Hell's Gate(75)

“You guys got me explosives? How the—”

“Seems this gold miner we ran into was more than a little intrigued by my recent trade proposal,” Thorne said. “A sack of mushrooms I collected for a sack of TNT.”

MacCready shot his friend a puzzled look. “Mushrooms?”

“Funny mushrooms,” Yanni added. “Got it?”

MacCready nodded.

“So what’s your plan, Stan?” Yanni said. She was carving a long, skinny piece of wood.

“We need to get a message out to Major Hendry. Enlist his help.”

Bob and Yanni began laughing, simultaneously. “Look around you, Mac. Mushrooms and TNT we got, but shortwave radios? They are not in season. So now what is your plan?”

“The plan is I’m goin’ back to that Nazi base . . . real sneaky-like. Then I’m gonna blow that f*cking place up.”

Thorne shook his head. “You really don’t want to do this, do you?”

“What’s your alternative?”

“Head to Cuiabá, radio your pal, Hendry.”

“That’ll take days. And we don’t have that kind of time. With me missing, he’s probably sent in another team. Maybe they’re closer than Cuiabá, but who knows what direction they’d be coming from?”

“Yanni can help us solve that problem.”

“That’s fine, but even if we find them today, it’ll be days before they can send in the proper ass-kicking gear.” Mac slammed his fist down on the dirt with determination. “And that’s why I have to go in there.”

“Okay, Mac,” Yanni said. “One thing, though.”

“What’s that?”

“We are goin’ wit you.”

MacCready started to object but Thorne held up a hand. “Do not bother yourself. We will not budge on this topic.”

“Nope.” Yanni put down her carving and began stirring the cooling contents of a wooden soup bowl.

“That smells delicious,” MacCready said, hopefully. “Whatcha cookin’, Yanni?”

“Mac, you do not want this soup.”

Thorne finished for her. “Poison arrow frogs.”





CHAPTER 25





Preparations


The importance of information is directly proportional to its improbability.

—A FUNDAMENTAL THEOREM OF INFORMATION THEORY

February 11, 1944

At daybreak, the engineer Maurice Voorhees stood beside his monorail track as Dr. Eugen S?nger ducked beneath the undercarriage of the rocket sled. It was covered by moisture-protective tarps.

“Very nice, Maurice,” the older man called out. “The groove you designed into the track’s upper surface was a brilliant idea.”

“Thank you,” Voorhees responded, sounding distracted. He had been scanning the tree line that ran along both sides of the track. The jungle plants were already sending out runners and tendrils, thin green arms reaching out for the rebar and wood rail. Only a few months from now, they’ll have it completely covered.

“In fact I have no idea why I did not think of it myself,” S?nger said, as he emerged from under the tarps. “Maurice—” The older man stopped momentarily, noting that his audience had wandered away from the track.

Voorhees was staring at a spot deep within the tangled foliage.

“There is no noticeable sag in the track, either,” S?nger said, then he kicked at the ground with his heel. “It is clear that using this ancient stone road for a base was a brilliant decision as well. The last thing we need is for the Silverbirds to sink with their launch track into this miserably thin tropical—”

Maurice Voorhees heard none of it. He was imagining a Silverbird tearing along the rail atop the rocket sled he had designed.

Something slapped Voorhees hard on the back and he spun around with a start, relieved to see that it was only S?nger.

The older rocket man shot him an odd expression, then continued. “But the real test will come tomorrow. Won’t it? That is when your friend Hanna Reitsch uses the Dragon and my pulley system to seat the Silverbirds onto your sleds.”

“She is not a friend,” Voorhees snapped.

“Yes, but she is an extremely gifted pilot,” S?nger countered. “To have landed one of those shit-propelled V-1s in one piece? The skill involved?”

“Yes, and she also proposed a squadron of suicide aircraft,” Voorhees said, dismissively. “How very heroic of her.”

The younger engineer said nothing more, trailing off into thought again. He had been a very young man when the bombs fell on Peenemünde, but the past few months had aged him many years. The work appeared to have the opposite effect on S?nger, who seemed to be getting stronger. The man would have been perfectly happy to carry the war from central Brazil through Europe down to the Nile and Jordan rivers, until the end of civilization itself, if requisite, until finally it was fought with sickles and knives, and sharpened sticks.

Unmoved by Voorhees’s condemnation of the female test pilot, S?nger simply continued his monologue: “Once that’s done, I estimate that fueling the rockets and their sleds will take the better part of two—at most, three days. After that, our work here will be nearly completed. And then it will all be up to the pilots. Of course, all of this depends upon the completion of the weapon by that fat little Jap . . . I can never remember . . . what is his name, Maurice?”