Bradley shrugged and again raised his hands in a questioning manner.

'We're talking about a sixty-six-year-old man,' Lindbergh pointed out in softly spoken disbelief.

Unable to refute that point, Bradley said, 'I'm not saying it's definite, but it's certainly worth investigating. We do have proof that a John Wilson was born and raised in Montezuma, Iowa, and that when he left Cornell University, he was placed on the payroll of the New York financiers Cohn and Goldman, who owned an aeronautical research factory located in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. I should therefore remind you, gentlemen, that Mount Pleasant, while in Iowa, is practically on the border of Illinois the other location given by Wilson for the construction of his airships and that it's close to the town of Montezuma, where Wilson was born and raised. These could be coincidences, of course, but I seriously doubt it.'

There was another uncomfortable silence until Orville Wright, who did not smoke or drink, broke it with a fit of coughing, waved his neighbour's cigar smoke away from him, and said, 'So a.s.suming that both Wilsons are one and the same, do we know what he's up to in n.a.z.i Germany?'

'Yes,' General Taylor said, looking relieved to be on home ground. 'According to British intelligence, there are reports that an American scientist ident.i.ty unknown, but believed to be John Wilson, who disappeared in Germany in 1931 is presently working in a secret research establishment at k.u.mmersdorf West, about fifteen miles from Berlin.'

There was silence around the table for a moment, while they all took this in.

'Are there any known results of this collusion?' Orville Wright asked.

'We have an unverified report,' General Taylor replied, 'from a source who worked in the Rocket Research Inst.i.tute at the other side of the army firing range dividing it from the secret hangar in k.u.mmersdorf West, that although even Wernher von Braun didn't know what was going on in that hangar, the American scientist, presumably Wilson, would visit him once a week to pa.s.s on to him any technical innovations he'd discovered that might help in the development of what we believe to be the A-2 rocket program.'

'Rockets?' Orville Wright asked.

'Yes, Orville, rockets.'

Wright wrinkled his brow and looked almost shocked, then asked plaintively, 'But do we have to be concerned with such developments? Are they not simply pipe dreams, like those of G.o.ddard?'

'G.o.ddard's rockets are no longer pipe dreams,' Lindbergh said angrily.

'Well,' Taylor said in his quietly remorseless manner, 'we can't be too sure of just how much Wilson's innovations have contributed to this, but we do know from British intelligence that as early as December 1934 about a year after Wilson is believed to have started working at k.u.mmersdorf two highly advanced A-2 rockets, constructed at k.u.mmersdorf, gyroscopically controlled, and powered by oxygen-and-alcohol-fuelled motors, were launched from the island of Bork.u.m in the North Sea and reached an alt.i.tude of one and a half miles. And I should make it clear, unpalatable as it may seem, that those stabilized, liquid-fuelled rockets are the only known, serious challengers to the rockets of Wilson's old work mate, Robert H. G.o.ddard.'

'I find this unbelievable,' Orville Wright said, looking unusually flushed.

'Believe it,' General Taylor replied. 'In fact, just a few weeks ago, shortly after Hitler's infamous advance across the Hohenzollern Bridge, Captain Walter Dornberger, the head of the Rocket Research Inst.i.tute, his a.s.sistant, Wernher von Braun, and their team of one hundred and fifty technicians demonstrated some more rockets at k.u.mmersdorf, including one with an unprecedented three thousand five hundred pounds of thrust. And while it was widely believed that the brilliant von Braun was responsible for this great achievement, he resolutely refused to take credit for it, insisting that others, whom he claimed he could not name, deserved most of the credit.'

'And you think von Braun was referring to those on the other side of the firing range?' Lindbergh asked.

'Yes,' Taylor replied. 'To those on the other side of the firing range in general, but maybe to Wilson in particular, since the most revolutionary advances have been made since his arrival at k.u.mmersdorf.'

There was another awkward silence, which was certainly not the norm, and Bradley glanced at Lindbergh, who was gazing distractedly at the table, remembered the widely publicized kidnapping and disappearance of his child, and felt stricken with sympathy and shame.

