Angel, Archangel (41 page)

The Arado shot down the runway like a wild mustang.
Suddenly remembering the RATO bottles, he scanned the panel for the switch, found it and punched it home.
There was a second kick as the rockets cut in, ramming him back into his seat.

Out of the corner of his eyes he saw a Meteor sweeping along the edge of the airfield, then bank tightly to try and get its guns to bear, but he knew he was already in the clear.
Once in the air he could give the fighters the signal that proved it was him at the controls.

He pulled the bomber off the runway at 225 kph and pulled in the flaps a few seconds later.
Then he hit the RATO jettison button and felt the aircraft buck a little, as the rocket packs fell away from the wing-tips.
He leant forward, spotted the undercarriage selector and pushed it forward, hearing the clunk of all three wheels as they locked into the belly of the aircraft.

Suddenly he was out of the smoke and pulling up into the clear dawn sky.
He checked the periscope mirror, saw a gaggle of Meteors about a mile behind him, and carefully moved the horns of his control column from right to left and back again.

The Arado’s wings responded to his touch, waggling easily and obviously.

The sign that would call them off.

He settled back in his seat, felt the sweat for the first time soaking his clothes, and banked the jet bomber to the north-east.

* * * * * * * *

Fleming pulled up to one thousand feet and held the Meteor in a tight bank over Oberammergau, searching for signs of life below the smoke that hung like a blanket above the airfield.

His first thought was for his fellow pilots.
He had seen one of the six Meteors go down, the aircraft taking a direct hit from a 37mm Fliegerabwehrkanone mounted on a tower at the edge of the base.
The fiery trail described by the fighter as it ploughed from two hundred feet into the forest beyond the runway still left a scar across his vision.
He blinked again, trying to rid himself of it, but the memory stuck with him.

His second was for Kruze.
If the Rhodesian had been down there, there was no chance now of him fulfilling his mission.
Before the smoke of their strafing run closed in over the airfield, Fleming had witnessed the lines of broken fighter-bombers at their dispersal points on the edge of the runway, in the lee of the woods.
There were no more Arados left at Oberammergau, Staverton could have that in his report when he returned to Stabitz.

“Wolf leader to Wolfpack,” he spoke into his mask, “break off and head for home.
Breakfast time.”
An empty feeling inside.
Was Kruze down there, looking up at them and wondering what the hell they were playing at?
More likely he was rotting in a Gestapo jail, waiting for another bout with the interrogator, or lying dead in a Munich backstreet.

Five replies came back over his headset.
Four acknowledgements.

One warning.
A young pilot’s voice, vibrant, excited.

“Wolf leader, there’s one of them lifting off now, pulling up through the smoke, off your rear starboard quarter.
Christ, the cheeky bastard’s waggling his wings at us.
Thinks he’s got away with it.
Can I take a pot at him?”

“No!
I have to be sure!”

“Sure?
Of what?
It’s got bloody great black crosses on it!”
Bewilderment and frustration in the young fighter pilot’s voice.
Because of the change in plan there had been no need to tell them about Kruze.
How could they understand what he, Fleming, was feeling now?

Fleming strained over his shoulder for a look.
The Arado was clearly visible, soaring above the pall of destruction, wings rocking gently in the early morning sunlight.

He watched the wings a moment too long, willing the lateral motion to be the result of some terrible coincidence, a turbulent updraught from the airfield, or a gust of wind off the mountains beyond.

The signal.
As clear as day.
Kruze.

He peeled the Meteor off in the direction of the Arado, pushing the throttles to the stops.
Despite the range of the German aircraft, a good two miles away from him by now, he still had a height advantage and, while the Arado was still climbing, a little extra speed.

He dipped the transmit button.
“Get back to base, Wolfpack.
This one’s mine.”

He could still catch him.
Had to catch him.
Branodz was only thirty minutes’ flight time away and Kruze was heading straight for it, three bombs strapped under his wings.
3000 lbs of high explosive that would rip through the Alpine headquarters of the architect of Archangel, turning it into matchwood, then plough on into the compound beyond, where the chemical weapons were stored.

He was gaining on the bomber, perhaps halving the range since the moment he had first spotted it pulling away from the airfield.
But Kruze’s speed was picking up now.
The Arado levelled, then scudded between two mountain peaks.
Fleming flew on, keeping his eyes fixed on the point where the bomber had entered the valley.
He pulled the Meteor round the edge of a grey, jagged peak, his left wing tip dangerously close to the trees which grew intermittently on its rough scree slope.
He held his breath for the moment the Arado would spring into view, flipped off the safety catch of the gun-button on his joystick in preparation for the warning burst of 20mm that would make the Rhodesian turn, maybe even turn and fight in the skies above the mountains.
But he would see the Meteor, recognize the markings of the aircraft from Stabitz and know instinctively that something was wrong, that Guardian Angel was finished.

