Flight from Berlin (42 page)

‘Herr Liebermann, please be reasonable,’ said Haberstock. ‘That surely isn’t your last word on the matter?’

‘I’m afraid it
is
.’

‘In that case’—he cleared his throat—‘I am authorised by Berlin to offer you the sum of fifty thousand reichsmarks for the dossier.’

Friedl gave a low whistle.

‘Good day, gentlemen,’ said Jakob.

Throughout this exchange Jakob had not looked at the two men even once. Denham was struck by how neither he nor his wife and daughter even flinched at Koch’s abuse. It wasn’t that they were used to such a thing, he thought—who could be?—but that they were better people, and they knew it.

At around midday the city of Boston appeared through a gap in the fog. Not long after that the ghostly whiteness vanished altogether, and the
Hindenburg
glided down Long Island Sound in fine weather, with the passengers standing along the promenade windows, chatting loudly in English or German, pointing out people, landscape features, and buildings, and returning the universal waved greeting.

At 3:30 p.m. lower Manhattan came into sight, its towers glowing in a brief interval of afternoon sun. But beyond the tall buildings the clouds were black and anvil shaped; a thunderstorm was approaching the city from the southwest, and far up the Hudson River the horizon flashed with lightning. Denham slipped his arm around Eleanor, who had said little since they’d passed Newfoundland. She seemed preoccupied, unmoved by the skyscrapers, the welcoming flotillas, or the Statue of Liberty pointing up at them, as small as a jade figurine.

‘When I left New York I said I’d return in shame or glory,’ she said, looking straight ahead.

‘And which is it?’

She shrugged. ‘I left as a girl; I’ve returned as a woman.’

The ship slowed as it sailed over the shadowed chasms and high formations of Fifth Avenue, bristling with spires, gables, and masts. Over the Empire State Building they flew low enough to see the faces of the tourists taking photographs on the observation deck, of parents holding up small children.

An hour later, when they were over the flat scrub oaks and pinewoods of New Jersey, the passengers began returning to their cabins to pack. Denham stayed to watch the approach to landing and noticed the ragged, fast-moving clouds. He opened the window and put his head out. A fine drizzle brushed his face, and there was a sultry, electrical smell in the air.

‘Look,’ said Eleanor.

Haberstock was approaching Jakob, who listened to him with obvious impatience, then shook his head.

‘The man’s trying one more time,’ said Denham.

‘We need to get the dossier,’ said Eleanor.

‘We won’t be landing anytime soon.’

A red warning light was flashing on the hangar of the Naval Air Station, a huge building rising from the sandy soil of Lakehurst. Tiny figures of spectators and reporters held on to their hats, their coats whipped by the wind, but the field itself was deserted. The mooring mast on rails—like a miniature Eiffel Tower—was unmanned.

‘The ground crew isn’t there yet. It’s too dangerous to attempt a mooring in weather like this . . .’

‘What was that?’
Eleanor shouted. She turned to Denham. ‘Did you see that?’

What seemed like a dim blue flame had darted along the length of the promenade sill, flickering over the metal fittings of the windows before it vanished. There it was again, to shrieks of surprise from other passengers.

‘I saw it,’ said Denham. ‘It was like a will-o’-the-wisp.’

‘Ladies and gentlemen, don’t be alarmed,’ said Lehmann calling from the stern end of the promenade. ‘That was a display of the gas known as St Elmo’s fire, caused by a buildup of static electricity during a storm. Quite harmless. There is, as you’ve seen, too much electricity in the air at the moment. Captain Pruss is going to turn the ship away and wait for the storm front to pass. I’m afraid this will result in a further delay . . .’

Slowly the hangar moved out of view below as the ship tilted and turned southeastwards and away from Lakehurst.

Jakob and Hannah came over to them. ‘Haberstock is now offering me a hundred thousand reichsmarks for the dossier,’ said Jakob. ‘I could acquire a Vermeer for that.’

Denham laughed. ‘If he goes any higher, I’ll say yes on your behalf . . .’

‘I am starting to feel sorry for him. He seemed distinctly nervous when I turned him down this time.’

The ship looped away from Lakehurst, over the Toms River and along the deserted yellow beaches of New Jersey, where seaside houses were still boarded up from winter, their pastel colours faded and peeled. From behind the clouds, sharp rays made fields of sunlight on the dark sea.

