1945

by Newt Gingrich

  Radl stood up and walked over to a rod sticking out from the wall, pulled it out, flung it to the floor. "Was that uranium or was it a control rod?"

  The physicist looked at him gray-faced. "Graphite. But if you pull them all, it will run away on us. The gunship blew out all the instruments. I can't follow what the reactor is doing. It could go at any second. When it does the explosive will go too, at that very instant."

  "Then we'll pull some, pack in the explosive and then pull the rest. Perhaps the explosive will do the job of the graphite!" Radl nodded to several of his men holding the tubes of plastic explosive and motioned to them to slide them into the holes left by the graphite.

  Schiller found his voice. "You're going to kill us all!"

  Radl turned on Schiller, gun raised.

  "The rest of us are dead men anyhow," Radl snarled. "Even for those of us who survive this one, there'll be another and another until we're all dead. You just do your job and go home the hero. That, or I blow your brains out here and now!"

  10:55 P.M.

  Martel raced up the steps to the main entrance into the administrative building. Turning, he waved on the straggling crowd following behind him. Small-arms fire was already starting to lace through them; half a dozen had fallen before the rest could huddle at the side of the building.

  "Inside, inside, down into the basement!" he kept shouting the command over and over, pushing men through the doorway.

  "It's a death trap if we're caught down there."

  Martel turned. It was Marshall.

  "Sir, you're the one who pointed out that the Germans were avoiding the admin buildings. Besides, what else can we do? It's either that or get mowed down in the open. It's one of the few strong points we have. Damn near every other building is temporary, above ground and no basement. This is not just an air raid; it's a killing mission, and these people are the targets. We've got to get them into a place we can hole up till help arrives."

  Marshall nodded slowly. It seemed that he too could see no other way to stave off immediate annihilation. The last of the scientists came through the doorway, followed by half a dozen Rangers and MPs.

  "We'll set up our first fine right here," Marshall said, implicitly accepting Martel's plan. He began detailing off the Rangers to rooms on either side of the doorway and sent two more down the corridor to cover the back approach.

  Then Marshall cocked his carbine and laid down by the door. Martel looked down at him. "Commander Martel, decide for yourself how long to stay on your feet, but if you don't get down you're not going to last very long," Marshall said quietly.

  Jim, not quite certain if he were the victim of gallows humor, but unable to suppress a wry grin, dropped prone by Marshall's side and waited with him for the onslaught that was coming. Harriman, who had taken it upon himself several minutes before to begin organizing the building, was now crouched at Marshall's other side.

  Seconds later, from around the side of the building, several figures in MP uniforms appeared, crouching low. Marshall got up on his elbows and peered out at them. "Hey, you men, over here!"

  One of the MFs helmets swiveled directly toward Marshall. The man waved and trotted toward them. Jim watched him carefully as he mounted the steps, sensing that something was wrong but not quite grasping what it was that bothered him.

  "Who's in here, sir?" the strange MP asked.

  Marshall stood up and the MP slowed and then snapped a salute.

  "We've got some of our top scientists down in the basement," Marshall said. "Get your team up here now."

  The MP looked intendy at Marshall, eyes flickering across the five stars on each shoulder. A look of delighted recognition started to form as he began to swing his weapon, previously held out of sight, to the front. It was a Schmeisser. Jim started to bring his Ml into line, but he knew that with his bad shoulder he was far the slower, and that he and those with him were about to die—

  A sharp crack! followed at even intervals by two more spun the "MP" around and flung him down the steps. As that one tumbled, Harriman shot the next in line. The third MP backed away, firing wildly. Braving the scattered fire, Jim caught him on the shoulder, knocking him down but not killing him, since he rolled behind the side of the building.

  "What the hell?" Marshall looked at them as if he thought they'd gone mad.

  "Nazis dressed as MPs!" Harriman explained, pointing to the dead man sprawled out on the steps. "Look at the jump boots! Plus he's carrying a Schmeisser. Besides," pointing at the direction from which the trio had come, "there's nothing but Germans in that direction."

