Chronospace (33 page)

Now the ladder was swaying like a pendulum. Metz was trying to keep up with the
Hindenburg.
Disregarding Lea’s admonition, Franc looked down. Six more rungs to go, but the bottom of the ladder was still two meters above the top of the dirigible. Worse, the leading edge of the vertical stabilizer was less than thirty meters away. If the ladder swung any closer to it, he would be hurled against the huge fin.

“Franc, hurry!”

No time. Franc scrambled down the remaining rungs, until his feet had nowhere left to go. He took a deep breath, hesitated for a second, then released the ladder.

Much to his surprise, he managed to land on all fours. The envelope sagged beneath him, the rough canvas burning the palms of his hands. The slipstream threatened to grab his body and pitch him over the side. Franc flattened himself against the envelope, then began to crawl forward on his stomach, making his way toward the twin flue vents rising from the top of the airship.

The hinged wooden cover of the left vent was frozen shut. Still hugging the airship, he pulled the crowbar out of his belt and shoved the narrow end forward, wedging it between its cover’s lower slats. Bracing his feet against a rib and rising on his knees as high as he dared, he leaned against the crowbar, putting his weight upon it. The cover creaked in protest, then popped open, exposing the dark shaft below it.

Franc tucked the crowbar back into his belt, then crawled to the open flue, straightening up just long enough to swing his legs over the opening. As anticipated, the shaft’s
interior was lined with ladder rungs. He swung himself over the side, relieved to get out of the wind.

“Okay, I’m in.” He glanced at the Rolex watch he had borrowed from Murphy; it read 6:55. “By my reckoning, I’ve got thirty minutes.”

“You don’t have that long,”
Metz said.

“I know. Hang on as long as you can.”

The flue shafts were designed to vent hot air from the airship’s interior, but the
Hindenburg
’s riggers also used them to inspect and repair the hydrogen gas cells. As Franc hastily climbed down the narrow shaft, he listened for sounds from the catwalk below. He heard no one, but that was to be expected; the crewmen would be at their landing stations by now, either in the airship’s nose or in the small auxiliary control compartment located in the bottom of the lower stabilizer.

The shaft intersected the middle catwalk leading through the axial center of the ship. Franc carefully opened the hatch, peered first one way and then another, before creeping out onto the triangular gangway. All around him, enormous gas cells made of hand-stitched lengths of sheep gut gently groaned like the lungs of a leviathan, held in place by skeletal duraluminum rings and weblike strands of cable. Franc jogged down the catwalk, heading for the stern. He prayed that his footsteps wouldn’t be heard by anyone below, yet there wasn’t enough time for stealth.

He found the narrow ladder leading upward along the side of Cell Number Four. Somewhere up there was the place where the rigger had hidden his bomb. He dug into his trouser pocket, found the miniature electromagnetic sensor Metz had given him. It came from
Oberon’
s repair kit; Vasili used it to detect faulty wiring, and now Franc hoped that it would help him pinpoint the location of the explosive device concealed within the hydrogen cell.

Yet he didn’t need the sensor after all. Halfway up the ladder, he heard the gentle rustle of loose fabric. Clutching the sensor between his teeth, Franc scaled the last few
rungs until he found the place where Spehl had used a knife to slice open the canvas outer envelope of the cell. He had stitched shut the opening, but the flap had come loose; as Franc gently prized it open, he found the bomb taped within.

It was a crude device: a small cotton bag filled with phosphorus, with wires leading into it from four flashlight batteries, which in turn were rigged to a Swiss nautical watch. “I’ve found it,” Franc said as he carefully inspected the bomb.

“You’ve got nineteen minutes.”
Metz’s voice was terse.
“Franc . . .”

“Shut up. I’m working.” Disarming the bomb without knowing exactly what he was doing would probably be a lethal mistake, but that wasn’t his intention. Peering closer at the watch face, he observed that its bevel was set at eight o’clock. The bevel must be the timer; when the minute hand touched its red index, the positive and negative wires connected to them would touch, and an electrical charge would be sent into the phosphorus charge. He reached into the gas bag and, ever so carefully, turned the bevel counterclockwise until the index rested above 7:25.

