Operation Afterlight, page 25
He shook his head, cutting her off. “God knows I’m not asking for anything from you, Sarah.” He looked away. His hands closed tight on the railings. Anger at himself, not her. “It’s just a foolish dream.”
She took a deep breath. Placed her hand on his. “It seems restful,” she said. “You’re not the only one who has foolish thoughts, you know. The Nazis destroyed my past life. The war denied me a new one. When it is all over, maybe I’ll get to choose how my future looks.”
He nodded, his eyes still on the farm, and she felt a sudden longing. She wasn’t sure for what, but as the sunlight burned off the mist, so the farmhouse looked more inviting. The repairs needed wouldn’t take long. Wildflowers shimmied in the breeze by the front door. For an instant, she imagined herself coming home to that place. Up the long driveway. Drawing her key from her purse. Andy opening the door to her before she could reach the lock.
The anger flooded back, vicious and sudden. Foolish? It was stupid. Worse, it was a betrayal. Beyond the ranks of familiar faces that flashed across her mind, already fading in death, she saw Durban wince as her grip tightened with crushing force around his fingers.
“The war doesn’t end when Berlin falls and Hitler burns in Hell, Andy,” she said. “Not for me. It ends when I find my missing agents.”
Durban looked at her. Not shock. Not even surprise. Just a deep sigh and understanding eyes.
“Alive or dead,” she told him, knowing which one it would be. “Wherever they are. Every single one.”
“I know,” he said. “I knew it the first time we spoke. That you’d see it through to the end.” He looked away, back towards the distant farm. “And I will, too.”
“Whatever it takes,” she whispered. She let her grip relax, wishing the rest of her could do the same, just once. She didn’t pull her hand away, though. Simply left it there. Until his fingers closed around hers and they stood, looking across the familiar green fields of England, in silence.
There was nothing left to say.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Norfolk, 15 April
Durban switched off the office lights and stopped with his hand in his pocket, fingers on the door key. “I’m leaving, Bony.”
“We’ve received a note from SHAEF, sir.”
“SHAEF?” Durban frowned. What could Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force want with 465 Squadron? A transfer to a forward airfield on the continent, perhaps? Their sister squadron 464 had already received orders to move to Melsbroek in Belgium and would leave in two days, but those orders would come from 2nd Tactical Air Force HQ, not SHAEF.
It was probably some random supply question or other trivia. “Put it with the rest of the squadron admin traffic,” he sighed. “I’ll handle it in the morning. I want to get some dinner before they close for the night.”
“It’s not for the squadron, sir. It’s for you, by name.”
“Well, that makes no sense at all.” He snatched the note and opened it. It was indeed addressed to him, sent less than two hours ago from the office of an Air Commodore in SHAEF’s HQ in Versailles. He vaguely remembered meeting the man once. Possibly at the Palace ceremony for the third bar on his DFC. He felt his body relax. Probably personal, and not work-related, except for the SECRET marking.
A mobile Signal Intelligence unit intercepted the following on 12 Apr 45. Ack receipt and indicate significance, if any.
MESSAGE BEGINS // PESTA TO HULDRA. AFTERLIGHT. I SAY AGAIN, AFTERLIGHT. PRIORITY MESSAGE FOR SARAH LANE AND ANDREW DURBAN. TARGET LOCATED, WATERFRONT DOCKS. PRECISE BUILDING UNKNOWN. TIMESCALE UNKNOWN. BOAT STILL PRESENT. IMMEDIATE STRIKE NEEDED. I WILL TRY TO LOCATE EXACT TARGET. SORRY. I AM HURT. I WILL TRY. IMMEDIATE STRIKE NEEDED. SAY AGAIN, IMMEDIATE // MESSAGE ENDS.
“Sorry, sir,” Bony said, “but are you alright?”
“Jesus.”
The Ops Officer stared in alarm at the paper as it violently fluttered in Durban’s shaking hand.
“Jesus,” Durban repeated. “This was three days ago.”
“It just arrived, sir. I brought it straight to you.”
