Winter Warriors

CHAPTER ELEVEN: CLEARING THE DEBRIS

“Igrat, we’ve had another message from Loki. He says he has some information of critical importance that we need to see right away. Won’t say what, says it’s too critical even to talk about. I’d like you, Achillea and Henry to make another Geneva trip to pick it up. I know it isn’t scheduled but if it is as important as Loki says, then we need to get it here.”

“Assuming this isn’t one of Loki’s practical jokes.” Igrat flicked her heavy black hair, smoothing it into a cascade that ran down her back to her waist. One of the troubles with Loki was that he was an inveterate practical joker.

“Loki’s never staged a practical joke with the intelligence data he sends back to us. If he ever does, I’ll add Geneva to the target list.” Igrat knew that Stuyvesant wasn’t joking. Nobody knew what had started it but the feud between the two men had started a long time ago. They despised each other. Their present fragile relationship was the product of the war; nothing else. She doubted if Stuyvesant would actually have Geneva bombed just to deal with Loki but he would do something drastic.

The telephone rang. Phillip Stuyvesant picked it up. He listened and made a few affirmative grunts before putting it down. “OK, we’ve got your tickets on tomorrow’s flight to the Azores and Casablanca fixed up. Henry and Achillea will pick you up at six. Enjoy.”

Igrat gave him a brittle grin and left. Getting up at 4am was a real hardship. Still, there was a war on.

Top Floor, Bank de Commerce et Industrie, Geneva, Switzerland.

“Iggie, Achillea and Henry are coming over early to pick up the latest package. They’ll be here mid-day tomorrow and be going straight back.” Branwen glanced at her pad. “And the representatives from Sweden and Russia are here. I’ve got them in separate waiting rooms of course.”

Loki nodded. The last thing he needed was Alexandra Kollontai and Tage Erlander at each other’s throats before he could get in and separate them. It wasn’t that Sweden and Russia had major issues in this war. They didn’t; quite the reverse if anything. It was just that the old-time radical Bolshevik and the studious, formal Swede were an explosive mix. Quietly, Loki wondered how many wars could have been avoided if the nations involved made sure their respective ambassadors actually liked each other. All too many was his calculated guess.

“Good afternoon, Madam Kollontai.” Loki rose to his feet as the Russian woman entered his office; an act that caused her mouth to purse in disapproval. “Welcome to Geneva. Mr Erlander will be joining us any moment. Did you have a good trip here?”

“Comfortable, thank you.” Kollontai took her seat in front of Loki’s desk. “The Constellation is a good way to travel.”

“So I am told, although I haven’t had the opportunity to fly on one yet. Ahh, here we are. Welcome to Geneva, Tage. Please take a seat. Madam Kollontai, I understand you have a message from the Russian Government?”

“Indeed I have. I have been asked to tell you that the Russian Government has been gravely disappointed by the Finnish decision to resume active hostilities against us. Nevertheless, despite their treachery, we are prepared to offer peace terms even now. We will grant an armistice to Finland and cease operations against the country provided the following conditions are met. In order to avoid further threats from Finland, the following adjustments to the Finno-Russian frontier will be made. In the North, the border between Russia and Norway will be defined as the Tana River. This will transfer significant portions of the Finnmark presently in Norway to Russian hands. To compensate Norway for this loss, the area of the Finnmark, centered around Lake Inari and presently in Finnish hands will be divided between Russia and Norway. The dividing line will, again, be the Tana River.

“The long westward pointing finger of land separating Sweden from Norway, centered on Enontekio will be handed over to Sweden. These adjustments will simplify the borders in the area and remove any threat to Murmansk. The Finnish Government will be permitted to remove any of its citizens who do not wish to transfer their allegiance to the new rulers of the area in which they formerly lived.

“In the South, the province of Ita-Suomi and the eastern half of Etela Suomi, the dividing line being drawn from Kotka by way of Kuovola to Lake Vuohijarvi, will be surrendered to Russia. The Russian Government will no longer tolerate the threat to Petrograd that has twice this decade resulted in war. Finland will also disarm all German troops and military forces in its remaining territory and surrender them to Russian control. Finland will pay war reparations to Russia in the amount of 600 million U.S. dollars. The whole amount is to be delivered within five years.”

There was a profound silence in Loki’s office. The terms Russia was offering were savage; Finland would be losing almost a third of its territory. Madame Alexandra Kollontai looked apologetic. She was actually sympathetic to the plight of Finland but her position as an emissary in these ‘talks-that-were-not-happening’ did not allow her to say so. Loki and Erlander knew that, to some extent, the very fact that these unofficial meetings were taking place at all was due to a moderate influence on Russian government policy. If Zhukov and Vatutin had their way, they would deliver their terms with a tank army driving through Helsinki.

“Is there anything else?” Erlander’s voice was mild, devoid of any hint of sarcasm.

“Yes. The Aland Islands are presently held jointly by Sweden and Finland. Russia will take over Finland’s position there. However, all we are interested in is maintaining a naval base on those islands. If that is provided, as far as we are concerned Sweden may administer the Islands as if they were wholly Swedish and issue the inhabitants Swedish passports. Also, Finland will not be permitted to maintain armed forces. The country may have an armed police force, without armored vehicles or aircraft, and may have a coastguard but that is all.”

Erlander shook his head. “I will carry these terms to the Finnish Parliament and ask Risto Heikki Ryti to present them but he will not do so. He is convinced that Germany will be victorious. I am sorry Madam, but this bird will not fly.” The Americanism did not go unnoticed.

“I can sound out the Americans. Perhaps they may intervene on Finland’s behalf. Perhaps they can secure a moderation of these terms.” Loki did not sound hopeful and in truth he thought that any attempt to do so would be doomed to failure.

