After she returned to the house, Joe poured the scotch out. The party would be over soon and he’d go to Santa Fe to deliver the gelignite waiting in his jeep; he’d have his drink then. Besides, some guests were wandering into the garden now to take advantage of the evening, the hour between the heat of the June day and the chill of the mountain night. The altitude of the Hill was seven thousand feet. Voices seemed to carry, or maybe they were just louder. In the last month, since the defeat of Germany and death of Hitler, all the émigrés seemed wrapped in a rubicund patriotism, as if their Americanism had been confirmed. They’d make Trinity work, no matter what. He saw Kitty inside with Oppy and the woman who had been in Oppy’s car that morning. Kitty sat on the hearth and the new arrival stood at the far end of the fireplace while, between them, Oppy leaned, almost contorted, at an angle across the mantel. The toe of his Wellington touched Kitty’s knee and his long fingers stroked the glass that the younger woman had set on the corner of the mantel. He looked like a poet dictating. Kitty looked like a toughened muse. The younger woman seemed both wary and fascinated. The azalea was no longer in her hair.

“One grenade here could change the history of physics, couldn’t it, Sergeant?”

Captain Augustino had rolled up to the garden gate and stopped his jeep behind Joe’s.

Joe saluted. “Yes, sir.”

“What in the world are they doing now?”

A radio was being handed out a window. The sound of a piano drifted across the garden to the cars. Joe hadn’t realized until now that the mesa crickets were chirping away, vying now with Beethoven. A sonata with insects luring the entire party outside, except for Oppy and the two women.

“I think that’s the Hill station, sir. I think that’s Teller playing.”

Los Alamos transmitted a signal that died before it reached the valley. Teller was sloppy on technique, but his playing had a lot of momentum.

“Sergeant, what would you say if I told you that Mrs. Augustino is dead? That she was shot by an intruder back in Texas and that the intruder escaped?”

The Beethoven was coming to a crescendo. No one in the garden could hear what was said by a captain and sergeant at the gate.

“I’d say you were lying, sir. Why would you kill her when you can make her pay for the rest of her life?”

“Sergeant, you show real promise. Come closer.”

The music was followed by light static, and there was a hush of anticipation as people stood around the radio. Cigarettes glowed in the shadows.

“Sir?”

“Wait,” Augustino said.