Von Braun turned pages of the Silbervogel report until he found the section in which Sanger addressed the question of avionics integration within the airframe. Consulting one of the report’s many diagrams, he spent a couple of minutes jotting down the numbers Boykow needed, then tore the page from the notepad, slipped it into an envelope, and handed it to his secretary.
“Please take this to Dr. Boykow,” he said, standing up from his chair. “Wait to see if he thinks this answers his questions, and write down what he wants from me if it doesn’t.” Von Braun walked around from behind his desk, reached for his overcoat. “I’m going to see Arthur.”
“Very well.” Lise left the office before he did. Von Braun shook his head in wonder as he watched her stride down the hall, passing the two janitors on the way. Despite the fact that she’d have to cross Peenemünde East to reach Boykow’s office, she’d declined to put on an overcoat even though it was below zero outside and spitting snow. The woman must be part snow fox, he reflected as he closed his office door and followed her to the stairs. Which was a delightful notion…
The two janitors paid no attention to either von Braun or his secretary as their footsteps retreated down the hallway. But as soon they were gone, and the corridor was quiet again, they raised their eyes from their work and gazed at one another. Neither of them said anything, but a silent nod was exchanged. And then they quietly approached von Braun’s office.
The two janitors were named Yves Callon and François Latreau, but to MI-6 they were known as Silver and Gold. For the past four months, they’d been posing as custodians at Peenemünde, just another couple of foreign workers who’d been hired from a country under Nazi occupation. Even at a high-security facility such as Peenemünde, there was a need for people to do the menial labor, so that good German men could make more meaningful contributions to the war effort. Knowledge of this fact had given British intelligence the opportunity to infiltrate spies into enemy installations, with the primary objective of gathering information useful to the Allies.
Beginning a couple of years earlier, MI-6 had heard rumors of strange occurrences in northern Germany. Although Denmark was under Nazi occupation, its intelligence operations were still active, and through them, the Danes had received reports from fishermen of “flame-tailed aeroplanes” they’d seen shooting along from the western Baltic coast, usually exploding a few minutes later. Then a member of the Polish underground relayed a conversation he’d had in a Koenigsburg tavern with a drunk German soldier stationed at Peenemünde; the Nazi had bragged about his people developing a secret weapon that would win the war for Germany. Although MI-6 initially discounted these reports as fantasy—the Germans always seemed to be building one secret weapon or another—in time enough reports were received through the clandestine wireless network established between Denmark and England to convince the British that Peenemünde needed to be investigated.
To this end, MI-6 had recruited two members of the French resistance and instructed them to seek employment at Peenemünde. The British had hoped that either Callon or Latreau would be hired; as it turned out, both got jobs as janitors. Naturally, they were screened by the Gestapo, yet the resistance had already concocted “legends,” or fictional backgrounds, establishing them as Nazi sympathizers loyal to the Vichy government. So far as the German secret police was concerned, the two men were nothing more than lower-class, rather stupid Frenchmen content with pushing brooms and emptying wastebaskets.
Silver and Gold arrived in Peenemünde only a few weeks after the A-4 program was officially scrapped. During the course of the first month as janitors, they saw and heard enough to confirm that the Nazis were developing some sort of long-range missile. Although this program had been mysteriously canceled on the very eve of success, it became apparent that it was being replaced by a project that was even more ambitious.
Yet they’d been unable to learn exactly what it was. All work was being done in labs and workshops the janitors were expressly forbidden to enter, and certain areas of Peenemünde West had been placed off-limits to anyone except engineers, technicians, and senior scientists.
There was one possible loophole: Wernher von Braun’s office. Over the past few months, Silver and Gold noticed that von Braun had developed careless habits when it came to handling classified documents. Overworked and easily distracted, he’d become dependent upon his secretaries—particularly Lise Muller, on whom he obviously had a crush—to tidy up for him. So the spies made a point of visiting Haus 4 on a daily basis, keeping its hallways and restrooms spotless while watching the technical director’s office, waiting for a chance when both von Braun and Muller would become negligent.
That opportunity finally presented itself, and just in time. In two days, Silver was scheduled to return to Paris for the holidays, during which he was supposed to make a covert rendezvous with their MI-6 handler. It would be their first and possibly only opportunity to pass along any information. Aware that their mail was being opened by the Gestapo and analyzed by its cryptologists, the agents decided not to use the codes developed for them by MI-6. So it was now or never.
The office door was unlocked. Silver opened it quietly and peered over his glasses to make sure that the room was vacant, then he turned to Gold and held out his hand. Gold reached into their cart and pulled out the large horsehair brush they used to clean drapery. Taking it from him, Silver entered the office, his footsteps softened by the rubber roles of his work shoes. Gold stood watch outside, ready to accidentally drop his mop at the first sign of trouble.
The open door of the safe and the thick binder lying open on von Braun’s desk told him all he needed to know. This was a classified document, possibly the key to understanding Peenemünde’s mystery project. Carefully avoiding the windows, Silver stepped around behind the desk and, after noting the number of the page von Braun was reading before he left, closed the report. Its title confirmed his suspicions. He needed to take this to his people.
There were two concealed catches at each end of the brush’s wooden handle. Beneath Silver’s thumbs, they slid apart like the locks of a Chinese puzzle box, allowing him to pull the handle apart and reveal the hollow space within. Tucked inside the brush, padded by a rubber mold, was a Latvian-made Minox camera, its lozenge-shaped body only 7.5 centimeters long. Coiled beside it was a thin silver chain 45 centimeters in length, with a clip at one end and a small ring at the other.
Silver clipped one end of the chain to the camera, then slipped the ring around his left thumb. Bending over the desk, he placed his left hand next to the open report, then positioned himself so that the chain led directly up to the camera held in his right hand. In this way, the Minox was at the perfect distance for photographing documents. Peering through the miniature viewfinder, he took a couple of moments to adjust the focusing dial; when the typewritten print on the first page was sharp and clear, he went to work.
Silver had spent many hours in the resistance’s Paris hideaway learning how to use the Minox. The time was well spent. Again and again he pressed the tiny stud of the camera shutter, synchronizing it with the turning of each page. He didn’t read what he was photographing; every second was precious and couldn’t be used trying to comprehend material that only a scientist could fully understand. Although the Minox’s 9.5mm film cartridge held fifty exposures, the report had more than three times that many pages; afraid to miss any crucial information, Silver jumped ahead a few pages to snap pictures of bar graphs and tables that seemed important.