A Thousand Suns

Chapter 57 Mission Time: 22 Hours, 12 Minutes Elapsed

‘There it is! I can bloody well see it! Hans!’

Hans jumped a little as Pieter’s voice crackled over the interphone.

‘We’re there! Look out the port side!’

Hans kept the gun trained on Max as he leaned across to peer out of the porthole. Ahead he could see the faint silhouette of a cluster of tall buildings against a darkening grey sky. He guessed it was about fifteen miles away. A few thousand feet below he could see the start of an intermittent carpet of low buildings. By the look of them they were homes, a belt of suburbia.

‘Are we there?’ said Max quietly.

‘Yeah,’ replied Hans with a grin, too elated to feel the need to chastise him for talking. ‘We’re here, Max. We did it!’

Pieter’s voice came over the intercom again ‘All right, Hans, time to get things ready. We need to drop this bomb as quickly as we can. I’ve got no idea how much time we have left before we’re dry.’

‘What do you want me to do?’ he replied, pulling his mask up and shouting excitedly into it.

‘Max knows, he’s already put in the code… it just needs arming. Get him into the bomb bay…’

Hans nodded and turned to Max. ‘Time to get it done. Up you get,’ he said, nodding towards the bulkhead leading to the bomb bay.

Max pulled himself up, stiff and sore from the cold and the inactivity.

‘I’m not going to do it, Hans, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

‘Just fucking MOVE!’ he shouted, his voice breaking hoarsely.

Max slowly ducked through into the bulkhead and held on to the bomb rack beside the walkway. Hans followed, squeezing through after him, the Walther aimed at Max all the time.

‘You’ve made the bomb ready, Max, but Pieter says you’ve got to arm it… so do that now.’

Max shook his head. ‘You know I won’t, Hans. We have got to take this bomb out to sea and ditch it.’

Hans raised the gun and banged it roughly against the bomb rack out of frustration. ‘Shut up and do it, or I’ll bloody well shoot you right now!’

‘Hans, I’m going to open the bomb bay doors, make sure you’re holding on to something,’ Pieter shouted down from the cockpit into the bay.

Hans held tightly on to the bulkhead, while Max tightened his grip on the bomb rack. With a loud clunk and a whir of motors, the bomb bay doors cracked open. A slither of brightness widened beneath them as the doors juddered open. The bay was quickly bathed with the sepia light of the waning evening sun. The wind rushed noisily below them, a roar and a high-pitched whistling together, and both men stared in awe down at the passing suburban tapestry.

Hans cast a glance at the bomb. There appeared to be only one button on the whole contraption, a blue button beside a row of numbers.

‘It’s the blue button you need to press, isn’t it?’ he shouted against the roar of the wind.

Max said nothing, certain that a denial would sound like an obvious lie.

‘It’s the blue button, isn’t it?’ Hans asked again, his voice rattling with anger.

He remained silent.

Hans nodded, all of a sudden certain that Max’s silence was nothing but an affirmative. There was nothing else on the bomb that looked like a switch or button.

‘I’ll arm the bomb myself then. It looks like we don’t need you now,’ he said, smiling coldly.

‘God have mercy on you, Hans, because those people down there won’t if they get hold of you.’

Hans once more aimed the barrel of the gun at his head. ‘I never thought you’d let us down, Max, never. But you have, and now you’re the fucking enemy… it’s just me and Pieter left.’

Max looked into his eyes, desperately searching for a trace of mercy. ‘Hans, don’t do this.’

Captain Eugene Delaware caught the faint hum first, above the crumple of wind and the rumble of traffic and activity from down below. In the streets below, full of cars accelerating and braking in concert with the myriad of pedestrian crossings and traffic lights, the faint hum of the B-17 was the only engine on a steady note.

‘I can hear something, Mr President, sir,’ he blurted into the phone. ‘I think it’s coming from the south-east. Definitely a plane, sir.’

Delaware pulled the binoculars up to his face and scanned the broken clouds in the distance over Brooklyn. He scanned systematically, sweeping from left to right, as the faint hum, every now and then fading behind the downtown symphony from below, emerged, a little louder, a little more distinct, a little closer.

‘It’s definitely approaching our position, sir. But I can’t see it just yet.’

President Truman’s voice crackled over the phone, ‘Just keep looking, Captain.’

‘Sorry, Max, goodbye.’

Max closed his eyes and waited for the bullet.

‘What’s going on!?’ shouted Stef.

He opened his eyes to see Hans half turn in surprise, the gun pulling a couple of inches off target, away from his head. Leaning through the bulkhead, the young lad appeared groggy and confused by the sight of the handgun.

Max, still holding tightly to the bomb rack, reached out with one hand for the gun and twisted it sharply in Hans’s hand.

‘Fuck!’ Hans bawled with surprise, squeezing the trigger three times in rapid succession. Even with the roaring of the wind below them, the report of the Walther was deafeningly loud. The barrel was close enough to Max’s cheek that he felt the sting of burning gunpowder from the muzzle flash. Two of the bullets rattled around chaotically inside the bomb bay, ricocheting off the metal spars of the rack. The third bullet was aimed upwards, and left the bomb bay via the forward bulkhead into the cockpit.

