Designated Targets

As her intelligence boss left his station, McTeale struggled briefly with the RAF officer. Air Vice Marshal Simon Caterson, she now recalled—a bit of a prat with an irritating habit of holding forth on all manner of topics, whether he knew anything about them or not.

“Air Vice Marshal, you will restrain yourself, or I will have Mr. McTeale turn you over to the SAS lads, to use as a practice dummy. They broke their last one.”

With that, she headed for ops. She was certain she heard Caterson say, “Wretched woman,” as she left.

Howard joined her there, a few steps down the corridor in the central hull. It was a smaller version of the CIC, with backups for many of the same systems. It was also mercifully free of ’temps.

“You’re familiar with the Müller jacket, Mr. Howard?”

He nodded. Howard was responsible for tracking all the skin jobs on their bionet. Thirteen in all. “He was going after an engineer. One of the brighter kiddies.”

“Well, he found him,” said Halabi. “And this guy claims to be our secret admirer from yesterday. Do you think it’s possible?”

“Brasch?” The lieutenant commander thought it over. “It’s definitely possible. The project data we received matches up with his AOR. But it matches a couple of others, too.”

“How many?”

“Two. An admiral in the Kriegsmarine, and a Luftwaffe colonel.”

“What’re Müller’s mission specs?” she asked.

“Quick and dirty. A hostile debrief, followed by Sanction Two.”

“Really?” said Halabi. “I thought Müller was a pilot. He’s not really trained for that sort of business, is he?”

“Jacket says he volunteered. He’s a Jerry. Figured he’d fit right in.”

Halabi, who had an intimate understanding of cultural dislocation, doubted that, but she didn’t have time to debate the point.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” the comm operator called over, interrupting the discussion. “Eyes only again, for you.”

Halabi took the message on the nearest screen. She had a feeling it was Müller again.

She was right. It was a one-line message, but it cut through the Rubik’s Cube of possibilities she’d just been playing with.

Brasch requests extraction.

“Better get the War Ministry for me,” she told her comm officer.

“Captain! We have incoming. Sorry, no, we don’t. London does.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. “More jets.”

“No, ma’am. Missiles. Cruise missiles.”

30

NORWAY

These were the finest men Aryan blood had to offer, and he was immensely proud of them. There were only eight of them, two units of four men each, something they had learned from England’s much-vaunted Special Air Service. The SS wasn’t so arrogant as its opponents imagined. It was more than willing to adapt and improve upon their ideas. But if they wanted to think of his troops as mindless automatons, then let them.

He would laugh on their graves.

It felt strange, however, to be standing in front of an American aeroplane—a Douglas Dakota, they called it, captured in North Africa. Stranger still to be addressing men dressed in the uniforms of the enemy.

As the moment finally arrived, and Operation Sea Dragon began to unfold, Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler could have been at the missile base in Donzenac, or with his new airborne regiment at Zaandam. These eight men, however, were about to embark on a personal odyssey entirely of his own design. They were going to drive a dagger into the heart of England, and so he had chosen to join them on a small, nameless airfield at the edge of the North Sea.

Three of them spoke English perfectly; most of the others with a slight accent, hence the uniforms, which identified them as Free Polish forces. Englanders thought of all Europeans as essentially the same. Wogs or wops or some such insulting nonsense. That ill-considered sense of superiority would cost them dearly over the next few days.

Only Colonel Skorzeny, the commander of the group, would proceed without a thorough mastery of English. But he was the one man Himmler knew he could trust with a job like this. Given the need, he would walk through mountains if they stood in his way. The Reichsführer’s only regret was that he wouldn’t personally get to watch as Skorzeny completed his mission. But if the colonel survived, he would entertain everyone at the Wolfschanze with his vivid tales of the adventure.

The giant storm trooper, who was dressed as a simple corporal, stomped up and down in front of his men as they stood in line like carven marble statues. “So who amongst you will slaughter this fat pig for the führer?” he roared at them.

“I will, sir!” they all chorused in return.

“No,” he boomed back, laughing like an elder God. “I will choke the life out of him, and you shall do nothing more than gather around to slap me on the back, and tell me what a fine fellow I am. Are we understood?”

“Jawohl, Herr Korporal!”