Stealing Trinity (18 page)

Mitchell pushed the throttle forward and the Luscombe began to move toward one end of the long clearing. He explained his choice as they went, "Not much wind today, and the trees are lower at the east end. She's a testy old kite when she's heavy."

Braun looked at each end of the clearing, noting little difference in the height of the trees. Perhaps a few feet. How could it matter? he wondered.

Mitchell went through a few checks, running the engine up to power, then back to idle. Finally he turned down the strip and added full throttle. The machine shook and rattled as the propeller pulled them ahead, the big wheels bouncing jauntily over ruts in the grass. Acceleration was slow, the airspeed indicator barely rising. Indeed, the trees at the far end of the clearing began to fill the windscreen. But then the bumps and noise dampened as the Luscombe levitated away from the ground. Braun looked down as they cleared the trees by at least a hundred feet.

Here was his first lesson about flying. If all went well, the trees were inconsequential. Yet by planning for the unexpected, old man Mitchell had given himself every edge. Today, a few feet meant nothing. On another day it might be the difference. Braun understood completely, drawing any number of parallels to his own exploits of the last years. Never leave food or ammunition behind when you have an empty pocket. If you lose a button, sew it back on securely because staying dry was paramount. The small things.

Mitchell banked a smooth arc to the west where a series of low ridgelines dominated, huge waves on an evergreen ocean. In the distant haze behind, Braun could just make out the coastline. The individual mansions were dots, and he couldn't begin to discern which was Harrold House, where a small army of lawmen were no doubt gathering. Along with Major Michael Thatcher, whoever the hell he was. And Lydia.

She was such a simple, transparent woman, Braun thought. In spite of the years, she had still been under his charm, throwing herself at him freely, no regard given to her husband or her family. He was sure this was not her habit -- Lydia was not a tramp. She was naive, a child in a woman's body. He briefly wondered if he had harmed her by sending her clattering down the stairs. It hardly mattered. His designs on Lydia were dashed, and Braun shrugged the thought away. She meant nothing. Lydia was little more than a conveyance, a channel to the existence he wanted. Braun would simply have to find another Lydia. Or perhaps something else. The other opportunity that had been quietly nagging. Die Wespe. Could there still be value in what the spy offered? Perhaps. But the immediate task was to get clear.

Braun watched Mitchell's boney hands as they caressed the controls. He watched his eyes alternate between the instruments and gauges, a firm pattern established. There was purpose in every movement and Braun decided that he liked the concept of flight -- the control, the delicate accuracy. He kept studying the old man as Newport dissolved into the haze behind.

Chapter 23.

The library at Harrold House became a center for recovery. Thatcher tended to his own wounds while the rest -- including the family doctor, a bespectacled, white-haired man -- saw to Lydia. The palms of Thatcher's hands were raw from his dive across the gravel, and his foot had swelled heavily at the arch -- he wasn't sure where in the scrum that had happened. His throat was sore on the outside now, a complement to the internal rawness he'd started with. It was all a constant reminder of how close he'd come. If Sargent Cole had shown up thirty seconds later--

Thatcher had called Jones right away upon returning to the house. The FBI was on the way, to arrive within the hour. In the meantime, the local police established temporary jurisdiction. The detective in charge peppered Sargent Cole, his wife, and the servants about the man they knew as Alexander Brown. Thatcher wiped antiseptic gauze over his hands and listened closely.

"He arrived unexpectedly on our doorstep," Sargent said, "just over two weeks ago. He was an old friend of Lydia's. Said he'd been serving in the Army. He was on leave and had to report soon for duty in the Pacific."

Sargent Cole carried on until the detective finally said, "I wish I'd known more about this yesterday." Thatcher stepped in. "Yesterday?"

The detective answered. "I was here to investigate a disappearance. Mrs. Cole's . . . er . . . Murray's husband, Edward. He was lost at sea."

"Lost at sea?" Thatcher pleaded.

The detective hesitated, sounding like the foreman of a hung jury. "Our suspect, Brown, and the Murrays were aboard the family sailboat when Edward disappeared. It seemed to be an accident --" his voice trailed off.

