

SHOOTING THE DEAD

Shooting the Dead

A novel by

Lloyd R Martin

Copyright ©2017 by Lloyd R Martin

No reproduction is allowed without permission

All rights reserved no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored I a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any mean; electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, MP3, MP4, or otherwise, without permission in writing from the author, Lloyd R Martin.

SHOOTING THE DEAD

PREFACE

FOUR IN THE MORNING

THE SECOND DAY

WHO WAS IT

SILVER CYLINDERS

MY COHORT ORDERED HOME

LUIS ESTRADAS SUITCASE

STRANGER AT THE GATE

DOCTOR MALCOLM LEIGHTON

BRUCIANNIS

GENEVA

FACE-OFF

CLOUDY SKIES

DKM DORNIER

SHOOTING THE DEAD

ILLAS CIAS

TRAM 28

K9 BEAN

A QUIET BACKWATER

IT'S A TRAP

TAUBER

ILLAS CIAS VIA THE ATLANTIC

ACTIONS AND REACTIONS

AMPHIBIOUS LANDING

ROCKHOPPER

WHEN A GURU NEEDS A GURU

WHO DOES NOT ANSWER THE RUDDER, ANSWERS THE ROCKS

THE KOMMISARS COUNTERSTRIKE

SEA KING

COUNTERSTRIKE

ABEGAIL SALE

REAR ADMIRAL JULIET ROBINSON

KARL THE CARP

AUTUMN

SEEHUND

QUAD POINT

SEVEN SPANISH ANGELS

SPLASH FOX ONE

RETURN TO THE ISLAND

PREFACE

He didn't want to get involved. After 2 years 'training' with the French Foreign Legion Steve Steele knew that there were parts of this organization that were impenetrable - even by a British secret agent. But he soon finds himself getting involved - with some mysterious help he doesn't know about. When he finds out what the threat is no-one knows how big it is; it is big enough to worry about, but when he sees the true scale he needs help.

FOUR IN THE MORNING

It was four in the morning, the pale pink façade of the verandas adorning the apartment building in the Rue Nova do Loureiro had now lost the warmth they gained during the day. The moon was about to set, and all was quiet across the city of Lisbon.

Jenny Lejeune blinked in the gloomy half-light of the street lamps. The house she had left was still in darkness; her trembling hand closed the door as quietly as she could manage. With no attempt to stand upright she made her way along the pavement to a dark alleyway. Here she quickly dipped into the cover of complete darkness.

This was a long way from St Germaine in Paris, where Jenny had grown up less than twenty years ago. The little blond girl was popular; she stood out because of her long straw-coloured hair. This same hair is now matted with sweat.

Three and a half hours later the grey pre-dawn light began to seep into the narrow alley. Jenny was still there; her ashen complexion did not gain any colour with the rising light levels. She just lay there, staring heaven-ward with unseeing eyes.

Living in harmony with the surrounding architecture, the front of 25 Rue Dauphine in Vigo, Spain was painted pale cream, except the ground floor, which was a pastel pink. The windows on the first and second floor were bordered with ornate pattern-work, whilst the third floor had a thin balcony running the full length of the building. These windows looked plainer than the ones below; the eyebrow arches above each seemed to lend a harshness that was not on the ones below. The fifth storey had dormer type windows sticking out from the red tiles that sloped away to their apex.

A French registered Citroen Palaise Glide drew up to the front of the premises, the soft suspension caused the car to dip and rock as it came to an abrupt halt. The rear doors flew open as the driver killed the engine. This caused the car to sink closer to the ground as the pneumatic suspension retracted. There were three passengers in the back seat when the car pulled up. By the time the cars bodywork had come to a rest they were all out. Both escorts exited the vehicle at the same time, the handcuffed and shackled centre passenger saw what was likely to happen. He exited the vehicle behind the escort who alighted on the roadside of the vehicle. His companion leapt on to the pavement at the same time to drag the prisoner out, but his quarry was right behind the other man, setting foot on the road. Before the hapless escort in the road realised what was happening the prisoner straightened up as his first foot touched the cobbled surface. The handcuffed hands raised behind the escort's head, then came down with a crashing blow. The heel of a hand made like steel from many hours of punching concrete met with the man's neck, which snapped like a twig. As he fell to the ground the prisoner snatched his service pistol from its holster, and then made a staggering, clattering attempt at running away from the car. Pavement man realised what was happening when he looked through the rear of the car to see the prisoner move away from him and he heard the rattle of the chains. Then when he saw his colleague was felled; he was half in and half out of the car. The driver was also in a situation half in and half out of the vehicle, so the prisoner was given precious seconds in which to make his escape.

The narrow Spanish street took more shuffling steps than normal to cross. Emilio Stollen knew that by the time he got to cover he would be under fire from the surviving escorts. Six steps into the journey he half turned to take a shot to keep their heads down. As he levelled the pistol he noticed that he had to move the weapon further down than he expected. Then he saw a roof come into view, then the sky. Both hands were holding the gun when he hit the road, so he was unable to cushion his landing. The shock of the impact caused the gun to fly out of his hand. Before it stopped the driver took it up, and pointed it and his own weapon at the hapless ex-Legionnaire as the other escort came up with his gun pointed at the escaping prisoner.

'You murdering piece of shit.' Pavement man hurled a vicious kick at Stollen, which landed in the middle of his back.

The driver then reminded him that they were under orders,

'AS wants him in good condition.'

Another kick was then delivered into the kidneys for good measure.

'I don't see why.'

'It's the job. It is what we do. Obey orders. Let's just get him indoors, then we can deal with Peter.' the driver nodded towards their dead colleague.

... ... ...

Number fourteen Rue Nova do Loureiro, Lisbon was an old, rambling building dating back well over one hundred years. Lisbon, like the rest of Portugal, had never been subjected to the suburban town planning brought about by aerial bombardment, like nearly every other major city in Europe. This gave the city an air of an older Europe before man found ways of attempting to destroy each other's cities.

Behind the shuttered windows people were being woken up prematurely.

Doctor Coppelius was not disturbed at first. A soldier who should have been guarding Jenny Lejeune alerted the Russian Georgy Natarova, otherwise known as The Kommisar.

'She's not in her room' sir.'

'Who's not in her room, stupid?'

'The girl Lejeune, she's gone. I was stationed outside her door all night; I don't know how she could have got out.'

'I do you stupid incompetent Portuguese twat. You fell asleep didn't you?'

'No sir. Definitely not, I had to go to the bathroom once. There was no-one to relieve me, but Paul Andrede was on duty by the front door, so there is no way that she could have got to the outside.'

'Lock all outside doors. We must go into complete lockdown until she is found.' The Kommisar took overall control of the situation.

Although he had been awoken, the Kommisar's short black hair was neat, his beard likewise.

He leapt out of bed and threw on his pale green uniform as the Portuguese soldier made a rapid withdrawal.

The house was locked down, and then a full and thorough search began.

The constant movement of heavy boots woke Dr Coppelius in his private room above the laboratory. The Doctor stroked his non-existent hair as he picked up a small clock to allow him to read the time in the poor light.

Just then there came a knock at the door, and two soldiers entered the room.

'Sorry to disturb you, Herr Doctor.' The Dutch soldier apologised, 'the girl has gone missing. We are searching every room in the house.'

'Surely you don't think she is in here with me? She had been exposed to the experiment; I certainly do not want her anywhere close to me.'

The men moved around the room as quietly and quickly as possible then took their leave. As they reached the door, the Dutch soldier turned and said as he clicked his heels and bowed his head a little to the doctor,

'Thank you, Herr Doctor. At least you now know that she is not here.'

'Yes. Thank you. Bear in mind that it will soon be obvious where she is. You will be able to smell the putrefaction.'

He fell back on to his pillow, then picked up the little clock and looked at as if to ask if he should try to go back to sleep.

... ... ...

Alexsandr Salmon was known to all in his unit as AS, but he was not keen on the sobriquet. He knew that code names and the like were a necessary part of their work, but this was not a code name as such, simply his initials. He was sitting at his desk in the Rue Dauphine, Vigo attending to paperwork when three men burst into his office. The man in the middle looked the worse for wear, he seemed to be propped up by the other two, but they were also restraining him.

Salmon nodded towards a straight-backed chair in the middle of an open space in front of his desk. The shackled and manacled prisoner was unceremoniously thrown down onto the chair. The escorts pulled the prisoners shoulders back slightly; he began to straighten up as the front legs of the chair lifted slightly. Then the escorts pushed the leg chain behind the chair legs before allowing them to return to the ground, thus trapping the chain. Then they took hold of the chair back to prevent the prisoner from tilting it back.

Salmon lifted his head up from his paperwork, and looked straight at the man in the chair. He slowly and deliberately put his pen down, then addressed the man in front of him,

'Good morning, Monsieur Stollen. Thank you for coming so promptly. You are probably wondering why I asked you along to this little meeting.'

The prisoner, Emilio Stollen spit blood onto AS's carpet before looking up at the white-haired man behind the desk.

'I don't work for you any more. I owe you nothing. In fact you owe me several thousand Francs for Algiers.'

'Algiers was a fiasco, there were too many of your men deserting.'

'They were not my men, you conniving bastard.' Fire seemed to smolder behind Stollen's eyes; 'they were the jackals who tried to assassinate de Gaulle in Paris.'

Salmon considered his hands before replying,

'That is as maybe. But it does not help me or you for that matter.' He lifted his head to look into the cowed eyes opposite him, 'you see, Stollen, I have a problem that I think you can help me with.'

Stollen tried to move in his chair, but the restraints and his captors prevented any movement.

'You know what you can do with your problem. As you say, YOU have a problem – not me.' He leaned forward as far as he could; 'I DON'T WORK FOR YOU ANY MORE.'

Salmon took a deep breath before continuing. He looked again at Stollen, sat back in his leather chair. It creaked as he settled back.

'You don't know the problem yet.'

'I don't want to know. It is your problem, not mine. Pay me what you owe me, and I'll be on my way.'

Salmon continued as if he had not been interrupted, 'We have an operative missing, someone you know. One of our agents is missing; she was working undercover in Lisbon. She was trying to find out what a Doctor Coppelius is up to. Our intelligence tells us that he is developing some kind of nerve gas.'

Stollen interrupted at this point,

'And I suppose you want this new weapon to sell to the highest bidder.'

'No – this time you are wrong. This weapon is too indiscriminate. If what we have received is correct this nerve gas can be dropped from any aircraft, infecting the area it happens to be flying over, London, New York, Paris, or Moscow. They are all at risk.'

Stollen remembered something Salmon had said,

'You said 'she'? And it is someone I know.'

'Yes, Monsieur. The lady in question is none other than Jenny Lejeune.'

Stollen's posture changed. He sat back in his chair; the ire disappeared from his eyes. They narrowed as he looked directly at Salmon,

'What have you done, you bastard? When will you stop putting agents into situations that could get them killed? How long is it since you heard from her?'

'You knew Madam Lejeune, did you not?'

'You knew damned well that I did.' Stollen moved forwards again, 'What was she involved in? How long is it since you heard from her?'

'She was supposed to make a regular comms call yesterday evening, but we heard nothing.' He shook his head; 'this whole situation is dangerous, not only for her, but for any place on earth.'

Stollen looked briefly at the ceiling as he breathed out, then he looked directly into Salmon's eyes and said,

'Who is this Coppelius character, what is he capable of?' Stollen knew that scientists were not always the demonic element behind a venture of this sort.

'It is not Doctor Coppelius you need worry about. Someone we only know as the Kommisar is using him. Have you heard of him?'

Stollen looked away as he shook his head. He breathed deeply before continuing,

'Do you know anything about this Kommisar's set-up? Who is he working for?'

Salmon knew it was only a matter of time before Stollen would be back in his fold.

THE SECOND DAY

Stollen was standing in the road by the Largo do Carmo, a small square near the centre of Lisbon. The long white wall of a large church stretched the full length of one side, directly facing him he saw a pavement café covered by white parasols with people sitting in it. A few thin trees bordered the square, these would offer no cover or protection if called upon, but the sturdy grey lamp-stands in the plaza provided a much more substantial shield if they were needed. He looked at the white four storey properties behind the café. Some had cloth blinds draped loosely over their windows; they could easily hide a gunman, he thought.

Stollen made his way to the little tobacconist's shop on the far side of the square. Here he bought three cigars, then returned to the café. Walking around to what looked like the quietest corner he took a seat in the shade of the parasols on the grey cobblestones. Here he sat looking around for nearly ten minutes. He ordered coffee when the waitress came to him. When the small cup arrived he laid the three cigars on the table alongside the cup, and sat back.

Thirty minutes later the cup was empty and the cigars still lay alongside it, forty-seven people had walked past the table. Stollen stood to pay the waitress,

'What's your name?' he asked her.

'Vitoria Flores.' She replied as she picked up her tip, 'Thank you, sir.'

'Oh, you are very welcome.'

The cigars were deposited in his top pocket as he turned back into the bright sunshine. He took four paces away from the table when a smartly dressed man approached him.

With an English accent that stood out in this Portuguese square the man said to Stollen,

'Excuse me; do you know if the Cunard ships still dock in Lisbon?'

'I'm sorry, I live in Gibraltar, but I know they still dock there.'

'Thank you.' the man said as he walked towards a corner of the square where a narrow street led to a flight of stone stairs.

There were more people in the square now, but Stollen found no difficulty keeping the man in view without making it obvious that he was following him. He moved to his right to avoid a woman in a wheelchair loaded down with shopping. Stollen used this to move in a different direction that the man he was following. The man hesitated, and then moved to his left to look into a shop window. Stollen was by now approaching the far right corner of the square. He walked among street furniture and people as he turned left, towards the corner where the other man was standing.

The man seemed to be looking in a shop window. The glass was curved between slender pillars, echoing the corner upon which the shop sat. A blue polo shirt was on display, but the man was not looking at the shirt; he was casually watching the reflection of Stollen as he made his way towards him.

As Stollen reached half way across the square the man turned and began to make his way down a narrow street. The pink and cream plain walls had windowsills above head height which made the thoroughfare seem even more closed in and narrow. A long line of stone steps led away to the left at the end of this street, but the man entered a door on the right before reaching them.

Stollen followed him into the darkness beyond. As he entered the room from the bright sunshine outside it took Stollen's eyes a few seconds to adjust. Before he could see any detail in the room another door opened to a well-lit open courtyard, and Stollen saw the silhouette of his quarry move through the portal into the courtyard. He followed in time to see the man take a seat at a small table on the far side of the yard.

In the little courtyard the ex-Legionnaire Stollen moved closer to the table. As he reached the table he seemed to revert to his original identity – for he was none other than the British secret agent Steve Steele.

In their world of secrets and subterfuge it is almost impossible to be sure who was working for whom this week or that. Steele had been on assignment with the Foreign Legion, but was working for the British secret Service Mi6 – he had even become involved with Deuxieme Bureau, an organisation which was the ultimate in secret enigmas; 'disbanded' in 1935, it continued to function in complete secrecy under the Nazi jackboot, and then took advantage of the confusion caused by the German occupation and open warfare to which the country was subjected. It still exists today, but you would never find it. Jenny Lejeune may have been working for them at the time, but this is not clear.

'Good morning, Steele, or would you prefer to stick to using the name Stollen?' the man said as he indicated the chair to his left.

'Steele, looks better on the expenses sheet.'

'Won't you join me?' The host held out his hand as he half-rose from his seat. 'John Drake. Worrying business this.'

Steele shook hands, and then Drake took up the conversation,

'When 'M' sent you under cover in the Legion two years ago we didn't know much about this threat, but we knew it came from areas where we did not have any cover. There were elements that were working in Central Europe, probably Hungary, under a Doctor Coppelius developing some kind of nerve gas.'

He took a manila folder from a brown attaché case at his side. Upon opening it he turned several pages over, and then produced a photograph which he passed on to Steele.

As he passed the picture he said, 'Very clever chap by all accounts, Dr Coppelius here, but fairly innocuous. He is a chemist and industrialist, not a Politician, or a military man.'

Steele took the picture and studied it, 'OK.' He said with interest.

Drake then continued as he shuffled his papers.

'Dr Coppelius then joined forces with an Austrian Professor Steven Peters, who is a specialist in delivery systems. He was working as a free-lance out of Algeria.' Another picture was presented. 'That was when we decided to use the French Foreign Legion to find a way to infiltrate the organisation. There is a lot of work going on in the area of chemical warfare all the time, but these two seemed to be getting somewhere with their partnership when this came to the notice of one Georgy Natarova.'

Steele looked up in surprise.

'The Kommisar.' He proclaimed.

'None other.' Drake replied, 'It was about then that the French Deuxieme Bureau became involved. We think it was they who sent an agent called Jenny Lejeune into the Algerian operation to see what she could find out.'

'Yes, I worked with Jenny in Morocco last year. The Deuxieme Bureau people knew this. They have roped me in to deal with the situation. She was last heard from in Lisbon, but I know very little apart from that. They like to keep their operatives in the dark as much as possible, you can't tell what you don't know, and they would prefer that lack of knowledge got you killed rather than risk losing valuable information.' Steele paused before returning to the Lisbon situation, 'They only call it some sort of rescue at the moment, but I suspect that they know there is a lot more to it.'

'You can bet that they certainly do know, Steele – that is why Jenny was put in there in the first place.'

'They told me as little as they could get away with in order to get me involved, what can you tell me about the organisation?' Steele removed a cigar from his pocket, took a toothpick and pierced the end before lighting it.

Drake continued, 'Jenny was the only source within the organisation, and she was not working for us, so we have no information from her.'

'I don't think the French have much more. They lost contact with her two days ago.'

'At least we have an address to start from.' Drake looked at a sheet of paper.

'Yes, I have it from the Deuxieme Bureau. I presume that is why we are meeting here in Lisbon.'

'That is correct, Steele. We have some information on two contacts further down the line; they are two pilots from European airlines.'

He produced two small photographs and handed them to Steele.

'The first one is Alphonse Kurd from Lufthansa; the second is Aaron Roy Delbert from Sabina. There is another one from KLM, but we don't know who he is yet.'

'Anyone here in Lisbon?'

'Yes, but we don't know his role yet.' Drake took another picture from the folder, 'His name is Luiz Estrada.'

He pushed the folder across to Steele, 'And that just about covers it as far as the information we have. What do you intend to do next?'

'Good question. Do you know anything about a character known as Neil Sherwood? It's a name I have come across before in Morocco.'

'Sounds like a Brit. I have never heard it before, but I will look into it. Certainly not one of ours, could he be an ex-Legionnaire? Have you had chance to look into their records?'

'You must be joking, Drake. The Deuxieme Bureau has all those records, and believe me no-one wants to mess with those people.'

'We know very little about the Deuxieme Bureau. Can you give me more?'

Steele drew on his cigar, watched the smoke rise, then continued,

'The whole DB was declared defunct just before the last war, but they just went underground. They did such a good job of hiding themselves that even the Nazi jackboot did not find them. Can you imagine the secrecy systems they must have developed? After the war they just continued working. Even the French do not know about these people now.'

'Do you think they were involved in the attempt on de Gaulle's' life?' Drake asked.

'No. If they were involved he would be dead now. From what I gathered in the Legion, they are more concerned with the enemies of France, not the internal workings of French politics. They may have been instrumental in setting up the Marquis and Resistance during the war, but after the war we don't know. The records systems in France have never been good, but after the Germans were thrown out the people of France were then free to destroy whatever records they wanted to; the result was that thousands of resistance fighters could just disappear.' He finished his cigar, 'These invisible fighters can operate with no restrictions, backed by a nation's governmental department that even the government does not know about. With their wartime experiences under the Nazis they developed ways of working under the most arduous of conditions. Lessons learned then were hard won, and the values of secrecy became more important than life itself. No bloody wonder we don't know anything about them.'

'What about this Neil Sherwood person? Do you think he could be part of the Deuxieme Bureau?'

'He could be, Drake.'

'Do they have any foreign operatives, if so, where do they get them from?'

'The Legion of course. There are some tough bastards in there.'

'Wouldn't other Legionnaires know when one of their comrades had gone off to work for another section?'

'This is not just another section, Drake. Legionnaires are posted from place to place. We don't send postcards back and forth to keep in touch; life in the Legion is too tough for trivialities like that. This Sherwood man could easily be an ex-RN Marine who wanted more action than the Marines were offering him. As a natural Englishman he would be very useful when investigating French concerns abroad.'

A door opened behind Steele. He spun round to see who was there. It was the waitress who had served him his coffee earlier, Vitoria Flores.

'Hello again, Mr Steele.' She greeted him with a surprising frankness.

He stood up as she approached him. He held out his hand in greeting, 'Vitoria isn't it? What are you doing here?' he turned to look at Drake, who was fiddling with his attaché case.

She took his hand briefly as she said,

'Not entirely. Mr Drake here is from the London office, I am from the Lisbon office. I am to give you as much support as I can. My real name is Autumn Rae, but here I am called Vitoria Flores.'

'So we are to be working together Vitoria?' Steele liked the idea of getting some local support, especially from such an attractive person.

Drake was not to know their secret.

WHO WAS IT

'Who was it that said the stupidity is opinion disguised as fact?' Autumn Rae thought to herself as she watched the guy in the pink shirt with glasses. He was sitting in a pavement café on the Rue Machadinho in Lisbon. She had been told he would be at a Esquina, half a mile away, but she knew better than to trust her informant. She took a seat at a table some respectable distance from the man to watch.

He ordered coffee, she ordered coffee.

She pretended to read the menu, and presently an older man, again with spectacles on, stood near the first man. The second man was dressed in a duffel coat, and seemed to be carrying something, but Autumn could not see clearly what it was. Neither of the men acknowledged the other, and duffel coat soon moved away from pink shirt. As he turned away from Autumn's first target she got her first good look at his face. She immediately recognised Luiz Estrada. She then knew she was on the right track. Then the unexpected happened – nothing. Estrada just walked away without even coming close to pink shirt. It was only as he turned the far corner that Autumn realised that he was not carrying anything. She turned to look at pink shirt. He was now moving towards her with something in his hand. She decided to hold her ground, taking hold of her handbag she pretended to rummage in it; actually she was taking hold of the Berretta automatic pistol in case things turned nasty. He passed two tables away from her, moving quickly. She also had to move quickly to not lose sight of him.

She followed at a respectable distance, which was easy given the speed he was moving at. He hurried into a side street, and was out of her line of sight for a few seconds. She turned to follow down the street, but had only taken four paces down the narrow passage when she realised to her horror that he was now moving towards her. There was no time to reach the gun in her bag; she could see that he was carrying a substantial looking briefcase that could be used as a vicious weapon. Autumn Rae made as if to cross to the other side of the alley in order to put her on the same side as the bag, shortening any swing, should it come her way. As the man approached her she saw why he was running. Neil Sherwood, who had entered the alley from the opposite end, was chasing him. He had been following Luiz Estrada, and had predicted that pink shirt would not exit the area the same way as Estrada; rightly so as it turned out. Autumn stuck her foot out as pink shirt passed her. He went flying, measuring his length. The fallen man rolled over and clutched the brief case to his chest as Neil Sherwood ran up to them. Autumn decided to take the innocent bystander pose, she didn't think that they knew her, so pretended to take a back seat. By the time Sherwood reached her pink shirt had scrambled to his feet, so Sherwood did not have chance to even look at Autumn. That was how she wanted it; she simply walked to the side of the alley and let the men get on with their business. Because of the closeness of his pursuer, pink shirt could not take any action against Autumn. He just looked at her briefly, she returned the look with contempt, and then he turned and fled. But she knew then that her cover had been blown – he would definitely remember what she looked like. Sherwood made a wild grab at the fleeing man, but missed.

As he re-entered the little square where the café was, the man in the pink shirt turned away from the café and picked up his pace. Sherwood was hot on his heels, Autumn decided that she had better follow them, but she was not exactly wearing running shoes. The court shoes had a slight heel, this would prevent running, so she kicked them off and took off after the men.

Pink shirt clung to the briefcase as he fled headlong through the streets of Lisbon. He turned into another narrow alleyway that seemed to lead back towards the original square. He looked quickly behind him to see Sherwood keeping pace, but not gaining, then the girl appeared round the last corner. He had no time to study the picture; he threw himself into a doorway that opened as if on cue. A staircase faced him. He kicked the door shut behind him, then turned to catch his breath. When Sherwood reached the door he hesitated before charging in, he heard the man breathing heavily close to the back of the door, and immediately knew there was a trap set here. Sherwood turned to see Autumn running up to him – he turned back to the door and gave it a savage kick. The door flew open with such violence it took pink shirt by surprise; he had hoped that his pursuers had carried on past. He turned to the stairs and ran up them before Sherwood could stop him. At the first turn of the stairway Sherwood tried to grab the man's hand, but missed. By the second turn he had gained a little because the man was slightly hampered by the briefcase. This time Sherwood caught the man's sleeve. When he realised it the man in the pink shirt whirled round and hit Sherwood with the metal corner piece of the leather briefcase. This struck his pursuer on the shoulder, narrowly missing his face as he quickly turned his head away at the same time as letting go of his quarry. Pink shirt turned back to his attempt at escape, having gained a slight advantage by swinging at Sherwood. Autumn was not gaining on them, but managing to keep pace just far enough behind for neither of the men to know where she was.

Pink shirt made it up another two short flights of stairs before he was faced with a door. He looked round at Sherwood, who was still slightly below him on the staircase. He took a swing at his pursuer with the briefcase to remind him that height and a heavy weapon were on his side. Then he turned and charged for the door. It burst open into the bright sunlight of the roof. He ran through it without hesitation, slamming it behind him as if to carry on running. But he stopped and stood alongside the doorway as he tried to get his breath back without making too much noise this time.

Sherwood was convinced that his quarry was well on his way across rooftops, so he followed through the door - to be met by the heavy leather briefcase full in the face. This caused him to reel back to the stairs. His footing slipped on the top stair sending him tumbling down the first staircase just as Autumn reached the final turn. Sherwood came to rest against the far wall when Autumn reached it.

'Resting already, Neil?' she said as she strode over him.

He caught her trailing ankle as she began to climb the final flight of stairs, tripping her.

'This one is mine.' He said as he jumped over her body to make it to the open doorway.

He arrived just in time to see a pink shirt slide down the red tiles towards the edge of the sloping roof. Sherwood gave chase. As the man reached the edge of the roof he stood up and leaped into the void. Streets in this part of Lisbon were very narrow; this one was less than eight feet wide. The roofs opposite were lower than the one from which he had launched himself, so he was safely over before Sherwood knew where he had gone. This did not deter him; he followed the man, much to his chagrin. The briefcase now hindered the man as he tried to scamper up the slope of the new roof. Sherwood hit the tiles some five feet behind him. He launched himself at the skittering feet, caught hold of one and stopped the fugitive. The man in the pink shirt turned, half-lying on the slope of the roof, he swung the briefcase at Sherwood's head, catching him just above the temple. He reeled at the power of the blow. Metal cut into his head, and blood began to flow, but he managed to keep hold of the ankle. Pink shirt man kicked at the hand holding his foot. After three sharp kicks at his hand Neil Sherwood had to release his man. Both men began scampering on all fours towards the apex of the roof. As pink shirt reached it, he allowed himself the luxury of sufficient time to swing another kick at Sherwood, who was not far behind him. He was not quick enough to catch the pursuer; Sherwood caught hold of the bottom of the man's trouser leg. This did two things; it slowed one man's escape, and gave the other man a little stability and chance to draw a bit closer until the briefcase was seen heading for his hand. Sherwood could feel blood running down the side of his face and neck, he did not want to risk the same damage to his hand, so he reluctantly let go.

Pink shirt climbed to the apex of the roof. Here he began precariously moving along the edge of the ridge tiles. Sherwood continued the chase. He was surer of his footing, not being hampered by a briefcase. Pink shirt turned to see how close his purser was. He used the brief case to keep balance, but in turning he was forced to stop. This gave Sherwood a chance to gain enough room to almost reach out and grab the man. Then the briefcase came swinging out at Sherwood's head. He managed to bend backwards just enough to avoid the weapon, but the swinging action had put pink shirt off balance. He waved the briefcase around as his feet teetered and scuffed on the narrow ridge tiles. The sweat running down his face made his spectacles move; this did not help the balancing act. The briefcase could help no more as he began to fall away. Then he felt a firm grasp taking hold of his flailing wrist. 'Thank God. I am to be saved.' He thought as his precarious stance was steadied. Then he felt the briefcase being prised from his grip. As he lost the small amount of control he had over the case he then felt the grip releasing from his wrist, then a sharp kick took his legs from under him. The side of his knees hit the ridge tiles, sending severe pain throughout his body. He cried out in agony as his head hit the roof, he then began sliding down head first, looking up at the cloudless sky. He scrabbled and tried to arrest his decline, but the slope was too steep. Sherwood watched as the feet pointed towards the sky, then disappeared over the edge, and plummeted into the shade of the street below. 'Some days you are a pigeon, other days you are the statue.' He remarked as he turned slowly to make his way back.

Autumn stood on the higher rooftop and watched as the two men fought briefly on the opposite roof. They had no time to look at her, as Sherwood finished off the man in the pink shirt he began to turn to his right, with his back to Autumn, and then had to be very careful to watch his step to avoid falling.

She scanned to opposite roofs to see what Sherwood was likely to do next. Amongst the sharp peaks and valleys she spotted a balcony with a window behind it. Sherwood must be making for this as a way to return to street level.

Making a mental note of where this balcony would probably be, she turned and ran to the stairs to get back to the little street.

When she opened the door to the street there was a small crowd on the opposite side, further down to her left. She worked out that the balcony must be to her right, so she began looking for some sort of an entrance as she walked away from the crowd that surrounded the man in the pink shirt.

Several anonymous brown doors were tried by Autumn before one opened. She found herself in an open courtyard. The balcony was not visible from where she stood, but there was a good chance that it was further away from the street. Before her were five doors, two on each side and one on the far wall, this was the best chance she knew to lead her to the way up to the balcony. She did not know what she was going to do when she found the way up to it, but that problem would have to be dealt with later.

The doors on either side of the courtyard did not offer much chance to get in the right direction, so she ran for the far door. It was unlocked, and the house was empty. Quickly she made her way to the rear of the dwelling, and then found herself running through a kitchen area. Then she found what she was looking for – a staircase leading to the upper storey. Autumn wondered what to do next; she didn't want to charge up the stairs with the risk of meeting a fit man on his way down. She took a quick look around the kitchen for the nearest thing that could be used as a weapon. The biggest saucepan was selected as she heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

Standing flat against the wall behind a pillar, Autumn hoped that she could not be seen from the staircase. Neil Sherwood was not expecting a welcoming committee. As he stepped down to the last step he was introduced to the solid copper-bottomed skillet swung by Autumn.

The utensil hit him square on the forehead, knocking his head back before his feet had even reached the ground floor.

Autumn saw the much-vaunted briefcase fall from his grasp. As it hit the ground she rescued it, threw the pan on to his body, and made a quick exit to go and look for her shoes.

... ... ...

Neil Sherwood was born in 1930, as such he was too young to fight in WW 2, and he joined the SAS Territorials upon leaving school in 1946 whilst at college. His qualifications enabled him to qualify as an officer in the outfit, and the natural progression was to join the regular army, so he volunteered in September 1947. He later transferred to the Paras, and then moved into 2 squadron, SAS at Hereford. In due course he moved on to the Intelligence Section, SAS in time to take part in the troubles in Rhodesia. In the troubled African country, Neil was charged with finding out who was behind acts of sabotage; trains have been damaged in such ways as to cause concern that there could be more powerful influences at work here. Upon examination he found that the damage has been done by someone familiar with the methods of the old SOE. The Government in Salisbury were at first relieved that it was home-grown, Neil had found that disaffected ex members of the Selous Scouts are behind training rebel troops.

Neil always carries a swagger stick; as is becoming of a Major in The British army. The stick is made of ebonised obechi wood, one of the strongest woods in the world; it does not bend. At either end the stick carries a brass fitting. A ferrule at one end allows the stick to be used for pacing, whilst at the other end a brass knob makes handling easy. Both of these fixtures must be rigorously polished until they are almost white. This is Major Neil Sherwood's main weapon.

This simple, light implement can be deadly. During his investigations in Rhodesia, seven determined thugs once confronted the Major. He presumed these men were ex-Selous Scouts; they looked fit, trained, and resolute. Two of them moved around to prevent Sherwood escaping what they had in mind for him. Four hardy Rhodesian men closed in. They were armed with pick-axe handles and machetes, but before these could be brought to bear the Major exploded into action. His training was much better than theirs, he knew exactly what to do, and how fast to do it.

The first Rhodesian came in with the swing of a pick-axe handle. As he swung back he was hit in the side by Sherwood's cane, this broke the floating ribs and sent them into the lungs, Sherwood then turned to face a man coming at him with a machete. The British Major stood the cane on end; like a conductor with the orchestra about to reach a crescendo; but this baton was aimed at the top of the man's throat. It entered the man's head, and then continued up into his brain. As Major Sherwood withdrew the weapon, he took hold of the ferrule, and then spun the handle end straight into the next man's temple as he charged with a machete. A fourth would-be attacker hesitated just long enough to save his life. He stood there, mouth agape as he witnessed his compatriots being dispatched in less than two seconds. His life extension only lasted as many as two seconds as the cane hit him straight on top of the head.

The other three took to their heels as the last man dropped to the ground.

SILVER CYLINDERS

'Who was it that said the stupidity is opinion disguised as fact?' Autumn Rae thought to herself as she watched the guy in the pink shirt with glasses. He was sitting in a pavement café on the Rue Machadinho in Lisbon. She had been told he would be at a Esquina, half a mile away, but she knew better than to trust her informant. She took a seat at a table some respectable distance from the man to watch.

He ordered coffee, she ordered coffee.

She pretended to read the menu, and presently an older man, again with spectacles on, stood near the first man. The second man was dressed in a duffel coat, and seemed to be carrying something, but Autumn could not see clearly what it was. Neither of the men acknowledged the other, and duffel coat soon moved away from pink shirt. As he turned away from Autumn's first target she got her first good look at his face. She immediately recognised Luiz Estrada. She then knew she was on the right track. Then the unexpected happened – nothing. Estrada just walked away without even coming close to pink shirt. It was only as he turned the far corner that Autumn realised that he was not carrying anything. She turned to look at pink shirt. He was now moving towards her with something in his hand. She decided to hold her ground, taking hold of her handbag she pretended to rummage in it; actually she was taking hold of the Berretta automatic pistol in case things turned nasty. He passed two tables away from her, moving quickly. She also had to move quickly to not lose sight of him.

She followed at a respectable distance, which was easy given the speed he was moving at. He hurried into a side street, and was out of her line of sight for a few seconds. She turned to follow down the street, but had only taken four paces down the narrow passage when she realised to her horror that he was now moving towards her. There was no time to reach the gun in her bag; she could see that he was carrying a substantial looking briefcase that could be used as a vicious weapon. Autumn Rae made as if to cross to the other side of the alley in order to put her on the same side as the bag, shortening any swing, should it come her way. As the man approached her she saw why he was running. Neil Sherwood, who had entered the alley from the opposite end, was chasing him. He had been following Luiz Estrada, and had predicted that pink shirt would not exit the area the same way as Estrada; rightly so as it turned out. Autumn stuck her foot out as pink shirt passed her. He went flying, measuring his length. The fallen man rolled over and clutched the brief case to his chest as Neil Sherwood ran up to them. Autumn decided to take the innocent bystander pose, she didn't think that they knew her, so pretended to take a back seat. By the time Sherwood reached her pink shirt had scrambled to his feet, so Sherwood did not have chance to even look at Autumn. That was how she wanted it; she simply walked to the side of the alley and let the men get on with their business. Because of the closeness of his pursuer, pink shirt could not take any action against Autumn. He just looked at her briefly, she returned the look with contempt, and then he turned and fled. But she knew then that her cover had been blown – he would definitely remember what she looked like. Sherwood made a wild grab at the fleeing man, but missed.

As he re-entered the little square where the café was, the man in the pink shirt turned away from the café and picked up his pace. Sherwood was hot on his heels, Autumn decided that she had better follow them, but she was not exactly wearing running shoes. The court shoes had a slight heel, this would prevent running, so she kicked them off and took off after the men.

Pink shirt clung to the briefcase as he fled headlong through the streets of Lisbon. He turned into another narrow alleyway that seemed to lead back towards the original square. He looked quickly behind him to see Sherwood keeping pace, but not gaining, then the girl appeared round the last corner. He had no time to study the picture; he threw himself into a doorway that opened as if on cue. A staircase faced him. He kicked the door shut behind him, then turned to catch his breath. When Sherwood reached the door he hesitated before charging in, he heard the man breathing heavily close to the back of the door, and immediately knew there was a trap set here. Sherwood turned to see Autumn running up to him – he turned back to the door and gave it a savage kick. The door flew open with such violence it took pink shirt by surprise; he had hoped that his pursuers had carried on past. He turned to the stairs and ran up them before Sherwood could stop him. At the first turn of the stairway Sherwood tried to grab the man's hand, but missed. By the second turn he had gained a little because the man was slightly hampered by the briefcase. This time Sherwood caught the man's sleeve. When he realised it the man in the pink shirt whirled round and hit Sherwood with the metal corner piece of the leather briefcase. This struck his pursuer on the shoulder, narrowly missing his face as he quickly turned his head away at the same time as letting go of his quarry. Pink shirt turned back to his attempt at escape, having gained a slight advantage by swinging at Sherwood. Autumn was not gaining on them, but managing to keep pace just far enough behind for neither of the men to know where she was.

Pink shirt made it up another two short flights of stairs before he was faced with a door. He looked round at Sherwood, who was still slightly below him on the staircase. He took a swing at his pursuer with the briefcase to remind him that height and a heavy weapon were on his side. Then he turned and charged for the door. It burst open into the bright sunlight of the roof. He ran through it without hesitation, slamming it behind him as if to carry on running. But he stopped and stood alongside the doorway as he tried to get his breath back without making too much noise this time.

Sherwood was convinced that his quarry was well on his way across rooftops, so he followed through the door - to be met by the heavy leather briefcase full in the face. This caused him to reel back to the stairs. His footing slipped on the top stair sending him tumbling down the first staircase just as Autumn reached the final turn. Sherwood came to rest against the far wall when Autumn reached it.

'Resting already, Neil?' she said as she strode over him.

He caught her trailing ankle as she began to climb the final flight of stairs, tripping her.

'This one is mine.' He said as he jumped over her body to make it to the open doorway.

He arrived just in time to see a pink shirt slide down the red tiles towards the edge of the sloping roof. Sherwood gave chase. As the man reached the edge of the roof he stood up and leaped into the void. Streets in this part of Lisbon were very narrow; this one was less than eight feet wide. The roofs opposite were lower than the one from which he had launched himself, so he was safely over before Sherwood knew where he had gone. This did not deter him; he followed the man, much to his chagrin. The briefcase now hindered the man as he tried to scamper up the slope of the new roof. Sherwood hit the tiles some five feet behind him. He launched himself at the skittering feet, caught hold of one and stopped the fugitive. The man in the pink shirt turned, half-lying on the slope of the roof, he swung the briefcase at Sherwood's head, catching him just above the temple. He reeled at the power of the blow. Metal cut into his head, and blood began to flow, but he managed to keep hold of the ankle. Pink shirt man kicked at the hand holding his foot. After three sharp kicks at his hand Neil Sherwood had to release his man. Both men began scampering on all fours towards the apex of the roof. As pink shirt reached it, he allowed himself the luxury of sufficient time to swing another kick at Sherwood, who was not far behind him. He was not quick enough to catch the pursuer; Sherwood caught hold of the bottom of the man's trouser leg. This did two things; it slowed one man's escape, and gave the other man a little stability and chance to draw a bit closer until the briefcase was seen heading for his hand. Sherwood could feel blood running down the side of his face and neck, he did not want to risk the same damage to his hand, so he reluctantly let go.

Pink shirt climbed to the apex of the roof. Here he began precariously moving along the edge of the ridge tiles. Sherwood continued the chase. He was surer of his footing, not being hampered by a briefcase. Pink shirt turned to see how close his purser was. He used the brief case to keep balance, but in turning he was forced to stop. This gave Sherwood a chance to gain enough room to almost reach out and grab the man. Then the briefcase came swinging out at Sherwood's head. He managed to bend backwards just enough to avoid the weapon, but the swinging action had put pink shirt off balance. He waved the briefcase around as his feet teetered and scuffed on the narrow ridge tiles. The sweat running down his face made his spectacles move; this did not help the balancing act. The briefcase could help no more as he began to fall away. Then he felt a firm grasp taking hold of his flailing wrist. 'Thank God. I am to be saved.' He thought as his precarious stance was steadied. Then he felt the briefcase being prised from his grip. As he lost the small amount of control he had over the case he then felt the grip releasing from his wrist, then a sharp kick took his legs from under him. The side of his knees hit the ridge tiles, sending severe pain throughout his body. He cried out in agony as his head hit the roof, he then began sliding down head first, looking up at the cloudless sky. He scrabbled and tried to arrest his decline, but the slope was too steep. Sherwood watched as the feet pointed towards the sky, then disappeared over the edge, and plummeted into the shade of the street below. 'Some days you are a pigeon, other days you are the statue.' He remarked as he turned slowly to make his way back.

Autumn stood on the higher rooftop and watched as the two men fought briefly on the opposite roof. They had no time to look at her, as Sherwood finished off the man in the pink shirt he began to turn to his right, with his back to Autumn, and then had to be very careful to watch his step to avoid falling.

She scanned to opposite roofs to see what Sherwood was likely to do next. Amongst the sharp peaks and valleys she spotted a balcony with a window behind it. Sherwood must be making for this as a way to return to street level.

Making a mental note of where this balcony would probably be, she turned and ran to the stairs to get back to the little street.

When she opened the door to the street there was a small crowd on the opposite side, further down to her left. She worked out that the balcony must be to her right, so she began looking for some sort of an entrance as she walked away from the crowd that surrounded the man in the pink shirt.

Several anonymous brown doors were tried by Autumn before one opened. She found herself in an open courtyard. The balcony was not visible from where she stood, but there was a good chance that it was further away from the street. Before her were five doors, two on each side and one on the far wall, this was the best chance she knew to lead her to the way up to the balcony. She did not know what she was going to do when she found the way up to it, but that problem would have to be dealt with later.

The doors on either side of the courtyard did not offer much chance to get in the right direction, so she ran for the far door. It was unlocked, and the house was empty. Quickly she made her way to the rear of the dwelling, and then found herself running through a kitchen area. Then she found what she was looking for – a staircase leading to the upper storey. Autumn wondered what to do next; she didn't want to charge up the stairs with the risk of meeting a fit man on his way down. She took a quick look around the kitchen for the nearest thing that could be used as a weapon. The biggest saucepan was selected as she heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

Standing flat against the wall behind a pillar, Autumn hoped that she could not be seen from the staircase. Neil Sherwood was not expecting a welcoming committee. As he stepped down to the last step he was introduced to the solid copper-bottomed skillet swung by Autumn.

The utensil hit him square on the forehead, knocking his head back before his feet had even reached the ground floor.

Autumn saw the much-vaunted briefcase fall from his grasp. As it hit the ground she rescued it, threw the pan on to his body, and made a quick exit to go and look for her shoes.

... ... ...

Neil Sherwood was born in 1930, as such he was too young to fight in WW 2, and he joined the SAS Territorials upon leaving school in 1946 whilst at college. His qualifications enabled him to qualify as an officer in the outfit, and the natural progression was to join the regular army, so he volunteered in September 1947. He later transferred to the Paras, and then moved into 2 squadron, SAS at Hereford. In due course he moved on to the Intelligence Section, SAS in time to take part in the troubles in Rhodesia. In the troubled African country, Neil was charged with finding out who was behind acts of sabotage; trains have been damaged in such ways as to cause concern that there could be more powerful influences at work here. Upon examination he found that the damage has been done by someone familiar with the methods of the old SOE. The Government in Salisbury were at first relieved that it was home-grown, Neil had found that disaffected ex members of the Selous Scouts are behind training rebel troops.

Neil always carries a swagger stick; as is becoming of a Major in The British army. The stick is made of ebonised obechi wood, one of the strongest woods in the world; it does not bend. At either end the stick carries a brass fitting. A ferrule at one end allows the stick to be used for pacing, whilst at the other end a brass knob makes handling easy. Both of these fixtures must be rigorously polished until they are almost white. This is Major Neil Sherwood's main weapon.

This simple, light implement can be deadly. During his investigations in Rhodesia, seven determined thugs once confronted the Major. He presumed these men were ex-Selous Scouts; they looked fit, trained, and resolute. Two of them moved around to prevent Sherwood escaping what they had in mind for him. Four hardy Rhodesian men closed in. They were armed with pick-axe handles and machetes, but before these could be brought to bear the Major exploded into action. His training was much better than theirs, he knew exactly what to do, and how fast to do it.

The first Rhodesian came in with the swing of a pick-axe handle. As he swung back he was hit in the side by Sherwood's cane, this broke the floating ribs and sent them into the lungs, Sherwood then turned to face a man coming at him with a machete. The British Major stood the cane on end; like a conductor with the orchestra about to reach a crescendo; but this baton was aimed at the top of the man's throat. It entered the man's head, and then continued up into his brain. As Major Sherwood withdrew the weapon, he took hold of the ferrule, and then spun the handle end straight into the next man's temple as he charged with a machete. A fourth would-be attacker hesitated just long enough to save his life. He stood there, mouth agape as he witnessed his compatriots being dispatched in less than two seconds. His life extension only lasted as many as two seconds as the cane hit him straight on top of the head.

The other three took to their heels as the last man dropped to the ground.

MY COHORT ORDERED HOME

At a table on the pavement outside The Green Parrot cafe in a quiet back street of Lisbon sat Autumn Rae, alias Vitoria Flores. She had received some disturbing news, and she was waiting for Steve Steele.

