by Джеффри Лорд
It was maddeningly frustrating. How much did these people know? Blade knew that he was a difficult subject for interrogation, but he also knew that any man can be broken, given enough time and the right techniques.
Well, if he wasn’t going to find out, he wasn’t going to find out. In any case, the odds were somewhat against their having dug out anything dangerous. That would have certainly required more than the few days at most that he could have been under interrogation. Also, there was R’s offer of a position as a field operative. It seemed hard to believe that a «mystery man» or a traveler from another Dimension would be casually offered such a position-at least by an intelligence professional like R.
Blade set his mind more or less at rest and nodded. «Very well. It’s certainly an appealing offer. May I ask-is there any penalty for refusing?»
R smiled and shook his head. «None whatever. Well, perhaps a slight one. It will cause less talk if you do not return to your training unit. So you’ll be passed as fully trained and assigned with the rank of corporal to the Royal Yorkshire Light Infantry. Their field battalions are all with the Eighth Army in Gallia. No one in the Yorkshires will know there’s anything unusual about you, and there will be a cover story for the men in the training battalion. We aren’t interested in coercing you, Mr. Blade. We want you as a free agent, or not at all.» A lift of the gray eyebrows told Blade that the pun was intentional.
«I see.» It was not hard to decide what his answer should be. He was being offered a chance to spend his time in this Dimension doing exactly the same type of work he’d done in Home Dimension for years. He’d done it well then, he’d do it well now. It was also the best opportunity he could hope for to dig out whatever useful secrets this Dimension might hold. Finally, it would be interesting, and Blade was a natural adventurer who hated boredom almost more than he did armed enemies.
«Do you want an answer now?» he said.
R nodded. «If you feel yourself in a position to give one, yes.»
«I accept.»
R smiled, rose to his feet-slowly, but quite gracefully. He came over to Blade with his hand outstretched. Blade rose and they shook hands.
«You’ll have to pass through our regular training course, naturally. I don’t imagine that someone with the qualities you’ve shown will fail, however. So, Mr. Blade, I think I can say with some confidence-welcome to the Special Operations Division.»
They shook hands again, and R opened the door. As he went out, the maid entered, pushing ahead of her a wheeled cart with an array of covered dishes, glasses, bottles, and pots.
Blade sniffed the various odors, and suddenly realized that he was a good deal hungrier than he’d thought.
Blade was again face to face with R only six weeks later. He spent the first three of those weeks in what was nominally the «training course.» After the first few days it became obvious that he was not being taught the skills he would need as a Special Operations agent. He was being tested to see if he already had those skills.
That suggested they knew or suspected something unusual about his background. Refusing to worry about that, Blade concentrated with grim determination on passing every one of the tests as impressively as possible. There were tests in marksmanship and parachuting, weapons and vehicle maintenance, unarmed combat, swimming and scuba diving. There were tests of his reaction times, analytical abilities, stress tolerances, memory, and every other quality that it was possible to measure. There was testing ten and sometimes twelve hours a day. It was a grueling routine, but the beds were soft, the food was good, and Blade’s iron constitution and machinelike endurance did the rest. No one, least of all Blade, was surprised when at the end of the three weeks he was declared to have passed all the tests by a wide margin. In some of them he’d made the highest scores ever recorded in the school.
He spent another three weeks learning things a little less basic, such as ship and aircraft recognition, Red Flame military customs, the use of Russland weapons, and the like. The Russland language was as nearly identical to Home Dimension Russian as the language of Englor was to Home Dimension English, and Blade spoke competent if not fluent Russian. The language instructors said he would have trouble passing as a native Russlander, but no trouble at all passing as a citizen of one of the conquered satellites.
While Blade was in training, the Red Flames were busily setting about adding Nordsbergen to their empire. Or at least they were arranging things so that they could move in any time they wanted to, in force, with no danger of facing effective resistance.
Their surface ships and submarines swept across the shallow Baltan Sea that lay between Russland and Nordsbergen, and out through the Straits of Gratz into the Nord Sea. They completely ruled the coastal waters of Nordsbergen. Landings were reported on a number of the islands along the coast. Fortunately, all the troops and equipment of Englor had already been evacuated.
In the air, Russland planes were over Nordsbergen twenty-four hours a day, flying low, flying high, buzzing cities and military installations, watching everything that went on, doing little damage but making a thorough nuisance of themselves. They were reported to be concentrating heavily over the high range of mountains in central Nordsbergen.
Here in the training school Blade didn’t have to keep his mouth shut on matters of strategy, tactics, and politics. «There seem to be good sites for radar stations all along the range,» he said. «With long-range sets up there, the Red Flames could extend their warning network halfway across the Nord Sea.»
«That could very well be it,» said one of the instructors. «We’ve had reports of Russ experiments with large prefabricated domes. They could be used for housing radar sets.»
