by Daniel Wyatt
Together they viewed the initial stages of the strange wing formation, the landing gear, the armament, and the centre section of the Messerschmitt V-4 Experimental Series 1-1a fighter-interceptor. Following the line, they saw how the pieces were sent on rails to the next area where they were riveted in place. The rest, up the line, were finishing touches. The Reichsfuehrer and the commandant walked to the end and out the mountain tunnel entrance guarded by six tall SS guards. Outside, another SS guard was beating a skinny, pale man with a whip.
“Does this happen often, Herr Colonel?” Himmler’s tone was matter-of-fact.
The commandant, Colonel Geinns, swallowed hard and stared at the man in the sinister black uniform and high polished boots. “The beatings?”
“Yes, the beatings. What did you think I meant?”
“Yes... well... sometimes we do have to... discipline our workers, Herr Reichsfuehrer. We have to. However, conditions—”
“You had an escape last month. One of the Polish prisoners.”
The commandant tried to explain. “Yes, true, but—”
“The Fuehrer has placed a high priority on Projekt Equinox. Let me remind you, Herr Colonel, this is a top-secret installation. There will be no other escapes.”
“Yes, of course, Herr Reichsfuehrer. But we caught the prisoner in thirty minutes. Since then, we have beefed up the lighting outside the entrance and have constructed a much higher wire fence.” He sighed. “However, I must point out that the conditions are not the best here, Herr Reichsfuehrer.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our food supply for the prisoners is decreasing,” the commandant explained. “Fresh water is scarce. Very few supplies are getting through, even to the guards. Word is that our trains are being shot up enroute by Allied fighters. We cannot go on like this.”
“You’re not the only one... feeling the pressure. We must all make sacrifices at this time for the Fuehrer and the Fatherland.”
The commandant turned away for a moment to watch the guard whip and kick the worker into the tunnel, as the other guards chuckled with laughter. “Yes, of course, Herr Reichsfuehrer.”
“Stop that prisoner!” Himmler demanded.
From forty feet away, the commandant deftly passed the order to the guard, who swung the prisoner around by the scruff of his neck.
“What do you want with him, Herr Reichsfuehrer?” the commandant asked.
“What did he do to deserve the beating?”
“What did he do?” the commandant called out to the guard.
“He was caught sleeping on the line, Herr Colonel,” the guard answered.
Himmler sighed. “Shoot him.”
“Herr Reichsfuehrer?”
“I said shoot him! Now! Are you deaf? You must set an example for the others.”
“Shoot him!” the commandant ordered the guard.
The SS guard’s reaction was instantaneous. He grabbed the terrified prisoner by his coat and dragged him into the open.
“No! No!” the prisoner shouted, falling to his knees. “Please, no!”
Himmler turned from the entrance and walked away with the colonel. “These... flying tops are wreaking havoc on the enemy bombers are they?”
The commandant cleared the bile in his throat. “Yes, they are, Herr Reichsfuehrer. I am told so by the Luftwaffe High Command.”
Himmler nodded, approvingly. “Do you believe the Third Reich will win the war, Herr Colonel?”
“Certainly, Herr Reichsfuehrer. No one will conquer the German spirit.”
Himmler slipped the commandant an uneasy glance, as two pistol shots rang out behind them. “It would be wise to quit your complaining. Loyalty, unconditional loyalty, is the true quality of a man. The highest of duties.”
“Yes, Herr Reichsfuehrer.”
“Nonetheless, your men have performed well, and so have you, despite the escape.”
“You are too kind, Herr Reichsfuehrer.”
“Yes, I am. Goodbye, Colonel Geinns. Heil Hitler.”
“Heil Hitler!” The commandant saluted smartly, snatching a quick glance over to the dead prisoner lying on the ground, shot through the head.
Himmler spun on his heels and moved off to his waiting limousine.
* * * *
On the airplane, returning to his command post north of Berlin, Heinrich Himmler jotted in his diary, Projekt Equinox last chance before drastic measures are taken.
