Alex Scarrow - A thousand suns

Max turned to the lad.

Clever boy, you’ve done the maths.

‘Yes, Stef, the extra fuel tanks give us the range we need to get there and a little more, but not enough to come home. After we’ve done our job, we’ll attempt to land, or bail out over there.’

Pieter snorted. ‘They’ll bloody well skin us.’

‘If it all goes to plan, by the time we bail out or land, the Americans will be our allies.’

‘And what if we say no?’ asked Pieter.

Max shrugged. ‘The Major says we can go.’

‘And the Russians carry on with what they’re doing,’ added Stefan.

On that point they all looked at Max. He nodded slowly. ‘Yes.’

All four men were fully aware of the savage revenge the advancing Red Army was exacting from their German foes. It was common knowledge that they were not taking prisoners. Rumours had spread of many atrocities that had occurred to straggling German forces, even the liberated civilians left in their wake. And now they were on German soil and hungrily advancing across the country, surrounding Berlin and spreading west and southwards. They knew Germany was to be obliterated and most of its people massacred, and when the war ended, the Russians would surely demand access to what was left of the Fatherland under Allied control to complete their bloody act.

‘Fuck it, I say we do it. We’ve been running from the enemy for too bloody long,’ Pieter said, the shadows of doubt banished from his mind.

Max looked towards the other two.

Hans stopped tapping his mug and looked up at Pieter and Max, still unsure.

‘Come on, Hans, let’s stick it to them,’ growled Pieter.

‘Yeah, okay,’ said Hans, looking to Pieter.

All three men turned to face Stefan.

‘How about you?’ asked Max.

The young man looked awkward under the gaze of his older colleagues. ‘I’ve got family near Sprenberg… three sisters.’ Stefan looked at Max with eyes reddened from fatigue. He didn’t need to add any more to that, the men knew what fate awaited them when the Russian army arrived.

‘I say yes, too,’ Stefan added quietly.

Pieter reached out and punched the lad’s shoulder. ‘That’s the spirit, boy.’

The men looked to Max for the deciding vote. ‘And so, Max, what about you?’ asked Pieter.

Max stubbed his cigarette out and drained his now cold coffee.

The men are waiting for you to say yes.

The plan was a good one. It could work, it really could. They had the element of surprise, and the American B-17 was the perfect conceit, the air was full of them. Crossing France would be the dangerous part of the mission. Beyond France, across the Atlantic, they would be home and dry. New York had no air defences, she had never needed to have any.

It could be done.

Manhattan Island was the target. Max knew very little about the city of New York, but Major Rall had informed him that the island was the commercial heart of the city, and it would be a Sunday morning when they arrived with the bomb. Civilian casualties would be minimised.

But, there would still be several thousand people who would inevitably die.

Rall had not discussed the bomb in detail, only that it was a new ‘explosive formula’ one thousand times more destructive than that being used currently by the American bombers. This one bomb would do as much damage as the combined payload of fifty of their B-17s.

Imagine, Max, it will seem to them as if we have the power to conjure four squadrons of heavy bombers out of thin air, anywhere we want.

He could see how frightening a thought that might be to the Americans, safe these last four years, on the other side of an ocean. It could possibly be enough to convince them to step in and save what was left of Germany from the Russians, if for no other reason than to prevent the communists from getting their hands on this magical, powerful formula.

And there is the key, Max: mutual distrust between the Americans and the British on the one hand, and the Russians on the other.

It really could work. And if it did, there were many, many more German lives that would be saved by this than would be lost on a Sunday, on Manhattan Island.

There’s a simple arithmetic at work here, Max. One or two thousand of them for God knows how many of us at the hands of the Russians. When they’ve taken Berlin, do you think their revenge will stop there?

Rall’s faultless argument had boiled down to simple arithmetic. A few thousand American lives, to save millions of German lives. And on that basis, Max could see that they had to give this thing a go. There was no choice. But he was drawn back to the haunting image of total destruction that was Stalingrad.

‘This really is to end the war?’ he had asked the Major.

Rall had nodded. ‘God help us if it doesn’t. With such a bomb as you will be dropping, it would be insane for any further war after this to happen.’

Pieter, Hans and Stef were waiting for an answer. He knew they were all hoping for the same answer. He owed them at least that.

‘All right, I will tell the Major we will do it,’ said Max.

Major Rall looked up at the sound of rapping on his door. ‘Enter,’ he called loudly. Max walked in and saluted smartly.

‘Oberleutnant Kleinmann, you have a decision for me?’

Max nodded. ‘My men and I will undertake the mission, Major.’

Rall smiled. ‘I was beginning to think you and your men had eloped after enjoying my coffee and cigarettes. Thank you, Kleinmann. I will have you and your crew properly billeted here in the bunker and supplies arranged shortly. You’ll be pleased to know I can lay my hands on some more of that South American coffee, but first I have some calls to make. Please excuse me.’

Rall nodded as Max clicked his heels and departed. He picked up the phone on his desk and dialled a number he had been reciting in his head over and over for the last hour. The telephone rang once and was picked up.

‘Yes… Heil Hitler. This is Major Rall. Please inform him that the operation is ready to proceed.’

Rall placed the phone back in its cradle and listened to the faint rumble of the raid over Stuttgart, twenty miles north. His meticulously laid plans were now starting to roll forward; after so many months of organisation, fighting for a rapidly dwindling pool of resources, it was finally beginning to happen. Now that they had managed to pull in a suitable crew, the American bomber was fitted with enough additional fuel tanks to achieve the range they needed, and the weapon itself was approaching final assembly, it was time to activate the last component of the plan. He looked at his watch; it was 11.54 p.m. on the 11th of April. In little more than two weeks this would all be over.

‘My God, it’s actually going to happen,’ he said aloud.

He looked at the phone, another call was necessary. It was time to track down the one remaining U-boat that was big enough for the job and still operational somewhere in the North Sea.

5 a.m., 12 April 1945, North Sea, fifty miles off the coast of Norway

Captain Lundstrom checked the chronometer — it was 0500 hours. He banged his fist angrily against the bulkhead. They should have been on the surface making the most of the darkness to recharge the boat’s flagging batteries, not skulking beneath the water; a stupid waste of the night hours.

‘Shit,’ he muttered to himself.

Time was running out for them. They needed to have at least another three hours on the surface running under diesel to give them enough charge on the batteries. Three hours’ charge would carry them through the next day underwater using as little power as possible, and then they could run the next night on the surface to get the batteries fully charged up.