“I didn’t hear you come up,” Joe shouted over the thunder.

“Not in this storm, Sergeant.” Captain Augustino squeezed into the shed as it went black again.

“I thought you went with Oppy and General Groves.”

“Private Eberly drove them.” Water dripped as Augustino pulled the poncho’s cowl from his head. “You gave Oppenheimer the card, Sergeant?”

The captain hadn’t brought the submachine gun, Joe thought.

“There’s not going to be any Trinity, sir.”

“Dr. Oppenheimer thinks there is. General Groves thinks there is. I think there is. You didn’t give him the card?”

“In his jacket.” Joe shifted to block the captain’s view of the receiver and the stub lying on it even though the shed was dark. “The pocket with the book.”

White light flooded through the open door, filling the shed like a well, touching bomb, cradle, wands, cable with a dizzying clarity, and in that shaft of light outside Joe saw not a drop. It wasn’t raining anymore. As the light faded into sound, the wings of Augustino’s poncho spread. Joe drew his .45, but all Augustino held was a cigarette lighter. He brought the lighter to the bomb so that the flame reflected dully in the steel sphere and made the wands flitter. He pulled them free of the ropes to examine them.

“Magic, Sergeant?”

“I’m down to that, sir.”

“We’re all down to that. I have just seen scientists literally on their knees in the bunkers praying to this tower. Magic is in the air tonight.” He snapped the wands in half. “Why take chances? See, Sergeant, I’m willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt—medicine men, physicists, they’re all the same to me. I think that as a race we only move from cave to bigger cave, from fire to bigger fire, and outside there’s always something to frighten us. By the way, you may not have noticed, but the weather has changed.”

31

Thunder became a receding tide. The last bolts were perfunctory and muffled. On the floor the broken wands looked dead.

“You never gave him Harry Gold’s card,” Augustino said. “I saw it.”

“That’s right, sir.” Joe took the damp card from the receiver. He prodded the captain out onto the platform. “Thirty minutes to go. We’ll just drive about six miles out and hide behind a camera bunker until the test is over, sir.”