  "You OSS gendemen really do seem to have all the answers, don't you," Marshall said in tones of wonderment. Following some train of thought of his own, he added, "Where's that Grierson?"

  "Still in the parking lot, most of him," Harriman replied.

  11:10 P.M.

  "Gunther, you stay here at the command post! I'll be back."

  Gunther looked over his shoulder from the transmitter from which he was calling in another gunship. Sporadic firing was still preventing the transports from landing at the airstrip. "Sir? May I ask where are you going?"

  "The people we want, including Marshall, have organized resistance. I'm going to take care of it." Motioning for his reserve platoon to follow, Skorzeny ran toward the administration building.

  11:15 P.M.

  Richer, dressed as an American MP, walked down the middle of Georgia Avenue.

  Outer Drive had already been taken care of, his second platoon was further east, his third was scattered out to the west.

  The homes in this area were E and F class housing units, dwelling places for middle and upper level scientists and managers of the project. Hundreds of them were burning, bodies littered the street, and staccato bursts of machine-gun fire echoed as his team systematically slaughtered its way across Oak Ridge.

  A door swung open. From a small house a gray-haired man half-carried a younger woman. Her clothes and body were lacerated by flying glass. He staggered toward them. "Help us, for God's sake!" he screamed. "She's bleeding to death!"

  "Glad to," Richer responded calmly. He walked up to the couple, lowered his gun and shot the woman in the forehead, splattering her husband.

  The man looked at him, paralyzed with shock.

  Without a word, Richer shot the man in the stomach, then turned and walked away, smiling to himself at the kind of noises the man was finally giving voice to.

  The American attitude toward uniforms was a strangely trusting one. More often than not they simply ran to him, begging for help. And not one of them had had a weapon, for weapons were forbidden within the confines of Oak

  Ridge. Nearly all of the few MPs and security guards encountered out here in the residences were taken completely by surprise, and the few alert or paranoid enough to suspect were quickly eliminated. So far he had taken more casualties in the jump itself than from actually performing the mission.

  A gunship roared in low overhead. A stream of fire spewed from it, followed by a ripple of secondary explosions as fuel tankers on the targeted rail-siding went up. It made a pleasant backdrop to his work.

  11:19 P.M.

  "Slide those tubes in!"

  "We're close to meltdown!" Schiller shouted, trying to be heard above the steadily building firefight outside the reactor.

  "Shove them in!"

  "Major!"

  Radl turned and saw one of his lieutenants standing by the door into the reactor building. He ran over.

  "A Ranger unit is deploying east of us, two hundred meters up the road. There are at least a hundred of them."

  "How many do we have left?"

  "Not more than forty on the perimeter."

  "Hold for ten more minutes!"

  The lieutenant saluted and Radl started to turn back. He wasn't sure if at that instant he actually saw the wall of the reactor bursting open or not. One second he was standing, turning—an instant later he was flying out the door. The entire east side of
the corrugated outer wall was peeled back by the force of the explosion, which vented out of breaches in the reactor wall like hot exhaust from a rocket.

  A searing wave of heat washed over him and he rolled away from it, curling up, covering his head. He felt the skin on his hands blistering. As if from far away he thought he heard screaming, a high keening wail. The heat washed over, dissipated, and he sat up. From out of the door he saw someone emerge, his clothes flayed from his body, blood oozing out through blackened, cracked skin.

  The man sagged down in front of Radl.

  "I told you," Schiller gasped. "The reaction started to go critical, and the explosives were touched off by the heat." He hunched over, gasping.

  Radl looked back at the plumes of fire and smoke filling the inside of the reactor building, venting in plumes from the holes lacing the rest of the building and billowing from the blown-out east wall.

  The physicist looked at him and tried to laugh.

  "I'll see you shortly in Hell, Radl; you've killed us both." With that the physicist collapsed into unconsciousness, his breath coming in ragged wheezes.