The large green parrot, which strangely seemed to fit in, gave an occasional screech, a local dog barked. These sounds echoed down the pale painted street. The windows in the five-storey building opposite all looked to have empty rooms behind them; most of them had blinds firmly closed, and looked as if they had not had the attentions of a window cleaner's chamois for quite some time.

Steve Steele entered the street from a small passage two blocks from the cafe. He took a seat alongside Autumn; she then gave the secret code phrase for an official movement,

'My cohort ordered home.'

This was the first line of a famous Kipling poem used between agents to denote that they are to be moved away from the game.

'Someday we shall meet again' Steele said as he looked into Autumn's eyes. She curled a piece of paper in her hand.

'We always knew this job would cause us to be parted from time to time.' He tried to explain.

The paper was a confidential telegram telling her that she had been called to the Geneva office for undisclosed duties.

The coffee arrived, and they fell silent for a minute, looking into each others' eyes. They did not even notice the parrot on the waitresses' shoulder as it walked across her back to change sides and examine both customers.

Eventually Steele was first to speak,

'You, and only you, who have lived this life as someone else for so long, can know the importance of this new mission.' The sentence was constructed to confuse non-English speakers who may be listening in. There were none, but they did this kind of thing as a matter of habit.

He touched her hand on the table. The dog barked again, the parrot screeched in reply.

'I will miss you.' She said.

He squeezed her hand, 'These last few days have been great to be working with you again and to be able to see you on a regular basis, albeit in secrecy – but that is the nature of the job.'

'Another nasty part of this job is that soon we shall have to say goodbye, Steve. It is not au revoir or a simple so long for now. With our job it could easily be goodbye forever.'

He knew the situation only too well,

'A golden rule is never to get emotionally involved whilst on a mission, for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, on the other hand we always treat the whole section as one big family. For most of us the section is the only family we have ever had.' He thoughtfully stirred his coffee, 'This is a very fine line we must all traverse, but we fell off it by falling in love with each other. Now we must pay the piper.' The parrot screeched. Steele turned to the open cafe door, 'Not you.'

Autumn replied in agreement, 'We may be apart, but we shall still have our love to reflect upon. We have not loved and lost - we have loved and parted. We shall still be in love, but not together.'

'I'm asking you please don't cry. You will probably get back home safely before me.' He smiled, 'after all, what danger can you possibly find in Geneva?'

Autumn glanced around casually. This is part of their training to watch the whole area around themselves without looking suspicious or in any way apprehensive.

'They are building the world's biggest atom smashing device there.'

Before replying, he looked at the parrot on its perch inside the cafe. By the time he looked back at Autumn he had checked out the surrounding vicinity. He then looked at the parrot again; it looked back at him and began opening its beak as if to squawk. Steve Steele pointed his finger at it and it closed its beak.

Steele leaned towards Autumn. He could smell her distinctive perfume. He had known other women wear that same perfume, Opium, but she carried a different aura, which drove him nuts.

'Well, it can't be as dangerous as the stuff they are playing with here.'

She stirred the remains in the bottom of her cup, 'You mean the coffee? I don't think it is that bad.'

The pleasures of a lifetime condensed into a fleeting glimpse of truth. They both knew that this could be their last time together. He was dealing with some deadly gas; she was going to work near the biggest atom splitter that man had ever created.

He swept her flippant remark to one side, 'We have only the memories to keep us together, ab initio training in York in the freezing temperatures of January, or infiltrating the French fleet at Toulon.'

She interrupted him with a playful slap on the shoulder, 'Then you had to run off to play at being a Frenchman for two years.'

'I was not playing at being a Frenchman.' He protested with his winning smile, 'I was still an Englishman, but playing at being a Legionnaire. Moreover, playing it was not. That training they have is cruelty personified. I could tell you tales that would make your toes curl,' his brow furled in a mock frown, 'but then I would have to kill you.'

'Pray, sir, spare me the trauma of your tribulations.' She mocked, 'A weak, defenceless girl like me must be protected from such vulgarity.'

'Tell that to poor Neil Sherwood. When he has had the skillet removed from his face that you put there.'

She spread her hands on protest, 'He ran into it. What's a poor girl to do?'

'Relieve him of his briefcase I suppose, it must have been getting too heavy for him.'

'Oh, yes.' She nodded and concurred, 'He was leaning over to that side a little. She sipped her coffee, looked across at the parrot, and sat back in her chair; next she passed a glance at the empty featureless windows opposite. Then, leaning towards Steele she almost whispered, 'Who the hell is he, anyway? He just appeared out of nowhere.'

Her demeanour was such, she may have been asking him to pass the sugar.

He stirred the remains of his coffee, and looked around. His eyebrows puckered his forehead as he turned to look back at Autumn, 'The truth is we just don't know. We think he may be from the military intelligence section of the SAS.'

'Oh,' she exclaimed in surprise, 'so he was on our side?'

'Fraid so. You knocked out one of the good guys. Then nicked his briefcase.'

'Well, technically,' she said in her defence, 'it belonged to the guy in the pink shirt.'

'Oh, and I suppose you were taking it to him.'

Autumn shook her head, 'Nope, I figured that he had no further need of it. A parachute or a mattress – even a bouncy castle, but not a brief case.'

Steele smiled wryly, shook his head and leaned forward to pick up his cup. As he did so, the crack of a shot rang out. The place where his head had been a split second before now sported a small hole.

The two agents reacted swiftly; grabbing each other by the arms they crouched and moved very quickly into the cafe by the open frontage. Because of the open construction of the building there was no cover. They found themselves in the immediate vicinity of the open frontage when a second shot would be due, so they huddled behind the central pillar that divided the cafe front in two. Another shot rang out, not being well aimed, it whizzed past the sheltering couple, ricocheted off one wall, on to another close to the ceiling where it embedded itself. Steele looked at this and deduced that it is probably a small low power rifle like a .22. He reached across and drew a small round table to himself; he turned this on to its side and rolled it towards Autumn. She took the table and held it in front of herself like a shield. They had both worked out that the wooden top would just give enough protection if a projectile were to hit it at an angle, if it were fired from a long range. Steele then took another table and did the same as another shot came into the cafe. This shot took off the table leg that Steele had just taken hold of, allowing the table to fall to the ground leaving Steele out in the open. The parrot then became alarmed and began fluttering around the interior before flying out.

Steele knew he was in the direct line of sight of the rifleman – which also meant that the shooter was in Steele's direct line of sight. Still on one knee the British agent estimated the trajectory the bullet must have taken. He knew the shooter would see him in the open and would not duck out of sight in order to take advantage of an open target. Steele blinked as he looked for the sniper. Then he saw a movement – a person taking aim at him from near a crossroads a little further down the road to his right. At the same time a familiar squawk reached his ears from the same area. This distracted the shooter just as he was taking his next shot. Steele did not see where this bullet landed; he was too busy accelerating towards the rifleman near the corner. From his own military training and fitness, combined with the thorough training he received from the French Foreign Legion Steele was able to reach his maximum sprint speed of seven point five mph in a split second. His body seemed to streamline itself as he almost bent double, and leaned forwards. Powerful legs pounded at the ground to prevent him from falling forwards. The shooter thought of taking another shot at the running man. This hesitation was his undoing. He raised the rifle to his shoulder, then his eyes opened wide as he realised that this man was getting closer than he was comfortable with. He turned on his heel and began running. He headed for the corner, which was to his left, and then he dived round it in case his pursuer was armed.

Autumn slowly stood up as Steele began running away from her. She could just see the shooter begin to raise the rifle at Steele. She half expected to see the back of Steele's head explode with the exit of the bullet - but it did not happen that way. The next thing she saw was when the shooter became the hunted.

The speed that Steele was moving at when he reached the corner meant that he almost overshot the narrow passageway. Running along the far wall he saw the gunman some fifty feet in front of him on the other side of the passage. As he reached another corner the gunman turned to take a snap shot at Steele, who was at a disadvantage, being on the far side of the alley. Steele knew there was not much time for a decent aim, and he was not going to make it any easier. He pushed away from the wall on his right, allowing a sudden change of course without loss of forward momentum. A shot rang out very loud in the tight confines of the passage. Then the gunman was gone. Steele continued in hot pursuit. After the left turn the shooter decided to try his luck again. He sheltered in a doorway and took aim. Steele saw this threat and dived into another doorway. Two shots rang out, but the gunman realised that all the running and excitement had taken a toll on his steady hand; he was unable to aim properly. Steele did not know if another shot was coming his way, this doubt bought the gunman a few precious seconds as he took to his heels again.

When Steele began running after his quarry again he was some half a block behind him. The fugitive reached another corner on his left. If he got round that turn, he would stand a good chance of escaping in the chaotic architecture of old Lisbon. He made it; Steele was nearly one hundred feet behind the man when he turned the corner. Unseen to Steele the man immediately darted across the street into another short alley running in a similar direction to the one in which they were going. When Steele reached the first corner he saw no one. He ran to the nearest corner, which was on his left. A small passageway ran away and seemed to bend to the right. Then he turned to look at the corner of the passageway the man had actually gone down. He looked back at the first one again. Then he realised that he had lost the man. Suddenly the quietness of old Lisbon was interrupted by a woman's shout. Then two shots rang out. Steele tried to work out from which direction the first sound had come from before it began echoing off the narrow high walls. Ahead of him he could see what looked like a road. He ran towards this in the hope that he would be able to gain his bearings again. To his surprise when he reached the road he could see the Green Parrot cafe to his left. There was no sign of Autumn in or around it. He did not know why, but he turned to the right. As he began walking he saw Autumn emerge from a passageway on his right. She was limping and seemed to be holding her side.

LUIS ESTRADAS SUITCASE

Ferdinandos Tapada gingerly took the suitcase that Autumn Rae had liberated from Neil Sherwood, who had liberated from the man in the pink shirt, who had received it from Luiz Estrada.

Tapada was a slight man with a suspicious expression beneath the small trilby hat that he always wore. He was a jobbing chemist that Drake occasionally used. Here an assistant in the shape of Louise Emenda accompanied him.

'What do you expect to find in here, Senorita Emenda?'

Louise Emenda drew on a cigarette; this habit had given her a husky voice.

'We'll find out when you open it.'

John Drake had shown them into a room near the Largo do Carmo, where he had first met with Steve Steele. He stood back and watched with interest what was unfolding before him.

Louise and Tapada were seated at a table with the case on the side furthest away from Drake.

With consummate skill the Portuguese man picked the locks on the straps that held the battered cow-hide case closed. The locks opened.

Inside Tapada found a thin paper file. He waved this at Louise. She took it from him, and upon opening it, she was dismayed to find the lead sheet to be written in a strange language that she could not even recognise. Actually it was Hungarian. She fanned through to find that the rest of the pages contained scientific notation that probably meant something to all scientists. That was the reason why Tapada was there. She handed the file back to him.

'See if you can make sense of that.'

He took the papers and began studying them.

'There seems to be something about aquatic viscosity.' Then back a page, 'It all looks pretty toxic, judging by these ingredients.' He sucked in through his front teeth. 'Then this bit seems to be about aero solubility.' He looked at Louise, 'That relates to a liquid being put through a jet to produce a fine spray.'

Louise looked surprised and shocked at this.

Drake then asked,

'Can you make out what it is, what it does, and what kind of threat it would be?'

Tapada looked up and directly at Drake,

'You don't want much, do you?' more shuffling of papers ensued.

The man in the trilby shook his head as he made an attempt to study the scientific notations on the pages,

'Maybe we had better leave signor Tapada on his own to study?' Drake said to Louise.

'No. I need to keep a very close eye on these papers.' Her casual tone was laced with a strange urgency, 'But there is no need for you to stay if you have somewhere else to be.'

'No, I also have to keep a close eye on the papers until we have a resolution.'

Just then the door opened as Steve Steele entered the room alone.

He closed the door quietly, and seemed subdued. Drake moved across the room to greet him,

'Something happen to Autumn?' he greeted him with a smile.

'No, she broke a heel chasing after some miscreant cretin. That's two pairs of shoes she has lost. I am beginning to suspect that it is some sort of cunning plot to go shoe shopping.'

They moved away from Tapada and Louise as Tapada took out a notebook and began scribbling furiously.

Drake stood facing the table, Steele held his back to the main area of the room, and their voices were kept low, partly to avoid disturbing Tapada, but mainly to keep what they were saying between themselves. This was not a large room, so it was not easy to keep their conversation to themselves.

Steele began the de-brief,

'Someone decided to have a pot shot at us whilst we were out this afternoon.'

'Did you find out who it was? Or who they were working for?'

Steele shook his head,

'No. I chased him off; Autumn managed to cut him off at the pass, but had no choice but to shoot him. She went through his pockets after, but he was carrying nothing at all.'

Steele shook his head and smiled,

'As she emerged from the alley I saw she was limping and seemed to be holding her side. But that was her trying to put her gun back in its holster, whilst walking on a broken heel.'

Louise seemed to be watching Tapada, but was actually trying to listen to what was being said on the far side of the room.

The two Brits turned and looked at Tapada, who was busy scribbling, and then stopping to think, occasionally turning pages back and forth. Then a scratch of the head. Finally he tapped his pencil on the folder as he lifted his head and said,

'If you want a quick overview of this stuff,' he shook his head as he drew breath, 'It looks like some sort of insecticide, but with some strange twists.' He turned some of the pages, and then referred to his notes before continuing, 'There are some nasty elements in here, but I can't work out how they interact or function without the use of a lab and reference material. The same applies for finding any antidote.'

Drake moved towards the table,

'Is there any good news?'

Louise answered this,

'Not yet. But I have a lab here in Lisbon; we can continue this there if you wish.'

Tapada nodded his agreement, then looked up to Drake and shrugged.

'I can't let that happen.' The Brit responded as Steele moved to his side.

Louise stood up and stumped out her cigarette in an ashtray as she turned to face the men in suits.

'Then you will not get a conclusion as to what this is.' She retorted, pointing at the spread of papers on the table before Tapada.

Drake looked briefly at Steele, then back towards the table,

'We can't allow this stuff to move about Lisbon as if it were last week's Sunday supplement.'

Tapada looked confused by this remark.

Louise responded immediately,

'I promise you that it will be guarded and protected as if our lives depended upon it.'

Steele tried to keep the threatening tone out of his voice,

'Not only your lives. This stuff can be fatal to thousands if it gets into the wrong hands.'

Louise took another cigarette from a tortoise-shell case,

'You need not worry about them finding their way into the wrong hands, Mr Steele. Our facilities are very secure and most secret – even you do not know of their existence.'

'That is a worry. I like to know exactly where our assets are.'

'But if you want to know what they mean, and more importantly how to counter them, you will have to trust someone sooner or later. And the sooner the better.'

Drake could see the sense in this. He looked at Steele, nodded towards Louise and said,

'She has a point. Even if we sent this back to the UK in the diplomatic bag, it might take two days to get into the right hands, then they have to interpret the papers, find a lab and expertise.' He held out a hand, and shrugged, 'It could take two or three weeks.'

He moved his attention to Louise and Tapada,

'How long do you think it will take you to get some meaningful results?'

Louise consulted Tapada with a glance, then replied before he had chance to speak,

'We should have a reasonable breakdown in two days; any antidote completely depends on the makeup we find. But you can have the papers back then; we can work on the antidote with what we have discovered.'

Drake thought for a moment,

'Hmmm. That is probably the best deal we can get.' He turned to Steele, 'What do you think? We have used Ferdinandos Tapada before; he is quite reliable and can be trusted in these matters.'

'Yes, but there is also a matter of National security here, what do Foreign Office Guidelines say?'

Drake glanced at Louise, who was smoking her cigarette on the other side of the room, before addressing Steele quietly,

'There are no guidelines on this kind of matter. Anyway, we are in the field, they are really only a guide out here. We are on our own recognisance now.'

Steele gave a sideways glance at the couple by the table. His brow furrowed a little,

'This is not an ideal situation, but what choice do we have? You say you have used this chap before?'

'Yes, he can be relied upon.'

'I am trying to weigh the advantages we gain, against the disadvantages we give ourselves if we get this wrong.'

Drake turned his hand to show an upturned palm in the air,

'I know this is my call, but you have power of veto, so what do we do?'

'I don't want to veto anything you wish to do, so if you think we should trust these two, I will go along with it. As she said, it's the best deal we have. But at least find out where this lab is.'

Drake then spoke to Louise,

'We have to know where this work is to be carried out, Senorita Emenda.'

Louise Shrugged,

'But of course. It is below a large house on Rue Nova do Loureiro. You would not know from the exterior, but it is very secure. We would like to show you around, but the clearance checks would only delay our work.'

Steele and Drake looked at each other, Steele asked Drake,

'Do you know of this address?'

Drake replied,

'I know of the street. There are some very large houses there. Yes, I can conceive that there could easily be a secret lab below any one of them.'

'Does that make the deal more secure?' Steele said.

'I think it does. Of course we could insist that you accompany the papers throughout the whole procedure.'

Louise seemed to like that idea,

'Yes, Mister Steele, we will make you very welcome indeed.'

Steele did not concur,

'I am far too busy; I can't be tied up doing monitoring duties.'

Louise drew on her cigarette, and blew smoke,

'Oooh, what a pity. I am sure we could find plenty to fill in your time in a useful way.'

'I'm sure you could.' Steele responded, 'But I have other responsibilities.'

'Right.' Louise stubbed out her cigarette, 'Are we doing this or not? We are wasting time here now. You can send in a monitor if you wish, but let us move this thing forwards now.

Steele looked at Drake,

'Do you have anyone available? What about Autumn?'

'Can't; Autumn is due to go to Geneva soon.'

Louise pretended not to hear this.

Drake summed things up,

'Looks as if we had better get this moving with what we've got.'

'We have no choice if we are to move forwards.' Steele agreed.

Tapada repacked the files, and then carefully replaced them in the briefcase. Louise shook hands with the two men,

'I have your card; I shall be in touch as soon as we have something.' She turned to Steele, 'You know where to find us, Mr Steele.'

'Oh, yes I do.' Steele replied as the Portuguese couple left with the briefcase.

When the door closed behind them Steele looked thoughtful as he said to Drake,

'How did she know my name? You didn't introduce me.'

STRANGER AT THE GATE

John Drake was still in the room at the back of the cafe when Autumn entered.

'You wanted to see me, John?'

'Yes, Autumn. Have a seat.' They sat at the table where Tapada had been studying the papers, watched over by Louise Emenda.

'We have a snatch job organised, and we need you to fill in for the target.' He produced a cardboard file, which he opened and took out a photograph, 'This is one Kath Lonn, she is being moved in to run an experimental section within the Logistics and Modifications Department of Sabina Airways at Geneva airport.'

Autumn took the picture, looked at it briefly, then back at Drake.

'What do we know about this woman? More to the point, what do the other people at Geneva know?'

'We know precious little, really. But luckily, neither do the people in Geneva. We have it on good authority that they do not even know what she looks like.'

Autumn looked at the black and white picture,

'Just as well, she's a bit of a dog.'

'Come on, Autumn. She's not that bad. We chose you because you have a similar build and appearance.'

Autumn scanned the picture again, then said with a wry grin,

'I see what you mean, bit of a looker really!'

Drake shuffled through the papers in the folder,

'We don't know what her duties will be in Geneva, but we know she has to report to an independent operator's hanger here.' He indicated a square on a plan view of the airport, 'They are called Simply Red Airworks.' He unfolded a street map of Geneva.

'The hit is to be here, on Nant d'Avril Road. She will be making her way to Gare Zimeysa railway station. There won't be much time; she will be taking a taxi from where she has been holed up, to this station. However, there is a good chance she will walk about one hundred yards to check for any surveillance we may have. That is when we shall apprehend her.'

The rain was falling gently on the buildings and cars of Geneva. Kath Lonn was wearing her customary pale yellow mack over white slacks. The small clear plastic umbrella barely covered her as she weaved across d'Avril Road. She was only two blocks from the railway station as predicted.

A pale blue Jaguar Mk 4 pulled up just in front of Kath. She paid no attention to the two people who got out of the back doors of the car before it had completely come to a halt. Only two car doors slammed shut in the noisy traffic, even though Autumn Rae also alighted on the right-hand side. Kath thought it unusual to see a woman of similar build as she, with almost the same outfit on. As the first man, the one who exited the vehicle on the pavement seemed to walk quickly towards the newsstand on her right the other man was coming around the chrome fenders of the British car. From under the rain-drop covered umbrella Kath saw a man's feet move closer to her from the left. She tilted the umbrella to her right to see if the person was on a collision course. Then the umbrella was moved back by an outside force until she could no longer see the man on her left. Newsstand man had turned through 90 degrees to move directly at Kath from behind her right side. She wondered why the umbrella was moving when two strong hands took hold of her under the armpits. She took a deep breath as Autumn took the umbrella and put one finger up to her lips in a 'shushing' motion. Autumn nodded towards the already opened car door, Kath felt the pressure of a hand on top of her head, then the back of her knees were pushed, but the hands under her armpits prevented her from falling over. The bright light of the outdoors was replaced with the interior of a car. One of the men sat next to Kath, as she turned to look at him she felt the other man get in on the other side, and then the car simply pulled away from the kerbside. It had been stationary for only six seconds. No dramatic screeching of tortured rubber, roaring of a powerful engine – only a stately moving away in the way that big Jaguars do.

Autumn continued her journey. When she took the umbrella she also took the opportunity to liberate Kath's large handbag. This she began to delve into as the train travelled the two stops to Vernier.

The bag contained some interesting articles, including a Russian issue handgun, and a security pass. This could prove useful – especially because of the poor monochrome Russian photograph of the holder – it could even pass as Mrs Khrushchev in a bad light. Autumn adjusted her makeup to better resemble the photo; she had decided to use the genuine pass. She compared her forgery, and decided that security would be more alert to slight changes in the printing of the document than the transformations possible with a different hairstyle, this and the terrible grainy picture that had probably been taken months, maybe even years before.

The train pulled into her stop. Thinking back to the meeting with Drake she remembered that the hangar she was looking for lie at the far end of the long thin airport, so she elected to get a taxi.

'Do you know the 'Simply Red' building?' she asked the taxi driver as she got into the car.

'Sorry, I've never heard of it. Is it on the airport?'

'Yes. Somewhere near the end of the Route de Pre-Bais.'

'There is the East Gate in that area. They may know it. I shall take you there.'

Upon arriving she approached the gate; the uniformed guards were pleased to see such a personable young lady.

'You need help? You look like you are lost.'

'Yes, I am looking for the Simply Red building.'

He turned to his colleague,

'Isn't that outfit in 3B?'

His fellow worker cracked a smile as he replied,

'Depends on who is asking. You can't just walk in there.'

He moved across to the little window as the first man stood back.

'Who are you, and what do you want?'

Autumn thought about getting tough in reply to this change in attitude, but decided against it, she needed to get past these guys with as little difficulty as possible.

'Here's my pass. I have a set of skills, now don't mess me about –you don't want to find out what they are.'

'Wait here.' He took Autumn's pass with him, and then walked across to his desk. Without sitting down he picked up the phone as he turned his back to Autumn so that she couldn't hear what was being said, but she heard the start of the conversation,

'We have a stranger at the gate...'

He read from her pass, and then fell silent. With a disturbing abruptness he finished the call, turned back to Autumn. He gave her pass back to her as he said,

'You must wait here. Someone will be out to see you.'

Presently two young men appeared from the airport side. They looked at her pass, compared the photo and the person in front of them, looked at each other, shook their heads, then handed the pass back with the comment,

'Russian photographers, you should get your money back for that one. This way if you please.'

'These are not Russians.' Thought Autumn Rae/Kath Lonn, they sound like Austrians or Germans, but could easily be Swiss.

They showed her into a large dark red hangar with a black roof. Here she could see various civil aircraft, on the far side she could make out the shape of a big Boeing 707 in the colours of Sabina. Then she was ushered into an office. Behind the desk sat a man in a charcoal grey suit.

'Good morning, Miss Lonn. Won't you have a seat?'

Autumn sat opposite the man. He shuffled some papers, then looked her straight in the eye,

'It would appear that our Russian taskmasters think that we need some help here. What help can you give us, Miss Lonn?'

This threw Autumn. She was expecting to be given some information about the operation here before having to give an input. A bit of quick thinking was called for here.

'My role here is purely a monitoring one. I know exactly what we require, most of which is classified, and I am here to oversee your modifications to ensure we are not compromised. On the positive side, I may be able to manipulate our specifications to help you with any difficult problems. It is a two-way street.' She was on a roll now, 'So if you would show me to my office I can begin to arrange to bring in the files which I may need. And whilst we are about it, I will need a Swedish microfiche reader, better still, make that two, with spare bulbs, and a printer. And a full sized drawing board, plus all the usual office furniture of course.' Before he had chance to take breath to reply she continued, 'The office itself must be absolutely secure, with the capability of being completely private.'

'You ask a lot. Upon what authority do you expect these orders to be acted upon?'

Autumn looked a little puzzled at this latest twist. With a look of resigned agreement she shrugged and rummaged around in the big Russian bag that she had taken from the real Kath. As she seemed to find what she was feeling for she began to speak to the man behind the desk,

'My authority comes directly from the Kommisar. It comes in a simple, easy to understand package.' The heavy Russian hand gun came out of the bag and pointed at the man, 'I am authorised to use whatever means to get your co-operation. That includes personal injury and damage, up to and including deadly force.' Autumn quickly fitted a silencer, which she found in the bag. Without seeing this first, she was glad it was not a big Russian lipstick.

The man stared at the gun, then at Autumn.

There was a large filing cabinet behind the man, upon which there sat a fine, large porcelain figurine of a Prussian soldier in all his finery, mounted on a similarly colourful horse.

With a satisfying 'Pfft' the gun fired. The figurine exploded. In amongst the noise of a normal working hangar the noise went unnoticed, in fact the figurine made more noise than the gun discharging. The smell of cordite seemed completely out of place as Autumn said with as much confidence as she could muster,

'Your leg could be next. Which one do you want it in?'

'There is no need for that.' The man rose from his position. So did Autumn. She kept the gun pointing in his direction as the man moved towards the door. Then he stopped and said,

'If you insist on waving that around out there someone will take it off you just before you hit the floor. Now we don't want to annoy the Kommisar, so I suggest you put it away. I think your authority has been established now.'

Inside, Autumn was very relieved, but on the outside she had to continue the act,

'Any more problems or doubts and I will not hesitate to use it.' She carefully switched the safety on, and then returned the firearm into the bag, with the silencer still attached.

They made their way to the far side of the hangar. Sounds of riveting, drilling and general banging made conversation difficult, so little was said, just the occasional 'Be careful.' or 'mind that.' As they walked over black hoses, orange cables and wooden stands and steps.

They reached a small office on the far side of the hangar, close to the wing tip of the Boeing 707 that carried the markings of Sabina. A metal plate seemed to cover what would probably be some sort of serving hatch. This looked like a sort of stores establishment. The man opened the door with a key, which he then passed on to Autumn. They went into the office. Lights from the hangar outside allowed Autumn just enough light to make out the emptiness within, she heard an ominous click from behind her. Then the lights began to flicker. The smell of fresh paint filled her nostrils as the bare walls of her new office became illuminated. She looked around; there were three cream painted brick walls, no outside windows. The only windows were two square wooden framed apertures to the right of the serving hatch; the only door was to the left of this.

'I will need blinds on the windows, plus all of the material I have mentioned. I shall also be requiring the services of a filing clerk, full time at first to allow me to get established.'

'Certainly, I shall arrange it, also the equipment you asked for. There is a drawing stores further down this side of the hangar containing all the drawings you may need.'

Autumn shook her head,

'That will not be necessary. I will arrange to have my own set of drawings, and ECIs, which I may need to change. Now, if that is all, I have arrangements to make outside of the airport.'

'Very well, we can have most of this equipment installed by the day after tomorrow. When will you need a filing clerk?'

'It may take most of this week to get my files here, so I will not need any assistance until next Monday.'

DOCTOR MALCOLM LEIGHTON

Lisbon docks, 10.27am. Steve Steele was walking around the container yard looking for container number NS850-12VACTC. It would be a pale blue Maersk box, but the yard was full of Maersk containers, although they were nearly all white, and the numbers ended -10. He walked through the ranks of containers stacked four high, checking all the numbers. Then he saw another series of stacks of Maersk containers. Here were some blue ones, and these numbers ended in -12. These were longer than the first lot, then he realised what the last two digits in the numbers meant, they signified the length in metres. NS850-12VACTC then came into view. It was mounted on the second level of four; he could not see any way to reach the box. There were containers close on each side, but the fronts of these were all left clear because of a large box mounting on the face of them all. This, Steele presumed, contained some sort of refrigeration, or air conditioning unit. He stared up at NS850-12VACTC wondering just what he was doing there. His orders did not make this clear. They were delivered in plain language, so there could not be any definite instructions. They simply gave the container number. Here it was, NS850-12VACTC. The base of it was nearly 10 feet above his head. He stepped back to the shade of the row behind him in order to study the situation. Then he noticed something move gently in the breeze on the right hand corner of the container. A line seemed to hang down to the lower levels. He moved towards the line, which turned out to be a chain, very similar to a lavatory chain, but longer, much, much longer. On the end of this he found the flush handle of a British lavatory. Steele looked up to see where the chain led.

'I don't believe it!' he muttered as he looked up to where the chain ended. On the end of the chain was a spring-loaded triangular plate, it was obvious that if you pulled the chain the triangle would pivot: moving the lower point backwards to trip a switch. The level of the handle made it obvious that it was intended to be operated from ground level, so he pulled on it. He couldn't help but smile as he did this.

He stood back to see what happened next, the agent was certain that nothing would surprise him.

Then a concealed door opened some 12 feet up from ground level, on the front of the container. A white-coated man wearing an engineer's cap leaned out,

'Ahh, Steele. Glad you could make it. Come on in. We are expecting you.' Doctor Malcolm Leighton, known to all as 'Dr Malc' bobbed back inside, then a four-part telescopic ladder was lowered to ground level by gravity. A rope ran through to the bottom rung and back up, to facilitate the return of the application.

Steve Steele climbed the ladder, and entered the container. Dr Malc took his arm as he stepped onto the polished wooden floor, then the coconut welcome mat. Steele instinctively wiped his feet as he took in his surroundings. He knew the external dimensions of the box were forty feet by eight feet wide, and nine feet high, but it looked much bigger inside. The whole was equipped as a working laboratory, white walls with a thin green line running around at waist height. There were even a couple of offices built in. Workbenches were festooned with all manner of equipment; Steele was immediately taken by what looked like an ordinary leather chair on the left of the doorway. This comfortable chair was equipped with thick belts. As he touched one of these pale blue straps he noticed that it was very soft.

Dr Malc leaned across to him. In whispered tones he said,

'I think its hands in pockets time, Mr Steele, that one's live.'

'Live? You mean it's wired up to the mains?'

'No, Steele. Rockets.' He pointed at a square panel in the roof that had slight black and grey smudges around the edges, 'We cannot test it at the moment, there is a container on top of this one. But when we do,' he moved to a lifelike dummy standing on the opposite side of the doorway, 'George here will be going for a ride.'

Steele looked from the leather chair to the manikin, then back to Dr Malc.

'We have some new equipment for you.' The Doctor said, 'This is called the Wilkinson cap.'

He removed the engineers cap by taking hold of the back of it, much like a sailor removes his hat at ceremonious occasions. He briefly showed it to Steele.

'The Neb you will notice is quite stiff. That is because it was made by Wilkinson's, the sword people.'

Steele looked surprised,

'You mean they have made a cap that has a built-in sabre?'

'Do take this seriously Steele.'

Dr Malc then swung the cap, still holding the back of it, the Neb, at the front of the cap caught the neck of the manikin George. His head fell off.

'Never try to take this off in the usual way. The edge of the Neb here is Wilkinson's finest black steel with a razor's edge.'

He handed the cap to Steele, who took it and carefully examined the Neb,

'Cutting edge fashion.' He said.

'The main purpose is to cut through the jugular, not remove the head altogether. The slightest touch on the side of the neck will render the recipient dead before he hits the ground.' Dr Malc explained as he moved further into the room.

Steele followed him as Dr Malc picked up a pack of Gauloises cigarettes.

'Didn't know you smoked, Dr Malc.' Steele said.

'I don't.' He pointed at the pale blue pack. 'These are common throughout Europe, but three of these will not work as cigarettes.' He shook the pack and removed most of the smokes, and then he inserted his finger into the pack that seemed to hold on to some of its contents. He flicked out what looked like another cigarette. 'This one is the battery. Inside the pack is a small short-wave radio transmitter/receiver. Every operative will be carrying one whilst in the field.'

Steele walked across to a familiar object that was sitting on a bench. He pointed to it as he turned to Dr Malc and said,

'Is this a one man rocket pack?'

'Yes, but it is not perfected yet.'

Steele looked surprised,

'Oh? Work in progress is it?'

'Very much so.'

'Does it work?'

'Oh, yes, Steele. It works, but only for two point seven minutes. Another problem is the noise; it is like standing alongside a jet engine on full throttle – in fact you are carrying a miniature jet engine on your back. But it is not the engine that makes most of the noise; it is the jet exhausts about one foot away from each ear. Then there is the heat. You see the exhaust is lagged in these curious-looking bandages? That is asbestos, and there are extensive heat barriers between the carrier and the engine.'

He turned the extraordinary machine around. Steele touched the part that would be in contact with the operator's back. His brow furrowed as he turned to Dr Malc,

'What's in it?' he asked as he gently squeezed the metallic blanket. It gave way under his grip as if it contained some form of jelly.

'Air.' Dr Malc grinned knowingly, 'We could have filled it with Argon gas, but the leakage problems were never satisfactorily overcome. The Argon gas didn't like the extreme heat.'

'Neither would I.' Steele admitted as he examined the machine further.

'And why is the endurance so short? I presume that is the reason for the two point eight minutes of flight.'

'Yes. It is fuel. This thing uses up fuel at a prestigious rate. It all comes down to the performance of a jet engine, and what it can lift. If you were to fly it for instance, we would have to weigh you, we know how much the machine weighs, and we know how much it can lift. The difference between your combined weights and the lifting capacity is what you can carry as fuel. Using a fairly light man it can only lift enough fuel for two point eight minutes.'

Steele smiled as he said,

'Where are the scales?'

Dr Malc protested,

'Oh no, Steele. This is only an experimental model, not your plaything. We cannot risk you getting injured in a flippant jaunt.'

'But what if you manage to perfect this in the next few weeks, and I have to use it in the field? I would be happier if I had some experience of it.'

'That is besides the point, Steele. You are not insured to ride on this machine.'

'Don't make me laugh, Dr Malc. I am not insured to get fired at, or do many of the dangerous things that I have to do. Now, how much more dangerous is this than getting fired at and risking being shot in a foreign country?'

'Well, it is nowhere as dangerous, obviously. But there are unknowns involved here.'

'There are unknowns involved in everything I do. But here we have chance to cancel an unknown out by letting me fly this thing.'

Ten minutes later Steve Steele stood on the entrance of the container ten feet above the ground. There was a tether attached to him, just in case this thing should malfunction. It was a measure that Dr Malc had insisted upon. Steele checked his straps, then turned around and pointed at the cocoa 'welcome' mat,

'I think you had better move that.' The engineers tinkered around the back of the machine as Dr Malc moved the mat, and then closed the steel doors, which protected the workshop from jet blast.

One of the engineers moved away from the engine and turned to Dr Malc,

'All ready to fire up, sir.' He reported.

Dr Malc looked again at Steele, shook his head, and then nodded to the engineer. Both of them moved back into the workshop area as the remaining engineer started the engine, gave Steele the thumbs-up, and then ran for the safety of the workshop. There were three heads watching through bulletproof glass as Steele twisted the throttle control. The noise level rose alarmingly as the engine spun up to its full power. Steele felt the power, and then his feet began to feel lighter. He leant forwards slightly, almost falling out of the door. The engine now took over as the thrust reached weight-bearing levels. Steele's feet left the container step.

'Christ almighty, the bloody thing actually works!' he said, but even he did not hear the words. The noise of the screaming jet engine was echoing off stacks of containers all around.

Steele decided to see what he could do. He still had some small amount of movement in the throttle control. As he opened this up he began to rise upwards. Dr Malc and the two engineers appeared at the container door. The tether was only eight feet long; to allow him to avoid hitting the ground if something went wrong.

'Give him some more line.' Dr Malc said to one of the engineers. The tether was paid out as Steele rose above the containers. He now had a clear view across the whole yard. By manipulating the controls he found that he could rotate to see all around.

Then he thought about the fuel situation. On the inside of his right wrist he had a fuel gauge. This had gone down by an alarming rate by now. More than half of his fuel had been burned up. He considered landing on top of the containers. This seemed an easy option, but how was he to get down from there if he did? And then there was the question of the backpack, which weighed nearly as much as him when not running.

No, there were two options open to him, return to the doorway he had left from, or land on the ground at the base of the containers. He decided that the latter was the best option – he did not feel confident enough to be able to thread himself into the doorway, so a ground landing it was to be. Slowly he moved back over the container tops until he was over the narrow alleyway created by the towering rows of boxes. By rotating the whole contraption he assured himself that he was centrally lined up. The tether hung straight down meaning that he would be descending past the doorway where three people were watching with apprehension.

The throttle twist-grip was turned a little. The noise level decreased alarmingly, but not as alarming as the rate of descent. Steele plummeted down, flashing past the door with the three men watching. Instinctively he undid the last act before the dropping down happened. The engine spun up again. A reassuring yank on the straps told Steele that his descent had been arrested, and then he began to rise. Slowly at first, but by the time he was at the level of the doorway he was moving quite quickly.

Steele was unable to communicate with the men; all he could do was to give a wide-eyed smile. This infuriated Dr Malc, who began shouting at Steele. Even the engineers standing next to him could not hear what he was shouting.

This time Steele reduced the throttle more gradually. He stopped rising immediately, and then began to descend again. As he passed the doorway he gave a quick rotate before being enveloped in dust that was thrown up by the jet exhaust. Dr Malc leaned out of the doorway in time to see Steele's helmeted head disappear in a cloud of dust, then pop up again. As he reached the doorway Steele mouthed the words,

'Can't see down there. Coming in here.'

He glanced at the dust-covered fuel gauge. He could not read it because of all the dust. As he attempted to blow the dust away he inadvertently closed the throttle. Down he went like a stone. He twisted the throttle as his feet touched the ground, then he shot up past the door as the tether became tighter – they were trying to pull him back in.

The three men managed to reel the agent in, they worked from within the workshop area behind the blast doors to avoid being effected by the jet blast. Steele's feet just touched on to the edge of the container doorway as the jet fell silent. The sheer weight of the machine on his back threatened to pull him over the edge. As he began to incline into the void he let go of the now useless throttle and vector controls in order to try to grab at the rapidly moving doorway posts. His right hand missed. The left hand managed a tenuous grip, but this could not possibly hope to prevent the massive dead engine from pulling the hapless agent into the open air.

Just then he felt a jerk from the tether as three men pulled together to bring him into the relative safety of the container workshop.

Steele positioned the backpack on its stand, assisted by the engineers,

'That was quite a ride,' he said to Dr Malc, 'I can see that there are a few bugs to be ironed out yet.'

'You could say that.' Dr Malc replied with as much patience as he could muster, 'Now we have more equipment for you to get to know, if you think you can pay a little more attention.'

The two men walked across to another bench, where Dr Malc produced a small package. This he passed to Steele, it looked for all the world like a good quality gentleman's grooming set. Steele opened this, and removed what looked like a lint remover/clothes brush. He brushed off his shoulder; his suit had taken a bit of a hammering during the flight,

'Thank you, Dr Malc, but I rather think that this jacket now needs a little more attention than this can give.'

'Don't be facetious, Steele.' He took the implement from Steele, 'This is a rather sensitive metal detector. It is particularly good at finding listening devices.' He replaced the object in the case; he then took out a pair of sunglasses. They looked to fit in with the fashion of big lenses on shades, he handed these to Steele,

'Try these on.'

Steele put the sunglasses on and looked around; trying to see what was special about them.

'Can you see what is behind you?' Dr Malc asked.

Steele tried to turn his head round, when Dr Malc said,

'No, that looks too obvious. If someone were following you, you would have given the game away by looking behind yourself. You know the trick of using shop windows, well now you have your own device.'

Steele took the glasses off as Dr Malc continued,

'If you look closely at the inside of the lenses you will see two small mirrors on the outside edge. These are quite small, but because they are fairly close to your eyeball the do not need to be any bigger. By simply turning your head fifteen degrees you can see right behind you.'

Steele put the shades back on, and then tried looking behind himself as described by Dr Malc.

'Revealing.' He said.

Dr Malc then took out a circular tin of talcum powder,

'Don't bother trying to use this when you get out of the shower, Steele.' unscrewing the top, he then tapped some of the white powder on to the palm of his hand, 'This can be cut into flour and baked into bread and cakes. The result will be like food poisoning, and can disable a person for weeks, if it does not kill them. But its main purpose is as a high explosive; this is as powerful as the new C4 plastic. Even if it is baked into a product, it still retains its explosive properties.' He took out a box of Swan Vestas matches from the leather bag. Removing one he held it up to Steele,

'This is a new detonator.'

Steele raised his eyebrows, smiled and said to the man holding a match,

'Of course it is.'

'Do take this more seriously; you use it just like the old ones, snap the end of it, and you have thirty seconds before the cake blows up.' He showed the contents of the box to Steele. There were different colours to the heads of the matches, he had demonstrated using a match with a pink head, 'The red ones give two minutes, the blue ones give about one hour. At these times we cannot be accurate, but it should be somewhere between 45 minutes and 75 minutes.'

Steele slowly shook his head in disbelief. He reached into a leather bag, and removed a very smart tortoise-shell cigarette case,

'And they say that smoking is bad for your health.' He took a cigarette from the box, and waved it at Dr Malc, 'Is this a real cigarette?'

'Yes, but try to keep your light away from the cigarette case; that is also made from high explosive.'

'Oh! Fantastic.' Steele recoiled in surprise, 'What is the purpose of that, apart from dissuading one from smoking?'

Dr Malc smiled reassuringly,

'It is quite safe, very stable in this condition.' He tapped it to reassure Steele. 'It works like the dets. When you break them, they become live and active. When you crack this case it becomes live and active, but there is no time delay this time – the explosion is immediate.'

'And what possible purpose could that serve?' Steele asked.

'This is your own personal land mine. Your cover story is that you are a gent's accessories salesman, these are your stock in trade, so you have reason to be carrying twenty of them.'

Steele turned the little box over in his hand.

Dr Malc took a pen from his top pocket,

'We have improved on the pen detonator from the old days.' He began to unscrew the top, 'By partially unscrewing the top you can now use the explosive content to propel a projectile – it becomes a gun, and the bullet shot out also has an explosive head.' He re-screwed the top, and handed it to Steele, 'And of course you still have the money belt, heel compass, silk maps and all the other standard equipment. Are there any questions, Steele?'

Steele looked at the gathered equipment, and handled each one slowly considering the properties of each one. Presently he looked up to Dr Malc and said,

'Yes, I have only one question.' He paused, waving his hand across the equipment, 'With all this, most of it explosive, and considering that we are nearly twelve feet from the ground. How am I supposed to get back to Terra firm without becoming a very noisy pink cloud?'

BRUCIANNIS

On a quiet Sunday morning in March 1972, the Kommisar and Andy Rawker walked quickly through the sparsely populated streets of central Maastricht. The thin early spring sunshine slanted through the buildings holding the promise of more warmth to come, but there was still the danger of snow.

The two men walked on opposite sides of Alexander Battalaan towards their destination, Bruccianni's cafe. Rawker had arranged for the establishment to open especially for this meeting. He was the first to arrive, but he walked right on by without even giving the place a second glance. The Kommisar watched as his colleague strode straight past the big windows that looked out on to a pavement that usually had tables and chairs arranged outside of the cafe. There were lights on in the back, but the front of the establishment showed no signs of activity. As Rawker turned to his right, down a narrow street, the Kommisar crossed Alexander Battalaan to approach the cafe directly from the front. He had continued beyond the cafe, so had to describe a turn of more than ninety degrees in order to approach it. He walked deliberately slowly in order to give Rawker chance to turn up at the rear of the building.

Loud knocking was heard from both the front door and the back door almost simultaneously. Rawker knew that there was only supposed to be one person on duty today – he had arranged it that way. Ester Sommers was standing in for the manageress, Barbara, who operated the cafe on behalf of the Bruccianni family, it was she who had agreed to the days procedures. As the knocking began Ester was closer to the back door, but able to look straight through the cafe to the large windows on the front. Here she saw a tall imposing stranger with strong features and a shock of pure white hair. As she put the cloth down she turned towards the back entrance, this burst open and Andy Rawker entered.

She recognised him,

'Thank God it's you. There is a stranger at the front.'

'Don't you worry about him, just let him in.' Rawker didn't even look at the front as he gave the instruction.

He walked through the empty cafe, checking all the fittings and furniture. The Kommisar began the same as he came in through the front door. He hardly turned to Ester as he said,

'Lock the door please; we don't want just anyone waltzing in here.'

Ester locked the door, then began walking back towards the rear of the premises when the Kommisar called to her,

'If you don't mind, my dear; would you stay by the front door? We are expecting another three people, and we don't want them to be kept hanging about outside.'

'OK, very well, sir.' Ester said as she returned to a table near the door.

The Kommisar watched her as she made her way back. She had a strange gait about her walk, her feet were splayed out at roughly 110 degrees, and this was exacerbated by the size of her feet, which were large for a woman. She took a seat and began watching the door. As she watched the pedestrians outside, she tapped on her teeth with the ear piece of the rear of her spectacles. She took hold of this with her teeth when a man came to the door. As she opened it the man seemed to be about to introduce himself when the Kommisar called,

'There is no need for introductions, just let him in, and keep a lookout for the other two.'

