A thousand suns

He reached down to the locking bar and carefully rotated each of the number wheels to arrange the six numbers in a line. With the last digit set, the locking bar clicked, and Max lifted it away from the altimeter display.

He glanced back at the paper. The bomb was to detonate 1000 feet above the ground. He wondered why it would be set to explode at such a height. Perhaps the scientists who’d put this weapon together had become paranoid that it might land with a thud on the rooftop of some Manhattan skyscraper and remain there, unexploded indefinitely, undiscovered amongst the rooftop detritus of pipes and boilers.

The altimeter had a similar display of five number wheels. He read the instructions one more time before turning the wheels carefully until they displayed: 01000.

One thousand feet.

The last act now was to press a button to the right of the five number wheels, a single blue button. Pressing this would engage the air pressure sensor in the altimeter. Once this was engaged, if the air pressure around the bomb increased to an amount equivalent to that found 1000 feet above sea level, the bomb would detonate. Max would press the blue button, only at the last moment before the bomb was to be released. There would be all manner of localised fluctuations of pressure around the bomb when the bay doors were opened; so they would be opened first, and only then could the bomb be activated safely.

He pulled back from the small device slung within its metal cradle, relieved that the process of preparing it had been simple and straightforward. He folded the paper up, pulled the envelope from his pocket. It was as he was about to place the code back in the envelope, that he noticed another folded sheet of paper nestling inside.

A note from Rall wishing good luck, perhaps? A note even from the Fuhrer, maybe?

Perhaps…

He reached in with his ungloved hand, pulled it out and unfolded it. It was the kind of paper you would see in an exercise book or on a writing pad, not the sort of stationery you would expect the Fuhrer to write on. He unfolded it to find a paragraph of handwriting, oblique, spidery strokes. It was the writing of a man in a hurry. To the one responsible for arming this weapon, This is a confession from the man who has built this bomb. This device uses a new energy called atomic energy. We are using a new science that is attempting to harness the energy that holds the very atoms of this world together. The weapon I have made will unleash this energy in a way that cannot be predicted. It has either the potential to destroy a whole city, or, if God has no mercy for us at all, the whole world. We have taken a dangerous shortcut with this new science to deploy this weapon ahead of the Americans. There is an even chance that this bomb will destroy most of this world, perhaps all of it. The risk of this happening is too great. I implore you, whoever you are, to understand the terrible gamble you are about to take in arming and dropping this bomb. Think for a moment, what good is there in winning your war if there is no one left alive to inherit the ashes of victory?

Max stared in silence at the note, his mind momentarily locked in confusion. His first fleeting instinct was to suspect the note to be a poor attempt to sabotage the mission. Some disgruntled technician, perhaps even an anti-Nazi? God knows, there were very few Germans left who would proudly announce allegiance to the swastika. It was a person who had hoped that the note might bring an end to this endeavour. Misinformation like this at a crucial moment in time could just be enough to throw someone off their guard long enough that it might make a difference. That was most probably what this was. There had been plots before against Hitler, many in fact, and Max, not a Nazi, never a supporter of the National Socialists, might so easily have been one of those unfortunate men who had been sucked into any one of those conspiracies, if he had been approached.

It was possible, Max deliberated, that this might even be the handiwork of one of those in the highest echelons of power… Himmler, Goring, Goebbels? Perhaps an act of sabotage to buy themselves clemency from the enemy after this war was over.

He looked down at the note once more.

But we’re dropping this bomb for Germany, not Hitler.

That was why Max had agreed to carry out the mission. Not for that insane bastard who had brought this insanity down on all of them.

I volunteered for those of us poor wretches who are left, not the bastard who put us here.