He listened. Leslie Groves was good at that. Fermi was right, as usual. This was big news, and very bad news indeed.

He picked up his scrambler phone, called a number.

"Franklin? Leslie. I'm flying to Washington now and I have to see you as soon as I get there. It's about this Metallurgy Lab here in Chicago, the one that's doing things for that Manhattan Engineering Project, you'll remember. We've had some unexpected casualties, I'm afraid."

He frowned with obvious distaste and continued.

"I suppose that we'll have to tell J. Edgar. You might want to have him sit in on the meeting. I should be there, in, oh, five hours. Right. Goodbye."

He hung up.

Damn, damn, DAMN! Keeping this quiet was going to be a real problem.

There was a knock.

"Chief?"

"I told you not to call me that!" Then he looked up. It was Larry Ellison, his secretary. "Sorry, Larry. What's up?"

"There been an explosion down in the lakeside docks area. I'm afraid that the police...well, it might be linked to us."

Double damn, double damn, double DAMN!!