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Joseph panted, hands on his knees. He glanced up at his professor.
    “The only thing I’m sure of is, we’re closer to smashing an atom!” Heisenberg’s voice rose with excitement. “Can you believe it? We’re closer than ever!”
    Joseph whistled through his teeth, stuffing his quivering hands into his pockets. Being the first to harness nuclear fission meant victory on the battlefield—and salvation from surrender.
     
    5
    Gestapo Regional Headquarters
     
    Heidelberg, Germany
     
    1:15 p.m.
    The phone call from the Recorder’s Office in Spandau came after lunch.
    “Excuse me for the delay, Major Kassler, but I found the adoption certificate for one Joseph Engel attached to the back of his birth certificate.” The clerk’s voice hesitated slightly.
    “And—” Kassler’s fingers tightened around the receiver.
    “The certificate notes that the boy was originally named Joseph Cohn—C-o-h-n.”
    A Yiddish surname. Kassler tapped his finger on the top of the file. “Can you tell me who the mother and father were?”
    “Abraham and Hena Cohn,” the clerk said.
    “If the boy was adopted, what happened to the parents?” The Gestapo major flipped through the file with his free hand.
    “I anticipated your question, Herr Major. I searched Vital Records and found death certificates for Abraham Cohn and Hena Cohn. They died within a week of each other in April 1918. Cause of death: Spanish flu.”
    Kassler was too young to personally recall the worldwide influenza pandemic of 1918–1919 that killed many more soldiers than the gruesome trench warfare of the Lost War, but he’d learned about the epidemic in primary school. Some of his classmates had even lost a parent to the deadly viral infection.
    “Fräulein Huber, I’m quite impressed with your efforts, and I will make note of that to your superiors. In the meantime, I need one more bit of information. Can you determine if the Cohn parents were members of a synagogue while they were still alive?”
    “I don’t think that should be a problem, Herr Major. I will need a little time, however.”
    “Very good. Please call when you have retrieved the information. And may I remind you that this request needs to stay confidential. It could be vital in the war effort.”
    Kassler gently returned the handset and allowed a satisfied smile to blossom. If his hunch was correct, this Engel character was as Jewish as the Twelve Apostles.
    University of Heidelberg
     
    Main Lecture Hall
     
    1:58 p.m.
    Joseph Engel found a seat in the second row of the cavernous lecture hall as others streamed in, scurrying to their places. The small “blast” generated in the basement that morning had been the raging topic at the canteen. The lecture hall buzzed with junior physicists debating how it happened and what it meant to the future of the atomic research program.
    Joseph glanced up as Professor Heisenberg strode to a desk situated in front of two blackboards—one of which contained equations from yesterday’s lecture. Wearing his customary beige tweed suit, white shirt, and thin blue tie, Heisenberg set his glasses on the table and ran his right hand through his sandy hair. He looked up from his notes; the cue to cease chatting produced an expectant hush.
    “Gentlemen, we move forward,” proclaimed Professor Heisenberg. “Our long-range efforts to separate plutonium from the parent uranium took a step backward today, but until we can build a suitable reactor, that will always be the case.”
    Heisenberg knitted his hands behind his back and strode across the room. “Nonetheless, our experiments in the last month have clearly established that a uranium machine is capable of multiplying neutrons, taking us closer to nuclear fission.”
    Joseph opened a notebook and glanced at several quantum equations the team had been working on.
    “This afternoon, I would like to discuss Energiegewinnung aus Uran , a report prepared by Herr Engel regarding the energy production of