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.