INCEPTION (Projekt Saucer, Book 1)

by W. A. Harbinson

  When Wentworth-King had taken a chair, Bradley introduced him to Gladys. ‘Ah!’ he exclaimed softly, shaking her hand. ‘Gladys Kinder, the well-known American journalist. I’ve read your articles in Collier’s and elsewhere. Your work is spread far and wide.’

  ‘What I write is widely syndicated,’ Gladys explained. ‘I don’t really write that much.’

  ‘I enjoyed your regular London column,’ Wentworth-King said. ‘It made me feel quite heroic. Not that you mentioned me personally, but you were kind to the British.’

  ‘I’ve won a heart,’ Gladys said to Bradley. ‘Where have you been hiding this lovely man? You must invite him more often.’

  Wentworth-King beamed and McArthur chuckled while Bradley tried to hide the spasm of resentment that unexpectedly shook him. Wentworth-King was charming his lady and he didn’t like it one bit.

  ‘So what are you doing in Paris?' he asked Wentworth-King, after throwing an angry glance at Gladys.

  ‘I came in this morning,’ Wentworth-King replied, ‘to set up a base of operations and grill a few Frogs. Still chasing your rocket engineers, are you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Bradley said tersely.

  ‘Then you might be interested in knowing that the Russians have captured Blizna, in Poland, including Himmler’s mock village and disguised rocket proving ground.’

  ‘Any reports on anything unusual?’

  ‘So far, no. But then the Russians don’t talk a lot. We only know that since it’s a proving ground, they certainly found a few rockets.’

  ‘A great help,’ McArthur said.

  Wentworth-King grinned, unperturbed, then smiled charmingly at Gladys. She returned his smile, and then, catching Bradley’s accusing glance, hid her face behind her glass.

  ‘Can I take it,’ Wentworth-King said, returning his attention to Bradley and McArthur, ‘that you chaps are still convinced that Wilson is working on something more advanced than the V-1 and V-2 rockets?’

  ‘I’m convinced of it,’ Bradley said.

  ‘Well, just to prove that I’m a decent chap at heart – no hard feelings and so on – you might be interested in knowing that the most unusual reports have recently been coming into the SOE headquarters in London.’

  ‘Unusual?’

  ‘Yes. A few days before I left to come here, we started receiving reports from Allied pilots, saying that when flying over Germany they were harassed repeatedly by strange lights that tailed their aircraft and appeared to make their engines malfunction.’

  ‘Strange lights?’ McArthur asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Wentworth-King said, ‘Lights... or balls of fire. One report described an encounter with a, quote, enormous ball of fire, unquote, that made his aircraft’s engine cut out. Another report talked about ten small balls of reddish fire that were, according to the report, flying in formation, at amazing speed. In both cases, the so-called balls of fire, or Foo fighters, as they’ve been dubbed, reportedly flew away when fired upon, but usually returned afterward. The lights, or balls of fire, the Foo fighters, appear to have been systematically tailing the aircraft.’

  ‘What areas?’

  ‘All over Germany, but mostly in the vicinity north of Nuremberg.’

  ‘Have the reports been analyzed yet?’ McArthur asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Wentworth-King said. ‘And according to analysis, if the socalled Foo fighters weren’t some kind of atmospheric or electrical phenomenon, they could have been solid objects that were glowing red-hot. And if that’s the case, they’d have been no more than three or four feet in diameter, remote-controlled, and, most oddly, shaped like discs or...’ He paused to shrug his shoulders and raise his hands in a gesture of disbelief. ‘Like saucers... flying saucers.’

  To contain his excitement Bradley stared stonily at Gladys, who simply smiled back sweetly, then turned to Wentworth-King and said, ‘Isn’t this information confidential? Or is it just me you trust?’

  Wentworth-King was amused. ‘The information’s already been published in the British press, so I think it’s okay to discuss it now. Not that I have anything else to add. I merely pass the information on to my American friend here, Bradley, whose imagination is clearly more vivid than mine. And now, alas, duty calls and I have to be off.’ He finished his drink, stood up, and offered Gladys his hand. ‘It was an absolute pleasure meeting you,’ he said. ‘We must do it again sometime. You’ll find details of our Paris HQ tomorrow in the correspondents’ mess in the Scribe Hotel. Do give me a call.’

