wasn't much time. Even now, the American scientist and the Russians were supposed to be getting the bomb ready to be loaded aboard _Avenger_. The aircraft still had repairs to be made; her landing gear struts, brakes, some wing damage...Hyogo and the others were seeing to that. She had to be ready by sunup. Yano was expecting the order by dawn: _kikumasamune_ , like the ceremonial wine the samurai drank before battle. When the code word came from Tokyo, _Avenger_ had to be ready to fly.

If the enemy didn't overrun the Kitticut base before then—

The last thing Fumori wanted to deal with now was an emotional female, especially an American female. Cherry blossoms weren't made to survive such storms. Maybe it was best to humor her, for the moment.

"There's water in the canteens, in the shop." Fumori climbed past her, spying out of the corner of his eye a spreading stain of red on the engineer's seat. The girl was bleeding, and badly. She squirmed as he squeezed past.

"Uh...maybe a few towels too, if you don't mind?"

" _Hai_!" Fumori lowered himself down the hatch ladder. "But you must leave after that...women not allowed here." His head disappeared below, and for a few minutes, Kate Wellesley was alone in the cockpit of _Awesome Avenger_.

She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the image of the grunting, snorting animal who'd just violated her. When she opened them again, letting the wave of dizziness and nausea pass, she wondered about the baby. Had it been hurt? She felt sick to her stomach. If the Russian pig had hurt her baby—she balled her fists, then burst into tears again.

She sobbed for a few moments, then through bleary eyes, watched the men on the ground wheel the large dolly with the bomb outside the hangar. The sky was a purplish twilight, though not pitch black. It never went fully dark at this latitude in the summer. Six men grunted and groaned, hauling the ten-thousand pound bulk of the bomb through the hangar doors to a large circular pit just outside, where a makeshift hoist had been erected from timber beams. Carefully, gingerly, they lifted the bomb off its dolly and lowered it into the pit. What were they doing...trying to bury the thing?

The Japanese pilot had said the airplane had to be made ready. Perhaps—but Kate stifled that thought. At that moment, she saw the Russian—Kalugin—appear in the hangar door, his squat, muscular frame silhouetted by the lights outside. She shuddered and drew away from the cockpit window.

There was no way she was going down there while he was in the hangar.

Still, she wondered. The pilot had hinted at a mission still to be completed. The Russians had the bomb. The Japanese had the airplane. Were they going to use it? Were they going to use the bomb? Edvard Tolkach had said nothing about that.

She knew that she and Tolkach needed to talk.

Before the Russian had come to the cabin, Kate had been fiddling with a military squad radio, trying to make some connection to the outside world. It had been a mistake to come with Tolkach, to get mixed up with any of this. She was no spy...all she had ever done was code and de-code documents. She was a middleman, a packager, as _Windward_ had termed it. This... _this_ was sabotage, or worse.

She watched Tolkach conversing with the Russians, explaining something, gesticulating, first toward the bomb, then toward the airplane. Away from this gathering, the Japanese were huddled around one of _Avenger's_ landing gear, with tubes and wires hanging out, trying to fix something. The two groups didn't mix at all, staying together, yet apart from each other. The more she watched, the more uneasy she became.

_This isn't right_. They're going to use that bomb. They're going to drop that bomb, somewhere. But where?

Kate Wellesley had long been sorry and sad that she had become estranged from her father for most of her adult life. She had spent much of the last ten years feeling sorry., mostly for herself and her throttled ambitions, some for her poor mother, and her sisters and brothers. Dr. Wellesley was gone now and there was no chance to make amends with him. But if there was one lesson he had taught her that had stayed with her since childhood, it was this: follow your conscience... _do what is right, young lady, and you'll never have to answer for what you've done._

She'd followed her conscience doing work for the Party. She'd let Richard Leonas, then _Windward_ himself, talk her into supporting the Revolution, doing what was right for humanity, spreading knowledge around so no one would have a monopoly on it, helping the Russians beat back the Nazi beast. The Russians were allies, weren't they? It couldn't be wrong to help them, give them the means to defend themselves.

Her legs ached and her head throbbed and she reminded herself that, allies or not, it was a Russian beast who'd just raped her.

And it was a Japanese pilot who'd offered to get water and some towels, who'd let her hide in _Avenger's_ cockpit until she felt safe. Japanese were the enemy, weren't they? The yellow menace, with big buck teeth and thick glasses, swords flashing as they stabbed Chinese babies in mid-air...how many war posters like that had she seen in Santa Fe's rail station, or around the town on shop windows?

It was all very confusing. Russians, Japanese, atom bombs, the war, Wade Brogan. And the baby. She rubbed her belly gently, hoping against hope her unborn child hadn't been hurt in the assault. What was in like in there?

Who was the real enemy?

... _do what is right, young lady_ \--

It came to her, like so many revelations, in the stern voice of her father. What was right... was what was right for the baby. That was the only 'right' that mattered now. The baby had to survive. And she wanted Wade Brogan to be there when he was born.

Kate moved to the front of the cockpit, being careful to stay low. Any moment, the Japanese pilot would return, with water and towels. He was sure to insist she leave the aircraft, no matter how hurt and nauseated and afraid and dizzy she might be. She sat down in the pilot's seat for a few moments, studying the dials and instruments. Nothing like a radio was visible. She crawled around the cockpit, exploring further aft, squeezing past the round bulk of the gun turret shell and spied another crew station, a table and more instruments. She sat down and suddenly realized this was it...the radioman's station. Green canvas wall covering surrounded something called a BC-348. Another instrument was labeled ARC-5. She didn't know what that meant but they looked like radios she had seen in pictures.

Fiddling with knobs and dials, she got needles on the BC-348 dial face to move, flickering back and forth with power. A slight hum filled the station. Apparently, the aircraft was powered up, humming on battery power. Perhaps, the Japanese pilot had done that for his checklist.

If she could make contact with someone outside, she could alert the local authorities. It was obvious the Americans would be looking for her and Tolkach. The Czech physicist had been under Army suspicion for months. All she had to do was broadcast their presence, somehow get word out that Tolkach was here in the deep woods of British Columbia, with an atom bomb and an American B-29 bomber, surrounded by Russian commandos and Japanese aviators, and she was sure the authorities would descend on the place quickly.

She was guilty by association, and guilty by her own actions too. The authorities were surely take her into custody and probably charge her with treason, perhaps espionage. It was a big step she was taking. Was it the right one?

Kate felt her belly again, willing the baby to kick, to move, do something. She didn't want to think about the alternative. Her child, Wade's child, _had_ to live.

She had to do whatever she could to make sure of it.

Kate spied a headset on the table and put it on, fitting the cups to her ears under her hair. She pressed buttons and twisted knobs until a screeching whistle sounded in her ears, followed by a warbling tone.

The radio was powered up. She wasn't sure what frequency she was transmitting on, or even if she was sending anything out.

Cautiously, she keyed the mike button and began whispering:

"Help me, please...my name is Kate Wellesley...I'm in a camp in the woods...somewhere in Canada...is anybody there...is anybody listening on this channel?

"Please help me—"
CHAPTER 27

Saturday, August 11, 1945

Vancouver, British Columbia

5:15 a.m.

The RCMP stationhouse at 14th Street was ablaze with light when Wade Brogan and Skunky Merrill got out of the car. They had hitched a ride from the Vancouver airport with a Major Thomason of the Royal Canadian Army, who also had been assigned to take part in the final briefing. Operation _Touchdown_ was about to commence and all the players and decision-makers had gathered for one last skull session.

A cool early-morning fog had settled over Vancouver's inner harbor and the dawnlight was gray and diffuse, heralding sunrise through the low-hanging clouds. Brogan and Merrill had flown overnight from Albuquerque in an Army Air Forces C-47 to McChord Field near Seattle. There they had picked up a liaison officer, Major Thomason, for the last leg into Vancouver.

"All the brass is here," Thomason told them, as they checked through the security station, flashing their CIC identification folders. Inside the stationhouse, a large operations room with wooden columns and exposed cedar beams overhead had been converted to a briefing theater. Folding chairs had been laid out in orderly rows. A podium draped with the Canadian flag and the emblem of the Mounties dominated a hastily-constructed wooden platform, behind which a canvas screen had been hung to project maps and film.

Officers and officials from two countries and a variety of military services milled about, slurping coffee and wolfing down doughnuts.

A balding man in the gray-green tunic of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police came to the podium and rapped loudly with a pipe stem for attention.

"If you'll be taking your seats, please, gentlemen, we can get started...." After a few moments, all seats were occupied. Around the platform, more officers sat in a U around a map table below the podium, the table tilted at the back to be more easily seen by the seated visitors. "This briefing should last about an hour, unless there are issues we can't resolve here."

The speaker was Commissioner Derrick Eagan, of the RCMP Pacific Division. Eagan's command was nominally in charge of the operation and the initial provisioning of the combined assault force even now being assembled at Canadian Forces base Surrey a few dozen miles east of Vancouver.

Eagan warmed to his subject, using his pointer to highlight elements of the map table. "The mission of Operation _Touchdown_ is make an assault by land and by air on an enemy base recently discovered in the Williams Lake area, take control of the facility and put it out of action. This base appears to be a joint operation of the Japanese and the Russians, the purpose for which we can surmise to be related to recent diplomatic activity between the Allied Powers and the Empire of Japan—" Eagan nodded gravely to Colonel Roy Werthem, U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division. "I'll ask Inspector Neal Madigan of our Williams Lake Detachment to give us the latest intelligence."

Brogan craned his neck to see the map better. Madigan turned out to be a thin, reddish-blond fellow, with a whippy way of walking. He stood alongside the map table, with his own pointer.

"In the last two weeks, several reconnaissance missions have been conducted in this area, by ground and by air," the inspector started out. "What is known from scouting reports, from civilians and from our own surveillance operations is this: the base is fairly new, probably less than a month old. It's sited on a plateau just north of White Pelican Provincial Park...here—" he rapped at the location with his pointer, "There are several fairly crude wood-frame structures on site, including one large enough to accommodate a four-engine aircraft, in effect a hangar. Additionally, there is a four-thousand foot dirt airstrip bulldozed right across the crest of the ridge on which the buildings are sited. We know it's an airstrip and that it's operational because there are, as of two days ago, two aircraft at the site. One is a small observation-type plane, closely resembling a Stinson L-5 single-engine craft. The other is, from long-range photos and visual recon, by all accounts an American B-29 Superfortress four-engine bomber."

There was a stir in the room and ripples of discussion. Several men got up and came closer to the map table. Soon, the rest of the assembled officers had dispensed with decorum and joined their colleagues around the table. Neal Madigan moved up onto the platform to be heard over the commotion.

"On several occasions, men of my detachment have attempted to approach this base to determine its purpose. Each time, they have been fired on and had to retreat. The occupants of this base are trained and highly proficient soldiers. The enemy has made some efforts to conceal the nature of the base by trying to associate themselves, as it were, with a local logging and timber concern, Vanderhoof Timber Company. But make no mistake: the men running this base are foreign nationals and professionally trained soldiers. And they are well armed. I myself have seen Asiatics in the woods around the camp." Madigan produced a small case, out of which he pulled a white, blood-stained sash, embroidered around the edges with lacy stitchwork and embossed with Japanese _kanji_ script. "My men killed several of the enemy in the last few days. One of them was wearing this under his belt."

"My God...it's a thousand-stitch belt," said one American officer, from the side of the table. He reached out to touch the sash. "I'm Major Walt Givens, Fourth U.S. Army Air Force. We saw those in the Marianas, during the Turkey Shoot. Jap pilots often wore those...they're good luck charms, the writing there is signatures of friends and family, best wishes, that sort of thing."

"Must not work too well," a voice wisecracked from the back.

A chorus of uneasy chuckles followed. Madigan went on. "So we have strong evidence that the Japs are on site. The nationality of the others we've observed is presently unknown, but for several reasons, we think they're Russian."

Wade Brogan studied the map table and its sketchy layout of the base, made from aerial photos and ground recon teams. "What's this hole here?" he asked, pointing out a depression indicated near the hangar.

"We're not really, sure, Colonel," Madigan replied. "My men observed a large hole or pit in the ground, excavated with some rigging around the edge. It seems to be about a hundred feet or so from the hangar. We've seen operations of some sort going on around and in that pit, maybe some kind of drilling operation. As of yet, we don't have an answer."

"I do," said Skunky Merrill. "Look at it, Dog. Look at where it's located." He mimed movements with his hand over the top of the map. "You lower something big and heavy into that pit, then tow the B-29 right over it. The rigging is a hoist."

Brogan's throat went dry. Skunky was right, he had to be. "It's a bomb-loading pit, Inspector. Atom bomb loading. The device is just too heavy for conventional loading. This is how they did it at Tinian Island, for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki drops. We've been practicing this loading operation at Holloman Field in the States for some time."

Madigan's face was hard. "I'm sure you gents are right. It makes sense."

"This base," Brogan said, "is almost certainly part of the same ultimatum we received from the Japanese last week. If I'm right, the stolen atom bomb parts are there now, or soon will be."

"So where'd the Superfort come from?" Major Givens asked. "The Japs don't have any of those."

"No, they don't," said another Air Force officer, on the other side of the table. "Major Mike Petrios, Second Interceptor Command, out of Elmendorf. The Japs don't have a Superfort...but the Russians do. Twentieth Air Force has had several shot up pretty bad on bombing runs over Japan limp off to Siberia and make emergency landings. The Russians confiscated them and won't give us our crews back. Not many people know about it."

"Jesus..." muttered Brogan. He bent closer to the table. "It makes sense...that was always the biggest question. The Japs, presumably with Russian help, steal an atom bomb, or at least the parts. The Russians help them put it together, get a look at our most secret weapon, and come up with an aircraft to deliver it. They get what they want. And the Japs get what they want: a functional atom bomb and the means to use it."

"Is it functional, Colonel?" The questioner was a mustachioed Canadian officer midway along the table's length. General Hugh Fremont commanded the Second Royal Canadian Regiment, the unit that would furnish a lot of the manpower for the ground leg of the assault. "Is it a workable bomb?"

Brogan knew he was treading on thin ice with his answer. CIC was charged with protecting the secrets of the Manhattan District program, including the very existence of the atom bomb. But with Hiroshima...and the President's announcement, the cat was out of the bag.

"We have to assume it is, General. We have to assume the worst. The components taken from Tinian Island—" he held up a hand, knowing full well the Canadians knew nothing about that; explanations would have to come later "—and the parts taken from the crash in Nevada could be put together to make a workable bomb. If they're not damaged or compromised in any serious way. It's dicey, it takes expertise, special equipment, some measure of skill and time...I don't know if such things exist at this base—it looks pretty crude from the photos, but we can't rule it out. Especially, if the Russians are on hand. The Russians have been trying to infiltrate our program for years." _Successfully, too_ , he thought, but he didn't say that.

Major Givens examined a handful of aerial photos, scrutinizing the pictures taken of the B-29. "If I had an atom bomb, and I was a Jap general, I'd want an airplane to deliver it. A big one. That's got to be the reason for the runway. They're going to load up that B-29 with whatever they've got and drop it somewhere."

Givens' words hung in the air like the thickening fog outside the windows. From somewhere in the distance, a ship horn blared mournfully.

"It may already be loaded and airborne," Merrill said.

Madigan was doubtful. "Not to make light of your thinking, Colonel, but Williams Lake Detachment still has a few observers in the area, stationed well away from the base, but close enough to have observed something like a B-29 taking off. As of 0100 hours this morning, reports were saying there had been no change."

"Then we have no time to waste," General Fremont said. "General McNaughton has put Second Regiment at the point of the spear, so to speak. I've already worked out details of the airborne drop with my American counterpart, Colonel Werthem."

Colonel Roy Werthem had flown into Vancouver from Fort Campbell, Kentucky overnight. Werthem was commanding officer of the 2-502 Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. He'd brought the fully fitted- out Fox Company along with him, staging into the Canadian Forces base at Surrey in the early morning hours. Fox Company had just returned from duty in Europe, having spent the last several months on patrol along the German-Austrian frontier.

Werthem outlined the details of the airborne assault to the gathering around the map table.

"As of 0700 hours, Fox Company and Second Royal Canadian Regiment will make a coordinated drop into a landing zone near Nazco Lake and the town of Alexis Creek, coordinates here—" he indicated a spot southeast of the lake. "Once we're done and assembled, we'll hike overland through White Pelican Provincial Park—"

Fremont picked up the details. "—we'll approach the base from two axes, northwest parallel to the ridgeline itself and southwest, using the cover of the hills overlooking the plateau from that sector. The assault force will have use of several pack howitzers, 75-mm caliber, as well the usual kit of machine guns, recoilless rifles, a few bazookas, sufficient for a coordinated ground assault from two directions. Just prior to H-Hour, currently planned for 0930 hours, we'll need the handiwork of our aerial colleagues—" he looked over at Major Givens, "—to soften up the enemy a bit."

Givens stepped up to the table. "Second Interceptor and Fourth Air Force are furnishing two flights each of P-51s and P-47s for ground support. They'll do the initial strafing runs, to keep the enemy's head down, cut down on the return fire. After we do a spot assessment of the enemy's strength, we'll turn the skies over to you, George—"

Captain George Wellington was a tall, blond officer of the Royal Canadian Air Force 425 Bomber Squadron, known as the "Alouette" Squadron. He'd just come from patrol duty along the Iceland-Nova Scotia convoy route.

"Four-twenty-five will have two Lancasters and one American B-25 Mitchell bomber on hand at Surrey. They go airborne with General Fremont's signal that the drop has occurred. Once your Mustangs and Thunderbolts have had a go at the base, my pilots will fly over at five thousand feet and let loose their loads, all hundred-pounder high explosive and incendiaries."

"Not too heavy on the incendiaries, Captain," Neal Madigan advised. "We've had a dry summer up in the Nechakos. We don't want to start a conflagration we can't control."

"Agreed," Wellington admitted. "After the bomb runs, we turn the assault back over to General Fremont and Colonel Werthem."

"Right," Fremont said. He borrowed the pointer from Commissioner Eagan. "The runway and hangar complexes are the key targets. And the aircraft, especially the bomber."

"Is there any intelligence indicating the bomb may already be there?" asked Werthem. "I want to know what my boys may be getting into when they assault the base."

Wade Brogan answered that. "We have to assume that it is, or at least the components of it are. I've seen no intelligence either way. The worst case is that the bomb's there, it's being put together and it's nearly ready for use. Speed is essential."

"What about this ultimatum from the Japanese?" asked Madigan.

Brogan knew only what Colonel Cates had told him. "That's for the diplomats. Unofficially, I've been told we haven't responded. Word around the Detachment is that we won't either. The President's sticking with the official Allied position: unconditional surrender."

"And operations are continuing in the Pacific," said Werthem.

The assembled officers continued to dissect tactical options, as each phase of the operation was detailed and discussed. Shortly before dawn, Commissioner Eagan polled all attendees one last time.

"Any further comments, gentlemen?" There were none. "Very well, I believe we can report to our respective governments that the operational planning is done and we are ready for orders. I've got to get on the phone to Ottawa...General McNaughton's with the PM this morning."

The American War Department representative was a Colonel George Justin, a staff assistant to General Marshall. "I'm sure the President and the Prime Minister are in constant communication. My orders are to report to the General for further instructions when we've finished this briefing."

Before Eagan could reply, though, an RCMP sergeant burst into the stationhouse operations room with a fistful of telegraph flimsies. "Dispatch from Williams Lake, sir...just came in over the wire."

Neal Madigan raised a hand. "I'll take those, Sergeant." He signed for the sheaf of pages and the sergeant handed them over. "We've got scouts at several positions overlooking the base. Must be a report—" he perused the pages, rifling through them quickly. The blood drained from his face.

Eagan noticed first. "What is it, Inspector?"

"Bad news, I'm afraid. Scout Two is positioned northwest of the base, on a ridge overlooking the plateau. Corporal McNeese, I believe—" Madigan was reading quickly—"looks like...yes, McNeese saw some activity around the aircraft...maneuvered himself a little closer to get a better view of the runway...he's reporting that the B-29 is on the runway now...surrounded by men and trucks...a large bomb was just loaded into the forward bomb bay...and...something strange here. He's reporting that the radio airwaves are filled with some woman's voice...an hysterical female voice screaming on one frequency after another... _screaming about an atom bomb_..."

Madigan looked up. "This is it, then."

Brogan came over to have a look at the scout reports. "We've got to go now. I just hope we're not too late."

General Fremont was already on a nearby phone, dialing Pacific Sector Defense headquarters, a few miles away in downtown Vancouver. He spoke firmly but quickly, snapping off orders. Moments later, all air defense units along the Pacific coast of British Columbia, from Glacier Bay on the Alaskan frontier to Victoria Harbor, were on full alert. Inside of five minutes, at fourteen different airfields, P-51 Mustang and P-38 Lightning interceptor crews scrambled to get airborne, in weather varying from light fog to driving rainstorms.

The same message went from the RCMP stationhouse to Defense Ministry headquarters in Ottawa and from there to Washington, D.C., through the War and Navy Department duty offices to Western Defense Command sector control at Moffett Field near San Francisco. Fifteen minutes after the RCMP sergeant had delivered the news from Kitticut, the Americans were paralleling their Canadian allies, scrambling anything and everything that could fly from Miramar at San Diego to McChord Field near Seattle. Fourth Air Force would bear the brunt of the alert.

Seven hundred and ninety eight miles south of the stationhouse at 14th Street, Vancouver, two P-51 Mustang interceptors from the U.S. Army Fourth Air Force's 325th Fighter-Interceptor squadron stood warmed up and fueled on the tarmac at Hamilton Field, near San Francisco, their 1700-horsepower Merlin engines screaming at nearly full power.

Crew chiefs helped Captain Mike Ramey and Lieutenant Otto Stiles into their cockpits. _Hound Dog Leader_ and his wingman weren't sure exactly what was going on or what had prompted the unusual Saturday morning alert drill...only that the dispatcher's voice had been unusually shrill and insistent that " _this was no drill."_ _Hound Dog Leader_ was ordered to get airborne as fast as possible and "don't wait around for armament or ordnance crews...just get the hell in the air with whatever you got and we'll get you a vector."

Ramey strapped in, catching a quick glimpse of Stiles doing likewise. _Whose cockamamie idea was this anyway?...having a full-up alert and scramble drill on a Saturday morning._ Ramey had been looking forward to a little more sack time and maybe, just maybe, when his alert duty shift was over at 1200 hours, a little time on the links of the O Club's newly fertilized golf course, knocking the little white ball around.

Sergeant Philbrick slammed the cockpit canopy down with a thud and ratcheted it shut.

What the hell...Ramey snapped his shoulder strap for good luck and waved his hand in a circle over his head, signaling Stiles to get going...follow me to the active runway.

The two P-51s of _Hound Dog_ flight trundled across the tarmac to the threshold of Runway 22 Left and ran their throttles up to max power. Seventeen hundred horses strained at the leash ahead of Ramey's slightly foggy and chipped windscreen.

_Whatever the hell is was_ , Ramey told himself, _there'd better be a damn good explanation when this was all over._

He'd lost nearly fifty bucks the last time he played the links with the boys from 3rd Pursuit and he was aiming to make every penny of it back with interest that afternoon.
CHAPTER 28

Sunday, August 12, 1945

Yokohama, Japan

11:45 p.m.

Admiral Hiro Ushenda waited impatiently in the wardroom of the destroyer _Oyodo_ , moored at Yokohama's Yamashita Docks, waited for his superior officers to arrive and get down to the business at hand, smoking cigarette after cigarette, while in the distance the air-raid sirens wailed their nightly ululations.

Time was short and decisions had to be made. The cowardly traitors Togo and Prime Minister Suzuki and His Majesty's Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal the Marquis Kido were sparing no effort to end the war and turn glorious Nihon over to her enemies. They had to be stopped and there wasn't much time to do it.

Ushenda paced the small confines of the officers' wardroom, fifteen paces around the table, again and again. He checked his watch. He tested the tea and found it hot and spiced perfectly, the gleaming teapot polished only an hour ago by a yeoman who had come in expressly for that purpose.

Tonight, nothing could be left to chance. Tonight, the decision would have to be made.

Shoreside, beyond the cranes and the rubble of the blasted docklands, Yokohama burned with a million eyes, the charcoal stoves of her weary survivors cooking their pitiful meals of fish and _miso_ , trudging with blank stares from one line to another, here to buy a few cupfuls of rice, there to buy a thimble of sugar or tea, maybe exchange a family portrait or heirloom for an apple or an orange.

Ushenda paced nervously, seeing none of this, as he waited for the other officers to appear. The glory and even the survival of Japan was at stake. Not in ten thousand generations had a greater chance come for the descendants of the sun goddess Amaterasu to strike such a mighty blow against her enemies—

Ushenda halted in mid-orbit. The wardroom door opened.

A yeoman held the door aside. In came Admiral Soemu Toyoda, the commander in chief of the Imperial Navy. He was closely followed by Admiral Takajiro Ohnishi, the vice chief of staff and General Yoshijiro Umezu, chief of staff of the Imperial Army.

The men saluted and bowed. As they seated themselves around the mahogany table, the yeoman bustled wordlessly about, setting tea cups and placings.

When they were finally alone, Toyoda glared at Ushenda. "Well, you asked us to come aboard...there is news? We can't hold off the traitors forever, you know."

Ushenda wet his lips. Toyoda's loyalties to Nihon weren't suspect. His patience with Ushenda's pet project was.

Ushenda opened a small satchel, extracted two pages. "A few hours ago, esteemed Admiral, a coded report came in from the Operation _Shori_ team in North America. All our plans have gone well, better than expected. The operation is ready to be executed. The plane, the crew and the bomb are at the Kitticut base. All that is needed now is the order to go."

Umezu's eyes widened. He was lighting his own cigarette. "You mean to say this scheme may actually work?"

Ushenda nodded. " _Hai._ Yes, General...all the parts are in place. Nihon Saigon has plenty of teeth left to bite the enemy."

Umezu scowled. Over the last six months, especially with the fall of Tojo, the Imperial Army had been in retreat, lost face and influence inside the government, lost the favor of His Majesty. It was embarrassing, intolerable, all the more so with the Navy having actually put together this fantastic plan. "We'll see about that. What do the wires have to say about diplomatic activity...any word from the Allies today?"

Ushenda reached into his satchel and pulled out more pages. "The day's diplomatic traffic, courtesy of Third Bureau." He passed the pages around.

Toyoda affixed tiny reading spectacles while Ohnishi scanned the pages. "No reply from the Americans again, I see—" Toyoda flipped through the stack. "It's as if Sasebo never delivered any ultimatum. Don't they realize what might happen?"

"They realize it," Ushenda theorized. "But they don't think we can carry out our threat. Already, they probably have Tokyo in their sights, maybe even Kyoto."

"How many atom bombs do they have?"

"Unknown," said Ushenda. "But we know of one they don't have."

That brought a snicker from Toyoda. "Tokyo may well be next...we have to be prepared for that possibility. It's a good thing the Emperor finally agreed to go to the Nagano redoubt."

"Agreed," Umezu conceded. At that very moment, His August Majesty, the Sacred Crane, was a virtual prisoner of a joint Army/Navy special forces team at the spartan underground bunker carved from the side of Mount Myoko, a six-hour train ride west from Tokyo. "Now we can have a free hand to defend the nation as we see fit."

"If the cowards don't betray us before we're ready," Ushenda said.

Toyoda was sobered by what they were about to do. "We have a grave responsibility...already two of our cities have been leveled by this _genshi bakudan_...I don't care what Anami says...incendiaries or not, the Americans have a terrible new weapon."

"And now a third city, an American one, will be next," Ushenda continued. "Unless the Americans come to their senses."

Ohnishi was thinking of possibilities, stirring his tea, reading the swirls as if he could divine the future. "What if we use the bomb against San Francisco...and the Americans still don't give us better terms? What will we do then?"

It was a question they all wanted to avoid. Toyoda glared at his vice chief with contempt. "There is only one thing we can do: prepare the Homeland for the decisive battle. Even now, the Americans are staging men and equipment for the invasion. Okinawa is practically sinking under the weight."

"Our streets will run red with the blood of a hundred million warriors...that's what Anami said a few days ago," Ohnishi recalled.

Ushenda was fed up with the delay. "Esteemed Admiral, we can't wait any longer. The Americans are on the verge of overrunning our base in Canada. We must act now...or we'll lose the opportunity to strike a great blow against the enemy."

"Then we should decide here and now...make the decision," Toyoda announced. "Unlike Suzuki's cabinet..."

The assembled officers were polled, one by one. Ushenda, Toyoda, Ohnishi, Umezu. Each man in turn nodded or muttered _Hai_. All were in favor of proceeding with the final phase of Operation _Shori._

Ushenda recorded the votes on a piece of paper. "Then it is done," he announced. "Someone must tell His Majesty what has been decided."

There was an embarrassed silence, as if the officers couldn't quite bring themselves to admit the enormity of what they had just decided. Finally, Toyoda spoke up.

"I will inform His Majesty," the admiral said. "There is another train for Nagano tonight...it leaves at 0100 hours, arrives at Mount Myoko before dawn. Suzuki is there with the Emperor. I'll tell him the decision had to be made. He'll just have to accept it. He can tell Lord Kido, and His Majesty." Toyoda looked glum at the prospect of the journey, knowing full well he might not return. Allied aircraft made train travel by day too dangerous. It would be just as well if the train were bombed into rubble. Soemu Toyoda was more than ready to meet his ancestors at the Yasukuni Shrine.

He knew Suzuki and Togo, the Foreign Minister, would be furious when they found out _Shori's_ final stage had already been approved. Sabotage, they would cry. Fanatics. But their opinions were of no importance.

What was vital was that _Shori_ , if it worked, might well salvage something of the present disaster, give Japan breathing room to work out an honorable peace. He looked at Hiro Ushenda, wondering. Around the Academy at Etajima, Ushenda had always been something of a mystery, a lone wolf scavenging for scraps of glory. He was a cherubic, baby-faced, Buddha-like officer, with his pince-nez frames and big puffy cheeks. Junior officers called him "The Egg", for his bald head. Could be bring this off? Could Hiro Ushenda be the man whose tenacity and daring secured Japan for a thousand more years?

