Angel, Archangel (37 page)

After telling the Meteor pilots to stand down, Fleming was left to himself in the props room.
Stabitz suddenly seemed a very quiet, lonely place.

The call-back signal from Staverton was due at any moment.
It sounded as if the Archangel emergency was finally over.
A coded message to say their mission had been terminated was all that he had received, but he took that as good news.

The phone bell was on its third ring when he picked up the handset.

“Robert?”
The voice at the other end was faint but unmistakable.

“Yes.”

“Thank God.”

There was an interminable pause.
Fleming thought the line had gone dead.
When the AVM spoke again, the words came rapidly.

“Guardian Angel, Robert, it’s gone horribly wrong.”

“This is an open line, sir, don’t you think -”

“There’s no time for security precautions.
He’s got to be stopped.”

“Who?”

“Kruze.
We’ve been trying to raise Nazareth for the past three hours to tell our man it’s off.
Shaposhnikov has got chemical weapons beside his HQ in Branodz.
And Kruze has not acknowledged the termination signal.”

“Chemical weapons -”

“As you said, Robert, this is an open line.
Think about it afterwards, work out the permutations.
I’m telling you we can’t take any chances.
We’ve got to stop Kruze in his tracks.”

“Isn’t it possible he might still call in?”

“SOE is monitoring all channels, just in case.
But if there is no word - and we should have heard by now - I want the Meteors to go in as planned.
Is there any chance of pulling it forward, destroying all - and I mean all - the aircraft on the ground before 0600?’

“The strike was timed to coincide with first light.
It would be immensely risky sending the Meteors in any earlier.”

“See that it’s done.”
A pause, then: “You’ll be going with them, Robert.”

“What?”

“You’re the only one who knows just how important it is that Kruze does not get through.
You’ve flown the Meteor, haven’t you?”

“A couple of sorties at Farnborough, but -”

“Good, then lead them in.
I want no aircraft left on the ground at Oberammergau for Kruze when he arrives there at dawn tomorrow.”

“He might already be dead, or captured.
If he hasn’t called in .
.
.”

The seconds ticked by before the static was broken and Staverton gave his reply.

“I have to brief the special advisers in an hour.
Robert, Kruze is still out there, I know it.
He must be stopped, at all costs.
That’s an order.”

With that, he hung up.

“I wouldn’t give much for your chances of concluding this deal,” Kruze said, breaking the silence that had hung between them since Herries turned the Mercedes into the wood and switched off the engine.

“Is that some sort of threat?”
Herries’ tone was mocking.
“Do you have orders to kill me, flyboy, is that it?”

“Not me,” he said.
“But if you make it back to England, you’ll have to look over your shoulder for the rest of your life.
I wouldn’t count on that being a very long time.”

“It’s a distinct possibility, but look at my options.
I never amassed the sort of wealth my ex-colleagues did by pilfering from the vaults and art galleries of Europe.
The only money I’ve got is locked up in my father’s estates.
When you’re cashless, dear boy, South America is an awfully hot, sticky and unpleasant place.
It had to be England.
Archangel gave me the excuse to come back and claim what was rightfully mine.”

“There was I thinking that you’d just got sentimental about a warm pint of English beer the last time you were in Berlin,” Kruze said.

“Go fuck yourself, flyboy.
From what I heard you’re no angel either.
Fancy knocking off Fleming’s wife.
He seemed like such a nice man, too.”

Herries knew he’d caught him off guard and moved in for another jab.

“Luftwaffe accommodation is so cheap, such thin walls.’
He smiled.
“It’s remarkable what you overhear sometimes.”

“Don’t push me, Herries.”

“Oh, I’m not trying to unsettle you, old boy.
I want you in tip-top condition when we go into Oberammergau.
You’re the one who signs my end of term report, remember?
I do hope you haven’t forgotten the code word.”
He rubbed his legs, massaging some feeling back into them after the long drive from Munich.
“And you and I will be heroes when we return - not perhaps the sort that make the newspapers, but heroes nonetheless.
You’re Whitehall’s last hope, the only man who can stop the Red Army from marching across Europe.
And when you pull it off, with my help, they’ll be kissing the ground we walk on.
I think that my past misdemeanours will soon be forgotten in all the excitement.”

