Chapter 17: Final Vengeance
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Wernher von Braun’s latest rocket was sixty-four feet from its three bell-shaped rockets to its lance-tipped warhead, fully twice as tall as any of his previous mechanical miracles. It towered over the gathered scientists, generals and dignitaries like a colossal steel idol checkered in black and white. At first, the professor had been reluctant to build a V2 rocket so large. He complained about inadequate stabilization rudders, about the unfinished inertial guidance system. He worried that the fuel pumps would not provide a consistent flow rate, that the couplings would buckle under the stress and that the electrical system would short out at the crucial moment of ignition.
But these were just excuses.
Henrik knew he could convince him to do it, just as he convinced Heisenberg to finish the atomic bomb, despite all his excuses, and Hitler and Himmler and the rest of the Reich Command to take time out of their war with humanity in order to witness this historic event. It was pride that made them do it. In the past month, German nationalistic pride had become Henrik’s greatest weapon. He wielded it like an invincible sword, slashing through every muted protest, every hint of resistance. They were Germans. Was there anything that they could not do?
And so they came, with their nationalistic dreams and their vaulting ambitions and Henrik welcomed them with open arms. Come and see how we, the Aryan Ubermen, will destroy our enemies and bring a new and lasting order to a chaotic world, he told them. And they believed him.
“I have to give you your dues, Herr Kessler,” Heisenberg said softly, attempting to keep his voice out of earshot of the very powerful men who sat above him on the podium. “At first I was skeptical of your theories. I did not see how the power of this new element, plutonium as you called it, could be harnessed. But you did it. You really did it.”
“We did it,” Henrik corrected, taking a taste of his champagne. He’d forgotten how much he hated the stuff.
“Oh, Henrik, you are very generous with your praise, but it was your theory and your schematics that made our preparations possible. How I would love to have a unique talent such as yours. It must be a great blessing.”
A blessing? The jealous professor hadn’t the slightest comprehension of what he was saying. It was true that his eidetic memory, his unique talent as Heisenberg called it, had made Henrik an extra special operative overseas, the perfect spy. He merely had to glance at Oppenheimer’s theoretical sketches for a plutonium bomb and he had every detail instantly and permanently etched in his mind. Combined with the knowledge Heisenberg’s Uranverein had already accumulated about the possibilities of atomic fusion, Germany’s scientists were able to build a working prototype in less than a month. It was an amazing scientific achievement, due in a large part to Henrik’s unique talent.
But a lot else had happened in the past month, some of it good, but most of it bad. As for the good, Heydrich was dead. Apparently the wound from Joseph Gabcik’s bomb became infected causing the Butcher of Prague to die eight days later in hospital in a great deal of pain. But this news was small consolation for the repercussions that soon followed. Over two thousand Czechs were rounded up, tortured and shot by the SS. Joseph and his compatriots were eventually betrayed by a member of their own team, and St. Cyril was quickly surrounded. The seven men put up a valiant last stand against six hundred German soldiers, killing 14, wounding 24 and holding out for over four hours. In the end, the brave men chose to eat cyanide rather that be captured alive.
And then there were the memories of Auschwitz. In the past month, they had not dimmed a shade. The horrid stench, the rising smoke, the desiccated human beings herded like cattle to their deaths, the piles of shoes and hair and teeth from the thousands that had already been gassed and incinerated. The sound of the shot and the sight of Sarah’s bleeding corpse beneath the iron sign as Heydrich drove away. Thanks to his eidetic memory, these pictures would never leave him. They would follow him to his grave. Surely his unique talent was not a blessing. It was a curse.
“No, Herr Heisenberg,” Henrik said softly, “it is you who are too generous with your praise.”
Heisenberg smiled, but there was something worrisome in his look. He decided to change the subject. “Have they finally revealed the target for this historic first flight?” he asked casually. “It was all so hush hush a while ago.”
Henrik took another deliberate sip of his champagne, biting back the bitter taste. “No, but von Braun assures me that London is the only major Allied city within range of Peenemunde.”
Heisenberg nodded. “Of course.”
“Perhaps soon, a few months, maybe a year, Washington and New York will become accessible to our rockets, but that is merely speculation at this point.”
Heisenberg looked as if he were about to make another comment when he was silenced by the warning buzzer over the loudspeakers. There was a loud crackle followed by the booming but cordial voice of the rocket master himself.
“Honored guests, gentlemen, generals and especially our esteemed Fuhrer, the monumental hour is upon us . . .” For the next few minutes, Professor von Braun waxed surprisingly eloquent about the significance of the moment, citing every major German inventor from Johannes Gutenberg to Karl Benz. At the end of his rather poignant speech, he politely invited the crowd to take their seats and put on their safety goggles.
