Ormrekov patted Muller’s arm, then backed away from him, his head bowed in shame. Muller turned on his heel and walked towards the exit. Once through the heavy green iron door, he smiled, suddenly feeling a momentous elation.
Thirteen days had then passed. In this time, Dieter Muller had gone to the baker’s shop on many occasions, but had been unsuccessful in contacting Merlin.
Muller realised, with the failure of the N1, he would quietly move on and remain at his post, until he regained contact with his Onyx Cross leader, and his next assignment in the continuous disruption to the Soviet space programme.
At Cape Canaveral, the three Apollo astronauts were now in quarantine. With just five days to go, before they would step out in their spacesuits for their pioneering mission, they played cards and watched TV.
Outside of their germ-free accommodation, reporters hounded the astronauts’ wives’ and children, hoping to catch the moments, before their husbands would finally have the opportunity, to make history; while on Launch Pad 39a, the vehicle that would help them achieve this, the mighty white Saturn V rocket, waited patiently for her crew.
Chapter 41
Janet Ross smiled sweetly at the young mother, kneeling next to her toddler son beside the lake, in Regents Park.
The mother broke off pieces of bread from the slice, and handed them to him one by one, and with the mightiest throw his little arm could muster, hurled them into the water. One of the ducks had scrambled towards the ripples in time to dip and retrieve the tasty morsel. The boy laughed, as it raised its neck to swallow the piece straight down, while at the same time, fending off the rivals, who were also after his treat.
Ross smiled. The pleasant scene in front of her, had suddenly allowed her to have thoughts of her own childhood, and the duck pond in her family garden.
Born in 1928, she had been named Janet, after the famous Hollywood silent film actress, Janet Gaynor, who in that same year, had become the first actress to win an Oscar for three motion pictures. Janet Ross’s father was a civil servant at the Foreign Office, and her mother a midwife at the local hospital, near the family home in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire. As a young girl, Janet enjoyed the family walks alongside the River Lea, and the times when she would go along with her older brother, Christopher, to go fishing in that tributary of the River Thames. She suddenly had thoughts of her brother. It was 1939, and the clouds of war had descended.
At only 11 years old, Janet had been evacuated to her aunt in rural Shropshire, however, her brother, who was nineteen, had been called up. Later in the war, he was selected to train for Churchill’s secret army, the Special Operations Executive, and following his intense integration into this elite unit of men and women vital to the war effort, Christopher had been assigned his first mission to work alongside a force of French Resistance fighters.
Janet had obtained a copy of the report on Operation Trebuchet.
It was 3rd June 1944, and an Allied invasion was imminent. Operation Trebuchet, was a special mission to sabotage a Krupp K-5 railgun in the Par de Calais area. Given the pet name of Ludwig by the Germans, this huge deadly machine was situated at a site, part of the mighty Atlantic Wall Defences; the awesome weapon, was proving to be a lethal threat to Allied shipping, and therefore had to be silenced.
However, Trebuchet had another purpose. For a few months, the German High Command in Berlin, had expected the imminent invasion, to be at Calais, and its surrounding beaches. A sabotage of such an important piece of hardware in this area, would only reinforce these suspicions, causing the Germans to concentrate their efforts of defending the region, while the real invasion force, would head for Normandy.
At just before ten o’clock on the evening of June 3rd, Lieutenant Christopher Ross, was taken from his training establishment, and set down at an American advanced landing ground, at High Halden, a small village just outside the Kent market town of Ashford. There, he climbed into the rear cockpit of the all black, high winged Westland Lysander special operations aircraft, where he was taken over the channel, to a field at Sangatte, just south of Calais. The field had been lined with determined Frenchmen, from the resistance, holding small hand-held oil lamps. The pilot set the sluggish, but versatile little plane down, and kept the engine idling, while his passenger climbed out, carrying his Sten machine gun and shoulder bag of explosive charges.
Christopher was taken to a nearby farmhouse and given a meal of French onion soup and bread. Then, at 3 am, they headed out towards the heavily fortified bunker, situated a few miles to the coast. During the day, the railgun itself, had been brought out of its underground, shell-proof hiding for maintenance, creating a perfect opportunity for it to be destroyed. Christopher and his new friends, had stealthily approached the site. Due to hit and run attacks from USAAF P-47D Thunderbolts of the 358th Fighter Squadron, also from High Halden, the large, usually bright floodlights, normally illuminating the site, had been switched off. The attack force had waited, peering over a ridge. Below them in the gully, a few guards of the Wehrmacht, had paced up and down, keeping a watchful eye.
As a guard walked over his own jackbooted footsteps, one of the French fighters, had snuck behind him and silently brought him to the ground with his seven inches of hand held sharp steel.
The other guards had not noticed this slick, stealthy move, and continued with their patrol to the other side of the site, away from the railgun. The way was now clear.
Moving slowly in single file, Christopher had led the team towards the colossal multiple bogie mounted leviathan, clambered aboard it and headed for the breach of the long 71ft barrel. He was carefully setting the charges, when shouting was heard across, and to the left of them. An engineer had exited the hut to relieve himself, when he had spied movement on the gun platform. He ran quickly back to the hut, and raised an alarm. A few seconds later, a siren shrilled through the complex, breaking the peaceful sound of the warm night. The floodlights came on, bathing the saboteurs in a pool of brilliant white light. Gunfire then followed, as a two-man Spandau machine gun team, opened up at them. Two of Christopher’s team, caught direct fatal hits in the chest. A platoon of soldiers, then ran towards the railgun and Christopher fired back with his Sten. The lead German had fallen to the ground; the others had continued. Suddenly, Christopher had felt a sharp pain in his right shoulder, followed by another in his lower left arm. Another bullet had bounced off the metal casing of the gun, close to his head. He had moved quickly and reached into his bag for a detonator fuse, and with two sharp movements, lit the long, cordite-soaked cord. Another bullet had smashed into his knee, and he had gone down, falling to the floor. The fuse was still in his hand. As another German round had entered his back, he lit the stick, and held it against one of the charges. More rounds had ricocheted around him, but the dancing flame of the fuse continued.
Then, as it touched the explosive, he closed his eyes, thinking of his little sister showing him the first fish she had caught.
A mighty explosion had followed, and the breach had splintered into fragments. The massive gun barrel itself, had rolled off the platform and onto the ground. Despite the casualties, Operation Trebuchet had been accomplished. On the return to her home after the war, Janet had been told of how brave her brother had been and as she held his posthumously awarded Victoria Cross at his memorial, she vowed to one day be as brave as he was, and maybe even join the secret force of which her sibling had been a part, which after the war had been moulder into MI6.