One Shot Kill (27 page)

‘What about you?’ Rosie asked.

‘If I don’t stay, Marc will think we’ve abandoned them when they get up here.’

Rosie wanted to say something to her brother, but Jean was terrified that he was about to get blown up and floored the gas pedal.

As the truck shot up the ramp and out into the night, Paul moved up to the exit, figuring he might stand some chance of surviving if he broke towards the woods when he heard planes passing over. After half a minute, with no more sign of planes, Paul felt a rumbling under his boots and saw red in the sky.

It looked as if the USAF’s diversionary raid on Rennes had started. Paul now suspected that the three aircraft Didier had spotted a couple of minutes earlier had been German night fighters sent out to intercept them. But even though that had been a false alarm, the beacon had now been running for over fifteen minutes and this was the last place on Earth Paul wanted to be.

‘They’ve bloody abandoned us,’ Luc shouted furiously, as he came around the top of the stairs with Marc and Goldberg and saw the trucks gone.

Paul shouted from the doorway. ‘I’m here. I sent the truck out into the woods for safety, but we can run and pick it up.’

‘You deaf shit,’ Luc roared, when he got close to Paul. ‘Twelve minutes I said. If we do make it out of here alive,
I’m
going to kill you.’

‘It’s tough to hear up the stairs with the echo,’ Paul protested.

‘You two argue, I’m running,’ Goldberg said, as he set off for the main gate at a sprint.

By the time they’d reached the fence the Americans really were on their way. Twenty-five four-engined bombers, minus however many had been shot down en-route. The entire sky seemed to vibrate with the hum of propellers.

Paul was slowest, and Marc’s kit was already in the truck, so he took Paul’s backpack when they were a hundred metres past the exit gate and gave him an encouraging shove.

‘I’m sorry about the beacon,’ Paul said. ‘I didn’t hear.’

Luckily Rosie had ordered Jean to stop a few metres down the road, rather than the full kilometre that Paul had suggested. Rosie stood by the rear canopy and caught the four running figures in the beam of her torch.

‘Come on,’ she screamed, as Jean put the truck in gear.

The first six bombers swept overhead in pairs, each releasing thirty-two five-hundred-pound bombs when their aimers pushed a button. Marc’s ankle was starting to swell and he was last into the truck, hauled aboard by Rosie.

‘Drive,’ Wallanger shouted frantically, as he banged on the metal partition behind Jean in the driver’s seat.

The first bombs landed as Jean moved into second gear. There was a tangle of arms and legs in the back and Henderson cursed as Paul trod on his hand.

‘I need my bag,’ Marc shouted, as he crawled up to the back. ‘I’ve got to get the film out of the developer or they’ll turn out black.’

Despite the beacon, the first bombs fell well wide, shaking the ground and silhouetting the trees against brilliant orange flashes. At least one fell close to the road, and they all sprawled to the floor as shards of bark speared the truck’s canvas awning.

It was fortunate that the Americans didn’t trigger the sympathetic fuses until the truck was another half-kilometre along the road, because when it happened it made one of the biggest bangs that the world had ever seen.

From the driver’s seat, Jean felt the back of the truck lift up and watched the tarmac ripple as if it was water. The sky blazed white and the heat from the fireball was so intense that treetops ignited.

In the back everyone screamed and grabbed each other. For a few horrific seconds, they were all convinced that the explosion was going to engulf them, but the light and heat did fade, and somehow Jean had kept the truck on the road, even while he’d been blinded.

‘Some fireworks,’ Luc said, as he peered over the truck’s rear flap, ears still ringing from the blast. His bad boy act meant he didn’t smile much, but he exchanged helpless grins with Rosie because they’d both expected to die.

*

The drive from Rennes to Paris took six hours and since it was after curfew the two German army trucks cruised empty roads with no speed limit.

The original plan was for Henderson to drive the lead truck, dressed in German army uniform. Fortunately German manpower shortages meant that it wasn’t uncommon for Frenchmen to drive military vehicles, especially ones filled with forced labourers dressed in grubby overalls.

Marc’s photos came out fine and the Ghost circuit had done a beautiful job providing forged or stolen documents. The first test came after two hours, when both trucks pulled into a roadside fuel depot to fill up.

