One Shot Kill

by Robert Muchamore

  The tale had the whiff of a plot concocted by the local Gestapo. Perhaps Dr Blanc had offered to swap information for her older son who was a prisoner of war in Germany.

  But despite the chills shooting down her back, Rosie had no choice but to play along. If Dr Blanc had visited the Gestapo, they’d almost certainly be watching the house. And the only reason they hadn’t arrested Rosie already would be that they hoped to discover more resistance members by tracking her movements.

  ‘I’m no scientist,’ Rosie said, as she looked back at the book. ‘You’re both doctors. You probably understand more of these equations and drawings than I do.’

  Dr Blanc nodded. ‘There’s a certain manic quality to the entire notebook. I’ve tried to understand it, but I can’t tell if it’s a secret weapon or the insides of a cuckoo clock. All I have to go on is the apparent desperation of the man who passed it to me.’

  Rosie nodded, as she noticed that the doctor had a rather disgusting way of cramming chicken into her mouth with her porky fingers.

  ‘I’ll make contact with my liaison in Paris tomorrow,’ Rosie said amenably. ‘The book weighs nothing and it can be passed up to my superiors for proper analysis.’

  ‘I do hope it proves valuable,’ Dr Blanc said, as she rose out of the armchair while wiping greasy fingers on a napkin. ‘When did you last check on the patient? I might go upstairs and take a look at her.’

  *

  There was no change in Edith’s condition. Dr Blanc headed home to her rooms above her surgery in town and Rosie retired to a comfortable attic bedroom some time after eleven. She’d not had much sleep, but sat in candlelight studying the notebook.

  Her first instinct was that the whole thing was a Gestapo-engineered hoax. But if it was a hoax, the seventy-two sides of writing and drawing must have been prepared well in advance of her arrival. And if the Gestapo wanted to follow her back to Paris and see who she met, why give her the notebook when it would only serve to make any trained agent suspicious?

  Perhaps she’d become part of some sophisticated plot. Maybe the book was genuine and Dr Blanc and Joseph were the decent people they appeared, but it all seemed fishy and churning it in her mind brought no great revelation.

  Whatever the truth, Rosie’s doubts about her hosts meant that she had to act as if she was going to be tailed when she left. And the best way to avoid that was to change her route and time of departure.

  After dressing quietly and packing her things, Rosie left her bag by the front door then sneaked back upstairs to check on Edith. Joseph had kept her hydrated and changed her position every so often to prevent bed sores. Because of the fever, she was naked with a rubberised sheet beneath her that could be wiped if she urinated.

  The window was open, but the smell of sweat clung to the air. Rosie watched Edith’s expressionless face and felt tearful. She had to leave, but hated the possibility that Edith would die, or that she’d win the battle taking place inside her body, only to be shipped back to Lorient for execution.

  Rosie couldn’t stick around, because Joseph would know she was leaving the instant he saw her fully dressed. If the house was under German surveillance they’d be watching the front door for sure and there might be someone at the back.

  Rosie found paper and pencil and scrawled a note which she left on the kitchen table.

  Joseph

  Changed plans for security reasons.

  Hope to be back soon.

  Please look after Edith, whatever happens.

  Rosie.

  She had second thoughts about underlining whatever. And what if they were honest people and took offence at her sneaking off ? But she’d been through all the possibilities a hundred times already. Rosie had to forget repercussions and focus on getting away.

  After grabbing her pack, Rosie picked a small side window for her exit. She felt guilty trampling a narrow vegetable plot, then athletically vaulted a crumbling wall and dropped on to the overgrown track that marked the boundary between the house and the surrounding fields.

  Rosie took a forlorn look backwards at the open window of Edith’s room, glanced around looking for any sign of surveillance and then began wading into a field of knee-high wheat. After fifty metres, she dived down on her face and began crawling in a different direction.

