Vengeance 10

‘Exactly!’ Bethwig shouted in triumph. ‘Only the simplest of guidance controls would be required. The speed of such rockets could vary between two point four and eleven point two kilometres an hour, and we could still shower them on to an enemy nation. There would be no way to stop them. And in two years, if all goes well, the A-Four will be perfected. We need only build a more powerful version of the A-Four to take us there to begin with.’ He hesitated only a moment. ‘I’ve already assigned it a project code, A-Ten. Are you game?’

Von Braun shot his hands above his head and roared with delight. ‘Of course. My God, think of it. The moon. We really can do it, Franz!’ He wrapped his friend in a bear hug. ‘You have the rationale for the moon landing programme. A weapon to end all weapons, perhaps even to end war! Think of it. Whoever controls the moon controls the Earth! Why, with our A-Ten the Reich could enforce a veritable Pax Germana!’

Bethwig untangled himself and brought von Braun’s Indian dance to a halt. ‘We will need someone to sponsor us,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘Someone with stronger political connections than anyone in the army possesses.’

‘Speer?’

‘Perhaps. But we have to know more about him first. Does he have access to the Führer? Is he sufficiently high in the party? Such a project will be damned expensive and we will need someone very high up to back us.’

Von Braun grinned at that. ‘Franz, for a chance like this I’d make a pact with the Devil.’

Occupied Belgium December 1940

The ruined citadel frowned over Liege. SS guards, rifles slung muzzle downwards to keep out the insistent rain, eyed the line shuffling towards the dirty brick building. Barbed wire was strung to a height of three metres, and red signs warned in Flemish, French and German that it was electrified. A young officer watched, his expression one of ill-disguised contempt. In spite of the cold wind and the rain, he appeared comfortable enough in his black leather overcoat and uniform cap.

Jan Memling had ridden his decrepit bicycle to the first checkpoint at the intersection of the rue Saint-Leonard and rue Marengo to join the throng moving towards the factory gates. The rain slanted down without respite, splattering cobbled streets, soaking threadbare coats and trousers, shoes and boots.

The officer looked his way, spoke to an aide, and Memling cursed silently. An SS officer’s interest almost always led to deportation and labour service — slave labour. Deportation was the terror of Memling’s life. Once he got to Germany, it would only be a matter of time before his identity was uncovered.

The aide went to the sergeant supervising the checkpoint guards and spoke to him, again glancing in Memling’s direction. Jan clutched the bicycle as his fear grew; he was helpless, there was absolutely nothing to do but play it to the end with as much dignity as he could muster. It would be useless to run.

The sergeant shouted, and three soldiers vaulted the barricade and grabbed the man ahead of him. The officer watched, his expression bored, and, after a moment, lit a cigarette and resumed his scrutiny of the line as the unfortunate worker was dragged away.

There was not even a mutter of protest. Memling shuffled forward and the line followed. The man had ceased to exist.

* * *

This was Jan Memling’s first field assignment since February 1938. He had been sent to Belgium in early May to investigate rumours of German troop movements along the Belgian border. But von Reichenau’s sudden panzer attack on the tenth of that month had come as a complete surprise. The following day Fort Eben Emael was captured by glider troops, and the city of Liege occupied, cutting off any possibility of escape. It was not until late June that a courier had found him, issued a set of ambiguous instructions from London, and arranged an emergency contact with the fledgling Belgian underground. Since then he had lived in a nightmare of constant terror. There was no foreseeable way that he could get out of Belgium, and if Great Britain surrendered, as was rumoured likely… he did not want to think about that.

Those elderly Belgians who remembered the relatively benign German occupation of 1914-18 expected much the same in 1940. But with the conclusion of the French armistice on 22 June at Compiegne, army troops had been replaced by SS units and the occupation stiffened. Stern reprisals were meted out for the most absurd infractions of the stringent rules. Curfew violators were executed on the spot. A priest who had received an urgent call to attend a dying man had not waited to telephone the occupation authorities for permission. An SS patrol had stopped his bicycle, pushed him against a wall, and shot him. His body had been left as an example.