Alphonse Kurd of Lufthansa shook hands with the Kommisar; Rawker was checking walls and fixtures on the far side of the cafe.

'I thought you had checked this place out before.' The Kommisar called across to him.

'I did; which makes this scan easier, but necessary none the less.'

The Kommisar directed Kurd to a raised part of the cafe in a corner away from the front entrance. He, himself took a seat that offered a clear view of the front entrance by way of a large mirror on the wall.

As they positioned themselves another two men appeared at the front door. Ester knew one of them; Luiz Estrada had used this establishment on previous occasions. She let them both in, locked the door, then called across to the Kommisar,

'Is that all you are expecting, sir?'

'No, there is another one yet.'

Just then another man appeared at the door, he had been watching Luiz Estrada and his companion.

Ester let him in, then turned towards the Kommisar,

'Is that it, sir?'

'Yes, that is all of them, thank you, miss. Err, what is your name?'

This showed that the Kommisar had not arranged this meeting; he had left it to his trusted lieutenants Andy Rawker and Luiz Estrada to make the arrangements.

Ester looked at Luiz Estrada, then answered,

'Ester Sommers, sir. I run this place when Barbara is not available. She asked me to open up for you today.'

'Well, Ester, I would like to thank you for taking the trouble of opening up for us on a Sunday. If you would be so kind as to get us some coffee, we can then dispense with your services for an hour or two.'

The six men took up positions in the secluded raised area selected by the Kommisar, and the meeting got under way.

'There is little time for formalities here, so I will just introduce you gentlemen to each other.' The Kommisar waved his hand towards the three men, 'Alfonse Kurd of Lufthansa, meet Aaron Roy Delbert of Sabina Airways, and Pierre Kamen of Scandinavian Air Services.'

The three men shook hands as the Kommisar began the meeting proper,

'We are here to make sure that we are all singing from the same hymn sheet.' He looked around at the group, 'You have all been given your orders, and know what is expected of you, but you have not yet been advised where your targets are. You know to rendezvous at Geneva on the 17th June. There you will be supplied with the equipment needed, more about this from Luiz later. Before I hand out your target information perhaps I should just go over the operational requirements concerning the actual raid.' The Kommisar paused, looking around the room as if to make sure that there was no-one else in the establishment.

Rawker then leapt out of his chair, almost knocking the table over in his haste. As he moved towards the corner of the raised area he looked into a mirror on the far wall. By doing this he could see round the corner, towards the stairs that led downstairs. In the area between the stairs and where the meeting was being held there was a blind spot. Here lurked Ester Sommers, she had ascended the stairs quietly, and was in the process of planting a listening device beneath a table close to where the meeting was being held.

Rawker took a small electric device out of his pocket. This had been developed from a cattle prod by cruel and weird minds. It was designed to give an electric shock that was not fatal, but could be disabling, or excruciating, depending upon what setting was being used.

'You are not the person I dealt with, who are you working for?' he shouted as he took hold of the impostor. He pointed the probe/gun directly at her.

'Someone left this behind, I was just removing it.' She held up some sort of electronic device, it was about the size of a matchbox, and seemed to consist of a series of holes at one end, and some sort of suction apparatus on one side.

'You must think that we are stupid.' He retorted, pointing at the object in her hand, 'This is not a commercial item. It is a covert listening device.'

He pointed the electric prod/gun at the dark grey device, and fired from less than two inches away.

The device disintegrated, before Ester could release it, so it burned her. The electricity continued through the device as it fragmented, then into her hand. She cried out in pain, and then took hold of her wounded hand by the wrist.

Rawker then pointed the gun at Ester's midriff area, and fired. A blue lightning bolt streaked towards her. She convulsed and fell into a corner by a small table. She looked at Rawker, who was now about four feet from her. With her good hand and one foot, she pushed the table towards Rawker. This knocked him off balance slightly.

Luiz Estrada made his way to the melee just as Ester pulled a small gun out from somewhere, neither man saw where it came from, but they could both see that it was aimed at Rawker, who was by now in a corner, with no chance of getting out of the way. Estrada took a flying dive at the gun, and just managed to knock it sideways. A shot went wide, breaking a window a mere two feet from Rawker's head. But this then put Estrada at the top of the stairs. The woman glanced at Rawker, gave the table another push to keep him away, then turned her attentions towards Estrada. He saw the gun moving towards him, so took a dive down the stairs to avoid being shot. As he reached the bottom of the staircase he was able to draw his own gun for the first time.

Rawker did not consider himself out of the fight. He turned the prod/pistol to full, and then aimed it at the nearest part of Ester, a foot. He knew this was the maximum range for the device, but he hoped that there would be sufficient power left in the bolt to do something.

He fired at the foot. The blue bolt arched towards Ester, then made good connection with the shoe. Rawker was not to know, but it was metal for most of its construction; this was another weapon disabled. The metal got hot; the electricity flowed up Ester's leg. She convulsed again. Rawker could see where the gun came from, a small holster inside her leg just above the knee.

'That explains the strange walk.' He thought.

A shot rang out from below the stairs. Estrada was trying to get her attention. As she turned towards where the shot came from Rawker threw the table to one side, and made a lunge at the off-balanced Ester. The probe/gun was still set on high when he fired from quite close range directly at her wounded hand. The resulting electric shock and physical shock combined caused Ester to convulse and scream uncontrollably before slumping unconsciously at his feet.

The gun fell from her hand, and fell down the stairs towards Estrada, who scooped it up as he returned to the main floor.

'Who do you think she is?' he asked Rawker.

'I don't know, but there has been a serious breach in our security.' He turned to the Kommisar, 'But I am sure the place is secure now, she was trying to place a listening device, which points to the likely-hood that there are no others. I, myself gave this whole premises a thorough sweep only last evening.'

The Kommisar thought for a moment, and then looked at the front of the cafe. The large windows allowed him a good view of the street outside. There were not many people about, of the two shots fired; one was fired through a silencer. The other had apparently gone unnoticed. He looked down at Ester,

'Is there anywhere downstairs you can lock her up until we decide what to do with her?' he asked Rawker.

'Yes, sir. There is a large refrigerator.'

'Good. Put her in there, but make sure she is not carrying any more surprises.' He nudged the remains of the wrecked shoe.

Rawker took on the task of searching the unconscious Ester for concealed weapons. The small holster held three bullets; her belt seemed to have some unusual lumps, so it was removed. There felt to be a wire or something in her collar, so she had her top removed too. The possibility of fuse wire or flexible detonators being built into her bra made it necessary to deprive her of that also. Rawker and Estrada looked down at her. Estrada shook his head as he felt around the hem of her skirt,

'This feels strange.' As he said these words, he bent the hem so that the cloth touched itself, then he nipped the cloth together and ran his fingers up to the loop. As he reached the loop he felt a crack, and let go of the skirt as a bright purple spark erupted from the area he was handling.

The belt had already been removed, so it was an easy job to take the skirt off too. Estrada picked the good shoe up, weighed it in his hand, then passed it to Rawker,

'That will make good investigating.' He remarked.

Rawker took the shoe, then nodded at Estrada,

'I shall look into that later, let us now put our maiden on ice.'

The men carried her limp body down the stairs, and locked her in the walk-in refrigerator.

They returned to the meeting as The Kommisar continued. He indicated the three pilots,

'You three men are used to flying boring airliners from A to B with no activity whatsoever. Now you will have chance to do some more engaging flying. You are to approach your target as close to the speed of sound as possible, at a height no greater than one thousand feet. Your flight plans will take you almost directly over your target, but not at the height prescribed.' His voice was now eerily calm, 'It is recommended that you stick to your approved flight-plan until you are five miles from the target, then begin your bombing run, by the time you reach your target you should be at 1,000 feet, travelling at 550 miles per hour, 600 if you push it.'

He took three brown cardboard folders from his attaché case,

'Here, gentlemen are your targets.' He slid the first one across to Alphonse Kurd, 'Your target, Herr Kurd, is Royal Ascot. The date has been selected because the greatest number of British VIPs will be out in the open on that day. This is not the first time you have attacked England, is it?'

Kurd took the folder as he answered,

'No, sir I flew Heinkel 111s and Junkers 88s over England. This sounds reminiscent of those days.'

The Kommisar then passed a folder to Aaron Roy Delbert,

'Your target, Herr Delbert, is Vatican City. The day for the attack is the 18th, a Sunday. St Mark's Square will be packed with thousands of Catholics from all over the world. Your flight-plan takes you to Rome, it will be easy for you to turn and attack from a stack.'

He took the final folder, and passed it to Pierre Kamen,

'Monsieur Kamen, you have the easiest target, Paris. Anywhere in the centre will do. We just wish to show that any capital city can be hit in this way.'

The three men studied their respective folders in silence. Presently the Kommisar brought their attentions back to the meeting,

'Gentlemen, we must now discuss the preliminary activities. Luiz here has been working on this, over to you, Luiz.'

'Thank you, Kommisar. On Friday the 16h June you gentlemen will fly into Geneva airport. There we have a unit that is working on the equipment that will enable you to perform your tasks. You will have two days to familiarise yourselves with your aircraft, ready for the 18th.'

Delbert asked a question,

'Are these airliners standard fit? Remember, we are only jobbing pilots, we do not have the capability to simply jump into any aircraft and fly it away.'

'Yes, we ordered three cargo conversions of airliners from each of your airlines, and stipulated that it is you three who will be flying them.' Estrada then pointed at Delbert, 'Sabina Airlines even offered to position the aircraft at Geneva a week before we need it.'

The Kommisar needed something clearing up, he asked Estrada,

'Have you seen the setup at Geneva?'

'Yes, Kommisar. I helped set it up, and selected the people to work there. It has been running now for two years as a normal aircraft refitting company. There is nothing unusual about three cargo airliners turning up for work to be done on them.'

'What about the staff working there, are they all cleared to work on this, our top secret operation?'

'There is no need for them to be cleared; the whole operation is separate within the hangar. Normal workers will not be working that weekend, only our own hand-picked specialists will be in there.'

The Kommisar looked concerned,

'Speaking of which, I understand that you have a new team leader in there. Who is it?'

'That is correct. Kath Lonn is now in place.'

'Do you know this person yourself?'

'Not personally, our Riga office sent her down because of her languages. She also has a Chemistry degree, and has been cleared to the highest level in our organisation.'

GENEVA

Autumn Rae, working as Kath Lonn settled into her office. She wondered how she was supposed to get information when she had no idea what she was supposed to be doing. For now, she simply sifted through the drawings and information that had been supplied by both these people at Simply Red Airworks, and material supplied by her own people in MI5 via their East European Desk, and the various aircraft manufacturers.

She had begun to assemble good background knowledge about the physical setup and arrangements, but little or nothing about the intents of the parent organisation being run by the Kommisar.

... ... ...

0945, Tuesday March?? 1972.

There was a knock at Autumn's office door as she was filing yet more information.

'Kommen.' She responded.

The door opened and a strange woman entered.

'Good morning Frau Lonn.' The stranger removed a glove, and offered her hand, 'My Name is Louise Emenda. I have been sent directly from the Kommisar's office to help guide you through the latest developments in our operation.'

Autumn took the hand offered as she moved away from the stacks of paper drawings,

'Pleased to meet you. I could certainly use an update right now. As you can see, the operation here is coming together quite nicely.'

'Is this room secure? Kath, you don't mind if I call you Kath, do you?'

'No, not at all. Shall we sit over here?'

Autumn moved to the large wooden desk, and they sat either side of it.

'Good, you must call me by my first name also, it is Louise. Have you cleared this room, or was it done by one of their people?'

'Both. When I took over this office, before there was even any furniture in it I cleared it, even though they said that it had already been cleared by their people. Then I checked each piece of furniture as it arrived. I give it a thorough check every Monday and at least one other day during the week at random. I am sure we can speak in confidence here.'

'That is good, Kath. What I have to tell you is not for the ears of the men of Simply Red. They are here only to take care of the mechanical parts.' She paused to take a cigarette from her bag, 'Can we smoke in here?'

'No, I'm sorry, Louise. This is what is known as a wet hangar. That means there may be fuel, oil, hydraulic fluid, paint, or other flammable stuff about, so smoking is strictly verboten.'

'OK.' She put the things away, and sat back in her chair as she continued, 'I have seen the chemical information about the substances we will be using, this happened in Lisbon, where the stuff is being produced.'

This surprised Autumn, could this be the same information that was in the briefcase that she liberated from Neil Sherwood? She decided to bluff her way through,

'Yes, I am familiar with this information, but I am not an experimental chemist, so cannot interpret or evaluate the formulae contained therein.'

'Me neither, Kath. That, however, is not our job here. We are only here to oversee this simply Red outfit, and make sure they do exactly what we need without finding out more than they need to.'

Louise looked around the office, then back at Kath,

'Look, can we go outside for a smoke? There is a matter which I must discuss with you that is so sensitive that we must talk where there is no chance whatsoever of eavesdropping.'

Autumn tried not to give away any concern that she held about this development,

'Yes, certainly. We can walk over to the paint shop; it is about quarter of a mile away.'

'That will be ideal. A nice thing about airports is that it is almost impossible to do an eavesdropping mission, given the vast open spaces, wind, and noisy aeroplanes.'

They left the office, Autumn was careful to lock up when they left.

The two women exchanged small talk as they moved through the hangar; normal conversation was not easy, due to the intermittent noises of riveting and normal engineering works.

Once outside, Louise took a cigarette out, offered the pack to Autumn, who refused, then began by saying something that Autumn was not expecting,

'I know you are not Kath Lonn.'

Autumn was not in any position to make a dash for it. The fight or flight instinct is strong, but she had been trained to overcome this over-simple reaction. She calmly turned to Louise Emenda and said,

'Pardon?'

'I know you are not Kath Lonn.' Louise looked at Autumn as she took a drag of her cigarette, 'But don't worry. Your Mr Steele sends his best regards. You did a good job of getting the chemical formula away from the bad guys; that is where I saw it. I am working for the Deuxieme Bureau, and have been sent in here to help you get information out.'

Autumn breathed a sigh of relief.

'That is good. I have no way to get any information out, Steve Steele is arranging something, but I don't know what.'

'That is interesting.' Louise latched on to this, 'We have little or no information about MI5's operations.'

'I suppose that is because you operate out of France, is it?'

'No, not at all. I am from the Vigo office. No, we do not concern ourselves with MI5 so much because our main concern is threats to France.'

'From what I have found out so far, Louise, is that there is a definite threat to most of Europe. Even the people here from Simply Red know that three aircraft will be used against three targets in Europe, one of them is likely to be Paris, another is likely to be London, but the other one we don't yet know about. Do you know any more than this?'

'Yes, you are right about Paris, but the London attack is to be just outside the capital at Royal Ascot. We have established that the third target is to be Vatican City.'

Autumn was shocked by this,

'Royal Ascot.' She paused in her stride as she faced Louise, 'I have seen the work schedule, and it is to be finished by the middle of June, the 17th to the 19th to be precise. Isn't that when the race meeting is at its height?'

'This is not a coincidence, Kath. They want to do as much damage to the Governments of Europe as possible in one hit. This will send a massive message to the rest of the world, if they can take out most of the untouchable English Royal family, they will convince every other state in the world that anyone can be vulnerable.'

'And it is a Sunday.' Autumn/Kath noticed, 'St Mark's Square will be packed with people from all over the world.' She stopped again. A Sud Aviation Caravelle of Scandinavian Airways System roared into the skies before she could continue.

'Not quite. The Arabian countries do not flock to Vatican City; do you think these people we are investigating could be Muslims? The money to run this size of operation has to come from somewhere, and they have been upping their game recently in Algeria.'

Louise shook her head slowly,

'We have a lot of elements in Algeria, the groups we have come across do not have the brains or the connections to be that organised. No, our group originates somewhere in Russia.'

Autumn/Kath nodded again as she said,

'Yes, that fits in with what we know. We know that elements from Hungary and Russia are involved, but we have not been able to uncover who is at the head of this as yet.'

They reached the paint shop, Louise stopped before they turned to return, she held out her hand,

'It has been a pleasure meeting you. I must go this way now, but I will be in touch soon. You know that there can be no safe way to contact me, but here is a number where you can leave a message. We will be working together, remember that if you have to ring me – these lines are monitored by all sides.'

'Thank you for coming along, I don't feel as exposed now.' Autumn/Kath shook the gloved hand warmly.

Louise made her way to the car park; Autumn went back to her office feeling much better about her situation because there was someone else on the inside. She returned to filing and studying a new pile of Engineering Change Instructions.

Two days went by, then when Autumn was working on drawings and changes to designs she was startled by a loud knock on her door.

'Kommen.' She retorted with surprise.

Louise entered quickly, and closed the door firmly behind her. She went across to the large wooden table upon which Autumn had spread some large drawings.

'These look interesting.' Louise was pretending to be drawn to the schematics.

As the two women drew together Louise said in a low whisper,

'You are in great danger. You cannot remain here.'

Autumn was rather taken aback by this. She just turned to look at Louise, who continued,

'We must get you out of here quickly. There is no time to spare.'

Just then there was another loud knocking at the only door in the place.

'Shit. It may be too late.' Louise looked at Autumn, who just shrugged her shoulders and said,

'It may be something routine.' She then called out, 'Kommen.'

Three men walked into the room. The lead man looked firstly at Louise, and then walked straight over to Autumn. He turned to the man next to him, who passed a piece of paper to him.

His Austrian accent came through strongly as he addressed Autumn,

'If we have to fit this part, will we be able to move this one? You see, these pipes will make working in this area very difficult, and may result in damage being done to them. But if we can move this,' he studied the small drawings, 'BA15-235-760747 it will make life a little easier.'

Without showing the slightest concern or worry about what Louise had said, Autumn looked at the slip of paper and the drawing the men had brought with them.

'You will have to raise a Drawing Change Note, and then put it up to the people in Stress before anything is altered.'

Louise was impressed by this piece of acting from Autumn.

The three men left as they conversed in German. Louise took Autumn by the arm as she said quietly,

'We have to go. You are in great danger here, let's go. You must leave now, you are to be ex filtrated.'

Autumn did not need any more encouragement; she picked up her bag and coat, and then made for the door followed closely by Louise.

As the two women hurried across the hangar floor a burly Austrian man called to them,

'Achtung, achtung. Wo gehenn sie?' he called at them whilst waving his arm. They considered stopping, but thought better of it, so continued on their way.

'Achtung. Frau Lonn.' He insisted, 'Please stop.'

Autumn/Kath turned her head again to look in the direction of the shouting. Three men were heading their way, in the glance she took; it looked as if at least two of them were carrying guns. She looked back to Louise who was still hurrying as best she could in the heels she was wearing.

Directly in front of there was a DC-8 airliner with all manner of equipment around it, the women were approaching this at an angle, passing beneath its wingtip. Two men then appeared from behind the wing, and moved quickly towards Autumn and Louise holding their hands out in front of them.

'Stop. Do not come any closer. We are working on the undercarriage of this aircraft. It is not safe. Please go back the way you have come.'

Autumn and Louise looked back towards the original three men who called after them, to see that they were making their way back to where they had come from. Autumn also noticed that they were carrying riveting guns in their hands.

Kath led them out of the hangar, then over to her car. Autumn was glad to gain the comparative safety of the big Mercedes. They left the airport and drove along the d'Avril Road, heading more or less in a westerly direction.

'Where are we going?' Autumn asked when it looked as if that they were out of danger.

'It may surprise you, but we are not going very far. We have a 'plane booked to take us away from here.'

The Merc swung into the VIP car park, Autumn felt strangely relieved, yet worried, but there was no time to talk, the two women rushed through check-in, then out onto the tarmac to a waiting Lear Jet. They hurried on board, and were shown to their seats. The aircraft had been furnished as a first class transport, with single seats more like armchairs. As they settled into their places, Autumn/Kath looked around and saw that there were no other passengers.

'This all looks very sleek.' She felt curiously in need of a friendly response, 'Where are we going?'

'Lisbon will be too hot right now, we will be stopping to re-fuel there, but do not worry, and we will not be hanging around there. Now, I bet you would like a drink after all this excitement?'

FACE-OFF

Autumn Rae, working as Kath Lonn settled into her office. She wondered how she was supposed to get information when she had no idea what she was supposed to be doing. For now, she simply sifted through the drawings and information that had been supplied by both these people at Simply Red Airworks, and material supplied by her own people in MI5 via their East European Desk, and the various aircraft manufacturers.

She had begun to assemble good background knowledge about the physical setup and arrangements, but little or nothing about the intents of the parent organisation being run by the Kommisar.

... ... ...

0945, Tuesday March?? 1972.

There was a knock at Autumn's office door as she was filing yet more information.

'Kommen.' She responded.

The door opened and a strange woman entered.

'Good morning Frau Lonn.' The stranger removed a glove, and offered her hand, 'My Name is Louise Emenda. I have been sent directly from the Kommisar's office to help guide you through the latest developments in our operation.'

Autumn took the hand offered as she moved away from the stacks of paper drawings,

'Pleased to meet you. I could certainly use an update right now. As you can see, the operation here is coming together quite nicely.'

'Is this room secure? Kath, you don't mind if I call you Kath, do you?'

'No, not at all. Shall we sit over here?'

Autumn moved to the large wooden desk, and they sat either side of it.

'Good, you must call me by my first name also, it is Louise. Have you cleared this room, or was it done by one of their people?'

'Both. When I took over this office, before there was even any furniture in it I cleared it, even though they said that it had already been cleared by their people. Then I checked each piece of furniture as it arrived. I give it a thorough check every Monday and at least one other day during the week at random. I am sure we can speak in confidence here.'

'That is good, Kath. What I have to tell you is not for the ears of the men of Simply Red. They are here only to take care of the mechanical parts.' She paused to take a cigarette from her bag, 'Can we smoke in here?'

'No, I'm sorry, Louise. This is what is known as a wet hangar. That means there may be fuel, oil, hydraulic fluid, paint, or other flammable stuff about, so smoking is strictly verboten.'

'OK.' She put the things away, and sat back in her chair as she continued, 'I have seen the chemical information about the substances we will be using, this happened in Lisbon, where the stuff is being produced.'

This surprised Autumn, could this be the same information that was in the briefcase that she liberated from Neil Sherwood? She decided to bluff her way through,

'Yes, I am familiar with this information, but I am not an experimental chemist, so cannot interpret or evaluate the formulae contained therein.'

'Me neither, Kath. That, however, is not our job here. We are only here to oversee this simply Red outfit, and make sure they do exactly what we need without finding out more than they need to.'

Louise looked around the office, then back at Kath,

'Look, can we go outside for a smoke? There is a matter which I must discuss with you that is so sensitive that we must talk where there is no chance whatsoever of eavesdropping.'

Autumn tried not to give away any concern that she held about this development,

'Yes, certainly. We can walk over to the paint shop; it is about quarter of a mile away.'

'That will be ideal. A nice thing about airports is that it is almost impossible to do an eavesdropping mission, given the vast open spaces, wind, and noisy aeroplanes.'

They left the office, Autumn was careful to lock up when they left.

The two women exchanged small talk as they moved through the hangar; normal conversation was not easy, due to the intermittent noises of riveting and normal engineering works.

Once outside, Louise took a cigarette out, offered the pack to Autumn, who refused, then began by saying something that Autumn was not expecting,

'I know you are not Kath Lonn.'

Autumn was not in any position to make a dash for it. The fight or flight instinct is strong, but she had been trained to overcome this over-simple reaction. She calmly turned to Louise Emenda and said,

'Pardon?'

'I know you are not Kath Lonn.' Louise looked at Autumn as she took a drag of her cigarette, 'But don't worry. Your Mr Steele sends his best regards. You did a good job of getting the chemical formula away from the bad guys; that is where I saw it. I am working for the Deuxieme Bureau, and have been sent in here to help you get information out.'

Autumn breathed a sigh of relief.

'That is good. I have no way to get any information out, Steve Steele is arranging something, but I don't know what.'

'That is interesting.' Louise latched on to this, 'We have little or no information about MI5's operations.'

'I suppose that is because you operate out of France, is it?'

'No, not at all. I am from the Vigo office. No, we do not concern ourselves with MI5 so much because our main concern is threats to France.'

'From what I have found out so far, Louise, is that there is a definite threat to most of Europe. Even the people here from Simply Red know that three aircraft will be used against three targets in Europe, one of them is likely to be Paris, another is likely to be London, but the other one we don't yet know about. Do you know any more than this?'

'Yes, you are right about Paris, but the London attack is to be just outside the capital at Royal Ascot. We have established that the third target is to be Vatican City.'

Autumn was shocked by this,

'Royal Ascot.' She paused in her stride as she faced Louise, 'I have seen the work schedule, and it is to be finished by the middle of June, the 17th to the 19th to be precise. Isn't that when the race meeting is at its height?'

'This is not a coincidence, Kath. They want to do as much damage to the Governments of Europe as possible in one hit. This will send a massive message to the rest of the world, if they can take out most of the untouchable English Royal family, they will convince every other state in the world that anyone can be vulnerable.'

'And it is a Sunday.' Autumn/Kath noticed, 'St Mark's Square will be packed with people from all over the world.' She stopped again. A Sud Aviation Caravelle of Scandinavian Airways System roared into the skies before she could continue.

'Not quite. The Arabian countries do not flock to Vatican City; do you think these people we are investigating could be Muslims? The money to run this size of operation has to come from somewhere, and they have been upping their game recently in Algeria.'

Louise shook her head slowly,

'We have a lot of elements in Algeria, the groups we have come across do not have the brains or the connections to be that organised. No, our group originates somewhere in Russia.'

Autumn/Kath nodded again as she said,

'Yes, that fits in with what we know. We know that elements from Hungary and Russia are involved, but we have not been able to uncover who is at the head of this as yet.'

They reached the paint shop, Louise stopped before they turned to return, she held out her hand,

'It has been a pleasure meeting you. I must go this way now, but I will be in touch soon. You know that there can be no safe way to contact me, but here is a number where you can leave a message. We will be working together, remember that if you have to ring me – these lines are monitored by all sides.'

'Thank you for coming along, I don't feel as exposed now.' Autumn/Kath shook the gloved hand warmly.

Louise made her way to the car park; Autumn went back to her office feeling much better about her situation because there was someone else on the inside. She returned to filing and studying a new pile of Engineering Change Instructions.

Two days went by, then when Autumn was working on drawings and changes to designs she was startled by a loud knock on her door.

'Kommen.' She retorted with surprise.

Louise entered quickly, and closed the door firmly behind her. She went across to the large wooden table upon which Autumn had spread some large drawings.

'These look interesting.' Louise was pretending to be drawn to the schematics.

As the two women drew together Louise said in a low whisper,

'You are in great danger. You cannot remain here.'

Autumn was rather taken aback by this. She just turned to look at Louise, who continued,

'We must get you out of here quickly. There is no time to spare.'

Just then there was another loud knocking at the only door in the place.

'Shit. It may be too late.' Louise looked at Autumn, who just shrugged her shoulders and said,

'It may be something routine.' She then called out, 'Kommen.'

Three men walked into the room. The lead man looked firstly at Louise, and then walked straight over to Autumn. He turned to the man next to him, who passed a piece of paper to him.

His Austrian accent came through strongly as he addressed Autumn,

'If we have to fit this part, will we be able to move this one? You see, these pipes will make working in this area very difficult, and may result in damage being done to them. But if we can move this,' he studied the small drawings, 'BA15-235-760747 it will make life a little easier.'

Without showing the slightest concern or worry about what Louise had said, Autumn looked at the slip of paper and the drawing the men had brought with them.

'You will have to raise a Drawing Change Note, and then put it up to the people in Stress before anything is altered.'

Louise was impressed by this piece of acting from Autumn.

The three men left as they conversed in German. Louise took Autumn by the arm as she said quietly,

'We have to go. You are in great danger here, let's go. You must leave now, you are to be ex filtrated.'

Autumn did not need any more encouragement; she picked up her bag and coat, and then made for the door followed closely by Louise.

As the two women hurried across the hangar floor a burly Austrian man called to them,

'Achtung, achtung. Wo gehenn sie?' he called at them whilst waving his arm. They considered stopping, but thought better of it, so continued on their way.

'Achtung. Frau Lonn.' He insisted, 'Please stop.'

Autumn/Kath turned her head again to look in the direction of the shouting. Three men were heading their way, in the glance she took; it looked as if at least two of them were carrying guns. She looked back to Louise who was still hurrying as best she could in the heels she was wearing.

Directly in front of there was a DC-8 airliner with all manner of equipment around it, the women were approaching this at an angle, passing beneath its wingtip. Two men then appeared from behind the wing, and moved quickly towards Autumn and Louise holding their hands out in front of them.

'Stop. Do not come any closer. We are working on the undercarriage of this aircraft. It is not safe. Please go back the way you have come.'

Autumn and Louise looked back towards the original three men who called after them, to see that they were making their way back to where they had come from. Autumn also noticed that they were carrying riveting guns in their hands.

Kath led them out of the hangar, then over to her car. Autumn was glad to gain the comparative safety of the big Mercedes. They left the airport and drove along the d'Avril Road, heading more or less in a westerly direction.

'Where are we going?' Autumn asked when it looked as if that they were out of danger.

'It may surprise you, but we are not going very far. We have a 'plane booked to take us away from here.'

The Merc swung into the VIP car park, Autumn felt strangely relieved, yet worried, but there was no time to talk, the two women rushed through check-in, then out onto the tarmac to a waiting Lear Jet. They hurried on board, and were shown to their seats. The aircraft had been furnished as a first class transport, with single seats more like armchairs. As they settled into their places, Autumn/Kath looked around and saw that there were no other passengers.

'This all looks very sleek.' She felt curiously in need of a friendly response, 'Where are we going?'

'Lisbon will be too hot right now, we will be stopping to re-fuel there, but do not worry, and we will not be hanging around there. Now, I bet you would like a drink after all this excitement?'

CLOUDY SKIES

A walk in the night. That was all she wanted.' Dr Coppelius remarked to Andy Rawker. They were standing on the grey wrote iron balcony on the third floor of Rue Nova do Loureiro.

'Who?'

'The Lejeune girl. The girl who was exposed to the chemical.'

'Are there not stringent procedures in place to prevent that?' Rawker knew full well that there were; only there was reason for this exposure.

Dr Coppelius moved uneasily as he replied,

'Oh, yes. There are very stringent procedures in place. We need to know how she circumvented them.'

'Why would anyone wish to expose themselves to that stuff?'

'No-one would, Andy. No-one would. Unless they did not know what it was they were dealing with.'

'And do your workers know what they are working with, Doctor?'

Coppelius gently shook his head as he considered his reply,

'They know it is dangerous. But then again, so is petrol. We don't go into any details about the capability of the gas. We certainly do not mention anything about nerve gas.'

'That is very commendable, Doctor. We must consider security at all times.'

'Even if it risks the health of the people working on it?'

'Fortunately, with this stuff we do not need to worry about their health. If they get too close, they die.'

'Fortunately. Fortunately?'

'Yes, Herr Doctor, fortunately. You see if we suspect that someone has infiltrated our operation it is a simple matter to let them into a room where they should not be. They then incriminate themselves, and carry out their own sentence.'

'What room?' Dr Coppelius looked shocked, 'where is it? What does it do?'

'There is a small room labelled 'Access control. Do not enter.' All security personnel are briefed about its purpose. They do not go in there.'

'Why not? What is in there?'

'There is a lot at stake here. We are playing for very high stakes. We cannot have any possibility of a leak, or information getting out.'

'What has happened? What happened to Jennie Lejeune? Did she go into the room, Andy?'

'She must have done.'

'And you mean to tell me that she was deliberately exposed to the gas?'

'Well, what do you think? You yourself have said many times that accidental exposure is almost impossible.'

... ... ... ...

Down in the lab in Lisbon Dr Coppelius was putting the finishing touches to preparations to transport the first shipment of experimental liquefied gas. This small batch was to be used to test the working parameters of the deadly gas. Dr Coppelius was working with Dr Steve Peters, who was an expert on delivery systems and Andy Rawker to finalise the details.

Dr Peters threw a small sheaf of papers on to a cluttered workbench,

'I know it looks like a lot of information,' he began, 'But most of it is explanations about translation difficulties when dealing with technical languages and Japanese. The others are even worse, it was written in Chinese on behalf of the victims.'

Dr Peters thumbed through the papers, then agreed,

'Yes. I see what you mean. What we need is the work done by the Germans and the French during the First World War.'

Andy Rawker then spoke up,

'Or we could do our own research.'

Dr Peters looked up at him,

'That is exactly what we intend to do.'

Dr Coppelius added,

'We have a small amount of the material prepared for shipment. The delivery equipment has now arrived from Austria. Gentlemen, we are good to go.'

... ... ...

Autumn Rae looked out of the window of the jet transport in which she and Louise Emenda had escaped from Geneva. She could just make out the tops of the Alps to the left. She sank back into her seat. The gin and tonic tasted good. It certainly helped to calm the nerves after the rapid escape from the hangar at Geneva airport.

Louise poured her another one.

'Aren't you joining me?' Autumn noticed that Louise was not drinking.

'I'm sorry, I can't. You see we only have one pilot on this flight. We will be crossing several countries across Europe, so there has to be another qualified and capable pilot on board. That is me.'

'Well, it looks as if I have my work cut out if I am to do justice to that bottle.' Autumn offered her glass for a refill.

Louise supplied another generous G&T, then said,

'I must now catch up with things aeronautical before we get too far across Europe.'

Autumn allowed the soporific, relaxing effects of the drink take over her. By the time the aircraft had left Swiss airspace she was on her fourth large G&T. When Louise rejoined her,

'Time for a quick de-brief.' Louise did not sit directly opposite Autumn, so as not to appear too threatening.

Autumn began,

'Recently there has been a lot of activity around a Cessna Caravan that has been occupying the chaps who were working on the '707 previously.'

Louise nodded interestingly, but did not interrupt.

'By watching the level of breakdown of the airframe I guess that they were going to fly it in the near future. The people who were doing the work were not men from Simply Red Airworks, and the schematics they were using were not Cessna drawings.'

'Have you mentioned this to anyone else?' Louise asked.

Autumn looked up directly at Louise. She blinked to get her eyes to re-focus, then replied, waving her finger back and forth to emphasise the message,

'Oooooh, no-o. Only you. I never talk about my work.'

'Good. Now, you have a good rest, I have to be co-pilot again for a while.'

Autumn nodded, closed her eyes, and then went fast asleep.

... ... ...

Wispy clouds drifted slowly past the aircraft as it began a shallow turn over the brown and green Spanish countryside.

Louise returned to her seat almost opposite Autumn, she looked carefully at the gin bottle before turning to Autumn; smiling as she placed the bottle down the co-pilot said,

'You really don't recognise me, do you?'

'Well, yes. Of course I recognise you Louise.'

Louise said nothing as she removed the wig, then the glasses. As she removed the make-up she said,

'I very nearly tripped over you in Lisbon.' The voice had changed.

Autumn sat bolt upright in her seat as she almost whispered, as if not believing it herself,

'Luiz Estrada.'

DKM DORNIER

The phone rang, Bernice picked it up, a voice on the other end said,

'This is crazy. Can I ring you back?' Then hung up.

The secretary in the Kommisar's office looked bemused as she returned the phone to its rest.

Just then the Kommisar walked into the office.

'We had a call from Luiz Estrada about ten minutes ago.' She greeted him as he took his position behind his desk.

'Do we have a number to return?' he asked.

'I'm afraid not, sir. He was on some kind of radio link-up.'

'Yes, I can believe that. He has been under cover.'

She consulted his diary for the day,

'You have a meeting with Doctor Coppelius and Professor Peters at eleven.'

'Did Estrada say when he would ring back? I am expecting some developments in his area soon.'

'No, sir, I don't think it was easy for him to talk, he used your secure name.'

This is the code name used by the Kommisar, Mr Banks, when people do not want eavesdroppers to know to whom they are speaking.

'Very well, Bernice. Put him through as soon as he rings back would you?'

'Of course, sir. If there is nothing else?'

'Not at the moment, thank you.'

As the secretary left the room the Kommisar withdrew a large map from a narrow drawer and spread it on a large table.

As he positioned various implements on the paper surface he moved around the blue and buff map, the phone rang. Bernice answered it, and then buzzed through to notify the Kommisar that it was for him.

'Mr Schmitt for you, sir.' Was all she said; Mr Schmitt was the code name for Luiz Estrada.

'Thank you, Bernice, 'Put him through, please.' The Kommisar took his place behind the heavy oak desk as the phone clicked in his ear.

On the other end Luiz Estrada said,

'Hello Mr Banks, I am on an open radio link. I have finished my business over here, and am now flying back, over.'

'Good to hear that, Mr Schmitt. Were there any problems for you? Over.'

The Kommisar heard various clicks and short buzzes, any of which could be other people listening in.

'Not for me, but we may have to operate with one unit out of commission. Over.'

'Does that mean we will be running at two thirds capacity? Over.' the Kommisar had to make sure Estrada was not simply saying that one person had been lost.

'That is correct. The whole unit has had to be shut down. I am returning with the faulty component now. Over.'

'Is this part repairable? Over.'

'No, sir. And it may have effected other parts, they will have to be checked thoroughly. That is why the whole unit has had to be shut down. Over.'

'Is it safe to continue to use the other two units, or has the whole procedure to be closed down?'

'No, sir, I don't think that is necessary. If we can find the original supplier of the part, we may then be able to bring the third element back on line. But first we must find out how much damage the faulty part has done. Over.'

'Shiesen. What are your intentions next? Over.'

'I am now bringing the part with me. If we can get it closely examined we may find out where it came from, as well as what damage it has caused. Over.'

'Very good, Mr Schmitt. Mr Simon would like to take a look at the part if you can make it there. Over.'

'I anticipate we will arrive at Norbert no later than 1410 today. Over.'

This told the Kommisar that they will be landing at Vigo airport, because Norbert is the name of a small islet in the Bay of Vigo.

Autumn felt the aircraft begin to descend, then the flaps and wheels were deployed. She looked out of the right-hand windows to see the northern reaches of the Bay of Vigo. Her training made her take special notice of what she could see. On this side of the bay there was a small island in two segments. She could see in the distance what appeared to be a sea or ocean. The only way she could estimate the direction of travel throughout the journey was to watch the shadows cast by clouds. She estimated that the general direction of travel was west, they had begun their journey at Zurich, so that could be the Atlantic. That means this is either Spain or Portugal. It could be France, but the only part of France with a north to south coast is the Contentain Peninsula, and this ground does not look like the bocage of northern France. She estimated that they were now descending for a landing heading south. There seemed to be a ship berthed alongside the little island. The bay was beginning to open out towards the sea, there could be a deep water port there, she thought that could be a way out if she could escape.

As the plane taxied from the main runway two men appeared by Autumn, one of them was Estrada, the other she had not seen before. They undid her seatbelt and then helped her stand. Estrada handcuffed her hands behind her back.

As the plane came to a halt the door opened and a breath of heat and light hit Autumn. She blinked as steps were deployed. The two men helped her down the steps to a waiting car. Here she was bundled inside, and then a bag was placed over her head. She sat still in the back seat, not knowing even if there was someone else beside her. As the car made its way out of the airport she managed to retain an idea of where north lie. When they began driving on a straight road she assumed they were now travelling in a roughly northerly direction.

The car came to a halt, the passengers got out, then pulled Autumn out onto the warm pavement. She had no idea where she was, the smell of the sea was prevalent, but she could not hear waves crashing. She heard the voices of her captors; they seemed to be speaking in Portuguese, or Spanish. Then the bag was removed from her head. Louis Estrada stood before her,

'If you would follow me, please.' He said.

Autumn blinked and shook her head, then looked around. They were standing on a narrow road by the sea. Below them was a short sandy beach with little boats bobbing about. She looked at the calm blue sea, and saw an island that looked as if it could be out towards the Atlantic, but before she could study this in detail she was pushed from behind, towards the beach. Her feet began to tread the sand, she wobbled; her hands were still fastened behind her back, this made it difficult to keep her balance. As she floundered the man behind helped her remain upright, and guided her towards a wooden jetty. They made clunking sounds as the four of them walked along the gangplank towards a 35 foot launch. As Estrada pointed a gun at Autumn she was bundled into this craft. The other two men pushed the boat out towards the open water, and then got in themselves. Estrada kept a close watch on Autumn, she was positioned in the bow, facing backwards, with Estrada facing her. The other two men were now also facing her. She noticed then that there was another man driving the boat away from the shore towards the island.

Autumn could not see where they were headed, but she knew the island was there. Presently she saw land passing on her left. The launch kept on to what looked like the end of the island, it then turned towards the Atlantic Ocean. Autumn had no way of seeing where they were going, but presently they pulled up alongside an old rusting passenger liner that seemed to be moored close by the island.

A boarding ladder came into view; the men helped Autumn to climb the steps to the deck of the DKM Dornier.

SHOOTING THE DEAD

Shackleton airborne early warning aircraft of the RAF often rotate to Gibraltar from their bases in Scotland.

WJ540 taxied for take-off at The Rock just after Autumn left Zurich. The grey-blue Lancaster look-alike stopped by the end of the only runway. The engines were run up; the three-bladed counter rotating propellers made strange patterns as they increased speed. The whole aircraft vibrated with a vengeance only four powerful Rolls Royce Griffon piston engines can generate. Engine checks complete the big aircraft turned on to the runway, throttles were opened to their fullest extent; and the Shackleton began to rumble down the tarmac. As the vibrations grew, the crew all recognised the reason why the old 'Shack had been described as '10,000 rivets flying in formation'.

As they exited Gibraltar controlled airspace they turned on to a northerly course to fly over the Atlantic along the coast of Portugal and Spain, Sargent Alan Huthchinson switched on the powerful radar that was positioned under the nose of the grey beast.

He consulted the notes of what aircraft would be expected to be flying over northern Europe that day. As he tried to match up the information he had from the French air traffic control, and their similar organisations in Spain, Portugal, Britain, the Ministry of Defence, and NATO he began to translate what he saw on the read-out from the radar.

It was his job to spot any anomalies within the mass of returns he got from the radar. Six sheets of paper full of digital information about flight numbers, departures, take-off times, and destinations to be matched with the analogue display of the radar. The only consistent information between the seven information streams was the time. 'Hutch' had to line up the flight information to show the aircraft likely to be flying at the present time, then match it with the blips he saw on his screen.

'I got one here moving across France, coming towards us, skip.' He reported to the pilot.

'Does it look like a threat?' the pilot knew that it was possible that a military aircraft from any NATO country could be tasked to try to intercept them.

'I doubt it Skip. He is just passing over the Pyrenees now. But it is not on any notification list.'

'OK, Hutch. Log it, and keep an eye on it. Tell me if it does anything interesting.'

'Roger, skip.'

Twenty-five minutes later 'Hutch' reported to the pilot,

'Radar here, skip. Our bogey has landed at Vigo.'

'OK, Hutch. Log it. Someone may be interested in it.'

... ... ...

Steve Steele went to a different phone box every time he contacted his controller, John Drake. The exchange was brief, to the point and coded.

Drake answered from his office near the café in Largo do Carmo,

'Code in.'

'Mercury rising.'

'Rendezvous Mercado de Campo de Ourique. 1625 extant.'

This told Steele that he had to meet someone at the market at Campo de Ourique at twenty-five past four this afternoon. Because no name was given, it would be someone Steele knew. He hoped it would be Autumn Rae, but he knew she had gone to Zurich, and would probably still be there.

He repeated the message to confirm that he had received it correctly,

'Rendezvous Mercado de Campo de Ourique. 1625 extant.'

Then call was over.

Steele climbed aboard the tram 28. He casually watched the colourful streets of Lisbon flash past the windowless tram car as it rattled along.

At the terminus he dismounted and looked around. Opposite the doors to the indoor market there was a cemetery. Steele walked across the pedestrian crossing to the old gates that led into the graveyard. The stone gateway seemed to indicate that there was limited entrance and exit to this place. He walked past the square columns that held the proscenium arch. As you might expect, the cemetery was quiet. Because of the high wall that surrounded it, the noise from the busy streets was cut off, leaving a respectful silence over the last resting place of many of Lisbon's people.

With the many gravestones Steele decided that this would be a good retreat, should it be needed.

As he entered the market through the glass doors the first thing he noticed was that the air con was fighting a losing battle against so much body heat from so many people.

Without looking obvious Steele made his way into the interior of the bazaar. He watched as costermongers pestered prospective customers. Deliberately dressed to blend in, he stepped to one side, then the other to avoid these nuisances. His head was constantly moving to look for possible threats; the traders shifting back and forth towards passing individuals are a perfect cover for a surreptitious attacker. But he was also looking for someone he knew, someone who may be bringing him news of Autumn.

In this manner he made his way through the internal streets milling with folk going about their daily business. The noise was almost overpowering; this meant that it would be impossible to call across to his intended meeting person, whoever that might be.

He stood at a crossroads in the shops and stalls. The crowd was milling around him as he tried to decide which way to go. The mass in front of him seemed to be very compact. If he were to meet someone there, they would probably miss each other in the throng. He looked to his right, here the crowd seemed to have gaps in it – and there looked like what may be an exit in that direction. Steele made his way towards the far side of the market in the direction that looked least crowded. Whenever he saw a thinning of the swarm he moved towards any convenient shop that had a window where he could pause in case his fellow agent had spotted him, and was having difficulty making it through the mass.

In the direction from which he had come there came the sound of a loud crack. The crowd carried on. Then another crack rang out. He recognised the sound to be that made by a handgun fitted with a cheap, probably homemade, silencer. The next sound he definitely recognised; the report of a berretta pistol. No-one stirred; some people looked towards the direction of the cracks, but no-one panicked, or ran. If anything the noise stepped up a notch or two. Steele decided to follow the trend and turned towards the sounds to see what was happening. The crowd must think that the sounds were bangs and crashes, and part of the general hubbub of a thriving market, but Steele knew better.

