V-S Day: A Novel of Alternate History (6 page)

Behind the slabs was a white-marble bench, waist high, with a statuette of the Virgin Mary at its center and a flower urn on either side. The urns were carved limestone, tall and wasp-waisted, heavy enough to hold bouquets without falling over. Bunches of dead flowers—daisies from the looks of them, probably left some time ago by his brother, who was cheap about such things—were still in the urns, their dry petals scattered across the bench. Yves removed the dead flowers and put them aside, then unwrapped the roses and placed them on the bench.

The windows were too high and narrow for anyone outside to peer through, and his body blocked the doorway, but, nonetheless, Yves took care not to let himself be seen doing what he was doing. As he separated six roses from the bouquet, he quickly slipped his right hand into his coat pocket. Beneath the identification papers was the film cartridge. Concealing it within his palm, he picked up the roses he’d selected and covered the cartridge with their stems. Then, raising the roses to the urn on the left side of the Madonna, he let the cartridge fall into the vase. The soft clink it made when it hit the bottom was muffled by the roses he inserted atop them.

Yves put the rest of the roses in the other urn. He carefully arranged the flowers, then took a few moments to silently stand at the bench, head bowed as if in prayer. Then he picked up the dead flowers and left the mausoleum, locking the grate behind him.

There. It was done. With any luck, the cartridge would soon be on its way to England. It would take a while, of course. The resistance would have to send it by way of special courier to Norway, where it would then be put aboard one of the fishing boats that secretly crossed the North Sea to Scotland. The French coast was effectively closed, but the underground had found ways of getting information out of occupied Europe to the British Isles. Weeks might pass before the Minox cartridge reached its destination, yet Yves had little doubt that it would get there.

The crow was nowhere to be seen as Yves left the graveyard, dropping the dead flowers in a waste can on his way out. As he approached the front gate, though, he saw the Gestapo agent standing beside the soldier. Both were smoking, and as Yves came closer, he heard coarse laughter at some shared joke. The crow turned toward Yves as he approached the gate. The Gestapo agent made no effort to avoid being seen. It was obvious that he was waiting for him.

Stuffing his hands in his overcoat pockets and lowering his head, Yves tried not to appear nervous. The crow looked back at the soldier, and, for a moment, Yves had hope that he might be able to leave the cemetery in peace. But just as he was about to walk by, the Gestapo man raised a black-gloved hand to stop him.

“M’seur Callon? Bonjour.”
Although his voice was heavily accented, the crow had the courtesy to address him in French. “May I have a word with you, please?”

“Oui.”
Callon didn’t bother pretending not to know who he was speaking to. Everyone in Paris had learned to recognize the Gestapo on sight.

“Merci beaucoup.”
The crow was younger than Callon by a decade, and while he seemed pleasant enough, the hardness of his eyes betrayed his true self. “I’m wondering what brings you here today.”

“Visiting my parents.” There was no way he could tell the Gestapo man that it was none of his business why he’d come here. The Nazis kept the people of the countries they’d occupied on a very short leash. “They’re buried here.”

“Ah, yes . . . for Christmas, of course.” The officer nodded. “I understand you work at one of our research facilities. The one in the Baltic.”

“This is correct,
oui
.” The very name Peenemünde was considered a state secret, and Yves was careful to follow the crow’s example by not speaking it in public. “I’ve come home for the holidays, and this is one of the things I meant to do while I’m here.”

“Perfectly reasonable. I applaud your thoughtfulness. May I see your papers, please?”

Although there was no reason why the Gestapo man would want to see his identification—he already knew who he was and where he worked—Yves obediently produced them from his coat pocket. The crow unfolded the dog-eared forms and took his time examining them, while the unsmiling soldier fastened his stony gaze upon him. Yves tried to maintain an air of patient indifference, but his heart had begun to beat a little faster, and he kept his hands in his pockets to hide their tremors.

“Everything seems to be in order,” the Gestapo agent said at last, almost reluctantly handing them back. As Yves put them away, the secret-police officer idly gazed around the cemetery. “Such an interesting place. I don’t think I’ve ever been here before.”

“You should come back sometime. Some very famous people are buried here.”

“Along with your parents, of course.” A smile abruptly appeared on the crow’s face, as if he’d had a sudden thought. “Would you mind showing me their resting place? I’d love to see it.”

