Tara attempts to teach her students about radioactivity using a Navy pamphlet, but struggles to explain nuclear fission in simple terms and abandons the lesson in frustration. Sorry remains preoccupied with fears about leukemia and the possibility that fish, plants, and trees could become sick. Using a radio the Americans gave them, she monitors news broadcasts and angrily reports that a Navy admiral has told reporters the Bikinians are happy and Rongerik superior to Bikini. Navy-sponsored journalists visit and describe the islanders as “primitive,” while focusing only on the island’s scenery rather than the villagers’ situation, romanticizing it as a tropical paradise. Tara insists they are not from the Stone Age.

In mid-June, Sorry begins painting Abram’s outrigger and sail bright red. He reveals his plan to Tara: sail into the target zone, hide on Lomlik Island, then position the canoe within six miles of the target ship Nevada on the morning of the bomb drop and use a polished piece of tin to reflect sunlight at the bomber. He claims Dr. Garrison told him six miles is a safe distance. Tara calls the plan insane and urges him to consult the council, but Sorry refuses, declaring his father was not a coward, and neither is he.

As preparations continue, a B-29 Superfortress conducts a practice run over the target fleet and comes close to a direct hit on the Nevada, underscoring the precision and imminence of the test, while the bomb itself, similar to the one used on Nagasaki and named “Gilda,” is readied for use.

Grandfather Jonjen summons the village for Tara’s evening news report. She announces the bomb test is scheduled for July 1 at eight-thirty in the morning, after having been postponed twice, and says it is the same type as the Nagasaki bomb, Fat Man. She also reports that the target ships are in place with animals aboard and that the bomb is waiting on Kwajalein. The villagers ask questions about what they will see and hear, but Tara cannot answer most of them. Sorry then stands and announces his plan to sail to Bikini on Friday, reach Lomlik on Sunday night, and position himself within six miles of the Nevada on Monday morning. His mother forbids him from going, and Leje Ijjirik scoffs that the Navy will drop the bomb regardless. Chief Juda recognizes the plan as Abram’s idea, which Sorry confirms.

To Sorry’s surprise, Tara announces she will join him in protest, and Jonjen declares he will go to pray. Manoj Ijjirik calls for more volunteers, but no one responds and most villagers react with disbelief and refuse to take part. Tara describes their act as “thumbing our noses at the giant” (167). The next morning, Tara’s radio reports that nearby atolls are being evacuated, despite earlier assurances that they would be safe, including promises that an LST would remove them if danger approached. Sorry plans to use the white sail during the voyage and switch to the red one at the atoll, hoping cloud cover will help them approach undetected, as the target fleet, with the Nevada at its center, lies anchored in formation in Bikini lagoon.

Over the next four days, village opinion shifts; the mission comes to be seen as heroic, their only chance to tell the world about their displacement and suffering, as they come to believe Rongerik cannot support them and that starvation is likely. On the morning of June 28, Sorry reassures his sister Lokileni he will be safe, then says goodbye to his tearful mother. The canoe is prepared with food, water, and supplies for the journey. After a church service praying for protection and for the bomb to be stopped, Sorry, Tara, and Jonjen—wearing leis and warrior headbands—walk down a path of red hibiscus lined by clapping villagers, including Leje Ijjirik. The men push the canoe into the water, and Sorry leaps aboard. He gives the victory sign as they sail away through Bok Pass, the villagers waving until the canoe disappears over the horizon.

As the departure takes place, final preparations for the test continue, with a signal declaring July 1 as Able Day, target ships in position with animals aboard, and support ships moving to assigned areas.

Cloud cover conceals the canoe during the voyage as they hear numerous aircraft overhead. At sundown on Sunday, they arrive at Lomlik Island inside Bikini Atoll. The lagoon is filled with anchored warships, with most “live” ships gone and “dead” ones left with animals aboard, and an instrument tower has been erected on their family’s land. Though they have returned, the lagoon no longer feels like home but like foreign water under a foreign presence. Sorry offers Tara and Jonjen the option of staying on the barrier reef for safety, but both refuse. Sorry confesses he is frightened, and Tara admits she nearly asked to turn back but pressed on by asking herself what Abram would have done. They speak little as they prepare, weighed down by what lies ahead.

Around two in the morning, they replace the white sail with the red one and shove off into the dark lagoon, sailing silently toward the target area to avoid the electronic detection devices Dr. Garrison had described, after planning to move toward the fleet shortly after midnight.

Book III is comprised of a short series of fragmented passages, without chapter numbers.

On the morning of July 1st, Dave’s Dream takes off from Kwajalein with the atom bomb. Sorry, Tara, and Jonjen conceal their canoe near an LST anchored three miles offshore, observing the significant changes that have been made to their former home. As the scheduled drop time approaches, a series of timed signals counts down the release, and Sorry raises the red sail and steers north, attempting to reach what he considers a safe distance of six miles from the Nevada. Tara attempts to signal the aircraft overhead using a reflective tin lid, while Jonjen prays. Sorry recognizes that the pilots are focused solely on the Nevada as their target and would be unlikely to notice their canoe below, realizing the madness and futility of their plan.

The bomb is dropped, producing an intense flash of light, a loud shockwave, and a rapidly rising mass of light and smoke over the target ships. A heat wave and a large wave strike the canoe before silence falls over Bikini lagoon. Book III closes with a note that while the Able bomb has expended its energy, the effects of its radiation are only beginning.

The explosion occurred within millionths of a second. Afterward, drone planes and boats equipped with Geiger counters monitored radiation levels as they moved among the target ships, some of which were sunk or damaged while many remained afloat. About 10% of the test animals died instantly, with more succumbing later to radiation, and some suffering long-term effects such as infertility. By mid-1947, the Rongerik food supply was critically low. In February 1948, after emergency rations were flown in, the Navy moved the villagers to Kwajalein, and seven months later relocated them to Kili—a wet island without a lagoon, 450 miles away. These displaced people are often called the world’s first “nuclear nomads,” and over six hundred descendants still live there today facing an uncertain future.

In 1969, President Johnson declared Bikini safe for resettlement, but returning families found the atoll transformed into an area littered with junk and scrap, including abandoned buildings, oil drums, rusting trucks, cranes, and steel towers. One resident asked, “What have you done to us?”(170). After nearly 10 years, doctors discovered they were being poisoned by cesium-137 in the soil, and they had to leave the island again. As of 1995, scuba divers explore the sunken target fleet, but the island remains contaminated. The scattered descendants live throughout the Marshalls, Hawaii, California, and Nevada. Some older Bikinians still dream of their ancestral land, which they call lamoren.