Angel, Archangel (23 page)

He fumbled for the throttle lever, found it and shut the Walters down.
He inched back on the control column and felt the 163’s nose rise a fraction before the G-forces compressed his body, forcing the blood into his feet, and building until his head felt heavier than a sack of coal and the sea rushed to meet him.

Marlowe, in pursuit, broke through the clouds expecting the smoke column from the 163 to lead straight into the grey waters below.
Instead there was nothing.
No trail.
No wreckage.
No oil.
The Komet had disappeared.

His gaze focused on a sea bird far away, skimming the waves, pulling up, hanging there, falling, twisting and turning back towards the water.
In that moment of disorientation and anxiety, it was one of the most beautiful things Marlowe had ever seen.
Mesmerized, he squinted against the sunlight that streamed through the clouds.
Then he laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks.

It wasn’t a sea bird.
It was the 163.

* * * * * * * *

At eight thousand feet Kruze pulled round in a wide turn that would bring him back on a heading for Farnborough’s long runway.
Because of the Komet’s high sink rates on the glide path, he knew he would need plenty of height for the approach; the Rostock scientists had warned him it was an unforgiving aircraft to bring in to land.
He glanced out over his wing.
Marlowe was there, his hand raised in salute.

The test had been a complete success.
Not only did the 163C have the considerable range of which Mulvaney and Staverton had spoken, it was also the most manoeuvrable aircraft he had ever flown at high speed - and its speed was awesome.

This was where he really felt alive, where every nerve ending was ready to respond to any situation that could develop within a split second in the cramped confines of a high performance fighter aircraft.
The world outside was fickle, ever-changing; but here, he knew where he stood.
The elements were unforgiving and a moment’s lapse on his part could spell disaster.
It was a constant challenge, but it was the way that he liked it.

Farnborough’s runway grew in his windscreen.
It was time to extend the landing skid.

At first he thought he was flying through thin cloud.
Then he realized that the smoky wisps were inside the cockpit and seemed to be emanating from the floor.
He looked past the cumbersome asbestos suit and felt the hair rise on the back of his neck as he saw the source of the trouble.

He called up the tower.

“Sunflower, I’ve got a big problem.
The T-Stoff tank appears to have ruptured inside the cockpit.”

“Say again, Kingfisher.”

Kruze cursed.
“I’ve got a split fuel tank dammit, but I’m coming into land.
Alert the crash trucks.”

Before the youthful officer in the tower could respond, Marlowe cut in on the RT.

“Kruze, don’t be a bloody fool.
You’ve got plenty of height.
Bale out now.
Forget bringing the 163 in, that fuel will eat through you in a second if you get a serious leak in there.”

Kruze could now see the tiny pinprick hole in the starboard tank where the fuel was spilling onto the floor of the cockpit.
He watched, half fascinated, half in horror as the hydrogen peroxide began to eat through the rubber cover at the base of the control column, sending noxious contrails spiralling up against the clear canopy.
Even beneath goggles, his eyes began to run as the vapour worked its way through the tiny gaps between the glass and the frame.

He looked around for an extinguisher, but couldn’t see one.
It was quite useless anyway.
Once the chemicals started to eat their way into the aircraft, nothing could stop them except hundreds of gallons of water.

He estimated that he was about one mile down range of the runway now, at an altitude of a thousand feet.

Fifty feet to his left, Marlowe could scarcely see the hunched figure of Kruze for the swirling fumes inside the cockpit.
He yelled another warning.

Kruze heard but ignored the desperate pleas.
He disconnected the lead that ran from his headset to the instrument panel.
The silence enabled him to concentrate on his dials and his badly obscured view of the runway.
He looked down quickly and saw the colourless liquid seeping from the widening hole in the tank in little spurts, like blood pumped from a severed vein.
T-Stoff sloshed around the floor of the cockpit.
It had completely dissolved the rubber where the joystick met the floor and Kruze imagined it eating through the linkages that ran from the bottom of the control column to the hydraulic lines leading to the control surfaces.
Once those were damaged he’d lose all control, the 163 would peel away and hit the ground.
If that happens, may it be instantaneous, he thought.
Anything but a slow death in the acid bath that surrounded him.

