One Thousand Years (14 page)

“Yes.”

“Among
his many insights, he wrote that all war supposes human weakness, and
against that it is directed.”

McHenry
nodded, unsure what her point was.

“Human
weakness,” she repeated. “You will come to find out that
we consider that dictum constantly in our war against the Grauen,
but in a way that General Clausewitz could never imagine.
You see, the Grauen do not
think the way that we do. We do not know that their weaknesses are
anything like ours. We are constantly having to second guess
ourselves. But in so doing, sometimes it is best to remind ourselves
that our weaknesses are what make us human, and that is sometimes a
thing to be cherished. Herr McHenry, I cannot promise you that we
will be able to rescue your brother in arms. The SS will study the
conditions. You will have to respect their findings, whatever they
may be. But I can promise you that if it can be done, we will put
resources into it.”

*

GOERING PEACE MOVE
The Press association today quoted reports from an
unidentified source that Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering is “likely”
to go to Madrid for a conference with General Francisco Franco, with
the idea of trying to arrange a compromise peace between Germany and
Great Britain.
The Press association's diplomatic
correspondent, Frank King, said the Spanish press has been advocating
a compromise recently on the theory that Franco has an “obvious
interest in Germany's future.”
—
British United Press, (April 18, 1944)

McHenry met the pilots
early for breakfast the next morning. The cafeteria was busy, with a
crowd standing around the first table.

“Morning!”
one of the Luftwaffe officers greeted McHenry.

“McHenry!”
shouted Bamberg. “Come here! We have been waiting for you.”

The
table had a map on it, projected by the omnipresent rechner. It
seemed as though every table on the ship was able to perform this
function, one that McHenry had found a convenient study tool. He
wished he had had one on his P-40. “Where is this?” he
asked.

“Don't
you recognize it?” asked Barr, laughing. “This is where
you died.”

“Yes,”
he answered after referencing the shore on the southwest end. “Just
off the coast of Italy.”

Barr
put his finger on the grid. “This is where you went down.”
Then he moved his finger to another spot, one that McHenry guessed
would be about fifty miles away. “And this is where your
friend goes down.”

“It's
just a rough estimate,” added Bamberg. “Your position
was logged by a ship in the area. Your friend's position had to be
estimated more crudely.”

“But
you've got it close enough for a recovery?” asked McHenry
hesitantly.

“More than enough,” replied Bamberg.
“An after action review tells that it was a controlled crash.
He could survive if we get to him.”

“It
is even better than that,” said Barr. “We checked the
satellite retrieval schedule. There is already a mission that
morning. Your friend could not pick a better time for this to
happen.”

“I
can't thank you guys enough,” said McHenry. He studied the
approach markers on the map.
The words on its legend were German, most of the terms already
familiar to McHenry, but the text at the center was in English. They
were clearly intended for his benefit:
Rescue
of Joseph Parker
. McHenry
worked to restrain his emotions.

Bamberg
stepped back. “Do not be too excited,” he said. “Let's
hold any celebration until the SS gives their approval.”

That
word of caution stifled McHenry's joy. The loss of the Italian
weighed heavily on his mind. But a different emotion crept in as he
felt he was truly among friends. He slowly swept his gaze toward
everyone in the room to acknowledge them. “I want you all to
know how much I really appreciate this. Even if they say no, I'll
still be grateful to you all.”

*

“This
would be a morale booster,” said Dale, after Mtubo concluded
his instructions to the staff of the analysis office. She had
listened to his warnings and agreed with the cautions, but so much
wanted the rescue to be possible.

“Yes,”
agreed Mtubo. “Having two men who know each other would add to
the propaganda value of the mission, particularly two Americaners who
suffered under democracy. Regardless, I should remind everyone that
propaganda is not our function. We have a lot more work to do.”

He
waited a moment for any more comments.

“
Jawohl!
”
agreed Rodriguez, the shift leader standing at attention beside
Mtubo. “You may count on us,
Herr
Oberführer
.”

“
Heil
Renard!
” he said.
The small group echoed the phrase. They relaxed only after he left
the room.

Dale
rushed to her console and searched for Parker's last mission. A
collection of symbols and charts appeared on the display, terminating
with his presumptive death only a few weeks hence. She
scanned the pages back to McHenry's death. Even as passionless
numbers and symbols, the impact of his loss was perceptible.

“Strange,”
observed Rodriguez,
who had slid her chair beside Dale's station. “Two friends
dying so close together.”

“The
symmetry alone is intriguing,” said Dale. “Fate can
paint such a pretty picture.”

“We've
been away too long,” said Rodriguez.

The
two watched the numbers
as they paged back and forth. In just two minutes, they knew a lot
about where the man had been, his impact on aggregate world history,
and yet nothing about the man's soul. That would take meeting the
man in the flesh.

“Hold
everything,” called a voice nearby. “You all better take
a quick look at the color of that stream.”

Dale
switched back to the top. “
Scheiss!
”
she gasped.

*

After
spending his morning at the hangar, McHenry had to run to avoid being
late for lunch with Dale. She was waiting for him in the small SS
officers' mess. They were often alone for these sessions. McHenry
was certain they were planned for his indoctrination. That made
sense to him, and he always intended that it end as a failure for her
in this regard.

“You
know you've got everybody excited,” she said.

McHenry
smiled. “Oh really? Does that mean I have SS approval?”

“Sam,
it's far too early to know. The analysts have a lot of work to do
first. But of course you know that I approve. Even if it fails, or
even if the analysts decide they must reject it, I hope you'll keep
thinking this way. You've done everything you could. You should now
understand that we are doing everything we can.”

He
tried not to let his disappointment show, determined to be firm but
careful. He thought about what to say next while they ordered lunch.

“How
long does it take for them to figure this out?” he finally
asked.

