The Gemini Divergence (76 page)

“Hughes started in the same hanger you
started in?”

“Yes… He rented a corner of the hanger until
he was large enough to buy his own hanger… and the entire time he
was there I spent far too much of my time recovering lost tools,
much like I am doing now… He hasn’t changed a bit.”

Johnson turned and huffed away, agitated as
ever.

Hours later… Howard walked back in pushing
the autoclave on a cart along with many other tools that he had
borrowed and called out to Everett, “Say… son… Do you folks have a
hydrostatic thickness tester… these sonic ones are just not doing
the trick.”

Everett looked up and realized that it was
Howard and warned, “You better look out Mr. Hughes… Mr. Johnson is
on the war path, and he’s looking for you. He’s mad that you kept
that equipment for too long.”

Hughes smirked, “I’ve known Kelly for years…
He’s a nosy control freak and he’s still throwing a tantrum that
Uncle Sam plopped me here into his kingdom… I’m not too
concerned.”

“Well he’s still my boss, so I have to tell
you no… sir.”

“That’s fine son… I’ll just play the game and
call General Fitzpatrick and he’ll call the general in charge of
Lockheed’s programs here. I’ll bet you five dollars that within a
half of a day, Mr. Johnson comes walking back in here to tell you
to help me any way you can and extend every courtesy.”

Everett laughed, “Jack already told me not to
make bets with you… besides… I wouldn’t take that bet anyway… I
know your right.”

*~*

Von Braun was walking down a hall at NASA,
when one of his closest aides walked up to him and asked, “Doctor
Von Braun… Should we schedule a fighter patrol flight for tomorrow
night’s capsule simulation?”

Von Braun paused as he looked up and calmly
suggested, “I should think not… it’s just a test and not a launch…
They’ve never attacked a simulation before have they?”

“No sir, they have not… I just wanted your
opinion before I called the Air Force and wasted the money.”

Von Braun looked briefly at the sky and
pondered out loud, “I hope that we won’t need them.”

27 January 1967

The world mourned the news of the Apollo 1
fire. NASA launched an extensive investigation that put the manned
space program on hold for over a year.

*~*

Schwerig burst into Von Sterbenbach’s office
to find him at a table with Kreutztrager and a new General that
Schwerig had never seen before.

To his surprise though, they did not seem a
bit startled by his abrupt entrance, but were instead,
grinning.

Von Sterbenbach greeted him with an inviting
tone, “Ahhh… Feldmarschall Schwerig, we have been expecting
you.”

Kreutztrager added, “Yes, the Praetorian
sentinels kindly alerted us of your approach.”

Schwerig shot a stare at the mystery general
that would melt glass as he asked Von Sterbenbach, “Why have my
forces been ordered on a mission without my consent or
knowledge?”

Von Sterbenbach smiled sarcastically, “What
did you think? Quite spectacular if you ask me… The world press is
going crazy.”

“Who did you delegate the authority to
subvert my command to?” as Schwerig’s eyes never veered from the
mystery generals eyes.

Von Sterbenbach quipped as Kreutztrager
chuckled in the background, “Why, you’re looking right at him…
Feldmarschall Schwerig, this is General Adlerkrallen… Skorzeny dug
him up from under a rock somewhere like he always seems to do.”

Schwerig slammed his left fist on the table
as he pointed towards Adlerkrallen with his right index finger,
“Don’t you ever move one of my space craft a single centimeter
without my knowledge again! And ‘never’ again will you subvert my
image with ‘my men’ by so much as ordering them to pick up a
casually discarded cigarette butt, without my permission! Verstehen
Sie?”

Adlerkrallen then displayed extreme
confidence and arrogance as he laughed and answered, “I’m sorry,
but I was unaware that there were… two Führers.”

Schwerig fumed, “Nothing flies from a
Raumsfahrtwaffe facility without my knowledge… nothing!”

“Not anymore,” answered Von Sterbenbach, “Or
at least, not for long.”

Schwerig looked shocked as he switched his
gaze toward Von Sterbenbach, “Why? What, in our greater new world,
are you talking about?”

Schwerig felt a sudden chill as a fog of
apprehension began to overtake him.

Von Sterbenbach put on his best face and
smiled as he answered, “The Raumsfahrtwaffe needs a great visionary
to build our new capital on Mars, and the masses of the
Raumsfahrtwaffe unanimously extol the virtues of your wondrous
talent building New Swabia and transporting our people into space…
Everyone will see this as a grand promotion and a glorious exalting
apex to your gleaming career.”

Schwerig laughed at the spiel as he replied,
“Oh, what a pile of prefabricated dog feces… How long did
Kreutztrager stay up last night flipping through his dictionary to
write you that little canned epic?”

Von Sterbenbach slammed his fists onto the
table, “Feldmarschall Schwerig… that will be enough insolence for
today. I realize the emotion of loosing a command that you have
taken great pride in, but the needs of the Raumsfahrtwaffe and ‘my
command’ will rule this day… General Adlerkrallen will begin to
assume your present duties and you will begin to make plans for
moving our entire population to Mars. That is final!”

Schwerig snapped to attention and replied,
“Jawohl mein Führer.”

“Very well,’ relented Von Sterbenbach, as he
then relaxed.

As Schwerig stood there at attention he
thought,
maybe this assignment to Mars is a blessing in
disguise… It would be a very bad political move for Von Sterbenbach
to just remove me from command, He has only done this for his
convenience, but this may just give me the time that I need to
conspire a well constructed coup.

*~*

Jack was standing at a cashier’s window at
‘The Sands’, trying to cash in Howard’s IOUs, “No, I’m dead
serious, I got these from Mr. Hughes.”

“Do you really expect me to believe that Mr.
Hughes just gave you all of these IOUs?” queried the defiant and
sarcastic clerk.