_Unlikely_ , Soemu Toyoda thought. But still—

"We need to get orders written up," Ushenda said. "Orders coded and transmitted, within the hour. There's no time to waste."

Toyoda asked, "How will the orders be sent?"

"They will be transmitted in code, across the Pacific to a covert receiving station in the Aleutians. It was left behind at Kiska Island, when the Midway operation ended. Two operators are still there, brave _rikusentai_ , waiting only to serve His Majesty one last time. The station will receive the coded orders and re-transmit to Kitticut base."

Toyoda could find no fault with the arrangements. Hiro Ushenda, the one-time _kaban-mochi_ , the briefcase carrier of Etajima, seemed to have thought of every detail.

"This code...how does it work? And who knows about it?"

Ushenda explained. "It's a simple code. In fact, the orders to proceed are a simple phrase we all know... _kikumasamune_."

Toyoda nodded gravely. "The ceremonial wine drunk by samurai before battle...it seems appropriate. You've done well, Ushenda."

Ushenda bowed slightly. "For His Majesty...for Nihon...I give my life."

Umezu scowled. "As will we all, and very soon, most likely."

The die was cast. In less than a day, the city of San Francisco would be obliterated by one of America's own bombs.

And the great Pacific war would enter unknown territory.
CHAPTER 29

Sunday, August 12, 1945

Kitticut, British Columbia

5:50 p.m.

Wade Brogan scanned the Kitticut base through binoculars and wiped his eyes clear of mist and rain. _One good thing about the rain_ , he thought, as he slowly panned across the top of the ridge, squinting to make out anything. The low clouds and fog endemic to British Columbia had kept the huge B-29 bomber on the ground for the moment. And the rainfall was picking up.

"Maybe we'll have a little luck for once," he muttered to Skunky Merrill, who was lying in the brush next to him, hunkered down against the rain.

"That would be a first," Merrill murmured.

The two CIC agents weren't alone on top of the ridge. The woods around their position were thick with airborne troopers from Lieutenant Bob Petty's First Platoon, pride of the 2-502 of the 101st Airborne's Fox Company. First Platoon had deployed after the Nazco Lake drop at the point of a very broad spear, heading to the northeast, through thick stands of cedar, ash and birch, over ridges and across deep vine-choked valleys, heading for the enemy base at Kitticut. Brogan and Merrill had ridden up from the Williams Lake Detachment offices with Madigan and the RCMP contingent, then joined up with the Americans after the drop. Right on the heels of Fox Company came the Second Royal Canadian Regiment, parachuting to earth along the top of a winding road that lead out of the town of Alexis Creek into the White Pelican Provincial Park. The Americans and the Canadians joined up briefly for a last-minute briefing at the road junction. The weather had been dicey but the worst of the rain had held off for a few hours.

Then General Fremont's Second Canadians moved out due north, to swing around and approach Kitticut from the northwest, holding position on a ridge overlooking the plateau about half a mile away, to wait for the aerial assault.

Colonel Werthem's Fox Company moved east following the high ground along a meandering creek that led them to a position southwest of the base.

Moments after the briefing, the skies had opened up and a driving rain had pelted the central British Columbia high country with torrential sheets of water.

The slog east had taken Fox Company most of the day, a dreary, fatiguing march through heavy brush and intermittent squalls of rain, thunder and gloomy fog. Just shy of 1700 hours local time, Lieutenant Petty had motioned his radioman over and advised Fremont and the command post, now set up at Williams Lake Detachment, that Fox Company, First and Second Platoons and the Heavy Weapons Platoon, were finally in position.

"The fog's thicker than Army grits," he muttered to Fremont. "Best I can see, there's not much activity around the base...I can see a few lights, and the big plane but that's about it."

Fremont's voice crackled back over the radio. "Any contact with the enemy yet?"

"Nothing. I've got scouts out on a little recon now...but so far, the woods are quiet. Guess everybody's riding the storm out."

"Very well," Fremont said. "Second Regiment's moving into position now..."

"What about our air support? Can they go in this crap?"

Fremont advised Petty to stand by, then came back on the line. "Word from your people is that Second Interceptor departed on schedule from Elmendorf and are inbound now...two flights of Mustangs and two flights of Thunderbolts. Alouette Squadron's on the runway at Surrey, ready for takeoff. "

Petty checked his watch. "What's ETA on the Mustangs?"

Before Fremont could reply, a sergeant nearby whispered hoarsely. "Lieutenant—Lieutenant, I hear 'em! Up there!—" The sergeant pointed at the southern sky. Indeed, the rumble of engines could be heard in the distance.

"—never mind, General. I think the Air Force has just arrived. Fox One, out—"

Brogan was lying prone behind a stand of bushes and low birch trees when the first flight of P-51s materialized out of the fog. Screaming over the tops of the trees, slipping in and out of the low clouds, the Mustangs looked like silvery hawks, roaring by overhead. The two aircraft rocketed past the treeline across the other side of the valley, then stood on their wingtips, making a steep left bank, and rolled out for a strafing run right down Kitticut's runway.

Brogan stumbled to his feet to watch. Merrill did the same.

The P-51s belonged to Second Interceptor Command and as Brogan watched through his binocs, he spied the polar bear shield and emblem on the wings of the lead plane. It dropped lower in altitude, waggled its wings to steady up, and let rip a fusillade of .50 caliber rounds, stitching a line of death along the dirt runway as it roared by. Right on its tail, the second aircraft maneuvered for its own run. Both aircraft strafed the runway multiple times, gouging up geysers of dirt with each path, then for good measure made a few extra passes at some of the buildings.

The base garrison seemed to have been caught by surprise. At the first run, the few men outside, mostly huddled under the wings of the B-29 to stay dry, scattered, diving left and right. A few re-appeared after the first few passes, with rifles, which they aimed boldly at the Mustangs screaming by.

The first phase of the assault was over in less than three minutes. The high-pitched drone of the Mustangs' big Merlin engines grew more and more muffled as the aircraft disappeared into low clouds and were gone. Though the fog was intermittently thick, it thinned at times enough for Brogan to see men slowly emerging from cover, gathering around the B-29 Superfort, then more men, rushing from low wooden buildings alongside the dirt runway.

"Looks like we stirred up a hornets' nest," Brogan remarked.

"Yeah," said Merrill, "look at 'em scurry around all dazed and confused...I could pop a few right now..." He flexed his fingers around the trigger of his Colt .45 sidearm..."

"Hold off, pal...the Air Force isn't through with the bastards yet—they don't know what's about to hit 'em—"

Even as they spoke, a deep rumble reverberated across the hills and the sound of more approaching aircraft had an electrifying effect on the enemy. Men scattered in every direction, some taking up positions on the ground alongside the buildings, scanning the skies and clouds for some sight of the planes they could hear but not yet see.

The first P-47 zoomed out of nowhere, almost on top of Fox Company, a great black beast with a bottle-shaped fuselage, bristling with rockets and guns. It careened across the treetops, banking slight right to line up with the runway and let fly a pair of rockets, with a shrieking hiss. Smoke and fire trailed a straight line right to the ground as the rockets found home, detonating with a concussive shock wave right over the roof of the huge hangar building. Smoke, flame and wooden debris exploded in a flower-petal of black and red balls, hurtling off in all directions.

The second Thunderbolt followed seconds later, strafing the ground around the

B-29 and the dirt ramp off the runway with .50-caliber machine gun fire. As the Thunderbolt wheeled up into the clouds and banked hard left for another run, a terrific explosion hammered the ground for miles around with fists of rapid-fire detonations, one right after the other.

A First Platoon corporal several yards away leaped with joy, shouting, "An ammo bunker...got to be!"

"Or a fuel tank!" someone else yelled over the din of the cascading detonations. Hot waves of air ripped skyward and a dense black plume of smoke billowed across the base.

"Here he comes again...let 'em have it, flyboy!"

Both Thunderbolts came screaming out of the clouds in line abreast formation, peppering the grounds of Kitticut with machine gun fire, rocketing another low wooden building behind the hangar. It erupted in a deafening hail of debris, red flame and smoke pirouetting and corkscrewing into the air.

Explosions continued rocking the base but on the last pass, the enemy garrison had recovered enough to return fire. Shots rang out, a few at first, then a steady stream of rounds, blasting away at the tails of the Thunderbolts as they swept across the base.

"Sounds like small arms to me," Lieutenant Petty said. "Carbine sized...maybe a few BARs."

"I dunno, eltee," griped the sergeant, "I'm hearing bigger caliber than that...the bastards may have some machine guns."

"Damn but that bomber hasn't even been touched—" Petty was scanning the scene through his own field glasses. "Looks like some men are climbing up inside her right now...I see a hose being hooked up, they're fueling...they're fueling...where the hell are my Mitchells--?"

The radioman ran up with the squad radio already crackling with voices. "Command post, Lieutenant...urgent for you—" he handed the handset to Petty.

"Petty here—" the Lieutenant's face fell seconds later. "Shit...how long...any chance they can get here...we've had the Americans strafing the bejeezus out of the base but the bomber's not damaged and it looks like they're fueling the thing up right now—" Petty's mouth tightened and his made a fist with his free hand. "Yes, sir, General...I understand...we're gonna have to move out now, then...try to stop that bomber...okay, sir...understood, sir...got it. First Platoon, out!" He handed the set back to the radioman. "Sergeant Wise--?"

The sergeant with the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth hustled up.

"Yes, sir?"

"Pass the word...we're moving out now. We're assaulting now...the Canadians can't get their Mitchell bombers in the air...weather's too bad down south. We're on our own now...us and the Second Canadians. Pass the word...assault formation...let's have McKechnie's squad and Brickman too, right up front." Sergeant Wise started to spring off, but Petty grabbed his arm. "Oh...and bring up the mortars. I want a screen of mortar fire right there—" he pointed to the thick foliage of the cliffs overlooking the runway from the southwest. "Start at the end of the runway and walk me some three-inch rounds right down that sucker. Wait'll I give the word...I want McKechnie and Brickman to be ready to move—"

Sergeant Wise hustled off to pass the word, while Petty gathered the nearer squads around to lay out the plan. Brogan and Merrill checked their own sidearms and fell in behind the troopers as they moved out.

The climb down from the ridgeline was harrowing and nerve wracking, as explosions still cooked off from time to time around the base, sending debris spinning off into the air.

"Makes a damned good diversion," Merrill muttered, as he followed Brogan through slippery ground cover, down hollows and rutted outcrops, slipping and sliding and crashing through heavy brush. The southwest approach to the base runway took the platoon through some of the thickest, most impenetrable undercover. Birch and cedar stands darkened the woods to near twilight conditions, while the rains muffled their footfall through torn branches and mounds of wet leaves. After half an hour of hard slogging, Petty held up his hand. They'd had reached the jump-off position, on the very brow of a cliff overlooking the end of the runway. So far, the aerial assault had kept the enemy pinned down and no scouts had been encountered in the woods around the base.

Petty snagged the radioman and checked one last time with the Canadian unit to their north.

The Second Canadian Regiment had two platoons perched over a steep slope overlooking the northwest corner of the clearing. Below their position, the end of the dirt runway angled off to the edge of the plateau, with mounds of fill lining both sides. The "Canucks" platoons were led by a Captain Devereaux. His nasal voice came back to Petty over the radio.

"Blackwater and Redstone both ready to move out. What's your position?"

Petty scanned the length of the base with his binoculars, noting the burning fires outside the hangar and the enemy beginning to emerge from the out buildings. Activity seemed to be converging on the huge B-29 bomber. Even as he watched, the other twin-engine aircraft was taxiing out of the hangar and moving into position at the northwest threshold of the runway, directly below 1st Platoon.

"The cliffs at the southwest corner. We're holed up in some trees, ready to come down. I'm laying down a screen of three-inch mortar rounds, Blackwater. That'll help cover our approach, keep the bastards' heads down."

"Understood, " Devereaux replied. "What's the go signal?"

"Two white flares...Willie Petes...in quick succession. You see those flares pop overhead....hit the base with everything you got."

Petty gave the handset back to the radioman and circled his arms, signaling the mortar squad to open up.

A barrage of hollow _thunk...thunk...thunk...thunk_...followed in rapid order. Two three-inch tubes had been set up and sighted in at the very brow of the hill. The rounds whistled down onto the base and set off a volley of explosions, geysering dirt and wood in all directions. Enemy soldiers had begun creeping out toward the B-29, but now scattered in all directions. Moments later, return fire swept along the crest of the ridge.

" _Incoming_!" somebody yelled. Rounds whizzed through the branches and spanged off tree trunks, sending chips and branches flying.

"Suppressing fire!" Petty yelled. Behind his right ear, the staccato _brrrrrp_ of BARs opened up, followed quickly by a steady thump of M-1's letting fly. Twenty yards to his right, Petty heard the first reports of the light machine gun squad, peppering the runway and grounds in front of the hangar. Spouts of dirt flew in all directions.

"Keep those mortars going!" Petty called out to the squads. "Walk 'em up and down the runway...see if we can churn up that surface...Roscoe?" He waved at a sergeant nearby. "Get your flares ready—"

"Primed and ready, sir."

Petty watched the enemy take cover, lying in groups in the bomb-loading pit and alongside the hangar and what he assumed was a shop building. _Professional military_ , he told himself, watching their tactics. He was familiar enough with German defenses, heavy on firepower but cunning and quick to adapt. But these were probably Japs. He'd heard about _banzai_ charges from Marines he'd run into the last few weeks. _Friggin' animals,_ they had all told him _, coming at you screaming and blowing bugles like some Indian charge out of the Wild West_.

He wasn't about to give the yellow bastards the chance. "Roscoe...pop those flares...now...now!!"

The sergeant quickly complied and two white phosphorous flares hissed skyward in a corkscrewing trail of smoke and lit off directly overhead, raining their white trails down onto the base.,

At the same moment, Petty waved his arms frantically. "All squads, move out! MOVE OUT! Secure the bomber first, then the hangar..." At Petty's signal, the mortar fire died off. Squad by squad, the platoons leaped over the edge of the cliff and scrambled sliding and rolling down through the leaves and mud, firing off rounds to cover their approach.

Precisely as planned, the Canadian platoons Blackwater and Redstone did the same, emerging from dense cover to the northwest, raking their end of the base with murderous machine gun fire.

Caught between two pincer arms, the Japs hunkered down in their pit and returned fire. To keep from being flanked, two of them peeled back and tried to circle behind the hangar, to bring fire down on the Canadians from the other side. They were cut down by First Platoon marksmen before they could make it, and died pitching headlong into a pile of fill dirt alongside the hangar.

Wade Brogan and Skunky Merrill headed over the cliff too, firing off their own.45's as they slid and stumbled toward level ground. A volley of enemy fire swept back and forth across the cliffs and Brogan just managed to throw himself headlong into a deep rutted cleft when the rounds stitched across inches from his face, throwing up mud and dirt and leaves.

_Jesus H. Christ_ , he muttered to himself. He twisted around, caught Merrill's face caked in mud and saw he was alright.

"Come on...we can't stay up here exposed like this!" Brogan inchwormed his way down the cliff, slithering like a snake from one hollow to the next, watching as the airborne troopers of Fox Company advanced steadily across the open ground, seeking cover behind mounds of dirt, rotting logs, clumps of brush and fractured boulders. For a few moments, the volume of fire died off...the Japs had wheeled around to deal with a threat from Blackwater squads to their rear...and Brogan and Merrill took advantage of the lull to climb out of their hollows and head for the B-29.

Even as they scurried ducking and lunging forward, Brogan saw five men burst from inside the hangar, weapons blazing, and head directly for the bomb pit. They moved together, as a group, firing in every direction, and one by one, dove headlong into the pit, where they joined a small detail of Japs firing blindly at the oncoming Americans.

Brogan and Merrill hit the ground and covered their heads, while enemy rounds from the bomb pit swept the dirt all around them.

"There must be more inside!" Brogan yelled.

"Reinforcements...look...the Canadians are splitting up—" And so they were. While Brogan and Merrill watched, Redstone platoon had divided into two elements and was trying to cut off the hangar opening from the B-29 and the bomb pit, driving a wedge between the two enemy groups. Behind Redstone, a Blackwater squad was inching its way along the back wall of the hangar, toward the nearer of the log buildings behind.

Suddenly two men climbed out of the pit and raced for the open belly ladder of the bomber. Machine gun fire stitched dirt all around them and slammed into the fuselage of the aircraft but both men made the ladder and scrambled up into the belly of the aircraft. Seconds later, three more made the same jump, ducking and bobbing as they crossed the open ground, then hauling themselves up and out of sight.

Wade Brogan had an uneasy feeling as he watched the assault unfold. Not as to the ultimate outcome at the base, for the enemy was outmanned and outgunned. It was only a matter of time before the enemy was overrun and either captured or killed. Already, they were being flanked and cut off from several directions, chewed to pieces by combined fire from three directions.

What had the courier said at the Vancouver stationhouse: _some hysterical female is on the radio, screaming about an atom bomb..._

Hysterical female...it had to be Kate Wellesley. Brogan was sure of it. Kate was here, had to be here, at the base. And _Big Fella_ was already loaded aboard.

Even as he watched, the right inboard engine of the bomber coughed, spat smoke and began to turn. The engine caught and the prop whirred into action, a silvery blur, trailing black smoke while gunfire raged back and forth all around. Seconds later, the left inboard Wright radial engine did the same.

"The bomber!" Brogan yelled. He crawled forward on all fours, staying low, pointing at the aircraft. Even before all her engines had started, _Awesome Avenger_ had begun to move, pivoting to the left, rolling forward through the mud toward the edge of the runway. " _Get the bomber_...we gotta disable her!!"

That was the moment the Japs had been waiting for. Steadily, like a noose being tightened, the Americans and the Canadians had pushed the enemy into a smaller and smaller pocket, now split into two groups. One group was holed up in the hangar, still holding off the Redstone platoon, with spasmodic fire from several windows, keeping the Canadians pinned down and slowing their approach.

The second group was hunkered down in the bomb loading pit. Even as Brogan, then Merrill slithered forward across open ground, through murderous fire, the Japs in the bomb pit climbed out, as one, screaming and surged forward. Rifles blazing, they poured headlong into a wall of lead unloosed by First Platoon, who were advancing in fits and starts, from cover to cover, along an arc centered on the pit.

The effect was immediate. Though the Japs would be quickly cut down in the crossfire, momentarily their unexpected charge forced the Americans to dive for cover and re-group.

The interval lasted just long enough for _Awesome Avenger_ to start her remaining two engines and wheel out onto the muddy runway in a hail of gunfire. As the last of the Jap charge was beaten off, the brazen enemy soldiers still twitching on the ground, Wade Brogan scrambled forward and stumbled up to the nearest of the Japs and pitched headlong into the mud. The poor bastard was dead, half his head blown away, but his Type 99 carbine was intact, lying bayonet first in the mud. Brogan snatched the weapon, took a few moments to wipe off the end of the barrel, find the bolt and made sure the clip was still there. Then on his knees, he wheeled about and began firing point-blank at the tires and fuselage of the B-29, as it lumbered forward.

"Get the bomber...stop 'em from taking off!!" he yelled over the gunfire. He sprayed rounds at the tires, the wheels and the cockpit, wondering for an instant if this was really such a good idea, with an atom bomb likely loaded in the bomb bay. But somehow, some way, the plane had to be stopped.

Better the thing go off here than over some defenseless city.

Brogan's actions got the attention of several American soldiers. With the Japs in the bomb pit gone, the last pocket was now inside the hangar. The Canadians were closing in on them, exchanging sporadic gunfire. Alongside the runway, two riflemen leveled a barrage of fire at _Awesome Avenger_ , as she began slowly rolling down the runway, her tires sucking mud, her wings wobbling.

The sight of the huge bomber, laboriously picking up speed, her 2200-horsepower engines screaming, as she wobbled back and forth across the runway, gave everyone pause. The roar of her engines was deafening and Brogan was sure the runway was far too short to allow a takeoff. He kept firing, even as the huge bomber lumbered past, shredding tires as the rounds deflated her starboard bogies, now leaning and careening toward the edge of the runway.

_She'll either crash into the hangar or into those trees at the end_ , Brogan decided. He stopped firing and scrambled forward.

It took only a moment for him to realize what a crash might mean. If _Big Fella_ was onboard, she might well detonate on impact.

"Take cover... _take cover_ _right now_!" Brogan yelled. "She's gonna hit those trees...she's gonna blow sky high!!"

Soldiers scrambled across the runway, running after the bomber still firing at her rear, ducking as she shed huge tire chunks and pieces of wing. _Avenger_ wobbled unsteadily, still picking up speed, and headed down the runway like a drunken sailor at the end of liberty.

Brogan had been running after the plane too but he slowed to a trot, then waved at the soldiers to take cover.

"GET DOWN! She's gonna hit—" He peeled off toward the first log building, not knowing it was a barracks, and flung himself headlong behind the wooden walls into the dirt, headfirst, expecting at any moment a terrific explosion.

_If she goes off like Trinity_ , he thought in the last few seconds, we _'ll never know what hit us._

_Avenger's_ engines wailed at maximum power and Brogan cringed...any second, any second now...

...but the explosion never came...

Instead, incredibly, _Awesome Avenger's_ nose lifted and her tires, what was left of them, slurped into the air. She hung like a bloated bird for a few seconds, her airspeed just barely enough to lift her off the ground, then the landing gear struck the stand of cedar trees at the end of the clearing.

Brogan's head came up at the sound of the impact---it was a wrenching, shrieking crash and as he looked up, he saw _Avenger's_ wings dip to the right, nearly sliding out of the air and into the embankment beyond the trees. But the terrain of Nazco Lake saved her, for the plateau bottomed out and dropped off into a steep ravine just beyond the embankment. The bomber had just enough airspeed to stay in the air and just enough air to clear her wings and right them.

Wobbling and shuddering, the bomber steadied herself and cruised on, quickly disappearing into dense low hanging clouds, at an altitude of less than a hundred feet over the treetops, her engines shrieking like a dying banshee.

The base was quiet, save for sporadic gunfire from the other side of the hangar. Brogan stood there on the runway, fully exposed, and stared dumbly at the hole _Avenger_ had just made in the clouds.

"OH, SHIT."

It was the only thing he could think of to say.

Skunky Merrill practically tackled him, throwing him to the ground.

"Are you nuts, Dog?" Merrill landed heavily on top of him, knocking the breath out of Brogan as they rolled in the rutted mud tracks of the bomber. "Get down and stay down! There's still Japs inside that building."

The firefight didn't last much longer. There were shouts, some in English, some in a language Brogan didn't quite catch, but it definitely wasn't Japanese. First Platoon and the Redstone and Blackwater platoons quickly surrounded the hangar and raked the windows with gunfire.

Inside, the defenders realized it was hopeless. The rain picked up, now beating down on the makeshift airfield with a steady drone. Faces appeared in several windows and a stream of curses and shouts followed. In time, the defenders appeared in the hangar door, their hands raised high.

Lieutenant Petty, surrounded by infantry and two Canadian lieutenants cautiously approached.

"On the ground!—" he shouted, gesturing with his M-1. At first, the enemy didn't respond. Sergeant Wise translated with a few strategic rounds from his BAR, stitching a line of bullets across their path. The defenders got the message and dove headfirst to the dirt, their hands still up.

Carefully, the Americans and the Canadians entered the hangar, splitting off details to search out the building.

"Every nook and cranny...turn this place upside down," Petty ordered. "And don't take any chances. I want live prisoners if we can get 'em...but not at the cost of any more men."

Already six Americans had gone down in the assault. A makeshift morgue was already being set up just inside the hangar, where it was drier, and bodies were being littered into a partitioned shop area, covered with ponchos and ID'ed.

Wade Brogan and Skunky Merrill came in too, shaking off the rain like shaggy bears.

"Damn!" Brogan was saying. He winced, realizing he had cut a deep gash on his right arm. Blood streaked his jacket.

"Better get that taken care of," Merrill suggested.

"I'll be okay. But that plane...we shouldn't have let it takeoff."

"What more could we do, Dog? The thing's so full of holes now it'll probably fall apart in the sky."

"We'd better alert the Air Force...Lieutenant Petty?" Brogan let a medic apply a quick tourniquet to his arm, which he did as Brogan walked over to the platoon commander. Petty was pouring through documents his men had found on the group of captured defenders, who were now huddled, rain-soaked and shivering on the ground, surrounded by American and Canadian infantrymen. "Lieutenant--?"

"Yes, Colonel...what is it?"

"We've got to get on the radio, alert Western Defense Command. That bomber's probably headed south, for the States. It's got to be intercepted...there may be an atom bomb on board."

Petty glared back at Brogan. "Nobody told me about an atom bomb...you mean like Hiroshima? Is this some kind of joke?"

"No, Lieutenant, it's no joke. You weren't informed because it's top secret. We lost one of our bombs."

"You lost one...begging the Colonel's pardon, sir, but how the hell do you _lose_ an atom bomb?"

_Don't ask_ , Brogan wanted to say. "It's a long story...but trust me, there's almost certainly an atom bomb onboard that B-29...and it's headed for an American city _right now."_

Petty waved his radioman over. The squad radio was secured in a backpack slung over the corporal's shoulder. "Haines, try and raise the battalion command post...don't know what kind of reception we'll get around here—"

While Corporal Haines fiddled with the radio, Petty issued a steady stream of orders. "Ford and Mix, take three guys and secure that other plane over there. I don't want anymore unauthorized takeoffs. You two—" he pointed to a couple of privates out of Second Platoon—"go find Lieutenant Walters...I want every building searched top to bottom. Any more papers or documents, bring 'em out and put 'em in this bag here—"Petty grabbed a satchel he had found on the hangar floor. "Battalion can go through this crap..."

Neal Madigan showed up in the hangar door, drenched from the rains. A small contingent of Mounties, equally drenched, came in with him.

"Inspector," Petty told him, "the Colonel here says that bomber that took off could well have had an atom bomb aboard." He saw the radioman having little luck with the squad radio. "Any chance we can use your radios...get word out to have the plane intercepted?"

Madigan shook his head. "My own chaps are getting signals squelched too. It's the weather...the front's playing havoc with all our communication. I can't even get a clear signal back to Williams Lake."

Brogan fidgeted. "We're wasting time here, Lieutenant. I've got to get back to some place I can call the States. Every minute's critical...if that bomber crosses the border...if they do have the bomb aboard—" he shook his head. "Can you give me a detail to get me back to your command post?"

"Hmmm...yes, that would do it. There are landlines from Williams Lake back to Surrey and Vancouver. You should be able to call out from there—Sergeant—" he turned to one of the men standing alongside—"you and McDivitt take the Colonel here back to the main road. Get him back to the Detachment fast as you can."

"Yes, sir."

Before Brogan could leave, a pair of American soldiers from 1st Platoon came into the hangar, escorting two civilians covered with sheets to keep themselves dry.

"Found these two in the back of that far building," said the corporal. "Hiding in a closet—"

The civilians dropped the sheets and Brogan's mouth fell open.

It was Edvard Tolkach and Kate Wellesley.

"Kate--!" Brogan went to her...started to wrap his own jacket around her shoulder—she was shivering and her dark hair was plastered to her forehead. She looked up miserably. Brogan stopped short, remembered where he was. "I know this woman...she's wanted in the States. That fellow too. Wanted for espionage, suspected treason."

The corporal shrugged at Petty. "Lieutenant, what should I do with 'em?"

Brogan spotted a small shop office, barely enclosed with logs and plywood sheet in the corner of the hangar. "Put the girl in there," he ordered. "For interrogation. And this clown..." he scowled at Tolkach, who refused to make eye contact, but rather stared with his chin out at some unseen world beyond the ceiling "—put this clown in the corner. Tie him to that chair. And post guards on both of 'em."

Petty started to say something but Brogan outranked him. He snapped his fingers and the arrangements were quickly made. Kate Wellesley was roughly escorted into the shop office and furnished dry strips of cloth from the tool crib nearby. Through the open door, Brogan saw her toweling her face and neck off. Edvard Tolkach was taken to a far corner of the hangar, behind some crude wooden shelving and secured to a chair. A burly corporal from First Platoon stood nearby.

"Right," said Neal Madigan. "Gibson and McDivitt will see you back to the convoy. From there, you can get back to Detachment in about half an hour, if the road's not washed out."

Brogan was torn. "Just a minute, Inspector...I need to ask the girl something...about the bomb. It could be important." He went into the shop, stood in the doorway, watching as Kate finished drying herself off.

"Kate...I never expected...I mean, you're the last person I expected to see her..."

Kate glared up at him. She was pale, drawn, her face bruised and her eyes dark and hollow. Her hair was pulled into a disheveled mess.

"Wade...I must look terrible...I tried—I mean—" she started sobbing, put her face in her hands.

He wanted to go to her, hold her and comfort her, but he was aware of eyes peering into the shop behind him. _She's a prisoner now_ , he had to remind himself of that. She'd aided and abetted the enemy, engaged in treason, probably espionage, who knew what else. He willed his hands and legs to stay still.

"You should never have come with him," he said finally. "Did he force you...did Tolkach force you into—"

She shook her head, imperceptibly at first, then with sad resignation. "No...nothing like that...I wanted...." She looked up again, bit her lip. "For the baby...Wade, I did it for the baby. I was afraid...of what might happen—"

"For the baby? You're crazy, woman. Tolkach didn't force you to come?"

"No...I came on my own...I wanted to...thought I wanted to...but later...when I saw the bomb...saw what they were going to do—" she sobbed some more, started to rise out of the chair, hesitant, not sure what Brogan would do. He helped her up—then lifted his hands away from her as if she were contaminated and she stood unsteadily on her feet, wrapping and unwrapping the towels in her hands. Brogan stood alongside, jammed his hands into his pockets to keep from taking her in his hands, hugging her. The baby—

"The bomb... _Big Fella's_ on board?"

She nodded wordlessly, her eyes glum dark ovals.

"It was you, then...on the radio...screaming...a lot of people heard you...you were—"

She coughed. "He hit me, pushed me to the floor—" but no, she wouldn't lay that on Wade Brogan. First rule of the USO canteen girl: _let the boys talk and nod your head. Don't bring personal problems to the canteen...remember these boys are shipping out tomorrow or the next day._ She bit her lip...all those nights...it was hard, so damned hard to get over the hump...to realize she wasn't at the canteen now.

