A Time To Every Purpose

by Ian Andrew

  There was a sudden quiet in the room. The lights were on but the rest of the equipment was dark and noiseless. Leigh and Francine were also silent, moving between the control consoles in a mute dance of inspection. Heinrich stood a little apart from them trying to comprehend the conversation he had just been a part of.

  Yeshua had undertaken to completely transform his ministry. In order to save future generations from total subjugation he would change the way his message was heard. He had agreed with no real argument or obstacle. The question was had it made a difference? They were all obviously still alive. No massive tsunami of destruction had befallen them, but did that mean it hadn’t worked? Did it mean it had but the theories were wrong? He remembered about the head of the snake being eaten by itself. They needed to know if anything significant had changed and see what the world looked like. If nothing was different, then he needed to know where Gethsemane was. He slowly gathered up his notes and the copied extracts from the Archives, looking at them, but really, looking through them. He was shaken out of his thoughts by Leigh.

  “Heinrich, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, sure, why?”

  “You look like the weight of the world has rested on you?”

  ‘Maybe it has,’ he thought, but said, “No, I’m good. How’s the equipment?”

  Leigh turned to Francine and with a shrug prompted her for her assessment.

  “We saved it. A self-instigated emergency shutdown. No blown transformers but one major power surge. It’s safe to say if we try to turn it on and go back again then we’ll wreck it.”

  Heinrich’s whole body sagged at the news.

  “But, first things first,” she continued, “maybe we don’t have to go back. What do you reckon?”

  Leigh led them into Oscar and across to her office. Once more she logged into the mainstream, albeit Party controlled, sites. Their logical heads knew that because they were here with no perceivable differences then probably nothing had changed on the outside. Their logic didn’t dampen their disappointment when they saw no discernible difference in the world that they knew so well.

  “The answer’s yes then. We have to go back,” said Heinrich.

  “And that’s still impossible. The system will drop as soon as we try,” countered Francine.

  “You said you had a couple of spare transformers. If we try with this one and it blows, we still have one left?”

  Leigh chipped in, “It doesn’t work like that. The amount of surge we’re looking at doesn’t mean we just blow the transformer. It could mean we shatter the whole system.”

  They sat quietly for a long moment. Heinrich finally turned to them, “I’m going to go and study my notes and the copies I made of the Archive’s maps. I need to at least try to find this garden Judas spoke of. Then I’m going to cross-reference it through the Reich’s satellite databank that you have access to in the Thule Room. Then I’m going to try and think of what to say when we go back in. All I can do is to be ready when you two come up with a way of figuring this out. I know you will.” He began to move out of the office, saying as he went, “Heck I know one of you would solve this, so two of you together, you’ll crack it in no time. A burden shared and all that. Can you let me back into the room?” he was halfway across Oscar before he realised no one was following him. He turned and went back to Leigh’s office door, “Seriously, can you let me back in?”

  The two scientists were staring at each other with a perplexed look on their faces.

  “That could work, couldn’t it?” Leigh said.

  “Yep, most definitely,” replied Francine and reached for a plain sheet of paper. As Heinrich watched they began scribbling with pencils.

  “So, can you let me back in?”

  Francine looked up at him and said, “Shooosh! Take a seat soldier boy. We’re thinking.”

  He stayed in the doorway and watched as they quickly covered the first sheet of paper and grabbed for a few more. From his upside down view he could see what looked like a couple of boxes drawn with a line between them and what he assumed were mathematical formulas. It could equally have been the shopping list he had seen on Faber’s blackboard the day before. He decided to go and sit at a bench and look at his Roman maps.

  ‘Near the cemetery on the Mount of Olives, on the Jericho Road, west of the temple.’ He thought as he tracked the maps. The Temple was an easy landmark that the Roman surveyors had accurately marked but he couldn’t find anything west of the temple that looked like a garden. After a few minutes he realised he must have heard Judas wrong. Jericho was east of Jerusalem and so was the Mount of Olives. Once he had realised his mistake it didn’t take long to find a garden on the map in the right place. It was marked ‘Gatsmane’ but he figured it was a close approximation. Vineyards were noted with the Roman symbol for wine and a stylised pattern drawn to approximate other vegetation. He needed to log the satellite coordinates but he knew he would have to wait for the two scientists to finish before he could get back into the Thule Room.

  He was quite startled when his ForeFone rang. After checking the screen his surprise turned to dread.

  “Professor Faber, how are you?”

  “Frankly, Standartenführer Steinmann I am a touch concerned.” The older man’s voice was brusque and slightly out of breath.

  “Oh, that doesn’t sound so good,” Heinrich shut his eyes and hoped that there could possibly be a completely unconnected reason for the call, “What seems to be the problem?”

  “The problem, the problem you say. Well the problem is that I have just been rung up at home by the duty watch officer from the power station that provides electricity to my lab.”

  Heinrich swore to himself and felt his frustration ratchet up another notch or two. He didn’t get a chance to respond before Faber continued, “He informs me that there has been another spike in power use from our lab. Another? I said to him. What do you mean another? Imagine my surprise when he said you rang him a little while ago after a power surge. He says that you, you no less, you told him not to be concerned and that you were doing some testing. Have you suddenly developed a PhD in optoelectronics Standartenführer, have you?”