Jean and Didier were ready with wodges of military documentation and permits, but the lone soldier on guard waved them towards a roadside tanker and told them to get on with things.

A more thorough check came on the outskirts of Paris. Two German privates went through the individual workers’ documents and shone torches in the back of the vehicle. They were suspicious when they saw Henderson’s bandaged face, but the documents said they were a construction crew and the hole in his cheek was explained away as a painful encounter with a swinging pickaxe.

‘OK, get out of here,’ one of the privates said.

Everyone was relieved, because a physical search would have revealed weapons, notebooks and scientific equipment.

It was 7 a.m. Saturday as the trucks reached Paris’s western suburbs and split up. Each one had three drop-off points for the scientists. Originally a pair of scientists were to be dropped at each location, but as two had died, two men were dropped singly.

After leaving the trucks, the scientists would be met by associates of the Ghost circuit. Each drop was different. One pair had to enter a barber’s shop and ask for Daisy, one was given a Metro ticket and told to report to the station’s lost luggage office, and another pair were told to join a short queue outside a public baths.

They’d all be bathed, shaved, given new clothes and civilian identity papers before setting off on the next phase of carefully planned escape routes. Some would spend a week or more in a safe house, others would be on trains heading towards the Swiss border by lunchtime.

Their chances of making it to Allied territory were excellent. They’d have money, documents and experienced guides from a well-run resistance circuit. Most important of all, the Germans thought they’d all died inside the bunker so nobody was out looking for them.

After the drop-offs, the two trucks met up at a meat warehouse. What little meat was available in Paris came through the black market, so the meat hooks hung bare and only metal wheel rims remained from porter’s handcarts that had been chopped up for firewood.

‘Leave the scientists’ notes and equipment from the laboratory,’ a man dressed like an undertaker told them politely. ‘It will be picked up by Lysander and should arrive in Britain before the scientists.’

‘Upp ruh uh,’ Henderson said, as he found his feet and wobbled slightly.

‘I don’t have a stretcher, but I could bring out a coffin,’ the undertaker suggested.

Nobody could understand a word Henderson said, but it was pretty clear he didn’t like the idea of travelling in a coffin and although he was lightheaded from the blood loss he managed to walk OK with one arm around Luc’s back.

‘I’ll arrange for a doctor,’ the undertaker said. ‘We have an excellent man and decent medical supplies thanks to American equipment drops.’

The undertaker led Henderson, Goldberg, Marc, Paul, Luc, Sam, Rosie, Jean and Didier across the empty marketplace and down some steps to a cellar. The walls to the next building had been knocked through and they emerged into the mortuary beneath the undertaker’s shop.

Then it was up three floors to a luxurious top-floor apartment. They’d made more noise on the stairs than they should have and Edith opened the door before they reached the landing.

‘How did it go?’ she asked.

‘Could have gone a lot worse,’ Paul said, as he stepped in and breathed real coffee and bread baking.

‘Paul’s getting his ears syringed when we get back to campus,’ Marc added before crashing into an armchair and yelling with pain.

‘You don’t sound so good either,’ Edith said.

‘It’s not good,’ Marc explained. ‘My ankle hurts if I stand up, but my arse stings when I sit down.’

There were some laughs at Marc’s expense as Maxine Clere came in from the kitchen and Luc laid Henderson out on a sofa.

‘Henderson’s not as bad as he looks,’ Rosie told Maxine. ‘But I took three loose teeth out of his mouth so he’ll need a dentist as well as a doctor.’

Maxine gave Henderson the gentlest of kisses on his good cheek. Henderson smiled for an instant, but any movement of his face was painful and he’d decided to give up trying to speak because it hurt like hell and nobody understood a word.

‘I might just prefer Henderson like this,’ Maxine said. ‘Can’t usually get a word in when you’re around.’

Luc grunted. ‘I’d heard you preferred Henderson naked in your bed.’

He wouldn’t have dared say that if Henderson was healthy. Maxine looked uncomfortable. Marc, Rosie and Paul couldn’t help smirking.

