‘No,’ he replied. ‘What would that be?’
‘Well,’ began Rufford, ‘we are hoping it might be the contents of this box.’
As Warsop unlatched the crate, a smell of mud and manure swept out into the room. Warsop reached inside and removed a gnarled piece of machinery, still clogged with dirt and threads of straw. That it had been torn from its mountings by incredible force was clear to see in the bent and shredded steel.
Warsop handed it to Greenidge. ‘See what you can make of that,’ he said.
Greenidge held the cold metal in his hands for a few seconds, but it was too heavy and he had to put it down upon a work bench. Then he took out one of the many pencils from his apron and began to poke around among a cluster of wires which splayed out of the machine like the roots of a tree wrenched from the ground. After several minutes, he stood back, tapping the pencil thoughtfully upon his thumbnail. ‘It appears to be some kind of gyroscopic mechanism, possibly for stabilising an object in flight. It’s not one of ours or I would know about it. Where did you get it?’
‘From a crash site on an island in the Baltic,’ replied Rufford. ‘That’s about all we can tell you for now.’
‘Can you at least inform me of the type of craft it came from?’
‘We think it was a test rocket that went off course, probably fired from the German research facility at Peenemunde.’
‘So it’s either a V-1 or a V-2,’ remarked Greenidge.
Warsop glanced at Rufford. ‘Might as well tell him,’ he said.
‘It is the latter,’ confirmed Rufford.
‘I thought we bombed Peenemunde,’ said Professor Greenidge.
‘We did,’ Warsop answered. ‘Just not enough, apparently.’
‘Which would imply that the mechanism didn’t work.’
‘Possibly,’ replied Rufford. ‘We’ve managed to salvage a number of rocket parts out of the recent bombings of Antwerp and London . . .’
‘London!’ exclaimed Greenidge. ‘There’s been no report of that.’
‘Ah,’ Rufford scratched at his forehead. ‘Well, you see, in order not to generate panic in the city, we have been reporting these rocket strikes as gas-main explosions. Since they come in faster than the speed of sound, the detonation actually precedes the noise of its arrival, which itself is drowned out by the explosion.’
‘How long do you think you’ll be able to keep that fiction working?’ the professor asked incredulously.
‘As long as we have to,’ said Warsop, ‘but that’s not why we’re here.’
‘Yes, quite,’ said Rufford, who seemed anxious to defuse whatever animosity was already brewing between the two men. ‘We’ve brought you this piece of equipment, because we’ve never come across anything like this before. We have reason to believe that the enemy may be close to perfecting a radio-controlled homing system for these weapons.’
‘Radio-controlled?’ asked Greenidge, and suddenly he understood why they had come to him.
Before the war, he had experimented with radio-guidance technology for weapons, but he had never been able to develop a successful prototype. His government funding had eventually been cut and he came to work at the propulsion lab as a steam-turbine engineer. Now, it seemed, the enemy had fulfilled the dream which had once been his own.
‘Any chance you might be able to reconstruct it?’ asked Rufford.
Greenidge shook his head. ‘Not from what you’ve given me. This is only part of the mechanism. If you can find me schematics, even partial ones, I should be able to make some headway pretty quickly.’
‘We’re working on that now,’ said Warsop.
‘In the meantime,’ continued Greenidge, ‘I can take apart what we do have here and should be able to tell you what is missing.’
‘Then that will have to do,’ said Rufford. ‘Have you got some place where you can work on it without anyone looking over your shoulder?’
‘Yes,’ said Greenidge. ‘There’s space in the storage room at the back.’
‘Put a lock on the door,’ ordered Warsop.
‘There is one.’
‘On the inside,’ said Warsop, ‘so you can keep out any unintended visitors.’
Greenidge nodded. ‘I’ll see to it right away.’ He shook hands with Rufford. Warsop only nodded goodbye.
‘I do have one last question,’ said Greenidge, as the two men headed for the door.
They turned and looked at him.
‘Are you sure there’s no one on the other side who knows we’ve got hold of this?’
Rufford looked nervously at Warsop.
‘Why do you want to know that?’ demanded Warsop.
‘Because if I can build it’, answered Greenidge, ‘I might also be able to build something which could defeat its purpose. And that’s what you really want, isn’t it? The simple fact that we might be able to duplicate the technology isn’t going to prevent it from being used against us.’
For the first time, Warsop’s scowl faltered.
‘We’re as sure as we can be that the enemy has no idea where these rocket pieces went,’ explained Rufford, ‘but that’s never one hundred per cent. The men who brought us that wreckage took extraordinary risks in doing so, but who knows if someone saw them on their journey, or if the local authorities where the rocket came down have been able to figure out what was taken from the wreck. The way things are in Germany right now, they’ve got plenty of other things to worry about. Let’s hope this stays off their radar.’
‘The sooner you get me those schematics . . .’
‘People are working on that even as we speak, Professor, but as I’m sure you can imagine, it is easier said than done.’
When the two men had gone, Greenidge turned his attention once more to the piece of wreckage. With one finger, he moved aside the tangled spider’s web of multicoloured wires and was startled when something fell out of the mechanism. It tumbled to floor, metal ringing on the concrete. Greenidge bent down and picked it up, relieved to see the solid disc of brass had not been broken by the fall. There appeared to be some writing on it, half hidden by the smear of the same mud that coated the rest of the mechanism. With the side of his thumb, he wiped the dirt away and squinted at the words, struggling to make sense of them. ‘Lotti,’ he read aloud. ‘Beste Kuh.’
Message from Christophe to Major Clarke:
Diamond Stream plans acquired.Major Clarke to Christophe:
What is Diamond Stream?Christophe to Major Clarke:
Rocket assembly. Purpose unclear but high value.Major Clarke to Christophe:
Photos?Christophe to Major Clarke:
Yes. Film is safe but not developed.Major Clarke to Christophe:
We will get you out. Monitor safe house. Follow protocol.
‘Inspector?’ whispered Major Kirov.
Pekkala was sitting at his desk. With unseeing eyes, he stared at the wall, a look of fixed intensity anchored to his face. His hands lay flat among the dusty white rings of mug stains on the woodwork of the desk, like someone who has just felt the ground shake beneath his feet.
Kirov was careful not to get too close. He had seen this phenomenon before. The Inspector was not asleep. Instead, he had travelled deep inside the catacombs of his mind, leaving behind all but the shell of his body.
When these trances overcame Pekkala, it was important to wake the man gently. Kirov had learned never to jostle him out from this state of waking dreams. The first time he had tried this, the Inspector exploded into movement and Kirov found himself staring down the barrel of Pekkala’s Webley revolver. He had drawn the weapon from its holster with a speed Kirov had never seen before in the Inspector, or in anyone else, for that matter. There had been many times since, when, in the carrying-out of their duties, Kirov had watched Pekkala unholster the Webley and, although the Inspector was quick, the pace of his conscious movements was nothing like the speed with which this savagery erupted from his self-hypnotic state.