"It would hardly seem that way now," Sargent said.

Thatcher eyed the widow, Lydia Murray, who was presently laid out across a couch. Her head rested in her mother's lap as the family doctor tended to a knot over one eye. She also had a nasty gash across a shin, and bruises mottled her pale skin like spots on a jaguar. Thatcher knew he was to blame. He had barged in on a dangerous man -- a mistake he would not make again.

The detective addressed Thatcher. "So tell me, Major, why are you after this fellow? Is he a deserter?"

"A deserter? Anything but. We think he's a Nazi spy."

"Nazi?" Sargent Cole boomed. "We've known him for years, he's an American!"

"He was born here," Thatcher allowed, "but he fought with Germany. And in the end, probably because he was so authentically American, he was recruited by the SD, German Intelligence."

Sargent Cole, standing by his daughter's side, grew visibly angry as the prism of this new information cast a shifting light. "So he really might have killed Edward."

Lydia moaned. The doctor eased a hypodermic needle into her arm.

"It's a distinct possibility," Thatcher said.

The policeman suggested, "If he's a spy, like you say, then the FBI will take over."

Thatcher said, "The man I called earlier has been lightly involved in the case. I expect he'll go deeper now." He addressed the Coles. "We have to find out where Braun might be headed. Did he say anything to suggest a destination?"

"Alex played himself off as a soldier -- one of ours" Sargent said. "He told us he'd be heading out west soon to join his unit."

"Did he give any specifics?"

"No," Sargent admitted, "it was all very general. A pack of lies -- I see that now. But I do know he's from Minnesota. His father was a timber man there."

"At one point, yes," Thatcher said. "But those interests were sold before the war. And his father was an outspoken supporter of Hitler. I can't see Alex Brown going back there now."

Sargent Cole said, "So where in the hell will he go?"

Thatcher eyed Lydia who was catatonic on the couch. "Where indeed."

The first fuel stop came in Pennsylvania, a little strip called Franklin. Mitchell guided the Luscombe to a gentle landing, talking through it as he went.

"First settle the mains, but keep flying. Always keep flying. Then you ease the tail down." The little craft settled, bumping to a crawl before Mitchell turned it toward a small building. "The next one'll be yours," he said.

They were on the ground only long enough to take on fuel and drink a soda. The old man then walked Braun through a pre-flight inspection, checking the propeller, oil, fuel, and flight controls. When they got back in, Braun took the left seat while Mitchell stood at the door and walked him through the starting procedure. He pulled a worn card from under the seat, greasy fingerprints smudged across the thick paper. Braun had not seen it before. "This is a checklist. It'll help you not miss anything until you get the hang of it."

Braun took the card and went through the steps systematically. When all the switches and levers were set he shouted, "Contact!"

Mitchell turned the propeller and the warm engine caught right away. The instructor scurried around to the passenger seat and belted himself in. "Flying's the easy part," he said. "If you can drive her on the ground you've got it licked." He pointed down to the pedals at Braun's feet. "It's got heel brakes. If you want to go left, give her some power and tap the left brake."

Braun executed a jerky turn to point them in the general direction of the landing strip.

"Keep her to one side as you taxi to the end," Mitchell said. "You never know when another airplane is gonna show up."

Braun looked skyward. The only other plane he could see was sitting outside a hangar, and that particular craft was missing an engine. Still, he took the lesson -- some airfields would indeed be busier.

At the end of the runway they paused to run up the power and check the magnetos, the electrical wonders that sparked the engine. With the checks complete, Mitchell talked Braun through the takeoff. Directional control was maintained using the pedals on the floor, which controlled the rudder on the tail, much like the rudder on a boat. The ground roll was bumpy, but as soon as the main wheels lifted everything smoothed out.

Climbout seemed simple, and Mitchell instructed a level off when the altimeter reached 5,000 feet.

"Straight and level is the first lesson," he said. "Remember, pull back on the stick, the houses get smaller. Push forward, the houses get bigger." He cackled while Braun concentrated intently. "The instruments are secondary for now. You want to fly as much as possible by looking outside. Pick a bug spot on the windshield and keep it on the horizon."