He was down to a few hundred feet.
If he had wanted to bale out, now it was too late.

Concentrate.
You’re committed now a hundred per cent.
There’s no going back.

He looked for the flap selector lever, remembering that it was somewhere near his left leg.
The flaps deployed, but the aircraft felt as if it had barely slowed.
It was hurtling for the runway at over 200 mph.

It was then that he saw the quick-dump lever for the fuel.
How could he have been so bloody stupid?
He pulled the handle hard and felt the aircraft buck as the remaining pounds of the lethal T-Stoff fell away harmlessly, evaporating over the Hampshire countryside.
He kept his heels at the top of the rudder bars, avoiding the fuel that still glistened on the floor.

He crossed over the airfield perimeter fence at over 170 mph.
He couldn’t get the bitch to slow down any more than that.

The Komet banged the runway hard, spraying the hydrogen peroxide all over the cockpit.
Horrified, Kruze saw parts of the Perspex canopy begin to dissolve.
Vapour hissed from his suit where the acid tried to eat through the asbestos.
He prayed that the aircraft would not flip onto its back.

He pulled the emergency canopy release cord while the Komet was still bumping along the runway.
The slipstream tore it off the fuselage and it skidded across the concrete, coming to rest on the grass perimeter, where the T-Stoff carried on gnawing great holes in the Perspex.

Kruze released his safety straps and sprang out of his seat.
He rolled over the side of the cockpit, across the wing and onto the ground as the rocket fighter came to a halt.
Then he was on his feet, desperately trying to tear the smouldering suit from his body.
He pulled the hood off his head and took in great gulps of air.
Then the fire trucks were around him, hosing him down with cool, clear water.
It splashed over his face, bringing him out of the nightmare.

The 163 stood a few yards away.
One crash truck filled the cockpit with water, while another sprayed down the wings and the fuselage.

Jeeps and lorries tore across the runway towards the aircraft.
Kruze stepped out of his soaking asbestos suit and strode off in the opposite direction, towards the debrief room.

If Staverton wanted his report, he could give it to him right now.
The Messerschmitt 163C was a killer.

CHAPTER FOUR

Lavrenty Beria, head of the NKVD, watched the sun start to slip behind the dilapidated roof of the Art Theatre across the way from his small apartment on Kuznecki Most.
It was going to be another crystal clear evening, the ebbing, wintry sun casting golden spears of light onto the tops of the spires and domes that were scattered amongst the drab living blocks that remained on Moscow’s decimated skyline.

Beria liked to escape to this, his ‘other’ apartment, when his duties allowed.
Surrounded by luxurious furnishings and an abundant supply of vodka, he would while away the small hours here, in a city where two thirds of the population was on the brink of starvation.

Tonight, as always, he was not alone.
The girl whom he had spotted at the gymnastics competition during a morale-boosting Young Communist League festival the previous summer was still his favourite, but the general’s daughter who now lay in his bed in the next door room came close, very close.
His body ached at the thought of her, but first he had to work.
It would increase his appetite for what would come later.

He flipped through the pages of the dossier.
It was an exercise he pursued regularly.
It not only helped him watch Stalin’s back, but also his own.

As he did so he was once more impressed by the breadth of his intelligence-gathering network.
Information was power.
It was also insurance.
His NKVD men had furnished him with every detail he wanted to know about each senior officer in Frontal Command.
If any one of them so much as played with himself at night, Beria knew about it.

He sensed a movement to his left.
The girl was beside him, shielding her eyes from the glare of the lamp on his desk.
She looked slightly ridiculous in the shirt that he had given her as a nightdress, but he patted her on the buttocks as if to tell her to run along back to bed.
In a few more minutes he planned to be with her.

“Why, that’s Uncle Nikolai,” she said in a sleepy voice, pointing at the photograph in the file.

“I did not know Nikolai Ivanovich was your uncle, beloved.”

“He’s not really,” she replied.
“It’s just that he used to come round and see Papa a lot.
He was nice to me.
He used to bring me cakes from his wife.
I liked him, so I called him Uncle.
He was nicer to me than the others.”

