Weeks later, Navy helicopters raced away from the island, which had been radically transformed by its new owners. The boy, his friends, family, and neighbors—all 170 natives of the atoll—had been relocated to another island hundreds of miles away. The simple village had been razed. Thatch huts and fire pits were replaced by temporary utility structures, along with massive concrete bunkers built to protect cameras and other test equipment. Frightened pigs and goats were locked inside cages labeled “Test Animals.” Some had been shaved and coated in experimental lotions—in the interests of science. They squealed and grunted anxiously as the ‘copters departed, abandoning them on the island. An atomic bomb stayed behind to keep them company.

The bomb rested ominously atop a sturdy metal platform constructed by Navy engineers. It was a large, riveted metal egg over eleven feet in length and weighing more than ten thousand pounds. Hand-painted on its nose cone was a snarling lizard, with angry eyes and fangs, pinned inside the cross-hairs of a gun sight.

Fleeing the island, the ‘copters passed over the deck of a massive escort carrier floating several miles away from the test site. The USS Bairoko was a Commencement Bay-class carrier, nearly seven hundred feet long and displacing over ten thousand long tons. Commissioned too late to take part in the War, it had been named after the decisive Battle of Bairoko and pressed into peace-time service. The carrier housed over a thousand souls, including, on this particular mission, a number of scientific observers, many of whom waited tensely on the deck as crucial minutes ticked by. They stared out across the sea at the tiny atoll, which was only a smudge in the distance, and sweated in the heat and humidity. The sun blazed overhead, powered by the same thermonuclear reactions that were about to be unleashed on the defenseless islands.

In the ship’s bridge, a sonar screen tracked a large green dot advancing toward the atoll.

“Countdown commences at thirty,” a voice blared from the loudspeakers. “Twenty-nine… twenty-eight…”

The entire world seemed to hold its breath.

Beyond the carrier, the sea boiled white as a chain of immense, jagged fins broke through the churning froth. Shipboard observers looked on in awe, instinctively backing away from the jaw-dropping spectacle. Each fin was at least the size of a massive rock formation. The mind boggled at the thought of what they might be attached to.

On the island, the test animals sensed what was bearing down on them. They squealed and bleated in panic, bucking and scrambling in their cages. Goats kicked violently against the bars, bloodying their hooves in their frantic attempts to break free. Pigs pawed at the unyielding metal floors of their cages, trying unsuccessfully to burrow to safety. Seabirds abandoned the islands in a flurry of flapping wings. Brightly colored fish fled the lagoon, preferring the dubious safety of the open sea to what was now approaching. Sharks and other predators fled as well.