"Yeah, it was me...I hid in the plane, up in the front. One of them. one of the Japanese pilots, he had been working on the radio...it was already on...I—"

Brogan took a deep breath. "You may have saved a city, Kate. But it's late and we've got to intercept that plane before it crosses the border.

She looked pale and nauseated and without warning, knelt and vomited on the floor, her shoulders heaving and wretching, Brogan looked out the shop and immediately, the corporal on guard came in and saw what had happened. "Get me some more towels, Corporal. Wet rags too. Quick!"

She sat down heavily and tried to breathe regularly. "The baby...I just hope the baby's all right. He raped me, Wade—"

Brogan stopped short. "Who raped you—Tolkach?"

She shook her head. "He was...Russian, I think. If he hurt the baby...that's all I'm worried about. I don't care about myself. Just the baby...our baby—"

The corporal came back. Brogan hoped he hadn't heard that. The two of them attended to Kate, cleaned up her face and hands.

"I've got to go, Kate." Brogan just shook his head. _What a friggin' mess_. "You know you're a prisoner. I've got to arrest you. Take you back to the States."

She mumbled something, then more clearly, "Just take care of my baby...that's all I want."

Brogan wanted to say more, so very much more, but there wasn't time. Outside, the rain seemed to be letting up. The Mounties assigned to him were still waiting expectantly at the hangar entrance.

"One more thing, boys...and I'll be right with you." Brogan had a score to settle. He stalked across the hangar to where Edvard Tolkach was lashed to a chair. He grabbed the chair and spun it around, nearly knocking it over. The corporal on guard lifted an eyebrow but did nothing, moving discreetly away from the altercation.

"You're the bastard that got Kate into this—" Tolkach looked up at him, their eyes finally meeting. For all the grief the Czech physicist had caused, the long hours, the endless questioning, the searches and stakeouts, the chewing out he'd gotten from Colonel Cates, Brogan felt his fists balling up in spite of the situation. He slammed Tolkach's chair hard to the floor, seized the man's jacket lapels and pulled him up, nose to nose.

"You're the one responsible. Tell me one thing, Tolkach...are you happy now? Did you get what you wanted?"

Edvard Tolkach was a frail, old man, prominent veins on his forehead throbbing red and angry, as he wheezed into Brogan's face. His sparse white hair seemed to have dissolved and Brogan could count the veins on the top of his nearly bald head. He slumped dejectedly into his chair, his wrists chafing at the tie-down rope that secured him to the chair.

"I will say nothing until I can speak with someone in authority. A lawyer, I ask for a lawyer. I'm a citizen...I have rights. Your own Constitution says this, no?"

"Cut the crap...was the bomb on that plane?"

Tolkach sneezed and snot dribbled out of his mouth and nose. He scrunched his eyes closed and his thick black eyebrows that looked so much like a cartoonist's rendering of an evil scientist arced upward. "Nothing at all—" he shook his head defiantly.

Brogan threw him back into the chair. "Tolkach, it wouldn't take much for me to bury a fist into that slimy face of yours...for the last time, was the bomb on that plane...I can have you stood up against that wall over there and shot right now...military justice. You're an enemy soldier and this is a combat operation. No one will question it at all."

Something in Brogan's voice made Tolkach flinch. His squirrel eyes opened up to slits. "There's nothing you can do about it now. It's too late."

Brogan stood up abruptly. "What's the target? Where's it headed?"

Tolkach's eyes came fully open. "Colonel, did you read the newspapers last Tuesday? The papers were full of articles about Hiroshima....Hiroshima was a small unknown city before that...nobody had ever heard of it. Now...it's famous...famous and a pile of rubble."

"It's _war_ , Tolkach!" Brogan practically screamed in his face. "Hiroshima's payback...for Pearl Harbor...for the Bataan Death March...for Manila and Nanking and a thousand atrocities. The Japs had it coming."

Tolkach smiled back him. "So does a little city by the bay—"

Brogan froze. _San Francisco_. "That _is_ the target, then...San Francisco? The plane's headed for San Francisco?"

Tolkach clammed up and would say no more. But Brogan had all he needed. He looked around, made sure the corporal on guard wasn't watching and slammed a balled fist right into Tolkach's midsection, knocking the breath out of the man. He _ooommphed_ spit and snot and air, some of it splatting onto Brogan's chin but he didn't care. Tolkach groaned and slumped forward. Brogan whirled and left and the corporal never moved an inch.

"Let's go, men," Brogan called to the Mounties who would escort him back along the logging trail to the trucks, then back to Williams Lake.

"Colonel—" it was Lieutenant Petty, who came running up. "We may have some enemy in the woods around here—I've got two details out hunting now...we found evidence from one the dead men that there were others. I'm assigning a full squad to you..." he pointed to four more men, weapons ready, waiting at the hangar entrance. "Be careful...I'll keep trying our radios here."

"Got it. And thanks, Lieutenant. Your men did a great job today."

Petty smiled grimly. "Screaming Eagles...we save the day. Bastogne or British Columbia...don't matter to us." They saluted and Brogan spun about. He picked up the Mountie escort and the squad from Fox Company and moved out, clambering back up the very same muddy cliffs they had just come down.

Moments later, the group had plunged into the soaking wet cedar forests of White Pelican Park, hiking and slipping through tough vine and underbrush, south by southwest, hunting for the faint outlines of the old logging trail that would take them back to the road.

The trip took almost an hour. When the detail spotted the convoy of trucks hugging the side of the road, Brogan was tired, aching, slashed with cuts and bruises, and caked with mud. A Lieutenant Egan was lounging against the hood of the deuce and a quarter when he spotted the lead Mountie pushing through the brush. Instantly, the Lieutenant and his men were alarmed, taking cover behind their trucks, their weapons trained on the end of the trail. Heads emerged, one by one, then bodies, soaked and bleeding.

The Lieutenant didn't stand down his men until he recognized Wade Brogan. News was exchanged quickly and Brogan waited impatiently for a lanky, red-haired corporal named Riley to power up the PRC-25 VHF backpack. The convoy's radio was bigger, with a stronger signal. Brogan hoped and prayed they'd be able to reach Williams Lake and the Detachment command post. Time was growing short...every minute they lost, the B-29 bomber would be flying closer and closer to the U.S. border.

Brogan explained the situation. "That bomber took off...it's probably headed south, for the U.S. border. I've got to alert air defense now, try and intercept it before it reaches American airspace."

Egan was dubious. "The radio's got just enough power to reach the company command post in Williams Lake. All the trees and mountains get in the way—you can try it, Colonel."

Riley fiddled with the tuning dials and tried several times to establish contact. "Fox Seven to Fox One...do you read me, over? Fox Seven to Fox One—"

Contact was intermittent, staticky and the voices were hard to distinguish. "Here, let me try, Corporal." Brogan took the handset. "Fox One, this is _Touchdown_. My name is Colonel Wade Brogan and this is an emergency. I need to get a message to Western Defense Command, the nearest dispatcher...that would probably be Seattle. Do you read me over?"

A chorus of chirps and whistles were followed by snatches of barely distinguishable voices. "Chherrr....'even...zis...'down...."

Brogan repeated his call but it was quickly apparent that contact over the convoy radio would be dicey.

"It's the 'spooks," one of the Mounties suggested. "We get 'em at times up here. Sun makes the air crazy...all kinds of interference. Maybe we can raise the Detachment on ours."

"Have you got radios too?" Brogan asked.

The Mountie was Sergeant McReady, a tall Manitoban, with red hair beneath his tinpot helmet. "Sure we have, Colonel...they're back in the jeep. I'll grab the case." McReady trotted off down the highway. At the very tail end of the convoy, the Mounties had ridden along in a pair of Jeeps. He came back a few minutes later.

"We use lower frequencies than you chaps..." McReady switched the set on, tinkered with a few dials, re-positioned the whip aerial that extended from the back of the set and started calling. After a frustrating few minutes, he managed to establish a linkup with the dispatcher at Williams Lake. He gave the handset to Brogan.

"This is Colonel Brogan, U.S. Army...I need to get a message to Western Defense Command, the nearest alert center. Do you read me, over?"

The dispatcher's voice crackled through the air. "I do read you, Colonel...I'm sorry, I don't have a direct line to any American station. I can put through a call to Pacific Division...that would be Vancouver."

Brogan was getting anxious. He described again the emergency. "That bomber's _got_ to be intercepted...what about your own air force...the RCAF?"

There was a burst of static. Then: "Ah, yes, sir, Colonel...that I can do. I have a direct line to the duty officer, Western Air Command...what kind of alert is this?"

Brogan gave the dispatcher the details, describing the type of aircraft, likely heading, likely altitudes and mission. He didn't mention it was probably carrying an atom bomb, or that it would likely headed for an American city, possibly San Francisco.

The dispatcher came back. "Stand by, Colonel...Puget Sound sector headquarters is at Victoria-Esquimalt...I'll try to get them on another line—"

"Standing by," Brogan said.

As he waited impatiently for the alert to be passed along, Brogan saw a commotion in the woods overlooking the highway. A long column of soldiers emerged from the soaking brush into spotlights rigged up around the convoy: a mix of Fox Company, Canadian infantry and Mounties. Surrounded by escorts, the surviving enemy from the camp were marched down the steep drop and onto the road; to a man, their wrists were bound and their hair and faces plastered with wet leaves and cuts and scratches from the hike out of the woods. At the end of the column, a bedraggled Edvard Tolkach appeared. He had to be helped down to the road by two husky airborne soldiers. Tolkach stood uncertainly, squinting in the harsh lights, his tweed jacket drenched and ruined from the soaking rains. After a few moments, he was led to a truck and heaved like a sack of produce into the open back.

At the end of the column came Kate Wellesley, draped with a poncho from one of the Mounties, and lowered by two more from the ledge onto the road, into the waiting arms of Fox Company troopers. Brogan left the Mounties' jeep and came up.

Kate shivered beneath the poncho. Her face bore a few scrapes from the heavy brush, and her once well-coifed auburn hair hung in damp coils around her face. She peered out at Brogan from a hood over her head.

"Are you okay?" he asked. Her Mountie escort had already procured a small litter and were making arrangements for Kate to be carried to the end of the convoy and bundled aboard one of the Jeeps.

"No," she whispered hoarsely. "No, I am not okay. I've got cramps, my leg may be broken and I'm nauseated."

The Mounties were ready to take her, but Brogan intervened. "This woman's an American...she's my prisoner...I'll be taking her with me."

The Canadian sergeant who was head of the litter detail look dubious. "Begging your pardon, Colonel, but the lady needs assistance. She says she's pregnant and she's got bad cuts and a possible leg fracture. We'll litter her back to the Detachment."

Brogan took firm hold of Kate's arm. "Sorry, fellows, but that's out of the question. She's a fugitive and I will take her under guard back to the States."

The sergeant wasn't one to be put off, even by an American Army colonel. "Begging the Colonel's pardon, sir, but this _is_ Canadian territory and—"

Brogan waved his hand. "—yes, yes, I understand all that. Check with General Fremont, if you want but I'm taking Miss Wellesley with me and that will be all. She's accused of assisting the enemy, possible sabotage, espionage and treason. Under wartime laws, she could even be executed."

The sergeant looked like someone had just slapped him in the cheek. "Sir..." he looked around, spotted an officer from the Canadian regiment. "Sir, if you will—" but he was cut short by Sergeant McReady, who came rushing up with the radio handset.

"Colonel, sir, Detachment has raised Puget Sound sector command...they're asking to speak with you right away—"

Brogan snatched Kate away from the Mounties and roughly escorted her to the front of the convoy.

"Ouch...you're hurting me...please, Wade—"

"Just be quiet and don't make a scene, will you? You're not getting away from me again."

Kate was sullen, limping along after him. "I wouldn't dream of it."

Brogan took the radio and talked once more with the dispatcher at Williams Lake.

"Colonel Brogan, sir..." came the scratchy voice. "I have a Colonel Willows from sector command on the line. Based on your description, they've checked with air defense authorities around Puget Sound, including the Americans. The Colonel just advised me that Sea-Tac reported, seven minutes ago, voice contact with a lone B-29, claiming to be 20th Air Force, call sign _Checkmate One_. The crew reported extensive damage from a mission over Japan and requested a vector from the tower."

Brogan was instantly alarmed. "Vector to where?"

"Moffett Field, Colonel. Near San Francisco...the tower said they were going to try and make that field. Looks like they limped all the back way from Japan via the Aleutians. We're checking now with your Fourth Air Force people. Elmendorf Tower too, to confirm any contacts...just routine, you understand."

Brogan looked at Kate Wellesley standing nearby, huddled under a hood, trying to keep the rain and drizzle out of her eyes. "Have they advised Western Defense Command?"

"Unknown, sir. The tower complied with _Checkmate One's_ request and the aircraft crossed into American airspace ten minutes ago. Vector heading was one six five degrees. But it is normal for your air defense chaps to receive routine advisories about inbound traffic. I'm sure Puget Sound's aware of the aircraft."

"Maybe, maybe not," Brogan said. "Being aware is one thing...but that aircraft's got to be intercepted and fully identified. It may be our boy—"

"Should I call sector command back, Colonel?"

Brogan was thinking. In any man's army, you had to go through the chain of command to get anything done. Moreover, Western Defense Command had to be made aware of the situation.

"Dispatcher, I need to make sure the right people are alerted." Skunky Merrill had come up and was listening in to Brogan's half of the conversation. "Western Defense Command in the States must be notified so they can scramble planes and intercept that bomber."

"Colonel, I don't have a direct line to that unit. However...stand by..." there was a burst of static—the atmosphere was playing hell with the radio communication tonight, Brogan thought –"Yes, sir...there may be a way. Pacific Division has a line to our Commanding Officer, Pacific Coast, Royal Canadian Navy. I believe they can talk to Naval District Seattle."

Brogan was impatient. "Very well, dispatcher, if that's the best you can do." He glared at Merrill, who shrugged: _what can you do...it's the Army_.

"What message would you like to send, sir?"

Brogan thought a moment. "Send this: _enemy aircraft call sign Checkmate One is a stolen B-29 STOP Enemy aircraft inbound south with probable atom bomb on board STOP Aircraft must be intercepted and diverted from potential civilian targets along West Coast STOP Authority per Operation Touchdown and General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army STOP._ Dispatcher, send that right away. And keep this line open...we've got to be sure about this."

"Yes, sir...I'm typing the message now—"

Brogan covered the handset. "Skunky, how long to get back to Williams Lake?"

Merrill hunted down Inspector Madigan and brought him back to Fox Company's command jeep. Lieutenant Petty was there too.

Madigan was cut and bruised in several dozen places. A stout bandage, dark red with dried blood, had been tied around his upper left arm. "Just a grazing wound, that's all. I'll live—you chaps wanted to know how long to get back to Detachment?"

Brogan was increasingly impatient. "Communication out of this dump is a nightmare, Inspector. Thanks to your dispatcher for handling what he can...I've asked him to send an emergency flash message to Naval District Twelve, Seattle...try to get some kind of alert off about the bomber. But I want to get airborne myself. How long to get back to that airfield?"

Madigan gave that some thought. "McLeese Lake Field? If you borrowed one of our Jeeps and the rain didn't slow you down too much...about an hour, maybe less. The roads get kind of rutty and bumpy around here, as you've already seen."

Brogan grabbed Madigan by his uninjured shoulder. "Come on...get me a Jeep and driver. Lieutenant Petty—I need to borrow one of your planes."

Petty understood. "Our C-46s should be there now. I can call ahead, make sure they're refueled and engines warmed up."

"Do that."

"Where are you headed?"

Brogan looked anxiously at Merrill. "San Francisco, I think. Moffett or Hamilton Field. I just hope we're not too late. And we ought to be able to get better communication back in town."

Neal Madigan went to the end of the convoy and secured one of the Jeeps the Mounties had ridden in. "Corporal—" he snagged the driver, who had been under the hood checking something, "take these men back to the Detachment as fast as you can. It's extremely urgent—"

Brogan and Merrill climbed in, with the Mountie corporal, whose name plate said Parker, at the wheel. The hood was slammed down and latched and Parker fired up the Jeep. He jerked into gear and sped up the road to turn around. Brogan spied Kate Wellesley being attended to by a Fox Company medic at the rear gate of a truck.

"Pull off for a sec, Corporal! Up ahead... I want to talk to this woman—" Brogan yelled.

Parker swerved the Jeep over and skidded to a halt. Brogan climbed out. Kate was having several facial lacerations and bruises swabbed and bandaged. She looked forlorn and alone, surrounded by airborne troopers from the 2-502. She was supposed to be in custody as a traitor and saboteur, but the soldiers seemed more inclined to admire her figure that stand effective guard.

"Kate!"

She looked up sullenly, while the medic applied a salve to a severe bruise on her left cheek. "I guess you're happy about all this...you got what you wanted, didn't you?"

Brogan felt helpless. "What are you talking about...I never wanted any of this to happen—" He gently shoved the medic back. "Doc...if you don't mind...I need to have a word with this woman." The medic looked annoyed but realized Brogan was a Colonel and backed off, to rummage through his bag.

"Why don't you just leave me alone. I'm a prisoner...you said so yourself."

Brogan, eyeing the leering soldiers long enough to make them turn around and wander off, said, "Yeah, but I'm not sure who's guarding who here. Look...Kate...I've got to take you into custody...you know that. I just wanted you to know—"

She stared straight at him, her brown eyes with the odd yellow streaks that he had never been able to fathom half-closed with fatigue. "Know what?"

Brogan couldn't seem to find the words. He glared around at the circle of soldiers, making them move off even further. "...know that I didn't want it to come to this...I tried to tell you, tried to warn you—"

"So what are you...my father?" She bit off her words acidly. "I didn't listen to him...why should I listen you? Men just have a way..." she shrugged, motioned with her head, for the medic to come back and finish dressing her wounds. The medic tentatively glanced at Brogan, who relented. "...a way of pissing me off somehow. I don't want to live life in a closet...I always wanted to...I don't know—be different, flit around, be free, march to a different drummer."

Brogan snorted. "Where you're going, a closet would seem like a mansion." He made a fist, slammed the rear tire of the truck. "Damn! I...look, Kate, I tried to warn you...you were playing with fire, fooling around with things that were going to bite you. I tried to stop you, tried to tell you—"

She smiled wanly. "And now I guess I'm bitten, huh? It wouldn't have mattered, Wade...I wouldn't have listened. That's how I am. I couldn't listen."

Brogan just shook his head. "What about the baby?"

Kate's hard edge melted. She stifled a sob, jerked her head away from the medic's hands again. "What's going to happen to me?"

Brogan glared at her, mad and sympathetic and furious all at the same time. She was a beautiful woman, a flirt and a sex kitten, probably the wet dream of several hundred horny soldiers who'd come through the Santa Fe USO, nuzzled noses with the star of the canteen and shipped out dreaming of marriage. Yet she was also a lonely little girl caught with her hands where they didn't belong and defiant in the face of sure punishment. Kate Wellesley was two people, maybe more. Which Kate had attracted him the most? Could he even tell them apart anymore?

"I don't know," he said, simply. "I honestly don't know."

Her lips were a tight line as she screwed up what little courage she had left. Tears streamed down her cheeks, mixing with the salve the medic had just applied. "Wade...promise me one thing, please?"

"I can't promise anything, now, Kate."

"Just one thing...that's all I asking. I want to have the baby. Don't let them take that away from me."

Brogan wanted to go. He wanted to run out of there, climb back in the Jeep and be off to Williams Lake. San Francisco, _Big Fella_ , tens of thousands of people might die in the next few hours--

"It's not up to me, Kate. You know that. I've got to go—"

She reached out, touched his arm lightly. "Whatever happens to me, I want to have this baby. I don't care whether I'm shot or hanged after it's born...I just want to bring her into the world...maybe it'll be a better world. Maybe she'll make better decisions than me. Wade, promise me—"

"I can't—" He started to pull away, but she took his hand in hers. It was shaking.

"—promise me one thing: whatever they do to me, you'll look after the baby. She is yours, anyway...I think you know that—"

"Kate, I—"

But her eyes wouldn't let his go.

He bit his lip, tore his arm away. "I'll do what I can...that's all I can promise. Now, I've got to get going." He turned and went back to the Jeep. Merrill's eyes followed his, but Brogan waved him off.

"Corporal, let's get the hell out of here...we haven't got a second to lose."

As the Mountie swerved the Jeep around and sped off down the winding., rain-slick road back toward Williams Lake, Brogan felt a catch in his throat.

I _can't do what she's asking_ , he told himself. _There's no damn way...hell, I may be court-martialed myself before this is all over._

Somehow, some way, he had to get airborne, he had to get to San Francisco.

Somewhere, probably hundreds of miles south of their position, a lone B-29 was in the air, winging its way south, even now bearing down on an unsuspecting city.

Sunday, August 12, 1945

Aboard _Awesome Avenger_

11:30 pm Pacific War Time

Sado Fumori struggled with the controls as _Avenger_ laboriously gained altitude, her huge Wright radials screaming against the airstream. The B-29 had sustained wing and flap damage during the takeoff from Kitticut, and Fumori soon found he had rudder problems as well. With effort and strength, leaning on the rudder pedals and wheel, he was able to coax her onto something approximating the best heading that Yoshi Hyogo could give him, a heading of one nine five degrees. There was no engineer available, but Fumori found that, with Hideki Imamura's help, he could play with the fuel mixture and get enough power to the engines to keep them climbing...already they had staggered to an altitude of nearly eight thousand feet.

_Awesome Avenger_ was gravely wounded and Fumori wasn't sure they had enough fuel to make the target. San Francisco was almost nine hundred miles away, a good four hour flight at their current speed. It was dark along America's West Coast, and Hyogo, who was acting as the bombardier as well as navigator, had already informed the _Shosa_ that releasing the _Big Fella_ bomb in the dark over a target they could barely see wasn't such a good idea.

"We may have no choice," Fumori decided. "I don't know if I can keep us in the air any longer. It's a matter of timing. At our current speed of two hundred and eighty miles an hour, we'll be approaching the target just before sunup."

Hyogo pulled himself up into the co-pilot's seat from his prone perch in the bombardier's pit and wiped sweat and dirt from his eyes. He studied the lieutenant commander hunched forward in the pilot's seat, wrestling with the controls. They were both 1st Sasebo _rikusentai_ and they had come a long way from the glory days of first combat on Celebes and Borneo. Hyogo's mind was clear but his body ached with fatigue and lack of sleep. What was it the field service code of Bushido said: _the destiny of the Empire rests upon victory or defeat in battle. Do not give up under any circumstance, keeping in mind your responsibility not to tarnish the glorious history of the Imperial Armed Forces with their tradition of inevitable victory..._

" _Shosa_...are we going to make it to the target?"

Fumori sucked in his breath. "There's no other possibility, Hyogo-san. Don't even think about it. The Americans attacked and we still got the bomb onboard and took off. The plane is flying. She's injured and she's drinking fuel like a thirsty horse but we're flying. Victory is inevitable. We wouldn't have gotten this far if it weren't."

Hyogo nodded, but secretly, doubts were hard to stifle. "We serve the Emperor now, _Shosa_. I should go aft, check out the bomb."

"Do that, and make sure it's ready to go. " After Hyogo had ducked aft and climbed into the pressurized tunnel that would take him to the forward bomb bay, Fumori trimmed the plane as best he could, maintaining an altitude of eight thousand feet, and took his aching hands off the control wheel, flexing the stiffness out of his fingers. The normal bomb drop altitude for _genshi bakudan_ was over thirty thousand feet....the Czech physicist Tolkach had told them that. Fumori knew from the way _Avenger_ was handling that there was no way they would ever be able to climb that high. The fuel just wasn't there.

He decided it didn't matter. _Big Fella_ was fused to detonate at eighteen hundred feet. Fumori had already decided that when the time came to start the drop, he wouldn't bother opening the bomb bay doors. He would simply let _Avenger_ glide lower and lower, until the air pressure at the pre-set altitude tripped the detonation mechanism. It was one less obstacle to worry about.

Just make sure the bomb will work, he muttered to himself. When the time came, the Valiant Warriors would perform one last heroic task for the glory of His Majesty's Special Naval Landing Force, for the glory of _Kodo_ , the Imperial Way. Whether _Big Fella_ ever left _Avenger's_ bomb bay wouldn't matter.

One hundred and twenty feet aft of Fumori's cockpit, Yoshi Hyogo cranked open the hatch leading to the forward bomb bay and eased his head out into the cold, drafty air of the cramped space. About the size of a small carport, the bomb bay was crammed with conduits and piping and a small narrow catwalk surrounded the dull black bulk of _Big Fella_ on two sides. The _genshi bakudan_ gleamed a dull black in the pale light of emergency lanterns mounted on the aft and forward bulkheads. Hyogo pulled himself out of the tunnel and crawled on all fours along the catwalk. At the rear bulkhead, he turned to find a small toolbox he knew was mounted on the scaffolding and came face to face with—

\--a large, pock-marked face...a doughy, scarred face with breath wreaking of garlic and potatoes—

It was the Russian Kalugin...the Russian commando officer Vasily Kalugin.

Kalugin glared back at the Japanese navigator. Before Hyogo could react, Kalugin's hands had shot out and grabbed him by the neck, squeezing hard, with crushing strength.

"Keep your mouth shut or I'll break your neck," Kalugin hissed. The Russian was wedged into a corner of the catwalk, the full leverage of his two hundred pound frame against Hyogo's neck.

"uunnnhhh—what...how...?"

Kalugin grinned, a feral leer in the half light of the bomb bay. "I climbed aboard—down there—" he indicated with a sideways glance at the bomb bay doors—"as soon as the shooting started. When the doors closed, I was—" he smiled, "right here, cozy as a mother hen on top of her nest."

Hyogo struggled for breath, pulling futilely at the Russian's vise-like grip on his neck. "—can't...can't..."

Kalugin relaxed his grip ever so slightly. Hyogo sucked in air gratefully.

"Why...?" he croaked out. Kalugin released his neck, then forced him face down onto the scaffolding, pinning his right arm at a painful angle behind his back. Hyogo winced, struggled to fight back, but the Russian was strong, immensely strong.

Kalugin bent down to put his words right into Hyogo's ear, whispering loudly. " _Spiritsy_ is like the wind itself...like a shadow flitting from tree to tree. I have no country---" he scowled at the back of Hyogo's head, though the Japanese navigator didn't see that. "—only enemies. Like the wolf of the great forest...I hunt and I take what I need." For good measure, he twisted Hyogo's arm until the Japanese grunted with pain. "And I kill without mercy. The gray _volk_ shows no remorse...he survives because he is ruthless. Remember that—" With a lurch, he let go of Hyogo's arm and allowed the Japanese crewman to twist painfully back up into a sitting position, precariously perched on the edge of the catwalk.

Kalugin sat back on his haunches and flexed calloused fists.

Hyogo wiped sweat from his eyes. Kalugin was no apparition. The Russian commando had stowed away and now, like it or not, he was part of the crew of _Avenger._ Or perhaps part of the bomb load.

"I have to tell the _Shosa_ ," Hyogo said. "You can't stay back here..."

"Why not?" Kalugin grinned. "Are you afraid I'll catch a cold in this draft?" He laughed, a hoarse, throaty laugh thick with too many years of smoking _papirosi_ cigarettes. "Let's go forward...if that makes it any better. You are no longer in control of this aircraft anyway—" He indicated with a gesture that Hyogo was to return to the tunnel, which he did. Kalugin climbed in right behind him.

They emerged into the cockpit, Hyogo head first, then Kalugin with surprising speed and agility for such a stocky, muscular man, dropping from the tunnel hatch and rolling semi-upright next to the turret cupola. Chuichi Saburo was lounging and dozing fitfully at the radioman's console, badly wounded in the attack on Kitticut. He startled awake as Kalugin crept forward behind Hyogo, bringing a Tokarev sidearm up right into Saburo's nose as he came fully alert. His right shoulder and arm was thickly bandaged and stained with dried blood.

"Not so fast, my Japanese comrades—" Kalugin swept the pistol from Hyogo to Saburo and back. "I have a fully loaded chamber and extra rounds right here—" he patted a pocket. "And a nervous finger here...forward—easily and slowly...keep your hands where I can see them. You—" he indicated Saburo, "-on on the deck." Saburo, seething with anger, complied, groaning with pain as he knelt to the floor of the cockpit, keeping his hands behind his head the whole time. He steadied himself by leaning against the radio console. Kalugin backed his way into the forward cockpit, and with a quick thrust of his powerful arm, dragged Hyogo back and slingshot himself up and into the birdcage, sitting down heavily in the co-pilot's seat. He leveled the Tokarev's muzzle directly at Sado Fumori's face.

Fumori jumped almost clean out of his seat but the business end of the weapon made him think better. Realizing it was the Russian, he sat back down, gripped the control wheel hard to keep from doing something stupid.

"I didn't expect we would have a...passenger, _ruso_. You're a foolish man for an enemy...that's why the Kwantung Army will destroy your army in Manchukuo—"

Kalugin snorted. "Nice try, Commander. But that fight doesn't concern me...it's eight thousand miles away. You may even be right, but I doubt it. Let's concern ourselves with this mission."

Fumori glared forward, though the night sky was thick with cloud and there was nothing to see. He forced himself to concentrate on his instruments, gripping the wheel, steadying the bouncing aircraft. Try to think, _think_! How could this have happened?

"What do you want?" he hissed.

Kalugin glanced around the cockpit. "What's our position?"

Fumori checked a few instruments. "Yoshi--?"

Hyogo slipped past the hatch cover to the navigator's station, warily keeping an eye on Kalugin, who swung the pistol back and forth. "I am checking now..." he did some quick calculations, plotted a best course from _Avenger's_ current speed and heading and x'ed a mark on a chart, ruling off the distance with a caliper. "Best guess, Commander, is that we're over Vancouver Island, about ten minutes from the coastline. You should make a left turn...to heading one seven eight degrees...that will take us down the coastline."

Kalugin indicated with his pistol that Hyogo should come back forward. "Sit there," the Russian commanded, gesturing at the engineer's console. "And keep your hands where I can see them."

