The stakes get higher…
INT. STABLES - CAMP GLADDEN - FIRST LIGHT
Corporal Scott checks his bedroll and lashes it to his saddle with his canteen and other gear. BEYOND, Sergeant Bates helps PRIVATE PAUL RAMIREZ, 18, Arizona National Guard, secure forty pounds of radio and other gear to a pack horse. Bates looks over at Scott.
BATES
Looks like you're gettin' your wish to go to war, Ebbie.
SCOTT
Damn right.
(sees Roberts enter)
Paper boy comin'.
BATES
Major prob'ly wants us to sign we ain't gonna lose no horses.
ROBERTS
Uh, Sergeant Bates, I hear this is a volunteer detail.
BATES
Sure as hell it is. Sergeant Major came in, said he wanted volunteers, as in you, you, you,'n me.
ROBERTS
I want to volunteer.
BATES AND SCOTT
You what?!
ROBERTS
I want to volunteer.
Ray enters with Williams in time to hear that.
RAY
What’s your experience, Roberts?
ROBERTS
I wasn’t always a clerk, sir.
RAY
(likes Roberts' attitude)
Do you have any problem with us taking along a for-real genuine volunteer, Sergeant Major?
Williams does, but he's been around white officers long enough to give "The Right Answer."
WILLIAMS
You're comin', Roberts, you'd best get yer gear before the Major finds out he's lost you.
ROBERTS
Right away, Sergeant Major!
Roberts goes just outside the door and grabs his gear.
EXT. LITTLE DRAGOON MOUNTAINS - MORNING
The line of mounted Germans small against the Western landscape.
STAHLBERG - stares across the desert. His hand rests on the butt of a Colt Peacemaker, holstered at his hip.
BEHIND HIM - one of Uncle Walker's shirts tied over his head like a burnoose - Count Punski beats a cloud of dried mud and dust from his tunic.
COUNT PUNSKI
What I want to know is, when and how do we bathe?
THE OTHERS - roll their eyes, but Stahlberg smiles. To their surprise, he pulls off his tunic, takes the Bowie Knife off his belt, slits the side seam and pulls out a silk map of Arizona and New Mexico! He consults it.
STAHLBERG
The Lost Horse Mine may well have those facilities, your highness my Count.
MOELDERS
Where did you get that?
STAHLBERG
It was made for us in Berlin, my comrades. We have worked a very long time to see this day, a very long time indeed. The time has come for you to know our true purpose.
ON EACH IN TURN WHILE STAHLBERG SPEAKS - Amazement from Punski; anticipation from Moelders; concern from Heyer; satisfaction from Emmerer.
STAHLBERG
My orders come directly from the Fuehrer. Our mission will change the course of history, not merely that of this war.
The Americans are working on a bomb which can destroy the Fatherland. We will stop them.
Heyer is shocked at Stahlberg’s words. Punski raises the vintage 1903 Springfield with its 1940s telescopic sight.
PUNSKI
With this?
STAHLBERG
We will have what we need.
HEYER
They did it...??? Mein Gott!
Where are we going?
STAHLBERG
It is called Los Alamos. In their New Mexico.
He kicks his heels against his mount's flanks. The group of them head down the ridge.
EXT. UNCLE WALKER'S RANCH - EARLY MORNING
THE BUFFALO SOLDIERS watch Sergeant Major Williams, who walks the perimeter of the corral with Ray.
WILLIAMS
...the tracks don't lie, sir. North-north-east. Straight at the Little Dragoons.
RAY
Get me Major Brand, Private Ramirez.
Ramirez raises the antenna and warms up the radio. A moment.
RAMIREZ
(Hands Ray the mike)
I got Lieutenant Miller, sir.
RAY
Miller. Where's Brand?
Ray puts on the headset and checks his map.
RAY
(listens)
Okay. Take this down. We are at
grid reference one zero niner seven, sector easy-one. Tell him we picked up the trail heading east of north from our position. Out.
He hands the radio gear back to Ramirez.
RAY
Mount up.
EXT. LOST HORSE MINE - LITTLE DRAGOON MOUNTAINS -SAME
"NESSUN DORMA" from Puccini's "TURANDOT", sung slightly off-key, ECHOES from the Mountains in all their spring glory.
BEHIND THE BARELY-STANDING MINE SHACK - Count Punski sits in an ancient galvanized high-back bathtub singing lustily as he washes himself.
INT. THE MINE
Moelders glances out the mine entrance toward Punski's aria.
MOELDERS
They'll hear us coming a day before we get there!
Stahlberg pulls up boards at the bottom of the hole.
He hands gear to Moelders: compasses...binoculars...
