“We’ll come back to the jets in good time, colonel,” Donovan added softly with a smile that had the semblance of a veneer of friendship covering something else of a far more predatory nature. “For the time being, suffice it to say that everyone in this room has been appraised of where it is you and the rest of this ‘Hindsight’ group have come from, as fantastical as it all sounds to a simple lawyer such as myself. That’s the main reason we’re all here: we’d like the opportunity to ask you a few questions about this Hindsight Group and about some of the background behind your arrival here in 1940.”
A cavalry troop commander for the New York State Militia who’d served US-Mexican border war of 1916 against Pancho Villa, and a Medal of Honour recipient during the First World War, Donovan was an awful lot more than any ‘simple lawyer’, something of which Davies was well aware.
“If the President’s briefed you on Hindsight, sir, then you already know pretty much all there is to know about us,” he began hesitantly, thinking on the fly and deciding discretion should remain the best option at that point.
“Yes, yes,” Donovan nodded with a dismissive wave of his hand as the other two men served themselves food from the platters at the centre of the table, their eyes never straying from the pilot’s gaze. “We’ve all read the brief put together for the Joint Chiefs. That’s all well and good, and we’re happy for the leg-up, truth be told: I’ve been warning the administration for years about the danger the Nazis represent to the rest of the world.” He shook his head faintly in punctuation of his words. “That’s not what we want to talk about however. Instead, I would prefer to hear a little more about the mechanics behind what you boys have accomplished with those time travel gadgets.”
“Sir, I’m just a fighter pilot, as the Hindsight brief undoubtedly says: I honestly have no idea how all that temporal displacement hocus-pocus works,” Davies answered truthfully, inwardly giving a little sigh of relief as he imagined he saw the thrust of their line of questioning and incorrectly deduced he couldn’t assist.
“I figured not, son,” Donovan answered just as quickly, is smile thinning as he quite correctly recognised the relief the man had just displayed over not being able to help in that area. “We’d need a scientist for that kind of thing, am I right?”
“Exactly that, sir,” Davies agreed, again just a little too quickly.
“A scientist like Hal Markowicz or Samuel Lowenstein, I suspect?” Dulles observed quietly, interjecting for the first time.
“Ah… yes… yes, sir: someone just like that, yes…” The pilot suddenly and unexpectedly felt as if he was on the back foot again in the conversation, although he couldn’t exactly say why that was.
“Tell us about Doctor Markowicz,” Dulles continued, and Donovan was now more than happy to lean back in his chair and observe the exchange with interest.
“Well, sir, not much to tell that isn’t in the brief,” Davies answered after a momentary pause. “He’s a real smart man – one of the men who designed the Temporal Displacement Units…”
“It was really Doctor Lowenstein’s project though, wasn’t it, colonel,” Dulles pointed out thoughtfully, mostly managing to keep the curl of a sneer from his lips as he spoke the man’s name. Like many men of his position and generation, Dulles had no great love for Jews or their faith and a culture of mild anti-Semitism was as in-grained within the US Government as it was even through most of the other ‘free’ and ‘democratic’ countries of the world in the early 1940s.
“That’s right, sir. Lowenstein was kidnapped by the Nazis in our time and forced to complete the project for them, which he managed to accomplish all on his own. Hal unfortunately wasn’t able to recreate that success for us; we were just lucky four of the damned TDUs fell into our hands the way they did at the last moment.”
“What kind of man was this Lowenstein?” Donovan enquired, taking over the questioning once more as if both had agreed through unspoken consent.
“Couldn’t say, sir; Hindsight only came into being after he was kidnapped, so I’ve never met him, myself. Hal can’t speak highly enough of him though. They were great friends.”
“Some friend,” Dulles growled, not quite under his breath. “Rolls over and hands the Krauts the power to conquer the whole of Europe… maybe even The World.”
“Anyone can break under torture, Al,” Donovan pointed out with another wave of his hand. “Can’t blame a guy for that…” He turned his attention back to Davies. “So you would be categorical in saying that Lowenstein was the driving force behind the whole project?”
“That’s a fact, sir.”
“Was it ever determined what happened to Lowenstein after these – ‘New Eagles’? – made their escape back through time?” The way Donovan phrased the question struck Davies as somehow significant, and he paused for a moment before giving a reply.
“No, sir, it was not,” he answered finally. “The Krauts were already in the process of launching their aircraft by the time we commenced our attack on their base of operations, and there was barely a skeleton crew left to clean up what they’d left behind.” The pilot paused for a moment, grimacing over unpleasant images he’d long forgotten. Part of that ‘clean up’ had involved burning the facility to the ground, and fires had already been lit in several sections of the base, one of which housed their detention wing.
There were several bodies found of prisoners left to die in their cells, but many were charred beyond recognition and with only twenty-four hours of Realtime in which we could act, there was no time to spare on identifying the deceased. There was one found that matched Samuel Lowenstein’s general height and build, and it was generally accepted that he was one of them.” He paused again, this time to force down a vague, rising anger over what he’d seen and felt that day before they’d left for their own journey back through time. “In their eyes he was only some ‘dirty Jew’ after all: it’s well known what the Nazis think Jews are good for once they’ve outlived their usefulness.”
