Having captured two German agents on the west coast of Ireland, MI6s Enhanced Team are now preparing for an audacious mission deep within Germany itself. The team consists of Mademoiselle Mimi Dubois, La Résistance fighter and mistress of skills; Miss Madeline Forsyth, SOE operative and a living shadow; Sven Hyse, Norwegian Resistance soldier and shapeshifter; and Doctor Jackal, timid physician with his less than timid friend Mister Hades.

Hanslope Park, Buckinghamshire, England, October 1942

The week after we returned from Ireland was a blur of training, in particular parachute practice, and briefings about Operation Knox. We agree the equipment that we will take in with us, as well as the cover identities that we will travel under should we need to. As it has succeeded so far Doctor Jackal takes on the role of a German Doctor called Ernst Rudin, Sven opts for his old cover identity of the orderly Igor Swartz and we get two identities for Doctor Rudin’s wife and a German nurse that myself and Madeline can switch between as needed.

We also settle on three main exit strategies, plan A will be to steal an aircraft from the airfield next to our target and I spend a lovely evening with one of the RAFs best pilots in order to ‘borrow’ his piloting skill. But we also plot exit routes via Switzerland to the south and Sweden to the north, Doctor Jackal spends a few hours studying every possible map of the area and all of our exit routes so that they are committed to his amazing memory.

During one of these briefings Captain Ledman shares with us the intelligence that they have managed to get from the prisoners Falltur and Maulwurf. Ledman also hands Doctor Jackal a copy of the scientific research that MI6s best have accumulated from their testing on Falltur, Henry began avidly reading through it and seemed to tune out the rest of us while he analysed the data.

Captain Ledman watched Doctor Jackal for a few moments, when he realised that he was engrossed he carried on to the rest of us. Falltur, or Mr Carney as Ledman insisted on calling him, was the son of a German father and Irish mother who had moved with his parents to the eastern border of Germany when he was ten or eleven. When he was old enough he gained employment in the cobalt mines of the Erzgebirge mountain range on the border of Germany and Czechoslovakia. He worked there for several years before it was discovered that the material they were mining had contaminated several of the workers.

Those so affected were taken for testing, and after a short while moved into a military testing program where they underwent intensive testing and training. Not all of the former miners survived this new military driven testing regime. It was decided that Carney was not suited to the front line, but given his enhanced ability and his dual nationality he was a prime candidate to be inserted as a spy contact in Ireland.

Captain Ledman paused and looked around the table at those of us who were listening, he said;

Carney gave us all of that information before we had even started to interrogate him. He is clearly a cowardly man by nature, no wonder he wasn’t suited to front line engagement.

Maulwurf was an entirely different prospect. He has clearly received training in resistance to interrogation, but we did manage to extract that he is a Dublin born Irish dissident who was recruited by German agents and implanted into Whitehall. His German paymasters also provided him with blackmail material enabling him to extort information from several of his colleagues within Whitehall about the British Range and Detection Finding (RDF) system. Including placement, protocols, and operational coverage. All of which would have been very useful to the Germans.

At that point Doctor Jackal looked up and said;

Well that’s all very interesting!

He went on to explain that his interpretation of the data is that the cells of Carney contain a very similar difference to ours, when compared to an unenhanced, but that the change has clearly occurred over a much longer period of time. The cell saturation of Carney seems weaker and less ‘forceful’ then the samples he has checked from the four of us. When we just stared at him, he asked;

Did I miss something?

One Afternoon during that week stands out from the others, Captain Ledman stuck his head around the door of the briefing room and told us that we would be having dinner with a VIP that evening. He told us to be ready in full dress uniform and at the doors of the library by eighteen hundred hours.

We are shown into the library where we are met by both Captain Ledman and Major Hoffman, both of whom are dressed in their finest with medals shining on their chests, there is also a third man in the room and judging by his uniform a Major General no less. Major Hoffman introduces us all one by one to Major General Stewart Menzies, Head of MI6. Major Hoffman then went on to give a heartfelt speech about our efforts, he genuinely seemed proud as he was speaking, and after he had finished Major General Menzies thanked us and said that we had all been awarded the George Medal in recognition of our gallantry not in the face of the enemy. It was a very special moment followed by drinks, a formal meal, and more drinks.

As soon as we had a window of clear weather in the week following Operation Knox was a go. We left Biggin Hill aboard a Vickers Wellington piloted by a Captain Rickson and his skeleton crew at oh one hundred hours heading for the heart of Germany. The journey was uneventful with only a single course change due to a report of enemy fighters in the air. During the journey we made sure that all of the equipment was distributed evenly, especially the explosive packs that we were carrying, and that our silenced pistols were clean and loaded.

Just before oh three hundred hours one of the crewmen signals that we are ten minutes from drop. We carry out the process of checking each other’s rig with methodical approach drilled into us by our instructors, the crewman reappears and moves to the door in the side of the fuselage. The lights go out and the Wellington descends rapidly from five thousand feet to our drop height of one thousand feet, the crewman shouts one minute and opens the door. Madeline gives the thumbs up and jumps. I follow her out and am in turn followed by Sven and finally Doctor Jackal.

Herreden, Germany, October 1942

My chute opens, and looking down I can see that Madeline’s has deployed as well. I follow her in towards our designated drop zone and hope that Sven and Henry are behind and above me. As we descend I can make out the lights of a large town to the south, which must be Nordhausen, and the lights of a few smaller settlements as per our maps. I come in a bit fast and hit the ground hard, turning my ankle over as I land. I ignore the pain and gather in my chute as I had been instructed. Once done I looked about me and could see Madeline, Sven and Henry all down safely and with chutes gathered. I stood up and almost instantly went back down to my knees, the pain in my ankle would make our hike very difficult indeed.

