GAASTERLAND, THE NETHERLANDS
Friday, 4 May, 1945
The taste of fear lurked at the back of his throat, acidic, nauseating. I’m gonna throw up if they don’t come soon. He tasted blood then, from a chewed-up cheek. His watch glowed faintly, almost midnight.
The forest rested. The smell of the hot day lingered, Scots pine and marigold. Three men lay on the blue-green needles. They chewed Wrigley’s Spearmint gum, but their mouths still felt dry.
A distant rumbling then, the low growl of a massive diesel engine, a beast in the dark. Major Kieran Johnson gripped his submachine gun tighter, knuckles blue white, pressed his body deeper into the soft ground, twenty yards up the low hill from the trail. There was a moonlit view to the south, a negative of a sunny day, something better than this. He looked to his right, nodded at his two best men. Brown also had a grease gun, Williams held the handle on the box that would detonate the shaped charge of twenty pounds of Explosive “D”, enough to level a half acre. Certainly enough to destroy their target.
A ball of sweat fell from the tip of the major’s nose. An animal scratched the ground nearby. Maybe a fox.
‘Here they come.’
The dark shape of a German jeep appeared on the trail, its red, slitted headlights throwing just enough light to show the way, but not enough to attract the attention of any prowling Allied night fighters. The jeep travelled slowly. But that rumble didn’t fit.
‘There!’
An enormous silhouette appeared, keeping in the jeep’s tracks. It was the command vehicle, followed by a heavy tractor, which towed the Meillerwagen, upon which sat the prize, a V-2, vengeance weapon. The world’s first long-range ballistic missile, olive green, forty-five feet long and fitted with a two thousand pound high explosive warhead. The hairs on the major’s neck stood up. What a piece of work is man!
The V-2s had shattered London and the Nazis were desperate to throw as many as possible across the Channel in the war’s final fury. Germany would sign the surrender any day now, any minute, Hitler allegedly already dead. This launch was pure vengeance: the utter, depraved madness of a regime that had come terrifyingly close to ruling the world with missiles and tanks and a terrifyingly effective propaganda machine.
But a specialist US Army team was ready to stop this bastard in its tracks. Major Johnson had been assigned to a unit with a special focus on Nazi technology. So he saw the V-2 as both terrifying and amazing. After the surrender, the race would be on to secure V-2s in their bases, keep the Russians away and get the rockets back to the States. After. For now, they had to be destroyed.
The rocket was followed by its vital support vehicles, including the fuel wagon and the liquid oxygen tanker.
A sudden change in noise levels. Engines idling, turning off.
‘Shit, Major,’ was whispered. ‘They’ve stopped.’
‘Are they in range of our charge, Jimmy?’
‘Not a chance, sir. We’d scorch the paint on the jeep in front, but that’s it.’
You’re supposed to keep driving! To the clearing a mile down the road where our reconnaissance flights spotted the scorch marks.
Human shapes emerged from the vehicles and orders were barked in German. Begin fuelling. The major didn’t need to have too much of the language. We’ve got just under two hours until launch. Shit.
The fox ambled up the road, froze when she saw the Nazis.
A cranking, ratcheting, click-clicking noise and the fox was gone. The rocket trailer lifted its load into vertical launch position.
His men looked at him, waited.
A security detachment fanned out from the convoy. Waffen-SS, the worst fuckers that ever pulled on a uniform. Coming our way.
‘When these guys get in the firing line, blow the charge. Then we get to the convoy, use our guns and grenades to hit the tankers. Just stay in the treeline. Escape plan remains as is. Got that?’
Both men nodded.
Three storm troopers came.
They reached a rock that had been positioned as a visual marker.
The fox called. It sounded like a laugh.
German heads turned and night became day.
GRONAU, GERMANY
Two days later
The still air vibrated gently as a thousand cannon fired, far away to the east. A brilliantly bright and hot day. With Berlin surrounded and the surrender being signed, literally at that moment, the Third Reich was done.
