D. MacHale - The Never War

“So? Are you going to tell us?” I asked.

“What was it that letter said, Pendragon?” Gunny asked me. “You know, the one with the Nazi symbol on it.”

I thought back to the letter from Ludwig Zell to Max Rose that I had committed to memory. “It said that payment would be coming to Max Rose on May sixth via LZ-one-twenty-nine,” I answered.

Gunny nodded and said, “Whatever Max Rose did for the Nazis, he’s going to get his payment tomorrow, and it’s coming by LZ-one-twenty-nine. If Winn Farrow really wanted to hurt Max Rose, he could stop him from getting that payment.”

“That’s what Farrow said,” exclaimed Spader. “He was going to hit Rose where it hurts the most.”

“So what is LZ-one-twenty-nine?” I asked, getting impatient.

“I saw it in the newspaper today,” he answered soberly. “I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out before. LZ-one-twenty-nine stands for Luft Zeppelin-one-twenty-nine.”

“What’s a Luft Zeppelin?” Spader asked.

The truth suddenly hit me.

I felt sick. Saint Dane was right. I should have paid better attention in history class. I had the answer staring me in the face all along, but couldn’t put it together. It was a famous event in American history. There were movies made about it. There were books written and TV shows made. It was a tragedy as famous as the sinking of theTitanicor the destruction of the space shuttleChallenger. ”What’s he talking about, Pendragon?” asked Spader. “Do you know?”

“Yeah,” I answered softly. “I think I do. And it makes a whole bunch of sense.”

Gunny reached to the seat next to him where he had a newspaper. “Luft Zeppelin-one-twenty-nine left Germany last week. Tomorrow morning it’s going to arrive at the naval air station in Lakehurst, New Jersey.”

He threw the paper to us and it landed in my lap. There on the front page was a big picture of Luft Zeppelin-129. It was a giant silver blimp. Only it went by another name that was way better known. That name was written on the silver nose of the air ship.

It was called theHindenburg.

“I’m guessing that Max Rose’s payment is aboard that airship, direct from Germany,” said Gunny. “I believe that’s Winn Farrow’s target.”

Spader picked up the paper and stared at the picture of the giant airship with the Nazi swastikas painted on its tail.

“This thing flies too?” Spader asked. “It doesn’t look like Jinx’s airplane.”

“It’s a big balloon,” Gunny answered. “Lighter than air. They’ve been flying them across the ocean for a few years now. They say it’s the wave of the future.”

“It’s not the wave of the future,” I said quietly.

“What do you mean, Pendragon?” Gunny asked. “This is your history. Did you ever hear of theHindenburg!”

I took a breath and swallowed. “Yeah, I heard about it,” I answered. “When theHindenburgarrived in New Jersey, it blew up. The balloon burned and the passenger compartment crashed. A lot of people died and the ship was totally destroyed by fire. I don’t think they ever figured out how it happened.”

The three of us sat in silence for a good long time. Finally Spader said the one thing that was on all our minds.

“Well,” he said. “I think we know how theHindenburgis gonna blow up.”

“Yeah,” I added. “What we don’t know is if we can stop it.”

We rode the rest of the way back to the Manhattan Tower Hotel in silence. I think we were all trying to get our minds around the fact that there was going to be a disaster the next day. Winn Farrow was going to light the fuse that would lead to one of the most infamous catastrophes in history. He was going to blow up the airshipHindenburg.

There wasn’t all that much I knew about the crash. The basic event was one of those things that everybody knew about because it was such a big deal. I’d seen pictures of theHindenburgin flames. I’d seen scratchy news footage of people jumping from the passenger compartment, desperately trying to escape. There was also a famous radio broadcast where some news guy was announcing the arrival of the ship, and then had to keep his head together to describe the horror of the fiery crash.

It was a famous moment in history; it was going to happen the next day. Question was, what were we going to do about it?

When we got back to the hotel, Gunny stayed in the car. “You boys go up to your room,” he said. “I’ve got a friend who can fix this car up like new. No sense in having Caplesmith on my back. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.” He hit the gas and peeled out, leaving us alone on the sidewalk.

“Why are we going to fry big fish?” Spader asked.

“It’s just an expression,” I said.

“Too bad,” he said. “I’m hungry.”

We entered the building through the kitchen and grabbed some fruit. Turned out I was pretty hungry too. The next trick was to get back to our room without being seen by any of Max Rose’s goon squad. The plan was to dodge them.

We got halfway through the kitchen when we walked straight into the same thug who nailed us the last time. Didn’t he ever go home?

“Well, lookee here,” he said. “You two boys look like you been through the war. You smell like it too.”

“Back off, bozo,” I said, trying to act all tough. “We gotta go change and-“

The goon grabbed us by the arms and marched us toward the elevators. I guess I didn’t act tough enough. Next thing we knew, we were being shoved into the living room of the penthouse. So much for our plan of dodging Max Rose.

“And don’t touch nothing,” the goon ordered. “You two are disgusting.”

The guy left, giving us a short window to figure out what we would say to Max Rose.

“We gotta tell him,” Spader said instantly. “Everything.”

“Yeah, right,” I shot back. “We’ll tell him how I’m from the future and that’s how I know theHindenburgis going to explode tomorrow. Perfect.”

“Well, you can’t saythat,”Spader countered.

“Duh.”

“But if we tell him Winn Farrow is going to blow up the zeppelin, Rose could send his thugs to stop him. They could do the job for us!”

I had to think about that. Spader might be right. If our mission was to stop Farrow and Saint Dane from blowing up theHindenburg, we could use all the help we could get, even if it was from a gang of thugs. This could be a real easy solution. But for some reason, the idea of telling Max Rose what was going to happen made me uneasy.

“You might be right,” I finally answered. “But let’s not tell him anything yet. Not until we’ve worked this through.”

“We don’t have time, Pendragon!” Spader argued. “The sooner we tell him, the better chance he’ll have of stopping Saint Dane.”

“You mean stopping Farrow,” I said.

“Whatever. Hobey, mate, we gotta tell him!”

“No, we don’t. Not yet. Don’t say anything, all right?”

Before Spader could answer, the door opened on the far side of the room and Max Rose entered with Harlow. Both were dressed in silky pajamas. Big surprise. When he saw us, Max Rose’s face lit up with a big smile.

“Buck! Flash! You’re not dead!” he bellowed.

Obviously.

Harlow got close to us, took a sniff, and wrinkled her nose. “You boys been playing with fire?”

“No, but Winn Farrow has,” Spader said quickly.

I shot Spader a look, willing him to keep quiet.

Rose and Harlow plopped down on the couch, waiting to hear our report. “I’d ask you to sit down, boys, but to be honest, you stink,” Rose said.

“No problem,” I said. “How ‘bout if we get changed and washed up before telling you what happened?”