“There is no cause for leniency. Finland has brought this disaster on itself. You know the price they were offered for their participation in this attack? The whole of the Kola Peninsula, including Petrograd. I ask you, Herr Erlander, with such an addition to Finnish strength, how long will it be before Sweden falls victim to Finnish aggression? Months? A year or two at most? Yet we restrain our demands to the territory needed to secure our borders and guarantee the safety of our cities. And we are treating generously with Sweden, out of respect for your role as intermediaries, despite the fact that many Swedes serve with the SS against our troops.”

Erlander looked saddened. “I cannot deny that. I can say that the Swedish Government recognizes both the generous nature of the Russian approaches and its forbearance of the asinine stupidity of some of our citizens. Citizens who will be punished, that I can assure you.”

“And I can also assure you of that.” Kollontai’s expression was deadly serious.

“So we are agreed then. Mr. Erlander will take these proposals to Finland and ask for them to be submitted to the Finnish Parliament while I will approach my contacts with the American Government to see if some grounds for flexibility can be located.” Loki looked at his two guests and a series of nods were attained. Then he reached out for the intercom on his desk. “Branwen, some refreshments please?”

A second later, Branwen pushed the doors open with her hip and wheeled in a trolley loaded with bread, beer, vodka and cold meat. “I am sorry, but the meats are Italian. No smoked fish, I tried but, without access to the Baltic….”

“Never mind Branwen, this looks delicious.” Erlander cast his eyes over the tray. “Madame, I hope the vodka is to your taste?”

Branwen left. The three loaded their plates with the food she had brought. Once they had regained their seats, they looked at each other. The bristling near-hostility of the official exchanges had gone. Erlander leaned back and spoke slowly. “Honestly Loki, will the Americans use any influence here?”

Loki thought carefully and shook his head. “Not a chance. Not after this attack, no. The Finns had a good deal going for them. They stay put, keep quiet and don’t cause any trouble. In exchange, the allies don’t start hammering on them and, when the war is over, they get 1940 boundaries and no reparations. Now, they’ve reneged on that, the Americans will wash their hands of them. The generosity to Sweden is well-thought out as well. There are many more Swedish voters in America than Finns. No, the Americans will not intervene. Aleksa, how open are the Russian Government to negotiations on this?”

Kollontai knocked back a glass of vodka and stared at Loki. She was remarkably young-looking for a woman of 75 and had been fortunate — and skillful — enough to survive being a vocal critic of Stalin’s policies in the late 1930s. How she had managed that, Loki didn’t quite know. It was rumored that she had been summoned back to Moscow from a diplomatic posting but had somehow escaped the usual fate for those so recalled. When she spoke, her voice was saddened.

“They are not open at all. Even getting this much for Finland now is hard. They have cooked their own goose with a vengeance and the deal on offer now is the best they will ever be offered. If they keep fighting, then the terms will become progressively worse. One day, the Russian Army will be in a position to attack with all its force. Then there will be no terms. Finland and its people will vanish from the history books for all time. If they do not forestall that somehow, then their fate is inevitable.”

“If the Allies win.” Erlander’s voice was gloomy.

“Oh we will win. We have scored two great victories in the last few days. The German Navy has been destroyed and a German land offensive has been stopped in its tracks. It may take a long time but the fascists will be crushed and our armies will overrun their lair. They will take a just and proper revenge for the atrocities the fascists have inflicted on our people.” Kollontai’s voice softened further as the women’s rights activist took over from the politician. “And when they do, that will not be a good time to be a woman.”

There was a profound silence as the truth of her words sank in. Eventually Loki broke it. “And there we have it. That leaves it down to you, Tage. Somehow, you’ve got to convince the Finns that they’ll have to accept these terms. And Aleksa, somehow, you’ve got to convince the Russian Government to trust the Finns when they make another ‘live and left live’ offer. Because the alternative is too terrible to think about.”

“Final run in now Number One.” Captain Charles Povey looked around the bridge with an air of satisfaction. They had land-based air cover for the troop convoy. Catalinas flying out of Murmansk circled overhead, watching for any signs of enemy submarines. The convoy itself had angled south and was on the last leg of its long run. The ships had picked up speed. Nobody wanted to get sunk when the safety of Murmansk, dubious though it was, could be within sight any hour.

Lieutenant Commander Murray checked the charts. “Three hours. Possibly four, Sir. No signs of any enemy action. It looks like Halsey’s knocked the stuffing out of them.”

“Same word from PQ-17.” Admiral Vian’s voice beat the ‘Admiral on the Bridge’ warning by a split second. “It’s as if the Huns have been so thoroughly spanked, they’ve all gone home. No word of subs anywhere. I was expecting a major effort by the submarine fleet to try and salvage something from the disaster they’ve suffered but they’ve gone. PQ-17 reported some scattered attacks from aircraft based in Norway, mostly Ju-188 torpedo bombers, but even they seemed to lack determination. Mostly they just scattered when the fighters got to them.”

“Any word from Halsey Sir?” Povey wanted to know the details of the destruction of the German fleet. He fancied himself as a naval historian and had in mind making his great opus the Second World War history of the German Navy.

“Not a word. We know from German intercepts that his aircraft hit Londonderry this morning. Destroyed schools, convents and orphanages according to the Huns. I’d guess they took out the airfields and partisan hunter barracks myself. But, no word from them. Won’t be until they get back from Churchill. One thing we do know. Three German ships turned up in the Faroe Islands, a cruiser and two destroyers. Cruiser’s on the rocks, finished. The destroyers have surrendered to the British garrison there. As far as we can tell, they’re the only survivors.”

