One Thousand Years (25 page)

“Yes, sir,” Donaldson said, and then disappeared.

McHenry waited until he could see Donaldson outside on the dome,
then held up the emergency kit in his hands.
“You'll have to take my word for it that I have good reasons
to compartmentalize what I tell each of you.
I don't know all their capabilities but I
do know that they are more capable than you can imagine. There is
something I haven't told you. The Reich has another enemy. They're
here. They could tip the balance.”

“You mean people on another planet?
People that aren't human?”

McHenry nodded. “They call them the Grauen.”

“They're potential allies!”
The colonel looked at the box McHenry was holding and understood the connection.
“What you're thinking is that you have an advanced
kind of radio here that can contact these people, creatures, or
whatever they are.”

McHenry
nodded again.

“Doesn't
this ship have a radio that could work? Just take this thing up to
altitude for a better signal. Why couldn't we just call them right
now?”

“With all due respect, sir, you don't have the authority.
Nobody on this island does.
We don't know that we will like the Grauen any more than the Nazis do.
The martian invaders of H. G. Wells had no interest in finding allies.
These might be no different.
This can only be a decision for President Roosevelt.”

“You're
right,” Blanding admitted slowly, easing his grip on the seat.
“We would be gambling the world. The devil we know or the
devil we don't know.”

“Yes,
sir. I'm only guessing that we can send a message on a channel that
the Grauen would immediately recognize as out of our time. It might
get them curious enough to send a response. But if it works, the
Grauen could be worse than the Nazis. From what I've gathered, the
Nazis have had almost no interaction with them other than occasional
firefights. The men and women on that ship tell me they know very
little about them.”

The
colonel showed visible surprise. “They're carrying
passengers?”

McHenry
needed a few seconds to understand his meaning. “No, sir,”
he said. “The women on that ship aren't passengers. They're
crew.”

Blanding
looked like he was stifling a smile.

McHenry
stifled his own smile, too. He considered telling him about the
woman
Führer
, the woman
Kommandant
, and especially
about Mtubo, the black
SS-Oberführer
, but thought it best
to keep things simple. Time was running out.

Blanding
went back to staring at the dome again, through the back wall of the
hangar and beyond. “I'll tell you something I've not thought
much about since the attack on Pearl,” he said. “I used
to like America First, one of the groups that, before Pearl Harbor,
had opposed our getting into the war. I wasn't an actual member, you
understand. I was a Roosevelt man. But the talk of staying out of
the war made sense to me. And I trusted Lindbergh.”

“I
do understand that, sir,” said McHenry.

“And
when all the communists changed from being anti-war to pro-war, it
only made more sense that we should stay out of it.”

“A
lot of people felt that way.”

“Too
many people still do,” Blanding snapped. “But not me. I
changed my mind on December seventh. And after what I've seen and
heard here, I'm never changing it back. I'm in this war even if the
rest of the country gives up.”

“I'm
glad to hear that, sir.”

Blanding pulled himself out of the seat.
“Okay, Lieutenant.
You're the only man who really knows what we're up against.
I think I know what you're going to ask for, but this is your mission.
You tell me, what's your next step?”

“I
need a flight to California,” said McHenry, standing up beside
him. He was starting to like Blanding's rough charm. He felt bad
about having given him the bum story. If there was one thing he took
from Dale, it was what she said of the Treaty of Versailles. Calling
the Grauen was never going to be part of the real plan.

*

Donaldson
was waiting at the ramp outside.

“File
a flight plan to California and order up some fuel,” Blanding
ordered. “You're flying co-pilot. We'll get somebody to wake
up Taylor for navigator, and one of the mechs for the preflight. I
want one who can fly loadmaster. Make this look like a regular
flight.”

“Can
we do this?”

“Nobody's
going to worry about the regs when this is over. I'll leave a note
for Watkins so that he can keep our stories straight.”

