The Mountain

by Richard Turner

  “Did your men leave behind the equipment that we brought?” asked Shaw.

  “Yes sir,” replied the commando. In order to convince the Germans that Ruman’s disappearance was the work of Allied soldiers and not French citizens living nearby, a Thompson sub-machine gun with a round jammed in the barrel had been left beside the dead bodies of the motorbike riders, along with a torn piece from a British khaki uniform.

  “Ok then, we’re done here. Lead on,” said Shaw to the commando.

  Turning his head, Shaw said to Brion, “Remove your shoes, from here on out we’re going cross-country.”

  Ruman looked over at his mistress and said, “Do as he says, dear.”

  With the commando at point, they quickly stepped off the road and into a mud-filled ditch. Shaw and Bruce escorted Ruman and Brion. Swallowed up in the dark the group silently made their way across an empty field.

  Shaw quietly fumed inside about Ruman’s mistress. She deserved to be handed over to the Free-French authorities in England, but he doubted that would ever happen. He knew that she and Ruman would quietly disappear once the war was over and then reappear far from Europe free to live their lives without ever being held accountable for their actions.

  Two minutes later, Shaw saw their ticket home. In the dark, two specially designed all-black Lysander aircraft sat silent. Modified by Number 138 (Special Duties) Squadron to carry extra passengers, the planes were used primarily to take agents in and out of Nazi-occupied Europe. Three commandos quickly climbed into the back of the nearest plane, while Shaw, Bruce, Ruman and Brion got into the next one.

  The pilot, a Free-French Sergeant, came over to complain about the extra passenger; however, when he saw the burning look of anger in Shaw’s eyes, he thought it wiser to say nothing and started his plane’s engine. The pilot followed the other Lysander as it sped down the farmer’s field. What made the Lysander ideal for this kind of work was the fact that it didn’t need a long runway to take off. Within seconds, both planes were in the air. They flew low to the ground to avoid radar and were soon out over the English Channel, its cold, ink-black water racing beneath them. The aircraft were heading directly for a secret base in Newmarket, England. The darkened planes were nearly invisible to the naked eye. An escort of four RAF Spitfire night-fighters waited halfway across the channel to escort them home.

  In the back, Bruce and Shaw were uncomfortably sharing a slender metal seat between them.

  Shaw was still in a foul mood. It wasn’t just Ruman’s mistress that gnawed at his insides; it was the German driver he had shot. The driver didn’t need to die.

  “Well, it didn’t go quite as planned,” said Bruce, seeing the dark look on Shaw’s face.

  “You’re telling me,” said Shaw, suddenly feeling tired and weary.

  “Sir, I know what you’re thinking. It’s not your fault. You had no choice. In a second or two, the driver would have had his pistol out.”

  “Then why do I feel like crap?”

  “Captain, I was there. I saw everything. You did all you could. He made a rash decision, and it cost him his life. You didn’t make him reach for his pistol; he did that all on his own. You can’t beat yourself up on this one. You did the right thing.”

  Shaw shook his head. “Yeah, you may be right.”

  “I know I am,” said Bruce. “Think about it this way, when you tally everything up, none of us were killed, we’re on our way home, and we have the head of the Luftwaffe’s radar development program with us.”

  “And his mistress,” griped Shaw.

  “Aye, and his mistress.”

  “You know, Duncan, I suspect that there’s more to this mission than we’ve been privy to,” said Shaw, looking over at Ruman and Brion. “I doubt that Professor Hill and the rest of the oddball crew at Bar End would have sent us to escort a German air force colonel to England, unless there was something in it for them.”

  Bruce smiled. “You’re starting to sound like me, Captain. I’m supposed to be the one who sees conspiracies around every corner.”

  “Well, whatever is going on, I’m sure we’ll find out when we get back home.”

  For the remainder of the flight they sat in silence, both men lost in thought.

  What had started on a road in France would quickly propel events along and end in death on a frozen mountain peak in Tibet.

