“Right here, in the snow?” Wayne asked.
Samuel let go of George’s body and walked away. Wayne nervously looked around to see if any of the guards were watching. Seeing that the coast was clear, he also let go of the corpse, and then ran to catch up with Samuel.
Wayne settled into the routine of loading onto the bus each day, directly after morning roll call, and traveling the relatively short thirty-two kilometer distance to the munitions plant. Besides laboring on detonators, he also worked on a variety of other warfare related items, such as radar tracking devices and various explosives, always doing the same menial low skilled tasks of screwing, gluing, sealing, or some other method of assemblage. Little Bear would yell at him at least once per day for not doing whatever job it was that he was doing at the given time fast enough. Wayne knew it was her way of asserting her authority over him and over all of the other members of her workstation. Wayne learned that the Germans were stepping up their arms production since relations were becoming ever more strained between Germany and Japan. With the vast amount of land and resources that those two world superpowers controlled, both still had a greed for more.
Linda and Wayne would spend their lunchtimes consuming their lunch rations together. The small meal area, outside of the factory, was the one place where they could communicate with one another. Wayne found out that she was a tough woman whose family members had all been taken away from their ghetto to work in the camps by the time she was eleven. She had avoided being sent to work camps, up until the time Wayne had met her, by hiding out successfully each time the SS men would come to the ghetto to round up more slave laborers. Talking to her only made Wayne miss Lauren that much more. Wayne, one cloudy, unusually warm day, told Linda about the time machine and what he had done. He felt he had to unload his guilt to someone and, sensing that Linda was beginning to like him as more than just a co-worker with whom to share a couple of words with at lunch, knew that he would be able to trust her not to repeat his story to anyone.
Wayne was surprised when, after telling Linda this tale of Dr. Hoffmann, her invention, and his involvement with Hitler, she said to him, “I believe what you have told me. I have known that there was something different about you all along, Wayne.”
Prisoners at Hollenburg were permitted to mail one letter per month to a family member or friend on the outside world. Those letters could not be any longer than forty lines in length and were scanned by the SS before being mailed out. Inmates were limited in what they could write and could not complain about the awful conditions in camp or about the way they were being treated. Prisoners were, however, permitted to have gifts and money sent to them in camp. Some of the classes of prisoners, like the political prisoners or “shiftless elements”, came from well-to-do families and were sent rather big packages containing food, clothes, medicines, and occasionally alcoholic beverages. The SS would regularly help themselves to a package’s contents for their own personal use or to sell on the prisoner black market, in exchange for cash from the well-moneyed political prisoners in camp.
Wayne wrote Dr. Hoffmann a short letter one day informing her that he was all right. He had to be very cautious with what he wrote and could not mention or inquire about the specific thing that he had desired to, specifically whether or not she had been able to get a hold of any gadolinium crystals to get the time machine up and running. Wayne had recalled, always having had a great memory for such details, the name of the street Dr. Hoffmann’s residence had been on when she had brought him back there. Wayne had remembered her house number, seventeen, because it was the same day that his birthday fell on in the month of September. Wayne knew that if his letter arrived at her house written in English, it would appear suspicious. He had Linda, who knew a little German, translate his brief letter into “Nazi language” (as she referred to it) as best she could. Wayne then mailed it.
Four weeks after starting his job at the armaments plant, an announcement was broadcast over the public address system during lunch one afternoon that made Wayne’s ears perk up. The harsh voice, belonging to a German officer, said through the loudspeaker, “Achtung. Twelve volunteers from the prisoner work force are required who will take short leave of absence to be a part of research being conducted at the Oberkoblenz Military Installation. The research is harmless and you will be rewarded for your participation. See the prisoner detail leader to sign up. If enough of you filthy, lazy bastards don't volunteer, I will personally do the picking. That is all.”
Wayne was astounded by what he had heard. The word “Oberkoblenz” had been foremost on his mind since he had arrived at Hollenburg. Oberkoblenz — the place that Dr. Hoffmann had stated was the site where the precious Gadolinium crystals needed to run her time machine were stored. Oberkoblenz Military Installation — a place Wayne would think about and dream about going to almost every second of every miserable day. Now, he would have an opportunity to get there. Surely, Wayne figured, this had to be more than a mere coincidence. Was it a priceless hand dealt by fate in the game of life? Wayne never had been one to warm up to religion, but maybe at that instant there had been a divine intervention in his life. Wayne turned to Linda and, with excitement, stated, “I’m there. I am fuckin’ there.”
Wayne was hoping to see Ari at some point during the afternoon work shift, but never did. He would have to wait until he was signed out for the day before he could make it known to the prisoner detail leader that he wanted to be a part of the research group. The idea of getting a hold of the all-important crystals that he so desperately wanted to made Wayne’s pulse race and his palms sweaty throughout the remainder of his work shift.
Wayne, immediately upon seeing Ari at the end of the workday, notified him, “Ari, I want to sign up for that research trip.”
“Do you know exactly what you are getting yourself into?” Ari asked.
“I don’t care. I want to go,” Wayne said adamantly.
“Well, if you don’t care, I don’t care,” Ari said. “I’ll put you down on the list.”
That evening, Wayne began to tell Samuel what he had volunteered for. “Samuel, I…”
“Hey, Wayneboy, good to see ya,” he interrupted, talking swiftly, as was his habit, “Me and some of the boys are gonna get a little game going, if you know what I mean. Don’t worry; we won’t let what happened to you last time happen again. You got my word on that.”
“Samuel, I want to tell you something,” Wayne said.
“What — you don’t want to play? That’s cool.” He removed a smoke from his shirt pocket and, with a match, lit it up.
“No, it’s not that,” Wayne said. “I… well, over at the plant, they were looking for some volunteers for a research group. And I volunteered.”
“You what?” Samuel practically screamed. “What kind of research you talking ‘bout, not that it makes a damn bit of difference?”
“I don’t know. But it’s over at Oberkoblenz.”
“Are you fuckin’ whacked out of your mind or just plain crazy?” Samuel said agitated. “Want to know something? In all the years I’ve been in this fuckin’ sewer, I ain’t seen one person who left for research ever come back.”
“Maybe they were transferred somewhere else after it was over,” Wayne offered.