Thurgood turned wearily to the small, white-haired man at his side.
"Let's go over it once more, Dr. Crane. Are you sure you knew everything that was in that building?" Thurgood swept his hand in the general direction of the blast crater.
"Colonel, I've told you a dozen times," the hospital administrator said with exasperation, "this was our manual therapy room. We gave our patients art work. It was a means of getting out of their systems, through the use of their hands, some of the frustrations and problems that led them to this hospital. They worked with oil and water paints and clay. If you can make an atomic bomb from vermillion pigments, then Madame Curie was a misguided scrubwoman."
"All I know is that you say this was a crafts building. O.K. So it was," Thurgood sighed. "I also know that an atomic explosion at 3:02 this morning blew it to hell and gone.
"And I've got to find out how it happened."
Thurgood slumped into a field chair and gazed tiredly up at the little doctor.
"Where's that girl you said was in charge of this place?"
"We've already called for Miss Abercrombie and she's on her way here now," the doctor snapped.
Outside the tent, a small army of military men and AEC technicians moved around the perimeter of the crater, scintillators in hand, examining every tiny scrap that might have been a part of the building at one time.