Seeing me in trouble Doctor Jackal comes over and starts to bind my ankle, as he is doing this Madeline stands guard and Sven transforms into a raven and takes to the skies. Doctor Jackal talked calmly while he was attending to me, looking up at the stars and saying;

We’ve landed at the western end of the drop zone, which means we are close to the target. That’s good!

Doctor Jackal then started to massage my foot, ankle, and calf. As he did this all of the pain in my ankle began to dissipate, and after a few minutes my ankle was as good as new. Henry truly is a faiseur de miracles. While we wait for Sven to return from his aerial reconnaissance we hide our chutes in rabbit holes and under the roots of trees, I take the time to make sure that they are well camouflaged and will not be found by the casual observer.

Sven lands back with us and tells us that the surrounding area is clear and that it looks like our arrival was not detected. He tells us to make for the southern tip of a finger of woodland that runs south of the village below us, Doctor Jackal says that the village should be Ilfeld, while he searches for a place for us to lay low during the day. That said, he transforms once more into a raven and flaps into the dark sky. We move slowly and quietly for the designated rendezvous point.

A nervous twenty minutes after we reach the tip of the woodland a raven descends from the dark night sky and transforms into Sven. He has found a place for us to hold up, but it is south of the target on the outskirts of a small village. Based on Sven’s description of the location Doctor Jackal says that it must be the village of Herreden and that he believes that he can plot us a course that will avoid all of the populated areas. The building is a disused outbuilding that looks out onto open fields, probably a small stable, which is situated at the end of a paddock. The opposite side of the paddock backs onto a vegetable garden which in turn backs onto the garden of a farmhouse. We set out following Doctor Jackal’s lead, it is oh four fifteen hours.

Sven flys ahead of us and by the time that he gets to the out building he can see lights on in the farmhouse and movement in the garden, he intercepts us and lets us know. When we get near to the farmhouse we stop under the cover of a tree, Madeline turns into a shadow and slips along the hedge, passed the farmer in his garden and into the out building. Doctor Jackal follows, and also makes it to the building without alerting the farmer. I then turn into a shadow and follow on. Sven joins us and we settle down to get some rest while Sven keeps watch as a cat from the shadows.

While we are all asleep, Sven hears a noise from the direction of the farmhouse and so he transforms into a thrush and perches on the top of the outbuilding to see what it is. He spots a young man, probably the farmers son, head through the gate from the vegetable garden into the paddock and begin to walk in our direction. Thinking quickly Sven flies to the hedge behind him and transforms into a fox, he then growls at the farmers son. The young man, hearing the noise, turns and begins to walk back towards the hedge. Sven darts out and runs across the paddock.

This does not seem to deter the lad who resumes his walk towards the outbuilding. Sven transforms into a stoat and slips into the back of the building where we are asleep, he nibbles at my ear and I awake. It is obvious that it is Sven, as the strange stoat is making shhh gestures with his little paws. I peak out of the opening and can see the young man heading towards us, I quickly look around and realise that Madeline is sleeping in shadow form in the rafters and so is unlikely to be spotted. I turn myself into a shadow and lay over Doctor Jackal, using my camouflage knowledge to try and break up his silholete and hide him.

Sven once again transforms, this time into a rat, and watches the young lad approach. He walks right past the outbuilding and into the field beyond where is suddenly becomes obvious that there are a couple of bee hives. Once he has checked the hives he returns back to the farmhouse and we are undisturbed for the rest of the day.

At dusk we set off towards the village of Niedersachswerfen and our target. We quickly get to the base of the Kohnstein hill, and while Madeline and Doctor Jackal search the hillside for vents or other means of entry, I turn into a shadow and slip onto Sven’s back. But it is not Sven the man, it is Sven the sea eagle. He takes flight and moments later we are landing on the bluff above the two entrances into Kohnstein, I slip off of his back and he once again becomes a raven and heads off into the night to investigate the airfield.

In shadow form I slide down the bluff and look into the nearest tunnel entrance into Kohnstein. It is a large, well lit tunnel big enough for a truck to easily drive down. One hundred and fifty yards into the hill the tunnel ends at large metal blast doors, stencilled on the front of the doors are the words Mittelwerk II. I move quickly to the other open tunnel mouth and discover that it also ends in metal blast doors, this time two hundred metres in, with the words Mittelwerk I stencilled across them. This is going to be a challenge.

MI6s team of enhanced individuals have captured a traitor and a German spy during an undercover mission to the west coast of Ireland. They have transported them to a safe house in Dublin and are awaiting orders. The team consists of Mademoiselle Mimi Dubois, La Résistance fighter and mistress of skills; Miss Madeline Forsyth, SOE operative and a living shadow; Sven Hyse, Norwegian Resistance soldier and shapeshifter; and Doctor Jackal, timid physician with his less than timid friend Mister Hades.

Dublin, Ireland, October 1942

The safehouse is a two storey, furnished, detached house at the end of a cul-de-sac in a nice neighbourhood. It has allotments running along the back of the garden and the area seems very quiet and well kept. Sexton tells us that he has already made contact with HQ and that we will be leaving this evening to move to a position closer to the Northern Irish border in preparation to cross the following day.

We take the prisoners upstairs and tie them to beds in separate bedrooms. Doctor Jackal checks them over and says that they are doing well but he is concerned about keeping them sedated constantly. We agree that we will need to keep them under until we have moved that evening. Doctor Jackal also takes the opportunity to get a blood sample from Falltur, so that he can make further studies of the effects of the mysterious chemical on a different test subject.