There was silence on Ontario’s bridge. The officer’s minds filled with the reality of what the last minutes of the German ships and their crews must have been like. A dreadful choice between drowning and freezing. Eventually, Povey shook himself and banished the images from his mind. “Sir, any special orders for sailing into Murmansk?”

Vian thought for a second. “No, just make sure the Canadian troops are ready to go ashore as fast as possible. If the Huns really are stunned into immobility, we want to get back before they recover.

“Moe is coming up Commander.” Perdue turned around to look down the line. The locomotive towing Moe was indeed approaching but he could see that something as seriously wrong. There was far too much steam around it and its speed was way down. Another problem to be faced.

“Thank you. Get the rest of the Russian vehicles loaded on to the flat cars. Finish cleaning up the carriage.” There was no need to specify which carriage. It had been hit by short-range gunfire from machine guns and the heavier weapons on the armored cars leaving it a splintered ruin. The forty men in it were mostly dead, their bodies laid out by the side of the track.

“Lieutenant Knyaginichev, your men will stay with us until we reach our lines? We are just Navy men and railway engineers here. We desperately need your expertise as skilled infantry.”

“My orders are to regain our own lines and rejoin my division. So yes, we will ride with you. I think there are still problems to come though.”

“Grazhdanin Knyaz is right Commander. There is indeed a problem yet to come.” Boldin had his maps out. “The railway does a bend where it swings north. It forms a loop, a big one certainly but a loop nevertheless. If the German is clever and gets moving, he can cut across the neck of the loop and be ahead of us again. Here I think. This time he will not take time to try and capture the guns. He will tear up the lines so we have to stop or be destroyed. We must move soon to have any chance of beating him.”

The three officers stared at the map. Eventually Perdue said what they were all thinking. “Even if we do, he will still be ahead of us right.” There was a murmur of agreement. “Very well, so there is no point in hurrying. We must think this over and do it right.” His words were interrupted by them being enveloped in a cloud of steam. Moe ‘s engine had come to a halt behind them.

Perdue turned around and looked at the Mikado. One side looked like a scrapyard. “How bad is it?”

“We’re done, Commander. This Mike is finished. We’ve been losing steam pressure ever since the junction and there’s no stopping it. We’re shot up too badly to go any further.”

Perdue turned to the driver of Curly’s-engine. “Can a Mike tow both guns? If we leave the carriages behind?”

The railwayman started to shake his head but was interrupted by a Navy Lieutenant. “Sir, you better see this before making any decisions.”

Perdue followed him back. When he reached Moe he could see what was coming but the Lieutenant pointed it out anyway. “Sir, see the barrel there? A 75 armor piercing round hit it. Deflected away of course, but it took a big chunk out of the metal, right down to the rifling inside. There’s three or four more just like that all down the barrel. And the breech, Sir. It got hit bad. 75s and 50s, three or four of each. Moe is really torn up, Sir.”

It was that, Perdue could see it. If anything the Lieutenant was being over-optimistic. The German gunners had made good practice on Moe and they’d done for the great gun. It was a write-off, irreparable. Behind it the carriages were in a terrible state. Riddled with bullet and shell holes, frozen streams of blood staining the sides. Moans were still coming from inside the carriages while rescuers sorted through the shattered timbers to find the last survivors. Curly had got through relatively unharmed. Moe had taken the worst the Germans could throw at her. How the train had got this far was a miracle.

“We lost over a hundred men, Sir. Many more wounded. Hardly anybody not wounded.”

“Ours or Russians?”

“Just who the hell cares?” The Lieutenant caught himself. “Sorry Sir. No disrespect meant. Some ours; some Russian, most too badly chewed up or burned to tell which. All for nothing. The gun’s gone.”

“Not for nothing Lieutenant. We got the rest of the men through and we can blow the gun up here. Get the teams together. Rig Moe for complete destruction, so there won’t even be splinters left. Use propellant bags for explosives in addition to the demolition charges. Rig the Mike and the carriages as well. Make sure they’re blown up and burned. Rest of the men, get the bodies out. Put them with the casualties from Curly. There’s a junction here; that’s why we stopped. We can resort the consists so we can get the most valuable coaches out. We need another flatcar for the ski troop’s vehicles.”

Perdue looked at the doomed gun and shook his head. He’d hoped to get them both out but the German gunners had been that bit too good. Meanwhile, there was Curly’s train to get ready and the dead to bury. At least here, by the railway, they’d be easy to find in the Spring when they could be buried properly.

“Right, men, to work. We’ve got a train to blow up.” Then Perdue went back to Boldin and Knyaz so see what they could work out by way of breaking through the next ambush. Ahead of him, Curly started moving down the line so it would be well clear when Moe was blown up.

“We’re being followed.” Henry McCarty made the observation casually but it wasn’t a casual matter. Normally these pick-up runs were a matter of routine, things that just went ahead without any great fuss. To actually be followed was quite unusual. It had happened before, but it had always turned out to be a matter of routine. The Abwehr or Gestapo just following three visiting Americans to see if they were up to something or were just daring tourists. It was not as if they were obviously military party; not an old man and two young women. If Henry had to make a guess, he would say the Gestapo file on them would say that he was some sort of businessmen depositing illegal business earnings in his Swiss bank account while the two women were his mistresses he had brought along for the ride. Most Europeans assumed that American businessmen were also gangsters, Henry reflected, Hollywood films had a lot to answer for.

“The black Mercedes?” Their driver had also noticed the tail. “He has been with us since the airport. What do you wish me to do with him?”

McCarty quickly thought over the options. A gun or knife battle in the middle of Geneva’s old town would attract unnecessary attention. “Lose him. But don’t do it obviously. Throwing a tail will prove we have something to hide. At the moment we could just be normal visitors.”

