matching black leather briefcases on the floor under the table provided the clue to the brotherhood that united the men. Each case bore a gold-lettered inscription stenciled in the corner: Los Alamos National Laboratory. Their obituaries would note how the five former enemies perished together just at the moment they had joined forces to put their scientific genius to work for the benefit of mankind.
A tired-looking waitress, eyes ringed with black mascara, bleached hair teased and sprayed to defy the law of gravity, balanced a tray on her hip as she deposited another round of drinks on the table and cleared the remains of the last round. Five pairs of eyes were fixed on the low neckline of her ruffled white blouse each time she bent over to put down or pick up a glass or bottle. “That’s five Coors and four vodkas straight up, right, boys?” she said, straining to be heard over the music.
“But Russian vodka, yes?” Blue almond eyes sparkled in a flushed round face, watching the topside of her breasts roll with her up-and-down movements.
The waitress raised her eyes heavenward and nodded without breaking the rhythm of her work. “Yeah, yeah—Smirnoff—good Russian vodka.” The two Americans at the table exchanged amused glances. “That’s twenty-four-fifty, fellas.”
Larry Kingman dropped a twenty and a ten on her tray. Once again, as he had on the last two rounds, he waved away the change she had begun to count out.
“Well, thanks! Thanks a lot,” the waitress said, taking a real good look at him now and smiling warmly. “You just holler if you need anything else, okay?”
Kingman smiled and nodded. The woman lingered a moment, then wandered reluctantly over to a table where some good ol’ boys were calling loudly for refills. Kingman raised one of the shot glasses of vodka and held it out over the center of the table, looking at each of the other four faces in turn. “To the future, gentlemen. To science.”
The Russians lifted the three remaining shot glasses. “Na zhdoroviye,” they said in unison, tossing back the clear liquor, then slapping the glasses down on the stained wooden tabletop and reaching for the beer chasers.
Kingman directed an inquiring eyebrow at the younger American seated next to him. Scott Bowker was frowning, but he grasped one of the beer glasses, touching it briefly to his lips. Kingman shook his white head as he watched the younger man. “What’s up?”
Bowker glanced at the Russians, then around the room. “We shouldn’t be drinking like this.”
Kingman leaned back in his chair and smiled indulgently. “Relax, Scotty. We’ll let you be designated driver, okay?” Bowker’s frown deepened even further. “Re-lax,” Kingman repeated. “Everything is under control. Now, enjoy.”
One of the Russians, at Bowker’s left, grinned and put an arm around his shoulders, squeezing good-naturedly. “Larry is right. Enjoy! We are allies now—comrades in a common struggle. The Cold War is finished and we, my serious friend, have all won. Now,” he added, “we work on the same side.” The Russian raised his glass and nodded above the brim before taking another swallow of beer. The others echoed his nod. Scott Bowker looked pointedly at his watch, then at Kingman.
“Yup,” Kingman acknowledged. “It’s getting late. We should be going, boys. Tomorrow’s a big day.”
The five men drained their glasses, then stood and gathered up their briefcases. Kingman shifted uncomfortably, stretching out knees that were stiff and swollen after three days of playing guide for the Russian visitors. He trailed the others to the door, offering a nod and a warm smile as he limped past the blond waitress.
“’Bye now,” she said, giving him a wistful wave. “You come again, okay?”
They walked out of the beer-and-smoke fog of the tavern and into the cold night air of the New Mexico desert. The parking lot was full: pickups and old beaters, a few motorcycles, gaudy yellow license plates proclaiming New Mexico—Land of Enchantment. Kingman tossed a set of keys to Bowker as the men approached a minivan. Bowker unlocked the doors and the Russians slipped into the back seats. Kingman shut the sliding rear door and climbed into the front passenger seat.
They pulled out of the parking lot and turned south on NM 68, the main highway linking Taos and Los Alamos. The men fell silent, contemplating the landscape eerily lit by a cloud-draped moon over the Sangre de Cristo—the Blood of Christ—Mountains. A powdery snow had been falling while they were inside and it muffled the sound of the tires on the road. The Pueblo Indians believe that the spirits of the dead linger on the mesas of New Mexico, guarding the land. In this spectral glow and eerie silence, it was easy enough to believe that ghosts were hovering nearby. Watching and waiting.
The highway curved along the banks of the Rio Grande, hugging the line of the rushing river. It was past midnight and the road was virtually deserted. As the van sped along toward Española and the Los Alamos turnoff, a single pair of lights could be seen approaching from far off, flashing between the hills.
Kingman rolled down his window, the wispy white strings of his breath escaping into the night. He inhaled deeply, drinking in the cold, fresh air—infinitely preferable to the hops-and nicotine-soaked atmosphere of the Trinity Bar. Then he rolled the window up again and glanced back at the men in the rear of the van. The two Russians on the rear-most bench were heavy-eyed, their heads lolling with the motion of the vehicle, on the edge of dropping off to sleep. But Yuri Sokolov, sitting on the center bank of seats, had his gaze fixed on the road ahead, his thoughts impenetrable but obviously stone-cold sober, despite his consumption at the Trinity Bar.
At fifty-two, Sokolov was acknowledged in the arcane world of nuclear physics as the most brilliant mind in the field. Until recently, of course, his reputation in the West had been based entirely on the discoveries of meticulous spycraft, since he had never before stepped outside the Soviet weapons community, nor knowingly circulated a paper in the West.
Sokolov glanced briefly at Kingman, then focused again on the road ahead, watching the snow spinning through the van’s headlights—remembering Moscow nights, perhaps. They were intellectual brothers, Kingman reflected, forced to live their lives as enemies until suddenly, one day, someone had decided to change the rules. Now they had a common purpose—always had, maybe. The vagaries of politics irritated him. There was neither method nor reason to human behavior, and politicians were more irrational than most. Only science was constant, sane.
The single set of headlights rolling north on NM 68 toward the van belonged to a tanker truck making a night run to Taos. Diamond-shaped plaques on the tanker noted the contents as gasoline—hazardous material, highly flammable. The rig was hauling over eight thousand gallons of unleaded fuel and doing sixty on the open road.
When the two vehicles collided, the explosion could be heard all the way to Taos. The fireball rose eighty feet into the air, lighting up the night sky, although the only immediate witnesses to the event were jackrabbits and owls. The heat generated by the fire was enough to twist steel into Silly Putty and incinerate anything else unfortunate enough to be caught in the vicinity. Within a matter of seconds, even the asphalt road was ablaze.
Another car traveling south on NM 68 came upon the accident six minutes after the collision. After realizing that nothing could have survived the inferno, the driver turned back toward Taos to telephone for help from the Trinity Bar. When the emergency vehicles arrived, there was nothing they could do but try to keep the blaze from spreading to the surrounding juniper and piñon trees. It took three hours for the fire to burn itself out. Fire fighters doused the site with foam to guard against another flare-up, but this only served to seal the tomb.
The next day, curiosity seekers from both sides
