“Which would have nothing at all to do with that whole North African brouhaha, of course,” Trumbull pointed out with a wry smile as Eileen was instantly forced to stifle a smirk of her own.
“I could very easily have you and Gold posted together on a fuckin’ desert island, pal,” Thorne shot back, not appreciating his friend’s cheap and completely accurate comment.
“Max, everyone knows you wouldn’t last five minutes these days without Rupert running things for you, so you’ll have to try harder than that to frighten me!” Trumbull countered, grinning even wider. “And, anyway,” he added quickly, stopping that line of discussion in its tracks, “you’ve barely had any free time here at all since you got back from Egypt, what with flitting about all over the country and such like, and I’ve not been able to show off some of our newest arrivals yet…”
“You been holding out on me…?” Thorne asked with a raised eyebrow, instantly excited over the unexpected possibility of new toys to play with.
“Just get yourselves a meal and a good night’s sleep, and come and see me over at the ARDU tomorrow: I’ve got something to show you that you may find very interesting. Oh…!” He added quickly, suddenly recalling some other important news he’d wanted to relate. “We also received a message from Hal this morning… he says that report you asked for is complete, and they’re ready to progress to the next stage of testing.”
“At last some good news,” Thorne exclaimed. “Send a message back telling him to go ahead ASAP! The sooner we get a confirmation the stuff works the better.”
Deutsche Emaillewaren-Fabrik
(German Enamelware Factory)
Kraków, Poland
Direktor Oskar Schindler was seated behind his desk as Generaloberst Albert Schiller was ushered into his office first thing that morning, resplendent in an immaculately-tailored, tree-piece suit of grey wool. The first unexpected fact that struck Schiller was that the man seemed so young… possibly in his mid-thirties at most, and easily more than ten years his junior. A large, open face and high forehead served as a frame for sharp eyes with, he well knew, a great deal more going on behind them. As the owner of the German Enamelware Factory rose to greet his guest, it also became apparent that he was a tall man… taller than Schiller, at least, and seemingly of quite solid build.
“An unexpected pleasure, Herr Generaloberst… Heil Hitler…!” Schindler began, nervousness clear in his voice as he stepped from behind the desk and gave the customary Nazi salute. “I already have a meeting with the Reichsmarschall in Berlin later this week: I trust there’s nothing wrong?”
“You may relax, direktor,” Schiller replied with a sardonic smile, suspecting he had a good idea about the reason behind the man’s concern. “This is completely unofficial: I’m here today to speak with you regarding a personal matter; hence the reason I am currently out of uniform.”
“Of course, I’ll assist in any way I can,” Schindler assured, perhaps calming a little upon hearing that news. “Please… take a seat…” A Sudeten German, he’d worked as an agent for the Abwehr prior to the annexation of Czechoslovakia, and even after that had operated for them in a semi-official capacity leading up to the outbreak of war. He therefore possessed a military man’s unconscious recognition of rank, and found it difficult to relax completely in the presence of a staff officer directly linked to the most powerful man in Germany below Adolf Hitler himself.
Schiller shrugged off his coat and folded it across his knees as he took a seat at the desk. Schindler returned to the opposite side and sat also, immediately lifting the receiver of the phone beside him.
“Arnie, please have some coffee brought up for our guest,” he requested immediately as someone picked up at the other end. “And bring some of those buns up from the kitchen also if you would… What exactly can I do for you, Mein Herr…?” He continued, returning his attention to Schiller the moment he’d hung up the phone.
“I have a small favour to ask…” he began, now also sounding nervous as he started to actually think about what he was doing. “…A favour that perhaps is in your power to grant…”
“Natürlich, Mein Herr…” Schindler asked without hesitation. “What would you ask of me…?” Any chance to have the Reichsmarschall’s aide on side could always be quite useful for a man in his unusual position.
