The Trinity Paradox (35 page)

Nineteen miles from Knoxville, Black Oak Ridge had been selected by Groves himself as the first major site for the atomic program because of its isolation, its pleasant climate, and abundant water and electrical supply, thanks to the Tennessee Valley Authority dams. Few locals lived in the area, yet the site was easily accessible by train and road. The enormous construction project here had revitalized the flagging rural economy.

When the driver topped the ridge and drove out across the sprawling complex, Congressman Engel leaned forward and spoke to no one in particular; his words rang in Elizabeth’s ears. “Good Lord!”

Stimson cackled and slapped his cane on the back of the limousine seat. “Now do you see what all the money’s being spent for, Albert?”

Groves spoke in a smug voice. “Actually, this is only the K-25 plant, just one of the major facilities we have here. The entire complex is on 54,000 acres.”

“But it’s ... huge!” Engel said.

The sight astonished Elizabeth as well. The building sprawled in front of them, shaped like a squared-off U half a mile on a side, four hundred feet wide. It appeared as ugly as the buildings at Hanford, sinister and gray, like a fortress with tiny windows along only the top floor.

Groves smiled. “We believe it’s the largest single building in the entire world. Shall we step outside the car? You can comprehend the size better.”

Groves opened the car door himself and stood. He extended his large hand to help Stimson climb out, slow and careful. Congressman Engel got out the other side and stood, gripping the edge of the car. The driver waited, pleased to have a chance to talk alone with Elizabeth, but she got out of the car as well, staring down at the gargantuan building.

As she smelled the medley of forest odors, she could hear a whining hum that throbbed in the air, pitched just at the edge of hearing. The plant was operating at its full capacity.

“We use K-25 for our gaseous diffusion work with uranium,” Groves said. “Like I described it in the car, we take a uranium hexafluoride gas and pump it through three thousand separate filter stages, all in a row inside that one building. The filter material is so fine that it can preferentially allow uranium-235 atoms, the lighter isotope, to pass through a little bit easier than the heavier isotope uranium-238.

“But the uranium hexafluoride is extremely corrosive. None of the piping or valves in that entire building are made of steel or conventional alloys because they’d get eaten away within hours. Most everything’s glass, specially crafted. The filtration material had the same constraints. And this is only a single facility.”

Groves put his thumbs into his protruding waistline as if he had just impressed himself. “After we pump the gas through the three thousand stages, what comes out the other end is a little bit enriched in the uranium isotope we want. Only about one percent, but that’s better than anything we’ve achieved before.”

“And that’s why you need such a large complex,” Engel said.

“Yes, sir.”

“But what do you need it/or?”

Groves scowled. “I’m afraid we can’t tell you that, Mr. Congressman.”

Stimson turned and looked over the car at Engel. “We need it to win the war, Albert. We need it to get back at the Nazis for what they did to New York.”

“But-”

“Oh Albert, can’t you see this isn’t all just a fraud?” -

Engel shuffled his feet on the opposite side of the limousine. “Of course I can see the money hasn’t been embezzled away somewhere. But I still can’t understand what it’s about.”

General Groves took a step toward the front of the car, then waved at a pair of mosquitoes in his face. “Congressman, we have an army of workers inside those buildings. Every man or woman stands at their own station. They have been given very careful instructions about what the needles on their gauges should read and which knobs to turn if they need to adjust anything. We have thousands of stations, every one monitoring just a single part of this gigantic process.

‘‘But not one of those workers knows how his piece fits in with anything else. Not one of them has the vaguest idea of what the whole thing is for. They don’t need to. They only need to know that they’re doing war work and their country depends on them. And pardon me for saying this, sir, but you don’t need to know either.”

“The general means no offense, Albert,” Stimson interrupted.

Groves nodded down at the K-25 building, then turned his conversation down a different track. He pointed to a distant set of buildings on another flattened hilltop. “The Y-12 plant over there is where we use a different process, the electromagnetic method, to separate the isotopes further. We have giant magnets wound with silver wires all arranged in an enormous loop called a racetrack, and the gas gets passed through the magnetic fields. We’ve also got a third plant, S-50, using yet another process called thermal diffusion.”

“Why so many different methods, General?” Engel asked, still defensive. His eyes looked glazed from the technical jargon, though. “Why not just pick the best one and go with it? We don’t have infinite financial resources, you know. That’s what my constituents would be most distressed about. It’s typical of the way Roosevelt has been handling things throughout his administration. That’s why Dewey is doing so well in the polls.”

Groves drew in a deep breath, apparently to quell an outburst in front of the congressman. “Mr. Engel, we must find the process that works. We are at war, and the attack on New York has shown us that German secret research is following the same lines as ours. We don’t have the luxury to try one idea, then another, then another. We must try them all at once and proceed immediately with whatever solves our problem. We must have this working
now.”
He pulled a cigar out of his breast pocket but did not light it. “And it is. We have been successful. Now we must put it to use. The Germans aren’t going to know what hit them.”

Congressman Engel looked down at the K-25 building and shook his head. Elizabeth could tell he was astonished, but she still didn’t know if he was convinced.

“We’ve come all the way out here, Mr. Secretary,” Groves said. “I know you’re probably tired already, but I would like to show you the Y-12 and the S-50 plants as well.”

“Just have that driver mix me an old-fashioned and I can last a few hours more,” Stimson said.

“I would like to see the other plants,” Engel said. “But I wish we could get rid of some of these bugs!’’ He slapped at something on his hand, then climbed back into the car.

