What are they doing here? An atomic bomb, a nuclear device—whatever those words signified. He couldn’t help knowing the terminology from being Oppy’s driver and overhearing incomprehensible conversations in the backseat. Chain reaction? Fast neutrons and slow neutrons? It was all a different language, like Sanskrit. Of course, Oppy knew Sanskrit.

Joe set his drink on a flagstone and lit his first cigarette of the day. He still had the habits of a fighter trying to stay in shape, although for what he didn’t know.

As Teller came out the doors, he said, “Joe, you could take lessons and become a real pianist. You could play Beethoven.”

“Ah, the big-band sound,” Joe said. As soon as he could he picked up his drink and slipped away from a fierce analysis of the American jitterbug. Teller had a wooden leg.

Joe was nearly at the doors when his way was blocked by Anna Weiss, the woman Oppy had been instructing in the manufacture of martinis. She was now in the company of another émigré with a bland and pasty face, straw-colored hair and rimless glasses. His name was Klaus Fuchs. Joe couldn’t remember ever passing a single word with him, but apparently Fuchs had been giving Fräulein Weiss the usual Los Alamos tour: There are the mountains, there are the mesas, there is the Indian.

“You were, in fact, the one who first brought Oppy here?” she asked Joe.

Joe nodded. “This was a private school then. A year at the Ranch School cost more than Harvard. The war wiped it out.”

“And led you back. That is irony?”

“No, that’s pure Army.”

The two of them seemed to stare at Joe from the far end of a scale of intelligence.

“Kitty is telling everyone you are musical,” she said. “Klaus says you have no actual ability.”

Fuchs shrugged. “It should be enough to be a war hero.”

“You’re kind,” Joe said. “Of course, it’s important to be on the right side of the war.”

“They grow up with rifles here, Dr. Fuchs,” a voice said from the dark of the garden. “It’s a simple thing to be a war hero if you can fire a rifle.”

“I have never shot anything,” Fuchs said.

“Of course not.” Captain Augustino took a step toward the patio, just enough for them to see him. “In fact, we’re in hunting season now. I wouldn’t go wandering in the woods.”

“Naturally,” Fuchs said.

“A moon like this, maybe snow, every Indian is going to be out for his deer tonight. It could be dangerous.”

“Yes, yes.”