V-S Day: A Novel of Alternate History (16 page)

As usual, the 390 Group was already there, but Goddard noticed at once that a few members were missing. Henry Morse wasn’t in the room, and neither was Hamilton Ballou or Michael Ferris. Jack Cube and Colonel Bliss were absent, of course; they were still in New Mexico. Frank O’Connor was in his usual place, perched on a stool near the door and reading the morning paper.

“Where are the others?” Goddard asked as he added his umbrella to the collection propped against the wall beside the door.

“Mike and Ham went out to fetch coffee and doughnuts,” Harry Chung said, barely looking up from the electrical wiring diagrams he and Taylor had laid out across the bench. “I don’t know where Henry is.”

“Library,” Gerry Mander said. There was a sly smile on his face as he fixed his attention on the chemical reference he was studying. “Again.”

“Hmm . . . well, yes, I suppose.” Goddard had noticed that Henry was spending an unusual amount of time at the campus library. Most of his visits were necessary, of course—the team constantly needed to find some piece of information for their work—but lately it seemed that he was beginning his day there before coming to work at the lab. He caught the look that quickly passed between Gerry, Taylor, and Ham. If they were sharing a secret, they could have it. Probably none of his business anyway.

“Well, now that you’re here . . .” O’Connor folded his newspaper, hopped off the stool. “’Cuse me, gents. Need to visit the little boys’ room.”

Goddard stepped aside to let the FBI agent pass; O’Connor left the lab, shutting the door behind him. Goddard was about to take off his overcoat when his hand brushed against the mail he’d brought with him from home. It was still in the coat’s inside pocket. Esther usually took care of the bills, but there was no sense leaving the mail in his coat where it might fall out and get lost. Goddard removed the letters from his pocket and was about to transfer them to his briefcase when his eye fell on the top one. The return address was the City of Worcester, Office of Tax Assessment, and stamped in red ink across the bottom of the envelope was
URGENT—OPEN IMMEDIATELY!

“Hello?” he murmured, then dropped the rest of the mail on a nearby table and tore open the envelope. No one paid any attention as he skimmed the letter inside, then . . .

“Oh, damn it to hell!”

Everyone jumped. “Bob?” Taylor asked. “What’s going on?”

Goddard continued to stare at the letter even as he slammed a fist down on the table. “The damn city claims we haven’t paid our property taxes for this year!” he snapped. “Now they’re planning to fine us ten dollars a day until we cough up!”

Harry was baffled. “You haven’t paid your taxes? But . . .”

“
Of course
I paid my taxes. I’ve been doing that every year since we moved to New Mexico. In fact, I made sure that . . .” Goddard stopped suddenly. He appeared to be lost in thought for a moment, then he closed his eyes. “I know what happened. I made arrangements with my bank here to pay my local taxes while I was gone, but when we moved back, I told them that was no longer necessary. And then . . .”

“You forgot to pay the taxes yourself?” Harry asked.

Goddard nodded. “The bank probably continued receiving my tax bills, but someone didn’t forward them to Esther and me. And now . . .”

Not bothering to pick up his umbrella, Goddard turned to the door. “Look, I’ve got to take care of this right now. I’ll be back soon.”

Before anyone had a chance to say anything, he was gone.

=====

“Look!” Meriwell pointed through the windshield. “There he is!”

Just minutes after he’d entered the Science Building, Goddard came out again. Yet it was obvious that he wasn’t stepping out for a smoke. Instead of lingering beneath the awning, he hurried to the sidewalk and began walking swiftly down Maywood, heading toward Main Street less than a block away.

Schmidt was out of the car in a second, but he took his time crossing the street. Nothing attracts attention more quickly than a running man, and Goddard was moving fast enough already. If anyone happened to look out a window of the Science Building or any other nearby university building, they couldn’t help but spot one person chasing another. So Schmidt strolled after Goddard, keeping him in sight while gradually closing the distance between them, taking care not to make his presence obvious.

