Having recently returned from their successful mission to the heart of Germany MI6s team of enhanced individuals have no time to reflect as Sven has a favour to ask. 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

While Madeline and I spend the day repairing our uniforms and cooking a lovely meal Doctor Jackal heads for Hanslope Park’s laboratories. Working with a number of scientists who have signed the official secrets act, he begins testing on the metal tube recovered from Mittelwerk IV. They discover that the metal tube is definitely lead lined, and once they have set up a Geiger-Müller tube they are able to confirm Doctor Jackal’s theory that the contents are radioactive. Once they have put in place the correct protective apparatus they unscrew the metal tube and discover that it contains a glass test tube filled with a glowing blue liquid.

Doctor Jackal then requests a stenographer, and once she arrives, he begins relaying all of the detail with regards to the production process of cobalt 60 that he memorised in the tunnels under Kohnstein. He talks almost non-stop for six hours and the stenographer has to be replaced twice in order to keep up. When he later joins us back in Hut 17B he is treated to a wonderful cooked meal, as is Sven who arrives just after Henry. Sven looks resplendent in his new Norwegian Kaptains uniform, we laughingly all salute him.

Over dinner Sven tells us everything that happened at the Norwegian embassy, well almost everything. He also asks us for our assistance. He begins to tell us about the mission for the Norwegian government and the delicate matter of the hidden Regalia of Norway, before he has finished his request there is a chorus of answers;

I will happily lend my assistance! J'en suis! Count me in!

Once we have all agreed to help Henry asks;

So what is it that we need to do?

The following day we attend a full debriefing with Captain Ledman. As usual we let Doctor Jackal relay the majority of the details, while the rest of us fill in some of the finer details. I provide a lot of details with regards to the enhanced guard dogs, while Doctor Jackal provides very detailed information around the stages of Cobalt 60 production that he was able to discern from his examination of the paperwork. Captain Ledman informs us that he has already been provided with the detailed report dictated by Henry the previous day, and the initial findings from the examination of the sample that we returned with.

At the end of a long morning of debriefing Captain Ledman summarises that he believes that we need to discover how the first two stages of the Cobalt 60 process are carried out, how the Germans have managed to get it to react in a stable method with both animal and human cells, and where the centre for production has been moved. He also suggests that the next mission will be for us to investigate the Wolfenkorps headquarters at Wewelsburg Schloss. Ledman believes that it will take a while for MI6 to pull together the required intelligence for the Wewelsburg Schloss mission and so there is plenty of time for us to provide assistance to the Norwegian government.

Not long after lunch Major Linge of the Norwegian Independent Company arrives at Hanslope Park to begin planning with us for Operation Sea Eagle.

The Norwegian Crown Jewels are hidden in a small, secluded Franciscan community situated on an island in the middle of a lake south east of Narvik in the north of Norway. The Regalia is hidden in a large wooden box, approximately five foot long by two foot wide and deep, and it has been placed within the tomb of a Brother Egil Larsen. The Franciscan monks are sympathetic to the cause and in particular Brother Aruld will provide us with assistance. Major Linge also hands Sven a letter signed by the Norwegian government requesting that we are supplied with any assistance possible, he tells us that most of the locals will assist us but only if it will not cause them direct harm.

Major Linge points out that the Germans are clearly working on some gathered intelligence, given the remoteness of the location and it’s proximity to the Swedish border, it would be highly unlikely that they had stumbled upon the area by coincidence. He then produces some photographs of the Norwegian Regalia and passes them around so that we know what we are looking for.

Captain Ledman then takes up the briefing. You will be flown to RAF Grimsetter in Scapa Flow on the island of Orkney, there you will transfer to a seaplane that will take you to rendezvous with HMS Active. HMS Active will get you as close as they can to the coast of Norway and then their landing craft will take you into the Ofotfjorden fjord, from there you will have to take a dinghy to land safely in the vicinity of Beisfjord. Major Linge takes up the journey;

From Beisfjord I would recommend that you try and obtain a fishing vessel and head up river to the Franciscan island.

We all agree and spend the rest of the afternoon deciding on what kit we will require, and we request explosives with a timer and pin mechanism. We also manage to arrange for a couple of nights survivalist training, with a couple of Major Linge’s best men, in the Peak District.

Forty eight hours later we are on top of Kinder Scout being taught the basics of surviving in a mountainous climate. I take a shortcut and ‘borrow’ Major Linge’s men’s skills in skiing, survival, knowledge of the Norwegian landscape, and the language. In fact, we spend the entire trip speaking in nothing but Norwegian. This please Sven no end, but it also gives Madeline, who has an amazing affinity with languages, and Doctor Jackal, whose memory is becoming legendary, plenty of time to pick up the basics of the language.

Eight days after that first planning meeting, and at zero four hundred hours Doctor Jackal and Sven and paddling our dinghy beneath the road bridge that crosses into Narvik. I am sat in the stern of the dinghy steering us and Madeline is laying down in the prow scanning the banks with her binoculars making sure that we aren’t being observed. We had been rowing for about thirty minutes by then and Madeline had already spotted an airstrip and an unlit lifeboat station, both of which we noted as potential exit strategies.

We pass under the bridge and continue to row along the southern bank of the fjord heading towards Beisfjord. There is snow on the ground but it is not deep enough to be a major hindrance, but we stay on the water so as not to leave any sign of our passing. By zero five thirty hours, just before dawn, we start to look for a place to lay low and hide. We pull the dinghy into a small tributary and then out onto the bank where we overturn it and I spend some time camouflaging it with pine branches and ferns, it also give us cover to rest under.

