Manhattan

Previously on "Manhattan"...

I gave you the velocity distribution problem

because I think you're the only man here who's capable of solving it.

You are a once-in-a-generation mind.

There's a problem with Thin Man.

So what are we gonna do about it?

The plan is to prove implosion works before the plutonium arrives.

To put everybody around you in jeopardy?

Sorry to hear about Glen.

He went to go do admin work for Oppenheimer?

- Helen, there's something I need to ask you. - Oh, shit.

Are you...

- This is just work. - Of course it is.

I need you to put some papers into their house

to make it look like Lancefield hid them.

I don't even know who I'm talking to.

So you're framing them for something.

Dr. Akley. I apologize.

It's about a problem we've been working on in implosion.

Implosion is Frank Winter country and the border is closed.

I believe your border is wide open.

Christ.

You spooked me.

I thought everyone had cleared out for the night.

"Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell."

You know that one?

No, sir.

Will you let me know if you see anything out of the ordinary?

Nothing's amiss here.

Thank you, Edgar.

Reed. What time is it?

It's late as far as the javelina are concerned.

You're in the doghouse, huh?

I warned you.

Secrets have a way of coming out.

Get dressed.

We're going for a drive.

I wouldn't know a javelina if it ran right past me.

It won't. They can sniff you out from 100 yards.

So how are we supposed to shoot one?

We're not shooting wild pigs, Charlie.

They taste like shit and they look too ugly to put on a wall.

Dr. Akley?

A combat historian I know

found out a fascinating detail about our American Gis on the front line.

Is that right?

We're fighting an army convinced it is a master race

destined to dominate all of mankind,

an army that puts your women and children in concentration camps.

But do you know

what four in five of our soldiers do

when given the chance to fire at these wretched people?

They intentionally miss.

80% of our soldiers

can't bear the idea of shooting someone,

even their worst enemy.

I doubt I'd be able to.

And yet you shot me in the back.

Sir, whatever you heard...

Charlie, you know how long we've been working on the gun model?

Almost a year.

700 years.

The Chinese invented firearms in the 13th century.

We've been refining them ever since.

Thin Man is just the next evolutionary stage,

so why are you trying to sabotage her?

Sir, Thin Man was never going to work.

With the plutonium that they are making at Site X,

Thin Man will predetonate.

The spontaneous fission rate is too high.

- That might be true. - No, sir, it is true.

But, Charlie, we're not using the plutonium at Site X.

I was there. I saw the factory.

What you saw at Site X was a pilot plant designed to work out the kinks.

I wasn't in Washington, DC, this week.

I was in Washington State touring the new reactor

that will make the weapons grade plutonium.

The army calls it Site W.

But why would we think their plutonium would be any cleaner?

Because Enrico Fermi personally designed the reactor.

I have the fission rates on my desk.

It's as good as cyclotron plutonium.

It's as good as pure.

You've been manipulated

by a brilliant but misguided man.

Frank Winter is using you

to destroy Thin Man.

Did Frank know about Site W?

He has the same security clearance as I do, at least for now.

But why wouldn't he have told me?

Charlie, I don't care

if implosion wins this war or Thin Man.

I don't care if Hitler swallows a shotgun.

Every man on this Hill is fighting the same war

except Frank, who's too busy fighting for his own place in history.

Tell me, whose idea was it

to hijack Thin Man in the first place?

Whose idea to try and dupe the most powerful army in the world?

- Yours? - No.

Was it Frank's brilliant idea to send Helen Prins over

- to spy on Thin Man as well? - She wasn't involved.

Frank's had you on her strings since the minute you got here.

He used her to squeeze the plutonium out of you.

He sent her to Site X in order to tempt you.

What about Tom Lancefield? Is he mixed up in all this?

Lancefield found out.

Frank said we had to get rid of him.

Jesus, Charlie.

Sir, I am so sorry.

It's okay.

It's okay.

Right now we have to figure out a way to keep you safe.

Last night I pulled every requisition

that's come out of my office in the last two months.

Every order co-opting our resources for use on implosion.

Your signature is on all of them.

Plain as day.

Jesus.

The army uses the same ammo for decent misguided men

as it does for spies.

You're implicated in a conspiracy

to sabotage the most expensive

and most secret project in military history.

And if it comes out, you're the only one

that it will trace back to.

And meanwhile,

the man who's truly responsible for all this

could get away scot-free.

How long does it take Dr. Oppenheimer to walk 300 feet from his office?

Where is he?

Well, they have central AC

and no dust storms at the White House,

so you can hardly blame the man for extending his stay.

Don't worry. I'll take notes.

Gentlemen, we've just gotten word

that more than a gram of plutonium will be shipping imminently

from the Graphite Reactor at Site X.

How imminently?

Within a week.

Don't forget the postal service doesn't deliver on Sundays.

The solid plutonium buttons will be traveling by train in a sealed titanium case.

Carried by whom?

That's need-to-know information.

The last time we shipped plutonium,

a sweaty-palmed junior professor

nearly got himself killed at a truck stop,

so forgive me if I'd like a little background

on the person we're entrusting with 100 times as much

of the scarcest resource on the planet.

He's a heavily armed lieutenant in Tennessee's 5th Ranger Battalion,

the most combat-ready unit in the United States Army.

That good enough for you?

The train from Knoxville to Santa Fe

takes 34 and a quarter hours.

Two-thirds of the 50 stops appear on every world map.

And do you know where the highest concentrations

of German nationals in this country happen to live?

The Santa Fe Railroad sold them

a few hundred thousand acres of farmland at the turn of the century.

We need soldiers in army trucks, aerial support.

We need a convoy that can protect itself

in case it falls under enemy attack.

That operation would delay the shipment by weeks.

If we fumble this ball,

we won't be looking at delays.

The game will be over.

Glen?

It's a reasonable point.

This week I found out that a subordinate of mine

was stealing Thin Man secrets from under my nose, a man that I trusted.

Now imagine if a traitor like Tom Lancefield

were to catch wind of our shipping plans.

Now I think that it's time that we all faced reality.

There are spies on this Hill.

Helen, I'm busy.

With what?

- Not now. - Okay, when?

Dr. Prins.

Just the physicist I wanted to see.

How was your trip, sir?

I want to tell you something, Helen.

Whatever the reason that Charlie recruited you into Thin Man,

I'm lucky to have you on my team.

Oh, thank you, sir.

I'm so glad to be here.

You ever hear that old song,

"I'm gonna dance with the guy what brung me"?

No.

I know that Frank brought you to this dance

and I know you feel loyal to him.

For whatever reason, he inspires that in people.

Oh, sir, I'm very grateful...

He inspired it in me.

Did you know that Frank gave me my first job out of graduate school?

- Really? - Even back then he had a unique mind.

He was brilliant. He was iconoclastic.

I looked up to him.

And then he picked a squabble with the department chair