When Eagles Burn (Maddox Book #1) Read online

  “Targeting device?” Maddox said. “Is that even possible for a V2?”

  “The Germans have been working flat out on it for years now,” McCallum replied. “Essentially, it’s a shoebox-sized container that has to be positioned by someone on the ground so that it lines up with due north. The agent puts it a prearranged distance from the object he wants to hit – it seems to be about 55 yards. The operative then, at the required moment, flicks a switch and the box emits a radio signal. It doesn’t last long – the power output required is enormous and drains the battery in less than a minute.”

  “But you’d need a dish the size of a house to broadcast all the way to Germany and a V2 could never get that far in time.”

  “That’s the clever part,” McCallum said, stopping on the stairs for a moment to catch his breath. “The only reason it works is that they run an air raid at the same time.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Actually, it’s genius,” McCallum replied. “The box couldn’t broadcast a signal that could be heard far away, so in amongst the planes on the air raid is one specially designed to pick up the weak pulse. Inside, next to the radio listener, there’s an operator who can pass and relay information on to the V2, which is launched so that its arrival over the target – in our case London – coincides with the raid.”

  “It would require split second timing,” Maddox said. “But no worse than we do on many other specialist missions. And I suppose the plane hidden in amongst the others on the raid can be hollowed out and fitted with kit specially to signal the rocket.”

  “We estimate the V2 can be ‘remote controlled’ very precisely almost guaranteeing a hit within a twenty by twenty yard range,” McCallum said.

  “Amazing,” Maddox lifted his hand to his lips. “Press a button in Berlin and you can obliterate a predetermined target in England. It’s fantastical.”

  “It’s worse,” McCallum said. “Stick a big enough warhead on the top of your missile and, if you know roughly where the person you want to hit is…”

  “Long distance assassination,” Maddox nodded slowly. “Any speech attended by any dignitary, any dinner, any meeting of people together in a room – the more together, the better – the paranoia the Germans could create would be enormous.”

  “Exactly,” McCallum replied.

  “Why not just use the targeting beacon to direct the air raid itself?” Maddox asked.

  “Well,” McCallum said, “take the target they attempted to hit tonight: the Cabinet War Rooms. The Germans found the building’s only weak spot was the 50 square yard corrugated iron roof at the entrance. Try and bomb that with an air raid…”

  “…And you’re just as likely to bury the target under rubble from the surrounding damage of any stray ordinance that miss the target,” Maddox finished the thought. “Whereas, with pin-point precision targeting… it’s brilliant.”

  They continued down the stairs and, passing two armed guards, entered ‘the dungeon’. McCallum took Maddox to the third door on the right – the observation lounge for interrogation room six.

  The lights in this antechamber were purposefully off. In the far wall, there was a double glazed panel that looked into an oppressively well-lit but Spartan room. The change in illumination allowed people in the observation lounge to keep an eye on those being grilled in the other area.

  McCallum reached over and switched on a speaker.

  He needn’t have bothered.

  The interrogation room contained a solitary individual, his hands secured to the desk in front of him. Maddox took in the man in a single sweeping glance. Late forties, the bushy unkempt hair of a professor, high cheek bones – Germanic probably, with a hint of Scandinavian in his past.

  Despite the depth of his predicament, the German sat bolt upright, eyes unblinking as he stared into what, to him, was the endless black nothingness that led to where Maddox stood.

  “That was the spy we caught planting the Helix transmitter,” McCallum said.

  “And the device itself?” Maddox asked.

  McCallum gestured toward a bench that ran alongside the room.

  “You can look but don’t touch,” he said. “The boffins are salivating at the opportunity to go to town on it.”

  “It’s a little embarrassing for the Germans that they allowed it to be captured,” Maddox said. “A flaw in their plan?”

  “Hardly,” McCallum replied.

  The Scotsman leaned across and, using a pencil, tapped two phials bolted into the sides of the Helix that connected down to a small copper tube.

