“Never heard of it. Is it in Copenhagen?”
“It’s two minutes away.”
The buildings grew taller, more city-like. They passed what looked like an old town hall, crossed a small bridge, and then followed a wide canal that reminded her of Amsterdam. Most of the buildings were old, and it wasn’t hard to imagine Copenhagen at the turn of the century when horses pulled wagons loaded with fish. What felt like minutes later, they pulled up in front of an expensive-looking hotel. Bizarrely, it was the Angleterre, although a German flag hung above the pillared doorway.
“Do you know who we’re meeting?” Kat asked, opening the door.
The woman shook her head. “No. I’m sorry, I don’t, but apparently, you know him.”
Thankful she wasn’t alone, Kat climbed out. The woman drove off immediately, and they watched the Opel until it was out of sight. Then they gazed at the hotel. It was an imposing place. Beneath the German flag, a twin-pillared portico decorated by potted shrubs. Through the glass doorway, they could make out an impressive reception desk, although it wouldn’t be much help. They could hardly ask for someone whose name they didn’t know.
Heading up the steps, they entered the spacious lobby and looked around. Unlike the Imperial Hotel in Vienna, it was almost empty. A German officer was checking in at the reception desk, and an elderly couple sat on an isolated couch. The lobby felt very austere. Even the potted shrubs seemed to have been positioned to make up for the lack of people. Perhaps it was normal, they were, after all in the middle of a war.
“Let’s try the bar?” Kelly suggested.
“I can’t imagine who’s waiting for us. I mean, even if the person came from London, how many people do we actually know?”
“I don’t know, but apparently we know him.”
She thought of Pernass. If her stepfather knew Fleming, maybe the two of them had cooked something up, although it seemed a bit far-fetched. Fleming would never involve him directly, and Pernass would never come to Copenhagen, Then who? Trufflefoot? Major Stirling?
Making their way into the bar, they looked around. It was a large bar, furnished with upholstered chairs and low coffee tables. An ornate wooden bar stood on one side of the room, but apart from the middle-aged bartender and a portly businessman with his secretary/wife/girlfriend, the place seemed deserted. And then, at the far end of the room, she spotted a man sitting on his own. He faced away from them, so she could only see the back of his head. He was smoking. More specifically, he was smoking from a long and effeminate cigarette-holder.
It was Fleming.
Astonished that Fleming came to Copenhagen, she took her time walking over to him. She needed to think. She’d never seen Fleming beyond the confines of his office on Baker Street and associated him with a book-filled room, London taxis honking through the open window. As she drew closer, she could see that he wore the uniform of a German naval Commander. Typical of him to choose such a high rank. How on earth did he get here? She’d spoken to him on the phone less than twenty-four hours ago.
“Commander Fleming?” she enquired, easing into an opposite chair. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“Major Wolfram,” he croaked, exhaling a plume of smoke. “How nice to see you. I thought your last mission might have been the end of you. You seem to be indestructible.”
“Commander, how did you get here so quickly?”
He shrugged. “It was easy. I flew to Sweden and then to Copenhagen. Now that we have the Germans on the run, Denmark’s fairly quiet. They’ll be out of here in a few weeks, which brings me to the Russians. They marched into Poland Yesterday. I’m sorry, but they’re taking credit for all the destruction at the Wolf’s Lair.”
“Ya well, life’s a bitch, then you die.” Kat said raising her eyebrows in an oh well look.
By tomorrow the Russian’s will be at the German border. The war’s coming to an end.”
“Then why are you here? Why do you need to talk to me?”
For a moment, Fleming didn’t speak. Eventually, he said, “I have a… proposition for you.”
“A proposition, or a new mission?”
He shook his head. “There won’t be any more missions. When you get back to that bloody great house you inherited, which is probably full of cobwebs by now, you’ll be a civilian again… I think.”
She laughed. “You think? What does that mean?”