Weary, the Reichsfuehrer closed his eyes, and leaned back into the seat, while the stripped-down Junkers passenger plane continued to climb over the Thuringia Mountains. One of the most powerful men in what was left of the Nazi regime, the Reichsfuehrer was stretched to the limit these dark days. He was the head of the Gestapo state police, and the SS, Hitler’s personal guard. He controlled all German domestic and foreign Intelligence and most of the concentration camps. He was the ultimate military power in the northern German zone, Norway, Scandinavia, and Holland, as well as the chief of the Replacement Army and the newly-established Army Group Vistula fighting forces. He was Hitler’s perfect yes-man. He followed Hitler’s orders with no sense of guilt. If the Fuehrer wanted all Germans with surnames beginning with the letter Y be shot, then Himmler would do it. No questions asked. He could give a man dinner one night, laugh and joke with him, then issue a death warrant for him the following morning, with no qualms.
At this time the Nazi regime had no new territory to conquer and imprison people against their will. They hadn’t for three years. The Nazis were on the run. The Allies were closing in from all sides. Contrary to what he told the commandant, Himmler knew the war was lost. The situation was in peril. The radio-controlled fighters of Projekt Equinox would not win the war. Had they come out earlier, combined with the rest of the secret weapon arsenal, then maybe. Water under the bridge at this stage of the game. And to think his SS could have been the breeding bulls for the future master race of Aryan purity — tall, muscular, blonde-haired, blue-eyed specimens of loyalty and honour who swore an oath before God that they would give absolute allegiance to the Fuehrer and be ready to lay down their life for their master.
No more.
Deep in his own solitude, Himmler considered his options. There weren’t many. One and only one came to mind. He would have to seek peace with the West. On his own.
FIVE
Yalta — February 4
Wesley Hollinger was struck by his president’s lethargic physical condition.
Hollinger had heard that Franklin Roosevelt was a sick man. But this bad? He had lost weight. His eyes stared off into space. His mouth drooped to one side. His hands were shaky. His vitality of four years ago had completely disappeared. Dorwin was right again. Roosevelt wasn’t himself. Not by any stretch of the imagination. This man was running the United States and half the world? At this rate, not for long. He’d be lucky to hang on until spring.
Hollinger stood with the others in the group of newspaperman and film crews that watched the Big Three leaders — Roosevelt, Joe Stalin, and Winston Churchill — pose and answer questions for the eager press outside the Livadia Palace Black Sea resort in the Crimea on this cool February day. A flashbulb popped in Roosevelt’s face. He seemed stunned for a moment. Then he turned to Churchill on the right. Hollinger wondered what the two were discussing. How Nazi Germany’s spoils would be divided up in the new, soon-to-come, post-war New World Order? What should happen to Hitler, if they caught the monster? What concessions did Stalin want? It would all come to a head in the next few days in a series of eight specific conferences in which Roosevelt was expected to be the mediator between Stalin and Churchill.
To Hollinger, Churchill hadn’t appeared any different since the last meeting, just a little older. Still full of spark, though. Stalin was another matter. This was Hollinger’s first glimpse of the mighty Soviet dictator whose armies were crushing the Germans in the east. Never without a cigarette, Stalin was quite short, less than five and a half feet tall, with a distinct, thick moustache
. The dictator was taking it all in. At one point he smiled graciously for the cameras. But Hollinger saw something sinister behind his sleepy “Uncle Joe” manner. The other two leaders had come to his territory to satisfy him. Hollinger knew that much from sources. Just how much was Joe going to get away with?
Time would tell.
* * * *
Alone with the president that evening in his furnished room, Hollinger took a glass of vodka handed him and drank a small mouthful. Up close, under the lights, Roosevelt looked worse than he did in the resort garden, taking on the appearance of a true invalid in his wheelchair.
“Sit down, Wesley,” the president uttered, sighing. “It’s been awhile.” His hands were folded in his lap, his eyes glassy. On doctor’s orders, he wasn’t drinking.
