Death's Wisher. Jim Wannamaker

what I've been up to the last few weeks."

      Flinn thought, and nodded. "I'm to assume that you've been out in the Pacific, is that right?"

      "Yes," Wilmer said. "Eniwetok. Have you been following our progress in the papers?"

      "Not really. I've been a little too busy, I'm afraid."

      "No matter." The physicist handed the clippings to Flinn. "Read these."

      Flinn scanned the first clipping. It bore a recent date.

      "'… Reliable sources,'" he read aloud, "'report that a civilian, believed to be a scientist, is being held incommunicado in the Pentagon. All efforts on the part of newsmen to gain additional information have been met with polite but firm rebuffs. Spokesmen from the AEC have refused to confirm or deny theories that the man's detention is in some way connected with the recent fiasco at Eniwetok Atoll …'"

      He read the second. It was date-lined Honolulu, a week before the other.

      "'Beyond the terse comment that there were "no casualties," all official sources are silent today concerning the news leak of the failure of a nuclear device in our Pacific Test Area. It has been understood that this device, the third in a series of thermonuclear test shots, failed to detonate. Since this test was scheduled to have been a "tower shot," under rigid instrumental control, much speculation has arisen …'"

      Flinn looked up hopelessly. "I don't understand. Does this concern you? I mean—"

      "It concerns all of us," Wilmer said grimly. "But I know what you're getting at. No, I'm not the man they mention. I was in charge of that particular test."

      Hayes cleared his throat abruptly and Wilmer nodded.

      "I want you to understand, Mr. Flinn, before we go any further, that everything you hear and see, and have heard and seen from the time Fred first contacted you, is to be held in the strictest confidence. Is that clear?"

      "Yes."

      "All right. How much do you know about atomic physics?"

      Flinn spread his hands. "I'm somewhat past the Democritus stage, but I don't claim to be an expert."

      "Well, basically, in a thermonuclear explosive device, hydrogen is transformed into helium," said Hayes. "In the process there is a loss of mass. This loss results in a tremendous and sudden release of energy. Are you familiar with the energy-mass relationship, E = MC²?"

      Flinn nodded.

      "Okay. In other words, the nuclei of hydrogen atoms are fused under the influence of great heat, resulting in a different element, less mass, a release of energy, and an explosion."

      "I'm with you so far," Flinn said.

      "Then you realize that once this fusion process commences, nothing in God's great universe can stop it?"

      "Yes."

      "And that after certain things are done, fusion must result?"

      "Surely."

      "Well, so all of us believed, too. But we were wrong about it."

      "I don't understand. You just said—"

      "So I said. But let me try to describe to you the situation as it happened." He paused, not for dramatic effect, but to take a moment to force himself to recall what Flinn could see must have been a very painful experience.

      "We are on the command ship," Wilmer continued, "at a safe distance from the atoll. Everything is in readiness, checked and double-checked by me, personally. The automatic firing process is in progress. The last countdown has commenced. Five, four, three, two, one, zero. Nothing happens.