Page 69 of V2

Van Braun said in English to the driver, ‘What district of London is this, please?’

‘Wandsworth.’

‘Was it hit by V2s?’

‘Yes,’ the man said grimly. ‘Often.’ They halted at a traffic light beside a sudden vista of rubble and weeds. Graf noticed a pram with no wheels lying on its side. ‘That was done by a V2 last November, since you mention it. Nine houses gone. Thirty-four dead.’

November, thought Graf. I might have fired that.

Von Braun craned his head to look. ‘It’s all been cleared up.’ He sounded disappointed. ‘You can’t see how the damage was caused.’

They passed over a bridge and drove beside the Thames. The wide river was grey and choppy, like the North Sea. The Houses of Parliament came into view ahead, with a big Union Jack flying above it, vivid against the yellowish-grey sky. Graf said, ‘I thought Kammler told us that had been destroyed.’ He leaned forward and spoke to the driver. His English had improved after three months of American interrogations. ‘Is it true Piccadilly Circus has gone?’

‘It was still there this morning.’

‘Leicester Square? The Tower of London? Three bridges over the river? Weren’t they all hit?’

The driver looked at him in the mirror. ‘Someone’s been having you on.’

Steinhoff looked professionally affronted by how intact the government district appeared to be. ‘What is that he’s saying?’

‘He seems to be implying we mainly hit houses.’

‘I don’t believe it. We fired more than a thousand rockets at London, all aimed at the centre.’

‘Relax, Steinhoff,’ said von Braun. ‘The war’s over. It’s all for the best. Do you think they’d be so friendly if we’d hit Buckingham Palace and killed the king?’

They pulled up outside a massive building on the corner of a wide curved road. ‘Here you are, gents,’ announced the driver. ‘The Air Ministry.’ Under his breath he added, ‘And now go fuck yourselves.’

Kay was in the corridor when they came up the stairs, escorted by Mike’s aide – four men in slightly shabby civilian suits. Two of them carried their hats and were nervously twisting the brims, looking about them as if they couldn’t quite believe where they were. The Peenemünde scientists had been so much at the centre of her life for the past couple of years, had assumed such an almost mythic status in her mind, that it was odd to see them now, so ordinary. The flight lieutenant knocked, opened the door to the conference room and they filed in. The last man, just before he entered, turned and looked at her – a flash of human connection in the dreary light – and then he was gone. She prowled up and down the corridor a couple of times, listening to the drone of male voices. Occasionally there was laughter. They seemed to be getting on tremendously. She went back into the office and laid out on the desk the photographs, maps and plans, and the stereoscopic viewfinder she had brought up from Medmenham that morning, then sat down to wait.

Von Braun commanded the room. He stood at the blackboard, his left hand hooked over his jacket pocket, his right holding a piece of chalk. He spoke without notes. Occasionally he would turn and write up a chemical formula or sketch a diagram, and the British technical experts would dutifully take notes. The room grew hot. So many perspiring male bodies clad in thick khaki and blue-grey serge, the civil servants in their own uniform of black suit jackets and pinstriped trousers. Towards the end of the morning the windows were opened, letting in the sound of traffic.

Graf studied von Braun dispassionately, without listening to the words. He owed him his life, almost certainly. At the end of February, von Braun had donned his SS uniform yet again and had led them out of Peenemünde in a convoy of cars and lorries, south to Nordhausen, and then south again to the Bavarian Alps, always keeping an eye on the position of the American front line. They had been in a ski hotel on the Austrian border when they learned first of Hitler’s suicide and then of Kammler’s: he had ordered his driver to pull over, walked up the road and shot himself. A week later, the engineers had surrendered to the Americans and von Braun had told their captors where to find the Peenemünde archive, which he had hidden in a mine. The negotiations had gone smoothly. The deal was done. More than a hundred scientists, Graf among them, had been offered a new life in the US. Soon the first contingent would board a ship from Le Havre to New York, en route to New Mexico. This presentation to the British was purely for show, although one would never have guessed it watching von Braun now. He seduced in the manner of a Don Giovanni. He always meant it at the time.

They stopped for lunch. Graf drank warm flat beer and stood in a corner answering technical questions. ‘Speak freely,’ von Braun had instructed them the previous evening, standing in the garden to avoid the British microphones. ‘Tell them everything they want to know – except the fact that we will be going to America. We don’t want to find ourselves detained here on some trumped-up charges of war crimes.’

Twenty thousand people had died at Nordhausen making the V2, four times as many as had been killed by it. The matter was being investigated by the Allied war crimes commission. All the more reason to get to the safety of America as soon as possible, before the facts became too well known.

In the middle of the afternoon, von Braun beckoned Graf over. He was talking to an air commodore, who shifted slightly as Graf approached, to try to block him from interrupting the conversation. ‘It would give His Majesty’s Government great pleasure,’ the officer was saying quietly, ‘if you and your colleagues would consider working with us to develop your technology further, as fellow Europeans.’

‘That is a very appealing concept.’ Von Braun nodded and looked over his shoulder. ‘Ah, Graf. The air commodore would like one of us to answer a few questions about Peenemünde. Would you mind?’

Kay was standing by the window when he came in. She had begun to think her trip up to town was wasted. The flight lieutenant said, ‘This is Dr Graf. Dr Graf, this is Flight Officer Caton-Walsh of our Central Interpretation Unit. Would you like me to stay?’

‘I think we’ll be fine,’ said Kay. ‘It shouldn’t take long.’ After the door was closed, she said, ‘Do you speak English?’ He was staring at the photographs of Peenemünde spread across the desk. ‘I don’t speak much German, I’m afraid.’ He seemed not to have heard her. She gestured towards the door. ‘I could fetch an interpreter …’

‘Yes.’ He looked at her for the first time. He had very clear blue eyes – she had noticed them in the corridor earlier – dark hair, chewed fingernails. ‘I speak English.’

‘As you can see, we have extensive photographic reconnaissance of the Peenemünde facility. But unfortunately the Russians won’t allow us access to the site, and the Americans seem not to be able to lay their hands on the necessary plans. So we wondered if you could fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge.’

‘Of course.’

‘Please, do sit. Have you used a stereoscopic viewer before? It’s perfectly simple.’ She leaned over him. ‘You place one image here. And then the other next to it here.’

‘My God.’ He drew his head back. ‘It comes alive.’

‘Everyone has that reaction.’