"How about the third charge?" I asked.
Lamb looked serious. "That's not going to be so easy, Mr. Tompkins," he announced. "Harcourt reports that he doesn't think there's anything to it, but Naval Intelligence has the jitters about this Alaska business. It seems to be pretty well established that on the afternoon of April second you stated that the U.S.S. Alaska had been sunk in an explosion off the western Aleutians. That was over ten days ago and there is still no word from the carrier. The last report came from Adak which had picked the ship up by radar on the first. The report given us was that you represented that it was all a dream. What worries the Navy about this explanation is that no public announcement had ever been made of the Alaska's launching or commission. She's a sneak-carrier built under stringent security regulations and until you came into the picture the Navy was pretty sure that there'd been no leak."
I nodded dismally. "Knowing the Navy," I replied, "I can see how they feel. All that I can suggest, Mr. Lamb, is that this is a case of mental telepathy. There have been plenty of other instances of it on record. Often they call it intuition or second sight. I can only say that if you investigate and can find any other explanation I'll be delighted."
"I don't think that Admiral Ballister—he's the present head of O.N.I., though they change so fast we almost lose count—will be satisfied with the theory that it is a case of E.S.P. That's 'extra-sensory perception' and there have been plenty of scientific experiments in that field but the Navy doesn't know about them. And then, of course, there was the bomb—"
I nodded. "The thorium bomb—" I began, and stopped as I noticed an official change in Lamb's attitude.
"Exactly, Mr. Tompkins," he observed. "The thorium bomb. Nobody—at least outside of the President, the Secretary of the Navy and Professor Chalmis—was supposed to know that there was such a thing as a thorium bomb. The security arrangements on the thorium project were so drastic—"
"Roscommon knew all about it," I said. "He also mentioned Chalmis to me."
The Deputy Director looked slightly ill. "He did, did he?" he growled. "That will teach the Navy not to let the Bureau handle domestic security. Hell, this thing gets bigger and bigger every minute. If Roscommon knew about it, then anybody could have known. Why, it's been an offense against the Espionage Act, even to print the word 'thorium' outside of chemical textbooks, and Chalmis is supposed to be in the T.B. sanitarium at Saranac. Wonder what happened to him?"
I leaned forward. "He's dead, Mr. Lamb," I assured him. "Everybody on the Alaska is dead. The bomb went off and there's nobody left to tell the tale."
"How do you do it, Tompkins?" Lamb demanded. "If you will give us the details and the names of your accomplices I think I can promise you a life sentence instead of the electric chair."