"We can still put the card on Oppenheimer." He pocketed his lighter and jumped down a few rungs. "You can still save Anna Weiss. Last chance."

"Keep your hands in sight, sir."

Augustino lifted his hand to show a nickel-plated .22, just the sort of shiny little item an officer would carry, Joe thought.

"While you were boxing, Sergeant, I found your uniform and firearm and I emptied your clip."

Joe aimed at the captain's eyes and squeezed the trigger. The .45's hammer slapped an empty breach.

Augustino went on, undisturbed, "Anna Weiss is at the border right now. A phone call can still catch her. You never should have touched Mrs Augustino."

Augustino fired. A head shot. Joe's hair whipped to one side, spewing blood. A heart shot. Joe turned, as if he'd thought to dodge, and dropped.

The first shot had dug across the cranium and mass of hair. The second penetrated the heavy muscle of the chest and scored the ribs. As he fell to the platform, Joe reached and took Augustino by the throat, and Augustino fired wide.

"Oh, say does that star…" swelled across the flat as headlights arrived at the base of the tower. It was the arming party jeep. Engine and headlights stayed on while the men jumped out. There was a hurried rattle of a lock, a creak of door hinges. As Augustino pressed the bright muzzle of the .22 against Joe's forehead, Joe pushed the captain off the steps so that he hung straight out from the platform in Joe's grip, 100 feet above the ground.

"Arming lead connected." Jaworski spoke into the field radio at the "privy". From the speakers in the dark flowered a tremulous"… home of the brave. Good morning and buenos dias."

With his free hand, Augustino held on to Joe's wrist to keep from being strangled. I could break the captain's neck, Joe thought.

"… Latin American broadcast from Station KCBA in Delano, Call -" vanished in a squawk of dials. Over the loudspeakers and from the receiver in the shed, Harvey answered, "Understand arming lead connected. Check." "Firing switch closed and ready," Jaworski said. "Firing switch closed and ready," Harvey answered from the receiver and speakers. Both Joe and Augustino were quiet. It was a strange pause on the edge of the platform, Joe thought, like two murderers hushing themselves for midwives in the next room.

"There's another jeep here," Jaworski said.

"Everyone's accounted for," Harvey answered.

"Joe?" Jaworski asked.

"Augustino called in ten minutes ago and said he took him out," Harvey said. 

"Then why is there a jeep here?" Jaworski demanded.

"There's no one there." A new voice came on the receiver. Oppy spoke more in a wheeze. " the firing switch is closed, leave as fast as you can. If you have a breakdown, you're goingto have to run.

"Then we'll take the other jeep, too," Jaworski said. "No." Oppy took a moment to decide, "Leave the jeep. Lock up and leave."

A door swung shut. A hasp snapped closed. An engine revved, reversed and spun in the dirt back to the road and, as if holding one communal breath, strained and gained speed towards South-10,000.

Alone, alone, now all alone, Joe thought, the two of us. "Give me the card," Augustino said. "The gun." Joe reached with his other hand. Augustino swung himself in to the steps. As the captain fired, Joe knocked the barrel up. Both shots went high and into the night. Augustino forced the barrel down to Joe's head again, but the gun clicked when he tried to fire. It was a small automatic and only carried five rounds. It was like ending a long dialogue with a stutter.

Augustino dropped the gun and clawed at Joe's hand, breaking free and twisting himself not towards, but away from the tower. He stared at Joe with eyes like lamps. The captain hung in the air so long without support, Joe thought that he might fly. Then he fell, turning over once, twice, before he hit the ground.

While Joe climbed down with one numb arm, the Voice of America played "The Nutcracker Suite". The jeep was where Jaworski had left it. He still had time to drive clear, but as soon as anyone saw new headlights at the tower, the test would stop. Joe worked on what he'd say to General Groves. More searchlights burned from West-10,000. Excuse me, sir, for the set back to the war effort, the loss of millions of dollars, the death of the captain. It was hard to believe no one saw him decending the  tower,and by way of explanation the pilot of a B-29 observer plane broke into the Tchaikovsky to say he couldn't find Trinity at all. Conversations about guages and counters went back and forth in the dark across the valley, like the runinations of a god. Anna had to be safely in Juarez, accepting the fact that safety in Juarez was a relative matter. On the final landing of the tower, Joe stopped and felt inside his shirt for the papers from Pollack. The Casa Mariana was there, folded, tucked away. He was more in shock than pain. The head wound had stopped bleeding and became a mat of damp hair. He could imagine the reaction he'd get when arrived at the bunker. Going down the wooden ladder to the ground, Joe heard a new sound, like a finger stroking the teeth of a comb. Not the lost B-29. Once a year, rains brought a generation of toads. Waking in their desert burrows, gathering around temporary pools, the amphibians sang and mated and spent their whole conscious lives in a single night. This was the night.  

Joe slipped painfully behind the steering wheel of the jeep and with his left hand reached for the key. It wasn't there. It couldn't be gone; orders were for keys to be in the ignition at all times. He felt around the floor. Under the seat. Joe got out of the jeep and felt on the ground. No key.

Joe had been the last man to drive the jeep. Augustino had been the last man in it. The captain lay, arms and legs outspread, face tightly pressed against the ground, as if turning from the glow of lights. He pulled out the dead man's pockets. No key.

The field radio. Joe went to the "privy", the heavy crate that held the firing switch. The radio was gone. Of course. Jaworski was an old soldier, he knew to take the radio with him, just in case.

The crate's door was padlocked. In the shadows of the tower legs, Joe found no loose bars or hammers. Coaxial cable ran out of the top of the eight-foot crate and up the tower, and from the bottom as a buried conduit. In either case, out of reach. Leaning on the crate and trying to push it over, Joe was surprised to learn how weak he was.

How big the valley is, he thought, as he staggered back from the tower. Mountains stooping to the plain. Far-off electric echoes over the music of toads. He started to run.

32

The wide excavation road ran straight to South-10,000. Yucca lined the shoulders.

There was a perfume to the air, the scent of cactus flowers, the stir of moths and bats.

The bullets must have been .22 shorts, he thought. Running had started the bleeding again; he was aware because of the cold. Loudspeakers barked. Mainly, he heard his heart and lungs and the sound of his shoes on tarmac.

He was better than a mile from the tower now.

A Very light hung like a new star. There was a short siren. Five minutes.

He tried to remember what Jaworski had said about hiding, about depressions and the flash. But he was too close and he could see nothing through the brush except baked, flat earth. And toads, a soft, resolute migration of them, everywhere he looked.

It was unfair. A whole year encased in hard dirt, waiting for it to be mud, to squirm freely to the surface, to see the moon and sing in passionate chorus at the rim of a brief, desert pool, only to be fried by General Groves.

The Voice of America wandered in and out, like a spectator that really couldn't keep its mind on the event at hand. Now it was playing "Sentimental Journey".