Having completed their mission at Schloss Wewelsburg, MI6s team of enhanced individuals are trying to make good their escape in a stolen Junkers. 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 Franklin Fort, hard bitten soldier and teleporter.

Paderborn Lippstadt Airfield, Germany, November 1942

With the airfield in chaos thanks to our last two explosive charges I manage to taxi the Junkers JU88 off of the apron and onto the runway without being spotted. I push forwards on the throttle and we begin to speed along building towards takeoff speed, it is at this point that we are noticed by the bases Luftwaffe staff. But they have noticed far too late to prevent us from climbing up into the night sky and away.

Following the example set by the pilots that infiltrated us into the heart of Germany I decide to put us high and climb to seventeen thousand feet. Sven passes me the coordinates that he has calculated, it didn’t fill me with confidence that Sven said he was sure that they were incorrect as he handed them to me, but I set course based on them anyway. By zero four twenty seven hours I am levelling out and putting the Junkers into cruising speed when Frank shouts out on the internal comms;

I’ve got something moving on our six!

After a minute or so Frank confirms that it is a small plane and that it is gaining. I maintain course and speed, I don’t want to push it to hard as we only just have enough fuel to make it back to England. A couple of minutes later and Frank confirms that it is a single seater fighter aircraft, possibly a Focke-Wulf, and that it is definitely on an intercept course. A second later and the rest of us hear the distinctive roar of a MG 81Z, as Frank opens up with the tail mounted twin guns.

Frank rakes the fighter plane with a hail of bullets, despite the fact that it is still almost two thousand yards behind us. The Focke-Wulf begins to trail smoke behind it but continues to pursue us, at least it does up until the point that Frank hits it with a second burst that tears off one of the fighter planes wings and pitches it into a fatal dive. The last thing that Frank spots before we pull away from the scene of the aerial battle is the pilots parachute canopy opening as he bails out of his wrecked plane.

By the time that we reach the second bearing point Sven is so sure that he is not navigating correctly that I have to lock off the throttle and joystick and do the navigation calculations myself. Once I have double checked I confirm that Sven had us only a couple of degrees off course, I correct for this and set us on the next bearing. As our watches tick over to zero six hundred hours we pass over the coast of Denmark and out over the North Sea, I make the final of our course corrections and Madeline slides out of the nose gunners position and into the radio operators chair;

Pelican calling Nest! Pelican calling Nest! Come in Nest! The Pelican has the fish!

We are greeted with a beautiful sunrise over the coast of Scotland and an escort of two Hawker Hurricane fighters all the way to Biggin Hill. We are greeted at the airport by Captain Ledman and quickly shown to a waiting truck and driven straight back to Hanslope Park. Once we have arrived we are given a fifteen minute debrief by Ledman, where we tell him that the mission was a success and Madeline raises the point that the German’s must now know the the Allies have an enhanced team. We also hand over the twenty three samples of enhanced chemical as well as the sample of the Wolfenhund’s enhanced fur, Captain Ledman looks genuinely surprised and we are dismissed with orders to return for a full debrief at eighteen hundred hours.

Hanslope Park, Buckinghamshire, England, November 1942

As is our tradition upon successfully completing a mission we head for the officers mess and a well deserved drink. Even if it is only nine o’clock in the morning. Later that evening, after we have provided Captain Leadman with a full mission debrief, he informs us that he has had the preliminary reports back from the science division and they have confirmed that with the information that we recovered from Schloss Wewelsburg they will be able to replicate the enhanced process. They are planning on setting up a facility for the processing of cobalt 60 as well as having started on a second facility for the injection and activation of the enhanced chemical.

Ledman also informs us that initial reports coming out of Germany indicate that Schloss Wewelsburg is out of action as a base of operations as almost half of the structure was severely damaged in the fire. The Captain also agrees with our initial thoughts that the next target will have to be Schloss Neuschwanstein and an attempt to locate the information on the number and power of any enemy enhanced as well as the destruction or crippling of the new base of operations. It would also be useful to discover more information about the demonstration of Wolfenkorps Beta. Captain Ledman then looks at us all and says;

But that can wait for a few days. You need to get some R&R. Thank you once again, and take a couple of days off!

