Eagles at War (17 page)

McNaughton's voice rose. "Look, I'm not out to cheat anybody. It's just that the Sidewinder turned out to be a little overweight and underpowered. It's not the first airplane to do that, and it won't be the last. But the Russians can use them, and we'll improve them. You can't ask for more."

Caldwell reached for the whiskey bottle. He
needed
to see Elsie. The woman was more than an obsession, she was a compulsion, a darling compulsion. Well, he had everything else going pretty well; maybe they could get by for a year, until the new McNaughton airplanes were coming down the line, and there were enough Merlins for the Mustang.

"What about the jet engine? How are you coming on that?"

"I'll give it to you straight, Henry. We think we've got a good design—it runs like a charm for the first fifteen hours or so. Then the turbine blades melt—they just can't take the sustained heat. When one of the blades starts to go, the turbine wheel gets out of balance and the whole damn thing blows up. We've had some close calls down in the test cell."

"Well, you better get busy. General Electric is working hard on their version of the Whittle engine, and unless you come up with something fast, you'll be out of the jet business before you start."

The British had sent a prototype of the Whittle engine to the United States in October for G.E. to develop for Bell Aircraft.

"Don't tell me that, Henry. There's always room for more than one engine, more than one airplane. You don't want to have all your eggs in one basket."

"No, but Troy, you've
got
to start producing. The Sidewinder's iffy, and you're not making fast enough progress on the jet. If you don't come up with something soon, I'm going to start you building P-51s."

"It'll never come to that, General, believe me."

Impatiently shaking his head, Caldwell left for his rendezvous with Elsie.

*

Berlin/January 26, 1942

Joseph Goebbels's Maybach SW 38 sedan, custom body by Spohn, was to a Mercedes what a Rolls-Royce was to a Jaguar. A sable throw—the personal gift of Joseph Stalin himself in the palmy days of 1940—covered the backseat, and on each side of the car were Orrefors crystal bud vases, each with a single white hothouse rose. In previous drives Lyra had opened the inlaid rosewood cases in the doors; on the left were crystal bottles of perfume and makeup, a silk handkerchief, a golden comb; on the right were some miniature decanters, each hung with a golden medallion telling its contents. Lyra's throat constricted with desire for a taste of straight vodka, but she refrained. Little Joseph did not drink very much, sipping at the champagne he plied her with, and she would need her wits about her. The affair had begun slowly; after weeks of sending her flowers and providing a car for her ride home, he had at last sent a note asking to meet her. On the first visit he had been entirely correct; on the second he had displayed some impatience. On the third she had complied. It had been an intellectual decision; with Goebbels as a lover she would be protected and better able to work against the regime.

Each time she had to mentally prepare herself for the "seduction/' rationalizing it as her private "combat duty," a price she had to pay to fight her own personal war, a battle intensified in just the last week. She'd received word that her father and mother had gone into hiding, frightened by the Nazis' roundup of Jews in Riga. She knew that they had disappeared as much to protect her as to save themselves—and she could do nothing to help them.

As sickening as it was, it wasn't the first time she'd had to compromise herself just to survive.
None
of her affairs before meeting Helmut had been for love. A few had been out of loneliness, out of a need to be needed—but most had been simply for survival. Helmut had never asked about her past; if he had she would have told him. She was not proud of the way she'd had to live, but not ashamed either—she did what had to be done.

It was the same with Goebbels. She'd do what had to be done. The real challenge would be to maintain his interest after his "conquest," so that she would not lose her source of information and protection when he tired of her body.

He was unquestionably a brilliant man, but cunning, too, and suspicious. She must not underestimate him. Vanity was his weak-spot, and she played to it by assiduously reading his speeches and articles, and quoting his pithiest phrases. He was particularly susceptible to any commentary in the foreign press, and she combed the papers to find them. It was convenient that he felt that attacks on him proved he was doing a good job. But occasionally there were objective words of praise, even from the British, about a particular idea or article, and these gave him immense pleasure. She had one tonight—the London
Times
had written: "Goebbels's unquestionably imaginative propaganda was still effective" in an article examining German morale. She would save that morsel for parting, to use as a means of safe entree once again.