‘What’s going on?’ Stef shouted once more, as both Hans and Max wrestled one-handed to gain possession of the firearm, each of them holding on desperately with the other hand to avoid being pulled off balance and pitched into the gaping chasm below.

All of a sudden the bomber lurched and started to roll to the left. Through the open hatch both struggling men paused in their efforts as they stared down to see the suburbs of Brooklyn slide away and the steely grey of the Atlantic begin to drift into view. The plane was rolling hard to port, taking them inland. If it continued much further it would roll over onto its back and begin an irrecoverable dive.

Hans suddenly screamed as he lost his grip on the bulkhead and swung out over the open chasm. The only thing keeping him from falling was his grip on the gun. His legs seesawed desperately as he tried in vain to swing them up onto the walkway above.

‘SHITshitshitshit!’ he gasped up at Max.

Max held on to the gun with grim determination. ‘Hold on! Hans, grab my arm with your other hand!’ he shouted down to him.

The bomber pulled out of the roll, momentarily levelling, before beginning to roll to starboard.

Hans reached up with his other hand and grabbed hold of Max’s sleeve. Max was struggling hard to keep from tumbling out, his one-handed hold on the bomb rack weakening fast.

‘Get your legs up on the walkway! I can’t hold on to you much longer!’ he shouted down to Hans.

His long legs swung several times, but came nowhere near close to the metal grating. He shook his head. ‘I can’t do it.’

Max looked to Stef for help. The lad was making his way towards them on his hands and knees, groaning with the effort, but he looked too weak to be of any use. Max’s grip was weakening rapidly; another ten seconds and he could see both himself and Hans tumbling side by side down to earth.

‘Hans, I can’t pull you in, you’ve got to get your legs up!’

The big German tried again. This time his left heel swung high enough to hook over the top of the walkway.

‘That’s it! Come on, you big idiot!’ called Stef weakly, lying on the walkway beside Max.

Hans dug his heel into the metal grating and pulled upwards with his lower leg and his arms. He hefted himself up enough that his hands could reach up past the gun and grab the walkway.

‘Good boy, keep pulling,’ encouraged Max, relieved that Hans was bearing some of his own weight.

Hans began pulling himself up and grinned foolishly at them. ‘Nearly fucking well lost it th—’

The plane lurched hard to port once more, the left wing dropping almost ninety degrees. Without a sound Hans vanished.

‘Oh no!’ whispered Stef.

And all of a sudden he saw it, little more than a black dot appearing, then disappearing amidst the rolling clouds. He quickly raised his binoculars and studied the portion of sky in which he had last seen the plane.

‘Dammit!’ he whispered to himself. ‘Where’s it gone?’

‘Delaware!’ Truman called out. ‘You see anything yet?’

‘Uh… I thought I saw something, sir.’

And then the clouds broke. Through his binoculars Captain Eugene Delaware caught sight of the flying fortress, as the plane bore down on Manhattan Island. By the look of it, the plane was already over the Hudson and now on its way northwards, running parallel with Broad-way and up to Times Square.

‘Oh, yeah! There it is, sir! It’s coming right towards us now!’

Truman looked up at the men in the room with him. ‘My God, they’ve made it all the way over, then,’ he uttered, the conceit of measured calm he had managed to maintain throughout the day finally beginning to show the first signs of slipping away from him.

The young battery captain’s voice came over the speaker once more. ‘Mr President, something’s happening! ’

Wallace found his legs beginning to tremble uncontrollably. Once more he shot a glance up at Dr Frewer, the only other person in the room whom he felt he could draw comfort from. Frewer met his eyes, but this time he didn’t offer a reassuring shake of the head or a knowing smile; the tension was played out across his face as well.

Oh-my-God, this is it. Even Oppenheimer’s man is having doubts.

Truman put his hand over the phone and his gaze travelled around the room. ‘And now, gentlemen, we’re going to know, one way or the other.’

‘The plane is turning now, sir! She’s… yeah, she’s banking pretty steeply, sir. I’d say it looks like they’re in trouble,’ Delaware continued. ‘She’s heading due west now! It’s a steep turn, sir!’

Max stared into the chasm. The ground below was rotating slowly now, but he could see it gradually increasing in speed.

It’s going into a spin.

He pulled himself up, holstering the pistol, and clambered through the bulkhead up into the cockpit. Pieter was slumped over the pilot’s flight stick. There was blood under his jaw and down his neck; he was either unconscious or dead by the look of him. He must have been caught by one of the Walther’s bullets during the struggle. It looked like he’d received a wound to his throat.

Max saw that Pieter had managed to pull out his own sidearm. He must have been getting ready to come back and settle the issue when the bullet had caught him.

So, for this mission, for your beloved Führer, you would have shot me too?

He shook his head sadly. Both Pieter and Hans had been the better soldiers, prepared to do anything to see the job done, too damned stupid to question whether it should be.