“General Groves,” Stimson said, lowering his voice with a glance at Engel slipping into his seat and out of earshot. “I would suggest that you hurry up with your Project. You know I have always supported you with the full resources of the War Office, but I’m not sure how much longer I can continue to serve. This atomic bomb idea is about the only thing that keeps me in office.

“But that’s not even the worst of it. Too many people have blamed FDR for what happened to New York. This war has been going on for too long, and his popularity is plummeting. All of us in the White House know that there’s practically no chance in hell that Roosevelt could ever win against Dewey now.”

Groves stopped moving in shock—the first time Elizabeth had ever seen him stand still. “And Dewey knows nothing about the Project. There’s no telling whether he’ll even support it.”

Stimson nodded. “That’s right, General. I would say it behooves you to get something ready
before
November.”

Groves stared down at the K-25 plant. “That’s impossible, Mr. Secretary.”

“Impossible?” Elizabeth interrupted. “General Groves, I thought you said yourself that you never wanted to hear that word spoken aloud by anyone connected with this project.”

The general turned red and glared at Elizabeth. She ducked inside the car before he could lash out at her. Congressman Engel fidgeted in the backseat of the limousine. “Are we going to get moving?” he asked. “It’s awfully hot in this car.”

As Stimson clambered into the back, making every move as if his joints had been fashioned out of fine china, Groves stuck his head in and spoke to the driver. “We’re skipping the rest of the tour. Back at the office we can find someone to show Congressman Engel and Secretary Stimson around. Miss Devane and I must get to Knoxville and catch the next train back to New Mexico.”

“General, I would still like to see—” Engel began.

“I’m trying to think right now.” Groves rubbed his forehead. “Miss Devane, if you have any more brilliant ideas as my technical advisor, you had better come up with them between now and the time we board the train.’’

20

Dachau Concentration Camp November 1944

“First, it’s very possible that Germany will soon produce some fissionable material. We have no evidence to the contrary. Second, there is no known defense against a nuclear weapon. And third, if we succeed In time, we’ll shorten the war and save tens of thousands of American lives.”

—
General Leslie R. Groves

They hauled another
dead one outside the big doors that morning.

Daniel Waldstein—rather, the skeletal man who had once been Waldstein—and one of the other prisoners picked up the shrunken, disintegrating man they had known only as Eli. Eli did not moan or move as they carried him from the concrete floor of the reactor building; that didn’t mean he was dead, but once a man reached this state of collapse, Daniel knew he was doomed.

When they opened the door to set out Eli’s body on the cold muddy ground, the breath of frigid wintry air felt like the snap of a wet towel in his face. The odors of the concentration camp struck him, as did the briskness of the air. New snow had melted around the reactor building, dotting the ground with puddles trying to freeze.

Daniel and Saul, his helper, set the body down where other prisoners would come to retrieve him. The Nazi guards refused to go near the reactor building. Saul turned and shuffled back inside to the humid warmth. Daniel caught one last breath of the fresh air, then pulled the enormous doors shut behind him with a clatter on their metal tracks.

Inside, the cavernous reactor building felt unbearably hot and stifling. Steam filled every breath. The other prisoners remained silent, and the reactor itself made only humming and hissing noises from the coolant water being pumped through its pipes into the core. No mechanical sounds could be heard—the reactor worked by magic, it seemed. None of them knew what the thing did or what it was for.

They knew only that if they worked inside there for a week, they would earn their freedom. They had seen others walk out, carrying a few possessions and a new coat. Most of them did not survive their term of labor—but it was worth the risk. Any of them would have said so.

No one could understand what kind of sickness struck them down, why their bodies fell apart simply from being in the same room with the reactor. Occasionally, the Dachau doctors would remove one of the workers for inspection and analysis, and those workers never came back.

Daniel Waldstein kept ignorant of science. He had been a jeweler, a fine jeweler with his own shop in Berlin. He had not harmed anyone; he had simply made his jewelry, rings, pendants. Some of the finer pieces he wore himself—or had worn. Everything had been stripped from him on the day he arrived at Dachau.

He thought of those days sitting in the dimness of his shop, with light shining through the windows that he cleaned regularly. He could smell the precious metal as he worked on it; he could feel the smooth craftwork on his strong but delicate fingers—fingers that had long since been smashed and dulled by hard work here in the camp. Daniel remembered talking to his customers, Germans and Jews alike. He thought about going home at the end of the day and relaxing in his apartment, perhaps lighting the candle for a dinner with his wife Emmi.

They had shot Emmi within the first month here.

Now Daniel felt only a tiny candle of life burning in him, focusing existence on merely carrying his soul from one second to the next. He could not give up. He could not surrender. He had endured this, and it could not possibly get worse.

Already gaunt and nearly starved, half dead from exposure to the cold autumn and approaching winter, Daniel had grown much worse in the few days he had worked in the reactor building. In another day or two it would be his turn with the four others to disassemble the reactor, wearing scarred and burnt leather gloves to pull away the hot blocks of graphite, moving them aside to withdraw the glowing warm tubes of uranium, preparing them for shipment somewhere else. It was the day after disassembly that workers most often succumbed.

Daniel remembered his rush of excitement when the camp officials had picked his name for the duty. Tears had streaked his cheeks; he had fallen to his knees with gratitude toward the guard who had told him of his opportunity.

Now he knew he could not survive the length of his term of service, though only a few days remained. He could not keep his meals down. Sores covered his skin. Diarrhea had exhausted him, torn him apart. Retching, trembling, sweating, he could not last much longer. He would never leave Dachau alive.