A cold hand wrapped itself around Yves’s heart, and for a moment he had an impulse to refuse.
I’m rather busy just now,
he almost said, but refusal was out of the question, and even hesitation could be suspicious. “Yes, of course,” he said instead, and tried to cover his nervousness by coughing into his hand. “This way, please.”

Leaving the soldier at the gate, Yves led the Gestapo agent back down the gravel path, then through the graveyard until they reached the Callon family mausoleum. “Very nice, very handsome,” the crow said, looking at it so briefly that Yves was now certain that the agent had been watching him all the time from somewhere nearby. The agent grasped the door handle, gave it a quick tug, then stepped away. “Open it, please. I’d like to look inside.”

It took all Yves’s willpower to keep his hands from shaking as he fitted the key into the lock. He pulled open the grate, and the officer entered the mausoleum. Yves hesitated, then followed him, peering over his shoulder as the Gestapo man gazed around the tiny room.

The crow missed nothing. He stamped his feet upon the floor slabs to check their solidness and immobility, then he turned his attention to the bench. Running his gloved hands across the marble, he suddenly reached up to seize the Madonna statuette and tip it back, looking to see if there was a hollow space beneath its base. He then ran his fingers through the roses, but was unable to turn over the urn. Convinced that it couldn’t be easily moved, he grunted beneath his breath, then reached for the left urn.

“Do you know why I’m doing this?” he asked, as his hand shifted through the roses, disturbing their careful arrangement.

“No, I do not,” Yves managed to reply.

The Gestapo agent glanced over his shoulder at him. “Do you know someone named François Latreau?”

“
Oui
 . . . of course.” Yves’s mouth had gone dry. “I work with him at Peene . . . in the Baltic, I mean.”

“Yes. He’s another janitor who was hired from this city, same time as you were.” Looking away again, the Gestapo man pushed aside the roses and thrust his fingers into the urn, probing its fluted neck. “He was arrested yesterday.”

“He was?” Yves had to fight to remain calm. Every nerve in his body felt as if it’d gone numb. “For . . . for what?”

“Espionage. He was caught photographing something . . . well, interesting.” The Gestapo agent was trying to get his hand through the urn’s narrow neck into the well. “I don’t suppose you’d know anything about that, would you?”

“N-no. Nothing at all.” Yves wanted to scream. He’d left François behind with the understanding that he wouldn’t attempt to gather any more information on his own. They’d managed to survive this long because they worked as a team, but apparently Gold had decided not to wait until Silver returned from Paris. Maybe he’d spotted something that he couldn’t resist. Or perhaps he’d just gotten cocky. Whatever the reason, he’d been caught. And the Gestapo was suspicious of Yves Callon as well.

The crow’s hand withdrew from the urn. There was nothing in it. He turned around again, and Yves started to step back to let him leave the crypt. But then the Gestapo man suddenly reached forward to grab him by the lapels.

“You’re sure of this?” he asked, pulling him just an inch closer, his eyes locked on Yves’s. “I’m not. You’re very nervous,
M’seur
Callon. I wonder why that is.”

“I . . . I . . .”

Then Callon did something he himself didn’t expect. He substituted anger for fear, and let it show.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” he snapped, staring back at the crow. “You seriously think that, just because I clean toilets with some guy, that makes me a spy, too?” He hissed in disgust. “That’s the thanks I get!”

The Gestapo agent’s eyes widened in surprise. Seldom had anyone spoken to him this way. “I see,” he said, letting go of Callon’s coat. “You’re quite adamant, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am . . . and I’ll thank you not to disturb my parents’ tomb!” He reached past the officer to rearrange the roses and return the Virgin Mary back to its proper place. “Is that all you want to know?”

The Gestapo man didn’t reply but instead put his hands in his pockets and watched as Callon fussed over the items on the shelf. “My apologies,” he said at last. “I didn’t mean to give offense.”

Yves sighed in exasperation as he turned to leave. He’d just stepped out of the crypt, though, when something prodded the back of his ribs. Startled, he looked down to see a Walther in the crow’s hand.

“However,” the crow said, “I’m afraid I’m still going to have to detain you for questioning. Just to be certain.”

Callon heard tires crunch against gravel. Looking around, he saw a black Peugeot roll to a halt on the nearby road. Another soldier climbed out, submachine gun in his hands.

“Don’t run,” the crow quietly added. “That’s what your friend did when he was caught. He was shot.”

The fear came back, and this time there was no surge of anger to dispel it. Yves had no choice but to raise his hands and let the officer march him to the waiting sedan. He knew where he was going: the Gestapo headquarters at the Felgendarmerie, which many had entered but few had left.