"You will not stop the _Shori_ mission," Fumori said. "We are ready to die for His Imperial Majesty...to deal the enemy a final decisive blow."

"The bomb's not armed yet...you think I'm stupid?" Kalugin sneered. "You can die for your Emperor if you want to."

"What do you want?" Fumori repeated. He knew time was growing short. The Czech physicist had gone over the arming procedure and he and Hyogo and Imamura had practiced it several times. It was tedious, exacting and time-consuming, and it had been completed only moments before the enemy had stormed Kitticut base. "You're outnumbered....you can't kill all of us, _ruso_ , before we get to you."

Kalugin smiled. "I don't plan to, Fumori-san. All I need is a ride...and you happen to be going my way."

Fumori shrugged his shoulders; they were strained from the effort of holding trim and right rudder against the damaged wings. "What are you talking about?"

Kalugin suddenly got up and went aft to a small locker behind the navigator's table. He kept the gun trained on them with one hand and with the other, forced the locker door open. He pulled out a satchel and hoisted it over his shoulder, then returned to the co-pilot's seat. "A crewman's parachute pack. I always wanted to visit San Francisco...and this is my ticket."

Fumori looked over at the Russian. " _Kono bakayaro_...you're a damn fool. Crazy, even for a Russian. You can't be serious...thinking you're going to bail out. The bomb's set to detonate at eighteen hundred feet. I haven't got enough fuel...or control, to climb above eight thousand." Fumori's mouth tightened and his eyes met Hyogo's, a knowing look. "It will be a honor and a privilege to die in the midst of the decisive battle, the day of final victory over our enemies."

Kalugin cocked the Tokarev and pressed the muzzle against Fumori's temple, poking him hard. "And you will have your honor, Fumori-san, _after_ I have left the aircraft. Is that understood?"

"To join the enemy? You're nothing but a traitor and a coward!"

Kalugin shook his head. "The Americans aren't enemies of the Soviet Union. But Japan is. Comrade Josef Vissarionovich said so just a few days ago. But, as I said, that is not my fight. I have another mission—" and he remembered another satchel, this one still aft in the bomb bay. He'd almost forgotten it in all the shooting and chaos of the assault on Kitticut. The Nazi jewels he'd taken from Tegelwald, lifted off dead Obergruppen Fuhrers in the rubble of Berlin and hoarded for all these weeks.

He'd managed to grab the satchel in the midst of the attack and drag it with him when he'd boarded _Avenger_ in a hail of gunfire and mortar rounds. It has been close, damn close. That satchel was also his ticket, a passport to a better life, this time in the land of the capitalist scoundrels, America itself. Men like him, shadows of the Revolution, wolves prowling the alleys of the socialist paradise, were a threat to Stalin and his cronies. State Security was making sure the threat was well contained, dispatching repatriated prisoners, field commandos, Spetznaz, anyone who hadn't been under the thumb of the political commissars for the final drive on Berlin, dispatching them by the thousands. Some were shot outright—he'd already seen the mass graves, even now being worked over so the Nazis would be blamed for Stalin's paranoia. Some were simply arrested and thrown into the jaws of the Gulag. They died more slowly, more painfully, but the result was the same.

"The coastline—" Hyogo said. "It's coming up. Below us...make a left turn, _Shosa_ , heading one seven eight degrees."

Kalugin peered out the windscreen and in the dim moonlight, saw the indistinct edge of the land as it ended abruptly in a line and was gone. _Avenger_ flew southwestward, now over the Pacific Ocean, a featureless black void below them.

"—my fight is with another enemy," he said. "An enemy you know nothing about."

"I am turning now—" Fumori announced, catching a glimpse of Kalugin out of the side of his eyes. The Russian removed the pistol muzzle from his temple. "Heading one seven eight degrees." He gripped the wheel and pressed hard on the rudder pedals. _Avenger_ shuddered and shook like a wet dog as she skidded and slipped through the turn. It was evident, even to Kalugin, that Fumori barely had her under control. He banked them left and when the compass indicated the proper heading coming up, he leveled them out. "More power, Hyogo-san...I need more power."

Hyogo went to the engineer's station, ignoring Kalugin, and tweaked the throttles and mixture controls. "We're using fuel rapidly, _Shosa_."

"Climb as high as you can," the Russian ordered. "Now—"

Fumori shook his head. "We use too much fuel. We won't be able to make it to the target."

Kalugin jammed the pistol into Fumori's side. "Climb now—you said you could make it to eight thousand feet. "Put us into a climb—or you will die for your Emperor here and now...and your mission will fail."

Fumori gave a brief thought to whirling about and grappling with the bearish Russian commando, but some inner sense of duty prevented him. Operation _Shori_ wasn't finished. Many had died to get them this far...no, he must finish the mission. Nihon and His Majesty were counting on the decisive blow. Perhaps, later—

Reluctantly, Sado Fumori shoved the four throttles forward. _Avenger's_ Wright Cyclone engines protested, screamed and shrieked, but slowly, the aircraft nosed skyward.

"We will cruise at this altitude until I order otherwise."

Fumori took a deep breath, feeling the aircraft shaking under his fingertips. Would she hold together? The Americans had designed a wondrous machine in this huge Superfortress bomber. For months, Fumori had cursed the black beasts as they darkened the skies over Japan with a rain of bombs and incendiaries. It was ironic. Now, he hoped and prayed that this Superfort, _Awesome Avenger_ , would hold up long enough to make the last leg of her final mission, and appear like a vulture in the dawn skies of San Francisco, as so many of her sister aircraft had done to Japanese cities for the last six months.

" _Ruso_...we must begin checking the bomb now. At our current speed, we'll be approaching the target in three hours, maybe less. Hyogo...and Imamura...they're trained to do it. Let them do their duties."

Kalugin figured it was a good time to head aft with them and retrieve the satchel of stolen jewels and gold. He wriggled his arms through the straps of the parachute pack. "I agree. You have your mission. I have mine. When my mission is completed, you may complete yours." He waved his pistol. "Send your men ahead of me. I'll follow them to the bomb bay." He started to rise, then bent close to Fumori's ear. His breath reeked of garlic and earth. "One more thing, Fumori-san. Remember this: we're both soldiers. We're both dedicated to our causes, I as much as you. If you change heading or altitude without my orders, I will come up here and make certain your ancestors will find only your pitiful scraps and broken bones when you cross over to the other side."

Fumori gritted his teeth and willed his hands to stay locked to the control wheel. Kalugin disappeared aft, wriggling through the tunnel, right behind Hyogo and Imamura.

The Williams Lake RCMP Detachment office was little more than a log and wood-frame building, nestled in a small grove of birch trees at the end of a dead-end lane off the town's main street, the grandly named Broadway Avenue. A sign nearby proclaimed the city as the "Heart of Cariboo Country." There was a saloon up the street with red neon lighting that read _Campfire Café_.

Brogan and Merrill leaped out of the jeep and bounded inside the Detachment office. Neal Madigan had come with them. The Inspector took them into the dispatcher's room, where several plank tables were lined with telephones and cords and a switching panel hung from the wall. Two heavy-set local Inuit women were on duty.

"I need an outside line, Linda...Vancouver Division office...and make it quick." Madigan snapped off orders, while the younger woman switched plugs and made the connection. Madigan waved the CIC agents to a table full of phones in the corner. "From here, we can talk to Division...and they should be able to patch you through to just about anywhere."

"I need to call my superior officers...Colonel Cates, maybe Colonel Parsons," Brogan decided. "That would be New Mexico...and Washington, D.C."

Madigan and the two Americans hung on Linda's shoulders as she completed the connection, fumbling a few plugs in the process. "I'm hurrying...I'm hurrying—"she complained.

Finally, it was done. Madigan picked up the receiver, spoke a few minutes with a Superintendent at Pacific Division in Vancouver, then passed the phone to Brogan. "Tell the Super what you need."

Brogan spent the next ten minutes detailing the need for an air defense alert. "I need to connect to my superiors, too. In the States—" He rattled off names and numbers.

"Right," came back the voice of Dennis Cleary, Division Superintendent in the Vancouver office. "We're working on that now—"

Over the next half an hour, Brogan and Cleary talked with duty officers at Western Air Command at Esquimalt-Victoria. After that, he finally made a scratchy connection to CIC Los Alamos Detachment offices in New Mexico. Colonel Cates had been sleeping on a cot at the Detachment, waiting for reports on Operation _Touchdown_. Brogan filled him in, then explained that the stolen B-29 had somehow made it into the air, despite furious gunfire.

Cates was quiet but focused. "That plane is our number one priority. You've notified air defense authorities?"

"Yes, sir...as much as communications allows. It's pretty poor up here, with the weather and all. But the Royal Canadian Air Force is already scrambling intercepts now...they're trying to get a track on the plane, but the weather's making that nearly impossible. There's no telling where he is now."

"Or where he's going," Cates reminded him. "I'll call Parsons. Groves too. Washington needs to be kept fully informed. The General will know whose bell to ring...I just hope Western Defense Command can get some guys airborne and stop that plane before it's too late."

"Colonel," Brogan said, "I'd like permission to find a plane and get down to San Francisco...everything points to that as the main target."

"I don't see what good that would do. It's an air defense problem now. And if the thing goes off—"

"I know that, sir but—it's just that—"

"Just what, Brogan?"

_How the hell could you say it_? "I feel responsible, sir...like I've let everybody down. With me and Kate...er, rather, Miss Wellesley. I just want...I don't know how to explain it, sir...I just want a chance to try. There may be something I can do. I've been on this case from the beginning. Tolkach was my target...and I let him get away. I don't want to lose another one, sir."

Cates' voice was gruff but sympathetic. "Brogan, this is no time for a personal vendetta. Hell, Colonel, I know what you're doing. Trying to clear your name...get out from under suspicion...I know all about that. Put that aside for now...just focus on what has to be done. We've had one hell of a security breach here and we both know heads are going to roll...maybe yours, maybe mine too. That can't be undone. But that's for later. Now...we've got a plane to stop."

"Colonel Cates, I'd never forgive myself if I didn't at least try to make up for what I've done, or failed to do."

The phone was silent for an awkward time. Then came a sigh. "All right, Brogan...you win. If you can get a plane, get yourself down there. Do what you can...I don't know what that might be, but I'm willing to be open-minded about it. I guess I'll tell Parsons the investigation is still underway...and you're still on the case. He'll probably chew my head off. He's already issued orders for you to be taken into custody. If you're out of touch, I can't very well do that, now can I?"

Brogan said, "No, sir...and thank you, sir. I'm on my way." He gave the receiver back to Madigan and gave the Mountie an expectant look. "Well, Inspector...looks like I'm going to need a plane out of here. You guys got anything I can use?"

Madigan thought. "Division may have a small aircraft at the airport...we sometimes use it for fire watch, aerial surveillance, utility patrol, even caribou herding sometimes, that sort of thing. I can ring up the airport and see if it's there."

"Do that. Major Merrill and I will be needing a ride down there too."

Madigan found a small liaison aircraft, an old L-4 Grasshopper, was parked outside the hangar at Williams Lake Municipal Airport. He drove the two CIC agents to the field in the Jeep.

The L-4 was a light, four-seat observation and utility aircraft, powered by a 100-horsepower Lycoming engine. This plane had been bought from the U.S. Army for the Mounties two years ago. Nominally based at the Surrey airfield, near Vancouver, the plane did rigorous duty up and down the Macao and Coast Mountain ranges. The pilot was a balding mustachioed man named Kitchener.

Kitchener had the plane fueled and prepped by the time Brogan and Merrill arrived.

"She's waxed and ready to fly," Kitchener told them proudly, patting the olive green fuselage with grease-stained hands. "Took her up for a check ride myself just an hour ago...Lady still likes a spin or two when she's all shined up."

Brogan climbed in, followed by Skunky Merrill. They strapped themselves in, followed by Kitchener, who smelled of oil and varnish. Madigan poked his head in before the door was shut.

"I just talked with the tower at Surrey field. Seems your Army still has a C-46 down there, gents. That's how Fox Company got up here for the assault. You may be able to use that plane to take you further south. This old crate hasn't got much range."

Kitchener took exception to Madigan's choice of words. "Begging your pardon, Inspector...Lady has feelings, you know. She's a far cry from an 'old crate.' She may not have long legs but she's still pretty peppy...easy on the bum too, if you know what I mean." He laughed a hoarse, coughing laugh.

Madigan shut the door and saluted, backing off, while the pilot started up the Grasshopper's engine. It belched smoke and flung oil but finally caught and settled down into a loud, rattling drone. Moments later, _Lady_ was taxiing out to Runway 28 for takeoff.

They went airborne in a light chop and quickly flew into heavy cloud cover. The rains that had soaked Kitticut seemed to have abated and as Kitchener poured on the throttle, the Grasshopper climbed above the fog and settled down for a night time hop southward.

"Hour and a half to Surrey," Kitchener yelled back to them, over the roar of the wind noise and the engine. "Sorry for the view...not much to see in all this crap," he said.

"Just get us there," Brogan told him. "We'll grab some shut-eye on the way."

"Right...pity, though. The mountains are really quite spectacular this time of year...got all that rhododendron and stuff covering them....like some giant pissed yellow all over the green carpet—"

"I'm sure—" Brogan was too keyed up to get much sleep though. He looked over at Merrill. The major was wide-eyed, his hands clutching the seat rests. Kitchener was none too smooth in his handling of Lady. "That bomber's got a good hour head start on us, Skunky—"

Merrill closed his eyes. "We'll never catch 'em in this crate...face it, Dog, we screwed up...we're too late."

"We did not screw up!" Brogan was emphatic, his words surer than he was. "The Army's got all kinds of planes that can intercept that bomber....from here to San Diego."

"Yeah...if they can find it. What the hell can _we_ do from here?"

Brogan was working a plan out in his mind. "The way I figure it, we get to Surrey. According to Madigan, the 101st still has a plane there...the same '46 they rode up on from Kentucky. Maybe I can pull a little rank and get us a ride on that plane...it's got the range to make San Francisco...or anywhere else the Japs might wind up."

"You think it's Frisco?"

Brogan shrugged. "Tolkach and the Russians all seem to think so. We don't know for sure but Frisco would make a good target...big city, important port, Navy bases all over the place, and airfields too. You think like a Jap and Frisco looks mighty juicy, especially after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I'm betting that's the target."

Merrill turned his head and regarded his colleague. In the dim cockpit lighting, Brogan's face looked like an ancient river valley, carved with lines and wrinkles. "Tell me one thing, Dog. Suppose we get there before the Japs do. What the hell can we really do to stop them? You and me, I mean...we're just a couple of GI cops."

Brogan didn't answer for a few seconds. "I don't know, exactly. We'll figure it out when we get there."

_Lady_ rattled and shook from tricky crosswinds as Kitchener negotiated rising updrafts billowing up from the mountains five thousand feet below them.

" _If_ we get there," Merrill added.

Surrey Field at night was buzzing with activity. Kitchener put _Lady_ down with surprising grace and a deft touch in swirling winds and taxied them to a stop alongside the main hangar. Brogan and Merrill thanked the Mountie and hopped out, spying the floodlit C-46 transport a few hundred yards away. The Air Transport Service plane was surrounded by American soldiers sorting through piles of gear laid out around the open door and ladder.

Brogan quickly found the commanding officer, a Major Chaffee, who was directing the pre-flight drill on the ramp. The unit proved to be part of George Company, 2-502, sister to the airborne troopers who had participated in the drop and assault at Kitticut.

Chaffee spied the silver stars on Brogan's lapel and saluted, coming to attention. "Morning, Colonel. Can I help you, sir?"

Brogan introduced himself and Merrill, revealing his CIC ID folder to the wide-eyed O-4. "Major, I've got a small request to make."

"Sure thing, Colonel...just name it."

"Major Merrill and I want to borrow your ride. We need to make a trip down the coast...to San Francisco, it turns out. "

Chaffee's eager face metamorphosed immediately into a look of concern. "Uh, well, sir, actually we'd have to clear that with the Squadron commander...Air Transport Squadron Eleven, that would be. I believe he's in the ready room, going over flight plans. Sir...when exactly would you be needing to use this plane?"

Brogan glared right at Chaffee. "Right now."

Chaffee blinked. "Sir, yes, sir...I'll go find Colonel Morton...he's the Squadron Commander..." Chaffee saluted and trotted off to the Ops building, ablaze with light and

activity.

Morton turned out to be a full bird colonel, commanding officer of ATS-11 and 'owner' of the C-46. He was a crewcutted, no-nonsense c/o, shorter than Brogan but with a chin sharp enough to slice meat.

"The Major here tells me you're trying to requisition my aircraft. This plane has a mission in about two hours...we're prepping her to take these boys up to Alaska...they've got garrison duty and low-altitude drop training to get to. General Arnold's orders."

Brogan figured Morton for an officious little prick, even if he did outrank him. "Sir, I'm on a Silverplate mission—" he hesitated to use the code word, since strictly speaking, the phrase was no longer active...by order of General Groves, Silverplate had been deactivated once Little Boy had destroyed Hiroshima. But Brogan figured Morton might not know that...he was counting on Army mail and communications to be as inefficient as usual. "...by order of General Marshall...and it's a wartime priority mission as well. I've got to get down to San Francisco." A bald enough lie but he didn't have time to go through channels.

Morton cocked his head. "Silverplate, huh?" He chewed over that for a moment, his face a battleground of conflicting thoughts. "Mind cluing me in on what's up?"

Brogan figured a little truth might go along way. "Colonel...I'm CIC, so is Major Merrill here—" he produced his ID folders, which Morton studied like they were ancient treasure maps, turning them over and inside out—"...frankly, sir, the Detachment's got intelligence that the Japs are planning a final suicide mission against the West Coast...we're not sure where or how...but Frisco may be the target. We're trying to head that off now...Western Defense Command should already be scrambling planes...you may even be mobilized yourself, sir. I don't have any official orders, sir, but you can check this out with General Marshall."

"I'll do that, Colonel Brogan. San Francisco, huh?"

"Yes, sir...the Detachment is running an operation right now...I've got to be there as soon as possible. A lot of lives may be at stake—"

Morton squinted in the floodlights at Brogan and Merrill, then handed the ID folders back. "I don't know whether I should believe this cockamamie story or not. But after what happened last week, I guess anything's possible. When the President goes on radio and starts yapping about harnessing the basic power of the universe, I know this old Army isn't what I signed up for back in '38."

"No, sir."

Morton made up his mind. "All right, Colonel...I'll inform the crew. The plane's just been gassed up and checked out. You CIC guys better know what you're doing...if this is some kind of scam and you're running contraband back and forth using my airplane, I'll see you hang before it's all over."

"Yes, sir," Brogan said, snapping off a salute. _You may get to see exactly that before long_ , he told himself. He headed for the drop ladder, Merrill right behind him, and they climbed aboard.

Half an hour later, George Company's C-46 transport, code named _Homerun_ , barreled and bounced down the runway at Surrey Field and lifted into the drizzly night sky, turning south for the U.S. border. Her cargo hold was partially crammed with parachutes, field packs and other gear for a practice drop in cold weather conditions in Alaska, plus two strange Army officers in muddy camou outfits with impeccable CIC credentials and silverplated connections to the highest levels in the U.S. Army.

Up front in _Homerun's_ office, the pilot and co-pilot looked quizzically at each other, not quite believing what had just transpired. They knew there was some kind of connection between the two Army officers strapped in back aft, and the incredible events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki last week, but that was all they knew for sure. The rest was supposition and the Army wasn't paying them to have ideas, just to fly planes whenever and wherever they were told.

"Frisco beats the hell out of Alaska any day, in my book," said the co-pilot. "Fresh seafood and all the beer I can drink."

"Fresh ladies along Market Street too, pal."

They both smirked, but their smiles quickly faded, to be replaced by an uneasy feeling...a feeling that the two men they were transporting south knew things that nobody would ever believe.

"Mid-coast Sector, this is _Hound Dog Leader_...now climbing through twenty...we've been waiting for a new vector for ten minutes...what have you got for us....Over?"

Captain Mike Ramey swore silently at the staticky radio traffic he'd been hearing on Channel 2 ever since the flight had lifted off from Hamilton on this wild goose chase. _Hound Dog Flight_ had left Hamilton in pitch black, fog-bound conditions and climbed quickly north and west of the Bay Area to twenty-thousand feet, after which Ramey had set up a racetrack orbit a few miles off the northern California coast at Eureka. There they had stayed for the last half an hour, waiting...and watching. Ramey was getting anxious for something to happen.

Mid-Coast Sector was a small Army Air Forces station at Crescent City, Oregon. Sector had told them to hold altitude and stay in close to the coast, while they searched the darkened skies with radar, searched for a single enemy target in a sky full of planes of all types—airliners, military transports plying up and down the coast, bombers up for late night check rides, fighter squadrons wringing out their latest equipment, the skies over northern California that Sunday night were thick with air traffic.

Ramey knew Western Defense Command had issued a warning to all civilian traffic to divert away from certain headings and altitudes, routes Canadian air defense at Victoria Island had radioed in as probable courses for the stolen B-29 to take south. Puget Sound sector had even briefly gotten a hit on some inbound target that had been thought to be _Awesome Avenger_ , but a frantic scramble out of McChord Field had produced nothing but finger-pointing, recriminations and some very frustrated pilots and dispatchers. The return had been intermittent, giving indications the target was flying low and fast, but nobody had found anything.

Now _Hound Dog Flight_ and several other elements from the 325th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron were aloft and hunting, hunting for some kind of rogue B-29 on a southbound course along the West Coast. Ramey had checked with Joe Long on the air-to-air circuit not ten minutes ago and _Navajo Leader_ had offered up a rumor that sent chills down Ramey's spine, even as he turned up his cockpit heater to full blast.

"Got the scoop on this bandit, Hound Dog...you'll never believe it. I'm not sure I believe it."

Ramey spoke into his mike. "What gives, _Navajo_? I don't understand what all the fuss is about...it's probably just some stupid airliner off course, radio out or something. Why scramble the whole west coast for a silly airliner?"

_Navajo_ came back, terse and cryptic. "'Cause it ain't no airliner, _Hound Dog_. I heard the scoop from my crew chief before we taxied out...it's a B-29 bomber, and it may have an atom bomb on board."

Ramey made a smooth left hand turn, banking into the side leg of his orbit twenty miles off the coast. On his wingtips, _Hound Dog One, Two and Three_ copied the smooth bank each in turn and Hound Dog Flight leveled out for another run up to the north.

"What kind of cockamamie story is that, Navajo? You buy that crap?"

Navajo's voice dropped an octave, noticeable even through the static on the channel. "I don't know what to believe, Hound Dog, but I do know this: Command has scrambled every friggin' crate with wings tonight and I don't think this is just an exercise. Last time we did this, the Japs were right off Santa Monica beach and every slant-eye on the coast was being rounded up. There's so many planes up here tonight, we'll probably have a mid-air collision before we find anything."

"Roger that—" Ramey switched radio back to Channel 1. "Hound Dog Leader to flight: let's do a gun check. Spread out and let 'em rip."

"Roger—" came a chorus of replies from the three other aircraft.

The P-51d's pulled apart from line abreast and put some space between themselves. One by one, like a ripple of exploding light, each pilot lit off their .50-caliber machine guns, ripping the night sky with tracer rounds. Each plane had six in all, three to a wing. For extra armament, each Mustang also mounted a spread of four rockets on external pylons.

"Skipper—" it was _Hound Dog Three_ , Lieutenant Chip Hodges, off Leader's port side, "—what exactly are we supposed to be looking for? Is this just some kind of drill?"

Ramey considered that. Normally, he wanted the radio channels clear of chatter, but he was just as much in the dark as they were, and wanting answers just as badly. The last real air defense threat had been a barrage of Jap balloons a year ago, launched from submarines prowling off the Oregon coast and carrying satchel charges of dynamite and shells.

_Most of these guys haven't seen a Zero or a Kate anywhere but in their recognition drills in class._ They were nervous, antsy, wondering what all the fuss was about.

Ramey was too.

"Some kind of inbound threat, coming from up north. I don't think this is a drill...too many units have scrambled. There are alerts up and down the whole coast tonight."

"One plane?" asked Hound Dog Two. That was Lieutenant Mark Eagan. "We've scrambled the whole Fourth Air Force for one plane? What kind of tactic is that?"

"Scuttlebutt says it's a rogue bomber, maybe a B-29. I don't know all the details, guys....anymore than you do. Sector wants us here and here's where we stay until our orders change."

"They gonna give us a vector?" asked Hound Dog One, Leader's wingman. That was Lieutenant Otto Stiles. "We're burning up gas awfully fast up here."

Ramey was about to tell them to cut the chatter but his radio crackled. Mid-Coast sector cut in.

"Hound Dog Flight...we've got a probable...bearing on you is one niner five, below ten thousand feet. Turn to heading zero one zero and drop down to fifteen thousand."

Ramey acknowledged, "Hound Dog Flight, roger...turning right zero one zero...descending to ten...uh...Sector, have you got an actual return? Over—"

Sector didn't respond right away and Ramey concentrated on getting Hound Dog re-positioned for what he hoped was some kind of intercept. The sky was black and moonless, low clouds scudding below them, and the air was choppy and turbulent. _Must be a front moving on-shore_ , he thought. They hadn't had time for a met report when the scramble horn went off.

"—that's negative, Hound Dog...nothing confirmed. We're projecting...last return on a probable came from Puget Sound...we're putting you on an intercept course for that track—"

_In other words, you're guessing_ , Ramey muttered to himself. Radar was a wonderful newfangled gizmo, when it worked. Which wasn't very often.

"Roger that, Sector. Hound Dog Flight now descending through fifteen, on heading zero one zero."

"Maybe this is our bogeyman," Hound Dog Three snapped.

"Hey..." Ramey shot back, "keep the commentary down, Flight. Leave me an open channel to Sector...we got twenty-two minutes to probable intercept."

The time dragged by and Ramey found himself increasingly uneasy. _What if Navajo were right...Jesus, an atom bomb on some kind of bandit B-29_? What kind of turkey would try a stunt like that? Pilots were a unique breed of animal, it was true, and combat pilots had been known to snap. Ramey had heard all kinds of stories about peculiar happenings inside the Eighth Air Force bombers who'd risked their lives day and night over occupied Europe, or the Twentieth Air Force guys who were doing the same thing even now in the skies over Japan...tales of in-flight mutinies, men jumping out of planes without their parachutes, tail gunners going naked and flashing their wangs at enemy fighters...the ready room was full of things like that. Ramey usually discounted most of them as the usual fighter pilot scuttlebutt.

But with most of the fighters on the West Coast alerted tonight and ordered into the skies, Ramey figured this was no ordinary scramble, no late-night bogeyman on some bored dispatcher's screen. To put this much hardware into the air, something big had to be up.

Ramey's stomach began churning as he counted down the minutes to what he hoped would be an intercept.

Hound Dog Flight crossed the route Mid-Coast Sector had given them, at the prescribed altitude of ten thousand feet, on heading zero one zero, flying through broken cloud cover at two hundred and eighty miles an hour.

Nothing.

"Anybody see anything?" Ramey asked. "Spread out a bit, let's stack ourselves at thousand foot intervals and circle around."

"Skipper," said Two, "I don't see a damn thing except clouds and ocean."

_Hound Dog_ circled around and arranged itself to cover different altitudes. Ramey craned his head all around the bubble canopy, overhead and behind, both sides. Nothing but streaks of cumulus and brief glimpses of black void below. With no moonlight and most of the coast still on blackout, it was like flying inside an inkwell.

"No dice, Skipper...I'm not seeing anything but my own reflection." That was One, his wingman.

"I agree...but keeping looking," Ramey said. "I'll advise Sector."

They orbited the intercept point for several minutes, while Ramey contacted Mid-Coast Sector.

"Sector, this is Hound Dog Flight...we're at the intercept point and nobody sees anything. Have you got instructions, or a new vector for us?"

Sector came on the line. "Negative...standby Hound Dog...we're checking several targets...trying to identify them—"

_Great, just great_ , Ramey shook his head, rolled his shoulders to squeeze some tension out of them. _We're hunting for God knows what in the middle of the night and nobody can tell us what we should be looking for._

One hundred and forty miles east of Hound Dog Flight, in a darkened room on the ground floor of a cinder block building on the outskirts of Crescent City, California's municipal airport, Mid-Coast Sector consisted on four staff sergeants and a first lieutenant. Five pairs of eyes were squinting at a flickering, glowing radar screen at several splotchy returns painting the bottom of the screen, at the extreme outer range of the radar aerial turning in a fenced-in field several hundred yards away.

"It's just ground clutter," said one of the sergeants. "I told you we should have put the antenna on those cliffs, not down here by the airfield. It's all the damn trees that's doing that—"

Lieutenant Raines shook his head. "I don't know, Weiser...I thought I saw a hard return a few minutes ago—right there—" he stabbed the bottom of the screen with a finger, "—moving southeast, and _low_. It's was faint, like a ghost, but I don't think I imagined it."

"Lieutenant, sir, you can't get altitude returns worth a crap from this thing. It's a piece of—" the sergeant stopped when the phone rang on the duty desk. The Lieutenant answered it.

"Sector control...Raines, here—"

Raines listened to the caller for a moment, and his face gradually screwed up into a mask of pain, like he'd eaten something sour.

"What do you mean faint...did he hear it or not? Did he see it?" The Lieutenant snapped his fingers for a pad and pencil. Sergeant Putnam hustled one over. Raines scribbled something. "What heading... _which direction was it going_?" He scribbled more. Then: "Okay, we'll put it out...but we've been vectoring our boys all over the sky tonight. Pretty soon we're going to be bingo on fuel for a lot of them....I don't know if we can keep the coverage up. There are gaps all over the place, and going to be more if we have to start refueling some of these planes. Okay...got it." He hung up, grabbed the pad.

"What is it, Lieutenant?"

"Ground Observer Corps...some farmer out by Macintosh Road. Lives on a cliff, raises pigs and corn or something. He called in something ten minutes ago to the District Super...took 'em that long to get the details. He claims to have seen a low-flying heavy aircraft, just a few thousand feet up, right off the coast."

"Heavy...you mean like a bomber?"

Raines shrugged. "Don't know. It could be our boy...but if it is, he's well east of where the Canadians tracked him. He may have turned inland. And he was headed south, fast."