Dale
stirred her soup with the spoon as she talked. “That varies.
Sometimes they know right away, and sometimes they need to wait until
we have more information. I think we're going to have to wait until
the next round of satellites comes in.”

McHenry
knotted his brow. “What makes it so different from my case?”

“A
lot of the Luftwaffe people seem to think we just need to ensure that
nobody sees us. But there's so much more. We can't leave any
footprints either —literally or figuratively — and we
need to make sure that whatever footprints would be made will still
be made. When you went down, your body was dragged down with your
plane. The tides weren't going to take it to the shore, nor was it
going to be discovered twenty years later.”

“I
understand,” he answered. He wanted to argue, and this time it
was not for the sake of resisting. He wanted to argue a case for the
sake of his friend. He also wanted to know what was going on.

“I
noticed that they've sent more missions this morning. Two of the
Tigers are gone.”

“There
is a full flight schedule now.”

“You're
not on it?”

“No,”
she said awkwardly. “I was taken off flight-status to work on
a project.” She looked down at his food. “Why do you
eat steak every day?”

He
wondered if she was trying to change the subject. “Because I
like it.”

“But
every day?”

“Look,”
he said. “The place I come from, and the time that I come
from, we couldn't afford to have steak every day. And when we did
have it, it was never as good as this. So I'm going to enjoy this
until I get tired of it.”

She
smiled in her enigmatic way. That always bothered him.

“Is
there something wrong with that?” he asked.

“No,”
she laughed. “It's just interesting. You see, we don't have
the same scarcity of resources that you grew up with. It probably
takes as much energy to produce that steak as it would to make beans.
I don't think anybody living today — I mean in my time —
ever had to think about food the same way that you did.”

He
looked at his plate. “How much energy did it take to make
this?”

“I
don't know. You could ask the rechner but I doubt it would mean
anything to you.”

He
wanted to argue that point. He was educated as an engineer, after
all, and he had spent the last few days studying the quantities of
energy — both minute and extreme — produced and managed
by the Tigers. He understood that just fine. But he also understood
her deeper meaning. He grew up in the Depression years. Food didn't
just grow on trees without an enormous amount of work. At least, it
didn't in his day.

“I
guess I had been in the Army so long,” he said. “I just
assumed these were military rations. Do civilians eat this well?
Rich or poor?”

“This
is national socialism,” she said.
“We don't have any poor.
Even in the early Hitler times, the total elimination of
poverty was what made Germany a model for the rest of the world.
It was the first country in Europe to overcome the class struggle.”

“I'm
having trouble understanding your hatred of communists,” he
said. “You sure speak like one.”

“Not at all!” she shot back.
“We are neither capitalists nor
Bolscheviks. Adolf Hitler said the
nation does not live for the sake of the economic system, and the
economic system does not exist for the sake of capital. The
state shut down the small corporations, and formed boards to guard
against abuses by the large ones. But unlike the Bolscheviks, we
have always allowed small businesses, like shopkeepers, as long as
they do not to use their property against the interests of others.”

McHenry
sighed. It still sounded close enough. He didn't want to debate
politics again, but he knew this was an inevitable part of her
indoctrination attempts.

“Okay,”
he admitted. “I remember reading an article by W. E. B.
Du Bois, who visited Berlin during the Olympics. Germany came
out of the Depression early. Some people envied that.”

“Yes,
you understand!” she said. Her eyes brightened.

He
wasn't going to let her have that. “I also remember that
Hitler didn't want to shake hands with Jesse Owens.”

Dale
frowned and shook her head. “That was American propaganda.
Adolf Hitler didn't shake hands with any foreign athletes. It was
your President Roosevelt who did not shake hands with Owens after
he'd returned from Germany.”

McHenry held back any defense of his president. He knew she was right.
1936 was an election year. Roosevelt needed to hold the white vote.

“You've
got an answer for everything, don't you?”

“Not
everything,” she replied. “We as individuals are not
perfect. The Reich had suffered through many struggles, and not just
the one we are witnessing here today. We made mistakes along the
way. But most of those mistakes were simply the best option that was
available at that time.”

He
wondered what she could be leading up to. It sounded like the
preface to an apology. “I don't take your meaning,” he
said.

She
kept her eyes focused on his. “I don't discount that Adolf
Hitler was a champion for the Aryan people. As you know quite well,
that was the character of the times. Most people were like that back
then. Homo sapiens, just a few steps up from the apes. Nonetheless,
you should know that when Du Bois visited Germany in 1936 he
didn't need to go looking for a special hotel that accepted black
men.”

McHenry
didn't really know for sure whether that was true. It all sounded
like more propaganda.

“Sam,”
she continued, “you need to look beyond all that and see Adolf
Hitler for the state that he created. They took the politics out of
the system. An entire nation doesn't have to stop every four years
just to bicker about which set of oligarchs run the system.
Everywhere you look in America, you see clever advertisements with
politicians slandering opponents with half-truths and outright lies.
They spend an enormous amount of money on this. It's a terrible
waste of resources. And most of your politicians don't care about
the people nearly as much as they care about getting elected again
the next time. I know that democracy sounds like a wonderful concept
but none of its promises are true. Now in the Reich, we all have a
nation where leaders are not chosen by who has the best
advertisements. Our leaders aren't bought. They can devote all
their energies to the people of the Reich.”

“I
still believe that democracy is too important a thing not to fight
for it.”

“Whose
democracy were you fighting for? Let me quote an American from your
day.” She shifted in her seat slightly. Her voice took a
colder pitch.
“‘Once again, may I inform you that Great
Britain is not a democracy in any sense of the word. It is an empire
of 486 million persons who are ruled, regulated, and in some
instances
exploited
by
the members of the British Parliament elected to office by no more
than 45 million residents of England and Scotland.’”