The Methuselah Project (10 page)

After the prayer, Roger lay on his cot, staring upward. He craved a glimpse of azure sky, of clouds, of luxurious sunshine—everything he relished when airborne. Instead, gray concrete and ash-colored bricks blocked his vision. “They could’ve at least given us a window. Even a window with bars would be better than none at all. Don’t they realize it’s torture for pilots not to see the sky?”

“Try not to think about it, Rog,” Jamison said. “Instead of dwelling on everything you want to do but can’t, do what I do. Be free in your brain. Think about cities, parks, restaurants, and other places you’ve visited, and then try to recall every minuscule detail. Blomberg can lock our bodies behind bars, but he can’t lock up our imaginations.”

Be free in my brain?

Roger lay down and buried his face in his pillow. Within a few moments, he was back at Station 156 in Debden, sitting in the cockpit of his P-47. Step by step, he mentally closed the canopy, fired up the engine, taxied away from the hardstand and out to the runway. He could imagine the increasing vibration of the airframe and the roar of the engine as the aircraft picked up speed. Free as an eagle, he lifted from the tarmac, raised his landing gear, and soared above the English countryside.
No doubt about it, I was born to fly …

When Roger opened his eyes, he realized he’d drifted off to sleep. Only one of the three light bulbs in the chamber glowed, dimming the light but not extinguishing it. His six companions slept. Someone breathed heavily, although not quite snoring. It must be nighttime.

Faint and distant, muffled by the brick walls, Roger heard something: a drawn-out, wailing sound. He quickly guessed what the siren must mean. As if in confirmation, another distant noise steadily grew into a distinct droning. Aircraft. Lots of them.

“Hey, you guys, wake up. I think it’s an air raid!”

Roger’s words performed magic. Each of his companions rolled over and cocked an ear.

Sedgewick bolted upright. “Night bombers! That’s the RAF about to give Adolf another kick in the rear.”

“Go get ’em, lads,” Lambright shouted toward the ceiling. “Teach Jerry a lesson for us!”

The siren also roused the guards. Through the metal door, guttural shouts sounded, followed by the rapid clomping of jackbooted feet pounding along the corridor. The single lightbulb winked out.

Burgess’s voice cut through the darkness. “It’s a blackout. They’ve cut the juice to all the lights.”

“This would’ve been the perfect time for an escape hole,” Roger said. “Right when all the outside lights are off and the guards are scampering away to cower in a bomb shelter.”

Even as he finished his sentence, the thunder of an aerial bombardment reverberated in the chamber. He lay motionless on his canvas cot, where even from a distance he could feel the vibrations as tons of high explosives ravaged whatever target lay beneath them. The concussions were marching closer, closer …

Above the din of explosions, Roger heard Burgess rattling the door of his cell and shouting. “Blomberg! Kossler! You idiots! Unlock the doors before we’re blown to bits!”

Although Roger couldn’t see them in the darkness, he heard the other prisoners following Burgess’s example. The inky blackness echoed with a cacophony of rattling bars, frantic cries, curses, and deafening booms that literally bounced men to their knees on the concrete floor.

Roger half-crawled, half-stumbled to his cell door to join in the shouting. “Nazi cowards! Get in here. Save us!” He prepared to ram the barred door with his full force, but he stopped.
Don’t panic
—
think!
He’d tried ramming that door once before, and the effort had produced nothing more than a black-and-blue shoulder. What defensive measures could he take?

Unbidden, the haunting refrain popped into his mind: “Children, always remember to—”

“Shut up!”

The concussions marched on top of them. Surely his eardrums would burst! In grave-like darkness, he scrambled to his cot, where he fell to his knees, but not to pray. He flattened his flight jacket to cushion the floor under the cot, then crawled underneath to join it. Feeling above him, he grabbed his pillow and pulled that down too. Covering his head with the pillow and clamping it tightly around his ears, he lay there under the cot, hoping against hope to ride out the bombing. His makeshift shelter offered ridiculously pitiful protection, but no other options existed.

