The Trinity Paradox Page 4

  She experienced a sinking feeling in her stomach. After all her efforts protesting nuclear weapons research, now she found herself in the middle of the Manhattan Project itself. And they expected her to work for them.

  Two o’clock in the morning, and sleep would not come. A single white light blazed outside the women’s dormitory, throwing deep shadows across the row of beds. Outside, moths and insects whipped around in the light. Snoring came from the cot next to hers. A guard’s footsteps crunched between the buildings on the other side of the window. Elizabeth turned over and tried to make herself comfortable. The sheets smelled like bleach and felt too hot, even in the cool mountain air.

  Growing up in Albuquerque, Elizabeth had dreamed of leaving New Mexico, getting out of the sleepy nowhere city and tackling the real world. Berkeley had afforded her the chance. On a scholarship, she thrived in the intellectual community by the San Francisco Bay. The Northern California lifestyle opened her eyes, though she still spent much of her time with her nose in the books.

  After graduating in physics, securing a job with United Atomics in Los Angeles came naturally—it allowed her to use her knowledge and at the same time take advantage of everything L.A. had to offer. She enjoyed her life alone, from hiking in the San Bernardino mountains to body surfing off Manhattan Beach.

  One day she realized that she needed an MBA to get ahead, to move out of the population of “techies” and into the higher-paying levels of management. That decision ushered in the end of her innocence. Ted Walblaken’s death shortly thereafter, and United Atomics callous attempt at a cover-up, was the last weight that tipped the scales for her.

  Her move back to Berkeley and subsequent enrollment in the Management School left her jaded. She had more time to experience the Berkeley environment, get involved in the really big issues: biogenetics, the end of the Cold War, and the disarmament of America.

  The 1983 Livermore protest had nailed it down—she could never return and work for big industry after allowing herself to be arrested for her principles. And then there was Jeff… but the backward allure of New Mexico had become enchanting to her again, a simpler way of life where she would not have to support the bottom-line-only businesses she abhorred. Elizabeth’s only regret was that Jeff didn’t want to come with her.

  Santa Fe, only seventy miles north of where she had grown up, beckoned as an ideal place to settle. With her completed MBA and her experience in finance, she had no problem getting a job keeping the books for a Santa Fe art gallery— Nambe on Canvas. Elizabeth loved the chic gallery, the circle of friends who were also concerned about important issues. Her private accounting business grew, and she settled in the comfortable life as a professional.

  But now she seemed anything but comfortable. To top it all off, with her years of specialized education, she had been assigned as a file clerk! If she weren’t in such a screwed-up situation, the whole thing would be funny.

  Elizabeth pushed back the sheets and sat up on her cot. She stared at the bed next to her. The girl slept without a worry, confident that the “powers that be” would find a way to defeat the evil Japanese, the terrible Nazis, and then steer the world toward an endless supply of Truth, Justice, and the American Way. All because of the Manhattan Project.

  Elizabeth swung her feet over the side of the cot, trying not to wake the others. How many times had she heard the expression “If I only knew then what I know now”? How many people would really be content to go on with the atomic bomb project if they really knew what was to come. The Cold War. The Cuban Missile Crisis. Vietnam. The Arms Race. Star Wars. The Gulf War. The capacitor accident at Los Alamos. The homeless, and the people dying of AIDS, because too much money had been spent on defense.

  But how could they know? And what was better—for her to stay and do nothing, to ride out the tides of time, or try to actively change things? As a clerk in the in-processing center? Get real.

  She wasn’t sure exactly how she would do it, but if she could get transferred into something more important— somewhere that made a strategic difference—then she might be able to see where things had gone wrong.

  The wooden dormitory floors didn’t creak as she crept to the bathroom. Quickly changing into her own clothes, Elizabeth debated if she should wear some kind of camouflage, something to help disguise her in case she was caught. She thought better of it. Anything unnatural would only draw attention if she were spotted.

  She had heard that other women sometimes left during the night and returned clandestinely, slipping past Mrs. Canapelli—midnight liaisons had not been invented in Elizabeth’s generation, after all. Too many single young men were housed at the Project, and the women of 1943 had been fed propaganda that they were supposed to adore brave soldiers in uniform. Leaving the dormitory would be tolerated, if she could stay discreet.

  Elizabeth jiggled the door to the administration building. The door opened with a squeak. Surprised to find it unlocked, she held her breath. It seemed that the sound had echoed across the muddy encampment. But no one came running down the street brandishing weapons. So far, so good.

  The sound of a jeep came from across the compound. Pools of yellow-white headlights turned down another un-paved road and continued up the bill. Elizabeth crept inside the Admin building and closed the door, hoping the jeep engine would mask any noise she might make. She debated whether she should lock the door in case one of the guards came to check. She decided against it; besides, she saw no key on the inside.

  This left her momentarily wondering why security should be so lax—but she didn’t dwell on it, concluding that the administration areas must not rate as high in the hierarchy as the scientific part of the Project.

  Elizabeth made her way down the hallway, relying on touch to get her past the large foyer. Only a few well-placed lights from the outside managed to cast their glare into the building. The site’s blackout regulations dictated only minimum lighting, not visible from the air.