‘I can’t stay,’ Maxine said. ‘But I’ve arranged for everything you need. Hot water, towels, clothes, food, identity documents. Don’t go out. Keep the noise down and try not to flush the toilet too much because the people downstairs might wonder who you are.’

Rosie looked at the undertaker. ‘You’ll get the doctor here soon?’

He nodded. ‘Hopefully half an hour.’

Marc looked at Maxine as she pulled on a navy coat that seemed too heavy for a July morning.

‘What happens next?’ Marc asked.

‘If you wish to return to Britain it can be arranged,’ Maxine said. ‘But if any of you want to stay, I’m sure I can keep you busy.’

Marc wanted to stay because it meant he’d be close to Jae. For the others, the decision would be more complex.

‘Think it over,’ Maxine said, as she pulled out long hair trapped under the collar of her coat. ‘Right now you’re exhausted. Wash, sleep, eat and relax.’

The undertaker politely opened the door for Maxine to leave.

‘Oh,’ Maxine said, turning back when she was halfway out of the door. ‘I forgot to say: welcome to Paris!’

FZG-76

Hitler eventually renamed FZG-76 the V1. On 13 June 1944 it became the first of his much-hyped victory weapons to be used in anger.

Over the following eighty days, 8,554 V1 pilotless bombs were aimed at London, killing over 6,000 people and injuring 17,000 more. But by this time Allied troops had invaded Northern France and by September 1944 all V1 launch sites capable of targeting Britain had been captured or bombed to destruction.

Once Britain was out of range, V1s were launched against targets in Holland and Belgium. The last V1 to be used in anger was fired towards the Dutch port of Antwerp on 29 March 1945.

HIRAM GOLDBERG

Two years after the successful destruction of the bunker near Rennes, Sergeant Hiram Goldberg returned home to his family in New York, where he wrote a memoir about his work as a sniper attached to the US Army Intelligence service. Like all ex-servicemen, Goldberg was required to submit his book to the US Army censorship office before trying to get it published.

In an internal memorandum, the office produced a list of reasons why all references to the bunker raid should be removed from Goldberg’s book:

M E M O R A N D U M – T O P  S E C R E T

REF: GoldbergHC/Intelligence Memoir/0045816

DATE: 8/22/47

RE: CHAPTERS 8–13 RENNES BUNKER RAID

After further discussion and meeting of 8/17/47 decision taken that none of material contained in chapters on Rennes Bunker Raid is currently considered publishable. Reasons as below:

1.
 
Cap Charles Henderson’s use of chemical spray during military operation was clear breach of 1928 Geneva Protocol. Henderson used the cylinder without UK or US authorisation and the matter is still under investigation.

Any admission to use of chemical weapons during war, even unauthorised, likely to result in significant and undesirable publicity for UK/US military.

2.
 
Of nine bunker scientists who made it out of France, seven now work in United States on USAF rocket-guidance systems programmes. These men regarded as targets for Russian espionage and any publicity relating to them best avoided. Also, British/French still believed sore and feel that US ‘poached’ these scientists from under their noses at the end of the war.

3.
 
Version of guidance system removed from bunker was more advanced than unit deployed in the finished V1 flying bomb. Key technologies taken from this unit remain secret and are still probably unknown to Soviet Russia.

4.
 
Although Espionage Research Unit B disbanded late 1944, UK remains keen to hush up matters relating to use of underage persons in espionage ops.

A new unit reporting to the British Secret Intelligence Service named CHERUB is experimenting with use of boys in peacetime intelligence operations. CIA currently studies this project with interest and may implement similar unit of its own at some point. For such unit to be effective, it is imperative no publicity be given to use of underage agents.

NOTE ON DEALING WITH GOLDBERG

Take all reasonable steps to ensure that Goldberg’s book is not published in
ANY
form. It is not desirable for a man involved in such a sensitive operation to attain any public notoriety.

Goldberg is a family man, with good service record, wounded at Battle of Okinawa and decorated on two occasions.

Suggest matter be discussed with him face to face using carrot/stick approach:

Carrot:
Appeal to patriotism, offer further military decoration if felt necessary and suggest censorship office can assist in finding a publisher for his work.