He had said something similar to that other woman Gladys Kinder? about twelve years ago and now, as the memory of her pa.s.sed briefly through his thoughts, thus reminding him of G.o.ddard and those early rockets in the desert, Greta's mounting fear and rage set fire to her eyes.

'You can't do this,' she said, sounding strangled and shaky. 'You owe me more than this! You just can't pack up and walk out and leave me here in this h.e.l.l. You've got to take me with you. You've got to! For G.o.d's sake, don't leave me here!'

'You're an experienced woman,' Wilson replied, taking note of her rising hysteria and therefore picking up his suitcase. 'You should manage okay.'

But she jumped to her feet, grabbed his shoulders, shook him violently, crying, 'No, Wilson! For the love of G.o.d! I'm too old now! The Russians might... Don't leave me, Wilson!'

Suddenly she looked old, her face ravaged by shock and dread, and he felt disgusted by her naked, primal emotions and pushed her away from him. She stumbled back into the fireplace, shaking her head, her gaze dazed. He left without saying another word, not looking back.

An SS car had been a.s.signed to take him to k.u.mmersdorf, and the driver was waiting for him when he emerged. Darkness had fallen and when the car had moved off he gazed out the window, saw the dreadful ruins and hillocks of rubble silhouetted against a starlit sky, and knew, given the clarity of the night, that the Allied planes would soon be flying overhead to drop more bombs on the city.

Closing his eyes, he recalled Greta's outburst, and considered once more, as he had done so often, how the glory of man's mind could be perverted with primitive emotions. He had never felt such emotions, though he knew that most people did, as he also knew that there were many who thought his lack of so-called normal feelings was inhuman.

Was this so? He didn't think so. Instead, he took it for a sign of genius. He had always felt himself to be different from his own kind even from his good parents, other children, his women and had viewed the blatant emotions of others as the aberrations of weakness. Man's emotions belonged to the cave; his mind was his glory.

And he, this individual named John Wilson, was ruled by his brilliant mind.

It had always been so. Behind his closed eyes, he relived it. He saw his parents in the fields, their backs bent under the sun, then himself, a mere stripling, kneeling beside them in the church of Montezuma, where he kept his eyes open. They were decent, simple folk, introverted, even distant, and although they had always treated him well, he viewed their virtue as weakness. They made him read the Bible, but he thought it a book of myths. When they prayed, either at home or in church, he translated their worship as a form of awe no more rational than the primal fears and superst.i.tions of cavemen.

He felt that man was not made to worship G.o.ds, but to attain G.o.dlike stature.

He was not like his parents. Nor was he like other children. His parents didn't notice the difference, for they were too involved with themselves, but at school he was considered odd, because he didn't like playing games and was ferocious at studying. He always wanted to be alone, to live through his books, and that made him different.

Then he decided to become a scientist and devoted himself to that. At twelve, he was practising vivisection and was caught by his parents. They were shocked by his cruelty, which he viewed as pure research, and they punished him by sending him to his room for a whole week, which merely gave him more time for his reading and intense contemplation. It didn't stop his experiments he just continued them in secret - and by the age of fifteen, when at high school in Des Moines, he knew more about biology and science than his teachers could teach him.

He was also convinced, by then, that the only thing dividing man from the beast was his ability to think not the heart, but the mind; not emotions, but reasoning. Once he had accepted that as truth, he learned to distrust what were widely regarded as man's 'finer' feelings.

Man was but a tool of evolution; the human mind was its instrument. And because most human emotions were dead weight, Wilson, from an early age, took pride in not having them.

He was a genius, a completely rational being, and that made him unique.

Nothing else mattered.

When the SS car slowed down, he opened his eyes again and saw the beams of the searchlights criss-crossing one another as they swept over k.u.mmersdorf, erratically illuminating the tall hangars, prefabricated offices, wooden huts, barbed-wire fences, and high, ugly watch towers, where the helmeted troops sat behind machine guns and kept guard all night. Though normally empty, the compound in front of the experimental centre was now filled with troop trucks, all bathed in the steady glare of overhead lamps. A lot of the troops were carrying equipment and papers from the hangar to the parked vehicles, while other trucks roared into life and headed toward the main gate.

After leaving the car and entering the hangar, Wilson saw the Schriever saucer still sitting on its raised steel platform. It looked enormous in that enclosed s.p.a.ce, its smooth surface giving off a silvery glint in the overhead lighting. Looking in vain for Flugkapitn Schriever, he crossed the floor and entered his own office, which was now bare of its filing cabinets and wall charts. There he found Ernst Stoll, SS Brigadier Hans Kammler, and the dark-eyed, dangerous SS General Artur Nebe sitting up in hardbacked wooden chairs, all smoking, drinking what looked like brandy, and clearly waiting for him.

'So,' Wilson said, 'the move's begun already.'

'Yes,' Kammler said. 'The first trucks are already at the station and you can leave any minute now.'

'What are the arrangements?'

'I have to remain here to oversee the V-1 and forthcoming V-2 rocket launchings against England. However, General Nebe and his finest troops will accompany you throughout the journey, for protection, and Captain Stoll will also go along, to ensure that you settle into Kahla without problems. Once things are running smoothly at Kahla, which will be administered jointly with the nearby Nordhausen Central Works under the jurisdiction of Captain Stoll, General Nebe will return to Berlin to organize the eventual time and means of escape from Germany. Meanwhile, Stoll will divide his time between Thuringia and Berlin. This will enable him to look after your project and keep his eye on our increasingly unpredictable Reichsfhrer.'

'What about Rudolph Schriever and that' Wilson paused to glance through the window at the flying saucer in the middle of the hangar 'that thing out there?'

'A week from today,' Ernst Stoll solemnly informed him, 'the remaining staff of k.u.mmersdorf, with Schriever in charge, will be moved, with the saucer, to a secret location near Prague. Thus, while Schriever's progress will be watched closely by Himmler, you'll be able to complete your Feuerball and Kugelblitz, protected by General Kammler, under my jurisdiction.'

'What reason have you given Schriever for the move?'

'The same as we gave Himmler. Namely, that your work has become erratic, you can no longer be trusted, and so you're being moved to Nordhausen, to be placed under our supervision, now that Wernher von Braun has been moved back to the rebuilt factories in the development works, on the old site of Peenemnde East.'

'Excellent,' Wilson said.

'And now we'd better go,' General Nebe said softly, his face as unemotional as a rock, which gave Wilson comfort. 'We want at least to get out of the station before the Allied bombers come again.'

'Good thinking,' Kammler said.

The day before, Wilson had supervised the dismantling and packing of the separate parts of his Feuerball and Kugelblitz in the BMW plant at Spandau for transportation to the railway station. Today he was pleased to follow the others out of his office for the last time. Just as they were leaving, Flugkapitn Schriever, Habermohl, and Miethe emerged from the former's office and stopped right in front of them. Schriever, thinking he was now in charge of Projekt Saucer, gave Wilson a broad, superior smile.

'So,' he said, 'you're going to Nordhausen.'

'Yes,' Wilson replied.

'Naturally, I'm sorry to be losing you.'

'I'm sure you are, Flugkapitn.'