As he approached the crossroads he saw a woman standing in an empty space in the crowd pointing a gun in his direction. Then he saw a man running towards him through the crowd. Steele looked at the woman again, then recognised Sarah Jackson. It must be she who he is supposed to meet here today. It appeared that she was attempting to shoot the man running away, but there were too many innocent people around. Steele did no more than stick his foot out in front of the man as he drew near him. The runner fell flat onto the floor, rolled over and pointed his gun at whoever appeared near him. Before he could bring it to bear on anyone, Steele kicked the wrist that held the firearm in such a way that the hand flexed open and the gun fell from his grasp. Steele caught it before it hit the ground, and then turned it to point at the man.

Sarah Jackson came to him and said,

'There were at least three of them.' She said as she looked around for his accomplices.

In one swift move Steele shot the man in the leg, grabbed Sarah's arm, and dived into an open doorway, which he closed behind him.

They found themselves in a carpet showroom. A surprised young woman emerged from somewhere. Steele looked at Sarah; they both had puzzled looks on their faces. Steele shrugged, then turned to the young woman and said,

'Is there a back way out of this place?'

'Please?' was all she could say.

Steele looked quickly back at the door, the back to the woman,

'We go – exit. Back? No?'

'Escita?'

'Si. Escita. Not there.' Steele indicated the way they had entered, 'Back, rear. Alternative.' His Portuguese seemed to have deserted him.

'Ahh. Escita Back door.' She indicated towards the rear of the showroom.

They wove between stands of carpets and stock, eventually the girl showed them to the back door of the strange establishment.

Steele poked his head out. A quiet alley of back doors to other establishments, at either end he could see the rivers of people in the main thoroughfares of the Portuguese market. He elected to go right; nodding to Sarah he cautiously moved off, turning to thank the young woman as they ran down to the throng of shoppers.

As the pair reached the moving crowd, Steele turned to Sarah and said,

'We gotta go left, away from the area.'

She nodded. He looked quickly to the right, then took off into the crowd, keeping Sarah close by him to avoid being parted.

As they mingled in with the crowd they began to become disorientated. Eventually, Steele turned to Sarah and said,

'That should shake them off. Now, where do we go next?' he looked around to see if there was any sign of an exit.

'These places are built on a rough grid pattern.' She said, 'But we have turned so many times now I can't for sure say which way is which. I'll ask.'

She turned to a merchant who was standing outside his shop, and asked for an exit. He smiled understandingly and pointed.

'Bligato.' She said as they hurried away.

The bright sun hit them as they emerged into the street. They both looked around quickly.

'Here.' She called; 'The cemetery should be a little more peaceful.'

The two agents walked calmly across the road towards the entrance, then continued as if they had always intended going in there.

Once clear of the entrance Sarah began the briefing as they walked amongst the gravestones.

'You know that Autumn Rae is in Zurich on assignment?'

'Yes, I believe it is all connected with this lab thing I am looking into.'

'That's right. Well, it would be right if she was still there. We have not heard from her for 24 hours.'

Steele looked alarmed at this.

Sarah continued,

'But we think there may be a connection with an aircraft flying out of Zurich yesterday.'

'What did you last receive from her?'

'She had made contact with someone from Deuxieme Bureau, a Louise Emenda. Ever heard of her?'

'Yes, she helped check out some papers we had. Deuxieme Bureau you say?'

''Yes. How did you come to meet her?'

'Drake introduced us - well, actually he didn't. And yet she knew my name.'

'Did it work out OK?'

'I think so. We had already copied the papers and sent them off to the UK as an insurance policy before she turned up with her chemist. We were only really using her to try to get faster results.'

'Did you see her again?'

Steele shook his head, then said,

'Have you checked her out at all?'

'Not easy. We contacted Salmon, who is our nearest to a contact in Deuxi, and he said he had never heard of her.'

'That does not surprise me. He is not very well connected with Deuxi any more. Anyway, I wouldn't believe him if he said it was raining in Manchester.'

Sarah looked behind to check for anyone following them,

'John Drake is looking into the situation; he may come up with something. All we know is that Sarah seemed to be working with this Louise Emenda woman, and she may know something.'

What they didn't know was that Louise Emenda was really Luis Estrala, who was working directly for their enemy, the Kommisar.

Steele was worried, even though ignorant,

'Have we any trace of communications from Louise Emenda?'

'No. she must be using secure phone lines.'

'I wouldn't expect anything else.' Steele stopped to check around them.

Sarah continued,

'An unscheduled flight was made from Zurich yesterday to Vigo, Spain. It seems a bit of a coincidence at this time, so we need to get you to Vigo to check this plane out. Who owns it, and has it anything to do with this lab business.'

'OK.' He replied, thinking carefully what was just said, and how things had now developed.

Sarah handed him a large manila envelope from her bag,

'You are Alan Richardson on this trip. It shouldn't be more than a simple trace job.'

'Let's hope so. But what if this does lead to Sarah?' he carefully folded the envelope and placed it in his pocket, 'Is there backup for a snatch?'

'Now hang on a bit, there cowboy. Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.'

They both stopped dead in their tracks.

There was someone moving about in the small trees and bushes ahead of them.

Steele nudged Sarah as he nodded towards a clump of bushes and graves to their left.

Graves in Portugal consisted of more than a simple headstone; they more resembled small mausoleums, some quite tall with columns and statues.

Together the British agents moved off the path towards cover as Steele withdrew his gun. As he did this he saw the muzzle of a rifle move to point at them.

Without hesitation he fired at the area where he estimated there would be a gunman. Three shots were fired, the rifle changed angle as a man fell out of the bushes.

To a man like Steele the sound of a Kalashnikov AK47 assault rifle is very distinctive. The rounds seemed to explode on the monuments all around them. As the British agents dived for cover they tried to estimate from which direction the bullets had emanated. Hiding between the grey sarcophagi, dust and stone fragments from the high power bullets flew all around as the pair moved further into the cover of the little buildings to remain concealed. Presently Steele motioned for Sarah to stay where she was; he began moving through the narrow gaps between the tombs towards end of the row.

Sarah withdrew a handgun from her bag as Steele tried not to raise dust whilst making his way along the column. When Steele was in position Sarah popped up behind her gun to look for signs of anyone who could have fired the AK47. Steele did the same. They saw no-one. Steele fired one round into the air. He saw at least two men appear with AK47s before he ducked down and made a dash across a pathway to move further away from Sarah. Then the AK47s opened up in his direction. This time there was twice as much destruction as before as the small coffin temples took more hits. Ricocheting bullets threatened to hit Steele as he ran crouched away from the melee. Sarah saw the gunmen, but decided that she was too far away to fire against two assault rifles, so she began moving to get a little closer whilst the gunmen were busy trying to hit Steele.

Her travel described a wide arc, dodging between the small towers of crypts, watching the gunmen, who had by now stopped firing because they had lost sight of Steele.

Sarah sat with her back to a wall as she got her breath back. Steele was on the far side of the graveyard, closing on to the position of the two gunmen. He caught a glimpse of one of them, but the firing opportunity was not good enough for him to lose the element of surprise by taking a shot. He heard them talking, but could not decide what language it was from this distance.

Then they gesticulated towards where the first rounds were aimed at. They began moving from their position into a more open area. Steele took careful aim. He knew that he could probably only drop one of them, and the other had an AK47 to hit back with; so Steele made sure that he had some good cover to retreat to if and when the second man realised where the firing came from.

Steele also knew that this was the extreme range for his hand gun, so he aimed above the nearest man's head. He fired three rounds in quick succession. The intention was to hit the same spot with all three bullets, Steele knew that many elements would prevent that, but they would be in roughly the same area.

The first round hit the man just below the left shoulder, smashing his arm below the ball joint. There was not enough power left in the bullet to enter his chest, nor to knock him over. The second bullet grazed the back of his neck, slicing the top of his spine in two. The third bullet missed.

Steele dropped from sight before the dead man's comrade could retaliate. He sprayed the area with high velocity rounds as Steele nestled between two crypts. Dust and stone flew all around; Steele wondered if any of this debris was actually bone from the collapsing coffins.

The lone gunman now moved away from the area he knew Steele to be in.

Sarah saw the man moving towards her whilst firing in the opposite direction. If she didn't do something fast she would be in great danger of being discovered.

With singular presence of mind Sarah stood facing the gunman, with her pistol held in both hands, arms outstretched she decided to wait until the very last moment that he would see her, then he will be as close as possible for her to shoot him.

Steele is unable to move because of the fusillade of bullets being sprayed around him.

The gunman turned to look where he was running. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Sarah pointing her gun straight at him. He began to swing the AK47 towards her, but she fired four quick shots. All four hit their mark. The man went down as they heard police sirens in the distance, moving towards them. The agents decided it was time to leave the scene. As they approached the building near the gate they were still some way apart, meaning that they would be walking down either side of the building. Sarah was first to emerge and see the gate. She didn't see the man serving as backstop for the action. He was to stop any of the targets leaving. He saw Sarah and knew immediately that she was one of the targets. He was already holding his gun in his hand. Before Sarah could move her gun into firing position he fired a shot. The bullet hit her in the stomach. She dropped her bag and gun as a second shot rang out, then a third. The second one entered the top of her shoulder as she bent double, it then continued through her torso. The third shot was Steele taking the assassin out.

Police sirens were very close by now, so Steele went quickly to check on Sarah, who was dead. He had no choice but to leave the scene as quickly as possible. He removed any possibly sensitive and identifying items from Sarah's bag, and then slipped through the gate before the first police car came into view. He walked briskly across the zebra crossing back to the market where his dusty appearance blended in very well with the locals.

The police found very little information when they searched the five new bodies in the cemetery. All they could find was that someone called Alan Richardson might be involved. They didn't worry about him leaving the country, they now have his passport.

ILLAS CIAS

As Autumn took her first steps on the wooden deck of the Dornier she looked around. She was glad she was wearing her work shoes with sensible heels; she knew that she would have had difficulty negotiating the open steelwork of the steps in heels. She thought about the two pairs of shoes this mission had cost her already – add to them the two pairs left in the hangar at Zurich, plus another four pairs in her digs.

Estrada took the lead, followed by the first of the escorts from the boat. Autumn was flanked by two of the man's accomplices, whilst a fourth man who was already on the ship made up the rear.

The position of the ship seemed out of place somewhat; being alongside an island but not close enough to be able to move on to the land, in fact Autumn estimated that they were quite a long way from the island. The ship seemed to be on a slant, leaning over away from the island as if it were beached.

What Autumn could not see because of the list of the ship was what was moored alongside the old liner between her and the rocky coast of the Illas Cies – there was a dark shadow in the water between the liner and the shore.

They moved toward the entrance to the ship, Estrada turned to the man behind him and said,

'Take Miss Rae to her suite if you would.'

'Yes sir.'

The response was so short Autumn could not detect the accent – it could have been Spanish, Austrian, even Nordic. The man turned to her and said,

'If you please, miss.'

Not Spanish, she decided, nor Italian. He was probably Austrian because he had been with them from Zurich.

Estrada then turned and went into a room just inside the main entrance.

She looked around at the interior of the ship. The furnishing looked to be old, maybe thirty years old. That would make it pre-war. The décor was more up to date, but not much. They made their way down the stairs to the low deck.

Autumn wondered what the chances were of being able to move about here without alerting everyone, not good.

Her new hosts ushered her into a rather dusty room in the bowels of the ship. She heard the door lock behind her, and then the sound of military boots moving away, but not all of them. There was still someone outside the door, and she knew that he was armed. This was beginning to look permanent; there were three rooms to this accommodation. Autumn walked through this first room, which looked like a sitting room. Beyond this there was a bathroom, next to this a room with a bed in it.

'Looks like they intend me staying here.' Autumn thought to herself.

... ... ...

Up on deck, behind the bridge, in a large partially furnished room Estrada met up with Professor Steve Peters, the Kommisar and Dr Coppelius plus three other people whom he did not know.

The room smelt of fresh paint, a large heavy table dominated the centre. Louise Estrada couldn't help but wonder how they managed to get such a massive table on to the ship.

He noticed seven chairs around the table, exactly the same number of people gathered here.

The three strangers took places opposite the Kommisar, Steve Peters and Dr Coppelius.

The Kommisar introduced the three men,

'Dr Coppelius and Louis Estrada, allow me to introduce Commander Gustav Oxen and two of his crew. They are here to help bring about the second phase of our plan.'

Commander Oxen stood forward,

'This is Hans and George of our special weapons unit. Their special skills will become apparent in due course.'

The Kommisar composed himself with confidence that can only come from a megalomaniac. His eyes seemed to gleam menacingly as he addressed the group,

'You are all probably aware of our plans to use airliners to distribute gas as a demonstration of our power.' He paused to see nods from all gathered, 'That is only the beginning.'

He paused again.

'We cannot have complete domination of the world unless we can subdue the United States.'

A stir moved around the room.

The Kommisar continued,

'The airliners we plan to use in Europe will do the job here, but we have to up our game to another level in order to attack the United States.'

He took a sip of water,

'That is why we are all gathered here today.'

He removed a large sheath of drawings and papers from a case before continuing,

'Here on the Illas Cies we have assembled the resources needed to give the slumbering giant such a wake-up call that it will not wish to put up a fight,'

He moved towards a window, one that looked out into the open bay.

'Come, join me.' He beckoned to the group.

There was not room for all seven to group around the one window, so the three strangers looked out of the next window along.

The Kommisar indicated the ship they were on, 'moored' alongside a little bridge,

'Here we have the liner DKM Dornier. We are using her as a depot ship. Before her last voyage she took a short trip to Lisbon. At the lab in Lisbon there has been concern about storing our liquid gas there, especially with the interests of certain spy agencies in our activities.'

He looked at Estrada,

'So we have sent the supplies needed by the airliners to Zurich, the rest is here on board the Dornier.'

Dr Coppelius asked,

'Are you intending to store it here?'

'No, Doctor, I intend to use it.'

'But how? There are no facilities near here that can handle this material, let alone deliver it.'

'Please allow me to explain.'

The Kommisar moved back to the table. Here he opened several files, looked inside, shuffled through papers and photographs, then finally placed the whole pile on the table,

'No, I have a better idea.'

He moved towards the door,

'Follow me.'

The group followed the Kommisar from the room into the Spanish sunshine; they walked across the deck, up to the high side facing the island.

As they reached the rail something black appeared almost alongside the liner. As the group peered over the side they saw for the first time the sinister dull black outline of a nuclear powered submarine.

Nestled against the rusting, slanted hull of the old liner lay the Russian sub K9 Bean.

The Kommisar turned to face the group from the bows. He held out his left hand to indicate the sub,

'This is the K9 Bean, a Delta class nuclear submarine. She is actually over 500 feet long, but we have her sitting in a semi-submerged state here to cut down on her profile. Being this dull black also hides her quite well. The Russians have put out the story that it was lost in the Bay of Biscay; well, it was, but not as they said. We acquired the vessel in a deal which guarantees to the Russians that they will not be attacked by us; the guidance systems within these missiles will not target anywhere near Russia.'

Prof Peters wanted to know,

'You mean to tell us that that thing still has nuclear missiles on board?'

'No, Professor. It was part of the deal that the crew remove the nuclear warheads before leaving the sub.'

This did not matter to the Kommisar, he was to load the sub with his own version of hades – missiles armed with the aqueous gas that was developed in the lab in Lisbon.

The doctor asked,

'You mean the crew have left? Where are they now?'

'The Russian authorities told me that they were relocated within Russia, or went to South America, some stayed with us here as advisers. The news story was that they all perished, so they can never be seen to have survived.'

'So the whole deal is quite secure?'

'Yes. Our Russian friends have been very helpful.'

Dr Coppelius then asked,

'Is that why we now have a British secret agent in residence?'

Estrada responded,

'We know where she is, and soon we shall know everything she knows.'

The Kommisar looked around briefly, then brought the discussion to a close,

'Gentlemen, if we could continue our discussions back in the boardroom.'

Back inside the ship, the Kommisar unfolded a schematic diagram of the innards of the Delta class sub. Prominent in this drawing were four vertical tubes; these were half of the launch chambers for the intercontinental ballistic missiles carried within.

As he spread the picture out before the group, he looked at the German Oxen,

'Commander, if you please.'

'Thank you Kommisar.' Oxen stood up, indicating parts of the drawing he explained,

'Here we have the Delta Class nuclear submarine. A little bigger than our old U boat, nein?'

He leaned over the picture,

'Starting at the rear of the boat we have several decks and compartments of machinery, and here we have the nuclear reactor. This means that the boat can run almost indefinitely underwater – the only limit is how long the people inside can last on the food supplies. Air is not a problem; we do not need to surface to replenish our air. In fact we are twice as fast under the water, than on the surface. Next we have the launch tubes containing the missiles themselves. We have here the tried and trusted D9RM launch system, there are eight missiles. They are the latest RSM-5 Makyev 3-stage ballistic missiles each carrying 4 warheads. These in turn are independently targeted re-entry vehicles with ranges of over 5,000 miles. Each tube is a self-contained unit controlled from the control room here in front of the missiles. Below this is the galley, dining areas, below that is some of the many dormitory areas. The boat normally has a crew of 100, but we have worked out a duty schedule that only needs 63. In front of the control centres we have another dormitory, then the torpedo room.'

The Commander stood erect again,

'That completes the technical description of the boat, Herr Kommisar.'

He sat down; the Kommisar took up the commentary without rising from his seat,

'The three airliners due to fly out of Zurich are merely a warning and diversion for the main part of the plan.'

The room fell completely silent as he continued,

'The main aim of our plan is to subdue the United States. By using K9 Bean we can take 64 missiles across the Atlantic without being detected, sit outside New York harbour, and launch our missiles against the 24 biggest cities in the United States.'

Professor Peters noticed a link,

'I see. So that is why the Russians allowed you to get the submarine? They get what they want; to be the most powerful country in the world, without having to lift a finger. And because you are using their equipment they cannot be threatened.'

TRAM 28

Steele was in a predicament. He did not have another comms check until tomorrow morning, it was early afternoon now, and he was supposed to leave for Vigo today. But he has lost all the papers that the unfortunate Sarah had passed on to him, including the passport with his new identity, and his picture in it. He had to presume that the authorities now knew what he looked like, and what his intentions were. He was in Portugal, he had to cross into Spain at some point, it was dangerous for him to show his face at any of the main border crossings, but Vigo lies just over the border. There must be a way.

With a heavy heart he mounted the tram 28. He hated leaving Sarah like that, but there was little he could do. There were another five bodies in the graveyard now, and only Steele left to answer why. He had to get to Vigo as quickly as possible. He thought about Autumn and what she had said during their quiet meeting in the café with the parrot,

'We may be apart, but we shall still have our love to reflect upon.'

He hoped that she was thinking about him, but he also knew that she had to concentrate on escaping if indeed she had been captured; just as he had to concentrate on getting to Vigo as quickly as possible.

The old tram rattled through the narrow streets of Lisbon; past the Basilica da Estrada towards the centre of the city. As he passed the Santa Just Lift he remembered how the top of this lofty structure leads to street level, this comes as a surprise at first, but fully describes the diverse thinking and workings of the Portuguese mind, this was what he had to do now; think outside the box. He thought about trying to contact John Drake at the café near the Largo do Carmo where he first met with the disguised Autumn when he arrived in Lisbon. But he knew that she was no longer in Lisbon, and it would not be good street-craft to go there straight after a firefight. So he was going to the dockside area beyond the Praca do Comercio with its yellow painted, arched buildings looking out on to the Atlantic Ocean.

Steele walked briskly along the dockside surveying the boats as he went. He was looking for a fast ship; Vigo was nearly 350 miles away; if a boat can only manage 35 knots he would not get there today.

A few small, fast boats looked OK, but he doubted that they would have the range he needed. The bigger yachts looked good, but they were moored further out. He made his way along a jetty towards them when he saw a familiar figure on the far side of the security fence.

Steele knew that it could be dangerous to signal awareness with an associate in these circumstances.

At a safe distance he paused and took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He remained still as he took one out and lit it. By this time he had checked that there was no-one near him, so he continued towards the fence. The man on the other side recognised Steele, and moved to open the gate. Neil Sherwood led Steele to the launch in between two floating 'gin palaces'.

Steele followed Sherwood up the gangplank onto the rear of the ship; he was quick to ask for help,

'I need a lift to Vigo. Wouldn't be passing that way would you?'

'It just so happens that I have just returned from the Bay of Vigo, so I know the way.' Neil Sherwood cast off the rear lines holding the ship to the jetty, 'I wondered if the area might come into your sphere of interest.'

Steele looked around at the boat as it slid majestically out of the moorings,

'Good God.' He exclaimed, 'Where the hell did you get this from? Her Majesties' Government are not usually this enthusiastic with its funding.'

'Simple. Every now and then, well quite often actually, we get involved in operations against drug barons. Sometimes we find them on their yachts, then it is simpler to just sail off with them aboard. This one came from Columbia. We didn't so much break the ring, we just took the head off, then left the locals sweep up the remnants.'

'What happened to the owner?'

Sherwood gave a look of mock mourning,

'He didn't make it, I'm afraid. We got as much out of him as we could, then just dumped him overboard in the middle of the Atlantic; I don't think he was cut out for Europe.'

'What about his crew?'

'Most of them were killed in the original raid. We usually find that the big bosses hide during the fight, so it is obvious who they are.'

Steele looked around, and saw crewmen moving about the boat doing their jobs,

'Who are these then, locals?'

'Not exactly, they are from the squadron.' Sherwood looked perfectly at home at the wheel of the yacht as he manoeuvred the big powerful boat into open water.

Steele thought he might look silly, but asked nevertheless,

'Squadron? RAF?'

Sherwood didn't even look at him as he said,

'No, 21 squadron, SAS.

K9 BEAN

Autumn Rae was left alone; she looked at the porthole and wondered if she could get through it, and what was on the other side. She could see the land, it was too far to jump, but a dive into the water between the ship and the land might be a good option. There were rocks close into the shoreline, but she couldn't see directly down. If she could she would have seen the nuclear submarine K9 Bean.

She kicked off her shoes thinking,

'There goes another pair – that's six now.'

She knelt on a sofa and reached up to open the porthole when the room door opened. Two sailors entered the room and quickly grabbed hold of Autumn.

'Not that way.' One of them said, 'You don't want to go down there.'

As she was 'escorted' to her new accommodation she noticed various elements around her, let her tell her story,

"As they took me out of the old liner I found that we were moored alongside a big submarine. I was taken into this boat, then down into the bowels of the submarine. On the way down I saw some sort of control room, then another, before passing through a kind of canteen/messing area, then further down into a dormitory section, then even further down. By now I had lost count of the number of decks, I think it must have been something like five or six, but it was all very confusing. Less than three hours ago I was flying over Europe escaping being compromised by the people I was monitoring, now it looks as if I am in their hands. We finally stopped at another of those submarine doors with the wheel in the middle. The lead man spun the wheel to open the door. I took the time to look around; all I could see were pipes and tubes on the metal walls. Luis Estrada saw me scanning around, he said,

'Don't worry my dear; there is no way out of here. We are about twenty feet below the surface of the water, so a tunnel is out of the question.'

He pointed at the door in front of us,

'This is the Russian version of the brig. I do hope you will be comfortable here – but I doubt it.'

The door swung open to reveal an uninviting series of small rooms, cells would not be too far off the mark.

I was pushed in to the room, the sailor who opened the door stood by the side, Estrada followed me into the narrow, short corridor. He took me by the arm as I passed the first door.

'Your suite awaits you, madam.' He said mockingly, indicating the door I had just passed. He unlocked the door as he said,

'There is no real need to lock you in, there is nowhere to go without meeting some of my men. No, my dear, this is for your protection. Not that I am concerned about your welfare, I just do not want my men distracted from their work.'

I replied,

'That would never do, they might do something nice – like topping you.'

'Just get in the room. You will find room service is not what you are used to.'

He pushed me between the shoulder blades, and I was thrust towards the far wall. The room flashed by me as I saw my arms coming up to prevent collision with the steel wall. The door slammed behind me as I hit the wall. I heard the sound of feet on the steel floor walking away; I turned around to survey my surroundings. For the first time since the unveiling of Estrada on the plane from Zurich my heart began to relax. There was a strange feeling of peace and relief as I contemplated my situation."

A QUIET BACKWATER

The luxury yacht left Lisbon seafront, it began to turn north as Sherwood opened the throttles and looked at Steele,

'The original owners modified this thing for drug running in the Caribbean against the US Navy, it can certainly shift; watch.'

As he rocked the throttles sideways the engines emitted a deeper roar, the front of the boat lifted, then continued to rise as the whole craft lifted out of the water on hydroplanes. Sherwood pointed to the tachometer in front of the wheel. Steele looked in amazement at the needle as it passed 50, 60, 70 knots.

'Helicopters have a hard time catching this baby.' Sherwood grinned.

He returned the throttles to a normal position, and the boat settled down to a more sedate speed of 45 knots, still on its hydrofoils.

'We don't want to draw too much attention to ourselves, do we?'

Steele shook his head in reply, 'Wouldn't do.'

Sherwood consulted the compass, then altered course to the west, out to the Atlantic Ocean.

Steele decided he needed a bit more information, so he asked,

'You say you have just been in the Bay of Vigo, what interested you there?'

He knew that Sherwood would not be sight-seeing.

'We went to have a look at a submarine,'

This shocked Steele,

'Submarine. Submarine? What submarine? Spanish Navy?'

'Not unless they have been developing nuclear powered boats without anyone noticing.'

'A nuclear powered sub you say. How intriguing. Tell me more. Hunter or bomber.'

'Looks like a Russian Delta class; that makes her a bomber. Probably eight missiles, MIRVed to maybe 4 warheads each.'

Steele could hardly contain his excitement,

'In Spanish waters?'

'Yes. We think she was smuggled in at night underwater. Where she is berthed now the water is not deep enough for her to be fully submerged. She is resting alongside an old liner that has been run aground by an island in the estuary of the Vigo. Being half submerged as she is, it is pretty difficult to see her unless you move in quite close to the island. We didn't want to do that; it looks like they have some pretty fearsome weaponry out there. We were about two miles away when they launched a fast patrol boat; so we just made ourselves scarce – the last thing we needed was an acoustic torpedo up the jacksi.'

Both men understood the difficulties.

Heading north up the Atlantic Ocean, out of sight of land they travelled at 65 knots in the heavy swell as the light began to fade.

Ray and Dave were checking equipment in the main lounge of the luxury yacht. The plush pale leather furnishings seemed to clash with their dark camouflaged gear. 9mm and 7.62mm ammunition, Glock automatic handguns and machine pistols lay on the low central table. The hardy walnut bur finish shrugged off any scuffs and scratches from the hard edged military equipment. Chris and Jim entered the cabin from the galley to the rear of the boat carrying cups of tea. Chris was first to speak,

'Get that crap off my table, and make way for more useful stuff.'

Just then Mark hobbled in with a tray of burgers; he had a big boot on his right foot due to an injury, but didn't want to miss out on action – even if it meant that he would have to stay on the boat.

Dave asked him about this,

'Mark, what the fuck are you doing here with that thing on your foot?'

'It's only to give me some support. They have put some screws in my foot, but I am nearly fit for action again.'

Ray butted in,

'What do you mean, again? You were only just fit before.'

'I am fit enough to kick your arse with my boot.'

Dave tried to bring more sense in,

'You cannot possibly go near any action with that thing on your foot; you would be more of a liability to your team.'

'It comes off; anyway, I am staying on the boat, but as soon as there is the merest snifter of action I will be taking it off.''

Ray did not let this pass,

'Well you had better take it off right now; there is some action due with regard to these burgers.'

Dave kept serious,

'What about Ken and Martyn in the bow?'

'I already took some down to them.' Mark explained.

This was the 6-man SAS team. Sherwood was not part of it; he was SAS Intelligence, a different section.

Out in the Atlantic Ocean the luxury launch was running on minimal lights. Darkness had by now fallen, four of the SAS men were still below decks; Sherwood steered from the high top navigation position near the middle of the boat, Ken and Martyn stood in the bows, looking out into the darkness. They had powerful snipers' rifles, and were prepared to use them. The marine searchlights were not lit, but were ready close by both men above decks.

To their right, just on the horizon; was the Illas Cies, the sun was setting behind them, leaving the island itself in shadow, but the sky above was still clear and bright. The land mass was silhouetted, and showed no detail, but Sherwood knew there was something else there.

He turned to Steele and pointed towards the crocodile-like land,

'Out there, there is an old decrepit-looking liner snuggled into a natural bay.'

He nudged the throttles back a little, and the vessel dropped from its position on the hydroplanes,

'An elderly tub equipped with the latest radar and communications equipment.'

He passed a pair of naval binoculars to Steele,

'I sailed past her two days ago, after receiving reports of strange activities in the area. From a distance of two miles I photographed the scene with a powerful telephoto lens.'

He reached down below the consul,

'If you compare these with photographs taken before the ship arrived, you will see that there are differences on the skyline too.'

Steele compared the photos, then scrutinised the real skyline,

'Someone's been busy.' He mused.

Sherwood pointed to the skyline,

'There are several anomalies here; we decided that these amounted to surveillance and defence positions.'

'You said you were looking for a sub?'

'Still am. The intel we have is good, it must be around here somewhere.'

'They are very good at hiding underwater.' Steele quipped.

'But it would be no use to them if it were underwater; you cannot work on them underwater.'

'This is all very interesting, but I need to get to Vigo. We have a missing agent, and I believe she is in Vigo.'

'I'm not so sure.' Sherwood looked at Steele in the fading light, 'I believe that rusting hulk over there has something to do with what you are both working on.'

'How do you know what we are working on?'

'It's my job. Intelligence Section, remember. The clue's in the title.' Sherwood turned the wheel to move closer to the liner. 'This is a quiet backwater. Nothing ever happens here – until recently.

IT'S A TRAP

On the sloping, slanting decks of the DKM Dornier four men met up in a board room layout up on Deck 5. The 15 degree angle of her resting place was not so severe as to mean that furniture had to be secured.

The Kommisar took a seat, followed by Louis Estrada and Andy Rawker. The final place was taken by Professor Steve Peters, who closed the door behind himself.

Rawker was the first to speak,

'What are we going to do with the woman?'

Estrada answered,

'That all depends on what she knows.'

'What does she know?' The Kommisar asked.

Estrada thought for a few seconds before replying,

'We don't know exactly, we know she has a good understanding of what we were doing at Zurich...'

The Kommisar butted in,

'Does she know what we are using, or what we are planning?'

'That depends who sent her.'

Rawker asked,

'How do you mean, who sent her?'

'With the Jenny Lejeune situation we raised our head above the pulpit. The local police soon put it all down to a freak accident. Do you not think that they were a bit quick in dropping the case?'

Rawker agreed,

'Yes, but we were glad they did.'

Estrada shot a glance across to Rawker,

'Why?'

'Why, what do you mean, why? We were glad they didn't come sniffing around the lab in Lisbon.'

'No. I mean, why was it dropped so quickly? Do you not think that there may have been another, higher authority wanting us to continue as if nothing had happened?'

'In Lisbon? We chose it for the, shall we say accommodating, law enforcement authorities.'

'There are not only local authorities we need to worry about. The British have always had a strong presence in Lisbon; so do the French.'

The Kommisar asked directly of Estrada,

'What do we know of this Lejeune woman? Where did she come from?' then he turned to Rawker, 'What was her cover story? How thoroughly was it checked?'

Prof Peters asked,

'Cover story? Cover story? You mean she was not for real?'

Rawker replied,

'No, Professor, we think not. She had been in a very restricted area – so restricted no-one was allowed in that area.'

The Prof was confused by that,

'How do you mean, no-one was allowed in?'

'Simply that. The room was a trap. There was nothing in it, nothing except what she found.'

'You mean you set a trap that you knew anyone who walked into it would die?'

Rawker was unmoved,

'If you put it like that, yes. But they had to be extremely inquisitive to get in there; the door was not exactly left wide open. Considerable skill and determination must have been employed to get through.'

The Kommisar wanted to get back to the matter of Autumn,

'How does all this tie in with our guest below decks?'

Estrada took a deep breath,

'Our operative in Zurich was Kath Lonn. We lost contact with her, but her work seemed to continue. So I went undercover as an agent in the Deuxieme Bureau. Luckily they are so secretive it is easy to impersonate one of their agents. At Zurich airport I found one Kath Lonn, working away as if nothing was wrong. That version of Kath Lonn is now in the brig on board the K9 Bean.'

The Kommisar asked,

'That does not answer the question, how much does she know, and more to the point, how much do her masters know. Do we even know whom her masters are?'

'The information she had privy to at Zurich was limited to aviation matters, she must know about the release gear, but not necessarily what we are intending to use.' He cast a look across to Prof. Peters before continuing, 'But we must ask ourselves why did they send her? Because sent she surely was.'

Rawker added,

'Or we must ask her.' He turned to face the Kommisar, 'Let me talk to her.'

Prof Peters asked,

'And what questions would you ask her, pray? We need more background information.' He turned to Estrada, 'Did she pass any information back? What do they know of our operation?'

Estrada thought for a few seconds,

'We know she's not Deuxieme Bureau, it would have been difficult for me to pass myself off as a member of that organisation if she was, so that rules out the French. This level of undercover operation is beyond a normal police undertaking. We have contacts in the USA, Portugal and Germany who would have known if their organisations had sent someone in. There could not have been anyone from Russia, and most other countries can be eliminated apart from Mossad and Mi6. Whilst I was in Lisbon I had an encounter with our mystery person downstairs; in fact I nearly fell over her. During that encounter I noticed that she had backup, not the kind of backup you would experience from Mossad, so I am convinced that she is working for Mi6. And yet on examination of the operation there seems to be an unknown element; as if the operation had another secret dimension that is not normally found in British operations. Every now and then something happens to favour the British effort, you know, lady luck has a lot to do with things in these operations, but in this the Brits seem to have too many lucky breaks. No, there is another element out there which we do not know of.'

Rawker offered his opinions,

'Could they be getting help from the CIA or Mossad?'

'Possibly, but if it were one of them, there would be some tell-tale signs here or there. We have no idea where these guys are coming from. Normally you would expect a single agent or two, but here we seem to have two agents with a guardian angel.'

The Kommisar tried to get some clarity,

'How do you mean, Luiz?'

'When we lost the briefcase in Lisbon, we also lost a messenger too. Our friend downstairs, her real name is Autumn Rae by the way, was in no position to get the briefcase, the other British agent was not in theatre, yet we lost a valuable asset.'

The Kommisar said,

'Yes, and when the second agent did turn up we tried to eliminate him, but that cost us some assets too.'

Rawker asked a direct question,

'Do we know who the other British agent is?'

The Kommisar knew all too well,

'Steve Steele.'

Rawker thought for a considerable time then said,

'So we need to find out how much the enemy knows, what kind of backup there is, and more importantly is there anyone out there who knows about this part of the operation?'

The meeting was interrupted by the sound of gunfire.

Out in the gathering dusk towards the Atlantic Ocean a luxury yacht dropped down from hydroplanes.

Sherwood and Steele surveyed the island before them looking for a big submarine hidden behind a rusty old liner.

The two men heard a dull crack emanate from the direction of the land. Less than two seconds later a column of white water rose up to the height of a two-storey house almost two hundred feet off their starboard bow.

Sherwood turned the boat to head for the column before it collapsed completely,

'You keep looking for the sub. I'll navigate.' He said.

'This is a quiet backwater.' Steele said as another crack came across the waves, which were now black in the gathering gloom. He peered through his binoculars at the land.

Another column rose. Sherwood aimed the boat at it. Steele looked away from his binoculars,

'Good navigation. Are we actually going somewhere?'

Sherwood did not look away from his job as he replied,

'Always go towards the last fall of shot.'

Another column appeared.

Sherwood still concentrated on his duty,

'But don't worry; that's probably a four-pounder. Doesn't have the range to hit us.'

Another shell landed beyond them this time.

'Well it certainly looks as if they are having a good stab at it.' Steele said.

Sherwood countered,

'It may be able to throw a shell out this far, but there is no accuracy in it.'

Steele lowered his binoculars and said,

'Can't see any signs of a sub, but there are two fast patrol boats heading this way.'

Sherwood was not perturbed.

As the gunfire began the Kommisar picked up a phone. He dialled a number, and was then put through to Commander Oxen on board the K9 Bean, who also ran the shore defences,

'Is that gunfire?'

'Yes, sir. We have spotted a snooping craft out to the west. It has turned towards us, so we have engaged with the shore batteries, and are sending out two boats to deal with it. There is nothing to worry about, sir. We will dispatch this irritation in short order.'

'Good, just send it to the bottom.' The Kommisar turned to Rawker, 'Where do you propose to interrogate the woman?'

All four men made their way to the windows on the low side of the slanting ship as Rawker replied,

'The forward torpedo room may be OK; but there is not really enough room in there. One of the messes would be too public. No we need somewhere completely alien and secluded.'

There was more gunfire from the shore batteries, the four watched as plumes of water rose around the yacht.

... ...

Sherwood asked Steele,

'Can you see any big guns on the patrol boats?'

This meant anything not hand-held.

Steele screwed his eyes up a he tried to see details in the darkening conditions, the red light from the infra-red binoculars showed on his eyes as he said,

'Fraid so. Looks like 37mm; could be Orlikon.'

'Are you sure they are not 20mm?'

'What bloody difference does it make?'

'Range and rate of fire. A 37 is effective up to 2 miles, a 20, only about a mile and a half.'

He picked up a microphone, and called into it,

'Action Stations, Action Stations.'

As he finished there was the sound of crack, crack, crack, crack from one of the patrol boats.

Sherwood turned to Steele,

'37mm.'

He turned the boat towards the threat. The attacking boats split to attack from slightly different positions.

Sherwood opened the throttles, and pointed the rapidly accelerating launch to run between them. It rose up on its hydrofoils again, giving a more stable gun platform.

Steele heard another engine start up to the rear. The SAS men were moving about with purpose, their black outfits standing out against the white paintwork of the luxury boat.

The closing speed of the three vessels was amazing by naval standards – about 100 mph. As they got closer the 37mm guns on the patrol boats could not follow the launch on its hydroplanes.

Ken and Martyn on the bow had MP3 automatic weapons. When the patrol boats got close enough they let fly with fire to keep their heads down.

Sherwood called down the microphone,

'Dave, are you ready to fire?'

'Three greens, clear.'

'Stand by port broadside.'

'Roger, port broadside.'

As the three boats were about to draw level with each other Sherwood cut the throttles. The yacht dropped down on to its hull, speed dropped from some 70 mph to 20 very rapidly.

As this was taking place, in the bows Ken and Martyn knew what would happen, so they concentrated on the right hand boat.

Lying flat on the launches deck they both raked the patrol boat with automatic fire.

They could see small fountains of water as their rounds hit the water in front of the boat as he approached; so they adjusted their aim to hit the hull. Ugly black holes appeared on the pale grey sides of the patrol boat. The SAS men could not make out who's shells were causing which holes, but it didn't matter; they were both hitting the target.

Inside the boat there was even more damage being done; there were two men in the front of the boat below decks when the rounds started hitting her. Within two tenths of a second they were dead, and the whole room was splintered by the high velocity rounds coming in, hitting objects, and causing massive damage. Then the SAS men raised their aim to rake the deck area. The 37mm cannon mounted on the front of the boat was their main concern. They could see muzzle flashes as it fired at them, but the men behind it had a bulletproof shield in front of them, luckily the boat was not stable, so accurate fire was impossible, but they were putting down a lot of rounds in the knowledge that it would only take one lucky hit to finish the launch-full of good guys. One of these, either Martyn or Ken, lowered their aim slightly. Rounds began hitting the hull below the 37mm mount. The bullets entered the thin skinned boat, hit the metalwork of the heavy gun mount below the deck, and then ricocheted back out of the hull, leaving big holes below the water line. The mount and its anchor points were weakened at this point, and the gun became impossible to aim properly. The vibrations set up by the cannon continuing to fire shook the mount loose. This had been fastened to the main hull structure, which was torn asunder. As Ken and Martyn continued firing at the boat, the bottom of the hull ripped apart; causing vast amounts of water to pour in. As the boat broke in two the bow section rose up out of the sea, the stern part dipped down and drank in more water. The vessel disappeared below the waves before the SAS men could stop firing.

As this was happening, Dave sat behind his weapon in the back of the ship. This was powered by the engine Steele had heard start up earlier. Dave was given the signal to cock his machine and prepare to fire. He was strapped in behind the weapon that was now pointing out to the left hand side of the launch.

As the patrol boat drew alongside he let fly with the 40mm quad 'pom-pom'.

In the few seconds that Dave held the trigger down the gun let fly with 42 high velocity rounds. These were 40mm shells, each one capable of stopping a tank.

The water around the patrol boat exploded, as did the boat. The shells ripped through the light structure with ease. Anything in their way, machinery, men or wooden structure, was demolished.

The boat disappeared.

All this took less than eight seconds. Steele still had hold of his cup. As he turned from one side to the other to see what was happening, he was rooted to the spot. Suddenly the sea around them was empty, and the firing had stopped. The launch was purring along, and all was peaceful. Involuntarily Steele dropped his cup; this hit the metal floor with a clang. Sherwood turned to him and said,

'Quiet man! I don't think they know we're here yet.'

'Sorry to give the game away, but there are at least two boats-full of guys who know we are here.'

'Yes, but they don't count any more.'

Sherwood raised his binoculars towards the coast of the island, Steele did the same. He was first to speak,

'You can bet your bottom dollar that there are blokes out there doing exactly the same thing we are doing now.'

Sherwood didn't look away from his binoculars as he replied,

'Yes, but they are wondering what we are going to do next. We have just limited their choices.'

As the yacht crossed an invisible line half a mile from the rusty DKM Dornier smaller guns opened up from the defences on shore.

Sherwood decided that the element of surprise had been lost, so he turned the yacht away.

TAUBER

Autumn looked at the floor of the room. As it reached what she presumed was the outer wall it took on a curve which met up with the wall. She knew then that she was close to the bottom of the sub. She took a deep breath and stretched her arms out. The bunk on her right prevented her from touching that side, and the other side was too far away from the left wall. She looked at her left hand, almost a full metre from the grey steel wall. Another deep breath as she thought to herself,

'God, this is claustrophobic.'

She pounded the mattress on the top bunk, then the lower one before climbing on to the top one. She sat on the edge, bowing slightly because her head was almost touching the roof of the cell. As she looked at the far wall she suddenly realised that she was very tired. The single pillow did not look too inviting, so she jumped down, took the pillow from the lower bunk, and threw it up on to the top bunk, then climbed back up. She didn't bother to sit on the edge this time, with almost one movement she threw the second pillow on to the other one then threw her head onto the pair. As she closed her eyes she again thought of the words Steele had said to her,

'Someday we shall meet again, I'll find you wherever you are.'

This sentiment ran through her head as she slipped into a deep sleep.

... ... ...

Deep Six was the official deck position of the brig; six decks below normal water level when the boat was sitting on the surface. These are massive boats; bigger than a destroyer, they have more room inside than the older diesel boats, but space is still at a premium.

Rawker and the Kommisar were trying to decide where to interrogate Autumn. They had already decided that the sub offered the most alien environment for her, so she would be easier to crack.

The Kommisar said,

'The one place no-one ever visits on these boats is the reactor room,'

Rawker thought for a second,

'Or the machinery room next to the reactor room.' A cunning idea was developing in his mind.

The Kommisar gave Rawker his head,

'You go and get an escort. Let me know what she knows. We need to find out who sent that boat; I bet it has something to do with her interest.' He turned to Estrada, 'You go with him if you would.'

Estrada nodded.

Rawker and Estrada left the Dornier by gangplank to the deck of the K9 Bean, then on to the island. They went to the headquarters building; there they called on the services of the negotiator, Ernst Tauber. The trio met up and considered their options.

'I reckon she knows much more than she is letting on about.' Rawker told his colleagues, 'You may have heard the guns earlier; that may well have something to do with her interests. We must find out whom we are dealing with.'

Tauber said,

'Any clues about where she came from?'

Estrada replied,

'When I first met up with her in Lisbon she seemed to have quite a lot of help from a British agent or agents. One of them was probably Steve Steele.'

Tauber recognised the name,

'Steve Steele. Do you know if he was operating alone?'

'No he was not. There seemed to be assistance from an unknown source.'

'CIA?' Tauber asked.

Estrada thought before replying,

'I just do not know. As I said, it was an unknown source. Could be CIA, or Desi, Mossad, BOSS. For all I know the Brits may now be operating in pairs.'

Tauber noticed,

'They already are; there is Steele and this woman who seem to be operating together. Maybe it's a trio.'

Rawker was more concerned,

'Or an international consortium gathering resources from many countries; if they start sharing intel and sources we are in great difficulties. This lack of co-operation at an international level is what keeps us one step ahead of the game.'

Estrada asked the pair in front of him,

'How do you intend to get this information out of her; these people are trained not to give information.'

Tauber replied,

'Let me loose, and I will get any information you require. I have a lot of experience in Germany, then South Africa in this line of work.'

Rawker was thinking about a different approach,

'That whole method seems archaic. I have an idea that may realise results more efficiently.'

Both men looked at him as Rawker continued,

'The Kommisar pointed out that the room on a nuclear sub that has fewer visitors than any other is the reactor room.'

Estrada commented,

'That is not surprising; given what happens there. That is where the nuclear reactor runs. Anyone venturing in there is asking for trouble; I wouldn't like to be exposed to that for any ...' he turned to Rawker, 'I think I can see where you are coming from.'

'Yes. I think you can.' He turned to Tauber, 'If we convince this woman that there are dangerous radiations being emitted from the reactor, the fear of the unknown will do the rest. Remember, these agents are trained to resist pain, but maybe not the fear that hides inside their own heads.'

