Hurry up and wait. Life in the military was supposed to be organized, sensible, satisfying in its clarity. Hah! He had hoped to be moving beyond the reach of the SNAFU when he got his star, but it seemed Washington was indeed the ultimate FUBAR  The promotion came with a new job assignment. People whose positions in the structure he did not even know could apparently give him presumptive orders, so here he was. Waiting for an update on something he had never heard of, in an office next to a room full of people he didn’t like. But at least he was in charge of the meeting…he had almost laughed when the Secretary told him that detail, but his training (and years of poker) kept him and his career safe.

The briefing folder, received only after arriving at the base, didn’t tell him much. It contained only background information- but what it did say was both preposterous and disturbing. The Nazis, and  that miserable war, were not yet done with him. Three years after, the belated fruit of one of Himmler’s crazy schemes had fallen into our hands, and he was now supposed to decide what to do about it. Wasn’t Korea a more pressing concern?

 He knew the Reich had been engaged in all sorts of wild “Blue Sky” projects- Hell, so had we- but a space program? Who did the brass think he was, Buck Rogers? That was the sinkhole research where Himmler had squandered resources  late in the war, with talk about placing crystal coffins in orbit above the Earth. Hitler always signed off on the projects, but privately made jokes about Himmler’s crazy obsession. Was there really more to this than he’d thought? The huge, multistage rockets developed (and fortunately never used in the war) were a prime reason for the implementation of Operation Paperclip, along with the aeronautical designs of engineers like the Hortons, but he had never been briefed on  any  other actual results from the Blue Sky facilities.. 

The “Paperclipped” scientists and technicians from Germany, pardoned and imported  by the infinite and soulless wisdom of the politicians, had never said anything to him about launching exploratory probes. Of course, he had never asked such a question-why would he? His job was to see that the Germens were gainfully employed at tasks which might benefit our efforts in future conflicts, while most of them complained constantly about the equipment and tried to continue working on the sly at their own pet projects. He was beginning to understand why he might be here. He wondered if Northrop was around somewhere.

Apparently, Hitler’s (Himmler’s, he mentally corrected himself- Hell, it was probably both of them) obsession with Ancient Secrets and lost civilizations had caused him to

send a camera to the planet Mars!  He had seen photos of the “A” series rockets, and the two-stage models looked big enough to lift a tank. Still, why even the crazy Little Corporal would think there was a reason for  that was hard to imagine.  Had he been planning  an invasion? That thought made him chuckle, which broke his foul  mood. OK, bring it on, what ever it is. But why such urgency? Until six days ago, this was just another unsubstantiated Crazy Experiment buried in the files from the Hartz Mountain facility, with no clear indication that it had ever gone anywhere. Then a carrier group heading to Guam saw something hit the water a few miles away, and when a plane was sent to investigate, it reported seeing a flashing red light. The recovered object was the reason he was now sitting here, waiting for a report from the photo lab, which had only received the sealed canister this morning. How had this all happened so fast, and why?

He skimmed the collection of papers in the brief again- there was stuff about a locator beacon, frequency such-and-such, slingshot trajectory, whatever that was, chart A, chart B, diagram of a gyroscopic deviation timer, whatever that was, nine whole pages titled “Angular Aero-Ballistic Reverberative False Orbital Insertion” (skip), description of modified gatling-type lens assembly (see diagram), modified gun camera with magazines, uh huh…they knew how to make terrific cameras, he conceded that.  No illustration or photo of the actual camera …too bad.  Clipped to the back of the folder were two  tagged photographs, one of a (presumably spare) film canister, the only actual hardware connected with this that had been found in the Hartz Caves.  It looked like a giant champagne cork, he decided. According to the notation, it really was covered in cork. The other photo showed some Germans working on a mechanism that had a lot of gears. Wait- he recognized one of them, standing back with a clipboard.  Von Braun, that arrogant, unrepentant SOB, he  knew all about it!  Why had he said nothing of this before? And how had they managed a round trip? Damn them all anyway! 

He rubbed his eyes. If the film from the canister just recovered  from the Pacific was damaged, he had been pulled off his leave for nothing. Why was the  possibility of photographs of the rocks and dirt on another planet any kind of Intelligence concern anyway? Because they were taken by Nazis? Ridiculous, even by “military logic”. Yet the only information he’d been given on the way here was how important it was to keep everything Top Secret. When he tried to ask for details, he got none. Men in suits, working for one of those new agencies with unclear missions, but they’d been able to pull a newly-minted General off of  leave like he’d been a buck private and throw him into this. As a capper, they claimed that they did not know what might be involved either. He didn’t believe them,.

Surely, over the next few years as we went through the captured files, there would be lots of strange projects uncovered and many promising leads vetted. Probably most of those would have far more practical applications than this cockamamie escapade. He hoped so- that was his damn job, that and getting those recalcitrant scientists to explain the engineering to our guys. “Oh, ja, ve had something like that- but with these instruments…”.He actually liked a few of them, but only a few. Someone knocked on the door. “Come.”