A Thousand Suns

Chapter 55 Mission Time: 22 Hours, 5 Minutes Elapsed

Pieter saw the continent ahead of them at first as a series of indistinct smudges, appearing fleetingly behind the thick bank of clouds on the horizon. It seemed like America was having a dull, wet day as well as Europe. The smudges eventually merged into a solid dark mass of land on the horizon as he brought the plane down to 3000 feet.

‘Hans, I can see America!’ he shouted excitedly into his mask.

There was a moment before Hans replied as he scrambled to look out of one of the portholes to confirm the sighting. ‘My God, we made it!’

The low cloud had shrouded the coastline, hiding it from them until the last moment, and now he could see it approaching swiftly. Below, he could see several ships heading out to sea, leaving behind them long wakes that pointed like pale fingers north-west towards New York.

‘We’ve come too far south. I’m going to bring us up to two-ninety,’ he said, thinking aloud. ‘How’s Stef?’

‘Still out cold. He doesn’t look too good.’

Poor lad.

It would have been good to have his help finding their way to New York, but it was clear from the traffic on the sea they weren’t too far off. Pieter smiled to himself. He just had to follow the ships; that was all he’d need to guide them in now. He checked their fuel. It was low, uncomfortably so. He estimated there was enough left for maybe another twenty minutes’ flying time. That was enough. Fifteen minutes or so to find New York, and five minutes to get some distance from it after they had dropped the bomb. If they couldn’t find anywhere suitable to land, they could bail out. Stef might be a problem if they had to do that, especially if he couldn’t be roused. In that case they’d just have to push him out, pull the cord and hope for the best.

And what about Max?

He suspected Hans would be happy enough to leave him aboard to go down with the plane. His snarling decision that Max was a traitor had sounded final. His own feelings were a little less certain. Max was no traitor, that much was for sure, but that strange note had clearly shaken him. He suspected that there was more to his odd behaviour than just that. Pieter had seen officers break down before, men that could seemingly endure an infinite amount of battlefield stress, and yet who suddenly seemed to suffer total emotional collapse. Several squadron leaders from KG-301 had suffered that fate, but for some reason he’d thought Max would never crumble like that. He wasn’t a traitor, and nor did he deserve to die. If it came to bailing, he’d make sure they all got out. Once they’d dropped the bomb, one way or another, this rift between them would no longer have any relevance.

The note?

The bloody thing had to be an attempt at sabotage, or a last-minute change of heart by some paranoid technician working on the project. But he wondered, for a moment, if the damn thing was for real, would that change anything?

Of course not.

If there really was a risk involved in dropping this bomb, a risk that the entire world could be incinerated, then it was the world’s fault for cornering them like this. The Russians were going to obliterate Germany anyway — better to bring them all down with them than for the Fatherland to die alone.

Pieter nodded; he was satisfied with that justification. It would be everyone’s fault if it all ended in ashes; after all, they were just trying to defend themselves. What other country wouldn’t do the same if they had the chance? And anyway, who would be left to point an accusatory finger?

No one.

He smiled grimly. To have got this far required the intervention of fate. To turn back now would be an unforgivable act of weakness. Pieter knew that fate, destiny, or whatever you wanted to call it, was with him, with them. Now was not the time for doubts or second thoughts.

He decided that that was the last of the thinking he should do on the subject. The only thing to do now was to concentrate on the job in hand.

Max watched Hans as he kept the gun squarely aimed at him. However, the young man’s eyes darted frequently to the starboard porthole, anxious to watch America approach, to see the country first hand that he’d only so far seen in the occasional newsreel, and once in a film about cowboys and Indians. Hans saw the clouds and the dark coastline, surprised at how much like the coast of Normandy it looked. He’d always thought America was a hot place — blue skies, golden beaches and large, beautiful, snow-tipped mountain ranges. But it looked like yet another cold, dark and wet country. He decided with a silent nod that it would make it that much easier to blow up a large chunk of it.

‘It’s not like you imagined it, eh?’ said Max.

‘No,’ Hans replied automatically.

Pieter’s voice came over the interphone. ‘Hans… tell him to be quiet, we need to concentrate.’

Hans reminded himself of the new situation; Max was no longer the plane’s commander, no longer a comrade, a friend. He jerked the gun towards him angrily. ‘Shut up, Max, I told you to stay quiet.’

Max raised his hands submissively.

How in God’s name am I going to stop this?

Time was running out for him to find a way to put an end to the mission.

He wondered why it had been so easy for him to believe there was some truth in that note, and for Pieter and Hans to dismiss it so readily. There might have been a time, maybe two or three years ago, before their posting to the eastern front, before this war had become so barbaric, that he too might have sided with them and considered it a Jew’s attempt to sabotage things.

But now? Maybe deep down, a suspicion as yet unspoken, he’d decided that their home wasn’t worth killing so many innocent people for. Maybe the world would be a safer place without someone like Hitler in it, who would gamble the world for his own ambitions; without easily led people like Pieter and Hans, who would do the same out of blind fealty to such a recklessly dangerous leader.

As a country, Germany would vanish, and her people would become — what? Russian citizens. Some might argue, losing a flag and a language… they deserved a great deal worse than just that.

Pieter leaned forward in his seat and looked out of the cockpit window. Below and ahead of them the coastline of America was upon them. He watched as greyish beaches, awash with the rolling surf of the Atlantic, slid beneath the nose of the B-17. There had been no more ships to follow in the last few minutes, so he had decided to hold his oblique north-westerly course until they crossed over the coastline and then he would pull round to the right and head due north, following the coastline until either they were nearly dry or he came across the city.

The gauge was now showing empty; it wasn’t a precise display, a needle hovering over a crudely marked dial showing hundreds of pounds of fuel, it was an approximate reading at best. His watch showed the time was twelve minutes past the hour. Another eight minutes, he decided, and then the bomb would have to go, New York or no New York.

‘I’m pulling around to the north now, Hans, and we’ll follow the coast. Eight minutes to go.’ Hans acknowledged, and Pieter began to bring the plane smoothly around to the right.