Vengeance 10 (48 page)

He looked uncomfortable for a moment. ‘I must also tell you this, Franz. Most of the other department heads were against bringing you into our plans. Many of them feel your loyalties are to Himmler and that you cannot be trusted.’

Bethwig remained silent, and von Braun struggled on. ‘You know what I think about such nonsense but...’

Bethwig nodded. ‘I understand.’ He paused a moment. ‘I doubt there is anything I can say to convince them otherwise.’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose you could shoot me. That seems to be a common solution to problems these days. Otherwise, you will have to put up with me.’

The three men exchanged looks, and von Braun muttered, ‘I think there is no question of that.’

Magnus broke the uncomfortable silence. ‘Franz, we have all decided to arm ourselves, just in case this rumour about executing all scientists and technicians should be true. When the Luftwaffe left last fall, they abandoned a great deal of equipment. Several cases of automatic rifles, ammunition and hand grenades have been located and shifted elsewhere, in case they are needed. In addition, the decision has been taken, unanimously, to surrender to the Americans or British. Under no circumstances will we allow ourselves to be captured by the Russians.’

‘I should think the English are to be avoided at all costs,’ Bethwig replied dryly. ‘Surely they would not lavish much love on people who helped destroy their capital city with long-range rockets.’

‘No more so than our bomber crews, yet by all reports they are treated as well as, if not better than, English airmen in our prisons.’ Magnus hesitated, then at a nod from his brother he continued. ‘We have reason to believe that the British would welcome us if we surrendered to them.’

‘Reason to believe? Nothing more than that?’

Magnus shook his head. ‘No. Nothing more than that. Nor would I say more if I could, except that we have also been approached by the Russians.’

‘What do you want from me?’

‘Your agreement,’ Wernher told him, after a moment of consideration in which the strain was evident in his expression. ‘Your staff will follow you. Until now, we dared not approach any of them because of the disagreement over ...’ He hesitated, and Bethwig nodded.

‘I understand. When is the evacuation to take place?’

‘We don’t know. As I said, most of what we have learned is rumour. But everything points to the end of January. The Russians are well into East Prussia, and it is almost certain that they will make a concerted effort to take Peenemunde before it can be destroyed. The best guess is they will reach here no earlier than mid-February, if their present rate of advance continues.’

‘There is the V-Ten to launch. I cannot go until that is completed.’

Von Braun’s expression was full of sympathy as was Mundt’s; they both shared his dream, but Magnus broke in with an exclamation. ‘How can you think of the V-Ten now, Franz? It can do nothing to help the war effort. The Russians will have arrived even before the second rocket can be launched. To attempt to do so would jeopardise us all and contribute nothing to a war that is already lost...’

Bethwig’s voice was calm when he spoke, but von Braun and Mundt understood his determination. ‘The V-Ten, Magnus, is no longer a war weapon. And I am no longer concerned with the war effort, nor have I been since my father was murdered. People like Himmler and Kammler have betrayed the Führer and Germany with their greed. Prolonging the war only serves their purposes. I am concerned only with launching the V-Ten. I have given it seven years of my life, and now I have nothing else to live for.’

His expression was still calm as he gauged their reaction. ‘The rocket will not be launched against the United States. Wernher, do you remember what we resolved on that evening on the Greifswalder beach, before the war began? Then again last fall when you tried to talk me into this one final time?’

Von Braun stared at him. ‘Franz, the moon? Are you crazy?’

‘Am I? It can be done, Wernher. Kammler would not know the difference - until too late. The requirements are virtually the same but for the fuel load.’

The three men stared at him in shock; finally, Magnus broke the silence. ‘Franz, it would be suicide-even if successful, how would the pilot get back? Who would fly it under those circumstances?’

‘I have two volunteers even now. Both understand clearly what the outcome will be. There is no need to be concerned. Both are party members, both fanatics, and they will die gladly for the greater glory of the Reich.’

Ernst Mundt and Magnus von Braun exchanged dubious glances, but Wernher was grinning broadly as he clapped Bethwig on the shoulder.

‘You can depend on us,’ he cried, thus confirming Bethwig in the decision he had made privately the week before in Kammler’s office.

