1945 (40 page)

The Brits were focusing on the bombers. Well then, that meant they weren't focusing on him. He pulled up sharply, aiming at a Meteor that had slipped onto the six of an Arado and fired off a burst. Lucky shot: part of the Meteor's tail assembly flew off and the plane spun out of control. It was his first kill in three years, but he felt no elation.

It was going to be a long, bitter day, the hope for an easy victory already gone, the hope for any victory at all beginning to glimmer as well.

10:50 P.M.
Oak Ridge

Otto Skorzeny guided the Piper Cub across the baseball diamond, braking it to a stop. Flinging open the door he swung out.

A grinning Captain Ulrich, dressed as an American MP, came running up and saluted.

"Report, Captain!"

"Sir! First Platoon is moving north into the town, Second Platoon is swinging down to secure the airfield. Third Platoon is in reserve here along with the headquarters and heavy weapons sections."

"What about the others?"

"Richer reports a successful drop on the north side of the town. They're sweeping up hundreds of civilians. The damn fools are running straight to them, crying for help. They just have to wait till they've collected a batch, kill them, and wait for new fools!"

"K-25 and Y-12?"

"On K-25 both teams missed their target by more than a kilometer. At Y-12 one drop landed straight into the fires. Almost everyone in the group was killed. The other drop landed successfully and is now sweeping the buildings."

"And Radl?"

"Nothing. Something's wrong with their radio. But they are in contact with the gunship, which reports that they're inside the building."

Skorzeny nodded.

"Now we must secure the administrative building. Where is your headquarters?"

Ulrich nodded toward a baseball dugout that now bristled with antennas.

"Once it's secured, we'll shift into the administration building. Now move it!"

Ulrich, grinning, called for his platoon and started off at the double toward the target.

Skorzeny looked over at Gunther, who smiled and said, "So far so good."

Skorzeny spat on the ground. "We could still fail."

10:54 P.M.
Oak Ridge

"The reactor is definitely running hot," the physicist shouted, trying to be heard above the staccato of explosions detonating outside the building. A sudden spray of bullets slashed through the corrugated walls, across the face of the reactor, and ricocheted off. The two ducked down. There was an explosion outside and the firing stopped, replaced by a high piercing scream that was finally cut short by another explosion.

Schiller looked over at Radl, wide-eyed with fear. The weapons fire had bothered him no more than it had the others, but this was different, and he understood it too well. "For all we know it's melting down as we speak."

"Just keep pulling the rods and packing the plastic in," Radl shouted.

"You have no idea what you're playing with here."

"The only thing I know is that I'll leave this place a smoking ruin!"

Radl stood up and walked over to a rod sticking out from the wall, pulled it out, flung it to the floor. "Was that uranium or was it a control rod?"

The physicist looked at him gray-faced. "Graphite. But if you pull them all, it will run away on us. The gunship blew out all the instruments. I can't follow what the reactor is doing. It could go at any second. When it does the explosive will go too, at that very instant."

"Then we'll pull some, pack in the explosive and then pull the rest. Perhaps the explosive will do the job of the graphite!" Radl nodded to several of his men holding the tubes of plastic explosive and motioned to them to slide them into the holes left by the graphite.

Schiller found his voice. "You're going to kill us all!"

Radl turned on Schiller, gun raised.

"The rest of us are dead men anyhow," Radl snarled. "Even for those of us who survive this one, there'll be another and another until we're all dead. You just do your job and go home the hero. That, or I blow your brains out here and now!"

10:55 P.M.

Martel raced up the steps to the main entrance into the administrative building. Turning, he waved on the straggling crowd following behind him. Small-arms fire was already starting to lace through them; half a dozen had fallen before the rest could huddle at the side of the building.

"Inside, inside, down into the basement!" he kept shouting the command over and over, pushing men through the doorway.

"It's a death trap if we're caught down there."

Martel turned. It was Marshall.

"Sir, you're the one who pointed out that the Germans were avoiding the admin buildings. Besides, what else can we do? It's either that or get mowed down in the open. It's one of the few strong points we have. Damn near every other building is temporary, above ground and no basement. This is not just an air raid; it's a killing mission, and these people are the targets. We've got to get them into a place we can hole up till help arrives."

Marshall nodded slowly. It seemed that he too could see no other way to stave off immediate annihilation. The last of the scientists came through the doorway, followed by half a dozen Rangers and MPs.

"We'll set up our first fine right here," Marshall said, implicitly accepting Martel's plan. He began detailing off the Rangers to rooms on either side of the doorway and sent two more down the corridor to cover the back approach.

Then Marshall cocked his carbine and laid down by the door. Martel looked down at him. "Commander Martel, decide for yourself how long to stay on your feet, but if you don't get down you're not going to last very long," Marshall said quietly.

Jim, not quite certain if he were the victim of gallows humor, but unable to suppress a wry grin, dropped prone by Marshall's side and waited with him for the onslaught that was coming. Harriman, who had taken it upon himself several minutes before to begin organizing the building, was now crouched at Marshall's other side.

Seconds later, from around the side of the building, several figures in MP uniforms appeared, crouching low. Marshall got up on his elbows and peered out at them. "Hey, you men, over here!"

One of the MFs helmets swiveled directly toward Marshall. The man waved and trotted toward them. Jim watched him carefully as he mounted the steps, sensing that something was wrong but not quite grasping what it was that bothered him.

"Who's in here, sir?" the strange MP asked.

Marshall stood up and the MP slowed and then snapped a salute.

