When Staver arrived at the rendezvous point the next day, he was disheartened to find Riedel waiting for him but not Fleischer. Even odder, Riedel said he had a message from Fleischer to pass along: Fleischer was waiting for Major Staver in Haynrode, a nearby village, with “some very important news.” Staver needed to travel to Haynrode, find a boardinghouse called the Inn of the Three Lime Trees, and ask for the concierge. Was this some kind of a trap, or just another wild goose chase?
Staver and Walther Riedel drove together to the Inn of the Three Lime Trees. There, they met up with the innkeeper, who produced a message from Fleischer. Staver and Riedel were to walk through town, pass down a long alleyway, and head to the edge of the village, where they were to go to the home of a local priest. Staver and Riedel followed the trail, finally arriving at the priest’s house. There, in flawless English, the priest told Major Staver that Fleischer would see him soon. Fleischer emerged at the top of the stairs, came down, and asked Staver to follow him outside so the two men could talk privately under an apple tree. There, “in almost inaudible, somewhat apologetic tones[,] Fleischer admitted he had not been completely frank” about the whereabouts of the V-2 document stash, Staver explained. In fact, he knew where they were hidden and “believed he was the only one in Nordhausen who did.” But there was a problem, Fleischer said. He described to Staver how the caretaker at the mine had dynamited a wall of rubble over the entrance so no one could find them. This man was an ardent Nazi and would never turn over the documents to an American officer like Major Staver. Fleischer said he’d take Dr. Rees with him to do the job. As unreliable as he was, Staver decided to take Fleischer at his word. He gave him passes that allowed for travel around Nordhausen as well as enough gasoline to get back and forth between Nordhausen and the mine. Fleischer and Rees succeeded in getting the mine’s caretaker, Herr Nebelung, to cooperate. Local miners were paid by Fleischer, using money from the U.S. Army, to excavate through the rubble and retrieve the documents hidden in the mine.
The stash was enormous, the crates weighing more than fourteen tons. Only now there was a new hurdle to overcome. British soldiers were set to arrive in Nordhausen on May 27 to oversee the transition to Red Army rule. This meant that Major Staver had to get the documents out fast. The original agreement between the British and the Americans was that the two Allies would share with one another everything they learned about the V-weapons. If the British found out Staver was planning to secretly ship one hundred V-2 rockets back to the United States, they would likely consider it a double-cross. Major Staver needed to get to Paris. It was the only way he could obtain access to the ten-ton trucks necessary for moving such a large cache in such a short period of time.
Staver assigned a colleague to oversee the D?rnten mine operation while he attempted to hitch a ride to Paris in a P-47 Thunderbolt. The pilot said it was impossible—that the Thunderbolt was a single-seat fighter. Staver said that his mission was urgent and offered to ride in the tiny space behind the pilot’s seat. The pilot finally agreed. Avoiding terrible weather higher up, the men flew all the way to Paris at “tree-top level” and arrived safely at Orly Field. Staver found a ride down the Champs-élysées in a U.S. Army jeep. At Ordnance Headquarters he found the exact man he was looking for, Colonel Joel Holmes, sitting at his desk. As chief of the Technical Division, Colonel Holmes had the authority to grant Major Staver the semitrailers he needed to evacuate the D?rnten mine stash before the British and the Russians arrived.
But Staver had a second plan that he had been conceiving, and, as he later explained, this moment in Paris was his prime opportunity to act. He told Colonel Holmes that there was a third element necessary to make the V-2 rocket program in America a success. Staver had been locating rocket parts and the documents necessary to assemble them correctly. But to make the rockets fly, the Americans needed the German scientists. The army needed to bring these scientists to the United States, Staver explained. Their superior knowledge could be used to help win the war in Japan.