  “No Profe…”

  “Oh be quiet young man, I know you haven’t. Now, look here, the point is this. I didn’t think you were on your own. For a start you couldn’t possibly be in there on your own. Simply impossible what with our security. So I rang up the entry control at the Tubes and they told me that Doctors Wilson and Xu are in there too.”

  “Yes Profe…”

  “Hush! Be quiet! I’m trying to save your career, though goodness only knows why I should. I’ve no idea what my two scientists told you but they obviously convinced you to ring up to assuage the power station watch officer. That is a worry. Do you know why? Well, do you?”

  “It’s prob...”

  “Enough! Of course you don’t know why. Well I shall tell you. We have protocols about excessive power usage. The protocols mean that only you or I could have gotten that watch officer to carry on as normal. Otherwise his instructions are to cut off the power going into the lab completely. Completely off after a power surge. Does that tell you something? Mmm? Only authorised by you or me. Head of Laser Research or Head of SS Security for the project. Two of us. Out of all the people on the project. Does that tell you something, anything, well?”

  “I th…”

  “Be quiet! You have no idea. Of course it tells you something. It tells you that there is a great risk in abnormal power usage. Our project does certain things that you have seen for yourself but, and it is a substantial but, the project could theoretically be used to do other things. I cannot, nor will not, discuss this on the phone to you but it can do things, mark my words. Things that have been categorically ruled out by our leaders but, things nonetheless it could do.”

  Heinrich heard the professor suck in another rapid lungful of breath.

  “Given your intervention into my team yesterday there is a reason we stood them al
l down. Tempers may be frayed and emotions may be heightened and raw. We need to protect ourselves from anyone deciding to do anything stupid or reckless. Something reckless like trying to assist a former colleague, however well meaning that intention may be. Do I make myself clear?”

  Heinrich waited to see if he was about to get interrupted again.

  “Well do I?”

  “Not really Professor.” He said, hoping to play for a little time, “How do you mean?” he heard Faber draw another, if slower and deeper, breath.

  “Are you in my lab now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are Leigh and Francine there too?”

  “Yes Professor.”

  “Right! This is an order Standartenführer Steinmann and please do not forget that I hold a Technical Directorate rank that is quite a number of rungs above you. Get yourself and my two scientists out of that lab. You are to escort them up above ground. Go to the cafeteria in fact. Go there and keep them there until I arrive. Am I clear?”

  Heinrich could sense frustration in the man’s voice but also something else. Almost a tinge of disappointment.

  “Professor, I will of course do as you ask, but may I ask why?” There was a lengthy pause.

  “You are my head of security,” the professor’s voice had calmed somewhat and his breath was less ragged, “I am instructing you to do this so there is no need to bring in outside agencies. You and I shall discuss this. You and I shall reach a mutual understanding and I will not lose two more of my best for no reason. Is that clear?”

  “Yes Professor.”

  “Good, well do as I say and take my two out of the lab. Heinrich,” the professor’s voice had flattened yet carried a sense of dread, “get them out of there for me please. I want them to be safe.”

  “Yes Professor.” And the line went dead. Heinrich checked the time, then walked back to the office where the women were still huddled together. As he got to the doorway they looked up.

  “We can fix it and make it work,” Leigh said excitedly.

  Francine added, “And it’s thanks to you soldier boy. Your little two heads better than one, burdens shared quip. We can use the spare transformer, wire it in parallel, ease the load on the power input circuits and then,” she paused, “you have no idea what I mean do you?”

  “Nope, but what I got is that you can make it work again and I’m the genius that thought up how to do it?”

  “Yeah, something like that,” said Leigh.

  The two scientists got up and collected all their papers ready to start work.

  “Don’t go yet. We need to talk.”

  Chapter 52

  Heinrich guessed his change of expression conveyed the gravity of the moment as both Leigh and Francine stopped looking pleased with themselves. They sat back down, each distractedly holding their papers and pencils to their chest.

  Heinrich propped himself on the corner of the desk and asked, “Where does Professor Faber live?”

  “Sevenoaks, why?”

  “Hang on,” Heinrich punched the location into the map display on his Fone and calculated the fastest travelling time from there to Todt. He then quickly recounted the conversation he had had with Faber.

  “He thinks we’re trying to go back and influence Konrad not to get caught,” Francine said.

  “Yes. But he’s concerned that you two don’t get arrested so he wants to handle things a little less formally. He thinks I’ll cooperate or face being thrown out in my first month in the job. He’s on his way here.”

  “Oh!” the women said almost simultaneously. They laid their papers back down on the desk.

  “If we go against him then there’s no going back. This is it. We do this and even if it doesn’t work our path is set,” Leigh said.

  Heinrich nodded slowly. “That’s it exactly. Up to this point we could have, if we’d wanted to, pulled out. Now, if we do this we’re committed. If it doesn’t work then we’ll all be joining Mary Reid standing against posts on Sunday morning. So what do you want to do?”