Forty eight hours later and the team are once again sat in the briefing room at Hanslope Park in the presence of Captain Ledman and Major Hoffman. Before we get started Madeline asks about Henry, Hoffman frowns and tells us that the Jackal incident is being investigated and that they believe that he may have stolen the original sample of enhanced chemical that we retrieved from under Kohnstein. We all sit silently listening to this disturbing news, and I remember thinking that at some point the team might well have to get involved in the investigation ourselves. Quietly!

After a moments pause, Major Hoffman carries on with the briefing;

Right then chaps, we have been requested to assist in a major assault in North Africa. The Yanks are finally coming to the party!

Hoffman goes on to explain that Operation Torch is a joint Anglo–American invasion of French North Africa, moving against the the Vichy French in order to open up a second front as requested by the Soviet Union. The operation will be under the overall command of the Americans, in particular General Dwight D. Eisenhower, and will involve a three pronged attack aimed at Casablanca to the west, Oran in the centre, and Algiers to the east.

You will be attached to the Eastern Task Force which is under the command of Major General Charles W. Ryder and consists of the U.S. 9th and 34th Infantry Divisions, the British 78th, and No. 1 and No. 6 Commando. You will be going in with the latter, ostensibly you will be under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Derek Mills-Roberts but with your own specific mission objective and authority to pursue it as you see fit. You will be heading in towards beachhead ‘Charlie’ and your target is a military observation tower on the headland west of the beachhead. Below the tower we believe that there is a command and communication bunker.

Major Hoffman goes on to outline the mission objectives;

Your objectives are to gain access to the observation tower and the bunker beneath it, negate it’s command functions, identify any intelligence and hold it until you are relieved. You will be departing in six days, any equipment requests please pass them through Captain Ledman and he will see what he can rustle up for you. Carry on!

With that, Major Hoffman leaves and we are left with a table of maps to begin formulating our plans.

Over the next four days we continue to refine our plans and discuss with Captain Ledman our requests for equipment, in addition to our normal weapons and ammunition we ask for a double load out of explosive charges as well as standard commando equipment and uniforms so that we can blend in with the units involved in the landing. At one point during this period Frank is asked to attend a meeting in Colonel Lambert’s office. When he reappears he has a slight spring in his step and a nice new pair of ‘stripes’ on his sleeve. He is now Corporal Fort . We head for the mess to celebrate and Madeline offers to sew his stripes on straight once we get back.

Two days before we are due to depart for North Africa Captain Ledman once again calls us into the briefing room. He informs us that the science division have managed to identify a source of cobalt and that they are progressing well with the application facility and are in fact almost ready to test. He goes on to inform us that if all goes well the decision has been made that we as a team, if we wish, will be allowed the chance of having further exposure to the enhanced chemical process. Within seconds three of us have volunteered, only Sven doesn’t do so straight away as he insists on contacting the Norwegian embassy first. It has also been agreed that with any remaining enhanced chemical a second team of enhanced will be created.

North of Algiers, Mediterranean Sea, November 1942

Four days later, after a lot of sitting around waiting for something to happen and a horrible eight hour flight to Gibraltar, the team are kitted up and on the embarkation deck of HMS Broke waiting with a force of twenty troops from No. 6 Commando to board our landing craft. We had spent our time on board not mingling with the other troops, at the request of Lieutenant Colonel Mills-Roberts, and all our squad know is that we are to be dropped off in a dinghy a mile from the headland before they continue onto their landing zone.

At zero four forty hours we leave our commando allies and make the usual jokes about meeting up for a drink in Algiers after the invasion. As the landing craft disappears towards the beach we row to within seventy yards of the cliff dominated by the military observation tower. Frank, who is in the prow of the dinghy, disappears and then reappears on a ledge halfway up the cliff face. He immediately begins to quietly climb to within forty yards of the tower.

We let the dinghy drift further out to sea and Sven transforms into a sea eagle, Madeline and I turn into shadows and slide onto him, and he leaps up into the sky heading for the roof of the tower. By zero four fifty five hours Frank is poised forty yards from the base of the observation tower while Madeline, Sven and I are in position on the roof.