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“Who do you suppose?” the caller answered. “We don’t forget. We do get even. You’ll find out.” The line went dead.
Goldfarb stared at the phone for a moment, then put the handset back in its cradle. “Who was that?” Walsh asked. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”
“Maybe I did,” Goldfarb said.
He waited for his boss to ask more questions, but Walsh surprised him by doing nothing of the kind, but turning away and going back to his own work. An Englishman might have done that, but Goldfarb hadn’t expected it on this side of the Atlantic. From all the American films he’d seen, people over here were a lot more brash about sticking their noses into other people’s business.
After a moment, he realized American films came out of the United States, not Canada. The Canadians who’d grilled him had done it out of duty, not because they were personally nosy. The reserve wasn’t quite so strong as the notorious British stiff upper lip, but it was there.
He got back to work waiting all the while for the phone to ring again. That was how these things worked, wasn’t it? The bad eggs played on their victim’s fear, and sometimes managed to drive him round the bend without even doing anything to him.
And, sure as the devil, the phone did ring again half an hour later. When Goldfarb picked it up, all he heard on the other end was silence. He listened for a little while, then hung up. Nobody’d drive him round the bend, by God, but someone had made a good start on getting his goat.
Somebody… He had no idea who, though whoever it was had to be a Canadian pal of Basil Roundbush’s. Suddenly, he grinned and turned to Hal Walsh. “Mr. Widget, sir!”
Walsh grinned back. “At your service, Mr. Goldfarb. And what can I do for you today?”
“You’re in the widget business,” Goldfarb said. “Can you tell me if anyone’s ever invented a widget that shows the number a telephone call is made from?”
“A fast and easy kind of tracer, you mean?” Walsh asked. “Something better than the police and the telephone company use?”
Goldfarb nodded. “That’s what I’m talking about. Shouldn’t be too hard, not if we put some of the Lizards’ information-processing gadgets on the job. Suppose you could see at a glance it was your brother-in-law on the other end of the line, and you didn’t want to talk to him because you owed him twenty quid-uh, fifty dollars. It’d be handy.”
“You’re right. It would.” If Walsh was wondering why Goldfarb chose this exact moment to ask about that invention, he didn’t let on. “And no, I don’t think anything like that is on sale now, and yes, I can see how it might be popular.” He looked past Goldfarb, or maybe through him. “I can see how you might do it, too.”
“So can I,” Goldfarb said, excitement kindling in him. Roundbush’s nasty friends might have thought they were putting a scare in him, but, with a little luck, they’d just gone a long way toward making him a rich man. He started bouncing ideas off his boss, who also had some good ones of his own. Goldfarb was a tinkerer, and largely self-taught; Hal Walsh understood more about theory than he would if he lived to be ninety.
Both men started scribbling notes after the first couple of minutes. After half an hour, Goldfarb was hoping the nasty boys would call back again, and do it soon. Once he had their telephone number, he could pass it on to the police. Then they’d be out of his hair for good. From an office full of people who thought the same way he did, everything looked very simple.
When the telephone rang, Kathe Drucker answered it. After a moment, she turned and said, “It’s for you, Hans.”
“Who?” Johannes Drucker asked, setting down his newspaper and getting to his feet. His wife shrugged, as if to say it wasn’t anybody she knew. Drucker tried to hide his worries as he walked to the phone. If that damned Gunther Grillparzer was raising more trouble… If Grillparzer was doing that, he’d just have to deal with it as best he could. He took the phone from Kathe. “Drucker here.”
“Your leave is canceled,” said a crisp voice on the other end of the line. “All leaves are canceled, by order of the Committee of Eight. Report to your duty station at Peenemunde immediately.”
“Jawohl!” Drucker said, fighting the urge to come to attention. The line went dead. He hung up the telephone.
“What is it?” Kathe asked-she could see it was something. When he told her, her eyes went wide. “Does that mean what I’m afraid it means?”
