The Gemini Divergence (55 page)

The
Divergence / Johnson Takes Command

Lyndon Johnson was quickly sworn in and
briefed about the state of the U.S. Military by McNamara and
General Taylor.

McNamara and Taylor had conspired to try and
keep the other generals, especially Lemay, away from Johnson.

Many of the meetings with the President were
spur of the moment, and secret, so that any curious general would
not even be able to plan attending.

“Mr. President,” stated McNamara, “the
American public thinks that Oswald killed Kennedy, but we believe
that the real assassin escaped, and was planted by the
Raumsfahrtwaffe. As a matter of fact, the CIA has informed us that
the soviets foiled a plot to assassinate Khrushchev, just
yesterday.”

The President looked shocked, “What…
Khrushchev? Him too?”

“Yes Sir, we believe that the Raumsfahrtwaffe
has become aware of the secret fact that the Cold War aggression of
the past year or so has all been a grand deception, and they’re not
very happy about it.”

*~*

Constantine was sitting huddled behind some
boxes in an alley.

He kept pressing the button on the device
that Schwerig had given him to summon the rescue ship, but no one
had come for days.

The light on the device just kept blinking to
acknowledge the pressing of the button, but no rescue, no
response.

He looked at his watch and knew that it had
been exactly a week since he was bound to the operating table
listening to Schwerig tell him that the device would detonate in
one week.

Deep in his heart he knew that he had been
deceived, but yearned to trick his own mind into believing that
they would come, and that he would see home again.

He glanced down at a newspaper he had found
in the garbage.

Even though he couldn’t speak English, he
could make out that they had captured the wrong man, the man that
was in the book depository.

He wondered if anybody on earth would ever
know about his final hours.

Actually, nobody on earth knew what happened
after he was lost in space.

Even in Russia, few knew where he was, it was
a secret space mission in the first place.

He wondered what became of the young woman
that had been put in the same predicament as him.

Then he felt a sudden sharp pain in his
chest, he reached for the pain but fell limp before he was able to
move his arm more than a few inches.

He then lay within the refuse, without ID or
money.

Even if he were found, he would just be
thought to be a bum.

There would be no autopsy, nor exam. He would
probably just be placed into an unmarked public grave.

*~*

Inga was on her knees strapped to a post that
would not let her completely reach the ground; her wrists
bound.

She was horribly beaten with tattered
clothes. It was obvious that she had been tortured mercilessly.

Her lack of military training and nervousness
had attracted the attention of one of Khrushchev’s guards, who then
caught her trying to assemble the rifle.

She wept silently as she watched one of her
Soviet captors press the button repeatedly on the rescue
transponder, trying to figure out what the device was.

Home, was all that she could think about.

She was still struggling to figure out how
she had been pulled from her parent’s farm in the first place. She
had just been home asleep in her room, and awoke to Schwerig
dictating her final days to her.

Now nobody would know what happened to her.
What on earth did her parents think when they found her room empty
the next morning.

A few of her captors were conversing, trying
to figure out what to do with her next because they did not believe
her story that she had just been abducted from her room and forced
to assassinate Khrushchev.

Extreme torture had not forced her to relent
anything except the tale that she just kept repeating.

Suddenly they were interrupted by her
agonizing scream.

They looked at each other dumbfounded because
nobody was touching her at the time.

Then she fell limp.

They felt her pulse and were puzzled why she
had suddenly died.

Fear came over them as they thought that they
would be blamed for killing her before they found what they
wanted.

But an autopsy revealed the device.

They finally believed her story.

Even though they discovered the device, and
they knew who had installed it. It would remain forever, another
Soviet secret.

December 1963

“Would you grow up?” Gus scolded Jack for
eating his popcorn, “You’re in your late 30’s and you still act
like you did when you were 18.”

Jack leaned over the rail between their
theatre chairs and tried to grab some anyway, “But I want
some.”

“Then buy your own damn popcorn, you have the
same job as me, and I can afford it.”

Jack sat back in his chair and looked
disgusted, then got up and went to get some of his own. When he
returned he sat and ate silently while they watched one of the new
James Bond movies everyone was talking about.

Gus chuckled and whispered to Jack, “Boy,
this isn’t even close to the real way spy work is done. Is it?”

Jack didn’t respond. He just silently watched
the movie.

Gus tried again, “There are never any women
like that any place we have ever gone, has there been?”

Again, Jack sat silently.

Gus nudged him and asked, “What’s up with you
all of the sudden?”

Jack pushed back childishly, like always, and
said, “I’m not talking to you.”

Gus scoffed, “Oh, I swear, you haven’t grown
up in twenty years.”

They sat silently for a while, and then Jack
suggested, “Why don’t we build a car like that one?”

Referring to the gadget laden car that Bond
drove.

“Yeah right,” chuckled Gus sarcastically.

“No, I mean it. In twenty years, Volmer and
Lemay have never questioned a single expense, if we told them we
needed it to do our job… We’re spies right? Just like that guy; we
need a car like that.”

Gus laughed, “I’d like to see the look on
General Lemay’s face when he opened that invoice… Volmer would
probably be confused and ask us what it did.”

“Attract chicks, my good man; we would never
bitch about a lack of women again. They would materialize out of
thin air to sit in one of those things,” boasted Jack as he
confidently put his hands behind his head and relaxed.