Just before fourteen hundred hours the telephone rings, we are all immediately alert which amuses Sexton a little. He answers the phone and tells us that he has to go out and get the details of our exit plan. We smile as he leaves and then Sven rushes upstairs, turns into a thrush and flaps out of one of the rear windows in order to follow him, and Madeline transforms back into her human state and stretches out her back. People may say that we are paranoid, but we are still alive so we will continue to be so.

Sven informs us later that by the time he managed to get out of the window Sexton was at the end of the cul-de-sac turning the corner and he then followed him from above to the nearest bus stop. Sexton took a bus into the centre of Dublin, where he disembarked and then crossed to another bus stop. Sven then followed the second bus that Sexton took to a residential area to the east of Dublin. When Sexton entered a house on a very ordinary looking street, Sven landed on the houses window ledge and watched as Sexton and another man looked at a map and the other man handed Sexton a piece of paper with writing on it.

Satisfied with what is occurring, Sven takes a more direct route back to the safehouse. While Sven is out following Sexton the rest of us stay alert and keep a close watch on both our prisoners and the approaches to the house. While I’m watching the prisoners I make sure that Falltur is not transmitting any signals by using his own power to tune into radio transmissions. I mentally run through a number of frequencies, it is a very odd feeling, very similar to tuning the tuning knob on a radio set. Most of the time I get nothing but static, but every once in a while I do manage to tune into a radio signal. I listen to a segment of a very engaging radio play before I remember that I am meant to be checking on Falltur. Eventually I am convinced that he is not transmitting.

Sven returns around fifteen thirty hours and tells us what he observed. Forty minutes later Sexton returns and tells us that he has received detailed instructions of how we are going to cross the border into Northern Ireland. It is at that moment that Sexton noticed Madeline. He was very surprised and asked who she was, I introduced her but Sexton still looked confused and then asked her;

How did you get in? My men at the top of the road didn’t inform me that anyone had entered the house.

Madeline just said that a girl was entitled to her secrets. But what we really took from the conversation was that he did have people watching the place.

Sexton lays out a map on the kitchen table and lets us know that we will be travelling north west out of Dublin tonight, passing though Kells and stopping at a small farm just north of Cavan. We would then cross the border into Northern Ireland the following day in the back of a potato lorry disguised as farm labourers. Not very glamorous, but very likely to work.

By eighteen thirty hours Sexton is driving us out of the Dublin suburbs heading north west. Three hours later, after a very uneventful drive, he pulls us into a barn in a small farmstead just north of Cavan. He leaves us for a short while and returns ten minutes later with a man who is clearly a farmer. The farmer introduces himself as Sean Bramley and welcomes us to his farm, he leads us to a small out building nestled low behind the main farm buildings and asks if we would like some food and drink. Obviously we say yes.

Once the farmer has delivered food and blankets, and we have eaten, we settle down to get some rest. We set a watch, again this surprises Sexton who is clearly very amused by our level of paranoia. Doctor Jackal suggests that we do not drug the prisoners overnight but allow the drugs to leave their system so that we can make sure that it is not having a long term detrimental effect. We all agree, and then Madeline says;

I guess that we should check them for suicide pills!

We all look at Madeline with raised eyebrows, but Doctor Jackal shrugs and has a through look in Falltur’s mouth. Even Doctor Jackal is surprised when he discovers that Falltur’s lower left second molar has a false crown. Doctor Jackal quickly checks out Maulwurf, and finds a very similar false crown. Henry admits that he doesn’t believe that he can remove the suicide pills given his current resources.

Madeline and Sven spend a good fifteen minutes attempting to convince Doctor Jackal to extract the teeth, even suggesting that if he can’t take the crowned tooth that he should take the two teeth above them so that they can not bite down on the false crown and activate the suicide pill. But Doctor Jackal holds firm and refuses to do so. What he does do, with a little help from Madeline is construct a knotted gag that he fits to both of our prisoners that stops them from being able to bite down and trigger their suicide pills.

Bramley Farm, Cavan, Ireland, October 1942

By oh three thirty hours Maulwurf begins to stir, and by the time we get to morning both of our prisoners are awake. Madeline, who was on watch when Falltur began to awake, lets me know that she has whispered to him that we know what he can do and that if we catch him we will stop him permanently. I scan mentally through the radio frequencies to make sure that he isn’t transmitting and am pleased when I cannot detect a signal. Doctor Jackal checks out both patients, under the watchful eye of Sven, and declares that they are both in a good state of health and seem to have suffered no adverse effects from their long stint of enforced unconsciousness.

Sexton leaves us and visits Farmer Bramley, he comes back five minutes later and says that we need to be ready to move by mid-morning, he also hands us all a set of dirty overalls and tells us to get ready. Doctor Jackal tranqs the prisoners an hour before we are due to move and then they are loaded into empty potato crates. The crates are then loaded onto a lorry and stacked over with crates full of potatoes. There are two lorries loaded with potatoes and a third full of farm workers following on. We all climb into the third lorry and are waved off by Rowan Sexton as we drive off in convoy.

Twenty minutes later we are pulling up to a border crossing and after a quick light hearted chat between the driver and the border guard we are waved through without a second glance. A hundred yards later we stop again at a military border checkpoint. This time our ID papers are checked and the British military guards give the trucks a look over as well as looking into the back of our truck and making sure that the number of people match up to the number of IDs. Once they are satisfied we are waved through.

