Stalemate (The Red Gambit Series) (13 page)

Additional horrors had been wrought on the already dead bodies of the NKVD soldiers.

Sverova was propped against the torso of an NKVD soldier, looking across the clearing, the smoke of the explosion stinging her eyes and robbing her of her final clear memories.

She was silent, unable to speak, her lower body torn away from the hips down, her upper body naked and unblemished, save for some splashes of blood
and other fluids from the unfortunate Matalinova.

The horrified NCO made it to her side in five huge steps.
Sverova’s destroyed body failed her before the third step was complete.

SS Werewolf Kommando Lenz had ‘dressed’ the site with a standard
three-kilo explosive charge, and it had done its work well, twelve of the women soldiers joining their NKVD comrades in the after-life.

The periscope hissed as it slid back up, breaking the surface above for the final time before the orders were given.

“Fire one.”

A stopwatch clicked, four seconds passed.

“Fire two.”

Both releases accompanied by the sounds of torpedoes in the water.

“Starboard twenty, both engines make revolutions for six knots.”

The Elektroboote, B27, had found a fast mover, a single merchant vessel intent on crossing the Atlantic alone, relying on her speed to keep her safe.

The rumble of an explosion through the water, followed
shortly by another, marked the folly of the attempt for the American steamship.

Manoeuvring
to get away from the firing position, B27 relocated to the east of the sinking, the submarine’s detection apparatus indicating that no allied vessels were in the vicinity.

The Captain raised the scope once more, focussing in the area the vessel went down, its bulkheads noisily surrendering to the inrush of water, tasting its final gasp of air just six minutes after being struck by the last torpedo.

As the commander quickly swivelled his periscope, he saw the lifeboats, two of them filled to the brim with survivors.

The flash of gold braid caught his eye, and he upped the lens setting immediately.

“What have we here, Comrades? Senior military personnel on the lifeboat ahead of us.”

A moment’s thought.

The First officer waited expectantly.

“Threats?”

Confirming with the sonar crew, he turned back to the commander.

“None detected
, Comrade Kapitan.”

As was his habit in times of deep thought, the Captain pinched at his nose, squeezing it to stimulate the process of decision-making.

“We will surface, and quickly, Gun crews on deck as soon as we are in air. Deck party armed. I intend to offer assistance to the senior military survivors.”

A questioning look from the second in command was understood, and his concerns addressed.

“We will be up and gone before they have a chance to organise a search, even if she did get off a signal. Now, let us be quick, Leytenant.”

The First Officer turned to organise the crew.

“Chief, I want you in your diving kit, just in case they lose something overboard, like a briefcase.”

The ship’s senior rating understood, acknowledged the order, and moved away quickly to get ready.

Eight minutes later, the ex-German elektroboote B-27 rose to the surface, thirty yards from the nearest lifeboat.

“Enemy submarine, on the surface, bearing 035.”

“Action stations, standby for bombing attack.”

Other voices confirmed that it was one of the new submarines, which were unmistakeable and could not be confused with any Allied vessels.

New boy Hawkins had been in the cockpit passing out coffee, and it had been he that had spotted the sleek shape.

It was also he that spotted the lifeboats.

“No skipper, you can’t
attack. There are survivors there, in boats. Could be the Dawes Castle people.”

Joy looked at the horrified man
.

Momentarily confused, he
alternated between examining the U-Boat and his crewmate.

W
ith eyes suddenly heavy with duty and the responsibility of his decision, he opened his mike, directing his gaze at Hawkins.

“Stand by t
o attack,” he said to the crew, seemingly cold and businesslike.

“To your station
, Bob,” was more softly spoken to the new airman.

The pain distorted the wireless operators face.

“You can’t, you simply can’t. Those are our people.”

“To your station
, Flight Sergeant! Send a contact report. Navigator, pass on the position.”

The inexperienced man turned away, leaving Joy to line up the Canso.

Behind him, the sounds of argument between Hawkins and Parkinson grew in volume and ferocity.

The delay caused by Hawkins’ outburst
had caused the Canso to miss its prime approach, something that would guarantee Hawkins a court-martial once the aircraft returned to base.

The submarine had spotted them
, and multi-coloured tracers leapt from her conning tower, indicative that the vessel intended to fight rather than dive.

‘Perhaps they think the lifeboats are a shield?’

‘Perhaps they should be!’

‘That fucking sub could kill hundreds, no, thousands!’

‘And you will kill how many of our own eh?’

The part of his mind that was screaming its objections was close to achieving supremacy, the thought of killing his own so abhorrent to the pilot.

Behind him, the fuselage had fallen quiet.

Parkinson appeared
silently by his side, more stoney faced than usual.

“
Is Bob alright, Nelly?”

Lionel
Parkinson spoke in a matter of fact way.

“Had to clock him one
, Skipper.”

No more explanation was required.

Placing his hand on the pilot’s shoulder, the navigator spoke softly, and with feeling.

“It’s a shitty deal
, Skipper, so let’s get it done, or that bastard will sink more of our ships. I sent the contact message.”