January 1964

General Taylor and Secretary McNamara had
sequestered President Johnson into a Pentagon room for a secret
meeting about the Divergence.

They had left strict instructions for the
Army guards not to let anyone into the meeting.

Before they had closed the door, an Air Force
officer loyal to General Lemay, had seen them enter the room alone,
and thought that it was a bit unusual not to have the other Chiefs
of Staff present.

So he dropped by Lemay’s office on the way to
his own office just to give him a heads up.

One of the Guards at the door saw Lemay
approaching from down the hall and moaned, “Oh no, here he comes,
‘Ole Iron Pants’.

The second guard responded, “Damn it, this
guy’s impossible, sometimes.”

When Lemay reached the door, the first guard
put out his hand and stated officially, “I’m sorry General Lemay,
Sir; I have strict orders that no one else, regardless of rank, is
to enter this room.”

Lemay laughed and smiled, “I’m not here for
the meeting boys. I’m just following up on all of the lock changes
in this sector.”

“Lock changes, Sir?”

“Why yes, I had a crew come through here
yesterday and change all of these locks. Now I’m making sure that
all the work has been done and that everybody has their new keys.
Do you have your new key sergeant?”

“New keys? General Sir, this is the first
that I have heard of this. Are you sure, Sir?”

“Oh, quite sure; if you didn’t get your new
key, you won’t be able to unlock that door. I’ll bet General Taylor
won’t be very happy about that.”

The two guards looked at each other then the
first guard remembered, “Wait a minute general, I used this key
this morning.”

Lemay pulled his cigar out and lost his
smile, “Sergeant, are you calling me a liar?”

The guards whipped back into attention, “No
sir! I am just relaying to the general that I remembered using my
key this morning.”

The general got right into the sergeants
face, “Well maybe they finished up some time this morning. Have you
had your eagle eyes here on that knob for every single second
today?”

“No sir,” relented the guard.

“Well then… what is it that makes you think
that you know more than me?”

“I’m not claiming to know more, sir.”

“If you’re so damn sure that your key works;
put your money were your damn mouth is and show me.”

The guard produced the key and inserted it
into the door and promptly unlocked it.

He then turned to look at Lemay, baffled as
how to react.

He dare not say I told you so. He just stood
there silently with a blank face.

Lemay just smiled and blew smoke into the
guards face as he started to walk through the door, “What do you
know sergeant… I was wrong,” as he strutted proudly towards the
center table in the room and boasted sarcastically, “Why General
Taylor, Secretary McNamara and Mr. President., what a surprise…
Say, are those the secret Gemini Divergence plans?”

General Taylor stood up fuming, “Sergeant how
did you let this buffoon trick you?”

“Sorry sir! He just…”

Taylor screamed, “Close the damn door again,
and keep it shut this time.”

The sergeant closed the door in an instant as
Taylor turned to see that Lemay had already pulled up a chair and
was thumbing through the files on the table, “Do you mind?” he
snapped at Lemay.

Lemay just smiled and quipped, “I’m delighted
to see that you followed my advice to start the production on the
Blue Gemini capsules and the Manned Orbiting Laboratories… and
right on schedule too.”

The President looked like he was trying to
figure out what was going on. McNamara then rested his head in his
hands as Taylor threw the file that he had in his hand onto the
table in disgust.

Once into the meeting Lemay learned that
Johnson wanted to go ahead with all of Kennedy’s plans as soon as
possible. He even wanted to forgo a lot of the testing; he just
wanted these things in space, in between him and them.

February-March 1964

The Soviets had made engineering changes to
correct the shortfalls of their first killer satellites and began
launching Polet 2 devices in earnest.

The U.S. had not figured out how the Soviets
controlled these weapons yet, but had observed that they displayed
phenomenal control over their bearing and speed.

The Raumsfahrtwaffe was fairly sure what they
were and kept their distance from them.

Schwerig wanted to figure out how to control
them as well. He figured that it would be much safer to capture one
by gaining control of it, instead of just grabbing one and risking
detonation.

8 April 1964

NASA launched Gemini 1, the cover story was
that it was an unmanned capsule intended to test life support
systems before launching a human pilot.

Behind closed doors, they wondered if the
Raumsfahrtwaffe would shoot it down.

British radar technicians from the Indian
Ocean island base of Diego Garcia, in later years, reported that
they watched as two UFOs approached Gemini 1 before the capsule
burned up during re-entry.

NASA reported that it was always part of the
mission plan for the capsule to burn up. Why waste the time
recovering an unmanned capsule?

Reporters then asked, but were never
answered, “Wouldn’t it have been a good idea to test the landing
recovery systems such as the parachutes, if you were concerned for
pilot safety?” and, “Why then were Naval ships dispatched and
waiting under the Atlantic Ocean location where the capsule burnt
up?

~~~**^**~~~

The Divergence / Another Meeting At Holloman

24 April 1964, Morning,

“Would you point that thing somewhere else?”
Gus scolded Jack, in reference to Jack trying to figure out how to
operate a rifle again.

“Well, it’s only been about seventeen or
eighteen years since I’ve held one at Basic Training.”

“I seriously doubt that you will have to
worry about using it today. Just put the damn thing over your
shoulder and forget about it.”

Jack started to swing it up over his shoulder
when General Lemay came around the corner of the building.