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!