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.