Alex Scarrow - A thousand suns

If threatening his life isn’t going to work, then there are other alternatives.

‘This conversation ends now, and you will proceed with preparing the bomb for tomorrow morning or I will see to it that your sister and your mother are visited by one of my men.’

Schenkelmann’s family had been found working alongside him in the munitions factory. It had taken very little string-pulling to have all three extricated from the factory and the women held in ‘care’ while Schenkelmann was put to work. With Albert Speer as the Armaments Minister providing the authority for these arrangements, there had been absolutely no red tape to cut through to move these three Jews. Equally, while they were useful to Speer and Hauser they would never be shipped off to an extermination camp, nor casually executed on the street by some over-zealous Gauleiter. With the rubber stamp of Speer, these three people were perhaps the safest Jews in Europe. They had been lucky to find his sister and mother alongside him in the factory, for now Schenkelmann was beginning to care little about his own miserable life; they still had the leverage of his loved ones to play around with.

Hauser smiled, aware that the threat had worked and that this troublesome little man had been silenced.

‘There, I’m glad we have that unpleasantness behind us, Joseph. Let’s finish the job here, shall we?’

Joseph Schenkelmann stared bleakly at the ground, aware that he had been a stupid, weak man for allowing the project to have progressed this far.

What have I done?

He knew his only consideration now should be to think of some way to sabotage this bomb before it was taken away from him and used in whatever way these barbaric animals had planned. He had hoped all along that the unpredictable nature of his bomb’s design would eventually make it a redundant development. He had thought no one would be stupid enough to use a weapon like this, except of course that twisted man, Hauser. He’d known, from the first conversation with the German, that his tunnel vision would let him see nothing but the glory he would bathe in after its successful deployment. The risk of global devastation had been tidied away somewhere in his distorted mind behind some assurance that the risk was grossly exaggerated. Schenkelmann had been holding on to the hope that at some point someone higher up the chain of command would be made aware of the appalling risks of this project and put an end to it immediately. He’d desperately hoped that the meeting with Hitler, the one that Hauser had been dreamily looking forward to for days, would see the project abruptly terminated.

But clearly now that hadn’t been the case. Hitler was as insane as Hauser.

He could perhaps attempt to sabotage the bomb somehow; God knew why he’d left such a decision so late. But he knew he hadn’t the strength of will to carry out such a bold act; it would certainly guarantee the death of all that remained of his family. At least co-operation ensured their continued survival, and if the bomb failed to trigger the infinite chain reaction he so feared, then there was a chance that all three of them would emerge from this nightmare alive.

‘So? Why are you still standing there? You have a lot to do tonight.’

‘Yes, Dr Hauser.’

‘The arming code for the altimeter trigger will need these values set.’ Hauser handed him a manila envelope. ‘The arming code is in there, and I will test the code when I come back later.’

‘Where are you going, Dr Hauser?’

Hauser raised an eyebrow, annoyed at Schenkelmann’s impertinence. ‘I am arranging to have an escort for our little device.’

‘Yes, Dr Hauser.’ Schenkelmann watched the German leave. He looked around: a soldier stood at the top of the stairs leading down into the lab and one of the two technical assistants was working on sealing the uranium casket. The other one was asleep on a cot in the corner of the room. He looked down at the envelope, still open, and shortly due to be sealed.

He saw a possibility.

He tucked the manila envelope under his arm and approached the bomb. He picked up a notepad, clipboard and a pen.

The lab assistant looked up at Schenkelmann. ‘Is everything all right, Mr Schenkelmann?’

‘Fine thank you, Rud, I’m just going to run through my checklist, before you and I finish assembling the altimeter trigger.’

Schenkelmann looked down at the notepad and the pen he held in his left hand. He realised the next words he wrote down would be the most important he’d ever written, or would ever write. With only a minute’s thought, he began to scribble furiously, aware that Hauser might return at any time. This was perhaps the last window of opportunity he had left to try and undo his work.

To the one responsible for arming this weapon…

He wrote swiftly for over a minute and stopped only when he became aware of his assistant looking up curiously. Rud was no Nazi, but he was German. Any suspicious behaviour exhibited by Schenkelmann now would be reported to Hauser. In fact, Hauser had probably asked Rud and Jurgen, the other assistant, to keep an eye on him now that the project was reaching its end.

These few dozen scribbled sentences were all that he had to prevent this insanity progressing to its apocalyptic conclusion. Schenkelmann could only pray that the man who would activate this bomb, whoever he was, was someone capable of thinking beyond an order. And he prayed with all his heart that it wasn’t some simple-minded soldier who would be activating this weapon, that it wasn’t an insane creature like Hauser who would risk the entire world for his own twisted ambition.

He turned his back on the lab assistant and slid the note into the manila envelope, then, turning back to face his assistant, he pulled out a slip of paper with four digits handwritten on it. Dr Hauser’s handwriting.

‘The arming code and arming instructions,’ he announced.

He read the four digits at the top and then slid the paper back inside and sealed the envelope.

‘I will set the code on the altimeter now,’ he said calmly to the assistant.

As he worked, he discreetly wiped away sweat from his brow, beads of fear and despair. If Hauser were to open the envelope and find the note, then death for certain faced Zsophia and Mother.

It is done. As long as the code tests correctly, he will have no need to examine the contents of the envelope.

Joseph Schenkelmann realised his attempt at sabotage was too little and probably too late, and doomed to failure if Hauser should decide to read once more his carefully worded instructions, but at this stage it was all he could think to do.

He completed setting the code on the altimeter, and then together he and his assistant Rud began to prepare the bomb for its journey.

27 April 1945, Washington, DC

He recalled those days vividly: the day that the ultimatum arrived, and then the chaotic days that followed.

James Irlam Wallace had been plucked from obscurity, studying for his post-doctorate in theoretical physics at Stanford, in his own little study. One day, out of the blue, several stern-faced men in plain suits had entered his study and, with little in the way of an explanation, had escorted him to Washington and the offices of the OSS to meet with Bill Donovan, then the head man of the recently restructured wartime intelligence agency.

Bill Donovan had recruited him then and there in the name of national security. And that had put an end to his academic career. From that point on, James Wallace was an intelligence asset.

There had been disturbing intelligence reports from Europe that the Germans, under the technical direction of Professor Werner Heisenberg, were going for the atom bomb. Donovan had explained to Wallace, after he’d signed a clutch of documents that threatened death and damnation should he utter a word of anything that was about to be revealed to anyone, ever, that they had only small pieces of the puzzle coming over as intelligence on the subject. The OSS needed someone with a keen mind, but more importantly a knowledge of the subject, to pull it all together and answer with some confidence whether the Germans had the capacity to make one yet. Donovan had added that Oppenheimer himself had mentioned Wallace’s name as a suitable candidate to analyse and summarise the German atomic effort, in lieu of providing one of his own team, now working at breakneck speed on Trinity, none of whom he could spare.