Read The Rhinemann Exchange for Free Online Page A

figured my equipment was shot up.…”
    Suddenly there were interruptions from every pilot in the decimated squadron.
    “I read one-seven.…”
    “My heading was a goddamned two-niner-two. We took a direct hit on …”
    “
Jesus!
I had sixer-four.…”
    “Most of our middle took a load. I discounted my readings totally!”
    And then there was silence. All understood.
    Or understood what they could not comprehend.
    “Stay off all frequencies,” said the squadron commander. “I’ll try to reach base.”
    The cloud cover above broke; not for long, but long enough. The voice over the radio was the captain of aircraft three.
    “A quick judgment, colonel, says we’re heading due northwest.”
    Silence again.
    After a few moments, the commander spoke. “I’ll reach somebody. Do all your gauges read as mine? Fuel for roughly ten to fifteen minutes?”
    “It’s been a long haul, colonel,” said aircraft seven. “No more than that, it’s for sure.”
    “I figured we’d be circling, if we had to, five minutes ago,” said aircraft eight.
    “We’re not,” said aircraft four.
    The colonel in aircraft two raised Lakenheath on an emergency frequency.
    “As near as we can determine,” came the strained, agitated, yet controlled English voice, “and by that I mean open lines throughout the coastal defense areas—water and land—you’re approaching the Dunbar sector. That’s the Scottish border, colonel. What in blazes are you doing there?”
    “For Christ’s sake, I don’t
know!
Are there any fields?”
    “Not for
your
aircraft Certainly not a formation; perhaps one or two.…”
    “I don’t want to hear that, you son of a bitch! Give me emergency instructions!”
    “We’re really quite unprepared.…”
    “Do you
read me?!
I have what’s left of a very chopped-up squadron! We have less than six minutes’ fuel! Now you
give!
”
    The silence lasted precisely four seconds. Lakenheath conferred swiftly. With finality.
    “We believe you’ll sight the coast, probably Scotland. Put your aircraft down at sea.… We’ll do our best, lads.”
    “We’re eleven
bombers
, Lakenheath! We’re not a bunch of ducks!”
    “There isn’t time, squadron leader.… The logistics are insurmountable. After all, we didn’t guide you there. Put down at sea. We’ll do our best.… Godspeed.”

PART
1

1
SEPTEMBER 10, 1943, BERLIN, GERMANY
    Reichsminister of Armaments Albert Speer raced up the steps of the Air Ministry on the Tiergarten. He did not feel the harsh, diagonal sheets of rain that plummeted down from the grey sky; he did not notice that his raincoat—unbuttoned—had fallen away, exposing his tunic and shirt to the inundation of the September storm. The pitch of his fury swept everything but the immediate crisis out of his mind.
    Insanity! Sheer, unmitigated, unforgivable insanity!
    The industrial reserves of all Germany were about exhausted; but he could handle that immense problem. Handle it by properly utilizing the manufacturing potential of the occupied countries; reverse the unmanageable practices of importing the labor forces. Labor forces? Slaves!
    Productivity disastrous; sabotage continuous, unending.
    What did they expect?
    It was a time for sacrifice! Hitler could not continue to be all things to all people! He could not provide outsized Mercedeses and grand operas and populated restaurants; he had to provide, instead, tanks, munitions, ships, aircraft!
These
were the priorities!
    But the Führer could never erase the memory of the 1918 revolution.
    How totally inconsistent! The sole man whose will was shaping history, who was close to the preposterous dream of a thousand-year Reich, was petrified of a long-ago memory of unruly mobs, of unsatisfied masses.
    Speer wondered if future historians would record thefact. If they would comprehend just how weak
Hitler
really was when it came to his own countrymen. How he buckled in fear when consumer production fell below anticipated