"Are you familiar with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Jason? The act that made Kennedy a hero in the eyes of the entire world."

Jason wasn’t a history expert but knew enough to reply. "Yes, I am. The Russians tried to set up a missile base on Cuba, meaning that Florida and the southern states would become a radioactive wasteland and we wouldn't have known a damned thing about it until it was all over. We’d have had barely a few minutes warning before those missiles hit the United States. Right?”

Heller smiled, "Well, yes, that's the long and short of it, but as much as Kennedy saved the world from a nuclear holocaust that day, he exposed something far more terrible - the complete and total lack of a weapons gap between the USSR and the United States. You see, for years, the U.S. Central Command had believed that the Soviet Union had thousands of highly accurate ICBMs, capable of literally wiping out North America and her European allies in one massive attack.”

Heller paused for a few seconds, cigarette in hand, his thumbnail pressed against his teeth in thought.

“The reality was totally different though, Jason. In fact, the USSR was so far behind us in weapons development, we could have taken them out in a long weekend of fighting. It might have meant the U.S. suffering a few million casualties, but the Soviet Union would have ceased to exist. Even the few survivors there would have had to leave, because that whole place would be a radioactive hell for about 1,000 years, give or take.”

"I still don't get why that meant Kennedy had to be killed, though? You said earlier he was against the war. He didn’t want a nuclear war either, surely?" Jason asked.

"Patience, Jason…patience. I’m getting there. Once the older guys in the Department of Defense realized that we could easily win a nuclear war against Russia, plans were put in place to make that happen - we were going to launch a first strike, using our subs to take out their main launch sites in a massive attack. Once their missile sites were gone, we could do a clean sweep across the Soviet Union with our ICBMs, picking whatever targets we wanted. Our bombers could then nuke any straggler facilities or cities. We figured on taking several million casualties ourselves, but that was more than acceptable. The bonus here was that China and Vietnam would walk away from any potential conflict with the United States because once they saw what we did to the Russians, no one would dare oppose us. There would have been a new global empire, and all of it run by the United States.”

"Kennedy figured out what you were doing, didn't he?" Jason said. "Or he just suspected?"

Heller was smiling as he replied, "Well spotted, Jason, and, yes, he did. It started, like most things in life, as an unsettling feeling in his gut. Kennedy had always known something or someone in his government was rotten, and growing more rotten every day. Soon enough, those loyal to Kennedy had told him that a first strike would be launched with or without his approval,” Heller shook his head sadly. “At first, Kennedy tried reasoning with the war mongers through back channels, doing everything he could to stop the coming genocide, but no one was listening. He knew how powerful the military industrial complex was, and if they really wanted a war, that they'd get one regardless. In the end, Kennedy decided he had no option left open to him except to tell the American people what was really happening in their government, and hoped they would overthrow the hidden military dictatorship in the United States and stop a global nuclear war from starting."

When Dwight D. Eisenhower retired from the office of President of the United States, he gave a final speech on January 17th, 1961. In this speech, he hinted at the fact that the United States was coming under the control of something he called "the military industrial complex". This same military industrial complex was apparently responsible for organizing the Kennedy assassination. He knew that democracy in the United States was slowly being eroded. Even then, the cracks were appearing.

"Jesus! Kennedy was going to start a second American Revolution?" Jason asked.

Heller nodded quickly. "Yes, that was what he had in mind, Jason. He was going to expose the U.S. military for the corrupt institution it had become, expose it for its existing war crimes, and then let the American people decide what to do next. For all the might of the U.S. Army, those in power knew that tens of millions of angry, armed Americans were a threat to them, and that they'd be lucky to face a firing squad if they were ever exposed. This was the fallout from 'Paperclip', Jason. This was the price of doing business with the devil himself.”

Something about what Heller said there sounded familiar to Jason for some reason. "Paperclip??"

Heller swallowed a mouthful of coffee, drew heavily on his cigarette, and exhaled. This was obviously going to take some explaining.

Chapter 18

How could it have come to this, he wondered. They'd reached new heights in scientific research and had come so close to achieving their goal of launching a rocket into orbit, even just temporarily. For all the insanity that had gone on over the last 6 years, he knew that a lot of his work had been justified. Peenemünde had been a harsh mistress to everyone who got involved with her, but the slave laborers had come off the worst of it. His childhood dream of conquering space had become the adult nature of conquering other human beings instead.

Unfortunately, it was the insanity of one man that had changed the course of human history, and tens of millions had died as a result. The same evil he’d poured out into the world was now following him back home though, destroying the country he loved so dearly. His dear Fatherland.

He felt lucky he'd managed to get this far West though, because at least this way, he'd be safe from the Russians. Developing the V2 rocket program had cost the lives of thousands of slave laborers who had died from starvation, being worked to death or just blown up near the failed rocket launches. He knew Soviet troops weren't going to be very sympathetic toward him if they caught him. The chances of him surviving more than a few days as a prisoner of the Russians was highly unlikely, especially now that his arm was broken.

He knew that he was a valuable asset, and that whoever captured him would want to keep him alive, even the hated Russians wouldn’t risk the wrath of Stalin by executing him before they emptied his head of everything he knew. From his point of view, it just seemed like the Americans were the better side to surrender to. He was pretty sure he could convince them to allow him to continue his work. The next race for humanity would be toward the stars, and he was the perfect guy to help the United States make that happen.

He stood up and dusted himself down with his right hand, the other arm still propped up in a cast. The door opened swiftly and a U.S. Army Major strode in. Smiling, he extended his hand and said, "Dr. von Braun, I presume? My name is Major Staver, it's a pleasure to meet you. We'd like to escort you safely out of Europe and to the United States. How does that sound, sir?"

Werner Von Braun sighed a little inside, knowing he was trading one "master" for another, narrowed his eyes, and shook the Major's hand, replying in broken English with, "The pleasure is mine, I'm sure. When do we leave?"

His fate was now in the hands of the Americans, and if the rumors were true, they had a weapon the Soviets would live in fear of for at least a few years. That would buy him the time he needed to get the Americans into orbit, and then the moon. Once the Americans controlled the space above planet Earth, they could control the Earth itself. It was just a matter of planning, resources, and time. That fool, Hitler, had never given very much of any of those.