TS01 Time Station London (9 page)

And too bad more of them can’t make it,
Werner Ruperle thought bitterly. “They are devious vermin,
nicht wahr?”
He forced a chuckle.

“Oh, yes. You are going to Diessen
am
Ammersee?”

“Yes. To my home.”

“Heilsam Reise, Herr Hauptmann.”
The Gestapo agent wished him a good journey and gave him the straight-arm, Nazi salute.

Although the platform swarmed with people, he found the train to the resort lake country scantly occupied, and his first-class compartment blessedly to himself alone. By dinnertime, he would be home. He could almost taste the potato soup—his favorite—he knew Hilda would have for him as a first course. Then some
Kassler Ripkin,
potato pancakes with apple sauce and
Buskohl.
For dessert,
Sachertorte.
He would stuff himself! It seemed that all their Luftwaffe cooks knew how to prepare was sausages, boiled potatoes, and black bread. Outside the car, the blare of a loudspeaker banished all thought of food.

“Achtung! Achtung!
All passengers who have boarded trains, please have your travel documents ready for inspection.”

Liebe Gott!
Where is
my
Germany? Werner wondered.

Time: 0945, GMT, July 6, 1940

Place: Rumpole Street, Coventry,

Warwickshire, England

Brian Moore thumbed the bell push again and looked around the neighborhood from his vantage point on the stoop. So far the street showed no more sign of liveliness or occupation than the residence of Bertram Hudnutt. From inside, the dim sound of what must be an irritating buzzer came to Brian’s ears. Next door, a roller shade flickered to reveal a swatch of white, lace curtain. Brian shoved the button again.

“Pardon me.” The voice, somewhat shaky and hesitant, came from the porch next door. “Are you looking for Bertram, young man?”

Brian turned to find himself facing a silver-haired woman, her face a road map of years. “Yes, I am.”

“He’s not home. Has not been for three days now.”

“On holiday?” Brian asked.

“Oh, no, he died suddenly.”

That sat Brian back joltingly. “Heart trouble?”

“No. I’m not sure what caused it. Only that a constable came by, with two men in suits. I suppose from the CID. They entered his house, and when they left I asked what the trouble might be. They told me that he had died.”

“I see. Thank you.”

Brian left. He had nothing else he could do. At least not in daylight, with a nosey dowager right next door.

A phone call to the local CID office informed Brian that Hudnutt had not died of natural causes. Although they had not handled the case, they had been included in the distribution list for the report. Brian said he would be over to see it.

After producing his identification, Brian was allowed to read the report. Bertram Hudnutt had been shot by a sentry at Hamphill Aerodrome. Hudnutt had scaled a fence and entered the airfield illegally. He had explosives with him and an incendiary device. Brian put the brief report aside and looked up at the CID inspector.

“Would you have any idea why I was not on the list for this?”

Showing an indifferent expression, the CID inspector replied neutrally. “This came down to us by the usual channels. I assume it originated with your superior.”

When Brian returned to the office, he asked about the report of the shooting incident. Agnes left her desk to check the file cabinet. After rummaging through dozens of folders, in several drawers, she came up with a copy.

“Here you are, sir. It had been misfiled under military bases. It is so hard to get competent help these days,” she added by means of explaining all failings. “It should have been in the file on the dead man.”

Half a day wasted,
Brian thought angrily. Brian took it from her and read it rapidly. As an internal memo of MI-5 the brief report contained far more detail. Bertram Hudnutt had been climbing a fence when a watchdog alerted sentries to his presence. Hudnutt resisted, shooting one man before being shot dead. The explosives he carried had detonated and there was not enough of him left to bury in a matchbox. Brian decided to access his second suspect.

Time: 1510 GMT, July 6, 1940

Place: Horn and Star Pub, Coventry,

Warwickshire, England

Liam O’Doul strolled off the campus of the University of Warwick and angled down High Street toward the center of Coventry. He remained unaware of Brian Moore, who had picked him up outside a lecture hall and followed discreetly. Liam led Brian to the Horn and Star, a pub on the riverfront. Although late in the afternoon, the contrast between outdoor brightness and the dark interior of the public house gave Brian the impression he had walked into a cave.

Brian paused, after closing the door, and looked around for his subject. He found Liam seated at a table with three other broody-looking young men. Brian ordered a pint of bitter. When it came, he crossed the room to lean on the ledge of the vertical wooden pole barrier that divided the women’s part from the men’s. The moment he settled in, conversation died. Silently the gathering gave Brian a cold hard eye.

