Hidden in a cave two miles east of Schloss Neuschwanstein in the foothills of the Alps, MI6s team of enhanced individuals are planning for Operation Reindeer. The team consists of Mademoiselle Mimi Dubois, La Résistance fighter and mistress of skills; Miss Madeline Forsyth, SOE operative and a living shadow; Franklin Fort, hard bitten soldier and teleporter; and Sven Hyse, Norwegian Resistance soldier and shapeshifter.
Two miles east of the village of Hohenschwangau, Germany, January 1943
As the sun rises over the foothills of the Bavarian Alps, a thrush emerges from a small cave entrance and flaps up into the dawn sky. It flies west and dips down out of the foothills towards a fenced compound on the edge of Alpsee lake and lands on the ridge of the four storey building within compound. From it’s vantage point on the gable end, the thrush can see the compound laid out around him. The site is waking up and people are beginning to move about from building to building. Sven settles in and starts to commit the layout of the compound to his memory.
The perimeter fence is dotted by evenly spaced watch towers, each of which houses two searchlights and is manned by German troopers. Placed around the compound are four anti-aircraft guns, and at the main gate sits a brooding Panzer IV tank. As Sven is taking this all in, a two man patrol leaves the main gate and starts to move anti-clockwise around the perimeter fence, one of the troops holds a long leash at the end of which is one of Wolfenkorps Beta’s Wolfenhund.
The compound is dominated by three large warehouses, each with their own fuel tank, and a construction site that appears to be for a fourth warehouse. Parked outside one of the warehouses is a covered truck, Sven flaps down and has a look into the rear cargo compartment. He finds it is loaded with ore. Sven flaps back to his watch position with the firm belief that this is definitely the new industrialised production facility discussed in the documents we found in Schloss Wewelsburg.
Just after the thrush flapped away from the cave entrance Frank emerged from the same cave and scrambled the mile and a half through the foothills towards OP1. Once he is within half a mile, and as the terrain becomes very difficult, he disappears and reappears one hundred yards further up the side of the mountain. This pattern continues for ten seconds by which time Frank has covered the last half a mile and is once again crouched in OP1 and telling Madeline to go and get some rest. Madeline slides back to the cave to get some well deserved sleep.
Frank gets out his binoculars and studies the Schloss sitting proud on the rocky outcropping opposite. In the light of day Frank can easily make out that as we believed, each of the three main towers has a cage hung within it. Frank works out that from their vantage point the enhanced screech owls in the cages would have a very good field of vision of the Schloss’ grounds. He does identify that the highest tower would have a blind spot on it’s roof and that some of the lowest windows at the front of the Schloss would also be in a blind spot.
Just after zero seven thirty hours Frank spots a covered truck pull in through the Schloss’ main gates and stop in the inner courtyard. A couple of civilians, from the look of them Frank assumes that they are either scientists or technicians, climb into the rear of the truck and it pulls away heading back down the winding road to the base of the rocky outcrop.
From his vantage point on top of the four storey building Sven has been able to work out that the perimeter patrol takes approximately fifteen minutes to complete a full circuit and that once they have completed the almost immediately start to patrol once again, meaning that they are completing four patrols per hour. Just as Sven is watching the patrol start it’s third circuit he spots a covered truck approach the main gate, be admitted, and then carry out a three point turn so that it is facing back out towards the main gate. A squad of twelve Wolfenkorps troops approach the truck and climb into the back of it, as they are climbing in Sven spots that there are already a couple of civilians sat inside.
Once all of the troops are on board the truck pulls out of the main gate, and to Sven’s surprise, turns south and heads away from the Schloss. Sven thinks that this is strange and after a moment's thought he leaps up into the air and flies after the truck. Ten minutes later and Sven is following the truck through a checkpoint on the Austrian border, the truck slows down but does not stop and is just waved through. The truck winds its way along local roads through the Bavarian Alps and just before Zero nine hundred hours approaches a small village sat in a high mountain valley. There is a military checkpoint on the road leading into the village, and again the truck slows but is waved through, and then Sven spots two things that are very out of place within what otherwise is a standard Austrian village.
Sven lands on the roof of the bunker and discovers that it really is sealed tight. From this position he also spots a small industrial building nestled into the mountainside just above the bunker. Running from the bunker towards this building is what appears to be a concrete pipeline or tunnel with small access hatches every thirty yards dotted along it. Sven flaps over towards the industrial building and discovers that it is being guarded by four Wolfenkorps troopers and that the building goes back into the mountain and appears to be a mine head.
At zero nine thirty a number of technician looking individuals appear in the Schloss’ courtyard carrying what looks like four rolled up carpets. They place them at spaced out intervals around the Schloss’ courtyard and then begin to work on tying ropes dropped from high windows in the Schloss on the end of the ‘carpets’. Frank, watching from OP1, scratches his chin trying to work out what is happening. But it all becomes very clear when the technicians begin to haul up a massive Nazi swastika banner. Just as the first banner is being hauled into place, the covered truck once again pulls in through the Schloss’ main gate and the driver gets out and starts to help out with his colleagues.