While myself and Doctor Jackal make sure that the camp is well hidden, Madeline and Sven head out to scout. Madeline slides in shadow form along the steep sides of the fjord, using the darkness under the tree line as cover, she gets close enough to spot that the village of Beisfjord is made up of about one hundred buildings and that there are fishing vessels already heading out both onto the fjord and up river. Sven takes to the skies and gets a bird’s eye view of Beisfjord, the most notable this that he spots is the German motorcycle and sidecar parked up at the three legged cross roads at the eastern edge of the village.

Not seeing much else of note, Sven lands in cover and transforms into a Harris’s hawk and flies at speed seeking the church on the island. Madeline returns back to our makeshift base and lets myself and Henry know what she has seen, we then settle down under cover and grab some rest. Our experience has taught us that you grab as much rest as you can when you can because you never know when you might get some again.

Sven flies into a mountainous area following the line of the river, on a number of occasions the walls close into a narrow gorge approximately ten miles long and only ten yards wide in some places. Eventually it opens up into a secluded lake nestled within a ring of mountains, and in the lake Sven spots an island, and on that island there is an obvious cluster of buildings. Sven circles around and also notices a large castle like building overlooking the lake for the mountainside, but more importantly he spots a German military motor launch docked at the islands jetty.

The Harris’s hawk lands high up on the mountain cliffs out of sight, and moments later a small thrush flaps into the air and heads towards the small island. Sven can see that there is a single guard keeping watch on the jetty, and when he gets a better look he can see that the German trooper bears the insignia of the Wolfenkorps. He also sees more Germans moving around in a larger building further up the island that appears to be residential accommodation. Sven makes a quick decision to head straight back to us and warn us what is happening. He flies above the castle like building on his way back and believes that it is more likely a monastery and a chapel.

Just before zero nine hundred a hawk lands nears our camp and transforms into Sven. He quickly relays what he has discovered and we agree that we need to move immediately. Only taking what we can carry we start to stealth around the outside of the village of Beisfjord, it is a hike of approximately three miles and is not over very forgiving terrain but by eleven hundred hours we are hidden in the tree line on the far side of the village. Doctor Jackal spots that there are a couple of small cottages with smoke coming out of their chimneys a little east along the river. But more importantly there are also a couple of fishing boats pulled up on the shore near them.

Sven flies down to near the cottages and transforms back to his own form, he walks up to the door of one of the small houses and knocks. He is greeted a few moments later by a fish wife;

Can I help you?

Sven replies;

I would like to hire one of those fishing boats!

The woman seems a little surprised but suggests that Sven try the other cottage, Sven thanks her and moves off. He once again knocks on the door and is met again by a fish wife, again Sven asks to hire one of the fishing vessels, the women says that one of them belongs to her husband. Sven hands her the letter, she reads it and then looks at him again;

Ah! You’d better wait here!

MI6s Enhanced Team are investigating the connection between the German facility hidden beneath Kohnstein and the mysterious chemical that gave them their abilities. Having searched the facility the team are now planning their exit. 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.

Kohnstein Facility, Niedersachswerfen, Germany, October 1942

Little did the staff of the Kohnstein facility realise that tucked away in a guardpost out of sight, inside the collapsed tunnel of Mittelwerk IV, a discussion was taking place that would have a significant outcome on the future of the site. I don’t mind admitting that I was dead against the course of action that we eventually ended up taking, but in the end it was three against one and so I agreed. And afterwards, I was pleased that I did.

Madeline was the first to lay out her thinking. She was firmly of the opinion that we needed to destroy the munitions testing laboratory housed in Mittelwerk I and II. I initially put this down to her desire to kill as many Germans as possible, but in the end I believe that I was wrong. I countered with the fact that it was more important that we get out quietly with the gathered information but knew that I was backing a looser when Doctor Jackal joined the fray. He pointed out that there was a very good chance that the test rockets might very well be able to reach British shores and that a lot of civilians could die, Madeline nodded and there was a steely glint in her eye. Sven, it seems, just wanted to drive the fuel truck into something and blow it up. He really did just want to sow chaos and destruction, and I was not wrong about that.

Doctor Jackal suggested that as the fuel production facility was just beyond the blast doors that adjoined Mittelwerk III, it would be sensible to place explosives there for the greatest effect. Still hoping to convince my colleagues that we should get out quietly, I asked how many personnel were likely to be in the facility at any one time. Doctor Jackal, who had watched them come and go at shift change, said that he thought that there were approximately fifty. But, he pointed out, the majority of them were scientists and there was only a handful of guards.

And so by twenty two hundred hours I admitted defeat and we began to plan in earnest. Madeline pointed out that the we were less likely to get spotted if we infiltrated Mittelwerk II during their shift change at midnight and so we agreed that all of our timings would be based from that moment. Sven headed out on the wing to make sure that there had been no changes since his reconnoitre the previous night, when he returned he was able to confirm that as well as the two main aerial clusters on the airfields control tower there was also a smaller cluster of aerials situated on the roof of the command centre.

