Sabotage in the Secret City

by Diane Fanning

  ‘It’s not that, Dennis. It’s just, well, Teddy and I … well, since your visit and my agreement, Teddy and I have made a commitment to each other to not date others.’

  ‘Oh …’

  ‘But I told him about Saturday and how I needed to honor my word. So, if you still want to go out, I am willing. I’d like to spend time with you but I would only feel right if we went Dutch.’

  Dennis let out a huge sigh. ‘Well, I guess I should have acted sooner. I would like to spend time with you, too, Libby. But under the circumstances …’

  ‘Sure. No problem. I didn’t think you’d want to keep the date. Still friends?’

  Dennis hung his head, took a deep breath and reached out a hand. ‘Friends,’ he said.

  I grabbed his hand with both of mine. ‘Definitely, Dennis.’ When I released my grasp, he gave a feeble grin, turned and trudged up the sidewalk. I stood there for a few minutes feeling like a fathead.

  In the lab, Friday and Saturday went by in a blur. I tried hard to focus on the work at hand but thoughts about how badly I’d treated Dennis kept invading and breaking my concentration. When I’d banished that topic for a while, worries about Tom and what we may or may not find on Sunday banged around in my skull. I was confused about my feelings – did I want to find him or not? Yes, it would be good to know what happened to him but if he was dead – if he committed suicide – I didn’t want to find another body.

  I agreed to have dinner with Teddy on Saturday but my distraction was a big obstacle to conversation. I pleaded a headache when we finished dining and he walked me home. I buried myself in Dragon Seed and escaped to a far-off land.

  Before dawn, I’d gulped down two cups of coffee and filled G.G.’s food bowl to the brim. As I laced on my hiking boots, a knock on the door heralded the arrival of the whole group. They must have met up at the dormitories and walked over together. Our first stop was Dossett Tunnel.

  The new growth of spring plants surrounding the entrance softened the harsh look of the area. The tangle of vines embracing the tunnel had sprouted new leaves but many were already charred by the heat of the coal smoke that blackened the rocks on the outside rim and all the interior surfaces. The mouth, however, still looked sinister and forbidding. Its darkness stretched on to a pinprick of light and reminded me of the tale of Jonah and the whale.

  ‘To be sure he’s not in there, we’ll have to walk the whole length,’ Dennis said.

  ‘If a train comes, we could all die in there,’ Gary said.

  That guy was really a nuisance. In his eyes, there was always something wrong with everything. ‘We can’t very well go halfway in and call it a day,’ I snapped.

  ‘Could we divide up and half of us enter from the other end and meet in the middle?’ Rudy suggested.

  ‘As I understand it,’ Teddy said, ‘to get to the spot where the tunnel starts, you’d have to climb up a steep rock face. I doubt if we could do it without equipment.’

  ‘I would guess,’ Joe said, ‘if I climbed up to the top of the tunnel exit here, I could see further up the tracks well before the beginning of the tunnel and be able to warn you to get out.’

  ‘But how would we hear you when we’re deep in the tunnel,’ Dennis asked.

  ‘I didn’t exactly think of that but I came prepared for any emergency,’ Joe said as he opened his knapsack.

  I peered inside. It was chock full of cotton string and twine.

  ‘First, I need to go up and see what kind of view I have,’ Joe continued as he pulled out the balls to uncover small pulleys. ‘Then, I can tie one end to someone’s finger, run it through a couple of pulleys attached to trees so it doesn’t get tangled. I see a train coming and all I’ll have to do is tug.’

  For a moment, we all stood around him with our mouths open but didn’t utter a word. Then Dennis broke the silence. ‘Joe, I am sure this idea looks remarkable on paper. I am certain Rube Goldberg would be proud. But honestly, it has too much potential for unforeseen error. I’m afraid if we relied on this set-up, we would get lackadaisical or careless and if something went wrong – splat! I think we’d have better chances if we all went in with our flashlights blazing and our senses on high alert.’

  ‘I think Dennis is right,’ Gregg said. ‘I think you have a good idea, Joe, but I don’t think we could move forward with it without a lot of testing to work out any problems. We’d be here all day and I would like to cover more territory before the sun sets.’