Jumbled with the horrified screams of his comrades, two more near-deafening detonations rocked the earth. Roger Greene’s blackened world exploded with inhuman might. Like a concrete bronco, the floor bucked him into his cot and slammed him back down, even as ear-shattering detonations pummeled his brain. From all directions, flying chunks of brick battered and buried him under their incredible weight. His lungs fought for breath.

As consciousness ebbed, a final conclusion penetrated his mind:
This is it. I’m going to die.

M
ONDAY
, J
ANUARY
3, 1944

T
HE
M
ETHUSELAH FACILITY
, G
ERMANY

“H
err Doktor! Ich habe einen Flieger gefunden!”

Deep inside Roger Greene’s mind, some flicker of life sensed spoken syllables but attached no meaning to them. His world had gone cold and dark, and something within the core of his being expected the situation to remain that way. But other sounds—scrapes and clanks—forced their way into reality, tugging him back from the suffocating blackness. Bit by bit, sections of the crushing weight lifted from his body. Not until dust-laden air whooshed into his lungs and ignited a coughing fit did the full truth dawn upon him:
I’m alive.

Several pairs of hands clamped onto Roger’s arms, his legs, even the back of his belt, and dragged his body from the debris of what had been cell 7. As they did, a jagged finger of broken brick gouged into the skin of his right cheek. He winced, but couldn’t summon energy to protest. In that moment, a rag doll could protect itself better than he.

Roger coughed again, his reflexes trying to rid him of the grit lining his throat. When his nose detected the steaming aroma of ersatz coffee, he opened his eyes and gratefully parted his lips. The hot liquid he gulped solidified the truth. Yes, he really was alive.

Stupefied and still blinking eyes that felt caked with cement dust, Roger swept his gaze left and right in the predawn grayness. The carnage astounded him. Blomberg’s Methuselah facility had become a heap of blasted rubble and twisted steel. Here and there, wisps of smoke curled upward to mingle with the unnatural pall that hung over the entire area.

No one could live through that. Yet he’d just done it. Barely. For the second time in recent days, the possibility of God’s existence flitted through his mind. Had the Almighty personally intervened to spare him? True, Roger hadn’t taken time to pray actual words as the bombs were falling, but part of him—his soul?—had cried out for protection from such a death.

Roger pulled himself to a sitting posture. Shivering, he crossed his arms against the biting cold of January.

“Einen Augenblick.”
A soldier reached into the cavity where Roger had lain and tugged loose the leather flight jacket, which he draped over the airman’s shoulders.

Roger’s dry throat could manage only a croak. “Where are the others?”

They regarded him with uncomprehending eyes.

“Where are my friends?” Anger pushing him to rise on wobbly legs, he stood now and motioned at the heap of wreckage. “Where … are … my … friends?”

From behind him came the accented voice of Blomberg’s assistant, Dr. Kossler. “We’re still digging for them. So far, we’ve uncovered only three others: Number One, Number Two, and Number Three. All dead.”

Roger turned and glared at Kossler’s serene features. Not one spec of dust marred the man’s face or wool greatcoat. More frustrating than the deaths of his fellow airmen was the fact that this Nazi, who bore part of the blame, could stand here and clinically speak about their demise as if they hadn’t been men, as if they’d merely been so many expendable rodents.

“You dirty, stinking, good-for-nothing—” Roger hurled himself at Kossler, ready to pummel the man’s face to a pulp. Immediately soldiers grappled him, holding him back. “You and Blomberg should rot in hell for this! You left us locked up during an air raid. Here we were, getting blown to bits, while you and your men cringed in some cozy bomb shelter.”

With eyes sadder than Roger would have expected, Kossler shook his head. “No, Captain. None of us here were in a bomb shelter. Unfortunately a shelter was not included in the facility’s design. Since we are three kilometers from the nearest industries, it was assumed we wouldn’t need one. Every man you see here was in the barracks, in the forest off in that direction.” He waved his hand toward the paler sky to the east. “So if it is any consolation, we lost more of our men than you did.”

