Glenn Meade (25 page)

Schellenberg turned to Skorzeny.
'Are your men prepared, Otto?'

'As they'll ever be, Herr General.
Like me, they'll be anxiously awaiting Haider's signal. Perhaps you would do me
the honor of inspecting them?'

'Later, of course. It would be my
pleasure.'

There was another knock on the
door and Schellenberg said, 'Enter.'

The SS adjutant returned. 'Urgent
message for you, Herr General.'

He handed over a sealed envelope.
Schellenberg tore it open, removed two signal flimsies, and studied them,
before he dismissed the adjutant.

Haider said, 'A problem?'

Schellenberg shook his head.
'Quite the opposite. Your contact will be ready and waiting at the airfield
near Abu Sammar, as expected. And
Cairo
has everything in hand and is looking forward to your arrival.' He smiled
triumphantly at Skorzeny, then turned back to Haider. 'Well, Jack, it seems
we're just about ready for take-off. Let's get your clothes and personal
belongings sorted out, and then hopefully you'll all be on your way.’

They had already changed into
their clothes when Falconi and the co-pilot reappeared. The Italian was dressed
in a flying jacket with a sheepskin collar, over the uniform of a captain in
the United States Army Air Corps. The co-pilot wore a lieutenant's uniform
under his flier's jacket, and both men were armed with holstered Colt
automatics.

'It feels like I'm on my way to a
fancy dress party,' commented Falconi with a smile. Rachel wore a khaki bush
suit, like the others, with a white cotton scarf tied at her throat, and
Falconi laughed when he saw Haider's battered felt bush hat, khaki pants and shirt,
and high-laced desert boots. 'You look like an extra from
Hollywood
central casting, Jack. Don't tell me, you're off in search of King Solomon's
mines.'

'Don't laugh, Vito. I'm trying to
get into the part.'

'I'm sure Cecil B. De Mille would
be impressed.'

Schellenberg made a final check of
their clothes and belongings, rummaging through the assortment of
Gladstone
bags they had
been given.

'Everything seems in order,' he
announced, when he had completed his check. 'It's best to be certain none of
you has taken along any personal items you shouldn't. That kind of thing has a
nasty habit of giving people away. I lost a perfectly good agent once, all
because the fool neglected to remove his German wristwatch before his mission.
The error cost him his life. What about the weather reports?' he ' asked
Falconi.

'It seems it could be pretty
terrible all over
North Africa
.'

'How bad is terrible?'

Falconi smiled. 'Storms,
lightning, high winds. Probable desert sandstorms on the ground. Not a pleasant
combination.

But the good thing is it should
keep the Allied air patrols to a minimum.'

Schellenberg looked worried. 'What
do you think?'

'I've flown in brutal weather
often enough.' Falconi shrugged. 'It's just the passengers may find it
unpleasant being tossed about.'

'We still go, of course,'
Schellenberg said firmly.

'Then I'm ready when you are.’

t Schellenberg gathered Haider,
Kleist and Doring around him. 'Well, it seems this is it. Good luck to you
all.'

He did a final check on their
clothes and belongings, shook their hands, then Kleist and Doring went on
board. As Falconi and his co-pilot went up the metal steps, Schellenberg said,
'Take good care of your passengers, Vito. They're precious cargo and a lot depends
on them.'

'Of course, Herr General.'

Rachel climbed the steps and, as
Haider made to follow, Schellenberg grasped his arm, excitement welling in his
voice.

'So, it begins.'

'Let's just hope there's a happy
ending.'

Schellenberg touched his cap with
his riding crop in a final salute. 'That all depends on you, Jack. Remember,
nothing less than a hundred per cent will do. Need I say it? As of this moment,
the survival of the Reich and the outcome of the war are entirely in your hands.'

Haider looked back at him grimly,
then followed the others up the steps.

Achmed Farnad came awake with a
curse in the darkness.

He reached over and silenced the
source of his irritation - an ancient British-made alarm clock - then screwed
up his eyes and checked the time. Three a.m.

He sat up in bed, scratched
himself, and looked over at his snoring wife. The lazy bitch would sleep
through an earthquake.

He forced himself from under the
warm blankets and shivered as he stepped out on to the cold floor, feeling the
desert chill in the room bite into his bones. He knew his task that morning was
extremely dangerous, and he was aware of a nervous cramp in his stomach. At
such an early hour, he also knew that the entire population of Abu Sammar -
barely two hundred souls - was fast asleep, but when he heard the howl of a
solitary dog he crossed anxiously to the window and peered out through the
peeling wooden shutters.

The village was in darkness,
streaks of black cloud racing across the face of the quarter-moon. The wind
moaned, sand flurries tossing rolls of camel thorn through the deserted
streets.

Not exactly favourable weather for
the important work he had to do. The dog stopped howling and the village became
silent again, except for the banshee sound of the wind. Achmed dressed quickly
and went downstairs, his excitement mounting.