While Sven was out scouting Doctor Jackal and I packed up all of our kit ready to move, and Madeline checked out how long it would take to run from the Mittelwerk II blast doors to the entrance to the Mittelwerk IV tunnel. With all of the information gathered we regroup in our hidden guard post for the final time, we synchronize our watches and agree where we will place the explosives. We decide on three explosive packets to take out all of the aerials, two more placed on the airfields main fuel depot, and the rest to be used in the Mittelwerk II fuel production facility.

If there had been anyone watching the tunnel entrance of Mittelwerk IV at twenty three zero five hours, and if they had been a particularly sharp eyed individual, they may have spotted two shadows separate from the dark tunnel entrance and slide anticlockwise halfway between the perimeter fence and the roadway eventually crossing the road to the airfields main gate and cutting back in towards the command building. That hypothetical sharp eyed individual may also have spotted two figures move from within the dark tunnel entrance and hunker down amid the rubble to watch the airfield. But there was no sharp eyed individual, and so the actions of MI6s Enhanced Team went unnoticed.

With Madeline taking point, we slide through the shadows to the side of the command building, we then slide up the wall to the roof where I transform out of shadowform and place the first of our explosive packets against the base of the aerial cluster. I check my watch, it is now twenty three sixteen hours and so I set the timer for fifty minutes and the transform back into a shadow. We quickly move to the roof of the airfields control tower, fortunately that time of night it was very quiet and those on watch were heading towards the end of their shift and so were not very observant. On the roof Madeline and I take an aerial cluster each and place the explosives, setting the timers for forty four minutes. Using the darkness in the centre of the airfield as cover we next circle around towards the airfields main fuel depot where again we place two explosive packets. This time the timers are set for thirty two minutes.

Madeline and I rejoin Doctor Jackal and Sven in the entrance to Mittelwerk IV at twenty three forty five hours, and the clock is ticking. We continue to watch the airfield for a few minutes hoping that our activities have not been spotted, when no alarm is raised Madeline and I head back into the facility to place our final explosive packets. We slide through the blast doors into Mittelwerk II at twenty three fifty eight hours and discover the fuel production facility empty, Madeline was correct about the shift change. We quickly place an explosive packet each and set the timers for six minutes, there is not enough time to set the third packet as we hear the sound of approaching footsteps and so we leave silently through the blast doors and run for the entrance to Mittelwerk IV.

Leaving Sven at the entrance to the tunnel I grab Doctor Jackal and start guiding him across the centre of the airfield. Madeline covers us in her artificial darkness, but it does not affect me as I have ‘borrowed’ her ability to see in it, and so we are able to move at speed with little risk of being seen. We are four hundred yards from the mouth of the tunnel when the clock ticks over to five minutes past midnight. The stillness of the night is shattered by an explosion large enough to shake the ground beneath our feet. Seconds later we feel the force of a secondary explosion under Kohnstein. The three of us continue to move swiftly towards the transport planes parked on the runway apron.

We have made it another hundred yards when a ripple of explosions light up the buildings at the edge of the airfield. The last of the three explosions is followed by yet another earth shaking boom as the main fuel depot succumbs to the flames. Seconds later the airfield bursts into life as alarms sound and chaos ensues, Sven takes this as his cue and flaps into the night sky. A raven lands in the darkness near to the secondary fuel depot outside the entrance to Mittelwerk I, slowly transforms into a German officer, and walks through the door of the fuel depots office.

The German trooper sat in the office turns to face the door when he hears someone enter, seeing that it is an officer he hurriedly stands and salutes. His eyes widen when he notices that the officer seems to be pointing a silenced pistol at him. Sven pulls the trigger three times and downs the German Private, he then holsters his gun and heads outside to the fuel truck. Sven, now looking like the dead German Private inside the fuel depot’s office, tapes one of his grenades to the fuel trucks pumping mechanism but leaves the pin in. He then climbs onboard and starts to slowly drive it around the perimeter road towards the bases main buildings.

Doctor Jackal, Madeline and I arrive at the runway’s apron where the Heinkel and Junkers are parked. Despite the fact that we had agreed to take the Junkers on the spur of the moment I point Doctor Jackal and Madeline towards the Heinkel, later I will be pleased with that split second decision. As Madeline assists Doctor Jackal board the Heinkel I take the last of our explosive packets and place it on the Junkers undercarriage, setting the timer for ten minutes. I then follow the others into the Heinkel and begin the preflight checks.

On the other side of the airfield Sven parks the fuel truck outside of the main buildings, he climbs out and casually walks around to the side of the truck and opens up the valves. Fuel starts to pour out of the truck and across the road. In the chaos that engulfs the base his actions almost go unseen, but a German Unterfeldwebel tries to stop him. Sven quick draws his silenced pistol and shoots him at very close range. The German soldier drops to the floor clutching his stomach, but the altercation goes completely unseen. Sven reaches over and pulls the pin out of the grenade and then walks quickly in between the buildings.

With my preflight checks completed I fire up the engines of the Heinkel He 111, it roars into life and I start to taxi my way out to the Ed age of the runway. I plan to use the shortest of the runways which will mean a very steep climb to clear Kohnstein, but it is the quickest exit. Doctor Jackal sits down just behind me in the navigators seat and starts to plot out the bearings for our escape route. Madeline positions herself at the open rear door of the fuselage, unslinging her machine gun and taking aim at the ground crew gathered around the fighter aircraft. She spots that they all appear to be working on a single plane and so she focuses on them.

