The Lucy Ghosts

Ch. 40

Hilton Hotel

New Orleans

Louisiana.

'They went to their room early,' said Tucker. 'As soon as the speeches finished.'

Adam and Billie had met him in the corridor outside Trimmler's suite. He had pulled a chair from his room and sat near the scientist's door.

'Bit obvious, isn't it?' commented Adam.

'Listen, wise guy, I was told to watch them. And that's what I'm doing.'

'And what if someone had come down here with a gun?' Adam held up his hand, his forefinger pointed at Tucker's head as one would a gun, and clicked his thumb. 'Bang. You should know better.'

'Why? I'm just a fucking clerk.' The other two joined in the laughter with Tucker. 'So what should I do?'

'Keep out of sight. If they don't think you're there, then they won't expect you.'

Tucker stood up. 'Well, it's your watch now.'

Adam turned to Billie. 'I'll take it.' He could see she was tired, that the evening's events had exhausted her.

'You were on watch all last night,' she replied.

'I can handle it. Bed.'

'Thanks. Goodnight, tough guy.'

'Goodnight. And thanks for the help.'

'What help?'

'With the snake. I owe you.'

Tucker picked up his chair as Billie went to her room. 'What snake?'

'Nothing. Just a joke.'

'You two obviously enjoyed yourselves.'

'New Orleans. What a town!'

'That's it. Some chance I got of seeing New Orleans. Goodnight, Adam.'

'Goodnight, Phil.'

Adam watched Tucker let himself into his room dragging his chair behind him. He decided on the same watching place he had used the night before.

Trimmler came out an hour later, first opening his suite door carefully and checking there was no-one outside. Satisfied he was on his own, he set off for the fire stairs.

Adam slipped out of the closet and followed at a distance and saw him go through the fire escape doors. Adam listened until he heard a door close below him. He descended the stairs quickly and came out three floors lower, just in time to see Trimmler disappear down the corridor.

He already knew where he was going. Room 1589. Adam had already checked the grey haired man’s registration.

Inside the two men embraced once again.

'My dearest Albert.'

'My dearest Heinrich.

'Schnapps,' said Goodenache, holding out two glasses.

The two men drank together.

'A day I sometimes thought would never come,' said Trimmler.

'I never doubted,' replied Goodenache.

They talked for a while of their families, of old friends. Goodenache had never married, his work and the dream of a return to Germany had been his only preoccupation. He explained how he had been found by a Russian platoon who had an English speaking political commissar with them. He had told them he was a rocket scientist, just as Mitzer had instructed. Realising the importance of his discovery, the commissar commandeered a doctor from another unit to fix Goodenache's smashed knee. It had been a field medical unit and they had operated with the most rudimentary instruments. After that he had been taken back to Moscow and ridden on trains where he shared his compartment with wounded soldiers, German prisoners and even a sheep. Once in Moscow, the War was finally won, and he had joined other captured German scientists and worked with them on rebuilding V2 rockets. It was an ironic situation, but one in which they had little choice. Their living quarters were sparse, their food simple, but they had the best Russia could offer. Not much by western standards, but enough for scientists who were hiding the shame of the war in the efforts of their work.

'How did you get up there before us?' asked Trimmler.

'Surprising, wasn't it? Sputnik, eh.' Albert laughed. 'There was Werner telling the world the Americans would be the first into space, you know, with that smug little smile he has, and we decided we would beat him. While he talked, we worked. And we had nothing to work with. Only our hands, our hearts and our ingenuity.’ He tapped his forehead as he spoke. ‘It was just like the end of the War, when Berlin gave us nothing.'

'Berlin had nothing left to give.'

'Neither did the Soviets. But when we heard about Project Vanguard we thought you would beat us. What with your WAC Corporal and Viking rockets, you had such an advantage.'

'Damn thing. We used a Redstone rocket, an advanced V2. Werner jumped the gun when he announced we were ready for space. Just like when everybody promised Hitler we'd be ready. The press, the television, film cameras, all the world is on our doorstep waiting for it to happen, and you go and put Sputnik into space.'

Goodenache laughed mischievously. 'We knew you weren't ready. Your rockets weren't up to seven miles per second. They weren't reliable enough. Ours were only if the satellite weighed under one hundred kilos. But it was a Russian who led the project. A quiet man. Not like Werner and his publicity machine. Sergei Korolev. He fought for us, for every little thing that we needed. We got into space in spite of the Kremlin and all those aparatchiks who thought we were wasting our time. And their money.'

'I cursed you when they told me of Sputnik. Then you put that little dog…' Trimmler paused, trying to recollect.

'Laika. Sweet little animal.'

'Barbarians. That's what the western media called you. To stick a little dog like that into space and then leave it to die.'

'Ahh! Your people would have put up a pedigree dog and spent millions to bring it home again. So different to the war, eh? We didn't need to mess around with animals, not when we had people.'

'I swore even more in '61, when Gagarin went up.'

Goodenache continued to chuckle.

'But we passed you when we got to the moon.' Trimmler finally scored a point.

'We had to let you win something,' Goodenache shrugged it off. He reached over for the bottle and offered it to his friend who held out his glass.

'It should have been for the Fatherland,' Goodenache said.

'It was for the Fatherland. And they never knew. They never understood why one side never went too far ahead of the other. But now it can be for Germany.'

'It's too late. We're old. Yesterday's men.'

'We have knowledge.'

'All kids these days have that. Our knowledge is what they learn in their elementary school books. The young ones, like we once were, they're the ones who will break new horizons. Most of us were only twenty when we were at Peenemünde.'

'Germany will need us. That's why it is being cleared for us to go home.'

'No more. They say they don’t need us now.'

'Then why have we waited all these years? To get those bloody records off our files so that we could go home without the shame of being called Nazis. Damn it. Once we were proud of being called Nazis. And now, because they've re-written history, we're ashamed of what it was that made us great.'

'You were wrong to go to Cannes,’ admonished Goodenache.

'We always go. Every year. Kushmann and Grob were also there.'

'But it made the Americans watch you.'

'Damn it, the assassin aimed his gun at me. Pulled the trigger. It was me he was after.'

'Are you sure?'

'Of course. If it hadn't jammed, I wouldn't be here now.'

'Why should someone want to kill you?'

'I don't know. Ach! Maybe, it is just my imagination. Maybe he just wanted to rob us. And then it all went wrong.'

'It doesn't matter now. With Willi gone, they don't want us any more.'

'Who says?'

'Frick.'

'What about Grob?'

'He was the one who told me.'

'But he's one of us.'