Half an hour passed as they watched the ocean; then the ship turned again and began to head back.

‘We’ve had the clearance,’ Lehmann announced. ‘The weather’s calmer. Herr Denham, would you like to view the landing from the bridge?’

E
leanor followed Hannah along the keel corridor into the draughty hull of the ship, buzzing with engine noise, and when they reached the ladder at the foot of the air duct, they climbed, retracing their steps from the night before. This time, however, there were dozens of crew running between stern and prow as the ship prepared to land. One of them asked if they knew where they were going. Eleanor flashed him her best smile, explaining that they had the purser’s permission, and would only be five minutes. When they reached the metal chest at the intersection with the axial corridor they heard a series of deep blasts from a klaxon.

‘Must be the Air Station,’ said Hannah.

She opened the chest and with Eleanor’s help lifted the heavy rolls of silver canvas from inside. In the fifth fold Eleanor plucked out the package containing the List Dossier.

‘Got it,’ she said as Hannah dumped the canvas back inside. ‘Let’s go.’

‘That’s far enough,’ said a voice in English.

About twenty feet away, standing on the grilled floor of the axial corridor, was the tall, potbellied figure of Koch. ‘Don’t move.’ His arm was stiffly extended. He was aiming a handgun right at them.

Chapter Fifty-eight

D
enham was next to Captain Lehmann at the back of the crowded bridge, out of the way of the helmsman, the elevator man, and the officers monitoring the gas pressure and engine telegraphs. Captain Pruss stood behind the first officer, who was in charge of the landing. Lehmann was keeping an eye on the light boards that monitored ballast and hydrogen, the nerves and nuclei of the most modern aircraft ever built. More than ever Denham wished that Tom was with him now.

On the sodden landing field hundreds of tiny figures were now assembling around the mooring tower. A heavy shower had fallen just before they’d arrived, and wide pools reflected the leaden sky.

‘Reverse engines,’ said Pruss, and the vast ship began to brake as it moved in from the west and slowly dropped lower. They were about six hundred feet from the ground. ‘Prepare to release port and starboard handling lines.’

K
och’s thick grey hair was dishevelled; his forehead beaded with sweat. The long climb up the ladder after them must have got his heart racing.

‘Put the dossier on the floor,’ he said. There was a tremor to his voice, and he swayed very slightly, making Eleanor think that he’d been drinking.

‘What kind of idiot brings a firearm on board a hydrogen airship?’ she said. ‘Do you know what would happen if—’

‘Put the fucking dossier on the floor,’ he shouted.

The bracing wires creaked. The hum of the engines could be felt through the floor. A low, filtered light seeped through in places, but otherwise the area was in a gloaming of its own.

‘Do as he says, Eleanor,’ Hannah whispered.

‘I
’ve never seen this type of landing before,’ Denham said. ‘Normally we drift down and the ground crew walks us to the mast, don’t they?’

‘It’s a new technique called a “high landing,” ’ said Lehmann. ‘They pull us down by ropes and moor us. Requires fewer men, and saves us money.’

As Lehmann spoke, Denham’s attention was caught by the view on the right-hand side: a bank of low grey cloud was billowing towards them from the southwest. ‘Is that another storm front moving in?’

‘P
ut the gun down,’ Eleanor said. Her eyes were locked on Koch’s. ‘We’re not armed.’

‘Not a step closer,’ he shouted. The barrel trembled in his hand. ‘Believe me, I will shoot you.’

‘You might,’ said Eleanor, ‘but you might miss and hit the hydrogen. Put the goddamned gun down.’

‘At this range? With this calibre?’ He gave a nervous, hissing laugh. ‘This is a Walther PPK semi-automatic. No, I will hit
you
. I will kill
you
.’ His face was sweating streams in the cold air. ‘Put the dossier on the floor.’

Eleanor was holding up the package as if it were a shield.

‘Eleanor,’ Hannah implored. ‘
Please
put it down.’

I
n the control car Denham could not take his eyes off the approaching storm, but the attention of Captain Pruss, the first officer, and the others was focused on the mooring mast, the ship’s altitude, and the speed of approach.
Eckener, with his
pathological obsession for safety, would not have allowed this,
he thought. The old man would have delayed for as long as it took until the danger had passed. Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed another blue flame wriggling along the metal fittings at the back of the room.

