Katrina Holz sighed. ‘I am happy that after the war, you came and found me Gunther.’
Fleischer nodded. ‘I am too, and that I had the opportunity to honour your uncle’s wish. God rest his soul.’
They picked up their wine glasses and clinked them together.
‘To us Gunther.’
‘To us Katrina, and to the work of The Onyx Cross.’
They kissed, then Fleischer put down his glass.
‘Please excuse me for a few moments my dear.’
The German businessman walked out of the room, and as he paced away, Holz turned again to the photo of her uncle Klaus, and smiling at it, silently raised her glass.
Chapter 5
Despite a sombre looking environment, the Ministry of Defence was a lively place, the Home Operations Section exceedingly so. At this time of the year, all three services were due to publicly display their military aircraft at the SBAC show, and at the summer family days, at sites around the country.
With his reading glasses poised at the end of his nose, the overhead strip lighting reflecting onto his bald head, Air Commodore Sir Alistair Higgins, sat at his desk, perusing a memo about jet engine noise over the Farnborough area. He was a large, rounded man, now in his late-fifties, and after nearly forty years in the RAF, close to retirement. As a reputable former fighter pilot during World War 2, he had knocked up a total of 88 confirmed enemy kills. The nickname ‘Hammer Higgins’ was assumed to him due to the constant firing of the cannons of his aircraft when diving on a target. After the war, Higgins had remained in the RAF, seeing service in both Palestine and Malaya. In 1960, he received a knighthood for his longevity and distinguished service, and then shortly afterwards, retired from flying duties to take up the post of Head of Overseas Operations.
During this time, civilians had been assigned to work alongside service personnel, and an incident had resulted in Higgins getting into trouble with his superiors over a young research assistant, who following an investigation by Alex Swan, then with A Section of MI5, had been exposed as a Soviet spy. On a weekly basis, she had been recording all overseas deployments of British service combat aircraft, passing them on to her London contact. Higgins, although happily married to his wife, Victoria for thirty-two years, had always been one for the ladies, and was easily lured by this girl’s charms, failing to see her true intentions. Following the incident, Swan had manipulated the top brass to be lenient with Higgins, resulting in him being moved sideways to his current position. It was now, they had become firm friends, and had remained so ever since. His new position had enabled him to be in a situation to pull a few strings, which had helped Swan with some of the cases assigned to SID.
The phone on his desk, gave out its usual internal one continuous ring and he picked it up. ‘Air Home Ops.’ The operator informed him of the caller, his face forming a broad smile. ‘Alex my boy, what gives? I only spoke with you this morning. By the way, I forgot to say that Victoria’s off to see her dear old mother, up north this weekend at her old folk’s home. Nice place though, overlooks the sea at Flamborough Head. Not too far from our golf balls on Fylingdales Moor.’ He smiled, referring to the recently erected geodesic radar scanners of Britain’s Early Warning Ballistic Missile Tracking Station, situated on the north-east coast of England.
In Wellesley Mews, Swan was sitting at his desk, holding the receiver to his ear. ‘Do I detect a sudden invite to The Furrows, Sir Alistair?’
Higgins laughed. ‘Spot on, Alex, as usual. Yes, I thought that you may be up for a bit of fishing. I want to better my Number Two here, Jeremy Danvers’s record of Browns and Rainbows, to stop all his tiresome bragging at The Brigand Club. The little upstart is just waiting to step into my shoes here, as well.’
Swan chuckled. ‘That sounds fun, I haven’t done any Fly for some time, so I may be a little bit rusty old boy.’
Higgins guffawed. ‘Oh, hogwash Alex. Once you whip a few casts, I’m sure that it will soon all come back to you. I won’t be interrupting anything with your new lady friend though, will I?’
Swan explained, Janet was travelling with John Stratton’s entourage to Paris this weekend, his secretary was on leave and something had come up requiring his MI5 team to collaborate with the French DGSI.
‘Which means of course, I am a free man, this weekend. Unlike you, I don’t make scale models of aircraft, I have listed in my flying log. Maybe a lot to do with the fact, I haven’t flown anything. So, I’m game for this weekend.’
Higgins cheered. ‘Jolly good show. Speaking of models, I am half way completed on the Brigand, I flew with 85 Squadron in Malaya. Pig of an aircraft, though the Bristol Brigand. Each time we fired the cannons into the jungle, the cockpit would fill with smoke, and when we used the HV rockets, bits of the engine would fall off, when they were fired. In fact, I lost a few of my pals to the brute. Mind you, none of us chaps actually had a clue what we were supposed to be firing at. We just relied on Intel to tell us our target, was either a convoy, or stronghold somewhere in that bloody jungle.’
Swan agreed with the Air Commodore; his days in the Signals Corps proved that ‘Intel’, was sometimes not always one hundred percent accurate. ‘That does sound like the Brigand was a bit of a handful, Sir Alistair. Anyway, I look forward to seeing it on your desk, some time.’ He took on a serious tone. ‘Now the reason why I was ringing, was to ask you if you could bring me up to date with what’s going on at Highdown, with the Black Arrow? I thought that you would be in the know, so to speak.’
Higgins raised his eyebrow. ‘Ah yes of course, the incident with that German chap. So, it sounds like you are looking into it, then?’
Swan explained that he thought that there could be a connection with a German test pilot, as he also lived in the Battersea area. ‘I have tried to contact him, but according to his landlady, he is away on business at the moment.’
Higgins sighed. ‘I see. Well, as far as I know Alex, the latest at Highdown, is that the Black Arrow tests are proceeding, and a test firing is due to take place sometime this weekend. The project is a bit shaky though, the government are keeping a close eye on the costs and feasibility of it. We haven’t got the same money as the Yanks with their Apollo programme you know, or the Russians with their Moon rocket for that matter.’
Swan smiled. ‘I think we’ve been here before, haven’t we?’
‘We most certainly have my boy, with the Silver Angel.’
Swan thanked Higgins for his help, and confirmed the weekend.
At the Highdown rocket site, Ron Hallett looked out at the Solent, as he stood at the foot of Gantry 2, with his deputy chief engineer Kevin Powell.
Originally called The Needles Battery, the site was established during the Napoleonic War, surviving right through until the end of World War 2, and with rocket technology at the forefront of the allies’ post war repertoire, the Ministry of Supply had been keen to have a designated location to develop the British rocket programme. The experiments involved High Test Peroxide (HTP), a highly volatile fuel, which had been invented by the Nazis for use in both their rocket interceptor aircraft and missiles. An alternative site to Highdown, was proposed on the Norfolk coast and was close to being approved, until a memo fell across the desk of the Home Secretary, stating that rogue rockets could rain down on the natural gas and oil rigs plotted in the North Sea. This then sealed the decision to opt for the Isle of Wight, as the most logical choice for ground testing, before the disassembled rockets would be airlifted by Bristol Super Freighter transport aircraft, to the designated Australian outback launch site, at the vast Woomera Range, near Adelaide.