Goddard examined the photo carefully. “I’ll have you know, Colonel, that I despise air travel. I’ve only been up in a plane once, and it scared the devil out of me. So this is an unusual perspective.” He stood erect, took off his glasses, and cleaned them on the sleeve of his lab coat. “However, I’d say that we’re looking at the test stand for a rocket engine, and quite a large one at that.”
“I agree.” Henry laid a finger on the horizontal structure. “I bet that’s a bridge crane for unloading rockets from trucks, and the tall thing over here is the gantry tower.”
“Besides, look at all this concrete.” Mike ran a finger around it. “They wouldn’t lay down this much for any reason except to provide a blast radius. And putting it next to the beach…”
“Uh-huh.” Gerry was leaning across the table, trying to get a good look. “If they launch a rocket, and it goes out of control, it’ll go out over the water, where it won’t hit anything.”
“Like a barn, you mean,” Jack Cube murmured. The others chuckled, and Gerry scowled at his roommate for a moment before managing a sheepish grin. The two had been getting along better lately, once they’d learned to put racial differences aside.
“That’s what MI-6 thinks, too.” Bliss appeared satisfied. “Thanks for confirming our suspicions. However, what’s just as important about these pictures is what we don’t see. There isn’t any sign of a launch track being built.”
No one said anything for a few moments. Everyone knew what the colonel was getting at. Silver Bird’s launch rail was supposed to be two miles long; something that big would be obvious from the air. If it wasn’t on Peenemünde…
Goddard cleared his throat. “This could mean one of three things. First, they haven’t yet begun to build any launch facilities for Silver Bird. This is probably a static test stand converted from their old missile program. Second, the facilities, including the track, are under construction, but they’ve been camouflaged to prevent their being spotted from the air. Third, the launch site is somewhere else.”
“I agree with all that, and those explanations have occurred to our intelligence people, too.” Bliss hesitated. “However, we can’t ignore the fourth possibility… Silver Bird is an elaborate hoax, something intended to distract us from… well, whatever else the Nazis may actually have in the works.”
Goddard stared at him. “You can’t seriously believe that.”
“I’m just telling you what other people have said. Lord Cherwell, the British Defence Ministry’s so-called rocket expert, thinks the whole thing is nothing more than a red herring.”
“Then Lord Cherwell is an idiot. Negligent at best.” Goddard jabbed a finger at the photos. “Look at these facilities, Colonel. Look at that test stand… you can even see blast marks around it. That took time to build, not to mention a lot of money and manpower. No one makes an effort like this simply to stage a hoax… particularly not a country at war like Germany, where they need every available resource to keep their military machine going.”
“But the Nazis might…”
“The Nazis aren’t stupid!”
Everyone stared at Goddard, stunned by the outburst. Most of the time, he was genial, soft-spoken, able to make or take a joke; for some, he was like a favorite uncle, even a father figure. No one except those who’d worked with him for a long time—Henry, Lloyd, and Taylor—even suspected that he had a temper to lose.
Bliss was probably the most startled of all. He regarded the professor as if he were a viper who’d just lunged at him. “Bob…”
“Omar…” Goddard took a deep breath, closed his eyes, waited ten seconds, then opened his eyes and let out his breath. “Sorry. Please forgive me. It’s just that I have a low tolerance for fools, and one of my definitions of a fool is that he’s someone who ignores the obvious.”
“I don’t believe anyone is ignoring anything,” Bliss said quietly.
Henry spoke up. “Colonel, with all due respect, I disagree. What Lord Whatshisname… or anyone else who thinks this is a hoax… is overlooking is the Sanger-Bredt report itself. Every person on this team has gone through it over and over again. Everything in it checks out. I mean, we’re actually kind of impressed. No one would go to this much effort just to pull a gag. It makes no sense.”
“Silver Bird is real, sir,” Jack Cube said. “And we’d be making a serious mistake if we came to believe otherwise.”
Bliss slowly nodded. “I think it is, too. There are people in Washington who are unconvinced, too, but I think they’ll listen to me if I tell them that you believe that the threat is real.” He absently stroked his mustache as he contemplated the blueprints. “In the meantime, we need to get to work building this thing… the X-1, as you call it.”
“My feelings exactly.” Goddard smiled; he was relaxed again, back to his usual self. “Once we finalize the main-engine specs, we’ll start assembling a scale model for testing…”
“I’m sorry, but that’s out of the question.” Bliss shook his head. “One of the reasons why we’ve separated Blue Horizon’s design and test operations is to prevent accidents that would put your group at risk. Fabrication and assembly facilities are already under way in Alamogordo. All you need to do is supply the final blueprints, and our engineering team will…”
“No.” Goddard’s tone was adamant.
Bliss met his determined gaze without flinching. “Bob, this has already been settled, and may I remind you that you agreed to it. Your job is to design the rocket. It’ll be someone else’s job to build it.”
“Doctor G agreed to this,” Ham said, using Esther’s nickname for her husband that the others had lately adopted as well. “The rest of us haven’t.”
“You weren’t asked,” Bliss shot back, “but you’re expected to abide by his agreement.”
“You’re asking rocket men not to get their hands dirty,” Henry said. “It doesn’t work that way, Colonel. We built and fired twenty-one Nell rockets in Roswell, and never once did we put ourselves in serious danger.” He was stretching the truth; there had been a few close shaves, such as when Goddard had once walked out to the launch tower to see why a rocket hadn’t lifted off, only to have it blow up before he was halfway there. Bliss didn’t need to know that, though. “You can’t isolate us like that and expect this project to be a success.”
Bliss was quiet for a moment. “All right… a compromise. Once we’ve assembled the test rocket, we’ll let some of your people come in to supervise the launch.”
“So long as it isn’t me.” Goddard forced a grin. “As I said, I detest airplanes.”
“Okay then… that leaves us with one more thing.” Bliss laid a hand on the reconnaissance photos. “Army intelligence and MI-6 want to try to locate their launch site… that is, if Silver Bird is not going to launch from Peenemünde. This is crucial even if it’s beyond our bombers’ current operating theater. Once Silver Bird takes off, it’ll take only a little more than an hour and a half for it to circle the globe and reach New York. So it’s imperative that the Allies try to put someone nearby who can watch the area and send word if it appears that a launch is imminent.”
“So what do you want from us?” Taylor asked.
“You people know Silver Bird’s capabilities better than anyone else. That said, you probably have the best shot at figuring out possible launch sites in Germany.”