Captain Werner drew a deep breath of the cool air and surveyed the skyline. Everyone in the city would be calm, resting, unsuspecting. The U-boat would escape out to the ocean before anyone could understand what had happened.
The exec took out his binoculars and began scanning the glittering silhouettes of lighted skyscrapers. They had only a sketched map of the area, but the landmarks were obvious. “That is their Statue of Liberty ahead,” Gormann whispered. “She is staring right at us.”
The greenish-yellow glow around the statue made it look like a leviathan guarding the way. “In a moment we will give her something more interesting to watch,” Werner replied.
The submarine glided ahead. In the distance the running lights of a small ferry boat cut across the water; U-415 kept all her lights off.
The captain thought of the last time he had headed into a port—Lorient. A minesweeper had met them at a predetermined point to lead them through the deadly labyrinth to a safe berth. Captain Werner had hoisted white pennants on a line fastened to the periscope, proclaiming the total tonnage he and his crew had sunk during their previous mission. All the crewmen had changed into their last pair of clean fatigues and combed their beards, ready to celebrate. They were coming into port, with fresh food, fresh clothes, and fresh women. A band met them on the quay; nurses and other ladies waited in crowds, holding flowers.
Their reception in New York harbor couldn’t have been more different.
Captain Werner stood beside the radar-detection gear; Gormann stared through his binoculars. “I wonder which one is the Empire State Building.”
“The tallest one, I’m sure.”
“That must be it. Do you think I can see King Kong on top of it? King Kong is Hitler’s favorite film, you know.”
“We did not come here to be tourists, Leutnant Gormann,” Werner said.
“Understood, sir.” Gormann leaned down to call into the hatch. “Prepare to stop!”
“All stop,” the captain said.
“All stop!” the executive officer repeated.
“Open rocket bay doors. Let us see if this thing works.”
Gormann nodded. “It’ll be a long, embarrassing trip back if it doesn’t.”
The seamen below unsealed the hatches, and the forward deck section of U-415 split in half, letting the red dimness of the submarine’s interior show through. The opening widened as the seamen cranked open the bay doors, sliding the deck plating aside so that the rockets sat exposed in the shadows below.
“Use the hydraulic motors,” Werner said. “Raise the first rocket. Watch what you’re doing now. We’re going to have to launch the other two in rapid succession, then get out of here. Make certain everything goes properly.”
“Aye, Captain,” one of the men said from below.
A grinding hum came from the interior as the metal platform for the first rocket rose up to the deck. The rocket itself was longer than a man, tilted up at an angle.
“Exec, will you adjust the aim point? Elevation sixty-three degrees is the optimal angle, according to our instructions.” Captain Werner looked at his sketched map of the New York area, then he pointed to three different locations. “I want them to strike approximately there, there, and there. If these weapons do what Professor Esau claims, we should wipe out Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn.”
Gormann walked unsteadily down to the narrower end of the deck. The harbor waters remained calm as the exec cranked the stand. “Sixty-three degrees. Captain, the front end of the rocket is very hot.”
“I know. The professor told us not to worry about that.”
Gormann adjusted the blast shield to protect the wet wooden deck, then climbed back to the conning tower. Werner called into the submarine. “All clear below. Prepare for firing.”
He heard men scrambling below in the open bay. “Exec, you may fire when ready.”
Gormann adjusted the binoculars around his neck, then bent to the controlling device installed there. He depressed the activation switch for the preparatory stage that would pressurize the fuel chambers. “You might want to duck below, sir. We don’t know how serious these flames are going to be.”
Captain Werner crouched behind the metal wall of the conning tower; the exec bent beside him. Werner said, “I am going to stay here and watch. I’ve had a few singed hairs before.” After a pause, he nudged Gormann. “What are you waiting for?”
“Firing now,” the exec said. He pushed the launch button.
A roar like a thousand blowtorches blasted the submarine’s deck. Captain Werner saw the orange glow of the flames, then he and the exec raised their heads to peep over the shielding wall just as the rocket heaved itself off the stand and rose into the air, graceful and ponderous at the same time.
Heat washed over the captain’s face, but he stood and stared as the missile rose from the U-boat and climbed into the night sky, picking up speed as it arced toward the skyline. Werner looked at his pocket watch. He could not remember when the rocket was set to detonate. Already, people on the shore must have noticed. He wondered how long it would take a patrol boat to come investigate. Werner wasn’t too worried about that, though; he knew how to man the antiaircraft guns, which would make short work of any curious vessel.
“Ready second rocket!” Gormann called down. Silence no longer mattered so much.
Werner looked at the heat shield, saw it glowing a deep red from the rocket’s exhaust flames. Even with the protection, the wet, algae-covered deck had been scorched. “Wear your gloves, Gormann.”
The exec had already pulled them on and scrambled away from the conning tower over to the rocket bay as the second missile emerged from the dimness below.
Captain Werner watched the red-orange flame of the first rocket streaking toward the skyscrapers, riding high over the Empire State Building. Suddenly, in an explosion whose sound did not reach them until a full five seconds later, the rocket burst in midair, spreading its radioactive payload in a broad yellow cloud of glittering dust. The debris continued to spread and glow like embers, crawling across the sky as the poison seeped over the city.
Some bystanders might be killed by falling shrapnel from the detonated rocket casings, but the rest would believe they had survived. They would learn in a few days how mistaken they were.
Werner continued to stare at the cloud until the executive officer interrupted him. “Second rocket ready to fire, Captain. This one is targeted on Brooklyn.”
“Good,” the captain said. “Let’s finish our work and get out of here. We have made history here tonight, Leutnant Gormann. We will return home victorious.”
The executive officer launched the second rocket.
Then the third.
U-415 had submerged and slid unseen through the Narrows before the harbor patrol could find them.
In the locked supply cabinet below, Captain Werner took out his bottle of brandy. The men were in a festive mood.
PART 4
15
Los Alamos May 1944
“Everyone in that room [at Trinity] knew the awful potentialities of the thing they thought was about to happen… We were reaching into the unknown and we did not know what might come of it.”
“The bomb must be used [for that is] the only way to awaken the world to the necessity of abolishing war altogether. No technical demonstration… could take the place of the actual use with its horrible results.”