V-S Day: A Novel of Alternate History (23 page)

Standing outside the ambulance’s open rear gate, everyone watched quietly as the doctor struggled to save McPherson’s life with the Holger-Nielsen cardiac-resuscitation technique. From deep within the crowd of scientists, soldiers, and technicians, Henry heard a woman praying in a low and solemn voice.

A couple of minutes went by, then Dr. Wysocki straightened up and let out his breath. He looked at the medics and shook his head. The one across from him didn’t reply but instead reached down to pull the stretcher’s top sheet over McPherson. The other medic closed the tailgate, then went around to the cab, climbed in, and started the engine.

The ambulance had just driven away when Henry heard Goddard ask someone what had happened, and he looked around to Jack Cube and the other flight surgeon—Dr. Sinclair, aka Mutt—standing behind them. Both were in shock, and it was obvious that neither of them wanted to be there just then, yet they couldn’t refuse a question from Blue Horizon’s technical director. Not when a fatal accident had just occurred.

“He shouldn’t have gotten in that thing.” Jack kept swinging his head back and forth, as if denying what he’d just seen. “He shouldn’t have . . . I mean, I shouldn’t have let him, but . . .”

“Nonsense, Lieutenant. It’s not your fault.” Sinclair stared at him. “McPherson was reckless. He told the operator to keep him at seven g’s for as long as he could take it, and there was no reason for that except that he was trying to prove something . . . and you and I both know what that was.”

Goddard shot a look at Jack. “Oh, for God’s sake, are you telling me he was . . . ?”

“Trying to top Skid’s time in the centrifuge, yes, sir.” Jack Cube looked even more miserable than before. “Skid set the record at three minutes, thirty-four seconds at seven g’s, and Joe somehow figured that . . .” Again, he shook his head. “I don’t know what he was thinking, really. Maybe he thought that if he could stand launch acceleration for a longer period of time, we’d bump Skid and move him into the pilot’s seat.”

“Idiot,” Henry muttered.

Goddard cast him a cold glare, but Dr. Sinclair slowly nodded. “I hate to say it, but I agree,” he said softly. “This sort of prolonged stress on the coronary arteries can cause even a healthy man to have a heart attack, especially if it happens over and over again. He may have even been born with some sort of anomalous condition that I wouldn’t have been able to detect.” He paused to give Goddard a meaningful look. “The fact that he was a pack-a-day smoker couldn’t have helped.”

“Yes, well . . .” Goddard brushed off the pointed reminder about his own health risks. “Whatever the reason, I’m afraid that puts us in a tenuous situation now, doesn’t it?”

As if on cue, someone else came out of the training facility. Skid Sloman also wore a jumpsuit, its helmet dangling from his left hand. His face was ashen, his eyes wide; for the first time since they’d met, the pilot didn’t have the cocky, go-to-hell expression Henry had come to expect.

Goddard, Jack Cube, Dr. Sinclair, and Henry turned to him as he shuffled through the door. “I was in the control room, waiting my turn,” he mumbled. “I didn’t know . . . I mean, no one knew what was going on till he stopped talking to us, then . . .”

“It’s okay, Skid.” Jack placed a hand on his shoulder. “No one knew, and it was no one’s fault. It just happened, that’s all . . .”

“How is your training coming along?” Goddard asked abruptly.

Startled, Skid blinked several times before answering. “Ummm . . . it’s going well, Doctor G. At least it was until . . .”

“You know how to handle the X-1?” Goddard stared at him, his face devoid of sympathy. “You have confidence in your ability to perform your mission?”

“Well, yeah, I think so . . .”

“You’d better do more than just think so,” Goddard said. “As of now, you’re the only man qualified to fly this spacecraft. So no more slipups, no more mistakes.” His eyes were cold and grey as he turned to the others. “That goes for you, too, and everyone else.”

And then he shoved his hands in his pockets and stormed away. Jack Cube started to follow him, but Henry grabbed his arm and shook his head.

“Let him go,” he said quietly. “Just . . . give him some room, okay?”

Jack’s mouth tightened, but he nodded without saying a word. On the other hand, Skid was visibly angry. “Who the hell does he think he is?” he demanded, watching Goddard as he walked off. “A man just got killed here!”

“Oh, he knows that, all right.” Henry’s voice was very low. “Believe me, that’s all he’s thinking about.”