He stared straight at Dulles in that moment, suddenly recalling the disdain with which the man had uttered Lowenstein’s and Markowicz’ names and deciding it had sounded a little too much like anti-Semitism for his liking.
“Well, you’re probably right there, son,” Donovan nodded sagely, affecting an expression of sombre seriousness. “We’ve had enough reports of Nazi atrocities all over Europe to know the truth of that well enough. If what Hindsight has told us about camps like Auschwitz and Dachau is true…” his voice trailed off then, the concept of the Holocaust and Jewish extermination just too horribly impossible for even a man of Donovan’s dark experiences to comfortably contemplate. “Let’s just say anything we can do to stop the Krauts spreading the disease of Nazism any further is a worthwhile undertaking.”
“No argument from me there, sir,” Davies acknowledged, a lump almost rising in his throat as he thought of Hal Markowicz, a friend who had been fortunate enough in Realtime to survive the Nazi death camps and who, as a young boy in this alternate version of reality, was now almost certainly doomed. He knew that Hal – the older, ‘Realtime’ Hal – managed not to think about that all that much. How he managed it was beyond Davies’ understanding.
“Well, that nicely brings us to the other subject we wanted to talk about today, Jack, and the reason David is sitting in on this little gathering.” Donovan announced with more cheer, changing the subject. “Our analysts all tell us that the next likely target for Nazi aggression is the Republic of Ireland. Now that’s no real surprise to any of us, with the Krauts already occupying Northern Ireland as part of the British capitulation, but it’s no less of a concern for all that… particularly for a good Irish lad like myself. There are some in the current administration however – and some outside agencies – who are nevertheless ready and willing to take Adolf at his word when he says he has no interest in any move against Ireland, in spite of some obvious proof in the last few years that Hitler’s ‘promises’ aren’t worth a God damn. ”
Donovan was first-generation American, born of Irish immigrant parents, and there was no denying the genuine feeling with which he spoke now. It didn’t help that his mother was a native of Ulster, a province of Ireland with six of its nine counties now under German occupation, and his hatred of the Nazis and determination to see them defeated were all the more passionate as a result.
“Well, sir, I was born and raised in Dallas and never left the country before I joined the air force,” Davies countered, again unable to determine why he’d been singled out for questioning on a subject of which he had little overt knowledge. “I’d bet Colonel Bruce here knows an awful lot more about what’s goin’ on over there than I do.”
“Oh, we know pretty much everything that’s going on over there at the moment,” Bruce replied evenly with a faint nod of agreement. “We have very strong links with the de Valera government and with higher echelons within the IRA, both in Dublin and Belfast, and all of them are very nervous about the likelihood of a German incursion into the Republic. If that were to happen, there’s little doubt that the entirety of Ireland would quickly fall under Nazi occupation and leave Sweden and Switzerland as the only remaining free, democratic nations on the European Continent.”
“Well, it stands to reason Adolf would want to take the rest of Ireland,” Davies shrugged, thinking the statement no great leap of logic. “The whole reason the Krauts invaded England in the first place was to secure their western borders against attack. If you’ve read the briefs Hindsight provided then you’ll know about D-Day, and taking Britain out of the equation was supposed to make sure the Normandy Landings never happen.” He paused, then shrugged again as he sipped at the wine he’d been given but completely ignored the forgotten food on the table in front of him.
“Now, in theory,” he continued, “a neutral Ireland shouldn’t be any threat to the Krauts, but the fact remains that there nevertheless exists to the west a nation beyond Nazi control which has contiguous borders with the German Reich: a nation which conceivably could, at some later date, be used as a staging point for some war of liberation against the British Isles or Mainland Europe. That makes things pretty damn precarious for the Irish, and Max Thorne was real clear on what he thought about the whole thing. Hindsight and the British Government-in-Exile have been delivering arms and ammunition to the IRA for the better part of two years now, in preparation for exactly that eventuality: a German invasion.”
“This is exactly the kind of thing we need to hear, son, and it is a great reassurance indeed,” Donovan acknowledged enthusiastically as the other two men nodded in silent agreement of Davies’ remarks. “Here at the OSS we’re damn sure the Krauts are gonna invade, and that it’ll be sooner rather than later. I’ve been pressuring the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to offer a Lend-Lease agreement to the Irish similar to the one we made with the Brits prior to 1940, but so far we’ve been stonewalled by those in our own Congress who are terrified that any overt assistance might be seen by the Nazis as an act of aggression on our part and present them with a casus belli to launch their own pre-emptive strike across the border.”
“Same problem Hindsight and the Brits had, sir,” Davies nodded also. “Covert support for the IRA is one thing, but no one can afford to have the Krauts find out that the Irish government has been receiving British military aid: with Britain already an enemy combatant, that would constitute an act of war in Hitler’s mind and that would be all she wrote…” He thought for a moment, then added: “I think there’s a real chance that we might be able to get away with it though, sir…”
“…Call me Bill…” Donovan interjected softly, smiling wider than the proverbial Cheshire cat.