“Very well Sir.” The driver thought for a second and then made a hard right into the Rue des Granges. “Up ahead of us is the Hotel les Amures. It is a hotel well known for those who wish discrete lodgings for a short period. You take your two ladies in there and book a room, being careful to mention a Herr Klagenfeld when you do so. I will wait down in the street outside for you. That will excite no attention. Eventually, the persons in that car will go inside to check. A man booking in with two ladies will be remembered and the hotel staff will, with some encouragement, confirm you are upstairs. But you, Sir, and the ladies will go up to the third floor, across the fire escape to the Restaurant La Favola on the Rue Jean Calvin and down through the kitchens and out. Another car from Loki will be waiting for you there and you will be gone. As soon as I see the men going in to the Hotel, I also will be gone. There will be nobody for them to follow. Anyway, one cannot get from the Rue des Granges to the Rue Jean Calvin by car. There are many steep steps in the way.”

“That sounds good. Do it.”

Henry settled back in the seat. Beside him Igrat was frowning. “Henry, I don’t like this. Why are we being followed? It smells like somebody was expecting us to arrive. Have we got a leak?”

“We don’t.” Henry was quite certain about that. “And for the same reason we can be sure that Loki and his Orchestra don’t. But you’re right, this doesn’t smell quite right. We’ll have to play along and see what develops.”

The car stopped outside a large, square building that was as undistinguished as the rest of Geneva’s architecture. McCarty got out and opened the door for the two women, then reached inside to get a case. There were two reasons for that. Nobody went into a hotel with one woman, let alone two, without her case. Anyway, the case held his guns.

“Good afternoon ladies, gentlemen.” The hotel clerk betrayed just a slight hint of surprise and a little admiration at the plural. “May I help you?”

“We would like a room please. One on an upper floor for preference. We will be leaving in a few hours, we have a four-thirty appointment with Herr Klagenfeld. But we will be back after dinner.”

“Third floor be suitable? I thought so. Sign here please, Sir.” The clerk looked down at the register. “Ah, Mister John Smith. So many of our guests come from the family Smith. Room 335.” The clerk was not concerned with the women’s signatures, they were likely to change with every visit this American made. Anyway, the slender one looked like a demimondaine if ever the clerk had seen one.

The three took the escalator up to the third floor and walked down the long corridor. Room 335 was at the end, right next to a metal fire escape ladder. The ladder itself was shared with the building next door, accessed by a common metal platform. Henry led the way across it, then in through the door to the next building. This one had only two floors due to the slope on the hillside, so the party went down the steps into the restaurant kitchen. The staff very pointedly did not notice them as they passed the preparation tables until Igrat stopped and sniffed a pot-au-feux that was simmering gently.

“Guys, we have got to eat here tonight.” The she turned her attention to the chef who was already beginning to preen himself. “Let me guess. That was left to you by your grandmother and you have willed it to your grandchildren.”

The chef’s smile turned into a beam. “Madame, you understand perfectly. May I have your autograph?”

Igrat sniffed again, enjoying the heady aroma. “If it’s as good as it smells, you can have a lot more than my autograph.” She made for the exit, swaying her hips suggestively.

There was an appreciative laugh around the kitchens. The sous-chef discretely shook the chef’s hand and promised that his wife would never find out. McCarty shook his way out and went into the main room of the restaurant. The maitre d’hotel indicated a car that had just pulled up outside. “Herr Klagenfeld has sent a car for you. I trust we will see you again at La Favola?”

“Oh yes. You can be sure of that.” Igrat tossed the remark over her shoulder as she left. The three of them piled into the back of the new car. One that appeared identical with the old one.

“Any danger of them tracing us through to Loki?” McCarty never took things for granted.

The drover turned around. It was Branwen and she smiled at them. “The hotel and restaurant think they are working for the Abwehr and, probably that you were ducking either the NKVD or the Gestapo. Loki had me wait here just in case. He does for all your visits but it’s never been needed before. Anyway, welcome back to Geneva. Did you remember to bring stockings for the girls?”

McCarty laughed. A mass of American nylon stockings completed the inventory of contents in the suitcase he was holding.

Not only was it a kindness to the Swiss girls who worked in the bank, it also fitted his cover as a black-marketeering industrialist.

Captain Becker looked around, trying to spot the men who were watching him. No sign of them, but he was being watched. He was sure of it. He had felt their eyes burning into his back for hours now but he couldn’t see who they were.

There were enough men to choose from. What had once been the mine deck on the British fast minelayer had been converted to cargo space for the runs to the Faroe Islands. Now it was serving as a floating prisoner of war camp. The British had decided to rush the removal of the surviving German seamen from the Islands and the deck was packed almost solid. Still, it was only for a few hours. Then the men would be disembarked in Iceland and transferred to prisoner of war camps in Canada. What would happen to them then was unknown. There were few enough German prisoners of war in Canada. Prisoners taken in Russia stayed there, in Russian-run camps. There were only a tiny handful of German Navy prisoners. U-boats rarely sank in ways that gave their crews a chance of survival and “Taney Justice” reduced that chance to near-zero.

Quietly Becker cursed the unknown German U-boat captain who had machine-gunned the survivors of the Coast Guard Cutter Roger B Taney in the water after he had torpedoed their ship. Despite an investigation that had run deep, nobody had ever identified who he was or why he had committed the atrocity. Most of the German Navy had been as appalled as the Americans. There had been talk of a court martial and firing squad for the guilty officer. It had made matters worse that the Americans had looked on their Coast Guard sailors as life-savers and protectors, not warship crews. The bullet-riddled bodies that washed ashore had brought American demands for vengeance to an irresistible pitch.

