So far they had not succeeded.

Greg wrote a favourable précis of the report, asked Margaret Cowdry to type it right away, then took it in to Groves.

The general read the first paragraph and said: ‘Will it work?’

‘Well, sir—’

‘You’re the goddamn scientist. Will it work?’

‘Yes, sir, it will work,’ Greg said.

‘Good,’ said Groves, and threw the summary in his waste-paper bin.

Greg returned to his desk and sat for a while, staring at the representation of the Periodic Table of the Elements on the wall opposite his desk. He was pretty sure the nuclear pile would work. He was more worried about how to force his father to withdraw the threat to Jacky.

Earlier, he had thought about handling the problem as Lev would have done. Now he began to think about practical details. He needed to take a dramatic stand.

His plan began to take shape.

But did he have the guts to confront his father?

At five he left for the day.

On the way home he stopped at a barbershop and bought a straight razor, the folding kind where the blade slid into the handle. The barber said: ‘You’ll find it better than a safety razor, with your beard.’

Greg was not going to shave with it.

His home was his father’s permanent suite at the Ritz-Carlton. When Greg arrived, Lev and Gladys were having cocktails.

He remembered meeting Gladys for the first time in this room seven years ago, sitting on the same yellow silk couch. She was an even bigger star now. Lev had put her in a series of shamelessly gung-ho war movies in which she defied sneering Nazis, outwitted sadistic Japanese, and nursed square-jawed American pilots back to health. She was not quite as beautiful as she had been at twenty, Greg observed. The skin of her face did not have the same perfect smoothness; her hair did not seem so luxuriant; and she was wearing a brassiere, which she would undoubtedly have scorned before. But she still had dark-blue eyes that seemed to issue an irresistible invitation.

Greg accepted a martini and sat down. Was he really going to defy his father? He had not done it in the seven years since he had first shaken Gladys’s hand. Perhaps it was time.

I’ll do it just the way he would, Greg thought.

He sipped his drink and set it down on a side table with spidery legs. Speaking conversationally, he said to Gladys: ‘When I was fifteen, my father introduced me to an actress called Jacky Jakes.’

Lev’s eyes widened.

‘I don’t think I know her,’ said Gladys.

Greg took the razor from his pocket, but did not open it. He held it in his hand as if feeling its weight. ‘I fell in love with her.’

Lev said: ‘Why are you dragging this ancient history up now?’

Gladys sensed the tension and looked anxious.

Greg went on: ‘Father was afraid I might want to marry her.’