Day of Vengeance (17 page)

Day of Vengeance

“He’s late,” Angus said. “It’s seven-ten.”

“We must go,” Sophie said. “My parents…”

Jack was fraught. “We can’t just leave him.”

“Jack, it is what he said,” Sophie tapped her foot impatiently. “We must go. I am sure he will be very close behind. You must help me now.”

Jack pushed her away.

“I’m sorry, Sophie. I lost him once and I’m not going to lose him again. I’m going after him.”

Sophie looked at Jack with a puzzled expression. She had no idea what Jack was talking about. But she didn’t have time to question him, because he had already ducked through the hole in the wall. Angus whispered angrily after him, “Jack!”

But it was too late. Jack was gone. Angus rolled his eyes. “Come on Sophie – otherwise he’s just going to get himself into trouble.”

Angus set off and Sophie followed, muttering something to herself in French.

They hurried through from the back of the cave and soon found themselves at the front again with its stacked crates. They crept along the side behind the crates, just as before. The gates at the front of the cave had been left open and the light from a clear summer’s day poured in, straining their eyes. It seemed to be eerily quiet. Gingerly, they approached the entrance.

Jack crouched down and peaked out from the front of the storeroom. The scene before him was very different in daylight, but his recollection of the broad features of the site just before they had been caught was accurate. The entrance to the storerooms, which led into the limestone cave system, was built into a
steep-sided
, wooded hill. The chateau must be somewhere on the hill above them. There was thick woodland all around but immediately in front was a clearing. The four concrete assembly houses were opposite and to the left, across the clearing. Each was about seven meters high and about the same width. There was a narrow-gauge railway built into the ground, which ran from the assembly houses and then curved away along a track that disappeared into the woodland beyond. Outside the assembly houses was a crane. The doors of the assembly houses were open. There was no one about.

Angus crept up beside Jack. “It’s completely dead – I thought there were supposed to be people, soldiers, engineers. Where is everyone?”

Suddenly, they heard the sound of an engine coming towards them. They pulled back from the entrance and ducked down behind a crate near the door. The noise grew louder and Jack poked his head above the top of the crate. Approaching fast, from the track into the woods, an army motorbike and sidecar appeared, followed by a Kübelwagen. They drove into the clearing and Jack’s heart sank when he saw who was in the back of the jeep. He whispered to the others, “They’ve got Dad!”

“Christie – he’s your father? But…?”

Jack suddenly realised his mistake, “I’ll explain later…”

Angus fingered his backpack. “Jack – we’ve got the other gun in here… and the other explosive charge…”

“We don’t stand a chance – there are two of them on the bike and two in the jeep. We’ve had it.”

The Kübelwagen pulled up right outside the entrance to the storeroom, partially blocking the entrance. The motorbike and sidecar pulled up alongside, puttering away in neutral. Jack was frozen to the spot. He knew they should run to the back of the storeroom and escape through the cave… but then he saw his dad’s face. It was bruised and puffed up and blood was dripping from a cut in his cheek. He had been beaten up. The soldiers dragged him from the back of the Kübelwagen and onto the floor of the storeroom. His hands were tied behind him and, unable to break his fall, his head hit the ground with a crack. The four SS soldiers stood above him. One was an officer and he leaned down and screamed something in German millimetres from Christie’s ear. Jack heard his father moan. The officer clicked his fingers and one of the soldiers slammed his boot into Christie’s stomach. Christie screamed.

Jack suddenly lost it. He grabbed the pack and snatched out the pistol. Leaping onto the crate, he fired wildly into the group of soldiers. The first round struck the nearest soldier in the leg and he reeled backwards. The next three bullets went wide, but the fifth caught the officer in the shoulder and he sank to his knees, clutching himself in pain. The other two soldiers twisted round, reaching for their weapons. Jack pulled the trigger again and then twice more. But the gun was empty. He was standing high up on the crate, gun dangling uselessly from his hand, as the
two soldiers brought their machine guns to bear on him. But Angus and Sophie moved quickly. Sophie climbed, catlike, onto a second crate and, as Jack prepared to die, she hurtled through the air with one leg fully extended and her other tucked beneath her. Her father may have criticised elements of Sophie’s technique, but as her outstretched foot connected with the jaw of the unfortunate SS soldier, there was no doubt, that had Jean-Yves been there, he would be have been proud. The gun flew from the soldier’s hands and he tumbled backwards with Sophie on top of him, before cracking his head on the floor of the storeroom. He did not move.

Meanwhile, Angus had decided to take a less graceful approach to the problem of the final SS soldier. He shot through the gap between the crates like a frenzied bull and propelled himself into the air. His body was horizontal as he slammed into the soldier, who careened across the floor before coming to rest somewhere on the other side of the storeroom with Angus on top of him.

Jack jumped down from the crate and held his father’s head in his hands.

“Dad – are you OK?”

His father moaned. Jack looked around at the mayhem. Angus had already picked up one of the soldier’s guns and was holding it at the ready.

“There’s some rope next to that crate – we can tie them up.” “Jack…”

Jack turned back to his father who was trying to say something. “What Dad? What do you need?”

“I’m OK… a broken rib… it’s nothing… the rocket…”

“What?”

“The rocket… we have to stop the rocket. It’s going to launch.”

Christie tried to haul himself up, but he was too shaken.

“Lie there for a minute, Dad, what are you talking about?”