The next time a U-boat had been sunk and there were German survivors in the water, the American destroyer had machine-gunned them. And so it had started, a descending spiral of brutality and atrocity that did nobody any credit. Becker had heard that the Americans had sent destroyers to pick up the survivors of the German fleet, that they had declared “Taney Justice” applied only to submariners. If so, it was a sign of hope, albeit a small one. Perhaps the world hadn’t gone completely mad. Not yet anyway.

Becker sighed and turned away from the mine deck to the small group of ‘cabins’ set aside for German officers. They were partitioned off from the mine deck by hastily-thrown up wooden bulkheads but offered little that the enlisted men didn’t have. A little privacy, that was all. Becker pulled the curtain that served as a door aside and went though, closing it behind him. Then he stopped. The curtain that normally shielded his ‘cabin’ had gone. He half-turned to see what was going on when something struck him.

The half turn saved his skull from being crushed. Becker knew that, but he was still stunned from the impact, barely conscious, when the curtain was thrown over him. He felt boots thudding into his ribs. The wooden thing that had been used to bring him down hit him again, this time across the back. He had tried to rise, but the extra blow felled him and he couldn’t.

“Get the traitor up on deck.” The words were hoarse. Becker felt their meaning wrap around him, even as he was smothered by the curtain over his head. He was picked up, half-dragged, half-carried, half-pushed, upwards through a hatch out of the mine deck towards the main deck of the minelayer. He could feel the chill on the air as they emerged into the night and the exposed deck. Becker could hear the throb of the engines, the sound of the water, the gentle breath of the wind in the superstructure. He was painfully aware of the fact those could be the last sound he would hear. At least they beat the snarling radials of Corsairs and the crash of their bombs.

“You have been found guilty by court martial of fleeing from the enemy, of abandoning your command, of disobedience of orders and of handing your ship over to the enemy. You have also been found guilty of dereliction of duty by not demolishing your ship to prevent her capture.” That struck Becker as a little odd. Not the way a Navy man would phrase it. “You are sentenced to death. Throw him over the side.”

The unseen men rushed Becker to the rail, ready to tip him into the freezing water beneath. Then something happened. A series of sounds, violent motion, and the ripping noise of a sub-machine gun. The curtain was pulled from Becker’s head. He saw two of his attackers on the deck, the dark pool of blood around them had already begun to freeze. Four more knelt on the deck, their hands on their heads.

“You all right Captain, Sir?” A Royal Marine carrying a Capsten sub-machine gun was grinning at him. “You’re in good hands, Sir. Colonel Stewart of the Argylls asked us to keep an eye on you. When we saw these six beauties hustling you up here, we kind of thought this might be what he had in mind. Do you recognize any of them?”

Becker looked at the two dead men on the deck and then at the four kneeling prisoners. “This one, he was my first officer.” He switched to German. “Why, why this?”

“You betrayed us. Our orders were to head north but you ran when the Amis came after us. You left the rest of the fleet to die and ran to save your own skin.”

“That made no sense at all.” One of the Royal Marines, a sergeant, spoke quietly. “Oh yes, I speak fluent German, Captain. You did the right thing, trying to save your men when the rest of the fleet was being slaughtered. I am sorry you could not also save these.”

He turned to the four prisoners. “Get those two bodies over the side.”

“They are entitled to military burial.” The Lutzow’s first officer was blustering.

“They are murderers. By intent at least. Get them over the side.” The sergeant’s voice was uncompromising. The four men rose, picked up the bodies and dumped them over the side of the ship. As they dropped, the Sergeant’s Capsten hammered out another burst and the four prisoners followed them down. Six splashes in the water were hardly noticeable.

“Captain, you’re going to the sickbay for the rest of the trip. Under guard, of course. You’ll be safe there. We’ll spread the word that those little rays of sunshine succeeded in dropping you over the side before we killed them. After that, we’ll get you to a safe PoW camp.”

Becker looked aft to where the bodies in the sea had already vanished. Perhaps the world didn’t have any sanity left after all. The thought left him profoundly depressed.

“Welcome back, Lang. How is the ear?”

“Sorry Asbach?” Lang made a great play of being deaf, leaning forward with his ruined ear cupped in one hand.

“Good man!” Asbach smacked the junior officer on the back. “You are privileged. Not many survive the attentions of a Russian sniper. To survive two shots, not one, is a very rare distinction. We got the sniper by the way. A woman, of course. Most of the best Russian snipers are. We dumped her body in a ditch with the rest of their dead. Counting her, we got eight of the Siberians and six more Russians. They probably fell from the trains as they went through. And two American sailors; they probably fell off too. No matter. We threw them all in the ditch and the wolves can have them when we leave.”

“What now Asbach? Go home?”

“I think not. We have another chance. That air strike hurt us badly. We’re down to the equivalent of an infantry company in half tracks, we’ve got three out of five Pumas left and two out of five tank-hunter-armored cars. Plus two flak guns and four of your self-propelled 150s. We’ve still got a force, Lang; still got a chance. Look, the railway line goes around here, more or less following the curves of the ridge. But if we cut across the neck of the curve, we can come out here, in front of them. This time, no nonsense about capturing the guns. We’ll tear up three hundred meters of the track, more if they give us time, that way they’ll have to stop. Then we kill them all. If the guns are still intact when we’ve finished, fine. But if not, well, fortunes of war.”

Lang nodded and tapped the map. “We can set up here, behind this ridge. They’ll come around here, straight into us. We can have them under fire before they are aware we are there.”