  ‘I will,’ Gladys said.

  ‘Au revoir,’ Wentworth-King said, kissing her hand and letting it go with what seemed like great reluctance. ‘And to you, Major General,’ he said finally. ‘And you as well, Bradley. No doubt I’ll see you when I see you. Travel safely. And good luck.’

  ‘Same to you,’ Bradley said curtly. He didn’t look at Gladys again until the urbane lieutenant colonel had left the room, skipping around a uniformed member of the French 2nd Armoured Division and a British lance corporal who were arguing heatedly about something or other. When he had gone, Bradley turned to McArthur. ‘Well, what do you think?’

  ‘I think it’s Wilson. What’s north of Nuremberg?’

  ‘Thuringia... the Harz Mountains,’ Bradley said, feeling even more excited, though still angry with Gladys.

  ‘Exactly,’ McArthur said. ‘We’d better run a check on those reports and see what we come up with. Right now, however, I have to get back to the ALSOS office and see what’s cooking there. My departure which should make you two lovebirds happy, though you don’t look it right now.' He stood up with a broad grin on his face, finished his drink, then gave them the thumbs-up and left the bar.

  ‘Alone at last with my man,’ Gladys said, ‘but he’s no longer smiling.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Bradley said. ‘I’m just surprised you didn’t go chasing after that upstanding British officer, Wentworth-King, who so clearly charmed you.’

  ‘Oh, ho,’ she responded, grinning. ‘The fires of jealousy! I’m having a wonderful day!’ She reached out for his hand, squeezed it affectionately, and said, ‘A lady my age is easily charmed, Mike, and I do like to flirt. But come on! I was only doing it to tease you – because I want you to want me. Do you want me, Mike? Do you want me right now? Here and now, in this grand hotel?’

  ‘What’s your room like?’ Bradley asked her.

  ‘Come up and see,’ she said.

  They made love under the pink satin coverlet of the twin bed in a dovegray room filled with elegant Empire furniture and overlooking the rear gardens of the Ministry of Justice. They no longer made love with the vigour of young people, but with the tenderness of two souls united as one, bonded by common experience and a lack of illusions. Bradley took to her body like a lemming to the sea, returning to that place he could fondly call his own, and received all the pleasure he could obtain by simply giving her pleasure. All his love for her returned, pouring out of him like a river, leaving him cleansed and renewed, at peace in her arms. He then slept in those arms, as she slept in his, and when they awakened they made love again, even less vigorously, though as tenderly, as before, then dressed and went for a walk through the darkening city.

  ‘I love Paris,’ Gladys told him. ‘It’s a city made for lovers. I loved it before the war, when I used to visit it a lot from London, and I nearly always thought of you when I walked its streets – my married man, my secret, platonic lover, far away in America. Finally I’ve got you here with me. Isn’t it nice?’

  ‘Yes,’ Bradley said. ‘Very nice.’ Already familiar with the city, Gladys led him by the hand down the passage that ran alongside the Ritz, from the place Vendôme to the rue Gambon, pressing her nose to the elegant shop windows, which she could see in the moonlit darkness, and showing him all the things she would buy before leaving Paris. She took him into the rue de Rivoli, around the place de la Concorde, then along the broad, tree-lined avenue of the ChampsÉlysées, which in the moonlight was wonderful.

  ‘It’ll
all be over soon,’ Gladys said. ‘Yeah, I guess so,’ Bradley replied. ‘Do you think you’ll be able to find Wilson?’

  Bradley sighed. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘If you don’t find him, you’ll go crazy.’

  ‘I just might at that. Of course now that I’ve got you, it won’t be too bad, but I do want to finish it.'

  Gladys chuckled softly and slid her arm around his waist. ‘You’ve only got me for the moment,’ she said. ‘When will you move on?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Bradley said. ‘I have to find myself an army. Probably General Bradley's 1st Army, since they’re heading for the Rhine. And you?’

  ‘I might see you in Berlin.’

