Chapter Twenty-Seven: Occupied France, 1949
"The flight back to the
Reich is already being organised," Hans said. Von Braun, sitting in a chair with his hands cuffed to the armrests, scowled at him. "You'll soon be back to work in the rocket complex."
Von Braun gave him a faintly superior smile. Hans felt his temper flare. Did Von Braun not understand how far he'd gone, how much trouble he was in? If he was literally
anyone else, he would be heading for the camps or the execution yard by now. The mere fact he was a rocket engineer of genius was enough to save his life, but it wasn't enough to save his former
way of life. Hans had no idea if he would be permitted to remain as Von Braun's minder – he feared not, even after recapturing the man – yet whoever took his place would keep Von Braun under tight supervision. No more trips to Berlin, no more womanising, no more anything but rocket science and teaching. And when he had raised up the next generation of rocket scientists, and in doing so rendered himself surplus to requirements, the SS would execute him. Hans hoped he'd be there to see it.
He stared down at Von Braun, wondering if it would be the last they saw of each other. The flight back east might be their last time together, before Hans was reassigned and a new minder appointed to take his place. Hans had never really
liked Von Braun, but he had respected him as a man of genius, a man who had promised to inaugurate a whole new age of global domination. Why had he left the
Reich, in the company of a foreign agent, and headed to Britain? Why had he gone so far as to threaten suicide, just to give her a chance to escape? It was so far out of character that Hans had insisted on checking the doctor's fingerprints, just to be certain he
was Von Braun. The idea of an Englishman posing as the rocket engineer was insane and yet, there was little about the whole affair that made any sort of sense. Von Braun was a good German, a man who had been rewarded beyond the dreams of any other loyalist, and yet he had betrayed the
Reich.
Hans leaned forward. It was hard to keep his voice calm, to keep the betrayal he felt keenly from slipping into his tone. "Why?"
"You killed Sergei," Von Braun said.
"Sergei?" It took Hans a moment to place the name. Sergei Korolev, the Russian
Untermensch, executed on Himmler's orders. "All this, for an
Untermensch?"
"You killed him," Von Braun said.
Hans choked. Of all the pathetic reasons ... Hans would have understood love or lust, or the desire for fame or money, but ... Von Braun had betrayed the
Reich for an
Untermensch? It was insane! The Russian had been a pet, little more. The idea he could have made any real contribution to rocket science was just absurd. The Russians were tough – Hans had fought in the east, he could hardly deny it – but they were nothing more than copycats, capable of copying European technology yet incapable of developing it for themselves. They would still be swimming in their wretched mud, unaware of the true greatness of the human soul, if they hadn't been raised up by their western friends. And how foolish
that had been. Like all
Untermensch, the Russians could not be grateful, nor accept their proper place. The
Reich would teach them better, in time. And they would be happy in servitude.
"You're insane."
Von Braun met his eyes. "I thought I was doing the right thing, when I joined the SS," he said, quietly. "The promise of rocket funding was irresistible. I closed my eyes to the true horrors, even when" – his voice broke, just for a second – "or told myself it was necessary, that it was the price of developing the technology to put mankind in space to stay. But when you killed Sergei, I
knew I'd made a dreadful mistake. I had sold my soul and I had been cheated of my price and ... I could no longer look away."
Hans stared at him. "He was an
Untermensch ..."
"No," Von Braun said. "He was a thinking man ..."
"He was a thief, who stole from you and your peers and insisted it was all his own work," Hans said. "You ..."
Von Braun smiled his superior smile. "Is that what they told you?"
Hans had to bite his lip to keep from striking the older man. Von Braun was trying to get under his skin, perhaps push Hans into killing him ... or worse. Hans had watched experiments in which
Untermenschen had their heads struck, with varying levels of force, to see just how much damage they could take. Von Braun was a superior being, naturally, but if his head was struck hard enough the damage would be irreparable. He'd turn into a vegetable, fit only for the extermination camps. Was he provoking Hans in hopes of destroying everything the
Reich valued in him ...?
"I've been in Russia," Hans said, instead. He wasn't sure why he was allowing the debate. Perhaps he could convince Von Braun he was wrong ... or silence his own nagging doubts. "I know how they live. Lived."
"I knew Sergei," Von Braun said. "He was a genius, one of the very few peers I had."
His voice hardened suddenly, bringing back unhappy memories of a strict teacher who had believed – firmly – that to spare the rod was to spoil the child. "Don't you dare tell me, one of the few who can truly evacuate a man's genius, that Sergei was a crook. I watched his rocket program from a distance, before the war, and worked with him after he was taken into our custody. There was nothing wrong with his mind, or his ability to think ... no inherent inferiority, no weakness that could never be overcome. He was a genius,
Herr Sturmbannfuehrer, and you killed him because you could not accept that the quest to overcome technical limitations was – and would always be – a long and hard one."
