Without taking his eyes from it, he lifted the receiver and spoke briefly to his secretary, summoning one of his officers.
Eight minutes later, Vögel was admitted to the room.
“Ah Vögel. We have the information. Here.”
Pflug-Hartnung slid the original paper across the desk and it was immediately swept up by the Abwehr’s premier hatchet man.
The piercingly intense eyes drank in every detail, assigning each piece of the itinerary a marking of ‘no’, ‘yes’, or ‘maybe’.
There were many no’s… two maybes… and two yesses.
“Your thoughts, Vögel?”
“Two opportunities, Sir. Friday looks best to me. More time to plan and get organised.”
“Really? I would have thought Wednesday would have been better.”
Vögel re-examined the itinerary.
“Understand what you mean, Sir. But I think not. Too many people about… too many armed personnel who would be alert. Friday will be best.”
“And the other two named?”
“Not known to me, Sir. If they’re not known to you either, I can suggest we don’t need to worry.”
“A fair point. I’ll leave it up to you, Vögel, but…”
He leant forward to emphasise his point.
“…it’s absolutely essential that we’re not associated with this in any way. There must be no comeback against us whatsoever… do I make myself clear, Maior?”
“Yes, Herr Generalmaior. It shall be so.”
“An aircraft. I assume you mean to use a bomb?”
“I may well do, Sir, but with some subtlety of course. Aircraft crash all the time. This one will simply carry someone important.”
“Advise me when you are ready to proceed. I’ll obtain the necessary authorisation. We need codewords…”
“If I might suggest, Sir?”
“Please. Go on.”
Vögel, ever conscious of gaining favour with his masters, selected words of meaning to his superior, who was formerly of the Kriegsmarine.
“For stopping the mission, Falklands.”
Pflug-Hartnung stared at his man.
“For holding the mission, Jutland.”
He understood where his man was going and completed the trio of code words.
“And for proceed, Coronel?”
“Yes indeed, Herr Generalmaior.”
“Excellent. And the other matter?”
“Much easier, Sir. A simple robbery. There’ll be a small delay as nature takes her course, but it’ll be done without problems.”
“Excellent, Vögel. Get them done efficiently and I think I can find you a different office.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
Promotion was only a small part of Vögel’s motivation, but he accepted the offer with good grace.
He left the room without another word as Pflug-Hartnung consider the choice of code words.
Victory, followed by defeat, followed by a draw.
Named for naval engagements, the Falklands was a decisive defeat for the Imperial Navy, and Jutland had been a bloody draw.
Coronel had been a glorious win.
It had come first, the 1st November 1914 if his memory served, but Von Spee and his armoured cruisers, having smashed the British at Coronel, paid the ultimate price just over a month later when, on 8th December, they were destroyed at the Falklands, with only Dresden and Seydlitz surviving.
There was a delicious irony in the selection that was not wasted on him, an old sailor from the Kaiser’s navy
The Dresden had later been cornered and sunk by British warships, acting in violation of Chilean national waters.
The captain had tried to preserve his vessel by sending a negotiator to the British, a man Pflug-Hartnung had known and admired.
That man was Wilhelm Canaris, former head of the Abwehr, then an Oberleutnant zur See.
The same Wilhelm Canaris who was rumoured, during his numerous trips to Spain, to have met Allied contemporaries such as Stuart Menzies of MI-6, William Donovan of the OSS, and Kenneth Strong, then Deputy Intelligence chief for the Allied Armies in Europe.
He mentally doffed his hat to his old friend and wondered if he would support the present course of action.
‘Not a hope. You were always too much of an idealist, Wilhelm. An honourable man for sure, but not capable of sacrificing for the common good, or for the glory of the Fatherland. Now’s the time for strong and decisive men to act… and act we will.’
Horst Gustav Friedrich von Pflug-Hartnung stood and tidied his desk, ill at ease with his final thoughts.
‘All that’s needed after that is a sieg heil’
The phone rang, dragging him back into the real world.
2204 hrs, Monday, 10th March 1947, the Straits of Gibraltar.
It was an unusually busy night for the officers and men of the vessels monitoring the route from the Mediterranean into the Atlantic, or vice versa.
Usually they could expect no more than ten vessels at one time, something that peace now permitted, and also travelling at night with full lights on, something that would probably have brought instant death in the bloody days of 39 to 45.
This night there were, not including naval vessels, some thirty-one vessels in or approaching the Straits.
It was still a peaceful night, although death was abroad and riding the waves, by design, not by accident.
The Bogata, a German freighter, fired a distress flare and the radio crackled into life with warnings of broken steering.
The monitoring station ashore passed word to the Straits controller, who had already noted the flares and heard the distress messages.
Seemingly oblivious to the out-of-control freighter was the hospital ship, Hikawa Maru 2, a well-known sight in Gibraltan waters, constantly plying back and forth between Africa and Europe with refugees and casualties.
The radio howled more warnings, as the German captain declared he was carrying old submarine munitions.
Ashore, the admiral in charge sent a clear warning to all vessels in the area.
“All stations, all stations. Clear the channel, repeat, clear the channel. Remain as close inshore as possible and clear the area.”
The Bogata bore down upon the highly illuminated hospital ship, which seemed to simply accept its fate without an ounce of effort to avoid the collision.
The two vessels came together in a tortured grind of metal that could be heard on two continents.
And then there was a flash.
The sound wave came next, and the pressure wave followed as quickly as it could.
Bogata had exploded.
In fact, there was no Bogata worth the name, simply a twisted something that somehow still floated.
In fact, there was precious little Hikawa Maru either, and what there was wreathed in orange flame.
Fire at sea…
The stricken vessel reportedly carried over two thousand souls, plus any that had survived from the Bogata.
That drove the rescuers forward and the naval vessels descended on the scene like bees round honey.
More explosions came from the Bogata, some sending playful rockets into the night, 105mm semi-armour piercing rockets that would be wholly deadly if they struck an approaching vessel.
Aware of the risks, the Straits admiral ordered fast responding Vosper MTBs to put to sea, to provide some sort of security as the rescue attempt went on.
He followed that with an order for two corvettes to raise steam and get out of the harbour to reinforce the flimsy security ring he was now presented with.
The first reports came in from a French frigate that slowly edged through the packed waters.