The sedan’s doors slammed shut, then the driver did a U-turn on the narrow path, nearly scraping its bumper against a couple of tombstones. The soldier standing guard at the gate raised his arm in a stiff salute as the Peugeot made its departure from the Cimetière du Montparnasse, then reached into his pocket for his cigarettes.

Lighting one, the soldier barely noticed the bearded old man who’d stood aside to make way for the sedan. The old man watched as the Peugeot drove away, then he continued through the gate, walking into the cemetery as if on a small Christmas Eve visit with the dead.

JANUARY 19, 1942

A dense morning fog from the Potomac was shrouding Bolling Field when the C-60 Lodestar touched down. From their seats in the back of the U.S. Army Air Force transport, the two men who were the plane’s only passengers could barely see anything through the haze. The younger of the two, wearing the blue doeskin uniform of a British Navy officer, fought back a yawn as the aircraft’s wheels skipped across the tarmac and its twin engines reverse-propped. A glance at his wristwatch—7:00
A.M.
—then he looked at the older man seated across the aisle from him.

“Bang on time,” he murmured, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “You don’t suppose we could drop by the nearest pub, do you, sir? I could use a drink.”

“No, I don’t suppose we could.” His companion glared at him, not at all amused by the half-serious suggestion. “And considering why we’re here and where we’re going, you might want to take things a little more seriously.”

“Sorry, General. Didn’t mean to offend.”

Major General William Donovan grunted quietly and looked away. Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming reminded himself that the U.S. Army’s coordinator of information wasn’t known for his sense of humor. They’d met only yesterday at Naval Intelligence headquarters in London, when Donovan had been introduced to him by Fleming’s boss, Rear Admiral John Godfrey. Along with the attaché case that rested on the seat beside him, Godfrey had given Fleming his orders: accompany Donovan on an overnight flight to Washington, D.C., where the two of them were to deliver a high-level briefing regarding the classified material they would take with them.

Within hours, they were in the air, flying overnight across the Atlantic, with only a brief stop in Greenland to refuel. The C-60’s wing lights were blacked out until the plane was well over the ocean, to prevent it from being spotted by any Messerschmitts that might be prowling the English coast; a couple of RAF Spitfires had escorted them as far as Ireland before turning back. Since then, Fleming had come to realize that Donovan considered him to be little more than a nuisance, a young bureaucrat forced on him by British intelligence. The general seldom said a word during the entire trip, preferring instead to read and reread the translated German document Fleming was carrying. Donovan was notorious for a flinty personality and demanding that things be done his way.

Right,
Fleming thought.
And if it hadn’t been for our people in Germany and France, you lot wouldn’t have a bloody idea what the Nazis are up to.

The plane taxied to a row of half-seen hangars and came to a halt. Its engines were still winding down as a couple of ground crewmen pushed a ladder alongside the aircraft. The flight engineer emerged from the cockpit and opened the hatch from the inside. A brief conversation with one of the ground crew, then he looked at his passengers. “All right, here you are,” he said. “You’ve got a car waiting for you.”

“Thank you.” General Donovan rose from his seat. “The bracelet, Commander. Put it on, please.”

Fleming had to make a conscious effort to keep from smirking. Before he and Donovan had left Hyde Park, the general insisted that Fleming secure the attaché case to his right hand with a nickel-plated bracelet. An unnecessary precaution, really, which MI-6 normally didn’t take; armed military policemen on motorcycles had escorted him and Donovan to the airfield, and Fleming had little doubt that they’d get much the same reception in America. It seemed to make Donovan feel better, though, so he slipped the handcufflike bracelet around his wrist and snapped it shut before picking up the attaché case and following Donovan off the plane.

A dark brown Ford sedan awaited them on the apron. As Fleming expected, a pair of motorcycles were parked nearby, each mounted by an Army MP. As the driver held open the rear door, Fleming saw that the Ford already had a passenger, a thin, middle-aged man who regarded them from behind wire-frame spectacles.

“General Donovan, Commander Fleming,” he said as they took seats beside him. “Welcome to the U.S. I’m Dr. Vannevar Bush. I hope you had a pleasant flight.”

“It was tolerable.” Donovan didn’t bother to offer a handshake. “Let’s go, driver.” The lieutenant who’d been sent to pick them up slammed the door shut, then climbed behind the wheel. “I take it we’re going straight there.”

