Some of the conventional German fighters had been modified to allow them much more time to wreak havoc over England. ME 109s with modified propellers, drop tanks, and even a few with DKM-type rotary engines had been shot down and recovered. Some carried primitive radar-seeking missiles.
In reply, Spitfires with mods designed by her own engineers had climbed into the air to meet them. Bomber Command sent waves of B-17s and Lancasters across the Channel to rain high explosives down on the staging ports and airfields of northern France. Radar-controlled triple-A raked them from the sky.
Halabi had slept four hours in the last thirty-six. Thank God for stims. The Trident remained poised to deliver Prince Harry and his commandos to Norway, but they hadn't moved away from the Solent, waiting while London tried to decide whether or not to scrub the mission.
It seemed to her that the stealth cruiser was needed more right here, to help coordinate the immediate defense of the realm. Sixteen newcomers had invaded her CIC. Top brass from the Admiralty, the RAF, and General Staff, all of them blundering about, getting underfoot, and generally hampering the very effort they had come to "supervise."
She was just about to ask a knighted rear admiral to get his fat arse out of her way when the intel section reported incoming traffic, for her eyes only.
"To my viewscreen, then, Mr. Howard."
"Right you are, ma'am."
It was a short text message from a skin job. Muller.
Target Brasch acquired. Claims to have delivered data by encrypted subroutine in the last twenty-four hours. Please advise.
Halabi had to call up his mission profile, and that required her DNA key for access. She placed her palm on the reader and waited for the ship's Combat Intelligence to unlock the data.
"Access granted," said Posh.
"What the hell's going on here," asked an air vice marshal.
Halabi couldn't remember his name. She held up one hand to silence him while she skimmed the mission brief.
"Don't you wave me away, young lady!" he blustered. "I've got every fighter wing in the country up there right now. If the fat's in the fire, I need to know."
"Mr. McTeale," she called out, trying to concentrate on the screen in front of her.
Her executive officer appeared at the shoulder of the RAF man. "The captain is extremely busy, sir. Please step away from her station."
Halabi typed out a quick reply to Muller.
Transmission confirmed. Stand by.
"Mr. Howard, to the ops room, please."
As her intelligence boss left his station, McTeale struggled briefly with the RAF officer. Air Vice Marshal Simon Caterson, she now recalled-a bit of a prat with an irritating habit of holding forth on all manner of topics, whether he knew anything about them or not.
"Air Vice Marshal, you will restrain yourself, or I will have Mr. McTeale turn you over to the SAS lads, to use as a practice dummy. They broke their last one."
With that, she headed for ops. She was certain she heard Caterson say, "Wretched woman," as she left.
Howard joined her there, a few steps down the corridor in the central hull. It was a smaller version of the CIC, with backups for many of the same systems. It was also mercifully free of 'temps.
"You're familiar with the Muller jacket, Mr. Howard?"
He nodded. Howard was responsible for tracking all the skin jobs on their bionet. Thirteen in all. "He was going after an engineer. One of the brighter kiddies."
"Well, he found him," said Halabi. "And this guy claims to be our secret admirer from yesterday. Do you think it's possible?"
"Brasch?" The lieutenant commander thought it over. "It's definitely possible. The project data we received matches up with his AOR. But it matches a couple of others, too."
"How many?"
"Two. An admiral in the Kriegsmarine, and a Luftwaffe colonel."
"What're Muller's mission specs?" she asked.
"Quick and dirty. A hostile debrief, followed by Sanction Two."
"Really?" said Halabi. "I thought Muller was a pilot. He's not really trained for that sort of business, is he?"
"Jacket says he volunteered. He's a Jerry. Figured he'd fit right in."
Halabi, who had an intimate understanding of cultural dislocation, doubted that, but she didn't have time to debate the point.
"Excuse me, ma'am," the comm operator called over, interrupting the discussion. "Eyes only again, for you."
Halabi took the message on the nearest screen. She had a feeling it was Muller again.
She was right. It was a one-line message, but it cut through the Rubik's Cube of possibilities she'd just been playing with.
Brasch requests extraction.
"Better get the War Ministry for me," she told her comm officer.
"Captain! We have incoming. Sorry, no, we don't. London does."
"What do you mean?" she asked. "More jets."
"No, ma'am. Missiles. Cruise missiles."
30
These were the finest men Aryan blood had to offer, and he was immensely proud of them. There were only eight of them, two units of four men each, something they had learned from England's much-vaunted Special Air Service. The SS wasn't so arrogant as its opponents imagined. It was more than willing to adapt and improve upon their ideas. But if they wanted to think of his troops as mindless automatons, then let them.
He would laugh on their graves.
It felt strange, however, to be standing in front of an American aeroplane-a Douglas Dakota, they called it, captured in North Africa. Stranger still to be addressing men dressed in the uniforms of the enemy.
As the moment finally arrived, and Operation Sea Dragon began to unfold, Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler could have been at the missile base in Donzenac, or with his new airborne regiment at Zaandam. These eight men, however, were about to embark on a personal odyssey entirely of his own design. They were going to drive a dagger into the heart of England, and so he had chosen to join them on a small, nameless airfield at the edge of the North Sea.
Three of them spoke English perfectly; most of the others with a slight accent, hence the uniforms, which identified them as Free Polish forces. Englanders thought of all Europeans as essentially the same. Wogs or wops or some such insulting nonsense. That ill-considered sense of superiority would cost them dearly over the next few days.
Only Colonel Skorzeny, the commander of the group, would proceed without a thorough mastery of English. But he was the one man Himmler knew he could trust with a job like this. Given the need, he would walk through mountains if they stood in his way. The Reichsfuhrer's only regret was that he wouldn't personally get to watch as Skorzeny completed his mission. But if the colonel survived, he would entertain everyone at the Wolfschanze with his vivid tales of the adventure.
The giant storm trooper, who was dressed as a simple corporal, stomped up and down in front of his men as they stood in line like carven marble statues. "So who amongst you will slaughter this fat pig for the fuhrer?" he roared at them.
"I will, sir!" they all chorused in return.
"No," he boomed back, laughing like an elder God. "I will choke the life out of him, and you shall do nothing more than gather around to slap me on the back, and tell me what a fine fellow I am. Are we understood?"
"Jawohl, Herr Korporal!"
Skorzeny seemed to find that immensely funny, and another gale of his rich laughter peeled away into the night sky. It was uncomfortably chilly on the runway, which had been carved out of an ancient birch forest high above the waters of the Skagerrak, and Himmler wrapped himself more deeply into his greatcoat. He would never share the bond Skorzeny had with these men, the easy familiarity they had with each other and with the likelihood of their own deaths. But he could appreciate their camaraderie, and even Skorzeny's high spirits.