The White Vixen (52 page)

“How many more of the Reichsleiter’s men are outside?” Willy asked him.

“I will tell you nothing.”

“Sure you will,” Jo said. She aimed the Luger and fired, hitting the floor inches from the man’s shoulder, sending up a spray of splinters. The man yelled in pain as two shards caught him in the side of his face. “Now, answer the man’s question.”

“Just one more,” the man said, gasping. “He’s outside, at the motor pool. I told him I would come in to investigate the noise.”

A trembling Armando was at the end of the hallway. “I am sorry, señora, but he insisted on coming—“

“Never mind,” Jo said. “Go to the back door and call for help. That will bring the other guard.” As they followed the butler, Jo asked Willy, “What about the two men who came here with us?”

“They are staying in guest quarters near the hangar, at the airstrip.”

“Can they be trusted?”

“They have worked for me for years. I’m sure of it.”

“Well, I’m not,” Jo said with a wary look. “They stay here, along with the pilot and co-pilot.”

“You can fly the Blitz?”

“We’re about to find out, aren’t we?”

The lone remaining guard was suspicious, brushing past Armando with gun drawn, but when he saw Baumann limping toward him and rushed to help, Jo got the drop on him from behind. In a few minutes she was at the wheel of a Mercedes they found in the garage. She slowed down when they were within a hundred meters of the hangar.

“I don’t suppose this place has an armory of any kind,” Jo said.

“Why? We are armed. It’s only a few minutes across the border into Chile. I presume that’s where you intend to go.”

“Actually, no,” Jo said. “We’re heading east, to Buenos Aires, but in case we have to set down elsewhere, we might need to have something a little heavier than these Lugers.”

“I don’t understand. We can be in Chilean airspace in minutes.”

She glanced at him, leaving no doubt as to her determination. “I have to warn the British fleet somehow about the air strike. I don’t know what I’ll be dealing with if we go to Chile. If we head east, toward the Atlantic, I can get a message out over the jet’s radio. If you have a problem with that, now’s the time to say so.”

Baumann swallowed hard. “No. We have to stop the strike.”

“Good. Now, back to my question.”

Willy waved toward a side door near the rear of the hangar. “I think there might be something in there that could help us.”

Jo pulled the Mercedes to a stop near the door, which mercifully proved to be unlocked. Inside, a small room contained a variety of Soviet, European and American-made assault rifles, plus one surprised man, who recognized Baumann. “Herr Oberst, what is going on?” His eyes quickly shifted to the business end of Jo’s pistol.

“Do not ask questions, Hans,” Willy said. “Keep your hands in the air, please.”

A minute later, they came out with a pair of M-16s, three clips of ammunition apiece, and a bonus: a pair of Bundeswehr-issue field radios. Jo’s instinct told her to take them along, just in case. They left Hans on the floor of the armory, tied with his belt. It wouldn’t hold him too long, but by then they should be in the air.

They walked another fifty meters to the side door of the main hangar, Baumann struggling with his throbbing leg. “We should’ve disabled the telephone line at the house,” Jo said, angry at herself.

“It would make no difference,” Willy told her. “Bormann has a short-wave radio transceiver somewhere in the house. It’s what he would use to communicate in the event the phone lines were down.”

“He thought of everything, didn’t he?”

“Let us hope not.”

They entered a side door unopposed. Inside the large hangar, Jo counted three aircraft, two small prop planes and the larger, sleek white jet. Two mechanics were working on an open side panel.

“We have to get moving,” Jo said. “The servants will free those guards as soon as they see us take off.”

“It is best to be assertive, then,” Willy said. He hobbled toward the mechanics, Jo following, her gun hidden behind her. “Say there! Is there something wrong?”

“No, Herr Oberst,” one of the men said, wiping his hands on a greasy rag. “Just routine maintenance.”

“She is ready to fly, then?”