His overcoat was buttoned shut, but its right pocket had a hidden slit inside, big enough for him to put his hand and wrist through. In this way, he was able to carry his silenced Walther without its being seen. One he was close enough to Goddard and no one else was in sight, all he’d have to do was pull out the gun, take aim at the back of the scientist’s head, and fire. The silencer wouldn’t completely eliminate the sound of his gunshot, but it would muffle it enough that it wouldn’t be heard by anyone nearby.

Then he’d simply drop the gun and walk away, again making sure that he didn’t draw attention by running. He’d made sure never to handle the gun, its silencer, or bullets without wearing gloves. All the police would find would be a body, the murder weapon lying alongside it, with no fingerprints, witnesses, suspects, or apparent motives. A clean kill.

After that, Schmidt would have Meriwell drive him to the extraction point on the northern Maine coast, where the same U-boat that had brought him to America was scheduled to pick him up in two days. Unless someone connected Goddard’s murder with the death of a Beach Patrol officer the same day, there would be nothing to indicate that it had been an
Abwehr
assassination . . . at least long enough for Schmidt to make good his escape.

As Schmidt approached Goddard, though, he realized that killing him wouldn’t be quite so easy. He’d had already reached Main Street, where a streetcar was rapidly approaching. A couple of other people were already waiting at the corner trolley stop. Goddard joined them as the streetcar glided to a halt, and the three of them climbed aboard while Schmidt was still more than twenty feet away.

The assassin didn’t try to board the streetcar as well. Running for it would have made him obvious. Instead, he turned and raised his hand to wave to the car. Meriwell had been watching the entire scene; seconds later, he pulled up alongside Schmidt.

“Follow the streetcar until he gets off,” Schmidt said as he climbed in. “Don’t let it out of your sight.”

=====

O’Connor returned to the lab. He was about to pick up his newspaper when he noticed that someone was missing. “Where’s the professor?” he asked.

Harry glanced up from the blueprints. “Had to go out. Got a letter from the city, saying he hadn’t paid his taxes. He . . .”

“Oh, for the love of . . . ! And you let him go?”

Gerry snorted. “Taxes, Frankie. You can’t fight City Hall.” He shook his head and grinned. “But you catch up with him, maybe you can help Bob try.”

Muttering obscenities, O’Connor grabbed his raincoat and dashed out of the lab. Goddard was nowhere in sight, but the agent’s car was parked in the lot across the street. He headed for it, still swearing at the irresponsible eggheads he’d been assigned to nursemaid.

=====

The clock tower upon Worcester City Hall’s gabled rooftop was ringing the ten o’clock hour when the streetcar came to a halt out front. Goddard was among those who got off. Still angry at the letter he’d just received, he marched across the sidewalk to the ground-floor entrance, located beneath a circular stone staircase leading up to the second-floor main entrance. Finding that it was a locked fire door, the professor swore under his breath, then headed for the staircase.

It was a minor detour, but it gave Schmidt a chance to catch up. Meriwell had pulled over to the curb just as Goddard was about to walk the stairs. Climbing out of the car, Schmidt quickly strode across the sidewalk, yet Goddard had already opened the door by the time the
Abwehr
killer reached the stairs, forcing Schmidt to dash up the steps behind him. Goddard didn’t notice Schmidt, though, as he walked into the building, letting the door slam shut behind him.

Schmidt might have lost another opportunity were it not for a stroke of luck. On the other side of the front door was a small entrance foyer, with a second door leading to the main lobby. The interior door was old, with a rusting iron knob that had a tendency to stick. As Schmidt came through the front door, he discovered that Goddard was still struggling to open the foyer door.

The foyer was dimly lit. Only Goddard and Schmidt were in there, and Goddard still hadn’t noticed that he wasn’t alone. Careful not to let the front door slam shut, Schmidt pulled the Walther from his overcoat. He’d only started to raise it, though, when Goddard finally managed to yank open the foyer door. Cursing beneath his breath, Goddard barged in, still unaware that he was being followed.

The main lobby was grandiose, designed in the overwrought style of the last century. Tall Corinthian columns supported a high ceiling above a black-and-white-tiled floor, and a broad marble staircase with an iron banister led upward to the mayor’s office and the council chamber. The lobby was vacant except for the two men who’d just come in, and as Goddard paused to figure out where the tax assessor’s office was located, Schmidt came in for the kill.