He slowly let out his breath. Regardless of his reasons for doing so, he had just condemned thirty-five people to death. On the other side of the airship, he and Lea would be standing on the Deck A promenade, watching through the windows as the
Hindenburg
coasted across New Jersey farmland toward Lakehurst. This time, though, they would get what they had come here for . . .

“Okay, it’s set,” he said as he closed the flap.

“Hindenburg’
s dropping altitude,”
Metz said.
“I can’t stay here much longer.”

Franc checked his own watch: 7:07. Only eighteen minutes left. He swore under his breath as he began to scurry back down the ladder. Eighteen minutes. Perhaps there was marginally enough time for him to get back to the flue vent and climb back up to the top of the airship before the bomb went off, yet if he tried to board the
Oberon
while it was
within sight of the airfield, it was almost certain that someone on the ground would spot him. Although the timeship was cloaked, he wasn’t; eyewitnesses would later report, and newsreel cameras would verify, the strange sight of a man climbing a ladder into thin air.

“Get out here,” he said. “I’ll find another way off.”

“Are you out of your . . . ?”

“Don’t argue. I’ll signal when I get away. You can pick me up somewhere else.” He was at the bottom of the ladder now. He looked both ways, but no one else was on the catwalk. “Signing off now. If you don’t hear from me again . . . well, get Lea to figure it out. She’ll know what to do.”

Metz was saying something, but Franc didn’t have time to listen. He pulled off the headset and shoved it in his pocket, then began jogging down the catwalk, heading for the bow.

When the
Hindenburg
crashed, it went down fast. Thirty-seven seconds after the explosion, it was . . .
would
become . . . a flaming heap of collapsing metal. Although the stern hit ground first, most the survivors had been in the front of the ship, save for a handful of crewmen stationed in the lower rudder who managed to escape before they were burned or crushed to death. So his best chance of survival was to reach the lower decks at the front of the ship. However, he couldn’t allow himself to be seen in the passenger compartments, and too many crewmen would be in their quarters behind B Deck.

If he correctly remembered the ship’s layout, though, there was an airshaft between Cells Twelve and Thirteen which led down the lower catwalk forward of B Deck, just aft of the freight and mail rooms behind the control car. Two cargo hatches were located there; if he could get that far, he might be able to hide just long enough to wait out the explosion.

Franc was three-quarters of the way down the catwalk, just past the airshaft between Cells Ten and Eleven, when he heard German voices echoing from somewhere close by.
He stopped, breathing hard as his eyes sought movement within the dimness of the envelope. He couldn’t see anything, but now he could hear footsteps against metal. There was someone—two engineers, probably—on the middle catwalk just ahead of him.

Franc turned, walked as quickly and quietly as he could back to the airshaft he had just passed. With a final glance over his shoulder, he opened its hatch, then ducked inside, pausing on the ladder just long enough to close the hatch behind him.

The shaft thrummed loudly with the muffled noise of the nearby engines; the ladder vibrated beneath the palms of his hands as he climbed downward. If his memory didn’t betray him, this shaft would take him to the lower catwalk running along the keel, just aft of the crew quarters. Yet there were no cargo hatches in this part of the ship’s underbelly, and he didn’t dare enter the forward engine cars, where engineers would be stationed during landing operations.

Like it or not, he’d have to make his way through the crew quarters to B Deck of the passenger compartment.

Reaching the bottom of the airshaft, he placed his ear against the hatch, yet the engine noise made it impossible for him to hear anything. Time was running out; he’d have to take a risk. Franc started to open the hatch, then he felt a familiar weight against his thigh. Looking down, he saw the crowbar he had taken with him from the
Oberon,
still dangling by its crook from his belt. Useless now, and an unexplainable liability if he was caught with it. Franc pulled it out of his belt, hung it from a ladder rung, then opened the hatch.