The Seti Hotel was a decaying
six-bedroom inn, but it was a palace compared to the rest of the village's
mud-brick hovels, once popular with Arab merchants on the trade route from
Tunisia
to
Egypt
. Now the only visitor Achmed
saw was the occasional businessman passing through on his way to
Cairo
. But when the Germans
were close to taking Alex, it had been a different story.

Then, the hotel had billetted a
succession of British officers, and had once even served as a command post.
Achmed had gone out of his way to please the officers, sucking up to them like
a faithful dog, and the fools had mistaken his enthusiasm for loyalty.

They confided in him, told him
their failures and successes, and Achmed had learned a lot about their morale
and tactics. What the officers didn't know was that he had a radio and a Luger
pistol hidden in the barn at the back of the hotel.

The Germans had paid him well for
his information, but he would gladly have done the job for nothing. He hated
the British, and the sooner the bastards were kicked out of
Egypt
, the
better. Passing the shabby reception desk, Achmed paused to grab a sackcloth
bag from behind the counter. 'Time to go to work.'

The enclosed yard and the rusting
corrugated barn at the back of the hotel served as a general storage area, a
covered pen for Achmed's chickens and goats, and a garage for his Fiat truck. A
grateful British captain had rewarded his hospitality with the captured Italian
vehicle, and Achmed had lovingly kept it in excellent condition ever since. Before
climbing into the cab, he opened his sackcloth bag.

He had everything he needed -
torches and spare batteries. He checked the truck's spare wheel, just to be
certain, and made sure he had the jerrycan of extra fuel. Satisfied, he crossed
the yard and unlocked the back gates.

A savage wind raged into the
enclosure, disturbing the chickens and goats in the barn behind him. Was it his
imagination, or was the weather getting worse? He had sensed the previous
evening that the weather might turn bad, but not as bad as this. He sat in the
driver's seat, started the ignition, and the Fiat roared into life. The wind
would help drown the engine noise, but no doubt some of his neighbours would
hear. There was nothing Achmed could do about that, and he nosed the Fiat out
into the unpaved street, before climbing out again to close the gates, then
turned the truck on to the main road leading out of the village. It ran through
the desert, north-east towards Alex, over twenty miles away, but when he had
gone five miles he turned south on to a desolate minor track.

He halted in front of a pair of
steel-and-wire swing-gates, a barbed-wire run stretching to either side. Sand
grains were tossed against the windscreen, but beyond the gates he could make
out the landing strip. With the desert war finished, it lay abandoned, the
half-dozen huts and two hangars with rusting corrugated roofs standing like
forgotten monuments in the stormy darkness. No one came here any more, except
passing Bedouin tribesmen who scavenged among the dented oil drums and discarded
military junk. Achmed climbed out of the truck, opened the unlocked gates,
drove towards one of the Nissen huts, and pulled up outside.

Covering his face to ward off the
blowing sand, he killed the engine, stepped out of the cab again and moved
inside.

The hut stank of rotting wood and
excrement, and the walls had been defaced with chalk. 'Run, Rommel, run!' 'Bert
was here.'

Achmed heard a bleating sound in
the darkness, and called out, 'Mafouz? Are you there?'

Out of the shadows, a small boy of
twelve appeared, rubbing his eyes from tiredness.

'Yes, Father.'

Achmed could make out the blanket
in the corner, the small parcel of food he had given his son.
Haifa
dozen of Achmed's goats had bedded down
beside the boy, snug out of the wind.

They bleated and stirred, but
stayed where they were.

'Did anyone come?'

'No, Father. I have seen no one.’

'Good work, Mafouz.' Achmed beamed
and patted his son's head. He had left him at the airfield the previous
evening, pretending to tend the goats. He needed to be certain that none of the
Bedouin had come wandering by and taken refuge in the huts, which they
sometimes did in bad weather, for that could have upset his plans. Mafouz was
completely trustworthy and an intelligent boy; reasons enough for Achmed to
delegate the task to him.

'Help me with the torches.'

He squatted on the filthy concrete
floor, opened his bag, and laid out the four electric torches. Mafouz helped
him check each of them again; they all worked. Achmed would use one of the
torches to signal to the aircraft that the field was clear and it was safe to
land. The other three torches he'd place in an L-shape on the runway, mounted
on wooden stakes which he'd brought in the back of the truck, to mark out the
landing strip's exact width and length.

Once the aircraft returned his
signal, he would switch on the other torches so the landing could proceed, and
not before.

Achmed checked his wristwatch: 4
a.m. In just over an hour, hopefully, the Germans would arrive. He didn't know
why they were coming - that wasn't his business - but he guessed it had to be
something important. They wouldn't operate this far behind enemy lines without
good reason. He just hoped the wind had died down by then, otherwise it could make
things difficult. A gust rattled the corrugated roof, and Mafouz looked up at
him, excitement on the child's face.

'Is the aeroplane really going to
come, Father?'

'If it is Allah's will, my son.'

Achmed felt the excitement too,
but with it came a jab of fear. He had once witnessed a
Wellington
bomber crashiduring the khamsin,
on the very same runway. The aircraft was lifted into the air by a severe gust
in the last moments before landing, then its wing dipped, and the plane skewed
in a half-circle and exploded in a shower of flames, instantly killing the
crew. This wasn't the khamsin, but from the sound of the wind raging outside,
there could be a bad storm brewing.

