As the battered, blue Buick pulled up to the church in Santa Fe, a short, tubby man stepped out to meet it. He climbed into the passenger seat and the car took off, winding its way to the edge of town, then up into the mountains.
It was a warm September night in 1945. The two men sat inside the car and talked like old friends, watching the lights of the city below. After a while, as the desert cooled, they headed back to Santa Fe. Just before parting, the thin, bespectacled driver handed his passenger a package. They shook hands warmly and, despite promises to visit, knew they’d probably never see each other again.
After the car rattled off, the tubby man schlepped to the bus station. Maintaining his grip on the packet, he sat on a bench and tried reading a book, Great Expectations. But he couldn’t concentrate. He kept popping up and scanning the crowd, worried he was being followed. He looked jumpy, even paranoid, and with good reason: he was a Soviet spy, and the packet in his hands contained the blueprints for an atomic bomb.