The potato truck convoy drives on for another ten minutes when it then pulls off of the road and into an empty barn where everyone disembarks and begins to unload the potato crates. Minutes later we can hear the sound of a trucks engine approaching and then a British military truck and a military car pull into the barn. An officer gets out of the car and snaps off a salute. He introduces himself as Captain Heron, and then welcomes us to Northern Ireland. Within twenty minutes the military car and truck are pulling out of the barn and headed for Enniskillen base.

We are met at the base by two ambulances, each with its own doctor. Doctor Jackal briefs them on the prisoners, and one of the doctors seems a little disgruntled by Henry’s actions in keeping them drugged for so long. He is even more disgruntled when Henry tells them that they are to be prepped for immediate surgery. And when Henry explains that the surgery is to remove a tooth concealing a suicide pill, the doctor walks out. His colleague, however, is will to assist Doctor Jackal and they successfully manage to extract both teeth from Falltur and Maulwurf.

While Doctor Jackal is playing dentist the rest of the team makes the most of the Enniskillen base facilities. We get cleaned up and have some lunch, during which Captain Heron visits us and lets us know that we will be flying out of Omagh airfield at nineteen hundred hours on a military transport. We make sure that Doctor Jackal gets the message and he consults with his helpful colleague about getting the prisoners prepared for transport. Just after the scheduled time we are in the air headed for RAF Duxford.

We are met at Duxford by a whole host of medical staff and military personnel, they are led by Captain Ledman. Ledman gives us a very formal salute, and then a wide smile breaks his face and he congratulates us on yet another successful mission. He suggests that we get back to Hanslope Park and get some well deserved rest. He will carry out a full debriefing at ten hundred hours tomorrow. By the time our truck pulls into Hanslope Park it is just gone twenty three hundred hours. So as tradition suggests when we complete a mission, we head straight to the officers mess for a drink.

Hanslope Park, Buckinghamshire, England, October 1942

Eleven hundred hours the following morning we are all sat in full uniform under the gaze of both Captain Ledman and Major Hoffman. Doctor Jackal had just finished giving a very full description of our actions, and the only point that our commanding officers appear to be perturbed by is the attack on the German submarine diver. The whole team hold their gaze in support of Sven and eventually our commanders move on. They want to set up tests to experiment with the limits of Falltur’s enhanced abilities, using me of course.

When we ask about the submarine, Major Hoffman excuses himself and leaves the room. Captain Ledman informs us that several anonymous phone calls were made to the Irish coastguard letting them know that there was a vessel in distress. It also just happened that there was a member of the Irish press onboard the coast guard boat that responded. It was reported that U623 under the command of Captain Schroeder had suffered an engine malfunction and drifted into the bay. No one believed the Germans story.

Over the next couple of days I assist a group of scientists test the capabilities of Falltur’s enhanced abilities, and myself and Doctor Jackal visit Falltur and Maulwurf at a secure medical facility. Doctor Jackal to check in on what he still considers to be his patients, and me to ‘borrow’ Falltur’s abilities once again so that we can continue with the tests. They have Falltur inside a metal cage, and Doctor Jackal confirms that they are using a Faraday cage to counter his enhanced ability.

During that time we are also informed by Captain Ledman that the film being carried by Maulwurf contain a complete set of details of the British RDF capability. Including technical specifications, range, position, and standard usage. The information seemed to come from more than one source. Captain Ledman believes that there is at least one more spy in Whitehall.

MI6s team of enhanced individuals have been sent on an urgent, undercover mission to the west coast of Ireland. They are tasked with neutralising a traitor and his German contact, and recovering the stolen information. The team consists of Mademoiselle Mimi Dubois, La Résistance fighter and mistress of skills; Miss Madeline Forsyth, SOE operative and a living shadow; Sven Hyse, Norwegian Resistance soldier and shapeshifter; and Doctor Jackal, timid physician with his less than timid friend Mister Hades.

Part Two:

One of the things that I never knew about Ireland was the diversity of its wildlife, especially its big predators. Strangely, there seemed to be more predators whenever Sven was in the area.

Clifden, County Galway, Ireland, October 1942

I return to the others and inform them of what I have discovered about Mr Carney. We decide that we need to call this in and so Madeline and I turn into shadows and head for the village hall. We slide into the village hall and Madeline calls the number that we had been given to contact MI6. Madeline gives the person at the other end of the line a very brief overview of the situation, alluding to what we have discovered but not giving any direct details. The person at the other end of the line asks if she wishes to hold for a response, Madeline says that she does. After a wait of fifteen minutes the person comes back on the line and tells Madeline that MI6s considered response is;

You should proceed with caution.

As if that wasn’t obvious enough. We head back to our room and try and get some rest.

The following morning Doctor Jackal and I had down for breakfast as normal, during breakfast I make a show of saying that I have a headache and that I am going back to the room. Henry heads out to visit Father O’Malley again and see if he can gain access to the villages log of births, deaths and marriages. The Father is more than happy that Henry is showing an interest in the villages history and talks him through a number of the prominent families in the area. Doctor Jackal asks about why he can’t see anything for the Carney’s and Father O’Malley tells him that they only arrived in the village four years ago. Henry continues with the polite conversation for a further hour and then excuses himself and heads back to the inn.

We take it in turns resting up throughout the day, making a show of going down for meals and out for the occasional walk with dog Sven. That evening, while Doctor Jackal and dog Sven sit at the bar having a drink and keeping an eye on Mr Carney, Madeline and I stealth to the lifeboat station. We slide in under the door and power up the radio set. Madeline pulls out a note of the correct frequency for this evening and I tune the radio set in. Back in the inn, just before ten o’clock in the evening Mr Carney disappears into the back of the inn and Mrs Carney takes over in the bar. Henry looks down at dog Sven and says;

About time you went out for your last walk of the day!

