“There won’t be any problems, Winston. If this mission succeeds, it succeeds in producing a negative: the
nonuse
of nerve gas by the Nazis. And if it fails, both Stern and McConnell will in all likelihood be dead.”
“What if it succeeds, but the good doctor decides to unburden himself afterwards? For reasons of conscience.”
Smith peered into the blue eyes, trying to read the subtext of the conversation. At length he said, “This is a dangerous mission. Even if it succeeds, it’s quite possible that McConnell and Stern might not get back alive.”
Churchill steepled his fingers and focused his eyes somewhere in the shadows beyond Smith. “Does anyone know McConnell is going on this mission? Anyone at all?”
“He left two letters with an Oxford don. For his wife and mother. The usual stuff. I confiscated them.”
Churchill sighed heavily. “If Eisenhower or Marshall learn I’ve bypassed them to make a strike of this magnitude—”
“They’ve left you no alternative, Winston! If Eisenhower’s armies fall dead after thirty seconds on the French beaches, Roosevelt and Marshall will scream to high heaven about what should have been done, and Ike will resign, but by then it will be
too late
.”
Churchill was nodding. “I agree, Duff. The question is, will the mission succeed? Is there a real chance?”
“Absolutely.”
“What about our gas? How long will it remain stable now?”
“It varies from lot to lot. The last two batches from Porton remained stable for ninety-seven hours.”
“What’s that? Four days?”
“Just over that.”
“And it was lethal?”
“Oh, quite, yes. Dispatched two large primates rather handily.”
Churchill winced. “Don’t tell me where you got your test subjects. I don’t want the Royal Society beating down my door. How old is the gas your Achnacarry men took in?”
Smith looked at his watch. “Twenty-six hours and counting.”
“Cutting it a bit fine, aren’t you?”
“The Raubhammer demonstration is in four days,” said Smith. “If we don’t pull it off by then, we’re probably too late anyway. If the wind is under seven miles per hour when they arrive, Stern will release the gas tonight. If not tonight, then tomorrow.”
Churchill picked up his pen and began doodling on a notepad. “That’s why you want the submarine to stand by for four days. The weather must be right for the attack?”
“That, and the exhibition for Hitler. I want to give them every possible chance to make the attack. As for weather, four miles an hour is optimal wind speed for a gas attack of this type, preferably without rain.”
“Does Stern or McConnell know the gas may not work?”
“Of course not.”
Churchill pulled the heavy pea jacket around his neck. “Duff, if you had to give me a percentage chance of success, what would you say?”
Smith ruminated. “Fifty-fifty for the attack itself. But if the attack is successful, I think there’s a ninety percent chance the bluff will work. Winston, I’m absolutely positive that this nerve gas initiative is an all-Himmler show. Everything points to it. When we hit him discreetly with his own personal ‘miracle weapon,’ we’ll knock his legs right out from under him. As far as he’ll know, we’ve got ten thousand tons of British Sarin ready to drop on Berlin. He’ll
have
to call off his show.”
“Will he be able to prove we were behind the attack?”
“No. We’re using German cylinders, World War One vintage. But he’ll know who was responsible. I’ll see to that.”
“And if our Sarin doesn’t work?”
Smith shrugged. “Then the bombers go in.”
Churchill made a growling noise in the back of his throat. “What will happen if we have to bomb that camp?”
“That depends on several factors. Again, the weather. How much gas is stored on-site. Our planes will be carrying incendiary bombs, to try to incinerate as much of the gas as possible before it leaves the area. Still, there’s a chance that the nearby villages could be wiped out. We just don’t know enough to predict. If they
are
wiped out, I’m sure Himmler will simply announce a regrettable industrial accident. Whatever happens, all traces of our mission will be destroyed.”
“What if you don’t hear anything from Stern and McConnell?”
“If I don’t have positive confirmation of success three nights from now, the bombers will go in, no matter what.”
“Do Stern and McConnell know about the bombers?”
“Good God, no.”
Churchill rubbed his forehead with both hands. He had looked vital to McConnell, but Duff Smith knew the prime minister had only just recovered from pneumonia in December, and that after surviving two heart attacks in the same month. The pressures on him were enormous. Yet he insisted on shouldering moral responsibility for every mission.
