The engines simply refused to turn.
“Oh c’mon, fellahs. You gotta be kidding me?”
Nothing now worked… nothing had worked… and now the smell of burning electrics assaulted the noses of the cockpit crew.
“You smell that, Seb?”
“Uh huh… my electrics have just failed… nope… they’re bac… failed again… this mission’s a snafu, Major.”
“Ain’t that the fucking truth? Think we better get the VIPs outta here fast. There’s smoke here now.”
He gestured at the haze coming up around his feet and from behind the instrument panel.
“Abandon ship… aye aye, cap’n.”
“Shut it, you douchebag. Just remember who we’ve got on board and get them off in such a manner as I’ll still have a chance at my bird.”
“Aye, aye cap’n.”
The co-pilot disappeared to break the bad news to the senior officers in the passenger compartment.
The passengers evacuated and moved back to towards their vehicles, confusing the USAAF base commander and his entourage.
A hasty liaison with one of the senior officers from the crippled aircraft brought a possible conclusion to mind, and the tower was instructed to hold another flight on the runway.
The RAF flight sergeant responded to the pilot’s instructions and, once the aircraft had stopped its taxi run, opened the nearside rear cabin door.
The first thing that caught his eye was the ground crew racing back with the steps.
Next were the two staff vehicles that sped up from the direction of the tower, complete with four jeeps as escort.
Behind him, the five senior officers started to pose questions, to which he could only guess at a response.
“Seems we have last minute company, Sir.”
“Anyone we know, Sergeant?”
“Can’t say yet, Sir… but likely they’ve some serious clout or we wouldn’t have stopped.”
Kenneth Strong turned back round and rummaged for some light reading.
Bedell-Smith, sharing Strong’s aircraft for the trip to Camp Vár, relaxed into quiet conversation with De Lattre.
Behind them, their staffs chatted or snoozed, depending on what they had been up to the night before.
Anne-Marie Foster extracted a Daphne du Maurier novel and settled down as the two RAF officers returned to their bickering over the performance of the latest American jet fighter, something they called a Sabre.
Strong abandoned attempts to eavesdrop their conversation as they slipped into trade talk, but the two highly decorated fighter aces were clearly impressed with the experimental plane that was doing the European tour.
In the refuelling station cross the airfield, a pair of eyes that had narrowed when the aircraft aborted its taxi became virtual slits as the observer tried to decide what the hell was going on.
His fellow tanker driver slid off to the toilet, citing bad chicken the night before, giving Krankel a chance to use the works’ binoculars without having to justify himself.
“Donnerwetter!”
Krankel was a decisive man always, but what had just presented itself to his eyes turned his stomach to ice and impaired his brain function so much that he could hardly manage a coherent thought.
“Scheisse! Scheisse! Scheisse!”
Normally one of the Abwehr’s eyes and ears at the airbase, his special mission had drawn on all the old talents learned during his time with the Brandenburgers.
He watched, gripping the binoculars so tightly that he expected them to break under the pressure, although he could not prevent himself from risking it.
The new arrivals and their baggage virtually flew up the steps, which were then quickly wheeled away as the door was shut.
The RAF C-54 Skymaster trundled into position and then leapt down the runway, clawing into the air on its way to the talks in Sweden.
“Clerk’s Office.”
“Vögel, Krankel, we…”
“This is an unsecured line, you fool.”
“Shut the fuck up and listen.”
He gripped the phone like it was the neck of this idiot agent.
“This better be worth it, Krankel.”
The words spilled into his ear as the excited Krankel told his story.
“Scheisse!”
“What do I do… I mean… what do we do, eh?”
“Leave it with me. Now… get off the phone and go and do what you do.”
He broke the connection and was out of his office door before the sound of his chair scraping the floor had died away.
Normally, Vögel would saunter to his chief’s office.
Today he made it in under two minutes, and almost battered down the door as he ran through it only half-opened.
“What is the meaning of this, man?”
The out-of-breath Vögel stumbled through his words as he eyed the other man in the room.
“Urgent… need to talk to you… alone, Herr General… urgent… but for your ears only.”
Horst Pflug-Hartnung looked apologetically at his companion.
Von Vietinghoff stood and clicked his heels without rancour.
“I’ll be outside, Horst.”
The door closed before Pflug-Hartnung went for Vögel.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, man? “
“Shut up and listen… Sir!”
The conversation was brief and by the end of it Pflug-Hartnung’s mind was trying to deal with a frenzy of thoughts.
“I’ve no secure line to talk to the Kanzler… that damn bomb broke the cables and they’re being fixed as we speak.”
Dropped on the old city of Magdeburg on the night of 16th January 1945, the unexploded one thousand pounder finally honoured its mission and did an excellent job at destroying much of the locale, including the covertly laid special telephone system that allowed secret conversations to flow between the Republican government’s hierarchy.
“So… make a decision, Sir. We’ve very little time.”
“We’ll show our hand if we warn them… we can’t… the Kanzler’s main concern was preserving our secrecy.”
“Then make the decision… Sir.”
“Get Vietinghoff back in here now!”
Vögel opened the door and summoned von Vietinghoff in a manner that would have normally earned him a severe rebuke, but the canny general knew better than to bark at a time that he should be listening.
He listened, astounded, shocked, and for once in his life unsure of how he should proceed… would proceed if it were his decision.
Von Vietinghoff realised that Pflug-Hartnung had stopped, and that both men’s eyes were on him.
Officially on bereavement leave, he had dropped in to speak to Pflug-Hartnung about a delicate personal matter, only to suddenly find himself at the centre of a big decision.
“The Kanzler must be informed immediately.”
“Not possible Heinrich. That bomb… it wrecked the secure lines.”
“Verdamnt. You, man. How would you stop it?”
Vögel had already thought that through.
“Too late to send an aircraft up. Radio… only way, Herr General.”
“Which would compromise our secrecy.”
“Yes.”
“So the choice is non-existent. We have no choice. The game will run its course, and we must be ready.”
“Your meaning, Heinrich?”
“My meaning is simple, my friend. We have a problem here… or we may have an opportunity.”
Pflug-Hartnung understood the meaning, and the gravity of von Vietinghoff’s words.
“You mean Undenkbar? Now?”
“We’ve been waiting for the moment, and maybe this is that moment. This awful opportunity that’s been thrust into our hands by fate may be just what we need to make our plans come perfectly together. We would never have considered it, but it may be just what we needed.”