Trinity factor, p.1
Trinity Factor, page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PROLOGUE
BOOK ONE - 1943
1
MOSCOW
AUGUST–OCTOBER 1980
2
BEIRUT, LEBANON
3
NORTHERN MINNESOTA
4
GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT
5
WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE, NEW MEXICO
BOOK TWO - 1943
6
LONDON
7
MOSCOW
8
WASHINGTON, D.C.
9
BERLIN
10
LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO
11
MOSCOW
BOOK THREE - SUMMER 1944
12
CAPE COD
13
WASHINGTON, D.C
14
WASHINGTON, D.C.
15
BOSTON
16
WASHINGTON, D.C.
17
PORTSMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE
18
SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO
19
WASHINGTON, D.C.
20
THE ATCHINSON TOPEKA & SANTA FE
21
NEW YORK CITY
MOSCOW
OCTOBER 1980
22
ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO
BOOK FOUR - JANUARY–JUNE 1945
23
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
24
MOSCOW
25
NEWPORT NEWS, VIRGINIA
26
SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO
27
ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO
28
TRINITY
29
ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO
30
ALAMOGORDO BOMBING RANGE
31
ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO
BOOK FIVE - JULY 12–16, 1945
32
MOSCOW
33
ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO
34
ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO
35
OSCURO, NEW MEXICO
36
TRINITY
37
MOCKINGBIRD GAP
38
MOCKINGBIRD GAP
39
TRINITY
OCTOBER 1980
40
ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO
41
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
NOVELS BY SEAN FLANNERY
Copyright Page
This book is for Dean and Colleen Moon, my biggest fans and best friends, not necessarily in that order.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As is customary in books of this nature, the author thanks the numerous persons who have helped him. First, therefore, I would like to thank my editor, Michael Seidman, for his help with the idea, the shaping of its execution, and for his encouragement.
I’d like also to thank Jim Bryant, Public Information Officer, White Sands Missile Range, N. M., for his help at the site of Trinity; George Romero, Socorro, N. M., who showed me how this could be done; Millard Hun-sley, Albuquerque, N. M., who provided invaluable background material for the period 1943—45; and Verna Wood at the Albuquerque Public Library, who was infinitely patient and helpful with maps of the area for that period.
I would also like to thank the dozens of other persons around the state of New Mexico for their kind assistance during the research period.
PROLOGUE
At exactly 5:29 and 45 seconds in the misty, predawn darkness of July 16, 1945, a brilliant light flashed, and a thunder that mankind had never heard before rolled across the southern deserts of New Mexico. The Americans had tested the first atomic bomb at a site code-named Trinity.
Its success meant the speedy surrender of Japan, something the Russians ostensibly did not want at that time. But even more than that, its success ended what may have been the biggest double cross in history.
Joseph Stalin knew about the American efforts in the race for the super weapon. His knowledge came from a nearly unimpeded spy network. He also knew that if the test was a success the war in Japan would be over before his troops could participate in an invasion of the Japanese mainland. If that had happened, Japan today would be a divided country, much like Germany.
It was imperative, therefore, that Stalin learn all he could about the bomb, and perhaps even sabotage it. This during a time of lend-lease, when the Soviet Union desperately needed the material and assistance the United States was providing.
But isn’t it curious that none of the more than three hundred Soviet spies in this country during the war were captured and brought to trial until after the war? Isn’t it curious that the government’s case against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg had so many holes in it? And isn’t it curious that the A-bomb’s chief scientist, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, Jr., supposedly had Communist leanings and friends?
But even stranger than all that is the fact that the Russians came up with their own atomic bomb before the British—who shared in our research.
BOOK ONE
1943
1
MOSCOW
Major Sergei Dmitrevich Runkov of the GRU—the Soviet Military Intelligence—left the communications center in the basement of the Lubyanka Prison and waddled down the corridor toward the elevator, his 160-kilogram bulk stuffed impressively into his bedraggled army uniform.
Major Runkov was in a foul mood this evening, and was sweating heavily, despite the damp chill that permeated the lower levels of the prison compound.
He was carrying a bundle of message forms in a file folder with two red stripes diagonally across its front, signifying top secret material.
At the elevator, two officers, neither of whom he knew, glanced at the file folder and then scowled at Runkov. It was a mistake on their part.
Runkov’s right eyebrow arched. “You have a problem, captain?” he growled at one of the officers.
The other man, a lieutenant colonel, stepped forward. “It is you who apparently have the problem, major,” he snapped. “What is your name and your unit, and what exactly are you doing carrying top secret material out of here?”