  Following five minutes on hands and knees, Rosie crawled out on to a road and started running back along the route that the horse and buggy had taken earlier on. There would be no passenger trains for hours, but she reckoned she could pick up the coal train when it stopped by the water tower. She’d ride inside one of the coal skips for a while, then bail out and switch to a passenger train heading towards Paris before it got too light.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHERUB campus, three days later.

  It was 5:30 a.m. and still dark as a United States Air Force policeman strolled lazily out of a guard hut next to a wooden barrier. There was a motorcycle ticking over, its rider’s leather suit getting pelted with big blobs of rain.

  ‘Dangerous night to be out on that thing,’ the big American said.

  ‘I’ve been driving back and forth for half an hour,’ the rider said. ‘I’m trying to deliver a package for the Royal Navy Espionage Research. But I can see that’s not you.’

  The American laughed as he put his hand to his brow to keep the rain out of his eyes. ‘You’ve got the right spot, but I’ll need to see your security clearance.’

  The rider took his gloves off and fumbled inside his jacket for a security pass.

  ‘Looks good to me,’ the American said, barely looking at it. ‘You gotta ride up three hundred yards. At the fork, you branch off left. You’ll see an old school building with a cottage next door. Might have to rattle some windows to get them out of bed this early.’

  The motorbike didn’t like the rain and the engine stuttered as the rider passed under the gate. The fork was a gap between trees which he almost missed. A muddy track led him up to the school building, where a crack of light escaped around the edges of a black-out curtain in the main door.

  A lightning bolt turned the world blue as the rider put down his kickstand and he was surprised to see a pretty young woman in Royal Navy uniform rolling towards him in a wheelchair.

  ‘I believe you have a package for me, Aircraftsman?’

  The rider looked confused as he unlocked a metal storage box behind the saddle. ‘I have instructions to deliver this into the hands of First Officer Slater.’

  ‘Which would be me,’ Joyce Slater said. ‘And just because I’m in a wheelchair, it doesn’t mean you don’t have to salute me.’

  ‘Sorry, ma’am,’ the rider said, as he gave a mildly sarcastic salute. ‘I’ll need to see your identity badge before I can pass this across.’

  Joyce wasn’t the kind of person who gave a damn about saluting, but it pissed her off when people looked at the chair instead of the stripes on her uniform. She signed a receipt for the small waterproof packet, and turned her chair around.

  ‘Would you like me to wheel you anywhere, ma’am?’ the rider asked.

  Joyce ground her teeth. ‘I’m perfectly capable,’ she snapped. ‘And I made hot tea for you inside. You’re welcome to warm up and use the facilities before riding back.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ the rider said. ‘A cuppa would be most welcome.’

  As the rider walked into the school building, Joyce wheeled herself quickly towards a prefabricated Nissen hut and entered via a wooden ramp. Third Officer Elizabeth DeVere – known to all as Boo – was already under the curved metal roof, lighting an oil-burning heater.

  ‘Good morning, ma’am,’ Boo said, as Joyce wheeled past a radio transmitter the size of a filing cabinet and threw the packet on to a large planning table.

  ‘Have you seen Captain Henderson?’ Joyce asked. ‘He’ll want to see this immediately.’

  ‘He’s up and in uniform,’ Boo replied. ‘I think he’s bringing a couple of the boys down to help with analysis.’

 
As Boo spoke she used a tea-towel to dry the outside of the waterproof pouch. She then slid out a small, seventy-two-page grey notebook.

  ‘Real or fake?’ Joyce asked as she wheeled up to the table. ‘Fancy a bet?’

  *

  Captain Charles Henderson was slightly disgusted by the aroma of teenage boy as he crossed the first-floor dormitory room with a white drill stick tucked under his arm.

  ‘Wakey wakey,’ Henderson said, as he gave fifteen-year-old Marc Kilgour a good poke. ‘Hands off cocks, feet in socks!’

  As Marc groaned, Henderson turned and ripped the covers from the next bed, exposing Rosie Clarke’s skinny fourteen-year-old brother, Paul.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Paul moaned, as Marc stretched into a lazy yawn. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘For you two, it’s time to get up,’ Henderson said, as he looked around at the room’s other occupants, PT and Joel. ‘Whereas you two clearly need your beauty sleep.’