He loaded his cigarette-holder with another Players Navy Cut. “I’m retiring from the SOE, Major. I’ve been asked to work for The Times newspaper.” Cocking his head, he gave her a sinister smile. “But… I’ve also been asked to run covert ops for MI6. The war might be coming to an end, but the world will still be full of unpleasant people.”
She thought of Pernass and wondered where he was. He must know the war was coming to an end, and she wondered what he’d do in civilian life. “I’m sure it is, but what’s that got to do with me?”
Puffing out a cloud of smoke, he gazed at the ceiling. “I need a secret agent, Major. A very secret agent who no one knows about, least of all, MI6.”
She stared at him. “An agent who MI6 doesn’t know about? But everyone does know about me. Even the squadron leader in Benghazi knew who I was. I must be the most non-secret spy in Europe. After our stint in Algeria, even Hitler put a price on my head.”
“You may not believe it, but with the exception of Sir Stewart Menzies, who’s the head of MI6, very few people know that.”
She laughed. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that. What about people like Paddy Mayne, or Major Stirling?”
Fleming grimaced. “We think Mayne may have bought it. We’re not sure about Stirling. Miss. Wolfram, you’re a major asset, but more importantly, you’re my asset. I don’t exactly spread your name around. Even your stepfather keeps it a secret.”
“My stepfather seems to have disappeared. Have you spoken to him?”
“Not directly, but he won’t be a problem. When your mother passed away, he inherited everything, but now he’s branded as a war criminal, so everything he owned is reverting to you, which is why you’re inheriting the house in Sussex.”
“He’s a war criminal?”
“He is now. Last we heard, he and his men had stolen a U-boat, loaded it with illicit gold… and disappeared, although I doubt if we’ve heard the last of him.”
She tried to imagine herself working as a secret agent. The Commander came from a wealthy family, and now he was going to work for The Times, which meant he probably wanted to be a writer and she could imagine him conjuring up spy stories. But the real world wasn’t like that.
She glanced at Kelly again. He stared at her. “Commander, when the war’s over, my team will have nothing to do, and just in the same way I’m your asset, they’re mine. If I’m going to work as a spy, I wouldn’t mind having them around.”
Fleming let out a rasping cough. “I totally agree. You’ll certainly need a team. Why not use the one you’ve already got?”
She looked around the room. She’d only been in Denmark for an hour, and already her future was being planned. “I don’t know, Commander. I’d like to think about it. As well as the house in Sussex, I’ve inherited quite a lot of money. I’d quite like to enjoy it for a while.”
“I understand, and I’m sure you need a break, but the world is moving on. Hitler will soon be gone, and the world will be crawling with political despots. It’s going to be a nightmare. I need you, Major. Is there anything that might tempt you?”
She thought about the house in Sussex. She remembered the house from when she was young. It was a twelve-bedroom manor house, complete with a well-stocked lake, ten acres of forest, stables for six horses and an airst
rip that her father had used to go salmon fishing. She thought of all the incredible skills the team had accrued. It would be a shame to waste them.
Unable to contain herself, she laughed. “You could buy me a DC3.”
END
APOCALYPSE IN TIME:
THE CALIPHATE INVASION
PREVIEW
A SCI-FI ACTION/ADVENTURE
Day One
Al Mukalla
Eastern Yemen
02:00 local time, 1 June, 20soon
“Two minutes to the Landing Zone. Pucker up everyone!”
Sergeant First Class Katherine “Kat” Walker yawned and unsnapped her harness. She hadn’t budged since launching from the USS Gerald R Ford in the Arabian Sea at o’ dark thirty. The rest of the US Army Special Operations Command operators wedged on board the MV-22 Osprey helicopter stretched out around her.
Kat jogged in place for ten seconds, her favorite pre-operation ritual to lubricate the mind and muscles. As a forward air controller attached to the Special Operations Team, she wasn’t a door-kicker. No matter how much admitting it hurt, she wouldn’t be on point for this raid. There were twelve high-speed shooters between Kat and the rear ramp waiting to fast-rope down and finish the dirty work.
