Agent of Death (32 page)

That was a blow.
Saint Mihiel
was supposed to be the best hope to stop the SSA attacking New York, and there wasn’t time to find another ship, even if there was one near, and even if we could break radio silence, which we could not, because we still hoped Svart would believe our offer of help, and hold back from firing the Mem Tav missile. Whereas should he get the truth by cracking our coded radio messages – he’d fire at once.

‘Captain,’ I said, ‘could your machines be repaired? Made fit to fly?’

‘Well, young man,’ he said, ‘we really, truly, and surely are going to find out, because we really, truly, and surely are going to try.’

And so to the very best of America and Americans. Fenner called in those of his officers who he thought should know everything: Lieutenant Commander Bushey, plus the officer commanding the ship’s air group, the officer commanding marines, and the chief engineer. He had me go through my tale again, then summoned the entire ship’s company except those conning the ship to the main hangar: a vast, empty space, bereft of all but six of its own aircraft – and something secret, under drapes in a corner. There were nearly a thousand men present, and Captain Fenner gave them a speech that Churchill himself would have applauded.

He climbed up on to the wing of one of the Avengers, to give himself a good, dramatic platform, and let them have it heart, soul, mind, and strength.

‘Gentlemen,’ he cried in his own voice, needing no microphone, ‘you will all be delighted to know that this is not, after all, a pleasure cruise,’ they laughed, he raised a hand, ‘nor is there any cause to be pleased, because the lives of millions of Americans – I say millions! Millions of men, women, and children, in one of our greatest cities – the lives of these Americans lie in the hands of every man aboard this ship …’ It was Shakespearean stuff, it was excellent stuff, and fifteen minutes later, Fenner and I left the hangar deck boiling with disciplined activity, as the ships technical crews fell upon the fat, duff, non-flying Avengers, threw them open, and charged in with wrenches, files, saws, hammers – whatever it took – and cut out the bad, and put in the good from ship’s stores, and, where necessary, took bits out of one plane to make another fly. They were at it like bees, like ants, like steam engines, determined to do a week’s work every hour. And they did, too.

Then there was another meeting in the air group briefing room, with the ship’s remaining aircrew, mostly painfully young, and believe me – this time they really were young. They were the baby aviators the US Navy left behind. They were the crews of the Avengers: one pilot, one gunner, one bombardier/radioman per plane. The gunners and bombardiers were enlisted men, rated as aviation machinists, while the pilots were all supposed to be lieutenants, but two of them were NAPs – naval aviation pilots – experienced warrant officers given flying duties. These were older men and obviously the best in my opinion. They were the only two who raised hands when I asked if anyone had seen action. I later suggested, and Captain Fenner agreed, that these men should command any operational missions rather than the lieutenants who outranked them. But every one of them had heard their captain’s speech, and they were very keen.

‘Your target will be a submarine,’ I said, once I’d given them the background. ‘It will be a submarine, on the surface, with a missile on a ramp. The missile will look like this,’ I said, and I drew a doodlebug in chalk on the blackboard. ‘It’s vital to sink the sub before they launch the missile,’ I said. ‘If you find the sub – and there will be non-stop air patrols to look for it – if you find the sub, give it everything you’ve got: bombs, torpedoes, and every round from every gun you carry, but before all else you have to stop the missile from getting away.’

One of the schoolboy pilots put up his hand. ‘Sir?’ he said.

‘Yes, Lieutenant?’ I said.

‘Sir,’ he said, ‘you’re saying one of these …
doodlebugs
?’ he puzzled at the word.

‘Doodlebugs,’ I said.

‘One these, could kill everyone in New York City?’

‘Yes.’

‘In that case, sir, if nothing else can stop it, we’ll ram the son of a bitch.’ The rest of them cheered. It sounds corny but it wasn’t. It was American. They’re like that.

