'I'm afraid, Reichsfhrer,' Ernst began, hoping to offer some common sense, 'that the secret weapons '

'Schriever's saucer! He said it was almost finished! What news do you have of it?'

Himmler's eyes gleamed with hope the forlorn hope of the truly mad and Ernst, who had once feared this man, now almost pitied him.

'I'm afraid, Reichsfhrer, that Schriever's flying saucer won't help us now. Even if it works, it's come too late to do us much good.'

'Nonsense!' Himmler exploded, almost jumping out of his chair. 'The very sight of it will terrify the Soviets and make them turn back! As for the Allies, though they clearly aren't so primitive, they'll most likely do the same. I want that flying saucer to be finished! I want to know if it works!'

He stared wildly at Ernst, who hardly knew what to say, then drummed his fingers on the desk and took a few deep breaths.

'According to my astrological chart,' he said, sounding calmer, 'something extraordinary will occur toward the end of this month, just in time to turn the tide in our favour. I believe that's a reference to Flugkapitn Schriever's flying saucer, so I want you to go straight to Prague and find out what' s happening.'

'The Soviets are advancing on Prague,' Ernst reminded him.

'You can get there before the Soviets do. So do it, Captain. For me! Do it for your Reichsfhrer.'

'Yes, sir,' Ernst replied, as he had in fact been planning to go there to complete Wilson's plot, but preferred to do it with Himmler's permission, to avoid suspicion. 'But what if the Soviets reach Prague before Schriever escapes with the completed saucer and his technicians?'

'In such circ.u.mstances you must destroy the flying saucer and hide all the papers relating to it. Then, when the tide turns in our favour, we can rebuild the saucer.'

'Very good, Reichsfhrer,' Ernst said, now having permission to do what he had planned to do anyway.

'However, that shouldn't happen. The Soviets are still a good way away. I see no reason why you cannot get to Prague and back here again before the end comes and I expect you to bring me good news.'

'I will, Reichsfhrer. I promise.'

'Goodbye, Captain. And good luck. Heil Hitler!'

'Heil Hitler!'

Ernst saluted, then walked to the study door. He opened it, started out, then glanced back to take a last look at his once frightening, allpowerful Reichsfhrer. He was already slumped over his desk, studying his astrological charts, neurotically tapping his front teeth with his fingernails and making loud, sighing sounds. He was all alone in that gloomy room, a shadow-figure, a mirage, a man disappearing into himself, to be lost in his own dream. He was covering his face with his hands when Ernst quietly closed the door.

The drive to Prague took nearly eight hours, was further hindered by more Allied bombing raids and roads filled with columns of troops, and was not without a great deal of tension. Bypa.s.sing Dresden in the dead of the night, Ernst saw the darkness illuminated by the flashing of the Soviet guns, where they were firing from the Oder River. The Soviet army was very close indeed. It had already captured most of Pomerania, Poland, and Hungary, and Ernst was thankful that it was closer to Berlin than to where he was going.

He arrived at Prague in the early morning. It smouldered just like Berlin. Ernst heard bombing and the continuing roar of the Soviet guns, and realized that it was only a matter of days before Prague fell also.

The war was practically over.

Indeed, the first news he received upon reporting to the SS officer in charge of security at the BMW plant on the outskirts of the city placed in charge, as he was soon informed, because of fears that the plant would be overrun by groups of Czechoslovak patriots was that by dawn that very morning, Berlin had been completely encircled and its last free airports overrun by the Red Army.

Now there was no way in or out. The fate of the city was sealed.

'You can't go back there,' the SS commander, Lieutenant Gnter Metz, informed him. 'You might as well stay here. Wait until we see which way the Soviets are moving, then make your escape.'

Ernst had no intentions of remaining in Prague, but he complimented the officer on his keen thinking and then asked to be directed to Flugkapitn Schriever. He was escorted to the well-guarded East Hall of the great factory. There, remarkably, with a lack of realism fully the equal to that of Himmler and the rest of them, Schriever was still racing to complete his flying saucer, which was resting on its mobile steel platform and surrounded by engineers.

When Schriever saw Ernst approaching, he could not hide his frown.

'Captain Stoll!' he exclaimed, trying to recover, though not being too successful at it. 'What a pleasant surprise!'

Still smarting, even after all these years, from the knowledge that he had been pa.s.sed over by the German scientific fraternity to make way for second-raters like Schriever, Ernst realized that he was going to enjoy doing what he now had to do which was to check that Schriever had not, by some combination of luck and thievery, made any unexpected advances with his design and ensure that what he did have was destroyed before the Soviets reached here.

'I've been sent by Himmler,' Ernst said without preamble, 'to check on the progress of your flying saucer. Is it actually flying yet?'

'Unfortunately, no,' Schriever replied, wiping his oily hands on a rag, 'but we should have it ready any day now and then we will test it.'

'You do realize, do you not, that the Soviet Army is advancing on a front that extends from Grlitz to Vienna and will soon be marching right into Prague?'

'Yes, Captain, I know; but a drastic shortage of components ball bearings for the ring plates, new heat-resistant wing discs led to a bigger delay than antic.i.p.ated. And then the Soviets captured Breslau, where Habermohl was working, and since we then had to do his work as well, we were held back even more. Nevertheless, we've replaced the original gas-turbine rotors with jet engines, and the saucer you see before you, if test-flown, will not let us down.'

What Ernst was looking at was one of Wilson's crude, earlier models: a wide-surface ring that consisted of adjustable wing discs that could be brought into the appropriate position for vertical or horizontal flight while rotating around a fixed, cupola-shaped c.o.c.kpit. Now powered by Schriever's addition of adjustable jet engines, it would, in Ernst's judgment, rise vertically a few metres, but then, once the angle of the jets was adjusted, go out of control just as Wilson had said it would.

Although pleased that Schriever had made no unexpected progress and was still deluding himself with this piece of aeronautical rubbish, Ernst still knew it was imperative that the Soviets did not learn about any aspect of Projekt Saucer, at least not until Wilson wanted them to know, which would be in the future. He therefore said what had to be said and took pleasure from doing so.

'It has to be destroyed,' he told Schriever, 'before the Soviets arrive here.'

'What?' Schriever exclaimed, shocked.