“Commencing final preparations,” Brenner announced as he stepped across to his own console. “Secure the bunker and prepare for warning siren.” He was now the only man not wearing tinted goggles, his own pair hanging loose about his neck, and he spent just another moment or so working at the instruments before him.
There was a loud clang behind the main group as one of the guards closed and barred the bunker’s only door, followed a few seconds later by an unearthly wail not unlike that of an air raid siren. It pierced the otherwise silent darkness right across the island chain and down at Am Baile, well-drilled engineers and soldiers alike instantly secured whatever they were doing and headed for the nearest slit trench exactly as they’d trained for many times over during the last few weeks.
Directly outside the bunker, the remaining guards piled inside the trio of Marder command vehicles as their drivers hurriedly gunned their engines, all of the AFVs turning almost in unison and rumbling off into the open space behind the bunker as they sought shelter on the shallow reverse slope of Mullach Mòr. Their crews had all been well-briefed on what to expect, unbelievable as it all seemed, and although the drivers shut down their engines the P-6Es remained buttoned up for their own safety.
Many kilometres away, standing out to sea beyond the black, icy waters of Village Bay and the small, sixty-two-metre tall rocky outcrop of Stac Levenish, the small fleet of warships and research vessels in support of the project awaited the outcome of the test. The largest by far, Albert Schlageter would have towered over most of the others present had it been possible to actually anything of the other vessels in that darkness save for their navigation lights. She stood furthest out to sea, her captain taking no chances regardless of many assurances there was no danger to so huge a vessel.
“Commencing final countdown…!” Brenner announced loudly, finally lifting one hand to raise the goggles at his neck and sliding them slowly over his eyes as cameras clicked and whirred behind him, recording everything as it happened. With a final, deep breath, fingers poised over a large, red toggle switch on the panel before him, Sturmbannführer Klaus Brenner began to count through the last ten seconds.
“Zehn… neun… acht…” Someone killed the main lighting within the bunker as he spoke, leaving just a dull, red glow as if the room were the bridge of a warship called to battle stations. “…Sieben… sechs… fünf…” Not a single sound broke the tense silence within save for the whirring of recording cameras and Brenner’s soft, confident words. “…Vier… drei… zwei… eins… Zündung…!” As he spoke that last word confirming ‘ignition’, Brenner simultaneously snapped his right index finger down on the red toggle switch upon which it rested, producing a distinct ‘clack’ that was remarkably loud in such a silent, tension-filled environment.
As Brenner activated that switch, an electrical impulse was generated that travelled through the wiring of the instrument panel and up into a radio transponder mounted on the bunker’s concrete roof. From there it was transmitted as a signal across 3,500 metres of open space to a receiver set up at the base of the steel tower at the summit of Soay, invisible in the early morning darkness. That receiver then in turn sent another electrical impulse through a thick, insulated cable to the top of that tower and into the device that Böhm, Schmidt and Wisch had helped fix there, five days before. The whole process occurred in just a fraction of a second, close enough to the speed of light to make no odds when compared to the pace at which the human brain was able to register visual or aural stimuli.
To all intents and purposes it all should have seemed instantaneous, yet some of those present would look back on that moment with the uncanny feeling that there was indeed an infinitesimally short moment of ‘nothing’ following ignition… a moment of inaction followed by a collective gasp released simultaneously by every man present inside that bunker as the black and featureless horizon beyond the tinted viewing window was suddenly overwhelmed completely by a dazzling burst of white light.
Dunluce Castle ruins
County Antrim
Reich-Protektorat Nordirland
The small coastal town of Portballintrae lay approximately two thousand metres to the north east with Portrush a little less than five kilometres in the opposite direction. Sheer cliffs formed a natural fortress along that section of the coast, towering dozens of metres above rough seas that threatened disaster for any ship straying too close to the rocks below. A large basalt outcrop stood apart from the mainland at that point joined by a narrow stone bridge, and upon that lone, rocky spur rose the abandoned ruins of Dunluce Castle.
Developed from 13th Century fortifications originally built on that site by the then 2nd Earl of Ulster, the first historical records of ownership still in existence listed the castle as belonging to the McQuillan family as early as 1513AD, the earliest structures being the pair of huge drum towers on the outcrop’s eastern side that were each close to nine metres in diameter.
Toward the end of the 15th Century it passed into the hands of the Clans MacDonnell of Antrim and Clan MacDonald of Dunnyveg (Scotland). The castle served as the seat of the Earl of Antrim up until the Battle of Boyne in 1690, after which it fell into disuse and began to deteriorate, the process accelerated significantly over the passing centuries by the predations of local inhabitants scavenging the ruins in search of building materials. What now remained was little better than a collection of half-collapsed walls, shattered turrets and piles of grey stone dumped atop that basalt outcrop like the bones of a wild animal now long dead.
The Occupying German forces had no use for such ruins. The nearest Wehrmacht garrison – an inexperienced lieutenant commanding no better than a squad of infantry – was two kilometres or so to the south-south east and inland at Bushmills while a small Kriegsmarine refuelling depot at Portrush also accommodated a handful of naval ratings; otherwise there was little reason for any armed presence at all along that forbidding stretch of cliffs running south-west from the famed Giant’s Causeway, that entire section of coastline known collectively as the Causeway Coast.