He pulled Pieter’s body back and grabbed hold of the flight stick, pulling against the lazy downward spiral that the bomber had settled into. The altimeter displayed an altitude of only 2000 feet, and that was slipping away steadily. He pulled back and to the right and within a few seconds the B-17 had straightened out and levelled. With the plane on an even keel, he momentarily released the pilot’s flight stick, settled into the co-pilot’s seat and grabbed the flight stick there.

Below them now he could see the central island of New York, Manhattan, its tall structures clustered together like giant chess pieces on an enormous metropolitan chess board.

Max had flown over Berlin several times, but the size and scale of the city he saw now below him was a poignant demonstration of the sheer might and muscle of America. While Speer had dreamed of a gigantic trophy structure in the heart of Germany, over here it looked like they’d been routinely building them for decades.

And we thought a single bomb would make them surrender.

Even if the bomb worked as it was hoped, and destroyed only this city, he wondered if a country capable of such impressive scale could be beaten so easily. America was a giant, a leviathan, a Goliath of economic muscle and might. Perhaps back in 1942, when the German empire stretched from the Atlantic to the Urals, the Baltic to the Black Sea, before things had ground to a halt outside Stalingrad, perhaps back then Germany had stood only shoulder high to them; a vain midget standing on tiptoes.

He pulled the B-17 to the right and the Atlantic swung into view once more. Below, he could see the large pale green statue of the crowned lady holding aloft a torch. For a few seconds he struggled to recall its name, and then it came to him: Liberty. He watched as the statue passed beyond sight of the cockpit canopy and the buildings of New York slid away beneath him.

The fuel gauge showed empty. It had done so for some time now, he guessed. Pieter had been flying on the margin of safety, the extra fuel capacity the tanks could hold over and above the dial reading. But that too must be all but exhausted. One of the engines had begun to stutter, the last one on the starboard wing that was still functioning. That left two engines on the port side still going strong. He decided to reduce the throttle on them to even things out a little. The plane was still going to pull gently to the right, and he would need to constantly correct the plane’s course to keep it going in a straight line…

A straight line where?

The plane had to be ditched, far enough out that it would be deep, but not so far they had no hope of making it ashore.

He heard movement beside him and turned to see Stef leaning over Pieter’s seat. ‘Is he dead too?’ he asked with a weak voice.

‘I think so.’

‘What happened, Max?’ he asked groggily.

For a moment he toyed with feeding the lad some untruth, that the mission had been recalled, or that Hans and Pieter had decided to surrender the bomb to the Americans, but he decided Stef was clever enough to sense he was being lied to.

‘The mission is to be aborted.’

Stef seemed unsurprised, as if he’d expected all along this sort of outcome, or perhaps he was too far gone and light-headed to muster a response of shock. ‘Right,’ he said listlessly.

‘We’re going to ditch the plane out at sea and then make our way ashore, understand Stef?’

The lad nodded, swaying unsteadily.

Max looked down at his wounded leg and saw that the wound had been leaking again. Badly. He knew Stef wouldn’t last long in the water.

‘Why… why is it being aborted, Max?’ he asked hazily.

He wondered whether he should try and tell Stef about the letter, but that had been sucked out during the struggle, or economise on the story, simplify it in a way a foggy head could understand. He decided neither would do. A simple lie was the best thing he could come up with for now.

‘Because, lad… the Americans have surrendered,’ he said, raising a smile. ‘It’s all over.’

Stefan grinned like a drunkard. ‘We did it? We won?’

‘Yeah, Stef, we won. But we’ve still got a job to do.’

‘What?’

‘The bomb has to be lost at sea, you understand? We wouldn’t want the Americans to get hold of it now. So sit tight, lad, we’re taking her out east as far as she’ll go.’

‘Okay, Max, let’s complete the mission,’ Stef nodded, his words slurring.

Captain Delaware watched as the bomber straightened out and headed in an easterly direction, passing once more over the Hudson River and, as its form dwindled to no more than a speck appearing and disappearing between the rolling grey clouds, he pulled the binoculars away from his eyes.

‘Damnedest thing… it’s heading away again, sir.’

There was a long pause before the President replied. Even above the cacophony of rush-hour New York, he could sense the obvious relief in the President’s voice. ‘Which way, Captain, where’s it headed?’

‘It’s due east, sir. The plane is back over Brooklyn, sir. If it keeps on that course, sir, it will be heading out to sea again.’

The captain could hear other noises over the phone, a chorus of voices in the background. Truman’s voice came on again. ‘Good work, Captain. Keep your eyes peeled, though, son. If there’s any further sign of that plane you pipe up, understand?’

‘Yessir!’ replied Delaware.

‘Let’s keep this line open,’ added Truman, ‘but for now, this call will be kept on hold. Thank you for your help this evening, Captain.’

There was a click followed by a steady tone and Eugene Delaware pulled the phone away from his ear and turned to his gunnery sergeant.

‘Well, that was just about the weirdest fucking five minutes of my life.’