“Your factories make use of forced labour from Płaszów,” Schiller began eventually, having taken a deep breath to steady himself. “Many Jews and other undesirables will be held there over the coming years, particularly after the Kraków ghetto is razed, as I believe is likely to happen early in the New Year.”
That piece of information surprised Schindler, and he made no attempt to hide his reaction. He also noted the bitterness in the other man’s tone as he’d spoken the word ‘undesirables’, giving the director the distinct impression that Albert Schiller did not agree with at least some of the policies of his own superiors.
“That much is true, general,” he confirmed with a nod. With the expansions we’re planning, we expect to have almost two thousand working here by the end of next year, most of whom will be prisoners. I do not believe this is any great secret.”
“Not at all,” Schiller agreed with a dismissive shake of his head. “However your use of prisoners as a labour force is the reason I’m here today…”
He paused for a moment as a young man in waiter’s garb knocked then entered, pushing a small, wheeled trolley ahead of him. Its top was covered by a silver tray carrying cups, milk and all the other accoutrements one would expect to accompany a large pot of steaming coffee.
“Your coffee, Herr Direktor…” the waiter advised respectfully, and Schiller couldn’t help but note the yellow Star of David sewn onto the breast pocket of his white tunic. “The kitchen had run out of buns, sir, I am sorry…” He apologised, carefully lifting the tray and placing it on the desk before pouring each man a coffee.
“Not to worry, Arnie… the coffee will do nicely… thank you… They insist all my employees wear them…” he added, noting the expression on Schiller’s face as the orderly left the room. “I find the whole thing incredibly tedious; it puts our normal staff on edge and causes all sorts of difficulty, particularly the pink triangles. Bad enough having to work next to a queer… who’s to say the fellow isn’t a paedophile or an ‘animal lover’ into the bargain…” he continued to explain, referring to the Nazi practice of forcing homosexual male prisoners to wear the same pink triangle assigned to those convicted of sexual offences such as rape, paedophilia or bestiality.
“I have no interest in such matters,” Schiller spat disgustedly, unable to meet the other man’s gaze for a moment. It was a response that Schindler found intriguing: he’d intentionally been fishing for exactly such a reaction, and went some way to convincing him that the officer before him honestly had no stomach for some of the atrocities currently being committed in Deutschland’s name.
“Of course, Mein Herr; how can I help…?” Schindler asked simply, stirring some sugar into his coffee.
“It’s my belief that there will be two children – possibly infants – brought to Płaszów sometime during the next few years. It is my wish that you do everything in your power to ensure that they do not come to harm.”
“That is an incredibly dangerous request, even for a man such as yourself…” Schindler observed after a long, thoughtful pause, having been caught unawares by the nature of the request. “Forgive my impertinence, sir, but the Sicherheitsdienst would almost certainly have questions about why an officer of the OKW would want to protect the lives of two Polish Jews… particularly two Jewish children. To be accused as a rassenschänder is no small matter…” he pointed out, alluding to strict Nazi laws forbidding mixed relationships between Aryans and Jews: a crime that could see the accused jailed as a ‘race defiler’.
“My reasons are my own, Herr Direktor, and I’ll thank you not to ask any further questions regarding this. Know only that if you are able to do this for
me, I would be forever in your debt.”
“The honour is all mine, of course,” Schindler assured, having received the man’s message loud and clear. “Protecting two children alone however will not be a simple task. As much as some of them out there cry like babes at the thought of hard work, the fact remains that I cannot employ infants on my factory floor – questions will be asked…”
“Then protect their entire families if you must…” Schiller shot back with mild frustration, finding it difficult to continue beating around the bush when he knew full well that the man had already started making clandestine efforts to ensure Jews working for him were kept safe from the gas chambers. “I know you’re already pressing the Reichsprotektor for permission to have your labour workers housed independently, closer to the factory. Do whatever you need to make it happen… I will give you whatever authorisation you need.”
