The Gemini Divergence (49 page)

He could take no more.

He would do anything for the possibility of
returning home someday.

Deep inside, he knew that he would never be
swayed mentally, but he would fake it, until he could make it… make
it home.

“Хорошо, что вы
хотите!
(All right, whatever you want!)”, he cried.

Schwerig pulled the sword away and signaled
for some of the men to help him upright.

“Cut him loose,” he ordered.

As the Soviet stood, messaging the rope burns
on his wrists then wiping the blood from under his ear and looking
at it in his hand, Schwerig continued, “Я рад слышать, что вы
поможете нам в настоящее время.,(I am glad to hear that you will
help us now).”

He ordered two men to watch the Russian for a
moment, as he then asked another man on top of a saucer for one of
the jerry cans of water that was normally stowed within one.

Schwerig opened the can and poured water onto
Graff’s face, until he started to regain consciousness.

As Graff rubbed his face and started to sit
up, Schwerig started to scold him, “Wake up Romeo! I have done an
entire weeks’ worth of your work while you napped like a baby.”

“What happened, Herr General?”

“Well… You pissed her off, she kicked your
ass, killed your guards, and a few mechanics, shot a hole in the
hanger window, which luckily is being fixed as we speak,” Schwerig
then pointed to the men working on the window, “Then I had a sword
fight with a girl, in front of all these men. I killed her, they
cheered. Then I dragged your remaining prisoner out in front of her
gorgeous but unfortunately now dead body… What a waste. Kicked him
over, stuck a sword in his ear, and he finally relented… Go
figure.”

Schwerig handed the Jerry can back to its
owner standing beside him, then folded his arms, as he asked the
man, “Did I miss anything?”

The mechanic replied, “No, Herr General, I
believe that was it,” as the man helped Graff to his feet.