He heads out and then doubles back to the back of the inn where he sneaks along the wall to the office window. The curtains are drawn but through a small gap he can make out the feet of two men sat facing each other, but he can’t make out what they are saying.

Back in the lifeboat station just after ten o’clock the radio set crackles into life and we hear in Gaelic;

Falltur dearbhaithe socrú

Then the reply, also in Gaelic;

Socrú dearbhaithe Kirsch

I look at Madeline and tell her that they have confirmed arrangements, but that they didn’t give any details. It is definitely happening but we don’t know when.

We once again regroup back in our room and agree that we will have to watch them closely from now on as we do not know when they will be leaving. We make sure that all of our equipment that we wish to take with us is packed and ready to transport at a moments notice and then we take turns in watching Mr Carney and Maulwurf. The following morning Mr Hennessy checks out but everything else seems to carry on as normal.

That afternoon we formulate a plan to cover as much of the inn at night as possible. Doctor Jackal will wait in the room with all of our kit ready to move it to our car, Sven will watch the inn from the roof so as to see any coming and goings, and Madeline and I will wait as shadows beside the Carney’s car just in case they take that to the extraction point. Doctor Jackal and I have dinner and then make a show of retiring for an early night. As soon as we have got into our room Madeline and I grab one of the explosive packages that we had been supplied with, as well as some chloroform from our Mr Hades packs, and take up our positions by the car. Sven heads for the roof and keeps watch.

Our planning and vigilance are paid off just before midnight when we hear the sounds of people leaving the rear door of the inn. They cross the road, ignoring their car, and head south along the road to the southeast of the bay. Madeline and I follow them at as shadows at a distance of thirty foot. Sven returns to Doctor Jackal and lets him know where the targets are moving to and then flaps ahead of them to work out where they are headed. Doctor Jackal grabs the kit and drops it in our car before following on stealthily.

The targets leave the road and head south southwest towards a cove on the headland. Sven flies ahead of them and lands on the narrow pathway that leads down into the cove itself. He then transforms himself into leopard. I cannot imagine how surprised they were as they started to head down the narrow pathway and came face to snarling face with leopard Sven. They both backed up quickly straight into Madeline and I waiting with chloroform soaked cloths, we both manage to clamp the cloths over their mouths and then successfully both hold on while they struggle.

Eventually, both Falltur and Maulwurf go limp. I bind them hand and foot and Madeline ties bags over their heads. While we are doing that Sven heads for the skies in the form of a seagull, he flaps out into the bay and spots a surfaced submarine launching a boat with six German sailors onboard. Sven swiftly flies back to us. By this time Doctor Jackal has joined us and injects both of our captives with a heavy sedative to make sure that they will not wake up until we want them to. Madeline smiles at Sven and says;

Shall we go and have some fun?

Sven smiles back and nods. Madeline grabs the explosive package off of me and they both head down the pathway into the cove. Doctor Jackal and I head up to the cliff’s edge so that we have a good view of the cove. When Sven and Madeline get to the waters edge Sven transforms into a dolphin and Madeline transforms into a shadow and slides onto his back. Sven then starts to swim out into the bay.

Sven takes a wide berth around the dinghy and heads for the rear of the submarine. He drops Madeline off on the aft fin, as she is sliding off she whispers for Sven to pick her up from the submarines bow after the second explosion. Sven dives and begins to make his way back towards the dinghy. Madeline sets the first set of explosives against the aft hydroplane with a two minute fuse, she then takes a deep breath and slips along the underwater edge of the submarine towards the shelter of the fore of the conning tower.

From our position on the cliff we can see that the dinghy is clearly sitting a little way off shore, probably awaiting a signal to land. Doctor Jackal scans the submarine’s low profile with his binoculars and can tell that there are men moving about at the top of the conning tower. At that moment there is a large concussive force, that is felt rather than heard, and a huge gout of water shoots up from the rear of the submarine. Chaos breaks out on the German vessel, and below us the dinghy begins to paddle back towards the submarine.

I leave Henry on watch and run back to the inn to collect our car, which is why I missed all of the action that was to follow. Fortunately, Doctor Jackal saw it all and relayed it to me in detail on our drive back to Dublin. From his position on the cliff he was watching the dinghy as it was rowing back towards the submarine, suddenly it bucked as if it had been hit from below. The German sailors seemed unperturbed and continue to row. They seem far more concerned when it happens a second time. And when the third time they are hit and a large hole appears in the side of their boat they start to panic wildly.

Doctor Jackal pans his binoculars around to see what is happening on the submarine and it appears that they are preparing to lower a diver into the water on a rope to check out the damage that has been caused by the unexplained explosion. Henry remarked that it looked like they were going fishing with the German sailor, little did he know how accurate he was. Meanwhile, Madeline had slid from the shadow of the conning tower along to one of the open hatch ways on the deck of the submarine, probably the one they had launched the dinghy from, and was in the process of placing the second of our explosive devices.

Henry watches as the divers goes into the water, seconds later the sound of a blood curdling scream can be heard around the bay. The German sailors on deck pull the diver back out and it is obvious to Doctor Jackal that the man is missing most of his right leg below the thigh. Something gave him a nasty bite. At that moment there is a second powerful explosion on the submarine to the fore of the conning tower. When the searchlights from the conning tower are turned on the area it is obvious that the hatch has been very badly buckled and will not be able to close.

