Chapter 4
“He pulled a D.B. Cooper!” said Nordhausen. “I got hold of a tape from an air traffic control tower in Tenerif North Airport on Santa Cruz. It was well inland and protected from the backwash from Palma at an elevation of at least 200 meters. Now the tape reveals that there was an incident on the plane—a possible hijacking attempt. The tape was somewhat chaotic but the words Allahu Akbar were fairly distinct. Then a passenger shouts out the words: ‘he jumped!’ They think it’s a suicide attempt… until there’s an obvious sound of something exploding. And no one on that plane thinks or says anything more. All fourteen passengers were killed in the crash. The plane overflew the airport and slammed right into the side of Cumbre Vieja. An hour later the entire mountain blows up and this little tidbit of news was fairly well lost, utterly irrelevant given the destruction that followed.”
“He pulled a D.B. Cooper?” said Kelly. “Oh, yes, I remember now. He’s the guy that hijacked a 727 and extorted a couple hundred grand from the airline before bailing out over the Cascades in the Pacific Northwest.”
“Exactly,” said Robert. “He bailed out. Passenger number fifteen, a man that doesn’t exist in the time line before Palma, is now the sole survivor of this plane crash, and most likely responsible for it in the first place.”
“You’re not suggesting the plane set off the volcano,” said Maeve.
“No, I don’t think a small plane like that would make much impression on the mountain. We all know it took a nuke to get Cumbre Vieja to blow, and indications are plain in the news we have now that this second attempt was not a natural event either. My guess is that they still managed to get a warhead in place, and that this man, Kenan Tanzir, was the man who set off the operation. Who knows, perhaps he had a suitcase nuke with him when he jumped.”
“I doubt that,” said Maeve. “Try getting through airport security now with a bottle of shampoo. No, he was definitely not carrying a suitcase nuke.”
“Then he must have linked up with someone on the ground,” Kelly suggested.
“The plot thickens,” said Maeve. “Yes, a man shouting Allahu Akbar and jumping off a plane an hour before Palma is certainly suspicious, but there’s a lot of haze here still.”
“I knew you would object,” said Robert. “I’ve got more—records of equipment purchased two weeks earlier, including a small emergency parachute, a compass, a map. The Arion system was amazing in its ability to ferret out these details.”
“Well,” said Kelly, “if it stinks it must be fish. This guy Kasim is pissed at the Brits when they killed his wife and kid. He joins the other side and was supposed to get killed in 1942, but the man who kills him never arrives in theater, and so he goes on to have a little bastard who ends up blowing up Cumbre Vieja. Man, are we ever having fits with illegitimate sons these days. Three days ago it was Charles Martel, now this.”
Paul was the only one who had not spoken, and the professor could see he seemed deep in thought about something. “Paul?” he said, the question obvious in his voice.
Paul folded his arms. “Just one thing,” he began. “This convoy you mention that is attacked on August 11, 1941… That was the date, correct?”
“Right you are,” said Robert.
“Well there were no German surface raiders operating in the Atlantic in August of 1941. They were all holed up at the port of Brest on the French coast. The battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were both there undergoing repairs, as well as the cruiser Prince Eugen and a number of U-boats. The British were bombing them constantly, without much success, but they managed to keep them bottled up there until the spring of 1942 when they made what was called ‘the channel dash’ and high tailed it through the English Channel back to German waters.”
“That they did,” said Nordhausen, “In the history you are obviously so very familiar with. But the Arion system now says the Germans mounted a sortie with a single raider on August 9, 1941 and this ship caught Convoy OS-85 two days later, sinking four vessels. I realize it’s been a very chaotic time these last days. We’ve run two major missions to try and unhinge the Assassin operations, and we’ve stopped the worst of them. That business aimed at the Battle of Tours was the right cross, as you said Paul. But we have only just managed to get our wits about us, and a little food, fuel and sleep. Who’s had time to have a look at the history these days after Palma? We’ve all been so damn busy—well I had a look. I wanted to see what the bastards were up to and I found something, by God.”
“Then the altered history has one of the German ships in Brest at sea as early as August, 1941?” Paul was still not convinced. “How would Palma have changed that? For that matter, how would the Assassins manage to influence that history? Trying to accelerate the repairs on those ships in dry dock would be like trying to herd cats. Which ship was it, Scharnhorst or Gneisenau? I find it hard to believe they could have had either vessel ready for operations that quickly.”
“It was neither,” said the professor. “In point of fact, if we can call anything a fact these days with all this Time travel business mucking up the history, both those ships were actually run off to the port at La Pallice, to make room for another ship.”
“Prince Eugen?” said Paul. “She limped into port with engine problems around that time, but that’s just a cruiser. They would have had no trouble berthing her there with the other two battlecruisers.”
“Prince Eugen arrives in early June of 1941,” said Robert looking at his notes. “But there was another guest already there before her. The ship I am speaking of was called the Bismarck.”
Paul couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Bismarck? That ship was sunk by the Royal Navy in late May of 1941! I’ve studied that battle many times. Hell, I grew up reading Shirer’s and Forester’s books on the battle and watching the movie ‘Sink the Bismarck’ over and over. I’ve war gamed it many times as well.”
“Well they did sink the Bismarck, eventually,” said Robert. “But not on her first sortie—not in the famous sea chase you are referring to in May. I’m afraid she made it safely into Brest and took up a berth there to make minor repairs before launching another attack on British shipping in August. They covered her with camo-nets and the RAF missed her during several bombing raids. She put to sea a few weeks later and hit Convoy OS-85, then sped out to the Atlantic. In fact, she was spotted briefly by British coast watchers on the Island of Palma as she made good her escape. Gave the Royal Navy fits for a time, but they eventually brought her to heel when she tried to reverse her course and head back to Germany via the Denmark Strait. There was another big battle there, and this time Bismarck was finally sunk.”
“Wow!” It was all Paul could say for the moment. He shook his head, feeling a strange unease. The professor was correct. Nothing was safe now. Even the old war stories he had cherished as a boy were all on the chopping block. “Do you realize what this means?” he said at last.
“It means we’ve got work to do here,” said Robert. “Which is why I rushed over here the moment these thoughts began to coalesce to some conclusion in my mind. I was afraid of that certainty factor you talked about on the last mission, that tunnel thing.”