“They’re civilians, Duff,” Churchill pointed out.
“They’ll sign releases before they leave.”
“That’s not what I meant. You don’t think that with his brother murdered by the SS, you could entrust McConnell with the real purpose of the mission?”
Smith shook his head. “I don’t think Doctor McConnell would kill a human being even to save his own life.”
The telephone on Churchill’s desk rang, but he ignored it. “There is one flaw that could bring disaster, Duff. What if they’re captured and tortured before they can carry out the attack? You gave them L-pills?”
“Stern carries one at all times, if you can believe it. But I wouldn’t trust McConnell to take cyanide even if he had it.” The brigadier felt in his pocket for his pipe. “No need to worry on that score, though. If capture appears imminent, Stern is under orders to shoot the good doctor where he stands.”
Churchill’s phone finally stopped ringing.
“That’s a hard order, Duff. It wouldn’t sit well with a lot of people, on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Smith had anticipated this last spasm of conscience. “There is a precedent, Winston. At Dieppe, when we sent our radar experts to reconnoiter the German radar station, we sent gunmen in behind them — disguised as bodyguards — just in case the Jerries closed in.”
“I don’t see how that makes this situation any better.”
Smith smiled. “One of those bodyguards was an American FBI agent. If the Yanks had no qualms about an FBI man shooting our scientists, I don’t see how they could object to us doing the same.”
Brendan Bracken opened the study door and said, “Hayes Lodge. General Eisenhower is standing by for you.”
Churchill nodded and waved his aide out of the room. “It’s a moot point, Duff, but if
any
of this ever gets out, who shot whom will be irrelevant. All that matters is secrecy and results. But tell me . . . do you think Stern would really shoot McConnell down in cold blood?”
Duff Smith stood up and patted his khakis flat. “Winston, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind.”
28
The Moon plane dropped out of the dark sky like a nighthawk, swooping through ghostly clouds in a dive McConnell thought would tear off its wings.
“Hold on to your seats!” advised the pilot.
McConnell closed his eyes as the rattling Lysander hurtled toward the earth. The plane was packed full. They had crammed the suitcase containing the anti-gas suits and stolen explosives in the small space behind the seats. He held the case with the air cylinders on his lap. He also had his personal bag, which contained food, his Schmeisser, a change of civilian clothes, and some medical supplies.
“Are you going to be sick?” Stern shouted over the roar of the engine.
McConnell opened his eyes. He felt like a man plunging to his death, but Stern’s face was impassive. He wondered if he looked as authentically Nazi as Stern did. He wore a captain’s uniform and carried papers identifying him as an SS physician, but he felt about as German as a Hormel frankfurter. In the dark gray-green SD uniform and cap, with the Iron Cross First Class on his tunic, Stern radiated a sinister authority.
“
Damn
this plane!” Stern cursed, adjusting the scuffed leather bag and Schmeisser on his lap.
“Bad luck!” yelled the pilot. “Couldn’t be helped!”
McConnell said nothing. The line of pale blue light silhouetting the eastern horizon was comment enough. Dawn was coming, and they had yet to reach the ground. The entire night had been a race against time. After the meeting with Churchill, they’d made a brief hop to a restricted airfield. There Brigadier Smith and an aide had led them aboard a captured Junkers bomber Smith claimed was so secret that they could not be allowed to see its pilot. The Junkers bore all its original Luftwaffe markings, which had made for a dangerous run out of British airspace, but allowed an uneventful trip to neutral Sweden. During the flight, Smith actually ordered the pilot to open the bomb bay so that he could point out German battleships on blockade duty below them.
Their problem began in Sweden. The Lysander detailed to carry them from Sweden to Germany — the plane they were in now — had developed engine trouble on its way back from a mission into Occupied France. And because the tiny black plane had but one engine, they had been forced to wait hours in a freezing shack while its pilot and the mysterious Junkers pilot repaired the problem. By the time they finished, dawn was scarcely an hour away. McConnell had suggested they wait until the next night, but Smith wouldn’t hear of it. He practically shoved them into the Lysander and ordered their pilot not to turn back for any reason.
McConnell had expected to fly just over the wave tops to avoid German radar, but the pilot told them there was more chance of being shot down by a Kriegsmarine vessel than by a Luftwaffe night fighter. They’d crossed the Baltic at nine thousand feet. Ten minutes ago they’d flown over the coast of northern Germany.