  Radl stood up and edged over to the open side of the building and looked in. The east wall of the reactor was torn wide open, littering the interior of the building with fragments of concrete, twisted hunks of metal, and less identifiable materials, as well as with the torn bodies, of the team he had walked away from only seconds before. Then he noticed a strange unearthly glow issuing from within the reactor, and he knew he was looking straight into the heart of Hell.

  He shielded his face and turned away. Funny, he didn't feel any different. He had not been vaporized, or melted, or even changed into a pillar of salt for daring to look into the holy of holies of a dark new age. He had only been killed.

  For a random moment silence returned as the batde began dying down. From a building to the south he could hear voices, American voices, shouting in panic. Civilians began pouring out in spite of the risk of being shot. He did not even bother to raise his gun.

  Now the roof of the building was peeling back from the intense buildup of heat inside, revealing a fiery glow rising up from within. Flames consumed everything that was flammable, including the graphite core. Coils of dark and deadly smoke swirled up and drifted off to the east and south.

  "Major!"

  Radl turned and saw his lieutenant coming back.

  "Are you all right, sir?"

  Radl forced a smile. "It is time to leave. We have worn out our welcome, I fear."

  11:22 P.M.

  Martel clutched the Schmeisser that he had taken from the dead SS captain along with his ammunition and two grenades. Marshall, beside him, continued to scan the ground ahead, clearly illuminated by the inferno consuming the town. Five "MPs" lay sprawled on the ground before them.

  "Welcome to Hell," Jim whispered.

  A burst of machine-gun fire ratded across the doorway, then flayed the corridor behind them.

  "They're in the building — " The shout from further down the corridor was cut short.

  Jim looked back over his shoulder. "We better head downstairs."

  Another burst of fire swept overhead. Marshall fired off a quick reply and then started to crawl backward.

  There was a dull thud and then a sound like a snake hissing.

  "Grenade!"

  Harriman, on Marshall's other side, leapt over the general, attempted to scoop the grenade up but fumbled, grabbed again, and then simply fell on it. A muffled pfoomph lifted Harriman into the air.

  Marshall started to turn Harriman over.

  Jim grabbed Marshall by the shoulders and pulled him away. "He's dead, sir!" Jim shouted in a voice that was almost a sob. "Come on!"

  Marshall nodded and the two started down the corridor, crouching low. Two Rangers joined them from the side rooms where Marshal had detailed them. They turned from the corridor into the stairwell and raced down the stairs, stopping short on the bottom level at the sight of a nervous MP looking at them over a leveled Ml. Fortunately, the MP recognized Marshall.

  "They're right behind us," Jim hissed, urging the MP through the doorway.

  The corridor, illuminated only by an emergency lamp at the end of the hall was packed with civilians.

  "Is there a secured area here?" Marshall snapped.

  The MP just looked at him, speechless with awe.

  "Snap out of it, soldier! Is there a secured area here?"

  "Ah, sir. Down the end of the corridor. Records storage area A single big room. Real big. This corridor is the only way in."

  "Unless they come through the ceiling." Marshall said. "But if they have time to figure out which floor matches where we are, and then do the demolition work, we're dead anyway. Let's get these people in there. The Nazis will be coming down this corridor any second now."

  11:30 P.M.

  "Sir, we're starting to have problems!"

  Skorzeny slowed on the steps into the administrative building and looked back at his radio operator.

  "What is it?"

  "Gunther just reported back in, sir. The transports are landing now. But they've picked up a scramble alert from several American air bases. Fighters are coming this way. If they catch the transports on the ground, we're trapped."

  "How much time?"

  "Half an hour for the first of them."

  Skorzeny looked down at his watch. They'd only been on the ground for fifty minutes. He'd planned for a minimum of two hours.

  "What else?"