E
leanor slowly put the package on the floor, but the gun stayed trained on her.

‘There,’ she said. ‘I’ve put it down. Now you put the gun down.’

Koch seemed to breathe a little easier, and he lowered the gun.

‘It’s yours to take back to Berlin,’ Eleanor said, retreating slowly.

‘I’m not taking it to Berlin,’ he said in a shaking voice, ‘I’m going to destroy it.’ His voice had an off, cracked note, sounding more than drunk; he sounded unhinged, as though something had snapped inside his head. ‘As soon as we land, I will burn it . . . as if it never existed.’

As he moved forwards to pick up the package from the floor, a shadow rose in the dim corridor behind him. Friedl was creeping up on Koch, holding a small length of rope between his hands. He’d removed his shoes. Hannah looked at him wide-eyed and gave a rapid shake of her head, but he didn’t notice; nor had he noticed the gun in Koch’s hand. He crouched as if to gather himself, then in a wide movement took a giant step and leapt onto Koch’s back, sending him crashing to the floor. Koch landed painfully on his side, with his gun arm sticking out horizontally. Friedl struggled to get the rope around his neck, with both men straining and groaning, and then he saw the gun.

The shot sounded like
Dan!

Sparks cascaded, and a whooshing, whip-crack made the women duck and cover their heads. The bullet had nicked one of the thin bracing wires, snapping it and sending it singing through the air as its tension released. It quivered for a second like a kraken’s tentacle, then tore into the nearest gas cell, making a long gash high up in the fabric.

Hannah rushed to help Friedl, stamped her heel on Koch’s wrist, and pulled the gun away, sliding it back towards Eleanor.

But Eleanor was looking up, transfixed by the tear high up on the gas cell, near the very top of the ship.

Hydrogen was flowing freely from the gash, mixing with oxygen, causing rippling waves in the fabric of the cell, like a hot-water bottle emptying. The escaping flow pushed against the ship’s outer sheathing, making it flutter.

An unmistakable smell filled her nostrils. ‘Garlic,’ she whispered.

T
he first officer turned to Pruss. ‘That’s odd,’ he said, pointing at the instruments. ‘We’re losing altitude in the stern. We’re about a thousand kilograms heavy.’

‘Release water ballast,’ said Pruss.

A ballast toggle was pulled, then another.

‘Still tail heavy,’ the first officer said, and picked up the telephone to order the crew members on duty in the lower tail fin to walk to the bow in order to correct the trim.

The ship was now about three hundred feet from the ground, hovering, and close enough for Pruss to wave to the commander of the Naval Air Station sitting in his jeep at the corner of the field.

‘Release starboard and port handling lines,’ he said.

From the bow hatch window the heavy mooring ropes fell and splattered on the ground where the mooring crew picked them up and tied them to a capstan. At that moment the evening sun came out, filling the control car with light, even as a light rain was falling from the weather front gathering from the southwest.

Denham turned to Lehmann. ‘Won’t that wet rope ground us? I mean, couldn’t it cause a spark?’ He could feel the static on his fingertips when he touched the sill, and in his hair.

‘There’s no danger,’ Lehmann said, clapping Denham’s shoulder. He nodded at the light board. ‘All cells are normal, and we have five experienced officers in here, including me.’

‘Cut engines,’ said Pruss. The four propeller engines died, and with that the great ship floated in silence, as if it were holding its breath.

‘W
e’ve got to warn the bridge,’ Eleanor shouted. She forgot the dossier; she forgot the gun. They abandoned Koch on the narrow axial corridor, groaning and clutching his wrist. The package containing the dossier lay about ten feet away from him. Hannah ran back and snatched it from the floor.

In the distance along the endless axial corridor they saw the duty riggers moving.

They clambered down the long air duct ladder that led back to the keel. For three long minutes they descended, their feet slipping on the rungs. They reached the cargo hold and were about to reenter the passenger quarters when Eleanor, who was in the rear, heard a muffled detonation far above her, like the sound of someone lighting a gas stove.

‘D
id you feel that?’ the first officer said, turning to Pruss.