Asbach sighed quietly. Lang was coming along but he still had a lot to learn. “Lang, the Amis and the Ivans can read maps just as well as we can. They’ll work this out too. Not sure what they’ll do about it but they’ll see just what you have seen and think the same things. So don’t expect miracles about surprising them. Just stopping them will be entirely good enough.”

Lang nodded, absorbing the lesson. Back at staff, it was a running joke that the Ivans were idiots who only stayed in the war because of the way they threw away human lives and the Amis would be lost without their massive piles of equipment. Out here, he was learning differently. Out here they were all Winter Warriors and what one could see, another could also.

His reverie was interrupted by a blast. It was distant, but still loud enough to be startling and to shake the earth under his feet. On the horizon, he could see the bright ball of a great blast rolling skywards. For some reason the sight filled him with nameless dread. Asbach was already looking at his map. “15 kilometers away at least; probably nearer twenty. And that puts it on the railway line. I’d say the Amis have just lost another one of their trains.”

“How are you doing with my division, John?” General George Rodgers was wrapped in bandages to the point where he would have done honor to a Hollywood horror film. The blast of grenade fragments that had brought him down had left him covered with wounds, none of which were mortal. Why that was, nobody would quite explain.

General John M Rockingham had the combat reports of the 3rd Infantry under his arm. His first problem was to break the news to his old friend. “The Third’s mine now, George. You’re being evacuated out, to Murmansk, I’m keeping Third; you’ll get Sixth when it’s ashore and formed up. I guess your first job will be to send the Huns tumbling back to their start line.

Rodgers nodded sadly. He doubted he would be getting Sixth, not after the way Third had been cut up. “The Huns have lost then?

“They made about thirty to forty five miles but we stopped them. The jaws of the encirclement never closed, so we’re fine. We held the Finns almost on their start line. Oh they split the division up into hedgehogs and surrounded us but that was it. The hedgehogs held, all of them, until relief forces shot their way through. Now, with the supplies the convoy brought, we can roll the Huns out of here.

“John, how did the Finns do it? How did they get through the lines to cut us up like that?”

“The lakes, George. The ones we used to shorten our lines and conserve forces? In the storm, they froze and the driving snow stopped us seeing them use them. I guess they had this plan for months, waiting for the right conditions. We never saw it, but it doesn’t matter. The division’s linked up again now and we’re starting to drive forward. We’ve got new orders as well. Push into Finland proper. No more of this phony war on the frontier. The Finns want a real war, they’re going to get it.” Rockingham dropped his voice “I’ve even heard the B-29s may hit Helsinki. That’s really hush-hush. Anyway George, you’ll be getting a better briefing than this later. Until then, wrap yourself around this.”

Rockingham produced a bottle of Canadian Club whisky. Rodgers looked at it with delight. “John, how did you get that?”

“Oh, a tank officer smuggled it over in his tank. Hid it in the barrel, I guess. That’s where they usually hide them. Anyway, he gave it to the officer commanding a hedgehog he relieved and Colonel Haversham sent it up to you with his best wishes. A great sacrifice on his part I’d say, George.”

“Aye, that it is. John, be a good fellow. Help me drink it before the nurses confiscate it.”

Dusk was falling and the B-29s would soon be on their way. The 127 B-29s of the 5th, 9th and the 11th Bombardment groups had arrived, flying a roundabout route over the Arctic to get from their bases behind the Volga. Nobody was under any illusions about the Germans not being aware of their arrival, but it was still worth going through the motions. It was an odd reversal of normal thought processes; try and evade detection even though it was pointless because the attempt was normal. Acknowledge that it was pointless and that made the flight abnormal and worth noticing.

The whole mission would have been impossible a few days earlier. Then, aviation fuel on the Kola Peninsula had been in short supply and was reserved for the fighters and tactical support aircraft. Even the medium bombers had been on short rations and their use restricted. Feeding the fuel-hungry B-29s was entirely impossible. Now, things were different. PQ-17 had arrived safely and it contained a disproportionate number of tankers. That fuel was being pumped ashore and it made the operation of heavy bombers from Murmansk possible. A timely thing because this raid was a very important one. Briefly at least, it was a one-off. A demonstration and a punishment for the Finnish decision to break the unofficial ceasefire along their border and go on the offensive. The bombing tonight would drive home the stupidity of that decision. Germany’s cities might be out of reach but Finland’s weren’t. It had other purposes as well, but Colonel Thomas Power wasn’t aware of those.

“Four are down Sir. We can go with 123 aircraft.” The sergeant spoke apologetically and apprehensively. Power was known for a ferocious temper and strict ideas on discipline. It was whispered that the two going together was not a good thing. Faults tended to be unreported rather than risk his wrath.

“Four down? Why?”

“Engines, sir. The 3350s again. They’re just not as reliable as the Wasp Majors.”

Power shook his head. For some reason, the R-3350 had remained under-developed while most effort had been placed on the R-4360. That showed in the reliability ratings. Once notorious for catching fire in mid-air, the R-4360 was maturing into a fine engine. The problem was limited production. All the R-4360s were needed for F2Gs and F-72s so the fighters could take on the German jets. That left the B-29 with the R-3350. An engine that ate cylinders with dismal enthusiasm. “Very good, Sergeant.”

The mission had called for 120 aircraft. Technically, the two bombardment groups totaled 225 aircraft, but they were all under-strength from losses and had managed to make only 135 aircraft ready. Eight had aborted and turned back for base. Now four more had gone from the strike mission. Only three more to lose before the mission would be under-strength. Still, the last hurdle had been crossed. The bombers were loaded with their incendiaries and explosive bombs; they were ready to go. On a nearby field, a group of F-65 night fighters were already warming up, ready to escort the stream of heavies. A group of F-61 s would be strafing the flak batteries defending the target. The mission plan was simple. Fly due south, all the way inside Russian-held territory and under heavy escort. The Germans would assume this B-29 strike was aimed at their rear areas, depots, defense areas and so on. But, at the appropriate time, the bombers would swing west, cross the Finnish border and head for Helsinki.