To carry out their plan they make their way back to the submarine. They stood on the shore looking at the dull black shape in the water before them. It was getting quite dark now; the ship's lights failed to reflect from the matt silhouette of the military vessel. There were three gangplanks to choose from, Rawker knew that the brig was situated in the forward portion of the boat, so he selected the left-hand gangway. This placed the three men on the forward deck. The metal beneath their feet was not flat; they could feel the curvature of the vessel as it became more and more acute towards the dull blunt nose, which was some six feet below the dark waters between them and the Dornier. There was a hatch in the floor a few feet towards the bows where five or six men were working. The three visitors moved towards the workers, as they approached them, one of the sailors greeted the trio,

'I'm sorry, sir. This hatchway is out of commission at the moment; we are loading the Seehund.'

Rawker was stumped. He knew that this was the quickest way into the area near the brig, but it was not to be – no-one had authority over handling weaponry. He turned to his colleagues,

'Sorry guys, we shall have to enter through the main tower.' He indicated the area of the boat known as the sail, 'If you would follow me.'

What Rawker did not know was that all visitors to the boat have to enter by the doorway on the side of the conning tower for security and safety reasons.

They walked into the tower, the sign before them told them that they were on deck six. A Russian sailor stepped up to greet them. Rawker showed him his pass, then explained,

'Three for the brig, then four to the reactor machinery room.'

'Which reactor machinery room, sir?'

The sailor asked this because there were five reactor machinery rooms.

'Secondary heat exchange turbine.'

The reactor was at the back of the ship, the brig near the front. Rawker wondered if he should have recruited another two guards to help control the situation; but there would be no trouble, as far as Autumn was concerned, all the men on the boat were hostiles.

The three men descended a ladder to the next deck. This was a fairly spacious control room with three large periscope housings reaching down to the floor. Rawker counted six sailors seated at consuls all over this deck, another three were standing. He looked at a hatchway in the far wall to the stern of the boat; this led into the missile bay which they would have to traverse on their way to the reactor room. He led the way to a staircase which took them to a small messing area, then through to the main mess. Another steel ladder, and then they were near the brig.

As he opened the cell door he did not expect to find what he did. Autumn had dropped off to a deep sleep as soon as her head hit the pillows on the top bunk. She then turned over to face the wall; from ground level Rawker could not see her, he immediately thought someone had either moved her or taken her out – even rescued her.

He turned round before the other two could enter the cell. Thanks to her training, Autumn awoke suddenly, completely, and without moving or making a sound. She heard Rawker open the door, and then scuffled as he turned around.

'She's gone!' he exclaimed, 'Who the hell took her away? And where to?' he pushed his comrades, 'Quickly, check the other cells, there, and there.'

The three men moved away from the open cell door. Autumn saw her opportunity. In one swift movement she slipped to the floor, her bare feet made no sound on the metal decking. As quickly as she dared she tip-toed to the door, peering out she saw that all three men had their attentions turned away. Quickly and quietly she moved around the door and made a dash for the door into the outer corridor. As she cleared the doorway she let her back fall against the outer wall. Then she let herself draw breath for the first time since she had hit the floor. She breathed slowly and silently as she listened for the tell-tale sound of one her pursuers seeing her. But no-one saw her leave the short corridor. Now the men began moving back towards her. They were all surprised to see a female arm reach across the doorway to pull the door shut.

ILLAS CIAS VIA THE ATLANTIC

Steele and Sherwood aboard the fast yacht were still heading for the old liner with searchlights feeling for them out in the darkening sea. They knew there were armed men aboard the liner and ashore behind the searchlights.

'I think it's time we got out of Dodge.' Sherwood called to Steele, 'It could get a bit too warm here.'

Steele simply nodded his agreement as Sherwood turned the boat away from the shore just as heavy guns opened up from the land.

With plumes of water rising all around them from the fall of shot, they pointed the boat towards the open sea. With one or two swerves to make shooting less easy, Sherwood opened the throttles to the gate. The whole yacht began to throb as the hydroplanes came into play, and the boat rose out of the water. In a matter of seconds the columns of water began to fall behind them as the gunners failed to realise that the boat was now travelling a lot faster than expected. Then the firing stopped. One by one the searchlights went out as the SAS boat moved quickly into the Atlantic Ocean.

Suddenly, as if on some mysterious cue, the swell of the ocean developed into watery mountains, the wind got up, and the temperature dropped some five degrees. It was as if there were some invisible line between the coastal waters and the open ocean. Sherwood knew that the hydroplanes could ride from the top of one wave to the next, but if the swell got too wide or deep he would have to slow down and retract the 'planes. The sea conditions were now reaching this intensity. Sherwood began turning the yacht to the right (technically this should be starboard). Pretty soon she was running down the troughs more or less. Steele began to enjoy this as they dropped out of sight of land when they dropped to the bottom of the next swell, then climbed up the far side. This was like a roller-coaster ride, but in more dimensions; this was not just up and down with the occasional turn, this was also tipping to the side, rocking on all axis, and with unpredictable buffeting. It was this buffeting which necessitated all crew holding on to the structure with a firm grip. That meant that Sherwood had to steer with one hand as he rode the waves. He glanced at the compass every now and then, its light green glow showing up in the dark depths of the yacht. It was completely dark now; the only lights were small infra-red beams shooting out in front of the boat. With special glasses Sherwood could see the ghostly shapes of the wave tops as they turned white with foam. The yacht mounted another crest, and then the bows dropped alarmingly, pointing into the inky blackness of the sea. The infra-red beams were not much use here, Sherwood could see the same as anyone else on board; nothing. He looked up at the stars, and got a surprise; the infra-red capability of the glasses made the stars glow even more, some more than others, but not in a familiar way. He was trained in astro navigation; so was used to looking at the celestial display of the night sky. He knew which stars show bigger than others; this is the way he could pick out the constellations, but now different stars glowed brighter than they normally would. Heavy black clouds obscured large areas of sky, making spotting constellations difficult, but it was the colour of the clouds that surprised Sherwood. Some were green, others a strange shade of blue, before he had chance to study the sky a large wave-top hit the bridge; drenching both he and Steele. Steele cupped his hand around his mouth to call to Sherwood,

'Is this the way to America?'

'No, it is more to the left.'

The boat climbed to the top of the wave. The port-side hydroplane left the water, but not for long. Sherwood caught a glance of a strange seascape in front of him as the boat tilted. He saw the horizon with greenish-white wave tops, very bright stars, green and blue clouds, plus dark areas where unseen clouds covered the stars.

Mark called on the intercom,

'Radar contact, Skip. Bearing 240 relative.'

Sherwood looked out towards the right.

He thought he saw a star wink at him - then another, then two together.

'I think there may be something over there.' Sherwood pointed to an area of sky.

Steele turned his attentions to the part of the night sky indicated by Sherwood.

'You sure?'

'No, but... there another, and another. Yes, there is something over there.'

Steele concentrated,

'Yes, I think you are right.'

The image they could not see, but kept eclipsing stars, was low down on the horizon, and did not seem to be shifting position.

Five miles out were three new Mil 24 'Hind A' tactical attack helicopters.

Sherwood guessed correctly that there were helicopters in the region, he was also correct in the assumption that they were hostile as he said,

'Possible enemy choppers. I think it time we took evasive action, just in case.'

He turned the wheel to the right; the choppers were coming from the direction of the Atlantic, the men could not help wondering where they had come from, but there was no time to ponder on anything now.

Sherwood shrugged as he opened the throttles to their maximum. The yacht attacked the swell as they turned through almost ninety degrees. Sherwood knew that they were close to the yacht's performance limits, but they had no choice in the matter. Steele remembered Sherwood's prophetic words, 'Choppers have job on catching this baby.'... Well now we shall see.

The boat's tachometer crept up, 55 knots, 60, 65, 70, 75 knots.

By now the pounding on the boat was becoming unbearable. Sherwood knew that the hull structure would not stand it much longer. He turned around to look at the area where the helicopters should be. He was surprised to see the black shape of an attack helicopter outlined by a bluish-green cloud, a lot higher than he expected. This means that they were easily gaining on the yacht.

Sherwood called across the noise of engines and sea,

'Christ, they must be doing over one-fifty. I think we had better try something different.'

He turned the boat to face directly away from the direction the helicopters were coming from.

'All yours, Dave.' He called as he cut the throttles to just above idle.

As the boat slowed the engine in the midships fired up as four men manned the 40mm quadruple cannon.

As the yacht began to drop on to its hull, Sherwood opened the throttles a little to keep her on the hydrofoils. From above it made a smaller footprint on the surface of the sea.

In the lead helicopter Viktor Trusch scanned the area before him. The black sea topped with white waves also had a white slash in it. He saw the curved mark made by the SAS yacht, but estimating the range was difficult. He sat in the front seat of the 10 ton machine. Two powerful turboshaft engines drove the five bladed rotor above his head, the stub wings on either side carried multiple rocket launchers. Behind him was the weapons system operator, whilst in the rear compartment there were four sub-aqua soldiers. He was in the lead helicopter, with one on either side in the darkness.

He saw the wake of the boat curving to the right, then straightening up. As the straight line continued, he decided to attack from the port quarter. He banked the helicopter over to the left to put his formation in position. There were no words spoken; they knew what they were here to do, they all knew their jobs.

On the rear of the boat Dave swung the gun platform to the right as he watched the fleeting black shapes move from one cloud to another. The gun was pointing slightly to the left as he called to Sherwood,

'Hold her steady, skip.'

Dave did not know how many helicopters there were out there, but he had a good idea that they were not in the area to look after his welfare.

Viktor and his comrades did not know that the yacht below had a sting in the tail. He selected 'Arm' on the missile launch switch just as the rear of the yacht lit up. At first he thought one of his wing men had launched early, and set the back of the yacht alight. Then the sky to his right lit up with the impact of 40 mm cannon shells hitting the only helicopter that Dave could see.

He pressed the trigger, and then released it almost immediately – almost before the first shells hit the 'copter to Viktors side. As the unfortunate aircraft exploded, Dave saw that there were others in the sky around it. He swung the guns towards Viktor, and let fly. At the same instant the blast wave from the stricken helicopter hit Viktor's machine, pushing it away from the hail of 40 mm explosive shells that Dave had fired.

This meant that the other helicopter, piloted by Sol Legdani, was forced to move up and away from Viktor. Sol twisted and lifted the cyclic lever to make the machine rise and pull away from danger. He watched Viktor's helicopter as it slid down his front right-hand window. The stricken helicopter spun down to the dark sea. This manoeuvre put Sol out of the fight, but Viktor was still in there. He tried to keep the boat in sight as he banked hard over. His rotor disk stood nearly upright as he wrenched the helicopter round to make as difficult a target as possible. Height was lost during the turn, Viktor lost sight of the target, all of the men in the helicopter were subjected to four times the force of gravity. But Viktor achieved what he was after – the target had lost sight of him.

Steele looked through the infra-red binoculars,

'I have him. Going away at a rate of knots. Only one exhaust now, he must be turning... now its gone.' He assessed the bearing, 'Looks like a beam approach. Ninety degrees to starboard; that would make it 235 degrees.'

Sherwood called down to Dave in the stern,

'Starboard beam, Dave, 235 degrees.'

The massive pom-pom mount swung again. Dave said something to a man by his side, the man called up to Sherwood,

'Do you have a range or elevation?'

Sherwood and Steele looked at each other, they both shrugged,

'Not a bloody clue,' Sherwood replied.

Mark called up on the intercom from below,

'I have a radar contact that is probably a helicopter at about 10 thousand feet.'

Sherwood replied,

'OK. I don't think we need concern ourselves with that at the moment.'

Much closer to them was a bigger threat.

Viktor was weaving from side to side as he came in to the attack. He knew roughly where the boat was; all he had to do was avoid being shot down – and the best way he knew was to fly between the waves. The 'Hind A' tilted first one way, then the other. The men in the back only had limited visibility through small cabin windows, what they saw was alternate views of black swirling angry sea, then a starry stillness. All the time they were pushed down by the force of gravity as it was exaggerated through the rough manoeuvres.

Sherwood kept the boat with enough speed to keep the hydrofoils in action to give the most stable gun platform possible. He looked at the compass, and saw that they were now travelling in a north-easterly direction. The island was only just visible on the horizon directly to their right. What the men on the boat did not realise was that Viktor Trusch was bearing down on them at nought feet. Ken and Martyn were back on station in the bows, standing listening for the sound of an attack helicopter. They did not have to wait long – Viktor approached only just above the white-topped waves to their left rear. The sound of his rotor blades slicing through the air as they titled from one side to the other, the optimum aiming resolution unfortunately passed whilst he had the underside of the helicopter towards the boat. Ken heard the machine at this moment. He swung around and pointed towards the back of the boat, and called,

'Chopper off the port stern.'

Dave began to swing the pom-poms around to bear, Ken scoured the area from which he heard the sounds, but no-one could see the chopper. They dare not open fire in the blind for fear of giving their position away. They had one advantage over the helicopter; they could hear him, he could not hear them. They could hear him getting closer. Then, almost without warning a big attack helicopter appeared almost alongside them, banking away, the powerful rotors beating the air in an effort to stop the aircraft from skidding into the boat. Viktor was travelling at over 100 mph, low enough to collide with the boat when he banked away without even seeing his target. Ken tried to bring his automatic weapon to bear, but the helicopter was moving too fast, and jinking at the same time. He managed to loose off a few rounds in the general direction, but they went wide.

Meanwhile, at height, Sol Legdani had returned to the general area in the other Hind A. From this height he could see the island, and as far as the coast with its two rivers. He called Viktor,

'I am at 3,000 metres Viktor. I can see him from here, where are you?'

'Sol, I am at zero metres travelling in a roughly north easterly direction.'

'Can you see an island?'

'No, at this height I can only see waves.'

'Then I suggest you gain a little height. When you have enough height, can you flash a light to help me find you?'

'OK, Sol. I will climb until I see land. I think they have radar, so do not want to give our position away.'

'Roger that, by the way, they are now turning to their right. Continuing the turn – now moving in a generally southerly direction.'

'I am now at 1,000 metres. If I flash my dorsal light it will not be seen from below.'

Three short flashed were given by Viktor.

Sol watched carefully from his perch on high,

'OK, I got that.'

He switched to his intercom in order to speak to Paul in the back seat,

'Did you get that, Paul?'

'Yes. He needs to steer a course of 195 to bring him back over the target.'

Viktor dropped back to wave-top height as he received a call from Sol,

'Victor Tango from Sierra Lima. Turn on to course 195 for interception.'

'Roger that, Sol. Turning now.'

In the depths of the yacht Mark called Sherwood on the bridge,

'We have another radar contact. Bearing 015 relative, height 3,000 feet, range 8 miles. Gone now.'

Steele turned to Sherwood,

'The guy up on top will be guiding his mate down here to us. The quick rise to height would be to allow him to see where his comrade is. Well, now we know where he is too; and we know where he is headed – here.'

'Time to be evasive.' Sherwood opened up the throttles; he presumed that the attack helicopter would be launching a direct attack with the assistance from on high.

Viktor knew that he had to attack now whilst Sol knew where he was; within seconds the man on high would lose Viktor's position. Viktor kept the 'Hind A' a little higher this time to allow him time to position for an attack when he saw the yacht.

Sol kept him informed of Sherwood's position,

'He is turning hard right, now weaving furiously, but the course is about the same. Straightened up now. Dead straight line on a course of 165 magnetic.'

He had the helicopter tilted over on its right side whilst constantly turning in order to keep the little white line put out by the yacht in view. He was down to 1,000 metres (about 3,500 feet), when he heard a call from Viktor,

'I have him. Turning away to position for attack.'

'Roger that, Viktor. I am below 1000 metres; they probably know I'm here. I suggest that I come in to attack from their starboard side. If you position yourself directly in front in a hover, I shall make diving attack at speed to take their attentions away from you.'

Sol knew that from the height he was at he could probably get the chopper up to some 250 mph in an attacking dive, meanwhile Viktor was waiting in front of the yacht - waiting for the yacht; like a spider waiting for an unsuspecting fly.

ACTIONS AND REACTIONS

Autumn grabbed hold of the lever that would open the outer brig door; she held it up to stop the men inside from pressing it down. As she frantically looked around for something to jam the handle, she dared not let go; she could feel someone on the other side attempting to press the lever down.

Tauber said,

'Stand back. I know how to deal with this.'

He stood a good two feet back from the closed door, held his hands out to discourage anyone from approaching the door. He raised his foot an inconceivable height, and then brought it crashing down on the handle. The door burst open, he was thrown forwards by his own momentum, and out through the open door. The handle was wrenched from Autumn's hand, and she was thrown back to the opposite side of the corridor. This stunned her somewhat, but no more than Tauber coming out of the room at her. The ensuing collision hit her with considerable force; this knocked the wind out of her. Tauber rolled to one side, allowing Autumn to bend as she tried to catch her breath. Then Tauber hit her with a savage blow to the stomach. Autumn went down immediately, clutching her stomach. Tauber then landed a well-aimed kick at the small of her back as Estrada pulled him back by the shoulder,

'What do you think you are doing? We are not animals.'

'These people must be subjugated; we cannot allow them to gain an upper hand.'

'Look at her. She's not a black boxer full of drugs, or a gang member bent on self-destruction.'

Tauber nodded, he bent to look closely at Autumn,

'Do not try to rran away.' His South African accent laced with menace.

Autumn lay panting as he strode over her; he then stood on her bare foot,

'Remember, no rranneng.'

Estrada reached down to help Autumn up. Andy Rawker stood back; he didn't know what to do; Tauber moved off with Estrada and Autumn following him, and Rawker following behind.

As they reached the first staircase, Tauber turned around and produced a pair of handcuffs.

Estrada was still helping Autumn to walk; he waved the South African away with his free hand,

'We don't need anything like that. Where do you think she can go?'

'You can never be sure with these people.'

'Never be sure. Never be sure? You mean to tell us that you have not brought your balls and chains?' Estrada had once pretended to be friends with this woman.

Tauber replied,

'Don't be ridiculous; chains would only hamper our movements up these ladders.' He was serious.

'You really mean that, don't you?'

They began up the narrow steel stairs as Tauber turned with a puzzled look on his face,

'Yes, of course. These stairs are OK, but the ladders would be dangerous.'

Autumn stumbled as she reached the stairs. Estrada steadied her and allowed her time to begin her ascent.

They made their way through a dining area with bunks at the back. She couldn't help wondering 'How do you combine messing with sleeping?'

At the far end they went through one of those submarine doors with the wheel in the middle of it, then into a small machinery room before going through another submarine door, to be faced by a vertical ladder. As expected, Tauber led the way. Autumn was getting more confident now. Enough to tackle the ladder without assistance; just as well, it would have been difficult for Estrada to help her up the narrow confines of a military ladder. At the top she found herself in a small room with pipes and dials, Tauber roughly took her by the arm,

'Come along, my dear. There is no time to linger here.'

He opened another door on the far side of the room. At first all Autumn could see was some kind of cylinder, as she neared the portal she realised that there was no floor beyond it. Autumn turned to Estrada.

'We are going through the missile room next.' He explained.

Tauber had already turned to face Autumn, when he took hold of handles on either side of the hatchway. Then he began to descend the ladder, as he got shorter and shorter Autumn felt strangely comforted by the sight of this nasty man disappearing, until he glared at her, and indicated that she must follow him. Estrada enforced the message by gently pushing her waist. As she approached the hatchway she saw part of a row of gigantic cylinders. This new room was the full width of the sub, and seemed to stretch on for ever.

Tauber called out to her as she hesitated,

'Mister Estrada will give you a push if you require more incentive.'

Carefully placing her bare feet on the rungs, Autumn would not be rushed; she looked up at Estrada and remembered how he had tricked her in Austria. She looked him straight in the eye. Her mind said,

'Just you try.' Her eyes transmitted the signal.

When her feet touched the cold deck, Tauber took her by the arm and said,

'This is the missile room. We shall not be lingering here.'

As Estrada reached the floor, they continued walking past the row of gigantic cylinders. At the end of the row they came to another door halfway up the wall. A fairly normal staircase led up to this door. Tauber took Autumn by the elbow and said,

'Not far now; just through this one door.'

The three of them walked up the narrow stairs. The metal mesh felt uncomfortable on Autumn's feet. In the room she found several pieces of machinery painted red, with labels and placards in Russian. Some of it looked very angry. Tauber began the introduction,

'This is the forward machinery room for the nuclear reactor.' He pointed to the heavy hatch on the opposite wall, this door had more angry writing on it; this time in red, yellow and black, 'on the other side of that door is the nuclear reactor.' He indicated himself and Estrada as he continued, 'Of course it would be foolish of us to go in there.' He stepped uncomfortably close to Autumn, 'Now we have some questions to ask you.'

She showed a look of obstinacy.

Tauber walked across to the angry door, and then reached out to touch it.

'See, my dear. It is quite safe to touch, but come, feel for yourself. You will feel the warmth of the power on the other side.'

Autumn gingerly moved forward with encouragement from Estrada. She placed her hand on the Russian writing. It was the normal temperature for a door in this position, but because Tauber had said it would feel warm, it did. There was a humming sound coming from the other side. Autumn did not know that Tauber had had some industrial heater fans modified to make the noise and supply heat.

Her countenance changed involuntarily, Tauber noticed this,

'You will forgive us if we do not escort you into the reactor room.' He paused, 'Unless you wish to answer our questions.'

Estrada added,

'And remember that I know more than you can possibly know, so some of the questions we already know the answers to. Now, how much do your controllers in London know of our operations?'

'They certainly know that you are up to no good.' She defiantly replied.

A hefty blow hit her in between the shoulder blades,

'Show more respect.' Tauber demanded.

Estrada continued,

'Do your people know about this part of our operation?'

They had not heard the gunfire above.

'You do not seriously expect me to tell you that?'

'Very well, what information did you pass about the equipment you found out about in Zurich?'

She smiled,

'Wouldn't you like to know?'

Tauber moved to within inches of her face,

'That is why he asked you. You don't think we brought you down here for a change of scenery did you?'

'Not with this décor.' She looked around at the grey everywhere, only lifted by occasional warning signs. It was as she looked at one of these that Tauber brought a crashing blow to her left ear, knocking her off balance.

He stood over her as he said,

'You will soon regret those flippant remarks.'

Estrada helped her to her feet as Tauber continued,

'Behind this door is the nuclear reactor that can power this vessel for 30 years without needing to be refuelled. The main downside to that is no one dare go anywhere near to it when it is running. Those control rooms we passed through; they operate the machine from there in relative safety.'

He took her arm roughly and moved her towards the angry-looking door,

'Can you hear the pulsating power? They do not know exactly what happens if you stroll too close to one of these machines, but the Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not fare too well. And there have been mysterious deaths connected with the Manhattan Project that built the first bombs.'

He moved away from the door.

'There have also been stories about people being cooked from the inside – by the time you are done, you are dead.' He looked closely at Autumn, and said with a smirk, 'Is that what you really want? Done to a turn?'

'It won't do, you know. We never talk. It is the public school upbringing, you know. Terribly stiff upper lip.'

Tauber was getting annoyed now,

'Tell us what we need to know, or we shall be performing medical experiments on you until you disintegrate – it will not be a pleasant end.'

Estrada butted in,

'Let us try something easy to start with. When I first met you in Zurich, you said that you were having difficulty making contact with London, or a Swiss handler. Did you manage to get communication with your people?'

Autumn tried to remember how much she had told him in Zurich,

'You know only what I told you, and that was limited to what I knew you would be able to corroborate. You know nothing about our side. And I do not see why I should add to your pitiful little bit.'

Tauber said, quietly for him,

'We know you agents normally work alone, so do not think that there is a knight on a white charger about to rescue you – you know what the deniable nature of your contract means?'

Autumn did not let this go,

'Yes, it means that we shall deny people like you their own way. You will not get to do what you want to do.'

Estrada knew what it really meant,

'It means that if you get into difficulties, they will deny all knowledge of you – you are on your own.'

Autumn responded,

'That is no way to get loyalty. There are elements out there that you do not know about; and I am not about to tell you about them.'

Tauber moved her towards the angry door,
'We have had enough. Time to get you cooked. The authorities are looking at selling the medical data we get from roasting you.'

He took her arm, opened the hatch, and thrust her inside, slamming the hatch behind her.

Autumn stumbled into the room. There was not much in it; just some strange apparatus that must have something to do with the nuclear reactor she thought. In the middle of the room there was a collection of shiny silver tubes, pipes and drum-like equipment. She involuntarily backed away from this, believing it to be the reactor itself. In fact, it was the top assembly for the damper rods which are placed in the reactor core to slow it down. The machinery was humming menacingly and giving off quite a lot of heat. Autumn looked at her arms and hands, then her ankles to check for any abnormalities that might arise from internal cooking caused by the emitting of nuclear radiation. She did not know it, but both the humming and heat were coming from the heated fans hidden behind the silver apparatus. Another thing she did not know was that the chief engineer would soon detect the irregular temperature; and then shut down Tauber's whole operation and probably throw him off the boat.

There was nothing else for it; she had to get out of this room before her extremities; hands and feet, arms and legs, became effected by whatever it was that was coming from this device.

She looked around, then to the far end of the room. Here she was surprised to see a small hatchway that must lead out of this chamber. There was a small wheel in the middle of this portal. Autumn began turning it; it felt strangely cool under her hand. The locks eventually released, but the hatch remained firmly closed. Now with perspiration making her hands clammy and slippery she grasped the wheel with both hands and gave it a mighty tug. The room she was in was hermetically sealed - as are all the rooms in a submarine – the added heat had made the air pressure mount; and therefore Autumn had to overcome the pressure differential in order to pull the door open. There was a smooth sigh as the pressure was released, and the hatch swung open. The opening was small; the bottom came up to half way up her shin, the top was at shoulder height to Autumn.

She stooped to look into the next room. There was much more machinery in here. There were also men working here. Four of them immediately left their work stations and began moving towards her. The situation did not look good; she obviously did not fit in here. The men communicated with each other in a language and dialect which she did not recognise as they closed on her.

All she could think to say was,

'Does anyone here speak English?' She said this on the grounds that you cannot talk yourself out of a spot if there are no communications. There were no communications.

Autumn looked around quickly. There were no tools or loose equipment she could use as a weapon. Various pieces of silver machinery stood about. Three of the men were approaching from her left. Then she saw what she was looking for. From the roof there protruded what looked like an inverted circular bin with a ladder inside it – an escape hatch.

The first man, a wide sailor with a grim look on his face was advancing quite quickly now. Autumn stood her ground, she didn't want to go back into the reactor room – what she wanted to do was reach that hatch, but Boris here was in the way. She stood in bare feet waiting for the right moment. The balls of her feet were hardened with many hours practising Karate moves. She stood with her left foot pointed straight at Boris, the right one was purposefully positioned away from the left. The hard ball of this foot gave an almost metallic tap, like a small hammer, as she placed in position. The rest of her body gave off the impression of a vulnerable and weak lady. That was until Boris reached lethal range.

As he reached out to touch Autumn, she took hold of his outstretched arm, and used this to help power her move. It also made sure that he did not move in the split second it took her to move the right foot from a position of rest slightly behind her to a position on the left of Boris's chest. One rib was broken, this punctured his heart.

As the first man dropped like a sack of potatoes, two more approached from either side of a piece of machinery in the middle of the floor.

To Autumn's right a second man came at her in a rush. She looked behind Boris as he dropped. The other man was slightly further away than the man on the right. As Boris hit the floor Autumn stepped quickly over his body and in one stride was almost alongside left man. Using the impetus of her forward movement she gave a vicious kick to the man's right side with her left foot. This caught him a glancing blow and nearly knocked him off balance towards the machinery in the middle of the floor. Autumn knew that would happen, and acted upon it. She applied all her weight to the side of the man's head; pushing it down onto the hard metal machinery. It split open causing blood to cascade down the polished silver equipment.

The third man had now moved around the machinery, and was approaching Autumn from behind. She spun round. With a flailing foot she caught him under the left arm sending another broken rib into a heart.

The fourth man was still at the far side of the room. He moved closer to Autumn. She considered making a dash for the hatch, but realised that he would then be able to intercept her at her most vulnerable; as she entered the hatch.

The man hesitated upon the sight of the fate of his colleagues, but was bolstered when two more men entered the room from behind him, and one of them was carrying a wrench.

Autumn elected to stay on her side of the hatch entrance; she didn't want to risk having to turn her back on these men to affect her escape.

Wrench man was feeling bravest; he began approaching Autumn on the opposite side of the machinery. She moved forward to avoid being tripped by the bodies she had created.

At the moment all three men were on the opposite side of the machinery, which was laid out down the middle of the long room. The one at the back then jumped over a low piece of equipment as wrench man reached a position opposite to Autumn. The machinery here was about chest high with pipes running all over it, so was impossible to vault. The man continued towards the end from where Autumn had started. He would then be able to move to a position behind Autumn, with another man in front of her, and a third man possibly out of sight.

She moved away from the machinery to place her back against the outer wall. When the approaching men got to about three paces of her position she heard a call come from one of them. They both attacked at once. The way wrench man was wielding his weapon there was no doubt that they meant her harm.

She took hold of the man who came from her left, then swung him towards wrench man. Just then the wrench was coming down to deliver a savage blow to Autumn. But the other man got in the way. Before wrench man could do anything to prevent the inevitable, the heavy wrench caught his comrade just above his ear. This caved his skull in.

Autumn took hold of the wrench and dragged the man towards her. That was two things the man did not expect. The knee under the ribs made it three. That completely took the wind out of the man's sails. Then the wrench on the back of the head finished the job.

As the two men piled up on the floor, Autumn heard a shout from the area where she had entered the room. It was the last man. He was holding a very signal pistol, and pointing it directly at Autumn. Very clever, she thought, a signal flare is not likely to puncture the submarine hull, but it will make a nasty mess of you. She considered throwing the wrench at him, but he saw that threat and ducked behind some pipes. They both knew they only had one shot, so it was all down to one chance.

For what seemed like ages they moved back and forth in the machinery compartment. Then Autumn began deciphering the colour codings on the pipes behind the flare gun man. She deduced that one carried high pressure steam. She took careful aim and timing. When the man was to her right of the pipe she threw the wrench. It hit with a bang as the pipe burst. The man leapt to his feet, and moved away from it. Autumn looked in shock as she saw that her ploy had not worked. He was still there – and she has now lost her only weapon. The pipe made a loud whistling noise, but there seemed to be nothing coming out of it. She ducked down to avoid being shot by the flare pistol, then she realised that he no longer had the pistol; he had dropped it when the pipe burst. Quickly she ran to the end of the machinery to get to him before he could regain the weapon. He saw her moving, he stood up to run to get the gun. When high pressure steam escapes it is not always visible. He ran straight into an invisible jet of high pressure steam. This simply took his head clean off. His legs took another two steps, and then collapsed on the flare pistol, setting it off. In the confines of the machinery compartment there was a blinding light and fumes began building up. This meant that Autumn could see the blade of steam slicing across the room – it was now obvious why the man had lost his head.

Fumes were building up from the ground, time to get out. Autumn jumped up on to a piece of low machinery that was obviously placed there for this purpose; she could then reach the ladder inside the hatch entrance. She pulled this down, and made her way up to the hatch at the top. The wheel moved remarkably easily, then she realised that they must have used this quite often.

As she pushed the hatch open, she saw that outside everything was pitch black. In the room there was a flare going off as well as room lights. Ducking back inside, she closed the hatch quickly in case anyone saw the light escaping. She thought about going back to put the lights out, but then thought the delay could bring in more problems. No, her only real option was to get out now. She pushed the hatch fully open, climbed up the ladder, stepped onto the deck of the submarine, and then bent down close the hatch as quickly and quietly as possible.

Autumn was blind. She could not see a thing because of the difference between the inside and outside. She knelt down in the all-encompassing silence to allow her eyes to become accustomed to the dark. Then she found another difference between the inside and the outside – fresh air. She drank heavily as gradually shapes began to emerge.

AMPHIBIOUS LANDING

Sherwood called down to Mark, who was manning the radar below decks,

'How many do you have?'

'There are two, but I only have one on the scope. The other has dipped below range.'

'What is the other one doing?'

'He's about eight miles out on a bearing of 220 degrees relative. Losing height fast. I would say he's coming in for an attack at high speed on our starboard quarter.'

Steele said,

'Maybe if we turn into him it would reduce the time he has to fire.'

Sherwood agreed,

'Good plan.' He picked up the microphone again,

'Mark. Keep a lookout for his pal; we are going to face the one we know about. 220 degrees you say?'

'Roger that, skip. I'll let you know if it changes.'

'OK, Mark. But if it changes that probably means he's had a change of heart.'

He turned the yacht on to a reciprocal course of 220 degrees facing the oncoming attack chopper.

Sol descended quickly in the Mil 24A. He turned from time to time to keep the yacht in view. He knew he needed some 1,000 metres altitude to make a meaningful attack at four degrees depression, or his weapons would fly over the yacht. Over in the darkness to his right he knew that Viktor was sitting low, waiting for the yacht. Then the target began a turn that will bring it towards him.

'Target turning away from you, Viktor.' He warned his comrade of the change of circumstances.

Sherwood opened the throttles – through the gate. The ship rose onto its hydrofoils. Speed increased; by the time Sol was in a firing position, the yacht was travelling at 85 miles per hour. Sol was moving at 260 mph – a closing speed of almost 350 mph.

Sol hunkered down in his cockpit behind the gunsight. Pale green light emitted from the sight reflected on the canopy as he tried to line up the tiny yacht (to him). But it was getting bigger – fast. The closer he got the more the target jiggled about in his sight. As he tried to keep the target in the reticule of the sight he realised that it was too small and moving about too much. In the fleeting glimpse he got of the speeding boat he saw a few flashes of gunfire.

'They had a better chance of success than me.' He thought as he pulled up and performed the helicopter version of a wing over to the left.

'They turned hard right' Sol called to Viktor, 'If you turn to your left, but I cannot see you any more. Move on a course of 280, and that should bring you into the vicinity.' He looked up through the roof of his canopy to see the yacht, 'He's slowed down now.'

On the yacht Sherwood cut the throttles,

'We cannot get the other chopper on radar,' he explained to Steele, 'I know he's out there somewhere. One thing they cannot hide is the noise their rotor blades make.'

He and Steele looked out into the inky blackness. Steele looked up in the direction that Sol went. He could still hear rotor blades in the distance. He trained the infra-red binoculars on the area the faint sound was coming from,

'He looks like he is moving for a stern attack.'

Sherwood was concentrating on an area over to their left as he said,

'Oh I do hope so.'

Steele then remembered his own mission,

'Incidentally, where is the island now?'

Sherwood looked briefly at the dark horizon, then punched the mike,

'Mark, is the island on radar?'

Mark's cheery voice came back,

'It's behind you.'

The yacht was almost silent now; Sherwood leaned forwards and called to Ken, who was on the starboard bow,

'Ken. Is the Rocket ready for launch?'

Steele looked puzzled as Sherwood explained,

'Rocket is a new experimental radar guided missile for use against helicopters.'

'That could prove useful.'

Ken called back,

'It will take five minutes to prep it.'

Mark then called up from the radar post below decks,

'Skip, the chopper behind is coming in for an attack directly astern.'

Sherwood replied,

'What speed?'

'He's really trapping this time, nearly 300 mph.'

'OK.' Sherwood kept the boat ticking over quietly as he called to Dave, who was on the 40 mm pom-pom,

'Incoming from stern. Prepare for evasive manoeuvring.'

Dave tightened his straps as he swung the multiple guns to the rear.

Sol cut his throttles to allow himself more time to aim this time. He was now in level flight two miles behind the boat. As his speed dropped below 200 mph he switched on the reflector gun-sight, and then selected 23 mm cannon. White foam came from the slow running engines of the yacht making it an easy target for him. He opened up with the cannons a little too far out.

Dave brought the 40 mm pom pom to bear in the twinkle of an eye. He opened up just as Sherwood decided that the cannon fire was likely to get close enough to do some serious damage. The boat veered hard to port, then starboard. The engines gave a throaty roar as Sherwood began a sharp turn to port that he knew Sol could not follow.

Sol fired an anti-tank missile at the boat in that moment. Too late, he let go of the firing button when Dave let fly with the 40 mm, partly in shock at the flurry of fire shot at him from a soft target, partly because the boat had now moved away from his aiming resolution. He did not wish to use another missile; this one went haywire, and then impacted on a wave 20 metres from the target as it fell from controlled flight when he tried to get it to turn much more sharply than it was designed to do.

Sol called Viktor immediately,

'Do not try a rear attack; they have heavy armament out there.'

Viktor saw the explosion caused by the wayward missile; so he knew which way to go now. He opened up the throttles to speed him to the area. In helicopters this means giving more power to the rotor disc. As he did so, the attack chopper rose quite a bit, this put him on Mark's radar screen.

'New contact 285.' He called.

Sherwood called to Ken,

'Stand by to launch. Bearing 280.'

Ken had begun the preparation procedure when Sherwood spoke to him earlier,

'Bearing 280. Launch in ten, nine, eight,'

Steele saw a large white tube swing out of the port side of the boat, then point upwards.

'Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Ignition. Missile away.'

There was a bright flare as the rocket motor fired, then the missile shot up the tube and away into the darkness. All the people above decks watched as the missile turned its nose to the heavens and shot upwards. As the rocket motor cut out it vanished from sight.

Viktor was also watching this performance. He was pleased when it all ended as the missile went towards outer space. Now he knew exactly where the boat lay, and he also knows that a rear attack is not safe. He planed to manoeuvre around to the boat until he was in a position to face a head-on battle. Keeping his attack helicopter as close to the waves as he dared, Viktor flew around a circular course to put himself directly in front of the approaching boat. He estimated the wave height to be less than one metre, so once he was in position he dropped the chopper in a hover until the wheels were just about touching the wave-tops. Occasionally a wave would splash up to the tyres. Victor knew that he would soon have the best chance to destroy this boat; so he armed both guided missiles and all 16 unguided rockets in pods under his stubby wings. He also selected the two 23 mm cannons to fire at the same time.

Sherwood had now lost contact with both choppers; Sol had dropped below the radar too.

Ahead of him lay in wait one of the latest attack helicopters, and he did not even know.

The experimental rocket they had launched had a strange operational procedure. It was designed to zoom up well above any battle scenario, and then deploy a parachute. This kept the missile from dropping too fast, and also pointed the nose straight down. Inside the nose cone was a very poor, weak radar set. The effectiveness of any radar set is determined by the size of the smallest object it can detect. This one cannot detect anything smaller than one city block; even the biggest battleship would not show up, so the boat the men were in was quite undetectable. What radar is very good at detecting, however, is a rotating disk. And the Hind A has one which is as big as a house on top of its fuselage. This is all the radar sees from four miles up. Sol is also on the scope, but he is quite some distance away. The detector in the guidance system lights up, detaches the parachute, and guides the plummeting missile straight on the whirling disc; the closer it gets, the more accurate it becomes, until it smashes into the top of Viktor's helicopter.

Sherwood and Steele saw the explosion on the horizon. They did not even know that Viktor was there.

Sherwood took one look at the explosion, and said to Steele,

'I think we should go this way.' As he said this, he swung the boat around to point towards the island, distant beyond the horizon in the darkness.

Sol and his crew did not know why Viktor had met his demise, but he looked at the area from whence the explosion had come, and found that the target boat was still there, and moving, training and common decency called for Sol to try to contact his comrade,

'Viktor Lead from Viktor three, Viktor Lead from Viktor Three.'

There was no reply.

Sol had half his cannon ammunition left, one guided missile, plus a full load of unguided rockets in pods.

He decided to press home his attack. He could now see that the target was moving towards the island. He knew that they had him on radar, so there would be no surprise attack; although he still liked the frontal ambush from wave-top height. But this is unlikely to work because he would need someone up top to guide him in order to stay in front of the boat – these nasty people are very likely to run around him, and then attack from behind. He knew their tactic; wait until he was committed to an attack profile, then turn towards him at speed, giving him no change to aim properly. This was a good tactic for them because they had more killing opportunities with hand-held weapons. He was confident in his machine; anything short of an armour piercing anti-tank round would bounce off the armour of the Mil 24 Hind 'A'. The remaining guided missile left at his disposal was wire guided; and therefore quite short ranged. But that would probably be enough to keep him out of harms' way. Now he had to construct a new attack plan. From his height he had the luxury of being able to choose at will from where to attack. He chose a front quarter attack. To this end he dived down on the yacht, which was travelling at speed in the open sea, headed towards the island.

'Contact off the port bow, six miles closing slowly.' Mark called up from the radar room.

'Where away?' Sherwood responded.

'285 relative.'

Steele looked first straight left; 270 degrees being 90 degrees from their line of travel. Then he moved his gaze 15 degrees right to see the direction from which the attack helicopter would be coming.

He raised the intra-red binoculars, and almost immediately called,

'I have him.'

'Keep on him. I'm going to turn towards him.'

'OK.'

Sherwood eased the boat to the left. He watched Steele as he kept the binoculars on the helicopter. When Steele began turning back to the left Sherwood knew that the helicopter was changing position to keep him in a beam-on position. Sherwood turned more to the right until Steele was pointing straight out to the left; meaning that the attack would be coming at them from 90 degrees to the left. He turned to the rear of the boat,

'Dave, prepare for attack from port side.'

Dave called back from the 40 mm,

'Roger that, Skip.'

Sol switched on the reflector sight and armed the missile. At 100 metres above the waves, he was not travelling fast in order to give himself more time to aim at the boat that was at the head of a line of white foam. The red light turned to green, signifying that the missile was ready. At something like one mile range, Sol thought that he had to wait a little longer to be sure of hitting the boat. He was safe this far out; he knew that they would be listening for him, and probably had him on radar, but you cannot shoot at someone you cannot see, nonetheless, he was gambling on them not having a radar guided missile capability.

They did not, apart from the experimental rocket that they had already used – being experimental they only had the one. What they did have was Dave waiting behind the 40 mm pom-pom. Granted, he could not yet see his target, but he was ready with his massive cannon. Then Sol let his missile go. There was a flash as the missile motor ignited. Dave saw this and immediately took aim at the point of light as the sight fell on the point of light he let go all four barrels in a two second burst. The boat began to heel over as the recoil from the cannons shook it. A hail of 40 mm explosive shells arched their way towards Sol. He saw this, and pulled everything he could in the cockpit of the attack helicopter; it would only take one hit from one shell to completely destroy his aircraft and everyone aboard. In the back seat behind Sol was Vasos. It was his job to keep the missile on target using a small control column. This was connected directly to a wire that was being played out by the missile. Vasos needed to keep the small light on the tail of the missile in view, and headed for the boat. Unfortunately, Sol's sharp manoeuvre to avoid the flak made it impossible for Vasos to see the missile.

'Lost visual.' He called.

Sol kept the helicopter turning for another second before reversing it. Vasos regained sight of the boat and his missile, then Dave let go another salvo from the 40 mm. he could now see the helicopter through his infra-red sights, although range was a little too far for accurate shooting, he sprayed the whole area with explosive shells.

Vasos turned the missile back towards the boat just as Sherwood reacted to the initial launch.

'Incoming.' He called as he heeled the boat away from the threat, and began weaving with brief moments of stability to enable Dave to get another burst off.

Vasos was being thrown about in the cockpit as Sol attempted to make himself as much a moving a target as possible. Now the boat that Vasos was aiming at was much smaller.

'Tanks do not move about like that.' He remarked, referring to the anti-tank ancestry of the missile.

Dave let another burst go at the twisting helicopter. Sol reacted. Vasos lost sight of the missile at a crucial moment. It streaked past the boat, exploding off to the starboard bow.

Sol knew that they now had his range and position; there was no point trying to mount another attack with them holding all of the cards, so he dived for the cover of the sea as he made a tactical withdrawal.

Steele turned to Sherwood and said,

'How about getting on to the far side of that island?'

Sherwood looked out into the darkness as if he could see the island,

'I don't see why not.'

He consulted the chart, then the compass. With a deft turn of the wheel the craft moved further to an easterly direction.

Mark kept close watch on the radar, but there was no sign of Sol anywhere. That also meant that Sol had lost contact with the yacht.

Sherwood handed the wheel to Steele,

'Just keep her heading in that general direction.' He said as he pointed his flat hand into the black night, 'I'll get a more detailed map.'

He soon re-joined Steele on the open bridge. He held a booklet of the islands on the Atlantic coast of Spain and Portugal. He turned to the page that showed the Illas Cies. He and Steele did not waste too much time pondering on the wheres and wherefores of the situation,

'Here we have the Iiias Cies. It is this little group of islands here. The bit we are interested in is this one here, Monteagudo Island, which, roughly translated, means 'good-looking mountain'.

Steele scrutinised the map,

'And where are the ships – if indeed there are more than one.'

'Oh you of little faith,' Sherwood remembered that Steele had not even seen the submarine; it was hidden by the DKM Dornier. 'It will be there, I promise you that we have a nuclear sub waiting for you.'

'Are you saying that these ships are like London busses; you get none for ages, then two come along together?'

'More or less.' Sherwood was studying the map, 'Here we have a beach on the opposite side of the island. All this area is rocky; I wouldn't like to put in to that kind of area. But the beach is possible.'

Steele looked closely at the map, and the beach pointed out by Sherwood,

'And there appears to be a bigger beach just around this promontory.' He observed.

'Yes, I prefer the smaller beach; easier to infiltrate from there, but we could hold the bigger one in reserve.' Sherwood said.

'Sounds like a plan.' Steele nodded.

The island showed up as black against the pale green sky through the infra-red binoculars when Sherwood began to steer away from the land. He manoeuvred the boat around the northern tip of the island. He was looking for a spit of land that stuck out from Spain. From there the island was only two kilometres, and the spit of land pointed directly to the beach he was aiming at. He knew that he was to steer a course directly south-south-west, 220 degrees, and he would hit the beach they were looking for.