The Imperial Navy and Air Force made no effort to interfere with Russland operations over and around Nordsbergen. At the same time, they left nothing undone to keep a close watch on those operations. The Imperial Army was wasting no time either. Battalions and brigades arrived from overseas areas of the Empire almost every day. Other battalions and brigades crossed the Channel to join the Eighth Army facing the Red Flames on the eastern border of Gallia.
There was good reason for these troop movements. The Russlanders were steadily reinforcing their own armies in their satellite countries. In a single week eight new divisions were identified by Imperial Military Intelligence, three of them armored divisions. A mighty mass of men and tanks and guns was gathering opposite the Eighth Army, outnumbering it at least three to one. Against that kind of odds, even the better training and better weapons of the Imperial Army might not be enough. There was a race on between Englor and the Red Flames, a race to see who would be the first to be ready to strike. It was by no means certain that Englor was going to win that race.
At the end of the six weeks, the instructors at the school declared Blade fit and ready for a field assignment. He was ushered into a paneled office in the administration building of the training center, to find R facing him from across a vast polished desk. Spread out on the desk were a map of Nordsbergen and a number of files and photographs.
Blade scanned them briefly, then met R’s eye. He could read nothing in that eye. That was familiar. J always held himself in, blank-faced and expressionless, when the time came to send a man out on a mission. R was the same.
«The instructors have been most impressed with your progress,» said R. «They feel you’re entirely ready for a field assignment. You’ve come along remarkably fast, all things considered.»
Blade knew there would be no point in showing he knew perfectly well he’d been tested, more than trained, these past weeks. R might not entirely appreciate knowing that Blade was that perceptive. Blade didn’t want to risk even the slightest delay in leaving on his first mission for Englor. He felt trained and ready to the point of impatience.
«This is your first assignment,» said R, making a sweeping gesture that took in all the material on the desk. He folded up the map and scooped everything into a leather case, then handed it to Blade. «Study all t
his thoroughly, memorize the map and the codes, and call me back within forty-eight hours.»
They shook hands and Blade went out. As he passed down the corridor, he found that he had to force himself to remember this was not Home Dimension and the man he’d just left not J. He found his mind settling into the familiar patterns of preparing for a field mission, patterns well established in the years he’d worked for MI6.
Well, this was his original profession, the one where he’d shown his skills and made a name for himself. This was field intelligence work, with only the names changed from what he’d done for MI6.
In a sense, perhaps this was home-as much of a home as he could ever hope to have until he retired, if he lived that long.
Chapter 7
Blade’s mission was to land on the mainland of Nordsbergen and pick up certain key files that had to go out by a covert route. He was not told exactly what the files were, but there were enough clues in the briefing material so he could make a good guess.
The files were probably a complete list of Nordsbergen citizens who would be willing to assist Imperial intelligence operations against the Red Flames, even after the country was occupied. That meant a complete list of the bravest and toughest people in Nordsbergen, and the most valuable to Englor. It was obvious why it had to go out by a covert route. There couldn’t be even the slightest risk of its falling into Red Flame hands. That would sign the death warrant of everyone on the list, crippling Imperial intelligence operations in Nordsbergen for years. It would also destroy much of the confidence anyone in Nordsbergen might still have in the Empire’s wisdom, judgment, and reliability.
Blade was not sure that committing such critical data to paper had been a wise move. He kept his opinions on that to himself. He also kept to himself his opinion that the Special Operations Division was mounting a fairly elaborate operation to take one man into hostile territory and take one file out. However, he knew all too well that even the most professional of intelligence chiefs occasionally overreacted, or had to obey superiors who did.
Once Blade was fully briefed, a helicopter flew him to Whitby. From there a fast motor launch took him and his gear ten miles out to sea, to a rendezvous with an Imperial atomic submarine.
The trip aboard the submarine across the five hundred miles of the Nord Sea took two days. That was probably a leisurely cruise for this submarine. It closely resembled Home Dimension nuclear submarines that could travel three times as fast without strain.
Blade studied the submarine as thoroughly as time and the need to avoid arousing suspicion permitted. She was small-two thousand tons or so, with no more than fifty officers and men in the crew. Blade saw nothing that it would have surprised him to find aboard a submarine of the Royal Navy in Home Dimension. If any technological breakthroughs had filtered down to the Imperial Navy of Englor, they were lurking in places where Blade could not see or recognize them.
Blade spent most of his time studying his maps, photographs, and equipment, or resting to keep up his strength. When he did go into action, he knew he would have to allow for at least forty-eight hours with no sleep and probably with little rest of any kind.
While Blade slept on the second night, the submarine rounded the southern end of Tagarsson Island and entered the channel that lay between the island and the mainland of Nordsbergen. Shortly before midnight her navigator’s reckoning indicated they’d arrived at the correct position. The engines were cut back to dead slow, and the submarine settled quietly down on the bottom of the channel, so gently that Blade didn’t even wake up. He slept until the petty officer in charge of his equipment shook him by the shoulder.
«Time, sir.»