The city was the target and the bombers were loaded to do the maximum possible damage. Officially, the targets were the great Ilmala railway marshalling yards and the factories around them, Skatudden Island, its port and factories and the Lansisatama port and factory area along with its marshalling yard. Knocking all three out would, according to the briefing, seriously damage Helsinki’s capacity as a transport and production center. Of course, everybody knew that with bombers hitting at night, using radar and under fire from ground defenses, the bombing wouldn’t be that accurate. The three spaced out targets probably meant that most of the city would be hit. That was regrettable but a new phrase had already been coined to cover it. Collateral damage. The collateral damage in this raid was likely to be high, all the more so since the 605 miles to the target made this, by B-29 standards, a very short-range mission and the aircraft were carrying bomb load instead of fuel. So much so, they were even using the rarely-touched underwing hard points for additional bombs. Most had their explosive loads under their wings, leaving their great bellies full of incendiaries.

Power climbed up the ladder into his lead B-29A and settled into the aircraft commander’s seat. “Tower. This is Black Chalk Leader. We are ready to go.”

Geneva Station was quite luxurious as railway stations went. Apart from its ticket office, it also had a reasonably good restaurant and the waiting room was clean and comfortable. That didn’t mean that Henry McCarty liked using it. The train ran too close to the border with occupied France before it swung south, through the Simplon Tunnel and out to Italy. The airport was even worse. It was literally on the Swiss-French border which was why the courier party never used it. Even driving past it, as they had coming in, made McCarty nervous. That was the problem with Geneva, it was a finger of land that stuck into German-occupied Europe. One day, the Germans would hack it off. The Swiss made a big thing about their armed population and fortifications but they hadn’t helped against Napoleon and wouldn’t against Hitler. McCarty had a nasty feeling that Switzerland was running on borrowed time. He didn’t want to be around when that time ran out.

Meanwhile, there were other interesting things to amuse them until their train set off on its run to Rome. Like the couple who were having an increasingly-heated altercation in the booth opposite the bar. McCarty didn’t know what had started it, but it looked like the woman was telling the man with her that he was being dumped. He didn’t like it. Then, as she got up to leave, he grabbed her arm and dragged her back, none too gently. She yelled something at him. McCarty imagined it was along the lines of ‘get your hands off me’ and jabbed at his hand with something silver. A nail file? The man yelped and pulled his arm back. Then the woman made another effort to break away, this time succeeding and stalked away across the floor.

That’s when it got serious. The man grabbed a beer bottle from the table, smashed off the end and went after the woman. She saw, screamed and tried to run. Achillea and McCarty both moved forward to stop him but the Railway police were faster. One tripped the man up; the other stared beating him across the kidneys with his baton. Once the man was subdued, they dragged him away. McCarty and the senior officer exchanged nods, the situation was under control. Or he thought it was because that’s when he heard Achillea’s quiet “Henry, where’s Igrat?”

He looked around, Igrat had vanished. He realized that the fight had been a diversion and that he and Achillea had fallen for it. With a brief “Achillea, follow me.” He headed for the exit and the area outside. It was deserted except for a police officer standing in the car park

“Officer, has a car left this car park in the last few minutes? One with a black-haired woman and at least two men?”

The policeman looked at Achillea and decided a straight answer was the best policy. “Certainly, madam. A black taxi. With the woman and two men as you describe.”

McCarty cursed. “The young lady is a member of my business staff. I have reason to believe she may have been abducted by those men. They could be in France by now.”

“No Sir. The border is closed, from both sides. If your friend is in the taxi, she is still in Geneva.” The police officer hesitated. Then he realized there was more going on here than met the eye. “I have the taxi number if that will help.”

“Thank you officer.” Achillea was at her most charming which tended to be slightly frightening. “Henry, we better get in touch with Loki and trace this. Otherwise, one of us is going to have to get in touch with Washington and tell the Seer that Igrat’s in the hands of the Gestapo and we haven’t done anything about it.”

McCarty thought about that and winced. Stuyvesant very rarely lost his temper. When he did, the results tended to be spectacular. “Too right. Get on the phone to Branwen, now.” He turned back to the policeman. “Officer, I need to speak with my bank, the Bank de Commerce et Industrie, right away. There may be a ransom demand and I must make the necessary arrangements.”

The police officer had a discrete but immediate reaction to the name of the bank. All banks had a very close relationship with the Swiss Government, to the point where it hard to say where one ended and the other began. The Bank de Commerce et Industrie was something quite special. They had influence even the other banks lacked. If this American banked with them, he was a man of much importance.

Power eased Carolina Sings down to the prescribed attack altitude, 2,000 feet. Power thought this was insane. The whole purpose of the B-29 was that it could bomb from high altitude, 25,000 — 30,000 feet where flak was almost ineffective and fighters were straggling. Only, the high-altitude raids had failed. They couldn’t hit the targets accurately enough. So, tonight, the B-29s were coming in low, fast and in darkness. It would either work or be a catastrophe and Powers was betting on the latter. That’s why he was in the lead bomber. If he was sending the men under his command to a massacre, he would lead them in himself.