Von Braun followed Bethwig up the scaffolding to a narrow platform some seventy metres above the launch stand. To the west they could see across the island to the snow-covered fields on the mainland where farms and forests were etched diamond-sharp in the clear January air. To the south the pines almost hid the buildings that housed the laboratories and administrative offices and, beyond them, the staff living quarters. Lost in the distance was the prison camp, most of its buildings deserted. The prisoners had been shipped to the underground factories of Nordhausen deep in the Harz Mountains where, under the direction of the SS, the V-2s continued to pour off the assembly lines for shipment to western Germany and the shrinking areas of occupied Holland.

To their left the cobalt-blue reaches of the Baltic stretched north to Sweden and Finland. Only a few naval patrols dared move on the Baltic now. Most of the merchant ships that had survived the Russian and British submarine onslaught were busily engaged in the forbidden evacuation of German troops from East Prussia and northern Poland.

‘We will be ready before the end of January.’ Bethwig broke the silence. ‘Unless something completely unexpected develops, there is nothing of a technical nature to stop us.’

They had ridden the elevator to the top of the gantry and climbed the rickety scaffolding to the pilot’s cabin in the third stage of the rocket. There had not been time to extend the gantries, or the material to do so, and the makeshift platform teetered dizzily in the wind.

Von Braun gave him a worried glance, then, grasping the hand bar bolted above the hatchway, lifted himself, inserted his feet, and slid in. He settled down, released the gimbal brake, and the couch swung freely to assume a horizontal position.

‘My God,’ he exclaimed, ‘this chair is comfortable. If everything wasn’t going to hell, I’d have one made up for my study.’ Von Braun rocked the couch a moment, then reached up and began to finger switches and tap dials, making certain the needles moved freely against their stops.

‘You’ve designed well, Franz. Nothing more than twenty centimetres away from the hand.’ He tapped another dial, then remarked off-handedly, ‘I was going over the flight plan last night and noticed you increased the initial G forces to six. Do you think that’s wise? Won’t it be too exhausting?’

Bethwig shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. We need that increased speed to eliminate the need to carry so much fuel into orbit around the Earth. I would rather expend it going up than reduce our manoeuvrability on landing. Anyway, I have spent several sessions in the centrifugal chamber at higher G rates myself. The increased gravity does exhaust one quickly, but I have been able to function in an acceptable manner well in excess of the time required.’

Von Braun turned on the couch to face him. Since the death of the elder Bethwig, von Braun was not certain he knew Franz any more. He had hardened to the point of abrasiveness. Every moment of his life now seemed to centre on the damned rocket. The risks he took with Kammler and the Gestapo security staff were appalling; it was as if he were challenging them to discover what he was up to. He also knew that Bethwig had taken to carrying a Mauser pistol, and von Braun had no doubt that he would use it if pressed.

‘Franz,’ he said after some hesitation. ‘You and I have been friends for a hell of a long time now. We can talk about things that ... well, you know what I mean. I want you to tell me now why you are doing this. You know what Kammler will do if he finds out, as he is bound to. If not before, then certainly after the launch.’

Bethwig nodded. ‘Are you suggesting he will shoot me? Of course, he will. But I suspect that by the time he finds out, it will be too late to take such action. If the rocket lands on the moon, the impact on the Allies might well be so great that Berlin will consider me a hero. If the rocket fails, well, then we have only to claim that it has crashed in mid-Atlantic, and go on to try again - providing there is time left to do so.’

‘Franz, you have been away for over a month, you don’t know ...’

‘Damn it, Wernher, you will not talk me out of it. If you don’t wish to be involved, say so now and let me get on with it alone.’

Von Braun looked abashed for a moment. ‘I ... I am sorry, Franz, I didn’t mean to imply that...’

‘Let’s forget about it, then, all right?’

As he followed Bethwig into the elevator von Braun found himself even more troubled by his friend’s off-hand dismissal of Kammler and his SS and Gestapo thugs.