It was at this moment that Worcester police sergeant Clay Reilly came downstairs from the mayor’s office, which he’d just visited to drop off some departmental paperwork. He’d just reached the landing and had turned to trot the rest of the way down when he spotted something incredible: in the lobby just below, a man with a long-barreled handgun was coming up behind another, older man.

It was obvious what was about to happen. Reilly’s reflexes were quick. Snatching his service revolver from his holster, he took aim at the would-be killer.

“Stop!” he yelled. “Drop it!”

Goddard stopped, looked around in confusion, not knowing where Reilly’s voice was coming from. Schmidt didn’t share his bewilderment. Seeing the police officer on the stairs above him, he whipped around and started to raise his gun.

Sergeant Reilly was a crack shot, one of the WPD’s best, and in that second the long hours he’d spent on the practice range paid off. Schmidt’s finger hadn’t even tightened on the Walther’s trigger when Reilly fired his Smith & Wesson.

The first shot hit Schmidt in the stomach, the second in the chest. His gun fell to the marble floor a moment before he did.

Goddard was standing only a few feet away as the killer collapsed behind him. The professor was still staring at the blood seeping from beneath the stranger’s body when the foyer door slammed open, then someone ran up behind him and grabbed his arm.

“Doc, are you all right?” O’Connor demanded.

Dazed, Goddard looked around to see the FBI agent. “Yes . . . yes, I’m . . . I’m fine, but . . .” He pointed to the body. “Who is this man? Why did . . . was he trying to . . . ?”

“I don’t know. Damn it, Professor, why couldn’t you have . . . ?” O’Connor shook his head as he tugged on Goddard’s arm. “Never mind. Let’s just get you out of here.”

By then, Sergeant Reilly had come the rest of the way downstairs. Kicking the Walther PPK away, he knelt beside Schmidt and felt the side of his neck to make sure that he was dead. Drawn by the gunshots, office workers were emerging from nearby doorways. Cautiously entering the lobby, they stared in horror and curiosity at the dead man and the police officer who’d just shot him.

Someone stepped in front of Goddard just as O’Reilly, still crouched beside the body, was starting to look for him. O’Connor took the opportunity to turn Goddard around and propel him through the crowd to the foyer.

“Aren’t we staying?” Goddard asked, as O’Connor pushed him through the front door and out into the rain.

“You can’t get mixed up in this.” Hand still wrapped around his arm, O’Connor led him down the wet granite steps. “The fewer questions you answer, the better. With any luck, no one back there recognized you.”

O’Connor’s car was still parked at the curb. The sedan that had followed Goddard downtown was already gone. When Meriwell had heard the dull gunshots from inside City Hall, he’d realized at once that they couldn’t have come from Schmidt’s silenced weapon. Meriwell knew instantly that something had gone wrong and that he’d better make himself scarce. As happenstance would have it, he’d driven away just as O’Connor showed up, giving the agent a convenient place to park.

“Yes, yes, I understand, but . . .” Goddard’s eyes were wide behind his glasses, his face pale. “Why was that man trying to kill me?”

O’Connor said nothing, nor did he need to. As the G-man’s car sped away from City Hall, Goddard arrived at the only possible answer.

“Oh, my,” he murmured. “This changes everything, doesn’t it?”

OCTOBER 2, 1942

A panel truck and three sedans drove down a wooded country lane near the town of Rindge, New Hampshire, until they reached an unmarked road. Turning right, the procession slowed to a crawl as it moved down the narrow, rutted trail. The man at the wheel of the truck was the only one who knew where they were going; he drove with a hand-drawn map open in his lap, occasionally glancing down to check their route. He was sure that he’d understood the directions he’d been given, but it wasn’t until he caught a glimpse of blue water that he knew for sure he wasn’t leading everyone the wrong way.

Passing a rusted
PRIVATE PROPERTY NO TRESPASSING
sign nailed to a tree, the vehicles arrived at their destination, a two-story hunting lodge on the shore of the nearby lake. The truck brakes squealed; one by one, the sedans following the van came to a halt. Doors swung open, and passengers climbed out.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Ham said. “Where the hell are we?”

