He checked his watch and their airspeed. They had about twelve hours’ flying time to New York ahead of them. They were clear of any fighter threat now, and Pieter deserved a chance to spend some time doing something. It was time to hand over to him, and, in any case, he was suddenly aware of how tired he felt.
‘You can take her for a few hours,’ he said to Pieter. ‘I’m going to try and get some rest, if that’s possible.’
‘You do that, you look like crap,’ said Pieter. ‘We’re going to make it now, aren’t we, Max?’
‘I think we are. There’s nothing left they can throw in our way now.’
It was nothing but deep blue sea all the way to America.
Max unplugged from the comm. and climbed out of the pilot’s seat, suddenly aware of how stiff and drained he felt now that the danger was all behind them, and the adrenaline that had been pounding through his veins since take-off early this morning had finally subsided.
‘I’ll see how Stef is and get a dead reckoning off him before I get some shut-eye.’
‘All right.’
Max ducked through the bulkhead into the bomb bay and ducked again as he passed from the navigation compartment into the waist section. Stef was sprawled on the floor between the gun portholes where he’d left him, but was now covered in a thick grey blanket.
‘I found it in a storage locker,’ said Hans, sitting beside Stef, tucked up into a ball and hugging himself to stay warm.
‘Go sit up front with Pieter if you want,’ he said. It was much warmer in the cockpit, not having any openings to the cold wind outside and bathed in the sunlight streaming in through the cockpit windows.
‘Thanks.’ Hans clambered forward through the bulkhead.
The young man was still sleeping. Spread across Stef’s lap was the map he’d been using since they’d left the airstrip outside Nantes. He’d calculated a dead reckoning and circled it on the map with the time of the estimate. It was only fifteen minutes old.
Good boy.
Max laid the map out flat on the wooden-plank floor and calculated the course to the next waypoint. He then plugged himself into the comm. beside the starboard porthole.
‘Pieter, we’ve drifted north a little, new heading two-fifty-five. ’
‘Two-five-five.’
He looked at the young lad; he was pale, but breathing steadily. He lifted the blanket and studied the pale silk material of the parachute wrapped around the wound. Some more blood had soaked through, but it looked dark and dry. He could see no new blood.
He might yet make it, if they could get him to a doctor over there.
He felt exhaustion creeping up on him.
When I wake up, it’ll be time to ready the bomb.
His hand automatically slid beneath the leather flying jacket and felt anxiously inside his tunic pocket for the envelope Rall had handed him.
Still there.
He slid up beside Stef and pulled the blanket over them both, the heat of his body, for what it was, would help keep the lad warm.
The hardest part of the mission was over. Max realised now how dangerous the decision had been to land the B-17 on the strip. The enemy had nearly overrun those Alpine troops, and the bomb might have fallen into the hands of the Americans. It had all so nearly gone horribly wrong.
He wondered what the Americans would do with such a weapon in their possession. They would study the explosive formula and produce bombs like theirs in the thousands. It was too late in the day for them to drop them on Germany; there was no point. Russia possibly? That seemed probable. He imagined there must be growing fault lines between those two large countries. One capitalist, one communist, such a huge difference there must be in the way both countries, both people would view how the world should be after this war was done. He wondered how long the unlikely alliance between the two would have lasted if Germany had had the resources to hold out for another year.
He wondered what might have happened if they’d never bothered to attack the Russians in the first place.
He found his mind lazily pursuing ‘maybes’ and ‘what ifs’, the recreational pastime of historians and history teachers, as his eyes began to feel heavy and his head light, drifting with surprising ease towards sleep. The drone of the three remaining engines, and the roar and whistle of the wind past the portholes and over the ragged punctures in the fuselage, soon became a surprisingly relaxing lullaby.
Chapter 50
Mark drove them for half an hour up the coast. At some instinctive level it had felt safer to them driving north-east out of town, and further into the New England coastal wilderness, rather than head out south-west back through Connecticut towards New York State. Mark drove them along the interstate, following it as it swung north, hugging the coastline where the Atlantic became Narragansett Bay.
They found a small motel just a few miles east of Kingston, beside an intersection coupled with a neon-lit, twenty-four-seven diner. Mark checked in and got them three rooms, while Chris and Wallace found a table inside the diner and ordered some strong coffee. Chris recognised ‘Counting Crows’ playing in the background. Someone here liked college radio.
When Mark had returned and the waitress had brought them the coffee, Chris turned to study Wallace.
‘Okay, Wallace, it’s show and tell time,’ he said, leaning forward on his elbows. ‘I think you can tell me and Mark here what’s down in that plane, and why it’s so goddamn important that we have a pair of hired killers set loose on us.’
The old man was looking less shaken and upset now as they sat in the diner. Chris hoped it had sunk in that he had been ‘rescued’, not abducted, that he and Mark meant no harm, that in fact they had put themselves at great risk to save him. Wallace was looking more composed, and Chris decided, frail old man or not, he was going to get the story out of Wallace one way or another, right now. And the old guy had better realise that the time for buggering around was over.
‘So? Let’s have it,’ added Chris.
‘Gentlemen,’ Wallace replied, ‘the less you know the better. Those men in that van, they’re after me, not you. It is me that represents a danger to them, or at least, who they work for, not you.’
‘Well, you know what? I don’t think they’re too fussy about taking us guys down alongside you, so I reckon that puts all three of us in the same boat. What do you think?’ Chris replied.
Wallace said nothing.
Chris had a gut instinct that the old man wanted to tell them what he knew, but something was holding him back. ‘Come on, man, both Mark and I are in this up to our balls now. What’s this all about?’
Wallace cleared his throat. ‘I met up with you only to warn you away from this, not to encourage you further. You’re in danger now, young man; you’d be in far greater danger if you knew what I knew.’
‘I think we’re past that point now. Come on, Wallace, what’s in that fucking plane?’
Then a thought struck Chris. ‘Or was there someone aboard that plane? Someone important? A defector perhaps, one of Hitler’s top men?’
Wallace said nothing.
‘Hitler?’
‘The less you know the better,’ replied Wallace.
Chris smacked the table with frustration. ‘Sorry, I don’t buy that shit any more. Those bastards are after all three of us. So just tell me what you know!’
Wallace leaned forward. ‘I have to go take a leak.’
