Alex Scarrow - A thousand suns

‘Max?’

He held out the piece of paper towards Hans; he said nothing as he did so.

‘What is it?’

Max stood up and took a step towards him, the piece of paper still held in front of him. ‘Look at this.’

Hans reached for the paper and began to read the handwritten words.

To the one responsible for arming this weapon…

It took the young man only seconds to dismiss it. He looked up at Max. ‘What the fuck is this?’

‘Read it. Read it all.’

Hans obediently looked back down at it, and Max waited patiently for Hans to finish. Finally, the young man looked up. ‘So?’

‘We can’t go ahead with this.’

Hans looked up at him, confused. ‘What’re you saying, Max?’

‘We can’t complete this mission. It’s insane to go on, knowing this — ’

‘Max?’

‘Can’t you see that? It’s insane to do this if there’s even the slightest chance.’

‘We have orders, not just from some fucking general, but from Hitler himself!’ Hans waved the sheet of notepaper in front of him. ‘This… this shit means nothing. Any fool could have written this.’

‘Hans, listen to me. I don’t know who wrote this, someone who worked on the bomb maybe, but the Major, just before we took off, I think he was trying to tell me that we shouldn’t complete this mission.’

‘What?’ Hans’s face was contorted with uncertainty and panic. ‘This is his plan! No, not the Major. He… he… why would he want to sabotage it? No, you’re wrong, Max, he wouldn’t — ’

‘He was trying to tell me, Hans. He had only a few seconds to — ’

‘No! No, that’s just fucking crazy.’

Max realised he was making a mistake trying to argue with Hans, justifying his thinking. The young man would respond to an order, he always had, and would do so now. The habit was ingrained into his thick skull.

Max straightened his back and pointed towards the bulkhead. ‘Get back to your post. We’re aborting the mission, Hans, that’s all there is to it.’

Hans remained silent, his body frozen with indecision, yet his eyes darting from Max to the note to the bomb, his mind now working hard to make sense of things.

‘No… I don’t underst-’

‘Back to the waist-guns. That’s an order!’

Hans recoiled slightly, and his mouth clamped shut; it was an automatic response to Max’s barked command. He turned to go, beginning to step aft through the bulkhead, and then he stopped.

‘No,’ he said after a moment, with a quiet and unfamiliar certainty.

Max deliberately ignored the young man’s whispered insubordination and began to turn round to climb forward through the bulkhead and into the cockpit.

Hans leaped forward suddenly, moving with a speed and agility that Max would never have imagined him to possess. He tugged Max’s Walther from its holster. He held it in both hands and aimed it uncertainly and shakily at Max’s head.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? Give me the gun!’ shouted Max.

Hans shook his head.

‘Give me the gun, Hans, I’m ordering you.’

‘I… I can’t do that.’

‘Listen… we can’t detonate this bomb, Hans. It’s not going to happen — ’

‘SHUT UP!’ Hans shouted, jerking the gun at Max’s face. He called out to Pieter at the top of his voice, but there was no answer. ‘PIETER!’ His voice sounded like a child’s plea, breaking with panic.

‘What? You think Pieter’s going to agree with you, Hans?’ said Max.

Hans remained motionless, the gun shaking in his hand, his eyes darting to the bulkhead leading forward, waiting for Pieter to arrive.

Max decided to try a different way to get through to the lad. ‘Look, give me the damned gun now, Hans, and I’ll forget about this. I know you, you’re a good lad and this — ’

They heard Pieter calling back through from the cockpit several times, and a few moments later, realising that Hans must not be plugged into the comm. system, Pieter appeared at the bulkhead.

‘What’s the matter?’ He saw Hans pointing the gun at Max. ‘Jesus Christ, what the bloody hell are you doing, Hans?’

‘He was going to abort the mission, Pieter. He doesn’t want to finish it!’

Pieter looked incredulously at Hans. He didn’t look like he was buying that for one moment. ‘Max, what’s up with this fucking idiot?’

Max turned to him and calmly spoke. ‘He’s right. We’ve got to abort.’

Pieter frowned, confused. ‘Why? What’s up? We’re there, we’ve done it.’

‘Give him the note, Hans. Let Pieter make up his own mind.’

For one moment Max thought Hans was going to rip the note to shreds. But the young man remained still, reluctant to pass it on, holding the crumpled sheet of paper tightly in his hands.

‘Give it to me, you idiot! We haven’t got all day,’ said Pieter irritably.

Hans passed the note to Max, keeping the Walther trained on him all the time. Max handed it to Pieter then watched as his co-pilot silently read it.

A minute later Pieter looked up at them with no clear indication on his face as to what he was thinking.

‘Pieter?’ Hans spoke; there was a note of growing doubt and desperation in his deep voice. He needed Pieter to reassure him that his solo act of mutiny had been the right thing to do, that he wasn’t alone in this action.

Pieter passed the note back to Max. ‘We should continue, Max. This could be a trick, an attempt to sabotage the mission,’ he said evenly.

‘I know, I know. I thought the same at first, Pieter. But there’s more — ’

Pieter shook his head. ‘We’re nearly there, Max, we’ve done it. This is just a trick.’

‘Listen to me. The Major tried to tell me about the bomb, Pieter, on the ground just before we took off.’

‘Major Rall? You think he would want to abort?’

‘Yes. I think he did. And I think he was trying to tell me that.’

Pieter frowned, then laughed, unsure how to respond to such an absurd notion. ‘It’s his fucking mission, he planned it, why would he want to abort it?’

‘He knows, Pieter! He knows this bomb could kill us all! And he was trying to tell me.’

Pieter was silent for a moment, his face clouded as he recalled those final moments on the airstrip. ‘He did act strange. I heard him too.’

Hans looked indecisively between the two older men. It looked to him as if Pieter now might be having doubts. Hans began to lower the gun to the ground, doubting his decision, his resolve beginning to waver.

Max spotted the weapon drop and decided the time had come to try and wrestle subordination back from Hans. ‘Hans, give me the gun, and go and see to Stefan.’

Hans hesitated for only a second before nodding mutely and reaching out to pass Max the weapon.

‘Even if this is true, Max,’ Pieter suddenly announced, ‘we have to go on.’

Max spun to look back at Pieter. ‘What? Are you crazy?’

‘So… there’s a risk. What do we lose anyway? The Russians will kill us all if we do nothing. We have to go on.’

Hans looked to Pieter once more, backing away from Max’s waiting hand, pulling the gun back and aiming it once more at his commanding officer.

‘Give me the bloody gun, Hans,’ Max said again, his command sharper.

Hans looked to Pieter, ‘Piet? What do I do?’

‘Lower the fucking gun, you fool,’ Pieter barked at Hans, angered that the young gunner should so readily turn on Max, their friend, their leader. He turned to Max. ‘Max, we’ve got to finish this,’ he pleaded.

Max turned to look at him. ‘If we go ahead and drop this bomb,’ he continued, ‘and it does, as this notes says, destroy the world, then it’s all gone, everything, everyone, just ashes. What kind of a victory is that?’