“…Bill…” the pilot corrected with some discomfort. “Hindsight’s history of the world showed that the Japs should have attacked Pearl Harbour at the end of last year, but that never happened…” he had their undivided attention now, and Davies could feel the adrenalin coursing through him like a drug as he ‘held the floor’ before three such powerful men in the US intelligence community. “The only possible explanation for them not hitting us as expected last year is that they were convinced otherwise by the Krauts. In our war, Hitler declared war on the United States along with the Japanese, and America’s entry into World War Two was a major contributing factor to both of them losing.
The economic sanctions that the Japs claim ‘forced’ them into war with America to begin with are still in place – worse now than they were in ‘Forty-One, if anything – and yet we’ve had twelve more months of completely unexpected peace in the Pacific. The Germans are scared of us, Bill, and they have every right to be: the Krauts and the Japs combined could never even come close to America’s industrial capability…” he grinned “…and manufacturing, gentlemen, is where the war will be one without a doubt.”
“I’m not the historian Max Thorne is, but I’ve picked up a little working with Hindsight over the last couple o’ years and I can give you one example right now.” He paused for a breath. “Through the six years of the Realtime war, the Krauts manufactured around fourteen thousand of their Mark-Three and Mark-Four medium tanks – the mainstay of their armoured divisions. In the four years between ‘Forty-one and ‘Forty-Five, American turned out fifty thousand Sherman tanks alone.” He gave a smile that was almost evil as he too considered the enormous disparity in those figures.
“The last thing Germany wants is a war with the United States, and the fact that they’ve clearly put pressure on the Japs shows they’re willing to do almost anything to avoid it. That’s why I think we could get away with giving arms to Ireland. Hell, I reckon we could almost get away with putting American troops on Irish soil and the Kraut’s would still bend over rather than risk war with us.”
“Jack, that’s exactly the kind of positive thinking we need in this country,” Donovan declared, slapping his palm down enthusiastically on the table top. “That’s also exactly what we’ve been telling the President! I know how much of a high regard he places in the information your group has provided the nation already regarding what to expect from the Krauts and the Japs, and having a member of Hindsight assess the Irish situation in the same way we have will go a long way to convincing the boys in Washington that we must act sooner rather than later.”
There was a pause, during which Donovan locked Davies with an appraising stare that was equal parts curiosity and admiration. The combination was enough to make Davies squirm slightly, as if he were a nine-year-old called into the principal’s office.
“Jack,” Wild Bill continued, his tone as solicitous now as his expression was one of honest sincerity, “we could really use a sharp fella like you, and no mistake…” He quickly held up a hand against the protest the he knew would rise from Davies’ lips. “I know… I know you’re air force through-and-through, and one thing I’ve learned about you fly-boys is that your nothin’ if not loyal to the corps, so I’ll not insult you with an offer to come and work for us… but if you ever need anything that’s in my power to provide, you don’t hesitate to ask, understand…?”
Donovan was a man well-known for his tendency to make decisions on the spur of the moment, usually leaving his administrative team to clean up the bureaucratic ‘mess’ that spontaneous activity often left in its wake. When he recognised potential in men he considered might be a worthwhile addition to his organisation, he rarely hesitated in making a recruitment pitch and it was a courageous or determined man who successfully resisted such an advance.
“Well, I appreciate that… Bill… but after twenty years in the service, I’m a little too set in my ways to go changing careers now. I’ll keep your offer in mind though: I might even need to call you on that one day.”
“Well, you see that you do!” Donovan grinned in return. “Anyway, enough of all this official chit-chat: the boys told me you were lookin’ for some grub, so how about we settle down to sampling some of El Rancho’s fine cooking here before the rest of us head off and let you get
a good night’s sleep?”
Don’t mind if I do, Bill,” Davies remarked eagerly, suddenly realising again how hungry he indeed was. “Don’t mind if I do at all…”
“Service…!” Donovan called loudly, eliciting an immediate response as another coloured waiter appeared as if by magic from the far end of the room.
“Yes, sah…?” the man asked with suitable deference, his accent sounding to Davies’ ear to be perhaps of Louisiana origin. He was generally uncomfortable with what was still an extremely common practice during the 1940s of hiring predominantly African-Americans for what would be considered menial work, having seen the generally poor manner – by 21st Century standards – in which minority ethnic groups were treated across the board in that era. The fact that generally-speaking those same ethnic minorities were still somewhat over-represented in such stereotypical roles in his time, if not to the same extent, somehow eluded the pilot at that moment.
“Boy, bring us a bottle of your best ‘Old Number Seven’ and four glasses: time we all had a real man’s drink on the table!”
“I heard that!” Davies crowed with a broad smile of his own. The man’s love for Jack Daniels was well known within the Hindsight team to be of almost mythic proportions (and bordering on the unnatural for some, truth be told) and his eyes truly lit up at the mention of that company’s most famous product.
“Here at the OSS we too like to do our homework properly, Jack,” Donovan grinned with a wink as he dished some food for himself.
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