  Chapter 6

  Bag End Manor

  Bar Hill - England

  Located a few miles outside of Cambridge, Bag End Manor is a quiet, unassuming medium-sized three-story brick building that was appropriated by the British government at the outset of the war. To the people in the neighboring villages, it was nothing more than a convalescent home for Allied soldiers recovering from the traumas of war. The truth, however, was quite different. Home to a branch of the Special Operations Executive, Bag End had an eclectic mix of military and civilian specialists whose main activity was to gather intelligence on German military technology.

  The man who ran Bag End was Professor James Hill, a brilliant and somewhat eccentric middle-aged man who always seemed to be wearing the same rumpled clothes day after day. Handpicked by Winston Churchill, Hill, a professor from Oxford University, also ran a small section of field agents. Some were civilians who had escaped Nazi-occupied Europe, while others were Allied military members with unique skills that made them invaluable to the SOE. Although not sanctioned by his superiors, Hill had begun to investigate the troubling and esoteric activities of the Nazis. Their fascination with ancient relics had begun to consume a substantial part of his time.

  With a cup of tea in one hand and a file folder in the other, Hill shuffled down the green-carpeted hallway leading to his office. On his feet was a pair of ratty old slippers that looked ready for the garbage. His curly, salt-and-pepper hair was as usual in desperate need of a good comb. Perched on the man’s large bulbous nose was a pair of thick glasses.

  A British Military Policeman silently stood guard outside of his office. When Hill was a couple of yards away, he came to attention and saluted the professor.

  “Yes, yes, good morning, Lance-Corporal Jones,” said Hill. “I really wish you wouldn’t do that. I’m not an officer, you know.”

  “Orders, sir,” said the MP.

  “Damned silly ones, if you ask me.”

  “If you say so, sir,” replied the MP.

  Hill reached for the door.

  “Sir, you’ve got company waiting for you,” said the MP. “Captain Shaw and Sergeant Bruce arrived a couple of minutes ago. I knew you wouldn’t mind if I let them in.”

  Hill smiled, thanked the MP and then opened the door to his office. Sitting in a pair of high-backed, old wooden chairs in front of his desk were Shaw and Bruce. Both men were in uniform. Hill saw that Shaw’s U.S. Army olive drab fatigues looked far more practical and comfortable than Bruce’s blue-gray RAF battledress.

  The instant Hill entered the room, Shaw and Bruce stood respectfully.

  “Please be seated, gentlemen,” said Hill as he shuffled over to this desk. “All this military formality is truly wasted on me. Once this war is over, I’m going to happily resume my quiet life back in Oxford teaching antiquities to eager young minds.”

  To outsiders, Shaw and Bruce appeared an odd pair, certainly not one that Hill would have selected before he met them. Shaw was a German-American whose family fled Germany when the Nazis rose to power. In his mid-twenties, Shaw was about to be seconded to the British Army’s Number Ten Commando when his language skills brought him to the attention of the SOE. Bruce, on the other hand, was a couple of years older than Shaw and had been a photographer in the RAF. His loyalty to his friend and his eidetic memory made him a valuable asset. To date, they had completed several missions in Norway and France for Professor Hill. It was Shaw who had suggested to Hill that he and Bruce be paired off after their first mission together gathering intelligence on a crashed German airplane in Norway. Hill had readily agreed to Shaw’s request and helped Bruce becom
e a sergeant. Together they were a team that produced results and with the war going badly, anything that could give the Allies a leg up was deemed a good thing.

  Hill took a seat at his desk. He pushed a pile of books and papers aside and set down his cup of tea along with a file folder. Hill mumbled to himself while he quickly reviewed the file, reading all forty pages in less than a minute.

  “You gentlemen are to be congratulated. Whisking Oberst Ruman out of France was a major intelligence coup for our side. His in-depth understanding into the Nazi’s radar technology will allow us to build effective countermeasures, which will undoubtedly save many lives.”

  Shaw smiled. “Sir, it wasn’t just Bruce and me. There were the commandos and Free-French pilots who risked their lives as well.”

