“He’s down with Groves, yes. See, at five-thirty we have the dark that’s necessary to photograph the blast accurately, and then quickly we have the daylight to bring in the tank and perform the rest of the recovery process.”

“You mean, five-thirty is the last possible moment you can run your goddamn test if the weather clears.”

“Also the best moment. We should have thought of it before.”

Oppy stopped to cough as if he were emptying his lungs. A paperback stuck out of his jacket pocket, a collection of poems, Les Fleurs du mal. If Joe wanted to plant Gold’s card, that was the pocket.

“That’s your pose for the countdown, an appreciater of poetry?” Joe asked.

“You know your Baudelaire? It’s perfect.” Oppy opened the door to the platform. “ ‘I am like the king of a rainy country, wealthy but helpless, young and ripe with death.’ ”

“It’s pouring. Your cables are going to short, your cameras won’t see it and the observer plane won’t even find the tower.”

“That’s what everyone else says.”

“Then call it off.”

“The general says the weather will clear. The general wants optimum conditions—”

“The general needs Trinity. The general needs Trinity because he’s never seen combat and the Army is going to dump him back to colonel if he doesn’t produce a bomb.”

“I say it will clear.”

“You say it will clear? Now you’re the weatherman?”

“I’m a scientist. We should hold out until the last—”

“You’re going to tell me about your fucking sailboat again? We’re a hundred feet up with a bomb in the rain; we’re not reliving your happy childhood.”

Oppy leaned against the door and turned to Joe. “The dude from Riverside Drive? Do you remember him?”

“Yeah.”

“The one you turned from Jewboy into cowboy? But the world demands success on a somewhat grander scale. Joe, I need Trinity. I need to end the war before it ends without me. That’s why we’ll try tonight.”

“Augustino wants you to try tonight.”

“The captain was the one who suggested we return to the tower. Groves wanted to get me away from the crowd.” Oppy crossed the shed and rested his hand on the bomb. “I wanted to see it again.”

“Augustino says it’s a dud and you’re Stalin’s master spy. He’s taking you straight from Trinity to jail. Call the shot off and I’ll take care of Augustino for you.”

Oppy began pacing again. “If it works, he can’t touch me.”

“You don’t have to take the chance.”

When Oppy stumbled over ropes, two yellow wands shot across the floor. Their appearance was so startling and they glittered so on the oak planks that they might have been a pair of golden serpents that had climbed the tower.

“These are from that crazy medicine man. Augustino said you were involved.”