  Once she had negotiated the foyer, she managed to keep from knocking over a trash can by first feeling it with her shoe. The hallway led to a set of double doors. In-processing should be two doors down, across from the Assignments section. If she were going to do this right, she needed to do more than forge her papers and add them to the file—she also had to make sure that her physics background was documented.

  Even at the B.S. level, with a physics degree granted thirty-five years in the future, her knowledge ought to count for something. But that opened up another set of problems entirely. How many women were on the Project now, serving in a true professional sense? There must be some, but probably fewer than she could count on her fingers. It would only draw more attention to herself, raise too many questions.

  And what if she let something slip, some bit of knowledge that hadn’t been discovered yet? Her own physics studies had ignored historical perspective altogether; none of her professors bothered to add any kind of context to their explanations of important theories. According to her schooling, there was Newton, then Einstein and Dirac, and a whole bunch of equations with people’s names on them magically appearing in the interim.

  How could she explain that two or three of the scientists working on the Project now would be her guest lecturers at Berkeley three decades from now? No, she had to keep this simple, mark it down in her records that she had some business experience, some mathematics. Maybe that would let her work on the sidelines, where she could watch, observe.

  Elizabeth moved toward the Records section. She pushed the door open, half expecting someone to be waiting for her with gun drawn. A row of Army-gray file cabinets lined one wall like a battalion of metal soldiers. The Project personnel had made no attempt to safeguard the personnel information. And this place was one of the most secret places in the nation? The Army must have been working on the principle that the threat was entirely on the outside and not from within.

  How could people be so naive?

  She found a blank form, personnel qualification
s. Bending over a patch of light on a cluttered metal table, Elizabeth penciled in a mathematics degree along with her business experience. That should satisfy any routine checking once she switched jobs. Filing her records, Elizabeth made her way to the Assignments section. Time to get herself a new job.

  She crept through eerie hall shadows. The air felt stale. She had heard no other sounds since the jeep went by. She thought about the guards—would they really not patrol the buildings at night? She drew in a breath and looked around. Why was it so quiet? When she reached the door to Assignments, she slid inside the opening and pulled the door partway closed.

  Elizabeth glanced around. The room showed even more paperwork chaos than Records. Piles of paper three feet high sat on each desk. Yellow pencils covered the windowsills, and red or black ink pads littered the floor.

  Her heart sank. How in the world am I going to even find the right form in this mess? She didn’t know where to start.

  She picked up a paper from the nearest desk and squinted in the dimness. It looked like an alphabetical list of people in one of the divisions. Her frustration grew. Trapped, years in the past, and knowing the outcome of a no-win situation, didn’t help her spirits any. She rummaged through another pile, sheet after sheet after sheet—nothing.

  She couldn’t go back to her own time. She had no idea how. She would have to watch the Manhattan Project without being a player. Did she even want to be a player? What else could she do? The paperwork and bureaucracy here seemed just as screwed-up now as what the government had to offer in the future. The rosy picture of “all for one and one for all” painted of this war effort didn’t include the times like this.

  She stopped. Something just outside in the hall. A footstep, a scratch at the door.

  Elizabeth held her breath. She started to duck down, out of sight behind the desk and its column of paper. The security guards—what would they do if they found her there? Did they shoot on sight? The thought chilled her. The nation was at war, when people accepted even the atrocities of penning up American-born Japanese. Being executed for breaking into the Manhattan Project records, no matter how innocuous, no longer seemed unlikely.

  Someone stepped through the door. Elizabeth ducked lower.

  “Excuse me.” The words came out in a whisper. She looked up. A man stepped behind the stacks of paper and looked down at her, as if he had known her hiding place all along. “Ah, do you need any help?”

  Elizabeth caught a hint of a chuckle. She strained to see the man’s face, but the light coming from the window shone behind him. She saw only his silhouette.

  Elizabeth slowly stood. Her arms and legs trembled as cold sweat broke out on her skin. Her stomach knotted, but she didn’t understand. “I… I… ” She couldn’t make the words come out.

  “It’s okay. Really,” he said.

  Elizabeth sucked in a breath. “Oh, damn.” She glanced around, pulled up a metal chair and sat down. “So what are you going to do with me?”

  “Eh?” The man moved around so that the light shone on his face. He appeared young, not more than twenty-five or so. His hair was cropped short, curly. “Do with you? My, that opens up all sorts of implications, doesn’t it? I just thought you needed help getting around in here.”

  Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. She sat straighter in the chair. “Help?”

  “Sure. Going through those paper piles.” He jerked his head at a particularly large heap in the corner. “Can you believe all this? This is a scientist’s nightmare and a bureaucrat’s dream. Paperwork heaven. One of those Admin clowns could die in here and it would take them a month to find out he was even missing.”

  Elizabeth stifled an uncertain laugh. This man didn’t seem bothered that she was here in the dark; he didn’t appear to be a threat. “You’re probably right.”

  “About you needing help?”