“From the looks of it,” Taylor murmured, “I’d say we’re a long way from anywhere else.”

“I get it.” Gerry lit a cigarette and carelessly dropped the spent match on a clump of pine needles. “We’ve been taken on a picnic.” He pointed to the small dock floating beside the beach. “See? We can go swimming and everything. Water might be a little cold, but . . .”

“Knock it off.” Henry stamped out the smoldering match before it could start a fire, then turned to Omar Bliss. “Are you serious, Colonel? This is where you’re moving us?”

“That’s right.” Bliss had just climbed down from the truck cab. The driver walked up beside him, hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. “From here on out, this is the place you’re calling home.”

“Uh-huh . . . yeah.” Mike gave the lodge the once-over and shook his head. “Colonel, I know you mean well, but . . . I dunno, couldn’t you have done better?”

“Not on short notice, no . . . and we had to get you out of Worcester as fast as we could. The guys who tried to take a shot at Bob . . . and I think we know who that was . . . may try again. Next time, they might not be so subtle and do something like plant a bomb in the lab.”

“Where are we?” By then, Goddard had emerged from the last car in the procession, the one driven by Lloyd. Esther at his side, he sauntered forward to join the rest of the group. “I recognize Lake Monomonac all right, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen this place before.”

“It belongs to the Monomonac Gun and Rod Club,” the truck driver said. “Sort of a weekend retreat for rich Boston businessmen, or at least it was before the war. Most of its members have gone off to fight, so it’s been closed for a while. Someone in my office knew about it, so . . .”

“And who are you again?” Henry regarded him as if he was a stranger who’d joined their group uninvited. Which was exactly what he was.

“David Coolidge, from the FBI’s Boston field office.” He walked over to the back of the truck, unfastened its doors, and swung them open. Two more men were seated on benches inside, next to the file cabinets and crates that had been transported from Clark University. “And these are Joe Sabatini and Pete Arnold from the same place. We’re your new security detail.”

“We prefer Max,” Esther said quietly.

“Frank, too,” Ham added.

“They fucked up,” Sabatini muttered. He caught a withering look from Goddard as Esther’s face turned red. “Pardon my French, ma’am, but that’s why we’ve replaced them. If they hadn’t been careless . . .”

“I understand.” Goddard slowly let out his breath, then looked at Bliss and nodded. “This is fine, Colonel. I’m sure we’ll be able to work here.”

“Sure.” Gerry exhaled smoke, rolled his eyes. “Just let me get my moose gun, and I’ll hunt down some dinner.”

“I said, I’m sure we’ll be able to work here!” Goddard snapped.

Gerry turned pale. No one spoke for a couple of moments. In the past, Goddard would have immediately apologized after snapping at someone. He might have even added a quip of his own. But over the last few days, it had become increasingly obvious that his brush with death had robbed him of his sense of humor. No one had seen him so much as smile since then, and, even with Esther, he’d become short-tempered.

The uncomfortable silence lingered until Bliss coughed into his hand. “Yes, well . . . anyway, Bob, you and Esther won’t be staying here. You’ve got a place of your own just down the road.” He pointed to a cedar-sided cabin about fifty yards away, just visible through the trees. “We’ll have an agent with you at all times, and the two other men will be bunking with the team here at the lodge.”

“Bunking?” Mike asked. “Did you say bunking?”

“Umm . . . and another thing, Colonel.” Henry half raised a hand. “You still haven’t told us why Lloyd and Harry aren’t here. Will they be joining us soon, or . . . ?”

“Kapman and Chung have been reassigned,” Bliss said. “They’re still working on Blue Horizon, but they won’t be working here with the rest of you.” He raised a hand before anyone could ask any further questions. “I’ll explain everything once you’ve all unpacked and settled in. We’ll meet in the living room in . . . say, an hour?”

“That would be fine, Colonel.” Goddard looked at his wife. “Come along, dear . . . let’s go see our new house.”

Esther nodded unhappily. She was clearly not pleased about having to leave Worcester and relocate to a summer cabin out in the middle of nowhere. But she clung to her husband as they walked down the dirt road. Watching them go, Henry reflected that Goddard suddenly looked his age. He’d never thought of him as being an old man, but now . . .

