Huddled together just within the treeline of a Norwegian fjord, MI6s Enhanced Team are watching one of their number make contact with the local residents. 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.

Beisfjord, Norway, October 1942

The fish wife asks Sven into the house and offers him some tea. From just inside the treeline the rest of us watch him enter, and a few moments later a young girl leaves the cottage and runs down the road and enters one of the other buildings. Moments later she reemerges followed by two men dressed as fishermen. They reenter the cottage that Sven is in. Sven greets the two men with a traditional Norwegian military salute, clicking his heels together and saluting smartly. One of the men automatically responds in kind and introduces himself as ex-private Anders Eriksson, the other man is his friend and colleague Lars Munk.

Sven shows Anders the letter signed by the Norwegian Government in exile, and Anders very quickly agrees to allow Sven to borrow one of his boats. Sven says that he does not wish to get them into trouble with the German forces, and Anders replies;

Så var båten best stjålet!

Anders goes on to say that neither boat is running currently, but with parts from Lars’ engine he might be able to get his boat running. Lars nods his agreement. Sven asks if it would be helpful for them to have the assistance of a specialist mechanic, they both look a little surprised but say yes. They look even more surprised when Sven returns with me in tow and tells them that I am the specialist.

I quickly get to work and assess the situation with the engines, I reckon that it will take me twenty five minutes to get one of the boats running and start asking for tools and directing the two Norwegian fishermen in assisting me. Meanwhile, Sven asks Fru Eriksson about the German presence in the area. She informs him that they get the occasional German launch passing to and from Narvik, usually with a couple of crew and up to six German troops onboard. Having gained this information Sven asks Fru Eriksson if he can bring his comrades in, she says that she will happily provide them with tea and so Sven waves down Madeline and Doctor Henry from the treeline.

Twenty seven minutes later, with a grease smear on my cheek and two very amazed Norwegian fishermen looking on, the boat’s engine sputters into life. I signal to the others to join me on the boat and as they are leaving Sven pauses and hands the fish wife two thousand kroner for their troubles. As soon as Doctor Jackal is onboard I ask Anders to describe the route and give us brief details of landmarks and hazards, he only has to say it once and it is all stored away in Henry’s memory. I then apologise for stealing his boat and he replies;

Alt for en god sak!

I pull the fishing boat out into the river and we begin to chug upstream at five knots, I believe that if I pushed it we could manage ten knots but we are attempting to look nonchalant. And in an effort to blend in, Sven sets up a couple of sea rods off of the back of the boat.

Once we are out of sight of the village of Beisfjord Sven transforms into a hawk and heads aloft to scout out the area. He first circles back over the village and confirms that the motorbike and sidecar are still in place at the crossroads, he then heads ahead of us upriver and can see that there are a couple of fishing vessels ahead of us around the next bend in the river and further upstream another small group of boats.

As we round the next bend Doctor Jackal spots the two fishing vessels, I set a course that will drift us between them at the greatest possible distance. One of the fishermen looks up and nods in our direction and I raise a hand in greeting, but at a distance and wrapped in a heavy coat with my hat pulled low he doesn’t realise that I am a women and pays us very little attention. We carry onwards and round another bend and can see a few more vessels ahead of us and so we decide again to chug slowly by.

Four miles ahead of us Sven spots from the sky yet another fishing vessel, but this one has been boarded by German troops from a patrol boat that is tied up alongside her. Sven gives them a closer fly past and can see that the patrol boat is crewed by two German Kriegsmarine with a complement of three German troopers and a German Officer. The fishing vessel appears to have six Norwegian crew. Sven makes a point of checking the German’s insignia but there is no sign that these are Wolfenkorps. He returns quickly back to us.

By the time that Sven returns and gives us this information we have passed the next group of fishing vessels, undetected as imposters. At Madeline’s suggestion I rig up an explosive device connected to a length of rope and the large hook off of one of the boats fishing gaffs. The rope is long enough the the explosive should just sit below the waterline of the German launch. By the time I have finished Sven believes that we are only a mile and a half away. Taking the improvised device, he slips off the back of the boat into the water and transforms himself into a dolphin.

As we round the next corner I spot the German launch moving towards us about a mile away, it is also very obvious that there is a trooper manning the machine gun in the launch’s prow. Doctor Jackal, with some difficulty, lets Sven know that we have spotted the launch and so Sven heads off under the water to circle around behind the launch. Madeline slides her shadowy form onto the back of our fishing vessel while myself and Doctor Jackal remain in the boats small wheelhouse.

Sven positions himself in the launch’s wake and watches what they are up to. When the launch is less than four hundred yards away from our fishing boat one of the Kriegsmarine begins to hang out fenders on one side so that they can come alongside our fishing boat. As soon as the rear fender is in the water Sven powers forwards and, raising his head out of the water, hooks the improvised device onto the rear fender. He then pulls out the explosive charges pin that we had rigged with a float rope, and swims as fast as he can away from the launch.

At the rear of the launch the German officer is standing up and signalling for us to stop and prepare to be boarded, I slow down our boat and follow his instructions. When they are about one hundred yards away there is significant explosion at the back of the launch below the water line, this is followed a heartbeat later by a second and much larger explosion as the launch’s fuel tank explodes. The launch is thrown into the air and practically broken in half with it’s rear section engulfed in a fireball.  