The night is lit up was more as the grenade on the fuel truck detonates and a heartbeat later the fuel truck itself explodes. In the darkness between the buildings Sven transforms once again into the guise of one of the airfields civilian workers and rushes around as if in a panic, but every time that he passes a large group of airfield personnel he drops a grenade amongst them and rushes away, leaving a ripple of small explosions and screams in his wake. Eventually, having run out of grenades, Sven slowly walks out into the darkness of the middle of the airfield. He is thirty yards away from the buildings when he hears a shout in German from behind him;

You there! HALT!

Sven stops dead where he is and slowly turns around. He finds himself looking at a German Leutnant stood twenty yards away. The officer shouts;

Where do you think that you are going? Get back here!

Sven shrugs and reaches for his pistol. But as he is drawing it, it snags on his holster and he drops it onto the floor. The Leutnant draws his sidearm and points it at Sven. Sven places his hands on his head. The German officer slowly circles around behind Sven, keeping his gun firmly trained, and asks;

Who are you?

Sven replies;

Igor Swartz!

The officer is now stood behind Sven, about five yards back, Sven decides that it is time to get away and so he transforms into a leopard. This catches the German Leutnant by surprise and he freezes for a moment, that is all Sven needs. The leopard turns and leaps at the officer, but the officer manages to snap out of his stupor and fires his gun straight at the leopards chest. Sven is enormously relieved when the bullet bounces off of his enhanced uniform. The leopard lands on the Germans chest and tears out his throat. It then runs off into the dark, but Sven can’t shake the feeling that he is sure that he was seen transforming.

I taxi the Heinkel onto the end of the runway and begin my final checks, there has been no sign of Sven but as I look up I spot a leopard sprinting along the runway towards us. That can only be be Sven. I shout back to Madeline so that she is not caught unawares and wait. As soon as Sven is aboard I push the throttle levers fully open and we begin to gain speed along the runway. As soon as we are moving Madeline opens up with a burst of machine gun fire at the ground crew working around one of the Messerschmitts, but it is a very difficult shot and her bullets go wide.

As we approach the end of the runway I pull back of the stick and we rise easily into the air and over Kohnstein. Doctor Jackal gives me a bearing and I steadily climb into the sky following his directions. It has only been a matter of fifteen minutes since the first explosion and we are on our way home. Madeline slips into the co-pilot's seat next to me and fixes the disabled radio. She then heads back into the fuselage and finds three parachutes, as well as having a quick look out of the dorsal observation window. When she does she spots what can only be another plane in pursuit.

We are twenty minutes out of the Kohnstein airfield when Madeline spots our pursuer, by which time I have come to realise that the Heinkel is of a higher specification then we first realised. And so I push the engines as hard as possible and we begin to pull away from the plane that is chasing us. Within ten minutes it is nothing but a spec, and five minutes later it cannot been seen. Ten minutes after our pursuer has disappeared Doctor Jackal passes me a course change and so I steer us towards the new bearing which will see us travelling northwest over the Netherlands.

Thirty minutes later Doctor Jackal passes me our final course correction and we head out over the North Sea and back to England. Soon after we have taken our final bearing Madeline establishes radio contact and relays our passphrase, a couple of minutes later and we are advised to follow a specific course towards an airstrip and that we will be escorted in. Twenty minutes after this we see a pair of Hurricanes drop into escort position behind us and we are given clear passage to the airfield.

I land safely and we are met at the runway apron by a Lieutenant Barry who leads us towards the officers mess. He informs us that he has been made aware that our superior officer is on route to meet us and that we are to make ourselves comfortable until he arrives. He is very professional and does not ask any questions as to why two men and two ladies have landed a German aeroplane on his airfield. An hour later Captain Ledman enters the mess hall, he looks us over and seeing no injuries he just asks a simple one word question;

Successful?

We say yes and he nods. He informs us that we will be given a full debrief later but for now Doctor Jackal, Madeline and myself are to return to Hanslope Park in the truck but that Sven is to accompany Captain Ledman to London on a matter of urgency. We ask why and are told that it is a request from the Norwegian embassy.

Eventually the rest of us discovered what happened in London when Sven returned and made a request, but the subject of that request is for later. Sven travelled to London and stayed the evening in a military compound. The following day his number one dress uniform was delivered to him and once he was dressed he travelled with Captain Ledman and Major Hoffman to the Norwegian embassy. When they arrive they are shown into a room and are greeted by Major General Stewart Menzies, the three men then accompany Sven into an adjoining room which is occupied by three one of which is wearing a Norwegian military uniform.

The three men are introduced as Major Linge; Oscar Torp, Norwegian Minister of Defence; and Johan Nygaardsvold, Norwegian Prime Minister. The seven men pass small pleasantries over drinks and then Oscar Torp makes a formal request for assistance in recovering the Regalia of Norway. He goes on to explain that in their escape from Norway the crown jewels were hidden in a secure location, unfortunately the Germans have been searching for them and they are now closing in on their location. Torp says that it is very important that a Norwegian national is involved in recovering them, and preferably a member of the Norwegian military.

Sven says that it would be his honour, and so Johan Nygaardsvold nods and leaves the room and Major Hoffman turns to Sven and decommissions him from the British Army. Next Major Linge officially enlists Sven into the Norwegian army and immediately promotes him. Kaptein Hyse proudly salutes.