  “No. I mean yes, I need help. But about this being a paperwork nightmare, or heaven, or whatever.” She stopped, tongue-tied. She felt angry at herself, but forced it down. She couldn’t believe any of this.

  “Good.” The man cracked a smile. “Then what are you looking for?”

  “Something to get me transferred. Whatever paperwork I need.”

  “You want to move to another job.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Gosh, I can’t imagine anything being misplaced around here.” He snorted with derision. “Don’t you like what you’re doing now?”

  “Typing and shuffling paperwork isn’t my strong point. I mean, that isn’t the reason I was brought here. I’ve got a good background in mathematics. It’s a terrible misuse of talent.” Elizabeth held her breath and hoped that the man wouldn’t press for details—or that she wouldn’t tie herself up in a lie she couldn’t get out of.

  “Makes sense. Maria Goeppert had the same problem. One of the best minds in the country, and people would rather shove her off making coffee than using her talents.”

  Elizabeth kept quiet and allowed the man to continue. She kept taking peeks out the window, afraid that their whispered conversation would draw attention. The man, whoever he was, seemed content just to sit and chat away.

  “Actually, if you knew where the forms were…”

  The man stood. “I don’t, but I bet if I thought as a bureaucrat would… “He looked around the room. Elizabeth’s eyes had become accustomed enough to the dark to see where he was looking. “Umm. Let’s see. This is the Assignments section, so you’d think that assignments would be on the top of their priority list. Now all we have to do is figure out where they would think of putting their important stuff. Which means…”

  He strode around to the front of the office, lifted up a small pile and revealed an in basket. He fished around and pulled out a dark, half-page form. “Aha!” He looked as if he had just cracked a mystery. “The only people who really bother these folks are the ones they try to transfer. Which means that if the transfer form is located near the door, then they can get rid of the people faster. Lessen the amount of hassle they get.”

  Elizabeth pushed up from her chair and moved to the front. “I don’t know how to thank you—”

  “Well, if you insist… no, I mean, nonsense! I know it’s impossible to get things done during regular hours around here. You have to do things yourself sometimes. Where are you trying to get transferred to?”

  “Uh, I’m not really sure. Somewhere that could use my abilities. My math background, I mean. I used to teach high school math before I joined the civil service.” Oh boy, she was going to have to remember that one.

  “Ah, so that explains why you’re here. Johnny von Neumann is getting together a group to grind through some intensive calculations.” He cocked an eye at her. “You aren’t familiar with hydrodynamics are you?” He shook his head before she could answer. “Never mind—it doesn’t really matter. But if you’re a math whiz, we could sure use some talent in von Neumann’s group. Here.” Elizabeth took the sheet of paper as if it were a nugget of gold.

  “Thanks!” Von Neumann… the name sounded familiar to her. Hadn’t he invented the first computer or something?

  “Just put down T-Division as your reassignment. That’ll get you there.”

  They deposited the official transfer form in the front office. Elizabeth crept along beside him, fearful that his cavalier attitude would get them caught, but they negotiated the building without bringing attention to themselves.

  She wanted to ask the man who he was, but since he had kept his nose out of her identity, she decided to do likewise. Whoever he was, he was one strange duck-getting his kicks out of playing jokes on the paper pushers.

  The man steered her to the side door. “Go ahead on out—I’ll lock up behind you.”

  Elizabeth started for the door. “But it was unlocked when I got here.”

  “I know.” The man grinned and pulled a long wire from his pants pocket. “I broke in and left the door open in case I had to make a quick escape. It’s great, isn’t it? Drives th
e brass bananas when they find out I’ve been drooling over their paperwork. Not that it’s important or anything. What really drives them crazy is when I break into the safes and leave them little notes.” He creaked open the door and peered outside. “Go ahead, it’s clear.”

  “Uh, thanks again—”

  “Just get going.”

  “Yeah.” Elizabeth slipped outside. She moved around the mud puddles that dotted the streets and kept to the building shadows. When she finally reached the women’s barracks, the long row of cots looked inviting. She had had enough excitement for one night, and just hoped her transfer would go through without anyone questioning it.

  Breaking and entering wasn’t her style. Maybe she was better off with the United Conscience Group, passing out leaflets and doing nothing significant. The MCG debacle had shown her the worst of what could happen. Jeff had paid with his life.

  Once was enough, no matter how high the stakes.

  3

  Berlin

  June 1943

  “Since the outbreak of war, interest in uranium has intensified in Germany. I have now learned that research there is being carried out in great secrecy.”

  —Albert Einstein

  “The Germans are at present probably far ahead of us. They started their program vigorously in 1939, but ours was not undertaken with similar vigor until 1941.”

  —Arthur H. Compton

  His own stationery had finally arrived from the printer. He had needed to pull the rank of his new position in the Reich just to get something this simple done on time. It didn’t bode well for the more serious things he would have to do.

  He rocked back and admired the printing: dr. Abraham ESAU, PLENIPOTENTIARY FOR NUCLEAR PHYSICS.

  The bold Fraktur type made his promotion, achieved at long last, seem all the more official. They couldn’t take it away from him this time. Things would start to change now. No matter what the others might say.