Heisenberg was bubbling with excitement. As the official head of the Uranium project, his official responsibilities ended with the bomb’s final construction and installation in the nosecone of the V2. The rocket’s final launch was von Braun’s responsibility. That allowed Heisenberg and Henrik to sit back and enjoy the show, or at least, that was the plan.
“Professor! Professor Heisenberg!” an insistent voice bellowed from down in the fire pit. Heisenberg looked down to see Otto pushing through the crowd of uniformed spectators.
“What is it, Otto? Can’t you see the rocket is about to go off?”
“Yes, professor, but the reactor has gone hot.”
Heisenberg’s face suddenly drained of color. A hot reactor could mean only one thing—the weapon was armed and would go off prematurely, maybe at any moment. Heisenberg tried to push past a nearby general but someone grabbed his arm.
“It’s too late, Werner,” Henrik said softly.
Heisenberg turned to face Henrik, the strain on his face revealing the complex calculation that was running through his formidable brain. And then he blinked with sudden recognition. “Henrik, what did you do?”
Henrik had no time to respond. With an enormous roar, the V2’s three powerful rockets ignited simultaneously. A great billow of smoke flooded the fire pit in every direction, and then the fire just suddenly shut off. Perhaps von Braun’s worries about the fuel pumps had been well founded. Or maybe it was a faulty electrical system. More likely it was sabotage. Only Henrik knew for sure.
There was a collective scream of terror as the ponderous rocket teetered precariously on its titanium launch pad threatening to crash headlong on the gathered Germans like a great, iron pine tree. Then at the last second, it fell in the opposite direction towards the V1 hangar bays. There was another loud explosion as the warhead hit the tarmac, and the entire launch area was buried in a thick, gray blanket of smoke and ash.
Henrik awoke in a hospital bed in Berlin. He’d suffered second-degree burns to his hands and face and inhaled a bucketful of smoke, but the doctors said he would make a full recovery with a minimum of scarring. Admiral Canaris was Henrik’s first and only visitor in those first few days after the accident. Apparently, the upper echelons of the military were in quite a state of pandemonium and none too happy with von Braun or Heisenberg. Henrik, who had taken no official credit for the Uranium weapon, was mostly forgotten, at least for the present, but he expected a visit from Himmler anytime.
“You gave me a bit of a scare, young Kessler,” Canaris said in a fatherly tone, t
apping Henrik on his bandaged arm. “I thought you were never going to wake up.”
Henrik eyed the man warily. “It was good of you to visit me, admiral. You are too kind.”
“Not at all.” Canaris took back his hand and used it to relight his pipe. Henrik had always liked the sweet smell of the admiral’s pipe tobacco. It reminded him of Christmas and burning aged pine logs in the winter hearth. “Any ideas on what may have caused it?”
“Pardon me?”
“The accident. What a frightful tragedy! The fire destroyed a good deal of von Braun’s stockpile of Vengeance Weapons and probably set the project back six months, if not a year. The rocket master was lucky to maintain his position, if not his life, after that fiasco. But I’m not convinced that it was entirely his fault. Are you?”
Henrik shrugged. “Was anybody hurt?”
“Was anyone hurt?” Canaris exclaimed, almost dropping his smoking pipe from his lips. “My dear Henrik, you were almost killed. The entire compound was blanketed in fire and smoke.”
But the bomb? Henrik thought. It could not have gone off, or Henrik would not have come out of there with a few burns and a cough. He would be dead along with everyone else within five square miles of Peenemunde. And what of Heisenberg and Himmler? Were they still alive? And what about Hitler? Henrik felt an almost unbearable hope bubble up inside him. If Hitler had been killed, the war could already be over.
“I suppose it could have been worse,” Canaris explained a little more calmly. “Only a few mechanics and technicians were actually killed in the blast. Most people got off much as you did, with a few scratches and a bad scare. But if the rocket had fallen the other way, perish the thought.” Canaris puffed smoke out of his pipe casually. “Why, Henrik, you look somehow disappointed.”
“Oh, no. I’m happy that most people were safe, especially the Fuhrer.”
“Quite right.”
“But the fusion device?”
“The what? Oh yes. Heisenberg’s top-secret doomsday device.” Canaris took another puff of his pipe and rolled his eyes comically. “A dud, I’m afraid, although it made quite a mess. They’ll be cleaning up radioactive debris for a long time to come. Hitler was unimpressed, as you can imagine. Himmler has convinced him that a uranium bomb is nothing more than a Jewish fairytale meant to distract the German people from the serious business of war. So Heisenberg’s Uranverein was split up among the various universities. I hear they’ll be concentrating on energy research from now on.”
So that was it. The rocket’s fateful collapse had destroyed the bomb before it could detonate. Henrik failed to kill Hitler and his generals, but he had killed Germany’s chances of mass-producing atomic bombs, at least for the time being. And they might never know how close they had come to possessing the most powerful weapon the world had ever known.