“Of course. We refueled the aircraft after you landed yesterday, per standard procedure.” The man saw Baumann’s bloodied pants leg. “What is going on?”

“We’re taking the aircraft,” Jo said, pointing the Luger. “Stand aside. One of you, open the hangar door.”

“What is the meaning of this, Herr Oberst?” the older mechanic said, eyes narrowing.

“Do as the lady says.”

The older man backed away, while the younger one scampered toward the hangar door controls. The door began to rumble open. Jo opened the forward passenger door on the port side of the jet and pulled the short stairway into position. She had a decision to make. “Do you still have a weapon?” she asked Willy.

“Yes.”

“Keep it trained on these guys. I have to get into the cockpit and prep the aircraft for takeoff. When I yell for you, get aboard and shut the door.” She looked at Baumann, trying to read his eyes. If she brought him inside with her, the mechanics could easily disable the jet. She had to trust him.

“All right,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling his Luger.

Jo climbed into the jet and made her way to the cockpit. Everything was where she figured it should be. She thanked the Air Force for making sure she put in her training hours every year to maintain her pilot’s certification. Most of her hours were aboard trainers, but her last trip had been an exhilarating two hours in the cockpit of an F-15 Eagle. The instruments of this Messerschmitt were in a few different locations, but within a minute she had started the engines spooling up.

She was going through the final pre-flight checklist when she heard a commotion outside, shouting voices over the whine of the engines, then the crack of a gunshot. Instinctively, Jo released the brakes and advanced the throttle, steering the aircraft toward the open doorway. The outer cabin door was still open, but if Baumann had been taken down, she had to get moving before anybody else got aboard. If she got far enough down the runway, she could unbuckle for a few seconds and close the door before takeoff.

There was a thump behind her, the sound of the cabin door closing, and she turned in the seat, her Luger ready, to see Baumann staggering into the cockpit. “Are you all right?” Jo asked.

“The pilot made an appearance,” he said. His face was white and bathed in sweat. “He demanded to know if we had filed a flight plan. I fired a round to let him know we were dispensing with official procedure.”

“Did you hit him?”

“No. The Reichsleiter’s hangar ceiling now has a new hole in it.”

“Buckle your harness,” Jo said, applying more thrust. “This won’t be the smoothest takeoff in the world.”

Jo found the windsock as they emerged from the hangar. The single runway ran north-south, and she noted the wind was out of the west, but not too stiff. Fortunately, the Blitz was handling like a dream. She would’ve preferred a slight headwind, but this would have to do. “Here we go,” she said, lining up the runway markings and pushing the thruster controls forward. The jet’s twin turbofan engines whined and the aircraft seemed to leap forward. Watching her speed indicator, Jo waited till they’d achieved the minimum and pulled back on the stick. The Blitz nimbly lifted off the pavement. “Retract the landing gear, please,” she told Baumann. “The red handle down there to your left.” Responding to the Argentine’s pull, the gear thumped into their wheel wells, and Jo felt the aircraft gain some trim. She began a slow turn to port as they climbed and used the compass to set a course due east. When the altimeter showed ten thousand feet and climbing, she finally allowed herself to relax a bit. With any luck at all, they could get close enough to transmit a message before the Argentines caught up with them.

***

Aboard HMS
Reliant
, Southwest Atlantic

Monday, April 26th, 1982

Captain Tom Bentley checked his wristwatch. “Time for our midday radio check,” he said, looking at the men around him in the control room of the nuclear attack submarine. “Sonar, any surface contacts?”

“Negative, sir.”

“Very well. Bring us to periscope depth, Mr. Travis.”

“Aye aye, sir,” the executive officer said, and began issuing orders. The boat tilted upward slightly. Lieutenant Colonel Ian Masters took hold of a nearby grip, noting that the submariners adjusted easily to the movement without missing a beat. He’d been on a few subs in his time and was always impressed with the efficiency of their crews.
Reliant
’s men were as good as any he’d seen.

