Having infiltrated the small Franciscan community situated on an island in the middle of a lake in the wilds of Norway, MI6s team of enhanced individuals have discovered that they are not the only enhanced beings within the small church. 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.

Thirty Miles Southeast of Beisfjord, Norway, October 1942

Hidden on the ceiling of the winding staircase leading down from the bell tower of the church, I push out once again with my senses and try to discover if the two enhanced that I have located somewhere beneath me have any further powers. I get two strong returns again and realise that they both have some form of resistance to being damaged by physical attacks. I realise that this is similar to the guard beasts that we discovered under Kohnstein, yet again pointing to the Germans ability to control the enhanced process. I push even further with my senses into their minds and ascertain that neither of them have any further enhanced abilities.

Madeline and I retreat back up the tower to Sven, where Sven suggests that he could cause a distraction by planting an explosive device on the German launch tied up at the dock. I quickly rig him up two explosive charges with twenty second fuses and pull pins to start the countdown. While I am preparing the explosives, Madeline looks out from the top of the bell tower and spots that the monks at the front doors of the church are now gathered around the prostrate form of one of their brothers. As Madeline watches, a pool of dark red stains the snow beneath the prone monk. Madeline turns to inform us of what she has seen and on hearing this Sven looks very angry, if a sea eagle can be said to look angry. He grabs the two charges, one in each clawed foot, and launches himself into the night sky.

As Sven heads off on his explosive mission, Madeline turns her head quickly to look down the bell tower stairs. She cocks her head to one side as if listening and then turns to me and says;

I can hear metal hitting stone. I think that they are breaking into the crypts!

We both once again become shadows and slide quickly down the spiral staircase. After several corkscrew turns we can see a rectangle of light in the right hand wall of the staircase, and we believe that we have reached the ground floor. The doorway opens up into a large room, but as we are looking in we can hear the sound of metal striking stone once more from below us and so we carry on down the spiral staircase.

Sven lands on the quietest part of the island to the north and plants the first of the explosive charges. He pulls the timer pin and flies away as quickly as possible, heading clockwise around the island towards the dock.

Madeline and I can see lamp light at the bottom of the stairwell and so we slowly slide along the ceiling until we can see what is obviously the crypt of the church, it is a small room whose walls are defined by row upon row of shutter stones that are covering niches where the Franciscan Brothers are entombed. But what captures our immediate attention are the two German troopers breaking open one of the niches, they are being watched by three other Germans. One is another trooper but the other two are a Leutnant and an Hauptmann. All five of them are wearing the insignia of the Wolfenkorps. As soon as I spot the two officers I once again push out with my senses and confirm that they are both enhanced.

At that moment we hear a loud explosion from somewhere outside, it definitely gets the Germans attention. After a brief discussion the Hauptmann says to the Leutnant;

Take Müller and investigate it!

The Leutnant salutes and heads straight towards us and the staircase, closely followed by the German trooper, Müller only pauses briefly to grab his rifle from the corner of the room. They walk straight below us and pay no attention whatsoever to the two slightly darker patches of shadow on the stairwell ceiling. Madeline and I let out the breath that we were both unconsciously holding. The Hauptmann barks a brief order at the remaining two troopers and they resume breaking into the niche.

By the time that Sven is approaching the dock it has been left unguarded, the Wolfenkorps trooper stationed there having left his post to investigate the explosion to the north. Sven lands on the rear of the motorised launch and drops the second of his charges, once again he grabs the pin pull in his powerful beak and arms the explosive. Twenty seconds later a second explosion disturbs the peaceful, Norwegian night. And a heartbeat later a third explosion rips through the darkness as the motor launches fuel tanks ignite.

One of the two troopers in the crypt hits the shutter stone once again with his pickaxe and it breaks in two revealing a large box within the niche. It is at that moment that the Germans in the crypt here the double explosion from outside, the Hauptmann barks an order and the troopers drop their pick axes and grab their rifles. They all then leave the crypt heading for the outside to investigate. Madeline and I slid into the now empty crypt.

The Wolfenkorps trooper who was guarding the dock skids to a halt at the sound of the launch exploding, he turns and runs back towards the dock with a second trooper from the doors of the church close on his heels. Sven transforms into a thrush behind the cover of the launch’s cabin. The two troopers arrive and quickly search the area, but obviously find nothing, and stand there looking confused as the stern of the launch burns slowly in the night.

Madeline slides into the now open entombment niche and attempts to enter the box within, however the box appears to be very well constructed and she cannot gain entry. I piece together the remains of the shutter stone and am able to read the name;

Brother Egil Larsen

The Wolfenkorps knew exactly where to look as none of the other shutter stones had been touched. I help Madeline remove the box from within the niche and we quickly open it. Within the box, laying wrap in crushed velvet cloth, are the Norwegian Crown Jewels. Madeline and I quickly remove them and stuff them into our rucksacks, before closing and placing the box back in the niche. We then both turn into shadows once more and slide back up towards the top of the bell tower.

From his perch on the cabin of the burning launch Sven surveys the chaos that he has sown. The Leutnant and the Hauptmann are in discussion while the German troopers look dumbfoundedly around the island. After several minutes things start to quieten down. The Hauptmann returns with two of the troopers back into the church leaving the Leutnant and two more troopers guarding the doors of the church, while two more of the Germans position themselves on the dock looking south towards the interior of the island.

From the top of the church’s bell tower Madeline spots that the group of monks have gently lifted up the body of their Brother and are carrying it with reverence back towards the building that we believe to be their residence. By chance Madeline glances north and can see the patrol returning at double time, she assumes that they also heard the explosions.

