Crimson: The Second in the Trinity Series Novels
Page 21
Petra stood next to him in her blue camos wearing black sunglasses staring at the monument as if an answer to his comment was going to jump out at her at any moment. “I am not sure I understand Ray.”
“What you see before you was a result of my family’s legacy Petra. Jim Cooper’s legacy, your father’s legacy Petra, all born from the split of an atom right here on this site 131 years ago. This is why the message in the time capsule overwhelmed me. It brought back a lot of memories.”
Petra looked stunned and shocked. Her eyes, ears, and microchip were processing information at an alarming rate.
“Petra, my Great-grandfather was J. Robert Oppenheimer.”
“Ray—?”
“Your Great-grandfather was Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves Jr., the director of The Manhattan Project.” Ray told her with a respect and admiration for those names in his voice that resonated throughout history. “Jim Cooper’s Great-grandfather was Kenneth Bainbridge the director of the Manhattan Project’s Trinity test.”
“Ray, none of this makes sense to me. None of it is—logical.” Petra told him removing her camo cap from her head holding it in her hands. A light wind blew strands of her cobalt hair across her face as her ponytail lay on her left shoulder.
“The three of us made a pact Petra and I’m the only one left to fulfill it now.” Ray removed his sunglasses and brushed his long black greying hair back combing it over the top of his head.
“Ray what do you mean? The names Ray, none of the names are the same none of them match Ray. How can this be true?”
“After the bombing of Japan our families were scared, felt threatened. The world was in chaos, the families sacrificed so much. They decided it would be best for every one of us, the future children, in the upcoming years if we weren’t attached to this—event—something that would haunt our families forever. Even if we did become the brightest and the smartest, it would follow us around consuming us. The families were thinking ahead Petra trying to shield us from the fallout.”
“Dace, where did the name Dace come from Ray?”
“You have a little bit of Irish in you Petra, so the Gaelic origin of that name was O’Dorchaidhe from the word ‘dorcha’ meaning ‘dark’. I guess maybe it was fitting for the time but not now, you’re just the opposite.” Ray smiled standing up putting his arm around Petra’s shoulder and squeezing it. He wiped a single tear that seeped from his right eye. “Your family even had a submarine named after them in the sixties I think, the 1960’s that is.”
“Our families grew up together Ray?” She asked him stiff as a board not responding to the hug.
“Yes. When Cooper, your father, and myself came of age and became aware of this past we made a solemn oath to each other that we never broke. We swore to do whatever it took to prevent atrocities like that from ever happening again if we were ever in a position to do so. We swore to protect America’s freedoms and values no matter what the cost. No matter how much money and time it took, we would find a way to better mankind, not destroy it. Unfortunately, evil does exist in the world and it is ever growing. Your father lived in the shadows behind the scenes with Cooper making sure the NIB became a reality and vowed to fight any scourges in the world. He made sure there was no corruption or ambiguity at any levels that he was associated with while he was alive. Your father was a great man Petra you should be proud.”
Petra did not know if she could actually feel pride. What did it feel like? No emotions, just questions that needed answers and she had to fill in the blank spaces in her circuitry and argon that weren’t connecting properly now.
“C’mon Petra we’ve got a lot of work to do.” Ray said putting his sunglasses back on his face. Turning towards the Transport-Cruiser, he started to walk away from her.
Petra hesitated for a moment staring at that plaque mulling over this latest revelation, “The name, the name Ray, where did it come from?”
“Petra?” He asked stopping in his tracks turning towards her.
“The name Ingenious Trinity, is that how you three got the name Ray?”
“No Petra. We didnt even know about this event yet. We were only around ten-years-old at the time when they gave us that name.”
***
A little more than twenty-four hours earlier Jackie kissed Ray sobbing after they talked for quite a long time alone. The obvious hormonal emotions were playing into most of her state of being now. Ray made sure his staff took care of her and tended to her every need even though she fought him back tooth and nail. Jackie didn’t appreciate being hovered over and she wasn’t used to the extra attention the staff was giving her. She kissed Jerry goodbye and gave Petra the biggest hug she had ever experienced. Petra was not sure how to respond to the over-emotional event as her hands eventually made their way to Jackie’s back and she patted her gently as if she was trying desperately not to break an egg. The fifty-four vehicle caravan made up of troop transports, previously scrapped military vehicles, massive Transport-Cruisers, and Petra’s eight patriotic drones left Washington D.C. heading west after stops in Chantilly, Virginia and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. The vehicles, carrying very large crates, equipment, and gear, witnessed the aftermath of the invasion first hand on their trip. Bodies and buildings all lay in ruin along the I-70, I-44, and the I-40 highways. Towns, cities, and casinos burned and smoldered as thousands of Petra replicas and Sees lay wasted. Arriving in Los Alamos New Mexico the next day the group who used the call sign of ‘Avenging Angel’ was energized and nervous. This could well be the American people’s last hope and not one single person outside of this team of scientists, technicians, and military personnel knew about it with the exception of Jackie and President Harrison. The lead vehicle driven by Petra came to a stop just outside of the Carrizozo Malpais in Socorro County, New Mexico. The town of Carrizozo was the original Trinity test site location in 1945 and the Malpais was a lava flow on the west side of the Tularosa Basin. The testing of the first atom bomb conducted in the Jornada Del Muerto Desert just thirty-five miles east of Socorro selected from several other sites in the United States at the time.
