Operation afterlight, p.4
Operation Afterlight, page 4
He didn’t need the map that lay in the passenger footwell. Not here. Familiar names emerged from the pre-dawn darkness in the light of his lowered headlights, to vanish again in his wake as he sped southwest.
Mindelheim. Mimmingen. Leutkirch im Allgäu.
The first glow of dawn appeared in his rear-view mirrors, accelerating, trying to overtake him.
Somewhere beyond his sight to the south stood the house where he had grown up, nestled among the wooded peaks on the Austrian border. He remembered the sight of the clear blue waters of the Forggensee, glittering in the sunlight below the porch of his family’s home, and fought the urge to take an exit and head there now. His father had been among the first in his village to embrace Hitler’s rise. His mother had taken her sons to watch the brownshirts march. He had seen the pride in her eyes when he, her eldest son, had driven past her in 1938 at the head of his SS company, heading for the border to join the two proud nations of Germany and Austria into one Reich.
Would any of them truly understand what he had become?
He kept heading southwest, keeping the motor at four thousand RPM and damn the wasted fuel. Skirting the eastern edge of the Bodensee, which others called Lake Constance, he left the main road to take a winding country lane that crossed the unmarked former Austrian border that he himself had helped erase from the map. The road continued to climb.
The sun was high in the sky and burning his neck when he finally slowed.
Two checkpoints stood separated by a hundred metres of waist high grass and several thick clusters of barbed wire. The road was narrow here, with trees pressing close, so the border crossing didn’t require any bunkers or heavy defences. Instead, there was only a small cabin with a steep sloping roof in the local style, and a single covered sentry box next to the red and white striped pole that barred the road. Across the way, where the road weaved through the wire, he saw another building, a little larger but otherwise near identical. They could have been two neighbouring buildings in any Bavarian village. Only the flags separated them. The distant building flew the white cross on a red field of Switzerland. The nearer one was also red, but with a white circle, and at its heart stood the same Hakenkreuz, the Swastika, that adorned his own arm and the banners on his staff car.
He brought the Mercedes to a halt fifty metres short of the guard post and put his hat on, then took the map from the footwell and dropped it on the passenger seat. A guard, pink-cheeked, emerged from the sentry post. Shielding his eyes against the glare of the sun, the young soldier beckoned him to approach.
Stahl raised one hand in acknowledgement. With his other, careful to keep it below the protective cover of the dashboard, he slipped his Luger from the holster at his waist and slid it under the folded map.
The guard’s mouth dropped open when he saw the rank and uniform of the approaching driver. Hastily, he threw up a salute. The old salute, that of the Army. Stahl waited for him to realise his mistake. They had banned that salute in the aftermath of the von Stauffenberg plot.
Hastily, the soldier transformed it into a Nazi salute. “Sorry, sir. Old habits.”
Stahl returned the salute, the movement pattern ingrained in him after eight years in the SS. “A bad habit. One that could get you into trouble. See that you do not insult the Führer so again, you understand?”
“Yes, sir.” The soldier swallowed.
He looked so young, Stahl thought. He could barely have finished basic training before the rules changed. Possibly even Hitlerjugend, playing at wearing a man’s uniform.
Two more soldiers emerged from the cabin, not much older than the first. They stared at the car, clearly impressed, before noting the uniform and stiffening in concern. The senior man, himself a mere Sturmmann and no older than nineteen, braced himself before taking charge. “Good morning, Herr Obersturmbannführer. May I ask your destination today?”
“Switzerland,” Stahl said shortly. “Anything beyond that is the business of the Reich Security Main Office. Here are my papers.”
The Sturmmann took them with a trembling hand. Behind him, the other two guards looked longingly at the door of their cabin, maybe even the safety of the woods beyond, but they held their posts. Both carried early issue Kar98k carbines, slung from their shoulders and looking none too well cared for. Stahl doubted that such a backwater border post received priority of weapons any more than it did priority of recruits. The Sturmmann himself was unarmed, his weapon evidently left inside the cabin.
