Fat Man and Little Boy Page #5

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Yes, I like him.

Are you jealous?

Yeah.

You better do something about it.

Tell them I ain't buying.

White House said

there wouldn't be

any account till after the war.

It's so damn tough

to get through to you,

I decided to bring

you my problem.

See the tread on that tire?

Because I sure as hell don't.

Yet that's what my men

are riding around on.

I don't know what kind of deal

you got yourself into, Groves,

but I do care when it cuts

in on my territory.

If I'm gonna move supplies around

the country, I need trucks.

Those trucks run on tires, Dick.

When I hear they ain't moving because

of some tire shortage, I get mad.

When I hear you're the cause

of it, I want to kill.

- We gotta work something...

- No dice. We got a triple-A priority.

White House authority.

We need the product.

You need to know something.

You're getting a lot

of people's backs up.

Let me remind you of something else.

See this?

I count two. You got one.

When this war's over,

that will amount to something.

And, Dick, I hope you get my meaning.

Because, by all that's holy...

...you better have

your ass well-covered.

- Well, Bronson.

- Sir?

- It's all about ass, isn't it?

- Sir?

You kick it or you lick it.

That's what it's all about.

I'm sorry about

my language, Bronson.

But I'm on the limb.

My prima donnas

better come through...

...or you are looking

at a piece of dead meat.

Yes, sir.

- What's this?

- I don't know, sir.

God, almighty.

Is this a stop?

What time is it?

There's no scheduled stop here.

Message for General Groves.

- I'll see what the problem is, sir.

- Message for General Groves.

- Message for General Groves.

- In this way.

General Groves, sir.

This is from Germany.

It was flown in. We wired

ahead to have the train stopped.

Excuse me, gentlemen.

- Colonel.

- General.

Put it in my safe, in the back.

Don't bring it out.

That means the Germans don't

have the bomb. Weren't close.

Sir, is it wise?

I mean, suppressing this?

Well, you tell me, colonel.

It's delicate stuff.

I'm talking about my longhairs,

my prima donnas.

The Jewish element.

Take Hitler out of the equation...

they might just run out of stink.

Why chance it?

We can give this country

the biggest stick in the playground.

And I intend to do that.

And I'll tell you something

about our bunch.

Get them close.

Then they'll go all the way.

They're just not close enough yet.

Yes, sir.

Perhaps you should think of these

wedges as forming part of a shell.

They do redirect the shock waves in

the same way as a lens redirects light.

As a matter of interest, we've

already used the idea in England

for armor-piercing shells.

Pray it works.

We'll be back on schedule.

Heads up.

Watch your backs.

No one ever used high explosives...

...as a precision instrument before.

It's so simple.

It just swings the shock waves

from convex to concave.

- Some orange, hey, Oppie?

- No, after the explosion.

Dr. Oppenheimer.

Dr. Oppenheimer.

A letter for you, sir.

- They said it was important.

- Thank you.

Good luck.

We squeezed it!

Damn it, we got compression!

We're on the way!

The right mix and we're home, Oppie!

We're home free, vindicated!

We're vindicated!

- We got a ball game here.

- Seth, come here!

Next stop, implosion!

Can I come in?

Where is he?

He's out back.

Sitting in the sun

with a blanket on his lap.

Nursing a guilty dick, no doubt.

It is not necessary to be vulgar.

Nothing I say could

approach the vulgarity

of what you're building

in your back yard.

Well, vulgar or not...

...I need him to come

through on this.

He owes it to his country.

He owes it to himself.

He is the best there is. And he

should have whatever he wants.

Don't try to recruit me, general.

You don't need my help.

And spare me your homily on being

a good wife. I know it by heart.

Why did you put up with her

for so long?

Because he's the best there is.

He should have whatever he wants.

I don't live very well alone.

Some people don't.

We all have different ways

of defending our territory.

Concha, you're late.

Peter, hurry up. Didn't I say 2:00?

I'm sorry.

And I am sorry that the news

took so long to get to you.

It just got lost

in the system censors.

You know...

...you can't be responsible

for keeping somebody else alive.

It isn't possible.

It's not to be expected.

I can't work on this anymore.

I don't want to.

And I don't need to.

Germany is finished.

It's just a matter of time.

They can't pull this together.

- You sure?

- I don't want to hear your arguments.

I already know that everything is a risk.

That the war is not over until it's over.

That they're lobbing rockets

all over London.

That Germany is desperate.

That she's resourceful.

If she doesn't get a device,

she could litter England

with radioactive material.

We thought of something similar.

The fact of the matter is...

...they're not as good as we are.

Or are they?

Christ, I've got rats in my skull.

I'm being asked to throw too many

balls in the air at the same time.

When I feel like that,

I get down on my knees...

...and I pray.

And that's how I get conviction.

If you let this slip through your fingers,

through our fingers,

and somebody else gets it...

...you won't be counting how many

balls you throw in the air.

If you need the fire, you find it.

Wherever.

At last, some good news.

Apparently, sufficient uranium is

beginning to arrive from Oak Ridge.

But, as brilliant as he is, Oppie's

beginning to show the strain.

We all depend on Oppie.

He's our inspiration.

If he were to crack, we'd all fall apart.

Beautiful, isn't it, Michael?

Just think...

...a few miles closer to the sun,

a few miles farther away,

none of this would be here.

Just a cloud of gas

or a block of ice

and nobody to enjoy it.

''Odi et amor'',

''I hate and I love.''

- Catullus. Do you know it?

- No.

I hate and I love

Why, you ask? I don't know

I feel both

And I'm in agony

Maybe General Groves is right. Maybe

we should just banish thinking forever.

Michael, we have to test

the critical mass.

- Are you going to help?

- Of course.

I want to show you something.

Come here to see our little toy, huh?

Michael, that's what we call

tickling the dragon's tail.

So a slug of uranium

about two by six inches

will be pulled by this weight.

It begins here, then accelerates

at 32 feet per second per second.

It passes between uranium bricks.

We have an instant of criticality.

For a split second,

we have a chain reaction.

As close as we come

to an atomic explosion in the lab.

- Without blowing up.

- Exactly.

It's essential to determine the amount

of material the device needs.

Ten years ago I could

hardly imagine the stuff.

Ten years.

Each molecule collected

out of the air, one by one.

Hello?

What?

I have the rare privilege

of speaking for a victorious army

of almost five million fighting men.

They and the women

who have so ably assisted them

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