  “On one side they’ve got a container of picric acid. The other has sulphuric. Once the radio signal depletes the battery, a seal on the phials breaks. The liquids merge here, causing the box to bursts into flames.”

  “An upgraded pencil bomb,” Maddox said. “Ingenious”

  “A what?” McCallum asked.

  “German spy Franz von Rintelen terrorized Allied shipping early in the Great War with very similar devices,” Maddox said. “He sank several ships and destroyed thousands of tons of valuable cargo. It looks like this is a modernization of the original idea.”

  He glanced through the glass at the spy again.

  “What’s his name?” Maddox asked.

  “Schmitz,” McCallum replied.

  Maddox chuckled.

  ‘Smith’.

  What a perfectly bland name for the spy who almost killed Churchill.

  Maddox examined the man’s defiant features, then peered down into the box of gyroscopes and wires.

  He looked at McCallum.

  “All this is fascinating,” Maddox said, “but I have to ask: what’s going on?”

  McCallum raised an eyebrow.

  “As I was telling you,” McCallum said. “There was an attack on…”

  “Let me phrase it another way,” Maddox said, waving his colleague silent. “Assuming this V2 attack on the Cabinet War Rooms was in the first air raid this afternoon, you’ve had at most four hours to capture this guy, bring him here, try to extract information and find out about remote control rockets – incidentally, according to you, before the boffins have had a chance to examine this Helix device.”

  McCallum smiled.

  “Now, I know you McCallum,” Maddox said. “I know you’re excellent at your job. But you’re not that good. And this Schmitz guy you’ve got in there – to get this information that quickly, you’d have had to break him. This, I will say as a definite fact: that man has not been broken yet. There’s not a mark to his body and he sits their defiant as Hitler. This is not a person who’s been spilling the beans for the last few hours.”

  McCallum’s smile broadened. He liked Maddox – the captain was direct: you always knew where you stood. Others in the SOE could learn a thing or two from his blunt honesty.

  The Scot half-heartedly and rubbed his jaw.

  “You’re right,” he said. “We’ve been working on this for the past month – trying to capture Schmitz and locate the other five boxes he’s brought into the country.”

  “Five boxes?” Maddox replied.

  “Actually, there were a total of seven,” McCallum said. “There are five more. Two were used this evening.”

  “Two?” Maddox asked, alarmed. “What was the other target?”

  “Buckingham Palace,” McCallum replied. “After we found the first box, we beefed up security around sensitive sites. We got lucky. The box was found in St James’ Park.”

  “And the agent who planted it?”

  “Still at large,” McCallum said. “So there’s still at least one other person out there with a bunch of these Helix devices, roaming the country.”

  Maddox was silent while he considered the situation.

  “Why bring Schmitz to the SOE?” Maddox asked. “Why not take him to your facilities at Section 5 – or even those of Section 19? We’re commandoes. We’re not internal intelligence. Hunting these guys is your job.”

  “Indeed it is
,” McCallum said. “But someone’s going to have to stop more of these things coming our way – and that is the role we need you for. Someone’s going to have to go behind enemy lines and disrupt the supply chain, otherwise we risk Helix devices cropping up in London, Paris or at military sites. God forbid: they find a way to do it without the attached bombing raid and they start hitting Washington DC or New York.”

  “Makes sense,” Maddox said. “So what’s the story?”

  “Would you believe me if I told you Brigadier Carter wanted to tell you himself?”

  “Carter?” Maddox frowned. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “You say that now,” McCallum replied. “But, well, all I’ll say is: I did not request you for this mission. Carter insisted.”

  A few seconds of silence.

  “Why do I get the feeling this is one mission I may not be coming back from?” Maddox asked.

  CHAPTER 5

  Carter ignored Maddox when he entered the office. The Brigadier’s nose was firmly fixed on a set of folders marked: ‘Operation Boreas’.

  Blackout curtains had been fully drawn over the large windows that faced south from the building. In daytime, they provided a beautiful panoramic of the roofs of Regent Street and Piccadilly.