"We've got some of our top scientists down in the basement," Marshall said. "Get your team up here now."

The MP looked intendy at Marshall, eyes flickering across the five stars on each shoulder. A look of delighted recognition started to form as he began to swing his weapon, previously held out of sight, to the front. It was a Schmeisser. Jim started to bring his Ml into line, but he knew that with his bad shoulder he was far the slower, and that he and those with him were about to die—

A sharp
crack!
followed at even intervals by two more spun the "MP" around and flung him down the steps. As that one tumbled, Harriman shot the next in line. The third MP backed away, firing wildly. Braving the scattered fire, Jim caught him on the shoulder, knocking him down but not killing him, since he rolled behind the side of the building.

"What the hell?" Marshall looked at them as if he thought they'd gone mad.

"Nazis dressed as MPs!" Harriman explained, pointing to the dead man sprawled out on the steps. "Look at the jump boots! Plus he's carrying a Schmeisser. Besides," pointing at the direction from which the trio had come, "there's nothing but Germans in that direction."

"You OSS gendemen really do seem to have all the answers, don't you," Marshall said in tones of wonderment. Following some train of thought of his own, he added, "Where's that Grierson?"

"Still in the parking lot, most of him," Harriman replied.

11:10 P.M.

"Gunther, you stay here at the command post! I'll be back."

Gunther looked over his shoulder from the transmitter from which he was calling in another gunship. Sporadic firing was still preventing the transports from landing at the 
airstrip. "Sir? May I ask where are you going?"

"The people we want, including Marshall, have organized resistance. I'm going to take care of it." Motioning for his reserve platoon to follow, Skorzeny ran toward the administration building.

11:15
P.M.

Richer, dressed as an American MP, walked down the middle of Georgia Avenue.

Outer Drive had already been taken care of, his second platoon was further east, his third was scattered out to the west.

The homes in this area were E and F class housing units, dwelling places for middle and upper level scientists and managers of the project. Hundreds of them were burning, bodies littered the street, and staccato bursts of machine-gun fire echoed as his team systematically slaughtered its way across Oak Ridge.

A door swung open. From a small house a gray-haired man half-carried a younger woman. Her clothes and body were lacerated by flying glass. He staggered toward them. "Help us, for God's sake!" he screamed. "She's bleeding to death!"

"Glad to," Richer responded calmly. He walked up to the couple, lowered his gun and shot the woman in the forehead, splattering her husband.

The man looked at him, paralyzed with shock.

Without a word, Richer shot the man in the stomach, then turned and walked away, smiling to himself at the kind of noises the man was finally giving voice to.

The American attitude toward uniforms was a strangely trusting one. More often than not they simply ran to him, begging for help. And not one of them had had a weapon, for weapons were forbidden within the confines of Oak

Ridge. Nearly all of the few MPs and security guards encountered out here in the residences were taken completely by surprise, and the few alert or paranoid enough to suspect were quickly eliminated. So far he had taken more casualties in the jump itself than from actually performing the mission.

A gunship roared in low overhead. A stream of fire spewed from it, followed by a ripple of secondary explosions as fuel tankers on the targeted rail-siding went up. It made a pleasant backdrop to his work.

11:19 P.M.

"Slide those tubes in!"

"We're close to meltdown!" Schiller shouted, trying to be heard above the steadily building firefight outside the reactor.

"Shove them in!"

"Major!"

Radl turned and saw one of his lieutenants standing by the door into the reactor building. He ran over.

"A Ranger unit is deploying east of us, two hundred meters up the road. There are at least a hundred of them."

"How many do we have left?"

"Not more than forty on the perimeter."

"Hold for ten more minutes!"

The lieutenant saluted and Radl started to turn back. He wasn't sure if at that instant he actually saw the wall of the reactor bursting open or not. One second he was standing, turning—an instant later he was flying out the door. The entire east side of the corrugated outer wall was peeled back by the force of the explosion, which vented out of breaches in the reactor wall like hot exhaust from a rocket.

A searing wave of heat washed over him and he rolled away from it, curling up, covering his head. He felt the skin on his hands blistering. As if from far away he thought he heard screaming, a high keening wail. The heat washed over, dissipated, and he sat up. From out of the door he saw someone emerge, his clothes flayed from his body, blood oozing out through blackened, cracked skin.

The man sagged down in front of Radl.

"I told you," Schiller gasped. "The reaction started to go critical, and the explosives were touched off by the heat." He hunched over, gasping.

Radl looked back at the plumes of fire and smoke filling the inside of the reactor building, venting in plumes from the holes lacing the rest of the building and billowing from the blown-out east wall.

The physicist looked at him and tried to laugh.

"I'll see you shortly in Hell, Radl; you've killed us both." With that the physicist collapsed into unconsciousness, his breath coming in ragged wheezes.

Radl stood up and edged over to the open side of the building and looked in. The east wall of the reactor was torn wide open, littering the interior of the building with fragments of concrete, twisted hunks of metal, and less identifiable materials, as well as with the torn bodies, of the team he had walked away from only seconds before. Then he noticed a strange unearthly glow issuing from within the reactor, and he knew he was looking straight into the heart of Hell.

He shielded his face and turned away. Funny, he didn't feel any different. He had not been vaporized, or melted, or even changed into a pillar of salt for daring to look into the holy of holies of a dark new age. He had only been killed.

For a random moment silence returned as the batde began dying down. From a building to the south he could hear voices, American voices, shouting in panic. Civilians began pouring out in spite of the risk of being shot. He did not even bother to raise his gun.