Judging from the bulky sweaters most wore, they were Irish, as was O’Doul. Goaded by this, Brian tried a subtle bit of subterfuge. Shifting his mug of beer to his left hand he flashed a sign with the right. Index and middle fingers extended, thumb cocked to form the shape of a pistol, followed by an upraised little finger, an old IRA hailing sign.

At the table, the young men exchanged glances. One of them, a strapping youth with flame-red hair, raised his mug and gestured toward Brian. “Now, would ye be willing to join us?”

“Aye, that I would, I would,” Brian responded, words thick with Dublin accent. “Me name’s Brian Boyne.”

Introductions went around. “Glendennen. Gower. Fitzsimmons. O’Doul.”

Brian gave each a nod. “Are ye all at the university?” At their nods, he decided on boldness, covered by humor. “And would ye now be about plannin’ the bringin’ down of George Sixth?”

After that, it all became too easy. The redhead, Fitzsimmons, proved the most talkative. “Not exactly. Sure, though, an’ ye might say we are in a roundabout way, we are.”

Brian fixed him with sharp, gray-green eyes. “What might that be, lads?”

Suddenly suspicious, the black Irish, Liam O’Doul, pinned him with obsidian eyes and probed. “Would ye be tellin’ us what outfit you might be with?” demanded the rogue traveler.

“O’Banyon’s Brigade,” Brian answered levelly.

Impressed glances went around the table. Again, Fitzsimmons took the lead. “Hoy! Sure, an’ that’s
Sinn Fein,
for certain true, it is.”

Still not trusting, O’Doul prodded further, “Sure an’ what’s O’Banyon got hisself up to right about now?”

“Liam,” Fitzsimmons protested. “Go easy, boyo. We invited him to this table after all.”

Brian stared at O’Doul with equal intensity. “About ten years in the King’s lockup, he is.”

“Anyone could know that, he could,” countered O’Doul. “If he’s a copper or a Kingsman in mufti.”

“And I’m neither, I’m not. Now, since that’s the case, what say I buy the next round, then we can let Fitz here fill me in on what you’ve got laid on.”

When the brews came, Fitzsimmons swigged off a long portion, smacked his lips, and proceeded to enlighten Brian. “We’re in the Rescue Service, so’s to speak. What we do is, when there’s German pilots an’ crew what gets safe on the ground or in the water, we goes out and picks them up. Then we take them across to Eire and see they get on their way to their bases in France. Sort of twists the nose of King George, sommat, now doesn’t it?”

“Sure an’ interestin’ it is,” Brian allowed. “The secret of yer game is safe with me, Iads. There’s no love lost between me an’ the Huns, mind. But these pilots and crewmen are young like us, and the way I sees it, there’s no harm in helping them, there’s not.”

Looks of relief went from man to man. Fitzsimmons offered an invitation. “Would ye be wantin’ to join us?”

Brian sighed, produced mock regret. “I’m afraid I cannot. I only came up from London for a few days, then it’s back to Belfast for me. But it’s good work yer doin’, lads, an’ that’s a fact.” He drank off the last of his beer, came to his feet, and made his excuses.

Cross O’Doul and his friends off the list,
Brian Moore thought as he stepped outside the pub. The IRA had a lot of murderous bastards in its ranks, but he’d not heard of them kidnapping or killing women. At least not in this era. He would have to look further.

Time: 1745 CET, July 6, 1940

Place: Diessen am Ammersee,

Bavaria, Germany

After the five o’clock “lunch,” Colonel Werner Ruperle daily took his family down to the Ammersee to engage in a local tradition. The residents of Diessen rarely had access to their lake on weekends. The village population hardly topped 650, yet occupants swelled on weekends to several thousand. They came from Munich, Augsburg, Regensburg, and other large cities for a pleasant outing in the lake district. So it was that the custom began for families to take an evening bathe in the lake during the week. Changing rooms stood close at hand, for those who shunned parading through the center of town in their bathing costumes.

Werner and his two sons made straight for the men’s cabana, while Hilda and his daughter, Gretchen, went the opposite direction. Inside, the boys stripped down quickly. Col. Ruperle marveled at how thin Bruno had become. Naked, the tow-headed lad looked even more to be nine rather than twelve. Grinning, Bruno pulled on a skimpy set of racer’s trunks.

