A thousand suns

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.’

Chapter 58

Ditched

5.27 p.m., EST, several miles off the coast of Rhode Island

The empty fuel tank gave them only five more minutes before the last engine stuttered and died. They were gliding now.

‘Stef… go and strap yourself in, it’s going to be a hard landing.’