  Marc and Paul pulled on shirts, trousers and army boots before dashing to the bathroom. Henderson began a lecture as they peed.

  ‘Rosie arrived in Paris two days ago with a mysterious grey notebook. It either contains valuable scientific information, or is part of some fiendish Gestapo plot. A preliminary assessment made in Paris indicates that the notebook might contain valuable intelligence.

  ‘The notebook was immediately taken by train to Switzerland in a false suitcase compartment. From there, the package was put aboard a British diplomatic flight. The flight landed at Croydon aerodrome just after midnight and was immediately brought here by motorbike. First Officer Slater will co-ordinate a detailed intelligence analysis.’

  By this time the boys had finished urinating and Henderson was leading them down the stairs.

  ‘Our first task is to make photographs of the notebook’s entire content. I want you two to deal with this. Develop the films and print eight sets of photographs. Images and prints must be of reference quality, every word must be legible. I want them printed and dried, and ready for distribution to any additional intelligence experts who need to see them. Is that clear?’

  ‘Crystal clear, sir,’ Paul said. He was delighted because he’d rather spend time developing photographs than go through the usual campus morning routine of a three-mile cross-country run followed by physical jerks in the gymnasium. ‘Did you get any other news on my sister?’

  ‘Obviously we’re restricted to brief Morse code transmissions. All we know is that Rosie is in Paris, being looked after by Ghost’s resistance circuit.’

  As Henderson and Paul swept past a sodden motorcyclist drinking tea and warming his hands over a radiator, Marc went in the other direction towards the kitchen.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Henderson barked. ‘You haven’t got time for breakfast.’

  ‘I was going to put on a large saucepan,’ Marc explained. ‘We’ll need warm water for developing.’

  ‘Yes, excellent thinking,’ Henderson said. ‘I’ll see you in the radio shack.’

  ‘Good morning, Captain,’ Boo and Joyce said, when Henderson led Paul into the hut.

  Both girls had been selected for intelligence work because they were exceptionally bright. Joyce was a Cambridge maths graduate who was regarded as one of the best code breakers and intelligence analysts in the country. Boo was younger and had joined the Royal Navy directly from a posh finishing school.

  Henderson saw that the girls were going through the pages quickly, trying to form an initial impression.

  ‘What have we got?’ Henderson asked.

  ‘I’m making lists,’ Boo said as she wrote rapidly. ‘I’ve been through and picked out all the names in the text. If these men are real scientists, we should be able to find references to them in French scientific journals.’

  ‘I don’t have a huge knowledge of electronics, but these drawings seem to be for some kind of electronic system that takes inputs from magnetically charged gyroscopes,’ Joyce said.

  Henderson stepped up to the notebook. He wasn’t a scientist, but he had some technical knowledge because his pre-war job with the Espionage Research Unit had involved spying on Britain’s European rivals and getting hold of their military secrets.

  ‘If this is what I think this is …’ Henderson said, before tailing off as he slid the notebook away from the girls.

  ‘And what’s that, sir?’ Joyce asked.

  ‘Before the war, the French had a project to develop a pilotless flying bomb. It was navigated by magnetic gyroscopes.’

  Paul looked aghast. ‘That’s absurd. How can anything fly without a pilot?’

  ‘It’s not absurd at all,’ Henderson said, as he flipped through the pages. ‘We already have magnetic torpedoes that can find a ship’s hull and acoustic torpedoes that home in on the sound of the propeller. Why not an aerial bomb that can guide itself to a target?’

  Henderson’s eyes flicked across to one of Joyce’s notes, at the top of which she’d written FZG-76.

  ‘Why did you write that down?’ Henderson asked, as Marc came into the hut holding a bag of photographic equipment. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It rang a bell,’ Joyce said. ‘I’ve fixed quite a few undecipherable messages, and I’ve seen references to FZG-76. It’s a secret project. I remember references to launch ramps somewhere in Denmark, so definitely some kind of flying object.’