  Maddox eased himself into the leather seat opposite Carter.

  The bastard had the merest glimmer of a grin.

  Maddox braced himself for the worst.

  “I understand you’ve spoken with McCallum?”

  “I have,” Maddox replied.

  “So, you understand the importance of stopping the production process for these Helix boxes?”

  Maddox nodded curtly.

  Around this weasel, you spoke as little as you possibly could.

  “We could hit the factories,” Carter said. “But that would be pointless. The Germans could simply up sticks and build them elsewhere. But there is a key bottleneck. Apparently the electronics require a vital component that the Nazis have no natural access to.”

  “Which is?”

  “Diamonds,” Carter replied. “Not your normal white kind. The scientists tell me they need blue ones. Something about the fact that they have a trace amount of boron gives them unusual electrical properties.”

  “And that’s required to make the transmitters and timers on the Helix so damn small?”

  “Exactly,” Carter said.

  “Diamonds aren’t common,” Maddox said. “But blue diamonds? Where are you hoping to send us? Back to Malaya? Congolese Africa? Ceylon?”

  “You’re right, at least in one respect,” Carter interrupted. “There are only a handful of places where you can get the required stones – and even in those spots, they’re unspeakably rare, which is why the Germans have so far only been able to make a handful of the devices. To break the supply chain and prevent any more being built, I’m sending you and your team to Petsamo, in North Finland.”

  Maddox sat bolt upright.

  “Are you insane?”

  “Don’t forget who you’re speaking to,” Carter snapped.

  “My men are jungle and desert specialists,” Maddox replied. “We’ve fought in Burma, North Africa and Sicily. We’ve even done France. But Petsamo? That’s inside the Arctic Circle. You want the Kompani Linge – the Norwegian Independents. Linge’s NORIC 1 trains specifically for Scandinavia. For God’s sake: that’s why the SOE has them.”

  “I’ve picked you,” Carter replied.

  “It’s September,” Maddox replied. “North Finland’s light bloody twenty hours a day – if not more. And that’s not to mention the cross-country skiing. That’s a designated skill. I mean… my team can do it – they’ve had limited training, but it just isn’t…”

  “I’ve picked you,” Carter said more forcefully. “You will take your usual squad – Patterson, Marlowe and Fallon – and go to Petsamo, taking with you four additional men I’ve specially selected.”

  “Four men you’ve picked?”

  Maddox’s eyebrows rose.

  “This just gets better and better,” he laughed sarcastically. “I don’t even get to choose the men I go into battle with.”

  “That’s right,” Carter replied, his crooked grin enlarging. “You will lead a newly incorporated squad, headed by Lieutenant Charles Walker, comprising sergeants Shield, Conley and ‘Sledge’ McKlenna.”

  “None of them are Arctic specialists, either,” Maddox replied. “McKlenna is a bloody Australian. He’s another jungle expert – I fought with him in Burma.”

  “Good,” Carter said. “So you’ll at least know one of them. You will go to Finland. You will stop the Germans. You will destroy their mine. You will capture the diamonds and ensure no one else can ever get access to digging out more.”

  Maddox ran his hands across his face in frustration. His eyes suddenly felt very tired. His head filled with questions – something was very wrong.

  “We’re not even the best placed people to go,” he said slowly. “The Finns are in the middle of the Continuation War with the Russians. Given that the Soviets are supposed to be our allies, wouldn’t it be better to get them to make the attack? They’re at least already on the ground and used to the conditions.”

  Carter flopped the folder down onto the desk in front of Maddox.

  “Of course,” the general said, “if you want to refuse this mission I’m sure the question of cowardice won’t be raised, again.”

  Maddox snorted.

  Check and mate.

  Take the mission, be force fed an inadequate team, and head off to a near certain death – or risk having the past dragged up.

  Maddox stood and snatched the folder from the table.