Raines handed the scribbled heading to Weiser. "Who's closest?"

The sergeant scanned the numbers, then his scope. " _Hound Dog_ , maybe _High Roller,_ too. They're both twenty miles offshore but patrolling down low. Maybe even _Gridiron_ too...if they're not too low on fuel. Got them north of Coos Bay, screening the mountain passes."

Raines thought a moment, then made a decision. "Give 'em all a vector, fastest course you can. If somebody's bingoing fuel, hand them off and find another patrol. But get some eyeballs down there—" Raines pulled out a map, ran his finger from where the ground observer had heard and seen the low-flying heavy, along the projected heading. "He may be heading for Sacramento, maybe San Francisco, maybe further south. I need to re-deploy some planes inland, try to cut him off."

"I thought the ground observer corps was disbanded," Putnam said, peering into his own scope. "How much stock can we put in some old farmer with bad eyes?"

"At least as much as these scopes, Sergeant. Anybody seeing a big airplane flying that low that thinks it odd enough to call in needs to be looked into, ground observer corps or not."

Weiser spoke into his mike. "Hound Dog Flight, this is Mid-Coast Sector...I have a new vector for you. Come right to heading—"

_Avenger's_ forward bomb bay was cold and drafty, as Yoshi Hyogo and Hideki Imamura crawled on all fours along the narrow catwalk, clinging tightly as the aircraft shuddered and shook through choppy coastal air at eight thousand feet. The catwalk was little more than a metal grate anchored to the bulkheads at either end, and it swayed like a bridge over a mountain pass with each sickening lurch of the plane.

Below and beside the catwalk which surrounded two sides of the bomb bay, the _Big Fella_ Mark I plutonium implosion bomb gleamed like the hump of a dull black whale in the glare of the spotlights.

Essentially, _Big Fella_ had already been armed on the ground at Kitticut. Her design was so complicated that it was effectively impossible to do the job in flight. Tolkach, with help from Golubko, had completed the procedure less than an hour before the Americans and Canadians had assaulted the base.

Hyogo and Imamura had several jobs to do in checking out the bomb. As they scuttled around the catwalk collecting tools, Vasily Kalugin squeezed out of the tunnel and entered the bomb bay right behind them.

Hyogo scowled through the harsh floodlit space at the Russian. "Don't interfere with us, _ruso_. Breaking your neck would give me a great deal of pleasure."

Kalugin snorted, reaching down toward a small satchel lashed to the bulkhead behind the bomb's aft casing. "You'll never get the chance. I've just come for what's mine." He unlashed the satchel, and pulled out a small parcel, tightly wrapped with tape. He crammed the parcel in a small pouch behind his emergency chute pack.

"What is that pack? Don't try sabotaging the bomb..."

Kalugin braced himself against a bulkhead as _Awesome Avenger_ swayed and shuddered through low-altitude crosswinds. A cold whistle of air swirled dust particles in the floodlight beams.

" _This_...this is my ticket to a new life. In America—"

"Kalugin, you're a coward and a thief. In Nihon, you would be shot for treason."

"In my country, we make no such distinction. We shoot everybody."

"Get out of here—" Hyogo hissed. "We've got work to do...there isn't much time left. Today we strike the decisive blow against the Americans."

"As long as I get to my destination..." Kalugin crept back along the catwalk toward the tunnel hatch, "you can lick America's balls, for all I care. I'll be dropping off before you complete your little mission."

"And you'll be incinerated in the blast, no doubt," Imamura said. "You're a fool, _ruso_. You trained with us at Spassk Dalniy for this mission. Finish the job! Die like a warrior!"

Kalugin ducked to enter the tunnel. "I'd rather live like a czar. I'll be leaving this crate a long time before you make your target. Even if this thing goes off, which I doubt, I'll be fifty kilometers away. Enjoy the ride—" he disappeared into the tunnel and was gone.

Hyogo shook his head. "He's a coward."

"Russians have no Emperor," agreed Imamura. "No sense of _kodo_ , like we have. The Imperial Way is in our blood."

"They're wolves, fighting over the spoils, that's all. Stronger animals make the kill."

"And die gloriously for the people." Imamura pulled up his shirt. "Yoshi, look at this—" the corporal wore a red embroidered sash around his waist, stitched with hundreds of names and characters in _kanji_ script. "I put it on in the cockpit, just before we came back."

Hyogo smiled. " _Sennibari_...a thousand stitches. Now we can't fail—come on, let's get to work."

To make _Big Fella_ live, Edvard Tolkach had tested four sets of fuses inside her arming box and the two _rikusentai_ now had to check wiring and connections for each set. The bomb was equipped with redundant fuses to ensure the detonation would occur at precisely the right time: barometric, timing, radar and impact fuses. Each set contained two fuses, again for redundancy. The impact fuses were set to detonate the bomb as it slammed into the ground, a last resort. The barometric fuses were set to fire when the bomb reached an altitude of 1800 feet. The timing fuses were set to fire at forty-three seconds after drop, when the bomb was supposed to be at 1800 feet, given a drop altitude of 30,000 feet initially. The radar fuses would trigger detonation when radar pulses indicated the bomb was at a height of 1800 feet.

One by one, Hyogo and Imamura checked each fuse, from its connector along the black and green wiring all the way back to the battery case. Each was intact and there was no evidence of wiring damage, despite all _Big Fella_ had been through.

"Open up the casing," Hyogo ordered, pointing to the aft shell of the bomb. Imamura retrieved the special crosshead screwdriver and unscrewed a plate, which Hyogo lifted off, exposing a dense tangle of wiring surrounding the capacitor bank, the "X-unit", as Tolkach had called it. Ranks of batteries surrounded the X-unit, along with a high-voltage power supply. Hyogo shined a flashlight into the opening, feeling his way along, as Tolkach had showed him, for the metal protrusions of the spark gap switches, which would trigger the capacitor bank. He felt and examined each one carefully in turn, making certain it was in the correct position. The switches would close on signal from the fuses, and in turn fire the X-unit. The X-unit would then send current to the high-explosive detonators, arranged in concentric rings around the outer shell of the plutonium core.

It would all happen in a few thousandths of a second. Hyogo could find nothing amiss and sat back on his knees, steadying himself against the swaying bulk of the bomb. Release shackles creaked and groaned above them as _Avenger_ lurched and rocked in the turbulence. Both men looked up involuntarily, trusting the grapples would hold.

"Now the lenses—" Hyogo whispered hoarsely, as if speaking out loud would disturb the sleeping monster. Imamura replaced one plate and screwed it back in, then removed another cover around _Big Fella's_ mid-section, where the sphere and ballistic tail assembly were bolted together. He struggled with the bolts for a few moments, trying to get enough leverage to force them. Finally, the cover came up.

Hyogo peered inside at the array of explosive lenses, like looking at oblong pieces of a puzzle, each one fitting perfectly into precisely machined grooves and corners of another, each piece slightly convex to follow the curvature of the spherical shell. Filled with Comp B and Baratol, the lenses themselves were a five-thousand pound conventional bomb that, if set off prematurely, could blow _Avenger_ into a million pieces in one titanic explosion.

Hyogo and Imamura carefully checked wiring connections to the array, holding their breath, probing gently along with their finger tips. When they were satisfied, Imamura replaced the cover. Both men took a deep breath.

"That's it," Hyogo said. "Everything's ready."

Imamura reached out over the catwalk rail and tentatively put his hand on the black nickel-steel alloy of _Big Fella's_ outer casing.

"It's warm, right here in the middle," he said. "Like it's alive. Like a big warm egg, waiting to hatch."

"This egg hatches only death," Hyogo said. "Come on...let's go back up front. We can't be too far from the target now."

The two corporals stowed their tools in the toolbox, then, one after the other, ducked down and scrambled forward into the pressurized tunnel.

Fumori sensed Kalugin returning to the cockpit and tensed himself. He didn't want the Russian up front but there was little he could do about it. He toyed briefly with the idea of trying to subdue Kalugin and secure him in one of the seats, but the Russian kept his distance, and the Tokarev pistol pointed at Fumori all the time.

Fumori checked the chronometer on the panel. With any luck, what the Russian did wouldn't matter in another hour or so.

Hyogo popped his head out of the tunnel and thumped down onto the deck.

"Good...you're back."

Hyogo came forward, stuck his head between the pilot and co-pilot's seats and, pointedly ignored Kalugin, who sat opposite Fumori.

"The bomb's ready, _Chusa_. Everything checked out."

Fumori glanced sideways at Kalugin. "There was no interference?"

"None, Commander. He just came back for his little box...toys to play with, I suppose."

Kalugin smirked. "Fanatic devotion to duty has its place in combat. But there's a difference between being brave and being foolish. Death is meaningless unless it achieves something worthwhile."

Fumori seethed. "What do you know about death _, ruso_?"

Kalugin shrugged, pulled out the taped parcel and fiddled with the tape. "I know we Russians have seen enough to last a thousand generations."

Fumori smiled. "That's why our Kwantung Army will defeat you in Manchuria. Japanese are true warriors...it's in our blood. We are prepared to die from the day we are born. You love life. We love death."

Kalugin said, " _Tovarisch_ , when all the Japanese soldiers in Manchuria have been slaughtered by the Red Army, there will still be twenty divisions marching south, marching right over your decaying corpses."

Fumori seethed, more from the suspicion that the Russian was right than anything else. He stared out the windscreen, through tufts of clouds streaking by. A faint orange glow was beginning to filter down from above, the first fingers of dawn sunlight. It would be light soon. Easier for the Americans to detect them.

"Hyogo, where are we? I don't see the ocean or the coastline anymore. Give me our current position."

Hyogo ducked back to the navigator's table and did some quick calculations. He frowned at the result, and came forward.

"Commander, there must be a wind coming from the ocean. We're on the right heading, but we've been blown inland. The coastline must be to starboard. Turn right to heading two zero five degrees—"

Fumori made a slight right bank, skidding and slipping through the turn as _Avenger_ fought the maneuver. She was wounded, with little trim and lateral control, her rudder and tailplanes extensively damaged in the takeoff from Kitticut. Fumori had to stand on both rudder pedals and pull on the wheel with all his weight to execute the turn.

A few moments later, the coastline seven thousand feet below, came into view. _Avenger_ cruised on her 2200-horsepower engines at slightly over two hundred and sixty miles an hour, taking a beating in the choppy air as she bore southward, ever southward.

Kalugin studied the instruments at the co-pilot's seat, not fully digesting their import. Could he trust the Japanese? Imamura had been right back in the bomb bay. If he waited too long to bail out, he'd be incinerated in the ensuing blast, assuming the Japanese were able to pull off their mission at all. Maybe he should start getting ready now.

"How far to the target?" he asked.

Fumori didn't answer at first, concentrating on keeping the huge bomber steady on her new course. Kalugin figured a little motivation was needed; he slipped back to Hyogo, still at the navigator's station and squeezed the _rikusentai's_ arm hard, jerking him half out of the seat.

"Killing you now presents no problems." His eyes met Hyogo's, a natural predator engaged with a fanatic. "How far--?"

Hyogo turned back to his table, ticked off distances with his caliper and checked a watch. "Less than an hour...maybe two hundred miles, if we stay on course."

"I'm fighting the winds, Hyogo-san," Fumori reported. "---trying to hold this heading. I'm going lower, drop us down to five thousand." Cautiously, he pitched the wheel forward and slowly, ponderously, _Avenger_ nosed downward.

Kalugin decided it was time to leave. He re-stowed the taped parcel in a pocket inside the parachute pack, tested the strapping, and stooped at the hatch cover. The belly hatch was located amidships, next to the engineer's console. Kalugin began turning the hand crank. To get better leverage, he quietly laid the pistol down on the deck.

That's when he was jumped by Hyogo.

Mike Ramey glanced at his fuel gauge, an uneasy gnawing in the pit of his stomach. Six hundred pounds, give or take a few. The rest of _Hound Dog Flight_ was in similar shape. Not low enough to call in a bingo, but enough to make a fellow wonder. They were streaking south, heading one six eight degrees, scooting along on top of some scud that Pacific winds were blowing onshore above five thousand feet, and Ramey wondered if they would make contact with the intruder soon enough to have enough gas to engage.

He did some mental calculations, came up with a go-no go figure, and promptly tried to put it out of his mind. A rogue B-29, with a possible atom bomb on board, heading south along the coast, toward San Francisco, maybe Los Angeles...that was the kind of target you didn't worry about gas over. Mid-Coast sector had vectored all available planes onto a single target they were intermittently tracking and nobody was worrying about anything else. Scuttlebutt from _Navajo One_ was the bogey was a low-flying heavy spotted by some old farmer in south Oregon, a relic of the Ground Observer Corps from four years back.

On any other night but this, Ramey would have been skeptical about the contact, to say the least. Civilian aircraft spotters were notorious for seeing ghosts and calling in bandits by the dozen; they had been for years. Jesus, Ramey thought, if Fourth Air Force had scrambled on every dirt farmer's call-in, the aircraft would have fallen apart from overuse months ago. Ramey had grown skeptical enough over a whole year's worth of alert duty to pretty much discount every contact.

The Japs would have to come marching down Hollywood Boulevard in division strength for _Hound Dog One_ to lose any sleep.

Still, orders were orders, and when Mid-Coast handed them off to Hamilton Field, Ramey's well-honed sense of skepticism began to fray a bit around the edges. Just hearing the air-to-ground chatter made him realize how many planes were airborne off the West Coast tonight. Nerves were on edge. Voices were clipped and tense. Something was up, and it wasn't just another drill.

_If we're not careful_ , he realized, _we're gonna wind up shooting at each other, in all the confusion._

"Hound Dog Flight, this is Hamilton Sector...turn right heading one oh five degrees and descend to five thousand feet...Over—"

Ramey acknowledged the orders and passed on the instructions to the rest of the flight. As one, the four P-51 Mustangs banked right and settled in on the new heading, then dropped into the clouds as they descended.

"Feet dry, Skipper," said _Hound Dog Two_ , off Ramey's portside wing. "They've got us back over land again. Don't they have a fix on this bastard yet...we've been vectored all over creation and back tonight."

Through breaks in the clouds, Ramey could see scattered lights below. _Farmhouses_ , he realized. _Farmers getting up to milk the cows_. Hamilton Sector had turned them back to the east, presumably on an intercept course. But to intercept what?

Lieutenant Stiles' question had been in his mind as well.

"Hamilton Sector, this is Hound Dog Flight....any more info on what we're tracking...anybody got a bead on that heavy Mid-Coast told us about?"

The radio channel was less staticky than it had been up north, but the background chatter was building. _Hell of a lot of pilots and controllers on this frequency_ , Ramey thought. _If we don't have good radio discipline tonight, somebody's going to get hurt._

"Hound Dog, this is Hamilton Sector...that's a negative. We're vectoring based on projected track. I am authorized to inform you that you are on the best intercept course...a rogue B-29 with probable atom bomb on board, target and destination unknown. We've had a probable visual about half an hour ago, but radar is intermittent. Target is below five thousand feet, we think. Speed unknown but indications are that he's smoking, Hound Dog. Recommend increase your speed to three hundred."

Ramey blinked sweat from his eyes. _Best intercept course? That meant Hound Dog Flight was in the batter's box._

"Sector, give me a time to engage. What are my orders when I engage?"

There was a _churring_ sound, then Sector came back. "Best calculation puts intercept in fifteen minutes, about twenty five miles north of San Francisco Bay, if the target maintains projected track...looks like they've turned and descended and turned again, several times."

"Sector, are we authorized to take action against the target? Do we attempt to force him away, divert...or shoot the bastard out of the sky?"

Sector's voice dropped noticeably. "Divert if possible, Hound Dog. That's from General Wiley at Fourth Air Force. Divert the target as far as possible from San Francisco, preferably out to sea. But if the target means business, and he's got that bomb onboard..." Ramey's throat caught at the implications, "you are authorized to engage and destroy the target."

_A fuckin' atom bomb_...Ramey's mind swirled with the words. They tasted coppery in the back of his mouth. _The basic power of the universe_ , President Truman had told the stunned nation only five days before.

"Understood," Ramey said tersely. He switched channels to the flight frequency. "Hound Dog Flight, this is Hound Dog Leader, listen up boys and listen good...here's the scoop—"

Hyogo and Imamura wrestled desperately with the Russian, rolling about the cramped confines of the aft cockpit like cats in a back alley scrum. Hyogo got leverage enough to slam the Russian's head against the bulkhead, momentarily stunning him. All the rage and fury of the past few weeks, all the hatred for the _rusos_ who'd stabbed Japan in the back when she was fighting for her life, poured forth and Hyogo bore in on Kalugin with pent-up wrath, fists pounding at his pockmarked face.

But the Russian was strong, like a bear, and bigger than the two Japanese marines. He blocked the onslaught of fists and kicked out, landing a heavy foot squarely in the mid-section of Imamura, who _ooommphhed_ , and fell backward, catching his head on the engineer's chair.

With the odds more even, Kalugin turned against Hyogo and weathered a rain of blows, then lashed out with his own fists, first missing, but finally connecting one quick jab after another, hammering Hyogo on the side of his head. For a squat, muscular man, the Russian was surprisingly quick and he bulled his way out, using his bulk as a battering ram, knocking the Japanese to the cockpit floor. He was helped by the cramped confines and by the fact that Hyogo had bowled over backward into Imamura's lap. Kalugin stood up, crouching and kicked out with a boot, landing a solid blow into Hyogo's chin. Blood spurted from his mouth, even as Imamura found himself pinned under Hyogo's weight. For good measure, Kalugin landed another kick to Hyogo's head and threw them both against the edge of the engineer's console.

The Russian stooped down to the hatch cover, in the moments he had gained for himself and wrestled with the handwheel, slowly turning it counterclockwise. He eyed Hyogo and Imamura as he did so, kicking once more at Imamura when the _rikusesntai_ lunged at him. Kalugin's boot caught the Japanese a glancing blow on the side of his temple but not enough to deflect his lunge. Imamura fell upon Kalugin's back just as the hatch cover spun loose. With a strong pull, Kalugin shrugged Imamura off to the floor and then swung the hatch cover up and over, revealing a streaking kaleidoscope of wispy cloud and green and brown hills less than a mile below.

"Yoshi---let him go!" It was Fumori up front, wrestling with _Avenger_ as the airflow swirled and shrieked around the open hatch. "Yoshi...I need a position check...let the _ruso_ go!"

Imamura was still dazed, his head had hit the bulkhead at an awkward angle, when Hyogo scrambled to his feet. Warily he daubed with a finger at his cuts, then circled the Russian, who was maneuvering himself to step through the hatch and drop out. Their eyes met.

Kalugin sat precariously on the hatch sill, his eyes mesmerized by the dizzying terrain below. Hills and streets and lights and farmhouses passed below them like a high-speed projector.

"You'll never survive the fall, even with the parachute," Hyogo hissed, a smirk forming on his lips. "We're too low...and going lower." Even as he said it, _Avenger's_ nose pitched forward. She was descending again as Fumori hunted for a bigger break in the clouds, trying to get below the morning scud blowing on-shore.

"Yoshi--!"

Hyogo leered at the Russian. "You will die as a warrior should, Russian. Serving the Emperor and the Imperial Way!" Bleeding with his right eye nearly swollen shut, Hyogo crawled past Kalugin and squeezed past the bulkhead to his navigator's table, picking up swirling papers and his calipers from the floor.

"Yoshi...give me a—" but Fumori's command was interrupted by a frantic call over the cabin intercom.

It was Gunichi Konoye, stuck aft in the tail gunner's blister.

" _Chusa, chusa_...there are enemy planes! I see enemy planes behind us...above us...two, three, four planes...lots of them!"

The Golden Gate hills made a scenic backdrop as the morning sun peeked above the eastern horizon. It was a brief flash, a glint against the sere tawny backdrop of the hills that had first caught the eye of _Hound Dog Two_. Lieutenant Mark Eagan looked twice, squinted in the glare to make sure.

Sure enough, the glint had wings. And it was big, a four-engine heavy.

"Skipper... _tally-ho...tally-ho_...I see something...uh....eleven o'clock low, off down there against the hills—"

Mike Ramey turned to look, shielding his eyes from the bright sun. Sure enough, he saw the same glint. A small silvery dot stood out against the ground, moving south, toward the Bay Area.

"Hound Dog Leader to Hamilton Sector...we've got a contact...heading...ah, one four five degrees. I'm at six thousand and he's about two thousand below me...turning to intercept."

As one, Hound Dog flight wheeled south and began descending. Ramey spoke to his flight.

"Flight, stay above and behind him, until we get a good visual. Two and three, you take the right side....lay back about a thousand feet or so. Otto, you come with me...we'll move off to his left."

"Roger that," Otto Stiles came back.

"Hound Dog Flight, this is Sector. Be advised, we do not have this contact on radar. Repeat, we do not have contact. Proceed with caution. Target may be a civilian transport."

_He's so low, he's lost in the hills_ , Ramey told himself. "Understood, Sector. We'll take a good look and report back."

Hound Dog Flight bore down on the silvery dot. The deep blue of San Pablo Bay framed the motion of the target quite well and Ramey drew a bead on the aircraft as he descended through five thousand feet. Scattered cotton balls of clouds were lit up orange and yellow by the rising sun, streaming down in brilliant shafts of light. The target flitted from one cloud to the next, but Ramey had him bracketed and led his flight inexorably south, in a great curving arc to intercept the aircraft.

By the time they crossed San Pablo Bay, the red steel towers of the Golden Gate Bridge had come into view, its massive span partially obscured by a ribbon of fog snaking across the bay. Beyond lay the hills of San Francisco, the Embarcadero district and the port, busy with ship traffic even at this early hour.

_Hound Dog Flight_ closed the last remaining distance and took up position well above and behind the aircraft. Closing in for a better look, Hound Dog Leader had no doubt they had finally found their quarry.

"Hamilton Sector--," he radioed in. "...I'm right behind him, maybe a thousand yards...he's a B-29 Superfort bomber all right, tail number NC17125. Looks shot up pretty good...I can see tail damage and his rudder's all beat up too. He's missing some fuselage panels around the wings and he's losing fuel from a starboard wing tank...there's a fine spray streaming aft. Plus he's wobbly...my guess is he's got no trim and he's fighting to stay in level flight...it is pretty windy up here."

"Hound Dog, Sector...we copy. What is your current position and altitude...we've got no radar on any of this."

"We've above and behind the target, trying to stay hidden in the sun best we can. Altitude three thousand five hundred. Now on heading one six six degrees...heading right for the city. We'll be across San Pablo in another minute, then about halfway between Berkeley and Sausalito...wait a minute, he's turning, he's turning---!"

Hound Dog Leader steered right, paralleling _Awesome Avenger's_ starboard bank. The bomber skidded through a ragged turn, losing a few hundred feet more in altitude. The fuel stream broadened into a fan-like spray. Ramey sucked at his lower lip, wondering---how much closer should they get? How much longer could this SOB stay airborne.

"Stay on 'em, Skipper!" came _Hound Dog Three_.

"Maintain position on the target!" Ramey snapped. "Don't get in any closer until I give the word. We got to make sure of this one."

"Hound Dog Flight, Sector...be advised you are cleared to engage the target. Fourth Air Force has authorized you to engage. That's right from General Wiley. Repeat, you are authorized to engage the target. Try to divert the aircraft away from the city."

Ramey swallowed hard. That was easier said than done. And if the bastard _was_ carrying an atom bomb—

"Roger, Sector....understood we are cleared to engage." Ramey keyed his mike. "Hound Dog Flight, listen up...Sector's given us permission to engage. We're going to try and divert him from flying directly over the city."

"We'd better hurry up, Skipper," said _Hound Dog Two_. "We'll be over the bridge in about two minutes."

"Here's the plan...Two, you and Three make one pass each, from his four o'clock. Make one guns pass and aim ahead of his nose, just to get his attention. Then I'll pull up off his portside nine o'clock and see if I can get his attention. I've got the frequencies for his radios, so he should be able to hear me...if he's listening. I'll direct him, by radio if I can, or by hand signal, to bank right immediately and head away from the city."

"What if he's not listening, Skipper?"

Ramey knew it might well come to that. He didn't really know who was driving the heavy up front...scuttlebutt said it was a Jap commando team of enemy pilots. If that was true, they'd as soon die as give up. The rain of kamikazes over Okinawa two months before had proven that.

"Then we bump him off course, get him away from the city as best we can and blow the bastard out of the sky. Hound Dog Two and Three, start your passes now!"

From a position several thousand feet above and behind the bomber, two P-51s peeled off and swept off to the west, beyond a thin cloud layer. Below, the rippled surface of San Pablo Bay was steadily giving way to then deeper green of San Francisco Bay itself. The black hump of Alcatraz was plainly in view, dead ahead, and beyond that, Telegraph Hill and downtown in the misty distance.

_Hound Dog Two_ and _Three_ made a great circle, descended and banked left and bore in on _Awesome Avenger_ , approaching the starboard flanks of the bomber at a speed of two hundred and fifty miles an hour. A thousand yards out, first one, then the other Mustang let fly a volley of .50-caliber cannon fire, ripping the sky with tracer rounds. A wall of lead and steel sliced the air directly in front of _Avenger's_ nose. The Mustangs bore in and then broke off the pass as instructed, wheeling up and back out to sea to re-join the pursuit.

Sado Fumori jerked _Avenger's_ nose to port the instant he heard the volley of cannon fire from the Mustangs. Like silver and black streaks, the two interceptors flashed by in front of him, and were gone and out of range in seconds. From aft, he heard Konoye _thunk-thunk-thunking_ his own cannon at the Mustangs, wheeling the twin turrets of the tail gun around to following the diving enemy planes. A stream of return .50-caliber fire lit up the morning sky but the rate of close was too fast and the enemy was out of range before Konoye could get a bead on them.

"Yoshi! Yoshi...get up here...get in your station!" Fumori yelled aft, catching flashes of the struggle from the corner of his eye. Imamura and Kalugin circled each other warily, crouching like dogs ready to pounce, circling the open belly hatch, while cold wind shrieked into the cockpit and swirled papers and loose items about the cabin. "Yoshi...get the bomb ready...the target's dead ahead!"

Hyogo disengaged himself from the fight and crawled forward, sliding headfirst into the bombardier's well up front. He bent his eyes to the Norden sight, tickling the control knobs with his right hand, waggling his left hand in the air.

"Only water now, Chusa....I see only water!"

"The city's coming up... _Gunichi_...keep those fighters off my tail! I'm descending...when we get below two thousand feet, the bomb should go off!"

As if in reply, one hundred and twenty five feet aft, Gunichi Konoye stared wide-eyed at the four Mustangs above and behind them, in line abreast formation. Shark teeth patterns decorated their noses, giving them a fierce, predatory glare as they closed steadily on _Avenger's_ tail.

_A few more feet, just a few more feet_... Konoye's fingers flexed on the gun trigger, readying himself for the next duel. _Only a few feet more and you can taste lead for breakfast today—_

Next to the belly hatch, Kalugin had sent Imamura sprawling, gaining just enough time to lift both legs over the hatch and sit unsteadily on the sill. Below his dangling feet, the sun-dappled surface of San Francisco Bay flashed by, speckled with a few ship wakes as freighters and trawlers plied their trade three thousand feet below. Kalugin glared angrily at the dazed Japanese _rikusentai_ , felt his straps and buckles, making sure the chute pack was secure, then took one last look up front...

Fumori was fighting _Avenger_ at the controls, wrestling the wheel and manipulating the flaps and engine levers, bringing the ship lower and lower. Through the birdcage beyond, the Russian could make out individual buildings dotting the hills of the city...a city just awakening to a cool, sunny summer day, just a hint of fog moving onshore from the north.

He wanted to wait a few moments longer, hoping _Avenger_ would be over dry land so he wouldn't come down in the water, but the American fighters were already swarming all around them and there was no telling how much longer the bomber would stay airborne. Fumori had already decided to detonate the bomb from within the bomb bay...if they went below two thousand feet, the bomb would go off.

Kalugin decided it was best not wait any longer. He felt for the reassuring hump of the taped parcel, the parcel with all the gold and jewelry he'd been able to liberate from Tegelwald, and took a deep breath. Then he slipped over the sill and plunged down and out of _Avenger's_ cabin, hitting the airstream at over two hundred and fifty miles an hour.

"Holy Mother of—did you see that, Skipper?" It was _Hound Dog One_ , Stiles, who had seen the crewmen plummet out the belly of the bomber, toward San Francisco Bay.

Ramey had indeed seen the escaping crewmen, who fell like a black rock for a few seconds, then was jerked up by a billowing parachute and swept off to the southeast, disappearing momentarily in a bank of clouds.

"They're bailing out like rats!" Ramey muttered. But only one rat had left the ship and seconds later, he was gone from view. _Hope the sonofabitch drowns in the Bay._ "Okay, Flight, this isn't working—" The rogue bomber hadn't responded at all to the guns passes. Now it was time to up the ante. Somehow, some way, they had to knock the enemy plane off course, steer it out to sea and keep it from dropping its deadly bombload. So far, at least, the bomb bay doors hadn't swung open. Ramey was thankful for that, though he wondered why the plane was flying so low, if he were planning on letting loose any bombs.

"Here's what we're going to do. I'm going down below him...right below him. If I can maneuver in the turbulence, I'm going to try and bump him under the wing, physically make him turn right. I may get one bump, maybe more. Flight, line up behind me. After I bump him, each one of you drop down and do the same."

"Skipper, that's crazy...he outweighs us ten to one. We'll never be able to bump him off course in time!"

It was _Hound Dog Three_ , Lieutenant Mark Eagan.

"Let's just shoot him down...while he's still over the water!" That came from Stiles, _Hound Dog Two_.

"Wise up, fellas...he may have an atom bomb on board. We've got to get him away from the city, any way we can. If we shoot him down, that thing may go off!"

They were almost over the city. The green swath of Golden Gate Park loomed in the distance, with the dun-colored stone of the Presidio complex visible beneath thick jacaranda trees.

Ramey nudged his plane lower and came up behind _Avenger's_ tail, taking care to avoid erratic fire from the tail gunner, who let off volleys of cannon rounds any time one of them approached.