“Look Miss, he didn’t just give them to me, I
beat his ass at poker.”

Standing behind Jack in line, were the RAF
clerk and his old sergeant, on holiday in Las Vegas.

“Can you believe the riff raff that seems to
wonder into this establishment… really,” complained the RAF clerk
to his traveling companion, the old sergeant.

The old sergeant facetiously replied, “Oh
yes, who would ever think of finding someone trying to pull off a
con job in a casino… I supposed that you would be shocked to find a
drunken bum in a pub.”

“No! He’s a horrible player,” loudly
complained Jack, “How the hell do you think that I got so damn
many?”

The RAF clerk commented, “Well, I seriously
thought that we would encounter a much more intellectual crowd of
calculating gentlemanly wagerers.”

“Right… definitely not of the ilk that would
believe in a German conspiracy to trick us into the Cold War and
the Space Race,” sarcastically quipped the sergeant, “but maybe I’m
rushing to judgment. Maybe you could find a willing ally for your
new beliefs about Apollo One.”

“Wait a minute,” snapped the RAF clerk, “Look
at him… Have we seen him before somewhere?”

Jack didn’t hear them but he turned around
for a moment and locked eyes with the clerk and wondered the same
thing.
Where the hell have I seen these guys before?
Then,
he turned back to the cashier as she interrogated, “When did you
play with Mr. Hughes?”

“When we were waiting at Niagara Falls, to go
on a trip together.”

“Where would Mr. Hughes go with you?”

Jack smiled as he tried to find a way to
artfully skirt the question, “Well, you might be surprised about
that question… Let’s just say that we took something that we found
in California to surprise an old acquaintance.”

“I do hope that this young Gentleman will
relinquish his futile attempt and clear the way for us to advance
to the cashier,” moaned the RAF clerk.

“Fine!” relented Jack as he quickly gathered
up his IOUs and snapped the one that the cashier was reading from
out of her hand.

As Jack was walking away he noticed a
surveillance camera monitoring the cashier’s desk… He quickly
pulled something out of a garbage can and threw it at the camera as
he yelled, “I know that you’re probably watching me Howard! Damn
it! Otherwise they probably would have thrown me out already…”

Up in the penthouse of The Sands, Howard
watched and chuckled to himself before switching the screen to
watch another camera, elsewhere in the casino.

5 February 1967

Lunar Orbiter 3 was launched and promptly
lost.

March 1967

AFOAT began launching their new advanced
version of their ‘Vela’ satellites, which would remain in service
until replaced in the mid 80s.

Their purpose was to detect missile launches
by monitoring the earth for the distinctly pinpoint bright flashes
of rocket launches as well as to measure the level and direction of
Gamma rays for the distinct GRB that nuclear weapons portrayed.

The CIA also started deploying another
satellite series in conjunction with AFOAT called Aquacade,
designed to intercept the faint radio signals given off during
Soviet missile tests by tracking and listening to the known
satellite dish vessels that the Soviets always seemed to utilize
during their missile testing.

~~~**^**~~~

From
Gemini to Apollo / The Malmstrom Incident

General Adlerkrallen, like Schwerig, had been
a major at the end of WW II. Although, when the end of the war
came, Adlerkrallen used Odessa to escape to Argentina, where he
joined the Argentine Air Force and rose to the rank of General.

For years he had heard rumors of fellow
Germans in Antarctica and later at Fuerte Esperanza but had been
shut off or blocked every time that he tried to find out more.

In later years he met Skorzeny, but Skorzeny
would not allow Adlerkrallen to retain the rank that he achieved
within the Argentine Air Force… that is, until Von Sterbenbach
suddenly needed somebody with Adlerkrallen’s profile.

Schwerig immediately buried himself in his
new job and removed himself from Von Sterbenbach’s immediate
political circles.

Adlerkrallen’s first big intelligence
accomplishment was to initiate a project that successfully tapped
into the CIAs Aquacade satellites.

As the Raumsfahrtwaffe listened in to the
CIA’s interception of Soviet missile test transmissions, they were
able to crack the Soviet launch codes.

He knew though, that the Soviets, like the
Americans, had installed a myriad of redundant fail-safes to
prevent errant or renegade initiations of launches. The codes alone
were not a guarantee that they could successfully launch a Soviet
missile.

Adlerkrallen, then set about planning a way
to obtain the American’s launch secrets.

*~*

“In a way… I am glad to be working on the
exodus to Mars,” exclaimed Schwerig.

Graf, looking a bit surprised, “Are you just
trying to sooth your own feelings and your bruised ego, or are you
serious?”

“I’m serious… That American, Hughes, has been
working on reverse engineering our saucers and vril while his
company has been manufacturing these damn Surveyor probes that keep
landing on the moon, while these pesky Lunar Orbiters keep coming
every couple of days… no matter how many we shoot down… The last
three have flown directly past three separately cloaked battle
stations… I fear that the Americans have figured out a way to
locate our stations and are now either just confirming their
suspicions, or gathering further data, for God knows what
purpose.”

“I’m sure that it would be no purpose that
would be of interest to us.”

“Of that, I’m sure.”

“What do you think we should do?”

“That is why I am actually glad that I have
been placed in charge of the exodus… Because, I believe that is
exactly what we need to put all of our energy into.”

“Maybe we could just use the codes that
Adlerkrallen obtained to initiate a conflict between the Soviets
and the Americans… Wouldn’t that buy us time?”

“Perhaps, if it would work; but you have to
remember, that we have already been trying unsuccessfully to spark
a feud between those two for years… They never seem to take the
bait.”

16 March 1967

In a remote location within central Montana
was E-Flight Launch Control Center, or Echo LCC, which was under
the command of Malmstrom AFB.