The Final Storm - Jeff Shaara [213]
“Anything wrong, Paul?”
Tibbets poured from the bottle, handed one shot glass to Parsons, sat back in his own chair.
“I hate the crashes.” He paused. “Well, hell, everybody hates crashes. But, dammit, every time my crews see a bird go up in flames, it has to dig their doubts a little deeper. I don’t need any little speeches from you explaining all the technical reasons a B-29 can come apart. When the time comes, I’ll have enough to keep me busy without my crew sweating out the takeoff.”
“I’ve got news for you, Paul. I’m sweating out the takeoff right now. Anyone with a brain ought to be sweating it out. You know what will happen if we don’t clear the ground?”
“Yeah. The mission is scrubbed.”
“The whole damn island will be scrubbed. Every tree, every building, every B-29, every crewman. General Groves and I have been debating something for weeks now, and he’s sticking to his guns. But I’m sticking to mine. Groves says that most of the physicists want the bomb assembled completely before it goes into the belly of your plane. They’re concerned that every little bow should be tied, every screw tightened, before the bomb is handed off to air jockeys. General Groves has to listen to that, but I don’t.” Parsons lowered his head, said slowly, “I’ll mention this in detail at the briefing if you want me to. The flight crew has to know exactly what I’ll be doing to the bomb. Once the secret’s out, there’s no reason to keep anything quiet.”
“Agreed. That will only happen when we’re airborne.”
“I understand that, Paul. But first, we have to get airborne. You know damn well that if we go down on takeoff, there are a number of things that can happen, none of them good. But the only way the bomb will ignite is if the two halves of the uranium collide. A crash won’t guarantee that. But even without a crash, there are other possible problems. The bomb is going to be wired with two dozen circuits, every kind of sensor, monitoring every electrical signal, every battery … well, hell, you know all that. Point is, there’s one system I’m not too happy with.”
Tibbets leaned forward, the bourbon forgotten.
“What system?”
“The charges that fire the cannon. We’ve built in a duplication, two separate cordite charges. Obviously, if the cannon fails, so does the bomb. The redundancy is designed to cut the odds of the cannon’s failure in half, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“But if there is a short circuit, or the bomb jostles in some unexpected way, if turbulence on takeoff tosses the thing back and forth, any of that … there’s always the chance that one of those cordite charges could be fired accidentally. If we crash-land, a fire in any one of the electrical circuits could ignite the cordite and fire the cannon. If that happens, we will be the least of anyone’s worries. But I can’t see the sense in risking this whole damn island, and several thousand men.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Arm the cannon on the plane, once it’s airborne, and clear of the island. If there’s an accident, the only … um … issue will be how much dust is left of us. But … just us.”
Tibbets sat back again, could see the perfect logic in Parsons’s reasoning.
“Groves doesn’t like this idea?”
“Groves is listening to the physicists who insist it will be too difficult to insert the cordite into the bomb once the plane is in the air. Mind you, not one of those boys has ever flown in a B-29, most likely. All it involves is a little … maneuvering. Can’t say I’ve ever thought of being a contortionist, but that’s what I’ll have to do. Once we’re clear of the island, I’ll climb down into the bomb bay and insert both drums of explosives … on the fly, so to speak.”
“Have you tried doing that before now?”
“Paul, no one’s tried any of this before now. I’ll work on it on