JUNE 1, 1943

A sergeant raised a whistle to his mouth and blew a sharp note, and the squad of soldiers standing on either side of the launch ramp pulled the ropes dangling above their heads. The camouflage netting fell away, revealing what lay beneath it.

Silbervogel
rested upon its launch sled, the massive horizontal-thrust engine at its rear resembling the thorax of some immense wasp. Even in the dull light of a cloudy sky, the spacecraft gleamed in the late-morning sun, making the black crosses painted on its wings and stubby tail fins stand out. The launch rail stretched away into the distance; during the night, its own camouflage had been removed, the poles that had once supported the nets cut down by Dora prisoners and hauled away.

The moment Silver Bird’s camouflage was pulled away, a military marching band struck up the German National Anthem, almost drowning out the applause of the senior officers and party officials gathered nearby. Assembled on the wooden viewing stand one kilometer from the launch site, they’d come at the special invitation of Goering himself to witness the historic event. Some had had no idea that the
Silbervogel Projekt
even existed until they’d arrived; the operation had remained classified all the way to the end, in hopes that the Allies would remain ignorant of its existence until the moment the bombs dropped on America. Others knew about Silver Bird yet had not yet been apprised of its objective. Very few knew all the essential details, and they had been sworn to secrecy.

Standing in the front row, Heinrich Himmler turned to Eugen Sanger and, still clapping his hands, smiled at the Austrian engineer. “A magnificent creation,
Herr Doktor
,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the noise. “This must be a great day for you.”

Sanger didn’t say anything for a moment. Noticing the silence, Wernher von Braun glanced at Sanger. There were tears in the corners of his eyes, and his chin trembled a little beneath his heavy mustache.

“Like a father seeing his child for the first time,” Sanger said quietly, his words nearly lost beneath the orchestra.

His child,
von Braun thought.
How pathetic.
Sanger had apparently forgotten Himmler’s threats about what Hitler might do if he was informed that Silver Bird wasn’t completed by the deadline Himmler had imposed on the project. That deadline had come and gone nearly two months ago, and it was only Dornberger’s fast-talking that had saved all of them from Himmler’s petulant wrath.

Now the strutting little chicken farmer was behaving as if everything had been forgiven and forgotten. And it probably was . . . so long as they were successful today.

Von Braun had to make a conscious effort not to grimace. It wasn’t just Himmler he had to worry about. Goering was there, too, as were Goebbels, Speer, Keitel . . . everyone except the
Führer
himself. Hitler had given no reason for not attending; through an aide, he’d simply sent word that he would not be there, and that was it. When he’d heard this, von Braun had been secretly relieved. He’d been forced to wear the loathed SS uniform again, but at least he wouldn’t have to play host to the
Führer
as well as the rest of the High Command.

“Of course it is,” von Braun said to Himmler as he gently tapped Sanger on the arm, drawing his attention. “Now, if you’ll excuse us . . .”

“Yes, of course. You have your duties.” A dismissive flip of the hand, as if von Braun were nothing more than a minor technocrat rather than the project’s scientific director. “Go.”

“Thank you,
Herr Reichsführer
 . . .”

“Wait,” Goebbels snapped. A wiry and glowering little man, the propaganda minister reminded von Braun of a carrion bird. “Couldn’t we meet Lieutenant Reinhardt one last time, to give him our best wishes for his mission?”

Again, von Braun had to work to keep a neutral expression. He was perfectly aware of the official photographers lurking at the edge of the platform, ready to dart forward at Goebbels’s slightest gesture. The propaganda minister didn’t want to give Reinhardt his blessings; all he wanted was to have his picture taken, shaking hands with Silver Bird’s pilot. Von Braun had come to realize that everyone in Hitler’s inner circle had his own personal agenda; dealing with such colossal egos was a job of its own.

“I’m very sorry, but that’s impossible. Lieutenant Reinhardt is on his way to the Silver Bird even as we speak.” Turning around, he peered at the distant spacecraft and managed to spot a large truck pulling up beneath the bottom of the launch sled. “There, see?” he asked, pointing in that direction. “There is his support vehicle now.”

“Yes, I see.” Goebbels’s face darkened. “And why weren’t we given an opportunity to meet him earlier, as I requested?”