He kept as close to Spain as safely possible to avoid being picked up as a direct threat to the island. When close enough to be in shallow water, Sherwood turned the boat to port and aimed at the island on a course of 220 degrees. He opened the throttles, with the aim of getting as far up the beach as possible.

Sol was now in direct contact with the Kommisar on the Dornier. The radar capabilities of the nuclear sub, combined with an enhanced capacity on board the Dornier, and shore-based installations gave the Kommisar a good picture all around the island. He directed Sol to hide behind the promontory that Sherwood had just passed. The boat headed straight for the beach as Sol rolled out from behind his cover. He did not have long to take aim, neither did Dave.

There were two calls simultaneously on board the boat; Sherwood called,

'STAND BY FOR IMPACT.'

At the same time, Dave called,

'INCOMING.'

At the same moment Sol launched the full salvo of unguided missiles at the boat.

As Dave called he began firing the 40 mm pom-pom at Sol. There was no time to aim, so he just let fly.

The sudden flash of gunfire upset Sol's aim slightly; the nose of the helicopter rose one point five degrees.

The Kommisar was not taking this landing lying down. He had sent a force of forty heavily armed men who had served with Hitler's SS on the Russian front in 1943. They went to the east of the island to lay in wait to ambush anyone who was fool-hardy enough to attempt to go ashore. They presented a ring of steel in the woods around the landing zone that the boat was now headed for; as soon as it beached, then the occupants would be faced with being surrounded by an enemy hidden in the encompassing dark woods. The defenders prepared themselves. From the edges of the woods they mounted their Spandau MG42 heavy machine guns trained on the open beach. The situation was not survivable.

They saw the white bow waves made by the hydrofoils of the yacht as it approached – straight into their trap. They cocked their guns. Then they saw Sol fire his missiles. They feared they may be robbed of the spoils of war and a very one-sided fight. What they did not know was that Sol had fired the missiles in a fast ripple; this means that they were all released almost at once. But his nose was one point five degrees high. The rockets flew over the boat, and fanned out into the clear beach. With an almost flat trajectory the rockets slammed into the tree line and exploded on impact with anything they hit; trees, men, MG 42s.

ROCKHOPPER

Autumn lay perfectly still. In the new silence she composed her thoughts,

'Will they come after me? Where the bloody hell am I? What are they up to? What are they doing with a bloody nuclear submarine? How am I gonna get out of here? One thing is for sure – this is much bigger than Zurich. In Zurich they were working on some sort of poison gas release system launched from three airliners.'

The dark silhouette of the Dornier loomed menacingly to her right as she tried to make sense of what was happening,

'I don't suppose they could be using this stuff in missiles launched from this thing?'

She moved around to use her newly-acquired night vision. She could now just make out the dull black shape of the conning tower, called a sail on nuclear boats. She looked at the hatch that she had emerged from. She had closed this on exit. The central wheel began turning. Someone was trying to open the hatch. Autumn moved silently back to the portal as she looked around to find some sort of option. The shore was not too far away, but she could easily see the white foam lapping around the rocks. The wheel turned some more as she stood over it. She looked at the sail, there seemed to be nothing coming from that direction, so she stood with her back to this direction; that means as the hatch opened she was behind the hinged lid. She timed her next action to perfection; she wanted the first person to be half in and half out of the opening. Then she shoulder-charged the heavy hatch cover, closing it on the person before they knew she was there.

Tauber was about to move out of the confines of the hatch, he had his hands on the sill as he heaved himself up the rungs of the ladder. The heavy water-tight door fell down on him, hitting his head first; dazing him enough to make him release his grip on the side of the hole he was emerging from. Then the weight of the metal hatch made itself felt as it came into contact with his shoulders. This had the effect of pushing him down back into the sub. Because he had released his grip on the side of the portal he had no way to prevent being repulsed; it also meant that he kept all of his fingers intact. Rawker was climbing the ladder just behind him, when the unfortunate South African fell down on to him.

Autumn sat on the hatch to make sure it was closed. She spun the wheel to lock the mechanism, but she knew that it could easily be opened from below. Quickly she looked around for a solution. On the deck there was absolutely nothing – she did not even have a shoe to jam in the mechanism. Then she saw some stout sticks floating by the hull. By stretching her leg out she found that she could just manage to hook one on to the deck. As the wheel began turning again she managed to wedge the stick into the spokes, jamming it in position. She then went back to get another two sticks to reinforce the job. Autumn knew that the position the men were in below decks; trying to turn the wheel was not a good position to bring force to bear in an attempt to break the lock; it would keep them occupied for some time, so she figured it was time to leave the boat. She stood erect and looked closely at the shoreline. There seemed to be less white water in one area; she presumed that there were not as many rocks there – so in she went.

Upon reaching the shore Autumn found that there was no beach, only rocks, but it was good enough to climb up safely. She looked around before standing up. Just as well; there was a series of explosions off to her right – it was Sol trying to hit the SAS boat with the unguided rockets. She estimated that the flashes came from about half a mile away beyond the bushes and trees she could see towering above her. The sounds of the sea on the rocks all around her was even more powerful now; as she peered through the darkness she slowly managed to make out the shapes of huge cliffs everywhere. It looked as if she had managed to land on the only place where it might be possible to get onto the island; and then move inland, but the rocky terrain is not going to be easy in the dark.

A small pool of light on the black submarine then told her that someone had managed to get the hatch open; allowing light to spill out.

Rawker appeared in the open hatch. He pulled himself up onto the deck, and looked around. He didn't have a torch, but managed to move towards the sail in an attempt to find her. The surface of the sub was very flat and featureless, so there was no doubt that she was not on the sub. Estrada then appeared on the deck. He walked to Rawker, and the two seemed to exchange a few words before retreating back into the boat, and closing the hatch.

The smell of burnt wood and cordite drifted from the other side of the island as she began moving through the rocks towards the nearest cliff face. Gingerly she picked her way, almost on all fours, on the slippery hard surface. The rough surface of the rocks cut into her feet, but the combinations of cold water and adrenalin meant that she did not feel the wounds. Then she was faced with pure blackness, which meant that the rocks dropped away suddenly. By scrutinising the area ahead she eventually saw dim reflections that meant that the way was now barred by water. She sat on the last outcrop, and dangled her feet in the water to see if it was possible to cross by paddling, but her feet did not touch the bottom. If she just trusted to luck and simply dropped down there may be jagged pinnacles of rocks sticking up, so she had no choice but to feel her way around the pool and hope that there was a way around the edge. Slowly, and with more than a few slips she finally found her way around the pool. As she reached the other side she discovered that she was in an area that was even darker than before. The black cliff face stretched above her, but it was almost impossible to see if it was climbable, let alone make any attempt to scale it. Once again she began the agonising task of feeling her way across the base of the cliff face. Every now and then the cold waves lapped at her feet and washed blood into the water.

She paused to catch her breath; turning to place her back against the cliff face she saw the outline of the Dornier. People were moving about on decks. Then a searchlight lit up, then another, and another. The fingers of light began probing the shoreline looking for her. Autumn ducked down below a convenient rock; she was able to look at the shore line for the first time. What she saw gave her a shock. There was nowhere to get to the main part of the island. This was an Atlantic coast that had been bashed by the violent ocean for millenia; as such there were no beaches, only craggy old rocks.

She instinctively ducked as a searchlight swept by her head, the only thing exposed to the ship. Then she saw a way to get to the cover of the island. Without the light it would have been impossible, but now she could see where the interior swept down to meet the sea. Waiting until the lights were farthest away, she then began making her way towards a little inlet, which led up to the grass, bushes and cover.

On board the Dornier Andy Rawker and Luis Estrada were joined by the Kommisar. All three watched the searchlights sweep the rocky shoreline.

Estrada spoke first,

'I can't see how anyone could survive landing on that coast; the sea would surly dash them into the rocks.'

Rawker replied,

'In that case we should find a body.'

Autumn now managed to get to the pebbled area that led away from the sea. She waited for a gap in the sweeping lights; she knew not to look at the ship in case a light should blind her – then she would be like a rabbit in the headlights. She quickly made her way up the gully away from the dangers that lay on the water's edge.

As Autumn scampered up the pebbles, Estrada saw something move to the left of the search area; then in an instant she was gone.

He turned to Rawker and the Kommisar, who were distracted by the appearance of Tauber on the bridge. Estrada decided not to mention what he had seen. The three men continued searching until the Kommisar was notified that a boat had force landed unopposed on the far side of the island.

He asked the messenger,

'Do we know who they are?'

'No sir. We have had no contact with our forces since the helicopter incident.'

'And do we know that these forces have definitely made landfall?' The Kommisar looked at the man's badges of rank, 'Right, Petty Officer. Get von Stappen to take his unit over there to see what is happening; and sort this out.'

The lad saluted, turned on his heel, and then left the bridge.

Untersturmfuhrer Eric von Stappen used to be in the Reich Division of the SS. He had escaped the Russian front by mounting his own retreat and withdrawal with twenty men. Eighteen of these German soldiers were still with him. They disembarked along the long makeshift bridge over the nuclear sub, on to the high shore above the rocks.

Silently von Stappen instructed his men how to disperse when they landed. The wooded area began only a short distance from the end of the bridge, a pathway led to the island depot to the left, five men were sent this way. The remainder began skirting the woods on the hard surface that allowed fast movement in the darkness.

Their aim was to combine in a pincer movement less than half a mile away on the far side of the island, where Steele and the SAS would make landfall.

WHEN A GURU NEEDS A GURU

'I can see clearly now.' Dr Malc said as he walked into the room in the secure section of Lisbon airport, 'You want me to re-equip Steele, but you don't know where he is. You want me to assess the whole operation, but you don't know its geographical limitations. Now you want extrication for an operative, but you don't know where she is either.'

'That about covers it.' Sir John Rimmer replied, 'Let me have your report, say, Wednesday afternoon?'

John Drake was not so composed or relaxed about the whole matter,

'I'm sorry, Dr Malc, the last time we had contact with Steele was when he failed to make contact two days ago. Then there was a fire-fight in a cemetery in Lisbon. We presume he was involved because the Lisbon Police want to have words with him. It was during that operation that we lost Sarah Jackson. It was the other operative involved in that part of the operation, Autumn Rae, who went on to Zurich. She has now disappeared.'

Sir John then asked,

'What happened at Zurich?'

Drake replied with hesitation,

'We had one chance to infiltrate their outfit; we got Intel that they had a new officer in the field moving into the Zurich plant. We had it on good authority that no-one at that end knew what she looked like, so we substituted Autumn.'

Dr Malc said,

'Bit rash? What?'

'Not really,' Drake responded, 'the only rash thing about this business was the fact that we couldn't put in a contact for her. There just wasn't any time.'

Rimmer asked, in a sarcastic tone,

'How then was she supposed to get information back? Carrier pigeon?'

Drake thought he must be defencive at this point, but simply replied,

'We were able to set up a dead-letter box as a pro tem measure. Then she told us that she had made contact with an operative from Deuxieme Bureau. This was an agent called Louise Emenda.'

'And have you any trace of this Louise Emenda?' asked Sir John.'

'I have met with her before; she helped with the papers regarding the chemicals the Kommisar is proposing to use.'

'Have you anything on her background?'

'No sir. Deuxieme Bureau files are notoriously inaccessible.'

Sir John tapped his hand on the table,

'Right. I have heard enough of what you don't know, now tell me what you do know.'

Drake attempted an explanation,

'We know that the Kommisar is developing something in Lisbon, and then transporting it to Zurich. They have three airliners in there, but after that the trail went cold. Until someone at SAS Intelligence division told us that a strange flight had taken place from Zurich to Vigo. Steele was already fairly close, in Lisbon, so we sent him to look into it. But before he could be tasked properly he had the police on his tail, and we don't know where he went.'

Dr Malc asked,

'So you have lost not one agent, but two?'

'Not lost. OK, we do not know where they are, but then we do not know where some of our agents are most of the time, anyway.' Drake tried to explain further, 'We have Intel from a reliable source,'

Dr Malc interrupted,

'Of course, a reliable source.'

'Yes, a reliable source. That there is a ship in the vicinity of the Bay of Vigo that hides a secret.'

Rimmer then asked,

'And what is that secret?'

'We do not know that, sir. Or it would not be a secret.'

Dr Malc said,

'You both know about the K9 Bean, I presume.'

Rimmer replied,

'Only that it sank in the Bay of Biscay with the loss of all hands.'

Drake gave a quizzical look,

'Did it? Are you sure?' he took a breath before continuing, 'What if it didn't sink? What if it was taken over and went to work for the Other Russians? Not too far from the possible, I think you'll find. Let us imagine for a moment that the Other Russians have a use for a nuclear submarine. Remember, the tasks one can put these to is very limited, but not as limited as the actual supply of boats.'

Rimmer butted in at this point,

'They are very expensive to develop and build, that is why.'

'Yes, but if you can acquire someone else's boat, plus half of the crew...' Drake added, 'this whole affair has the markings of the Other Russians all over it.'

Rimmer asked a direct question,

'And just who are these fictional Other Russians?'

Drake did not hesitate,

'They are led by the Kommisar. He has considerable forces at his disposal, and evil intent.'

'And what do we know of these evil intents, how do they tie in with a nuclear sub and three airliners?'

'An agent, not one of ours, named Jenny Lejeune, was killed in Lisbon by what we do not know, but it was pretty nasty stuff from what we have learnt from the authorities. She was investigating what they were developing with a Doctor Coppelius and a Professor Steve Peters. These two scientists, from the Baltic region we think, were working on some sort of nerve gas. Autumn, as Kath Lonn, found out that the airliners were being converted to distribute this, but she was not able to find out what the targets were, or at least she was not able to let us know before disappearing.'

Rimmer wanted to know more,

'How does all of this tie in with the disappearance of K9 Bean?'

'We just don't know yet. Apart from the strange plane flying from Zurich to Vigo there is no connection that we know of.'

Dr Malc then said,

'But we have two agents missing in that area. How are we going to help them?'

Rimmer replied,

'I don't think we should refer to them as being lost, simply incommunicado.'

Drake answered,

'Whatever phrase we use, we must do something to get to know the situation better than we do now. I had a short message from Steele; it simply said 'Contact expected.' This is a last-ditch system of communications when there is a great possibility that the message will compromise the agent, so it is as brief as possible. Unfortunately we also have difficulty tracing it. We managed to get one bearing on it, but we really needed a second bearing to be able to triangulate it. However,' he spread a map on the table, 'We got a bearing of zero zero two from Lisbon here. The transmission was very weak; these emergency transmitters only have a maximum range of 500 miles in ideal conditions with a good aerial, so we are looking somewhere around north of Vigo. There has been some activity in the region of Vigo recently. So if we use that as our second bearing,' he drew a line out to sea from Vigo. They crossed directly over the Illas Cies, a group of two islands on the Atlantic coast of Portugal.

Sir John Rimmer made the decision,

'You had better go down there and find out what is happening. I would start at Vigo.' He turned to Dr Malc, 'What equipment do you have to help him?'

Dr Malc went across to a large chest which had been delivered. He opened it to produce a sheet of paper,

'Autumn had been trying to send out information using this. Nitrate paper, catalogue number N298. Useless. Worse than that, dangerous and useless.'

He turned to Rimmer and continued,

'Sir John, we must stop sending agents out with outmoded equipment that can get them killed.'

He returned to his box,

'We presume that Steele has had to run, therefore he will have lost most, if not all of his equipment.' He looked at Drake, 'I would like you to take some new equipment out to him when you return to the field.'

Drake nodded. Dr Malc continued as he withdrew what looked like a giant toy dragonfly from the box,

'Autumn could have done with this to get her messages out. We call it an insectocopter. You see, it has twin rotors for flight; the idea of this is that you do not have the problem normal helicopters have with torque. We have developed a new rechargeable capacitor to power this device, the ingenious part of that is that the power output of the capacitor is governed by the resistance of the air upon the rotors...'

Drake decided that Dr Malc was beginning to ramble,

'It was daylight when we came in here, could we get out before it gets dark?'

Dr Malc looked across at him with an air of patient tolerance bordering on the kind of understanding a nanny has for her charges. He continued,

'We have managed to get it to fly for two miles before the capacitor runs out. But that would be enough to get information out of an airfield or such establishment.'

'How is it guided?' Drake asked.

'It isn't.'

Rimmer looked surprised.

Dr Malc continued,

'Simple really. You just switch it on; it rises very quickly, then looks and sounds exactly like a real insect. We know the capacitor will only keep going for about two miles, plus a bit for the wind. All you have to do is wait two miles downwind for it to land. To send it back you simply move upwind of its original launch point.'

He placed the 'insect' down on the desk, and then withdrew what looked like a small boomerang,

'This is what we call the 'counter-boomerang''

Drake remarked,

'That trips off the tongue.'

'Well if you want an easier title you can call it a CB until some other device comes along. Anyway, this does not behave like a normal boomerang; the boomerang works by employing aerodynamics to cause it to turn. This now has been designed to use aerodynamics to extend the distance you can throw it. In tests we have managed to get this thing to fly for two miles. You may think that we have a thing about two miles. That is because any further in normal terrain you cannot see what you are aiming at.'

Drake was puzzled,

'What use is this – stick?'

'I think you have touched the nub there. A stick is made of wood. This is plastic explosive. An object this size has the destructive power of a stick of TNT. That gives it a killing radius of some 300 yards – from two miles away, that makes it as good as artillery.'

Dr Malc carefully placed the CB down by the 'Insectocopter', before withdrawing a shiny black spike from the chest,

'Here we have the Dead Drop Spike. It is used to eavesdrop on people. You simply push it into the ground, and leave it there. It contains a listening device and radio transmitter. Not only that; we thought it might be useful to install a powerful loudspeaker in it. These things are meant to be used in series, so if the loudspeaker mode is used the enemy will not be able to tell where the noise is coming from, resulting in confusion.'

After some rummaging around in the chest, Dr Malc produced something that looked like a 20 mm shell, but the front end was longer, the rear shorter, and it had fins at the back, plus strakes on the nose.

'Here we have the first smart weapon. It is a guided mortar. This is, as you can see, much smaller than a normal mortar round. It also has a very clever guidance system based on the spike I showed you earlier. Two or more of these spikes can triangulate the sounds of people, and then pass these positions on to these mortars whilst they are in the air. The result is we need less ammunition to neutralise a target.'

Next he took a roll of paper out of the chest, Drake commented,

I suppose this is super-hard paper that we can use as a baton.'

The remark seemed to fly straight over Dr Malc's head,

'The next development is too bulky to get into this chest.' He unfolded the paper to show plans for a fish shaped object. As he spread it on the desk he began to explain,

'We call this Karl the Carp. Like the insectocopter, it is considerably bigger than life. The reason for that will become obvious shortly. Karl is designed to swim for very long periods – and I mean long; we have been testing him for two months now, and he has only used an estimated two per cent of his available fuel supply. That means we can expect him to swim for over eight years.'

The other two men in the room gasped in surprise.

'This is made possible by the use of nuclear power. That is another reason for not bringing it along here today – it is slightly radioactive; well, quite a lot radioactive actually. That is how we intend tracking it.'

Drake was concerned now,

'How on earth are we to use this in the field if it is bloody glowing with radioactivity?'

'That was only the prototype. We have stepped up the shielding and reduced the size of the fuel pellet. This pellet is now smaller than a cherry stone, but the transport shielding makes it the size of a football, and weighing nearly as much as I do. The intention is to keep the fuel in that casing until needed. When needed Karl here is placed on a special launch ramp. The whole football is then placed over a loading portal on the fish. All humans must then retreat to a safe distance. The rest of the procedure is automatic. Miniature doors open, and a spring is released, firing the pellet into the fish, which has far less shielding. The doors close, the football is pushed off the fish. With the weight released, the launch ramp rises to launch Karl, whose motor has already begun turning. It will then follow instructions from shore by radio. It is equipped with all manner of surveillance equipment. There is quite a lot of support equipment needed, but this is easily offset by the uses we can get out of it.'

Another device came out of the chest.

'Next we have several devices combined into one weapon system.'

He removed a box with two sticks on it, he extended a telescopic aerial, then began twiddling with the sticks and controls on the top of the box. Presently the doors at the rear of the office swung open, and a small radio controlled tank appeared.

'This is 'Cresta', a radio controlled multi-purpose contraption which is capable of listening in to conversations, planting Dead Drop Spikes, or simply travelling into areas too dangerous for people. But its main use is envisaged as being a remote target marker. This ties in with the next piece of kit I have for you.' He withdrew an object that looked at first sight like a big elaborate shotgun, 'This object is a missile launcher. The missile follows a line of invisible light given out by either the Cresta, or another device I shall show you shortly. The light is a new phenomenon called Laser. The remote designator, in this case the Cresta, shines the light on to whatever the missile is targeted at, then when the missile is launched it simply seeks out this light, then follows it to the target, the closer it gets, the more accurate it becomes. You might at this time call it a hittile, not a missile.' He placed the gun-launcher down, 'Here is the personnel designator.'

The item he now removed looked like an elaborate military torch with a telescopic sight on it.

Drake pointed out at this point,

'The real miracle here is how the hell are we to carry all of this kit into the theatre?'

Dr Malc replied,

'You do not carry it all on one person, the advantage of this,' he waved the 'torch' thing, 'is that you can be half a mile from a house, you shine the invisible light on to the target. Someone else could be four miles away,' he waved his arm, 'when they launch the missile into the general direction required. It then seeks out the line of light, follows it, and B&Q sell another door.'

Drake saw a problem,

'How does the guy four miles away know when to fire the missile? You know the walkie-talkies we use are bulky, unreliable, and easily tracked.'

'Yes,' Dr Malc reached back into the chest, 'That is where this comes in useful.' He held aloft what looked like a small pewter ingot on a light chain.

'This is worn round the neck, by pressing gently against the chest it acts as a microphone and transmitter.' He picked another small device like an earplug from the chest, 'You wear this little device in your ear, they are connected by a weak radio link called Bluetooth, and you can hear from the other person, or Cresta.'

Rimmer then asked,

'I'm sorry; I don't seem to be following this. Isn't Cresta that remote controlled tank thing?'

'Yes, Sir John, but it can communicate with operatives in the field.'

Sir John Rimmer shook his head in disbelief.

Dr Malc waved the torch again,

'Another thing about this is the sight has infra-red capabilities.'

As Dr Malc reached into the chest again the other two men began to wonder if it had any bottom,

'Finally we have some money for you to spend.'

He withdrew a leather purse, and opened it. Inside were placed various coins, carefully separated by specially placed dividers, 'But be careful where you spend them.'

He passed the purse to Rimmer, who shared it with Drake. They removed some of the coins, and handled them, examining them carefully.

Rimmer commented,

'Krugerrands, Gold dollars, Reich marks. All very useful; but I suspect there is something about these coins?'

Dr Malc calmly replied,

'Yes. They are all filled with high explosives. Each one has sufficient power to destroy a car if placed inside it.'

The two men carefully replaced the gold coins back in their respective pouches.

'They are primed by the aforementioned Bluetooth technology; this mock compass emblem on the outside constitutes a clock. You simply turn the compass rose to set the time delay you require; one degree on the rose is equivalent to one minute. So you can delay by as much as three hours. Press the centre, and then pass the coin over the compass to prime it. Alternatively, if you set the dial to zero, it will not explode immediately, but when instructed to do so by pressing the compass twice.'

Dr Malc stood back from the equipment and drawings now scattered all over the table. He waved his arms, you fancy how, and said,

'Well there you have it gentlemen. I have been more than explicit, so there will be no questions. Full and comprehensive instructions will be issued, complete with amendments, in the next issue of Standard Operating Procedures, equipment catalogue, SOE. Thank you.'

He sat down and looked replete.

Sir John took the opportunity to begin briefing Drake on the next part of his mission,

'I suggest that you take as much of this as possible. I have arranged a US Navy helicopter to take you wherever you want. I suggest this island here.'

Sir John did not know of the Dornier and the K9 Bean, but he put his finger right on it.

WHO DOES NOT ANSWER THE RUDDER, ANSWERS THE ROCKS

The big luxury high speed yacht headed straight for the beach. Sherwood stood at the wheel almost nonchalantly watching the dark shoreline as it drew closer and closer.

Suddenly he chopped the throttle. As the boat settled down onto its hull, he retracted the hydroplanes. The SAS intelligence man made small adjustments to their course as he said to Steele,

'If she does not answer the rudder, we shall answer to the rocks.'

The beach reached out to greet them. Not a large stretch of sand, and fringed by rocks, some of the black trees were now beginning to burn because of Sol's rocket attack. This gave Sherwood a good idea of the depth of the beach. The tops of the trees told him where there were fewer trees close to the water; this was the area he was aiming at.

The beaching went well, apart from the 40mm pom pom. It was wrenched from its anchor points, and then became wedged in the rear of the cabin structure.

The boat was big enough to have more than one exit, so the men inside were not trapped.

There were no words spoken as the boat came to rest, the SAS men knew just what to do. Eight black figures jumped down from the hull even before it had come to a complete rest. They formed a semicircle around it to secure the area. When they were sure they were completely alone they gathered into a group to plan their next move.

The ten men crouched close together for the briefing.

Almost in whispered tones Sherwood laid out his plan,

'We will split into five pairs. Ken and Martyn, you take the coast to the south, our six o'clock if north is 12 o'clock, skirting these woods, call sign zero six. Dave and Ray, take the eight o'clock, there should be some sort of clearing in that direction; you will be call sign zero eight. Mark and Chris the ten o'clock, due east, call sign ten, Paul and Keith, eleven o'clock, call sign eleven. Steele and I will take the twelve o'clock, north. When we are sure all of the flanks are clear we shall converge on Paul and Keith's position. Clear?'

They all nodded, Sherwood pointed at Ken and said 'Radio check.'

Ken pressed his radio and gave his call sign,

'Zero Six.'

Sherwood pointed at each one in turn, and they all gave a response via their radio.

'OK, let's move off.' Sherwood did not expand upon what they were to do when they all came together again because he did not know. There were so many imponderables as to make further planning impractical; all he knew was that the ships were in the general direction in which he was sending Paul and Keith. He and Steele would be covering their flank, which included the north of the island.

The smell of burning wood permeated the air as the five pairs moved off in their designated directions; any immediate threat had been neutralised just before they got there.

Ken and Martyn skirted woods on their right, the sea on their left. Ken signalled to Martyn to move into the edge of the woods to check for any possible enemy lurking in the dark depths of the trees. Ken followed him, and then passed behind him to take a path deeper into the woods. They were moving very slowly in order to be as quiet as possible, with regular pauses to listen for activity. When they found none they decided to move more to the right to eventually bring them closer to the rendezvous point. At this time the enemy had not had chance to deploy forces to replace the original force they had sent out – but that situation would not last.

Dave and Ray, call sign Zero Eight, reached the clearing that Sherwood told them about. As they gingerly approached it, they were surprised to find a small hut and a large radio aerial there. They knew that the noise of Sol's rockets going off would have been heard all over the island, so anyone here would be very aware that something was going on. Upon approaching the SAS men signalled each other before leaving the cover of the brush at the edge of the clearing. In this signalling they decided to split and go around the clearing to approach the hut from the other side, the occupants were not expecting an attack from that side; and the element of surprise was complete. Dave and Ray were twenty metres apart when they saw each other. They signalled that the attack would be launched from these positions; having two different places would give a better chance of covert infiltration. They were right; a guard on sentry duty was dispatched by Ray, who sneaked up behind the guy, then dispatched him with a knife.

As they quietly opened the door into the hut they found two men looking out of windows facing the direction from which Dave and Ray had originally approached. They were dealt with by using the knives again. A third man was in the back room, a radio room. Dave opened the door as the man was about to make a transmission. He turned to see who had come into the room. He was startled to see the black ski masked figure move towards him so fast he did not even have chance to move his hands. His mouth dropped open in shock, and then his eyes popped very wide as the tip of Dave's knife touched his heart.

As Dave re-entered the main room he nodded to Ray who said into his radio,

'Zero Eight clear.'

Mark and Chris were going on the ten o'clock track. They did not know it, but they were closer to the ships than any of the other pairs. Because of this they were first to encounter opposition. Four Dutch marines were coming straight at them from the ships. The SAS men were far better camouflaged, and much stealthier than the marines. The first they knew of the black men was when they passed between the pair of waiting SAS soldiers. The rear pair of the quartet of marines were then dispatched by knife. As they dropped to the ground Mark made a text book attack on the man in front of the group. As he fell his comrade saw Chris coming at him with his bloodied knife. The marine stepped to one side just in time to escape the thrust of Chris's lunge. He took hold of Chris's arm with the knife in it, and then twisted it to make Chris drop the weapon. With a deft twist of his body the big marine caused Chris to miss his footing, and the marine was able to fell him, at the same time he gave a short but loud cry. As Chris lay there with his arm still in the marines' grasp the enemy saw Chris's knife on the ground at his feet. This would be quicker than going for his own weapon, so he picked the knife up, and made a thrust towards Chris's neck. But before the thrust was complete he felt a stabbing pain in his lower ribs. Mark moved his knife up further in the marines body, and then moved it from side to side to slice through all of his vital organs.

A group of another four marines, all Germans this time, were advancing alongside the Dutchmen, just out of sight in the darkness. They heard the cry from their comrade, and decided to investigate further. They were very conscious of the possibility of meeting aggression, or maybe even crossfire from the group on the other side of the Dutchmen. To this end they cautiously moved towards where they heard the cry.

One of the Germans said to his comrade,

'What's the betting the stupid bastard stubbed his toe?'

Mark and Chris knew what to expect, so they made a dash to get well behind the advancing parties. They honkered down and turned to watch what would happen.

To their left, beyond their restricted view, were the Germans. To their right were a group of four Russians doing the same as the Germans.

The Brits were hiding behind rocks in the broken ground. As the two groups of soldiers advanced upon each other in the darkness they were very careful not to mistake their own side for the enemy. One of the Russian soldiers called out,

'Kaiser.' The password for the action.

A German was then heard to reply,

'Kaiser.'

The two groups then relaxed somewhat. They still could not see what had happened to their Dutch comrades; but as they grew closer to each other they saw strange dark shapes on the ground before them. As they gradually realised what they were looking at they began looking around for an explanation. But it was too late. Before they could recover from the shock of finding the gruesome fate of the Dutch marines the Russians and Germans were cut down by automatic gunfire from Mark and Chris.

Keith and Paul were advancing on the right of Mark and Chris when they heard the burst of gunfire to their left. They immediately went to ground. As they took cover behind the sparse brushwood they became aware of people moving away to their right, but they seemed to be moving away from them. What they didn't know was that the enemy had picked up an approaching helicopter on their radar, and had sent a search party, who were looking for Autumn, to investigate the new situation.

Sherwood and Steele were making their way northward when they heard the unmistakable sound of a helicopter. It seemed to be directly in front of them.

Sherwood stopped, and turned to Steele,

'Shit. Don't tell me the choppers are back. That's all we need; they have infra-red.'

They honkered down as Steele recovered the infra-red binoculars from his equipment. He began scanning the sky.

After a few seconds that seemed like minutes he quietly exclaimed,

'Got him; I don't think this is a Hind. Looks like a Sea King.'

Autumn was moving through a wooded area when she heard the sounds of battle. Now a helicopter was approaching, so she decided to move in the direction of the rotors, she felt safe with the cover of the trees and bushes.

Keith and Paul decided to move on towards their target, rather than take on the people they almost saw moving away; they did not seem to threaten anyone.

They did not have far to go, but there were buildings and installations here and there, they decided to avoid contact with anyone who may be in these establishments; their main mission was primarily reconnaissance. When they heard the helicopter rotors they were in sight of the masts of the Dornier. They carefully continued, knowing that anyone awake would likely be more interested in the approaching rotor sounds. The low scrub now gave way to hard rock, it was getting difficult to find cover out here, then the ground before them rolled away in a gentle slope that soon became a sharp decent to the sea below. The black figures sat for a few minutes before reporting in.

Keith nodded to Paul, Paul knew what it meant. He took the radio, and sent the prearranged simple message,

'Eleven, Blackpool two. Repeat, Blackpool two.'

This meant that they had reached the coast, and found two ships. Upon receiving this Sherwood and Steele knelt down, and asked for more information,

'Is it clear?'

Meaning is it a good place to have the originally planned rendezvous.

'Negative; it's like Pontins here.' Paul replied.

Sherwood opened a map, then began giving directions to the forces,

'OK, eleven, make your way 180, meet up with Ten and Zero Eight. Zero Six, hold the flank.'

This would then put six of the SAS men on a cliff overlooking the bay which held the Dornier and K9 Bean.

Steele watched the Sea King alight on the east of the island, the part of the island farthest away from where the SAS men were gathering. Steele and Sherwood moved cautiously forwards, they were heading in a northerly direction. They did not know it, but Autumn was less than quarter of a mile away to their right – so was the search party who were looking for her. All parties now converged on the helicopter.

Steele watched as the side door slid open. He raised his binoculars to study the people who emerged. He was relieved when the familiar figure of John Drake appeared with a large box.

Sherwood reported on the radio,

'Chopper friendly.'

Steele scanned the area for heat sources. He found one hidden in trees to their left. This could easily be a sniper sent to investigate the chopper, so he had to investigate and give support the the friendly helicopter. Then he saw more people in the distance; he knew where all of the friendly forces were, so these must be the enemy coming to support their sniper, but they were at the limit of the equipment's capability, so were quite indistinct. He tapped Sherwood, then indicated that he should move towards the chopper, whist he went to investigate the possible sniper he had found to their right.

Sherwood nodded, Steele warned him of the possibilities of enemy soldiers further beyond the chopper.

Both men moved off simultaneously.

Autumn was not expecting company. She thought she was completely covered by the darkness and the undergrowth in the trees. But Steele could still make out the faint heat given off by her body through his infra-red binoculars. He could not make out if the signature was hostile or not, but whoever it was, they were alone and hiding. He approached the tree line carefully; he knew that it would be difficult using the binoculars in close, so he had to be very careful as he continued into the woods.

THE KOMMISARS COUNTERSTRIKE

The cold hard deck of the machinery room on K9 Bean was the first thing that Tauber felt as he regained consciousness. The shrill sound of high pressure steam escaping also gave a smell that was alien wherever it was, but in a nuclear submarine it adopted an unworldliness of another level.

He rolled over, and found himself in a vast pool of blood that was moving with the gentle swaying of the boat. This did not faze him; he might have been in a cool mountain stream for all it mattered to him. As he stood up he involuntarily shook his head. Blood splattered the wall, he held on to machinery as he steadied himself; daubing the metal with blood.

Rawker and Estrada had left him there because there was more urgent business to get on with; they did not like the South African Dutchman, an easy thing to do. By now Rawker had made his way back to the Dornier; here he and Estrada met with the Kommisar.

'Where is the woman now?' the Kommisar asked.

Estrada looked at Rawker, waiting for him to reply,

'We saw her leave the sub, and then followed her on to the deck. But there was no sign of her.'

Estrada continued,

'There was no wind to speak of, so she would not have been blown overboard. We tried looking at the shoreline, but it was too dark. By the time lights were brought to bear there was no sign of her.'

Rawker said,

'We can only presume that she got away; a thorough search of the shoreline did not show up a body.'

The Kommisar pointed to a map,

'We can only presume that she made it to this little inlet. So I sent four men on to the island via the stern gangplank to find her. But this has been a busy night. Attack helicopters have been harassing a boat, this is now on the eastern side of the island where there are two or three beaches where it could make landfall. I have dispatched a group of men to take care of the situation.'

Just then there was a series of explosions as Sol's rockets hit land. The Kommisar thought the threat was dealt with. Until a sailor interrupted the meeting,

'Sir, radio room reports loss of contact with the defence force.'

The Kommisar looked at the map again.

'We have shore forces here, here, all along here.' He turned to the sailor, 'Notify all people ashore to expect hostile activities soon. Move these men towards the centre of the island. The radio shack here will need reinforcements, get these two to move in to bolster them. That should do.'

The sailor saluted smartly, and then took his notes away to pass the messages on.

The Kommisar turned back to the two men in the room,

'As I said, I have dispatched a group in search of your missing agent...'

Just then a blood-stained Tauber entered the room,

'What's happening?' he demanded.

The Kommisar greeted him,

'Tauber, get yourself cleaned up.' He pressed a button on the desk.

'We have been discussing your missing prisoner; I have sent men to look for her.'

A man entered the room, the Kommisar said to Tauber,

'Dominik here will assist you.'

Tauber took the offer; then left the room.

The Kommisar picked up a large black telephone,

'Koombs, get me an accurate sitrep.' He replaced the receiver.

By the time Koombs arrived with the situation report, Tauber had returned in combat fatigues, but the blood only partially removed.

Koombs read from his own notes, and made use of the map,

'The situation is extremely fluid,' he began, 'It would appear that a boat has beached here on the east of the island. There were forces put in place to repel these people, but due to an unfortunate accident these have been lost. The other forces on the island were then put on full alert. Men from here and here were sent to the radio shack, but we have lost contact with the radio shack in the middle of the island, and with groups here, here, and here. Only the group at Nenos are still in contact; and the search party over here on the far side of the island.'

Tauber was decisive,

'Use the group at Nenos to mount a feint move on the radio shack. Meanwhile I shall take a main force to follow the search party, and then we can sweep into the middle of the island and find out who is going over the cliffs.'

The telephone rang; the Kommisar picked it up,

'Da.' A pause whilst the person on the other end spoke. The Kommisar remained unruffled as he asked, 'Is it one of ours?' a little concern crept over his face, 'What do you mean, you don't know? Do you not think it may be a little important?' now anger, 'I suggest you find out, and fast. Let me know as soon as you know.'

He slammed the receiver down and turned to the gathered group,

'It would appear that there is another helicopter approaching the island from the shore of Spain.'

Tauber was quick to respond,

'As I said, let me take a main force across here. We can cover most of the north of the island in case it is a hostile.'

The Kommisar was acutely aware of the need for rapid action,

'Yes. Take the guard from the sub with you.'

'Right. That should give me a force of forty or fifty; that should be enough to see anyone off this island that we do not want here. Helicopter or not.' He snapped off a quick salute, spun on his heel, and was gone.

SEA KING

Steve Steele tells of his encounter in the woods on the Illas Cias off the coast of Spain.

"I was apprehensive about splitting with Sherwood; he and I had been working very close together recently, and if this contact I was chasing down turned out to be hostile we had just exposed his back.

As I approached the tree line the binos gave me a dull, indistinct shape in the bushes and shrubbery. It was not possible to discern what it was, or which way it was facing. I was not even sure it was a person, but it had to be investigated and neutralised if necessary.

Trying to use binoculars close-in like this was ridiculous. I couldn't watch where I was putting my feet, or avoid any branches, so once I entered the wood there would be no use for the binos, and it would be me in the darkness trying not to make a mistake and give away my position.

The equipment I was carrying made a stealthy approach difficult, I couldn't see the ground I was treading on, and had to feel for branches that would give me away.

I felt that my pounding heart would easily give me away. What was I chasing? It was too big for a cat, or a fox. A dog was very unlikely, there are no bears here; it must be human, a vagrant? Most improbable, I would think the bad guys would clear the island of unwanted inhabitants. No; it must be presumed to be hostile, whatever it was.

When stalking through wooded land the going is very slow, the closer you get to your prey the more likely it is to detect you.

I could now see the far edge of the woods; starlight was showing through the thinning tree canopy. I stopped to see if I could make out any details of my quarry. Not a chance. I presumed whoever it was would be looking out towards where the helicopter had landed, but all was silent now, so I had to be especially careful.

Slowly, warily, I edged forwards and to the side in order to manoeuvre around to the rear of my prey. The person was now lying down. If they had been in this position earlier I would never have spotted them. It may be a sniper aiming to take out Sherwood, and maybe even the helicopter too.

Now I had to choose my weapon. Not a firearm, I thought; that would draw too much attention. I withdrew my knife, and then began to creep forwards. Closer now, I could see that the clothes the person wore did not look like military garb. This was a slight chap. There was something not right. I turned my knife round, so that the blunt edge now became the leading edge. I took one last step forwards, then moved right up to the prone body. I leapt onto the person, when fully committed to the dive I felt a hard knock to the left side of my head. (The person was laying on their back, waiting for my attack). The force of the blow caused me to fall to one side, dropping the knife. Then I felt the other person drop on top of me. Another blow to my head, my arms went up in instinctive self-defence as I tried to fend off this attack. I was just about to launch a straight-finger thrust into the stomach of my assailant when I heard a strangely familiar grunt. I heard myself shout,

'Wait.' The attack stopped.

Then a very familiar voice,

'Steele? What the hell are you doing here? Do you know where here is?'

I couldn't believe my luck – not only had I found that the person was friendly, it was Autumn!

'Did I hurt you?' she said as she gingerly touched the side of my head.

I winced as she touched the impact spot in the dark.

Then she moved her hands down to my neck as I took her by the waist. We kissed in the dark silence of the wood. We held each other for a lot longer than we should; given the circumstances.

'We are on an island just off the Spanish coast. How the hell did you get here –I sent you to Zurich? Why can't you stay where I put you?' I asked her.

'It's a long story. Can we use that helicopter to escape?'

'Maybe, but I have some friends with me. And so do you. But yours are not very friendly.'

'I thought so, too. That is why I had to dispense with their hospitality.'

'Sherwood is over by the chopper, I think we had better have a debrief.'

'Good idea.' She held on to my neck, I held her waist. We kissed again, and then I said,

'Come on, let's go.'

She stumbled as she got to her feet, I held her in my arms again. As we began to move off I looked down at her feet as the light improved.

'What have you got on your feet?' I asked.

'I had to improvise; it's my bra.'

'Your bra?' he said incredulously.

'Yes, I lost my shoes somewhere between here and Zurich.'

'You keep losing shoes on this mission, don't you?'

They approached Sherwood as the helicopter's massive rotor blades wound down. Drake and two US Navy men were busy unloading two unwieldy packing cases. Sherwood did a double take when he saw Autumn,

'Must you pick up waifs and strays everywhere you go?'

'She went out for coffee in Switzerland, and got lost.'

The last case was placed on the ground, one of the Americans said,

'We got your frequency, good buddy; just call for exfil, and we shall home in on your signal.'

Sherwood shook the man's hand as the rotors began turning again.

Drake said,

'We have another package for you; we shall bring it with us when we return.'

Sherwood waved the aircraft off, and then began opening the smaller of the boxes. A side dropped down, and a small tank appeared with another box on top of it. As Sherwood began opening this box the helicopter took off with a lot of noise and downdraught from the rotors. As it banked away from the island Steele, Autumn and Sherwood became aware of gunfire coming from the interior of the island. Sherwood reached into the box and withdrew what looked like a bent piece of wood. He tapped on this a couple of times, and then threw it towards the gunfire. The object took a low path at first, and then seemed to arch upwards before diving down again. Sherwood carefully watched this whilst holding on to his watch. He pressed a button on the side of his timepiece. The wooden device exploded with a sudden violence as it passed quite close to the search party who were originally looking for Autumn, but had been diverted by the sounds of a helicopter landing in the north of the island. The four men all suffered hearing damage. The two nearest had their lungs damaged beyond recovery. The remaining two had bleeding from the ears; and pain as they were blown sideways into the shrubs.

Sherwood then took a black spike from the box. He plunged this into the ground, took a hold of the other crate and tilted it. Steele only then noticed wheels built into the base.

'Come on, let's go.' Sherwood said as he began pulling the crate. Steele looked at the tank as it began moving with Sherwood. He looked at Autumn, shrugged, she did the same, and then they began moving away from the area.

Sherwood knew of Keith and Paul's new rendezvous on top of cliffs overlooking the ships, so the three began making their way, being followed by the tank and its box.

They heard the sounds of the Sea King as it travelled to the mainland. They did not hear the sounds of a Mil 24 Hind 'A' moving up from Portugal in the south. Sol had been waiting there for further orders. He had no missiles left, but he still had his 23 mm cannon, and he was equipped with infra-red vision, enabling him to see at night. But when asked if it were possible to attack the men on the island he had been forced to respond that it would be too dangerous; because he could not distinguish between the different forces, so the chances of him hitting their own forces again were quite high.

When Rawker radioed him from the Dornier advising him of a hostile helicopter in the area, he was only too pleased to make amends for his earlier error.

His 'Hind A' was equipped with one forward facing 23mm cannon. This was what he intended to use against the Sea King.

The American helicopter was unarmed, and slower than the newer attack chopper. 2nd Lootenant Chris Christoferson, otherwise known as CC, or 'Fireduck', was flying the big transport helicopter back to a US Navy base a few miles inland on the opposite side of the Bay of Vigo when he was notified by radio that there was a radar contact moving out of Portugal on an intercept course.

Sol Legdani was on a mission to make up for loosing his rockets off at his own side. Rawker told him that his target was flying at less than one thousand feet over the water of the Bay of Vigo, heading inland. Sol took his machine to three thousand feet to give him an edge; he opened the throttles to bring the chopper up to 175 knots, and began gaining on the American.

At a range of two miles Sol could just make out the white dot that was CC's exhaust in the distance.

The American radar control called the Sea King,

'Elsmere to Fireduck, he's two miles behind you, and gaining fast at three thousand. I suggest he may be using infra-red.'

CC knew that his rear was the hottest part of the helicopter, so he spun the whole machine round to face the opposite direction, but continued in the same direction for a little while. Then he allowed the machine to drift to the north. He gained height as he passed over the coast; at two thousand feet he saw the vague outline of Sol's Hind flash by one thousand feet over the water of the Bay of Vigo. As it passed by them, CC turned the helicopter to keep facing the Russian chopper until he was facing the direction in which he wished to go; towards his temporary base in the north.

