“Marx was a Jew by blood, you know. The worldwide Communist movement started with Marx. The Russian Revolution was largely led by Jews, such as Trotsky. Every country on earth, even China, is fighting for its soul against Marx.”

“Even China?”

“History unfolds like a wonderful and terrible adventure. There are great rhythms and cycles. Each century is different.”

“What was the last century?”

“That was the Century of the White Man.”

Joe couldn’t figure what this had to do with Mrs. Augustino. “Sure wasn’t the Century of the Red Man.”

“No. But now we’re all in the same boat, Sergeant. First Marx overthrows traditional authority and religion; then another Jew destroys every absolute in the laws of science.”

“Really?”

“Science was built on absolute laws until Einstein’s theories of relativity and quantum physics. Marx and Einstein. Now there’s nothing an intelligent man can believe in, either in religion or in science. The very word ‘atom’ in Greek means that which is indivisible, did you know that?”

“No, sir.”

“Which does not mean”—Captain Augustino stirred beside Joe—“that they haven’t suffered. When I hear of the suffering of the Jews under Hitler, I wish I were a Jew myself. You see, in the Century of the Jew they’ve taken our hearts, when they already had our minds. You see how it’s coming together, all of it, right here.”

“Here?”

“I’m talking, Sergeant, of the Third Great Jew. Sergeant, what would you say if I told you that J. Robert Oppenheimer is the most brilliant man you or I or anyone here has ever met?”

“Could be, sir.”

“Sergeant, what would you say if I told you that Oppenheimer is an agent of the Soviet Union, intent on developing an atomic weapon here only so that he can deliver the finished plans to his Soviet friends?”

Joe didn’t know what to say. They had entered a depth of insanity that he was unprepared for.

“You’d say I was mad, wouldn’t you, Sergeant?”

“Have you”—Joe picked his words carefully—“passed your opinion on to General Groves, sir?”

“As did the FBI. But the general is in Oppenheimer’s thrall. Everyone is. Nobel laureates are his lapdogs and the United States Army has been tied up and delivered as a gift to him. I have felt the allure myself.”

“Have you, sir?”

“The most fascinating conversations in my life have been those with Oppenheimer on history. He read The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire on a single train trip from New York to Los Angeles, and Das Kapital on the way back. This is a physicist, I remind you.”

“True,” Joe said. Oppy was always trying to launch turgid conversations.