"I didn't issue the order," Hans said.
"You pulled the trigger," Von Braun reminded him. "Didn't you?"
Hans flinched. "I did my duty."
"Yes,
Herr Sturmbannfuehrer," Von Braun said. "I thought the same too."
He smiled, rather tiredly. "My eyes were opened. The
Reich is built on a graveyard beyond human comprehension, a graveyard filled with our victims. We killed mercilessly ... no, we didn't even do
that. We tested human bodies to destruction, piling on the pressure to see what they could take, or worked them to death and then buried them where they fell. Did they tell you about atomics,
Herr Sturmbannfuehrer, or their wonderful and terrible promise? What will the
Reich do, if it gains sole control of such weapons?"
Hans glared. "You think the Americans, who wiped out the Indians, or the British, who rule millions of
other Indians, will be any better?"
"I have to," Von Braun said.
"Naive," Hans snarled. "The world isn't driven by right or wrong. The strong do as they please, and the weak suffer what they must."
Von Braun smiled. "Remind me," he said. "What happened to Imperial Athens?"
Hans ignored the jibe. "We are strong, and that gives us the right to do as we please to those who are weak," he said. "Our strength lies in our unity under the
Führer -
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer – and that gives us power. We won, because we are strong. And we will always be strong."
"I'm sure Athens thought the same way too," Von Braun mocked.
"If they had stayed strong, they would have stayed powerful," Hans said. "They would rule the world to the present day. Instead ..."
Von Braun fixed him with a
look. "You are a primitive," he said, flatly. "And if people like you were allowed unchallenged control over the world, there would be no more technological development. Do you know how much we lost, when we drove the Jewish scientists out of the
Reich or threw them into concentration camps? Do you know how much we hampered ourselves, when we started telling ourselves that
Jewish science was an oxymoron and restricted exploration into such matters because it was Jewish and therefore inherently inferior? Of course not! You don't have the intelligence to understand how badly we hurt ourselves."
Hans found his fists clenching. He took a breath, forcing himself to step back. Von Braun was trying to provoke him. They had worked together – practically lived together – for years. Von Braun knew him, knew his buttons, knew what to say to provoke a violent reaction. He was smart enough to do it, and insane enough to try. And if Hans damaged his mind ...
"You will be flown back to the
Reich tomorrow morning," Hans said. "You will go back to the complex and be put to work, under far tighter security. You will never have the freedom you once enjoyed, never. And if you fail to produce ..."
Von Braun gave him a disgusted look. "All that sophistication and yet you're really nothing more than a playground bully."
Hans smirked. "All that intelligence, and you really cannot defend yourself against a playground bully," he said. "Can you?"
He turned and left the cell, leaving Von Braun alone with his thoughts. The man was secure, unable to hurt himself in any way ... Hans strode down the corridor, allowing himself a tight smile as he passed the other chambers. The complex was a comfortable prison, true, but a prison nonetheless. Greta was in one chamber, waiting for the flight that would start her on her journey east; others were occupied by resistance agents who would be steadily broken down soon enough, forced to betray everyone they knew to be involved with the bandits – or SOE. It was unfortunate that Sophie had been caught in the crossfire and killed – she had been skilfully manipulated, with promises of her POW sons being returned to her constantly being dangled in front of her eyes – and even more so that the Englishwoman had vanished into the countryside, but it hardly mattered. They had recovered Von Braun – he'd saved his life and perhaps his career – and they knew enough to deal the resistance a death blow. And they could even make sure the British got the blame. They'd have problems finding allies if the French thought the British had sent them to their doom.
And in a way, Hans reflected,
they did.
Keitel was sitting in the office, looking drunk. Hans snorted inwardly. The young fool was definitely going to go east. It would toughen him up or kill him and either way the
Reich would come out ahead. And then ...
And then he heard the first explosion.
***
"I used to work there," Jean-Luc whispered, as the resistance troops took up position near the German base. It had been built by the French military in 1900, from what he'd said, and expanded rapidly into a combination of military garrison and airbase, manned by troops from the
Luftwaffe and
Waffen-SS as well as the
Heer. "Our sources tell us they have an important prisoner, held in the SS block."
Kathleen nodded, gritting her teeth as she surveyed the well-lit complex. The Germans weren't afraid of being attacked, either by the French or by British bombers. There were no air raid warders stamping about, throwing their weight around as they told everyone to turn off their lights. She hoped they'd become complacent over the last few years, as they shipped combat troops east to pacify the Russians and turn their lands into giant German plantations and farms. Vichy had helped, she supposed. The French Resistance hadn't been
quite moribund, but the combination of limited resources and a semi-legal French government had discouraged attacks on military bases. She shuddered, inwardly, at the hell she knew the Germans would unleash, when they realised the resistance had attacked them. A great many innocent people were about to suffer ...