  ‘And when it ends? Will you return to America or stay here in Europe?’

  ‘I’m not too sure. I mean, I’ll have to think about it. I love living here – I mean in London, of course – and I don’t really have anything to go home for. I’ve been gone a long time, Mike. Maybe too long now.’

  She had led him off the ChampsÉlysées, down past the Grand Palais, and now they were coming to the river Seine, its water stippled by moonlight, curving away toward the distant Eiffel Tower, silhouetted against the sky. Allied bombers were crossing the sky above the tower, heading for Germany.

  ‘More bombs on Berlin,' Bradley said. ’Now they’re learning what the British suffered during the Blitz.’

  ‘I still sympathise with them,’ Gladys said. ‘Those bombs will be falling on innocent women and children as well as on soldiers. The women and children are too often the real victims of war.’

  She smiled and tugged at his hand, leading him across the Cours la Reine, then back along the river, toward where they had come from.

  ‘Hey, Mike, do you really love me?’

  ‘Sure, Gladys, you know I do.’

  ‘Then how can you even

  think of giving me up? What kind of man are you?’

  ‘What do you mean, Gladys?’

  ‘Give me a reason for going back.’

  ‘What reason?’

  She sighed in exasperation. ‘Goddammit, Mike, you’re dumb!’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Would you marry a dumb man?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And would you let him take you back to America?’

  ‘Yes, dammit, I would. Have you just proposed to me?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘I accept. Yes, I do!’

  She turned into him, her hair blown by the river’s wind, and he kissed her, clung to her, choked up and inspired. Then she stepped away, gave him a smile, and raised his hand to her lips… But she didn’t quite make it.

  Before she could raise his hand, the river rushed up to swallow her. Bradley saw the geysering water, a flash of light, a stream of smoke; then heard the muffled explosion, the car roaring past behind him, the shouting of drunken French youths. He glimpsed what he thought was a hand grenade falling toward him, then he was picked up and slammed down into silence.

  The silence became a ringing – a jarring sibilance in his ears. His lips were pressed to the pavement, so he rolled onto his back and saw Gladys covered in the blood that was spurting out of her head. He tried to sit up and collapsed, looked at Gladys, saw more blood, groaned aloud, not in pain, but in despair, then passed out again.

  He was awakened by the sound of a siren and the screeching of brakes. Then someone, speaking French, told him he was going to be okay and helped him sit upright.

  They were rolling Gladys onto a stretcher and her head was all bandaged.

  ‘Oh, God!’ Bradley groaned.

  He clambered to his feet, swayed dizzily, found his balance, then hurried forward as the men with the Red Cross armbands hoisted Gladys up on the stretcher to put her into the ambulance. Her head was bandaged, her leg was in a splint, and she was covered in blood.

  ‘Jesus, no!’ Bradley said, then reached out to touch her, but was foiled when the Red Cross men slid the stretcher into the ambulance. Bradley, shocked in more ways than one, started clambering up after her. When he was in the back, kneeling beside the stretcher, Gladys looked up and smiled at him.

  ‘Hi, partner!’ she said.

  Bradley picked up her hand, passionately kissed it, his tears flowing, then one of the medics clambered in beside him and said, speaking French-accented, but otherwise perfect, English, ‘She’ll be all right.’

  ‘What?’ Bradley asked, stupidly.

  ‘She’ll be all right,’ the French medic repeated. He looked about eighteen years old and had the smile of an angel. ‘She was struck on the temple with a piece of the exploding boulevard wall; she also fractured her leg. Apart from that, she’s okay.’

  Bradley looked down at Gladys. The bandage around her head was bloody and she was as white as the sheet they’d wrapped around her.

  ‘But the blood...’ he began, fascinated and frightened by the sight of it, though Gladys was smiling.

  The medic slammed the ambulance door closed, then placed his hand on Bradley’s shoulder. ‘Steady on there,’ he said. ‘We’re taking off. I don’t want you to fall on her.’ The ambulance roared into life and moved off with a jerk. The medic grinned and kept Bradley steady, then also studied the blood covering Gladys.