“You seem very confident in my abilities.”

“They tell me that you are the best.
Why should I disbelieve them?
The difficult part will be getting into the airfield, but I know I can do it.
After that it’ll be downhill all the way.
Shaposhnikov will be dead in under four hours and Archangel with him.”

Kruze swung round to face him.

“Then let me inject a little realism into this conversation.
I’m to take an Arado jet bomber, the only aircraft in the world that stands a chance of getting through the Russians’ air defences - so I have got that going for me.
But there are just one or two minor problems to overcome first.’
He let the words hang between them for a moment.
“I’ve never flown the Arado 234, so even if I make it to the aircraft, I still have to familiarize myself with the controls before some observant Kraut realizes that I’m not the bloke who’s meant to be in the cockpit.
Then there’s the matter of the engines.
German turbojets have a nasty habit of blowing up - shedding their turbine blades if you want to get technical.
I know, because it happened to me once at Farnborough when I was flying a Messerschmitt 262.
Then, even if I manage not to get blown up on the ground by one of the Meteors, I still have to contend with Allied and Soviet aircraft trying to shoot me out of the sky all the way to the target.
Finally, when I’m over Branodz, I’ve got to find Shaposhnikov’s HQ on the first run-in, because that’s the only way I’m going to catch him with his trousers down.”

He studied Herries carefully in the moonlight and saw a thin bead of sweat trickle from his hairline down his forehead.
“Still think I can do it?”
he asked.

“Perhaps I’d better hand you over to the Luftwaffe at Oberammergau,” Herries whispered.

“You’d have a hell of a lot of explaining to do,” Kruze said.

“So would you.”

Kruze reached over slowly and gripped the coarse material of Herries’ jacket.
“If you show any sign of putting this mission in jeopardy by pulling a stunt like that, I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”

“Fighting talk, flyboy.
Keep that spirit up and I’m home and dry.”
Herries pulled away and looked at his watch.
It was 0330.
He turned the ignition and gunned the engine into life.

“We’d better be on our way,” he said.

CHAPTER SIX

The Mercedes bumped along the tree-lined approach road, its black-out lights picking up nothing to indicate the presence of the airfield, even though their map told them they were there.
The next moment a tower rose up out of the predawn mist, its legs throwing eerie shadows as the car headlights played over its criss-crossed supporting structure.

In almost the same instant, night turned into day.

Herries swore, shielding his eyes with one hand from the searchlight beam that illuminated them from the watch-tower.

The light went out, leaving spots dancing before Kruze’s eyes.
The next thing he saw was the striped red and white barrier at the foot of the tower.
Herries began to slow the car.

“Remember,” the traitor said, “not a word unless you’re spoken to and even then, keep it simple.
If they’re regular army or a Luftwaffe field regiment this will be a piece of cake.
If they’re neither, that leaves the SS .
.
.”

“God, you’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

Herries shrugged.
“There’s no choice, flyboy.
As you were kind enough to point out, I’ve nowhere to go.”

A soldier stepped out into the road, MP 40 at the ready in one hand, a torch in the other.
Herries stopped the car a few yards short of him and left the engine running.
Out of the corner of his eye Kruze saw him scan the guard for identification, but the camouflaged smock he wore over his uniform and the netting that covered his helmet obscured his rank and service affiliation.
Beyond the barrier Kruze could see a machine-gun emplacement ringed with sandbags and two pairs of eyes shining beneath dark, coalscuttle helmets in the glare of their headlights.

Kruze tried to take all the details in slowly, as if he were used to passing through high security checkpoints every day of the week, but the images flashed before him like film shown on a projector running out of control.

A dog’s bark close by.
The Rhodesian turned his head.
The Alsatian seemed to leap from nowhere, growling ferociously.
It pressed its nose against his wound up window, the breath that steamed through its slavering jaws mingled with the mist around them.
A second soldier appeared from behind and pulled the dog away from the car, slipping a leash round its collar as he did so.
Harsh, guttural commands quelled the dog into silent obedience.

That’s two in the road, two in the gun emplacement and probably two more in the tower, Kruze thought.
And a dog.
Hardly what he had anticipated for a top operational squadron so close to the front lines.
Then it crossed his mind that the 234s might have moved on to a new location .
.
.