  “Not to mention the anti-Nazi German agent who set the whole thing up,” said Bruce. “When the Germans realize that Ruman’s gone, they’re going to tear the good colonel’s life apart, and anyone connected to him will be suspect. The agent, whoever he may be, will be lucky to escape with his life.”

  “Her life,” corrected Hill. “Yes, I have no doubt that things will soon get very dicey for her. All part of the game, I’m afraid.”

  Shaw said, “Sir, I don’t wish to sound impolite, but Sergeant Bruce and I suspect that there’s more to the story than you’re letting on.”

  “Really? How so, Captain?” said Hill, raising an eyebrow.

  “For starters, the commandos could have just as easily snatched Oberst Ruman from France. To be blunt, we weren’t needed. I think you or your superiors aren’t all that interested in Ruman. What you really wanted was hidden inside his briefcase. You wanted us there to ensure that anything of value contained within that case came to the SOE and not to the intelligence section of the RAF.”

  “The way he was holding onto to the bloody thing, you would have thought it was filled with gold,” added Bruce.

  Hill grinned. Most agents would have just accepted the assignment and been happy to be back home alive. Not these two, they were always thinking, which was why Hill trusted them with the most dangerous assignments he gave to his people.

  “Not gold, Sergeant, but the next best thing. Hidden inside Obert Ruman’s briefcase were several microdots containing thousands of pages of top-secret Nazi communiques. It will take months for us to go through the all of the information he provided to us.”

  “Anything you can share?” asked Shaw, knowing that his security clearance was nothing remotely close to Hill’s.

  “Yes, of course. That’s why I asked for you two to meet me here this morning,” said Hill.

  Bruce looked over at Shaw with a less than pleased expression in his eyes. “Sir, I was planning on taking a week’s leave. My sister phoned the other day and said that me Mum isn’t doing well. She’s got a nasty flu. You couldn’t have just let the good professor compliment us on our work; you had to dig, didn’t you?”

  “I’m sorry, Duncan, you could have told me,” responded Shaw, surprised at Bruce’s tone.

  “Captain, I’m not one to talk about family matters,” said Bruce.

  “Gents, I’m sorry to say this, but there wasn’t going to be any leave on the horizon for either of you,” said Hill as he picked up the phone on his desk and then asked for one of his senior analysts to join them in his office. A minute later, a short, round woman in her late fifties entered the room carrying a map and several pages of notes in her hands. She reminded Shaw of an elementary school teacher that he once had back home in Pennsylvania. She stopped at an old wooden desk on the far side of the room and laid out a map, securing the corners with four of Hill’s books that were scattered throughout his office.

  “Good morning, Irene,” said Hill to the woman.

  “Morning to you too, Professor Hill,” replied Irene, with a pleasant smile on her face.

  “Come, gents, let’s see what game’s afoot,” said Hill as he stood. Quickly making the introductions, Hill waited for Irene to begin her presentation.

  “Gentlemen, as you can see, this is a map of Asia. More specifically, northern India and Tibet,” said Irene to Shaw and Bruce. “Late yesterday evening on one of the microdots found inside Oberst Ruman’s case, I found several references to an ongoing German operation codenamed VRIL.”

  “Odd term,” said Shaw. “I don’t think it’s even German.”

  “It comes from a book written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, in which he describes an ancient substance used by a mysterious master race that can be used to destroy or heal. He termed this substance Vril,” explained Bruce.

  “Quite correct, Sergeant,” said Irene, nodding her head.

  Shaw looked over at Bruce. “How the hell did you know that?”

  “You try being posted to a wee radar station on the coast of Scotland for a few months,” said Bruce. “Trust me, you’ll read anything to keep from being bored, even odd books like the one written by Bulwer-Lytton.”

  Hill said, “We’ve known about a secret German Vril Society for several years now. It’s based in Berlin and is full of academics and pseudo-scientists who believe that Vril actually existed at one time in the past. Normally, I wouldn’t have wasted Irene’s time researching this subject, but the SS and more specifically its leader, Heinrich Himmler, has become quite obsessed with this so-called Vril power. He sees it as some kind of wonder weapon. Moreover, gentlemen, if Himmler is interested in Vril, whatever it may be, then so am I. You both know that I don’t believe in fairy tales; however, if the Nazis are trying to develop a new weapon, no matter how farfetched it may seem to us, I want to know about it before they get a chance to use it on us.”