MI6s Enhanced Team are investigating the connection between the German facility hidden beneath Kohnstein and the mysterious chemical that gave them their abilities. They have gained entry into Mittelwerk III and IV and have secured a document pointing to a section of the German army called the Wolfenkorps, and their headquarters. 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.

Kohnstein Facility, Niedersachswerfen, Germany, October 1942

Having regrouped back in our guard post niche and discovered the contents of the file, Madeline and I head back to search the other open areas. We slide along the ceiling and into the corridor opposite the logistics office, a small sign at the entrance to the corridor declares that this is Qualitätskontrolle. We find ourselves in a large, rectangular, and utterly empty room. It is, however, obvious that recently some sort of machinery was bolted to the floor in here. The Wolfenkorps seem to have been meticulous in their clean up when abandoning the facility. Madeline and I proceed deeper into the complex.

At the end of a short corridor we find ourselves in a large circular room with six exits, including the corridor that runs back to Qualitätskontrolle, evenly spaced around the room. There are small signs identifying each exit, and reading anticlockwise around the room they say; Extraktion, Raffinesse, Löslichkeit, Testen I, and Testen II. The RAF boys had made sure that Testen I and II were blocked to normal people due to a tunnel collapse, Löslichkeit also showed signs of significant collapse beyond the large blast doors. But this collapse had buckled the doors enough that Madeline and I in shadow form could slip through without issue.

We slide in between the large chunks of debris into Löslichkeit, which we both knew was German for solubility, and discovered a large rectangular room whose ceiling had completely caved in destroying all of the machinery and equipment that had taken up the floorspace of the room. Amid the wreckage Madeline discovered a number of crushed filing cabinets along one of the walls, all of them filled with paperwork. We quickly began to ferry the reams of paperwork back to Doctor Jackal for him to review.

It takes me twenty minutes to shuttle run as many of the loose documents as I can back to Doctor Jackal and Sven, while Madeline spends the time extracting them out of the debris. While she is doing this she discovers the bodies of four scientists under the collapsed ceiling. There are all carrying both military and Wolfenkorps identity cards, as well as security passes for Mittelwerk III. Once we have thoroughly searched Löslichkeit, and being confident that there are no other immediate dangers within the facility, we decide to move Doctor Jackal and Sven up to the circular room beyond Qualitätskontrolle and set up there with a lightsource.

As we turn the corner into the long corridor with Qualitätskontrolle and Logistik leading off of it, Henry points to the doorway at the end of the corridor and asks what is in there, Madeline and I look at each other and shrug. We head down the corridor towards the door in question. As we are passing the the blast doors at the end of the corridor we hear the sound of a dog barking behind us. The three of us turn around and can see a large German shepherd sat outside the door to Logistik barking. Panic seized my chest as I looked along the corridor and saw one of the enhanced hounds in our corridor.

Doctor Jackal looked down the corridor and saw the beast, he then looked left and right and did not see Madeline and myself. There were however, two new dark patches of shadow on the ceiling above him. The beast outside the door to Logistik barked again, almost as if it were attempting to talk to those trapped inside. After a tense moment the hound looks down the length of the corridor and locks eyes with Henry, it then starts to pad towards him. As it moves it’s form begins to shift and a second later Sven is striding along the corridor towards Doctor Jackal. The rest of us let go of the breath that we all seemed to be holding.

The door at the end of the corridor, next to the large blast doors has a small sign outside of it reading Verwaltung. Madeline slips over the top of the door and finds herself in yet another bare room, yet again the Wolfenkorps have been through in their cleanup. Outside the door of the Verwaltung Doctor Jackal, Sven and myself are checking out the blast doors. There appears to be some kind of mechanism for opening them but there is no power running to it. Madeline returns and attempts to slip through the blast doors, but they are airtight and she has no luck.

We head back to the circular room beyond Qualitätskontrolle and Doctor Jackal settles down and once again begins to review all of the documentation that we have recovered so far. Madeline and I leave Sven watching over Doctor Jackal and decide to search Testen II. After a short while, Henry looks up to Sven and says;

They appear to be processing Cobalt 60, which is radioactive isotope of cobalt. The process described involves dissolving Cobalt 60 in water and creating a stable solution. There are numerous references to procedures to protect the scientists from the harmful effects of Cobalt 60. The output is noted here as 0.568 litres per week.

Sven looks blankly back at Doctor Jackal, shrugs and looks back down the corridor for something to hit.

Inside Testen II we discover the bodies of another two laboratory technicians, both of which are carrying similar identity cards to the corpses in Löslichkeit. The room itself is full of rubble, crushed machinery, and more damaged filing cabinets full of paperwork. I again start to ferry the paperwork back to Doctor Jackal, when I get to him it is obvious that he has started to sort all of the paperwork based how vital he deems the information within. I head back into Testen II and find Madeline searching the rest of the room. She finds a metal tube, nine inches in length and cigar shaped with a screw top at one end. She says that it is much heavier than it appears, Madeline makes sure that she hands the canister to Doctor Jackal. When she hands it over Henry looks up from the paperwork and says;

According to this they have not yet managed to industrialise the process yet but were using this facility as a mini testing site with that as a goal. There is also evidence that they have been testing on live cells, biological samples and animal organs. Any samples that passed the testing criteria were confirmed as meeting the standards and shipped out. The effects seem to be taking effect in the medium timeframe, were as we were effected in a very short time frame and Falltur was affected over a very long timeframe. This process is far more controlled and directed.