He knew what the shame was and could certainly not disown it He had promised Joan that he would never again let work come between him and her, let alone him and the children; but he knew that in the past year, even against his better judgment, he had let Wilson become an obsession that was keeping him away from his family more than he'd planned. It was causing problems at home, as his obsession with legal work had done before, deeply wounding Joan and thus angering Mark and Miriam; and so, when he looked at Lindbergh, at that courageous and haunted face, he was filled with shame because he knew he was ignoring what Lindbergh had lost the precious gift of a family.

As if reading his mind, Lindbergh looked up, stared directly at him, then, breathing deeply, almost wearily, returned Bradley's thoughts to the matter at hand by asking: 'Can we take it that this Wilson is still at k.u.mmersdorf?'

'Yes,' General Taylor said. 'According to British intelligence '

'What would we do without them?' a muted voice asked sarcastically.

'According to British intelligence,' Taylor repeated, smiling knowingly at Bradley, 'the recent demonstration at k.u.mmersdorf so impressed the German commander-in-chief, General Fritsch, that permission has since been given for Dornberger and von Braun to build an independent rocket establishment in a suitably remote part of Germany, where research and test firings can be carried out in the strictest secrecy. It's believed that the chosen site is near the village of Peenemnde, on the island of Usedom, off the Baltic Coast. It's also believed that the unknown American, whom we believe to be John Wilson, will not be going with the rocket team but will be left where he is, with the other members of his team, to do only G.o.d knows what in k.u.mmersdorf West.'

The final silence was far too long, filled with too much tension, and forced even Bradley, schooled in law and psychology, to try escaping it by gazing out the window at the cloud-streaked, iridescent blue sky over the green fields of Langley.

'So,' Lindbergh said, offering him a reprieve, 'we can take it that John Wilson exists and is working in Germany. However, we're not at war with Germany and Germany isn't at war with Europe at least not yet so what's the point of this meeting?'

He was staring directly at Bradley, his gaze concerned, not accusing; but Bradley, who could think only of Joan and his children of the blessings he was abusing as he faced this tragic figure was incapable of making a coherent answer. He thought of Lindbergh's murdered child, of all he had owned and lost, and realized that even understanding that, he, Mike Bradley, blessed with a loving wife and children, was letting his obsession with John Wilson threaten all he loved most.

He felt shame and a terrible helplessness, because he knew d.a.m.ned well that he wouldn't stop until this mystery was solved.

He would risk all for that.

'Let me put it another way, Mr Bradley,' Lindbergh said. 'Since you've investigated this case and called this meeting to discuss it, what is it you're trying to tell us?'

'If we get into a war,' Bradley said, 'we might have to stop that man.'

'Stop him?' Orville Wright asked hoa.r.s.ely.

'Yes,' Bradley said without thinking. 'Stop him dead in his tracks.

CHAPTER ELEVEN Ernst was unhappy as he hurried through the jostling shoppers in the Friedrichstra.s.se, late for his lunch appointment with Ingrid. In fact, he was slightly hung over, as he was so often these days, and was reminded, by the stout, red-cheeked housewives all around him, that the Berlin he now knew so well by night was very different from the more respectable city that the sun shone upon.

When the sun set on Berlin in this troubled year of 1937, powdered and rouged young men solicited in the yellow lamplight of the Kurfrstendamm, government officials and men of commerce rubbed cheeks with sailors and soldiers in dimly lit bars on the Motzstra.s.se, hundreds of men dressed as women and women dressed as men danced in the riotous ballrooms of the West End, the novel, the bizarre, and the perverse were nightly paraded before the noisy crowds in the Scala or the amus.e.m.e.nt palaces of the Wintergarten, the nightclubs, cabarets, revues, vaudeville shows, and erotic Tanzbars were packed with male and female prost.i.tutes, pimps, transvest.i.tes, fetishists, h.o.m.os.e.xuals, and drug addicts. In general, while the National Socialists called for a new moral order, the spirit of decadent pleasure prevailed to a background cacophony of jazz, dancing feet, exploding champagne corks, screams, laughter, and tears.

A very different world, indeed and one that Ernst had, in the company of his fellow SS officers, become increasingly familiar with in recent months.