Before von Braun could answer, Walter Dornberger came to the rescue. “I’m sorry,
Herr Reichsminister
, but we were unable to comply with your request. We deliberately kept Lieutenant Reinhardt in medical quarantine for the last forty-eight hours, to make sure that no one carrying any germs or viruses would inadvertently make him sick just as he was about to carry out his mission. I’m sure you understand.”

Goebbels said nothing although his expression became even more vulpine than ever. If he was about to respond, though, he was cut off by a voice booming from a loudspeaker mounted on a nearby post:
“Launch in sixty minutes! Repeat, launch in sixty minutes! All technical personnel, please report immediately to control bunker!”

“We must go,” von Braun murmured to Sanger and Dornberger, then he turned to the dignitaries in the front row of the viewing stand. “Thank you for your best wishes,” he said, giving them a hasty bow. “We’ll brief you following the conclusion of this mission.”

Without another word, he went as fast as he could to an open-top sedan parked nearby, Sanger and Dornberger trotting along beside him. He was relieved that none of the High Command insisted upon joining them; they weren’t so arrogant not to realize that their place was here, not in the bunker. Making a brief appearance at the viewing stand was something he and the others were obliged to do. Now that it was over, their real task lay before them: getting Silver Bird safely off the ground, into space, and on its way to its target.

The day had come. By the time it was over, New York would be in ruins.

=====

Frieda Koenig was about to bicycle into town to go shopping when, from somewhere in the far distance, she heard something odd. Halfway to the front gate, she stopped, put down her market basket, and listened intently. No, there was no mistake. It was the
Deutschlandlied
that she heard echoing off the granite bluffs of the nearby mountains:
“Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, Über alles in der Welt . . .”

In the months she’d been living in Nordhausen, carrying on the impersonation of a recently widowed artist, she’d seen and heard enough to confirm OSS suspicions that the Nazis had a secret missile base located in the mountains not far from town. All these things she’d dutifully reported to London during her radio transmissions, which she was careful to keep brief and at irregular intervals. Yet this was the first time she’d heard martial music coming from the vicinity of
Mittelwerk
.

Listening, Frieda frowned. The only reason the Nazis would break out a brass band was if they had something to celebrate. On the other hand, it was only a few hours ago, just as she was getting out of bed, that she’d heard a couple of twin-engine Junkers transports passing low overhead, as if coming in for a landing. Party officials paying a visit? Very possibly, yes, but why . . . ?

Suddenly, a bike ride to the village grocer was no longer important. Picking up her basket, Frieda hurried back into the cottage. She’d learned to leave a ladder propped up against the back wall of the house; the rooftop made a good observation post, with the chimney hiding her from the road. Once she climbed up there with her binoculars, she might have a chance to see what was going on.

First, though, she went into the bedroom. Frieda pulled the suitcase radio down from the closet shelf, placed it on the floor beside the bed, and plugged it in. Better get the wireless warmed up, just in case . . .

=====

Stiffly and slowly, the rubber-insulated leather of his flight suit resisting his every move, Horst Reinhardt climbed down into
Silbervogel
’s cockpit. Once again, he was astonished by just how small it was. Not even the experimental Messerschmidt jet fighters he’d been flying before being recruited for this program were as cramped as this. He gritted his teeth as the two technicians standing on either side of the cockpit eased him into the heavily padded seat, one holding his arms at shoulder height while the other fitted his legs into the horizontal well beneath the instrument panel. The parachute he wore pushed against his lower back, making him even more uncomfortable. He muttered an obscenity, knowing that no one would hear him; his throat mike wasn’t yet plugged in, and the airtight goggles and full-face breathing mask that made him resemble a bug muffled his voice.

Once he was seated, though, he was able to move a little more freely. As one of the technicians reached down to move the air mask’s oxygen hose from its portable unit to the valve located beneath the dashboard, Reinhardt ran a line from his throat mike to the wireless system. “Radio check, radio check,” he said, clamping the throat mike between his thumb and forefingers. “Do you hear me, Control? Over.”

“We understand you,
Silbervogel
.”
The voice in his headphones was unfamiliar. Apparently Dr. von Braun wasn’t in the control bunker. Probably still shaking hands with the brass.

“Thank you,” Reinhardt said. “Time to launch?”

“Launch in fifty-one minutes, thirty-one seconds.”