  ‘I like Joe’s idea better,’ Gary said.

  Of course he did. I bit my tongue.

  Gregg took a vote and the decision was made but before we could act on it, we heard a train coming. We moved out of its path, covered our heads and I tried not to wince as the cinders bounced off my arms.

  ‘Perfect,’ Dennis said. ‘We should definitely have enough time to make it down to the other end and back. But we need to move fast.’

  ‘I’ll stay here and be the look-out,’ Gary said.

  ‘Yeah, Gary,’ Dennis sneered. ‘You do that.’ He walked into the tunnel grumbling about cowards.

  This time, with everyone around me, the journey into the darkness and coal stench seemed much quicker than my solo walk into the gaping maw a couple of years earlier. Still, I was getting very nervous by the time we reached the far end. We found no sign of a body or even anything that appeared to be blood, but honestly, the beams of our flashlights on the dark soot of the ground and walls could not give us any certainty of the latter. We turned around and half-ran, half-walked back to the other side.

  Just before we got there, Dennis shouted, ‘Gary, quick! My foot is stuck and I hear the train.’

  Gary stood, with the light of the outdoors silhouetting his shape, shuffled and stammered but didn’t move forward an inch.

  Dennis walked out with no trouble and gave Gary a shove. ‘A real friend in need, aren’t you, Gary? Why did you even come this morning?’

  ‘I couldn’t see in there. I didn’t have a flashlight. I didn’t …’

  ‘We don’t want to hear your gobbledygook, Gary. Just try to make yourself useful in the woods. Tom was supposedly your closest friend. Act like it.’

  Gary opened his mouth to speak but Gregg, standing next to him, gave him the zip lips sign and Gary just sighed and trudged along with the pack. Hopefully, we wouldn’t all be at each other’s throats before the day was over.

  SEVENTEEN

  Rooted in the echoes of the past, discomfort was our constant companion as we searched the woods in the same pattern we’d implemented to find Marvin’s body last year. When we reached the trail by the old hickory and saw the scout blaze mark faded but still present on its bark, we came to an abrupt halt. I don’t know what was in the others’ minds but imagined it was much like mine.

  I dreaded going down that trail with all the strength of an embedded ancient superstition. That awful tree down that path and the gruesome image of Marvin’s mutilated corpse was still seared on my retina. After a collective sigh, Gregg led the way with reluctance apparent in every hesitant step. I stopped the moment I knew that in another yard or two the tree would come into sight. I closed my eyes, inhaled deeply and then trudged on.

  The scars on the trunk of the old tree stirred up bad memories but it didn’t look any different from any other tree of its age. No former coworker hung from its limbs. Nothing but dried leaves at its base and branches reaching to the sky. No longer did the odor of death tear through our sinuses, but the smell of relief seemed to rise from all of us.

  We backtracked to the original path with far more enthusiasm. Occasionally, someone shouted out Tom’s name but our only response was the rustle of birds in the trees. It was even more difficult to spot the shack Frannie had used as a hideout at the time. The undergrowth had filled in making the trail barely passable.

  The shack itself looked even more derelict. The vines that had covered one side now claimed the entire roof. The door once hanging from a single hinge was now propped up over the entr
y. Gregg and Teddy moved it out of the way and we peered inside.

  The vines had worked their way through the wall and now streamed across the ceiling. In one corner, two blankets laid in a disheveled heap. They looked almost clean; they’d couldn’t have been out here long. Who had taken shelter here? And did that person have anything to do with the disappearance of Tom.

  ‘Could the person who is staying here have hurt Tom?’ Dennis asked.

  ‘I doubt it,’ Joe said. ‘Didn’t we agree there was no reason for Tom to come out to the woods unless he planned to take his own life?’

  Teddy grabbed a stick and poked at the blankets, then flipped them looking for anything that might identify the person who had left them there. Nothing was buried there except for a few crumbly brown leaves.

  ‘I don’t think there is anything to see here,’ Dennis said. ‘I think we’ve hit a dead end. If Tom planned on suicide, wouldn’t it make sense to choose a spot that had some meaning for him – like right here or out at the tree? We could wander around here for days only to return and find Tom sitting at his lab station.’