Later, Bushey took me to the officers’ canteen for a meal; not their mess, because that was as strict as anything in King George’s Navy, and you wore mess kit – which of course I didn’t have – and it was all straight backs and white-glove service. But that was for formal occasions and mostly the officers used their canteen. There were several officers already there, as we sat down with our trays, and I must have been far more tired than I thought because although I’d noticed Bushey grinning a bit, and some of the others nudging one another as I sat down, I didn’t notice until the last minute that the person sitting opposite me was a woman. Often you see what you expect to see, and I didn’t expect that, and anyway she wasn’t any ordinary woman.

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘hello.’ And she smiled.

Bushey introduced her. ‘Meet the ship’s guest, Wing Commander. She’s the girl that flew the German jet fighter to the Norwegians. She’s called Helga Karlsson, she’s Krautland’s top civilian test pilot, she’s got all the papers and manuals for the jet, but we don’t know much else, because she speaks German and we don’t.’ He smiled and nodded at her. ‘And she knows all about the plane, don’t you Helga?’ He turned to me. ‘Ain’t she sweet, Wing Commander? Got tits and everything!’ He nudged me. ‘But she keeps a spanner in her back pocket, if you know what I mean?’

She smiled back in the most friendly way, guessed his meaning if not his words, and replied in good German in a pleasant tone. ‘You stupid dick-head,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you put your head between your knees and vanish up your arse?’

‘Oh, surely not that?’ I said, in German. ‘Not in the officers’ mess!’

She sat sharp upright and raised a pair of small hands, affecting maidenly surprise.

‘My dear sir,’ she said, ‘I had no idea that there was a German among the crew.’ She was about thirty, less than five feet tall, with intensely black hair, cut short like a man’s, complete with side parting. She had big dark eyes, pale skin, arched eyebrows, and an hour-glass figure, as far as I could see, because she too was wearing flight overalls. Perhaps that was all the ship had that fitted? Or maybe she liked overalls? Perhaps she was that sort? She certainly looked it.

In fact she was quite a woman, and famous in Germany and beyond. I’d heard of her myself, and she’d been a pin-up among airmen worldwide, before the war. She was in newsreels and magazines, and was a great favourite with Hitler. She held every long-distance flying record going, and had crossed Africa, South America, and the Arctic single-handed in long-range monoplanes. Now she was smiling at me.

‘But of course you are new here,’ she said. ‘So where did you spring from? Did you drop out of the air? Is that why the guns fired and the engines stopped?’

‘I’m not German,’ I said. ‘I’m English I suppose, but …’

‘Hey,’ said Bushey, interrupting. He put a hand on my shoulder. ‘You speak German! You speak it real fine!’

‘I’m not bad,’ I said, very British in my understatement.

‘Well,’ said Bushey, ‘you can do the US Navy a real favour if you spend some time with Helga. She can tell you all about her airplane, and you can read the manuals, which are all in German.’ So that’s what I did, because there was nothing else for me to do. No efforts of mine could have aided the superb job done by Fenner’s mechanics, armourers, and engineers to get the ship’s aircraft ready for action.

They had the first
un
serviceable Avenger roaring into the air on a search mission within three hours of starting work, having completed a job that should have taken three days, at cost of throwing over side every rule, margin, and safety regulation in the US Navy. But they did it. It was well done, it was magnificently done, and the search for the Mem Tav sub was under way.

The search lasted just over two days, and was all the harder because none of the wonky, patched-up Avengers had functional radar, and the searching was done by
The
Mk
1
Human
Eyeball
, as the Yanks put it. So I felt guilty every minute of it because I’d always assumed that I would personally lead the operation to find and sink the sub. But I’d never flown off a carrier, I’d never flown an Avenger, and even the baby aviators knew more than me. So I spent long hours with Helga Karlsson, which was just as well, because what I learned from her became vital. There were compensations, too, because little Miss Karlsson was an educational experience. She was boring and fascinating all at the same time: very boring but extremely fascinating.

CHAPTER 37

The
Führerboat,

The
North
Atlantic.

Wednesday
7
June
,
02
.
40
hours

‘What?’ Huth and Weber spoke as one.