“I’m not liking this.” Ham Ballou had moved up beside him; his voice was little more than a whisper. “I’m not liking this at all.”

“You and me both.” Henry was thinking about the fact that the 390 Group been spirited away so quickly that he hadn’t gotten a chance to find Doris and let her know that he wasn’t going to be seeing her for a while. “And even less than you do.”

=====

Wielding a broom like a baseball bat, Henry crept toward the wasp nest dangling from the loft’s bare rafters. Several wasps clung to the plate-sized honeycomb, mindless of the human a few feet away. “Ready back there?” Henry asked, not taking his eyes off the nest.

“Ready when you are,” Mike replied. For some reason, he spoke in a near whisper.

“Okay, then, on the count of three.” Another couple of steps, and Henry was almost directly beneath the nest. “One . . . two . . . three!”

He swung the broom in a clean, swift arc. It hit the wasp nest and knocked it from the rafter beam; as it fell to the floor, Henry leaped away, nearly falling over one of the steel-frame camp beds lined up on both sides of the narrow room. Wasps were already swarming from the fallen nest as Ham darted forward, spray gun in his hands.

“Die, you bastards! Die!” he yelled, pumping the gun as fast as he could to drench the nest with insecticide. At once, the loft was filled with an alcohol stench. The wasps caught in the spray fell to the floor and flopped about in dying spasms, but a handful were still airborne and angry. With high-pitched whines, they began to dart toward the giant who’d dared attack their colony.

“Retreat! Retreat!” Ham lunged for the door behind him, but one of the steamer trunks at the foot of each bed got in his way. He yelped as he tripped over it and fell face-first to the bare wooden floor, the sprayer gun skittering out of his reach. “Damn it!” he yelled, swatting at a wasp that flitted past his face. “Hey, someone help me!”

As Henry reached down to pull Ham to his feet, Mike snatched up the sprayer. Careful not to use it until the other two were clear, he hastily pumped more insecticide at the wasps, then followed Ham and Henry through the door. They slammed it shut, then stood for a minute on the small landing at the top of the stairs, trying to get their wind as they shared a laugh at their own silliness.

“I hope . . . we got ’em all,” Henry gasped.

“Hope so too.” Ham was half–bent over, hands on his knees. “Someone’s got to . . . go back in there and open a window . . . air the place out.” Catching the look on Henry’s face, he shook his head. “Not me. I’m on their . . . most wanted list.”

“Yeah, they’ve got it in for you,” Mike said, then he saw how the other two were eying him. “Whoa, Nellie. Not me . . .”

“I can’t believe that’s where we’re all going to sleep,” Henry said, shaking his head in disgust. “Six beds in one room. Feels like I’m in the Boy Scouts again.”

“Yeah? If you like that, you’re gonna love this.” Ham pushed open the door across the hall, revealing a bathroom not much larger than a closet. Inside were an old-fashioned claw-foot tub and a sink with exposed pipes. “Notice anything missing?”

“Yeah. Where’s the . . . ?” Mike stopped. “Oh, no. Don’t tell me it’s outside.”

“Yup. The outhouse is in the backyard, about ten feet from the kitchen door.” Ham shrugged. “At least it’s got its own woodstove.”

“Wow. The lap of luxury.”

“Leave it to Uncle Sam to spare no expense.” Ham shook his head. “And leave it to our nursemaids to claim the downstairs bedroom. ‘Security reasons,’ my ass.”

“Yeah, well . . .” Henry checked his watch. “’Bout time for everyone to meet up in the living room. Maybe we can persuade Igor to spring for a couple of prefab houses.”

The other two chuckled at the mention of the nickname the 390 Group had recently bestowed on Omar Bliss. “Ignorance is Bliss” became a whispered catchphrase when the colonel stubbornly resisted the group’s more radical proposals, and this led to some team members referring to him as Ignorance for a while until they realized that this wasn’t entirely true: Bliss wasn’t ignorant, really, just a bit behind the times. So Ignorance was shortened to Igor, which suited him even better: If you squinted a bit, the colonel did look a little like Dr. Frankenstein’s henchman. No one called him that to his face, though.