  ‘She was struck on the temple with flying debris,’ he explained. ‘Such wounds always cause a lot of blood loss. But it’s deceptive, believe me. She’ll only need a few stitches and then her head will be fine. As for the leg, it’s only fractured. It will hurt, but it isn’t serious. She’ll be in hospital for a week or two, then she’ll be up and about again. Meanwhile, let me apologise for the disgusting behaviour of my drunken countrymen.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘The police have found the culprits already. Luckily, a gendarmerie car happened to be parked just up the road and the gendarmes in it saw the whole incident. A stolen car being driven by teenagers wearing FFI armbands, mindlessly drunk – having been celebrating the liberation of Paris – and forgetting who the real enemy was. They saw your uniform and, being high on drink and freedom, threw two stolen hand grenades. One exploded as it fell into the Seine; the other exploded on the pavement right beside you. Truth is, you’re both lucky to be still alive.’

  Bradley almost wept with relief, then was filled with exultation. He bent over to kiss Gladys on the forehead, on the bloody bandage, then held her hand in his lap and smiled like a happy fool. Gladys, quickly regaining her colour, smiled broadly and winked at him.

  ‘You two are married?’ the young medic asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Bradley said. ‘Right.’

  He stayed with Gladys all the way to the hospital, all the way to her bed, ensured that she was tucked in like a baby, then kissed her goodbye.

  ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘It’s as simple as that, Gladys. If I don’t see you in Berlin, I’ll catch you in London. I still have your address,’

  ‘You take care,’ she told him.

  He nodded and kissed her again, then walked out of the ward, treading lightly and not looking back because his tears would embarrass her.

  ‘Hallelujah!’ he whispered.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE Wilson awakened at dawn as he had planned, immediately switched on the light, then looked around his spartan room. Apart from clothing and technical books, it contained no personal items. Like the rest of the complex, his room was located underground, but it had at least been built into the breast of a hill and therefore offered a magnificent view of the forested valley. Wilson lay on for a brief while, letting himself feel slightly excited, then swung his legs off the bed, worked his bare feet into his slippers, and walked across to the desk.

  A red circle had been drawn around today’s date: February 16, 1945. Wilson picked up a pen and scored through the date, then dropped the pen and went to the window to look over the valley. At the other side of the valley was the old walled town of Kahla, but Wilson’s modest research complex, really an underground launching site, was well
hidden in this hill, within its sheltering pine trees. Here, today, he would supervise the first test flight of the Kugelblitz, which had progressed much quicker than expected.

  He did not feel nervous, because he had nothing to fear. The Kugelblitz was merely an enlarged version of the anti-radar Feuerball – and the latter had been tested last year, to everyone’s satisfaction.

  From August to December, Wilson had sent the three-foot wide, saucer-shaped, remote-controlled Feuerballs hurtling skyward from this underground launching site near Kahla, to harass the Allied aircraft, cause their engines to malfunction, and fly out of range before they could be attacked. Some of the Feuerballs had blown up in flight, others had malfunctioned in various ways, but each failure had been examined as minutely as possible and its causes corrected in the following prototype. Eventually, by November, Wilson had conducted nightly launches for a month without any failures. Then, confident that his design was foolproof, he had cancelled further launches, ordered the destruction, by high explosives, of the remainder of the prototypes, and begun applying the same principles and designs to his nearly completed, pilot-controlled larger model, the Kugelblitz.

  But now his time was running out.

  According to what Ernst Stoll had told him, news of the relentless Allied advances on all fronts had even reached the ears of the inmates of the concentration camps that were supplying Nordhausen Central Works and Kahla with forced labour. Now sabotage by the prisoners was a very real threat. Indeed, only three months earlier, in November, a large number of prisoners from the Nordhausen underground camp had been arrested, shut up in the bunkers, and forced by torture to confess to sabotage. A group of those who had confessed had even made a failed bid to escape, which only hastened their deaths. All in all, according to Stoll, about three hundred prisoners had been executed: some hanged in the roll-call ground, some in the factory corridors, and some shot in the back of the head while still in the bunkers.

  A foul business, Wilson thought, and one not likely to encourage the prisoners to be merciful when the Allies came to their rescue.