“It may be necessary to take on a number of Jewish families under such a ‘project’,” Schindler mused innocently, already seeing an opportunity to turn the whole thing to his benefit. “To ensure there are no questions of favouritism, you understand…”
“Whatever authorisation you need…” Schiller repeated firmly, the emphasis clear in his words.
“And the names of these children?”
“Jakub Weinberg – son of Arnold and Lidia – and Walentyna Liptak – daughter of Tadeusz and Katarzyna,” he fired back quickly as Schindler reached for a notepad and wrote them both down. “I cannot tell you their exact age but they’ll be young… very young.”
“I’ll have some of my trusted workers ask around,” Schindler promised with a single nod, somehow certain now that he could trust the man sitting before him. “If they still live in Kraków, we’ll find them and keep them safe…”
“You have my thanks, Herr Direktor…”
“Oskar, please…” Schindler insisted, sipping at his coffee.
“And please… you must call me Albert,” Schiller smiled in return, finally taking up the steaming mug that sat in front of him on the desk.
One Tree Test Site, Maralinga Range
Woomera Prohibited Area, South Australia
November 8, 1942
Sunday
It was a few minutes after six in the morning as sunlight began to gleam above the sparse, scrubby trees on the eastern horizon. The entre landscape was one of desolation, with little more that scattered, low-level shrubs and bushes in the most part to break the monotony of scrub grass and bare, stony red earth. Twenty-odd miles north of Maralinga airfield and almost six hundred north-west of the South Australian capital of Adelaide, the One Tree test site was part of the Australian War Department’s Woomera Prohibited Area; a huge weapon testing range that covered an area almost the size of England at roughly 47,000 square miles.
Amid an otherwise featureless expanse that barely even deserved to be called bushland, a tall tower rose 700 feet above the ground, constructed from a thick latticework of iron and steel and supported by cables at each corner. A small generator hut lay against the bottom of one tower leg, the soft chugging of a small diesel engine emanating from within, while a lead pipe at least four inches across ran away from the tower and following the path of an uneven access track leading off to the south.
At the opposite end of that track, perhaps three miles distant, a pair of small, concrete bunkers had been constructed, partially sunk into the red earth and entered only by thick steel doors facing south. A dozen yards further back, a large pit had been excavated, at least eight feet deep with its sides reinforced by thick concrete walls. Several long viewing slots were moulded into the bunkers’ north walls, and the lead piping that had run down from the distant tower disappeared straight into the ground directly ahead of the westernmost structure. A ramp leading down off the road allowed space enough for the half-dozen or so Land Rovers and other light military vehicles currently parked inside below ground level.
Doctor Hal Markowicz PhD had been a nuclear physicist for many of his seventy-nine years. Short and slight of frame, he was an orphaned Polish Jew who’d survived the Nazi Holocaust and had eventually made his way to Britain, where he dedicated his life to the advancement of science under the citizenship of his chosen new country. Markowicz had come to the notice of the British defence establishment during the 1980s, and had eventually come to work for what had at the time been known as the Defence Research Agency.
It was there that he’d first met fellow physicist Samuel Lowenstein and formed a scientific partnership that would last more than twenty years. It was a partnership that would continue through to the 21st Century – one that would spawn many innovative projects and unfortunately also result in the development of the Temporal Displacement Unit, the time travel device that had ultimately resulted in Lowenstein’s kidnapping and Markowicz’ involvement with the US Defence Research facility, DARPA, and with the Hindsight Unit itself.
Markowicz hated Australian summers, and although it was still technically only spring, the temperature at dawn already felt warmer than the European summer days he recalled from his youth. Weather forecasts suggested it would rise well into the thirties (Centigrade) by mid-afternoon, and he was really not looking forward to that, working as he was at that moment in what basically amounted to a thick-walled concrete cell completely devoid of air conditioning and possessing only the barest minimum in terms of any circulation whatsoever.
