“Idiot,” Henry muttered.
Goddard cast him a cold glare, but Dr. Sinclair slowly nodded. “I hate to say it, but I agree,” he said softly. “This sort of prolonged stress on the coronary arteries can cause even a healthy man to have a heart attack, especially if it happens over and over again. He may have even been born with some sort of anomalous condition that I wouldn’t have been able to detect.” He paused to give Goddard a meaningful look. “The fact that he was a pack-a-day smoker couldn’t have helped.”
“Yes, well…” Goddard brushed off the pointed reminder about his own health risks. “Whatever the reason, I’m afraid that puts us in a tenuous situation now, doesn’t it?”
As if on cue, someone else came out of the training facility. Skid Sloman also wore a jumpsuit, its helmet dangling from his left hand. His face was ashen, his eyes wide; for the first time since they’d met, the pilot didn’t have the cocky, go-to-hell expression Henry had come to expect.
Goddard, Jack Cube, Dr. Sinclair, and Henry turned to him as he shuffled through the door. “I was in the control room, waiting my turn,” he mumbled. “I didn’t know… I mean, no one knew what was going on till he stopped talking to us, then…”
“It’s okay, Skid.” Jack placed a hand on his shoulder. “No one knew, and it was no one’s fault. It just happened, that’s all…”
“How is your training coming along?” Goddard asked abruptly.
Startled, Skid blinked several times before answering. “Ummm… it’s going well, Doctor G. At least it was until…”
“You know how to handle the X-1?” Goddard stared at him, his face devoid of sympathy. “You have confidence in your ability to perform your mission?”
“Well, yeah, I think so…”
“You’d better do more than just think so,” Goddard said. “As of now, you’re the only man qualified to fly this spacecraft. So no more slipups, no more mistakes.” His eyes were cold and grey as he turned to the others. “That goes for you, too, and everyone else.”
And then he shoved his hands in his pockets and stormed away. Jack Cube started to follow him, but Henry grabbed his arm and shook his head.
“Let him go,” he said quietly. “Just… give him some room, okay?”
Jack’s mouth tightened, but he nodded without saying a word. On the other hand, Skid was visibly angry. “Who the hell does he think he is?” he demanded, watching Goddard as he walked off. “A man just got killed here!”
“Oh, he knows that, all right.” Henry’s voice was very low. “Believe me, that’s all he’s thinking about.”
HAMMER OF THE GODS
JUNE 1, 1943
A sergeant raised a whistle to his mouth and blew a sharp note, and the squad of soldiers standing on either side of the launch ramp pulled the ropes dangling above their heads. The camouflage netting fell away, revealing what lay beneath it.
Silbervogel rested upon its launch sled, the massive horizontal-thrust engine at its rear resembling the thorax of some immense wasp. Even in the dull light of a cloudy sky, the spacecraft gleamed in the late-morning sun, making the black crosses painted on its wings and stubby tail fins stand out. The launch rail stretched away into the distance; during the night, its own camouflage had been removed, the poles that had once supported the nets cut down by Dora prisoners and hauled away.
The moment Silver Bird’s camouflage was pulled away, a military marching band struck up the German National Anthem, almost drowning out the applause of the senior officers and party officials gathered nearby. Assembled on the wooden viewing stand one kilometer from the launch site, they’d come at the special invitation of Goering himself to witness the historic event. Some had had no idea that the Silbervogel Projekt even existed until they’d arrived; the operation had remained classified all the way to the end, in hopes that the Allies would remain ignorant of its existence until the moment the bombs dropped on America. Others knew about Silver Bird yet had not yet been apprised of its objective. Very few knew all the essential details, and they had been sworn to secrecy.
Standing in the front row, Heinrich Himmler turned to Eugen Sanger and, still clapping his hands, smiled at the Austrian engineer. “A magnificent creation, Herr Doktor,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the noise. “This must be a great day for you.”
Sanger didn’t say anything for a moment. Noticing the silence, Wernher von Braun glanced at Sanger. There were tears in the corners of his eyes, and his chin trembled a little beneath his heavy mustache.
“Like a father seeing his child for the first time,” Sanger said quietly, his words nearly lost beneath the orchestra.
His child, von Braun thought. How pathetic. Sanger had apparently forgotten Himmler’s threats about what Hitler might do if he was informed that Silver Bird wasn’t completed by the deadline Himmler had imposed on the project. That deadline had come and gone nearly two months ago, and it was only Dornberger’s fast-talking that had saved all of them from Himmler’s petulant wrath.
Now the strutting little chicken farmer was behaving as if everything had been forgiven and forgotten. And it probably was… so long as they were successful today.
Von Braun had to make a conscious effort not to grimace. It wasn’t just Himmler he had to worry about. Goering was there, too, as were Goebbels, Speer, Keitel… everyone except the Führer himself. Hitler had given no reason for not attending; through an aide, he’d simply sent word that he would not be there, and that was it. When he’d heard this, von Braun had been secretly relieved. He’d been forced to wear the loathed SS uniform again, but at least he wouldn’t have to play host to the Führer as well as the rest of the High Command.
“Of course it is,” von Braun said to Himmler as he gently tapped Sanger on the arm, drawing his attention. “Now, if you’ll excuse us…”
“Yes, of course. You have your duties.” A dismissive flip of the hand, as if von Braun were nothing more than a minor technocrat rather than the project’s scientific director. “Go.”
“Thank you, Herr Reichsführer…”
“Wait,” Goebbels snapped. A wiry and glowering little man, the propaganda minister reminded von Braun of a carrion bird. “Couldn’t we meet Lieutenant Reinhardt one last time, to give him our best wishes for his mission?”
Again, von Braun had to work to keep a neutral expression. He was perfectly aware of the official photographers lurking at the edge of the platform, ready to dart forward at Goebbels’s slightest gesture. The propaganda minister didn’t want to give Reinhardt his blessings; all he wanted was to have his picture taken, shaking hands with Silver Bird’s pilot. Von Braun had come to realize that everyone in Hitler’s inner circle had his own personal agenda; dealing with such colossal egos was a job of its own.
“I’m very sorry, but that’s impossible. Lieutenant Reinhardt is on his way to the Silver Bird even as we speak.” Turning around, he peered at the distant spacecraft and managed to spot a large truck pulling up beneath the bottom of the launch sled. “There, see?” he asked, pointing in that direction. “There is his support vehicle now.”
“Yes, I see.” Goebbels’s face darkened. “And why weren’t we given an opportunity to meet him earlier, as I requested?”