Across the border, he saw four Swiss soldiers standing with cigarettes, wondering what manner of bigwig was waiting to enter. Or, perhaps, they too were more impressed by the car.
The Sturmmann glanced at the papers. “My apologies, Herr Obersturmbannführer. We have so few visitors here. Most diplomatic traffic crosses further north.”
Stahl frowned. “That is precisely why my orders stated to take this route.”
“Of course, sir, of course.” The man’s gaze shifted to the passenger seat.
Stahl felt his gut lurch, but a quick sideways glance showed the pistol completely obscured beneath the map. The soldier’s gaze moved on, taking in the leather interior.
“Well?”
“Sir?”
“My papers,” Stahl snapped. “They are in order, yes?”
“Yes, sir.”
Relief flooded through Stahl, but he kept it from his face, kept the icy disapproval in his voice. He reached out a hand. “Then open this gate so that I may proceed. Unless you care to be the one to explain to Berlin why you delayed me?”
“Of course, sir.” The Sturmmann half-extended the papers, then drew them back. “My apologies again, Herr Obersturmbannführer. If you will be patient one moment more, I must just make a note of your crossing.”
Panic. Quick rising. Debilitating. He crushed it down. “A note?”
“For the records, sir. I must record all traffic.”
“That does not apply to me.”
The Sturmmann’s mouth twitched, and the colour drained from his face, but he stood his ground. A brave man, Stahl noted.
Such a pity.
“Very well,” Stahl said. “Rules are rules.” He motioned to the two junior soldiers, who had returned to their covetous appreciation of the Mercedes. “This is a lovely spot,” he said. “Is it just the three of you on duty?”
“Yes, sir. We don’t need more. Few people cross here.”
“It is very isolated,” Stahl agreed. “I wonder if I have taken the wrong road somewhere. Could you help me with some directions?”
“Of course, Herr Obersturmbannführer.”
“Thank you,” he said, and reached for the map.
The man’s eyes followed the fluttering paper as Stahl raised it. They all did.
That made it easier.
Rising in his seat, Stahl shot the Sturmmann in the throat, the hollow-point bullet splitting the windpipe before ripping muscles and tendons away from the neck, exposing the spinal column. The man stumbled back, arms flailing. Twisting, Stahl sent a bullet through the head of the young guard before he had the chance to even understand what was happening. The third guard was quicker to react. He almost got his rifle off his shoulder before the third and fourth Luger bullets hit him in the chest and he collapsed to the floor.
Calmly folding the map, Stahl stepped out of the car. The two junior men were clearly dead, but Stahl put a round in each of their heads to be sure. The Sturmmann lay twitching on the dirt by the car, arms splayed out. A spreading pool of blood haloed his head, while his eyes stared at Stahl and his mouth moved in silent question.
“I am sorry,” Stahl said, and pulled the trigger a seventh time.
Across the barbed wire, he saw the Swiss soldiers looking at him, their mouths hanging open in shock. Slowly, making sure they could see, Stahl removed the magazine from the Luger, ejected the final unused round from the chamber, and dropped all three separately into the back seat of the Mercedes. Stepping over the still form of the Sturmmann, he raised the heavy wooden checkpoint barrier. Then he climbed back into the driver’s seat.
His breathing had already returned to normal, he noted absently. Killing rarely bothered him for long.
Keeping both hands visible on the wheel and his eyes on the four men with their raised rifles, he drove at walking pace across the gap and came to a halt at the Swiss barrier. At their shouted commands, he turned off the engine. Climbed slowly out. Sank to his knees on the Swiss dirt. Felt the cold steel of a Mannlicher M1895 barrel press against his temple.
“You had better call the most senior officer you know, gentlemen,” Stahl said. “This will take some explaining.”
Chapter Five
Above England, 12 March
“You know,” the Wing Commander said, “I’ve always found England prettiest from three thousand feet.”
