Winter of the World (89 page)

Carla and Ada turned a corner, and relief washed over Carla like a tidal wave. She had got rid of the corpse. If only she could get home without attracting further attention – and without
anyone looking inside the wardrobe and seeing the bloody towel – she would be safe. There would be no murder investigation. Joachim had become a pedestrian killed in a blackout accident. If
he had really been dragged along the cobbled street by the wheels of the truck, he might have received injuries similar to those caused by the heavy base of Ada’s soup pot. Perhaps a skilled
autopsy doctor could tell the difference – but no one would consider an autopsy necessary.

Carla thought about dumping the wardrobe, and decided against it. Even without the towel it had bloodstains inside, and might spark a police investigation on its own. They had to take it home
and scrub it clean.

They got home without meeting anyone else.

They put the wardrobe down in the hall. Ada took out the towel, put it in the kitchen sink, and ran the cold tap. Carla felt a mixture of elation and sadness. She had stolen the Nazis’
battle plan, but she had killed a young man who was more foolish than wicked. She would think about that for many days, perhaps years, before she could be sure how she felt about it. For now she
was just too tired.

She told her mother what they had done. Maud’s left cheek was so puffed up that her eye was almost closed. She was pressing her left side as if to ease a pain. She looked terrible.

Carla said: ‘You were terribly brave, Mother. I admire you so much for what you did today.’

Maud said wearily: ‘I don’t feel admirable. I’m so ashamed. I despise myself.’

‘Because you didn’t love him?’ said Carla.

‘No,’ said Maud. ‘Because I did.’

1942 (III)

Greg Peshkov graduated from Harvard
summa cum laude
, the highest honour. He could have gone on effortlessly to take a doctorate in physics, his major, and thus have
avoided military service. But he did not want to be a scientist. His ambition was to wield a different kind of power. And, after the war was over, a military record would be a huge plus for a
rising young politician. So he joined the army.

On the other hand, he did not want actually to have to fight.

He followed the European war with heightened interest at the same time as he pressured everyone he knew in Washington – which was a lot of people – to get him a desk job at War
Department headquarters.

The German summer offensive had started on 28 June, and they had swiftly pushed east, meeting relatively light opposition, until they reached the city of Stalingrad, formerly called Tsaritsyn,
where they were halted by fierce Russian resistance. Now they were stalled, with overstretched supply lines, and it was looking more and more as if the Red Army had drawn them into a trap.

Greg had not long been in basic training when he was summoned to the colonel’s office. ‘The Army Corps of Engineers needs a bright young officer in Washington,’ the colonel
said. ‘You’ve interned in Washington, but all the same you wouldn’t have been my first choice – you can’t even keep your goddamn uniform clean, look at you – but
the job requires a knowledge of physics, and the field is kind of limited.’

Greg said: ‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Try that kind of sarcasm on your new boss and you’ll regret it. You’re going to be an assistant to a Colonel Groves. I was at West Point with him. He’s the biggest son
of a bitch I ever met, in the army or out. Good luck.’

Greg called Mike Penfold in the State Department press office and found out that until recently Leslie Groves had been chief of construction for the entire US Army, and had been responsible for
the military’s new Washington headquarters, the vast five-sided building they were beginning to call the Pentagon. But he had been moved to a new project that no one knew much about. Some
said he had offended his superiors so often that he had been effectively demoted; others that his new role was even more important but top secret. They all agreed he was egotistical, arrogant and
ruthless.

‘Does
everybody
hate him?’ Greg asked.

‘Oh, no,’ Mike said. ‘Only those who have met him.’

Lieutenant Greg Peshkov was full of trepidation when he arrived at Groves’s office in the striking New War Department Building, a pale-tan art deco palace on 21st Street and Virginia
Avenue. Right away he learned that he was part of a group called the Manhattan Engineer District. This deliberately uninformative name camouflaged a team who were trying to invent a new kind of
bomb using uranium as an explosive.

Greg was intrigued. He knew there was incalculable energy locked up in uranium’s lighter isotope, U-235, and he had read several papers on the subject in scientific journals. But news of
the research had dried up a couple of years ago, and now Greg knew why.

