Vengeance 10

Outside, Bethwig hesitated, then turned away from the car park. There might be roadblocks and he could not afford the delay. The SS guard normally stationed at the blockhouse door had disappeared; he did not know if that was a good sign or not, but as there seemed to be no one about, he plunged through the shrubbery and began to run.

* * *

Jan Memling crouched in the shadows beside the fence while Prager, a few metres on, pushed up a strand of wire and wriggled through. The few incandescent lamps mounted on high poles swayed with the wind, flinging shadows and light in every direction. Memling slipped through after him, and they trotted towards the looming bulk of the tank farm. There were only two guards, one at each entrance — the first asleep in his hut, the other sheltering from the wind and staring glumly into the night. It was obvious that neither expected the slightest bit of trouble. And why should they? Prager observed. In the six years of its existence, the Peenemunde facility had had only one actual taste of war: the bombing in 1943. And here they were, a year and a half later, guarding a useless farm on a miserably cold January night while they waited for the Russians.

‘The tank contains approximately fifty thousand litres of alcohol,’ Bethwig had explained. ‘Not enough to do more than make a big flash. Wernher’s brother, Magnus, is in charge of our security, and he made it his business to see that if we needed it, a suitable distraction could be produced. The thirty thousand metric tons of high explosive removed from the V-Ten warhead has been stored inside a deserted petrol tank near to the alcohol tank. If it could be exploded, I am certain it would keep the SS far too busy searching for Russian saboteurs to interfere with us.’

Prager hissed, and they both went to ground. A shadow passed on the single-track road, and a moment later they heard the racketing sound of a motor fading into the night. The two men exchanged glances.

‘Let’s get this over with fast,’ Memling muttered, ‘before they come back. Do you have your bearings yet?’

Bethwig had given them the code number of the alcohol tank and described its location on the seaward side of the farm. Their way was impeded by a tangle of pipes, fire barriers and deserted buildings, and it was 21.39 hours when they reached a concrete wall that overlooked an isolated cluster of tanks squatting above the beach. The moon, jousting with broken cloud, silhouetted their target against the sullen Baltic.

They vaulted the wall and trotted down the slope. Memling explored the surrounding area for the fill pipes, which he then traced back to the metering valves mounted on the tank itself. The piping was stainless steel — to prevent contamination of the alcohol — which only made their task that much more difficult. The joint where the piping ran into the tank proper was well protected by a heavy riveted iron flange.

He backed off then and stared upwards. The tank was made of cast-iron sections, and therefore it had to be lined with glass or stainless steel to prevent contamination; somewhere inside would be the emergency drain valve. Memling found the ladder on the north side, jumped, caught hold, and went up quickly.

The top of the tank was gently rounded and covered with a glare of ice. He crouched against the wind and made his way along, clutching the handholds for dear life. The cloud was broken enough to make visible the entire northern end of the island. In the vague moonlight he could see the smaller, squatter petrol tank downslope and a hundred metres or more distant. He thought about the thirty thousand kilos of HE stored inside, and shivered. The damned thing had to be full of petrol fumes; it was a bomb waiting for a spark. Yet he had to be certain. Amatol was incredibly stable and damned hard to ignite. Only because of that had they dared hide it in the abandoned petrol tank.

He ducked his chin into the collar of his jacket. To the south, five kilometres or more distant, the launch area glowed as if aflame. Behind, the wind-whipped Baltic disappeared into the invisible horizon; somewhere out there was a submarine waiting for his signal. They would wait for a long time; the Gestapo had taken the ‘Joan’ radio transmitter lent by the OSS. For a moment the old uncertainty and fear swept him. Once the tank exploded, the SS would be out in force. Unless he and Prager kept moving and were exceptionally lucky… he stopped the wild, random thoughts. Bethwig and his mad scheme. The man was crazy, or was he? Wouldn’t he do exactly the same if he had the chance? This was perhaps the final opportunity of their generation to fulfil one of man’s oldest dreams. He had been asked to play a very small part and would do so no matter the cost. Bethwig was right. A man’s dreams are all he ever really has.