“Runkov. GRU. And what I am doing with these messages is none of your goddamned business, comrade.”
The elevator had arrived, and Runkov reached out and pushed back the iron gate. The lieutenant colonel tried to stop him by placing his hand on Runkov’s arm. The GRU officer spun around out of the officer’s grasp, surprisingly light on his feet, and, centimeters away from the man, he said menacingly, “Do that again, comrade colonel, and you will likely lose your arm and very probably more.”
The other officer paled. “See here …” he started to say, but his superior officer stopped him.
“Sergei Runkov?” the lieutenant colonel asked, his voice now polite.
Runkov glared at him and barely nodded his head.
“I see, major,” the officer said. “Please forgive us the intrusion.”
Runkov snorted, turned, reentered the elevator, and, without waiting for the two officers to join him, crashed the iron gate shut and slammed the control lever to the right. The elevator rose with a lurch as the captain, who now looked definitely ill, turned to his colonel.
“The Bear?” he asked. The colonel, who looked no better, nodded.
At sixty Runkov had well earned his nickname, the Bear, which in no way was a reference to the Soviet Union’s symbol, but rather an indication of his impressive bulk, as well as his ferocity.
At the time of the Revolution, Runkov, who had come from poor peasant stock along the Volga northwest of Moscow, was a member of the Red Army, and in the fighting had proven himself over and over again. At that time his nearly two-meter frame had been packed with 125 kilograms of meat, and he could and often had crushed men to death with his arms in a bear hug. Thus his title.
After the Revolution he had transferred out of his regular army unit into the newly formed Cheka Registry Department, the forerunner of the GRU. And his reputation spread so that during the purges of the late thirties he survived without even a hint of trouble.
He had been married, but his wife had died two years ago, and his childless marriage was now nothing more than a vague, indistinct memory.
Upstairs, he charged out of the elevator and moved down the wide corridor toward his office like a battleship crashing through the sea, neither moving aside nor slowing down for any obstacle.
His chief assistant, Sergeant Vladimir Doronkin, who had been with him since shortly after the Cheka had been formed, jumped up from his desk when Runkov barged into the room. The man, normally almost as unflappable as Runkov, looked definitely shaken. “I tried to get you downstairs, but you had already left,” he said breathlessly.
Runkov ignored him as he crossed the outer office and went into his own cubicle, slamming the file folder down on his desk. He slumped into his specially built chair, loosened his tie, and poured himself a stiff shot of vodka from a bottle in one of his desk drawers.
When he had thrown back the drink and taken a deep breath to calm himself, he looked up at his aide, who had followed him into his office. “What hell has broken loose now, Vladimir Nikhailovich?” he asked gently.
“Comrade Beria’s office sent over a messenger for you. He is waiting downstairs.”
“That fairy!” Runkov exploded, pounding his massive right fist on the desk top. “What in hell does he wa
“No, Sergei … no … it is not him. It is Marshal Stalin himself. He wants to see you.”
Runkov snapped up. “When?”
“Now,” Sergeant Doronkin said. “Immediately.”
Runkov smiled. “So,” he said, sitting back in his chair. “The ‘man made of steel’ has deigned to send for me at long last.”
Sergeant Doronkin, who had served his major well over the years, and who loved and respected the man, had to look nervously over his shoulder. What the major was saying was treasonous, punishable by death. But Runkov was totally unperturbed. “There is a car waiting for you downstairs,” said the aide.
“Yes.” Runkov was smiling. He got ponderously to his feet and began straightening his tie. “Quickly now,” he said. “Get me the current files on Klaus Fuchs and on the American Manhattan District Project.”
“Yes, sir,” Doronkin said, pleased that his boss was not going to completely ignore the summons, as he had other summonses before. When Stalin himself called, a man either moved fast or lost his head. It was simple.
A light drizzle was falling in the warm evening as Runkov emerged from one of the side doors of the prison and climbed into a waiting car. It was an American lend-lease Chevrolet painted an olive drab. The U.S. insignia on the doors had been covered over with a red star, and red flags adorned both front fenders.
An air force colonel was waiting for him in the backseat, and as soon as Runkov closed the door, the man indicated for the driver to take off.
The car proceeded through the courtyard, past the black statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the State Secret Police, and then sped through the gate and headed toward the Kremlin along the deserted Yaroslavskoye Road.
“So, Sergei Dmitrevich, what do you think of our new summer offensive?” the colonel asked pleasantly.
Moscow was still under a blackout, despite the Nazi setbacks, and Runkov could barely make out the colonel’s features. “If you’ve asked me that to be polite, colonel, don’t. I do not engage in pleasantries. And if you’ve asked that because you desire my military assessment, also don’t. My opinions go through channels.”