He learned that President Roosevelt felt the project was moving too slowly, and Groves had been appointed to crack the whip.

Greg arrived six days after Groves had been reassigned. His first task for Groves was to help him pin stars to the collar of his khaki shirt: he had just been promoted to brigadier-general.
‘It’s mainly to impress all these civilian scientists we have to work with,’ Groves growled. ‘I have a meeting in the Secretary of War’s office in ten minutes.
You’d better come with me, it’ll serve you for a briefing.’

Groves was heavy. An inch under six feet tall, he had to weigh two hundred and fifty pounds, maybe three hundred. He wore his uniform pants high, and his belly bulged under his webbing belt. He
had chestnut-coloured hair that might have curled if it had been grown long enough. He had a narrow forehead, fat cheeks, and a jowly chin. His small moustache was all but invisible. He was an
unattractive man in every way, and Greg was not looking forward to working for him.

Groves and his entourage, including Greg, left the building and walked down Virginia Avenue to the National Mall. On the way, Groves said to Greg: ‘When they gave me this job, they told me
it could win the war. I don’t know if that’s true, but my plan is to act as if it is. You’d better do the same.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Greg.

The Secretary of War had not yet moved into the unfinished Pentagon, and War Department headquarters were still in the old Munitions Building, a long, low, out-of-date ‘temporary’
structure on Constitution Avenue.

Secretary of War Henry Stimson was a Republican, brought in by the President to keep that party from undermining the war effort by making trouble in Congress. At seventy-five, Stimson was an
elder statesman, a dapper old man with a white moustache, but the light of intelligence still gleamed in his grey eyes.

The meeting was a full-dress performance, and the room was full of bigwigs including Army Chief of Staff George Marshall. Greg felt nervous, and he thought admiringly that Groves was remarkably
calm for someone who had been a mere colonel yesterday.

Groves began by outlining how he intended to impose order on the hundreds of civilian scientists and dozens of physics laboratories involved in the Manhattan project. He made no attempt to defer
to the high-ranking men who might well have thought they were in charge. He outlined his plans without troubling to use such mollifying phrases as ‘with your permission’ and ‘if
you agree’. Greg wondered whether the man was trying to get himself fired.

Greg learned so much new information that he wanted to take notes, but no one else did, and he guessed it would not look right.

When Groves had done, one of the group said: ‘I believe supplies of uranium are crucial to the project. Do we have enough?’

Groves answered: ‘There are 1,250 tons of pitchblende – that’s the ore that contains uranium oxide – in a yard on Staten Island.’

‘Then we’d better acquire some of that,’ said the questioner.

‘I bought it all on Friday, sir.’

‘Friday? The day after you were appointed?’

‘Correct.’

The Secretary of War smothered a smile. Greg’s surprise at Groves’s arrogance began to turn to admiration of his nerve.

A man in admiral’s uniform said: ‘What about the priority rating of this project? You need to clear the decks with the War Production Board.’

‘I saw Donald Nelson on Saturday, sir,’ said Groves. Nelson was the civilian head of the board. ‘I asked him to raise our rating.’

‘What did he say?

‘He said no.’

‘That’s a problem.’

‘Not any longer. I told him I would have to recommend to the President that the Manhattan project be abandoned because the War Production Board was unwilling to co-operate. Then he gave us
a triple-A.’

‘Good,’ said the Secretary of War.

Greg was impressed again. Groves was a real pistol.

Stimson said: ‘Now, you’ll be supervised by a committee that will report to me. Nine members have been suggested—’

‘Hell, no,’ said Groves.

The Secretary of War said: ‘What did you say?’

Surely, Greg thought, Groves has gone too far this time.

Groves said: ‘I can’t report to a committee of nine, Mr Secretary. I’ll never get ’em off my back.’

Stimson grinned. He was too old a hand to get offended by this kind of talk, it seemed. He said mildly: ‘What number would you suggest, General?’

Greg could see that Groves wanted to say ‘None,’ but what came out was: ‘Three would be perfect.’

‘All right,’ said the Secretary of War, to Greg’s amazement. ‘Anything else?’