And then the dive.
“Thank God,” McConnell said, feeling the plane start to level out over the lightless plain.
“We’re going to touch down in a farmer’s field!” yelled the pilot. “The Met people say there’s been a hard freeze, so I’m not expecting problems with mud.” He looked back over his shoulder, revealing the face of a jaded twenty-year-old daredevil. “I won’t be turning off the engine. Himmler himself could be waiting down there, for all we know. I expect you to get yourselves and your gear out of the plane in less than thirty seconds.”
“Nice to know we can count on you!” Stern shouted back.
The pilot shook his head. “I take SOE people into France all the time. But Germany . . . you two must be daft.”
Great,
thought McConnell.
Even the help knows we’re idiots.
Far out on the western horizon he saw a faint orange glow. “What’s that?” he asked.
“Rostock,” answered the pilot. “We bombed it practically into rubble in forty-three, but the Heinkel aircraft factory is still operational. They must have used incendiaries tonight. The fires are still burning.”
McConnell noticed that Stern had pressed his face to the perspex. “What are you looking for?” he asked.
“I grew up in Rostock,” Stern said. “I was just wondering if our apartment block was still standing.”
“Doubtful,” the pilot said needlessly. “The center of town is pretty well smashed. Looks like a bloody Roman ruin.”
“So
that’s
why Smith chose you for this,” McConnell said, forgetting his airsickness for a moment. “You know the area.”
“That’s one reason.”
“There’s the signal!” cried the pilot. “Get ready!”
He pulled back on the controls and climbed, then circled around for a high-angle approach. All McConnell could see in the blackness below were three dim yellow lights in a line, with a red one off to the side, forming an inverted “L.” The red light appeared to be blinking a Morse code letter again and again.
The Lysander fell like a hailstone on the wind. McConnell gripped his seat and watched the “L” race upward. The wheels hit hard, bounced, then settled onto the bumpy ground and quickly rolled to a stop near the red light.
“Get out!” bellowed the pilot. “Go!”
Stern already had the hatch open. The roar of the engine filled the cabin. McConnell saw him drop his bag out, then jump down. McConnell hefted his suitcase across the seat and handed it out, then climbed down himself.
“You’ve left a bloody case!” the pilot yelled.
McConnell hopped back into the plane and with a groan lifted out the suitcase containing the anti-gas suits and stolen explosives.
“Good luck!” the pilot called. Then the black plane was off, turning quickly on the frozen earth and accelerating back in the direction it had come. Only the fading grumble of the engine told them anything was there at all.
“You’re the athlete,” Stern said in the darkness. “You carry the air cylinders.”
When McConnell reached down for the case, it was gone. A huge man with a black beard, heavy fur coat, and an old bolt-action rifle strapped over his shoulder stood less than a yard from him. The heavy suitcase hung from one hand as if it held only a weekend’s clothes. While McConnell stared, the flare path that had guided in the plane winked out, and two more figures quickly materialized out of the blackness. One was a tall thin man with a fisherman’s cap pulled low over his eyes, the other smaller and bundled to the eyeballs in a thick scarf and oilskin coat. The smaller man carried no weapon, but was obviously the leader.
“Password?” he asked in muffled German.
“Schwarzes Kreuz,”
Stern replied. “Black Cross.”
“You are . . . ?”
“Butler and Wilkes. He’s Wilkes. You?”
“Melanie. Follow us.
Schnell
! We’ve been here all night. If we’re caught in the open at dawn, we’re dead.”
The shadowy escorts moved so quickly across the flat ground that even McConnell had trouble keeping up. Once, the leader dropped flat and motioned for everyone to do the same. McConnell thought he heard the faint rumble of an engine, but wasn’t sure. After three minutes, the leader got up and continued on.
Hurrying across the frozen fields, McConnell realized that the cold here was of an entirely different magnitude than that in Scotland. He should have prepared himself. Did it take a genius to figure out that in northern Germany, wind blowing from the north was coming from the Arctic? They were only twenty miles from the Baltic coast. The wind blasted across this plain like the fulfillment of a Norse curse, the uniforms he and Stern wore useless against its power.