The Highway Kind(44)

I’d worked with Robert for many months; we got along, we worked quite well together—yet we’d never become friends. Part of it was caste; I was a Czech, while his family had been Austrian nobility. They had still been using the name von Eberhorst in his childhood, and one doesn’t forget things like that. I had more than once thought that his dislike of working under me had a lot to do with my departure from Auto Union—though the parting itself was reasonably amicable. And then again, he was an ambitious man. He had his own thoughts on design.

Which was what was bothering me now.

Reinhart flickered into sight at the far end of the hallway, and I ducked back into his tiny office to be discovered looking out of the window when he came in, full of apologies, to tell me that Herr Doktor Eberan was called away, had just left for a meeting in Stuttgart. He would be desolated to hear—

“That’s all right, Reinhart,” I interrupted, and patted his shoulder.

So, plan B. The engineering department was in the same building; I’d need to wait a bit. Teatime was three o’clock; everyone would be going to the canteen and I could slip into the building by the rear entrance, and—with luck—have half an hour alone in the closet that held the files of design notes, plans, and records.

In the meantime, I decided that I might as well stroll by the workshops and see whether anyone I knew was around.

There wasn’t much going on. Only two bays were busy; I didn’t know the men in the first one, but I spotted Dieter Pfizen in the second, with a half-assembled twelve-cylinder head on a stand in front of him.

“So, Dieter, what have you got?” He looked up, surprised at my voice, but smiled.

“Herr Doktor Porsche!” He stepped back, gesturing at the motor. “Nothing much, yet. Checking the oil flow.” There was a strong smell of the kerosene used for cleaning, and I saw small golden dribbles of motor oil on the stand.

We chatted about small things for a bit, but I knew the memory of the accident hung heavy over Auto Union, and the moment I mentioned Bernd’s name, Dieter’s face clouded. He was a big man who didn’t hide his feelings.

“It should never have happened! Never,” he said vehemently, shaking his head. “They rushed it, everybody knew. Didn’t want to risk Mercedes scooping up the record without even a challenge—not now.”

I nodded. The competition between the two companies had risen markedly with Hitler’s decision to develop a great German motor industry and his splitting the development money between Mercedes and Auto Union. That split, both companies knew, could be a lot less even next time.

“Rushed, though...” I said, striving for a casual tone. “Surely you wouldn’t have let the Streamliner go out with loose wheels and missing bolts?” I thought of those fairings, lying on the ground by themselves.

He snorted at my joke.

“No. But you talk to Ludwig, see what he says about it.” Ludwig Sebastien was Bernd’s crew chief; he would certainly have been there. “Better yet, talk to Horst Hasse.”

“And who’s that?” I knew Ludwig well, but not Hasse.

Dieter rubbed the back of his hand across his face, smudging his cheek with grease.

“One of the second-rank drivers. He’s the one who drove the car for a shakedown after the wind-tunnel tests. If there were wind-tunnel tests,” he added, narrowing his eyes.

“What?” I said, startled. He snorted again, and shrugged.

“Oh, I’m sure there were. But maybe not the way you’d have done them, mein herr.”

I spent another quarter of an hour with him, but having said as much as he had, he drew back and became vague, saying only that it had been Christmastime, half the staff not working, short days...and a rush. Things had been done in a rush.

Eventually we shook hands and I took my leave, smelling pleasantly of metal shavings and fresh oil.

I felt like a fool, peering to and fro as I stepped in through the rear door, but no one was in sight, though I could hear voices in the building, conversations in the canteen down the hall. I knew engineers, though, and sure enough, their room was deserted, all of them gone off like a horde of locusts in search of tea and baumkuchen.

The file closet was nearly as large as the main room but very well organized, the cabinets and plan shelves labeled. I found the drawer and shelf I wanted—but not a lot more. Eberan’s original design notes were there; I flipped through them quickly, but they told me little else than had the shattered remains of the Streamliner. My own preliminary notes for the car, the ones I’d made last year, before leaving—those were there as well, though shuffled together in an untidy roll bound with twine. But there were no operating notes. No results of wind-tunnel tests. No notes on the shakedown drive Dieter had mentioned.

The muffled voices changed their tone; the conversation was breaking up. I closed the drawer as quietly as I could and left by the rear door before anyone could emerge from the canteen and see me.

Eberan’s Daimler was still parked in the yard, its grille gleaming in the rain.





TELEGRAM


FROM: E BEINHORN

TO: F PORSCHE

MECHANIC SAYS HE HEARD EXPLOSION NEAR END OF RUN STOP ASK FURTHER QUERY STOP

My wife came in, a plate of r?sti and eggs in her hand, and peered over my shoulder.

“An explosion?” she asked, putting the plate down. I shook my head and folded up the yellow paper.