Voices of the dead

Now the ship started to lift off. “You see, the propellers swivel down for take-offs and landings, and they can be used as a steering system of their own, or coordinated with the rudders via the on-board computer.”

Mr. Owen Duvall from San Antonio, Texas said, “How do I know this balloon ain’t going to pop when it gets to my site?” He was wearing a white shirt with pearl buttons and a string tie under his fancy Western gentleman’s sport jacket.

“You are thinking of the Hindenburg, are you not?” They all did. Seeing 7,062,100 cubic feet of hydrogen explode, destroying the eight-hundred-foot ship in less than one minute, thirty-six people killed. But Hess did not mention this to his prospective customers. “The Hess Zeppelin is filled with lighter-than-air helium.” The irony was the Hindenburg was also designed and built for helium, but the United States, the world’s main supplier, had imposed a military embargo and‚ in 1937‚ would not sell the gas to Germany.

“Why don’t I just get me some helicopters?” Mr. Duvall said.

“Is a helicopter able to lift thirty tons?” A rhetorical question.

“No, I guess not,” Duvall said, pulling the ends of his tie.

“The Hess Zeppelin can rise vertically like a helicopter. It can turn three hundred and sixty degrees while hovering from a fixed position, and then lower the cargo with astonishing precision.”

“OK, Herr Hess, I’m convinced,” Mr. Duvall said. “Sign me up for one.”

Harry had bought a pair of Leitz ten-by-sixty central-focus binoculars at a hunting outfitter near Bahnhofplatz. Then drove south almost to Forstenrieder Park. Hess Aviation was set back two hundred yards from the highway on a flat piece of land behind a high fence topped with barbed wire, the snow-capped Bavarian Alps in the background. There was a modern three-storey steel and glass building that reminded Harry of the German Embassy in Washington DC, same spare style. Next to it were two hangars and between them a concrete apron and a landing strip.

Harry had followed Berman’s directions, pulled off the road and parked. Got out, closed the door and steadied his hands balancing the binoculars on the roof. There was something going on in the yard between the hangars. A short compact Zeppelin moored to a rope was floating above the concrete landing area. He saw Hess talking to a group of men, pointing at the airship and then at heavy construction equipment positioned next to it: steel girders, a dozer, backhoe, air compressor, generator, pile-driving equipment.

He watched as two steel girders were attached by a chain to the underside of the Zeppelin below the gondola, and the airship took off vertically, rising straight up, the steel beams dangling below it. Now the Zeppelin turned in a complete circle, hovering and placing the first girder on the low flat trailer of a semi parked in the background. He saw something out of the corner of his eye, looked up, it was another silver Zeppelin drifting through the clouds high overhead. He hadn’t noticed it before, probably because it was so overcast. At first he thought the Zeppelin was moving, gliding through the heavy clouds. He aimed the binoculars at it, and now he could see it was hovering above the airship factory, like it was keeping an eye on things.

Harry looked back at the airship demonstration and saw a car coming down the long entranceway toward him, a silver Volkswagen with HESS AG on the side in black, same logotype that was on the airships. It was time to go. He got in the BMW and got back on the highway, heading toward Munich.

He was looking out at the countryside, green meadow extending to the mountains, the towers and rooflines of a medieval village visible in the distance. The view reminding him of trips he used to take with his parents, car trips to Inzell and Konigsee, with its pure green water, and Berchtesgaden, a picturesque village surrounded by nine alpine peaks, the most beautiful place Harry had ever seen, in spite of the fact that Hitler had had his retreat there.

A sign said Munich was ten kilometers away. Harry slowed down behind a semi. He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a black Audi coming up fast behind him. Thought it was going to hit him, came so close he couldn’t see its grill. The windows were blacked out. Harry sped up, put a couple car lengths between them, but couldn’t go any faster because of the semi.

Cars were coming the other way on the two-lane road. He couldn’t pass. He watched the Audi close in again, and this time it banged into him. He felt the jolt and accelerated. The Audi caught him again and rammed him. He hit the brakes, feeling the impact and weight of the Audi, brake pads squealing, his adrenalin pumping.