There were precious few places suitable for any smuggler or refugee from Occupied Britain to land a boat and anyone who tried ran the very real risk of death at every turn trying to run a vessel aground along such an unforgiving coast. Radar units at Rathlin Island and further west mostly kept any sea traffic under control in any case, aided substantially by sea and aerial patrols, and as such the countryside around Dunluce was generally left to its own devices.
For their part, the local inhabitants also assisted such relaxed military control by generally behaving themselves wherever possible and making no effort to raise the ire of their occupiers. Although Northern Ireland had remained part of the former British Empire by choice following the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922, there were nevertheless significant segments of the community – predominantly of a Catholic background – who contended their country had already seen some experience of occupation in the form of the British.
In major centres like Belfast and Londonderry, many had become quite vocal in calls for a united Ireland following the 1940 invasion of England and the collapse of the British Empire, something that hadn’t gone unnoticed by the German occupation forces. Although the Abwehr had made vague promises prior to the invasion regarding reunification against the British to groups such as the IRA in exchange for support, there’d been no action whatsoever since in that regard, something that had created much rancour within the Irish Republican Army and with the public of Northern Ireland as a whole.
It was Kransky’s turn at watch. To be fair, not just his – he was one of three men woken from fitful slumber in the early hours of that morning and sent out to stand guard against the unlikely event of a passing Wehrmacht patrol either by land or sea. Two stood piquet on the landward side, positioned together near what was left of the walls that surrounded the outbuildings on the mainland on the opposite side of the narrow stone bridge that spanned the chasm separating it from the castle. They were
tasked with keeping watch over the approaches of the Antrim Coast Road as it ran between Portrush and Bushmills.
The only major thoroughfare in the area, it was the most likely source of danger should the Germans decided to send out patrols. Considering the curfew operating between the hours of eight in the evening to six in the morning that had remained in force since the invasion, traffic moving in either direction at night was invariably military in origin was rare in any case.
At its closest point the road lay a little more than 100 metres away atop the crest of a gradual slope that ran away back down to the castle. Staring out from inside through gaps in the stone walls of those mainland ruins, the pair were invisible from the road and made the best of their situation by talking and sharing the occasional shielded cigarette. They paid no great heed to trucks or armoured vehicles that passed by – so long as those vehicles kept moving they were of no interest to the men watching there.
Kransky spent his watch time alone – something he generally preferred. The M107 rifle – still fitted with its thermal sight – lay propped against a wall close by as he stared out to sea through the opening left where an entire section of battlements had collapsed several centuries before, lost to the cliffs below. He sat inside the line of the remaining wall provided with the choice of any one of three small and quite uncomfortable wooden chairs, none of which seemed to have been designed with sufficient consideration for the needs of a man standing almost two metres tall.
A battered old 44-gallon drum stood beside him, a small fire crackling softly within. It provided barely enough warmth but they dared not drop more than one or two pieces of wood into the flames at any one time. Anything larger ran the risk of creating illumination that was visible either from the road or from out to sea, neither situation being worth the risk. Instead the American supplemented the fire’s heat with the use of three or four layers of clothing that included a thick woollen jacket jammed beneath his usual, tattered oilskin coat.
Two days earlier they’d all stood on a rocky beach at Fairhead in County Moyle and watched as Eoin Kelly had taken MTB102 back out to sea one last time and scuttled her a few hundred metres offshore. The battle-scarred vessel had disappeared quickly beneath the surface, leaving no trace to alert the enemy as to the vessel’s true fate by the time he’d paddled the last of their inflatable boats back to shore. To all intents and purposes they’d simply disappeared from the face of the Earth, and they indeed intended to do exactly that.
The small inland village of Ballyvoy lay little more than a kilometre south of their position and considering the general level of exhaustion that gripped the group they’d nevertheless covered that distance in admirable time. It was mid-morning by the time they reached the town’s outskirts, the fog having dissipated completely by that stage under the withering glare of a pale autumn sun, yet they encountered no enemy on their journey. The town was far too small to warrant a local garrison and those troops stationed in the surrounding area were far too thinly spread for there to be any reason other than simple bad luck for them to have crossed paths with a German patrol.
The town itself boasted no more than a few dozen houses and a population that was significantly less than a hundred souls. It was just one of those inhabitants whom Kelly sought: a tall, painfully thin gentleman of around his own age who went by the name of Neil O’Leary. They’d worked together many times prior to the German invasion when both had been active members of the Irish Republican Army, and O’Leary still was a part of the IRA network in County Moyle, looking after – among other things – a number of local ‘safehouses’ used to protect numerous Republican volunteers and other ‘undesirables’ actively being sought by the new, German occupation forces.
They’d spent the entirety of that first day hidden in the man’s cellar, followed by a slow and very tense thirty-kilometre ride that night in the rear of a local milkman’s horse-drawn van which had delivered the group to their current hiding place among the castle ruins. There was little for them there other than very basic shelter and provisions, but the abandoned ruins were far enough away from any farms or nearby towns to ensure they escaped the attention of what little patrols the Wehrmacht could spare in the area. Word had been sent back up the IRA chain of command regarding the unexpected new situation and until such time as a revised evacuation plan was developed, Dunluce would remain the group’s makeshift home.