Blade sat up, bowing his head to keep from cracking it on the pipes above the bunk. He swung his legs out of the bunk and stood up, instantly awake. He could feel the familiar sensations of mind, and body coming to full alertness for action. It felt as good as ever.
«Very good,» said Blade. «What’s the weather like up top?»
«Report is clear, ceiling and visibility unlimited, wind south-southwest at ten to twelve, light chop.» The petty officer went out, closing the door behind him as Blade turned to the hanging locker on the bulkhead and began pulling out what he called his «working clothes.»
Around Blade the blueness of the chill water was turning to green. He slowed his rise and exhaled more vigorously than before. Coming up from two hundred feet down had to be done slowly and carefully. Otherwise he’d reach the surface with his lungs ruptured, to bob away on the current as a slowly stiffening corpse.
He watched the luminous dial of his wristwatch until he saw that three minutes had elapsed. Then he began kicking slowly and steadily with his finned feet. The green around him grew lighter and still lighter. At last his head broke water.
He looked across the three miles of water toward the shore, getting his bearings. To his right rose Hugar Point, a headland rising sheer nearly two hundred feet from the sea. To his left a range of heavily wooded hills marched away into the blue distance, dark green against the sky. In the middle of the shadows they cast across the water, Blade could make out a strip of whitish sand and the whiter curl of foam as little waves rolled up on it. That beach was his goal. Blade raised his other hand and took a precise bearing with the compass strapped to that wrist. He carefully looked over water, land, and sky with equal thoroughness, looking for any sign of human activity.
He didn’t expect to find any. He was nearly twenty miles from the nearest Nordsbergen town, a fishing community of no more than a thousand people. There were a few farms and logging camps nestled among those hills, but none of their people would be paying much attention to the sea or what might rise out of it.
The Russlanders had no bases at all within a hundred miles. Even their nearest anchorage was forty miles away. Their air patrols passed over this area from time to time, but on a schedule that was predictable to within half an hour.
That was typical of the Russlanders. They were very thorough and conscientious in executing previously laid plans. They were also rather unimaginative in drawing up those plans, and slow to adapt to any situation not covered by the plans. This was a set of military vices very familiar to Richard Blade, and one he knew very well how to exploit.
Blade examined the little world that he could make out from mid-channel until he was quite sure no one was watching. Then he ducked down below the surface again.
The little electric torpedo was floating a few yards away, stabilized just below the surface by its buoyancy tanks. He gently pulled on the trailing line until he could reach out and grip the torpedo itself.
It was five feet long and eighteen inches in diameter, a fiberglass cylinder with controls forward and a rudder and propeller aft. It could carry Blade through the water at six knots for about ten hours. After that, if he needed to travel farther across the sea, he would have to inflate the life raft that was strapped to the torpedo.
Blade lay along the back of the torpedo, shoving his feet into the stirrups on either side of the rudder. One gloved hand moved to the controls. The propeller whispered into life and the torpedo began to glide forward through the green water.
Blade angled down until he was running thirty feet deep. He opened the throttle and felt the buffeting of the water increase against his arms and legs. He was aware of the chill of the water around him but not bothered by it. His dark green wet suit was as efficient an insulating garment as he’d ever worn, and his greased hands and feet felt no more than a faint nibbling from the cold.
He kept the torpedo on course at full speed for twenty minutes. The channel ran deep, with water a hundred feet deep only fifty yards from his beach. He hoped there would be a level place for him to park the torpedo that was also deep enough to make it invisible from the air.
When he’d counted off twenty-three minutes he slowed to half speed and began looking ahead and down, watching for the bottom to rise out of the dimness to meet him. At twenty-six minutes he saw it take shape,
gray under the blue green around him. At twenty-eight minutes he cut the throttle completely. A moment later the torpedo settled onto firm sand forty feet down. Blade made sure that it was safely in place, then swam up to the surface.
To his relief he was no more than twenty yards from shore and a hundred yards south of the end of the beach that was his goal. He dove back down and started up the torpedo again. A few minutes at low power, and he set it down on the bottom again. This time he unhooked the anchor and dug it firmly into the sand. Then he unfastened the raft and the waterproof equipment pack from the torpedo and swam slowly toward the beach.
He swam until the water became too shallow. Then he began to walk, feeling out each step with his fins and meanwhile trying to look in all directions at once. For the twentieth time he told himself that the ideal soldier or secret agent would have eyes not only in the back of his head, but in the top and the sides as well!
Blade watched the trees on the shore with special care. For the moment he was virtually helpless in the face of an ambush, his torpedo out of reach, his raft uninflated, and no weapons ready for use except the sheath knife on his belt.
Nothing happened. He made it to the shelter of the trees and kept going for another fifty yards, until he was out of sight of the beach. Then he unslung his scuba gear and shoved his two packs out of sight under a bush. With his sheath knife he cut a branch from the bush, walked back to the beach, and with the branch brushed out his tracks. Now even a beach patrol would not easily realize that a man had come out of the sea and hidden in the forest. With that out of the way, he was finally able to strip off his wet suit and start unpacking his weapons.
