The Einstein Papers (3 page)

As if in a race with destiny, the bomb picked up speed and plunged rapidly to earth.

Free of the 10,000-pound weight of “Little Boy,” Tibbet wasted no time jamming the Enola Gay’s yoke to the right. Steering the bomber in a radical turn away from land, Tibbet advanced the throttles, then watched the instruments that registered the engines’ condition with concern. The Enola Gay was in a deadly race against time to distance its crew from the unnatural cloud of poisons due to be unleashed by the explosion. The scientists had not released much information about “Little Boy” to Tibbet and his airmen, but one thing they had made clear.

Be as far away as possible when the weapon explodes.

When “Little Boy” detonated in the air 1,850 feet above Shima Hospital in Hiroshima, the Enola Gay was racing south at top speed. It was just after 8:15 A.M. As the mushroom cloud carrying thousands of screaming souls raced skyward, several of the crew peered from Enola Gay’s windows to witness the fireball of death they had delivered. Few men have seen death-fewer still live to tell about it. Staring in mute horror, their faces lit by the blinding light of fission, the interior of the B-29 fell silent, save for the relentless droning of the engines. Ten minutes after the blast, as the shock of their actions began to abate, the copilot wrote in the pages of his personal journal, “My God, what have we done?”

It is a question as yet unanswered.

At the exact same instant in time 10,000 miles across the globe, the natural sun was turning Einstein’s face a dark red as he lay napping on the stern of his sailboat, which was still anchored in the secluded cove. All at once, he awoke with a terrible feeling of dread.

Instantly, he struggled to a sitting position, wide awake. Hoisting himself to his feet, he felt strangely, indefinably, and unnaturally sad. His heart was pounding loudly in his chest. His entire body was clammy, as if swabbed with a horsehair brush dipped in a bucket of sweat. Rivers of sweat formed on his face and ran down, dotting his shirt like rain. He swallowed, a mysterious coppery taste in his mouth. And then he vomited on the deck.

Einstein searched the heavens for an answer but found none. He looked to the shore for a clue but could not locate a single animal. The turtles he’d watched earlier lounging on the rocks at the waterline were now gone. The flocks of birds that had flown overhead were nowhere to be seen. The bullfrogs were silent, the butterfly gone.

As if in a bizarre natural void, the shoreline showed absolutely no sign of life.

Unnerved by the unnatural scene, Einstein quickly weighed anchor. He pulled the rope starter on his tiny Sears outboard motor and waited until the motor caught, then steered the sailboat from the cove. Once free of the cove, he turned off the outboard and hoisted all sails. Steering the sloop north, he sailed toward Hartley’s Marina as fast as the winds would take him. The winds, however, had changed since earlier that day and it took a great deal of work to make headway. Einstein continued to study the heavens for some clue to his feeling of dread, yet none was forthcoming. Deep in his heart he feared that he knew the answer to his feelings-he only hoped he was wrong.

Spinning the wheel angrily, Einstein keeled the sailboat over on its side and ran north with the wind. As he steered into deeper water in an attempt to catch the offshore breeze and then angle his way back to land, he noticed a pod of whales in the far distance. One of the huge mammals, as if drawn to the sailboat by some invisible force, broke away from the pod and came alongside. Einstein watched as the whale paced the sailboat’s speed, then breached directly amidships.

He jammed the sailboat’s rudder toward land.

Ernie Hartley and Mike Scaramelli were sitting on a deck built off the back of the marina. The two men were lounging on red metal chairs shaped like clamshells. They shared the local newspaper, swapping sections across a white, freshly painted metal table as they awaited Einstein’s return.

They’re making quick work of rounding up the Nazis,” Hartley noted, handing Scaramelli a fresh section.

“Still tough going in the Pacific, though,” Scaramelli said and then sipped from a bottle of Bubble-Up.

It was slow at the marina that day. Hartley had been summoned inside only three times to tend the cash register. Twice he had sold live shrimp to fishermen for bait. Once it was to sell someone a wooden float for a crab pot.

From inside, perched on the ledge of an open window, a new Philco radio-which Hartley had recently won as first prize in a contest sponsored by an oil company-played big-band music through its large single speaker. The music suddenly stopped and an announcer’s voice broke in with the news.