A bank of cloud, like a wall stretching from one side of the valley to the other and as high as the peaks themselves, rushed to meet him.
Too late to do anything about it, he saw the two hundred feet of clearance between the base of the thick rolling mist and the ground, then everything went white.

Fleming fought the panic.
The mountains rose around him, invisible, but there.
He could almost feel them reaching out to his wing tips.
There was no time to look to his attitude indicator, he just prayed his wings were level with the surface of the earth and pulled back on the stick, waiting for the split-second of jarring noise, as hurtling metal thumped into bare, gargantuan rock, that would precede infinite blackness.

Sunlight leapt at him like a waterfall, before the blue sky surrounded him.
The altimeter read eighteen thousand feet.
The peaks, jutting through the gently undulating swell of the mountain cumulus fell away behind.
He levelled off and began to scour the horizon for a sign of the Arado.

He was alone.

As the panic returned, the vision of the tiny gap between the cloudbase and the valley floor leapt into his mind.
That was where the Rhodesian had gone, hugging the ground to avoid enemy - Allied - fighters, as per his instructions in the countless briefings that had preceded the mission.
Kruze had never even seen his Meteor.

He had lost him.

He reached down to the radio and swivelled the dial through all the frequencies.

“Guardian Angel is over.
Kruze, if you can hear me, return to base, turn back to Stabitz.
It’s over, finished.”

There was only the hiss of static and the echo of his own voice ringing in his ears.

And Kruze was below him, somewhere, between the carpet of thick mountain vapour and the earth, hurtling towards the target.
When he pulled out of the mountains there would only be another hundred and twenty miles on the second leg, until the final run-in .
.
.

The second leg.

A two stage flight plan to Branodz.
One massive course deviation to keep him away from Allied fighter patrols.
Kruze flying two sides of the triangle from Oberammergau to Branodz.
His own carefully negotiated flight plan for the Rhodesian seemed to dance before his eyes on the windshield in front of him.
Despite the Arado’s overall speed advantage, there was a chance, just a chance, that he could intercept him over the target, if he flew direct, with no course change, just a straight path across German lines, their own and into Russian airspace.

It was the only option left.

He swung the aircraft round to the north, away from the mountains and the clouds, on a vector that would take him directly to Branodz.
He would pick up the landmarks after crossing the River Isar, wide and conspicuous, as it meandered leisurely across the alluvial plain to the northeast of Munich.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Careful, careful,” Shlemov growled, as he watched the NCOs and enlisted men of the VKhV Military Chemical Forces grapple clumsily with the crates that Shaposhnikov had stored in the corral beside the HQ in Branodz.
“You idiots should know better than anyone what’s in there,” he shouted in the general direction of the nearest work party.

Of course there was no actual danger of the shell cases splitting in the event they were to drop one of the boxes.
The bastards were doing it deliberately, though, to try and scare him.
Ever since they found out that he had put Major Ryakhov, their leader, on a truck that would take him to Ostrava and thence to Moscow .
.
.

It probably wasn’t his fault, Shlemov admitted to himself.
It was obvious that Shaposhnikov had duped him into transporting the hydrogen cyanide to the front, but he could not be allowed to run around the Motherland in possession of the knowledge of what had happened in that place.
He was satisfied the rest of the VkhV troops did not know of Ryakhov’s arrangement with Shaposhnikov.
They could carry on believing the excuse he himself had given them.
There had been an emergency, the fascists had deployed chemicals, but had backed down when they discovered Soviet weapons of equal ferocity had been rushed to the front.

The distant rumble of artillery, their guns, reminded him how close Shaposhnikov had come to pulling it off.
Once Marshal Konev learnt of Archangel, possibly reacting against the news that he would have been the first killed by the conspirators, he decided to put the offensive into effect right away, with Stalin’s blessing.

The unrelenting tom-tom beat of the massive artillery barrage had been going on now for over two hours, more or less since they had begun loading up the trucks.
Final victory against the fascists, Konev had assured him, was now at hand.
Looking at the frantic activity around him, despatch riders entering and leaving the HQ every few seconds, troops swarming around the place like soldier ants and hearing the clank of armour rolling up the valley below towards the front lines, personally, he didn’t doubt the Marshal’s words.