The colonel was already in the living room when Henry, Mike, and Ham came down from the loft and trooped in through the porch door. FBI agents Sabatini and Arnold were leaning against the fieldstone fireplace; they might have been a couple of weekend hunters were it not for the shoulder holsters visible beneath their unbuttoned jackets. The three team members had just taken seats when Gerry and Taylor came in. They’d spent the last hour unloading everyone’s belongings from the cars and were looking forward to taking a break before starting on the truck.

“Where’s Bob?” Taylor asked, looking around the room as he sat down on the couch next to Henry. “Aren’t we waiting for him?”

Bliss shook his head. “No, we’re going to have this meeting without him. I told him and Esther they’re excused so that they could make themselves at home, but the fact is there’s some things I want to talk about without his being around.”

The team members glanced at one another. “It’s about what happened the other day, isn’t it?” Ham said quietly.

“What else?” Taylor also kept his voice down. “I’ve worked with Bob for years, and I’ve never seen him like this. I mean, I don’t think he’s said ten words to me in the last couple of days . . .”

“Someone tried to kill him, and they damn near succeeded.” Mike scowled at him. “That would give anyone the heebie-jeebies.” He turned to Bliss. “Colonel, none of us are crazy about moving up here, but you probably did the right thing. If that guy was a German spy . . .”

“Was he a kraut?” Ham looked over at the two G-men. “Has anyone learned anything about him yet?”

“Nothing conclusive,” Sabatini admitted. “He wasn’t carrying any identification, and if there was someone working with him, he made a clean getaway. But his gun was German-made, and my office thinks he may also be responsible for the murder of a Beach Patrol watchman on Cape Cod earlier that morning.” The FBI agent shrugged. “So, yeah, it’s a safe bet the guy who tried to shoot Dr. Goddard was a Nazi.”

“Which means two things,” Bliss said. “One, the Germans consider Bob to be enough of a threat that they went to the trouble of sending someone over here to knock him off. And if that’s the case . . . two, the British air raid wasn’t entirely successful, and Silver Bird hasn’t been destroyed.”

Grim nods from around the room. The group had been informed of the RAF air raid on Peenemünde the day after it happened, and they’d hoped that it would have knocked
Silbervogel
down enough that the Germans might simply give up and cancel the project entirely. Indeed, there had been less urgency about Blue Horizon in recent weeks. Although work in Worcester continued, there was no longer a feeling that 390 Group was in a race against time. They were designing an experimental spacecraft that might still be used, but probably not before the war was over.

Their attitude changed as soon as they heard about what happened at City Hall. The colonel’s observation reinforced what they’d come to suspect: Goddard wouldn’t have been targeted if the Nazis didn’t think he might develop a deterrent to their antipodal bomber, and therefore Silver Bird was still under way.

“We’ve relocated you here in case he had accomplices,” Bliss continued, “but that’s not the only reason. Bob’s shook up by this, and so is Esther. We can’t have him trying to work on this project while worrying if he’s going to catch a bullet whenever he walks outside, and we risk having anyone going after you guys, too. I’m sorry the accommodations are a bit rough, but . . . well, we’ll try to make you as comfortable as possible, so long as you’re here.”

“And how long will that be?” Henry asked.

“Until your work is finished,” Bliss replied. Groans and irate murmurs greeted this remark, and he quickly held up his hand. “I know that’s a long time to keep you sequestered, but . . .”

“Sequestered?” Gerry stared at him. “What do you mean by that?”

Bliss hesitated, and Sabatini stepped in. “What this means is that new security protocols are now in effect. No one is to leave this camp without an FBI escort. We’ll drive someone into town to buy groceries, cigarettes, newspapers, or whatever else you need, but otherwise, you’re to remain here.”

“What about mail?” Mike asked.

“It’ll still come to Worcester. So far as anyone you know is concerned, you’re still at Clark University. And if you send anything out, it’ll be mailed from Worcester, too, so it’ll have that postmark.” Sabatini paused. “Naturally, you’ll refrain from saying anything about this place. Don’t give us reason to start reading your letters to make sure that you’re in compliance.”