The Atomic Express

From the Publisher Praise for Miller’s earlier, nonfiction book, Under The Cloud: “Richard Miller’s account of United States and Soviet efforts to develop the bomb and the history of nuclear testing in the U.S. from the first bomb up to the abolishing of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1974 is outstanding.” -Rosalie Dunbar, the Christian Science Monitor. Jan 31, 1987. “Why then should this book be published at this time? Perhaps it is part of the Soviet-sponsored campaign to stop all nuclear tests, similar to the “ban the bomb” propaganda of the early 1960s.” -Dixie Lee Ray, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. Washington Times, Oct 27, 1986. “Drawing his material from government files, Miller gives a thorough and formal look at the key events and the little-known side effects of all that was taking place. . .the material is enough to make the story as fascinating as it is chilling.”-Robert Merritt, Richmond VA Times-Dispatch Oct 19, 1986. “The greatest virtue of Under The Cloud is that it makes nuclear weapons tests personal events, impossible to forget by those who participated in them and forgotten only with difficulty by those who come to understand that all of us have been unwilling and unwitting participants.”-Gerald E. Marsh (Office of Arms Control and Defense Sciences at Argonne National Laboratory and co-author of Born Secret: The H-Bomb, the Progressive Case and National Security) writing in the New York Times. Oct 5, 1986. “A chilling documentary history of America’s above-ground nuclear tests conducted during the 1950s and early 1960s. Miller takes on the subject and universalizes it, giving it the flavor of a Dos Passos novel. . .scary stuff.”-Kirkus Reviews Aug 15, 1986. From the Author “The Atomic Express is the definitive history of America’s nuclear test program.” About the Author Richard L. Miller lives with his wife and daughter somewhere in the southwestern United States. He is also the author of Under The Cloud: The Decades of Nuclear Testing. He recently completed his second novel, Dreamer. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. “An atomic bomb, just before detonation, makes a slight humming noise. No one knows when the sound actually begins, but it becomes audible about ten minutes before the actual shot. to anyone sitting next to the device, time in those final ten minutes becomes a plastic, slippery flow of discrete instants. Each second lasts an eternity, an eternity saturated with visions of the bomb casing’s dull gunmetal, the rusty gray of the shot tower, the storm-filled, early morning desert sky. And that sound, that hum.. Subtle, like a persistent scrap of memory that would neither go away nor reveal itself completely. Carl Rhinehart stood for a moment to stretch his legs, a six-foot-two insect atop a 400-foot steel tower. The first time he’d heard the hum, he thought it was from somewhere else, either from inside his head or from the desert outside the shot cab. It had reminded him of no other sound on earth and had frankly scared the hell out of him. He now understood the hum had a more pedestrian origin. It was simply the routine vibration of atoms inside some electrical gadget located deep within the bomb. Probably a timer. Whatever it was, it was damn annoying. It reminded him of the low whine heard near the State Street subway rails on cold winter days in Chicago. Rhinehart yawned, leaned against the bomb, and checked his watch. Eleven miles away at the Camp Jupiter Control Point, the test manager was probably running around, checking the circuits, barking orders to the scientists, engineers, assistants, congressmen and other flunkies who came to see the big firecracker go off. Looking out the shot cab window though the light drizzle, Rhinehart could barely make out a blurry riot of headlights lining the nearby ridge. Troop trucks. But here, the desert was quiet. Except for an occasional metallic crackle from the loudspeakers