—Do you know who I am? Look around you. I created all this. I made the V-2! If the Americans were serious about this, they would not have sent a little girl.
He’s smiling. What a creep! Yes, mister. You’re a big wheel. We’re all impressed. The good news is he didn’t make a pass at me. That and they all agreed they should surrender to the US three weeks ago. The bad news is he won’t listen to anything I say. I don’t know if it’s my gender, my skin, or the fact that I look like a fourteen-year-old nerd. Probably all three, not that it makes a difference. What does he think? That I want to be here? I want to go home and drink a milkshake, listen to Big Boy Crudup while a B-17 carpet-bombs this place. But I can’t. I have to be here, with him. Him and a townful of Nazis. Time for some Olympic-level pride-swallowing.
—I’m nineteen, sir. And I understand. I do. You’re a very important man, and a brilliant one. I know that, and the United States knows that. They will stop at nothing to make sure you get out safe. You see, they didn’t send a little girl. They sent Patton’s Third Army. All of it. I’m only here to make sure you’re still alive when they reach us.
—Flattery will get you nowhere, young lady…. How long until they get here?
He knows I’m fawning over him, but he can’t help himself. Now for the hard part.
—Soon, sir. Soon. Unfortunately, not before Soviet troops reach Peenemünde.
—…
—What I mean is we can’t stay here, sir. If we stay, you’ll be dead in a week. Either dead or learning Russian. I need you to come with me.
—Come with you where?
That is a very good question. One that the OSS answered only with “away from the Soviets and towards US troops.” It kind of made sense when they showed me on the map with their small toys. They like pushing toy figures on maps, with a stick. It’s a small map, they could reach with their hands, but they think the stick makes it look serious somehow. Red Soviet figures, blue American figures. Get away from the red toys and head towards the blue toys. Simple enough. What was missing on their little map was about a million little German figures filling all the space in between. One step at a time, I guess. We need to get away from tiny red people.
—Anywhere but here, sir, and preferably without being fired at. The Germans must know they’ll lose Peenemünde. Do you have orders to go anywhere?
—I do indeed.
… Really? That’s it? Maybe it’s a European thing. A friend of Mother’s went to Paris before the war. She said she asked a lady if there was a post office nearby and the lady answered: “Yes.”
—Where, sir? Where did they ask you to go?
—How do you Americans put it? Oh yes. Take your pick.
Wow. I knew German command was a mess, but this… Right there on his desk, ten, maybe a dozen written orders, all from different people. Here’s an army chief who wants him to pick up arms and join the fight on the eastern front. I don’t think we’ll follow that one. Another one asking him to stay put. The wording on these is fascinating. Failure to comply. Blah blah blah. Summarily executed. Blah blah blah. Firing squad. Here it is again. Orders to stay, orders to go. This one is from Kammler himself.
Technically, Kammler is von Braun’s boss. Official title: Beauftragter zur besonderen Verwendung Heer, Army Commissioner for Special Tasks, something like that. Less technically, Kammler is about as close as you can get to the devil himself. Before dealing in advanced weaponry, Hans Kammler was chief of Office C, the same Office C that built all the concentration camps. Now this asshole is ordering von Braun and his men to Bleicherode in central Germany, near the Mittelwerk weapons factory where they build the V-2.
—I think Kammler is our best bet, sir. We should head southwest to Bleicherode.
—No! You said we had to wait for the Americans. Now you want to take us away from them.
It does sound counterintuitive. We’d like to get out of Germany, not deeper into it. But we’ll never get near the border without getting caught. What I told him was kind of true. The Americans really have no plan to get us out other than to plow their way through the German army until they reach us. The best we can do for now is to bide our time.
—I know, sir. But we can’t stay here, that means going somewhere else. We also need to stay alive. We’re going to need help doing that, and since we’re in Germany, I think the Germans are in a better position to help us than anyone else. You can’t hide from your own army for weeks, sir. Follow orders, any orders. All we need is time.
Silence. I think he knows I’m right. Either he doesn’t like what that means for him, or he really doesn’t want to listen to me.
—Then tell me, Lili—is that even your real name?—I’m the chief scientist in the V-2 program. I have nearly five thousand men under my command. Why would I listen to you?
—Mr. von Braun, I—
—You can go back to where you came from, Lili. I will handle this myself.
I should tell him I have orders to kill him if he doesn’t play along. Maybe I should just kill him and get it over with.
—Forgive me, sir, but I don’t think you have much of a choice.
—Who the hell do you think you are?
I have absolutely no idea, so let’s not go there. I get it, though. Creep or not, he doesn’t know me from Adam. I might not listen to me either, but we’re running out of time.
—I don’t mean any disrespect, sir. I only mean that your options are very limited at the moment. Unless you want to put your fate in the hands of a Russian general, you have to leave. You can run, but you and I both know it won’t work. You need to understand, you…
—What? What do I need to understand?
Here it comes. Kid gloves, Mia. Kid gloves.
—… You’re a brilliant man, sir. I said that already. The work you’ve done here is impressive, very impressive. But you’re not… irreplaceable.
—I built the V-2!
Good Lord! I almost feel bad for what I’m about to do to him, but someone has to shrink him down to size. I need to speak a language he understands.
—You did. And it’s great, but it’s not perfect. I think a lot of it isn’t your fault. Working conditions haven’t been ideal, but that engine… I suspect you just couldn’t build one that size that fast, without it going BOOM, so you tied together eighteen smaller ones, fed their exhaust into one large mixing chamber, and hoped for the best.
—How dare you? What do you know about building rockets?
—Enough to know there are limits to what the Americans will do for two hundred and three seconds of specific impulse…. I don’t mean this as an insult, sir. I understand. You scaled up your design and the rocket started shaking like a leaf.
—Nonsense! Are you saying the Americans will kill me?
I need to make him trust me. Me, not the plan. He has to see me as an ally, a kindred spirit or something. I need…
—I’m saying… I’m saying you couldn’t find the right geometry to get rid of those transverse gas vibrations. I’m saying maybe you should try adding baffles around the injector face.
—…
He’s still smiling, smug as a cat, but I think he understands.
—And we should follow Kammler’s orders and head southwest.
—… Baffles, you say? Anything else?
—No, sir, just the orders.
Progress. Not much, but progress. At least he’s willing to hear what I have to say.
—It will not work. There will be checkpoints along the way. There will be checkpoints everywhere. The SS will stop us.
—We have Kammler’s orders.
—We have many orders, from people just as important as Kammler. Someone will find out we disobeyed theirs.