It might have been going anywhere—into orbit, into space, to the moon. It might have been taking man to new heights, expanding our understanding of the universe and the galaxy—extending our knowledge about our world and ourselves. But that rocket wasn’t a space exploration device—it was a warhead, destined for some unsuspecting village or city…some innocent family in their home, just as Jürgen had once feared. His rockets, now public knowledge, were renamed Vergeltungswaffe 2, Retribution Weapon 2, part of the set of Nazi “vengeance weapons” that were supposed to turn the tide of the war. Since September, over three thousand V-2 rockets had been launched, mostly against Belgium and London. Each was almost fifty feet high and weighed thirty thousand pounds. My head ached if I thought about the scale and size of the operation.

Jürgen was the next to receive his medal, and when he was invited to the podium, I watched him closely. He had been quiet and pensive by my side until they called his name. He played the role so well, he momentarily looked like a different man as he stood—a stony, cruel version of the man I’d loved for my entire adult life.

He barked the victory salute back at the official, his gaze firm and his muscles tense. But once he’d returned to his seat beside me, and when the lights in that room went down and the curtain again opened, the burst of flame from another rocket lit up over the lawn. I dragged my eyes from the rocket so that I could watch Jürgen’s reaction to it.

The colors of the flames were reflected in the sheen of tears in his eyes as he watched the rocket’s flare. Jürgen’s expression suggested he might have been staring into hell itself.

An instinct sounded. Was he going to refuse to join the SS? Surely not. It would be an act of suicide—

A chill ran down my spine.

What if that was the point?

We were both more than a little tipsy by the time we tumbled into bed, and for the first time in months, we held one another. After a while, Jürgen lifted the blanket over our heads. It had been so long since we’d seen each other, longer since we’d been through this routine, but the act of hiding beneath the blankets was so ingrained in our relationship—as intimate as making love. I took no solace in the action, not that night. We were about to have the conversation I’d been dreading all evening.

“You have to do it,” I said. Jürgen remained silent. “Why would this be the line you refuse to cross? After everything we’ve done?” I drew in a breath. “Is it true that the war is almost over anyway? Hitler is losing?”