of TNT. Size of a fist. Hard to imagine.“
Jake took the paper. Stars and Stripes. U.S. reveals atom bomb used first time on japs. The other war, almost forgotten. A city he’d never heard of. Two square miles wiped out in one blast, the mess behind the Alex a warmup by comparison.
“It’s over now for sure,” Breimer said, but what Jake saw was the Russian’s face by the jeep, uneasy.
“How does it work?” he said, scanning the page. A chart of the other bombs, getting bigger toward the bottom.
“You’ll have to ask the eggheads that. All I know is, it did. They say you still can’t see through the smoke. Two days. No wonder old Harry was playing hardball with the Reds. You have to hand it to him-he sure kept this one close to the vest.”
Jaunty in a double-breasted suit on the Cecilienhof terrace, smiling for Liz’s camera. With an ace up his sleeve.
“Yes sir, a great day,” Breimer said, still excited. “When I think of all those boys-coming home. They’ll all be coming home now. In one piece too, thank the Lord.”
Jake looked at the fleshy face moving into another Kiwanis speech. But wasn’t it true? Who would wish a single Marine dead on a Honshu beach? On Okinawa, they’d had to drag the Japs out of caves with flamethrowers, one by one. Still, something new, worse than before. Breimer was starting in again.
“How’s the patient?” Jake said, interrupting.
“On the mend, on the mend,” Breimer said. “Thanks to Corporal Kelly here. Too pretty to be a nurse, if you ask me. But you should see her make them hop to. No monkey business with this one.”
“Not with a hypodermic in your hand, anyway,” she said dryly, but her plain face was smiling, flattered.
“Can I see him?”
“Joe would want to see him,” Breimer said to the nurse, clearly in charge. He put his hand on Jake’s shoulder. “That’s a hell of a thing you did, getting him out of there. We’re all grateful, I can tell you that.”
“We who?”
“We everybody,” Breimer said, dropping the hand. “Americans. That’s an important boy we’ve got in there, one of the best. You don’t want the Russkies getting their hands on him.”
“He’s not a favorite of theirs?”
Breimer took this as a joke and smiled. “Not exactly. Not Joe.” He lowered his voice. “Shame about the girl.”
“Yes.” Jake moved to the door. “She’s on duty when?” he said, nodding toward the nurse.
“Twice a day. Make sure everything’s all right. I come when I can, of course. Least I can do. Joe’s been a real help to me.”
“Can you get someone round the clock? Use some pull? There ought to be someone here.”
Breimer smiled. “Now don’t get all excited. He’s not that sick. Main trouble’s keeping him in bed. Wants to do things too soon.”
“The Russians took a shot at him once. They can do it again.” Jake spread his hand toward the front door, wide open to the street.
Breimer looked at him, troubled. “They said it was an accident.”
“They weren’t there. I was. I’d get somebody, just in case.”
“Maybe you’re a little jumpy. We’re not in the Russian zone here.”
“Congressman, the whole city’s a Russian zone. You want to take the chance?”
Breimer met his eyes, all business now. “Let me see what I can do.” Not even a quibble.
“Armed,” Jake said, then opened the door.
Shaeffer was propped up in bed, bare-chested, with a wad of gauze and adhesive tape covering one side. They’d given him a haircut in the hospital and now, with his ears sticking out, he seemed ten years younger, no longer a poster Aryan, smaller out of uniform, like a high school athlete without the shoulder pads. He was reading the newspaper too, but dropped it on the sheet when Jake came in.
“Well, finally. I was hoping you’d come. I wanted to thank—”
“Save it,” Jake said easily, casing the room. Ground floor, an open window facing the bed. The room had been a library; a few books were still leaning on their sides on the shelves, evidently not worth ransacking. “You should have stayed in the hospital.”
“Oh, I’m all right,” Shaeffer said, cheerful, taking it for medical concern. “You hang around there long enough, some sawbones wants to take a leg off. You know the army.”
“I mean it’s safer. Any rooms upstairs?” He walked over to the window and looked out.
“Safer?”
“I asked Breimer to get a guard out front.”
“What for?”
“You tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Why the Russians took a potshot at you.”
“At me?”
“The congressman seemed to think they don’t like you very much.”
“Breimer? He sees Russians in his dreams.”
“Yeah, well, I saw them in Potsdam. Shooting-at you. Now suppose you tell me why they’d want to do that.” He pulled up a chair next to the bed.
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
Jake said nothing, staring at him from the chair. Finally Shaeffer, restless, looked away.
“Got a smoke?” he said. “The nurse took mine. Says I’ll live longer.”
“Not the way you’re going,” Jake said, lighting the cigarette and handing it to him, still staring.
“Look, I owe you something, I guess, but I don’t owe you a story. I can’t. The work’s classified.”
“I don’t have any notebooks out. This one’s for me, not the papers. You almost got me killed out there too. I figure I’m entitled to know why. Now, how about it?”
Shaeffer took another drag, following the smoke up with his eyes as if he were leaving the room with it. “You know FIAT?”
“No.”
“Field Information Agency Technical. Fancy way of saying we take care of the scientists. Debriefing. Detention centers. Whatever.”
“Like Kransberg,” Jake said.
Shaeffer nodded. “Like Kransberg.”
“And what’s the whatever?”
“Finding them in the first place. It’s possible we set up a team to cover Berlin. It’s possible the Russians don’t like that.”
“Why? They’ve been here since May. What’s left?”
Shaeffer smiled, expansive. “Plenty. The Russians were so busy shipping out the hardware, it took them a little while to realize they needed the guys who ran it. By that time a lot of them had disappeared-gone west, maybe into hiding. The Russians have a hard time recruiting. People aren’t falling over themselves to travel east.”
“Not when they can get a fat contract from American Dye,” Jake said, nodding to the door.
Shaeffer looked at him, then stubbed out the cigarette. “Don’t push me. He’s out of it, or we stop here. Understood?”
“I hear you.”
“Anyway, that’s not it. The Russians have been offering good salaries too. If you want to go to work in the fucking Urals.”
“Instead of beautiful Utica.”
Shaeffer looked again. “I mean it.”
Jake held up his hand. “Okay, they don’t go to Utica.”
“No, they don’t. Dayton, since you want to know. There’s a facility near Wright Field.” He stopped, aware that he’d given something for free, then shrugged. “The first group goes to Dayton. If we can get them over.