STAHLBERG
The Count has his value, Hanni. How many would have joined with me, if the famous fighter ace hadn't come first?
...60mm mortar...with baseplate...crate of mortar rounds...
MOELDERS
I was always ready.
...two Thompson submachineguns...ten big round ammo drums...
STAHLBERG
Of course you were.
He hands up a wooden box with German writing on it.
He scrambles out, takes his knife and pries open the box and takes out a paper-wrapped block, opens it and hands it to Moelders, who doesn't recognize the gray clay.
STAHLBERG
English plastic explosive. The best.
EXT. MINE - DAY
Emmerer tosses old clothes from a carton to Count Punski.
Punski pulls them on and turns to Heyer, who looks at him in his get-up, dubious.
COUNT PUNSKI
We're in the Western movies for real, Max!
(makes a "pistol")
Bang! Bang! Bang! This town ain't big enough fer the two of us, stranger.
(points his "pistol")
You hit the trail by sunset, iffin y'know what's good fer yuh. Tom Mix! Bang! Bang!
He sees Heyer isn't buying.
COUNT PUNSKI
Bring out the Red Indian maidens, Max! What's wrong? This is just like Karl May’s books.
HEYER
I am thinking that when we put on these clothes, we stop being escaped prisoners of war and become spies. Unlike prisoners of war, spies can be shot.
COUNT PUNSKI
Only spies that get caught.
Emmerer steps out, self-conscious. He looks like a character from the old west in his change of clothes.
COUNT PUNSKI
Howdy, pardner.
Count Punski's laugh ECHOES. He holds both hands as "pistols," whirls around...and freezes when he SEES...
STAHLBERG - stands at the mine entrance, the butt of the loaded Tommygun rests on his hip: a "Teutonic Knight" with a machinegun. He raises the gun toward the sky. A BURST OF STACCATO MACHINEGUN FIRE ECHOES over nature's beauty.
EXT. LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY - DAY
Set in the beautiful heart of the Sangre De Cristo range, the rough wood buildings, ripped earth and Cyclone fence are an assault on nature.
INT. PHIL HAMILTON'S OFFICE - DAY
Small, rough wood walls, government-issue desk.
Even in khaki workpants and shirt, no one would mistake PHIL HAMILTON, 32, for other than a professor.
PHIL
...’bye, Bev, I’ll get on it.
(Listens)
I miss you, too, sis.
He hangs up, looks at the phone as if it might bite him, then takes up his pipe, packs, tamps, and fires up; his thoughts elsewhere, troubled.
EXT. LITTLE DRAGOON MOUNTAINS - LATE AFTERNOON
Stahlberg and his men ride through a stand of aspen.
Heyer spurs his horse alongside Stahlberg.
HEYER
Erich, I must talk to you. About the mission. It is impossible. The scope of this project is too big. The place would be a fortress. There is no way five of us could do it.
STAHLBERG
You are right, of course.
(Heyer’s surprised)
To destroy a snake, Max, you don't worry at its tail, you cut off its head. Their leader is J. Robert Oppenheimer.
HEYER
I met him once in Berlin.
STAHLBERG
I know. He has a family ranch sixty kilometers north of their base. He and the others often go there to relax. Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, Niels Bohr...
HEYER
Other than Heisenberg, that's everyone who could do it.
STAHLBERG
Yes. And the five of us will kill them all.
HEYER
How...how did you...this has to be the biggest secret of the war!
STAHLBERG
(Laughs)
The Russians have agents there already. We intercepted their reports.
EXT. OPPENHEIMER'S RANCH - JEMAS MOUNTAINS - DAY
A 1940 Ford convertible pulls up before the ranch house. Phil Hamilton gets out, mounts the steps.
INT. RANCH LIVING ROOM - DAY
Battered chairs face a blackboard covered with equations. J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER and EDWARD TELLER are in one of their famous arguments to the rapt attention of TEN COLLEAGUES.
EDWARD TELLER
A fission bomb is yesterday! If we do not move to fusion now, we lose our opportunity for the quantum leap!
(points at the blackboard)
Look! You can see that...
A KNOCK AT THE DOOR. Oppenheimer goes and opens it as...
OPPENHEIMER
Yes, Edward, your point is excellent, and I agree that, perhaps in ten years, we may have the technology to build The Super, but the war won’t wait. We have to do what can be done now.
Oppenheimer's surprised to see Phil.
OPPENHEIMER
What's the matter, Phil?
PHIL
Oppie, I've got to talk to you.
Privately.
OPPENHEIMER
Of course.
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Tom, this keeps getting more and more addictive. Can't wait for the next installment!