Madeline yawns, stretches, transforms into shadow, and slips into the derelict Testen I laboratory.

Laboratory Testen I is in a very similar condition to Testen II, including the bodies of two scientists and several crushed filing cabinets. Yet again we shift as much paperwork as possible to Doctor Jackal and he continues to sort it all out into piles of relevance and importance. By this time it was oh three hundred and Madeline and I head for Extraktion leaving Doctor Jackal knee deep in paperwork. Madeline slips through under the door and finds that the Wolfenkorps have cleared the room. It is obvious that there were once machines bolted to the floor. Madeline heads for Raffinesse and discovers the same situation there.

Madeline stands in the centre of the circular room with her hands on her hips looking down at Doctor Jackal, who is engrossed in sorting and reading paperwork, she looks at Sven and I and says;

Shall we have a look at those blast doors then while he’s busy?

We both nod and so she heads back towards the truck. A few minutes later she reappears carrying a crowbar, which she hands to Sven with a broad smile. Sven forces the jemmy between the blast doors, braces his feet, and heaves. The veins stand out on his forehead and there is an almost imperceptible hiss as the doors part a couple of millimetres and the airtight seal is broken. And a couple of millimetres is all that Madeline requires to be able to slide through, she finds herself in a large curving tunnel that ends after forty yards at another set of blast doors.

This time the power light on the mechanism is lit and the doors are slightly warm to the touch. Madeline slips through the top of the doors, where the air tight seal seems to have perished, and finds herself in a large room filled with machines and laboratory equipment. She quickly realises that it is the same room that she discovered when she traversed the pipe from the top of Kohnstein, which means that this must be Mittelwerk II. She also realises that the other pipes must exit further back in the complex and that it might be better to view from there to see what is going on.

She heads back and fills us in, we quickly decide to head topside and check out the pipes further towards the rear slope of the hill. Minutes later, Madeline is once again sliding down a pipe and cutting her way through several layers of filters. When she finally breaks through she finds herself staring down at what appears to be a large missile with wings and an unusual tube like device at its rear. As she watches, one of the scientists presses a button and flames begin to rush from the rear of the strange tube.

We retreat from the hilltop and return to our secure guard post to rest up. I sleep while Madeline checks in with Henry. Doctor Jackal is still happily sifting through the mountain of notes and documents. By this time it is zero four thirty hours and Sven has decided once more to check out the airfield, he transforms once more into a large raven and flies over to the fighter planes that are parked at the edge of the runway. He recognises them as Messerschmitt ME109s, and believing that we will be leaving soon decides to sabotage them immediately by biting through all of their visible hoses. It is only when he gets back to the rest of us much later that he realises that we plan to wait out the day in our hidden guard post.

Madeline shakes me awake just before ten hundred hours, she tells me that Doctor Jackal is still nose deep in the documents and that there has been no sign of Sven. At that precise moment a large rat crawls through the rubble from the outside and transforms into Sven. He informs us that there was another shift change of workers at zero eight hundred hours, confirming that they are on an eight hour three shift rota. Madeline and Sven then bed down while I take up a watch patrol.

Every time that I look in on Doctor Jackal he seems more and more manic, like a man who has drunk far to much strong coffee. On one of these visits he looks up at me and says;

They appear to be testing the chemical properties of the cobalt 60 solution in Testen I and they have a number of tests that would allow me to recreate the process so I have committed it all to memory have I told you that I can remember everything that I see yes of course I have why wouldn’t I have I think that I might need to sleep soon but I still have so much to finish reading and it is all very important I better carry on.

I back slowly out of the room, hoping that I don’t get to meet Mr Hades. Eventually, around twelve hundred hours, Doctor Jackal admits defeat and heads for bed. I am relieved to see him do so.

The day passes quietly and Madeline and Sven both wake around eighteen hundred hours, I let them take over watch duties and head back to bed. Sven heads out once again as a thrush and makes a note of guard positions, possible targets for demolitions, and the location of the fuel trucks. He also notices that his sabotage of the fighter planes has not been detected. Doctor Jackal, once he is refreshed from his sleep, finishes off his reading and by twenty one hundred hours we are all packed and ready to ship out. We agree to check the fuel in the transport planes before we make our plans.

I rig up a simple dipstick and myself and Madeline slide out of the front of Mittelwerk IV in shadow form. We glide straight across the middle of the airfield towards the Junkers Ju 88, while Madeline reconnoitres the inside of the aircraft I check with the dipstick and find that it is fully fuelled. I also carry out a quick preflight check on the exterior of the plane and it looks in serviceable condition. On the inside Madeline removes a vital component from the planes radio, but leaving in quickly repairable state if you know what is wrong. We move onto the Heinkel He 111 and carry out the same process, finding that it is also fully fuelled.

Madeline and I regroup with the others and we sit down to plan our escape.

Having parachuted into central Germany, MI6s Enhanced Team are investigating the connection between the German facility hidden beneath Kohnstein and the mysterious chemical that gave them their abilities. 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.

Kohnstein Facility, Niedersachswerfen, Germany, October 1942

Sven surveys the airfield from his bird’s eye, literally, vantage point and makes a mental note of the major buildings. Based on the number, and size of the barracks he estimated that the airfield supports possibly two to three hundred personnel. It was easy for him to identify the airfield control tower, ammunition store, two fuel storage areas and the aircraft stationed in one corner of the airfield. The aircraft consisted of four fighters, but more interestingly two medium aircraft. A Heinkel He 111 and a more heavily armed Junkers Ju 88 which would be ideal for our plan A exit strategy.