Back at the inn I release the car’s handbrake and roll it downhill as far as possible before starting it up and drive back towards the cove. I park up two thirds of a mile away, which is the closest that I can get on the road, and jog back to Doctor Jackal. By the time that I arrive both Madeline and Sven are back also. Sven transforms once more into seagull form and heads for the lifeboat station to telephone in the coordinates of the German submarine and request orders for the extraction of our prisoners. While he is doing that the rest of us carry the targets back to the car and stuff them into the boot.

By oh one hundred hours we are waiting by the car ready to move. Sven returns and says that our orders are;

Extract to a secure location and make contact again in twenty four hours time.

Doctor Jackal drives and mentally plots the quietest route back to Dublin avoiding major towns. At oh three thirty hours we pull the car into a secluded barn for Doctor Jackal to check our prisoner’s vital signs and resedate them. We agree to rest up here until dawn before moving on once more, I agree to take the first watch during which I probe Falltur once more with my senses. I discover that not only can he broadcast radio waves but that he can also hear radio waves too. I ‘borrow’ both of those abilities and then wake Sven to take his watch.

I am woken up by Madeline just before oh seven thirty who tells me that we have to move as there is movement in the farm just up the road from our hiding place. As Doctor Jackal is pulling us out onto the road he suddenly remembers that our contact in Ireland, Rowan Sexton, had given us his number in case we needed him. We stop on the outskirts of Dublin for breakfast and Doctor Jackal telephones the number from a local inn.

Can I speak to Sexton please?

Speaking!

May the road rise up to meet you!

May the wind be always at your back! What do you need?

Immediate accommodation for a party of six!

Where are you?

Outskirts of Dublin.

Sexton gives Henry an address in the northern suburbs of Dublin, about an hours drive away. We head off once more and once we are a couple of miles away we find a quiet spot and park up. Sven transforms in a raven and gives the location a fly past to make sure that we are not walking into a trap. When he returns he says that everything looks quiet. We slowly drive towards the address, with all four of us visible and with three of us with our hands firmly on our guns.

Henry pulls into a cul-de-sac and heads towards the end house which is the address that we have been given. The house has a garage and the garage door is open, Henry reverses the car into the garage. As he does so, Sexton sticks his head out of the internal door and smiles his broadest, most charming Irish grin. He closes the garage door and then gives me a massive hug. I like him!

MI6s team of enhanced individuals have been sent on an urgent, undercover mission to the west coast of Ireland. They are tasked with neutralising a traitor and his German contact, and recovering the stolen information. The team consists of Mademoiselle Mimi Dubois, La Résistance fighter and mistress of skills; Miss Madeline Forsyth, SOE operative and a living shadow; Sven Hyse, Norwegian Resistance soldier and shapeshifter; and Doctor Jackal, timid physician with his less than timid friend Mister Hades.

Part One:
When I remember our time in Ireland it always brings a smile to my face. We searched the village of Clifden thoroughly and we couldn’t find the hidden radio set that we assumed would be used by the German agent, the answer to our frustration was very surprising when we eventually discovered it.

Clifden, County Galway, Ireland, October 1942
Madeline slips her shadowy form through a small crack in the frame of the window on the first floor of the guest house. She finds herself in and empty, but clearly occupied room. Carrying out a quick search she discovers the clothing of a working class male but no obvious identification papers. Trying to move swiftly she slides under the doorway and into the corridor outside, she can hear the noise of dinner being prepared in the kitchen downstairs and so moves quickly to the next door along. It turns out to be a bathroom, with the next door along being an unoccupied guest room.

In the third guest room Madeline discovers more working class male clothes, she quickly checks the labels and discovers that they were made in London. With stairs running both down and up to the attic, Madeline heads up to search the attic room. She discovers what appears to be the quarters of the guest house’s owner. With a quick search she finds paperwork relating to the running of the guest house in the name of Mrs Driscoll, she also picks the lock on a strong box and finds the deeds to the house and several cheques made out to Mrs Driscoll. With everything looking legitimate Madeline heads back towards the inn, narrowly avoiding a women coming upstairs from the ground floor and heading into the bathroom. As she passes back through the first room that she searched she checks the labels in those clothes, they were made in London too.

While Madeline was carrying out her through search of the guest house, Doctor Jackal was sketching the walls of the castle and Sven was chasing his tail. After about an hour of this fun we also head back to the inn. As we walk through the inn door we see a man in his fifties stocking the bar, he turns as we enter and warmly greets us. He introduces himself as Robert Carney the landlord of the Clifden Arms Inn. We pass a couple of minutes in pleasant conversation and again use the story borrowed from the couple that we met at the monument.

We regroup back at our room and discuss all that we have discovered so far. We all agree that the agent that is based in Clifden must have access to a radio set in order for them to be able to communicate with the Germans, and that a set that large must have a significant aerial. So we decide to search for that as well as our investigations into any newcomers in the village. We agree that the most obvious places for a radio are the lifeboat station, which must have its own radio set and the church.

Sven transforms into a seagull and flaps out of our rooms open window. He heads straight to the lifeboat station and finds that it is occupied by a single individual and that there is a car parked outside of it. He flaps down and has a look through the windows on the upper level, which seems to contain the main watch point for the lifeboatman. Sven spots that the station does have its own radio set as well as a telephone line. He moves on to the church and lands within the belfry. There is no sign of anything that could possibly be considered a radio aerial. From his lofty perch he does spot that there is a telephone line running into the village hall and so he transforms into a thrush and investigates.