But he was not the only one with radar help, Rawker called Sol from the Dornier,

'You just missed him, Sol. He is now passing behind you heading north, one thousand feet lower than you.'

'Roger that.'

He spun the helicopter to the right until his compass pointed north, there he began scanning the sky and ground in front of and below him.

CC was expecting this; he had turned to face the direction he was expecting Sol to come in from, and dropped to a few feet above the dark ground.

Sol was now having difficulty finding the Sea King, but CC was having problems getting home; and in a game of waiting and searching Sol had the upper hand – he only needed one clear shot.

Rawker then called up,

'He is now below the radar, but he moved over the land to the north of you. Move inland, then drop down to low level, and begin a sweeping search. That should force him out to sea, giving you a better chance of seeing him.'

'Dropping now.'

The two helicopters were now out of radar contact, searching for each other in the dark.

CC began drifting to the south. As his flank turned towards Sol, he was spotted by the heat coming from his exhaust. In his excitement Sol let go a quick burst, but he was too far away to be effective.

This alerted CC to the danger. He opened the throttles, and turned to put some distance between him and Sol. This meant that he was heading towards the coast.

Sol was not so quick following CC in gaining speed; he was very low, and had to gain some height before giving chase.

This meant that CC crossed the coast with impunity. He was now at one thousand feet, so he decided to drop down to wave-top height in order to make a clear shot difficult. Before he began losing height he saw an island in the distance, 'This would make good cover' he thought.

On the island Steele and Drake heard the helicopter approaching. Steele scanned the horizon with the infra-red binoculars,

'Looks like the Sea King is being chased.' He said as Sol loosed a few more rounds off at CC.

Drake reached into the box that was being carried by the tank Cresta.

He fiddled with something that looked like a ray gun from a science fiction film, and then passed it to Steele,

'Look through the telescopic sight, and keep it pointed at the second chopper.'

Steele looked bemused as he took the instrument.

Sol fired again as CC turned hard towards the island. Sol followed; the exhaust heat glowed bright in his infra-red sight. Sol banked a little to the right just as CC banked hard left to fly directly over the island. The cannon shells flew wide again. Sol reversed his turn to cut in front of the Sea King. As he did this CC realised where the Hind was, and turned straight into it, but continued in the same direction. Sol lost contact because the exhausts were now facing away from him.

CC now banked away from Sol, showing only his cold underside to his pursuer, but as the Sea King levelled out Sol caught sight of the exhaust ports as CC headed for the middle of the island.

The five-bladed rotor beat the air above Steele and Drake. Drake pointed to an area of the sky behind the Sea King. Steele swung the 'ray gun' in that direction, and looked through the small telescopic sight. Drake picked up another strange device, not unlike an old Bazooka, but a lot thinner.

'You on?' he called across to Steele.

'Yep.'

Drake turned his face away from his device, and then closed his eyes as he pulled the trigger.

The whole area was bathed in bright white light. A missile no thicker than a scaffolding pole left the device at close to the speed of sound. It faithfully followed the invisible laser light to the second helicopter, once there it hit the thin aluminium skin so hard that it easily penetrated to the armoured seat that Sol was protected by. This sudden stop caused the missile to explode, breaking the nose of the machine away from the rest of the structure, and thrusting Sol straight up into the spinning rotors.

Steele and Autumn were temporarily blinded by the flash and explosion. Drake said,

'Close your eyes for a few minutes, it'll come back.'

COUNTERSTRIKE

Brothers in arms stood guard on the stern gangplank. They were approached by a sailor who had orders from the Kommisar to retract the access walkway from the island; they were preparing to move the vessel. A large force with Tauber in the lead had left only minutes earlier. They were heading for where the Sea King had landed, from there they would be circling round towards the radio shack. This would almost certainly bring them into contact with the SAS force of eight. There was also a small force from the Kommisar on the other side of the radio shack, as well as the original search party, they would soon be joined by Tauber's force.

The South African did not like to lead from the front; to this end he sent out three men in the van to check for traps. They were first to pass between Dead Drop Spikes left by the Cresta tank. The sounds of them passing alerted the detecting system within the tank. This brought the presence of marching soldiers to the attention of Sherwood, who put some commands in to a small box with aerials. The tank deployed short barrels with wide bores pointing upwards. Then the objects fired 20 mm mortars almost straight upwards. They arched over the area the men had just walked through. Guided by the Dead Drop Spikes they homed in on the new sounds of movement caused by the next section of men who walked through the area. Tauber was in the centre of this group. The first mortar hit him on the shoulder, and exploded as soon as it hit bone. The resulting blast vaporised most of his chest, detaching his head completely. Four more mortars landed amongst the group, decimating them.

Men were blown all over the place. Of the forty, eleven were dead, nine were incapacitated in some way, and the remaining twenty were split up, leaderless and disoriented, most had hearing problems of some sort.

This also served to alert Steele, Sherwood and Autumn to the whereabouts of the nearest enemy.

Meanwhile the SAS men in the middle of the island are being engaged by the group sent to find out why the radio shack had fallen silent. As the SAS began contact with this group they came under attack from a small group which had been further out. This put the SAS in a sticky spot;

Dave, Ray, Mark and Chris were in the hut, and under fire from both sides.

'How many more mags have we got?' asked Ray from the front of the hut.

'I have only five left.' called Mark.

'I don't like firing at what I can't see,' said Chris, 'So I have eight mags left.'

'I am down to...' Dave fired a short burst at where he saw the flash of a gun, 'four.'

They were beginning to get worried about their ammunition stocks for the MP3 automatic weapons. Mark found a stock of ammunition for AK47s in the hut.

'There's no shortage of ammunition in here, but it's all for AK's.'

He then found three AK47s. These were pressed into use against the opposing forces. Chris kept firing the MP3 at the flashes of gunfire, but they were only keeping the foe at bay.

Dave then realised that there may be a way out of this stalemate before they run out of ammunition,

'Where are Ken and Martyn?'

'Went off in our six o'clock from the boat.' Ray replied.

Dave clicked his radio with his left hand as he let off another burst,

'Zero Eight to Zero Six.'

The reply came back almost immediately,

'Zero Six.'

'If you chaps are not too busy, would you like to help out over here?'

'We can hear you making a hell of a racket – there seems to be a lot of AK fire over there.'

'Some of that is us, we fancied seeing what it felt like from the other side.'

'Roger that Zero Eight, we were on our way over anyway to see what the row was about – see you in five; coming from your five o'clock.'

Ken and Martyn moved quickly through the trees, they knew the people they were heading for were firing constantly, so their hearing would not be too acute. Then they saw their prey; four guys putting rounds down into the radio shack. They stopped and signalled to each other that they should outflank the enemy to ensure that they were the only people they need to worry about. When they were at either side of the line of four, the SAS men opened fire. All four fell dead at the same time.

Ken immediately got on to the radio,

'Zero Six to Zero Eight. All clear this side.' he called to Dave.

'Roger that, Zero Six. I think we will join you.'

He nodded to Mark and Ray, who were covering the front of the building, Mark turned to give another quick burst to keep the enemy's heads down, and all four exited the building by the rear entrance, and made it to the cover of trees on the edge of the clearing.

In hushed tones Dave addressed the group,

'We could circle round on either side, and then catch these guys in a pincer movement.'

Ray responded,

'We would probably end up shooting each other in the dark.'

'There is always that risk.' Dave agreed, 'OK, we'll all go round to their rear. They will probably go straight for the hut as soon as they realise that there is no fire coming from it.'

'If we keep to the tree line,' Ray described a semi-circle with his left hand, 'we may see them make their attack.'

'If that happens, I don't want them to get into the shack.' Dave said, 'So we would then have to launch into a different pincer move. Me and Ray take on the ones approaching the shack, you two move to take out any left in the trees, whilst you two,' indicating Ken and Martyn, 'cover both actions to take care of any surprises.'

All members agreed to the two tactics; the move around the trees, and what to do if the enemy should make a move into cover.

Half way through the manoeuvre Dave stopped and crouched at the tree line. He signalled Mark and Chris to continue the move forwards, with Ken and Martyn watching both parts of the team, and the enemy; who now seemed to be preparing to advance on the bullet-riddled radio shack.

Dave and Ray waited. They saw at first two, then four shadows move to outflank the empty shack. That meant that two men were heading their way, with another two on the far side of the clearing, leaving an unknown number in the position they were originally in.

Dave signalled Ken and Martyn to move further around the clearing to get closer to Mark and Chris.

When he considered everyone to be in their optimum positions Dave opened up on the furthest group. All four dropped. At the same time Ken and Martyn hit the pair nearest to them.

Dave and Ray jumped out to get better aim at the original position from which the bad guys had begun. They hit the ground and begun firing from a prone position when return fire began to seek them out. That was when Mark and Chris opened up from the flank of the enemy position. Within five seconds it was all over.

This left three separate groups on the island.

Steele, Autumn and Sherwood moved around the remains of Tauber's group, and headed towards where Keith and Paul had holed up, overlooking the ships.

When they got there they saw that the bow of the Dornier had begun to swing away from the shore. The rear gangway had been replaced to accept the survivors from the mortar attack, Steele told Sherwood,

'We will go to see what exactly is going on down there.'

'OK, I will get everyone to rendezvous on the headland over there for an exfil; we are all getting low on ammo, it looks as if our main reason for being here is about to leave. And I have one more trick up my sleeve.'

Sherwood got on the radio as Dave and his crew arrived,

'Macbeth to Fireduck, ready to infil. Could you bring Karl with you? Over.'

'Roger that, Macbeth. With you in ten. Over.'

The SAS group secured the area, Sherwood checked his equipment.

'Where are the coins?' he asked as he rummaged around the box.

Dave turned his head towards Sherwood,

'What coins?'

'The gold coins that were in this box.'

'Don't look at us, I don't know if you have noticed or not, but there are no shops around here to buy anything, so we have no need for money.'

Mark piped up,

'What about the radio shack?'

Dave returned to his watchful duties as he replied,

'They had no batteries.'

Keith and Paul kept watch on the boats from the cliff edge. Paul reported in to Sherwood,

'Eleven to Macbeth. The sub is moving.'

Surely enough, the submarine K9 Bean was slipping away, past the bows of the Dornier, and out to sea.

Chris Cristoferson brought the Sea King in to the island at nought feet on the opposite side from the Dornier. As he crossed the coast near where the boat had been beached he called Sherwood,

'Fireduck to Macbeth, where do you want me? Give me a signal.'

Sherwood took a flashlight, and passed it to Mark as he said,

'Give him a flash as soon as he appears.'

Mark guided the helicopter to the flat level ground on top of the cliff. As CC touched down he was greeted by Sherwood. The side door slid open and a strange contraption appeared. The SAS men had never seen anything like it. Colours were difficult to perceive, the only lights they had were red internal lights in the Sea King. The winch man in the chopper passed what looked like some sort of remote control to Sherwood; this had a long wire connected to the apparatus in the Sea King's hold.

'Stand well back chaps, this thing could affect your manhood.'

The helicopter crew left the aircraft. Sherwood moved as far away from the machine as the long wire would let him.

'Mark, give me some light in the hold.'

Mark shone the flashlight into the helicopters hold, for the first time the men saw a bright orange pointed nose, behind which, on the side of the orange object, was a strange cylinder with weird markings on it. Ken thought it was from a race of aliens.

Sterling pressed a few buttons on the remote. Various buzzing noises emitted from the device as a cherry-sized pellet was thrust into the interior of the fish. Various lights flashed from the remote and the fish as self-testing equipment booted up. Then almost without warning the cylinder slid to one side, a ramp elevated the tail of the fish, and Karl took to the air over the cliff, down to the sea below.

The cylinder rotated to allow the small hole from where the pellet had emerged to point downward. Then Sherwood shut the whole system down.

'OK chaps, let's go.' He said to the black SAS men.

Dave asked,

'Where are the civvies?'

Sherwood instinctively looked towards the Dornier. On its upper decks he saw two British agents making their way forward.

'I think they are making their own way home.' He said.

ABEGAIL SALE

It looked good when Steele and Autumn helped a blinded, deafened soldier on to the deck of the DKM Dornier. In the darkness the men on gangway duty did not notice that one of the assistants was not in the usual uniform, nor did they notice that the other was a woman!

When they were out of sight of anyone, the hapless soldier was left to his own devices. Steele said to him,

'Off you pop, it is your ship after all.' He turned to Autumn, 'Once we find a way into the ship, I want you to stay out of sight, I don't think there are too many females on board.'

'OK.' she agreed.

They moved cautiously along the deck until they found a likely-looking door. Steele looked around; he saw a lifeboat close by with a tarpaulin cover.

'Quick, in here; you are far too conspicuous.' He said as he helped Autumn into the hiding place.

He checked that no-one had seen them, and then adjusted the tarp cover before entering the inside of the ship.

He was surprised to find the corridor well lit, and with only three doors to his left. He didn't expect to find any on the other side, because that was the side facing the sea.

Quietly he made his way down the corridor. The doors conveniently had round windows in them, so he was able to see what was inside. The first one had what appeared to be an empty room inside, he checked the door and found it unlocked. He quietly closed it again, thinking this could be a useful place to retreat to if needed.

He continued down the passageway. He looked into the next room, and was surprised to come face to face with a young female face looking out. He did not hesitate to open the door,

'Hello, and who might you be?' he asked in relaxed tones.

'My name is Abegail Sail. Who are you? And what are you doing here?'

A Philippine masseur of slight build, only 5 feet 6 inches, she was as charming as Steele when she said,

'Allow me to show you the internal workings of the ship, Mr Steele.'

He thought to himself,

'How the hell does she know my name? Am I wear...'

Then he felt himself flying across the room.

It was a fairly simple cross buttock throw. Taken completely by surprise, the first thing he felt was his arm being pulled, the he was swung across her hip. In a normal cross buttock throw the recipient is then slammed down on to the ground. But not in this one; Abegail let go of his arm whilst his feet were still in the air, thus allowing him to be propelled through the air.

'Now, little lady; I don't want to hurt you.' Steele said as he brushed himself off.

Abegail stood her ground as he approached her.

'Now, I don't want to hurt a lady.' He began as he held out his hand.

She took it, twisted it before he knew what was happening, then thrust him across the room, jerking the arm as he moved away. The limb hurt as if it were being dislocated.

As Steele held his arm he briefly saw Abegail run towards him. He felt her feet in his stomach, but this was not a body-blow. Then he felt her hands pull on his collar. He felt the surprise on his face as he was pulled over forwards by the weight of another human being suddenly appearing directly in front of him. Her back hit the floor with his face only inched from hers. Then she pushed her legs out, sending his feet into the air, there they described a perfect arc until Abegail let go of his collar. As she did so she took hold of the throbbing arm, twisting it in such a manner as to make him land almost on his armpit; thereby sending shooting pains so strong that his right hand now became unusable.

Steele began to sit up when he felt legs around his neck.

Abegail wrapped one leg around his neck, with the back of the knee on his Addams apple, the other leg placed her foot in the back of the knee, whilst the foot rested in the small of his back; locking it in place. There was nowhere for him to go as she deliberately fell backwards.

He felt as if his neck had been broken.

The legs were released, Abegail sprung to her feet. Steele was not able to spring up, he began to straighten up and stand when she took hold of his good arm; this meant that he was severely handicapped due to the other arm being badly damaged. She swung him around a couple of times, and then slammed him against a wall. His head hit the unyielding steelwork. He looked to his right, and saw some sturdy steel brackets that would have killed him, so he knew that she was not trying to kill him – unless her aim was off.

He did not have long to consider this because his feet were taken away from under him as she swept them away with her foot. He tried to prevent a fall to the floor by hooking his good arm around the brackets.

Abegail then took a flying leap at the arm, placing a hard foot across the biceps; crushing the limb against the wall. Steele winced, and began to swing towards the arm. As he turned his head, a well-aimed rabbit punch hit him cleanly across the back of his neck, rendering him unconscious.

When he came to he was lying across some sort of table, with his arms tied above his head.

There was not much he could see of the room he now found himself in, and then he saw for the first time the familiar figure of the Kommisar standing over him. On the other side was Andy Rawker.
'Well, Mr Steele. It would appear that you know more than is good for you.' The Kommisar began, 'And we need to know how much your people know.' He half turned away, then turned back, 'And who the hell was that that you were with on the island.'

This was an uncharacteristic slip on behalf of the Kommisar; he let Steele know that his knowledge had gaps in it. He decided only to answer the second question,

'Just some friends who popped along for a picnic.'

Rawker stepped in,

'You know we shall get the information eventually.' As he said this he began raising the table end; so that Steele's weight was transferred to his injured arms. He slipped down the worktop; his right shoulder in particular became excruciating.

Rawker tapped on the arm with a walking stick. Steele cried out in pain.

Rawker moved his face to within inches of Steele's,

'Does London even know you are here? I bet Sir John does not know you are now having a luxurious cruise at his expense?' the walking stick hit the shoulder again as Rawker moved away.

Steele thrashed as he tried to kick out, only to find that his feet were tethered.

The Kommisar asked,

'Have they briefed you about Zurich?'

Rawker looked at the Kommisar, knowing that he had just given away more information. He turned to his master, and said in a low voice,

'Leave this to me, Sir. I know how to get what we want.'

Then back to Steele,

More tapping on the shoulder followed. Steele gritted his teeth. Rawker asked again,

'What do they know of our operation? When did you last report in?'

'That's none of your business.'

'We know quite a lot about your operations, Mr Steele. That is how we nearly finished you off in the cemetery in Lisbon.'

This enraged Steele, now he found the people responsible for killing Sarah Jackson.

'So you sent a gang of thugs with AK47s to kill one young woman? Bet you are proud of yourself for that one.'

'It was one agent less to worry about.'

'She was not an agent you bloody fool; she was only a messenger – you were responsible for shooting the postman. She was no threat to you.'

'Perhaps not Mr Steele, but you definitely were, or why should you even be aboard this ship?'

'I am interested in old rusting hulks; like yourself.'

This earned Steele another stab in the shoulder,

'Let us look at who is the rusting hulk around here.' Rawker attempted to hit Steele with his forehead on Steele's nose, but Steele turned his head away in time to avoid the nutting, Rawker's head glancing off Steele's cheek, allowing Steele the opportunity to connect with Rawker's head in retaliation.

The Kommisar returned to the fray at this point,

'We know that there was someone else helping you in Lisbon, apart from your very nice colleague, Miss Rae. But she was not your handler, was she not?'

Steele did not answer.

'I believe that was none other than Mr John Drake, who seemed to spend a lot of time between Lisbon and London. But who was it who threw our man off a roof in Lisbon?'

'I thought he was just a careless window cleaner.' Steele almost looked concerned about the poor man's fate.

Rawker continued,

'You know all about this because you got the briefcase, but luckily we got it back again. That is when we encountered your Mr Drake. But we know that he did not take it from our man, because we were watching him at that time. So who chased our man, and got the case?'

'We got it from 'Lost Property'', Steele replied defiantly.

Rawker responded angrily,

'Wrong answer.' He jabbed at Steele's shoulder again as he moved in close again, 'I think it is time we stopped messing about here.' He turned to the door at the far end of the room, 'Are you there, Luiz?'

The door slowly opened, Steele was shocked and dismayed to see Autumn enter with Luiz Estrada.

It was he, Estrada, who spoke first,

'It is no good you now saying that she doesn't know anything about all of this, I got her out of Zurich, and now she is here, on the ship.'

Rawker then added,

'So we can presume that between you, you have a fairly good idea what we are up to here.'

There was complete silence in the room as Rawker continued; he walked up to Autumn, who was bound with her arms behind her back,

'We only need to know how much of this information you managed to send back to London. You see, I don't think you managed to get anything out.' He turned to Steele, 'And you only just managed to stumble on our operation here yesterday.'

The Kommisar broke in,

'This means that you are both expendable. To make you even more expendable, I shall show you what you have been looking for.'

He motioned for Steele be cut down, and tied like Autumn.

'Follow me.' He led the way out of the room they were in. Estrada guided Autumn, Rawker took Steele.

They entered a room that looked more like a control and communications centre.

The Kommisar began,

'We know that you have some knowledge of the gas we have been developing; because you managed to get hold of the briefcase with the formulae in it. Luckily we managed to get it back. Autumn managed to infiltrate the operation at Zurich, so we presume that she knows about the air attack planned from there. What we believe is that she does not know the targets.'

Autumn did not give anything away, but she was anxious to know what the targets were, despite that knowing the information would mean that she and Steele would not be allowed to share the information with anyone else.

The Kommisar continued,

'I can now tell you that the three targets are to be hit on the same day, and they are Paris, Royal Ascot and Vatican City.'

Even Rawker and Estrada were surprised how informative the Kommisar was being to his enemies.

The Kommisar swept his hand towards three people sitting at consuls on the far wall looking at screens,

'And this part of the operation will take place two days later to give the world chance to digest the information of the European attack. By using the nuclear submarine K9 Bean we shall unleash twenty warheads on to the United States. Being the latest development of submarine, the K9 Bean is able to sail right into the Gulf of Mexico in order to be able to reach every main city in the good old United States of America. We know that the world will be awake to our threats by then, but you cannot stop a modern nuclear submarine.'

He looked directly at Steele and Autumn as he said, with mock sympathy,

'And now that you know the sordid details it is obvious that you cannot be allowed to leave here alive.'

Dawn was breaking as they were led out of the control room on to the deck, and they saw for the first time that the island was no longer in sight; they were now at sea, and so was the nuclear sub K9 Bean with its weapons of mass murder. And murder was what Rawker had in mind.

REAR ADMIRAL JULIET ROBINSON

'I wanna go home.' Ensen Joe Marshall sat in the control room of the destroyer USS Coombes. He was into his eight hour shift monitoring the ships detection systems; but still had three hours to go.

This was a longer than usual deployment; the ship had been to South Africa, Somalia, Egypt and Naples. Now she was in the mid-Atlantic, and was headed for home, but had been given orders to head for Liverpool.

Ensen Ed J Hart sat alongside him; over the years they had become close buddies due to spending long hours monitoring the electronic equipment with which the modern warship was equipped.

Behind the ship a CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter approached the stern. On board the chopper was none other than a Rear Admiral, an exalted rank not usually found on the decks of a mere destroyer.

Rear Admiral Juliet Robinson was also the highest ranking female officer in the US Navy at that time. Amongst her staff that day were electronics experts who were trained in all aspects of maritime detection.

As the helicopter landed Juliet allowed the two electronics men to alight first, then she followed them down on to the destroyers heaving deck. All of the visitors wore anonymous looking US Navy raincoats with no badges of rank showing. The reception party was not expecting a Rear Admiral – let alone a female one.

By the time they got to the Surveillance Room the Admiral was in the lead, she entered the room without knocking,

'OK, boys. Early break time for you; you are stood down. Report to the Captain.' She said to Joe Marshall and Ed Hart.

They were non-plussed by the sudden change of events, but here was a Rear Admiral of the Fleet. They were well-trained naval men who understood that you do not question the orders of an officer; especially such a high ranking one.

They rose as one, saluted, and hurriedly left the room.

Without a word being spoken the electronics engineers set to checking and adjusting the ships equipment.

Meanwhile equipment in crates was being unloaded from the Sea Stallion, which was taken below decks to the Surveillance Room.

Four more mysterious sailors and two civilians came with the equipment. When the crates were deposited any of the existing ships' crew were dismissed, and the new crew began assembling the equipment they had brought with them.

Two hours later they had their new equipment up, tested and running.

USS Coombes ploughed its lonely furrow heading north from the area of the Azores, past the Canary Islands. The Captain and crew thought they were heading for Liverpool, in the UK.

Lt. Commander Brian Mathews escorted the Rear Admiral to the bridge of the destroyer to meet with the Captain. The Lt. Cmdr. entered the bridge first; the Captain had been advised that there was a high ranking officer aboard. He saw the one and a half bars and loop on the Lt. Cmdr's sleeve and presumed this was the officer the rumour machine had advised him of; two ranks below him. He was about to remonstrate with the junior officer for ignoring protocol by not reporting to him when he saw Juliet behind him. The two thick gold bars and loop on her sleeve could not be missed by any military man.

The Captain snapped to attention out of training more than anything else, he had heard about a woman being promoted to Admiral, but never expected to actually meet her on his own ship.

Juliet began,

'I must apologise for this lapse in protocol, Captain. We have a situation developing here that needs some urgent attention. I have brought my own people who can deal with it. But we will be needing your co-operation.'

'You have my complete co-operation, ma'am. Can you tell me a little more about your mission?'

'Yes, Captain; if we could consult your charts of the Atlantic.'

They went over to the navigation table at the rear of the bridge. The Captain withdrew a chart of the mid-Atlantic region, and spread it on the table. At the bottom of the map there was the Azores, the lower regions of the UK were near the top edge of the map which also showed part of the Iberian Peninsula, and a little of the African shoreline to the far right. On the left was part of the Eastern seaboard of the United States. A sheet of clear plastic covered the paper chart to allow writing and drawing on the map without defacing it.

'We are here,' Juliet began, 'and somewhere out here we have the nuclear submarine known as K9 Bean.'

The Captain was surprised by this,

'Surely the K9 Bean went down over here, and was lost with all hands.'

He stabbed the map around the Bay of Biscay.

'That is what we thought, Captain, but we now know that it was not lost to the sea, it was lost to an evil organisation, and it must be stopped.'

'You say it is now over here?' said Mathews.

'Yes, and it looks like it is headed for the United States.'

'How can you say that, ma'am?'

'Because we have been tracking it, and ships only travel in straight lines, its present course will take it to the Caribbean just south of Florida. We cannot allow that to happen; we do not know what these guys are up to, but we do know that they ain't on no charity run. We chose to use your ship because it is the only one in the area that is fast enough to catch this baby.'

The Captain thought for a minute to allow this new information to sink in, presently he looked directly at the Admiral,

'You say you have been tracking this nuclear sub? They are very difficult to even detect, let alone track. How have you done that?'

'We have a top secret surveillance device following it, and relaying information back to us. My men are installing specialist equipment in your ship right now.'

The Captain was fascinated by this,

'What kind of top secret device?'

'It isn't one of ours; the Brits have developed a device that follows a sub. How you get it into a position to do this they won't tell us, but it is now out there following like a puppy dog. They have given us details of what to look for, track it and find it. The information is almost in real time; this device sends pulses of data in the ultra-long wavebands of radio.'

They were using Karl the carp.

'What happens then, Ma'am?'

'This is a military vessel, isn't it? The K9 Bean is on the bottom of the ocean as far as the world knows; it is our job to rectify the situation and remove the threat to the United States at the same time. Do I make myself clear, Captain?'

'Loud and clear, Ma'am. Loud and clear.'

KARL THE CARP

On board the K9 Bean Commander Oxen was woken by a messenger from the ECN room; the Electronic Crows Nest.

'Herr Capitan, we have detected an American destroyer on an intercept course.'

'Very well, Fahnrich. I will be there.'

He dressed quickly and made his way to the bridge.

'What do we have here, Herr Kapitanleutnant?' he asked the officer of the watch.

'We can tell from her cavitations that she is an American destroyer at full speed heading this way. There is no doubt about it; she is headed for us on an intercept course.'

'Where away?' the Capitan asked in which direction the ship was coming from.

'One hundred and ten degrees relative, sir. Rear left. She's about twenty five nautical miles away now.'

'Let her close to fifteen miles, and then turn into her with a ninety degree turn to starboard.' Oxen said.

The USS Coombes was now travelling at 38 knots on a course that would intercept K9 Bean in less than an hour. But five minutes later K9 Bean changed course by ninety degrees.

On board the Coombes, Juliet was notified of the change of events.

'Now what are they doing?' she asked no-one in particular, 'Is this a crazy Ivan? Or are they trying something else?'

One of the operators called,

'He's diving now; going down.'

Standard procedure when being attacked, a submarine will dive in an attempt to shake off the detection equipment; they did not know about Karl. K9 Bean continued down to 800 feet before levelling off, Karl was not cleared to go below 600 feet; the pressure of the water would damage the delicate electronics within it, and it made sending the information out to the surface difficult. So Karl was programmed to hold at 600 feet. This did not matter to his surveillance task; he could easily track from above.

Oxen ordered the vessel to a dead stop, and the vessel to be silent. In the old days the main detection was by sonar; which consisted of a high pitched sound wave transmitted from the detecting vessel bouncing off the submarine, then returning to the detector. In a still, silent sub the sonar pulses could easily be heard within the pressure hull when the sonar went active. Karl did not work like that. When K9 Bean stopped the 'fish' was half a mile behind, and 200 feet above the sub, Karl stopped also. Oxen and his crew could not hear any sonar pulses, the Coombes was too far away, Karl did not shout. The destroyer was following packets of data sent out by Karl in extremely short bursts. And she was now getting close, still on a heading that would bring them over K9 Bean.

Oxen decided to move on to the offencive. He ordered the sub to turn to face the enemy, then brought the engines to full power, and calculated a high rate of climb to confuse the depth calculations made by the attacking destroyer.

Juliet was in direct contact with the USS Coombe's weapons systems. She soon realised that the sub would be beneath their keel earlier than expected, and ordered depth charges to be discharged on the starboard side as the K9 Bean was approaching from that side. The data packets sent from Karl were not a smooth flow of information; as such there were tiny gaps in the intellegence. Enough to allow Juliet to misjudge the exact position, and predicted position of the K9 Bean, this normally didn't matter, because the blast from depth charges covers a large area, and a submarine's pressure hull is susceptible to take damage from shock waves through the surrounding water.

Oxen knew this, and his plan took all of this into consideration. The depth charges fell into the water behind the destroyer. They began to sink down to their selected depth. At the same time the K9 Bean was rushing up, up to the surface. As the depth bombs exploded the K9 Bean breached the surface in a very dramatic fashion.

The crew of the Coombes saw their quarry; a massive grey bomber boat that was actually bigger than their own ship as it speared the waves. But this boat was blind. The sensors used by the submarine were useless in the air; the radar was not switched on, so Oxen did not know exactly where he was, as he momentarily sailed on the surface, but the gunners on the Coombes knew where he was. They ran to their guns, but before they could draw a bead on the big boat it was disappearing beneath the waves. A few columns of spray sprang up around the rapidly disappearing vessel as the gunners opened up, but to no avail. Oxen and his crew did not even register the fact that they were being fired upon. As a precaution Oxen executed a sharp turn to the left, causing all aboard to feel the extra forces of gravity as the sub leaned over into the turn. As soon as the sensors settled down Oxen soon realised that the destroyer was now off to his port stern.

'Load stern tubes.' He called.

The two rear torpedo tubes were loaded with homing torpedoes as Oxen ordered the boat into a fairly harsh left turn to keep the destroyer within the acquisition zone of the torpedoes.

Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mathews on the bridge of the USS Coombes saw the sub, and which way it was likely to go, so he did not need any direction from the Admiral to go after the sub. He ordered the ship into a sharp left turn, being more nimble than the big submarine, the destroyer carved a much sharper turn than the K9 Bean.

'Prepare depth charges.' He called as the nimble destroyer arched around to give chase. The curve described by the Coombes was much smaller than the one followed by the K9 Bean. This meant that the starboard torpedo lost acquisition because the destroyer was now too close to the narrow part of the acquisition cone of the torpedoes.

Then Oxen gave the order,

'Loose, loose.'

Two homing torpedoes left the stern tubes of the nuclear sub. The one on the left homed in on the bow of USS Coombes, the one on the right kept searching.

A lookout on the bow of the Coombes spotted the trail,

'Torpedo in the water.'

Before he could finish the cry he was drowned out by three light machine guns firing in the direction of the trails. Then the heavier anti-aircraft guns opened up. The sea in front of the ship began to erupt into many splash columns as rounds of all sizes entered the water. There was such a barrage laid down that the torpedo had to run through it, and it was inevitable that its proximity fuse would be triggered. That happened as the right torpedo found a target.

There was a massive explosion as the left torpedo self-destructed.

The other one had found a target – Karl.

The big fish had no countermeasures; it was defenceless as the homing torpedo did what it was meant to do – home in on its target. The result was inevitable. In an explosion big enough to disable a battleship the robot fish evaporated.

The men on board the Coombes thought they had also hit the second torpedo, but what they saw was a testament to the efficiency of their enemy – they had hit a major device that the Americans were using, and they did not even know about it.

Oxen submerged again; he knew that was his greatest advantage, the K9 Bean was at least as fast as the destroyer when she was submerged. The destroyer had a lot more manoeuvrability, but the sub was a lot stealthier. Whilst the Americans could still track the sub, the exact whereabouts where always tenuous; on the surface if you can see a vessel, you can shoot at it. With a sub it is different.

On a course that would take K9 Bean as far away from USS Coombes as fast as possible, Oxen took the sub down to 800 feet again, and allowed the speed to climb to an incredible 45 knots. He kept this up for twenty minutes before beginning a slow gradual turn to the left.

The compass kept coming round as he watched it; 340, 320, 300, 280. When the compass needle pointed at 220 degrees he instigated a slight climb up to 64 feet – periscope depth, and brought the speed down to twenty knots. This is known as periscope depth, but the main advantage of what can be put above the surface is that the boat's surveillance equipment will now be able to do its work.

Passive radar is a strange beast; it is basically a radar receiver, but not a transmitter. This allows K9 Bean to 'listen out' for any vessel that may be searching for him on radar. Millimetre band radar can detect the periscope or radio mast of a submarine.

Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mathews aboard the USS Coombes was now using millimetre band radar and active sonar to try to find the K9 Bean.

The periscope and radar receiver on K9 Bean were coated in radar absorbent material, but a receiver itself cannot be protected in such a way, with a dish little bigger than a softball the radar signature of the submarine was not big. Likewise the sonar signature; after decades of developing sonar deceiving materials the Russians had by now perfected a cloaking device that protected the submerged leviathan. Made of materials that almost replicated the skin of a dolphin, the material served two purposes; by absorbing fluctuations in the water it streamlined the flexible skin, allowing the sub to travel faster, the same softness prevented the sonar waves being reflected back to the searching ship.

The traditional sonar operator with big headphones on was sitting in a very quiet room adjacent to the bridge. The electronic display in front of him only told him which way the sonar equipment was facing as it circled the ship, the most sensitive detectors available were the human ears belonging to Ensign W. K. Joel.

They were completely alone in the mid-Atlantic. All of the detectors worked in unison; they all pointed in the same direction at the same time so that all Joel had to do was hit a red button on his keyboard if he got any slight alert by whatever detection means. The destroyer was cruising along at fifteen knots. They were waiting, listening, testing the very air for the slightest sign of K9 Bean.

Sitting just below the waves, K9 Bean was also waiting and watching. The main device they were using was the radar detector, this was situated two inches above the waves, the periscopes and antennae were retracted. For sonar detection the simplest and most effective way was to keep very quiet and listen for the tell-tale ping, ping, ping on the hull if the sound pulse penetrated.

In front of him Oxen had a repeater display of what the radar detector picks up. The green circle of light showed a sudden spike to the right bow of K9 Bean. Then it went away, but the readout was still kept. Simply the bearing and range were shown because the detector only picked up the briefest of signals due mainly to the action of the waves behind which it was hiding.

Oxen watched the display, waiting for another contact that would give him the ships speed and heading. He didn't have to wait long, what seemed like hours later, but only 47 seconds; another bit of radar information was intercepted by the detector. The bearing and range information was added to with the ships speed and course, the radars' frequency, strength on output, strength on reception, type, mod state, rotation rate – everything except the name of the person who dispatched it from the manufacturer!

Armed with this information Oxen quickly retracted the detector, and returned to the safety of the depths. Quietly he said to the helmsman,

'Take her down to 200 feet. Steer 220.'

Captain Mathews and R-Admiral Juliet Robinson knew nothing of this; they had lost their eyes and ears, and the tables were about to be turned.

AUTUMN

'I will go down with this ship before I let you take this information away with you.' Rawker said, pointing his pistol at Autumn and Steele.

They were outside on the DKM Dornier, walking along the wooden decking towards the rear of the ship. The early sun had begun to rise in the sky, and it promised to be a nice day. The sea state was calm, with very few white tops on the waves. Every now and then the strange quartet moved into shadow as they passed lifeboats hanging on their davits.

Estrada looked out of place brandishing a big ugly revolver that, on its own, seemed to nonetheless fit in with the age and condition of the ship they were now making their way along.

'What do you intend doing with them?' he quietly asked Rawker.

'Vat do you think? They are going over the side with a bullet in the head.'

Estrada looked uncomfortably at the gun in his hand.

Steele stole a quick glance behind at the men forcing them to walk,

'Laurel and Hardy don't look too friendly.' He observed, 'I wonder if we could buy our way out of here.'

She pretended to look shocked as she said,

'You mean to leave this cruise before the next port?'

He produced two Krugerrands from his shoe. They were being kept hidden in the arch of his foot within their own soft leather holder, this was key here; he set the explosive coins to detonate in four minutes as he turned back to their 'escorts',

'Gold is always a good bargaining chip.' He waved the coins at Rawker and Estrada.

The greedy mercenary Rawker took the coins, and without even acknowledging his comrade by him, replied,

'You didn't need to be so generous, Mr Steele.'

Steele thought for a moment that he was going to get away with this.

Then Rawker pitched the coins overboard,

'We don't want your filthy money. If we did we could strip it from your dead bodies.' He waved the gun menacingly.

When an explosive device detonates in water, the law of incompressibility comes in to play; water will not be compressed – the force of the shock wave can only be released on the surface. This happened with a spectacular fountain as if a depth charge had exploded close by the ship.

Rawson and Estrada thought that they had come under fire. As they turned to look at what had caused the disturbance, Steele decided to take advantage of the confusion, he pushed Autumn into an open door, back into the inside of the ship.

As he quickly followed her a shot rang out. The shot ricocheted off the steel wall they had just passed through. As they ran down a corridor, Steele picked up a fire extinguisher,

'What a waste of gold.' He said as he stuffed one of the Krugerrands into the extinguisher. He left it lying on the floor, and continued running down the corridor as Rawker appeared at the doorway. There was nowhere for Steele to go. Autumn was further down the corridor, but she had no cover either. They were trapped in a long square tunnel; if they were shot at, the shooter would have all the time in the world to keep shooting until they were dead. Rawker pointed the gun at them both at the same time; they both knew that if they even turned their back on him he would fire.

'You will come back with me.' Rawker demanded.

Steele decided to play for time,

'What is out there for us?'

'In here is death.' Rawker just finished this when the fire extinguisher in front of him exploded, completely filling the corridor in the area in front of Rawker with white steam; in effect blinding him.

Steele looked at Autumn; she had already begun running down the corridor away from Rawker. She seemed to hesitate – she had found a door. She briefly turned to wave at Steele to indicate that she had found a way out, and then she was gone. Steele was by now running headlong towards the doorway when more shots rang out; Rawker was firing blind, but he could get lucky in such a small area. As Steele made it to the door he felt a sharp sting on his right upper arm – he had caught one of Rawker's random bullets.

Autumn heard him almost fall into the room as he grasped his upper arm.

'You OK?' she asked.

He looked at his blood-stained hand, and his shoulder,

'Yes, looks like I caught a flesh wound.'

She looked quickly around the room,

'Here. This door might lead to an operating theatre; we can take your arm off there.'

'Little over the top, I wouldn't like to have a headache around you.' He replied as they both went through the door.

They both looked around this room for anything they could use as a weapon.

Steele found a piece of timber that looked promising. He was still holding his arm, he tried to move the wounded right arm, but to no avail. Then he realised that he couldn't move his hand from the wound. He just stood looking at the wood and said,

'Shit.'

Amber saw this, and realised what the problem, was. She came to his side and said,

'Quickly, take your shirt off.'

He looked surprised at this,

'We haven't got time for this.'

She took hold of his shirt front, and began pulling at it,

'It's for a bandage, stupid. You don't expect to use any of my clothes do you?'

She had very little to spare.

He writhed a little, being unable to help only a little because of his wound. Eventually, after what seemed much longer, they managed to remove the shirt. Without further ado Autumn wrapped it tightly around the bleeding bicep,

'That will have to do; I have lost my sewing kit. Don't get any more wounds, we are running out of bandage material.'

'OK, nurse, now let's get out of here.'

He picked up the stout timber as they ran for the far exit. Autumn reached the door first; close behind her Steele took a quick glance behind to see if they were followed, they were not seen. The next room had a door leading out to the far corridor, which ran on the opposite side of the ship to the one they had come from – that was all they saw in this room; everything simply flashed by as they ran for the outer door.

Once in the new corridor they both carefully checked to see if there was anyone around. Luckily for them most of the crew must be either on the shore or on the now departed submarine.

Steele held the wood in his left hand as he led the way forward,

'It's only a matter of time before they corner us here.' He observed.

'We need to find somewhere we can lay up and work out what we are going to...'

She was interrupted by the only weapon they had being snatched from Steele's grasp. He kept hold of it, but was almost taken off balance by the surprise attack. As he responded he began pulling on the timber to regain control. Then Autumn saw the perpetrator – Abegail Sail was clinging on to the timber as she swung a savage high kick at Steele's bad arm. He responded by twisting away from the blow, but his left foot slipped causing him to fall and loose his grip on the timber.

Abegail was about to swing the wood to hit the prone Steele when she was hit by a charge from Autumn. This sent the two women falling back into the room from which Abegail had launched her attack. The weapon went flying as the combatants hit the ground. As they entered the room there was a chair close to the doorway, this had caused them to turn. This in turn put Autumn on the side that would hit the ground first. As she landed Abegail rolled away before Autumn managed to grab hold of her. Autumn was not slow regaining her feet, but Abegail was much faster, being able to land a glancing kick to the ribs. This would have put Autumn off balance had she not had the presence of mind to turn it into a sort of cartwheel. This took Abegail completely by surprise. As she began to recover from this, Autumn almost dropped to the ground, stuck out a leg, spun, and took Abegail's feet from under her. Autumn knew this would happen, so she was ready to leap onto Abegail before she had chance to recover. But she did. As Autumn launched herself across to the prone Abegail, the little Philippine gymnast rolled out of the way. As Autumn landed Abegail took hold of her arm, and bent it back into a simple arm lock.

Autumn cried out in pain as she countered by attempting to stand up, but only managed to get to her knees. Abegail stood behind her now. Autumn arched her back and threw her free arm as far behind her own head as possible, she then bent the arm in such a way as to reach behind Abegail's neck. Autumn took a firm hold on to Abegail's head, and then pressed her neck hard down on to her shoulder. As she squeezed Abegail began to struggle for breath, she had to release her grip on Autumn's arm in order to attempt to escape the choke hold. As her head popped out of the grip Abegail took three steps back, then launched at the middle of Autumn's back, feet first. The Brit was caught in a scissors grip from behind. Autumn could not reach Abegail's head from here. She tried falling on to her side in an attempt to hurt a knee, but it didn't work. She felt her face beginning to glow from the pressure as she gripped Abegail's feet that were locked in front of her own stomach.

In a strange detached sort of way Autumn looked around the room. It was in a sort of spa; on one wall there was a very large mirror. She could see herself in this; she could also see exactly where Abegail's head was. With consummate skill (especially remarkable given the circumstances) she took careful aim. With a savage, sudden twist she swung out with her left arm to hit Abegail square on the lower jaw. The sharp elbow delivered most of the pressure exactly half way from chin to neck. This stunned Abegail, who loosened her grip on Autumn enough for her to untangle the feet that held her.

As Autumn stood up, Steele said,

'Very good. Now what do we do with her?'

Autumn looked down at the stunned girl,

'Over the side?'

But before she had chance to elaborate on this, Rawker entered the room brandishing a big colt 45 automatic pistol. Steele was standing by the door at the time; Rawker simply hit him with the butt of the gun to put him out of action.

'It is you who are destined to go over the side, my dear.' He said.

Autumn instinctively responded by picking up the nearest thing and throwing it at him. Two bottles of lotion went flying his way. He easily dodged them, then fired two shots directly at Autumn; hitting her in the chest.

Steele was stunned, bleeding from a new head wound he heard the shots, and then looked for Autumn. He stumbled to her side as she lay bleeding on the floor,

'No. No.' he cried, cradling her head in his hands.

She raised a hand, and gently stroked his cheek as she said,

'We always knew it would end this way.'

Then another shot rang out. Autumn was beyond caring, Steele looked up just in time to see Rawker fall flat on his face with a bullet in the head.

Behind him stood Estrada with a smoking gun in his hand,

'I'm so very sorry.' Was all he said.

Steele took Autumn in his arms, and held her.

Abegail knelt down next to her to see if she could help in any way; then she noticed that she was kneeling in a substantial pool of blood,

'I don't know if...' she said as she felt Autumn's back. She quickly withdrew her hand, and looked at Steele. She simply shook her head and lowered her eyes in resignation.

Autumn looked up at Steele. For moment she saw a parrot on his shoulder as the words came to mind, someday we'll meet again sweetheart.

SEEHUND

Oxen and the crew of the K-9 Bean heard the explosion that ended the mission of Karl the carp. They thought they had got the destroyer USS Coombes with a torpedo hit. As the sub settled at periscope depth Oxen gave the order to raise the periscope. The barrel shaped instrument lowered itself in the middle of the bridge area as the top broke the waves on the surface. Oxen lowered the side handles as he took on the classical stance of a submariner on the lookout.

He did the circus trick of spinning round with the periscope eyepiece firmly placed on his right eye. The crew on the bridge saw him stop when he got to a position they knew to be roughly to their rear. He swung the 'scope a little as if searching a small section of the horizon. Then he called,

'Mark.'

An officer moved to look at the engraved numbers on the barrel above the captain's head. These show the direction in which the periscope is pointing relative to the boat's position.

'One seven zero.' He called out, then referring to a central compass, continued, 'zero one zero magnetic.'

That meant that whatever the periscope was pointing at lay at 170 degrees relative to the way the boat was pointing; the front being zero, the stern 180. By consulting the compass he then deduced that the point was 010 degrees away from their present position, this gave them the direction whichever way they may turn.