“Yeah? Well, cry me a river. Get that old geezer Blomberg out here. I want to tell him exactly what I think of him and his precious facility.”

Kossler’s head drooped. “Your request is impossible. Do you see that crater?”

The German tilted his head, and Roger followed the man’s gaze. Just past what must have been the outer wall of the building was a blackened pit, undoubtedly the impact point of the bomb that had destroyed the House of Horrors.

“Dr. von Blomberg never slept in the barracks. He kept a bed in his office, beside the laboratory. If the hell you mentioned truly exists, then Dr. von Blomberg just spent his first night in it. No corpse will be found.”

Roger stared at the blast site, then back at Kossler. He was prepared to spout, “Good riddance,” but something in Kossler’s demeanor sapped the heat from Roger’s words.

Kossler withdrew a white handkerchief from his overcoat pocket and offered it to Roger. “Here. You’re bleeding. Under your right eye.”

Without a word, Roger snatched the cloth and pressed it to the spot. He remembered something sharp and painful scraping his cheek when the soldiers had hauled him loose. When he drew the handkerchief from his face, it bore a red stain mixed with grime.

“I will have you taken to the barracks to rest.”

“Not yet. I want to stay here until my friends are found.”

Kossler offered no argument, so Roger remained. With thirty or forty soldiers on the scene, no one seemed to fear the American would bolt for freedom.

Wrapped in his leather flight jacket and a dusty woolen blanket pulled from the rubble of his cell, Roger watched the diggers excavate for his comrades. Before long, however, their slow progress gave rise to a swelling tide of impatience. He stood and tossed the blanket aside.

“What are you doing?” Kossler picked up the blanket. “You need rest. You’ve been through an ordeal.”

“No, I want to help. The more hands, the better.” Not waiting for the German’s reply, Roger joined the brigade of men passing broken chunks of brick and twisted steel bars from hand to hand.

Within two hours, the last Allied body appeared. On hands and knees, Roger stumbled forward to feel Hazlitt’s neck. No pulse under the chilly skin. Roger was the sole survivor.

If I’d been standing up like the others, I’d be dead too.
Guilt swamped his soul.
What right do I have to survive when they didn’t?

As the diggers wrapped Hazlitt’s corpse in a drab green blanket, Roger turned away. He wouldn’t let the enemy see the tears welling in his eyes.

From behind, footsteps crunched closer over the debris. Kossler’s voice said, “My condolences, Captain Greene.”

Roger held his gaze in the opposite direction. “Tell me they won’t end up in some unmarked grave. Promise me they’ll get a decent burial.”

Kossler stepped beside Roger, both men gazing into the distance yet regarding nothing in particular. The German removed a cigarette from a silvery case, almost inserted it between his lips, but then offered it to Roger instead. Roger didn’t smoke. This time, however, he accepted the gesture. If nothing else, the burning tobacco would provide warm air for his lungs. Kossler lit the cigarette, then a second one for himself.

“You have my word. Their identification tags will be replaced around their necks. Their bodies will be transported to the nearest prisoner of war camp. They will be buried alongside their countrymen.”

Roger exhaled a long stream of smoke. No need to thank the man. It was the very least they could do.

“You lead a charmed life, Captain. First you survived being shot down. Now you have survived a bombing. Perhaps somebody ‘up there’ is looking out for you, as they say.”

He took another drag on the cigarette. “Yeah. Maybe. So what happens now?”

The German stomped his feet against the cold. “Unfortunately Dr. von Blomberg was an eccentric genius. He allowed no one to copy his documentation. He stored all the records in his personal office, where he slept and ate. He allowed me to sit and read his notes when I had time, but only in his presence. His documentation and resource material were voluminous. As of yesterday, I had read only about 25 or 30 percent of the material.”