Hollinger eased into a padded, beige sofa, his fedora by his side. Outside, a misty rain began to let up just as night drifted over the Crimea. “Yes, sir, it has been some time.”
“The summer of 1941. You were filling me in on that oddball Rudolf Hess case in the Oval Office.”
“That’s right, sir, I was.”
The president stared at the wall, silent for many moments. Then he manufactured a ghostly, pathetic smile. “I seem to recall also that I saw you in the balcony at the House of Representatives. I was giving a speech that day. Now, what was it for?”
Hollinger felt sorry for his commander in chief for not remembering such an important event. “The day after Pearl Harbor, sir. You had asked Congress to declare a state of war against the Empire of Japan.”
“Oh, yes.” Roosevelt nodded slowly. “How could I forget? I’ve been doing that lately. Forgetting things.” He turned away.
They both felt the long, lead-weight silence between them.
“Wesley, I summoned you here because I know you’d give me straight answers as always.”
“I’ll try, sir.” When the next silence was too long, Hollinger asked, “What exactly did you want to ask me?”
“It’s this Nazi technology.”
Hollinger braced himself. “What about it?”
“Donovan tells me your OSS department is investigating and filing such material for the future. After the war, I hear.”
The agent recalled Dorwin’s warning. SI and OSS first. “You heard right, sir. That’s true, we are. The United States can make use of all their inventions. The V-1s and V-2s. The jet fighters.”
“The Soviets want everything to be shared with them.”
“Do they now?”
“What do you think?”
“Is this room bugged?”
The president grinned, slowly. “No. It was checked out by our people the minute we arrived.”
“Do you want my honest opinion?”
“Yes. Straight answers. Remember?”
“OK, sir. Piss on them. Pardon my Russian. I wouldn’t trust those buggers as far as I can throw them,” Hollinger said. “I mean that in all honesty.”
“That so?”
“And I think that we’d sure as hell better get to these launch sites and factories before Uncle Joe does. Because if he beats us to the punch, he won’t share a damn thing with us.”
“Churchill has been telling me the same thing.”
Then listen to him, thought Hollinger. “Churchill’s a good man.”
“What exactly do you have? Pictures? Blueprints?”
Wesley knew he had to lie here. He stared squarely at the president. “Only stories and some smuggled out photos, so far.”
“What about this new secret fighter?”
“You must mean the 262?”
“No.”
“The rocket — the Komet?”
“No. There’s rumours of something else out there over the European skies, so Stalin tells me. The latest Nazi weapon.”
“Nothing like this has been brought to my attention. Not yet.”
The president thought long and hard. “I see. Who’s the German authority behind all these missiles and strange things? What’s his name?”
“Wernher von Braun, sir.”
“Yes, he’s the one. Extraordinary man. A genius, I hear.”
“So they say. We could use him on our side. We want him.”
“For sure. Have you made contact with him?”
“No, sir. He is too closely guarded by Luftwaffe and Gestapo Intelligence.”
“You know, there’s more at stake than just Nazi secret weapons. There’s bigger forces at work.”
“How do you mean, sir?”
“Bigger than me, that’s what.”
“Who are you referring to, sir?”
“One of these days, maybe in your lifetime, all countries will unite. A new world government is coming. One day you might see it laid out before you. Compromise, that’s what I have to do in this changing planet of ours. What every politician has to do. Oh, never mind. You get tired of it after a while.”
“I’m sure you do, sir. And I’m sure that Stalin wants more than meets the eye.”
The president seemed to deflate. “We suspect he’ll want some American loans to reconstruct.”
Hollinger grunted. “I knew it. After all that he received in Lend-Lease. He has the gall. It should be a two-way street. What’s he about to give up?”
“We have to force him to conduct free elections in all the countries he has annexed in his march east.”
“Fat chance of that, sir.” Hollinger sipped at his vodka.
