“They’ll never know until I’m over the Atlantic… will they, Sam?”
Rossiter could see his friend drawing himself up to his full six foot four height.
“Not from my lips, Howard. I’ll get back to you as soon as things are clearer, and with the details for your advance party.|”
As was his way, Howard replaced the receiver without another word and rushed from the office.
On his way to his normal thinking place, he encountered Joe Petrali, one of his dedicated team of engineers.
“You got anything planned for a week or two, Joe.”
“No, Sir. Wife wants me to go up and see her nephew ride. Apparently he’s a nail on for next season’s National Board Track Championship.”
Joe Petrali was a biker through and through, and was still holder of the bike speed record of 136.183 mph, set at Daytona Beach in 1937.
“I want you to be elsewhere… need you to be elsewhere. You up for a challenge, Joe?”
Not the thing to say to a biker head who had triumphed at every discipline his beloved bikes could throw at him.
“What sort of challenge, Sir?”
He followed his boss’ eyes as the words tripped gently into his ears.
“That sort of challenge.”
The Lumberyard…
Officially known as the Hughes H-4 Hercules, but more often called the Spruce Goose.
“What?”
“Keep it under yer hat, Joe. I need you to pick a couple of guys and go ahead of us… advance party. Need to know where they want us to go first’s fit for our purpose.”
“Where we going, Sir? San Diego? Cisco? Tijuana?”
The final destination was delivered with an American version of a Mexican lilt.
Howard grinned from ear to ear.
“Cyprus.”
“Cypress?”
“No. Cyprus.”
“Cyprus… like Mediterranean Cyprus?”
“Paphos to be exact.”
“No way we get there, even with the fuel mods. Gotta be two stops easily.”
“Fuelling we can do en route, but I need an advance party to check out the base. We’ll need to service her. You confident on the revised range figures?”
“I’ll run them again, but I know I’m right. With the modifications we can achieve four thousand for certain, maybe four-two with a little effort, but I’m promising only four with weight to specification A. Anything over that and it’ll come down obviously.”
“That’ll be enough, Joe. Now… pick your crew, gather your stuff… enough for two weeks in the saddle, and get back here within two hours. Tell the good woman it’s all my fault, ok?”
“Yes, Sir, Mr Hughes, Sir.”
2000 hrs, Sunday, 23rd March 1947, NATO Headquarters, Leipzig, Germany.
“I hear you threatened my staff, General Rossiter.”
“That I did, Sir. They were protective of your time, but I couldn’t stand for that bullshit… not today, Sir.”
Patton bent the riding crop between his hands.
“That bullshit keeps me sane so don’t do it again. Clear? My boys work damned hard on keeping things on an even keel. Now, what’s got you all hot and bothered, Sam?”
Patton continued to flex his crop as he listened to the story unfold, complete with the very latest assessments from Jenkins and her team of magicians.
There was no doubt whatsoever that there was a secret facility underneath Camp 1001, one that the Soviets were at great pains to hide.
It was also clear that, were it ever discovered, the act of bombing it would hold no guarantees, save for the inflicting of massive casualties on the Allied prisoners held in the camp above it.
“Shit. You absolutely sure of this, Sam?”
“We’ve tracked all across Europe following leads, and just got the big break. Everything comes together to point to this place as the facility we’ve been looking for, Sir.”
Patton examined the map in greater detail.
“It’s within range of our bombers but, as you say, a lot of our boys would die if we did… and without guarantees that we’d hit the right place… or even that we’d destroyed everything we need to destroy.”
“There’s an alternative that I’m looking at, Sir. I’ve set some pieces in motion, as we’re clearly on a timed operation here. Nothing that can’t be reversed, of course. The whole operation would need presidential approval.
“Presidential approval? You mean… of course that’s what you mean. Right… gimme what you’ve got.”
Rossiter made his pitch and Patton listened in silence as the assets were named, and their intended part revealed.
Group Steel.
SOE’s Ukrainians.
The Spruce Goose.
Composite Group 663.
40th Transportstaffel, DRL.
There would be others, involved on the peripheries, but the actual plan involved units that Sam Rossiter had already slotted into his developing plan.
“Give me an alternative, Sam.”
“There’s none that I can see, General.”
“You know some politician is gonna suggest we just bomb it, don’t you?”
“I sure hope not, General.”
“They will, but it won’t happen. Not on my goddamned watch it won’t!”
“Grab some coffee while I have another look at this.”
Rossiter did so methodically and slowly, taking the time to bring himself down off the high he had worked himself to during the presentation.
He passed Patton a steaming mug and received a mumbled acknowledgement from the concentrating man.
“Cyprus… why Cyprus?”
“No great enemy network identified. The Kingdom of Iraq would be closer, but the presence of the Goose would draw attention, and we know that the NKVD and GRU have a lot of people on the ground. Better chance of containing the information on Cyprus. We fly the mission from there, confuse enemy monitoring with lots of aggressive flights in the area, and sneak the Goose in. although we may have to stage in the Kingdom for fuel if nothing else. We’ll see how the planning goes on that score.”
“OK, Sam. And 663… staged outta Shaibah? What’s Shaibah, wherever the goddamned hell that is?”
“It’s a modest unimportant airfield in the Kingdom, Sir. Not used for anything much but aircraft maintenance at the moment. Used to be a big training facility… BOAC stop over… all sorts. However, one of my staff pointed out that it’s recently been extended to serve as an emergency strip for any B-29s that have technical difficulties. Seemed too good an opportunity to pass over.”
“But the 29s have long legs, Sam. Why from Persia?”
“Easier route, Sir. We could fly in from Europe, but not from their present base, so I figured if we had to relocate then why not go the whole hog and get them in and out with least difficulty.”
“Yep… I can see that… I like that. Seems like you’re on top of things, Sam.”
Rossiter acknowledged the compliment with a gentle nod.
“One last thing, Sam. If I’m gonna sell this to the President, I need to know a little more. You say we can get in and take their secrets, and also know what it is we’re about to destroy. Maybe snatch a few scientists and the like. I can see that. We can stop the Soviets deploying a bomb… if they haven’t already, of course. But what about the boys in the camp? A lot of them are gonna die.”
“Yes, Sir, a lot of them are going to die, but we’ll give them a fighting chance and, simply put, we can’t afford not to. Like you said, the alternative is simply to bomb… and that’ll mean we kill them all and have no idea what we’ve achieved at the same time. I see this as the only way… unless some genius can come up with a better solution in the time available, Sir.”
Patton considered his General’s words and made a decision.