“They sat on this for three days.” Durban read the message again. And again, eyes drawn each time to the abrupt ending. Like someone had cut the broadcast off. Or Stahl could no longer speak. The words I am hurt sprang from the page as if typed in boldface.
Three days. Götterdämmerung could be halfway across Europe by now.
Bile burned in his throat, hot even as a paralysing chill spread across the rest of his body. He forced it back. No time for that. Too much time wasted already.
“Get the word out, Bony. I want the base sealed, understand? No one leaves. Call the SWO and have him send someone to Staverton. Check the pub, the hotel, the dance hall, anywhere we might have people. Cancel all leave passes. Any aircrew on leave are to be recalled right away. You understand? Immediately.”
“Roger, sir.” Bony turned and half-ran back towards the Ops Room. His face suggested he wasn’t convinced, but Durban didn’t need him to be convinced, only to act, and Bony was a damned good Ops Officer.
Durban threw open his door and dialled the number from memory, adrenaline bringing clarity of recall. Five rings, his anxiety mounting with each one until he heard her voice, surprised at how calm it made him.
“Sarah, it’s Durban.”
“Andy? Hi. Is everything ok? I was just heading home.”
“Sarah, did you get the message from Stahl?”
A pause. “This line isn’t cleared to discuss that.” Cool approbation in her tone.
“Did you?”
Another pause. Longer still. “No.”
Durban cursed. “He’s made contact.”
She didn’t respond immediately, but he knew she was still there. More than the faint intake of breath. He could sense her tension and excitement through the receiver, even if she was too professional to let it seep into her voice. “When?”
“Seventy-two hours ago. How soon can you be here?”
“Four hours.”
“Too long.” His mind raced. “Do you know how to get to RAF Northolt?”
“Of course. But it’s in the wrong direction.”
“Trust me. Get there as soon as you can. Bring Anders.” He hung up. There was so much more he wanted to say to her, but there was no time, and a dozen other things to be sent in motion.
Ninety long minutes passed before a roar of engines announced the landing of an Avro Anson, and barely ten minutes more before the doors of the Ops Room swung open.
“My wife is most put out with you, Andy,” Air Vice Marshal Sir Basil Embry roared, startling the handful of ops staff Durban had pulled together this late at night. “I trust I wasn’t lying to her when I said it must be very important?”
“No, sir,” Durban said. “Thank you for coming.”
Embry snorted. “I can’t help thinking you have used me as a very expensive taxi service. As you’ll see, I brought a couple of strays.”
“I don’t think you’ll regret it, sir,” Durban assured him. He nodded at Anders, then returned Sarah’s half-smile. She looked tired, but her eyes glowed with excitement.
With a single barked order, he dismissed those staff without the proper clearances from the room, then offered seats to his guests. None took them, standing impatiently while they waited for the Ops Room doors to close, leaving the four of them alone.
“This is for you, Wing Commander,” Sarah said, passing Durban a copy of the latest imagery. He placed it on the planning table while they crowded immediately around him, then read them the text of Stahl’s signal.
“After I spoke to you, sir,” Durban said, “I called SHAEF and got through to Air Commodore Ackland-Rowe, the man who contacted me. One of the tactical Signals Intelligence units intercepted the message, but it didn’t seem to match any collection criteria. It got passed up the chain to a junior officer who was on a forty-eight hour leave pass in Paris. When he returned, he had no idea what to do with it, and it somehow ended up on the Air Commodore’s desk. He recognised my name and sent it to me.”
“By which time it had been gathering dust for seventy-two hours,” Embry grated. “Someone needs to be sacked for this.”
“Not sure that will help much, sir,” Sarah said. She pointed to the image. “A Spitfire took this earlier today. The U-78 is here.”
“Well, that’s good news,” Embry said.
“About the only good news, I’m afraid,” Durban said. “Stahl said the weapon is in a waterfront warehouse. As you’ll see, that doesn’t narrow it down much. There are at least a dozen buildings here meeting that description.”
“Twenty-two,” Sarah corrected. “I see that damned town in my sleep. I’ve counted every warehouse, every German military outpost, and it doesn’t help at all. We don’t even know which side of the Spit that warehouse is on.”