Grant looked through the Perspex of the Mosquito’s cockpit at the patchwork of fields and small villages that spread out beneath them and off the wingtips. So different to home, he thought. Everywhere he looked he saw signs of life, tiny cars and buses wending their way along the tarmacked roads that crisscrossed the landscape, the white smoke of a distant train rising in a column before dissipating in the afternoon sunshine. He hadn’t even seen a car until he was eight years old. The islanders had little use for them, and almost none could afford one. He hadn’t seen a train at all until he boarded the one that would take him and three dozen other recruits to Canada and their waiting flight training school.
“Up here, everything seems so neat,” Durban continued. “Any higher, you can’t appreciate the details. Any lower, and you see the chaos and the clutter.”
The Wing Commander seemed a nice man, Grant decided, and in a good mood. He thought back to the day before, marvelling at the apparent change. Then, addressing the squadron from the low raised stage at the front of the briefing room, Durban had been all business. Impressive, yes, with ample reserves of what Grant’s instructors had labelled ‘presence’ but with little of the warmth that Grant had found in him when they had first spoken. Some officers found it hard to relax and be themselves around their subordinates. Perhaps Durban could only do so when one almost struck him with a football.
He glanced at his map. Below and behind them, the Upper Thames meandered through the pleasant countryside towards the distant smoky smudge that marked London. Off their nose to the left, the ground sloped steadily upward into the low rolling hills of the Cotswolds.
Durban turned his head and smiled. “Where are we, Grant?”
“Well, sir—”
The world spun vertiginously.
Grant felt the straps of his harness scrape across his uniform tunic as gravity flung him around in his seat. Scrabbling for something to grip, he saw the ground below blurring past the wingtip. His map slid from his lap into the footwell. He fumbled for it, only to see it slide out of reach as Durban threw the aircraft into a hard bank the other way.
Nausea flooded through him as his fingers seized on a corner of paper.
The world stopped spinning as Durban brought the aircraft level. The pilot’s eyes tightened, as if in pain, but it didn’t show in his voice. “How many hours do you have?”
Grant swallowed back the vomit that rose, acrid and foul, in the back of his throat. The aircraft might have stopped its tumble through the sky, but his stomach hadn’t yet caught up. “Sir?”
Durban kept his eyes on the world ahead, his tone easy and conversational. No sign that they had ever deviated from gentle forward progress. “How many flying hours as a navigator?”
“Um.” Grant pulled the map from the floor. The aerobatics had left it crumpled. He tried to straighten it, his gloves proving more hindrance than help, while his mind scrambled to remember the contents of the logbooks in his room. “One hundred and thirty hours of day flying, sir. Forty-five hours at night.”
“And the minimum to qualify for ops is still one hundred and twenty-seven day, forty-four night?”
“One hundred and twenty-seven and a half, sir.”
“Where are we, Grant?” The tone echoed the earlier question as closely as the words.
Grant dragged the map into shape and tried to orientate it to the compass and the surrounding ground. He blinked as his eyes struggled to focus. The urban area to their east had to be Oxford, and he could see a Whitley glider tug getting airborne from RAF Brize Norton. That meant the cluster of houses alongside the narrowing Thames below their port engine should be Lechlade. Should.
Durban waited. Watching.
Grant took a deep breath. “I think—”
Durban slammed the controls forward.
Grant felt his body rise in his seat with the negative G-forces, held in place only by the loose straps on his shoulders. He struggled to hold both map and his breakfast down.
The earth below rushed to meet them, and for three terrified seconds Grant wondered if Durban planned to steer the Mosquito headlong into the fields that filled the windscreen. Instead, the Wing Commander pulled back on the controls, racing headlong barely higher than the trees up a low valley and towards the rising ground. They skirted the edge of a tiny village, the pretty stone buildings seeming to flash by mere feet beyond the wingtip. A group of schoolchildren interrupted their play to wave frantically as they flew past. Their teacher ducked, so low did the Mosquito seem.