  ‘So,’ Paul began thoughtfully, ‘it looks like drawings and notes relating to this pilotless aircraft slash bomb thingy. But none of us knows enough about the technology to tell whether it’s valuable information or a useless crock.’

  ‘But knowing what we’re looking at is a big help,’ Henderson said. ‘I’ll get on to the Air Ministry and try to pin down an expert on pilotless bombs. Boys, I need you two to set up the photography and get those images ready, so we can send them off to whoever needs to look at them. Girls, excellent work so far. Keep writing down your observations.’

  ‘No library will be open yet, but when it gets to nine, we can call Mavis Duckworthy at the University of Cambridge library,’ Boo said. ‘They keep complete sets of all the major French scientific journals and she can check the background of the scientists named in the book.’

  ‘I also want us to start thinking about the bunker where this secret laboratory is supposed to be,’ Henderson said. ‘I’ll try and see if there’s any aerial surveillance images, and I’ll put out some discreet feelers to see if anyone with the Free French5 or the French Section of SIS6 knows anything about the history or layout of the bunker where these men are supposedly being kept.

  ‘And remember the first golden rule of intelligence work. Speed is important, but accuracy most important of all.’

  Notes

  5 Free French – A London-based group, led by General Charles de Gaulle. He refused to accept France’s surrender in 1940 and by 1943 many French colonies were under Free French control.

  6 SIS – Secret Intelligence Service. The official name for the British intelligence organisation that is now more commonly known as MI6.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Breakfast was put on hold and three other lads were enlisted to help as the campus kitchen became a darkroom. By 10 a.m., more than two hundred freshly developed sixteen-by-twelve-inch photographs were strung out to dry across the tiny school gymnasium.

  Two hours later a small Air Ministry passenger plane landed at the American airfield on the far side of campus. The photographs were larger and easier to read than the original notebook and the kids were sent upstairs before two professorish looking brothers named Hughes were let into the gym to inspect them.

  At first the brothers had the air of people greatly put out at being ordered away from their London office. This changed to brief jubilation, before they started arguing furiously over the interpretation of one of the drawings.

  Henderson interrupted. ‘Gentlemen,’ he began firmly, ‘The life of at least one agent depends upon an accurate assessment of whether this is genuine intelligence or misinformatio
n fed to us by the Germans. Can we concentrate on that before you bicker over details?’

  The younger Hughes turned to Henderson. ‘This notebook is the work of a French scientist named Maurice Jaulin. His drawings have been published in American Aeronautics magazine. The style is highly distinctive.’

  ‘Could he be working under duress?’ Henderson asked. ‘The Germans have a history of hatching elaborate plans to throw our intelligence services off the scent.’

  ‘These have to be genuine,’ the younger Hughes said.

  ‘Have to be,’ the older Hughes agreed. ‘We know that the Germans have been testing a pilotless flying bomb in the Baltic under the codename FZG-76. The maps in your notebook show the trajectories of test bombs.’

  The younger Hughes tapped one of the hanging prints. ‘You see here? This map shows the trajectory of a dozen test flights and where they landed. Now, if you look at a later page you see the map from a more recent batch of tests. The flying bombs plotted here end up much closer to the intended target, because they’re gradually refining the guidance technology.

  ‘The Danish resistance has tuned into radio tracking signals sent by test bombs as they fly, giving us maps similar to these. But this notebook gives us far more detailed information on how the bomb’s navigation system is constructed, and on how the system has been refined during the development process. There’s also information about the bomb’s launch and propulsion systems which is entirely new to me.’

  ‘But you’ve only just seen these drawings,’ Henderson said. ‘What if you start trying this stuff in your laboratory and none of it works?’

  The Hughes brothers both shook their heads.

  ‘This is full of things that make you say, My god, why didn’t I think of that?’ the younger brother explained. ‘The drawing on page six gives details of how the pilotless bomb gauges distance flown. The system is ingenious, and you only have to look at it to see that it’s an extremely valuable scientific idea.’