Had only three men gone out, or five, or any number not corresponding to the photographs, alarms would have been triggered.
They walked in silence down the long, starched-white corridor, the Berliner in front with the scientist who sat between the other two at the table, and was obviously the spokesman; his companions were behind.
They reached a bank of elevators and once more went through the ritual of the red tags, the grey plate and the tiny white light that went on for precisely two seconds. Below the plate a number was also lighted.
Six.
From elevator number six there was the sound of a single muted bell as the thick steel panel slid open. One by one each man walked inside.
The elevator descended eight stories, four below the surface of the earth, to the deepest levels of Peenemünde. As the four men emerged into yet another white corridor, they were met by a tall man in tight-fitting green coveralls, an outsized holster in his wide brown belt. The holster held a Lüger Sternlicht, a specially designed arm pistol with a telescopic sight. As the man’s visor cap indicated, such weapons were made for the Gestapo.
The Gestapo officer obviously recognized the three scientists. He smiled perfunctorily and turned his attention to the man in the pinstriped suit. He held out his hand, motioning the Berliner to remove the red badge.
The Berliner did so. The Gestapo man took it, walked over to a telephone on the corridor wall and pushed a combination of buttons. He spoke the Berliner’s name and waited, perhaps ten seconds.
He replaced the phone and crossed back to the man in the pinstriped suit. Gone was the arrogance he had displayed moments ago.
«I apologize for the delay, Herr Strasser. I should have realized…» He gave the Berliner his badge.
«No need for apologies, Herr Oberleutnant. They would be necessary only if you overlooked your duties.»
«Danke,» said the Gestapo man, gesturing the four men beyond his point of security.
They proceeded toward a set of double doors; clicks could be heard as locks were released. Small white bulbs were lighted above the moldings; again photographs were taken of those going through the double doors.
They turned right into a bisecting corridor—this one not white, but instead, brownish black; so dark that Strasser’s eyes took several seconds to adjust from the pristine brightness of the main halls to the sudden night quality of the passageway. Tiny ceiling lights gave what illumination there was.
«You’ve not been here before,» said the scientist-spokesman to the Berliner. «This hallway was designed by an optics engineer. It supposedly prepares the eyes for the high-intensity microscope lights. Most of us think it was a waste.»
There was a steel door at the end of the long, dark tunnel. Strasser reached for his red metal insignia automatically; the scientist shook his head and spoke with a slight wave of his hand.
«Insufficient light for photographs. The guard inside has been alerted.»
The door opened and the four men entered a large laboratory. Along the right wall was a row of stools, each in front of a powerful microscope, all the microscopes equidistant from one another on top of a built-in workbench. Behind each microscope was a high-intensity light, projected and shaded on a goose-necked stem coming out of the immaculate white surface. The left wall was a variation of the right. There were no stools, however, and fewer microscopes. The work shelf was higher; it was obviously used for conferences, where many pairs of eyes peered through the same sets of lenses; stools would only interfere, men stood as they conferred over magnified particles.
At the far end of the room was another door; not an entrance. A vault. A seven-foot-high, four-foot-wide, heavy steel vault. It was black; the two levers and the combination wheel were in glistening silver.
The spokesman-scientist approached it.
«We have fifteen minutes before the timer seals the panel and the drawers. I’ve requested closure for a week. I’ll need your counterauthorization, of course.»
«And you’re sure I’ll give it, aren’t you?»
«I am.» The scientist spun the wheel right and left for the desired locations. «The numbers change automatically every twenty-four hours,» he said as he held the wheel steady at its final mark and reached for the silver levers. He pulled the top one down to the accompaniment of a barely audible whirring sound, and seconds later, pulled the lower one up.
The whirring stopped, metallic clicks could be heard and the scientist pulled open the thick steel door. He turned to Strasser. «These are the tools for Peenemünde. See for yourself.»
Strasser approached the vault. Inside were five rows of removable glass trays, top to bottom; each row had a total of one hundred trays, five hundred in all.
The trays that were empty were marked with a white strip across the facing glass, the word Auffüllen printed clearly.
The trays that were full were so designated by strips of black across their fronts.
There were four and a half rows of white trays. Empty.
Strasser looked closely, pulled open several trays, shut them and stared at the Peenemünde scientist.
«This is the sole repository?» he asked quietly.
«It is. We have six thousand casings completed; God knows how many will go in experimentation. Estimate for yourself how much further we can proceed.»
Strasser held the scientist’s eyes with his own. «Do you realize what you’re saying?»
«I do. We’ll deliver only a fraction of the required schedules. Nowhere near enough. Peenemünde is a disaster.»
SEPTEMBER 9, 1943, THE NORTH SEA
The fleet of B-17 bombers had aborted the primary target of Essen due to cloud cover. The squadron commander, over the objections of his fellow pilots, ordered the secondary mission into operation: the shipyards north of Bremerhaven. No one liked the Bremerhaven run; Messerschmitt and Stuka interceptor wings were devastating. They were called the Luftwaffe suicide squads, maniacal young Nazis who might as easily collide with enemy aircraft as fire at them. Not necessarily due to outrageous bravery; often it was merely inexperience or worse: poor training.
Bremerhaven-north was a terrible secondary. When it was a primary objective, the Eighth Air Force fighter escorts took the sting out of the run; they were not there when Bremerhaven was a secondary.
The squadron commander, however, was a hardnose. Worse, he was West Point; the secondary would not only be hit, it would be hit at an altitude that guaranteed maximum accuracy. He did not tolerate the very vocal criticism of his second-in-command aboard the flanking aircraft, who made it clear that such an altitude was barely logical with fighter escorts; without them, considering the heavy ack-ack fire, it was ridiculous. The squadron commander had replied with a terse recital of the new navigational headings and termination of radio contact.
Once they were into the Bremerhaven corridors, the German interceptors came from all points; the antiaircraft guns were murderous. And the squadron commander took his lead plane directly down into maximum-accuracy altitude and was blown out of the sky.
The second-in-command valued life and the price of aircraft more than his West Point superior. He ordered the squadron to scramble altitudes, telling his bombardiers to unload on anything below but for-God’s-sake-release-the-goddamn-weight so all planes could reach their maximum heights and reduce antiaircraft and interceptor fire.
In several instances it was too late. One bomber caught fire and went into a spin; only three chutes emerged from it. Two aircraft were riddled so badly both planes began immediate descents. Pilots and crew bailed out. Most of them.