Canaris suddenly took the pipe out of his mouth. “I must be getting senile. I almost forgot that I have something for you.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope. He passed it dramatically to Henrik. There was no address. What was it—another invitation to the Chancellery? Henrik ripped it open. It was a telegram.
“Made it. Feeling better. Found friends. I love you.”
Despite the cryptic nature of the message, Henrik knew what it meant and who had sent it. He felt a sudden wave of emotion. He had always assumed Esther was safe, but now he knew. Only one word troubled him.
“Friends?” he asked, wiping the tears from his eyes.
“My operatives in America. They will take care of her.” Canaris looked at Henrik and grinned. “Surely you didn’t think that you were the only one I had over there. But you were the best, Henrik. It will be a shame to lose you.”
“Lose me?” Henrik sighed with understanding. So Canaris was in league with the SS after all. “Funny. I thought Himmler would want to do the deed himself.”
“No, Henrik. I am not here to kill you on behalf of the Reichsfuhrer. I’m here to give you a choice.” The admiral looked out the open window at the peaceful hemlocks, nodded to the waiting Limousine and then shut the window tightly. “For the past decade,” he continued, his voice quiet, almost conspiratorial, “I have been fighting a war within my own country, a war for dignity and honor. I am losing this war, but I still retain the power to accomplish a few final acts of decency. One of those acts is to provide you with safe passage to America to be with your one true love, because if there is anything that can explain your utter insanity over the past two months, it must be love.”
Henrik felt as if his heart would burst with joy. Canaris not only knew about his treason, he was going to help him escape. “It hardly seems like a choice,” he said, choking back the tears.
“Oh, but I’m afraid it is a choice, the first of two possible choices that I am offering you. But that is the choice that I hope with all my heart that you will make.” Canaris took another puff of his pipe and his face soured.
Henrik felt a knot growing in his stomach and now he dreaded the second option more than he’d rejoiced at the first. “And the other?” he asked at last.
Canaris sighed. “The second choice, and it is a terrible one, is to stay here with me and fight against the indecency and corruption that you have witnessed with your own eyes, to save as many as we can and to slay the vipers in their own nest. We would be the sheep dressed in wolves’ clothing. I do not ask this of you lightly, Herr Kessler. It is a great sacrifice. But I do ask you. You have a unique talent. And you may be the only one who can help me—the only one.”
The admiral looked at Henrik with eyes that were infinitely old, his gaze bearing down on him until Henrik was forced to look away. The Limousine was still parked outside, ready to whisk him off to America. The wind was rustling through the maple trees, knocking large, yellowing leaves to the grass. Pictures flashed before Henrik’s eyes, pictures that were always with him wherever he went, pictures that never left him, even when his eyes were open, even in his dreams.
He turned back to the admiral. “Can you get a message to her?”
The admiral nodded. “A short one.”
“Tell her . . .” He halted, trying to find the words, but he couldn’t, because there were no words for what he wanted to say. He loved Esther more than the world. He wanted nothing more in life than to be with her—not honor, not glory, nothing but to be with her. “Tell her I can’t come because . . .” He faultered again, searching, searching. Tears were threatening under his eyelids. He closed his eyes and his thoughts turned cold. “Tell her I never made it. Tell her I’m dead.”
Canaris frowned. “All right,” he said slowly, “if that is what you wish.”
“It’s what I want you to say. And admiral, the answer to your question is yes. I’ll do it.”
“Do what?” Canaris asked as if he hadn’t a clue what Henrik was talking about, but Henrik knew the wily old fox just wanted him to say it out loud, to make a firm commitment in simple language. Henrik decided not to give him the satisfaction.
“I’ll be your sheep in wolf’s clothing,” he said, echoing the admiral’s metaphor.
Canaris seemed strangely disappointed, but Henrik’s gaze was adamantine. He’d come back to Germany to save Esther, and he’d done it. But he would never escape the horrors of this war even in America, even in the arms of his love. The demons would keep dogging him wherever he went. It was best to meet them head on with all guns blazing. Maybe there was no room in this war for love or a happy ending, but there was always room for fire and blood.
Now was the time for vengeance.
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About the author:
David Wright is a writer and English teacher living on Canada’s majestic west coast. When he’s not teaching, he keeps busy writing, running and occasionally preaching at his local church. He has a lovely wife and two sparkling daughters. His short stories have appeared in over a dozen
magazines including Neo-opsis, Mindflights and Niteblade.
(Picture taken at Paul Allen’s Flying Heritage Collection)
Connect with David online:
Homepage: https://davidwright812.wordpress.com/
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Flight of the Cosmonaut
(Please enjoy this excerpt from David’s historical novel Flight of the Cosmonaut available at better ebook retailers everywhere.)