This time, Durban winced, one hand shifting to touch his ribs before resuming a steady grip on the controls. “Give me a course for home,” he said calmly, climbing slightly to avoid the trees that lined a road ahead.
Grabbing the map again, Grant twisted from side to side, looking for something familiar to help restore his equilibrium. At this altitude, there were few landmarks. Even those zipped past them in moments, gone almost before he could register the sight. This was nothing like medium altitude navigation. One-quarter inch to a mile maps became almost worthless at this height and speed. “I’m not sure I can, sir.”
“I’m hit.” His voice was ice cold, as emotionless as a steel bayonet. “I’m bleeding out. Unless you can get me home by the fastest route possible, we’re both dead. You’d damn well better be able to work out a course. Go.”
Grant forced his mind to ignore the speed with which the world was ripping past their wingtips. He’d done this before. He was good at this. Taking the map in one hand, he checked his compass, glanced at his watch. Familiar calculations ran through his head. Too quickly. He slowed them down, just enough to make sense.
Rushing means mistakes.
Slow equals fast.
Beyond the spinning props of the port engine, he saw the steel rails and wooden sleepers of the railway line from Oxford to Worcester. If that small town was Charlbury…
“Zero eight four,” Grant said.
Durban didn’t take his eyes off the ground ahead. “You’re sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
For two more seconds, Durban kept the aircraft barely above the ground. Then, with a nod, he pulled the aircraft into a steep banking climb towards the scattered cloud above and onto the bearing for home. “Tighten your straps,” he said. Other than required radio calls, he didn’t speak again for the rest of the flight, just a short grunt of approval when Charney Breach appeared off the nose without further corrections.
Grant turned to look out of the window, mostly to hide his own sigh of relief. It gave him a chance to see his new home from the air properly, with none of the thin mist that had obscured the view when they took off that morning. His first impression was underwhelming. It looked like almost any other RAF airfield he’d seen, bigger than a few, smaller than most. It stood isolated among dull fields, estranged from the nation it sought to protect. They flew close to a single farm, just to the right of the final approach. Presumably Matlock’s Farm, the one Finny had mentioned. A cottage, two barns with roofs covered with patch-work repairs, a stone wall around them, a dirty cobblestone driveway leading to the narrow lane that ran perpendicular to the airfield’s outer fencing. Nothing special.
Durban glanced at the farm, sighed, then returned his focus to the runway.
A vehicle was waiting for them in the late afternoon warmth, and they drove back to the dispersal building in silence. It was only when the vehicle dropped them off that Grant’s resolve collapsed. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“I’ve seen worse,” Durban said. “I have three rules. Always know where we are, always know where we’re going, and never get so lost in your map that you stop keeping a watch out for enemy fighters. Can you do that, Grant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Splendid. Now go get some food.”
Grant braced to attention. “I’ll be better next time, sir.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Durban said, and headed off towards the HQ.
The food didn’t taste great. No surprise there. Grant had barely enjoyed a single meal since he left the Caribbean. Overcooked. Undercooked. Over salted. Under seasoned. At some point, the RAF had inflicted every culinary indignity known to humanity upon him and his fellow recruits. By those standards, today’s stodge was no worse than average.
“There he is,” Jeffries said, his tray clattering on the table as he sat opposite. “The chosen one. How did you get on?”
“Not good,” Grant said. “I’m pretty sure the boss is going to sack me.” Quickly, he outlined the events of the flight, though he left out the pain that had shown on Durban’s face. He had probably imagined it.
“You got this, mate,” Jeffries assured him. “You were the best on our entire course. Other than me, of course,” he added with an impish grin. “Sorry you got stuck with the miserable bighead Pom. I’m lucky. Charlie Broadley hardly had me do any of that rubbish. We just did some basic navigation stuff, then he goofed off a bit. I can’t wait to do it for real. Great pilot, great bloke.”