  "A number of aimed civilians, many wearing bits and pieces of uniforms, were seen coming in through the east gate. Gunships are still sweeping the area, but they're running low on ammunition. The team at K-25 is running way behind schedule and we have no report at all from Radl, but the orbiting gunship reported a major ground explosion about five minutes ago."

  "The reactor?"

  "I don't know, sir."

  "Never mind."

  If the reactor had blown at least the second most important part of the mission was a success. The wind was west-northwest. That meant the radiation would blow toward Knoxville. Good. Keep them excited.

  "All right, tell the teams to hurry up. Forty-five minutes and we start to pull out. And make sure they keep the landing area blacked out!"

  Following his team in he started the sweep through the building, room after room. There was only scattered resistance. Behind him the intelligence team came tearing through. He decided for the moment to stay with them while the assault team pushed ahead. There was a shout of triumph when they found Groves's office. A minute later they exited the room and stood pressed against the wall. There was a muffled explosion, and they poured back in. The team started to scoop papers out of the safe, sorting them out as they did so. Just as they had rehearsed, some of the papers were spread out one after the other on Groves's desk, one of the team members photographing each sheet while another swept that sheet to the floor as a third man slapped down yet another in its place. Other team members began to grab documents and load them into oversized backpacks to be taken out.

  "We've found the door to the basement!"

  Skorzeny backed out of Groves's office and followed a sergeant who turned a corner and then pointed to a doorway at which several men were crouching.

  "Well damn it, what are you waiting for?" Skorzeny shouted.

  One of the men popped the door open and another hurled a grenade down the stairs. After the explosion had slammed the door back on its hinges, one of the men leaped through, firing as he darted down the steps. He made it to the bottom and was turning the comer before an Ml cracked and he crumpled.

  Another man started down the stairs, leaned around the landing to throw a grenade, and then pressed himself up against the wall. When the explosion swept back up he raced around the corner, machine pistol low and firing. Two more followed him. A moment later Skorzeny had joined them. The point man stopped by the shattered door into the basement corridor, pulled out another grenade and tossed it through. There
was a shout of warning from the other side, followed an instant later by an explosion.

  The point man leaped through the doorway, turned right, and fired. Answering fire caught him from behind and he collapsed. The next man of the team now leaped forward, throwing a grenade through the doorway so that it bounced against the far wall and rolled up the corridor to the left. Almost before the explosion, he was through the door, crouching low, firing. The next man in covered to the right.

  Skorzeny was next and last. He looked over his shoulder. A squad had finally caught up with him. Crouching low he went through the door. His two men were half a dozen meters up the corridor, lying on the floor, weapons poised. A dead MP was sprawled in the corridor, blood oozing out from under him.

  The long corridor which ran down the main axis of the building was lined with office doors. Skorzeny motioned his squad in, and pointed down the corridor to the left. "Check each office. If possible, take some prisoners, especially any ranking officers. Marshall is down there. It would be better than Koniev if we bring him out still breathing. Now move it!"

  The team started down the corridor, moving swiftly but cautiously. They stopped at the first door, kicked it open and swept in. Empty. Seconds later they were doing the same at the second room, and then the third. At the fourth, a pistol cracked as the door was kicked open, punching the lead man backward. Preceded by two grenades, the others swarmed in, Schmeissers chattering. Then they were back out, the squad leader signaling that there had been only the one man in the room.

  Skorzeny snarled with impatience. This was taking far too long. He sprinted back up the stairs, shouted for a second squad to join the one in the basement. Then he went outside. Overhead a gunship was pulling up and banking after a strafing run against the buildings just north of them. Clearly its pilot was intent on wheeling around to do it again.

  He spied his radio man. "What's the latest?"

  "Y-12's on fire and Radl reports that the reactor is blown. The team is getting set to pull out."

  Skorzeny grinned like a wolf. The entire town seemed to be going up in a raging firestorm, the rattle of gunfire sweeping across the hills. If the reactor was blown as well, all that was left for a perfect mission was to finish off K-25, kill the scientists—and get the hell out.