A rusty aircraft hangar, a dozen thin men in shabby suits smoking inside, down the back, beside crates of 500 kg bombs and the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet bomber, the Swallow. The plane, one of Hitler’s desperate secret weapons, was like a shark out of water.
Nerves jangled, some nervous chatter. Each of the scientists had a leather briefcase and a bulging suitcase. But one stood alone, in the deepest shadows. Beside him, a beaten trunk.
The platoon of US Marines sat on aircraft part crates just inside the gaping door. They smoked and drank Coke. They had the easy manner of soldiers on the winning side, far from the front line.
An RAF Dakota came in to land, buzzed back up the runway and stopped at the hangar. The soldiers snapped to attention as a major left the plane, followed by his aide, who carried a bunch of papers, and two been-through-it-all soldiers with sidearms and stubble.
The major’s left arm was in a sling, some dark blood peeking through. Nazi lead. He was grateful for his wound in a selfish way. It meant that he missed out on the camps. News had begun to filter through. Literally mountains of emaciated bodies. Instead of all that, he was on babysitting duty, heading home.
He walked to the jet fighter. The major caressed the sky grey underside of the jet, noted the Edelweiss squadron badge.
‘Good Jesus. That was close, Jimmy.’
‘It sure is one nasty-looking motherfucker. Sir.’
They were distinctly aware of the plane’s importance.
Then they noticed the men.
The German rocket scientists came out of the shadows. The C-47’s arrival had delivered their salvation. There would be no Russian gulags - or worse - for them. They allowed themselves careful smiles.
Crickets chirped in the yellow grass.
‘Which of you worked on this beauty?’ the Major asked.
Three of the Germans came forward.
‘I worked on the engines,’ said one.
‘I designed the airframe.’
‘I did some wind tunnel work, aerodynamics.’
The major nodded, happy that he would bring home the men who would give America global military dominance for half a century to come. ‘So why didn’t you succeed?’
One of the three said ‘Because our Führer is insane. Instead of using the 262 to decimate your B-17 bombers, he decided to slow it down with bombs so any Mustang pilot could knock it out of the sky.’
‘Correct,’ said the Major. ‘Technology is useless without tactics. Remember that.’
One of them would.
The major drank a cold Coke and set up at a trestle table, just inside the hangar door. He called the German scientists forward, one at a time. He checked their credentials against the details that had been painstakingly collated in individual folders, then took a new profile page from his aide and paperclipped it to the front of each file. You are no longer Nazi. You are reborn, cleansed, new. Now help us to build our missile forces so that we may rule the world in your stead.
The second last man came forward, dragging his trunk.
The major checked his file, clipped the new data sheet to the front of the folder.
‘No luggage, you knew that, Dr Heim.’
‘If the Major will permit me,’ said Dr Death, making a lid-opening gesture.
The major nodded, looked at his wristwatch.
Dr Death opened the case. What might have been? Inside were dozens of paintings and original prints, flat and in rolls, as well as some small trinket boxes. And hidden blueprints, for the reactor that would spin lead into gold. He took a box, opened it, showed the pearl necklace to the major. Then he rifled through the art, grunted at a scene of moonlight on the sea, pulled out a canvas that looked like it had lain on the floor of a drunken artist’s studio for a couple of busy months.
‘Please,’ said the German, ‘a gift. Which would you like?’
‘This,’ he said, pointing, ‘this isn’t art. But I like the look of those pearls. They real?’
‘Of course, quite natural. Gold detailing, too. Very expensive. Please take them for your wife, your sweetheart. A nice souvenir from this terrible war, yes?’
‘And show me that little picture there. I like that.’
‘By Cézanne. The master. Are you sure?’ Hesitation. He loved that painting.
‘I think my wife would like it.’
‘Here, take it.’
The major folded it into his big combat jacket hip pocket, in with some loose .45 inch bullets, a crumpled pack of Lucky Strikes and his diary.
‘Okay. Get your trunk on board. We’re going to New York.’
So Dr Death put the Jackson Pollock painting, Composition with Pouring 1, back with the other works and boarded the Dakota, ready to corner the American art market.
The final German offered his identification papers.
