A thousand suns

Wallace looked up from his coffee and smiled. ‘Congratulations, so now you know, I might as well give you and your friend the whole tour, then. But not tonight.’

Chris shook his head. ‘No, no way. I want to hear what you’ve got, Wallace. I let you go earlier this evening, and we nearly lost you. I’m not doing that again.’

Wallace smiled. ‘Very touching,’ he said drily. ‘Tomorrow, if you can drive me back to my home, not far from Queens, I’ll tell you it all. I have notebooks, evidence that you could use if you wanted to go public with this. I’ve been waiting a long time to find that old bomber and to know whether they really did manage to build the bomb. So now I finally know for sure… it’s time you and I show the world what we know, eh?’ said Wallace quietly, with a wry smile and a wink. ‘But that’s for tomorrow. Right now, I need to sleep. I think we all should get some sleep.’

Mark nodded. ‘That’s probably good advice. I feel wasted after this evening’s goosing around.’

Chris shrugged. ‘Yeah, sure… okay. Anyway, I need to make some calls tonight. If we’re going down on that wreck again — ’

Wallace placed a hand on Chris’s arm. ‘No calls tonight,’ he said, ‘please. Let’s be careful about that. They can be traced. Right now, I think we’ve safely lost them. Please let’s keep it that way.’

Chris patted his hand reassuringly. ‘Okay, no calls… it’ll wait another night.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s gone two in the morning. Shall we make it an early start tomorrow, then, chaps?’

‘Sounds good,’ Mark replied. ‘The sooner we clear out of here, the better.’

Chris pulled out some bills and left them on the table, while Mark helped the old man up out of his chair. The three of them wandered out into the cool night.

Mark handed them both the motel room keys he’d picked up earlier. ‘Rooms four, five and six. I’m hitting the sack, guys; too much fun for one day. Good night.’

‘Good night, mate,’ Chris replied, slapping him gently on the back. ‘I’ll come knocking at nine.’

Mark waved as he walked tiredly across the neon-lit tarmac forecourt towards the motel rooms, a dozen quaint wooden cabins arranged in a tidy row.

Wallace watched him go. ‘He’s a good friend to you?’

‘The best,’ replied Chris.

‘You trust him with this story?’ the old man asked carefully.

‘With my life, actually. Yeah, I trust him.’

Wallace nodded and smiled. ‘That’s good,’ he said, raising one hand to massage his temple. ‘Please excuse me, I really must rest now.’

‘Sure. I think we lost those spooks. You go and rest up.’

He watched the old man walk wearily towards his cabin. ‘See you tomorrow,’ he called out to him.

Chapter 57

Mission Time: 22 Hours, 12 Minutes Elapsed

5.17 p.m., EST over the outskirts of New York

‘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.