Schwerig then smarted, “Maybe two prisoners
was too much for you… do you think that you can handle the now
capitulated ‘prisoner’ until I get back.

~~~**^**~~~

The Divergence / We Choose To Go To The Moon

(
And The Other Things
?)

15 April 1961

The Raumsfahrtwaffe watched in complete
disbelief at what seemed to be unfolding in Cuba.

For weeks they had observed as the Americans
positioned their armies in southern Florida, poised to invade
Cuba.

They marveled at how the Americans were
laying an obvious invasion plan out, just as they had done in
England prior to invading Normandy.

Months of clandestine operations were set
into motion in order to prepare the Cuban mainland for invasion, as
countless covert operatives were recruited, trained and supplied by
the U.S.

Multiple nations were diplomatically drawn
into the impending conflict.

But bafflingly, on the day of the planned
commencement of hostilities, very few of the combatants showed up
for the war.

The only people that erroneously showed up
were the most poorly informed and least connected factions.

The few totally misinformed unfortunates that
actually appeared were quickly routed or captured by the completely
alerted and waiting Cuban military forces.

Von Sterbenbach’s Intelligence gatherers were
even more stunned that they did not intercept a single stand down
or recall transmission from the Americans.

All of the assembled invasion forces simply
dissolved and returned to their primary bases.

Schwerig pondered silently in bewildered
amazement.

The lack of commencement was entirely too
wide spread and complete to be bad planning or happenstance.

It was almost as if the whole thing was a
farce from the outset.

He watched the American television news
broadcasts as the network reporters started to refer to it as the
‘Bay of Pigs Debacle’.

The network news agencies were just as
confused about the whole thing as Schwerig was.

He leaned back into his office chair as he
reflected.

What the hell was going on?

Have I just been fooled?

Into what?

25 May 1961

President Kennedy called and addressed a
special joint session of congress where he laid out his plans to
finance the immense research and development needed to send men to
the moon within ten years.

He had his speech writers spin a complex tale
about the myriad of advanced programs that needed to be initiated
and financed to fulfill this dire need.

He explained that most of the program, simple
laymen could never understand, all the while masking the need to
finance the Gemini Divergence plans.

*~*

Gus was oblivious to the beautiful blue sea
as he checked some Naval monitoring equipment in a makeshift shed
on the Bahaman Island of Andros.

He was making check marks on a clip board
that he held in his hands as he went.

He had been on so many beautiful beaches
around the world that they all seemed the same to him now, even
though he took the time to scrape up some of the sand into a small
glass spice jar.

He had converted a spice rack into a sand
collection, with samples from every location around the world he
had been sent to work at so far.

When he was on the beaches and in the
deserts, sand seemed like sand, but when the sand sat in the vials
on the rack, he was amazed at the differences in color and
texture.

“Gus, are the readings here any stronger than
at the last two stations?” came the familiar sound of Doctor
Volmer’s voice.

Gus turned around to see Volmer in the
doorway of the small shed, once again cleaning his oversized
spectacles.

“Actually they are much stronger here than
the other locations. Why do you suppose that is?”

“Well we were hoping that this location would
work like an enormous ear canal for the Atlantic Ocean. Directly
off that beach is the Bahaman Basin, which runs between all of
these islands, much like an ear canal does in our heads. The Navy
calls it ‘TOTO’, or tongue of the ocean.”

“So people over our head have already decided
that this is where the station is going to be.”

“Well, yes, basically. I guess.”

“Well then why are we bothering to come here
and take readings if it’s already been decided?”

“Verification is the hallmark of science,
Gus, one must always be absolutely sure of their measurements.
There can never be too many observations.”

Gus turned and scratched his head and
whispered to himself, “I think that I frequently ‘observe’ the Air
Force wasting my time and it’s money.”

“What was that?”

“Oh nothing. Just thinking out loud… So this
is going to be the main oceanic listening station for the Navy and
the Air Force.”

“Yes it’s all part of the new program to
monitor everything.” explained Volmer as he gestured everything
with his hands and arms towards the horizon. “The Navy is going to
call this station AUTEC as soon as they build it. They are planning
to use it for listening for submarines. The Air Force wants it to
listen for seismic waves traveling through the water to hear who is
testing nuclear devices… They both want to hear whatever the
Overseers are doing off the coast of Puerto Rico.”

“So what is that other place in Puerto Rico
that we are going to next? What are they building there?”

“Oh, that would be a small village named
Arecibo. The Air Force noticed that the natural valleys that
surround the town resemble large parabolic dishes. So they thought
that they could build a dish larger than they could actually make a
structural dish, just by laying panels out along a dish shaped
valley floor.”

“And what is that colossal instrument going
to measure?”

“Instrument? Well well well,” Volmer turned
to grin at Gus after noticing his change in normal nomenclature,
“Another giant ear, only this one will listen to the heavens for
radio waves.”

“You mean the Overseers?”

“Yes, perhaps, or any other electrical device
that anybody may use up there.”

“What if they just don’t use their
radios?”

Volmer chuckled, “Gus, this instrument will
be sensitive enough to hear any radio wave, however slight. Every
electrical device emits some form of RF signal, and we will be able
to tell if anybody between here and the moon turns on a light
bulb.”

“Wow.”

“As a matter of fact with the new digital
imaging technology, we will even be able to print out an image of
what we are listening to, merely by printing the ones and zeros
that we bounce from it.”

“Double Wow… I have been working with this
high technology stuff for years now, and it still blows me away.
How do you keep up with it all Mr. Volmer?”

“Fear.”

“Fear? What do you mean?”

“I view new technology like a truck chasing
me down the street. I have to learn where it is going so that it
doesn’t run over me.”

*~*

The Lunar regolith was dazzling in
appearance, laid over the Moonscape that was passing beneath
Schwerig and Von Sterbenbach through a glass bottom saucer that
they were both traveling in together.

They sat alone in a small circular
compartment, facing each other as they watched the craters speeding
past below.

Schwerig commented, “I have been monitoring
the travels of the Air Force sergeant that greeted me in Buenos
Ares.”

“And?”

“He and Dr. Volmer have been working in the
Caribbean area of the Atlantic for some months now.”

“What are they doing?”

“We can’t tell, as of this time. But I
thought it merited your attention when you add it to the mysterious
lack of invasion that happened at Bay of Pigs along with the
Soviets building missile sites in Cuba. We can’t figure out why…
They have ICBMs within there country that can reach any place
within the continental United States. So why they need the medium
range missiles in Cuba is beyond me. It makes no tactical sense,
but there seems to be a lot of that going around down there.”

“Keep watching them.”

“I will… We have started to build an
underwater facility off of the south east coast of Puerto
Rico.”

“And why are we doing that?”

“They are building something in Puerto Rico
that may be a listening device… Or, it may be another directed
microwave device like they used at French Frigate Shoals, only this
one is immeasurably larger. Either way they will be able to shoot
at our hovering saucers listening from above or they will be able
to detect their presence. That is why I thought it would be prudent
to establish a base of operations within their two dimensional
world, and watch them from there.”

“Do we have the capability to build and man
an underwater base?”

“Oh yes, My Führer, We have many
Kriegsmariner Wolf Pack veterans that have jumped in line to
volunteer for service under the Atlantic once again.”

“Very well.”

“I think that they all need to be more
closely watched down there. I fear that the Soviets and the
Americans may be continuing this Cold War charade, which we
initially tricked them into, merely to divert us from detecting the
fact that they are actually colluding.”

“Will they be able to detect your new base
with their sonar?”

“My engineers have affirmed to me that if
they dig deep enough into the rock that their sonar will not be
able to hear anything but the shuttles coming and going. They
couldn’t hear anything unless they developed a way to listen to
seismic waves beneath the oceans.”

They both laughed at the idea of anybody
wasting their time listening to seismic waves on the ocean
floor.

After they stopped laughing, Von Sterbenbach
leaned back into his seat and said, “I hear that you made quite an
impression amongst your men the other day. I hear that it was a
very dramatic spectacle.”

“Unfortunate, yet necessary. I was able to
get the last prisoner to capitulate, but I have not decided what to
do with him yet.”

“Well if you keep these kinds of things up,
you may just find yourself Führer someday… Anyway, just stand on
the prisoner for now. I have somebody that I want you to meet
before you return to your station. Maybe he will have ideas as of
what to do with the Soviet.”

“May I ask who or what this person is?”

“He is a renowned Nazi medical doctor that
Skorzeny has recruited… How that man pulls these people out of his
ass I will never know.”

“He managed to produce you, my Führer.”

Von Sterbenbach paused and grimaced, “Yes,
well I would prefer to not think of myself as coming out of one of
my subordinate’s ass!”

Schwerig cowered, “Sorry, my Führer, I
didn’t…”