  “Before the war, the German government financed three expeditions to Tibet,” explained Irene. “Ostensibly, they were scientific expeditions sent there to gather information on the geology, botany, zoology and the ethnology of the region. In reality, they were sent there by the Ahnenerbe, a Nazi scientific institute, to search for lost relics and to prove their revisionist theories that early Aryans had conquered Asia in 2,000 BC.”

  “Gents, the Nazis must truly believe that there is something worth finding in Tibet as they recently tried to send in two additional expeditions,” said Hill, “one last year and another earlier this year. We managed to arrest the first team the instant they stepped foot inside India. To their surprise, their Afghan guides sold them to us. Unfortunately, the second team slipped past our forces and made it all the way into Tibet. One of our radio-intercept stations in northern India managed to catch a couple of their coded transmissions before they disappeared completely.”

  “Were they able to decipher the code and determine where the Germans were going?” asked Shaw.

  “Yes and no. We were able to break their code that was the easy part,” explained Hill. “However, all we learned from the intercepts was that the Germans had arrived in Tibet and were planning on heading towards the border with the Kingdom of Bhutan…after that, nothing.”

  “Which is odd,” said Irene. “The previous German missions explored the Gyantse and Shigatse regions of Tibet, neither of which are remotely close to the border with Bhutan.”

  “What about the Germans that were captured last year, surely they must have known something?” asked Bruce.

  “As they were caught in civilian clothing, they were immediately treated as spies and not prisoners of war. Once they realized that they were facing a firing squad, they willingly opened up to our interrogators,” said Hill. “Regrettably, they knew next to nothing. The story was always the same; they would be told what their mission was only after made it into Tibet.”

  Shaw shook his head. “Sir, something doesn’t add up. They obviously had a contact waiting for them in Tibet. One of them must have known who that person was.”

  “All they knew was the name of a small village five miles inside of Tibet where their contact would get in touch with them,” said Hill. “The village was put under observation for months. No one ever came in to inquire about the Ger
mans we had in custody.”

  “Whoever their contact was, he must have been tipped off,” said Bruce.

  “Yes, undoubtedly,” agreed Hill.

  Shaw turned to face Hill. “This is all very interesting, sir; however, why are you telling us about these Nazi expeditions?”

  “Because we have learned that they are sending another team into Tibet,” explained Hill.

  “I found information relating to their latest attempt on one of the microdots,” said Irene. “An SS officer left Berlin at 0600 hours this morning on board a Luftwaffe transport plane. He is heading for Ankara, Turkey. From there, pro-Nazi sympathizers will fly him to Tehran and then on to Kabul where he will be smuggled across the border. His final destination before trying to slip across the border into Tibet will be a city called Gangtok, in Sikkim, India.”

  Hill said, “Gents, the Germans wouldn’t keep sending men to find this mythical Vril power if they didn’t think it was worth the risk. Therefore, I’ve decided to send you two to India and if need be, on into Tibet. If this Vril power really does exist, I don’t want it falling into the Nazis’ hands. If anything, I want our side to obtain whatever this Vril might be. Since we have found no mention of any other team members on the microdot, it is safe to assume that he will rendezvous with them in Gangtok.”

  “Why don’t you just have this fellow arrested when he arrives in Tehran?” said Bruce. “Surely, since the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran last year, we control the airport.”

  “I wish it were that easy, Sergeant,” replied Hill. “Unfortunately, we don’t know who he is or what he looks like. We may know what he is up to. However, we have no way of knowing when he will arrive in Tehran. It could be tomorrow, or it could be next week.”

  “With the right plane, he could easily land on the outskirts of the city and never been seen by anyone,” said Shaw. “All he would need was a flat stretch of desert and voila, you have a place to re-fuel.”