  “I was cleared,” he shot back. “Your nephew’s death had nothing to do with me. He disobeyed a direct order and got himself shot by a sniper.”

  Carter leaned back in his chair. His lips drew tight as the grin disappeared from his face.

  “And don’t go crying to your uncle to save your hide,” the Brigadier said. “Now get out of my office. A plane leaves from Biggin Hill in four hours to take you to Edinburgh. All the details are in the file.”

  Maddox stormed for the door and stopped as he turned the handle. He stared directly at Carter.

  “I won’t forget this,” he said.

  Carter’s face remained placid.

  “I hope not,” the Brigadier replied. “I hope you remember it for the rest of your very short life.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Komelkov cleaned the blade of his knife in the snow and stepped back from the mangled corpse of the Finnish freedom fighter. Temur had turned away in disgust as the captain extracted information on the location of the Germans and local guerrilla positions.

  “It is not tasteful work, Temur,” Komelkov said, walking back to the tanks on the road. “But it is necessary. We now have a good lead on where the enemy lies and can proceed with our journey.”

  “If he told you the truth,” Temur said.

  “You really think he withstood all that I did and lied?”

  Temur said nothing but shook his head slowly.

  Komelkov squinted as the sun’s low angle in the sky caused it to reflect off the snow with a powerful glare. The wind rustled through the pine trees, shaking free droplets of water from the melting frost.

  If he didn’t have to endure the gnawing temperatures, boggy fields, bile-ridden fighting and the stench of sitting all day long in a heated tin can with his unwashed men, he might almost be able to find it in his heart to call this country beautiful.

  Almost.

  “When you asked him the questions,” Temur asked slowly, “you focused more on the Germans’ positions and strength, rather than the Finns.”

  Komelkov glanced back across to the smoking wreck of the Commissar’s tank. With that little shit out of the way, there was no reason to keep his men in the dark any longer.

  “We’ve not been ordered out to the frozen arse end of nowhere simply to kill a few mongrel bumpkins playi
ng at soldiers,” he said. “The reason the Germans want this region so badly is for the minerals. Everything their precious Fatherland lacks can be found up here, shat by God under the rock and ice.”

  “We’re here to secure the nickel mines?” Temur asked.

  “Eventually,” Komelkov replied. “But we have orders that a particular operation must be captured and neutralized first.”

  “What is it?”

  “Something that will make the generals who sent us here very rich men,” Komelkov replied. “And in Soviet Russia, a happy general is a wonderful thing.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Maddox climbed out of the limousine and slammed the door.

  He had spent the journey from Oxford Street to Biggin Hill examining the feeble map work and intelligence he’d been given to accompany the mission. His fist clenched involuntarily around the papers, crumpling the outside of the folder in his hand.

  It was dark on the airfield and all around him the ghostly outlines of various planes belonging to bomber command could be seen silhouetted against the stars.

  Clouds of summer midges danced about the lights of the aircraft hangar. Inside he counted six people. Three would be his usual team of men: Patterson, Marlowe and Fallon. So who was missing from Lieutenant Walker’s group of four?

  As he stormed across the tarmac, the security barrier on the airstrip’s front gate rose to attention. A lorry sped across to his position. It pulled up just as he reached the hangar doors, its wheels skidding to a halt and leaving black streaks of rubber behind them. Four redcaps – military policemen – climbed out of the rear. The fifth, the truck’s driver glanced across at Maddox. He had a dark purple bruise swelling around his right eye.

  “Captain Maddox?” the leader of the red caps asked.

  “Someone’s in a hurry,” Maddox raised an eyebrow.

  “I understand you are to take delivery of… this…” the red cap closed his eyes and swallowed hard, “sergeant?”

  Two more red caps hopped down from the back canopy of the vehicle. Between them was ‘Sledge’ McKlenna. The beefy Australian was easily a third bigger than even the largest of the men. Other than looking like he was working off the last of a mighty drinking session, he appeared much as Maddox remembered.