“Of course,” Dr. Bush said. “He’s waiting for us.” The Ford pulled away from the plane, following the two motorcycles. “I certainly hope this is as important as you’ve made it out to be, General. He’s not someone who appreciates having his time wasted.”

“I wouldn’t have requested this meeting unless I thought it was.” Donovan gazed straight ahead, hands resting on his knees. “MI-6 considers the document Commander Fleming is carrying to be of the highest importance, and so do I.”

“I didn’t think otherwise. It’s just that . . .”

“Pardon me, Dr. Bush.” In deference to the general, Fleming had remained quiet, but his curiosity finally prompted him to speak up. “Exactly whom are we going to see? Someone in the War Department, I assume.”

“You’ll eventually be attending a meeting at the Pentagon, yes. Probably more than one. But that’s not our first destination.” The slightest of smiles touched Bush’s lips. “The next stop is the White House. The president would like to hear what you have to tell him.”

Ian Fleming said nothing, but he suddenly wished that he’d been a bit more insistent on that drink. Just then, he could have used a pint. Or better, a vodka martini.

=====

The briefing was held in the Cabinet Room, just down the hall from the Oval Office. Two men were already there by the time Bush, Donovan, and Fleming arrived: Cordell Hull, the Secretary of State, and Harry Stimson, the Secretary of War. Everyone had just finished introducing themselves to one another when a door at one end of the room opened and President Franklin D. Roosevelt came in.

Like most people, Fleming was aware that Roosevelt was a polio survivor. Nonetheless he was stunned to see the president seated in a wheelchair being pushed by a Negro butler; the press scrupulously avoided taking photos of Roosevelt that would show him to be a cripple, so few members of the public had seen him this way. And the president looked much older than his pictures suggested: his face had become gaunt, his eyes shadowed, his physique frail. Fleming reminded himself that the president was in his third term and had already shepherded his country through the worst economic depression in its history; no wonder he looked so worn down. Nonetheless, he almost wished that Roosevelt had let his senior cabinet members handle this meeting; the commander in chief should have stayed in bed an hour or two longer.

Yet when the president spoke, his voice was surprisingly strong. “Good morning, gentlemen. I understand you’d like to see me.” He let the butler push his chair to a vacant space midway down the oak conference table that dominated the room. “Thank you, that will be all for now.” The butler nodded and disappeared through the door, closing it behind him, and Roosevelt took a moment to scan the faces of the men who’d just taken seats across the table from him. “I’ve met everyone here before,” he said, then his gaze settled upon Fleming. “Except you. May I ask who you are, sir?”

“Fleming, Mr. President . . . Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming. I’m from His Majesty’s Naval Intelligence, on temporary assignment with Section Six.” At a loss for what else to do, Fleming leaned across the brightly polished table to offer a handshake. Donovan pointedly cleared his throat, and too late Fleming realized that this might have been a
faux pas
, but the president smiled and reached forward to return the handshake. Roosevelt’s hand was like papyrus, his grasp almost weightless, and Fleming’s impressions were confirmed: the president of the United States was seriously ill.

“Pleased to meet you, Commander Fleming.” Roosevelt’s gaze shifted to the thick document resting on the table between them, the one that had been in the attaché case recently manacled to Fleming’s wrist. “So Bill,” he said to General Donovan, “is this what brings you all the way from England?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. President,” General Donovan said, “and it’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. But perhaps I should let Commander Fleming explain how we came by it. After all, it’s MI-6 who should be thanked for finding it and getting it out of Germany.”

Everyone looked at Fleming, and he reflexively sat up a little straighter. At least Donovan had given credit where credit was due, but no one had told him he’d be leading the briefing. Trying to hide his nervousness, he pulled the document toward him. “Yes, well . . . Mr. President, this is a translation of part of a larger report that was discovered last month by two French operatives working under deep cover at a Nazi research facility near the Baltic.”

The copy was bound by brass fasteners and sealed with a paper strip that read
TOP SECRET—EYES ONLY
. The cover sheet bore the report’s Section Six code name:
BLACK UMBRELLA
. Fleming tore off the strip and opened the document to the first page. “We’re uncertain of exactly how the operatives came by this report since both were apparently arrested by the Gestapo shortly after it was passed to the resistance movement in Paris. We’ve verified its authenticity, though, and furthermore believe that it came from the office of a German scientist working at the highest levels of the German Army’s weapons development program.”