“What others?”
He eased her round and on to his lap, slipping a hand up under her shirt.

“The friends of Papa.
They used to come to our apartment.
I did not like them very much because they took Papa away from me.”

“What do you mean, beloved?”

“They talked for hours and hours.
They would not let me or Mama go near them.
Then Papa went back to the war.
Now my mother cries every day and I hear her at night, too.
She thinks she will never see Papa again.”

A tear bulged in the corner of her eye.

“Who were these men?”

“I do not know their names.
They never used to talk to me.
Except for Uncle Nikolai.
The old man scared me especially.
There was something horrible in his eyes.
I used to hate to look in his eyes.
They gave me nightmares.”

“What old man?”
Beria asked.
There was more than idle curiosity in his voice now.

“He was tall and thin, with grey hair and wrinkly skin.
And cold blue eyes.
My father was scared of him, I think.”

“But your father is a general, beloved.
He should be scared of no man.”
Except for Stalin.
And me, Beria thought.

“I think it is because the old man is senior that Papa was scared,” she said defensively.

“Senior to your father?
That would make him a marshal.”
He was thinking aloud.
The girl began to inch away from him, startled by his change in mood.

Something within Beria told him to go on.
Clandestine meetings of army officers, one of whom was a marshal; what was this?
His mind raced.
Since the purges, even brothers over the rank of lieutenant would restrict their visits to each other.
If Stalin ever got to hear about such gatherings he would want to know what was so interesting that groups of officers could not talk openly in the staff room or in the halls of the Kremlin.
Comrade Stalin distrusted such men.
They usually did not last very long.

He grabbed the girl by the shoulders and shook her until she cried with the pain.

“Nadia, look through these photographs until you see the man with the eyes.
When you see him, you must tell me, do you understand?
I have to know.”

The girl was scared.
She nodded at Beria, following his gaze down to the file on his desk.
The pool of light from the lamp fell upon the photograph of a general she did not recognize.
She shook her head.
Beria flicked the pages over.
He kept on turning them until the girl froze.

“That’s him,” she whispered.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”
Her voice faltered.
Seeing those eyes again made Nadia Nerchenko every bit as scared as the time when she had first come across Marshal Boris Shaposhnikov in the flesh.

Beria pushed her aside, taking no notice of her crying as she ran into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
He picked up the phone and dialled the number of his senior investigation department at the Centre.
He was connected straight away with Shlemov.
“I want to know the whereabouts of Shaposhnikov .
.
.
shall we say over the last six months?
That means who he’s seen, where he’s been, who he’s sleeping with, women, men .
.
.
got the picture?

The clipped, unquestioning tones of NKVD Major Vladimir Filippovich Shlemov filtered through the static on the line.

“And while you’re about it,” Beria shouted, “do the same for that lap-dog of his, Colonel Nikolai Ivanovich Krilov.”
The NKVD chief turned to the door of the bedroom, satisfying himself that it was closed and he could not be overheard.
“Finally, get me the file on Army General Nerchenko, deputy commander-in-chief of the First Ukrainian Front.
But make it discreet.
Comrade Major, discreet.
I want that report on my desk by morning.”

He hung up and walked towards the bedroom, unbuttoning his shirt as he went.
The Nerchenko girl’s disclosure had caused the hairs on the back of his policeman’s neck to bristle.
It was a feeling he had learned to enjoy.

* * * * * * * *

If anything, the Bunker had acquired a certain benevolence since the shock briefing on the Russian invasion plan for Europe, the plan called Archangel.
Fifty feet beneath the pavements of Whitehall, with no natural light or sounds of everyday life to distract him, it was hard to believe that anything as nightmarish could exist on the outside.

Fleming knew that to have endorsed Operation Guardian Angel, the Cabinet advisers had to be desperate.
For all Staverton’s drive and determination, it stood little chance of success.
Even the Germans, desperate as they were, had not cleared the Me 163C for operational use.
And they still had to persuade Kruze to undertake the mission.

