The Gemini Divergence (33 page)

Symington then contributed, “We also now have
reports from operatives in Argentina that their numbers may be
growing fast. It seems that Otto Skorzeny has made it out of Europe
and is now in Argentina, and he has started a campaign to recruit
expatriate Nazis that have been on the lamb throughout South
America to join some new secret organization. Most are more than
willing to give up a destitute life on the run for whatever
Skorzeny is offering them. We believe that he has then been
smuggling these people to Antarctica.”

Truman leaned back into his chair and looked
like he was having to swallow a large bitter pill, and said, “How
do we explain the destruction of the bombers to the Public? I only
have a few months left as president then I go back to Missouri were
my biggest responsibility will be showing up for lodge meetings on
time… How can I leave this behind for Eisenhower?”

The Army Chief responded, “Don’t worry Mr.
President, Ike is used to having unpalatable bombs tossed into his
lap, he will do just fine.”

The rest of the meeting attendees
concurred.

Lemay also added, “I have already fabricated
a press release for the Media that the damage was caused by a large
tornado. All of the witnesses on the base have been briefed to keep
their mouths shut.”

Truman leaned forward and put his hands
together, thinking.

After a moment he said, “I guess it’s high
time we had a word with these boys. Don’t you think?”

The attendees again concurred.

Truman went on, “General Lemay, you are the
only one that has had a chat with these boys so far, do you have a
way of getting hold of them again?”

“Well we had to launch a rocket to get their
attention last time, and I don’t even know the name of the man I
talked with. There has to be a better way.”

“There is!” interjected the Navy Chief. He
stood and carried a memo that he had, and handed a copy of it to
the President. As he walked back to his seat he announced, “I was
waiting for the right time in the meeting to let you all know this
but I received that memo just a few hours ago.”

He sat and then continued, “It is a report
from the captain of the carrier FDR… It appears as though a German
U-boat with a white flag surfaced in front of them today and gave
them a message. It is an invitation for General Lemay.”

He then passed a copy to Lemay and continued,
“It gives the time and frequency for General Lemay to re-contact an
‘Oberst Wolf Schwerig’. We had his name looked up to see if anybody
knew who he was and all we found was that he was a major in the SS
during the war and it was believed that he had been killed or
captured by the Russians in Poland.”

Lemay handed the memo to Volmer and asked,
“Here it is, how long do you think that it will take you to figure
out where he will be?”

Everyone at the meeting looked at Volmer in
anticipation of his answer.