“They are about to launch the rocket…” he spoke in a whisper, obviously in pain. “They’ve accelerated the launch sequence… it’s even earlier than Altenberg expected… I planted the charges, but they won’t go off in time. We only have a few minutes.”

Jack was flabbergasted. “What? But how? We have to get out of here.”

Christie grabbed Jack’s hand, understanding his desperation, “But I don’t know what’s happened to Altenberg… the payload… he won’t have had time to change it. If it launches, thousands will die. It’s not meant to be…”

“How? How do we stop it?”

“Take the last charge. Take the sidecar – the rocket silo is at the end of the track, through the woods. Drop the charge into the silo. You will have a clear run. Everyone is inside the observation areas. No one is out in the open.”

“But…”

Through the pain, Christie summoned all his energy. “Go!”

Jack looked around. Angus and Sophie, oblivious to Jack’s conversation with his dad, had finished tying up each of the soldiers, who were battered, but alive. Jack ran over, picked up the backpack and took out the explosive charge and detonator.

He called over to Sophie. “Sophie – I know you can drive a Kübelwagen – but can you manage that thing?” he gestured over to the motorbike and sidecar that still sat outside the entrance, its engine idling.

Sophie looked at him oddly, “No problem. Why?”

“Angus – you stay here and make sure those guys don’t move. Try and patch Dad up… we’ll be back… I hope.”

“What are…?”

“No time to explain. Come on Sophie.”

In a few seconds Sophie was straddling the Zündapp KS 750 and Jack hunkered down in the sidecar. Sophie revved the engine and looked down at Jack.

“Where to?”

“Follow the track that way, through the woods, it should take us straight to the launch pad.”

The rear tyre spat up a plume of dust as Sophie threw the Zündapp into a tight turn and powered across the clearing to where the track curved into the woodlands. She redlined each gear in turn as they roared down the track. “How far?” she shouted to Jack, who clung on for dear life in the sidecar beside her.

“Quarter of a mile at most.”

“What happens when we get there?”

“Get close to the silo – it will be obvious – in the middle of the next clearing. I’ll set the charge and throw it into the silo on top of the rocket… should give us a few minutes to escape…”

At that moment, dead ahead, the track opened up into a small clearing. There was a flat concrete apron in the middle, and a circular, banked mound rose from the concrete pad, about two metres above the ground at its highest point. Beyond the mound was a tall crane and to the left was a large mechanical device that held a circular disc that had been lifted off the top of the mound like a giant lid. The narrow-gauge railway, built into the track,
extended all the way to the mound. Parked up along the track were some army vehicles and what looked like three fuel tankers. Off to the right of the clearing, set far back from the concrete pad, where the clearing met the surrounding woodland, there was a strange-looking armoured vehicle with caterpillar tracks – a sort of stunted tank. Given all the vehicles and engineering equipment, Jack thought it strange that he could not see one person in the open. Suddenly, he understood why.

As they raced towards the mound, a plume of vapour exploded into the air directly ahead. They were only fifty metres away.

“Keep going – get as close as you can!” Jack yelled.

Sophie bent over the handlebars and twisted the throttle grip as the bike surged forward. Jack took the detonator and pushed it into the explosive. He set the timer. Ten seconds.

Then, amongst the gas and vapour spewing up from the mound there appeared a huge, black, pointed cone rising into the air. It was the rocket. It seemed to rise slowly at first, its
twenty-five
tons of thrust driven by the controlled explosion of the alcohol and oxygen, deep in its belly, fighting hard against the pull of gravity. In only twenty-four seconds the mighty projectile, with its lethal payload, would reach the speed of sound. In thirty-five seconds it would reach twice the speed of sound and in under a minute it would be twenty miles high, above the earth’s atmosphere and travelling at more than five times the speed of sound. Minutes later it would arrive without warning above Portsmouth and detonate its deadly radioactive cargo, killing thousands of people and rendering the city uninhabitable.

The vast rocket loomed before them. Sophie had no time to
turn the bike away. It hit the mound and they were thrown upwards towards the rising rocket and the hot exhaust gases spewing up from the silo. Sophie twisted the handlebars to avoid smacking straight into the rocket and the whole bike lurched sideways. As the sidecar flashed past the rocket, Jack took the charge in one hand, reached out and slammed it onto the smooth, metal skin of the rocket. The adhesive clamped the explosive firmly to the V-2. The sidecar flew down the other side of the mound and slammed back onto the concrete apron. Jack and Sophie were thrown forward but managed to stay on the bike as it raced on towards the fencing at the far end of the launch pad. Sophie hit the brakes and wheeled the sidecar round. For a moment they gazed upwards as the mighty rocket cleared the silo.

“Don’t wait!” Jack bellowed. “It’s going to go off.”

Sophie gunned the engine and they recrossed the launch pad, skirting past the silo and heading back down the access track towards the assembly houses and storage cave.

“Faster!” Jack shouted.

They had only travelled two hundred metres back down the track when the charge on the side of the rocket went off, immediately igniting the alcohol and oxygen tanks inside the rocket, directly above the launch pad. There was a white flash and the shockwave from the airburst caught them and propelled them down the track. Jack looked behind him as fire rained down from the heavens. It was as if half of France had gone up. No one underneath could possibly have survived. Then something else struck him. They had narrowly avoided the blast from the exploding fuel tanks… but they were as good as
dead anyway. The compartment with its radioactive payload would have surely fractured and would already be casting its invisible deadly radioactive dust across the French countryside. They had been irradiated and soon they would be dead. Just like Pendelshape.

V–2 rocket launch