Shlemov wanted to get home, to Moscow, but Beria’s unquestionable instructions had come through during the night.
Oversee the shipment of the hydrogen cyanide, first on the trucks, then into the rail wagons at Ostrava, and finally get them, safe and sound back to Berezniki, a total journey of almost two thousand kilometres.
It had not put him in a good mood.

Especially working with these idiots.
They were damned lucky not to be joining Ryakhov.

He looked back at the corral and groaned.
It was still almost full.
Only four trucks had been loaded, another sixteen to go.
It would take all day at this rate.

He turned, swearing under his breath, and barged his way past two despatch riders into the warmth of the HQ to try to find some acorn coffee to drive the sleep from his aching limbs.

* * * * * * * *

Kruze held the aircraft as steady as he could between the cloud base and the valley floor, weaving his way around bluffs and points that rushed to meet him with frightening speed and regularity.

He smiled, scarcely able to believe it.
He had stolen the Ar 234 Blitz, the “lightning” bomber, from its lair.
Despite those idiots in the Meteors, the double treachery of Herries, and the vicissitudes of the aircraft itself.
He had done it for

Penny and for Fleming.
The rest he would do in the name of something less tangible.

The aircraft was aptly named.
It felt like riding shotgun on the front of a high-speed locomotive.
A few feet of fragile instruments and Plexiglass separated him from 400 mph of slipstream.
This was all.
The water vapour that hung heavily in the valley streaked in long rivulets from the glazed nose of the bomber across the Plexiglass over his head.
He took his eyes momentarily off his limited horizon and looked through the canopy above him.
Fifty feet away wisps of grey, angry cloud flashed past, each reaching down to the aircraft, malevolently, as if they were storm-lashed branches desperately trying to unseat him from his wild, galloping stallion.

Shaposhnikov was less than half an hour away.
Just under thirty minutes more of unbending concentration.
That was all it would take.

He fumbled for the coat that hid the charts that would get him to the tiny valley which cupped the town of Branodz between its rocky walls.

And then his mind replayed the last minutes of his time at Oberammergau and the terrible moment when he had looked over his shoulder and seen Herries holding up his coat, triumph in his eyes.
The traitor, in death, had taken something from him which might cost him the mission.
The charts.
How could he have been so stupid to have discarded the coat?
Yet, in the heat of the moment, it had been a hindrance, something to dispose of; that the charts were sewn into the lining had never crossed his mind.

Could he do without them?
He had to.

He looked at the compass.
The valley was taking him roughly in the direction he wanted, but soon he would be out of the mountains and then he would need landmarks, man-made and geological features noted carefully in the briefing room at Stabitz, but now suddenly elusive.
The first leg, a vector of oh-seven-oh degrees for eighty miles, then the way-point.
What was it?
The castle, a big Bavarian affair by a lake, Fleming had said.
Schloss Ubersee.
But it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack unless he found the River Inn first.

Then his eyes fell on the map case, tucked away to his left on the cockpit wall.
He pulled at the charts, careful not to take his gaze off the rapidly rolling scenery in front of him for more than a few seconds at a time.
On a large-scale map, he quickly found Munich, then Oberammergau.

Ahead, the valley began to widen and, to his relief, the clouds lifted a little.

He pulled the aircraft up to five hundred feet and looked down at the maze of brown, green and grey topography staring back at him from the paper on his knees.
He found the castle, then looked for the river.
The Inn stitched its way through the varying contours of the land.
He reckoned he was already halfway to it, such was the speed he was travelling.

He plotted the course that had been devised for him by Fleming.
Fleming, the mission planner.
The one that would expose him as little as possible to Allied and Russian fighters, or their armies’ ground fire.

Snatching glances out of the cockpit, he saw the valley gradient level off and the river bed broaden, until the snow was left behind.
Wooden chalets flashed past the lower slopes, while higher up, almost level with his wingtips, there were smaller huts, sheds, some of them surrounded by the light and dark dots of the livestock they had housed during the night.

He flashed over a small herd of goats, grazing on a bluff touched by the early morning sun.
The pack scattered as his turbojets whistled overhead.
As his eyes followed them, a shepherd sprang into view, shielding his eyes from the sun as he searched for the Valkyrie which shattered the peace of the valley.
Kruze saw a shake of the fist, then a wave, as the Bavarian peasant recognized the stark black and white Balkenkreuz stencilled under the wings.

This is how Branodz will look, he told himself.
But no one would cheer for him there.
The thought jolted him back inside the cockpit.