"Take care of that clown, will you, One?" Ramey asked. Even as he maneuvered his own Mustang through the prop wash, _Hound Dog One_ settled in directly aft, dispatching the tail gunner with a carefully timed burst of machine gun fire. The blister broke open like a boiled egg and the enemy gunner's body was limp behind a spray of red inside the blister.

Holding his breath, his fingers squeezing the life out of the control column, Ramey steadily closed on _Avenger's_ portside wing.

He eased his aircraft forward, fighting gusting winds and turbulence in the wake of the huge bomber. Yard by yard, the Mustang approached the underside of _Avenger's_ portside wing. When he was sure of his position, Ramey tweaked his control stick and slammed his own right wing into the belly and wing of the bomber. Metal shrieked and the bomber shed pieces of fuselage and flap, as both aircraft rebounded from the impact.

Ramey closed again and lifted the Mustang's wing into the belly of the bomber. The impact corkscrewed him around and he had to fight the controls to stay in level flight. He backed off and tried it one more time.

This time, aware of what _Avenger_ was carrying in her bomb bay, Ramey bore in on the bomb bay doors, hoping to damage the mechanism enough to prevent them from opening. He had no idea the Japanese pilots had already decided to detonate the bomb without ever releasing it.

Ramey checked his airspeed and altimeter. Two hundred and twenty miles an hour, still at twenty two hundred feet. Their flight path had taken them directly over the Oakland Bay Bridge, heading due south toward San Francisco Airport.

_I've got to get the bastard out to sea_ , Ramey muttered to himself. He cinched up his shoulder harness as tight as he could stand it. _Get him out to sea somehow and then shoot the son of a bitch out of the sky._

One more time. Ramey eased his aircraft forward, fighting tricky currents and crosswinds, bringing his right wing abeam of the bomb bay doors. Shuddering and bucking like a wild bronco, the aircraft slammed sideways into the fuselage before Ramey could maneuver properly. He jammed his feet into the rudder pedals, gave her _hard right_!... and leveled out, sucking in his breath. That had been close...too close. His own prop had nearly struck the bomber. Slowly, yard by yard, he shifted to the right, easing his wing beneath the bomb bay doors, then at just the right moment, timing the rhythmic oscillations of the air currents, lifted his wing, right into the doors.

The impact, snap rolled the Mustang in reverse, and Ramey bailed out of the area, sneaking under _Avenger's_ damaged left wing and out into cleaner air. The Superfort was still shedding pieces of fuselage and wing, as well as a steady stream of fuel from the holed starboard tank.

Ramey wiped cold sweat from his forehead. "Hound Dog Two...get in there! Have a go...and watch the currents under his wings....see if you can knock him further to starboard."

Ramey backed off while Lieutenant Mark Eagan nosed in for a try. He floated into position, wings waggling in the turbulence, and jammed his own aircraft into a nook between _Avenger's_ wing root and her fuselage. Debris exploded from the impact and Ramey's heart sank as he saw Eagan's cockpit canopy shear off. _Hound Dog Two_ spun away into a spiral, slamming into the tip of _Avenger's_ portside wing.

"Mark!—"

But it was too late. _Hound Dog Two_ had caught a bad gust and been crushed into the side of _Avenger's_ fuselage. Her canopy had been torn off and her prop damaged beyond repair in the impact. _Hound Dog Two_ rolled hard left and plummeted earthward, cart wheeling into a flat spin, centrifugal force pinning her pilot into his seat.

"Mark! Get out of there...bail out! _Bail out_!"

_Hound Dog Two_ fell away, whirling end for end like a child's top, as her wings came apart in mid-air. Flames shot out of the hole where her engine had once been, and seconds later, a red fireball erupted, showering debris in all directions. The flaming wreckage of the aircraft fell straight down toward the eastside docks of San Francisco, two thousand feet below.

Ramey swallowed hard, unable to take his eyes off the falling debris. The wreckage impacted just offshore, narrowly missing a freighter that had just backed away from its wharf.

_Jesus H. Christ_. Ramey checked his instruments. Despite losing _Hound Dog Two_ , the bomber seemed to have been knocked further off course. Now, the furious aerial duel had passed over the very heart of the city, further to the west. Below them, the white column of Coit Tower dominated the hills and the straight slash of Market Street arrowed southwest through the brown and gray streets of the city. Lights were coming on below, as San Franciscans awakened to another summer day, unaware of the desperate struggle unfolding half a mile overhead.

"Hound Dog Three...get in there!" Ramey ordered. "It's working...that Jap pilot's a crazy bastard but we're forcing him more and more to the west!"

_Hound Dog One_ said, "Looks like he won't hold together much longer, Skipper. He can't drop anything from his bomb bay."

"He may not need to. I want to shoot the son of a bitch down but I can't do it where we are...we've got to get him out over the ocean."

Lieutenant Chip Hodges was _Hound Dog Three_ , grim and determined as he maneuvered into position, steadily gaining on _Avenger_ from below. Hodges brought his Mustang up smartly into position, nosing forward, until his wingtips were parallel to the bomber's. When he was positioned as best he could, Hodges hauled his stick back, gave her hard right rudder and held his breath.

The impact tore a hole in _Avenger's_ fuselage, and shreds of fuselage panel splintered off into the airstream. The bomber shuddered, and careened to starboard, heeling over hard, then skidded into a flat turn, as her pilot fought to bring her back under control. Again and again, Hodges slammed his wings into _Avenger_ , each time bumping her further and further to the west. After five such impacts, the bomber had steadily been forced onto a more southwesterly heading, streaking low and fast over the houses and buildings of the city's Mission District, with the blue sheen of the Pacific Ocean dead ahead.

"That's it!" Ramey pumped a fist into the air. "That's the way, Chip! Give it to 'em again!" He checked his altimeter, aware they had been losing altitude with each run at the bomber.

Nineteen hundred feet.

Ramey knew that if the Jap bastard dropped his bomb now, he and the rest of Hound Dog Flight and all the Bay Area could be incinerated in an atomic fireball.

Sado Fumori had just seen the same figure on the altimeter of _Awesome Avenger's_ instrument panel. What was wrong? Hadn't Yoshi Hyogo and Hideki Imamura set the bomb to detonate at any point below two thousand feet?

It should have already detonated.

Fumori fought the wheel and rudder pedals, straining to keep _Avenger_ airborne just a few moments longer. His rudder was pretty much shot away and he had sluggish, intermittent control over his ailerons. _Avenger_ was in a shallow right hand bank and he couldn't seem to straighten her out. He set and re-set trim tabs on the console, trying to get some measure of force to hold against the bank but it was no use.

They were turning westward over the city and heading out to sea.

"Yoshi...Yoshi, get up here!"

Hyogo stuck his head up from the bombardier's pit. His face was streaked with dirt and sweat and tears welled up in his eyes.

"Chusa...I can't get any kind of fix...we're not steady enough..."

"Never mind that...what's happened to the bomb? We're below two thousand feet...it should have gone off."

Hyogo's face screwed up into a picture of puzzlement. "I don't know. We checked every circuit. All connections were good, battery was good...I don't know—"

"Get back to the bomb bay...find out what the problem is. " Hyogo squeezed up and over the center console and started heading aft toward the pressurized tunnel that connected the cockpit with the bomb bay. "—and Yoshi—"

Hyogo turned back, halfway up the short ladder to the tunnel. "Yes, Chusa?"

Fumori's eyes met his. "If you can't fix the bomb...go ahead and detonate it. From back there—"

Hyogo nodded. " _Hai_! Of course...at once—" He disappeared head first into the tunnel.

Fumori leaned against the wheel and rudder pedals with all his strength, praying for extra strength _. Esteemed father....I have never been worthy of your name and respect. Forgive me...we've tried to bring honor to the house of Fumori_. Had he not lived a courageous life, this fifth son of a fisherman from Kure? He had been an honored pilot with the First Fleet _Genzan Kokutai_ , the 22nd Air Flotilla, dealing death to the enemy in great numbers in the skies over Guadalcanal and Tulagi and New Britain. Twice he had been shot down and lived, denied the chance at glorious death in combat that so many comrades had gained. Surely, Fate and His Majesty were saving the life of this humble pilot-warrior for a grand finale in the skies over San Francisco, here, now, in the very heart of the enemy.

He saw the face of Yoshi Murataka, an old friend from Academy days at Etajima, in the cracked panes of the forward windscreen, smiling down on him, backlit with the sun's rays streaming through low clouds.

Wonderful, laughing Yoshi Murataka, who had always called him Big Ears, now laughing at him, beckoning him on...from the sun-dappled gardens of the Yasukuni Shrine. From the other side....

Crash!

Fumori startled out of the dreamy image as _Awesome Avenger_ took yet another impact from the fanatical American pilots swarming around the wounded beast. This time, he felt the impact in the very pit of his stomach. For one long sickening moment, the huge bomber teetered on the verge of disintegration. Then, with ever increasing speed, she heeled over hard to starboard and began a long spiraling death plunge....

One hundred feet behind Fumori, Yoshi Hyogo had been in the process of unscrewing a plate on top of _Big Fella_ , hoping to expose the timing circuits so he could re-wire the detonators, when the great impact came. Knocked to his side by the force of the collision, Hyogo quickly found himself pinned to the bulkhead, as _Avenger_ lurched forward, forward and down, slowly at first, then with ever-increasing speed, beginning a flat downward spin that kept him away from the opened casing.

In desperation, Hyogo reached out with a screwdriver, straining against the centrifugal force, trying to snag one of the wires, any wire, but it was hopeless. _Big Fella_ swung like a stunned whale, slamming her ten-thousand bulk against the side of the bomb bay, crumpling the catwalk, and crushing Hyogo against the wall.

"That did it! Ramey crowed as he turned his P-51 away from the cart wheeling bomber. _Hound Dog One_ , Lieutenant Stiles, had done the trick, slamming into _Avenger's_ belly one last time, shearing off half her portside wing and jamming her ailerons and flaps on the stub of what was left into an upward position. Stiles dropped quickly out from beneath the crippled bomber and rolled away, as she plunged earthward, beginning a slow, flat spin, shedding more and more pieces from huge gashes in her fuselage. Mercifully, the bomb bay doors had stayed shut...whatever was inside would now, it seemed, stay inside.

Ramey prayed the impact, when it came, would not set off the bomb.

Hound Dog Flight re-grouped and backed off several miles, while _Awesome Avenger_ spiraled toward the Bay below. The final impact had come just as the aerial struggle had passed over Point Lobos, at the extreme western end of the peninsula. Now, as _Avenger_ spun earthward, she was in a descending right hand, clockwise spin, losing several hundred feet with each turn.

Ramey thought it prudent to get away from the impact zone. "Hound Dog Flight, steer left two seven zero degrees and pour it on, boys! Let's get the hell out of here....I just hope she makes the Bay and not the port down there."

They banked out to sea and put some distance between the flight and the dying bomber. Just as _Hound Dog Flight_ went feet wet and crossed the surf line at Ocean Beach, Ramey craned his neck around to see the final seconds of the plunge.

_Awesome Avenger_ had now made her last turn and the final spiral sent her shattered fuselage on a more northerly heading. She flattened out momentarily, the last shred of lift bowing what was left of her wings upward. Now a hundred-thousand pound glider, she struck the southernmost bridge tower of the Golden Gate Bridge with terrific force, disintegrating in a flaming shower of debris that rained down on the orderly rows of antique cannons and anti-aircraft guns bivouacked at Fort Point. Her remaining fuel ignited in a rose-petal of red and yellow flame, consuming the landward side of the bridge in billowing black smoke.

Even from a distance of several miles, Ramey and the remaining pilots of Hound Dog Flight could feel the concussive shock wave of the impact. Ramey closed his eyes and held his breath, praying that something infinitely bigger wouldn't go off.

It didn't.

For a few long seconds, Captain Mike Ramey, Hound Dog Leader, stared in rapt fascination at the scene of carnage enveloping the Golden Gate Bridge. As the smoke began to clear, he could see that half the bridge tower and a long section of the southern-most span of the bridge were gone, presumably into the Bay below. Jagged edges of girders and beams lay exposed in flickering flame as dozens of fires broke out all along the abutment and cabling of the bridge.

"Thank God," he murmured. "It was only the bridge..." Though heavily damaged, the bridge seemed structurally intact. The City by the Bay had been spared an even worse fate.

Shaken, but satisfied, _Hound Dog Leader_ recovered his composure and ordered a left hand turn to heading zero eight five, back east toward the city. He dialed up Hamilton Sector and reported what had happened.

"Hound Dog Flight, Sector...turn right heading one five one and descend to one thousand feet. You're cleared for initial approach into San Francisco Airport."

_San Francisco_? "We're based at Hamilton, Sector...and most of us have wing and tail damage...we're all beat up...give us a vector home."

"Negative, Hound Dog...you've got a reception waiting for you on the ground...at San Francisco Airport. Maintain heading...I'll put you in the landing pattern priority one—"

Ramey could only shake his head and comply. What the hell kind of reception could be waiting for them at San Francisco? All he wanted now was a hot shower and a cold beer.

Hound Dog Flight passed over the very center of San Francisco at slightly more than a thousand feet, per instructions, low enough to make out the first waves of commuters and pedestrians beginning to throng Market Street and North Beach. It was a bright cool morning, only a little fog left to burn off and, as Ramey guided the flight of P-51 Mustangs toward the airport, he wondered how many of them knew what had happened in the early dawn hours in the skies over their city.

They'll see the damage to Golden Gate Bridge soon enough, he decided, and then the Army would have to come up with some kind of explanation. Word would get out eventually, he was sure of that.

_Hound Dog Flight_ landed without incident at San Francisco Airport shortly after 0700 hours and taxied toward a convoy of Jeeps and trucks awaiting them outside the terminal, cordoned off by several platoons of MPs from the rest of the ramp. Beyond the cordon, a pair of Air Transport Service C-46s had been parked and secured.

Ramey parked his Mustang where the ramp chief indicated and shut down the engine. Hodges and Stiles did the same. As he was climbing out, Ramey wished _Hound Dog Two_ had somehow made it back; the ramp seemed different, unusually quiet, without Mark Eagan's wisecracks and jokes. His eyes met Stiles' and both men shook their heads: both planes looked like they were ready for the scrap yard. Stiles' P-51 was missing half his starboard wing, all the way to the inboard flap hinge.

A line of uniformed officers awaited them, with several civilians mixed in. Ramey marched his flight up and saluted.

General Wilton Wiley snapped off a return salute and grabbed Ramey's hand, pumping it hard. "Good job, Captain... _great_ job." Wiley was all smiles, proudly showing off his pilots to the others. Commanding officer of the Fourth U.S. Army Air Force, Wiley ran the unit from the Ops building at Hamilton. Ramey knew Wiley as a no-nonsense, by-the-book c/o, more often than not buried in staff meetings all day long.

Wiley introduced the rest of the gathering. "This is General Perkins, of Western Defense Command," Wiley conducted the sweaty and exhausted pilots down the line of officials.

Perkins was a small, gaunt O-8 who'd inherited what was left of the command from his protégé General DeWitt. Based at the Presidio in downtown San Francisco, Perkins was nominally Wiley's superior. Ramey, Hodges and Stiles saluted briskly. Perkins never cracked a smile but his eyes beamed, knowing as he did that it had been his Sector controllers and a farmer in coastal Oregon's Ground Observer Corps who had made the vectors steering _Hound Dog Flight_ onto the track of the stolen bomber.

"A great day for the Army, men," Perkins remarked, shaking all their hands. "This'll show Washington what this command's all about."

"It was a close call, sir," Ramey replied. "I wasn't sure we could get that pilot away from the city."

"We're very grateful for that," said a civilian. Wiley hastened to introduce Emory Singleton.

Singleton grasped Ramey's hands with both of his and thanked _Hound Dog Leader_ profusely. "Mayor Lapham sends his regards...he wanted to be here but he's got meetings all morning long...about the bridge. Publics Works and Engineering...it's going be months, maybe several years before we can re-open up all lanes."

Ramey had seen _Awesome Avenger_ plunge into the southernmost bridge towers. "How bad is it, sir?"

Singleton shrugged. "Not as bad as it could have been. The bridge supports are intact, but the tower itself isn't safe. It'll have to dynamited and re-built. Until that's done, only one lane in each direction will be open. Golden Gate's still navigable, just a little squeezed for space. The city engineer's checking structural integrity right now, just to be sure."

Ramey shook his head. "It could have been much worse, sir."

Singleton agreed. "From what these gentlemen have told me, that bomber may have had an atom bomb onboard. If that thing had gone off—"

"None of us would be here," said a husky officer next to Singleton. Wiley moved along, introducing Colonel Wade Brogan.

"One of our spies from Washington," Wiley added. "One of General Groves' boy. And Lieutenant Colonel Merrill too."

"Actually Los Alamos, sir" Brogan gently corrected the general. "Corps of Engineers." He shook hands with Ramey, then Hodges and Stiles. "Off the record, that bomber was piloted by a team of Jap commandos who infiltrated this country."

"Colonel," asked Ramey, "was there really an atom bomb onboard?"

Brogan glanced over at Merrill, whose face remained grim, impassive, official-looking. "Let's just say we think the damage to Golden Gate Bridge is repairable, compared to what could have happened. The Army's already coordinating with the Navy and the Coast Guard, trying to get a salvage crew out to the crash site."

"It's pretty deep in that part of the Bay," Singleton told them. "The port authority has equipment that might help."

Brogan thanked him. "There may be sensitive military equipment onboard. For the time being, the Navy can handle the job." He turned back to Ramey. "Why don't you fill me in on what happened."

Ramey related the events of the past hour as best he could, an impromptu briefing

that brought frowns to General Wiley, who would have preferred a more formal setting at Hamilton Field. He didn't like these spies from Groves's shop interfering with his boys. But there was little he could do.

When Ramey was done, Brogan shook his head. "Colonel Merrill and I just flew in from Surrey, British Columbia. Japs had fixed up a clandestine base in the woods north of there, complete with a runway and everything. We worked with the Canadians and made an assault on it yesterday. Somehow, right in the middle of all the shooting, the bomber still managed to take off. It was a damn close call, Captain."

"The assault on Kitticut forced the enemy's hand," Merrill said. "Made 'em move before they were ready."

"Only some great piloting kept those Japs from getting in position," Brogan added. "You kept them off balance. They couldn't do what they'd planned to do."

Ramey understood. "We were lucky. And I lost a good man when Egan went down."

"Corky'll be missed, that's for sure," Lieutenant Stiles said. He looked glum and serious, his lips tightening with the memory of their fallen comrade.

Brogan was still uneasy. "The formal debriefing will come in the next few days, Captain. I just wonder...what other surprises do the Japs have up their sleeves."

"Their empire is crumbling around them," Wiley said. "Iwo and Okinawa shows just how desperate they can be."

"Kitticut as well," Brogan said. "The last days of this war are likely to be bloody and costly, especially the invasion of the Home Islands."

"Got to be done," Wiley said. "There's no other way...unless they come to their senses. We got any more atom bombs we can drop, Colonel?"

Brogan nodded but passed on the question. He knew full well that with _Big Fella_ at the bottom of San Francisco Bay, it would be weeks before Oppenheimer's team at Los Alamos could fashion another bomb. Even without detonating the bomb, the Japs had managed to buy themselves a short reprieve from final annihilation.

"Maybe what we've done here will change a few minds in Tokyo," Brogan said. "Convince enough hotheads there's no hope for anything but surrender." But he had no real reason to believe that.

"There is one more thing, Colonel," Ramey said. "Several of us saw a crewman bail out of that bomber, before it went down."

Brogan was instantly alert. "A crewman...just one? When and where, Captain?"

Ramey thought, conferred with the rest of the Flight. "Maybe ten minutes before the last time we bumped him...we were over the Bay, I think. Fellow came out the bottom hatch and his 'chute opened and then the winds got him."

"We lost sight of him in the clouds," Stiles added. "Didn't see anything after that. I don't know if he survived, drowned or what."

Brogan turned back to General Perkins. "We'd better alert the Navy to that, General. City police too, in case a body washes up somewhere. If we could get our hands on one of the crewmen—"

General Wiley decided the informal debriefing was over. "That'll be enough for now, gentlemen. Boys, get yourselves over to that transport plane—" he indicated one of the C-46s. "We'll run you up to Hamilton so you can get a hot shower and some chow. You've done your country a helluva job today. "

"What about our planes, General?"

Wiley glanced at Brogan. "The Colonel here informs me that Washington wants these planes impounded...there's going to be an investigation and the planes are evidence. Orders from General Marshall. Don't worry...you'll get 'em back...eventually."

Brogan fell in with Ramey, Stiles and Hodges as they marched off to the C-46, its twin Pratt and Whitney engines already fired up and turning over.

For _Hound Dog Flight_ , the questions and briefings had just begun.
CHAPTER 30

Monday, August 13, 1945

Tokyo

9:45 p.m.

Admiral Hiro Ushenda glared at a clock on the dank walls of the underground bunker and wondered, for the twentieth time, if it was broken. Inside the shelter, thirty feet below the rubble of Kojimachi, in the blacked-out heart of Tokyo, the Saigon Nihon still maintained at least the outward appearance of a naval staff command center, though most of the assembled officers issued no commands, commanded no real ships and fought battles against the enemy only on paper and chalkboards. Kojimachi was a tomb and even Hiro Ushenda realized that. It was dank and rotting, decaying from the inside out, and Ushenda had lately been given to thinking, in the dead of night when no one else could see or hear him, that the rotting smell that so pervaded the bunker was the Empire itself, crumbling all around them.

Ushenda had been holed up inside Kojimachi's bunker for what seemed like days, though in truth, he had only been on post for about twelve hours, fidgeting and waiting anxiously for word, any word, from the Sacred Swords, word that the ultimate objective of Operation _Shori_ had been achieved, word that, finally, an American city had been pulverized in the same grotesque fashion as Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been only a week before.

Ushenda was not alone, joined as he was around the battered maplewood table by Admiral Soemu Toyoda, the Imperial Navy's pugnacious chief of staff and Admiral Zenshiro Hoshina, chief of the Navy Ministry's Military Affairs Bureau. Hoshina and Toyoda did as Ushenda did, reading and re-reading reports about ship movements and combat engagements and planned operations, none of which had any basis in reality.

_We are the living dead_ , Ushenda told himself quietly. _Moving papers around rather than fleets. Fighting ghosts rather than the enemy. Entombed but not yet released._

All that remained was the ceremony.

Ushenda squashed those thoughts and looked up when a courier entered the stifling chamber. A new face seemed like a breath of fresh air and heads looked up all around the bunker. Papers rustled and bodies stirred.

"Admiral, a message...from Domei News Agency." The courier was young, with a nearly featureless face as if he were made of unfired clay, waiting to be molded. He held several pieces of paper in his hands. "Third Bureau intercepted the broadcast before it was made...Captain Takeuchi himself wrote it down."

"Come—" Ushenda waved him over. Third Bureau was the Navy staff's intelligence unit. Takeuchi headed up the American desk. The courier handed him the flimsies. "That will be all, yeoman."

The courier wheeled about and exited the bunker, heading for the stairs and an arduous, sweltering climb under forty-two steps to the surface.

"What does it say?" Toyoda asked. He was sketching something on a sheet of paper, imaginary fleet engagements, perhaps re-playing war game exercises from when he had been an instructor at Etajima.

Ushenda scanned the message and the blood drained from his face.

"What—" Toyoda asked, more sharply. ""What is it?"

Ushenda placed the message on the table carefully, as if it were a thing contaminated, moving it toward the chief of staff with the tips of his fingers. "It is lost...."

Toyoda read the message. Within the hour, Domei News had intercepted several radio broadcasts from America...one of them from San Francisco itself. Only snatches of the broadcast could be picked up; the atmosphere was playing havoc with shortwave tonight. But the gist of the message was clear.

Ushenda slumped in his seat and stared blankly at the tortured wood grains in the table top.

"San Francisco lives..." he muttered. "The city has not been destroyed."

"Let me see that," Hoshina asked. Toyoda, equally glum, passed the message over. "It says there was some kind of fight in the skies over the city, a duel they call it, between P-51s and a crazed bomber pilot." Hoshina read snatches of the transcription, trying to puzzle out the meaning. "It makes no sense...the Golden Gate Bridge was damaged by the bomber when it plunged into the bridge...no other parts of the city were damaged...the Army and the Navy are investigating—"

"It says that _Shori_ has failed," Ushenda said. "Think, Hoshina-san, if only the Golden Gate Bridge was damaged, the bomb could not have gone off. The operation has failed."

Toyoda nodded solemnly, his lips quivering. "Our best chance...a decisive blow...a final victory over the Americans."

Ushenda couldn't even bear to watch. He couldn't bear to let his eyes rest on the Chief of Staff, his superior officer, whom he had now failed so miserably. Something caught in his throat. "I have failed..." he said, to no one in particular. _An embarrassing disgrace_...his own father, honorable and esteemed port customs inspector of Yokohama would have said...and it was true.

His entire career had been this way, Ushenda reflected. He should have gone down with the _Miyazu_ in '43, off Guadalcanal. Why had Fate saved him from the glory that should have been his? _Miyazu_ had been a prize ship, newly built on the ways at Yokohama, a brand new command, another chance for him.

Assigned by Admiral Mikawa to Third Destroyer Squadron of the Eighth Fleet, _Miyazu's_ mission was to screen several strike forces that Combined Fleet had been forming to try and engage the Americans north of the Solomons, to keep them from supplying and building up bases around New Guinea, to keep them away from the Philippines.

But _Miyazu_ , for all her new fittings and equipment, had been an unlucky ship. On the night of 7 July, 1943, in the southern Philippine Sea, the destroyer had been part of a task force moving into position when she had been torpedoed by an American submarine.

_Miyazu_ had sank in less than an hour. Only a few crewmen survived, among them the disgraced and deeply embarrassed Captain Ushenda.

When he finally got back to Admiral Mikawa, now at his fleet anchorage at Truk, Ushenda had apologized again for not dying with his ship. Mikawa, perhaps taking a cue from his old mentor Yamamoto, shrugged it off, saying he had other duties for his old comrade. But word had gotten around the fleet and Ushenda couldn't help hearing the scuttlebutt: coward, he wasn't paying attention, he didn't have lookouts posted, he was unlucky, he was bad news, he wasn't fit for command.

"You're going back to Tokyo," Mikawa had informed him. "To the General Staff. You're going to work with Ohnishi, so we can plan for the Decisive Battle next year. It's called Operation _I Go_. We'll take on the Americans before they can invade the Philippines. The plan is to meet them at Leyte Gulf."

Once again, Hiro Ushenda was disgracefully shore bound.

_Shori_ was to be his own final victory, his own contribution to the Decisive Battle, which the cowardly Americans had so far eluded. A final victory not only over the Americans who had savaged Japan from Hokkaido to Kyushu but also over all the detractors who had whispered in the corridors... _not fit for command, not fit for command_.

"Perhaps the American radio broadcasts don't tell the whole truth," Hoshina offered, after he had read the flimsies.

Ushenda was in a daze. "I'll ask Takeuchi to look for other news. But if it's true—"

Toyoda was grim. "--the Americans will be on the beaches of Kyushu in a few months. The Decisive Battle will be here in Japan."

Ushenda nodded glumly. He averted his eyes from Toyoda, so great was the disgrace. "Admiral, I request to be excused....perhaps Takeuchi is at his desk."

Toyoda understood. "Of course. The more facts we gather, the better. This will have to be reported to the Supreme Council....Anami won't like this at all. Start your report immediately, Ushenda. I want to see it before the Council does."

Ushenda rose, bowed deeply and excused himself. He left the bunker main room and wound his way through narrow corridors toward a smaller compound, crammed with desks and chairs and tables. Captain Kaoru Takeuchi, chief of the American section, was still at his desk, sorting through papers, sorting them into piles.

_Trying to make sense of this mess_ , Ushenda realized.

"Takeuchi...anything else from the wires? Any more news from the Americans?"

Takeuchi was a compact, balding man, mid-thirties, with a trim moustache and feminine hands. His long fingers handled reports like a pianist tickled ivory keys.

"Nothing more as yet, Admiral. I've ordered Domei and Nippon Broadcasting to check with the General Staff before they put anything else out. There's no sense in creating a panic...we don't have all the facts yet. This could be American propaganda."

Ushenda wasn't so sure. "Just because we try to cover up Hiroshima doesn't mean the Americans would do the same. Takeuchi, these are decisive times. We can't be afraid to make hard decisions."

Takeuchi regarded the admiral curiously. "The Americans haven't beaten us yet. Just last week, didn't General Anami and the Army assure the Emperor that American soldiers would never march through the Ginza?"

Ushenda smiled faintly. "You're young and naïve, Takeuchi. Anami's an old soldier, just like me. Sometimes, old soldiers say what they think their superiors want to hear."

"I don't understand—"

Ushenda had made up his mind. It was the right thing to do. "Sometimes honor is more important than victory. Haven't you read the pamphlets I've been giving you, Captain? Under Bushido, it was never just about being victorious...you had to be victorious in the right way, the honorable way."

Takeuchi started to rise, to protest, but Ushenda stopped him. "Some day, you'll understand. For now, continue gathering more information. Admiral Toyoda will need as many facts as he can get when he meets with the Supreme Council." Ushenda turned to go, then turned back. "Takeuchi...I want you to come to my office. Not now...there are some things I must do. Come to my office in one hour. And be prompt. Come alone—" Ushenda wheeled about and left the crowded bullpen, exiting down a narrow corridor that gave onto several closet-sized offices. The last one was his and he opened the door and went in, shutting it carefully behind him.

The office consisted of a spartan wooden desk and a chair. Two candles on a small oval table next to the desk bracketed photos and memorabilia, a small shrine to the memory of his father, the honorable port customs inspector of Yokohama docks. Ushenda went to the shrine and bowed deeply.

Forgive me, Father...I have failed my duties and disgraced myself and the family. I am no longer worthy to serve the Emperor...my life is over. I cannot achieve for Japan the final victory she deserves, so I must step aside. Perhaps Takeuchi...or someone else stronger and more worthy will continue the struggle...

Ushenda stripped off his uniform down to his shorts and, after winding a white cotton band around his waist, put on a simple white shirt to which he pinned a single medal, the only commendation he had ever won for command duty at sea.