The keel catwalk was deserted. On either side of its triangular framework were the massive horizontal cylinders of fuel and water tanks; directly ahead lay a duraluminum bulkhead, with a closed door leading into the compartment beyond. Franc shut the airshaft hatch, then walked quickly past the tanks to the door. From somewhere far above, he
could hear the indistinct voices of the engineers he had managed to avoid. He hesitated at the door, his right hand on the knob, then he turned it and pushed open the door.

The warmth of the crew quarters was welcome after the unheated chill of the envelope. Franc quietly shut the door, then put his back against the plaster wall, straining to listen for human sounds from the narrow passageway that lay before him. Just ahead, he heard vague movement within a cabin to the right; as he crept closer, he saw that its door was open. The crew quarters were almost empty, but not quite.

Holding his breath, walking on the balls of his feet, Franc stole toward the cabin door. Peering through the jamb, he spotted a young, dark-haired man bending over an open suitcase. Franc recognized him as one of the dining-room stewards; indeed, it was the same one who had escorted him and Lea to the
Hindenburg
when it left Frankfurt. With the ship coming into Lakehurst, his job was done, and now he was packing for a weekend layover in New York. Humming to himself, he turned toward the closet, and Franc took the moment to tiptoe past his cabin.
Auf wiedersehen, mein freund,
he thought.
Hope you get out alive.

At the end of the passageway was another door. Franc carefully opened it, then slipped through into the corridor that lay beyond. He immediately recognized his surroundings; he was on B Deck, across from the keel corridor which ran through the lower deck of the passenger compartment. Just ahead was the landing that led to the stairs to A Deck; just around the corridor behind them, below his feet, were the twin gangways, still folded up within the airship’s belly.

He sighed with relief as he sagged against the bulkhead. Perfect. All he had to do was remain hidden for . . . how long? Realizing that he hadn’t checked the time in at least fifteen minutes, he raised his wrist, glanced at Murphy’s watch.

It read 7:23. Two minutes, perhaps less. The
Hinden
burg
should be hovering directly over the landing field by now, slowly easing its way toward the mooring tower.

Just enough time to make contact with the
Oberon.
He pulled the headset from his trouser pocket, clasped it against his face. “
Oberon,
do you copy?” he said softly.

A few precious moments passed, then he heard Lea’s voice.
“Franc, where are you?”

“B Deck, near the gangway,” he whispered. “Where are you?”

From down the corridor, he could hear the clatter of cookware in the galley; somewhere above, the faint voices of passengers watching from the A Deck promenade as the Navy ground crew ran to grab the ropes that had just been dropped. Up there, he would be touching the rim of his glasses, surreptitiously checking the time, murmuring something to Lea about getting ready. . . .

“We’ve landed at the northern edge of the airfield,”
Lea said.
“Zack’s coming to . . .”

From the other side of the stairs, he heard a commode flush. A second later, the door to the nearest of the three toilets on B Deck swung open, and a passenger stepped out into the corridor: a tall, gray-haired man, instinctively looking down to check the fly of his trousers.

Franc whipped the headset from his face, shoved it back in his pocket as he glanced first one way, then the other. There was no place for him to hide. All he could do was stay still, hope that he wouldn’t be noticed.

Then the passenger turned to walk toward him, and Franc suddenly felt an icy chasm open in the pit of his stomach.

It was John Pannes.

For an instant, he believed it was he himself: the other version of Franc Lu, disguised to resemble one of the ill-fated passengers. Yet as the other man came closer, his eyes met Franc’s, and there was no hint of recognition, no shock of seeing oneself. Pannes merely looked at him oddly, as if spotting a fellow passenger who had somehow escaped his
notice during the past three days, then turned toward the stairs leading to A Deck.

As he put a foot on the first riser, though, Pannes paused to look back at Franc. “Can I help you, young man?” he asked politely.