The colonel chuckled. “The Bear,” he said, half to himself. “Why is it, comrade major, that you feel you must constantly live up to your fierce reputation?”
“Stupidity,” Runkov growled, looking directly at the man. “Inefficiency. Mendacity.”
The colonel interrupted him. “You would do well to curb your tongue, or you may lose it along with the rest of your head.”
“There would be none to shed a tear, least of all me,” Runkov snapped, and both men fell silent as the car rushed through the night.
It had been two weeks now since he had sent his summary of intelligence operations in the United States directly to Marshal Stalin. For the first couple of days afterward, he had braced himself for the expected storm of protest. What was a GRU major trying to do by sending such a report directly to Stalin? Was the man mad?
But nothing had happened. Absolutely nothing. And as the days had stretched into the first week, Runkov’s mood had blackened.
And, now that Stalin had finally acknowledged him, he thought bitterly, it was only to send a car and driver from the NKVD. Beria would be at the meeting, he supposed, and so would that fool Merkulov. But with Stalin he was going to have to watch his tongue.
A few minutes later they were admitted through the Kremlin gate. The driver took them slowly past the Great Palace, and then parked in front of the main administration building.
Inside the ground floor their credentials were checked, as was Runkov’s bulging briefcase, before they were allowed to continue along a wide, spotlessly clean corridor to another pair of guards at the elevator. There they were required to submit to another complete security check.
On the third floor a third check was required, and a civilian aide escorted them down another wide corridor and into a large suite of offices, where a second civilian aide took over the escort duty.
Finally they were led through a wide set of double doors into a huge room furnished with nothing more than a long conference table under an ornate chandelier. There were no paintings on the walls, no sideboards or cabinets, no chairs, only the table and thick wine-red drapes completely covering the several large windows along one wall.
Two older men in baggy, unpressed, gray suits stood around the table, and when Runkov and the air force colonel entered the room, they both looked up.
“Marshal Stalin will arrive momentarily,” their aide told them, and he left, quietly closing the large doors after him.
The colonel escorted Runkov to the table, but he did not have to make any introductions. All three men knew each other. The older man to the right was Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria, who was the head of the Internal Affairs Police—the NKVD—which watched over all Soviet industry, as well as Siberia. The man to his left was Vsevolod Nikolaevich Merkulov, the chief administrator of the State Secret Service, or the NKGB.
That these three men were together in one room—the heads of the NKVD and the NKGB, as well as a high-ranking officer of the GRU—was extraordinary, and Runkov’s pulse quickened. All three services maintained an intense, often bloody rivalry. It had been Stalin’s contention from the very beginning that such rivalry would keep the separate security apparatuses on their toes. But it also fostered intense distrust and hatred.
The two men nodded to Runkov, who set his briefcase on the table, which was strewn with maps that obviously outlined the recent Nazi setbacks.
Beria looked at the air force colonel. “That will be all, comrade. Thank you for your kind assistance.”
The colonel nodded stiffly, turned, and left the room. A moment later a rear door opened and Joseph Stalin, wearing a neatly fitting, plain military tunic and well-pressed gray trousers, entered the room and crossed quickly to stand at the head of the table, Beria to his left, Merkulov to his right, and Runkov directly across.
Stalin appeared to be in high spirits; his complexion was ruddy, his health good. His ebullience, Runkov thought, was no doubt due to the way the war had been going this past month. But the most striking figure of the supreme Soviet leader was the aura of absolute power that seemed to surround him, or rather radiate from him like heat from an open-hearth furnace.
Runkov did not let Stalin’s apparently good-natured mood delude him into thinking that this was going to be easy. The dungeons here in the Kremlin itself were filled with the screams of dying men who had misjudged their leader.
“I’ve passed on copies of your report to Comrades Beria and Merkulov,” Stalin said to Runkov without preamble. “It is their studied opinion that your contentions are nonsense.”
Runkov stiffened. This was starting out badly, dangerously, but he managed a very slight smile, nevertheless. “Their reaction is understandable, comrade marshal, because they simply do not share your unique perception.”
Something flashed deep inside of Stalin’s eyes, but then the supreme Soviet leader threw back his head and roared with laughter. Beria looked incredulous, and Merkulov was white.
For just a moment Runkov was certain he had seriously blundered, but it was too late now to turn back.
“I did not call you together this evening for bloodshed,” Stalin said when he had recovered. “Convince us, Sergei Dmitrevich, that we are wrong and you are right.”