They'll suffer worse, if Von Braun is put back to work for the Nazis, Kathleen said. She had no idea how many of his ideas were technically practical, but if even the simplest ideas could be put into mass production the balance of power would turn against Britain and America.
It is a price that has to be paid.
She checked her weapon automatically, sweat prickling down her back. There was no way to be
sure Von Braun was being held in the complex, no matter how many times Jean-Luc assured her that his source was trustworthy. The SS could easily have created a false trail to deceive her, if they thought she wasn't running for the southern border as fast as she could. The resistance had picked up signs the Germans were actually
intensifying their efforts to the west, deploying more patrols to France's north and west coast. They clearly expected to catch her, as she tried to slip through the net. And if the base was a trap ...
"We know the plan," Jean-Luc said. He'd introduced her to a handful of his men, but told her almost nothing about them. She hoped to hell they were trustworthy. Jean-Luc might tell himself his men were a serious threat, but the Germans wouldn't be impressed by a couple of hundred former soldiers, bandits and men of dubious loyalty. SOE had shipped them a surprising amount of weaponry over the years, but nowhere near enough to let them face the Germans on even terms. "You know your part?"
Kathleen nodded, tightly. The Germans might be taken by surprise, when the French attacked, but they'd rally quickly. They'd know what she'd come to do and react accordingly ... Jean-Luc had said it himself, when they'd laid the plan. There was only one way out of the base and she'd have to take it, hopefully with Von Braun in tow. She gritted her teeth as the last few seconds ticked away, wishing they'd had time to make contact with allies on the inside. But that would have been far too dangerous.
Her lips tightened as she heard the first explosion.
Let the dice fly high!
The ground shook, a moment later. The Germans were the only ones allowed to drive after curfew, at least on the main roads, and the resistance had taken advantage of their complacency to capture a truck, cram it with high explosives, and drive it right
into the gate, where it exploded with enough power to take out the guardposts and fence. Two more followed, their drivers – assuming the plan had been followed to the letter – heading right for the barracks and armoury, aiming their vehicles to crash into the walls. She gritted her teeth as two more explosions shook the ground, followed by a series of secondary explosions. The plan had paid lip service to the drivers having a chance to get out, before it was too late, but everyone involved had known it was a suicide mission. The shooting started a moment later, assault teams – dressed in stolen uniforms – coming out of the undergrowth and charging into the base itself, backed up by short-range mortar fire. It had to sound as though the Germans were under attack from an infantry company or two, not a relative handful of Frenchmen.
Jean-Luc tapped her shoulder. "Move."
Kathleen nodded and forced herself towards the wire. The Germans should be looking north now, trying to rally and drive the Frenchmen out before they broke into the airfield and captured the fuel dump. She hoped the guest workers would take advantage of the chaos to break out of their pens and riot, adding to the confusion. The Germans might even blame the chaos on the Russians, rather than the French ... the Russians, unlike their French counterparts,
had risked strikes deep into German territory. But then, they had far less to lose ...
The flames burned brighter, casting an eerie light over the scene as the assault team reached the wire. The power should have been cut – and in any case the Germans had a great many other problems to worry about – but she tensed anyway as the cutters went to work, opening a gap in the wire with practiced skill. The fence wasn't much of a deterrent, she noted absently. The base CO would be busted all the way down to
Rottenfuehrer, if he were lucky, after the shooting stopped and his superiors demanded answers. The German bases in Russia were fortresses, with trenches and palisades and clear fields of fire, but they really had grown complacent in France. She told herself to count her blessings as the shooting grew louder. If she'd tried this stunt in Russia, they'd all be dead before they reached the gates.
"This way," Jean-Luc said. "Hurry!"
The assault team split up, one group following Jean-Luc and Kathleen as they headed towards the SS block, the other making their way to the airfield. If their part of the mission failed ... Kathleen told herself to worry about it later. The attack had started well, but if the Germans rallied, or it turned out they'd made a dreadful mistake and Von Braun was nowhere to be found ...
She spotted a pair of guards at the doors, weapons at the ready. The Frenchmen opened fire before the Germans could realise the newcomers
weren't their comrades, even though they were wearing German uniforms. Kathleen felt a flicker of grim satisfaction as they forced open the door and plunged inside, hoping to hell they hadn't been spotted. Her heart beat as they headed upstairs, even as the ground heaved again. The French were giving it all they had, fighting desperately to buy her time. She promised herself it wouldn't be wasted.
Her lips twitched, mouthing the words. "
Vive la France!"