Roosevelt turned his wheelchair around, and creaked across the Persian rug, towards the window. “That’s why I like you, Wesley. It’s your honesty,” he said, his back to the agent.
“You asked me for straight answers, Mr. President.”
“Yes, and I got them. I respect that.”
After another long silence, Hollinger asked, “Sir, what are we going to get out of this conference? What’s in it for us?”
“We have to secure an agreement with the Russians about a new United Nations organization, where all countries will benefit. Germany will be divided into four occupation zones. Us, the British, the Russians, and the French. I came here as a referee. I believe the only difference between us, the British, and the Russians, is just a matter of words.”
“In my opinion, sir, I see a new and wicked world coming. Worse than we’ve seen in the last six years. Give those Russian bastards too much, and we’ll live to regret it.”
The president turned around, brooding and poised. “This is where we disagree, Wesley.”
“Yes, sir, I suppose it is then.”
“Nevertheless, I appreciate you coming and giving it to me straight. I won’t detain you any longer. Go and enjoy yourself.”
Hollinger set his empty glass down on a table, and drew himself upright to his feet, grabbing his fedora. “I wish it would warm up. Isn’t it usually balmy here?” And where were Dorwin’s bathing beauties?
“Just a cool spell. It still beats Washington,” the leader said. “I’ll see you out.”
“Thank you, Mr. President.”
When Hollinger left in a hurry, and closed the door behind him, he came to one clear conclusion. Contrary to the earlier Casablanca and Tehran conferences, Roosevelt had come to Yalta with no prepared American agenda except to suck up to Stalin at any price.
What gives?
SIX
Peenemunde West — February 15
The technician removed the fourteen-inch-long wooden model from the metal case and placed it inside the long chamber. The Area 14 supersonic wind-tunnel test, capable of simulating 4000 miles per hour, would tell all. They hoped.
Two scientists in white smocks stood beside the thick panes of plate glass next to the test room. The technician emerged from the chamber, and trotted to the corner by the door and placed his hand on a switch on his board instrumentation.
“How does Goering expect us to operate under such conditions,” Karl Zeller whispered to his friend, Wernher von Braun, the brains behind Peenemunde. “Dwindling funds. Under heavy guard
twenty-four hours a day.”
“Hush! Not so loud.”
They exchanged glances. Together, the two scientists shared the same common ground, a disdain for their country’s leaders and Nazi government meddling. Not to mention the Luftwaffe in the compound, the SS in the neighbouring V-2 facility and Gestapo always poking around outside.
“Sorry, Wernher.”
“We shall overcome. The future, Karl. Remember the future. This regime will perish before the summer heat descends on us.”
“But will we be alive to revel in its demise?”
“Be optimistic,” von Braun advised him.
“I’m trying to be.”
“Are you ready?” von Braun raised his voice, gesturing to the technician.
“Yes.”
“Then begin.”
The technician pressed the switch. A valve opened, forcing outside air into several large funnels. Then the air was rammed through drying filters, and finally transferred to sheet-metal straighteners inside the tunnel. A sound began — a slow, steady moan, deep within the bowels of the chamber. Then it grew louder and higher pitched. The airflow smoothed out, then raced to supersonic speed.
Zeller joined the technician at the controls. “Mach one,” Zeller said, reading the instruments.
Von Braun nodded, his face hard, his arms folded. It was a perfect parallel flow of air over the suspended aircraft model.
“Mach one-point-two.”
Von Braun waved to increase speed. “More!”
“Mach one-point-five.”
Von Braun’s eyes were fixed to the wing surface nearest the bubble cockpit. No restrictions. The white airflow steady. Everything functioning.
“Mach one-point-eight!”
Von Braun checked his watch as speeds soared above Mach two.
Twenty seconds was always the limit. No more. Time was up. He turned to the technician, and yelled, “Cut it!”
The scream died down, slowly, then fell silent.
“That’s fine. Leave us.”
“Yes, Herr Doctor.”
The technician withdrew and closed the door behind him.
“It works, Wernher.”