The major looked at him, saw the sweat on his forehead. It’s hot. But…
‘Jimmy, where are the mugshots?’
‘Here, sir,’ passing a folder.
The shuffling of papers as the Dakota’s twin Pratt & Whitney engines thundered back to life.
The picture matched. Jimmy saw it, released his Colt .45’s safety catch.
‘Erich? You worked at Mauthausen?’
‘If the major will permit me, I have some very important blueprints…’
Major Johnson stood up from the table, took a step back. The beat of the plane engines went up a pitch. He looked at Jimmy. Jimmy shot the German twice in the face. When he was on the ground, he got another bullet in the back of his head.
It was the easiest way to deal with a complicated situation.
Pale faces at windows.
Johnson gathered up the German’s papers, said ‘Let’s get the hell out of here. I need New York.’
The major sat in the cockpit, enjoyed the smell of jetfuel and hydraulic fluid, the sight of an experienced pilot nursing the sweet beast into the air, the thrum of the twin propellers, the cup of coffee sitting, deliberately, behind the controls. The adjustment of power, the tapping of the throttles until the engines were in complete unison, the ripples dancing across the coffee, echoing the perfect harmonics, the beat becoming a hymn and the aircraft and its passengers leaving mainland Europe forever, lifting comfortably into a perfect, hopeful sky.
FORT LAUDERDALE, USA
Thursday, December 1, 1955
The talk in the veterans’ bars on East Las Olas Boulevard was all nigger this and nigger that. Some black lady had refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. That was up in Alabama. Montgomery. Indignation. Why can’t some people just keep in their place?
The lady’s name was Rosa Parks.
‘You fought in Korea, Kieran. Which is lowest, gooks or niggers?’
Major Kieran Johnson (retired) looked up from his Pabst. Just the thought of Korea made his right knee ache. ‘Lowest, eh? The lowest form of human being I ever did meet was the common or garden Nazi. And you know the funny thing about Nazis?’
‘Huh?’
‘They’re as white as we are. Whiter even than a lot of good men who fought and died beside me.’ I really don’t want to go into that bad place tonight. ‘And with that, gentlemen, I bid you adieu.’
He walked east on the boulevard, towards the Atlantic. Might loosen up my knee. It was a perfect night, quiet, just a couple of cars puttering by, one or two couples on their way home from the movies. Oddly, the moon brought him back to that night in the Dutch forest. He rubbed his arm, the shattered ulna that had brought him south.
He lifted his collar against the oh-so-gentle December chill, dug his hands into the deep pockets of his overcoat. Over the lagoon bridge and there lay the sea ahead, shining silver. It reminded him of a painting, but he couldn’t remember which.
His knee had eased up a little. Fucking Korea. Just a few years’ worth of jet and rocket technology, developed by all sides from the spoils of a shattered Germany, had taken war to a whole new level of madness and horror. What will the next war be like? He shuddered at the idea of it.
He reached the sidewalk at the edge of the beach and turned right, south towards Miami.
It was like a storm was starting to whip up, out there in the dark blue.
Nobody around. Just how he liked it. The problem with people was, well, people.
A man walked towards him, held his hat against the building wind.
As he passed, a flicker of recognition.
‘Major?’ A European accent, no j.
Kieran stopped and turned. He twisted his knee a little, felt that jabbing shrapnel again. Trying to tell me something?
The man came towards him, his hand extended. ‘I’m Doctor Heim, Aribert Heim. You helped me escape from Germany after the war.’
Paperclip. ‘Oh? Yeah.’ They shook hands. ‘How are you liking the land of the free?’
‘Oh, it’s wonderful. The love of art among the rich here. And so many rich! Do you remember the painting I gave you? Where is that I wonder?’
‘That little thing? It’s hanging in my living room.’
‘At home? Good. Good. Major, can I buy you a drink? For old time’s sake?’
‘Thank you, no. I need to get along.’
The man rummaged in his pocket. ‘Then this?’
The major didn’t have time to react. The needle pierced his arm and he collapsed heavily onto the cold white sand.