Kransky was accustomed to spending long periods in his own company so a few hours’ watch was of little inconvenience. He spent the time staring resignedly out to sea, his mind mostly clear of any real thought save for the occasional need to raise the large pair of binoculars hanging from his neck and take note of the infrequent transits of passing Kriegsmarine patrol boats and other small warships. If not actually warm, he was warm enough for all that and he was mostly able to avoid exposing much more than his balaclava-clad face to the icy blasts of gusting wind as he stared out through the collapsed section of outer stone wall.
He said nothing for a good five minutes after realising he was no longer alone, allowing the unidentified newcomer to approach to within a few metres behind him before making any remark.
“Can’t sleep, buddy?” He observed quietly without bothering to turn, not yet clear on who it was standing near and not particularly caring at that moment.
“Unfortunately, no…” Lowenstein admitted after a slight pause, vaguely surprised the man had detected what to him seemed to have been an almost silent approach. He too wore several layers of thick woollen clothing to keep out the chill. “Not a fan of being kept within stone walls,” he added softly as he moved up to stand beside Kransky, the American turning his head just long enough to give a single, faint nod in acknowledgement of his arrival before his gaze returned to the sea beyond the walls. “Too much like a prison for my liking.”
“Spent enough time inside those kinda walls already?” Kransky detected in the man’s tone a knowing quality that spoke of significant prior experience in that area.
“Enough over the last nine years to last me a lifetime…” Lowenstein grimaced, then gave a soft snort of derision as if thinking of some unspoken irony. “…More than a lifetime, in fact…”
“You’re Jewish…” Kransky observed, his tone indication no bias for or against that fact. “Guess it was the Krauts kept you locked up?”
“Only for almost a decade,” Lowenstein tried to smile as if to make a joke out of the remark, but the quaver in his voice and the shake that showed momentarily in his fidgeting hands gave some hint to the pain he still suffered under. “Working the ‘graveyard shift’?” He added, rather obviously changing the subject.
“It’s a dirty job, as the saying goes…” Kransky shrugged in resignation. “Buddy, to tell ya the truth I don’t mind the solitude: spent most of my adult life working alone and a lot o’ that ‘in the field’ – it’s kinda hard to get used to spending time ‘round others nowadays.”
“At least you know who you can trust… when you’re alone…” Lowenstein muttered softly, no offence intended.
“You got that right,” the American nodded slowly in agreement, understanding completely. “No one you need to look after or need to rely on but your own sorry ass.” He shrugged again. “Can’t be helped sometimes though…”
“Sometimes it can be an absolute necessity…” Lowenstein began, and the change in his tone made it quite clear to Kransky that the man actually had something important he wanted to discuss; something he’d come specifically to talk about that he was finally coming around to.
“Had to figure no one would risk freezing their balls off out here just for a friendly chat,” he noted with a wry grin, not offended in the slightest as he turned his gaze back toward the cliffs and raised his binoculars to stare out at the dark, empty sea below. “I’m a pretty simple guy, Mister La Forge: you wanna ask me anything you can come right out with it and I’ll answer you best I can.”
“Call me Sam, please…” Lowenstein started anew, t
he hint of an embarrassed smile on his own face. “Back on the boat, that rifle you used and the sight mounted on it: I’m willing to bet Max Thorne gave them to you.”
That one statement instantly caught Kransky’s complete attention and he immediately threw a sharp stare in the man’s direction, binoculars forgotten and once more dangling from his neck.
“How the hell could you possibly know that, Sam,” he demanded softly, not seeing any point in denying the truth of it. The emphasis on the man’s name made it sound far more formal than such a shortened diminutive should have. “I made it clear I knew Thorne, but it’s a pretty long bow to draw to just ‘assume’ that’s where I got my gear from, and you don’t sound like you were assuming anything. You sounded pretty damn certain.”
“I am certain,” Lowenstein answered quickly, tense excitement building in his voice with the admission. “I’ve never met Max Thorne myself but I’ve come to know who he is and – more importantly – what he is…”
“I doubt that very much…” Kransky tried to deflect the statement, not thinking it prudent to allow the conversation to head in such a dangerously classified direction with someone he knew little to nothing about.
“That weapon’s called a ‘Barrett’s Rifle’ – I think – and if I’m not mistaken you’re using a thermal imaging sight,” Lowenstein continued, scouring his memory for details in danger of being long forgotten. “I doubt you’re actually a member of what I believe is called the ‘Hindsight Unit’ – you don’t sound like what I’d expect of one of them – but based on what little I’ve been able to piece together in the two years since I escaped detention, the only possible way you could be in possession of a gun like that would be that it was provided by either Max Thorne or his Hindsight crew.” As the sentence finished he arched a single, expectant eyebrow to complement his faintly smug smile, as if daring Kransky to contradict his logic.
Winds of Change (Empires Lost Book 2) Page 40