'Smoke on the horizon.' Oxen said as he moved away to allow his number one to look through the periscope.

As he looked at the scene outside the first officer said,

'Well we know where she is. But we don't know what happened to her.'

'We heard the explosions; both fish went off. It would only take one to cripple a destroyer, or even sink it.' Oxen replied.

The first Officer returned to the periscope eyepiece. He studied the scene outside, then turned to Oxen and said,

'It looks to me as if we have a simple choice; we can presume the threat is over, and speed away from here, or check to make sure.'

The Captain replied,

'They found us once, what is to say that they couldn't do it again?'

Number one asked,

'We need a better fix. Can we put up the radar?'

The Captain shrugged his shoulders,

'Looks as if we shall have to.' He turned to the Engineering Officer, 'Deploy Radar, three sweeps only please.'

This has to be a separate activity because they were in stealth mode, only the thin periscope mast is above the waves, and that is coated in radar absorbent material. The radar needs at least two sweeps to gather sufficient data to be able to tell them the speed, direction of travel, position and size of their target. This will take the system less than two seconds.

That is more than enough.

Aboard the USS Coombes, Juliet was standing by the radar operator when he called out,

'Search contact, bearing three four two, range four miles.'

This meant that the radar pulse sent out by K9 Bean was picked up by the destroyer that Oxen thought was torpedoed.

The call was also broadcast to the bridge, where Lt. Cmdr Mathews did not wait for either the Captain, or Vice-Admiral, he immediately ordered the ship to respond,

'Steer three four two. Maximum revs, all engines. Ship to action stations.'

Klaxons sounded, sailors were already at their stations, but the call is put out nonetheless, it served to alert everyone that battle is about to be joined.

The sharp bow of the destroyer cut through the white-topped waves as the USS Coombes opened up the taps to give chase before the sub got too far away. If she could close the distance quickly the underwater vessel would not be able to evade the sonar searches. This Oxen knew only too well, he and his crew were old hands; most of them on U-boats during the last unpleasantness – once they were caught in a destroyers sonar they were in for a rough time. The depth charges dropped down on to them did not need to hit them; even charges some distance away push the surrounding water on to their pressure hull putting it under tremendous stresses. And the charges are dropped in patterns to maximise their effects. One may open a small crack, and then another one further away exploits the crack with disastrous consequences.

'They will be expecting us to continue on a westerly course, let's throw them a few curved balls.' Oxen turned to his number one, 'Prepare one Seehund for launch.'

The Seehund was developed from a German wartime miniature submarine to be carried by a parent U-boat. But this one was fully programmable, and capable of doing a very good job of decoying a searching vessel. Rigged to impersonate the parent vessel, the Seehund can lead any searcher away from the real submarine.

'Send the Seehund on a westerly course; throw in a few crazy Ivans for good effect. We shall go deep, and to the east before turning north.'

The Seehund was released at a depth of 600 feet. It continued on a course towards the west before weaving about.

The USS Coombes was able to pick up on the cavitations produced by the turns made by the decoy. K9 Bean went deep, at 1,500 feet the nuclear sub was below its safe dive depth; the water pressure on the hull was now beyond its safe design limits, but the deeper water meant that the sonar searches from the Coombes would not reach it.

On board the American destroyer the chase was on.

Sonar reported to both the bridge and the Rear Admiral at the same time,

'We are gaining because of the crazy Ivans, sir.' He knew that as soon as the manoeuvres stopped and the sub made a straight dash for it there would be a race in which the destroyer may not be able to keep up.

'The turning has stopped, sir. He is now heading on a straight course of two seven zero.'

That gave the Coombes a slight advantage because the sub's course was at a slight angle, not directly away from the Americans.

'Full military power on a course of two five five please, mister exec.' Brian Mathews ordered.

The sonar kept track of the fleeing 'sub'.

Twenty minutes later Rear-Adml Juliet Robinson called Mathews,

'There's something strange about these cavitations we are picking up from that sub. Can your sonar guy give us an approximate length for the sub?'

'Probably, I'll ask.' Mathews flicked a switch, 'Bridge to Sonar, Bridge to Sonar.'

'Sonar.' The reply was quiet and short.

'Can you give me an approximate length for your target, Chief?'

'Do you mean our range to target, sir?'

'No, Chief. I mean the physical size of the target.'

'It's never been done before, sir. But I'll try; it means taking a reading from in front of the vessel then one behind. I will not be very accurate, maybe half a football field out, but I'll see what we can do.'

'Roger that mister.' Mathews flicked the switch again, 'Admiral, they are on it now, but it will be very vague; this equipment was not intended for researching real estate.'

'That's OK Captain. I suspect we shall get a usable result.'

'Very good ma'am. I shall let you know as soon as we find out.'

'Roger that, over and out.'

The sonar operator began his strange task of trying to steer his receiver and transmitters in such a way as to feel for the front of a vessel that was still nearly a mile in front of them. He was pointing at the stern almost with only a slight angle to give him a glimpse of the front. This was not enough. He got on to the bridge,

'Sonar to Bridge. Sonar to Bridge.'

Mathews picked the microphone with hope,

'Bridge.'

'Sonar here, sir. We can't get a good fix on the front of the vessel; we are almost directly behind it. Any chance of getting more of a side view?'

Mathews consulted his navigations Officer before replying,

'OK, Chief. We will take a gentle turn to port. Let us know if that helps.'

'Roger sir.'

Mathews nodded to the helmsman, who had been notified by the navigation Officer. A gentle turn was begun.

This was picked up by the Seehund. The machine suspected a trick, so it followed the turn to the left; this gave the sonar operator a good look at the side of the vessel. He pinged out behind it, and then gradually moved to the left as he sent out more pings, but to his dismay he found that there were no more returns. He immediately called the Bridge,

'Sonar to Bridge, Captain, something very strange just happened. It was as if the target disappeared.' As he talked he swung his signal back until he got a return again, 'Got him back. Either there is a very good absorption device, or he is a lot shorter than we expected.'

Juliet then came on the line,

'That is just what we expected, he is a decoy. We had better resume search for the real K9 Bean.'

Captain Mathews ordered the ship about,

'Reciprocal course on the helm. Mr Knight,' he addressed the Navigation Officer by name this time, 'plot a course back to where we last detected the sub; let us start from there.'

'Aye aye, sir.' Was the only response from Knight as he turned to his charts.

In less than two minutes the destroyer was settled on a course back to where they had left the K9 Bean, when sonar came back on air,

'Sonar to Bridge, Sonar to Bridge.'

'Bridge, Captain here.'

'We have got a strange response from astern, sir. The decoy is following us.'

Mathews wanted to laugh, but he knew that it was no laughing matter; in fact it could be very serious indeed. He replied,

'What speed is it doing, Chief?'

'It is keeping pace with us, sir. Christ!'

'Sonar, what is it?'

'Sorry sir. The signal split. There is now a fish in the water.'

This meant that there was probably a torpedo in the water headed for them. Mathews looked at his number one,

'This is to prevent us getting back into the search area.' He lifted the mike, 'Is the fish gaining on us, Chief?'

'That's a negative, sir. It was launched at 400 feet; it is now approaching the surface. Jesus! I've lost it.'

Then the loudspeaker blared out,

'Radar. Missile attack from stern. All guns to one eighty degrees.'

This directly ordered all guns to point towards the stern of the ship and put up a barrage of fire through which the missile had to pass. But missiles are small; this was even smaller – there was no room for anything of a normal Russian agricultural size on the small decoy, this was only three inches across, and three feet long.

Sonar then called again,

'Sonar to Bridge, another fish in the water.'

These missiles were fairly dumb; they did not send out any signals – there was not room for anything sophisticated on board. They simply received any radar signal from their target, and then homed in on it.

Captain Mathews knew that the defence barrage may not be effective, so he threw the ship into a sharp right turn. The guns by now had sight of the missile because of the smoke trail left by its motor, so were able to keep track of it. Then the motor cut out when it ran out of fuel; they lost sight of it, but the barrage was quite extensive. However it was not all encompassing, and the thin missile passed straight through. It still had control of its flight, and it turned with the ship as it came plummeting down on the radar antennae. There was no explosive charge carried, and no rocket fuel left. This was more or less a bullet. It smashed through the radar antennae, and then continued down into the bridge area. By now the light metal casing had been smashed, but the energy of inertia still existed within the debris that it brought down. As it all entered the Bridge it caused short circuits and small fires. A series of large holes appeared on the port side of the bridge floor, five men fell through, and the whole command structure was rocked with smoke and confusion. Everyone had forgotten the second missile. The guns were just as ineffective again as the guided tube hurtled towards the ship. Except that this time it was not guided; thanks to its comrade there was no radar, so the second missile splashed harmlessly into the sea.

Captain Mathews was blown from his seat. As he regained his composure he looked around at the situation. He spotted his number one on the starboard side of the bridge. The Captain called across to him,

'Send two torpedoes at that decoy, number one, depth 400 feet.' He climbed back into his chair and commented, 'We don't want any more problems with that.'

QUAD POINT

The creaky old liner DKM Dornier swayed gently as she steamed slowly out into the Atlantic.

Steele stood in front of Estrada's gun. He said to the Portuguese man,

'Are you on our side now?'

Luiz Estrada nodded his head.

Steele turned to Abegail,

'And what about you?'

'Si.' She nodded.

He looked at Autumn,

'We cannot leave her here like this. Help me put her on that gurney.'

The three of them carefully lifted the lifeless body, and placed her on a trolley. Steele took a sheet, and placed it over the body.

'Right.' He addressed them both, 'Is there any way of stopping the sub from here on this ship?'

Estrada shrugged his shoulders,

'I doubt it. The Kommisar has been trying to develop a remote control system, but it has proved to be impossible.'

'We have to stop that sub, is there any tracking device on board it?'

'The main advantage of a submarine is that it can hide so very efficiently, why compromise that by putting a tracker in it?'

'I see your point.' Steele had to concede the point.

'But there may be a way of communicating with it.' That got Steele's attention, 'Back on the island there is a very long wave transmitting setup. They cannot receive, but they can send a message in that wavelength, which can penetrate the water. When the sub gets a certain message it will be forced to surface in order to reply.'

'Do you know the message that would force her to the surface?'

Estrada shook his head,

'No, I was not involved in that part of the plan.'

Abegail thought for a moment, then said,

'I remember hearing the Kommisar and mister Peters discussing what they called a 'go, no-go' point.'

'How do you mean? Asked Steele.

Estrada made a connection to his work in Zurich,

'Yes, of course. Before I became aware of this part of the operation I was involved in the exercise to convert three airliners at Zurich airport. Part of that campaign included a point in the future that would co-ordinate all parts of the whole operation.' He placed his gun down on a work surface as he took a nearby stool, 'It was called the Quad Point, we at first thought it referred to the three airliners and HQ. But now it would appear to include this part too.'

Steele asked,

'You mean the airliners and the submarine are connected to operate in unison?'

'Yes, but not together. The intention is to launch against the European targets first, then two days later attack the United States.'

Steele looked puzzled,

'So how does the Quad Point come into it?'

'If and when the airliners are released in Europe, the sub will commit to the attack on the United States.'

'So how does the sub receive the message if it is underwater? If this is such an important message, surely they would need to know that the message has been received and understood in its entirety?'

'Yes. That is the last time the sub is on the surface, a sort of point of no return. After that there is no stopping the operation. The sub will release its missiles at a given time in the Gulf of Mexico.'

Steele felt they were getting somewhere,

'And when is this Quad Point? Do you know?'

'Of course I know; it was always a major target time during the conversions in Zurich.'

Steele could not understand why Estrada did not understand the importance to him of knowing this time. Then he realised that Estrada had switched sides, but he had not fully taken on the full implications of the situation, and the requirements of the side he was now on. Steele encouraged more information out,

'And the time is...?'

'All of the elements are to report in with their go –no go reports at ten o'clock this morning. This takes about eighteen minutes because of the complexity of the procedure; each element must report in a very exact sequence, each one must be complete before the next one is asked.'

Steele looked at his watch – 0845 – one hour fifteen minutes to stop this megalomaniac. He began to plan,

'How and when does this procedure start?' he asked Estrada.

'We have had quite a few practises at that; it was found that it took between twenty minutes and nearly an hour if things were found to be problematic at one point or another.'

'And how do they start?' Steele asked.

'At a pre-arranged time all of the stations are instructed to listen out for the Kommisar or Steve Peters, or a designated deputy to begin by calling the first station, usually Engineering. If they give a 'Go', the next station is called; that is usually fuel.'

Steele was impressed by the amount of detail that Estrada put into this,

'You are very well informed.'

'I should be, I have been the deputy on several occasions.'

Steele looked at his watch again,

'Just over an hour. Where is the radio room?'

'Behind the Bridge, but there are armed guards all over that part of the ship.'

Steele thought carefully. He looked at Autumn's body, it reminded him of his own mortality; he didn't mind dying now, but if it stopped him completing his mission he felt it would have been a waste for Autumn to have been killed.

He reached into his sock, and drew out the last Krugerand.

'I think we can buy ourselves some time with this.' He said as he turned to Estrada,

'If we meet anyone you must pretend to have me as your prisoner; just point the gun at me and give an order or two, you get the picture.'

He led the three out of the room. As he left he threw a kiss towards Autumn.

The three made their way along the corridor heading towards the front of the ship. Presently they found a door leading out on to the promenade deck. Steele looked carefully both ways as he made his way to a flight of stairs. These were situated roughly in the middle of the ship. He quickly ran up these stairs to find a reasonably open piece of deck. To the front of this was a stout white mast with various lines running from it to places on the ship to steady the structure.

'This looks like it.' Steele said as he withdrew the Krugerand. Using one of the many brackets and mounting points he jammed the explosive coin into the mast, and then told everyone to get back down the stairs. As they reached the promenade deck Steele indicated that they should make their way forward, much to his new allies' surprise.

As they walked slowly forward Steele looked up at the docking bridge sticking out. He knew that the Bridge was situated at the same level as this structure, and he needed to get up there, but not yet.

Then an almighty bang was felt as well as heard. The radio mast toppled and fell into the sea. Wires and rigging went flying all over the place. Men appeared from virtually every door, and began running towards where they reckoned the explosion came from. Steele and party waited for the rush to die down. He turned to Estrada and nodded towards the gun, which Estrada duly raised and pointed at Steele, who in turn raised his hands as if to be taken prisoner. They began up the nearest flight of stairs, then another flight which brought them to the same level as the Bridge. He turned left. Abegail opened the door into the Bridge area. They began walking along a short corridor, then through another door.

The Bridge area opened up before them. This was bigger than Steele expected for a ship of this size. The extra space was taken up with some sort of communications setup. Several men were busy working feverishly in this area because they couldn't get anything to work due to the radio mast being destroyed and lying at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. They were far too busy to notice Steele being escorted in at gunpoint.

The Kommisar turned to face Steele,

'Well, mister Steele. You really must stop this interfering. Do not think that it is going to do anything to upset my plans. There is the main communications setup on the island, we are now returning there.'

Steele then noticed that the ship was now travelling in the opposite direction.

'But I fear that you will not see that, we plan to dispose of you long before reaching land.' He turned to the gunman, Estrada, 'See to it that Mr Steele enjoys a nice short stay with us – what happened to his comrade? And where is Rawker?'

Steele lowered his arms, and moved towards the Kommisar, who looked surprised by this apparent change in events. He glanced at Estrada, who did not seem to be supportive; the Kommisar knew that something was awry here, so he called to two burly sailors who were standing by the navigation table,

'Take this man, and throw him overboard.'

'I don't think so.' Estrada said as he moved the gun to point at the advancing sailors, who quickly stopped in their stride.

A savage blow from a steel tube caught Estrada in the upper ribs just below his shoulder blades. This knocked the wind out of him, and caused his hands to fly up; the gun hand fired a shot before letting go of the weapon.

Abegail saw the man who delivered the blow, and attacked him directly.

The Kommisar issued on order that sounded a little pompous, given the circumstances,

'All personnel; secure these three.'

The men working on the communications equipment turned towards the three; of them, Estrada was slightly stunned, and about to receive a blow to the back of his knees, the gun was by now in the air. Abegail hit the attacker with a double footed flying kick as he took Estrada's legs from under him.

Steele turned to the advancing sailors. The nearest one had a large screwdriver in his hand. Steele decided he had to be taken out first. With a swift kick to the lead arm's elbow the screwdriver went flying. As the man turned to look at Steele he was hit by a direct classic blow to the chin; which effectively felled him.

Abegail stomped a heel into the face of the man she had dropped, as she helped Estrada to his feet, the next sailor to approach her was dealt a quick back elbow in the face to push him into his pals; who were queueing up to get into the fight.

Steele's adversaries were a little more organised; they came at him from both sides at once. He took hold of the first man, and then swung him round to collide with two who were coming from the opposite direction.

The group who were trying to deal with Abegail could hardly believe this little ninja. She adopted the classic martial arts stance; with hands threatening to chop. And this they did as soon as anyone came within range. Then Estrada picked up the gun. He quickly checked the chamber to see if there was ammunition in, and then casually waved it at the advancing sailors, who all backed off. He saw Steele dealing with his group, so he pointed the gun at them and called,

'Stop this fighting.'

He turned to the Kommisar just as the Kommisar moved towards him; he removed his captain's hat, and hit Estrada with his forehead on the bridge of his nose. This blinded and partially stunned Estrada, whose grip on the gun was lost as the Kommisar removed it from his grasp. He pushed Estrada into the arms of Abegail, and turned to face Steele,

'I don't mind gunning you down here and now, along with these traitors. It's up to you. But I do not have time to deal with you now.' He turned to the master-at-arms, 'Take them below, and make sure they cannot escape to do more damage.'

SEVEN SPANISH ANGELS

On the eastern Atlantic, just out from the Bay of Biscay were two ships; the USS Coombes, who had lost her radar, and the DKM Dornier, who had lost her radio communications.

When she was twenty miles from the Illas Cies, her destination, the Dornier's radar picked up the Coombes, the Americans were seventy miles out in the Atlantic, and about to begin her search for the K-9 Bean.

The Kommisar thought the destroyer may cause difficulties,

'We don't want any interference on the island.' The Kommisar told Professor Steve Peters, 'I think I can see a way of dealing with both our problems here.'

He was of course referring to Steele as well as the US Navy, he was aware that asking anyone to rid him of the menace from the three people he had now captured was unlikely to be successful; especially considering that two of them used to work with people here on board. No, he had a special plan that served two purposes.

The USS Coombes was 140 miles away, in the Atlantic performing her searches for K-9 Bean.

The Kommisar ordered all guns to be uncovered and mounted on the fore deck areas. Everywhere there was position and space on the front of the ship was occupied by guns of all sizes. Even the docking bridges on either side of the bridge became 30 mm anti-aircraft positions.

The main armaments in this strange setup were a pair of German SK-25 quick firing naval guns, which were mounted just in front of the superstructure in an open turret.

The DKM Dornier did not dock at the island, it moored some half a mile from land. The Kommisar, Prof Peters and Dr Coppelius took a launch to go ashore. The crew were given instructions to keep Steele and his new colleagues under strict lock and key below decks. The next mission for the Dornier was to take on the destroyer USS Coombes on the high seas.

The Kommisar knew that this was a suicide mission; the rusting hulk was no warship, but it could keep the Coombes occupied long enough to allow the K-9 Bean to be given the final go-ahead. After that, the irritant that was Steve Steele would be out of his hair for good; because he would be going to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, along with the traitors.

Without radar, the USS Coombes knew nothing of the Dornier and her plans, the American destroyer was intent on searching for the K-9 Bean. Below decks Rear Admiral Robinson and her crew were monitoring all frequencies when they almost caught a micro burst transmission in the very long waveband. Such transmissions are designed to be a difficult to detect and intercept as possible; and in the very long waveband this burst was probably instructing a submarine to surface. The bearing from which the burst came pointed at the Illas Cies, but with no cross bearing the monitors could not be absolutely sure of the origins of the transmissions, although they were fairly sure it was the island from which the Kommisar and his crew had done much of their work.

What was contained in the burst was beyond the monitors' capabilities; that is the purpose of a coded micro-burst. What it did was tell Oxen, the captain of the K-9 Bean, when to put an antenna up to the surface to receive final orders for their deadly missions.

Rear Admiral Judith Robinson sent out a message to High Command US Forces asking for at least one maritime patrol aircraft over the suspected area. They had already posted one in Portugal and one in Spain, anticipating the request. These P-3 Orions were scrambled immediately to cover the likely area K-9 Bean would be breaching the surface with a radio aerial. As soon as that became live the electronic surveillance planes would pick it up and know straight away exactly where it came from in the vast expanse of Atlantic Ocean.

The Dornier managed to sneak up on the USS Coombes by not using radio or radar; they managed to predict the American destroyer's course for the last two hours of their pursuit, so they switched off all electronic devices knowing that they would give away their position.

As they saw the dark speck on the horizon the Dornier's gun crews manned their positions.

There were eight miles between them when they made their play. The SK-25 cannons on board the Dornier could hurl a shell much further than that, but not with any accuracy. The Coombes was not quick to respond; the crew were only called to action stations as the plumes of water began erupting around their ship.

Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mathews turned the destroyer to face the enemy,

'Bring Alpha gun to bear. No radar ranging available. Yankee and Zulu guns prepare to fire to starboard.'

The 6 inch guns on the rear deck of the USS Coombes swung round to the starboard side of the ship in preparation for a turn to port, thereby giving them chance to fire.

Range finding was now being done manually, and information was relayed to the separate gun turrets to allow them to get off accurate shots.

The Dornier was a surprisingly stable gun platform; this gave their gunners a slight edge over the Americans who were on a fast moving destroyer, the greyhound of the fleet. It was the Dornier's greater width that allowed the mounting of two guns side by side; this effectively doubled the firepower available until the Coombes could turn to allow her two rear turrets to bear.

From the gun control position the master range finder called,

'Range five thousand.'

The Captain gave the order to turn twenty degrees to port. The ship responded quickly with very little of the characteristic lean out of the turn. This allowed all three guns to take reasonable aim at the lumbering old liner.

Whilst all this was happening the Coombes and her crew were unable to continue their search for the K-9 Bean.

Time came for it to make contact with the Kommisar.

Five feet of radio aerial is impossible to spot in the watery immensity of the Atlantic Ocean, but that is all that is needed to receive and transmit.

When the Kommisar switched his high power transceiver he knew exactly what to say, and the correct responses that would then allow him to give the next stage of commands;

'Seven Spanish Angels calling. Angel One status.'

These early calls were for the people in Zurich. The first was fuel and payload status of the three aircraft at the airport,

'Angel One, clear and ready.'

'Angel Two status.'

This was flight clearance from the ground crew and the authorities, including acceptance of the flight plans,

'Angel Two, clear and ready.'

'Angel Three, status.'

Alphonse Kurd on the first of the airliner-bombers, in the colours of Lufthansa replied,

'Angel Three, clear, armed and ready.'

'Angel Four, status.'

Aaron Roy Delbert in a Sabina Sud Caravelle replied,

'Angel Four, clear, armed and ready.'

'Angel Five, status.'

Ian Swartz was a pilot from the Dutch airline KLM, the last of the airliners,

'Angel Five, clear, armed and ready.'

'Angel Six, status.'

Angel Six was Oxen, the captain of the nuclear submarine K-9 Bean, who was to report on the general condition of the sub,

'Angel Six, clear and ready.'

'Angel Seven, status.'

This final contact was the primary missile launch authority on board the K-9 Bean,

'Angel Seven, clear armed and ready.'

'Angel Three, Four and Five immediate launch. Angel Six move to launch point, then hold for 48 hours. Confirm.'

The three airliners and Captain Oxen confirmed that they had the message, and then the Kommisar finished the transmission with,

'Seven Angles Out.'

Both P-3 Orions picked this message up, so did the American spy ship at Brest, and the one just north of the Azores, plus the naval intelligence setup on board the liner SS United States.

With all this information the two aircraft had no difficulty in triangulating the position of the sub.

... ... ... ... ...

John Drake had organised a meeting with the military authorities of Austria, France, Great Britain, Italy, and NATO at Strasbourg.

He told them about the plans they knew about,

'Why have you not mentioned all of this before?' asked a heavily medalled high ranking officer.

'We needed to get a complete picture before notifying you all.' Drake admitted.

'Cutting it a bit fine, were you not?' a flamboyant Italian officer remarked.

'That is as maybe.' Drake had to concede, 'But now we know exactly where to strike we can be certain that there is no loose end that can come back and bite us. There is no time to waste, the activities in hangar 3B at Zurich airport are ready to be neutralised first, and then we can worry about the airliners and the sub.'

Austrian Special Forces were poised and ready at the airport. They swooped upon the installation, but the birds had flown.

The planners were swift to respond, Drake pointed at a map that had been prepared with the flight plans of the three airliners on it,

'I suggest intercepting the Sabina aircraft over the Mediterranean on its way to Rome, the KLM aircraft could be downed over the Alps; the Lufthansa is routed over the area where the English Channel meets the North Sea, this would be a good place. We have tried to identify areas where they can do as little damage as possible.'

The gathered authorities agreed, and then rushed away to organise this plan.

SPLASH FOX ONE

The USS Coombes continued her turn until she was almost side on to the Dornier. This made her a much more difficult target for the gunners on board the old liner to hit; bearing is easy to resolve, range is very difficult, especially without dedicated and sophisticated range finding and guidance equipment. The captain of the cruise liner knew this, so began turning his own ship in the opposite direction to the USS Coombs to protect her as much as possible.

The two rear turrets on the Coombes now began firing at the sluggish liner. The battle was really getting unequal now. The gunners on the Dornier frantically tried to increase their rate of fire, but with the increased rate came less accuracy, whereas the purpose-built and dedicated destroyer pumped out more accurate gunfire as time passed.

Steele and his new comrades were locked in the lower chain room in the bow of the liner,

'We must find a way out of here.' He said as the gunfire from above reverberated through the ship.

Then the Coombs found the range of the Dornier. A 6 inch shell hit the superstructure at the rear of the ship. The empty cabins in that area took the brunt, and they began to burn. The skeleton crew did not have the manpower to fight the Americans as well as the fire, so the fire was ignored. Another shell hit closer to midships. The ships were moving away from each other now; the Coombes began to execute another turn to starboard. This would bring her into close range in a position where the Dornier's front armament would not be able to fire on her.

The temporary captain of the Dornier realised the danger, so he began a turn to port.

The pale yellow light in the chain locker began to flutter and fail. Every time the guns above them fired Steele and company were showered by dust and rust. They did not know it, but the USS Coombes was now closing into position to fire torpedoes.

Lt. Cdr. Brian Mathews gave the order,

'Prepare to fire torpedoes. Put two fish in the water on my mark. Give them two feet.'

This told the Exec Officer at what depth the torpedoes are to be set at.

Exec of the watch replied,

'Aye, aye, sir, two feet it is.'

The sleek grey American destroyer manoeuvred around the old tub. Mathews gave the order,

'Shoot.'

NB, the word 'fire' is reserved for a blazing inferno aboard ship in naval terms.

Two shiny black torpedoes slipped from their launch tubes into the choppy waves of the Atlantic. Torpedoes are programmed to travel just below the waves, but Mathews had noticed that the Dornier was lightly loaded; as she sat high in the water, he estimated that if a torpedo was set to swim too low it may pass below the hull.

The American sailors watched the two fish until all they could see were the white trails left by the deadly aquatic missiles. He lines were not straight; the fish were guided, and they adjusted their course slightly. But also the waves were choppy; the undulations and varying pressures emitted by the wave movements caused the torpedoes to move relative to their target. The first one hit between the engine room and the stern. The second one was headed for the bows. The lower chain locker was positioned just above the water line in the extreme bows; right in front of the fish that was loaded with explosive charges.

The ship dropped into a valley of swell in the ocean. At the same time the approaching torpedo hit the top of the same wave. This put the fish on a high collision course with the bow of the liner. It shot out of the top of the wave, became airborne briefly, then hit the black and rust bow of the liner. The metal was so weakened by years of crashing into waves of salt water that there was insufficient strength to depress the torpedoes warhead initiator; so it crashed into the chain locker without exploding.

The impact caused the bulkhead to buckle; the door out to the rest of the ship flew open. Steele looked at the fish, the hole in the side of the ship, the open door, and remarked,

'You were only supposed to blow the bloody door off.' He turned to his comrades, 'Come on.'

The ship was now taking on water at a prestigious rate. The hole in the bow dropped under water as the trio moved towards the open door. Abegail was swept towards sharp broken metal beyond the door. Steele managed to take her by the waist to prevent a bloody mess. As Estrada made it through the door the loose torpedo slammed against the inside of doorway.

Waist deep in water they made their way to the upper decks. They did not encounter anyone on the way; the ship's crew were busy lowering the lifeboats. As they reached the lifeboat station, all thoughts of enemy and foe were forgotten. The enemy was now the Atlantic Ocean; all humans were trying to keep from being consumed by the grey water. Steele, Abegail and Estrada were helped into a lifeboat. The USS Coombes pulled alongside to pick up survivors as the Dornier settled in the water and began to capsize. Steele, Abegail and Estrada were taken on board the American destroyer. Steele met the Exec,

'I'm a British agent; would it be possible to see the captain?'

... ... ... ...

Alphonse Kurd was flying the Lufthansa jet. He had the furthest to fly, so he began two hours before the other two. He was still over northern France when Ian Schwartz took off in the KLM aircraft and headed for Paris, followed ten minutes by Aaron Roy Delbert in the Sabina Caravelle. He had the shortest route; to Vatican City. He flew south to the Mediterranean, where he was met by three Fait G91 fighters of the Italian Air Force.

The grey and green Italian fighters formed an echelon port formation to give maximum chance of a straight-forward kill, as if shooting down an enemy bomber, which they were.

The formation were approaching the airliner at 50 mph faster than their target. The first pilot fired his 30 mm cannons into the port wing of the airliner. With a two second burst many ugly black holes appeared in the wing. White streaks began to stream out of the holes as fuel escaped into the airflow.

The second fighter aimed at the rear mounted engines. The port engine immediately exploded, forcing the fighter to bank away. The third fighter came in from underneath the stricken airliner. This meant that he could bleed off much of his speed as he tilted the fighter's nose to give him the perfect aiming resolution. He began raking the underside of the fuselage, bits flew off as his bullets stitched their way forwards. When they reached the front the 30 mm cannon shells entered the cockpit from below, killing Aaron Roy Delbert.

The airliner bomber pitched over to the right; and with one engine blown off, the other streaming smoke and flames, the port wing began to burn as it went down into the waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

Schwartz flew north towards Paris. When he began to climb to clear the Alps he encountered a squadron of Mirage III supersonic fighters of the French Air Force.

M3 was the lead aircraft, both the Austrian, and French authorities had already cleared the aircraft to take military action to stop this airliner.

The pilot of M3 obtained a tone from his heat-seeking missile; he pressed the release trigger to fire the missile. The rocket motor fired up, power from this engine soon overcame the air pressure of travelling at close to the speed of sound; thereby allowing the missile to slide along its launch rail. Once in free flight the heat seeking warhead took over the guidance of the missile. The KLM aircraft's jet engines gave off the strongest heat signature in the sky. The sidewinder missile shot straight up the exhaust of the right inner engine before exploding. The resulting explosion ruptured fuel tanks in the wing. These then exploded taking the whole wing off.

The water-based snows of the Alps made any escaping liquid gas harmless when the airliner bomber met its fate.

Kurd crossed the English Channel near Holland. He began a turn to the west to fly up the Thames estuary as he had done many times before, during WW II as part of Hitler's Luftwaffe. This time he was flying a Boeing 707 airliner in the colours of Lufthansa. Two RAF F-4 Phantoms from out of Coltishall fell in behind him. They were equipped with no fewer than sixteen air-to-air missiles between them, had no hesitation shooting down the Lufthansa aircraft with two sidewinder missiles. Alphonse Kurd did not even see the English mainland this time.

High above the Bay of Biscay a lone P-3 Orion maritime reconnaissance aircraft was flying out into the Atlantic Ocean. There was already another P-3 approaching the area where the K-9 Bean had last broadcast from. Both aircraft deployed their magnetic anomaly detectors, or MAD stings. These very sensitive instruments must be deployed as far from the engines, or any other metallic objects as possible; because these detectors pick up any slight disturbance in the earth's magnetic field. The kind of disturbance that could be made by the passing of a 20,000 ton nuclear submarine

Atlantic P-3 was first to detect the anomaly. He radioed the approximate co-ordinates; this method only tells you that there is something there, it cannot tell you exactly where, or what. The two aircraft began to fly a carousel pattern some five miles wide around the anomaly. Every now and then one of them would dive down to low level to see if he could get a better fix. The expected speed of the vessel was also fed into the equation, eventually they both agreed that they had the best resolution they were going to get. Biscay P-3 was tasked with delivering the coup de gras. They knew that K-9 Bean was down there somewhere within a circle of probability some two miles across. Rear Admiral Robinson on board the USS Coombes was monitoring the whole situation; there were no other vessels of any kind anywhere near.

'Coombes to Biscay, you are cleared to drop a Lulu on your best resolution.'

'Roger that.' Was the monosyllabic reply.

The Mk 101 Lulu was an 11 kiloton nuclear depth bomb. The depth for this explosion was set to 600 feet below the surface. This will guarantee that everything within the resolution radius will be crushed.

... ... ...

On board the USS Coombes Steele was led to the bridge where he met Lt. Cdr. Brian Mathews,

'I have been on this mission since the very beginning.' He told the captain, 'The device that enabled you to follow the nuclear sub was one of mine. Did you get her?'

'Yes, I think so. But let me introduce you to someone who has been running this show. Follow me.'

Steele was led down to the room that Rear Admiral Juliet Robinson had sequestered,

'May I introduce Rear Admiral Robinson?' Mathews said to Steele.

They shook hands, and then Steele got straight down to the operations,

'Do you know about the Zurich operation?'

Juliet explained how the airliners had been taken care of, when she had finished he asked her,

'What about the nuclear sub? They take a lot of stopping, and the threat is even greater.'

'Yes. We managed to get MAD fixes from two P-3s, that enabled us to depth bomb her.'

Steele knew that the resolution from MAD data is not accurate enough to attack a single boat,

'Just on MAD data alone?'

'Yes; we in the destroyer were too far away chasing a decoy.'

He was now concerned that the nuclear submarine may have survived, and then be able to operate independently in its mission,

'Are you sure you got it? Some of these Russian boats have triple hulls. We must be absolutely certain that she has been stopped.' He addressed his next question directly to Juliet, 'How many depth charges did you drop on it?'

'Just the one.'

Steele was staggered as he repeated the answer,

'Just the one?'

'Yes, but it was one hell of a lulu.'

He got the message.

'Well, that should have ruined their whole day. Have you any information about her since?'

He knew that if she was sitting still near the edge of the blast zone they may have survived the attack,

'We have managed to get a rough estimate of her depth now; she's sitting on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. I don't think she is one of those sitters that are rigged for such depths.'

Steele had to concur,

'No, I agree. This was bomber, not a recce machine.'

Juliet added,

'But we will keep an eye on her; one of the P-3s has dropped a series of listening devices in the area. If she moves again, we shall know about it.'

'Good, now do we know how the Kommisar got his final message out, and where from?'

Steele knew that he was on the Dornier when he last saw him; and hoped that he was still there when the ship went to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

'We picked up a long conversation between the island and six recipients. Three of these bursts came from an empty bit of the Atlantic, this gave us the location of the sub, but the Kommisar must have been transmitting from the island.'

'Then that is where I must go.' Steele turned to Mathews, 'Can you take me there?'

Mathews looked at Juliet, who simply nodded,

'Of course we can, it is part of the same mission.'

Juliet added,

'We have a detachment of US Marines here on board who are spoiling for a fight; you can take them with you.'

'Thank you. They could prove to be very useful; I do not know what forces are still on the island.'

Steele asked about his new comrades,

'The two people who came aboard with me, will they be available to come with me? I would like to know where things are; the radio shack that we knew about was pretty well destroyed.'

Juliet looked regretful,

'I'm sorry; they have been detained for questioning.'

'Pity, they could have been useful.'

RETURN TO THE ISLAND

The American destroyer headed for the island. Upon arrival she moored off the bay where the Dornier and K-9 Bean had been anchored on the Atlantic side of the long island. Steele disembarked with the Marines in the first of three boats to find a safe landing place. The rocks where Autumn had struggled from the sub did not look welcoming; Steele wondered how on earth she managed in the dark. At least they were not being fired upon. He stood in the bows of the boat with binoculars surveying the coastline, looking like a Viking figurehead when someone called,

'Gunfire!'

The large ridged inflatables veered suddenly away from the rocky coast. The Marines and Steele could not hear anything because of the salty sea and the noise of their engines; someone had seen the flashes of gunfire.

The boats turned right to head southwards down the rocky coast. A Marine in the lead boat called to Steele,

'We need a gentle slope; these high cliffs are no good for a landing. Try to avoid any beaches.'

'I thought you guys loved landing on beaches.'

'Don't you believe it; if the bad guys are waiting for us we need cover. These rocks look good to me.'

Steele pointed at an area where the rocks and grass sloped down to the wild Atlantic with a short pebbled area which would allow the boats to beach.

The Marine nodded, and the three boats arched around as the Marines looked anxiously at the hill above the chosen landing area. There was no sign of life. It is not easy to guard every inch of the coastline of an island, especially if you want to keep it a secret; so there were no goon towers.

The boats skimmed up the shallow shingle beach; some Marines even reached the rocks without getting their boots wet.

The landing was unopposed; Steele and the Marines ran up the rocky slope to the crest. He looked around at the camouflaged Marines as they made their way into the island, then he saw something unexpected; a small person in a different shade of green, a little brighter, and without all the paraphernalia carried by men in combat. That's it – this was not a man at all. He made his way between the rocks to the person; he heard himself say almost under his breath,

'Abegail? I know she likes a fight, but this is ridiculous.'

He made his way towards her as they reached the cover of some low brush,

'What the hell are you doing here?' he asked her as he took hold of her arm.

'I know where things are; I think I can be very useful here.'

He shook his head in disbelief.

The pair found themselves on the right of the line as the Marines advanced into the island. They were not naive enough to believe that things would be so quiet for long. When they were all ashore and safely in secure positions the Marines decided to advance in a narrow arrowhead formation to prevent being outflanked.

The occupying forces were not caught napping. After World War II whole sections of the Waffen SS went missing. These aggressive fighters were responsible for atrocities, and they ran away whenever they got the opportunity to void capture. Now in their mid-fifties the hard core remnants of the Waffen SS Totenkopf Division were prepared to defend the island. The flanks of the defenders were equipped with the venerable German MG-42 heavy machine gun, each one with a rate of fire of over 1,000 rounds per minute.

The Americans advanced into the sweet-smelling pine woodland. Carefully they moved forwards; they knew there would be someone coming to greet them. The thick brush in the woodland made going difficult for the Marines. Abegail directed the lead element towards where the radio shack used to be. As they prepared to move along the Ruta Peito one of the Marines saw movement off to his left. They took up defensive positions, and Abegail and Steele were moved back for their own protection when the distinctive sound of the high rate of fire from an MG 42 was heard. Wood and leaves were scattered as the trees took the impact of the heavy machine gun. The Marines immediately took cover on the rocky ground. The source was identified, and the Marines took measures to deal with it. As they moved off towards the area from where the gunfire came, another group of Germans attacked from the opposite direction. Steele and Abegail found themselves in the middle of the battle. Due to the closeness of the combatants Steele's handgun came in very useful, Abegail hid in the undergrowth until she could get to grips with the attackers. As soon as one came close she took hold of his rifle. When he pulled back to retain control he soon found that he was pulling Abegail towards himself, it was he who supplied some of the power of the kick that landed in his ribs. This knocked the wind out of him, thereby preventing him from warning his colleagues as well as debilitating him sufficiently for him to loosen his grip on the rifle – the butt of which hit him full in the face twice before he hit the ground. She threw the rifle away, but disarmed the unconscious man of his Luger, ammunition and fighting knife. Thus equipped she stood next to Steele, who looked surprised to see her so well equipped and ready for the fight.

The next thrust came from their left. The pair fired the hand guns into the brush as soon they identified the enemy, occasionally they heard a cry as the bullets found their mark.

The Marines took on the ex-SS men in hard fought hand to hand combat. Slowly at first, but with gathering momentum the younger, stronger Marines gained the upper hand. As they approached a clearing the battered remains of the radio shack came into view. Abegail turned to Steele,

'There is another radio position just over there, hidden in the trees.'

'Is there?'

'This one is partially buried and hidden by the trees; it is probably where he made his commands from.'

Steele raised his binoculars, as he searched the area Abegail continued,

'I don't like the look of this; there was talk on the boat of this being his last stand. If he was cornered he would use the chemical thing they had developed in Lisbon on anyone approaching.'

Steele stopped the Marines upon hearing this. They stayed behind the tree line as he surveyed the area on the far side of the clearing. He remembered what he knew of the chemical; it atomises in air, it will be neutralised by water. There was little wind, and no chance of rain. All the Kommisar needed to do was load the liquid into a high power hose, and squirt it over them, and they would all be dead. The trees might give them some protection, but not enough; dead is dead.

By scrutinising an area to their left through his binoculars, Steele managed to pick out a series of small aerials. These only just protruded above the tops of the trees, and seemed to be joined together, he pointed as he told the Marine Officer stood by him,

'Of course! To communicate with a submarine below the water you need to broadcast on a very long waveband. These transmissions do not travel horizontally; they are bounced off the troposphere. So the aerial is horizontal, not pointing straight up. What we have here is probably a transmitting station; you can't receive and transmit from the same place, but if you only have to transmit, here is a perfect setup.' He almost looked pleased. The young Officer replied,

'Great. Now we know how they communicated with the sub. But that information is no good to us because the sub is no more, it is a Norwegian Blue, it is a deceased submarine.'

'Yes, but now we know where the bastard is.' Steele pointed to the aerials, indicating that they had the Kommisar cornered.

The Officer quietly communicated with his men. The ex-SS were now regrouping in the trees under the aerials as if by design.

Steele told the Officer,

'Tell your men, if they see water being sprayed from that area, get as far away as possible as quickly as possible – in fact it might be a good idea to back off a bit, upwind if we can, and see if we can find some shelter.'

'Ok, I'll leave four men here watching. We seem to have a Mexican standoff here.'

Steele then asked,

'Can the Rear Admiral arrange some air support?'

'Yeah, we have some of the new Harrier jets in Spain on manoeuvres, bet they would like some real shooting practice.'

'Get her on the radio, and let's get it arranged.'

Steele elected to stay and watch the area, despite the possibility that it could prove fatal for him. Since Autumn was no longer in the picture he didn't mind about himself going to join her; especially if it also meant that he was doing something that might get some kind of revenge too, there was no uncertainty involved.

Four Marines and Steve Steele watched the area of trees behind which lay the Kommisar's communications setup, but he had no-one to communicate with any more.

A Marine quietly approached Steele,

'An air strike will take place on that position in 45 minutes; the planes need to refuel and take on some bombs.'

'Ok. We shall remain here for another 35 minutes, then get away to safety.'

Five minutes passed. As the watchers settled to observe any movement from the woods below the aerials they kept particular vigil on the edges of the treeline. A quiet whistle came from one of the Marines to alert the others that something was happening.

At first a few, then more men were seen to be moving from the area of interest to the left. One of the Marines made his way back to the Officer, who then ordered his men to cut off the enemy movement on the other side of the clearing. Steele elected to stay with the Marines watching the woods.

Three minutes after the men had moved off to the left Steele saw another movement on the edge of the treeline. He raised his binoculars in time to see five soldiers followed by three civilians. Upon closer study he recognised the Kommisar, Steve Peters, and Dr Coppelius running in the opposite direction to the men who had earlier made off.

Steele looked to his left, in the direction the first runners had gone. This was probably a diversion he thought, or could it be a covering manoeuvre to cover their commander in chief and his staff?

He gathered the four Marines and Abegail,

'Is there another facility that way?' Steele asked Abegail.

She shook her head,

'No, only beaches; there can be no doubt about that, we have spent a lot of time on that side of the island during quiet periods.'

Steele looked back to see if there were ex-SS soldiers following the group who were heading for the beaches. No-one followed them.

'Ok, troops, it's up to us.' Steele led the way out on to the clearing. He turned right, and then picked up his stride in order to keep pace with the men on the opposite side of the clearing. A shot rang out as one of the escorting soldiers saw Steele and his crew. The rearmost Marine returned fire. The second Marine dropped to one knee to take better aim one of the enemy soldiers fell. Everyone stopped running as the clearance brought both sides closer together. The classic hide and shoot gun battle ensued. Steele elected to move to the right to outflank the enemy. As he moved through the woods he noticed that the light was stronger to his right. He looked through the thinning trees to see the expanse of a sandy beach, with a natural bay to one side. In that bay was the SAS boat which had been re-floated. It began moving as Steele emerged from the trees. He could still hear the gunfire that was keeping his comrades busy; that was what it was supposed to do. The patched-up yacht slowly pulled away from the beach. Then Steele saw what the whole plan was about. Walking towards the bridge he saw the Kommisar and his colleagues.

Steele fired three shots at the boat, but to no avail. All shooting on the island ceased. Three US Marine Corps Harriers roared overhead. Steele waved frantically at them, but without radio contact or orders, the target cannot be changed, even if they knew what the demented civilian on the beach was waving at.

In his frustration Steele threw his gun at the boat, which was far too far away by then opening its engines up in deep water it headed for Spain as Steele fell to his knees.

The End

Other books by Lloyd R Martin.

Shortfall to Equilibrium.

A Steve Steele adventure.

Nothing Happens.

Steve Steele has retired, but gets thrown into more action.

Thrones of Mars.

Man's first mission to Mars.
