While the rainstorm went on, the shot was postponed another hour, from 0400 to 0500. Through the platform binoculars Joe watched a heavy man in uniform and a gaunt man in civvies pacing in the headlights of a sedan outside the South-10,000 shelter. Not only was the rain as bad as before, but winds had built. He knew Groves was keeping Oppy out because everyone inside wanted the test scrubbed. They made an interesting couple, Joe thought, out in the rain by themselves, circling, almost male and female in the way Groves patiently tended Oppy’s nervousness.

At 0400 a bolt exploded by the tower. Joe held on to the platform hoist and remembered what Jaworski had said about the five thousand pounds of high explosive in the shed, but the lightning blew nothing except the target light on the first landing of the tower. He climbed down the steps with another bulb. The searchlights trained on the target light half blinded him, and it took him a moment to notice that Eberly had climbed up the ladder from the ground. Beads of water ran from his poncho, nose and Adam’s apple and from the barrel of his submachine gun.

“I thought you ought to know, Chief. Captain Augustino called on the field radio by the ‘privy’ and told me to go to your jeep and make sure there were a couple of yellow sticks in there. Then he told me to shoot you if you tried to leave the tower. I don’t get it. If he thinks you’re a saboteur, why are you guarding the bomb? If you’re the guard, why should I guard you? This is the Army system?”

“The Augustino system.” If Joe was dead, he was an arsonist, by the evidence of the lightning wands in the jeep, as well as a spy, with Harry Gold’s card in his pocket. “Don’t shoot, I’ll be right back.”

He descended the ladder and ran to the jeep. The photos were gone, but the wands still lay on the front seat. He grabbed them and returned to the ladder.

Eberly had seen everything. As he reached the landing, Eberly said, “I hate the Army.”

From the platform, Joe saw what he expected. Oppy and Groves were no longer outside South-10,000. Headlights approached on the blacktop. In the shed the radio said the shot had been postponed again to 0530. Joe hid the wands behind loose ropes and slipped the stub into his pocket.

“Five-thirty in the morning is the best possible time.” Oppy’s jacket hung like a sopping rag, but he strutted within the confines of the shed and around the bomb with a new, jaunty confidence.

“Did Captain Augustino return with you?” Joe asked.