A Thousand Suns

Chapter 54 Mission Time: 21 Hours, 52 Minutes Elapsed

There was a clock on the wall of the conference room, and Wallace counted the hours. The meeting had been in session now for over fifteen hours. He looked at the other men; many were staring intently at their wristwatches.

An hour ago, one of the marines guarding the conference room door had entered and informed the President that a staff car was waiting for him in front of the White House, ready to remove him to safety outside Washington. After only a moment’s consideration Truman had sent the marine away, announcing that he wasn’t going to leave his cabinet and the Chiefs of Staff behind.

Wallace found he was developing a grudging respect for this new President. He had only been in office a few days. During the last forty-eight hours, and the two meetings which he had attended, Wallace had witnessed the man steadily grow in stature from the unassuming, quietly spoken, unremarkable figure of before to what he was now. Most definitely a leader. Staying with them here, no matter how unknown the risk, was something Wallace would remember about the man for the rest of his long life. It was a true measure of the man.

Truman was sitting motionlessly now, one of the conference room’s burgundy- and gold-trimmed telephone handsets held patiently to his ear, everyone else in the room dutifully silent. As the President waited for the call to be put through he looked up at the wall clock. ‘My watch shows me two minutes to five, gentlemen. Assuming that is the deadline, just two more minutes to go. I really don’t know what is going to happen at five, if anything.’ He looked up at them with the faintest hint of a smile on his tight, bookish face. ‘I suggest those of you who believe in a God start your praying now.’

There was a murmur of tense laughter from some of the men around the table. Nonetheless, Wallace noticed several of them closing their eyes, their lips moving subtly in silence.

Less than two minutes to go.

Wallace was still certain that the whole thing was an elaborate bluff. The B-17 which had been seen heading out across the Atlantic accompanied by several Messerschmitts was, of course, real, and certainly it sounded, from the garbled and hastily delivered intelligence reports that had come in over the last two days, that the laboratory in Stuttgart with the cyclotron was also real. But the inescapable fact, confirmed now by Dr Frewer and over the phone an hour earlier by Dr Oppenheimer, was that there was very little chance of a viable atomic bomb with critical mass less than they had calculated — enough U-235 to produce a mass the size of a baseball — and there was no conceivable way the Germans could have got their hands on that much uranium.

No possible way, unless they’d discovered another form of isotope?

Unlikely.

At five o’clock only one possible thing could happen. The bomber would drop a device that would fail to detonate.

But there was a remote chance… Wallace noticed his mouth drying and the slightest tremble coming and going. There’s a chance.

He allowed himself to indulge the improbable notion for a moment, that on this day the world would end with a bang. He wondered how fast this theoretical chain reaction would travel if it happened. If the bomb were to be dropped on them here in Washington, it would presumably be an instant death. But if it were dropped on New York, he wondered what vision they would behold as the explosive ripple of separating atoms approached them here, 300 miles away. A wall of brilliant light sweeping across the world, the light of a thousand suns bearing down on them, consuming all matter in front of it, and leaving behind it only superheated sub-atomic fragments?

‘One minute,’ Truman announced drily. Then, all of a sudden, the call connection came through. ‘Gentlemen,’ Truman continued, ‘I’ve got the company commander of the Times Square anti-aircraft battery on the phone.’

They heard an indistinct noise over the speaker-phone on the table in front of Truman, a hiss and a warble, the rumble of wind and of distant traffic and the muffled sound of a voice.

‘Is this Captain Delaware?’ Truman asked, speaking loudly into the mouthpiece.

‘Captain Eugene Delaware,’ they heard someone answer equally loudly. ‘Who’s this?’

‘This is President Truman.’

The captain laughed, ‘Steve, you trying that shit on me again? I told you this kind of crap don’t—’

‘Captain Delaware, this is your President, and I don’t have the time nor am I in the mood to play games with you, son.’

The President had struck the right tone.

‘Uh?’ Delaware responded. The noise over the speaker was suddenly muted, as if a hand had been placed over the mouthpiece and they heard the frantic exchange of muffled voices.

‘Captain Delaware, I was directed to this line via Colonel Smithson. When we’re done here you can check on that,’ added Truman impatiently.

The noise of wind and distant traffic returned as, presumably, the young captain had removed his hand. ‘Mr President… I’m really s-sorry, sir.’

‘Don’t worry about it, son. Listen now. We have had a report that one of our B-17 bomber planes is inbound to New York.’ Truman looked up at General Arnold, who nodded. ‘It’s carrying an important guest… but, we think it may be in some trouble.’

‘Yes, sir. A B-17, sir.’

‘We think it should be arriving any time soon. I want you to stay on the line with me, Captain, and let me know what you can see or hear. You got that?’

‘Y-yes, sir. I got that, sir.’

The conference room was utterly silent as all of them strained to listen to the confusion of noises coming from the small table-top speaker. Wallace wondered if New York was the target, whether they would actually be able to hear the distant drone of the flying fortress’s engines moments before this bomb was to be dropped.

Truman broke the silence. ‘So, is there anything in the skies, son? Anything you can see or hear?’

‘It’s very noisy, sir. A lot of noise up here. I’m just looking around. There’s patchy cloud cover, sir. Broken clouds, so anything approaching could be hidden from us until it’s quite close.’

‘Just keep looking, Captain, and stay with us,’ said Truman.

The President looked down at his watch. ‘By my timepiece, we have under a minute left, gentlemen. In case I’m not around to say so… thank you for attending these last two days.’ Almost as an afterthought, Truman added: ‘God bless America.’

Wallace smiled at the President’s words, and he found himself marvelling at Truman’s composure. The man must be as nervous as him, probably much more so, given that he had no understanding of the science that confidently assured Wallace that this day would not be their last. Only Wallace and Frewer could see the numbers that made this bomb a nonsense. Their eyes met across the conference room and Frewer shook his head in a relaxed manner and smiled to reassure Wallace.

Nothing’s going to happen, kid.

Even so, Wallace couldn’t help but feel the cold draught of fate rushing towards them all.

The second hand on the wall clock passed by the nine and now pulled upwards towards the twelve in a languid arc.