The village hall is quiet and all closed up so Sven moves onto the village shop which also has a phone line running to it. He discovers what he assumes to be a couple of locals, one of which is the shopkeeper, gossiping about what is happening in Europe and how it such a horrible thing. Sven moves on once again, this time heading for the market. He arrives just as the fishing boats are landing their catches of the day and the fish is being prepared for sale. Seizing such a glorious opportunity, Sven fights the other seagulls for scraps.

While Sven is out the remaining team members continue the best way to reduce the number of residences that we need to search for Maulwurf. Madeline suggests that as Maulwurf originally contacted Falltur via the telephone, that was how the message was intercepted, then Falltur must have a private telephone. We know that there is one in the inn, but as it is in the bar we decide that it is to public for it to be used for secure conversations. Doctor Jackal and Myself decide to go for a walk around the village and make a note of all of the houses that have telephone lines going to them.

Madeline decides to make sure of the inn and check the loft for an aerial, and also look through the rooms in the half of the inn used as the Carney’s residence. The loft contains what most lofts do, a lot of old and used items that are little used and after a cursory look Madeline moves down into the rear first floor of the building. She discovers what appears to be the Carney’s bedroom but there is no sign of any identification papers, she finds a bathroom in the next room and a large linen cupboard further down the hall. The final room at the back of the building is empty but occupied by a young man based on the clothing in the wardrobe. Again, Madeline can find no trace of any paperwork but assumes that it will all be in the inn’s office.

When Henry and I return from our walk we find that two of the tables are occupied for dinner, one by professor Parker. The other table has a middle aged man sat at it closely inspecting his glass. He holds it up to the light and then calls to Robert behind the bar for a clean one. As soon as he notices us he stands up and introduces himself as Sean Hennessy. I greet him in Gaelic and he responds instantly in flawless Gaelic, I groan inside because I believe that this man is not Maulwurf.

Doctor Jackal and I sit down to dinner and as we are finishing we overhear Mr Hennessy say that he is going to go for an after dinner stroll. Despite my belief that he is not our man I still run up stairs and ask Sven to follow him just in case. Sven flaps out of our room window in time to see Hennessy walking across the bridge into the village. Hennessy does just go for a walk, he walks through the village and cuts back around off of the beaten path but to all appearances it is just an after dinner walk.

Once again we regroup in our room and pool the information gathered. Between us we have ascertained that the only telephone lines in the village are at the inn, the lifeboat station, the pub, the village hall, the guest house, the store, and a dozen residential premises. That narrows down our search to eighteen locations. Just after midnight we start. Sven agrees to fly out around the bay to see if there is any sign of the U Boat while Madeline and I turn into shadows and head for the guest house. Finding himself all alone in the room, Doctor Jackal decides to slip out and visit the graveyard, we still to this day have no idea why.

Madeline and I slip underneath the back door of the guest house and find ourselves in the kitchen, we slide through and into a hallway that leads through to the front door. There is the sound of two men talking in a room off of the corridor and so Madeline slides towards the open doorway to see if she can overhear what they are discussing. I slide across the ceiling towards the front door and the guest book that I can see beside it, I quickly scan the open page to see how many people have signed in over the last four days. There have only been two people signed in during that time, a Mr Thomas Williams and a Mr Gerald Townly. Madeline manages to hear that the two men talking both have London east end accents, one of the men is saying how hard working on the fishing boats seems to be. The other man replies;

Bloody should’a stayed in London dodging the coppers! Would’a been easier!

I gesture to Madeline and we both head back out via the back door and up onto the roof. We are convinced that the two men are draft dodgers, Madeline makes a mental note to inform the authorities when we get the chance.

With Madeline leading the way we sneak across to the village hall, sliding in under the locked doors we find it unsurprisingly deserted. We take the opportunity to search it thoroughly. We find nothing out of the ordinary but do manage to ascertain that the local priest has been here for years and is called Father O’Malley. By the time we had finished our search it was oh two thirty hours and we hadn’t discovered much. Trying to remain positive we slipped across the dark and empty road into the church, again finding all quiet we carried out a full search. And again our efforts revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

We agree to search Lowry’s pub next, despite the feeling that we are not going to find anything. Knowing that time is not on our side, as soon as we have gained access we split up. Madeline heads down into the cellar to look for a radio set while I check out the rooms on the first floor. In the small lounge I discover the paperwork for the running of the pub, it details that the owner is a Mr Kevin Brannigan. Madeline and I meet up outside of the bedroom door and we both slide in. Madeline takes up a position to watch the sleeping form of the man in the bed while I look through the wallet that is on the bedside table. It confirms that the man in the bed, snoring loudly, is indeed Mr Kevin Brannigan. Finding no sign of anyone else at Lowry’s we head out of the village.

As soon as we are outside of the village limits we transform back into ourselves and run to the lifeboat station, we sneak in the last hundred feet and discover the lifeboat station dark and locked. We realise that it must only be manned during the hours that the fishing boats are out at sea. We gain access and again carry out a full search, everything is as you would expect and it does have a telephone line and a radio set. But we can find no evidence that it is the location used by the German agent Falltur. Tired and a little frustrated we return to the inn.

After a couple of hours of exhausted sleep we are awoken, as agreed, by Doctor Jackal at oh six hundred hours. Yet again both Madeline and I don the shadow form and wait in the corridor for the other occupants to wake. Professor Parker is the first to do so, he leaves his room with a tired yawn and heads for the bathroom at the end of the corridor. As soon as he is moving away from us Madeline slips under his door and searches his room swiftly. She finds his identification papers and his travel documents and examines them closely. When she joins me again she says that she is positive that the documents are genuine.