During the next two weeks the total resources remaining at Peenemunde were mobilised to prepare the V-10. In mid-January a barge docked at Peenemunde village, and under heavy SS guard, a steel cylinder five metres in diameter by four in length was unloaded and moved by specially constructed trailer across the island to the V-10 launch complex. The cylinder contained the thirty metric-ton warhead of Amatol high explosive. The assembly crews took two days to substitute a set of auxiliary fuel tanks for the explosive and mate the final stage of the V-10 to the second. The cylinder containing the explosive was then removed from the launch complex and hidden.

The V-10 had assumed its final configuration: a tapering cylinder more than fifty metres high, twenty-five wide at its base, and consisting of four main sections or stages. The first contained twenty-one M 103.5 rocket engines, each generating one hundred and fifty-nine thousand kilograms of thrust, plus two immense fuel tanks which were kept pressurised at all times to support the weight above, and which would contain ninety per cent of the total weight of the entire assembly in liquid oxygen and alcohol. The second stage was a miniature version of the first, powered by four of the same engines and containing five per cent of the vehicle’s weight in fuel and liquid oxygen.

Bethwig had worked out the equations for the Earth-moon trajectory in 1939, and he and von Braun had spent many hours since refining and polishing them, even to the point of modifying a Luftwaffe pilot’s circular slide rule to calculate the effects of changes in velocity and weight quickly and accurately. With sufficient fuel load and power, the moon, a target constantly visible to an observer in space, could hardly be missed - providing the initial orbital injection speed fell within defined limits.

The third stage contained the relatively crude pilot’s cabin above the fuel tanks. Designed originally for transatlantic flights lasting no more than thirty minutes, it had little to offer in the way of pilot comfort. No body waste relief facilities had been included, and the system cobbled together by the Peenemunde staff presented one insurmountable problem - there was no way to test it under weightless conditions. The usual test procedure required an aircraft to fly a shallow outside loop, but now all flights had to be approved by Kammler’s office, and no one could think of a sufficiently believable excuse.

The warhead had originally been designed to separate from the third stage containing the pilot, which would then re-enter the atmosphere well behind the warhead. A steel mesh parachute would be deployed to slow the third stage sufficiently to permit the pilot, who would be carrying a pack including a rubber raft, small radio, and rations for several days, to bail out. If the pilot survived, it was hoped that he would be picked up by a U-boat stationed for that purpose in the area approximately one hundred kilometres off Long Island. If he was not picked up and it appeared that he would be rescued by an Allied ship, the pilot was to take his own life. Under no circumstances was the pilot to allow himself to fall into Allied hands. Each pilot, therefore, had been selected from the ranks of the SS especially for dedication as well as ability.

The entire Peenemunde staff had been drafted to ready the V-10, and they fell to with a willingness that surprised Kammler and his aides. Von Braun eased his suspicions by suggesting that as this was probably the last rocket launch they would ever conduct, the staff was eager to give its all. That seemed to satisfy Kammler, so that on the twelfth he shifted his headquarters south to the outskirts of Berlin, leaving the final details for the evacuation to be completed by a special staff which included a one-hundred-man SS security unit to supplement the five-man Gestapo team already well ensconced in Trassenheide.

The following day Bethwig set the launch date for Saturday, 27 January 1945.

Jan Memling could hear Janet humming in the tiny kitchen; the rattle of dishes and the clink of silverware acted as counterpoint. When she came out a few moments later with a wine bottle for him to open, he was standing by the telephone, one hand on the receiver.

‘Who was it, Jan?’ She threw one arm around his back, tickled his neck, and pressed hard against him. When he did not respond, she drew back, puzzled. ‘Jan ...?’

He turned slowly, expression strained. For a long moment he stared as if she were not there. Janet had swept her hair up into a roll and was wearing a sheer negligee and high-heeled slippers. They had turned down invitations to several Christmas Eve parties to spend the night alone, and he had obtained a rare bottle of French champagne and two steaks from an American friend with access to a commissary officer at SHAEF.

‘I predict this as the last Christmas of the war in Europe,’ he had announced a week before. ‘So let’s celebrate properly.’

Janet had paused for a moment. ‘If it really is the last year, then I want a special Christmas present.’ When he had asked what it was, she grinned. ‘Throw away those damned rubbers. I think Christmas Eve is a good time to start a family.’