Which didn’t mean she had nothing to do in the meantime.
Kat studied her tablet computer and its live drone feed, waiting for a reaction from their upcoming target. Staff Sergeant Roland, the team’s medic, peered over her shoulder and spit the last of his dip into a Dr. Pepper bottle.
“What are you waiting for, Kat? Quit playing with yourself and just waste the Hajjis already.”
“Ah, ah. Slow your roll, big fella.” Kat wagged a finger at him and stared deeper into the screen. “Whatever the job, be it business, sex or even hostage rescue missions like this, it all comes down to…” She leered at her handheld. “Timing. Now we’re ready.”
On the black and white thermal screen in her hand, one of the bearded, AK-wielding locals at the target site jerked his head towards the sky. Waving frantically, he skipped to a nearby pickup truck and spun a quad-barreled anti-aircraft gun towards the thumping sounds. Fifteen more bad guys materialized out of thin air. They scattered around the compound’s courtyard and raised machine guns and rocket propelled grenade launchers at the heavens. One even sighted a heat-seeking, surface-to-air missile at the sky. An expensive, American-made one.
Roland squinted. “Shit. Check out the heavy metal. Looks like one hell of an ambush.”
“Oh, it is, but not the way you’re thinking.” Roland cocked his head as Kat purred at her screen.
“Ya baby, that’s right. Put all your cards on the table.”
Kat kept grinning as more heavily armed Al Qaeda members crept out of hidey-holes and geared up to greet her raiding party. She spent a few moments manually assigning targets using the screen’s digital overlay. Thirty seconds out from the Landing Zone, she clicked her inter-squad throat mike off and switched to the bulky radio on her back.
“Dragon element, this is Butterfly 7. Target’s warmed up. I just sent you a revised fire plan. Ring the doorbell, please.”
In response, muzzle flashes blossomed in the darkness outside her transport chopper’s windows. Kat hummed as a tsunami of 30mm rounds sanitized the Landing Zone and clouded up her drone feed. The escorting Apache gunships would continue pumping out high-explosive shells until she waved them off.
“Dragon element: All clear. Shift fire to the outer perimeter. We’re coming in hot and—”
A screech ripped through her radio at the same time the cargo bay’s red interior lights flickered in and out. The Osprey tilted a good thirty degrees forward and knocked the Special Forces troops on their asses. A second later, or a few years to Kat’s stopped heart, the bird recovered with a shudder and returned to level flight. The strange radio squelch faded as fast as it came. The pilot’s cool voice over the intercom didn’t betray a hint of concern.
“Relax everyone. Just a power surge. Maybe static lightning. Radar and GPS are out, but all other systems are running. No big deal; we’re continuing the mission.”
Kat climbed up and helped Roland to his feet. He jabbed a finger at the nearest viewport, but there wasn’t a single light for miles.
“A blackout, huh? I’m telling you, the enemy knew we were coming.”
She peered out the window at the suddenly dark coastal town of Al Mukalla. “Don’t be so paranoid. It’s a Third World country. Not exactly a reliable electrical grid. The power is always going down…”
Kat’s tablet blinked an odd error message. She’d somehow lost her satellite connection to the orbiting Reaper drone. What the hell?
“Rope out!”
Kat tucked the device away as the Osprey swooped in on the target and hovered in place. Shoveling away her confusion, she cleared her mind and focused on the task at hand.
“Go! Go! Go!”
She cracked and shook an infrared chemlight strapped to her helmet, marking herself as friendly to anyone viewing her through night vision or thermal sights. Speaking of which, Kat flipped her own Night Optical Observation Device eyepiece, mounted on her helmet, up and out of the way. Depth perception would be rather useful on the way down.
