Alex Scarrow - A thousand suns

No possible way, unless they’d discovered another form of isotope?

Unlikely.

At five o’clock only one possible thing could happen. The bomber would drop a device that would fail to detonate.

But there was a remote chance… Wallace noticed his mouth drying and the slightest tremble coming and going. There’s a chance.

He allowed himself to indulge the improbable notion for a moment, that on this day the world would end with a bang. He wondered how fast this theoretical chain reaction would travel if it happened. If the bomb were to be dropped on them here in Washington, it would presumably be an instant death. But if it were dropped on New York, he wondered what vision they would behold as the explosive ripple of separating atoms approached them here, 300 miles away. A wall of brilliant light sweeping across the world, the light of a thousand suns bearing down on them, consuming all matter in front of it, and leaving behind it only superheated sub-atomic fragments?

‘One minute,’ Truman announced drily. Then, all of a sudden, the call connection came through. ‘Gentlemen,’ Truman continued, ‘I’ve got the company commander of the Times Square anti-aircraft battery on the phone.’

They heard an indistinct noise over the speaker-phone on the table in front of Truman, a hiss and a warble, the rumble of wind and of distant traffic and the muffled sound of a voice.

‘Is this Captain Delaware?’ Truman asked, speaking loudly into the mouthpiece.

‘Captain Eugene Delaware,’ they heard someone answer equally loudly. ‘Who’s this?’

‘This is President Truman.’

The captain laughed, ‘Steve, you trying that shit on me again? I told you this kind of crap don’t — ’

‘Captain Delaware, this is your President, and I don’t have the time nor am I in the mood to play games with you, son.’

The President had struck the right tone.

‘Uh?’ Delaware responded. The noise over the speaker was suddenly muted, as if a hand had been placed over the mouthpiece and they heard the frantic exchange of muffled voices.

‘Captain Delaware, I was directed to this line via Colonel Smithson. When we’re done here you can check on that,’ added Truman impatiently.

The noise of wind and distant traffic returned as, presumably, the young captain had removed his hand. ‘Mr President… I’m really s-sorry, sir.’

‘Don’t worry about it, son. Listen now. We have had a report that one of our B-17 bomber planes is inbound to New York.’ Truman looked up at General Arnold, who nodded. ‘It’s carrying an important guest.. but, we think it may be in some trouble.’

‘Yes, sir. A B-17, sir.’

‘We think it should be arriving any time soon. I want you to stay on the line with me, Captain, and let me know what you can see or hear. You got that?’

‘Y-yes, sir. I got that, sir.’

The conference room was utterly silent as all of them strained to listen to the confusion of noises coming from the small table-top speaker. Wallace wondered if New York was the target, whether they would actually be able to hear the distant drone of the flying fortress’s engines moments before this bomb was to be dropped.

Truman broke the silence. ‘So, is there anything in the skies, son? Anything you can see or hear?’

‘It’s very noisy, sir. A lot of noise up here. I’m just looking around. There’s patchy cloud cover, sir. Broken clouds, so anything approaching could be hidden from us until it’s quite close.’

‘Just keep looking, Captain, and stay with us,’ said Truman.

The President looked down at his watch. ‘By my timepiece, we have under a minute left, gentlemen. In case I’m not around to say so… thank you for attending these last two days.’ Almost as an afterthought, Truman added: ‘God bless America.’

Wallace smiled at the President’s words, and he found himself marvelling at Truman’s composure. The man must be as nervous as him, probably much more so, given that he had no understanding of the science that confidently assured Wallace that this day would not be their last. Only Wallace and Frewer could see the numbers that made this bomb a nonsense. Their eyes met across the conference room and Frewer shook his head in a relaxed manner and smiled to reassure Wallace.

Nothing’s going to happen, kid.

Even so, Wallace couldn’t help but feel the cold draught of fate rushing towards them all.

The second hand on the wall clock passed by the nine and now pulled upwards towards the twelve in a languid arc.

Mission Time: 22 Hours, 5 Minutes Elapsed

5.10 p.m., EST, approaching New York

Pieter saw the continent ahead of them at first as a series of indistinct smudges, appearing fleetingly behind the thick bank of clouds on the horizon. It seemed like America was having a dull, wet day as well as Europe. The smudges eventually merged into a solid dark mass of land on the horizon as he brought the plane down to 3000 feet.

‘Hans, I can see America!’ he shouted excitedly into his mask.

There was a moment before Hans replied as he scrambled to look out of one of the portholes to confirm the sighting. ‘My God, we made it!’

The low cloud had shrouded the coastline, hiding it from them until the last moment, and now he could see it approaching swiftly. Below, he could see several ships heading out to sea, leaving behind them long wakes that pointed like pale fingers north-west towards New York.

‘We’ve come too far south. I’m going to bring us up to two-ninety,’ he said, thinking aloud. ‘How’s Stef?’

‘Still out cold. He doesn’t look too good.’

Poor lad.

It would have been good to have his help finding their way to New York, but it was clear from the traffic on the sea they weren’t too far off. Pieter smiled to himself. He just had to follow the ships; that was all he’d need to guide them in now. He checked their fuel. It was low, uncomfortably so. He estimated there was enough left for maybe another twenty minutes’ flying time. That was enough. Fifteen minutes or so to find New York, and five minutes to get some distance from it after they had dropped the bomb. If they couldn’t find anywhere suitable to land, they could bail out. Stef might be a problem if they had to do that, especially if he couldn’t be roused. In that case they’d just have to push him out, pull the cord and hope for the best.

And what about Max?

He suspected Hans would be happy enough to leave him aboard to go down with the plane. His snarling decision that Max was a traitor had sounded final. His own feelings were a little less certain. Max was no traitor, that much was for sure, but that strange note had clearly shaken him. He suspected that there was more to his odd behaviour than just that. Pieter had seen officers break down before, men that could seemingly endure an infinite amount of battlefield stress, and yet who suddenly seemed to suffer total emotional collapse. Several squadron leaders from KG-301 had suffered that fate, but for some reason he’d thought Max would never crumble like that. He wasn’t a traitor, and nor did he deserve to die. If it came to bailing, he’d make sure they all got out. Once they’d dropped the bomb, one way or another, this rift between them would no longer have any relevance.

The note?

The bloody thing had to be an attempt at sabotage, or a last-minute change of heart by some paranoid technician working on the project. But he wondered, for a moment, if the damn thing was for real, would that change anything?

Of course not.

If there really was a risk involved in dropping this bomb, a risk that the entire world could be incinerated, then it was the world’s fault for cornering them like this. The Russians were going to obliterate Germany anyway — better to bring them all down with them than for the Fatherland to die alone.