"I can think of nothing I prize more highly than this medal," he told himself. "I will die with this medal on my chest, so that my family will know of the small honor it brought...."

A small free-standing locker filled the opposite corner and Ushenda opened it, pulling out a summer dress uniform, starched white and heavy with ribbons and medals he had earned for service to _Nihon Saigon_ , mostly for meritorious staff reports and courageous briefings and the like. He regarded the uniform for a few moments, feeling its weight, scanning the ribbons as if they were a roadmap of what he had not done in thirty years' service to the Navy. He folded the uniform and laid it carefully on the table next to the photo of his father.

Hiro Ushenda then scrounged inside the top desk drawer for the two sheets of paper on which he had written his final poem and an apology to the Chief of Staff, Admiral Toyoda and to His Majesty the Emperor. He found the sheets and withdrew them, laying them carefully on the floor in front of the table. Next to the sheets, he lay a short, dagger-like sword.

It was a pity that he could not see the Imperial Palace from the subterranean bunker. Being August, despite the ravages of nightly bombing and firestorms, he looked up toward the dripping cement ceiling of the sweltering little office, imagining in his mind's eyes how to orient himself to face the beautiful Fukiage Gardens of the Palace grounds. Perhaps _... there_ , a bit more to the east. The cedar trees would be fragrant this time of year, the moats lined with dying petals of the cherry trees that lined the placid waterways. There was an old saying that the fading blossoms that floated so serenely on the waters reminded all Japanese of _mujo_...the bittersweet impermanence of all things.

So it was with life itself.

Ushenda had determined that at least this final act of his life would be performed in the Japanese way. All his life, Hiro Ushenda had been devoted to Japanese traditions, but he could not escape the feeling that the power of the West had stripped his country of almost everything it had once held dear. Since the invasion by America's Commodore Perry, Western science, Western technology, Western thought, the Western way of life had increasingly weakened much of Japan's long-honored way of living. Western technology was so irresistible that it had even forced Japan to abandon the code of martial behavior of the Samurai and make war in the Western way. Now on the cusp of defeat, she was about to absorb the ultimate disgrace of losing a war in the Western way.

Surrender was not a Japanese but a Western tradition and it was the one tradition that Ushenda could not bear to endure. Instead, he would embrace an honored Japanese tradition which would save him from having to witness it.

Ushenda looked up at the imaginary Palace grounds in his mind's eye one last time, then dropped to his knees on the hard, dank cement floor, adopting the proper position with his torso erect and his legs folded back under him. He arranged the two sheets of paper just so, in a short arc before him, then drew the sharp sword from its sheath.

Holding it tightly in his right hand, he plunged it deep into the left side of his belly. When the sword was in as far as it would go, he ripped it to the right and upward. As his blood spilled forth, he removed the sword and with his left hand placed it at his neck, probing gently for the carotid artery from which, he knew, the blood would flow most freely.

At this moment, despite his agony, he heard soft footsteps outside the office door.

"Who is it?" he called out through gritted teeth.

Captain Takeuchi opened the door and appeared in front of him. When he realized what was going on, he was startled, but recovered quickly and withdrew respectfully from the office, shutting the door behind him.

Takeuchi went back to the section cubicles and sat down heavily in his chair, tears welling up in his eyes. He sat in his chair, oblivious to all the commotion and movements of other people in and out of the bunker, rocking back and forth for ten minutes. Finally, bleary-eyed, he could stand it no longer and went back to Ushenda's office.

He found the admiral sitting in a pool of blood as he tried to find his carotid artery. Ushenda's pain was so intense that his torso, though still rigidly straight, had begun to sway back and forth. He seemed unable to find the exact part of the neck into which to plunge the short sword.

Takeuchi whispered in his ear, seeing that Ushenda hadn't responded to his presence. "Do you wish me to help you, Admiral?"

Ushenda's eyes slowly opened. "No. Leave me."

Takeuchi left the office and went up to the surface for a few minutes, smoking a cigarette, letting what little breeze there was at midnight cool him. A stark blasted shadow of a landscape greeted him. The smell of smoke from burned houses and hundreds of cooking fires was thick in the air, clinging like an acrid ground fog. Takeuchi found the surface just as stifling as below.

When he returned to Ushenda's office a second time, he found the admiral still sitting erect. The floor was saturated with blood, which now poured freely from the admiral's neck. The two sheets of paper in front of him were stained with dark red blotches.

Takeuchi leaned close to the admiral's ear. "Aren't you in agony?"

When he received no reply, he bent even closer. Ushenda was still breathing. Picking up the sword, which had fallen to the floor, Takeuchi took a deep breath, then plunged the shaft deeply into the side of Ushenda's neck. Ushenda's body swayed for a few moments, then fell forward.

Admiral Soemu Toyoda's office was only slightly larger than Ushenda's, having a single desk, two chairs, a credenza and small Shinto shrine in the corner. Beside the door, a flag stand mounted pennants and banners from several fleets, as well as the red and white starburst of the Rising Sun, a flag partially torn and stained that had flown once on the bridge of the vaunted battleship _Musashi_ , before she had been torpedoed to the bottom of the sea off Leyte Gulf nearly a year ago.

Toyoda was handwriting a statement he intended to make to the Supreme Council later that morning when Captain Kaoru Takeuchi burst into his office.

"Begging the Admiral's pardon, sir, but Admiral Ushenda has just died. A warrior's death...he committed _seppuku_ in his own office. I have just come from there—"

Toyoda looked up with a sigh. Already nearly a third of the staff had left the bunker, for places unknown, and for the last hour, his concentration had been interrupted by the sporadic sounds of pistol shots, and heavy groans.

"A warrior's death..." he repeated, thoughtfully. Ushenda had always been a problematic staff member, anxious to prove himself, more abrasive than an officer of _Nihon Saigon_ should ever be. Perhaps Japan needed men like that in times such as these. Still, he had not been a popular member of the staff.

"...he was a talented officer, Captain. Where are his effects?"

"I left them in his office, Admiral."

"I'll send my yeoman. A shame...he was certain Operation _Shori_ would be a great victory...as were we all."

"We don't know all the facts yet, sir...there must be more. The Americans haven't said anything else in several hours...perhaps they're embarrassed at all the damage we've done."

Toyoda sniffed. "All the damage we have done? Takeuchi, all we have done is prick the side of an elephant."

"But Admiral, we know—"

Toyoda waved a hand, which had grasped a message form. "We know...we know...what do we really know, Takeuchi? I know one thing: _this_ —do you know what this is?"

Takeuchi shook his head. "No, sir."

Toyoda scanned the message form. "A courier just came from the Imperial Palace...it seems that His Majesty is no longer at the redoubt at Nagano. The Marquis Kido issued a statement to the Supreme Council within the hour...Lieutenant General Mori's Imperial Guards Division has removed the Emperor from 'protective custody' and he has just arrived by train at Shinjuku Station."

Takeuchi was aghast. "His Majesty is back at the Palace? Is that safe? What if the Americans send their bombers in again?"

Toyoda placed the message form precisely on his desk, which was mostly clear except for his handwritten pages. "His Majesty refuses to leave the bunker. He'll be safe enough, for the moment, as long as Mori's in charge of the Imperial Guards. But there's a coup forming, Takeuchi...some of General Anami's people are plotting against the government, against Suzuki and the peace faction. The next few days..." he shrugged, sat back in his chair. "I don't know what will happen. I don't know what Anami will do decide to do. If he joins the coup, his name alone could make the difference. If he doesn't—"

Takeuchi paled. A coup? Against the government? "The peace faction, Admiral...are they strong? Can they really betray us, sell us out to the Americans?"

"They are trying their best to do just that," Toyoda said grimly. "And with the Emperor back at the Palace, their hand is strengthened. I don't know what will happen—but whatever it is, it will happen soon, perhaps this very day."

"We must do something, Admiral...we can't let the traitors give Japan to the enemy."

"Right now, there's not much we can do, Takeuchi." Toyoda suddenly stood up. "Except go to Ushenda's office and prepare his body and effects. Get my yeoman, Captain. I need a detail to cover every corner of this bunker...there must be a dozen staff members who've done the same thing—"

Two and a half miles north of the Kojimachi bunker, and nearly twenty hours later, a short convoy of cars pulled up outside the imposing, though bomb-damaged façade of the Imperial Household Ministry building, set in a sparse grove of once-beautiful cedar trees in the south gardens of the Imperial Palace grounds, hard by the oily waters of the Sakurada Moat.

It was just before 11:30 pm when His August Majesty, the Sacred Crane and 124th Emperor of Japan, Hirohito emerged from his black sedan and was met by the head of the Palace Information Bureau, Hiroshi Shimomura.

Bowing deeply, Shimomura escorted the Emperor into the vast warren of the huge, rambling building. Despite the blackout, the heavily-curtained building was well-illuminated inside, since the palace had its own generator. The Emperor, conducted by Shimomura and followed at a discreet distance by several chamberlains, hurried to the imperial administration room on the second floor, where more chamberlains and radio technicians, dressed formally despite the sweltering heat, had been awaiting him for several hours. After all had bowed deeply from the waist, the Emperor looked around, saw the microphone in the center of the room and walked toward it.

"How loud should my voice be?" he asked.

Shimomura replied, "Your normal volume will be ideal, Your Majesty."

"Shouldn't we have a test before we begin?" the Emperor suggested.

Shimomura was now faced with a dilemma. Though such a test would indeed be useful, one could not ask the Emperor to undergo such an inconvenience.

One of the chamberlains solved the problem. "Mr. Toda has a voice similar to His Majesty's voice. Perhaps Mr. Toda would read a few lines for the test."

Yasuhide Toda stepped forward and, after he had read several lines from a newspaper article into the microphone stand, one of the technicians came to announce that the voice level was satisfactory. The presence of the Emperor was such an inhibiting factor that the technician spoke with a strained formality which sounded awkward to all.

Satisfied, the Emperor now stepped up directly to the microphone, which was adjusted to his height. He held in front of his face the heavy white paper which bore his copy of the imperial rescript.

Shimomura, wearing white gloves, raised his hand and brought it down sharply as a signal.

The Emperor spoke in a nasal, high-pitched voice, which he nonetheless lowered for the occasion, reading in clear tones with convincing emphasis.

"To our good and loyal subjects...after pondering deeply the general trends of the world and the actual conditions obtaining in Our Empire today—"

When he had finished reading the approximately 650 words of the rescript, he looked around anxiously. "Was it all right?"

Shimomura relayed the question to the chief engineer who was so awed by the Emperor's presence that his reply was a barely audible whisper. "There were no technical errors," he said, "but a few words were not quite clear."

Now Shimomura faced another problem. One could not ask His Majesty to repeat the reading.

The Emperor himself relieved the situation. "It seemed to me that my voice was pitched too low. I would like to do it over."

Once more he stepped to the microphone and Shimomura gave the starting signal. This time, the Emperor's voice seemed too high and there was an edge of tension in it. He omitted several words and, at the end, tears came to his eyes. Soon, others in the room began to sob.

When the Emperor finished his second reading, he said, "I fear that was not very good either. I forgot something...a few words, I think. I am quite willing to do it a third time."

A Household Ministry official went into the other room and asked the chief engineer, "Are you ready to do a third recording?"

The chief engineer, thinking he had been asked if a third recording was necessary and aware that it was not proper to keep asking the Emperor to repeat his performance, replied, "I don't think we need one."

Shimomura conferred hastily with the Imperial Household Minister Sotaro Ishiwatari and the Grand Chamberlain Hisanori Fujita. All three agreed that it would be tactless to accept the Emperor's offer to make a third recording.

Shimomura said to him, "It was quite satisfactory, Your Majesty."

Shimomura then bowed deeply and everyone in the room did likewise. Emperor Hirohito, accompanied by two chamberlains, left the room and the building. In his car on the way back across the palace grounds to the library bunker that was now his home, he said nothing, pensively staring out at the darkened grounds.

As soon as the Emperor had left, a discussion began as to where the recordings should be kept until broadcast time the following noon. One of the chamberlains had an idea.

"Why don't you take them back to the station with you?"

The radio technicians didn't like the idea at all. "They'll be safer here. The Army already knows about the broadcast. If there is any trouble in the morning, we'll have visitors at the station for sure."

Another radio technician agreed. "It would disrespectful to the Emperor to keep the recordings anywhere else but the palace."

The recordings were now ready and two disks were brought out, sealed in small round cans. The tops of the cans didn't fit so Motohike Kakei, chief of the ministry's general affairs section, found some khaki-colored cotton bags. The cans were stuffed inside the bags. Kakei intended to hand them to someone else but no one seemed to want them. He knew of no hiding place where he thought they would be safe.

Kakei went to Chamberlain Yoshihiro Tokugawa.

Tokugawa reluctantly took the bags and went to a room used infrequently by a lady-in-waiting to the Empress. There was a small safe in the room and Tokugawa had the key. He locked the recordings still in their bags in the safe, then decided to conceal the safe by piling a stack of papers around it so that it looked as if only old documents were stored there.

Tokugawa then pocketed the key and left the room.

Twelve hours later, as the hour of noon approached, every Japanese citizen with a radio nearby sat next to it, awaiting an event so momentous that most people wondered if they had correctly heard the announcements of it which all stations had been carrying all morning long. According to the announcements, the people of Japan would hear on radio at exactly noon, for the first time ever, the actual voice of the Emperor. Never before had Hirohito or his father Tashio before him, spoken in person over the air.

At precisely noon, a Japan Broadcasting Corporation announcer named Nobukata Wada turned on his microphone at the central station in Tokyo's Shinjuku district and said, "A broadcast of the highest importance is about to begin. All listeners will please rise."

After giving seventy million people enough time to come to attention, the announcer continued, "His Majesty, the Emperor, will now read his imperial rescript to the people of Japan. We respectfully transmit his voice."

The national anthem, "Kimigayo," issued forth from millions of radio sets. When the music had stopped, a short pause followed, after which the entire nation listened for the first time, in awe, to the voice of the man who was revered as a god.

"To Our good and loyal subjects," the Emperor began. "After pondering deeply the general trends of the world and the actual conditions obtaining in Our Empire today, We have decided to effect a settlement of the present situation by resorting to an extraordinary measure.

"We have ordered our Government to communicate to the Governments of the United States, Great Britain, China and the Soviet Union that Our Empire accepts the provisions of their Joint Declaration...."

In his tiny cubicle at the Kojimachi bunker, Captain Kaoru Takeuchi buried his head in his hands at his desk and sobbed uncontrollably. The bunker was filled with crying men as the Emperor's stunning words issued from the radio set by the wall.

Were his ears deceiving him? Takeuchi had just spent the last few hours helping collect the personal effects of Admiral Ushenda, who had committed _seppuku_ the night before, collecting the effects into a small box which he would save for the family later.

Now it all seemed so pointless, so futile. Was His Majesty actually saying that the war had ended and that Japan had surrendered? It was not possible...only that morning, Admiral Toyoda had ended the staff meeting with a review of the coastal defenses in Kyushu, the guns and barriers which would shred the American marines when they tried to land on the beaches. Though the Emperor's language was elegantly euphemistic, its meaning could hardly be denied.

Was there now to be no Decisive Battle? It wasn't possible—Takeuchi sniffed, listening more to the words he couldn't bear to hear—

"...moreover the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is indeed incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should We continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation but it would also lead to total extinction of human civilization. Such being the case, how are We to save the millions of Our subjects; or to atone Ourselves before the hallowed spirits of Our Imperial Ancestors? This is the reason why We have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the Joint Declaration of the Powers...."

Takeuchi's shoulders shook with wracking sobs. The Army and the Navy had not been able to prevent the traitors from surrendering the country. His Majesty had long been surrounded by cowards and now the end had come. What would happen to them, to the Emperor, to the Hundred Million? Would they be slaves of the barbarians...forced to work in the rice paddies for starvation wages? Takeuchi suddenly sat up abruptly, listening to the wailing that now filled the bunker. Admiral Ushenda had been right, he decided. There was no honor in surrender...it was alien to Japan and it had no business being considered in a military setting such as this.

"...We are keenly aware of the inmost feelings of all of you, our subjects. However it is according to the dictate of time and fate that We have resolved to pave the way to peace for ten thousand generations by enduring the unendurable and suffering what is insufferable...."

Takeuchi opened a desk drawer and withdrew a small pouch. Inside, was a Type 14 pistol and several bullets, which he proceeded to load into the magazine. Looking around, he saw that the entire staff was transfixed by the Emperor's words. If he left his desk now, he would dishonor His Majesty by failing to stay at his post. But he could no longer bear to hear the words...Takeuchi took a deep breath, inserted the muzzle of the pistol into his mouth, clamped his lips closed, then shut his eyes---and pulled the trigger.

"...Having been able to safeguard and maintain the structure of the Imperial State, We are always with you, Our good and loyal subjects, relying upon your sincerity and integrity. Beware most strictly of any outbursts of emotion which may engender needless complications, or any fraternal contention and strife which may create confusion, lead you astray and cause you to lose the confidence of the world. Let the entire nation continue as one family from generation to generation, ever firm in its faith in the imperishableness of its divine land, and mindful of its heavy burden of responsibilities, and the long road before it. Unite your total strength to be devoted to the construction of the future. Cultivate the ways of rectitude; foster nobility of spirit and work with resolution so you may enhance the innate glory of the Imperial State and keep pace with the progress of the world."
CHAPTER 31

Wednesday, August 22, 1945

Hunters Point Naval Shipyard

9:30 a.m.

Wade Brogan nodded to the two Shore Patrol guards outside the room and showed them his CIC identification.

"Good morning, Colonel...we'll just have to log you in here—" the red-haired guard pulled out a clipboard and wrote down the details of Brogan's ID folder. "Orders...anybody in or out."

"I understand, Seaman. How's the patient doing today?"

"I don't know, sir...we just handle security duty." He handed Brogan back his ID folder and unlocked the door. Brogan went in.

The base hospital at Hunters Point was a three-story red brick building at the intersection of Cochran Street and Spear Avenue. Room Number 335 was part of the north wing, a secure area where patients of some notoriety were kept while they recovered.

Kate Wellesley had been brought to the hospital from the clinic at Surrey, British Columbia when she'd first begun having contractions and early labor pains. Brogan had heard from his FBI contact Don Blount that Miss Wellesley had given birth two days ago, and both mother and baby were doing well.

Or at least as well as you could be when you were considered a national security threat and were in federal custody in a Navy hospital in San Francisco.

Brogan came into the room. The window drapes had been pulled back by a nurse and the morning sun streamed in through light cloud cover. The room had a scenic view of the Bay and the Navy piers a few blocks to the west. A destroyer escort was backing out of her slip as Brogan watched, tugs nuzzling her on each side as she maneuvered away from the docks.

"Wishing you were anywhere but here?" came a weak voice.

Brogan smiled and came up to the bed.

Kate Wellesley looked pale and drawn but her smile hadn't changed, still the smirky kind of knowing look that had captured hundreds of hearts at the Santa Fe USO Club.

"Hardly...how are you feeling?"

Kate sat up and re-positioned several pillows. It was then that Brogan realized she wasn't alone. Cradled in the crook of her right arm was the baby, its pink face scrunched up in a tight ball of sleep.

" _We_ are feeling much better this morning, thank you very much. I don't believe you two have met."

Brogan came over to see.

"Wade Brogan...meet Wade Junior. I made it official this morning...signed the certificate and everything."

Brogan took a deep breath. "I hadn't heard, until yesterday. FBI told me." Brogan studied the child's face, saw the big eyes flutter briefly open, followed by a huge yawn and a little pout as he turned his head away from all the attention. "He came early....earlier than you expected."

Kate rocked Wade Jr. gently in her arms, cooing softly. "Much earlier...almost a month...he's so small, but the doctors said he's not really premature...just quick on his little feet. Kind of like his Dad, I guess."

Brogan wanted to say something, then changed his mind. _Don't_... "Was it hard...having him, I mean?"

Kate shrugged, lay back against the pillows, her dark hair still damp and curly, strands draped over her forehead. "There wasn't much pain, if that's what you mean. They gave me something...kinda knocked me out. Next thing I knew, little Wade Jr. was bawling his head off and everybody was smiling...." Her eyes glanced up at Brogan and he saw misty tears in them. "I just want to keep him...is that so hard to understand?"

Brogan took off his jacket and pulled up a chair, sitting backwards with his chin propped up on the back. "No...it's understandable."

"And impossible, I suppose...at least that's what the FBI says."

"I guess Agent Blount has been in here."

"Almost as much as the nurses and doctors. Hell, Wade, until two days ago, my right ankle was chained to the bedpost." She tried to force a smile, but it came out crooked and wobbly and she gave up, her lips trembling. "I'm glad Wade Jr. didn't have to see that..."

"Tell me something, Kate...why'd you name him Wade?"

"I think you know the answer to that, honey. He's yours. You're the father."

Brogan had known it only he didn't want to admit it. He shook his head, stared at the creaky wooden floor. "Kate...I guess...I mean, you and I both know that—"

"Know what...that you're not a big enough man to step up and be responsible. I'd hoped for better, I guess. You know I wanted this baby. I wanted us to be a couple."

"Kate...you say the same thing to every GI who shows up at the canteen...you said so yourself."

She shook her head, brushing her hair back. There were still scars on her forehead from the day of the Kitticut assault. He wondered where else she had been hurt...she'd said one of the Russians had—

"Oh, Wade...that's just girl talk...you know that as well as I do. Make 'em happy for a few moments...cheer 'em up and send 'em on their way...fighting for Uncle Sam with a smile on their faces...we were all trained to do that."

"And I'm different? How am I supposed to be able to tell the difference?"

Kate half snorted a laugh. "Wade, silly..." she held out the baby in her arms, " _here_ is the difference. I didn't date any of those GIs. I didn't go to bed with any of them. Or make them breakfast and iron their trousers or soak wine spots out of their skivvies....what does it take for a girl to get the message across?"

Brogan squirmed and got up, pacing the small room. If this was an interrogation, it was going badly. A full year into CIC school at Fort Holabird, Maryland, he'd learned you never let the suspect get the upper hand, always keep them off balance.

He stood by the window, watching the final maneuverings of the destroyer, as it prepared to get underway. _Where are you going_? he wondered. It wouldn't take much for him to head down to the piers and sign on. "I'm going to have to testify against you, Kate. Colonel Cates told me several days ago. And I may still be court-martialed myself. Wade Junior could wind up with both his parents in prison...or worse."

"I know," she said softly. She bent down to the baby, nuzzled him with her nose. "As long as I can keep this fellow, I don't care."

"Kate, that's just it...they won't let you keep him. Don't you see that? You're a federal prisoner. My God, woman...they're going to throw the book at you...espionage, conspiracy, everything...you were right in the middle of it, handing secrets to known Soviet agents, coding and decoding stuff...hell, I saw it myself in your house...and I'm in trouble for not reporting that. How the hell do you think that makes me feel? I'm an Army cop and I'm dating and having babies with a Soviet agent."

Kate continued nuzzling Wade Junior, poking and tickling him, giggling when he responded. "Then I guess you'll just have to decide what's important to you, Wade."

"Jesus, Kate..." he whirled from the window and stood there, not believing what he had just heard. "That's my point...other people are going to decide what's important...you and I have no say."

Kate looked up, her face severe and hard. "What do you want me to do, huh? What do you want me to say? That I'm sorry. Well, soldier...guess what?...I'm not. I'm not sorry. I don't even care what happens to me. I just want Wade Junior to have a better life."

"Kate, from what I heard, you're not going to be at this hospital much longer...maybe a few more days. As soon as the doctors decide you're strong enough to travel, you're going to be shipped back East...to the stockade at Fort Myer, from what I was told. After that, some other prison near D.C. Before the year's out, you're going to be formally charged with treason and espionage and conspiracy. _And I can't do anything about it._ In fact, I'm going to be a witness against you. Don't you understand that?"

Kate looked at him. "Do you love me?"

Wade's mouth dropped open. "What? What did you say?"

"You heard me...I just asked a simple question: do you love me?"

"I—" Brogan tried a laugh, but it came out more as a snort and a cough. "I...what's that got to do with anything?"

"Wade Brogan...it's got _everything_ to do with this. Answer the question, soldier..."

Brogan stuffed his hands in his pockets, shuffled his feet. "I...I don't know...what to say. Yeah...I guess I do."

"You guess?"

"I do love you...Kate...but it can't mean anything anymore. Whether I love you...it's like I said...other people are making the decisions now."

"It means everything to me."

Wade Brogan came over and sat on the end of the bed. He studied Wade Junior's sleeping face, the pink ball of wrinkles and tiny eyes, a slit of mouth and flaring nose, snoring peacefully through all the commotion. "It must be great to be like that," he said. "Oblivious to everything...take a nap and the world's problems go away."

"I'm not stupid, Wade, despite what you may think. I got enough of that from my father...I was the youngest and I was a girl and I wasn't any more important to him that the humidor on his desk in the office...just a piece of home furnishing that had a whiny voice and cried a lot. And you know why I cried a lot...I finally figured that out when my father died. I never got any attention. There was never anybody to say...'good girl, Kate...you're a good girl and you did something good and you're worth something'. Nobody ever said that to me as a child." She turned back to the baby, brushing his fine hair back. "I want that to be different for this little guy."

"Kate...whatever is said to him, it won't be by you. They're going to force you to give him up."

Kate choked back a sob. "I know that, dammit! I know it...I'm trying to just spend every second I can with him...just absorb him if I can...the way he smells, and feels, his hair so light, it's almost like silk...Wade—" she buried her face in a pillow and sobbed uncontrollably for a moment. "Wade—promise me something."

Brogan knew what was coming. "Sure...anything...if I can—"

"Promise me you'll take care of him...if they take him away from me. You can apply to be a foster parent or something. Adoption, maybe...I just want to know he's cared for. Loved by somebody. I want him to be something...something better than me."

Brogan swallowed hard. The truth was Kate Wellesley could even be executed as a spy under wartime law...he'd seen the statutes in the U.S. Code, Title 18, Section 2381. Colonel Cates had found it for him. Even though the war was now over.

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

Agent Don Blount had made it plain to him that very morning that the feds intended to prosecute Kate to the fullest extent of the law, unless she cooperated in helping unravel the Soviet network she'd been part of.

"Kate, I can't promise anything...hell my own future's bleak. I may be at Leavenworth myself by the end of the year."

"Promise me you'll try...that's all I'm asking. He deserves it, doesn't he? Look at him Wade. He's you...and me. He's got a lifetime ahead of him...who knows what he'll be. He deserves everything we can give him...you can't say no. If you can't do it for me, at least do it for him."

And he knew, without anything else being said, that she was right.

Friday, August 24, 1945

Moscow

11:30 p.m.

Josef Vissarionovich Stalin was pensive as he stared out the window at the winking red star atop Spasskaya Tower, a metronome of stability and order in the Soviet universe. It was late summer twilight, not completely dark outside, and the ornate crenellated battlements of the ancient tower were backlit in dramatic fashion, cones of light mingled with black shadows playing across the fortress walls of the Kremlin.

Stalin shut the drapes in his state apartment on the third floor of the Arsenal Building and went back to the divan where he had been lounging, half-watching the American war movie _Sergeant York_ as it flickered across the screen. Plates of _blini_ and caviar were strewn about the den, along with glasses and goblets and a half-finished decanter of Georgian brandy.

The Protector of all the Russias was restless.

It wasn't like Beria to be late. The Commissar of Internal Affairs had called earlier in the evening, requesting a meeting. _As soon as possible...it's most urgent...concerning Operation Pobeda, comrade_...

Stalin bade him come after midnight, when he would be more awake and ready to talk. The Generalissimo was in all ways a nocturnal creature.

Ten minutes past the hour of twelve midnight, a soft knock sounded from the door.

"Come--:

It was Vasily, the night orderly. "Begging your pardon, sir, but _Gaspadeen_ Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria is here to see you—"

Stalin waved him in.

Beria was dressed as always like a schoolteacher: camel skin coat and trousers, black _shapka_ though it was still uncomfortably muggy outside and his pince-nez glasses. He bore a small satchel, which he deposited on the credenza.

"News from Pobeda?" Stalin inquired. He sat heavily in the divan, draping one leg over the arm, like a defiant little boy. Beria nodded.

"And not very good news, I'm afraid, comrade." Beria opened the satchel, extracted several sheets of paper, all of them bordered in red _. Most Top Secret-Eyes Only. Special to the Politburo._

"I heard the news of the airplane that hit the bridge in San Francisco," Stalin said. He closed his eyes, waved at the film projectionist to mute the picture. Gary Cooper's gravelly voice died off into murmurs. "I presume this was the same plane we had at Vladivostok?"

"It was," Beria admitted. "The Japanese mission failed. I don't know whether there was an atomic bomb on board. If there was, it failed to explode."

Stalin sniffed. "Lucky for the Americans. I would have liked to have seen how Mr. Truman handled that." Through the slit of one open eye, he saw Beria hovering around the stainless steel _samovar_ by the fireplace, letting the aroma of the tea envelope him. "Go ahead, Lavrenti Pavlovich...help yourself. It's getting cold. And tell me what we have gained from this operation."

Beria took some time pouring himself tea. The unpleasant truth was that the Soviet Union had gained almost nothing from collaborating with the Japanese, and had suffered losses to several agent networks in America as well. Beria didn't relish the thought of having to break the news to Stalin.

"Operative _QUANTUM_ is compromised, Josef Vissarionovich. He was inside the bomb laboratory in New Mexico, working with some of their most important scientists. He went to the Canadian base to help Golubko document the bomb. As did Operative _ACORN_ , against our strictest orders. _QUANTUM_ , it seems, was lonely....for female companionship. He was captured, along with _ACORN_. That has shut down one of our lines into the laboratory. We do have others however."

Stalin sighed. _Pobeda_ had been a risk, they all knew that. Still, the potential payoff had been so great.

"Tell me what happened...how much damage?"

"It's contained," Beria insisted, over a steaming cup of tea. It fogged his spectacles, which he removed for a moment. "Operative _CHARLES_ is still in place at Los Alamos. And Operative _WINDWARD_...well, we were afraid he had been compromised...but the Americans haven't pursued him. They seem to be more interested in cleaning up what _QUANTUM_ and _ACORN_ have done. I've instructed First Chief Directorate to keep _WINDWARD_ out of sight at the New York consulate for the time being."