Braun did and the aircraft stayed remarkably level.

"If you change power to go faster or slower, you'll have to change the aim point just a bit."

Braun experimented, first with the wings level, then adding a few mild turns. The next lesson involved something called stalls, a discomforting term that had nothing to do with the engine, but rather aerodynamics. If you got too slow, in the Luscombe's case below forty-five miles an hour, the aircraft no longer flew. Fortunately, the recovery was tame -- the nose dropped, power was added, and the airspeed quickly recovered.

For the next two hours they went through maneuvers and procedures. All the time the Luscombe kept roughly on a westerly heading, making distance as the learning took place. With the fuel gauge getting low, Mitchell turned to navigation. He pointed out the window. "See the road down there? That's Route Six. I've been watching it this whole flight. It's the easiest way to navigate -- follow the roads."

He handed over a map that showed the highway in red. Braun studied it, but thought the picture outside was less clear. Intersecting side roads and small cities swallowed the highway at unpredictable intervals.

"I see the road, but how far along it have we traveled?" Braun asked.

"Well, there's a few ways to tell. Dead reckoning with time and speed, checking the layout of the towns and roads against the map. But I have my own personal favorite."

"What's that?"

The old man grinned. He took control of the aircraft and rolled it until they were nearly upside down. Braun gripped the door as the nose dropped. When the wings righted again the Luscombe was diving toward the ground. Mitchell leveled out no more than a hundred feet off the deck, straight above Route 6. The airspeed approached the red line on the gauge--145 miles an hour -- and the Luscombe shot past a truck and two cars like they were standing still.

Mitchell pointed ahead and shouted over the rushing noise of the wind stream, "There you go!"

Ahead, a billboard stood at the side of the road. It read:

WELCOME TO SOUTH BEND INDIANA

HOME OF THE FIGHTING IRISH

Chapter 24.

The name was Spanish for "The Poplars," referring to the cotton-wood trees that grew in thick clusters at the bottoms of the canyons. Los Alamos, New Mexico, sat high on the eastern slope of the Jemez Mountains, a desert mesa that provided breathtaking scenery and isolation in equal measure. In 1917 it had become home to the Los Alamos Ranch School, a curiously popular and expensive boarding school that provided a "hardening experience" for those privileged young men of good society whose parents saw the need.

Twenty-five years later, in December 1942, the school was presented with its notice of eviction. The directive came from none other than Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, who announced that the school was to be "acquired for military purposes." The owners and staff were asked, in grave tones, to maintain a patriotic silence on the reasons for the schools closure.

The Army's logic was straightforward. The closest city of note was Santa Fe, and that reachable only by an hour's car ride on an unpaved road that suffered seasonally -- syrupy plots of mud in the summer and slick sheets of ice in the winter. Unfortunately, it also lacked both straightness and guardrails, leaving little to keep one from launching into the picturesque canyons below. Few of Los Alamos' new inhabitants -- all either government employees or dependents -- made the harrowing voyage regularly.

The reciprocal result, by strong design, was that virtually no one from the outside world found reason to make the trip up to the isolated canyon community, known by its residents as "The Hill." Those who tried were asked to leave by surly Army sentries at checkpoints along the road. Anyone attempting to circumvent this would have to deal with barbed wire fences, and the soldiers on horseback who patrolled them continuously.

Because of this isolation, the new residents of Los Alamos were allocated a miniature city to themselves. There was a school for children and a store for groceries. The church doubled as a movie theater, and so each Sunday morning the prefects were forced to arrive early at the house of holy worship to sweep popcorn off the floor. This was Los Alamos, a city with a singular purpose -- to be the olive drab birthing room for the most deadly weapon ever conceived by man.

If there was a heart to the organism that was Los Alamos, it was the community center. At two o'clock in the morning, music blared to a scratchy crescendo from a worn phonograph, the sound from the highest notes and most egregious vinyl imperfections stabbing out across an otherwise quiet compound. The crowd, twenty-odd scientists and a handful of support staff, all cheered drunkenly. Dr. Karl Heinrich was a silly sight.