Dalton
and Williams had pulled the hangar door open enough for a jeep to get
through. The jeep had its canvas top on.

“It
will give you some cover from anyone looking from overhead,”
Donaldson explained.

“You
just saw they can see through walls,” sneered Blanding.
“What's that going to do?”

“It's
still good, sir,” said McHenry, still carrying the emergency
kit. “Every little bit helps. A little bit could make just
enough of a difference. Just one thing, sir. I need to stay away
from here until you're ready to take off, just in case they get here
before we're ready.”

“Williams!”
Blanding shouted. “Hustle over to the B.O.Q. and get
Lieutenant Taylor now. Tell him nothing about what happened here,
but tell him to get here now. He can get dressed on the way. I'm
not kidding either. I want him getting dressed on the way!”
Then back to McHenry, “Okay, you stay with Donaldson while he
files just in case all hell breaks loose here. But don't you worry.
We'll be ready to turn engines by the time you get back.”

*

SEDITION TRIAL DEFENDANTS CLAIM ‘FREE SPEECH’ ISSUE
The Defense
in Washington's mass sedition conspiracy trial yesterday
laid a basis for making “free speech” the issue upon
which to seek acquittal of the 29 defendants.
“Free speech is the
paramount issue — the only issue,” Lawrence Dennis, a
defendant, told the jury.
...
Dennis, described by the
prosecution as “the Alfred Rosenberg of the (Nazi) movement”
in this country, who supplied “ideas” to other
defendants, called it a “political trial” and urged the
jury “not to blame the defendants, because they didn't ask for it.”
—
Associated Press, (May 19, 1944)

Ground and air crews were about, heading for early preflights, as Donaldson
pulled the jeep into the parking lot at the tower. “I'll make
it quick. I don't think Blanding's going to mind if I fudge some
details.”

They
were parked near a streetlamp. McHenry pulled out the
Chicago
Defender
after a few minutes of
waiting. As Donaldson had said, there was an article about the 99th.
It was right on the second page.

TWO 99TH PILOTS BACK IN U.S.

That
was them. As the sole black fighter squadron, the Tuskegee airmen
were the only “99th” that mattered to readers of the
Defender
. But even
before starting to read the story, McHenry's heart leaped when he
spotted the name Capt. Joseph C. Parker in the first paragraph.
Expecting it to say something else, he read the words without
comprehending. He read the entire paragraph again slowly to be sure
he hadn't misunderstood the context.

Parker
was alive!
There was no mistaking it. The article said he was
reassigned, and back in the United States, having completed his
combat deployment in North Africa and Italy. It even quoted him at a
redistribution station in Atlantic City.

Confused,
grateful, angry, and teary-eyed, he immediately believed he had been
the victim of a cruel lie. But after reading the paragraph once
again, and thinking it through, he knew it could only mean one thing:
For the Reich, history had changed from the time that
Göring
had left the thirtieth-century. The change may be minor, to be sure,
but it could only be catastrophic for the crew aboard
Göring
.

The
implications raced through his mind. If he had stumbled across this
one discrepancy, he wondered how many other changes there could be.
It explained a lot about the recent secrecy. Most of all, a weight
was off his conscience. Whatever he does now to change the course of
future history, it could not affect the men and women aboard
Göring
.
That die had already been cast by someone else.

But
he could not understand how this could happen. If nothing else, he
trusted the professionalism
of
Göring's
crew.
They were meticulous. Something else must have happened.
Something big.

Donaldson
came back flashing a thumbs up. McHenry waved that off. “There's
a monkey-wrench in the works.”

“Serious?”

“It
is serious for them. I have no idea how it affects us.”

He
flattened out the page of the newspaper and held it up to Donaldson.
“See here? I know this man. He's my friend. I looked him up
on this machine they have, telling what happens to everybody. He was
listed as being killed in action last month.”

“But
it's a common name. Could there be two?”

“Not
without me knowing about it. This is him.”