Herries wound down his window.
The first soldier flashed his torch at the front of the car, his expression hardening the moment he saw the civilian number plates.

“Was ist los?”
the soldier shouted, waving his torch at the driver and his passenger.

The beam swept across the two occupants and then fell back with unshaking precision onto the gleaming Obersturmführer’s flashes on Herries’ lapels.
The soldier doused the light and walked over to Herries’ door.
In the dull glow from the instrument panel Kruze saw the faded eagle stitched on the tunic and had to stifle a sigh of relief.
Oberammergau was defended by Luftwaffe troops and not the Waffen-SS.

“We have been told American commandos are in the area, Herr Obersturmführer,” the guard stammered, “and when I saw the plates -”

“Requisitioned transport,” Herries interrupted.
“I didn’t catch your own identification, soldier.”

“Obergefreiter Giesecke, sir, Molders Regiment, 5th Luftwaffe Field Division.”
He snapped to attention.

“Open the gate, Giesecke.
If you keep us waiting much longer the Americans will be here to do it for you.”

“No one enters without the right authorization, not even the SS.”
As if the officer was likely to take his remark as impertinence, he added: “Orders from the OKL.”

“If it weren’t for the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe I wouldn’t be in this God-forsaken hole at all,” Herries spat, passing across his documents.

Kruze kept out of the guard’s line of sight, taking the opportunity for one last look around him before the moment when he would be asked for the transit papers that Schell had prepared.
He peered ahead, taking in the guardroom beyond the barrier, the barbed-wire surrounding it, the road that led from their present position into the heart of the base.

“What brings you to Oberammergau?”
the guard asked.
Kruze felt his muscles stiffen.

“Herr Krazianu needs air transport,” Herries said, jabbing a thumb towards Kruze.
“I am his escort.
Oberammergau is one of the few air bases left open in this damned country.
And that’s all I am allowed to tell you.”
He looked the guard straight in the eye.
“It’s in the documents.”

Herries snapped his fingers at Kruze and barked something the Rhodesian did not understand.
For a second he froze, disorientated, then he realized that Herries was asking him for his papers.

“Rumanian,” Herries said disparagingly to the guard.

Giesecke tried to look sympathetic, but he distrusted the SS as a rule and liked the look of the one in the car even less.
He leafed through Kruze’s documents, shining his torch from the photograph on the carnet to the Rhodesian’s face and back again.

“I have not been told about any Rumanian,” he said.

“Is that so?
Security here must be worse than I thought,” Herries snapped.
“If you look carefully, you will see that this man’s passage through the Reich has been authorized by the Air Ministry in Berlin and countersigned by General Riegl at the OKL.
Now I suggest you let us through, or he will miss his aircraft and you will be answerable to the General personally.”

The guard hesitated, looking round for someone with whom he could confer, but the other soldier had disappeared into the warmth of the hut, taking the dog with him.
Kruze looked anxiously at his watch.
The Meteors would be coming in a little over an hour.

The Obergefreiter shook his head.
“I will have to put a call through to the Kommandant, I have no choice.
Switch off the engine and come with me please, Herr Obersturmführer, and bring your passenger with you.”

Kruze understood enough to open the door and step out on to the road.
There was something reassuringly familiar about the place, something he could not immediately identify, but it lifted his spirits.
He followed the Obergefreiter and Herries to the guardroom.

Giesecke pushed the door open.
The second guard, a boyish soldier who would not have looked out of place on the sports field of a junior school, was playing happily with the dog.
He looked up and smiled at his corporal.
The dog let out a low growl as soon as it saw the two strangers in the shadows.

“Leave that damned dog alone and move the car to the secure compound,” Giesecke ordered.
“I’m taking them down over to the command post.”

“What command post?”
Herries asked, pulling Giesecke round to face him.
“What’s wrong with the phone in the guardroom?”

“It does not work, Herr Obersturmführer.
You know how it is these days, nothing works anymore.”

“Careful Giesecke,” Herries warned.