He said, “I can let you all know
tomorrow.”

~~~**^**~~~

The Cold
War / The Americans Ambush

“Hawaii,” sounded Volmer’s voice from Lemay’s
phone, as he sat in his temporary office at the Pentagon: a small
Christmas tree on his desk.

Volmer continued, “More specifically an area
called French Frigate Shoals. It is an uninhabited shoal, and the
water is so shallow that it’s not very navigable, but I am told
that there is an abandoned air field that the Army built during the
war to be a safety stop, halfway between Pearl Harbor and Midway.
Apparently it is pretty small, just a runway and nothing else.”

Lemay then asked, “Can you set up your
portable array there? Will it be ready for the upcoming talk? …We
have a lot of big people that are going to be there at that
call.”

“Oh, I am certain that we can, except that
there is no infrastructure there at this time. The tide overtakes
the island often, so we have no idea how much runway is still
there, and there is no power there. We would need at the least some
kind of advance support team to ensure that we can land a plane
there and that we would have electricity and water to run the
array.”

Lemay chuckled and said, “No problem, I have
just the guy, and a promise to keep to him.”

*~*

Gus had just disembarked his transport plane
after arriving at French Frigate Shoals and was wearing a Santa hat
for the impending Christmas, when he noticed Major Hanson standing
on the sea wall. So, he walked over to greet him.

Major Hanson saw Gus approach. Remembering
him from New Mexico, he greeted him with, “Welcome to nowhere
sergeant.”

“Does it even have a name?” asked Gus.

“I’m told that the air strip was built on top
of what used to be a small spot called Turn Island,” answered
Hanson, as he turned and put his hands out towards the sea and
insanely bellowed, “There is nothing here but sand and Gooney
birds!”

“I don’t think it’s that bad,” commented
Gus.

“Are you kidding?” rebuked Hanson, “There was
even less here when the navy dropped me off with these Sea Bees. We
had to fix the runway before they could even bring the supplies to
build the hut we live in. Then we installed the generator and the
water.”

“Well, you get to build it the way you like
it,” suggested Gus.

Hanson looked at Gus with a sneer and replied
sarcastically, “Oh, General Lemay said, ‘You’ll love it. I hear
that there is an affectionate Polynesian girl behind every palm
tree’.”

Hanson spread his arms in a gesture for Gus
to behold the entire island as he exclaimed in great
disappointment, “There are no frigging trees on this entire pile of
sand! I can throw a rock in any cardinal direction and hit the damn
water. There is not a native girl, or any girl for that matter,
within 500 miles. There was no shade until we built the hut. We
have to walk down the runway just to take a shit because there is
not enough room on either side of the damn runway to place the out
house far enough away from the hut so that we don’t have to smell
the damn thing.”

“I really think you’re over reacting sir,”
Gus iterated.

Hanson ranted, “The only redeeming thing
about this hell hole is that there is no damn phone for Lemay to
call me on.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Gus reached into his
pack and pulled out a post card, “I was supposed to give this to
you.”

Gus handed the post card to Hanson, who then
started to read it.

It had a picture of a beautiful island
paradise on the front with a row of large palm trees and beautiful
Hula dancer.

When he turned it over it said,

“
Mele Kalikimaka, Hope you’re enjoying
Christmas in paradise. Don’t forget the deadline. Remember
Antarctica... ‘Lemay’.”

*~*

An hour or so later, Gus and Jack had
unloaded the portable array and found the location where they were
going to set it up.

As they worked to do just that, the heat
ripples coming up from the runway behind them, blended with the
ocean to make it appear as though the transport plane in back of
them was parked right on top of the water.

Gus was still wearing his Santa hat, even
though neither of the young men was wearing their shirts while they
toiled in the Pacific sun.

“I’m hungry, when is lunch?” asked Jack

Gus looked at his watch and shook his head in
perplexity, “Well my watch says it’s actually supper time, but it
is set to Texas time, which is 5 hours away. I guess we can eat
now, it is probably around lunch here.”

“Well it’s got to be lunch time somewhere,”
said Jack as he opened his lunch, “We travel around so much; I
never know what time it is.”

As they started to eat, they began to
gossip.

“I don’t think that Hanson would be happy if
he were given plush office in paradise.” Commented Jack

“I know,” returned Gus, “When we were at
White Sands and Roswell, you and I used to work out in the sun
every day while he sat in a shaded office in front of a fan and
told us how bad he had it.”

“I still haven’t got all that damn sand out
of my things,” replied Jack.

Gus looked at him like he was stupid and
pulled a handful of sand from the ground and let it fall from his
fingers for Jack to see.

Then Jack replied, “Different sand,” causing
Gus to laugh

Then the sea gulls seemed to have taken
notice of their food.

At first they watched as the birds flew
slowly against the wind so that they appeared to be hovering above
them, then, the first one dove and snatched some of Jacks
lunch.

“Hey!” he yelled, “that damn bird just stole
my…”

Then another dove on Gus’s food.

“Get away you damn pests,” screamed Gus as he
started pulling his food towards his chest to guard it.

As Gus looked over at Jack, he could see that
he was already on his feet and trying to throw rocks at the
hovering birds in a vain attempt to chase them away.

After they realized that they could not chase
the birds away, they quickly sat a piece of scrap corrugated siding
over a set of saw horses that they had been using and finished
their lunch underneath.

Slowly through out the rest of the afternoon,
the array started to gradually take shape. As they worked, they
could hear Hanson’s men building other infrastructure on the island
so that it may be permanently manned.

They kept pausing while they were nearing
completion to view the spectacular sunset. Neither one had ever
seen a sunset on a Pacific island, but they both knew to stop and
enjoy the fine things in life when God handed them to you.

When they were finally finished, the sun had
just disappeared over the horizon and there was just a little light
left as they picked up their tools.

Jack said, “What on Earth are they going to
do with this thing anyway? Why are they in such a damn hurry to
plop all of us in the middle of nowhere and build this?”

Gus heard, but was staring at the stars that
had just begun to appear. As he started to answer, he noticed the
‘diamond’ coming across the sky.

“I just do what I am told,” he answered in a
way that he could be evasive and truthful at the same time.

His mind started wandering back to Volmer,
who told him that it would circle the Earth every two hours or so
and every time it would pass by it would scoot over to a line
parallel to the last but further towards the horizon.

He pondered how hard that was to conceive.
How could Volmer know all of these things? How could that thing
travel so fast? If he were to hop on that plane, it would be hours
before he got to the nearest island.

He looked out to the sea, and then to the sky
again, and even though he was standing right there with Jack, he
had never felt so isolated in his life.

*~*

Volmer was overseeing a new group of his
AFOAT technicians while they assembled the communications system
that they would be using for the upcoming event.

At first, Volmer just had Gus and Jack, then
Gus and Jack both had there own crews, now AFOAT had grown into
many crews and operating locations and Gus and Jack were moved back
together to work on research and development.

Volmer now had to use other crews when he had
them away on other projects.

As they worked, the dignitaries started to
arrive and socialize before the event.

Normally, it would have been a big deal if
any of them were to enter a room, but they were all standing around
talking like a bunch of normal people.

“I can’t wait to go home and get out of
politics,” commented President Truman, as he talked to Symington,
“are you going to return to Missouri as well, Stuart?”

“Yes sir, but I think that I am going to try
to take on a combination of home and Washington.”

“How do you plan to do that?”

“I’m thinking about running for Senator, I
want to do service for Missouri, but I still have some unfinished
business with the Air Force and I think I can accomplish both as
Senator.”

Lemay joked with the two of them, “You mean I
still won’t be rid of you.”

Everybody in the conversation laughed.

Volmer interrupted them while they were
laughing, “Gentlemen, it is almost time. I think that we need to be
seated.”

They all sat on couches and recliners set up
in more of a living room configuration than a meeting room.

Volmer addressed the entire room, “Gentlemen,
I don’t want to get too technical, but I wanted to explain what I
have set up here. The coordinates that the Germans have given us
would have actually required that we all be in Hawaii if we were to
use conventional radio technology, but I had already been working
with Dr. Von Braun to set up a chain of relay stations and
specially equipped boats scattered over the ocean for the space
program. Using the system that we were already setting up will now
enable us to talk with them as though we were in Hawaii. As I
already mentioned, we did not develop this communication system for
this particular moment. We actually developed it for our inevitable
satellite tracking needs, but it will work perfectly for our
requirements tonight.”