“Rutger and Klaus will be here,” he announced for his parent’s benefit.

Werner knew Klaus Dieter to be Bruno’s closest friend. At mention of his name, the boy grew visibly less somber. At least there hadn’t been any falling-out there, Werner reflected. Yet something had to account for Bruno’s subdued manner. Yesterday evening; his wife had met him at the train station and hugged him possessively. Then they went up the hill to the tidy, Bavarian style house and into a dinner exactly like the one he had visualized. His children had noisily made him welcome. Yet Bruno seemed withdrawn. Finishing his own change, the Luftwaffe colonel slung his towel over one shoulder and led the way to the swimming dock.

Bruno ran full tilt to the far end and dived cleanly into the warm water. Mannfred held back with his father. At seven, he retained a little hesitancy about swimming. Hilda and Gretchen joined them, laughing.
How far away the war seems,
Werner marveled. He breathed deeply, luxuriating in the heady air, filled with fragrant blossoms of fruit trees. Not even the ominous presence of the black-suited and trench-coated Gestapo agent, who lounged against one end of a picnic table, could dispel Werner Ruperle’s good mood this evening. Bruno paddled up and splashed him. The water felt good.

“Watch me, Father, I’m going to dive again,” the boy urged.

“Fine. You do that.”

A gleeful shout came from some children splashing in the shallows.

“Ducks! Baby ducks!”

Would God that it could always be like this, Werner mused. Images of the corrupt blossoms of exploding flack shells flashed momentarily behind his eyes. With a harsh effort, he banished them.

Time: 0017, GMT, July 7, 1940,

Place: The Beach, Below the Dover Cliffs,

Kentshire, England

A thin slice of moon sent platinum streaks across the inky waves of the English Channel. Long, slow swells gave a false impression of the incredible power of that mighty sea. When angered, this passage could be far more devastating than the Pacific Ocean. Far back in Neolithic times, that body of water that became the North Sea ate its way through the limestone and chalk cliffs of an old river course, thus dividing the British Isles from the continent of Europe.

Currents then formed, only a scant few feet below the benign-looking surface. They still remained and raced the length with the force of a tsunami. Only the genius of man could prevail against such raw nature. And then only on rare occasion.

That proved so on that night when the pacific surface boiled white with foam and bubbles. Gradually, a black object rose from the depths. In less than five minutes, the towerlike structure had risen enough to reveal the long, sleek tube formation below. The U513 had come.

She confidently rode the swells, nose pointed to the west to provide the least profile. Two sailors in the blue-and-white uniforms of the German submarine force dragged an inflatable rubber boat from a hatch on the foredeck and secured it alongside the pressure hull. An officer climbed down the ladder from the conning tower. He scrambled gracefully down into the rubber craft and cast off. A small, muffled outboard engine sputtered to life.

Ten minutes later the rounded prow nudged up on the sand and pebbles under the hauntingly glowing Cliffs of Dover. A man stepped out of the shadows and walked to the uniformed officer. His jet-black hair was combed straight back and so pomaded that the scant moonlight glistened off it. He wore a conservative suit and walked with a slight limp, brought on by the insert in his right shoe. When the captain of the U-boat acknowledged his presence, the landsman raised his arm in a stiff salute.

“Heil Hitler!”

“Heil Hitler!”
the sailor responded.

“It is good to see you again,
Herr Kapitän,”
said Clive Beattie. “I have something for you. It came from the top, so it’s guaranteed,” the rogue time traveler continued in fluent German.

“What is it, may I ask?”

Beattie produced a rueful grin. “Better you learn it through channels from Admiral Raeder.” Then he changed his mind. “Only, since it affects you, I can tell you that it has to do with the new North Sea convoy routes. It also details the changes in convoy dates and code designations.”

“Wunderbar!
It could not come at a better time. Our last patrol, we fired only two torpedoes and one of them missed. The big convoys are not there when we expect them. This should give us a chance.” Smiling, Capt. Horst Niedermann produced an oilskin-wrapped parcel. “Oh, I have something for you, too.”

Avarice glowed in the eyes of Clive Beattie as he reached for the small package. “Thank you, Captain Niedermann.” After pocketing his payment, Beattie snapped to attention. Stiff-armed, he saluted again.
“Sieg Heil!”