“Surely,” Embry protested, “it will be the one closest to the submarine?”
“Why? Only the scientists will leave on the submarine. The Götterdämmerung won’t be let loose in the crowd until they are safely gone. The U-78 is at the U-Boat training facility, where it always is. Pillau isn’t that big. Wherever the scientists are, they can walk there easy enough. One last stroll, before they kill half of Europe.”
“Then we destroy all the warehouses.” Embry smiled grimly. “Air Marshal Harris can have six hundred heavies there tomorrow night. Obviously, there will be a lot of civilian casualties that way, but that’s never stopped Bomber Harris. If we don’t hit that warehouse before they release this stuff, all those civilians are going to die, anyway. It’s just that a lot of us will die with them.”
Lane sighed. Durban got the impression that she would rather Embry was a mere taxi driver, and that he’d left after dropping them off. “If you recall the JIC meeting, sir,” she said, “heavy bombers won’t work. Even if they hit the building…”
“Yes, yes, I know all that. We’ll just crack the seal and release the bloody stuff early. Do you have a better idea, Squadron Officer Lane? Or do you propose we wait here until the U-78 leaves and then roll the dice?”
Silence descended. Hopeless. Durban felt the image on the table mocking them. So close, yet without that last piece of the puzzle, even levelling the entire city wouldn’t be enough. He felt weariness press down on him. Crushing him. Six years of war, six years of exhaustion, all bearing down in a single moment. Across the table, the big Dane’s eyes seemed transfixed by the image, as if willpower alone could deliver the answer. “Major? You’re very quiet. You have any thoughts?”
“Just one. Stahl. He will get us the answer.”
“Anders,” Sarah said gently, “there’s a good chance that Stahl is dead.”
“Stahl is a hard man to kill. Many have tried. Including me.” The Dane smiled. “It will take more than the SS to finish that snake.” His tone made it clear that it was not an insult, but respect.
“I want to believe that,” Sarah said. “I do. But why hasn’t he got a sign to us by now?”
“Maybe he has.” Anders shrugged. “Maybe it is sitting on someone’s desk waiting to be passed to us like his last message. Or he’s hiding. We know he’s hurt. Perhaps he is waiting for a sign from us.”
“Like what?”
In an instant, adrenaline rushed through Durban’s veins, sweeping away even the memory of his tiredness. “Like a squadron of Mosquitoes overhead.”
A moment of silence.
“By God, that might do it.” Embry’s blue eyes blazed with new enthusiasm. “Can you go tomorrow?”
“Yes, sir. The new aircraft need about twelve hours’ work on them, but the napalm arrived this morning. With planning and preparations, we could be ready to go by lunchtime.”
“Did you recall the squadron?”
“Manning is at ninety percent. We’re rounding up the last few now. The crews will be ready.”
Embry paused, weighing his next words. “Did you find a new navigator yet?”
Colour flushed Durban’s cheeks. “Not yet, sir.”
“Get a move on, then. Because if you aren’t ready to lead this attack, Andy, I’ll do it myself.” His voice softened. “They will be waiting for you. Not just the Germans. The Soviets, too. They won’t sit by and let you destroy Götterdämmerung, not while they still think they can get their hands on it. If Stahl doesn’t get a signal to you, you’ll be circling in the teeth of German flak while every fighter for three hundred miles tries to do you in. You know that, don’t you?”
Durban knew. He’d known it the moment the signal had come in. The moment these same three people had walked into his office and used the word AFTERLIGHT. That it would come down to this. A target. Flak and fighters. His squadron around him. His navigator by his side.
One last chance for the war to take him like it had taken so many others.
He saw Sarah watching him.
He’d seen the hope in her eyes when Embry suggested he might take over the mission. She didn’t want him to go, even though she knew he was the best chance they had of success.
Roll the dice, Embry had said, and Durban had rolled them so many times. Got lucky, so many times, even when others around him didn’t. Johnny Grant. Clive Lampeter. Others before them, right back to the day this awful, wonderful war began.
Eventually, everyone’s luck ran out.
“Sounds like fun, sir.”