Madeline carries out the procedure once again when Mr Hennessy goes to the bathroom, and once again she is convinced that his documents are not forgeries. Yet again we seem to hit another dead end. Doctor Jackal suggests that we need to know more about the local villagers, that we should question someone who will know everyone and will know of anyone new in the village. And so, Mr and Mrs Shipman pay Father O’Malley a morning visit.

We find him in the church and Doctor Jackal quickly engages him in the history of the village, he is more than happy to talk at length about the area and it’s, frankly, quiet place in the history of Ireland. When ask him to point out some of the places that he is talking about and he leads us outside and starts to point and regale. As he is talking, I gently rest my hand against the back of his hand and ‘borrow’ his knowledge of the local area. I give Henry the nod and he quickly leads the conversation towards a close. As we walk back towards the inn I sift through all of the information that I have acquired. And then it suddenly strikes me. There is no recent knowledge of a third person working at the inn.

We head straight up to our room and inform the others. Right under our nose! How? There is no sign of a radio set. Slightly angry that we have missed something, Madeline and I turn into shadows and slide through the inn’s attic towards his room. Madeline confirms that it is empty and we slide in under the door. We carry out a thorough search of the room, and it is what we do not find that is intriguing. As before, there is no sign of any identification. Madeline checks the clothes and the labels show that they were made in London.

There are no signs of the missing man in any of the public areas of the inn and so Henry, dog Sven, and I head out to the back garden which looks onto the private half of the inn under the pretence of Doctor Jackal doing a sketch of the house. Madeline decides to search the loft once more in the hunt for the radio set that we all know must exist. Thirty minutes after we have sat down in the back garden Mrs Carney steps out of the back door and wanders over to have a look at what we are up to. Henry shows her his sketch and she is very impressed with his artistic ability.

As she is heading back in, Sven spots a figure stood watching us from a window on the ground floor. There is a net curtain and so he does not get a clear view of who it is. And so dog Sven runs around the garden a couple of times chasing his tail and then runs straight up to the window and stands up on his back legs and looks through. Inside he can see a man sat in a small sitting room reading a book. The man puts down his book and looks at dog Sven. Sven lolls his tongue and then runs around the garden once more.

As dog Sven is chasing his tail around the back garden of the Clifden Arms, Doctor Jackal is staring at a small detail that he has captured unconsciously in his sketch. As the telephone line goes into the building it splits in two. The inn must have a second telephone and based on where the line runs, it must be in the lower rear corner of the building. Another detail that we initially missed. Dog Sven sits back down at my feet and keeps looking towards the entrance to the inn, I suggest to Henry that we return to our room.

I don’t know if it was the beauty of Ireland, or the fact that we were finally in a country that wasn’t at war, but my usual paranoia had subsided over the last few days. That changed as we walked back towards the inn, and I stopped on the threshold and pushed out with my senses to see if there were any enhanced within. To my surprise I picked up four responses. Three of them I could explain away as my teammates. But who was the fourth? I knew that two of the responses were beside me, one was on the ground floor of the inn and the other on the first floor. I let both dog Sven and Doctor Jackal know what I had sensed.

We enter the bar area of the inn and can see Mr Carney behind the bar chatting to what look like three locals and sat eating some lunch at a table on his own is Mr Hennessy. I pause and push out with my senses again and locate the fourth enhanced individual. To my complete surprise it is Mr Robert Carney.

We wait out the rest of the day and just after midnight Madeline and I once again slide out of our room in our shadowy forms and head downstairs into the private half of the inn. In the corner of the building where the extra phone line runs in to we discover a small office. We spend a couple of hours searching the office from top to bottom, initially we find documentation relating to the running of the inn and those that live here. There is no mention anywhere of anyone other than Mr and Mrs Carney. As we are searching through the books on a bookshelf in the corner of the room we find a small pamphlet slipped between the pages of a large natural history book.

I quickly rush the pamphlet up to Doctor Jackal who leafs through it commiting each page to his incredible memory. Two minutes later I return the pamphlet to Madeline and we make sure that the office is left looking undisturbed and then return to our room. Henry has had time to consider the information that he had memorised from the pamphlet and confirms that it was a list of dates, times, and radio frequencies. The most recent had been ten o’clock that evening and the next was due at ten o’clock tomorrow evening. The list of dates and times went back almost a year and forwards for another six months.

By three o’clock in the morning Madeline and I are in the third man’s room staring down at his sleeping form, by this stage we are sure that he is Maulwurf. While Madeline keeps watch on him I search through his clothes that are hung over the back of a chair, but again I find no personal items or identification papers. I gaze across at the bed and notice that the mans underpants are hanging on the bedpost, almost in desperation I take a quick look at them and find that they have a small, hard cylindrical object sewn into their lining. I gesture to Madeline that I have found something and we retreat back to our room, pants in hand.

As soon as we are back in the room Madeline whips out her sewing kit and begins to carefully unpick the stitching of the lining. I rummage through Madeline’s camera kit and pull out a film canister, which happens to be about the same weight and size as the object hidden in Maulwurf’s underwear. Madeline switches them and then restiches the lining, as soon as she has finished we return the underwear and retreat. Once we have returned Madeline creates darkness around herself and unscrews the lid of the canister, it does indeed contain a roll of film. She replaces it and reseals the canister.

While Madeline is doing that I head for the Carney’s bedroom. I position myself on the ceiling outside of their bedroom and once again push out with my senses, there is definitely an enhanced individual within the room. I push deeper and try to discover what the enhanced powers are.

A smile of realisation crosses my face when I discover that Mr Robert Carney’s major power is the ability to broadcast radio signals.