Vengeance 10

Exhaustion swept over him, and he turned away to gather the tangles of paper tape spewed from the recording instruments. He stripped the circular graph from the thrust indicator and left the building. A hot breeze enveloped him; Indian summer had settled over the island during the last week in September, raising the temperature well past twenty-eight degrees centigrade. The wind blew from the land and seemed starved of oxygen. The mid-afternoon sun glaring from the concrete produced an insistent headache as he trudged to his motorcar, which was parked beyond the safety barriers.

Bethwig drove slowly along the road, squinting at the glare from the crushed oyster-shell paving. The interior of the Lancia was blazing; he was tempted to put the top down but was even too tired for that. The flat, sandy, pine-covered island with its modernistic buildings reminded him of a Florida travelogue his father had taken him to see when he was much younger. Under the white sun Peenemunde seemed to have much the same ambiance as that bit of Florida somewhere near a place called Pensacola.

He had resolved to take the rest of the day off to go sailing in the little catboat he kept at Trassenheide. It had been months since he had had a holiday, and he was pale and sickly looking while the rest of the staff had grown sun-bronzed over the summer. There had been little enough project work, God only knew. Priorities evaporated as quickly as they were set. Speer had been a great disappointment. Not only had he failed to persuade Hitler of the promise of their work and the dire need to avoid delay, but he seemed to have lost interest himself.

Franz parked in front of the block of sterile reinforced-concrete apartments that served to house unmarried scientific personnel, and dragged himself inside abandoning all thought of sailing. He was too tired even to acknowledge the porter’s greeting. The heat seemed to have gathered inside, turning the building into an oven. Air conditioning had been included in the original plans but, like so many other promises, had never materialised. The units had actually been shipped to Peenemunde before being diverted somewhere else. He had seen the cartons stacked on the quay.

A persistent knocking woke him. Bethwig sat up, groggy with the heat and sleep, and swung his feet to the floor, ducking his head at the same time. His blood pressure, always low, had seemed abnormally so of late.

‘Who is it?’ he demanded, still half-asleep.

‘Franz, it’s Wernher. Are you awake?’

Bethwig swore. ‘I am now, yes! What do you want?’

‘I am going out to supper. I would like you to come along and meet someone.’

Bethwig lay back, spread-eagling himself to let the perspiration dry. ‘I don’t think so, Wernher. Not tonight.’

‘Franz, damn it, open the door. I can’t keep yelling like this.’ Bethwig stumbled to the closet and drew on a light robe. ‘Just a moment, just a moment,’ he muttered, and went into the bathroom to rinse his face with the tepid brownish water. Von Braun pounded on the door again and Franz flung it open. ‘Damn it, I told you…’

Von Braun pushed him back into the room, spun him around, and shoved him towards the closet. ‘I know what you told me. Get dressed. We are driving to Swinemünde for supper.’

Bethwig changed direction for the bed. ‘Like hell. You go — ‘ Von Braun cut him off. ‘You don’t have a choice. It’s in the nature of a command performance.’

Bethwig tried to twist away, but von Braun held him securely. ‘Whose command?’

‘Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich.’

* * *

The great windows along the ground floor of the Walfisch Hotel had been thrown open to the sea. A faint movement stirred across the water, bringing hope of a cooling breeze. Bethwig glanced about the room wondering at the political power that could open an hotel and restaurant closed for the season at one man’s whim.

Tall, trim in his tailored uniform with silver SS flashes on the collar and SD rank prominently displayed, Reinhard Heydrich smiled and motioned for his aide to hand around cigars and pour the brandy.

Bethwig had drunk too much wine, and even though the heat was diminishing, he was finding it difficult to keep from nodding off.

‘How did your test go today?’ Heydrich enquired as they finished the obligatory toast to the Führer.

Bethwig came awake instantly. ‘I don’t believe…’

‘Come, come,’ Heydrich chuckled. ‘Surely you do not think you can hide anything from the head of the Security Service, do you?’