“Yes, it does.” Jealousy shone in Embry’s eyes, bright as moonlight. “You lucky bugger. They will talk about this for years.”
“I hope not,” Anders said, his own eyes twinkling with excitement. “It is still most secret, after all.” Then he reached out and wordlessly squeezed Durban’s shoulder before joining Embry, hurrying towards the telephones.
Until only Sarah Lane’s eyes remained on him. And in her gaze, he could discern nothing at all.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Norfolk, 16 April
Another morning in the hospital, another sunrise shining half-heartedly through the thin curtain, another visit from the doctor. Days and nights had long since blended into a grey smear of sleep and boredom. Grant had little idea what day it was anymore, and it sometimes seemed the doctor didn’t care. Both going through the motions, waiting for the war to be over.
“I feel fine,” Grant said. He’d become accustomed to beginning each day with a lie. I’m fine. No, the wounds don’t hurt anymore. Yes, I am ready to fly again. The last one was partly true at least, even if he suspected it was his personal guilt talking and not his still recovering body.
“Good lad,” Doctor Carpenter said absently. “I admire your spirit. But there’s a big difference between lying in bed thinking you are recovered and being strong enough to spend all day on your feet. I’ll do you a deal. Two more days here, and I’ll discharge you.”
“And clear me for flying?”
“Oh, Lord no,” the doctor laughed, his gaze already drifting to the next name on his list. “You’ve got at least another two or three weeks before you even think about getting in a cockpit again. In the meantime, try getting more sleep, there’s a good chap. Rest is nature’s cure, you know.” With that, he strolled away. He’d said the same thing every morning for a week. Grant wondered if the man even bothered to read his charts anymore.
After breakfast – two thin rashers of bacon, powdered eggs, four small and over salted mushrooms, same as yesterday – Grant conceded that the doctor might be right about one thing. He could use more sleep. The nightmares had abated a little. Less terror, more guilt.
Guilt at laying in his bed while the squadron got on with the war. Guilt at leaving Durban alone, though he suspected that the Wing Commander had long since replaced him, and probably forgotten him too. Guilt at the self-pity and whining he constantly caught himself indulging in.
Most of all, guilt at the secret thrill of relief that washed over him every time the doctor marked him down as medically unfit. One more day before he had to go back to the skies. To the dangers that tainted their beauty.
Eyes closed, the warming morning sun playing on the lids, he let himself drift off.
“You’ve got to let one of them down eventually,” he heard Nurse Anita say. She had a pleasant voice. Soothing.
“Do I?” That would be Nurse Claire. A lovely girl, but the opposite of soothing. Usually giggling, always too loud. If she knew that some of the more seriously wounded casualties on the ward were still sleeping, she didn’t let it slow her down. “Why would I do that? It’s nice being chased. Besides, we don’t all have to settle for the first one who shows an interest, do we?”
“I’m not settling.”
“I’m teasing, love,” Claire said. “Are you serious that you’d go back to Australia with him? When he asks?”
Grant wondered if it would be too obvious if he pulled his thin pillow over his head to cover his ears.
“New Zealand, and yes. Of course. If he asks.” Anita sighed. “I really thought last night was going to be it, you know? The dinner, and everything. He’d even got hold of a bottle of French red wine. It must have cost him a fortune.”
“Let me guess,” Claire interrupted, her tone lascivious. “The two of you got distracted and pretended you were already married.”
“Hush. You’ll make me blush. And no, that’s not what happened at all. We were still in the restaurant when a man came in, wearing uniform. From the base, but not a pilot. He comes over, salutes, and whispers something in Mark’s ear. He goes proper pale. Scared the life out of me.”
Pain shot through Grant. He realised he was sitting up, mind still racing to work out why.
“Then he kisses me on the cheek,” Anita said, “and just like that, he’s gone.”
“Isn’t that just like a pilot?” Claire shook her head. “All flash, no bang. That’s why I only go for gunners.”
Grant stood quickly. Too quickly. The blood rushed from his head. Not his blood, he thought vaguely. Half of it was borrowed. Transfusion after transfusion to make up what he’d left spattered about the Mosquito’s cockpit.