Thirty miles east of the Trinity Obelisk Monument Petra pulled the lead truck over on orders from Ray in the middle of the Jornada Del Muerto desert. He got out and surveyed the area looking around for a moment. He waved at the mile long line of equipment behind him and told Petra to cut the engine. As Petra exited the Cruiser, George, John Paul, and the other six drones maintained a guard dog-like attitude never straying too far from their master. These watchful drones sometimes scared the shit out of some of the other ninety-eight men and women on this historic journey.
“Over there,” Ray pointed over the horizon where the desert met the mountainous peaks, “is where the bomb was tested. They used a one-hundred-foot forest service lookout tower to drop it from, the gadget that is.” He said taking his sunglasses off. “Okay everybody let’s set up camp here.”
Chapter 27
SUSPENDABLE
Wednesday October 24th 8:08 PM MST
A large mobile camouflaged military hanger erected within hours of their arrival held kitchens, restrooms, and sleeping quarters consisting of cots pushed into the sandy earth. Most of the crew knew there would only be time enough for quick naps. The ticking clock was not on their side and it showed. Tempers flared, scientists argued, and a fistfight between a cook and a soldier broke out. SOS was on the menu and many who were used to the good life did not appreciate the cruel military-based joke. Ray had two separate engineering divisions simultaneously working and running like a fine timepiece, one for the ‘weapon’ and one for the ‘delivery’ system. The hanger team was situated a mile away from the weapons team. Ray, Jerry, and Petra assisted the chemists, engineers, and scientists who were all huddled inside an erected building similar to a Quonset hut originally used on this same site during World War II. Several large Vidscreens set up inside the hut, used as electronic chalkboards, were filling up with notes, schematics, and i
deas. The numerous drawings on the Vidscreens represented the man-hours of work that were going into this painstaking project. Theories, graphs, and equations scribbled in various colors had permeated all of their brains. It was an obsession for most of them as they quantified their very existence and all of humanity right here, right now. There was no second chance. It was now or never.
“That’s IT! That’s it!” one of the scientists yelled aloud jumping up out of his chair in his blue lab coat looking at one of the many Vidscreens coated in numbers and thoughts. This eureka moment would once again go down in history someday but for a very different reason. He ran up to the screen and began scribbling numbers and erasing equations in front of the other nineteen scientists and Petra who was very curiously waiting to see this newfound discovery.
“Uh huh, yea okay.” Ray murmured while he watched the scribbling taking place, “You know that might work.” he said, rubbing his stubbly chin.
Petra, standing in the back of the room, opened a crinkly plastic wrapper filled with a Twinkie as everyone in the room, intrigued with this scientific possibility, turned and stared at her as if to silently ask, “Did you bring enough for everyone?” Her guilty eyes scanned the room as she slowly shoved the cream filled sponge cake in her mouth, gulping it down quickly.
Ray got up out of his chair, walked up to the scientist, and put his hand on his shoulder “Great job Albert that just might work.” he affirmed again. “Let’s see if we have enough chemicals to mix up a test batch.”
Thursday October 25th 4:45 AM MST
It was still dark when the second test prepped by the team in the middle of the desert was coming to fruition. The first one in the hut that night was a success done under a portable electron microscope. A crescent moon was disappearing over the dark horizon as a team radioed from the test site to the scientists standing near the hut that the final preparations were complete and ready for test number two. Petra stood alongside Ray as the team came barreling up to them riding from the testing site moments later waving to them from their Cruiser. As they parked the Cruiser near the hut, Petra viewed Patrick through her HUD. One-mile away he hovered one-hundred feet in the air shaking a little in his patriotic paint job. A small chrome six-inch diameter sphere dangled by a four-foot steel cable from his undercarriage. Ray took out his Vidset and noted the time, 5:29 AM—and thirty seconds.
“Petra, get ready…” he told her as everyone waited with excited anticipation for a historical moment trapped in time. Ray never took his eyes off his Vidset, 5:30 AM, “It’s time to tickle the dragon’s tail, now Petra—now!”
Petra signaled to Patrick silently as the scientists in attendance, all wearing Noc-Glasses, strained their eyes to witness a miracle in the dark. Patrick chirped as he disconnected the sphere flying straight up into the sky disappearing out of sight. The sphere fell silently, sinking into the sandy earth forming a brown mushroom cloud thirty-foot high. Silence rang out. The desert sounds of insects and creatures that used this area as cover and called it home the only sounds heard. Petra could see it. She grinned as she watched it grow. It spread farther and wider. It enveloped everything and everything became a part of it. The scientists, chemists, and engineers could see it now. They all grinned as they turned their heads looking at each other and let out a huge “wow” in unison at the awe moment that just happened in front of their own eyes. Patrick came whizzing from behind them and settled hovering over Petra’s head. “Good job buddy.” she told him looking up as he bobbed his head up and down chirping back to her, satisfied with the results.
