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Authors: Martin Cruz Smith
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history.”
“What are you testing now?” Harvey wanted to change the subject.
“Now? We are testing some new detonators that must fire through a bank of high-voltage condensers in the same one-millionth of a second. We are testing lenses of Baratol explosive to focus the shock wave. And weare testing a flash technique for shadow photography.”
“We have thirty days until Trinity. All this information is absolutely necessary?”
Jaworski turned to Joe. “Hitler goes to Hell. The devil takes him to different rooms to choose his punishment. In the first room, Goering is nailed to a wheel and rolled through boiling oil. In the second room, Goebbels is being devoured by giant red ants. In the third, Stalin is making love to Greta Garbo. ‘That’s what I want,’ Hitler says, ‘Stalin’s punishment.’ ‘Very well,’ says the devil, ‘but actually it’s Garbo’s punishment.’ ” He turned back to Harvey. “See, it helps to have as much information as possible. Don’t worry, I’ve tested weapons for thirty years. I know the military mind. General Groves wants this bomb. I’m confident he will drop something on Japan.”
While Jaworksi’s team had been connecting cables the sky had changed. June and July were the rainy season. This year, rain was replaced by dry electrical storms that rolled like loose cannons down from the Jemez and across the valley. A pair of black clouds exchanged lightning bolts as they moved in an eerie calm toward the Hanging Garden. The thunder was too far away to hear and the entire mesa was falling quiet because orders were that there was to be no testing of high explosives while there was lightning and the chance of a power surge. Unperturbed, Jaworski led his men down the control bunker for lunch.
“Coming?” Joe asked Harvey.
Harvey held up his clarinet. “Might as well stay here and practice. Then I’ll sound the all clear.”
“Good place. Next to a bomb on a hill in a storm.”
“You said I needed practice. Besides, it helps me think.”
On his way down, Joe glanced back. Harvey looked like a duckling beside a gray and ugly egg.
The Hanging Garden got its name from the scarlet gilia, paintbrush and yarrow that had taken root and flourished in the turned soil of the hillside. The wildflowers were a brief, improbable splurge of colors—every shade of red, orange and madder—that turned and waved in any breeze crossing the dun drabness of the mesa. They twined around the periscopes, overflowed and made the timber facing of the hill into terraces. Speculation claimed that the flowers tapped a broken water pipe. Others said that Jaworski came in the night with watering cans. Whichever, the Hanging Garden so thrived that the loading platform of the bunker built into the base of the hill seemed more a garden bower.
Jaworski asked Joe to join the team in the shadow of the loading platform for lunch. But the Hungarian was a devotee of Spam and all there was to drink was milk. The Army had decided that milk counteracted the health hazard of working with TNT, so it supplied tubs filled with ice and bottles of fresh milk. On one side the bottles said, “Buy War Bonds!” Since the siege of Stalingrad, another side said, “Praise Russia!” Joestayed alone on the apron, the only place at the Hanging Garden where smoking was allowed.
The two clouds drifted closer. He looked for a bowed veil of rain, but it wasn’t there, just the sudden step of lightning two miles off. On the mesa road he could see MPs on horseback searching for cover. Directly across the apron was a magazine bunker. It had twin fourinch-thick doors and was set at an angle in its own earth mound so that any accidental explosion would be directed away from the control bunker, NO SMOKING was painted in red above the door. While Joe took out his cigarette and lighter he walked close enough to check the padlock on the magazine latch. It was slashed. He had switched locks months before. This lock was
“What are you testing now?” Harvey wanted to change the subject.
“Now? We are testing some new detonators that must fire through a bank of high-voltage condensers in the same one-millionth of a second. We are testing lenses of Baratol explosive to focus the shock wave. And weare testing a flash technique for shadow photography.”
“We have thirty days until Trinity. All this information is absolutely necessary?”
Jaworski turned to Joe. “Hitler goes to Hell. The devil takes him to different rooms to choose his punishment. In the first room, Goering is nailed to a wheel and rolled through boiling oil. In the second room, Goebbels is being devoured by giant red ants. In the third, Stalin is making love to Greta Garbo. ‘That’s what I want,’ Hitler says, ‘Stalin’s punishment.’ ‘Very well,’ says the devil, ‘but actually it’s Garbo’s punishment.’ ” He turned back to Harvey. “See, it helps to have as much information as possible. Don’t worry, I’ve tested weapons for thirty years. I know the military mind. General Groves wants this bomb. I’m confident he will drop something on Japan.”
While Jaworksi’s team had been connecting cables the sky had changed. June and July were the rainy season. This year, rain was replaced by dry electrical storms that rolled like loose cannons down from the Jemez and across the valley. A pair of black clouds exchanged lightning bolts as they moved in an eerie calm toward the Hanging Garden. The thunder was too far away to hear and the entire mesa was falling quiet because orders were that there was to be no testing of high explosives while there was lightning and the chance of a power surge. Unperturbed, Jaworski led his men down the control bunker for lunch.
“Coming?” Joe asked Harvey.
Harvey held up his clarinet. “Might as well stay here and practice. Then I’ll sound the all clear.”
“Good place. Next to a bomb on a hill in a storm.”
“You said I needed practice. Besides, it helps me think.”
On his way down, Joe glanced back. Harvey looked like a duckling beside a gray and ugly egg.
The Hanging Garden got its name from the scarlet gilia, paintbrush and yarrow that had taken root and flourished in the turned soil of the hillside. The wildflowers were a brief, improbable splurge of colors—every shade of red, orange and madder—that turned and waved in any breeze crossing the dun drabness of the mesa. They twined around the periscopes, overflowed and made the timber facing of the hill into terraces. Speculation claimed that the flowers tapped a broken water pipe. Others said that Jaworski came in the night with watering cans. Whichever, the Hanging Garden so thrived that the loading platform of the bunker built into the base of the hill seemed more a garden bower.
Jaworski asked Joe to join the team in the shadow of the loading platform for lunch. But the Hungarian was a devotee of Spam and all there was to drink was milk. The Army had decided that milk counteracted the health hazard of working with TNT, so it supplied tubs filled with ice and bottles of fresh milk. On one side the bottles said, “Buy War Bonds!” Since the siege of Stalingrad, another side said, “Praise Russia!” Joestayed alone on the apron, the only place at the Hanging Garden where smoking was allowed.
The two clouds drifted closer. He looked for a bowed veil of rain, but it wasn’t there, just the sudden step of lightning two miles off. On the mesa road he could see MPs on horseback searching for cover. Directly across the apron was a magazine bunker. It had twin fourinch-thick doors and was set at an angle in its own earth mound so that any accidental explosion would be directed away from the control bunker, NO SMOKING was painted in red above the door. While Joe took out his cigarette and lighter he walked close enough to check the padlock on the magazine latch. It was slashed. He had switched locks months before. This lock was
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