Having checked out the two unmanaged entrances into the Mittelwerk complex, I slide along the top of the hillside to the first of the bombed entrances. As before, there is a tunnel large enough for a truck to easily drive through but this time there are no lights. That’s not an issue for me since I have ‘borrowed’ Madeline’s ability to see in the dark. I can see that the tunnel ends fifty yards in at a cave in, but I believe that there may well be enough room between the large debris for my shadowy form to slip through, so I head in.

The dark raven that is Sven Hyse sits atop one of the taller buildings and watches the activity of the airfield with a beady eye. He spots a two man patrol carrying out a circuit of the perimeter fence, they leave from the main cluster of buildings and head anticlockwise around the inside edge of the fence. Sven estimates that it will take them approximately an hour to complete a full circuit of the fenced boundary. He settles in to watch them for a little while.

In the collapsed tunnel it is slow going, even as a two dimensional shadow, but after roughly a hundred metres I come up against a third set of heavy duty blast doors. This time they are stencilled with the words MIttelwerk III, but more importantly next to this is stencilled a stylised wolf's head logo. The same wolf’s head logo that I saw painted on the barrels that were loaded on the fated train from London Euston. Believe it that I have found what we are looking for I start to test the edges of the blast doors to see if they are airtight.

Through his binoculars, Doctor Jackal watches a two man patrol continue their circuit around the perimeter fence. Madeline taps him on the shoulder and tells him that she is going to search the rear slope of the hill for air vents. The problem is, Kohnstein is over a mile wide and a couple of miles long, and the downward slope of it is densely wooded. Nevertheless, Madeline begins to work her way backwards from where she believe the tunnels beneath run.

Having watched the two man patrol for a short while Sven decides to check out the open tunnels, he flies past the tunnel mouths and can see that they are well lit and empty. He lands in the shadows outside of the tunnel mouths and transforms into a house cat, he then proceeds to stalk along the length of Mittelwerk II. When he gets to the blast doors he can tell that they are almost impenetrable, almost. He also spots some kind of mechanism on the wall next to the doors. Cat Sven stalks back out of the tunnel.

Having tested most of the door and finding it still airtight I am lucky enough to find a section on the right of the door that has buckled slightly under the force of the air strike and the tunnel collapse. I slip through. Beyond the doors I find myself in another collapsed tunnel, at this point I remember the words of Sven and pause to push out with my senses. I sense no enhanced within range and so I proceed along the tunnel worming my way through the rubble.

Thirty yards beyond the doors I finally exit the rubble and find myself in a narrower tunnel, about two and a half yards square. I position myself on the ceiling and continue to slide along the corridor, ignoring the passageway that splits off to the left, and heading for a last blast door at the end of the corridor. I pass a smaller door to my right and then my blood freezes in my veins as I hear a low growl rumbling in the chest of something to my left.

Sven lands next to Doctor Jackal and transforms back into himself just as Madeline returns from a fruitless search of the hillside. But while she has been searching she has been thinking, and she explains to Sven that if there are vents then they must be issuing hot air. And if that is the case then there must be some thermals coming from them that Sven, as a bird, should be able to detect. Sven agrees and transforms once more and launches himself into the air flying a zig zag pattern across the rear slope of the hillside. After twenty minutes, Sven manages to detect what he believes to be an area of rising air.

Sven lands and investigates the area discovering a low row of nine inch pipes, capped with a ten inch dome, making them look like two parallel rows of large mushrooms. Sven transforms into a rat and scurries up under one of the domes, all he can see is the pipe running straight down into the darkness. He transforms back into himself and heads off to find Madeline.

With panic building I look to my left. Sat in a niche, staring straight at me with it’s hackles up, is a large German shepherd dog with a very dark coat that appears to be encrusted with something. As my panic continues to rise I come to terms with the fact that I am a silent dark shadow sliding along the ceiling of a pitch black tunnel and yet this beast is still looking straight at me and growling. In the second that it takes me to realise this the beast starts to bark. It is a bark that is greeted by others barks from elsewhere in the complex. My panic finally gets the better of me and I run.

I race back towards the tunnel collapse with the beast running below me, jumping to try and reach me. I remember being very grateful that I had decided to slide along the ceiling of the tunnel. Another of the beasts scrambles out of the tunnel that I had ignored on my way in and joins it’s pack mate in trying to reach me. I make it into the rock pile just as the beasts are scrambling up. I stop ten yards in and calm myself down. Once I have my breathing under control I push out once more with my senses. I get four contacts. With my heart in my mouth I slide forwards once more so that I can see what is there.

Madeline and Sven arrive back at the mushroom pipes and Sven leans in and, muscles straining, pulls one of the caps off. Madeline rolls her shadow self into a tube and slides down the pipe, she head down approximately two hundred yards and finds herself at what’s appears to be a filter at the end of the pipe. She pushes her way through physically and finds herself in a larger filter, making her knife solid she cuts through this filter and finds herself looking down into a large tunnel filled with machines and chemical equipment. A handful of individuals in white coats and overalls are moving around the area checking dials and taking readings. She manages to read their lips and they are discussing pressure readings, having learnt all she can she retreats back towards Sven at the top of the pipe.