“News from the war front. The United States Armed Forces announced moments ago that they have dropped a new type of bomb on Imperial Japan. While details are few, the device appears to be a new fission-type weapon quite different and many times more powerful than any bomb yet detonated. Reports from the Japanese city of Hiroshima, the target of the bombing, indicate widespread damage and loss of life. The Supreme Allied Command refused to comment on the device other than to say they hoped it would bring a quick conclusion to the hostilities.

“Now back to the music with recordings from the Glenn Miller Orchestra.”

Hartley ran inside. He spun the tuning dial of the Philco in an attempt to find any additional news about the bomb. Unfortunately, the only stations he could reach on the tuner featured either music or sports. Scratching his head, he walked slowly back outside to await Einstein’s return.

On the horizon, eight miles distant, a boat under full sail appeared first as a white speck. Hartley trained his binoculars on the speck. The vessel grew larger as it neared and he struggled to make out the image. Still moving at full speed, the sailboat hurtled past the outer breakwaters and the far end of the harbor. From the sailboat’s bow curled a wake of white water that signaled its haste.

“It’s Einstein,” Hartley said when he could finally catch a good view of the man behind the helm.

Hartley and Scaramelli raced to the dock to help with the mooring. Slipping alongside the dock, Einstein lowered the sails at the last moment. The sailboat’s forward momentum was strong and Einstein ran to the bow and tossed a line to Hartley to slow the vessel.

“He’s coming in too fast,” Hartley said to Scaramelli.

Taking the line from Hartley’s hand, Scaramelli fastened it around a bit, slowing the sailboat s movement. Just as the boat’s stern began to swing around, Einstein threw the stern line. Hartley grabbed the line and quickly cleated it off. The boat lurched, then settled into place.

Einstein jumped from the boat. He looked strangely gaunt, his face lined with tension. His shoulders were sagging and his shirt was soaked with pools of perspiration. He seemed unsteady on his feet and his eyes were bloodshot. He appeared much older than the man who had sailed away only a few hours earlier.

“Did the water turn rough?” Scaramelli asked.

“No, it was smooth,” Einstein said, waving his hand and staring unseeing into the distance. “Were you listening to the radio by chance?”

“Yes, we were,” Hartley said.

“A bomb,” Einstein blurted. “Was there any news reports about a bomb?”

Hartley quickly repeated the news broadcast they had heard. Scaramelli filled in the few points Hartley left out.

Einstein, his face now creased with a frown, turned his head away from the men and gazed across the water. “It is as I feared,” he said simply as he turned to leave.

As Einstein made his way toward the ramp, Hartley stared at the physicist. His cheeks were stained with the dried tracks of tears, his hair was disheveled, and his eyes seemed dead. He shuffled up the ramp slowly. Einstein lowered his head and dropped his shoulders, as if weighted with a burden no mortal man should carry.

Once at the top of the ramp, he walked solemnly toward the Packard. He settled into the rear compartment and buried his face in his hands.

Scaramelli waved to Hartley as he climbed quietly into the driver’s seat. He started the Packard and allowed it to settle into a quiet idle. Then he backed out of his spot, set the gearshift into drive, and pulled slowly away from the marina.

Einstein said nothing on the ride back to Princeton. The sun was setting and the air outside the Packard was heavy. Once, when they were still a few miles from home, Scaramelli peered into the rearview mirror and saw Einstein looking out the window at the summer scenery, lost in thought. He continued to sit quietly until the Packard pulled into Mercer Street.

When Scaramelli drove into the driveway at 112 Mercer Street and shut off the engine, Einstein spoke his first and only words since leaving the marina. “What has happened today is wrong, Mike. Never forget that,” he said quietly. “And I will never let it happen again.”

Einstein appeared to be trembling as he climbed from the rear compartment of the Packard. He walked with the tottering gait of a much older man. Scaramelli quickly moved to support his elbow and helped him up the steps to the door of his house. Once Einstein was safely inside and settled on a couch in his living room, Scaramelli summoned Dukas, then quietly returned to the Packard and drove slowly back to the university motor pool.