“Very good. Proceeding with preflight checklist.” A small notebook was attached to the upper-right corner of the instrument panel. While the technicians leaned in to wrap his seat and shoulder straps in place around him and clamp them shut, Reinhardt looked at the first item on the list. “Primary electrical system, on . . .”

=====

The control bunker was a steel-reinforced concrete pillbox built into the mountainside not far from the tunnels, on the other side of the launch rail from the viewing stand. Resembling an oversized gunner’s nest, its slot windows were fitted with quartz glass five centimeters thick. The precautions were necessary, for the bunker was located only a hundred meters from the launch rail.

Within the bunker, nearly a dozen men were seated at workstations divided into two rows, each facing the windows and the large wall map between them. Pneumatic tubes were suspended vertically from the ceiling to each desk. Von Braun discarded the uniform jacket as soon as he came through the vault door that was the bunker’s sole entrance. Ignoring the brisk salute given him by the soldier standing guard, he pulled on his white lab coat as he headed straight for his station, the center desk in the third row back. Walter Dornberger sat down beside him, while Sanger went to a desk in the second row, the logistics section.

Von Braun sat down at the desk and pulled on a pair of headphones. He took a moment to light a cigarette, then opened the loose-leaf binder on the desk. Through the headphones, he heard both Lieutenant Reinhardt’s voice and those of the flight controllers as they made their way through the prelaunch checklist:

“Oxygen-fuel pressurization, complete.”

“Confirm oxygen-fuel pressurization completion.”

“Initiate gasoline-fuel pressurization.”

“Initiating gasoline pressurization.”

“Gyro platform check.”

“Gyro operational.”

They’d rehearsed the launch procedure countless times over the past four months, in practice sessions that lasted hours on end. This time, though, there was a tension that had been lacking before. Everyone knew that this was the real thing, not just another exercise. Scanning the room, von Braun saw that everyone was focused entirely upon the dials and meters before them. Now and then, there was a short, sharp hiss, then the hollow clunk of a message capsule dropping into a cup beneath the pneumatic tubes that carried handwritten data from one workstation to another, removing the need for the controllers to stand up and walk across the room. Otherwise, the bunker was quiet, disciplined.

Von Braun glanced to one side of the room, where three clocks hung against the wall. The first was the mission clock; it stood at L minus twenty-nine minutes and counting. The second clock was Berlin time: 11:31
A.M.
The third clock was the most critical one: 5:31
A.M.
New York Time. Once Silver Bird left the atmosphere, it would take one hour and thirty-seven minutes to reach its target. Because there was a six-hour difference in time zones, the plan called for the attack to occur at approximately 7:40
A.M.
New Yorkers would be on their way to work by then, so it had been calculated that a strategic bombing at that time would increase the fatalities among commuters, with more deaths caused by the firestorm that would rage across Manhattan and the greater metropolitan area in the aftermath.

Von Braun forced this thought from his mind as he lit another cigarette from the first one. He wasn’t the only person chain-smoking. The glass ashtrays on the desks were already beginning to fill up, and the ceiling fans labored to remove smoke from the room. He flipped another page of his notebook and tried to concentrate on the checklist.

“Launch minus twenty-two minutes and counting.”

“Fuel pressurization complete.”

“Confirm completion of fuel-pressurization cycle.”

“Pilot ready for takeoff. Seal cockpit.”

“Confirm cockpit seal.”

“Check landing-gear servomotors.”

“Landing-gear servos operational, check . . .”

Hearing this, von Braun shut his eyes for a moment. According to the flight plan, once its mission was complete,
Silbervogel
would begin a long supersonic glide from an altitude of seventy kilometers, crossing the Atlantic until it reached Germany, where it would land on the
Mittelwerk
landing strip just a few kilometers away. Yet everyone who’d closely studied this part of the plan knew that it was optimistic at best. The spacecraft would be out of fuel by then, its pilot capable of making only dead-stick maneuvers. The math might support the notion of a glide return all the way to base, but common sense did not. It was more likely that Reinhardt would be forced to ditch in the ocean, and although he’d been given a parachute and a life preserver, the chances of his surviving a supersonic bailout, then spending countless hours in the high seas before being located by the U-boat that had been dispatched to the North Atlantic as an emergency recovery vessel, were not good.