They exploded with a roar that lifted the roof off the building and threw it onto a Bessemer converter fifty yards away. The blast blew boots and clothing off the Hungarians and incinerated their bodies. Tons of fiery debris splashed down the sides of the furnace. Like a burning waterfall, it drenched the foreman and Chad Gordon in flames.

The German ran, gagging from the stink of cooked flesh. His eyes were wide with horror at what he had set off and terror that the boiling metal would catch up with him, too. No one took notice of one man running when suddenly every man in the giant mill was running. Workers from the other blast furnaces raced to the scene of death, driving wagons and carts for makeshift ambulances to carry the injured. Even the company thugs guarding the gate ignored Hans as they gaped in the direction from which he ran.

The German looked back. Flames were shooting into the night sky. The buildings around the blast furnace were wrecked. Walls had collapsed, roofs tumbled to the ground, and everywhere he saw fire.

He cursed aloud, astonished by the immensity of the destruction he had wrought.

THE NEXT MORNING, changed from his workman’s clothing into a somber black suit and exhausted from a sleepless night of brooding on how many had died, Hans stepped off a train at Washington, D.C.’s National Mall Station. He scanned the newsstands for headlines about the accident. There were none. Steelmaking was dangerous business. Workmen were killed daily. Only local newspapers in the mill towns bothered listing the dead—and often then only the foremen for their English-speaking readers.

He took a ferry to Alexandria, Virginia, and hurried along the waterfront to the warehouse district. The spy who had sent him to the steel mill was waiting in his curious den of obsolete weapons.

He listened intently to Hans’s report. He asked probing questions about the elements that Chad Gordon had introduced into his iron. Knowledgeable and insightful, he drew from Hans details that the German had barely noticed at the time.

The spy was lavish in his praise and paid in cash what he had promised.

“It is not for the money,” said the German, stuffing it in his pocket.

“Of course not.”

“It is because when war comes the Americans will side with Britain.”

“That is beyond any doubt. The democracies despise Germany.”

“But I do not like the killing,” Hans protested. Staring morbidly into the lens of the old battleship searchlight behind the spy’s desk, he saw his face reflected like a decaying skull.

The spy surprised Hans by answering in northern-accented German. Hans had assumed that the man was American, so perfect was his English. Instead, he spoke like a compatriot. “You had no choice, mein Freund. Chad Gordon’s armor plate would have given enemy ships an unfair advantage. Soon the Americans will launch dreadnoughts. Would you have their dreadnoughts sink German ships? Kill German sailors? Shell German ports?”