Gable shook his head. ‘And there was me thinking the Onyx Cross, are just a small club of disgruntled ex-Nazis, who managed to escape the nooses at Nuremberg, and now want to get their own back.’
Swan chuckled. ‘No, Arthur, they seem to want much more. Their operation spans the Atlantic, and I guess that these chaps must have been in place, since the end of the war, to see out their plan.’ He sighed. ‘Well, at least we now know what Herr Gunther Fleischer looks like.’ He gestured to the copy of the photograph that had been obtained from the house, recently pinned to the blackboard. Swan looked at his watch. ‘In about an hour, Bruno and his boys, will be raiding Fleischer’s business premises. He suspects that the place was financed, using old Nazi blood money.’ He referred to the blackboard. ‘But, we still do not know, what this Eagle is and more to the point, when it is expected to fall.’
At the same time, high above the earth, and now 98 hours into the flight, the separation of the other stages had been successful, and with Apollo 10 now holding in correct orbit, translunar injection to the Moon commenced.
Twenty-five minutes later, the Command Service Module, call sign, Charlie Brown, separated from the Lunar Module call sign Snoopy, for transposition. Then after successful docking, the two spacecrafts in situ at the top of the final stage, were now ready for the process known as Lunar Orbit Insertion; the long journey into lunar orbit, and for the first time, live colour TV transmissions were beamed back to Earth.
During the flight, a few minor problems had occurred, and although simply rectified, were recorded should they re-occur in the important space mission that was to follow. Weisemann’s tampering with the Lunar Module’s guidance system had been overcome.
Astronaut Eugene Cernan then looked out the porthole of the CSM. They had finally reached the Moon, and entered Lunar Orbit. Cernan and Mission Commander Thomas Stafford, shook hands with John Young, then climbed into Snoopy for its separation from Charlie Brown. With a live hook up with Mission Control, Young announced, Snoopy had separated, and was in the first phase of Trans Lunar Insertion; the process that would now see the Lunar Module make its descent towards the cratered surface, overflying The Sea of Tranquillity, the designated landing area for Apollo 11.
To simulate the future craft, Cernan fired the descent engine for the correct amount of time required, and at a height of 12 miles above the lunar surface, Snoopy then passed over the proposed landing site, taking detailed pictures with the two astronauts plotting points on a map and recording co-ordinates. Snoopy’s landing gear was then tested for altitude functions, providing the astronauts with useful data on both the ‘High Gate’ and ‘Low Gate’ configurations to be used in the Apollo 11 landing. With all these checks completed, Cernan put Snoopy into a series of rolls and pitches, then, it was time to jettison the descent stage of the spacecraft.
Cernan pressed a button on his console and after failing on the first attempt, it moved away on the second. Again, Weisemann’s work had been countermanded.
Suddenly, the Ascent Stage started to gyrate violently. Cernan kept his cool and slowly eased it, so it became stable again.
Stafford spoke into the microphone, informing of the incident and its aftermath. The conclusion to the uncontrollable gyration, had been attributed to an error in the flight-plan, which had caused an incorrect switch position, and nothing to do with the work of the Onyx Cross. At forty-eight miles from the surface, Stafford sighted the running lights of Charlie Brown, hailing in the microphone to Young.
Snoopy then entered intercept trajectory, and on the first attempt, Station Keeping was achieved; the two-craft having successfully re-docked. Now 106 hours into the mission, the Ascent Stage of the Lunar Module was jettisoned, and Apollo 10 was now on its way home.
On their return journey, the three astronauts had decided among themselves to accomplish another of the series of ‘firsts’ in space. Feeling tired and dirty from having spent numerous hours floating around in small compartments, they took hold of their soap and razors and began to shave.
The next day after re-entering Earth atmosphere, the three striped parachutes were clearly seen above the capsule, from sailors on the decks of the rendezvous ships of the US Navy, as it descended for splashdown.
The dress rehearsal mission for the Moon landing, was over, and as the craft hit the rising waves of the Eastern Pacific, in Cape Canaveral, the Saturn V rocket of Apollo 11 was already standing poised on Launch Pad 39A, in final preparation to put the first human beings onto the planet’s only natural satellite.
The next day at RAF Manston on the English Kent coastal area, known as The Isle of Thanet, a blue BMW 2000 saloon, veered onto a remote dispersal area and parked in front of a small transport aircraft. Verdi Epstein and Rudi Lutz got out, and moved to the boot of the car. After opening it, they took hold of the unconscious Ernst Hoffenberg’s bound legs, and arms, lifting him down onto the floor.
On route from his residence in Mayfair, he had been apprehended at gunpoint, then forcibly bundled into the vehicle, where he was injected with a sedative; it had then only taken a few seconds for him to slump back into the back seat.
At a desolate off-road parking area near Faversham, the BND men had tied and gagged him, placing him in the boot. They had feared that the light anaesthetic, may have worn off by the time they reached the base, but to their surprise and good fortune, found Hoffenberg to be still under the drug’s influence.
They were met by the crew of the plane and the group of men transported the suited bulk on board. As they hoisted him in, one of his shoes came off and rolled under the aircraft’s fuselage. Lutz reached down to retrieve it, and threw it inside. Hitting the West German Air Attaché’s chest, he jolted awake, eyes widening at his current situation. He tried to speak through the silver duct tape across his mouth, the amplified mumbles, falling on deaf ears. He was on the floor of the cargo bay of a Luftwaffe marked Dornier DO-28D Skyservant. The twin engine short take-off and landing transport plane was still being evaluated for military use, carrying out long range test flights across the North Sea and English Channel, visiting both RAF and USAF establishments, on the British mainland.
Hoffenberg glanced up at the agents with fire in his eyes. Epstein crouched down and gently tapped the man on the side of his face, sneering menacingly. ‘Rumour has it my friend, that you have been a very bad man.’
The two 180 hp, Lycoming engines, roared into life, the pilot having been given clearance to take off.
Inside the aircraft, Hoffenberg felt every bump and vibration, as the plane moved along the taxiway, out to the 9000 ft runway. Then demonstrating its ability to take off from short remote strips, the Skyservant climbed at a 45-degree angle into the darkening Kentish sky, bound for Mendig Air Base, situated to the south of the West German capital.
Chapter 40
Ron Hallet fanned himself with an Australian newspaper, as he looked at the map of the Woomera Ranges on the wall of the humid control hut. With the populated area of the British Isles proving impractical to test rockets and missiles, a joint agreement with the Australian government for a suitable alternative site in this remote location, had been established in 1946. Since then, the UK had made extensive use of this facility with their testing of stand-off air and ground launched rockets, HE bombs and warhead-carrying ICBMs. Another use for the site, had been for the development of the UKs own space projects. Following cancellation of the Blue Streak programme, Britain had decided that the technology used in the missile, would provide a perfect platform for a space vehicle to launch satellites, and after extensive testing at Highdown, the British Rocket Establishment had then transported the rockets by ship or cargo plane to Woomera, where launches into the atmosphere, could take place with minimal risk to towns and cities.