“Dr. Wernher von Braun,” General Donovan said. “He’s their leading expert in the field of rocketry. Before the war, he was involved with a civilian effort to build a manned rocket ship . . .”

“A rocket ship.” Roosevelt’s voice was icily skeptical. “I see.”

“. . . until he was conscripted by Nazis to do military research. Very little had been heard from him since then until he emerged as technical director of what my people and Section Six believe to be an effort to build long-range ballistic missiles. Acting on reports that the Germans were apparently conducting rocket research near Peenemünde, on an island off the Baltic coast, MI-6 recruited two French resistance operatives, code-named Silver and Gold, to penetrate the facility and search for information.” A glance at Fleming. “Commander, please continue.”

Fleming picked up the thread. “Until recently, Silver and Gold had given us little to believe that the Nazis were making much headway. According to them, their rockets tended either to blow up, sometimes even before they left the ground, or veer wildly off course and crash in the Baltic. So there wasn’t much to worry about, really. However, beginning late last year, it appeared that the Nazis had taken a new tack and were apparently shifting their focus to develop something other than missiles. It wasn’t until we received this report and translated it”—he tapped a finger against the top page—“that we knew what this was.”

“And that is . . . ?” Harry Stimson asked.

Fleming hesitated, but Donovan didn’t. “Mr. Secretary, the Germans intend to build a manned rocket vehicle capable of attacking the United States.”

No one said anything for a moment. The room was so quiet, Fleming heard an automobile horn blare on Pennsylvania Avenue. “Pardon me?” President Roosevelt said at last. “They mean to build a
what
?”

“Preposterous,” Cordell Hull muttered, his Tennessee accent drawing out each syllable as an indictment of its own.

“I know it seems far-fetched,” Donovan said, “but my science lads have studied the report, and they assure me that it isn’t as absurd as it sounds.” Sliding the report away from Fleming, he turned a couple of pages to a brief preface and pointed to an initial “S” that had been signed to it. “They think this stands for Eugen Sanger, an Austrian physicist who is believed to be working for the Luftwaffe. If that’s so, then this alone gives the report credibility. About ten years ago, Sanger conducted research at the University of Vienna and made major advances in rocket-fuel mixtures. He also published a monograph on space travel in which he proposed a rocket plane much like the one described here. If he’s working for the Nazis, then they have an expert capable of producing a weapon that could pose a major threat to us . . . and by that, I mean the United States itself.”

“I find that hard to believe.” Roosevelt was openly skeptical. “America’s distance from Europe is a sufficient deterrent against attack, I would think.”

“Mr. President,” Fleming replied, “with all due respect, that distance is an illusion.”

The president’s eyes widened at the young British commander’s audacity. Cordell Hull scowled, and from the corner of his eye, Fleming could see Donovan regarding him with irritation. But Fleming had noticed the antiaircraft guns on the roof of the White House and knew how pitiful they would be against the weapon described in the Black Umbrella report.

“Sir, your country has been in this war for only six weeks,” Fleming said. “My country has been under attack from Germany for the last eighteen months. We once thought the Channel would protect us, but it doesn’t anymore. If the Nazis can assault us on a daily basis from the air, then you may rest assured that, if they can find a way to conquer the Atlantic, they will. And if they do, last month’s attack on your naval base in Hawaii will seem like only a preamble.”

While Fleming was speaking, Vannevar Bush quietly pulled the Black Umbrella report over to his side of the table. Hunched over the report, he closely studied it, absorbing details as fast as he could turn the pages. “Commander Fleming is correct, Mr. President,” Donovan said. “I would not be wasting your time if I thought this was anything that shouldn’t be considered with the utmost gravity.”

Roosevelt was quiet for a moment. The skepticism had disappeared from his eyes, replaced with guarded interest. “Very well, then, General. Tell me why you’re so concerned about this . . . rocket plane.”

Donovan knit his hands together on the table. “In brief, what Sanger has proposed . . . and what the Nazis appear to have undertaken . . . is a rocket-propelled vehicle, nearly the size of our largest bombers, that would be launched from somewhere in Germany and ascend to an altitude well above Earth’s atmosphere. It would then proceed to circle the planet in a series of shallow dives, descending and ascending again and again, so that it would skip across the top of the atmosphere like a flat stone tossed across the top of a millpond. It would continue this way, traveling eastward across Europe, Asia, and the Pacific Ocean, until it reached the North American continent. It would then make a terminal dive that would bring it within range of the East Coast, whereupon it would release its weapons . . .”