Donaldson
lifted his hands. “Well, either this paper's wrong or your
Nazis lied to you.”

“They
had no reason to lie to me,” McHenry said. “Not about
something like this, anyway.”

“Could
it be some kind of trick for interrogation?”

“I
wasn't interrogated. They already know everything there is to know.”

“Then
they
must have done something.”

“They're
too careful. They don't want history changing. Otherwise, there
won't be a home to go back to.”

“Irregardless,
your escape couldn't have changed this. This happened last week,”
Donaldson said, pointing to the paper. “Somebody else must
have changed something before you left.”

“Yes,”
McHenry agreed. Someone.
Was it the Grauen?
he wondered.
Or
someone aboard the Göring? But why? And how?
He couldn't
imagine.

*

Private Williams was standing his post at the well-lit hangar entrance
when he saw the two white-uniformed naval officers arrive on foot.
He carried a flare gun now, having had to give the rifle to the man who came to
relieve him at the end of his watch. He fidgeted with the flare more
nervously when he spotted the gold braid on one of the officer's
hats. He stood crisply at attention, saluted, and warned the men to
halt.

“Who is in charge here?” asked one of the men.

Blanding rushed out the hangar's side exit, saluting the senior officer.
“I'm in charge, Commander,” he said. He cast a confident eye to
Williams, not to reassure him, but to strengthen his resolve. “My
name's Blanding.”

“I'm
Commander Harrington of Navy Special Projects,” the man
replied, sharply returning the salute. “We've had a secret
aircraft stolen. We believe you have it in your hangar.”

Blanding
appeared surprised. “We weren't told it belonged to the Navy.”

“I
sure hope you didn't believe the crazy Negro who stole it,”
said Harrington, now grinning.

“He's
a lot smarter than you would think,” said the man beside him.

“That,
I don't doubt,” said Blanding. “He had me completely
fooled.” Blanding could see Harrington's grin transform into
the smile of a salesman, strangely reminding him of a movie
character. They both reminded him of movie characters. The
crispness of their uniforms just added to the odd manner about the
men.

“You
see, we need to recover this experimental aircraft. We also need to
find the thief. He's carrying classified documents, you understand.
Time is of the essence. Do you know where he could be found?”

“Better
than that. I can take you right to him.” And with that,
Blanding reached for his own flare gun.

*

McHenry and Donaldson both saw the flares at once.
First one, and another an
instant later. Then more from slightly different locations
from the direction of the C-47 flight line.

“Trouble,”
McHenry murmured.

“I
counted five. Colonel Blanding and the men.” Donaldson turned
the wheel sharp, making a three-point-turn, and headed off in the
opposite direction. “They're sending us a warning.”

“Your
colonel is a good man.”

“That
he is,” said Donaldson. He made a sharp right turn at the next
corner.

“Where
are you going?”

“I saw a bomber on the flight schedule when I was at the tower.
It's going to California. I'm getting us on it.”
Then, after another second,
“What do you think will happen to them?”

“Can't
be sure,” McHenry replied. “If not for history already
changing, they would put a high priority on keeping things as they
were. That would mean keeping everyone alive — except for me,
that is. As it stands now, I can't guess what their plans would be.”

“I hate to say this, but whatever you intended to keep secret from me,
they'll get it if you think they can make Blanding talk.”

McHenry
didn't understand.

“It
was when you wanted to speak to Blanding in private.”

“Oh
that. I know. I was counting on it.”

It
took Donaldson a few seconds to catch on. “It's a ruse? Will
it work?”

“I
haven't the slightest idea,” McHenry conceded.

They pulled into the lot behind the bomber hangars,
one of which had its floodlights on.
The first lights of dawn were showing in the east.

*

At
two kilometers up, Vinson and Dale could watch the recaptured Tiger
depart. Its unterkarbon net quickly unfurled, and the Tiger
disappeared from view entirely once high enough to avoid ground
refraction.

“That
was the easy part,” Vinson sighed.