Letting her muscle memory take over, Kat shuffled towards the rear ramp with the rest of her disappearing team. The loadmaster shoved a fat rope in her gloved hands and slapped her shoulder. Clutching tight, she wrapped her thighs around her swaying lover and slid into the windswept dust storm below.
By the time she landed on the target building fifty feet later, most of the operators had slipped inside. The nitty gritty of clearing the farmhouse and saving the hostages wasn’t her problem. Ignoring the sporadic shooting echoing from the stairwell, Kat took up her assigned overwatch position on a corner of the rooftop and dropped her Night Optical Observation Device eyepiece over her shooting eye. She scanned the gruesome slaughter in the courtyard and farm fields below with pupils unfocused. Kat used her peripheral vision to pick up movement, rather than study every individual object for threats.
As if summoned, some young man crawled out of a burning outlying structure a hundred yards away. Flames danced along his legs and hopped towards his face, but he screamed in defiance. Barely able to sit up straight, the teenager hefted a Rocket Propelled Grenade tube to his shoulder somehow. With the way he jerked about, it would take a miracle for him to hit the hovering Ospreys. Privately, Kat admired his tenacity and courage.
Professionally though, she whipped up her rifle and put two rounds in his face without a second thought. She took one last look around for threats before hollering at the few other guys on the roof.
“Northwest courtyard clear.”
Chores done, Kat dug out her tablet and went back to her primary job: covering the extraction. The device powered on, but refused to make a satellite connection to any surveillance asset. As a matter of fact, she couldn’t connect to any station on the military’s futuristic, multi-billion dollar “battle net.” Kat clucked her tongue and reset the computer. No change.
“Well, doesn’t that complicate things?”
The steady voice of the lead Apache pilot chimed over her radio and cut through the fog of war. “Butterfly, this is Dragon. We’re covering the access road for you. I have eyes on at least fifty likely hostiles and a dozen non-standard tactical vehicles staging two kilometers west of the objective. Looks like they’re waiting on something. We’ll engage as soon as they exit the town, over.”
The trooper next to her, a loaner Marine from Marine Corps Special Operations Command, popped an overlooked enemy sentry on a hilltop four hundred meters away. He collected the hot brass from
his shell and stashed it in a thigh pocket. Kat didn’t raise an eyebrow. Some folks kept far worse trophies.
The Leatherneck spit over the roof’s ledge. “What the hell are the birds waiting on? Smoke the bastards while they’re grab-assing in one place. Why do we have to make everything so complicated? If they got a weapon, then they’re fair game.”
Kat shrugged without taking her eyes off the courtyard. “I don’t make the rules of engagement, Jake.” She didn’t like sitting around waiting for trouble any more than he did, but Central Command kept them on a short leash to avoid “diplomatic entanglements.” Yemen’s civil war had more sides than a bi-polar, schizophrenic serial killer. Not to mention the minor detail that the US was officially neutral.
“There’s a chance these people are just tribal rebels and don’t have a beef with us. Sure, the fighters might be Al Qaeda, ISIS or some other Islamist group, but what if they’re simply the local town militia? Just regular guys trying to protect their families and thinking they’re the ones under attack by terrorists. Point is, we don’t engage unless—”
Over the whumping helicopters, no one heard the incoming mortars in time to shout a warning. Kat threw herself flat as a pair of explosions lifted the night’s skirt in front of her. A chunk of shrapnel plowed through the sand brick parapet and clanked off her helmet.
Jake spit out a mouthful of dust and flashed her a grin. “You were saying?”
Kat flipped him the bird just as Captain Dore, the strike team’s leader, came rushing back upstairs and whooped.
“All clear inside; ready to extract. Kat! Where’s this shit coming from?”
Kat swallowed the “How the hell should I know?” in her throat. That’s what artillery-finding radars were for. The mortars could be firing from miles away in any direction. Instead of cussing, she just whispered in her radio.
“Any Dragon element, do you have eyes on those mortars?”
Kat and Die Wolfsschanze Page 28