Von Bloch sighed. ‘Herr Svart is not with us,’ he said. ‘He is not in this vessel.’ He looked at them in exasperation. ‘Did you not guess? First Herr Svart is unconscious? Then he wakes? Then he is unconscious again? And nobody ever sees him? And he never comes out of his compartment, not even when we need his technical advice most – when the torpedo warheads might have exploded? The warheads that he himself designed? Did you never wonder about that?’

‘But, Herr
Freiherr
, you said he was injured,’ said Weber. ‘You said …’

‘I said what I had to! I have acted throughout, and to my uttermost ability, according to the direct orders of Herr Svart, who has his own and excellent reasons.’

‘So who’s in Svart’s compartment?’ said Huth. ‘Why’ve we got to talk to him?’

‘Not
him
,’ said von Bloch, ‘
them
. Three ultra-special SSA officers: young men personally selected and trained by Herr Svart, to represent him and to make decisions such as he would have done, had he been here, or to contact him if necessary.’

‘Three?’ said Weber. ‘Why’s that?’

Von Bloch looked at Weber as if he were mentally defective. ‘Because,’ he said, ‘that is the minimum number that allows discussion, then a decisive vote if need be.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ said Weber.

‘Oh yes,’ said von Bloch, sarcastically, and one of the patients muttered and shifted in his bunk, in a drug-doped sleep. Another one coughed repeatedly. And another listened quietly.

The sick bay stank of antiseptic. The ventilation system hummed quietly. Huth and Weber stood silent. They were still digesting the fact that Svart wasn’t in the boat.

Huth spoke first. ‘You say they can contact him? Herr Svart?’

‘Yes,’ said von Bloch. ‘They have a superior grade SSA Enigma transmitter in their compartment. It is connected directly to the boat’s antenna. It has double-coded, reciprocating rotors and is one of only two such devices. The other is in Herr Svart’s possession.’

‘So what do we do now?’ said Huth.

Von Bloch leaned forward as far as he could. ‘You go to Svart’s compartment, as I told you.’

‘Yes,’ said Huth.

‘You press the buzzer, you tell them you come in my name.’

‘Yes?’

‘And when they ask for my identification code you give them a number which I shall tell you.’

Huth nodded. ‘And will they let me in? Will I talk to them?’

‘No,’ said von Bloch, ‘you will not go in, they will not come out. You will tell them everything, and we will then do exactly what they tell us. Either that, or they will transmit a message to Herr Svart – which I strongly suspect is what they will do – to seek his direct decision, and we will follow his orders when we get them.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Weber. ‘Who are these men? What’s their rank? Why’ve we gotta do what they say? I want to see them. I want a look before I take orders from them!’

Von Bloch stared at Weber intently. ‘Listen to me, you thug.’ Weber winced. ‘First understand that men follow Herr Svart for various reasons. You follow him because he outranks you, and you are a man who follows orders.’ Weber agreed. He was proud of it. Von Bloch sneered. ‘But you would obey a monkey if it outranked you!’ Weber scowled. ‘So much for you,’ said von Bloch. ‘While I follow him because he is the supreme intellect who will save our country and make it great!’

Von Bloch let them think about that before continuing. ‘But there are others who follow him for still different reasons.’ He looked from Huth to Weber. ‘And even though we may not agree with these reasons, we recognize their power. Do you understand?’ They nodded, though they didn’t understand; not yet. ‘So, gentlemen, these three in Svart’s compartment are of the Karoling faith. And the Karolings think Svart is Jesus Christ born again. They call him
The
One
, and they will follow him beyond death. So that is why we shall do whatever they tell us, because, in Svart’s compartment, they have triggers to demolition charges laid throughout the boat, and also a fully-active Mem Tav generator connected to the boat’s ventilation system. And if the three men decide that we are putting Svart at risk, or seeking to defeat his objectives, they will blow the charges, turn on the generator, and kill every man in the boat, including themselves.’