  They were all quiet with their own thoughts for less than a minute. Francine spoke first, “I’ve waited my whole life to have a go at these pricks. This is my first real, albeit surreal, opportunity. I never, ever expected to get a chance to make a difference. So I say fuck ‘em! We do this and at least I go out with a fighting chance.” Both women looked at Heinrich.

  “I say yes too. I had my eyes opened by Leigh’s parents and since then I’ve waited for the time and the place to help chip away at the Reich. Now I have a chance to chip it all away, so yes.” He finished and looked at Leigh. In that instant he realised for no sane or rational reason that he could easily fall in love with her.

  She looked straight back at him and said quietly, “I was coached and advised by my family that the belief I have would be repaid by God. He would send the people I needed at the time I needed them. I think that time is now. So yes.”

  He stood up from the desk, “Okay, so we do this. How long will it take to restore the Time Observation Window?”

  “Best guess is three quarters of an hour,” Francine said.

  Heinrich checked his watch, “Professor Faber is, at fastest, going to get here in forty-eight minutes according to the traffic maps. It’s been five since he hung up the phone so he probably gets here just as we power up again. I need to get some things ready to cut us some extra time. Can you prop the door open for me if I need to get back in to the HPL?”

  “No, you’ll just have to ring us. If we prop it open alarms go off after a couple of minutes. We’d have half the ‘Jewel’ security team down here long before Wolfgang shows up,” Leigh said as she stepped up alongside him and kissed him on the cheek, “We’ll get started on the transformers. Good luck.”

  “Just before you go,” he said, “the armaments lab that’s down here.”

  “Arnie, yeah what about it?”

  “Do they have live explosives?”

  “No, not at all.” She looked a little taken aback at the question. “Their work is all theoretical. They might do very minute chemical reactions and thermal investigations. They model a lot of what they do on computers now. But no, no actual explosives. Imagine the disaster that would be in a shared underground facility.” She paused a beat and added, “Why, what are you thinking?”

  “Just considering our options, that’s all. I’ll talk to you later.” He returned a kiss onto her cheek and watched the two scientists go back into the HPL. Then he sat down at a bench and quietened his thoughts.

  As far back as he could remember he had known what he wanted to do. He had pestered his poor mother to allow him to join the junior most branch of the Hitler Youth. Dutifully she had led him down to enlist on the first day he was officially old enough to join. It was the best tenth birthday present he could have received.

  By the time he was fifteen he had been recognised and recommended for special consideration with regard to leadership potential. From that day forward Heinrich had been trained and exercised in planning for contingencies. He had been schooled over and over in looking at the ‘what ifs’ and switching between the big picture and the finite detail. After the intervening quarter century his mind now automatically sorted, sifted, questioned and reviewed. He went from general to specific and back like a corkscrew spiralling in and out. He always planned like an optimist for the best possible, smoothest and cleanest result. In parallel he expected, like a realist, that the wheels of the plan would fall off in the first thirty seconds. He was adaptable and when required he was clinical. Even now, after years of having been converted to the Turner Creed he found he could operate quite ruthlessly if he needed to. It tore a little piece of his soul away each and every time he did it but he could still do it. The thought occurred to him that perhaps that is what the faithful would be like if their plan to wipe out the Reich succeeded. In a world that had war and peace, then good men and women would suffer torment for doing ill, for the right reasons.

  He left the lab and went
above ground. As he descended the entrance steps towards his car he placed a call on his Fone.

  “Schern.”

  “Carl, its Standartenführer Heinrich Steinmann, how are you?”

  “Standartenführer, I’m well, very well. How are you?”

  “Good thank you. Are you on shift?”

  “Just doing some drills in and around the barracks, bit of range work, nothing much. What do you need?”

  “I know you probably thought I’d call that favour in years from now but I don’t like debts hanging over people. So are you and your lads up for a small task?”

  “Name it.”

  ***

  Heinrich drove his car the half kilometre to the holding facility. He reverse parked in his designated parking spot just to the left of the entrance.

  “Hello Mary.” He stepped inside the cell and dropped the bag he was carrying onto the floor.

  “Well hello Heinrich, I thought you’d forgotten about me,” she said as she unfurled the length of her body on the bunk and arched her back as best she could with the cuffs that still restrained her. He thought of a caged panther stretching seductively.

  “No one been in to see you?”

  “No one likely to now is there? Even if I had people that would care enough, they’re unlikely to show up to visit an enemy of the Reich. Anyway, you come to tell me the good news? When do I take the short, one-way walk?”

  Heinrich bent and retrieved an extendable baton out of the bag next to his feet. For a fleeting instant he thought he saw Mary instinctively flinch and a real, deep-set fear pass across her eyes, but it was gone before he could be sure it had even been there. He pointed over his shoulder to the camera in the corner. Casually extending the baton he delivered an easy swipe that shattered the camera’s casing and detached the cable from the fitting. There was a small crunch as the whole unit landed on the ground in pieces. By the time he turned back the relaxed and confident Mary was fully present again and if it had been there at all, the momentary show of vulnerability was gone.