Staverton was bent over a large-scale map of southern Europe, drawing a hemispherical arc with his compasses, when the phone rang.
He picked up the receiver and listened intently for about a minute before replacing it.
His lip quivered involuntarily beneath his clipped, grey moustache.

Fleming stopped his calculations.
“What is it?”

“The 163’s crashed.”
Staverton’s head lolled into his hands.
“It’s all over.”

Fleming was on his feet.
“What about Kruze?”

“He’s alive.”

“What the hell happened?”

Staverton’s voice was weak, almost inaudible.
“The fuel tanks ruptured in midair and T-Stoff leaked into the cockpit, but Kruze stayed with the aircraft and brought it back in, the bloody fool.
He was lucky.”
He paused.
“What the hell am I going to tell Welland?”

“First things first.
Is Kruze all right?”

“He’s with the MO at Farnborough having the onceover.
He’ll live.
You know Kruze.”
Staverton banged his fist on the table.
“Why did this have to go and happen now?”

Fleming composed himself.
“It was a rush operation, sir.”
And a damned stupid one, he thought.
“What state’s the 163 in?”

“Badly damaged.
Mulvaney said something about a design fault.”

“Then at least that’s solved one of our problems,” Fleming said.
“The Nazis can’t exactly defend the Alpine Redoubt with a fighter that doesn’t work.”

“The Alpine Redoubt could have bloody well waited,” Staverton snapped.
“I don’t have to tell you that.”

Fleming paced the room for at least a minute before he spoke.

“The rocket fighter has served its purpose; it’s persuaded the other Cabinet advisers that an air-strike in a fast German fighter-bomber is the only way of getting through to Branodz.”

“Don’t waste your breath, laddie.
The Komet had the speed, it had the range and it had the punch.
Now it’s just a pile of useless junk, beyond repair.
We’ve nothing else capable of doing the job.”

Fleming smiled.
“We haven’t anything here at Farnborough, but the Germans have.”

“What are you getting at?”
Staverton asked.

Fleming lit a cigarette and looked Staverton in the eye.
“With all due respect, sir, using the Komet for a deep interdiction mission would never have worked.”

“Oh yes?
And how would you have done it, Robert?”
Staverton’s tone was challenging.

“I would have resurrected Operation Talon, sent a team into Germany to steal a fighter-bomber from a Luftwaffe base.
If it worked at Rostock, it can work again.
This time, though, the team would be small, hand-picked.
We would need a pilot, a link-man and an able German speaker.”

Staverton remained silent.

“I could fly that aircraft,” Fleming added.

“No, Robert.”

“I’m all right now,” Fleming said simply.

Staverton shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter how fit you are, laddie, we don’t have the resources to reactivate Operation Talon at such short notice.
Apart from finding a pilot, we’ve got to lay our hands on a shepherd, someone who could guide our man to the airfield, get him safely through the Reich.
They don’t come two a penny, you know, not even in SOE.”

“There must be something you can do.
What about your friends in Intelligence?
Surely they must have trained operatives ready to drop into Germany at a moment’s notice.
We can’t give up now.”

When Fleming looked up at Staverton he noticed that he was sitting ramrod straight, his eyes gleaming.

“What is it?”
Fleming asked.

“Something you said just now.
Perhaps .
.
.”

Staverton got up and walked over to the solid grey filing cabinet in the corner of the room.
He twiddled the combination lock on the side and pulled open the second drawer from the top.
Thirty seconds later he held the Operation Talon file in his hand.
Fleming watched him expectantly.

“Perhaps we could find ourselves a shepherd after all,” Staverton said.
“What aircraft did you have in mind for this mission?”

“An Arado 234 from Oberammergau.”
Fleming went over to the map, picked up Staverton’s compass and drew an arc whose point lay deep in the brown and purple topography of the Bavarian Alps.
“That’s a 234’s approximate range - enough to get into western Czechoslovakia and out again, even at low level.
The rest would be up to the pilot.”

“There definitely are 234s at Oberammergau?”

“Been deployed there for a few weeks now,” Fleming said.
“My men have had them under high altitude surveillance since they got there.
With our troops moving into Bavaria I wanted to see if Oberammergau was worth a diversion.
I know that airfield like the back of my hand.”