Bones of Betrayal

My adrenaline surged. In the blink of an eye, history had jumped off the page and become alive to me. This tiny speck of East Tennessee woods had once been a top-secret installation, heavily guarded and cleverly camouflaged. Oak Ridge’s eighty thousand wartime workers—and the Manhattan Project’s hundreds of millions of scarce dollars—had funneled into a small bunker tucked beneath this isolated hillside. I suddenly thought of an immense magnifying glass, focusing the rays of the sun into one tiny, intense point of light and heat and energy. The uranium-235 stored under the watchful eyes in this concrete tower had been such a focal point. It was here that the genie of atomic energy was squeezed into the smallest of bottles, so it could be unleashed later with devastating force.

 

I looked at Miranda; I wanted to express everything that had just raced through my mind—the sense of awe and humility and excitement that had gripped me in an instant—but I wasn’t sure I was capable of it. She studied my face for a moment, then looked again at the stained concrete with the filthy windows and rusting gunports. “Yeah,” she said. “Pretty damn amazing, huh?”

 

“Pretty damn amazing,” I agreed. Behind us, a car horn tooted briefly. I took my foot off the brake and made my way back to the present, back to the caravan of vehicles, and back to the task at hand: searching for an unknown and unreckoned casualty of the Manhattan Project.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 28

 

 

 

 

THE GRAVEL ROAD CONTINUED ALONG THE STREAMBED for another hundred yards or so, then crossed a steel culvert and began snaking up the opposite hillside. As it climbed, the road narrowed; the gravel gradually gave way to dirt, and the dirt soon disappeared beneath a layer of leaves and branches. It appeared that the road had not been used in years.

 

We had negotiated several switchbacks and climbed well above the silo when the procession stopped. I heard a brief whoop from a siren, which I guessed might be a signal that we had reached our destination. I put the truck in park, set the brake, and got out to look. Up ahead a huge, mossy tree trunk blocked the rutted track.

 

Off to the right side, the hillside fell away sharply, almost vertically; looking down, I saw the roof of the TWRA building and, beside it, the octagonal roof of the fortified silo. From this angle, I could not see the windows at the top of the tower—and that meant the guards in the tower could not have seen anyone who was standing in this spot back in 1945. I felt another surge of adrenaline as I realized that I was standing near the place where a body had been hidden some sixty years before. Near the place where human bones might still lie hidden, awaiting discovery.

 

I walked back to my truck and opened the door. “We might be right where we need to be,” I said. “Can you hand me the photograph?” Miranda reached into a manila folder tucked down beside the console. Without the barn as a visual reference, it was hard to be certain, but the angle of the silo—seen from above, from what appeared to be a ledge or shelf—looked remarkably similar to what I’d just glimpsed.

 

Emert and Dewar got out of the Oak Ridge police cruiser, each clutching a copy of the photo as well. Roy emerged from the F-150, eyeing the pictures with obvious interest, so I handed him the print I’d brought. His eyes widened as he took in the body, then his head swiveled and he scanned the valley down below. A broad smile spread across his face. “This is getting interesting,” he said. “A lot more fun than asking, ‘What’s the smallest line you can read?’ or ‘Which is clearer, 1 or 2?’”

 

“Beats grading papers, too,” I said.

 

Thornton was the last to join the group. Instead of the photograph, he was clutching the Starbucks cup in one hand. He tapped Miranda on the shoulder and, without a word, took her copy. “Make yourself at home,” she said.

 

“Thanks,” he said. He looked briefly at the silo, then at the photo, before handing it back to her. Then he looked back at the group. “Now what?”

 

I looked at Arpad. Arpad looked at Roy. “I was thinking maybe Roy and Cherokee could do a sweep through the area, see if the dog indicates any interest, to narrow down where we need to probe.”