"Five million dollars."
John D. Rockefeller Sr. said the number slowly, tasting each syllable like it was poison.
He sat behind his massive desk at 26 Broadway. He held the invoice Jason had submitted. His face was a mask of cold fury.
"You spent five million dollars," Senior repeated, looking up at Jason. "On a farm in New Jersey. And a house for a patent clerk."
"It's an institute," Jason corrected. "The Institute for Advanced Study."
"It's a petting zoo for intellectuals!" Senior slammed his hand on the desk. "We are in the middle of a war with Roosevelt! We are buying steel mills! We are fighting for every cent of margin! And you are throwing money at a man who... what? Thinks?"
Senior stood up. He walked to the window, looking out at the smog-choked skyline of New York—a city built on steel, oil, and sweat.
"Does he drill for oil?" Senior barked.
"No," Jason said.
"Does he build cars? Does he design pipelines?"
"No."
"Then what good is he?" Senior spun around. "You've lost your mind, Ezra. You've let the success go to your head. You think you're a Medici prince patronizing the arts. I won't pay for it. I'm cutting the funding."
Jason stood in the center of the room. He didn't flinch.
He reached into his pocket.
He pulled out a small lead box. It was heavy, lined with thick metal.
He walked to the desk and placed it on the polished mahogany.
"Open it," Jason said.
Senior looked at the box suspiciously. "What is it?"
"Just open it."
Senior hesitated, then flipped the latch. He lifted the lid.
Inside, resting on a bed of black velvet, was a small glass vial. Inside the vial was a tiny speck of grey dust.
It was glowing.
A faint, ghostly blue light emanated from the vial. It wasn't a reflection. It was generating its own light.
"Radium," Senior whispered. He knew the name. The Curies had discovered it. It was a novelty. A curiosity.
"Close the box," Jason said. "Before it burns you."
Senior snapped the lid shut. He looked at Jason. "It's a glow worm. So what?"
"That speck," Jason said, pointing at the lead box, "contains more energy than a ton of coal."
Senior frowned. "Impossible."
"It's physics, Senior. Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared."
Jason leaned over the desk. He dropped the voice of the son-in-law. He used the voice of the futurist.
"Coal is chemical energy. You burn it, you break the bonds between atoms. It's weak."
He tapped the lead box.
"This is nuclear energy. You don't break the bonds. You break the atom itself. You unleash the force that holds the universe together."
Senior stared at the box. He was a businessman, not a scientist. But he understood power.
"What can it do?" Senior asked.
"Right now?" Jason said. "Nothing. It's just a theory. A math problem."
Jason walked to the window.
"But in twenty years? If we own the mind that solves that problem?"
He turned back to face the old man.
"Imagine a bomb, Senior. A single bomb, the size of a suitcase. You drop it on a city. And the city... vanishes."
Senior's eyes widened.
"Vanishes?"
"Gone. Vaporized in a flash of light brighter than the sun. A hole in the ground where a million people used to be."
Jason walked back to the desk.
"Or imagine a power plant. No coal trains. No smoke. Just a core of uranium the size of a grapefruit. It powers New York City for a hundred years without refueling."
The silence in the room was absolute.
Senior looked at the lead box. He looked at the invoice for five million dollars.
He saw the future. He saw the ultimate monopoly.
If Standard Oil owned energy... not just oil, but energy itself... they would be gods.
"And this... clerk..." Senior whispered. "He can build this?"
"He has the key," Jason said. "He just needs the time to find the lock."
Senior picked up his fountain pen.
He looked at the invoice.
He signed it.
"Buy him whatever he wants," Senior rasped. "Buy him a castle. Buy him a harem. I don't care."
He looked up at Jason. His eyes were shining with a terrifying greed.
"Just make sure when he builds the fire... we own the match."
Princeton, New Jersey, was quiet.
The leaves were turning orange and gold. The air smelled of woodsmoke and old books.
Albert Einstein sat on a bench in the garden behind his new house. He was wearing a baggy sweater and no socks. He was smoking a pipe, staring at a squirrel running up an oak tree.
He looked happy. He looked free.
Jason walked through the garden gate.
"Albert," Jason said.
Einstein smiled. "Ezra! You are just in time. I was contemplating the angular momentum of that squirrel."
"How is the house?"
"Too big," Albert laughed. "But the blackboard is excellent. I have filled three walls already."
Jason sat down on the bench next to him.
"And the work?"
Einstein's smile faded slightly. He puffed on his pipe.
"The work is... disturbing."
"Disturbing?"
"The math works, Ezra. The relationship between mass and energy... it is absolute. But the implications..."
Einstein took the pipe out of his mouth. He looked at Jason with serious, dark eyes.
"I calculated the energy release of a fission event. Theoretical, of course. But if one could split a heavy nucleus... Uranium, perhaps..."
He shook his head.
"It is too much. It is a violence against nature. If we open this door, we might burn the house down."
Jason looked at the peaceful garden. He thought of the trenches in Europe that would soon be filled with blood. He thought of the stalemate. He thought of the millions who would die in a war of attrition.
A bomb could end a war in a day. It was a terrible mercy.
"We don't have a choice, Albert," Jason said softly. "The door is already opening. If we don't walk through it, someone else will. Someone in Berlin."
Einstein looked at him sharply. "Planck?"
"He has Heisenberg. He has Hahn. They are smart men, Albert. They will find it. And if the Kaiser gets the fire first..."
Jason didn't need to finish the sentence. Einstein knew what a German victory looked like. A world of iron and discipline. A world without Jews. A world without free thought.
Einstein sighed. He looked at his pipe smoke drifting into the autumn air.
"So we must be the monsters to stop the monsters?" Einstein asked.
"We must be the guardians," Jason corrected.
He reached into his coat pocket. He pulled out a small black notebook.
"I have a list," Jason said.
"A list?"
"Other minds. Men who are struggling in Europe. Men who are too radical for the academy. I want you to write to them. Invite them here. To the Institute."
Jason handed the notebook to Einstein.
Albert opened it. He read the names.
Niels Bohr.
Enrico Fermi.
Robert Oppenheimer.
Leo Szilard.
Albert looked up.
"This isn't an institute," Albert whispered. "This is an army."
"It's the Manhattan Project," Jason said, the name slipping out before he could stop it.
"Manhattan?" Albert frowned. "We are in New Jersey."
"Just a name," Jason said quickly. "A code name."
He stood up.
"Write the letters, Albert. Bring them here. We have the money. We have the land. We need the brains."
Einstein looked at the notebook. He felt the weight of it. It was heavier than the lead box in Senior's office.
He realized then that he hadn't just accepted a job. He had been drafted.
"You are a frightening man, Ezra Prentice," Einstein said.
"I'm just a man who wants to win," Jason said.
He turned to leave.
"Oh, and Albert?"
Einstein looked up.
"Get to work on the Photoelectric Effect first. It's the easiest one. You'll get a Nobel for it in a few years."
Jason walked away through the fallen leaves.
Einstein watched him go. He looked back at the notebook.
He took out a pen.
He began to write.
Dear Herr Bohr...
Above them, the sky began to darken. The first stars appeared.
Cold. Distant. Burning with the fire that Jason Underwood intended to steal.