  ‘Why don’t we just go back a different way and keep our eyes out. We probably won’t discover anything but we can try,’ Gregg suggested.

  Five minutes later, Gregg’s words seemed almost prophetic. Gary shouted, ‘Hey! Hey!’ and zoomed off the path and into a thicket. He returned clutching a rumpled hat in his scratched and bleeding hand. ‘This is Tom’s hat. I’m sure of it.’ He held it out for inspection.

  We all gathered round. To me, it appeared to be a very nondescript brown wool felt hat with a decorative ribbon and a battered brim – there had to be thousands just like it.

  ‘What makes you think that it’s Tom’s hat? I’ve got one that’s almost identical,’ Rudy said.

  ‘He wore it every time he went into town,’ Gary said. ‘When he returned to his room, he always brushed it before he put it up on the shelf in his closet. And look, it’s got a leather sweatband inside and you can still see his initials.’

  I had to squint to see what was scratched into the leather. But he was right. T.O. was etched into the interior band. ‘Okay, so what in heaven’s name is it doing out here?’ I asked.

  ‘He had to have been out here. He had to have been wearing it when he left the dormitory to go to the train station in Knoxville. He had to have come out here. He has to be here,’ Gary insisted.

  ‘Well, I don’t know, Gary,’ Joe said. ‘He could have lost it on the way into town or once he was there. Some hobo could have picked it up and worn it out here before losing it.’

  ‘We’ve got to keep searching. He’s here. I’m sure of it,’ Gary said, waving his arms in a dramatic fashion. ‘I don’t know why but this hat meant more to him than anything else he owned; he wouldn’t have lost it. We just have to find him.’

  I turned in a circle looking at the woods that seemed to stretch on forever. ‘The army and police would search if we reported him missing – there’s a lot more of them than us. Maybe it’s time to file a report.’

  ‘You know Tom wouldn’t like that,’ Gary objected.

  ‘What else can we do, Gary?’ Teddy said. ‘This place is huge. We could search this wilderness every day for weeks, walk near him every day and still not find him.’

  ‘Face it,’ Joe said, ‘he’s either dead or he’s in hiding and doesn’t want to be found.’

  ‘Why would he hide?’ I asked.

  Joe shrugged. ‘He was really distressed about his dad. I imagine he felt guilty for being here and not at home. He could have just snapped under the stress.’

  I no longer knew what to think. I wasn’t even sure why we thought we might be able to find him out here. Unlike Marvin, he’d never been a boy scout and knew nothing about marking a trail. Because of that, did he come out here and get lost? Or did he get on the train and just keep riding? The last option sounded very appealing to me right now.

  ‘I think my whole idea of coming out here to search wasn’t a very good one at all,’ I said.

  ‘We all were with you on this, Libby. And I think we needed to do it,’ Gregg said. ‘I imagine that most of us were thinking about our last search in these woods. I had some vivid pictures going through my mind. We all had to know he wasn’t tied to that tree. I know I couldn’t have lived with myself if I hadn’t checked it out.’

  Heads nodded all around. It made me feel a bit better but it still felt like a wasted day. ‘That leaves us with a decision to make. Do we report him missing? And what do I tell Charlie?’

  ‘Charlie’s going to want to report it,’ Gregg said. ‘He’s wanted to do that from the beginning but agreed to give us a little time. When you tell him we found nothing but his hat, he’s going to insist on it.’

  ‘Unless Libby can convince him otherwise,’ Joe said.

  ‘Mondays are usually full steam ahead. I don’t know if I can find time to talk to him or not. After that, you’re going to have to manage on your own. I’m catching a train for Richmond Tuesday,’ I said.

  ‘Richmond? Whatever for?’ Gregg asked.

  I sighed. I really didn’t want to get into this now. I didn’t even know where to start.

  ‘It’s personal family stuff,’ Teddy interjected. ‘It’s not a good time for her to talk about it.’

  I gave Teddy’s hand a quick squeeze and saw Dennis wince. Oh dear, what a problem I’d created.

