“Yes, you did. These were not considered of sufficient quality to have been included in the original submission, neither did they appear to contain anything not covered elsewhere in the original briefing documents.”
“But they obviously do, or you wouldn’t be here, eh?”
“What do you see, General Strong?”
“Big bloody tanks… big bloody bombs… and some…”
“The bombs, Herr General.”
Strong concentrated.
“Big blighters, like I said. I assume the technical people have run up some numbers?”
“I suspect not, as I regret that there were no pictures of these bombs in the original submission, Herr General. Otherwise, I would have been in your office many weeks ago.”
Strong screwed his eyes up, trying to make a deeper appreciation of the grainy photographs.
“Allow me to show you another photograph set, Herr General.”
Four more pictures were laid out, photos of excellent quality, precise and defined, showing a large bomb.
“Hmm… I’ll warrant that these weren’t taken in Moscow in May.”
“You are correct, Herr General. They were taken at the Karup air base in Denmark on 12th December.”
Gehlen left it all hanging in the air and waited for Strong to put it all together.
“They look the same… admittedly these Moscow ones are a trifle fuzzy, but I think… and clearly you think… they’re the same, or at least born of the same bitch.”
The German intelligence officer could only nod.
NATO’s Intelligence Chief had a bell ringing in the back of his brain.
“Karup?”
He had been thinking more of the photos than of Gehlen’s words, but the name suddenly shouted loudly enough to be heard, despite his concentration.
Strong searched his mind and found the answer in a second.
“Bloody hell! Karup!”
“You understand the problem, Herr General.”
“Karup. Where the special unit is based.”
“Yes.”
“But the special unit has only recently formed there…”
“Yes… but…”
“But the advance units have been there for ages.”
“Yes, Herr General. The base was adapted in anticipation last year.”
Strong returned to the two sets of photos.
He knew no weapon had been deployed to Europe as yet… and wondered if the intelligence officer opposite him knew too.
Examining the Red Square photos again, the British officer posed the only question that really mattered.
“So what the merry hell are these?”
“The Karup unit started using weapons called Pumpkin bombs, which have the same size and ballistic characteristics… so I am told.”
Which roughly meant, German Intelligence has someone within the unit who supplied that very information.
“A B-29 bomber went missing in December last year… the 13th to be precise. Nothing overly remarkable, save the regrettable loss of life involved. It was on a Pumpkin test-bombing mission in the southern Baltic. I think we now know where it went.”
“It came down in Russia?”
“It most certainly would seem so, Herr General, for I suspect these items paraded in Moscow are copies of the exact same Pumpkin bomb shown in the photos from Karup.”
The two locked eyes and the possibilities flowed silently back and forth.
Strong gave voice to their fears.
“Copies…”
Gehlen played his silent game, allowing Strong to finish his own bombshell thought.
“Or are they something more?”
Gehlen stood.
“That, General Strong, is something our agencies need to find out very, very quickly.”
0101 hrs, Tuesday, 20th August 1946, two kilometres northwest of Ksar es Seghir, Morocco.
“Hai.”
The distant voice half-whispered a response in a strained tone, such was the tension throughout the submarine.
Adding an extra knot of speed gave Commander Nanbu Nobukiyo more opportunity to control his passage, the strong current having dragged the huge submarine a little closer to the Moroccan shore than intended.
“Up periscope.”
The gentle hiss caused by the extending tube was the loudest sound in the submarine, and drew more than one tense crewman’s attention.
Nobukiyo aimed the periscope at the lights of the Spanish town of Tarifa.
He found the flashing navigation light that marked the promontory.
“Jinyo… bearing one… mark.”
First officer Jinyo made a note of the bearing and checked the ship’s clock.
The periscope swivelled nearly ninety degrees towards the Moroccan village of Eddalya, a normally sleepy place that tonight was decidedly wide-awake.
The illuminations were courtesy of two men who were handsomely paid to light a beacon of celebration on the seashore, ostensibly to hail the formation of the Moroccan Democratic Party for Independence but, in actuality, to provide a navigational point of reference for the passage of some vessels of interest to the Soviet Union.
I-401, Nobukiyo’s craft, was second in line, the procession of four vessels led by I-1, with I-14 bring up the tail, sandwiching the two huge Sen-Tokus.
Nobukiyo easily found the fiery beacon.
“Bearing two… mark.”
Jinyo moved to the navigation table and handed the two bearings and times to the navigation officer.
Within seconds, the map showed two intersecting pencil lines, marking I-401’s present position.
“As it should be, Commander.”
“Time to turn?”
Jinyo checked the navigator’s work.
“Three minutes, Commander.”
“Up periscope.”
After ninety seconds, Nobukiyo repeated the process of getting bearings.
He took another quick sweep round and saw nothing that troubled him.
“Down periscope.”
“We’ve drifted south, commander.”
“Increase speed by two knots… recalculate.”
The two senior officers exchanged looks as the navigator worked confidently with his map and slide rule.
“Jinyo… depth is approximately three hundred and sixty metres here, yes?”
“Yes, Commander.”
The navigator interrupted.
“Fifty seconds to turn, Commander.”
Nobukiyo grunted by way of reply.
The clock slowly made its way to the appropriate point.
“Lieutenant Dosan. New heading?”
The navigator never looked up from his table.
“Zero-eight-eight, Commander.”
“Come to starboard. Steer course zero-eight-eight. Make our depth one hundred and thirty metres.”
The orders were repeated, and the huge submarine turned and dropped further into the waters where the Atlantic and Mediterranean mixed.
Nobukiyo thought about the other submarines breaking through the straight at the same time, and of yet others ships, vital to the plan, many miles behind them.
Still out in the Atlantic were the support ships I-353 and the Bogata Maru, the latter now returned to the original German look as the German freighter Bogata, although Japanese crew managed her, and the submarine tender modifications were retained.
Bogata had been anchored on the protected east side of the island of Deserta Grande, one of the Madeira Islands.
Beneath her keel, I-353 lay on the bottom by day, surfacing by night, waiting until other arrangements could be brought to fruition.
A boring but vital duty, broken by excursions to a small hidden base ashore for those not required to act as a skeleton crew to dive and resurface the boat.
Close behind them were the Nachi Maru and Tsukushi Maru, two submarine tenders under Allied orders, and laden with returning prisoners of war and modest wares for trade, were ready to do their part when needed.