The Obergefreiter led the way towards a long bank topped with small pines that was positioned between the guardroom and the perimeter fence.
It was only when they got close to it that Kruze realized that the command post was a huge semi-submerged block-house covered with turf and vegetation to make it seem part of the landscape.
Giesecke ran down a small flight of steps and tugged at an immense iron door, which opened slowly, its hinges groaning in protest.
The smell of paraffin and the sweat of frightened men seeped into the night.
A low-wattage bulb dangled from the ceiling near the entrance.

Giesecke ushered them inside.
Bunks, stacked four-high from the floor to the concrete ceiling of the immense room, overflowed with men.
Some slept with their rifles, panzerfausts and grenades held tightly to their bodies, others stared back at the intruders with eyes filled with terror at the prospect of the flight that lay before them.

“We have been ordered by the OKL to hold Oberammergau to the last man,” the Obergefreiter said.
“They say it is worth the sacrifice.”

“And so it is,” Herries said, pulling himself together.
“But unless you get me authorization to enter the base this minute, you, for one, will not live to see the first American soldier come down that road.”

Giesecke’s face twitched.
He walked through the makeshift dormitory, stepping over the exhausted, filthy bodies that made up Oberammergau’s garrison.
He entered a corridor that led off the main room of the block-house, paused by a door half-way along, knocked, listened and walked in.
Herries and Kruze followed.

Kruze knew the name of the man who raised his head from the table in the middle of the room, because he had read the plate on the door.
Hauptmann Udo Philipp looked up at Giesecke, eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep and most of the contents of the bottle by his elbow, then glanced across to Kruze and Herries.
The latter’s uniform prompted him to raise an eyebrow, but nothing more.
The Hauptmann’s blond hair fell forlornly over his forehead and there was at least three days’ stubble on his face.
Once, Philipp had been a great man, Kruze could tell.
The Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves showed above the frayed collar of his grey Luftwaffe tunic.

There was the chink of bottle on glass as Philipp took a refill from the brandy bottle.
When he looked back to Giesecke, the corporal was standing rigidly to attention, his eyes focused on the crooked picture of the Führer behind the garrison commander’s back.
Philipp waved a hand theatrically and Giesecke stood at ease.

“This is either an American’s idea of disguise, or the Gestapo come to get me,” Philipp laughed manically, pointing a shaking finger at Kruze.
“Why else would you bring him here, Giesecke?”
he asked, slurring the corporal’s name.
The Rhodesian suddenly felt sticky under his two layers of clothing, but he stared back at the captain, willing Herries to take the upper hand.

“He’s a Rumanian,” Giesecke said, embarrassed at his officer’s behaviour in front of the SS.
“And this is his escort, SS-Obersturmführer Herries.

“So what do they want here?”

“They say they are authorized to enter the base.
I need to use your phone to obtain clearance from the station kommandant, Herr Hauptmann.
We have nothing on them.”

Kruze saw Herries look rapidly from the telephone on the table to the husk of a man behind it and saw what was going through his mind.
Before the Hauptmann could react, Herries made his move, pushing the corporal out of the way as he moved across the room.
In one fluid move he pulled the Hauptmann out of his chair, sending the table flying, the bottle and the telephone with it.
If Philipp wanted to put a call through to the base commander, he would not be using the telephone in his office any more, Kruze thought.
It lay in pieces on the floor, its wires covered with broken glass and alcohol.

“I have orders to get this man, an important emissary of the Rumanian Government, on a flight to Bucharest, and from this base.”
Herries grabbed the papers from Giesecke and shoved them under Philipp’s nose.
“So far, I have had nothing but sloppy excuses.
I take one look at you, Philipp, and I know why.”

The Hauptmann tried to shake the drowsiness from his head.
“There has been no authorization from Berlin .
.
.”

Herries pressed the forged documents up against the man’s face.
“This order has come direct from Abteilung 13, which I should not have to remind you is the special operations department of the OKL.
If you were not informed about this development, then I suggest it is because they could not trust you with the information.”

“But this is a fighter-bomber station,” Philipp protested.

“I don’t care if it’s a three-ring circus,” Herries shouted.
“In under an hour a Junkers transport is due to land here.
Five minutes later it will leave with him on it - or you face the consequences.”

Philipp looked down at the remains of his telephone and the shards of glass surrounding it and sighed.
“Take them over to flight operations,” he said to Giesecke.