“That the balloon’s going up on account of Poland?” he asked, and she nodded. He answered the only way he could: with a shrug. “I don’t know. No one tells me anything. I’ll say this-I hope not. But whether it is or not, I have to report in.” He raised his voice: “Heinrich!”
“What is it, Father?” His elder son’s reply floated down from upstairs.
“Keep an eye on your brother and sister for a while. I have to report to the base, and your mother will come along so she can drive the car back here. Have you got that?”
“Yes, Father,” Heinrich said, and then asked essentially the same question Kathe had: “Will it be war?” The difference was, he sounded excited, not afraid.
He’s too young to know better, Drucker thought, remembering how enthusiastic a Hitler Youth he’d made at the same age. Not much later, he’d gone into the Wehrmacht, and he’d been there ever since. Did that mean he didn’t know better, either? Maybe it did. He had no time to worry about it now.
Reliable no matter how ugly it was, the Volkswagen roared to life right away. Drucker didn’t want to think about what he would have done if it hadn’t started. Called for a taxi, he supposed-an order to report immediately meant that and nothing else. No one cared about excuses; the idea was that there shouldn’t be any.
Drucker drove out of Greifswald and east across the flat, muddy ground toward Peenemunde. He cursed every car that got in his way. At the barbed-wire perimeter around the base, he showed the sentries his identification card. They shot out their arms in salute and let him by.
He stopped in front of the barracks where he spent almost as much time as he did with his family. When he jumped out of the Volkswagen, he started to take the keys with him. Kathe coughed reproachfully. Feeling foolish, Drucker left the keys alone. His wife got out, too, to come around to the driver’s side. He took her in his arms and kissed her. He wasn’t the only soldier doing such things; the road in front of the barracks was clogged with stopped cars and men saying goodbye to wives and sweethearts.
Kathe got back into the VW and drove away. Drucker hurried into the barracks and threw on the uniform that hung in the closet. “What’s up?” he called to another space flier who was dressing with as much frantic haste as he.
“Damned if I know,” his comrade answered. “Whatever it is, though, it can’t be good. I’d bet on that.”
“Not with me, you wouldn’t, because I think you’re right,” Drucker told him.
They hurried toward the administrative center. Drucker looked at his wristwatch. Less than half an hour had gone by since the telephone rang. He couldn’t get in trouble for being late, not when he’d had to come from Greifswald… could he? He resolved to raise a big stink if anyone complained.
No one did. He checked off his name on the duty roster and hurried into the auditorium to which soldiers in military-police metal gorgets were directing people. The auditorium was already almost full; even though he’d done everything as fast as he could, he remained a latecomer. He slid into a chair near the back of the hall and shot disapproving glances at the men who came in after him.
General Dornberger stepped up onto the stage. Even from his distant seat, Drucker thought the commandant at Peenemunde looked worried. He couldn’t have been the only man who thought so, either; the buzz in the hail rose abruptly, then died as Dornberger held up his hand for quiet.
“Soldiers of the Reich, our beloved fatherland is in danger,” Dornberger said into that silence. “In their arrogance, the Lizards in Poland have attempted to impose limits on our sovereignty, the first step toward bringi
ng the Reich under their rule. The Committee of Eight has warned them that their demands are intolerable to a free and independent people, but they have paid no attention to our just and proper protests.”
He building up toward a declaration of war, Drucker thought. Ice ran through him. He knew the Reich could hurt the Race. But, probably better than any man who’d never been into space, he also know what the Race could do to the Reich. He felt like a dead man walking. The only hope he had for his family’s survival was the wind blowing the fallout from Peenemunde out to sea or toward Poland rather than onto Greifswald. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
“No state of war as yet exists between the Greater German Reich and the Race,” Dornberger went on, “but we must show the Lizards that we are not to be intimidated by their threats and impositions. Accordingly, the Reich is now formally placed on a footing of Kriegsgefahr. Because of this war danger order, the armed forces are being brought to a maximum alert-which is why you are here.”
It won’t happen right this minute, then, Drucker thought. Thank God for so much. His wasn’t the only soft sigh of relief in the auditorium.