  ‘I’ll talk to Charlie,’ Gregg said. ‘Maybe I can get him to hold off at least until you get back.’

  ‘How will you convince him to do that?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ll think of something,’ Gregg said.

  ‘Just be honest with him, Gregg,’ I said. ‘If you start making things up, you’ll get all tangled up in the end.’

  Worried that work-related concerns would leave me no time for anything personal on Monday, I enlisted a neighbor to make sure G.G. had food and water during my absence. She promised to play with him, too, as much as she could. Then, I packed my bag and set it by the door.

  Sleep eluded me for quite a while. Where are you Tom O’Malley?

  EIGHTEEN

  As I suspected, Monday was chaotic. I had the regular urgency of not working on Sunday while the Calutron kept spinning around the clock. To complicate matters, Charlie spent most of the day in a series of meetings either here at Y-12 or down at the administrative building. He and I never had a chance to speak.

  The next morning, the train ride from Knoxville to Bedford gave me more time than I wanted to think. I tried to enjoy the scenery – the trees were so green and the hills cluttered with wild flowers – but questions kept dashing through my mind. Who is pranking our lab? And why? Does Tom’s disappearance have anything to do with those events? If so, what?

  As soon as I pushed work out of my head, my mother’s situation started haunting me. Can I tell her I forgive her? Do I even care that she’s dying? I know I should but I don’t feel it as intensely as I thought a normal daughter would. Will seeing her change that?

  I banished thoughts of her and went straight to war worries. Was the war over in Italy now? Had the Red Army conquered Berlin or are they simply boasting? And the death camps? Oh, dear God in heaven, how could you allow them to exist at all? Those poor people looked like the walking dead with their vacant eyes, blank faces and stick-like limbs. How could humans do that to other humans? I couldn’t do that to a dog that bit me.

  The whole world seemed mad and I was contributing to the insanity with the work I was doing. Every day, it was less likely that the gadget would ever be used in Europe. Do the Japanese deserve that fate? At one time, after my cousin died at Pearl Harbor, I would have shouted an unqualified yes. But now, compared to the Third Reich, were the Japs really that bad? Do they have death camps like the Germans do? If so, why haven’t we heard about them?

  The clack of the train tracks drove my musings in a circle from work to mother to war and back to work again. It was such a relief when the train stopped in Bedford and I�
�d finally have company sitting in the seat beside me. My half-brother Ernie was just an ordinary kid who would probably drive me crazy by the time we were in Richmond. That’s what kids do and the distraction from my endless loop of worries was more than welcome.

  I looked out the window as we pulled up to the station. I spotted him right away standing next to Mrs Early. My, had he grown. He was almost as tall as her now. And he looked so handsome. He wore a navy-blue suit with a pinstriped shirt and a red tie. His golden-brown hair, combed to one side and slicked back on his head, reminded me of the pictures Mother had of my grandfather when he was young.

  I waved out the window and Mrs Early spotted me first. She turned to Ernie and pointed. He jumped up and down and returned my wave. As soon as the conductor let down the steps, he bounded up them. Mrs Early followed him carrying his small valise.

  ‘Howdy, Libby,’ she said. ‘He told me he wasn’t a baby and didn’t need me bringin’ him on the train but if I hadn’t, he’d be goin’ without a change of clothes.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Early.’ I didn’t know if she loved my brother but I could tell from her smile and the light in her eyes that she was very fond of him. I felt even more certain that I’d made the right choice allowing him to stay in Virginia with her family.

  ‘How many times have I got to tell ya, Libby. You’re a grown woman now, you should be calling me Justine. Well, I better mosey. The conductor’s givin’ the all aboard sign.’ She kissed Ernie on the top of his head. He did the requisite boy squirm and then thought better of it and gave her a big hug. As soon as she stepped onto the platform, we started pulling away.

  ‘I’m so excited, Libby,’ Ernie said, bouncing in the seat.

  ‘I can see that.’

  ‘I get to take my first train ride. I get to see you. I get to see Aunt Dorothy. And I get to see Mama. Is it true that she’s dying?’

  ‘I haven’t seen her, Ernie, but it sure sounds that way.’

  ‘That’s not right. It’s just not right.’