The ‘test’ of Avenging Angel halted to a stop a yard in front of the group as they watched it finally stop a mile from where it originally dropped. Sixteen ounces of this chemical solution had covered an area of a one-mile radius.
“Oh that’s genius Ray, that’s real genius. I’ve got to hand it to you, when you put your mind to a problem you sure know how to come up with the answer.” Petra told him smiling.
“Petra, the distance between genius and insanity is measured only by the amount of success.” He told her smiling, looking down at the material three feet in front of him covering the earth. “Jerry kill it.” he told him taking his glasses off, putting them in his coat pocket.
“Yes sir.” Jerry replied swiping an icon on his Vidset. The substance slowly sank into the sandy earth like a thin layer of water evaporating on hot concrete during a dry sunny day.
“No rest for the wicked gentleman we’ve got a lot of work to do in the next two days.” he told them shaking their hands, congratulating them.
Abandoning the area and all of the equipment the four Cruisers left the test site immediately. Filled with proud scientists they headed back towards the hanger. With Patrick in the lead, clouds of sand formed behind the Cruisers in front making visibility almost impossible for the vehicles behind them to follow closely. As they approached the sealed hanger doors, the guards and military personnel standing outside observed the faces of the men inside them. There were a lot of smiles and grins. The guards returned the grins and nodded to them as Ray and his team entered the hanger through a main door, exhausted but satisfied. “There will be plenty of time for sleep later.” he told them, since the time zone in China was in all actuality eleven hours a day ahead of the United States Mountain Time. Ray nor anyone else knew for sure how much time they actually had left.
Chapter 28
RECYCLABLE
Thursday October 25th 6:08 PM MST
Technicians, chemists, and engineers worked in shifts as other sleep-deprived souls took quick naps on the cots set up inside the hangar. It was loud and noisy due to the assembly efforts and they had to actually fall asleep from exhaustion if they were going to get any shut-eye. Petra stood and watched a team of weary engineers assemble components and parts from boxes and crates eagerly given to them by the museum directors in Ohio and Virginia. The hanger was filling up with fumes as she walked under the nose of the B-29 Superfortress. The Enola Gay was going through a retrofit as technicians re-assembled her from the ground up. Below her bright shiny silver belly sat two of the most famous names in history, ‘Fat Man’ and ‘Little Boy’. These replicas normally kept in pristine condition at WPAF Base in Dayton were getting their own retrofit as chemists and engineers carefully filled them with the ‘substance’. Lasers and plasma torches cutting on the ninety-nine foot long antique aircraft filled the hanger up with a thick blue smoky haze. Petra ran her hand over the plane’s fuselage and leading edge feeling the smooth bumps and rivets that held the 141-foot long famous wingspan together.
“She’s beautiful Petra.”
“Yes she is Ter, yes she is.”
Pieces of the cockpit’s instrument panel flew out of the plane and crashed on the sandy hanger floor as new technology was quickly replacing old. The four main propellers dropped to the ground in loud thuds minutes apart as workers and engineers walked over the top of her wings discussing the project.
“Captain Dace!” one of the workers yelled to her as she ducked back under the mammoth nose of the plane. He was on a man lift set up just under the four cockpit windows on the right side of the fuselage. A black vinyl sheet covered the area where the original words ‘Enola Gay’ were painted in black lettering in 1945. Named after Colonel Paul W. Tibbets Jr.’s raven-haired mother, Tibbets the pilot and Commander of the 509th Composite Group gave the plane the name after taking command of the aircraft during assembly and thought it was fitting since his mother never gave up on him even after his father did.
“What do you think?” he asked smiling proudly as he pulled the black vinyl off the plane’s shiny surface revealing the aircraft’s new pin-up art.
Petra stood there not quite knowing what to say. The more she stared at it the more she started to admire the artwork conceived and created by the men in the group.
“It is very you Petra.” Ter commented.
“I like it. I like it a lot.” Petra told him trying to push a grin onto her face.
“This is strange but I love it.” Petra thought to herself.
“That is da bomb Petra.”
“I think I will learn to love it in time Ter.” Petra said smiling with gratitude.
“Hmm?”
Petra turned around to see who was standing behind her ‘hmm-ing’. Ray was staring at the artwork rubbing his face with his right hand.
“This reminds me of something but I just can’t put my finger on it?” Ray remarked grinning. “C’mon Petra let me show you around the plane.” Ray led her into the fuselage of the aircraft by a set of steel steps. It was empty. The entire plane gutted with the exception of the bomb bay doors and one pilot’s seat set up in the center of the newly installed display panel in the cockpit. “You’re going to have to push the bombs out Petra, are you okay with that?”