As we get closer we can still see some movement on the deck of the launch, one of the German troopers is helping the unconscious form of one of the Kriegsmarine towards the prow of the launch. He looks up and shouts in broken Norwegian;

Help! Friend! Injured!

Doctor Jackal shouts back in perfect German;

Everything is going to be alright. I am a doctor. Pass your friend to me.

Our fishing boat draws level with the German launch and the trooper passes the unconscious form of the Kriegsmarine to Doctor Jackal, he then looks up and his eyes lock with mine. There is a moment where he realises that I am a women, and that I am holding a silenced pistol pointing at him. I then fire three times, hitting twice, and he falls dead onto the deck of the burning launch.

Madeline slides from our vessel onto the German launch and confirms that everyone is dead. She then takes some shrapnel from the deck and forces it into the bullet wounds of the soldier that I shot, she then takes his identification papers and then pushes his body overboard. Before jumping back onto the fishing boat she grabs the launch’s radio code book and maps of the river network. Sven also joins us back onboard and we head off upriver leaving the burning remains of the German launch behind us.

Once again, Sven takes to the skies and Doctor Jackal gets to work on saving the life of the Kriegsmarine. By fourteen hundred hours we are heading into a narrow gorge that Sven has said runs for about ten miles, Sven has also reported that it is currently all clear ahead of us. Have given us this information he tells us that he going to once again scout out the island and see what is happening. Doctor Jackal has stabilised his patient and believes that he will live, Madeline points out that he will also provide a very good excuse for landing on the island.

As Sven follows the river towards the island he spots a group of people moving along the valley floor. He is about a mile away from the island and so he heads in for a closer look. Sven lands in a tree across the river from the group and can instantly see that it is a group of German infantry troops being led by an Unterfeldwebel, but that is not what draws Sven’s eye. The most prominent detail is that two of the troops and holding the leashes of large black dogs. Sven has never seen the like of them before, but he has had them described to him before, they are similar to the beast under Kohnstein.

Looking closer, Sven can make out that the German troops are wearing the insignia of the Wolfenkorps. As well as the Unterfeldwebel and the beasts, there are six Wolfenkorps troopers. They are moving very carefully along the valley floor in the formation of a search party. Sven very quickly makes the decision to return to the boat and inform us of this worrying change of circumstances. He lands on the prow of the boat around fourteen thirty hours and passes on what he has seen. We agree the we will stay with the fishing boat until we get to the tributary that leads to the island, that will put us ten miles away and we believe that we will be safe to moor there.

While we are getting the fishing boat to our selected location Sven once again heads back to the island. As he flies over the river valley leading to the lake and island he once again spots the search team moving steadily downstream, they are now a mile and a half from the island lake. Sven carries onwards and flies in over the monastery and the small chapel attached. It all appears quiet there and there is no sign of any Germans. Sven lands on the overlooking mountains and transforms into a thrush and flies to the island. He lands in a tree and watches for a few minutes.

After about ten minutes, three German troops exit the building just below the church and make their way up to the church itself and enter through the large front doors. Sven flies to the bell tower of the church and discovers a set of stone steps that lead down into the tower. He turns into a house cat and begins to stalk downwards, but as it gets darker and darker he eventually has to give up and heads back to us. At exactly that moment that Sven starts to fly back towards us we anchor in the river and set up a number of lines giving the impression that we are fishing.

By this time things are beginning to feel like they are spinning out of our control. We know that the Germans are very close to the Norwegian Crown Jewels and that if they search the church thoroughly they will find them. It is sixteen hundred hours and starting to get dark so we decide to take positive and potentially dangerous action. Leaving Doctor Jackal to take care of his patient, Sven transforms into a large sea eagle and Madeline and I transform into shadows and slide onto him. Sven then leaps into the air and we are hurrying towards conflict.

As we fly over the river valley Madeline can see that the search party are two miles away from the island and starting to turn back. The clock is ticking. By sixteen fifteen hours we are winging above the monastery and I reach out with my senses and confirm that there are no enhanced individuals within there. Sven continues down towards the island and flies close to the church, I reach out again and again can sense no enhanced in the vicinity. But Sven and Madeline spot that there is a sizeable group of monks outside the doors of the church looking up at two German soldiers guarding the entrance.

Sven lands in the bell tower and Madeline and I slide off and begin to head down the stairs, Madeline on the inner side of the stairwell wall and me on the ceiling. Once we have completed one whole turn I reach out once more with my senses, and this time my paranoia pays dividends as I get a sense of enhanced at the very edge of my power. I estimate that puts them below ground level. They must be in the crypts, and in my head the sound of the clock ticking gets louder. I quickly slide back up and inform Sven, before returning and pushing out once again.

On the fishing boat Doctor Jackal is beginning to get bored. He has a look around and seeing nobody accept the unconscious form of the Kriegsmarine makes the decision to head towards the island. He powers up the fishing boat and begins chugging slowing forwards.

Halfway down the bell tower I try and discover what powers the enhanced has, I am assuming that it will be one of the beasts that the Wolfenkorps are using to search. I am very surprised when I discover that there are two enhanced, and that one of them can throw an ice spear and the other is under the effect of an altered time rate. That clock is really loud now.