While he was still in German-held territory he decided to check over the aircraft.
It would be the last chance he had.
If he managed to find the waypoint, his hands would be full; navigating, looking for fighters and, more than likely, taking evasive action.

The turbojets were running smoothly at their cruise speed of 7000 rpm, jetpipe temperature and fuel pressure were normal and his fuel load was good.
He looked around vainly for a headset.
Provided he had survived the onslaught of the Meteor strike, the pilot of Ar 234, factory number W.Nr.140219, serial number Fi/BB, was probably clutching his flying helmet back at Oberammergau and ruminating on who it was who had taken his aircraft.
Again, it did not matter.
To eavesdrop on the airwaves would have served little purpose.

Suddenly he was out of the Bayerische Mountains, the rolling countryside of the Ober Bayern before him.
Despite the inherent danger of flying through the peaks, he suddenly realized that they had offered protection, a mask between him and the Mustangs, Thunderbolts and Spitfires.
He felt dangerously exposed, naked to the British and American fighter patrols that he knew to be roaming the area, seeking out their targets of opportunity.

He had no forward-firing armament.
He could only fight them with evasive action and a weapon he had never tried before, built into the rear of the aircraft, pointing aft.

The Rhodesian scoured the horizon for a sign of the frontline, a column of smoke here and there which would have signalled the dividing line between Wehrmacht and American troops.
There was none.
Fleming’s flight-plan was good, taking him away to the east, deeper into German-held territory, where his Blitz was safe from ground-fire, at least.

Until he hit the Russian lines.

A town pulled into view straight in front of him, the spires of its churches clearly visible against the horizon.
He looked down to his map.
He hadn’t crossed the Inn yet, so it had to be Bad Aibling, the only medium-sized population centre in the area and on the rough course setting he had chosen.
As he ripped over the middle of the town, he paid scant attention to the Panther tanks parked haphazardly in the main square.
Then he saw what he was looking for, the distinctive confluence where the three rivers joined, the way they did on his map.

He was about twenty miles off course.

He put the aircraft onto a new heading to starboard that would take him directly to Schloss Ubersee, knowing that at any moment the River Inn would flash beneath him, signalling the moment he would have to start searching for the castle.
At the speed and altitude he was flying, he would only get one chance.

An orange and silver trace ahead, stretching from left to right, then river, brown and turgid, shot by beneath his feet.
The ground rose rapidly, almost taking Kruze by surprise.
He eased back on the stick and noted the brief expanse of arable land giving way to mountains again, although not as steep and craggy as the ones through which he had just flown.
As the ground rose up, the Arado hugging its contours at a few hundred feet, so the cloud base moved down to meet it.
Kruze swore at the prospect of having his waypoint obscured by the mountain mist and being forced to set his course to Branodz by dead reckoning instead.
With only one pass allowed to him over the target area, he had to get it right.

He pulled up into the clouds and weaved between the steep sides of the cumuli, avoiding contact with them, as if they were the solid, mountain walls that he had flown between earlier.
He stuck to the clear air, not out of paranoia, but through a desperate urge to maintain contact with the ground.
He had to find the castle.
He scrutinized every patch of clear sky between himself and the ground for a sign of Schloss Ubersee, or an expanse of lake.
They were the only details he possessed, the best he had to go on.

A flash below, like a searchlight in his eyes.

He nosed the aircraft down, below the clouds, keeping a careful watch for high ground, searching, willing what he had glimpsed to be the lake of Schloss Ubersee.

He broke out of the cloudstack about two hundred and fifty feet above the ground.
In front of him was the castle, looming above him, almost a mile away, its towers brushing the rolling mountain mist.
Below it, nestling in the bowl of a craggy glacial rock formation was the lake itself, a thin crust of ice on its surface sending shimmering reflections back at him whenever the sun’s rays forced their way through a gap in the clouds.

Schloss Ubersee, like a lighthouse guiding him in for the final course deviation.

He held the aircraft steady as it whistled over the battlements of the ancient castle, then twisted the horns on the stick to swing him round on the new bearing.
He racked his brains for the next landmark.
A town.
Alten .
.
.

Altenmarkt.
Lying in the fork of the two rivers.
He was then to pick up the twisting form of the River Alz, following it for about thirty miles until it met the much larger River Salzach.
Thereafter there was only another forty miles to the Czechoslovakian border and another thirty miles to the target.
As his confidence grew, so the details of the flight-plan became clearer.
He had forgotten nothing.
He was on course.