‘We’re going to need a large site, something like sixty thousand acres, for a uranium enrichment plant and associated facilities. There’s a suitable area in Oak Ridge,
Tennessee. It’s a ridge valley, so that if there should be an accident the explosion will be contained.’

‘An accident?’ said the admiral. ‘Is that likely?’

Groves did not hide his feeling that this was a dumb question. ‘We’re making an experimental bomb, for Christ’s sake,’ he said. ‘A bomb so powerful that it promises
to flatten a medium-size city with one detonation. We’d be pretty goddamn dumb if we ignored the possibility of accidents.’

The admiral looked as if he wanted to protest, but Stimson intervened, saying: ‘Carry on, General.’

‘Land is cheap in Tennessee,’ Groves said. ‘So is electricity – and our plant will use huge quantities of power.’

‘So you’re proposing to buy this land.’

‘I’m proposing to view it today.’ Groves looked at his watch. ‘In fact, I need to leave now to catch my train to Knoxville.’ He stood up. ‘If you will excuse
me, gentlemen, I don’t want to lose any time.’

The other men in the room were flabbergasted. Even Stimson looked startled. No one in Washington dreamed of leaving a Secretary’s office before he indicated he was through. It was a major
breach of etiquette. But Groves seemed not to care.

And he got away with it. ‘Very well,’ said Stimson. ‘Don’t let us hold you up.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Groves, and he left the room.

Greg hurried out after him.

(ii)

The most attractive civilian secretary in the New War Office Building was Margaret Cowdry. She had big dark eyes and a wide, sensual mouth. When you saw her sitting behind
her typewriter, and she glanced up at you and smiled, you felt as if you were already making love to her.

Her father had turned baking into a mass-production industry: ‘Cowdry’s Cookies crumble just like Ma’s!’ She had no need to work, but she was doing her bit for the war
effort. Before inviting her to lunch, Greg made sure she knew that he, too, was the child of a millionaire. An heiress usually preferred to date a rich boy: she could feel confident he was not
after her money.

It was October and cold. Margaret wore a stylish navy-blue coat with padded shoulders and a nipped-in waist. Her matching beret had a military look.

They went to the Ritz-Carlton, but when they got to the dining room Greg saw his father having lunch with Gladys Angelus. He did not want to make it a foursome. When he explained this to
Margaret, she said: ‘No problem. We’ll have lunch at the University Women’s Club around the corner. I’m a member there.’

Greg had never been there, but he had a feeling he knew something about it. For a moment he chased the thought around his memory, but it eluded him, so he put it out of his mind.

At the club Margaret removed her coat to reveal a royal-blue cashmere dress that clung to her alluringly. She kept on her hat and gloves, as all respectable women did when eating out.

As always, Greg loved the sensation of walking into a place with a beautiful woman on his arm. In the dining room of the University Women’s Club there were only a handful of men, but they
all envied him. Although he might not admit it to anyone else, he enjoyed this as much as sleeping with women.

He ordered a bottle of wine. Margaret mixed hers with mineral water, French style, saying: ‘I don’t want to spend the afternoon correcting my typing mistakes.’

He told her about General Groves. ‘He’s a real go-getter. In some ways he’s a badly dressed version of my father.’

‘Everyone hates him,’ Margaret said.

Greg nodded. ‘He rubs people up the wrong way.’

‘Is your father like that?’

‘Sometimes, but mostly he uses charm.’

‘Mine’s the same! Maybe all successful men are that way.’

The meal went quickly. Service in Washington restaurants had speeded up. The nation was at war and men had urgent work to do.

A waitress brought them the dessert menu. Greg glanced at her and was startled to recognize Jacky Jakes. ‘Hello, Jacky!’ he said.

‘Hi, Greg,’ she replied, familiarity overlaying nervousness. ‘How have you been?’

Greg recalled the detective telling him that she worked at the University Women’s Club. That was the memory that had eluded him before. ‘I’m just fine,’ he said.
‘How about you?’

‘Real good.’

‘Everything going on just the same?’ He was wondering if his father was still paying her an allowance.

‘Pretty much.’

Greg guessed that some lawyer was paying out the money and Lev had forgotten all about it. ‘That’s good,’ he said.