I slide to the edge of the rock fall and can see four German shepherds pacing at the base of the rock fall. I push out with my senses again and am greeted by four contacts in front of me. The beasts are all enhanced. The Germans have managed to enhance their guard dogs, they are a long way ahead of us in this race. Once more I push with my senses, this time focusing on the lead dog. I learn that it has an enhanced bite; three hundred and sixty degree vision; it can see in complete darkness; it doesn’t need to eat, drink, or sleep; and it is gifted with both defensive and ablative armour. I run!

By twenty three forty five hours we have all regrouped at Doctor Jackal’s position. As we are carrying out a debrief of what we have discovered so far Henry spots two trucks leaving the airfields main barracks. He watches as the trucks drive up towards the entrance to Mittelwerk I where they are loaded with what look like workers from the complex. The trucks then drive off heading back the same way that they arrived.

Leaving Doctor Jackal on watch Madeline, Sven and I head for the final tunnel together. We find that it is also blocked by a tunnel collapse, but that the chunks of rubble are larger and possibly navigable by a man. When we arrive at the blast doors we find it stencilled with Mittelwerk IV and a wolf’s head. The blast door of Mittelwerk IV has taken far more damage from the air strike and there is a large buckle at the top of the door, again large enough for a man to scramble through. Beyond the door we discover a guardpost, marked with a stencilled wolf’s head, that is clear of collapsed rubble and large enough for us to use as a base camp.

Beyond the guardpost the tunnel is once again blocked by a rockfall, sticking out of the rubble is the front of a German military truck. We attempt to navigate the rockfall using the truck and we discover in the rear of the vehicle high grade machinery, that seems to be designed to pulverise something. The machinery is badly damaged from the tunnel collapse, but it does mean that the guardpost is secure from the beasts beyond and so we decide that we can safely get Doctor Jackal to that point.

By zero thirty hours we are all crouched in the small guardpost behind the blast doors of Mittelwerk IV. Doctor Jackal moves to the front of the German truck and discovers the remains of the driver buried in the rockfall. He searches him and discovers that he is a German Soldat named Heinz Gruber, his uniform bears the wolf’s head logo and checking his pockets Henry discovers a German military identity card showing that he is part of a unit called the Wolfenkorps and a security pass giving him access to Mittelwerk IV.

While Henry is examining the corpse of Heinz Gruber, Madeline heads for Mittelwerk III in shadow form intending on acting as a distraction so that Sven and I can search the rest of the tunnels from this side. When she arrives she finds two of the beast still sat at the bottom of the rockfall, she slides her arm out and the beasts start to bark. Soon she has attracted all four of the hounds once more. From our location in the back of the truck in Mittelwerk IV Sven and I can hear the barking of the beasts in the distance. We run for the turn at the end of the tunnel, but half way down Sven calls to me saying that he can’t see in the absolute darkness and so he has to retreat back to Doctor Jackal’s position.

In Mittelwerk III, Madeline starts to drop the temperature behind the beasts. In a matter of seconds there is a band of cold that is one hundred and fifty degrees colder than the ambient temperature in the tunnel, the hounds scramble away from the cold and are effectively trapped up against the rockfall.

I turn the corner in Mittelwerk IV and can tell that it links up with the corridor running from Mittelwerk III, I am grateful that Madeline has the dogs focussed on her. There is a corridor running further into the hill and opposite that is a door labelled with a small sign saying ‘Logistik’, I slide under the door and find myself in a large empty room. Looking around I realise that it is not empty as such, but that it has rather been cleared out. There is an opening at the end of the door with another small sign reading ‘Logistik-Manager’. The room beyond has collapsed and is filled with rubble, I slide through the rubble in my shadow form and attempt to search the room.

In the middle of the room I find a corpse buried under the rubble. Clutched in his hand he has a document file and in his pockets I discover his identity card and security pass, I grab all of them and head back out into the outer office. The identity card identifies the corpse as Hauptmann Bruge of the Wolfenkorps, and his security pass gives him access to both Mittelwerk III and IV. I leave the empty outer office and head back to Doctor Jackal with the file clutched in my hand.

Madeline moves the area of extreme cold towards the trapped dogs. As it passes over them they howl out in pain and eventually leap clear of the area back down the corridor. They start to bark once again and Madeline once again drops the temperature, but this time the beasts back off along the corridor to avoid the cold. So Madeline changes tactics and slides as quickly as possible along the ceiling of the corridor with the beasts jumping over each other in an attempt to reach her. As she is rushing forwards she spots the door opposite the tunnel running further under the hill. She quickly slides under it just before the dogs reach her.

Like I did, Madeline finds herself stood in a room that has been cleared out, and again her mind comes up with a scheme. She opens the door and quickly slides across the ceiling making a noise. The dogs burst in and try to reach her, once all four are in Madeline uses her cold power to trap them at the back of the room and then rushes for the doorway and slams the door shut behind her. She feels the thump of heavy dog bodies slamming against the back of the door. With a smile on her face Madeline heads back towards us.

Doctor Jackal reads through the file that I recovered from the logistics office, it contains a report request dated July 1942. It is asking specifically for a comprehensive report on the possibilities for additional refinement and industrial processing of the product. It also requests a progress report on operations and is signed by Generalleutnant Heinrich Gertz, Wolfenkorps Zentralbefehl, Wewelsburg Schloss. Doctor Jackal looks up and says;

Looks like the Wolfenkorps Central Command are based in Wewelsburg Castle!