Achmed heard the wind rattle the
roof again, slipped a set of worry beads between his fingers, and considered
the plight of the incoming aircraft. 'Let's hope, my friends, you have better
luck.'

It was cold in the Dakota, and
Haider woke from a fitful doze.

He was surprised to see Rachel
fast asleep, so he went up to the darkened cockpit and found Falconi and the
co-pilot, Remer, drinking coffee from a Thermos.

'Can't rest?' Falconi asked
loudly, over the noise of the engines.

'It seems not.
Mission
nerves, I reckon.'

'It happens to us all. Here, have
some coffee.'

He accepted the metal cup from
Falconi and sat in the empty wireless operator's seat. When he looked out at
the night sky, the quarter-moon gave just enough light to see by. Puffs of
occasional black cloud raced past and flurries of rain lashed the cockpit
windscreen, bright stars winking in the blackness.

'Where are we?'

Remer showed him a route map
opened on his knees. 'Just over halfway between
Sicily
and
Egypt
, off the west
coast of
Crete
. In less than an hour we should
be passing Alex on our left.

So far it seems pretty quiet -
there's no radio activity at all out there.'

'Let's hope it stays that way.
What about the weather, Vito?'

Falconi pointed to a thick,
ominous-looking bank of dark cloud on the distant horizon, and Haider saw
frightening streaks of fork lightning flashing deep in its core, illuminating
the night sky. 'Christ, that looks bad.'

'Bad enough. We'll try to steer
clear of the worst of it, but we may get thrown around a little. Nothing we can
do about that, I'm sorry to say.'

Haider offered round cigarettes,
and as he lit Falconi's said, 'I thought you would have finished with this
damned war by now.

Don't tell me you've taken a
liking to it?'

Falconi smiled. 'Hardly. But it's
either fly for the Luftwaffe, or wind up in a prison camp bored out of my
skull, and that wouldn't do at all. Or worse still, in a penal battalion on the
Russian front.'

'You could always try landing in
Sicily
on the return leg
and give yourself up.'

Falconi laughed. 'I won't say I
haven't considered it. Except Remer here might complain. And I have a brother
imprisoned in a German POW camp in
Milan
, since
Italy
surrendered two months ago. I doubt Schellenberg would take kindly to him if I
deserted.'

'It seems Walter has us all
stitched up nicely.'

'You too?'

'I'm afraid so.'

'The bad bastard.' A sympathetic
look appeared on Falconi's face. 'He told me about your father and child, Jack.
A terrible business. I'm truly sorry, my friend.'

Haider nodded, his mouth tight,
then turned towards the cockpit door. 'I'll go see how the others are doing.'

'There's some more coffee in the
Thermos if your lady friend wants some.'

'Thanks.' Haider turned back
towards the cabin. 'Don't forget to keep your eyes peeled for enemy aircraft.'

'It's a milk run, Jack.' Falconi
smiled reassuringly. 'The skies are as quiet as the grave in this weather.
Anyway, it's conditions on the ground I'm more worried about - let's keep our
fingers crossed we can get this crate down safely, and lift off again in one
piece.'

Flight Lieutenant Chuck Carlton,
from
Dallas
,
was singing 'The Yellow Rose Of Texas' as he sat in the darkness, of the
Bristol Beaufighter's cockpit, trying to keep himself awake. In the navigator's
seat behind him, Flight Sergeant Bert Higgins could bear it no longer. It was
the only song
Carlton
ever sang, and to make matters worse the Texan had a voice like a chainsaw
cutting through metal.

'Don't you know any other songs,
sir?' He asked over the intercom.

Carlton
grinned. 'That's the best one there
is, boy. Hell, you British don't recognize a good toon when you hear it.'

'With respect, sir, I heard it a
hundred times already tonight.'

Carlton
laughed. A veteran pilot with fifteen
years' experience, he was a burly man in his early thirties, with restless blue
eyes that seemed full of impatience, as if life were too slow for him. A mere
seventeen years old, he had earned his wings working for a private mail
service, criss-crossing America in every weather condition Mother Nature could
throw at him. Afterwards, there had been two years flying a crop duster out of
Atlanta, and a pretty exhilarating year with a flying circus act, none of which
explained why he was still alive and flying for RAF 201 Group out of Alex,
except that when war broke out, like many of his American countrymen who had
volunteered to fight for Britain, pitching in seemed the right thing to do, and
Carlton had longed to see some action.

'OK, our time's nearly up.' He
eased the stick forward and gently pulled back on the throttle to start his
descent from fourteen thousand feet. 'Give me a bearing and we'll get this baby
home and give those ungrateful British ears of yours a rest.'

The Beaufighter was flying night
coastal patrol, cruising at 150 knots in cloud. Higgins checked his compass and
took a bearing on Alex. They were north-west of the Egyptian port, and he
estimated they'd be landed and home in another half hour.