She wondered which would bother Helmut the most: her spying or her reluctant affair. She shuddered as she thought of Goebbels. His enemies called him
"Schrumpfgermane"
—shrunken German.

He was physically repellent, and most of all she hated his wretched square teeth, set in his broad mouth like discolored tombstones, freighting his breath with the death-scent of caries. Kissing him had been an abomination; making love to him was horrible. She drew little comfort from knowing that she was using him.

The car turned into the alley and glided to a stop, seeming as huge and silent as the Zeppelins that Maybach engines once powered. The chauffeur stepped out, transforming himself into a butler in the process.

Upstairs, a red light told Goebbels that the door had opened, and the elevator indicator began to move. He checked his sunlamp tan in the mirror, reassuring himself that he looked well for a man of forty-four. He glanced down to see that his trousers draped correctly across the mounded hump of his custom-built shoe. His deformity gave him the usual momentary sense of injustice, but he quickly put this aside, concentrating on the faultless fall of the jacket, the prosperous feel of his cream-colored silk shirt and underwear.

Moving around the room, he dimmed the lights, then turned them up again, spread the flowers to show the roses off, and started the "Appassionata" on the record player. He fussed with the champagne; two bottles of good German Henkell, no looted Dom Perignon. That was Goering's style, like his baroque hunting lodges.

Goebbels's apartment—a long, narrow art deco drawing room, a small kitchen, and a sensually furnished bedroom—was just off the Friedrichstrasse. Berlin was a rabbit warren of tunnels, and a very convenient one of whitewashed brick ran from the Ministry of Propaganda, the old Prinz Leopold Palast on the Wilhelmplatz, directly to the elevator door in Goebbels's basement. His visitors could enter with equal discretion, via an unmarked door in the alley to the rear. The apartment was ideal for his "rest and recreation."

For that was all the affairs were, necessary restoratives to his health and well-being. He knew that women came to him because of his position, especially his power in the film industry. Emil Jannings had once told him that there was a Hollywood term for this practice—"the casting couch." An apt phrase, one he wished he'd coined himself. But the important point was that the women did not
have
to come; they came to sell themselves for their career. It was no different than the industrialists who had sold themselves to Hitler with their immense campaign contributions, or the politicians, teachers, journalists, even priests, all the "March violets" who had joined the Nazis after 1933.

He checked the motion picture projector's bulb. He'd just received the week's film shipment from Switzerland; tonight he'd show her a brand new American film,
Foreign Correspondent.
It was of course anti-Nazi, and that was the point, to illustrate his confidence in himself, his trust in her, an ideal stage setting for making love.

There was a timid knock. He opened it and stood for a moment taking in her beauty. Then, with a bow that he fancied was quite Viennese, he kissed her hand and gently tugged her inside.

Lyra enjoyed the film, especially Joel McCrea's bravado, but was unsettled to find Goebbels preoccupied and a little distant. Had he decided that she was not worth pursuing? Repressing her repugnance, she reached out to take his hand, asking if he was well.

"It's nothing—a headache. We're going to have to raise the price of potatoes, and I'm worried about the public reaction."

"What a man you are—concerned with everything from potatoes to the Eastern Front. And"—squeezing his hand—"always in danger, too." They had talked about his personal security earlier. "Aren't you concerned that the Communists, or some insane person, will make an attempt on your life?"

Preening with drawing-room bravery he confided, "Not at all—it doesn't matter what happens to me. The Fuehrer could readily find another writer like myself." He hesitated, waiting for her protest.

"But, no!"

"No, let me interrupt. My life is not important—but the Fuehrer's—
that
is everything."