The Hauptmann reappears at the church’s main doors, but this time he looks a little flustered. He says something the the Leutnant and they both renter the church at pace. Sven quietly transforms back into himself and slides in behind the machine gun on the prow of the launch, he slowly rotates the gun so that it is pointing at the dock and the oblivious Wolfenkorps soldiers. Seconds later the two troopers die in a hail of bullets as the machine gun barks for a couple of seconds.

At the top of the bell tower Madeline and I try and work out where the shooting is coming from. And more importantly if it is Sven being fired on or doing the firing. But we cannot see where the shots came from and all is now quiet again.

Sven lifts the machine gun from its position at the prow of the launch and places it on top of the cabin so that he can get a better corridor of fire towards the centre of the island. As he sights up two more German troops run down towards the dock and into his line of fire. When they are forty metres away he gently squeezes the trigger and two more invaders are forcefully removed from his home soil. Like the true guerilla fighter that he is, Sven knows that it is time to move to a new location and so he transforms back into a bird and flies towards the bell tower where he believes that he can get a good line of sight with his rifle.

Up on the bell tower we watch on as the muzzle flashes can be seen from the dock. Madeline then spots the Hauptmann and two more Wolfenkorps soldiers leave the front of the church and use cover to stalk towards the dock, the troopers with their rifles raised to their shoulders.

A bird lands on the bell tower and transforms into Sven, he unslings his rifle and moves to take up a position at the parapet. Madeline and I can see the sheer look of murderous determination in his eyes and know that it will be difficult to get him to disengage. So I simply say;

Sven. The priority must be to save the Norwegian Crown Jewels!

The fire in his eyes diminishes a little and then he seems to resign himself to the fact that I am right. He transforms once again into a sea eagle and within seconds he is winging his way north with two dark shadows clinging to his form.

After a few miles on the wing Sven spots the light of a small fishing vessel chugging slowly south down the river. He swoops low and it is obvious that the fishing vessel is being steered by Doctor Jackal, Sven lands on the boat and Madeline and I slide off and all three of us transform back into ourselves. I quickly take control of the fishing boat and swing her around to travel north. Sven spots the two rucksacks stuffed with the Crown Jewels and is momentary horrified by how we have treated them, but he is soon relieved that we have recovered them all and so he just starts to unpack them and wrap them gently in blankets.

Madeline extinguishes the boats lantern and then takes up a position in the prow of the boat to spot for ice flows. Doctor Jackal joins me in the small wheel house and I give him a quick debrief on what happened on the island. He then reminds me that we have been given designated radio frequencies and codes to contact HMS Active for extraction. He also tells me that we require a powerful radio set to reach HMS Active and suggests either the lifeboat station that we past or the air strip. I decide that we would be better heading for the lifeboat station as it appeared empty the night that we arrived.

By eighteen hundred hours the walls of the river close in and we find ourselves heading back through the gorge. The water here flows faster and we are able to pick up more speed. Sven keeps throwing murderous looks at the unconscious form of the bandaged Kriegsmarine in the stern of the boat, he and Madeline attempt to convince Doctor Jackal to let them throw the German overboard, but Henry is resolute and refuses. Eventually, they convince Doctor Jackal that we should leave him as soon as possible by the roadside where he will be found.

And so once we have exited the deep gorge, about twenty thirty hours, we moor the fishing boat alongside the road and place the Kriegsmarine wrapped in a blanket and with a lantern marking him beside the parallel road. There was a moment as Henry was reboarding that I thought that Sven might shoot the German, but he didn’t and we carry on towards the village of Beisfjord. At twenty forty eight I cut the engines on the fishing boat and glide it quietly into the dock that we originally ‘stole’ it from. Working on the theory that it is easier to hide a needle amongst a host of needles. We disembark and quietly stealth up into the treeline heading for our hidden dinghy.

Once again Sven transforms into a seagull and heads out to scout ahead. From aloft he can see a German patrol boat docked in the centre of Beisfjord, he also spots sitting out in the fjord about a mile from the village a second patrol boat. Sven glides closer and can see that the patrol boat in the fjord is crewed by at least eight troopers. Sven flaps back up into the night sky and heads for the lifeboat station.

Doctor Jackal and I uncover our dinghy while Madeline makes sure that we have not been spotted. We then push the dinghy out onto the fjord and while I and Henry paddle, Madeline covers us in darkness to hide us from sight. As we head out towards the open sea Madeline spots the patrol boat sat out in the middle of the fjord scanning their searchlight around, it is very clear that the message is out and we are being looked for.

Sven lands on top of the lifeboat station and finds it in darkness and locked up tight. He hunts around until he locates a vent, he transforms into a snake and slithers inside. Once in he moves around closing the curtains and then switches on some lamps to give himself some light. He then unlocks the door from the inside and takes flight once more. Just before twenty one thirty hours we are approaching the bridge to Narvik at the end of the fjord, as we paddle ever onwards we can see the lights of a motorbike racing across the bridge heading for Narvik.

Once we are clear of the bridge Madeline drops the darkness surrounding us and Sven is able to spot us. Sven leads us across the bay towards the dark lifeboat station on the edge of Narvik itself. We secure the dinghy to the jetty and enter by the now open door, fortunately the lifeboat station is not overlooked by any of the local buildings, and so our breaking and entering goes unnoticed. We head up to the second floor and power up the radio set, Doctor Jackal selects the exact frequency and Madeline speaks into the horn;

Sea Eagle calling Eyrie! Sea Eagle calling Eyrie! It is nesting time!

There is nothing but static for twenty seconds and then we hear;

Message received Sea Eagle!

Yet more static and then;

Sixty eight stop. Twenty four stop. Forty stop. Seventeen stop. Two stop. Fifty three stop. Zero three hundred stop.

Static once more.

Doctor Jackal looks around at us all and says;

So pick up is in three and a half hours, out to sea three miles west of here.