In the years to follow, Scaramelli’s life would change greatly. He would graduate from college, marry, and begin a family. Even so, as the years passed, Scaramelli often thought back to that August day at the marina. The event remained etched in his memory, as if it were only yesterday. And until the day he died, Scaramelli never forgot the look of sadness and remorse that had been so visible in Albert Einstein’s eyes.

The next day, at the headquarters of the FBI in Washington D.C., J. Edgar Hoover was scanning a thick file. He closed the file, then sipped from a cup of tea.

Motioning for his second-in-command, Clyde Tolson, to refill his cup, he spoke.

“We need to find out why I didn’t know more about this atomic bomb. The last report I received from our field agents stated the scientists were still unsure if the thing would even work. Now the military’s gone and blown one off. It’s going to look like the FBI was caught with our pants down if we don’t quickly find some role for this agency in the atomic age. We need to have the FBI somehow involved with nuclear power. It’s quite obvious now the impact will be huge.”

Tolson stared at his boss and companion and quietly nodded. “A lot of the scientists that worked on the project have radical views. Perhaps that’s our entree to this so-called atomic age.”

Hoover reached back and scratched an itch on his ear. “Good idea, Clyde. Let’s start with Einstein. We already have an extensive file on him.”

Tolson rose from his chair. “I’ll call and request the file from storage, then pick it up after lunch.”

“Good,” Hoover said, “and while you’re at it, have a couple of field agents begin a covert round-the-clock surveillance of Einstein. One more thing, Clyde,” Hoover said. “Bring me the file on his housekeeper. I think her name is Dikus, or Dukas.”

“Yes, Edgar,” Tolson said, as he walked out of Hoover’s office and set out down the hall.

Three days later, when a second atomic bomb was dropped, this time on Nagasaki, Einstein made his decision. The Unified Field Theory must be kept secret. The power that could result from the improper use of the theory was simply too great a risk for the world at this time. A world populated by men who in the last war had just displayed its cruelest side. A world that seemed bound to wage war and spurn peace.

The bomb the United States had dropped on Hiroshima agonized Einstein. He was a devoted pacifist. Still, he had tried to justify it by imagining to himself the lives that might have been lost in an invasion of Japan, with fighting island-to-island. The bombing, if it caused Japan to surrender, may actually have saved lives.

He almost succeeded.

It was the bomb the United States dropped on Nagasaki that sealed Einstein’s decision. The Japanese were already beaten. Japan’s supplies of food, fuel, and medicine were at dangerously low levels. The Japanese air force and navy were nearly decimated. The country’s infrastructure was in ruins. Japan’s surrender was only a matter of time.

Once the bomb was ignited over Nagasaki there was no turning back.

Outside 112 Mercer Street, the black Ford sedan driven by the pair of FBI agents was so nondescript it stood out. Even with the availability of automobiles severely limited, no one but a government agency would order a car equipped with blackwall tires and no chrome trim. The FBI agents sitting inside the Ford were dressed in the stark black suits and white shirts that conformed to the agency’s approved dress code. It was only the sweat rings under their arms that might draw them a reprimand from Hoover.

FBI agents were not supposed to sweat.

“It has to be ninety degrees in here,” Agent Mark Agnews said.

Agent Steve Talbot mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “Even the slightest breeze would help.”

Talbot leaned back in the seat and lowered his fedora over his eyes as Agnews continued to watch Einstein’s residence.

Inside Einstein’s house at 112 Mercer, the ground-floor study was clouded with smoke. “For what reason would the FBI want to investigate me?” Einstein asked.

“Are you sure it’s the FBI?” Dukas asked.

“Yes, I asked the chief of the campus police to look up the license plate number,” Einstein said. “It was registered to the FBI.”

“What are you going to do about it?” Dukas asked.

Einstein rose and walked to the window. Parting the curtains slightly, he stared at the Ford sedan parked slightly up the block.

“Well,” he said finally, “I know what we should do right now.”

“What is that, Doctor?” Dukas asked.

“Let’s bring those men in the car some iced tea,” Einstein said. “It’s sweltering outside.”

“We have movement outside the house,” Agnews said to Talbot, who was reading a pulp magazine.

Talbot stared out the window. “It’s Einstein. And it looks like he has a tray in his hands or something.”