“Periscope depth!” a man sang out.

“Raise the antenna mast,” Bentley ordered. Somewhere above them, a thin mast containing the boat’s sensitive radio and radar antennae broke the surface. In a small room just aft of the conn, two specialists went to work with their sensitive equipment, sweeping the skies for any radar emissions. A patrolling enemy anti-sub warfare plane that might detect the mast would need only a few seconds to lock onto their position and begin an attack run.

The speaker on the bulkhead near Ian crackled to life. “Conn, radar, no enemy activity. Shall we go active?”

Bentley picked up a microphone . “Negative. Sparks, let’s get our mail and get below.”

“Aye, sir,” came the voice of the radio operator. A hundred miles further east,
Cambridge
was broadcasting its identification signal, right on schedule. The sub’s radio operator acknowledged and quickly wrote down the coded message. This one took a bit longer than Bentley would’ve preferred. He was only fifty miles from the Argentine coast and he didn’t feel comfortable with any part of his boat above the surface. Finally, the radio man reported in. “Conn, radio, message received. Any response?”

“Acknowledgement only, Mr. Weeks,” Bentley ordered. “Up periscope.” The captain walked the periscope a full 360 degrees. “Contact! Bearing, 135 degrees, range three miles. Looks like a merchantman.” That was a bit surprising. They’d heard that Argentine merchant vessels were staying well clear of the MEZ, and in fact few were straying out of port at all, despite assurances from the Argentine military that they would be safe. “Down scope. Lower the mast. Diving officer, take us back down to 150 meters.”

Men began moving again as the ship slid lower into the deep. “Colonel Masters, let’s see what the news is today,”
Bentley said.

The radio officer had the decoded message ready on a flimsy when the two men entered the cramped cabin. Bentley frowned as he read, then handed it to Ian.

1510 ZULU 26APR82

COMMANDER, HMS RELIANT

RADIO MSG OVER EMERG FREQ RECD 1430 ZULU.

SENDER ID WHITE VIXEN.
ADVISES ENEMY

MISSION ADVANCED TO 02
00 ZULU 27APR82.

SENDER UNDER AIR ATTACK.
WHITE VIXEN

ENDS.
EXECUTE GALAHAD MINUS 3. CONFIRM

MSG REQ 2100 ZULU.

STONE, HMS CAMBRIDGE, COMMANDING

“A word, if you please, Colonel,” Bentley said, motioning Ian into the passageway. Other than going aft to the captain’s quarters, this gave them as much privacy as one could expect aboard a submarine. “Know anything about this?”

It took all of Ian’s discipline to hide his feelings. “Yes, sir. White Vixen is the code name of an American agent in Argentina. I don’t know what her mission was, but evidently she’s discovered that the attack on the fleet has been moved up.”

“’She’?

Ian looked the skipper straight in the eyes. “Yes, sir. It’s a woman.”

Bentley nodded, not fooled for a moment. He’d been told that the SBS mission was back-up for a classified operation in-country. Plus there was the scuttlebutt about Masters and a certain American woman. “I see. Very well. You go ashore three hours early, then. Not too long after local dusk. If the attack is set to launch at 0200 local, you won’t have much time.”

“We’ll be all right, sir. If you can get us as close to shore as possible, we’ll make it on time.”

“I’ll do what I can. Let’s hope the Argies don’t decide to bring some ASW assets around tonight. Right, then. Best inform your lads. I’ll surface the mast at 2100 to acknowledge the mission being moved up, and I’ll inform the galley to have a hot meal for you and your lads at 2000 hours.”

“Thank you, sir.” He looked again at the flimsy before handing it back to the captain. “’Under air attack’,” he mumbled.

“Let’s hope she made it,” Bentley said.

“Aye aye to that, Captain.” Ian blinked his eyes rapidly and headed aft to his men.

CHAPTER FORTY

Chubut province, Argentina