"Do we have _anything_ from _Pobeda_?"

Beria described what was known of the combined Canadian-American assault on the Kitticut base. "Golubko and a number of the crew of the B-29—" Beria read from a list, "Kalugin, Nakhimov, Maximov, and the base garrison, Lebedev and his men...all are lost, it seems. We don't know their fate completely. We can presume that those who weren't killed in the assault were captured."

Stalin's lips tightened. "None escaped? Not a single one?"

"None that we know of. The plan was for Lebedev and Golubko and those remaining to fly out of the base once the bomb had been fully photographed...they were to ditch the plane at sea, rendezvous with a submarine...but something happened. It appears the Americans moved in sooner than we anticipated. There's some evidence that the B-29, which managed to take off in the attack, was severely damaged...that may account for the Japanese failing to explode the bomb."

"Or perhaps the bomb was damaged...so—" Stalin sat up abruptly, rubbed his watery eyes and glared at his Commissar of Internal Affairs, "—we have nothing to show for all this. No B-29. No bomb. Not even photographs or measurements?"

Beria nodded glumly. "The operation failed, Josef Vissarionovich....I offer my apologies. I will tender my resignation in the morning."

Stalin snorted. "You'll do no such thing. _Pobeda_ was a risk...we all knew that from the start. No, the most important concern is what kind of damage has been done to our operative networks in America...we have other channels into the bomb project?"

Beria was anxious to deflect the Generalissimo's attention from his own failings. Focus on the positive. "Yes, several in fact. Operative CHARLES continues to send out very detailed information...it would have been nice to get our hands on a real bomb but we're getting the information anyway, bit by bit."

"Then Kurchatov will just have to be patient," Stalin said. "If there's no further damage, inside of a year, the boys at Chelyabinsk will have everything they need. We'll soon match the Americans and Truman will no longer have a monopoly on this terrible new weapon."

"A much safer world for all of us," Beria agreed. "A pity the Japanese surrendered so quickly...we had just begun to bite off pieces of Manchuria."

Stalin sat back to watch _Sergeant York_ , though the sound was still muted. "The Americans understand force. The biggest gun talks the loudest...you can see it in their cowboy movies. Once we have the bomb, they won't swagger around the world so much."

Wednesday, August 24, 1945

Washington, D.C.

4:45 p.m.

Harry Truman paced the Oval Office like a caged tiger ready to strike, pausing only momentarily at each about-face to glare at the assembled men like so many helpless hyenas, waiting for the attack to commence. Truman stalked from one end of the office around his sprawling Victorian desk to the other end, hands folded behind his back, his lips quivering with unspoken threats and accusations, his eyes invisible behind the reflections of the others in his rimless spectacles.

His victims shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Jimmy Byrnes, the Secretary of State, cast a sideways glance at General George Marshall and they exchanged knowing looks.

There's no use in baiting an aroused animal when he's stalking you.

Marshall and Byrnes were accompanied by two others, J. Edgar Hoover, who sat like a granite mountain of flesh beneath the oil portrait of Washington crossing the Delaware, and Secretary of War Henry Stimson, gray and pallid, chain-smoking and fidgeting next to him.

"It's just inexcusable, gentlemen..." Truman was saying. He stopped momentarily at the south window and regarded the leafy green of the hibiscus framing an arch around the Washington Monument across the expanse of the Ellipse. "I don't mind telling you it makes me furious...how could something like this have happened? We let the enemy get their hands on one of our most secret weapons and they damn near destroy San Francisco with it. Only pure blind luck and the grace of God saved us."

"That and the 101st Airborne," General Marshall reminded him. "We moved in so fast they didn't have time to get the bomb ready...that's the opinion of the scientists that examined the wreckage anyway."

"Still, it makes my point," Truman insisted. "A few minutes later and—" he whirled about, glaring at Marshall, "who knows?" Truman's ire seemed finally spent and he sat heavily in his chair, leaning forward, steepling his hands on the desk. "I wonder what other security lapses have occurred."

Hoover was quick to answer that. "None, Mr. President."

"That you know of."

Hoover reddened. "Yes, sir...that we know of. We've rolled up a lot of one Soviet network that was operating out of Los Alamos...two key agents in custody, one of them employed as a physicist at the lab. And we've got surveillance on several others. It's just like a ball of string, Mr. President...once you start pulling, the whole thing unravels. We're pretty sure we can finger a Soviet official in their New York consulate...fellow named Kostelnikov."

Truman seemed somewhat mollified. "Glad to hear something good might come from this. I want to see any evidence that the Russians have their fingers in this plot. They've been getting a free ride as an ally far too long. Does this Kostelnikov fellow have immunity?"

"Yes, sir, he does. But we can still revoke his visa and demand he be removed. Mr. Byrnes here has already drawn up the papers."

Jimmy Byrnes spoke with a soft South Carolina drawl. "Just needs your signature, Mr. President. Dmitri Kostelnikov becomes _persona non grata_. He's expelled and goes back to Russia."

"And the NKVD has one less hand to help with the spying," Hoover said. "Plus it puts the Soviets on notice...we're on to them. We're not blind to what they're doing. And we're going to respond severely."

Truman's face was hard. He took off his spectacles and wiped them down with a handkerchief.

"I don't trust Stalin or the Russians. They pulled the wool over Mr. Roosevelt's eyes for a long time, but I'm from Missouri and I know a bad mule when I see one. Hell, gentlemen, the truth is Stalin assisted the Japanese Empire in this whole affair, gave them a helping hand and furnished men, money, the plane. That's an act of war in my book. Question is: how should we respond? The Russians are supposed to be allies...I've got tread carefully here...for the time being."

Henry Stimson spoke up, his voice hoarse. "Mr. President, what if we just break off relations? Issue a sharply worded note of protest."

"Henry," Truman said, "coming from anybody else but you, I'd have to laugh at the idea. That would be like finding the bad mule in your wife's flowers and trying to reason with it to get out. You don't do that with a mule...and that's what Stalin is, I learned that from meeting him at Potsdam. You don't reason with a mule. You give him a kick in the ass."

Jimmy Byrnes knew a thing or two about farm animals. "Mr. President, if you do that, that mule may just up and kick you right back."

Truman smiled. "Point taken, Jimmy. No—" he leaned back in his chair, "now is not the time. We may still need them to help finish off the more recalcitrant elements of the Japanese Army...nobody's sure what the outlying forces will do...will they follow the Emperor's orders and stand down. I'd sooner have Russians dying to police up the Empire as any of our boys."

"Stalin's a cagey bastard," Byrnes admitted. "He helps the Japs against us with one hand and with the other, declares war on them."

"Only the Russians could get away with that," Stimson agreed.

Truman was thoughtful. "Sooner or later, we're going to have to face off against the Russians. I say for now, treat 'em like allies. But keep an eye on them."

The assembled men agreed that in the coming months, the Russians would be the main problem.

"They've already got half of Europe," Marshall said.

Truman agreed. "That's why I want to keep them out of Japan."
CHAPTER 32

Sunday, September 2, 1945

Tokyo Bay

9:00 a.m.

Wade Brogan stood on the fantail of the destroyer _McKinney_ (DDE-81) with the rest of her crew and the Army security detail that was accompanying the scientists investigating atom bomb effects and watched the gray, leaden skies overhead as rank after rank of B-29s, B-17s, P-51s and hundreds of other aircraft droned past the assembled ships. It was a seemingly endless parade of aerial might designed, he was sure, to impress and intimidate the Japanese people and military with the invincibility of the American forces that were about to descend upon them.

"Kinda gives you goose bumps, don't it, Colonel?" a voice asked from behind. Brogan turned around and spotted the speaker...a Chief Petty Officer from the _McKinney's_ crew, dazzling in summer dress whites, eyes craned skyward behind dark sunglasses, like a tourist on a late summer cruise.

Brogan agreed. "It does that, Chief. I'm glad they're on my side."

Wade Brogan watched the aerial parade thunder past at an altitude of less than two thousand feet, and checked his watch. _Should be starting any minute now_ , he thought. He looked out over the gray chop that was Tokyo Bay, waves whipped into white foam by a freshening breeze and marveled at the assembly of naval and air power that General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz had brought to bear on the surrender ceremony that was about to convene. Speakers had been rigged up throughout the anchored fleet to hear the Supreme Commander Allied Powers' words as he intoned them from the deck of the battleship _Missouri_ more than two miles away, lost in the masts and smokestacks of literally scores of ships of every description, now riding at anchor across the Bay.

Brogan still marveled at the very idea of being on a destroyer in the middle of Tokyo Bay. It had been Colonel Cates' idea.

"Brogan, I'm assigning you to a special security detail. There's a group of scientists from the Hill going to Japan, to inspect what's left of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, make whatever calculations they have to make. You're on the detail."

Brogan stood at attention before the CIC chief at the Log Cabin, wondering how to respond.

"Yes, sir. Begging the Colonel's pardon, sir, but what exactly will my duties be?"

Cates scowled up at him. "To stay out of trouble, for once. Brogan, there are people in Washington, people around Parsons, even General Groves, who want your head on a platter. Full- court-martial, the works. Frankly, I don't know what's going to happen. It's fifty-fifty. So I'm sending you to the other side of the world."

Brogan understood. "Out of sight...out of mind, sir?"

"Something like that. You're job is to accompany these scientists on their rounds. Make sure nobody interferes. Word I got is they want to take pictures and make some kind of measurements at the two bomb sites. It's likely to be grim...you haven't been in a combat zone for several years, have you?"

"No, sir...but I'm ready to do my part."

"Just keep your head down. Washington's sending one of Groves' men to head up the detail...some fellow named Derrick. I don't want anybody getting shot or bayoneted by some crazed _banzai_ Jap while they're inspecting. You'll be reporting directly through Colonel Derrick to General Whitney. He's part of MacArthur's staff, so you'll have all the necessary authority. You'll be issued weapons once you get there." Cates stood up and leaned over his desk. "Brogan, you're a cop on this trip so act like one, okay? There's no need to go off saving the world over there. Just follow orders." He stuck out his hand. Brogan, startled, grasped it and they shook hands.

"—and, Brogan, there's one more thing."

"Yes, sir?"

Cates leveled an even gaze at Brogan. "Whatever happens, the country owes you a big debt. I don't know about becoming romantically involved with a Soviet agent, but Operation _Touchdown_ wouldn't have turned out the way it did, if it weren't for you and Merrill sniffing out the enemy's plans. There are thousands of Americans alive today that might not be alive if you two hadn't bulldogged this thing all the way to the end. In my book, that ought to be worth a medal or two. Unfortunately, the best I can do is try to keep you out of Leavenworth."

"I understand, sir." Brogan saluted. "I'll do my best."

Six days later, Wade Brogan found himself aboard the _McKinney_ steaming into Tokyo Bay.

He'd borrowed a pair of binoculars from a lieutenant he'd chatted up in the wardroom that morning and he used them now to study the Mighty Mo as she rode at anchor, surrounded by a swarm of smaller craft, steadily disgorging dignitaries for the ceremonies that should be starting any moment now. The skies, once clear of the aerial armada, were overcast and a hint of rain was in the air. It was Sunday and Brogan thought back to the chaplain's words they had all heard over the loudspeaker that morning, before mess:

"... _blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God..."_

Amen to that, Brogan thought. As he waited, he wondered where Kate Wellesley was now. She was scheduled to be moved back East just a few days after they had met at the base hospital at Hunters Point.

Probably at the Fort Myer stockade, by now, he realized. Or some other six by eight foot concrete cell in the area. He swallowed hard and tried to dispel the image of the flirty, dark-haired USO girl he had fallen in love with now a federal prisoner, charged with espionage, facing death or long imprisonment.

It all seemed so unreal, from ten thousand miles away. Like a story he had read about in the newspapers, not something he had lived in person. And the papers didn't know the half of it. Maybe Colonel Cates was right. He had to come out here to make sense of what had happened back home, get his head on straight, turn the next page of his life.

The wind had picked up into a stiff, twenty-knot southwesterly breeze and _McKinney's_ flags and pennants snapped sharply over Brogan's head. If he lifted his nose into the wind, he could almost smell her sweet perfume now, the exciting, intoxicating mix of hairspray and deodorant mingling with salt air and the odor of gunpowder and grease from the destroyer's forward three-inch mount, on whose turret Brogan was now leaning against.

Did he still love Kate Wellesley? No one plans to fall in love. It just happens, like when your car breaks down or you meet a friend from long ago. It's a random act, isn't it? You chat up a cute brunette at the USO canteen and the next thing you know, you're in bed and the next thing after that, she's making you eggs and bacon and buying outfits and having babies. One doesn't necessarily lead to the other. One and one don't always equal two. Love didn't have to happen. But it had.

"NOW HEAR THIS—" the loudspeaker boomed. 'NOW HEAR THIS...ATTENTION ALL HANDS...THE SURRENDER CEREMONY IS ABOUT TO COMMENCE...ALL PROCEEDINGS WILL BE PIPED OVER THE SHIP'S LOUDSPEAKERS...QUIET ON DECK!"

Brogan found himself jostled and shoved as sailors milled closer to the loudspeakers strung around the deck. Cameras whirred and clicked, as photographers caught the historic moment on film.

Had he been blinded by loving Kate? Brogan knew there was no simple answer to that question. Over and over again, in the days after they had met at Hunters Point, for practically the whole trip out to Japan, he'd racked his brain.

_Did I miss something_? A clue of some kind? For an investigator, for a GI cop, to miss an important clue was serious business. Lives depended on making a case and every bit of evidence was important, no matter how mundane it might seem. Had he been so caught up in the Tolkach case that he'd missed clues about Kate?

Or was it just chemistry, as they say? Like the reactions the scientists were always writing on their blackboards. This plus this, in the presence of heat, yields that. Wade Brogan plus Kate Wellesley equals...what, exactly? Trouble, to be sure. But, damn it! There had been something there. Shopping with Kate for knickknacks at the old Indian pueblos outside Santa Fe. Making hot dogs and fries with her in the kitchen. Helping her hang drapes and paint walls in her cottage bedroom...and collapsing into bed with her at the end of an exhausting day, both of them covered with paint splatter.

The loudspeakers crackled with static and noise, then a deep, sonorous voice boomed out across the deck.

It was SCAP. General of the Army Douglas MacArthur...

"... _are gathered here, representatives of the major warring powers, to conclude a solemn agreement whereby peace may be restored—"_

The loudspeakers whined with feedback and the echoes muffled some of the Supreme Commander's words. Brogan found himself half listening, staring out across the chop of Tokyo Bay in the general direction of the _Missouri_.

"... _the issues, involving divergent ideals and ideologies have been determined on the battlefields of the world_..."

He couldn't help wondering about Kate...what was she doing now...was she alright...and about the baby...about Wade Junior.

He had made a promise and it was a promise he intended to keep. Skunky thought he was nuts. _Let the dame go, for Chrissakes. You don't owe her a thing_. But he did owe her...or more specifically, little Wade Junior.

"... _it is my earnest hope, and indeed the hope of all mankind, that from this solemn occasion, a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past—a world dedicated to the dignity of man and the fulfillment of his most cherished wish for freedom, tolerance and justice..."_

Two days before he had shipped out, Wade Brogan had gone to the post judge advocate and inquired about adoption procedures. He'd signed the paperwork and filed it with the counsel's office. It'll take months, maybe years, he had been told. But it didn't matter. It was something he wanted to do, had to do.

The day before he flown to San Francisco, he'd called his parents, explaining the situation. There's a girl, see, and there's a child, see, and the girl's in trouble and may have to give up the child. I want to adopt the kid, but I can't keep him, see—

He could read his Mother's mind on the telephone from a thousand miles away.

"Wade...just tell me one thing...is it yours?"

Of course, he wasn't sure but Kate said it was and that was enough. The kid deserved a break. He hadn't asked to be brought into such a lousy world and he'd wind up a ward of the state if somebody didn't step up to the plate. Kate was gone, her life over. She was as good as dead. Brogan knew that. But Wade Junior was very much alive and kicking.

Two miles away, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur signaled to Foreign Minister Shigemetsu and General Umezu to approach the green felt-covered table, where leather-bound documents awaited them.

"... _I now invite the representatives of the Empire of Japan to come forward and sign the Instrument of Surrender..."_

Maybe the kid could live with his parents. Once they'd gotten over the shock of learning their second son wasn't a perfect angel, he'd gingerly floated the idea. It made sense, in a cock-eyed sort of way. Wade Junior growing up in the grocery business, just like he had, along with his three brothers, right there on the corner of Sycamore and El Segundo Drive, pretty as you please. Hauling sacks of potatoes, stocking shelves, sweeping floors and cleaning up spills...you could go a long way in life with that kind of start.

Brogan remembered what it had been like at the Trinity site when the first Gadget had gone off...the deep, primal rumble reverberating off the mountains, the fire and heat and the blinding glow of a second sun rising off the desert floor like an angry eye, surrounded by fists of smoke, hammering the ground for hundreds of miles around.

And now the Russians had the same knowledge. Tolkach, the bastard, had made that possible. And Kate had done her part, too.

Hell, maybe I should get some of the blame myself, he thought. If I'd known, if I'd suspected what she was doing...maybe the details of the Gadget would still be an American secret.

What the hell kind of world was Wade Brogan Junior coming into anyway?

"... _today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won..."_

Wade Brogan couldn't even imagine what he would see at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Sure, he'd seen the grainy newspaper photos and even some classified aerial footage shot from B-29 planes that had flown over last week. Mile after unending mile of blackened rubble, bloated corpses floating down the river, walking skeletons with burned skin hanging off their bones in sheets.

It was sobering, even a little chilling, to realize that it could have been San Francisco. The Japs had been that close to pulling off an attack that would have made Pearl Harbor look like a frat party gone bad. The casualty figures the press put out for Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been staggering enough, as it was. Seventy thousand dead, a hundred thousand mortally injured. Frisco was bigger than either, and closely packed.

Brogan shivered, from the image he shook out of his head, and from the stiff breeze that had fetched up over the Bay. He didn't know exactly where Wade Junior was now, probably in some foster care nursery back East, wondering where his mommy was and what all the fuss was about. Soon as the inspection trip was over, he'd be back in the States. Maybe Cates was right and all the fuss would die off and there'd be no more talk of investigations and courts-martial and dishonorable discharges. He'd find Wade Brogan Junior and take him home...home to Los Angeles and the grocery business and the kid would grow up like the Brogan he was, at least half of him anyway.

"... _a new era is upon us...we have had our last chance. If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological...human character must synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science, art and literature and all material and cultural development of the past two thousand years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh..."_

Wade Brogan turned away from the three-inch gun turret and the loudspeakers and the crowding sailors and the windy spray of Tokyo Bay and squeezed his way down belowdecks, hunting for the cramped compartment where he had been bunking with the rest of the security detail. The room was stifling hot but empty. He hoisted himself up into his bunk and lay back, eyes staring off through overhead piping at something only he could see....something ten thousand miles away. Through the surrounding bulkheads, the muffled voice of the loudspeaker could still be heard, this time a press announcer onboard the _Missouri_...some kind of feed from a radio broadcast piped aboard ship...narrating the continuing events of the surrender ceremony.

Brogan paid it no more attention. Japan and her people could take care of themselves, along with the Occupation army that was even now fanning out across the countryside, marching through villages and cities to bring law and order and some semblance of freedom and democracy to a people too long enslaved by madmen.

The war was over and the Japs would be what they would be. MacArthur and the Army would see to that.

He had other duties. Wade Brogan pulled out a small photo he had tucked in his wallet. It had been taken at the hospital only a few hours after Wade Junior had been born. Colonel Cates had let him take the photo from the case file.

Kate and the kid were huddled together in bed, entwined mother and son like a single thing, all arms and legs and Kate's tousled hair, framing them against the white pillows. There was an angry pout to Wade Junior's lips and his eyes were closed tight, as if he'd just been startled awake and wasn't too happy about it.

_Maybe being born is like that. It probably hurts like hell and you scream bloody murder to be left alone and then someone bigger than you swats you on the fanny and you bawl your head off_.

Kate was right. _He's you and me...and he's got a lifetime of living ahead of him_.

Wade Brogan smiled at the picture. He couldn't help wondering what Wade Junior would turn out to be.

But one thing was for sure: whatever it was...they'd be going through it together.
EPILOGUE

San Francisco, California

9:30 p.m.

The Present

Detective Captain Wade Brogan Jr. played with the crumbs of pizza on his plate, while nursing the lip of a beer bottle. He watched Thorney, Shriver and Floyd carefully, judging their reactions.

"Jeez, Captain," Thorne finally said, "that's some tale. Is this what's been eating you lately...it's like you're not all there. You seem kind of distant at times."

"Yeah," said Shriver, the five-year refugee from Metro Division, "I thought it was just nerves. Or old age."

Brogan snorted. "Thanks a lot, fellows." Brogan was half-balding, with a fringe of black fuzz around the back of his head. His lips cracked a smile through his trim black beard and goatee. "I may not have much upstairs but my eyes are still good. Anyway, like I said, I guess it's been a race against time. Pop started deteriorating fast several months ago. Some days are good and some aren't so good. About two months ago, I started bringing a recorder with me, for when he gets to talking and reminiscing. I got almost twenty hours of the stuff."

"And you can corroborate all this stuff?" Thorne asked. "I mean you got documents, letters, stuff like that?"

"Not all of it. It was a struggle at first, figuring out just what to believe. The major stuff, the Gadget, Kate Wellesley, Edvard Tolkach, and the parts about hijacking the bomb and that base up in Canada...that stuff he kept coming back to. It was fairly consistent from week to week. But you're right, that was my biggest question from the beginning: how much of this is real and how much is Pop's feverish imagination. I just needed evidence." Brogan looked into the last dregs of his beer and swirled the liquid around a bit. "I had to know for sure...it's been eating me at for a long time."

"Those shoeboxes we found in the hotel...you think that stuff can corroborate what your Pop's been saying?"

Brogan thought back to the boxes. Nikita, or whatever his name was, had filled his fleabag room with dozens of them, all filled to bursting with faded, yellowing papers and reports and memos, much of it seemingly Army stuff, some of still stamped CLASSIFIED.

"That's what I intend to find out. Pop has papers too and I've gone over them time and time again. He's like a squirrel, saves everything, even the paper clips. I got a drawer full of mid-Forties paper clips in my desk at home...ought to donate them to a museum. "

"Your mom--," said Floyd, "I don't get it...you said you never met her."

Brogan closed his eyes, dredging up bits and pieces of childhood, some of it he'd long ago hoped to forget.

"It was like a black hole in the center of our family...something that didn't get talked about. I grew up down in LA, you know, and some in Texas too. Over the years, when I was a kid, I picked stuff up...whispers, pieces of conversations, an odd letter here and there, like the one that came from the U.S. Department of Prisons—oh, yeah—" Brogan smiled ruefully, "I remember that day, real well...found the letter on Pop's desk and I asked him about it. Thought he was going to chew my head off...' _DON'T YOU EVER TAKE ANYTHING OFF MY DESK AGAIN!'_ he told me."

"Bureau of Prisons...so she _was_ in prison."

Brogan held up a hand. "Hold your horses, pal...I'm getting to that. As a kid, I was told Mother had died in childbirth. It was only when we came to live in Dallas that I learned some of the truth. That would have been...sometime around 1959, probably September. Pop let it out that she hadn't died, but in fact had committed a great crime and was in prison. At first, I didn't believe him. But in December, 1960, we went on a trip to Washington, D.C., see the monuments and that sort of thing, and we took this side trip up to Pennsylvania. And I met my mom then, the one and only time."

"You actually met her?"

"In the flesh. Lewisburg, PA. They let her out on holiday furlough for twenty four hours."

"So what was she like?" Thorne asked.

Brogan shrugged. "Nothing like the pictures Pop had around the house. For the longest time, I didn't believe it was really her. I thought it was just some woman Pop had known a long time ago, during the war. She was real thin and pale. It was kind of a strained moment, for all of us. She kept staring at me, touching me, like she didn't think I was real. And that was it...the only time I ever saw her."

Thorne whistled. "Must have been tough, that one. What did your Pop do?"

"We went home. He didn't say much. When I asked him what crime Mom had committed, all he would say was 'She got involved with the wrong people, Wade and she made some bad decisions.'"

Floyd was still puzzled. "I still don't get it. What's this dead Russian vagrant got to do with all this? Nikita...whatever you call him."

Brogan leaned forward across the table. "Don't quote me on this...but I'm willing to bet Nikita is actually none other than Vasily Kalugin, the Soviet commando Pop kept talking about. He's spoken of him, kind of elliptically, over the last few months, and I wasn't sure who or what he was talking about. There was always this cockamamie story about a crazy stunt to hijack an atom bomb and detonate it over San Francisco in the summer of 1945. Don't you see, guys?" Brogan's eyes lit up. "Now, I may have proof. This vagrant may tie everything together. He's the missing link. All the stuff Pop's been mumbling about the last few years, the stuff I've been recording, is probably true, at least most of it. The vagrant, if he is Kalugin, was someone who actually participated in it."

"Too bad he's dead," said Thorne. "Dead men tell no tales, as they say."

"Oh, I think this one does. I went by the ME's office, before I came over here."

"Autopsy results?"

"Nothing major, yet. But the fellow did have a prosthetic left foot...just like Pop mentioned. See what I mean?"

"It doesn't prove anything," Floyd said. "Hell, it could have been gout or an accident."

"Maybe," Brogan conceded, "but one of those shoeboxes is crammed with medals and decorations. And all of them are Russian and Red Army pins. Pop told me that the thinking was Kalugin had bailed out of _Awesome Avenger_ as it approached the Bay Area. He was seen bailing out by a couple of our pilots...the guys from _Hound Dog Flight_."

"But nobody saw him land."

"Exactly. If I'm right, Kalugin survived the jump."

"—and has lived here in San Francisco undetected ever since...it sort of makes sense," Thorne agreed. "But is there any real proof...anything that cinches it? We're all investigators...we ought to be able to put two and two together."

Brogan sighed. "All my life, I wanted to be in law enforcement. It's like I was born to be a detective...maybe I was. Now I've got a case with implications that affect me personally. Nikita...Kalugin...or whoever he is...we're connected somehow. Our pasts are mixed up together. A neat circle, don't you think? I'm two years from retirement, thirty-five years on the Force, hardbitten and cynical as a rotten apple, and now I'm investigating the mysterious death of an old vagrant and my own family history at the same time."

The detectives looked at each other in amazement, ignoring the waiters stacking chairs on tables and the mops that swished the floor all around them. Pano's was past closing time and Pano Matrangos hung off the edge of a mop two tables away, silently willing the cops to pay off their bills and scram.

"So what's your next step, Captain?" Thorne asked. "You think the Army's got any records you could look at?"

Brogan nodded. "Tons of them. All classified too...TOP SECRET. One thing I haven't done though...I've been putting it off, until now."

"What's that?"

"I haven't contacted the U.S. Justice Department. I haven't checked into their records of prison inmates for the immediate postwar period. I haven't wanted to, frankly. I might find a name there—" Brogan's eyes glazed over, and he stared off in the distance, at things only he could see...a snowy small town street years before, a thin and pale auburn-haired woman..."I'm not sure I can do it. But I've got to know...I've got to know the truth...before Pop's gone."

"Looks like you've got a lot of the pieces now...just a matter of fitting them together," Thorne said. 'We can help you out...take some of the load off, if you want, Captain. We could go see the Deputy Commish about it."

Brogan still had a distant look on his face. "Not just yet, guys. I need time to think...time to make sense of all this inside me, you know?"

Floyd was sorting out money for the tip, with Pano silently counting out the bills from a discreet distance, running a tape in his head.

"Hell of a story, if you ask me, Captain. You should be proud. Your Pop really was a genuine hero in the last days of the Pacific War."

"Yeah," said Thorne, "and it looks like your mom really was a Soviet spy."

Shriver stood up and stretched. "I better get back to the station...see what the ME's got for us on the vagrant. Think of it, Captain...a cop and a spy...Dick Tracy and Mata Hari even...looks like you've got quite a heritage to live up to."

Detective Captain Wade Brogan, Jr. just sat for a few more moments, absent-mindedly arranging the money for Pano. He took off his rimless spectacles and polished the lenses with a dirty napkin.

"Yeah...and a lot more digging to do while Pop's lucid and talking."

"You coming with us, Captain? I'll give you a ride back to Division...you're car's still there."

"No," Brogan said, "I don't think so. I'll just walk a bit...clear my head and breathe some of that nice foggy air. Maybe get a cab."

"To where, at this time of night?"

"To Manor Vista Nursing Home, I think. I want to check in on Pop. See if the old guy's still ticking. He likes to patrol the grounds at night...in his pajamas. Once a cop, always a cop."

And they watched in amazement as the Captain walked out of Pano's with a quiet smile on his face, and a springier step than they'd seen in a long time.
CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO

POLICE DEPARTMENT

" _SFPD – San Francisco's Finest!"_

June 1, 2014

Bureau of Investigations

Personal Crimes Division

Immigrant/Foreign Nationals Desk

District E – Northern

1125 Fillmore Street,

San Francisco, CA 94117

Case # 14/1202

Final Report

1. **Wade Brogan –** retired U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1958; suffered myocardial infarction and stroke in 2012; now suffering from late-stage Alzheimer's; resides Manor Vista Nursing Home, Oakland, CA.

2. **Kate Wellesley** – convicted of espionage, 1946; served 17 years of life sentence in federal prison, Lewisburg, PA; died in prison (cancer), March 1963.

3. **Dr. Edvard Tolkach** – convicted of espionage, 1946; served thirty years of life sentence; released in poor health, 1976; died motel fire in Florida, June 1981.

4. **Vasily Kalugin** \- status unknown... _until now_.

(signed)

Wade Brogan, Jr.

Detective Captain
About the Author

Philip Bosshardt is a native of Atlanta, Georgia. He works for a large company that makes products everyone uses...just check out the drinks aisle at your grocery store. He's been happily married for over 20 years. He's also a Georgia Tech graduate in Industrial Engineering. He loves water sports in any form and swims 3-4 miles a week in anything resembling water. He and his wife have no children. They do, however, have one terribly spoiled Keeshond dog named Kelsey.

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