He glanced across at his second-in-command, a far younger scientist who was exceptionally bright but still on a steep learning curve regarding nuclear research, a field still in its infancy in the early 1940s. Within a year of Hindsight’s arrival in Australia, the first Allied nuclear reactor had gone online within the boundaries of RAAF base Edinburgh, north of Adelaide. With the continent of Australia being home to over thirty per cent of the entire world’s stock of uranium ore, there had been no difficulty whatsoever in procuring sufficient material to sustain a reaction at this small test facility.
Two larger, semi-commercial reactors had since gone online at Lucas Heights in Sydney and at the Maroondah Reservoir, north of Melbourne; although both still relatively small, each now contributing greatly to the power consumption needs of both cities and by default also therefore reduced the need for strategic materials such as oil, coal and natural gas that were desperately needed for more pressing, military operations.
The Edinburgh facility also served a secondary purpose: designed from the outset as a small ‘fast-breeder’ type reactor, it was intentionally set up to covert non-fissile unranium-238 into plutonium-239, a weapons-grade material that was far easier to produce than the labour-intensive U-235. It was the efficacy of that production that Markowicz and his research team were present to test that morning.
He stared out through the observation slots at the distant sky to the north. With a pair of binoculars he could see the top of the tower, although its base was hidden by the treeline at the horizon at that range. Without the aid of field glasses, his old eyes weren’t able to see anything at all at that distance, but he knew in a few moments’ time that none of that would be any issue at all.
Lowering the glasses, he stared up at the section of sky he could see and whispered an old Jewish prayer his mother had taught him when he was a child… before the Gestapo had dragged his whole family away and thrown them all into the rail cars that would spell the end for so many of his countrymen.
Papa...! Mama…! Where are you taking them…? No…! Leave them alone…!
He felt the blow, the side of his head faintly ringing as the words of a boy no older than eight or ten echoed in his mind. Managing to keep his feet, he steadied himself with one hand against the lip of the concrete wall and took a few deep breaths to settle his nerves. Imagination or repressed memory, the sounds and sensations had been coming to him for several months now and had showed no sign of letting up. The limited knowledge Markowicz had of dementia suggested wasn’t suffering from that particular affliction, yet the cause behind the unexplained and completel
y unwanted voices in his mind eluded him. He wasn’t foolish enough to speak to anyone about it.
As far as he could tell, it wasn’t affecting his judgement or performance in any way, so there seemed to be no need to unburden his soul, and regardless of his personal condition, two years of extremely hard work was about to come to fruition. There was no way he was going to allow anyone to remove him from the project now, as they almost certainly would if he was open about the truth of what he was experiencing.
Markowicz paused for a moment, considering exactly what that project was as his right hand moved instinctively across and rubbed gently at the faded tattoo on his other arm. He’d been a pacifist in Realtime – the experiences of the death camps and the Holocaust having left their indelible mark on his soul as well as on his left forearm – and the huge majority of the projects he’d worked on with the Defence Research Agency had actually been related to more effective methods for protecting British troops rather than causing harm to their enemies. Yet here he now stood, inside a bunker in the middle of the South Australian wilderness, not only helping to produce a weapon of mass destruction but actually working as the lead scientist on the operation.
To Hell with them, he thought coldly, his lined features hardening as he considered the millions the Nazis had exterminated in all those camps, now so many years past in his own memory. Damn them all to hell. I’d gladly see every Japanese wiped from the face of the earth in exchange for a chance to destroy those Nazi filth!
“Hal…” His project partner said softly, standing right beside him as Markowicz battled with his own internal demons. “We’re ready…”
“What…? Oh… yes, of course…” Hal nodded finally as his mind snapped back to the present day once more. “Of course, James… let’s get on, shall we…?” He turned and addressed the rest of the technicians and military personnel with the bunker at that point. ‘Are we ready, gentlemen?”
The Dead Alone (Empires Lost Book 3) Page 33