The Nav was gone before Joy could react, but his message of support remained,
clear, and unequivocal.

The screaming in his brain subsided and the professional
aviator was dominant once more.

‘Thanks, Nelly.’

Some shells clipped the Canso, but nothing vital was hit, the flying boat inexorably bearing down on its prey.

A part of Joy spotted
the frantic attempts by the boats, wasted effort to put life-saving yards between them and the bombs to come.

The Canso lifted, its full load dropped in a ‘total release’ attack.

Six Mark IX Depth Charges, with fuses set for twenty-two feet, left the aircraft and dropped inexorably towards B-27.

None struck her directly
, but all were in the sea within fifteen yards of her, the right-hand charge actually clipped the nearest lifeboat on its way down to twenty-two feet.

Two charges continued to the bottom, never to explode.

Another faulty fuse activated two hundred feet down.

Three did the job they had been asked to do, propelling the elektroboote out of the water as they exploded either side of her.

The survivors in the lifeboats died instantly, the horrified waist gunners seeing bodies, and parts of bodies, propelled many feet into the air on a rising crest of white water.

B-27 slipped beneath the water, its integrity compromised, the surviving crew stunned and in shock.

In the sub’s control room, the Commander tried to save his battered ship, but failed, the leak reports too numerous to deal with, overwhelming him.

B-27 struck the bottom, breaking into three pieces, two containing
only the drowned.

The third compartment, the main control room,
remained watertight. It contained men for whom there was no hope of salvation, and whose only expectation was a drawn out death in the dark.

Parkinson took over from the unconscious Hawkins, relaying news of their success to base, the first known sinking of one of the Russian
Elektrobootes.

G for George was holed forward, and Joy decided to beach the aircraft, which was done skilfully.

In celebratory mood, the whole base lined the slipway as the tender brought the crew ashore, but the cheers turned to heavy silence when the red eyes and tear marked faces became apparent.

Joy saluted the base commander and reported, evenly and accurately, those gathered around all silent and straining to hear his words.

As the true horror of their mission was revealed, many turned away, appalled and ashamed, all thankful that it had not fallen to them to do the deed.

The base doctor and padre moved forward, their work about to begin.

              The first leg of the journey had been overt, a routine flight from France to London, the passengers dismounting to go to their various meetings in West End hotels.

The C-47 took to the air once its tanks were topped off, one of many transport aircraft that came and went in the course of a normal day.

Thirty-two uniforms had been observed getting onto the aircraft. The resident communist spy, a medium ranking French police officer, lazily counted them onboard, all from the comfort of his office. If his report was ever compared to that of a similar individual based at RAF Northolt, the numbers would have tallied.

None the less, the C-47 was still able to disgorge two
more uniformed figures when it next set down, in bright sunshine, at the RAF Coastal Command base at Banff, Scotland.

Waiting there was a Mosquito Mark VI
, in the markings of 235 Squadron RAF. However, Z for Zulu was no ordinary bird, her insides altered to take two passengers and the extra fuel load for long VIP journeys.

Within ten minutes of their arrival, the two officers had changed uniforms and were airborne for the next stop of their complicated journey.

Oslo, murky in a stormy afternoon, offered no respite, as the two were swiftly but quietly driven south, to meet up with their final aircraft of the day, a Northrop N-3PB of the Royal Norwegian Air Force.

The small floatplane
launched itself eastwards, crossing into Swedish air space by prior agreement, and coming down to gently kiss the water of Lake Mälaren, before taxiing to the simple pier.

The two men were met informally
, and took the brief walk up to the imposing baroque structure that was Mälsåker Castle.

Until
recently, it had been leased to the Norwegians, and there were still some Norwegians present, hence the additional subterfuge of the marked aircraft and the uniforms both men had worn since Banff.

However, new ownership had made its mark
, and the small party was challenged three times on the short walk to Swedish Military Intelligence’s latest acquisition.

Waiting for them was a man who was, it was said, a myth; no more than a figment of overactive imaginations.

When his adversary was the German, Gehlen, Canaris, and the like would have given an arm to know what he looked like.

Colonel Per
Törget was indescribably ordinary and inoffensive looking, which made him truly a dangerous adversary.

Törget
was introduced to the other officer by the American. Shaking hands with the new arrivals and ushering them to comfortable seats, he waited expectantly to find out what exactly had brought the head of OSS so far so quickly, and, more importantly, so secretly.

A Swedish army
orderly distributed drinks, giving Törget time to assess the German officer, unknown until two hours beforehand, when a personal dossier had been passed to him, with the man’s exemplary service record plain for all to see.

‘Exemplary if you were a Nazi that is
,’
had been his only private thought, for Törget was all business.

Rossiter opened his briefcase and passed over a simple folder, unblemished externally
, save for the word ‘Sycamore’ in bold print.

Trannel, commander of the Luftwaffe’s 40th Transportstaffel, was taken aback.

The contents of the ‘Operation Sycamore’ folder were known to him, and he was horrified that the entire plan was now in the possession of an unknown entity.