Frank is still watching the banners being hoisted into place when a small thrush lands next to him and tweets at him. A few heartbeats later and Frank is looking at Sven sat next to him. Sven relays everything that he has discovered to Frank about the village twelve miles away across the Austrian border and they both agree that they need to tell both Madeline and I. They both return to the cave and relay the information. We all agree that the Austrian village requires investigation and that we should do it once the sun has gone down. We agree to carry on with our watches until then and Sven agrees to return to the village and locate a concealed rendezvous point for us to aim for.
During my watch I spot that the Wolfenkorps troops based at the Schloss also carry out a perimeter patrol, but only occasionally. I am also on watch during what is obviously shift change at fourteen hundred hours, which implies that they are operating a three shift pattern. During shift change the owls cages are lowered into the towers and a couple of minutes later what looks like a new cage is hauled back up into place.
Berwang, Austria, January 1943
I check my watch and confirm that it is twenty one zero four hours and I have joined the others at RV2 on a wooded hillside overlooking the small Austrian village of Berwang. We had set out four hours beforehand and had shadowed, teleported, and flown here two get a closer look at what Sven has discovered. Sven transforms into an eagle and I slide onto his front in shadow form and Madeline slips onto his back, we carry out an aerial criss cross search pattern above the village and I push out with my senses above all of the major buildings.
I get three returns from the bunker itself but nothing else from any other location in the village. We regroup with Frank and agree to investigate the mine, we follow the treeline around until we are above the minehead and then Madeline and I head in while Sven and Frank stay on overwatch agreeing to give us an hour. We enter the industrial building using a ventilation shaft and find ourselves looking down into a large, and empty, open area with four internal doors leading off either side of a large mine entrance. We can also see the concrete pipeline tunnel running into the mine entrance and so we follow it in.
The mine runs arrow straight into the mountain for five hundred yards before we find two tunnels branching off either side of the main shaft, for that entire length the ceiling of the mine shaft is pin pricked with explosive charges rigged to collapse the roof blocking the shaft completely. While the charges are in place the final job of wiring in all of the explosives has not been completed yet.
As the concrete pipeline tunnel carries on straight Madeline and I agree to continue to follow it and ignore the branch tunnels. Ten yards beyond the first branching tunnels we find a metal pillar standing up from the pipeline. It has four circular devices set one above the other on the face that points into the mountain. Two of the devices are mesh covered, one is a lens and the final one is a dome of glass. We carry on, discovering that there is a metal pillar studded with devices every ten yards and that there are branching tunnels every one hundred yards. Eventually the concrete pipeline tunnel that we are following turns left into one of the branching tunnels and we continue to follow it for a short distance but we are running out of time and so we agree to head back to the others.
We run back to the mine entrance and quickly search the building at the top. In one of the rooms we discover a number of spares for the mysterious metal pillars and using my ‘borrowed’ mechanic and electronic abilities I am able to ascertain that the devices are more than likely microphones, radiation sensors, camera lenses and a temperature sensor. I also discover that there is a motion sensor built into the pillar body itself. We head back to the others and arrive just before twenty two ten hours. We inform them what we have discovered and agree that we need to all go back in and find what is at the end of the concrete pipeline tunnel.
By midnight we have regrouped and slipped down as far as the treeline just above the bunker, leaving Frank and Sven on overwatch once more Madeline and I slide down to the back of the bunker at ground level. I push out with my newly enhanced senses and once again get three returns, one of which is the other side of the wall that I am stood next too. The other two are close together in the far left hand corner of the bunker structure. I push harder with my senses and am able to discover that the enhanced being on the other side of the wall is gifted with strong damage resistance, the ability to see in the dark in the same way that Madeline can, and finally they have the ability to reflect damage done to them back on the person inflicting the damage on them.
In a moment of greed I attempt to borrow their final power. But I am unsuccessful. In frustration I push out with my senses on the other two and discover that one of them is gifted with enhanced resistance to damage and enhanced vitality and the other is also resistant to damage as well as being hard to kill. Madeline signals to me that she wants to check out the doors into the structure and so we slide around to the front of the building. Madeline attempts to gain entry but finds that the doorway is sealed and there is no way for us to slip in. The walls of the bunker are at least a yard thick and the metal doors are heavy enough to survive a direct hit from the Tiger tank parked outside.
Feeling a little defeated we check out the access hatches over the concrete pipeline tunnel. We slip in and find ourselves in a narrow tunnel with a sealed metal trunking running down the middle of it, we follow it towards the bunker but are again foiled to find that there is no way through. We slide back to the treeline and I prepare a single demolition charge on a ten second pull cord timer. We carefully lift one of the maintenance hatches under the cover of darkness and open up the metal trunking, inside of which is a cable loom. I place the charge on the loom and we replace the trunking cover.
I then rig a pull cord to the charge from the maintenance cover so that it will detonate if the cover is removed. I also run a second pull cord out of the cover so that it can be detonated by any of us if we need to. I then camouflage the demolitions work and we return to RV2. It is now zero forty five hours and we agree that we have discovered everything that we are going to this night and that it is time to head back to RV1.
...to be continued…