His reserve dissolved and he launched into an animated discussion of Hitler's habits—the armor plate he wore in his hat, his frequent changes of schedule, the way he would suddenly, without any previous announcement, change the location of meeting places and the routes to them. It was the insider talking, the man who knew all, a great leader.

She nodded eagerly, saying nothing, drinking in the flow of words, knowing how dangerous they were to her, how invaluable they would be to her friends in the Resistance.

His voice faltered and alarm suddenly registered in his eyes, as he realized he had said too much. Without hesitation, she made herself tremble as if her passion could no longer be contained, extending her arms to him and saying, "My sweet, enough of this. Kiss me."

*

Le Touquet, France/February 10, 1942

Hitler, the frustrated architect, had made one characteristic contribution to the art: the reinforced concrete bunker. All over Europe, Todt Organization crews had despoiled the landscape with massive ugly structures sited half above and half below the ground, many of them taken from Hitler's own design sketches. They varied in size and function, but all were cloaked with certain dismal characteristics: the hum and grind of auxiliary power units, salts exuding from every tunnel wall, and the pervasive odor of a Parisian
pissoir.
The gloom was amplified by the dim yellow lighting pulsing to the fluctuations of the generators. The only decorations on the wall were the phantom impressions of the long-gone wooden forms that had contained the pour.

Colonel Galland, relishing his new role as General of the Fighter Arm, had assembled all of the leaders of fighter units in the West for "Operation Thunderbolt," a literal sink or swim operation for the still formidable remnants of the German surface fleet. Three of the proudest names in German military history adorned the ships bottled up in the harbor at Brest. The British bitterly wanted revenge against all three. The
Gneisenau
and the
Scharnhorst
had sunk the aircraft carrier HMS
Glorious
in 1940, while
Prinz Eugen
had escaped after aiding the
Bismarck
in sinking the
Hood.
The RAF had launched more than three hundred attacks against the ships; sooner or later they would sink them where they floated at Brest.

Josten knew no words would be wasted as Galland stepped to the podium, forcing himself to speak in slow, measured tones that compelled attention, his rich baritone reaching to every corner of the briefing room.

"The Fuehrer has directed that the battle cruisers
Gneisenau
and
Scharnhorst
and the heavy cruiser
Prinz Eugen,
with the necessary escorts, leave the harbor at Brest, and proceed"—he paused for emphasis—
"via the English Channel
to Wilhelmshaven, and then to ports in Norway."

There was a collective gasp. The British had permitted no enemy navy to force the channel since The Armada; they would certainly throw in everything they had in order to stop this effort.

"I understand your reaction, but the fact is there is no alternative. If we leave the ships in Brest, they will eventually be sunk by the RAF; if we take the other route, around Ireland and Scotland, we will be met and outgunned by the Home Fleet. If we sail the Channel"—he grinned broadly at the Navy men fuming near the podium—"the Luftwaffe can protect the Navy."

"The Fuehrer recognizes that this is a high-risk project, but has determined that the effort must be made. These ships will be vital for the defense of Norway, and to attack the convoys."

Some of the men were taking notes; others looked on in a stunned silence.

Galland swiftly laid out the plan—the ships would weigh anchor at night and steam at full speed through freshly swept minefields. Absolute radio silence was required. At noon the next day they would force their way through the narrowest part of the Channel, the Dover Strait.

"It is his view that the British reaction will be delayed long enough for us to effect a daylight passage of the narrowest part of the Channel. It is the most prudent time, even though we'll be vulnerable to air and sea attack, and even to shelling from the shore."

Galland went down an exhaustive list of requirements, detailing radio frequencies, takeoff times, and the absolute necessity for radio silence. He took a few questions, then began his conclusion.

"Gentlemen, this is one mission for which the only acceptable result is success. We must try to remain undetected for as long as possible, for as soon as the British learn we are at sea they will launch every available bomber and torpedo aircraft against us. These must be shot down at all costs."

He paused, conscious that he was beginning to speak too rapidly and that he must not lose the import of his final comment. He surveyed the room, letting his presence fill it.