Around him, the formation of B-29s was splitting into three sections; one aimed at each primary target area. Powers had taken Lansisatama himself. It was the most hazardous of the three. The others were on the outside of the city; the bombers could hit them and turn away. To get to Lansisatama, they would have to fly over the whole city and take flak all the way. Then do the same getting out. Night fighters didn’t worry Power too much, the Finns had few of them and there were more than sixty F-65 Tigercats guarding the bomber formations. It was the flak batteries that were the problem. The Huns had too much low-level flak for this to work. That had been considered; hence the sixty F-61 Black Widows, assigned to shooting up the flak batteries when they opened fire. Of course that meant they would have to unmask themselves by opening fire first — and those opening shots could be the end of a B-29.

“Pilot, come around four degrees to port. We’re starting the run now.” The bombardier almost cuddled himself with joy. Power had a well-deserved reputation as a martinet. Some described him as a sadistic fascist; his enemies were far less forgiving. But on a bomb run, the bombardier commanded the aircraft, not the pilot. That made it a heaven-sent opportunity for a junior officer to give Power orders. The Eagle radar showed the city ahead very clearly. That was another reason why Helsinki was being bombed tonight. It’s weird geography and coastal location gave vivid contrasts between land and sea on the bombing radar. It made picking out the targets easy. Two of them anyway. The Ilmala targets were inland and the bombers would have a harder job picking them up on radar.

The bombers had cruised out at around 15,000 feet. An easy, steady cruise that allowed the escorting fighters to formate around them. The normal pattern would have been for the formation to climb to around 25,000 feet for its bomb run. There had been a time when the B-29s had tried to bomb from above 30,000 feet, but the effort had been a failure. Unexpected winds and atmospheric effects tossed the bombs miles from their target. That problem was not easy to overcome although Power was aware that great efforts were being made to solve it. So the raids had been steadily dropping in altitude. This one was merely the last stage in the process. The formation had stayed at 15,000 feet when it crossed the Finnish border, then dived to its present level.

Major James Kaelin, the lead bombardier for the 11th Bombardment Group checked the radar display again and then looked through the Norden bombsight. He could see the long wharves of the Lansisatama clearly on radar but the optical bombsight was made useless by the overcast. Still, a radar release was better than nothing. He watched as the cross hairs on the radar picture approached the end of the port wharves. Kaelin punched the bomb release. The four 2,000 pound bombs under the wings released first; the shower of the incendiaries from the bomb bay afterwards. If they dropped right, they would saturate an area 1,500 feet long by 300 feet wide. With the bomb load gone, his attention focus evaporated. He suddenly was aware of the B-29 bouncing in the flak thrown up by the city.

“Bombardier to commander. The bombs are away. How goes things up there?”

“We’ve lost Fifi Trixibelle. Flak got her. She just blew up in mid-air. Others are swell. On our way home. Navigator, gunners, do your jobs and stop worrying about the rest of the formation.”

Up in the cockpit, Power turned Carolina Sings back for home. Straight home; no need for a deceptive routing. The Germans had been fooled. Their light flak had been silent, they’d been expecting a high-altitude raid and the gunners had been assigned to the 88s and 127s. They weren’t so effective against targets this low. The heavy guns had had problems tracking the low-flying targets and most of the fire had hit the tail end of the formations. Fifi Trixibelle had been unlucky. Power thought she had probably caught a 127mm in the belly just as she started to release her bombs. He didn’t know how many bombers had gone down, at least six was his guess, perhaps eight. However many it was, he seriously hoped the brass wouldn’t believe they could try this trick again. The Germans could be fooled once, never twice. Behind him, the city of Helsinki was starting to burn.

The air raid sirens woke Kristianna Kantokari before her mother pounded on the door. The wailing sound wasn’t quite unheard-of. There had been air raids on Helsinki in the Winter War and in the early days of the Continuation War, but the Russians had only used a few aircraft and the damage they had done was little indeed. So, there was no great sense of urgency as the family gathered itself and started to make their way down to the bomb shelter they had prepared in their basement. As they trooped downstairs, solemnly carrying water and food for the stay, their house began to shake. A curious rhythmic buzzing roar drowned out the sirens. Ignoring her mother’s warnings, Kristianna ran to a window and peered out.

There was a great silver beast in the sky. It seemed to be skimming over the rooftops and filled the whole window with its glow. Kristianna recognized it immediately from the German newsreels that were shown in the cinema when she went there with her boyfriend. It was a B-29, a ‘Grosse Viermotoren’ as the Germans called it. Only they were supposed to operate high up. This one was so low it seemed like it would crash into the street at any moment. There was a red ripple under its nose that sent red flashes streaking into the darkness. There were others as well; dozens of them. The great B-29 was trapped in searchlights; perhaps six or more coning in on it. The light made its silver fuselage and wings glow. Then, one of the searchlights abruptly went out. She realized the orange flashes were the gunners on the bomber trying to shoot out the lights. Then, another aircraft swept out of the darkness, a dark gray one with twin tails. Its nose and fuselage lighting up with gun-flashes and fire swept from under its wings. She heard the thunder of rockets as they devastated the searchlight battery.

Kristianna would have looked longer but her father dragged her away, swearing at her for her foolhardiness. His words were partially drowned out by four great crashes that made their whole house shudder. Suddenly, getting to the bomb shelter was very urgent. They barely settled in to their shelter. At first they were cowed by the explosions that seemed to never end. Then they were terrified by the smell of burning, faint at first but growing steadily stronger. Then their stay was ended by a hammering on the front door of their house.

“Air Raid Police. Open up and evacuate. The city is burning.”

“Where, where is the fire?” Kristianna’s father had opened the door and was asked questions of the harassed-looking men

“Shut up. Get your family out of here and don’t argue.” The answer was curt and reinforced by a hand dropping to a pistol holster.

Antti Kantokari gathered his wife and three children and led them into the street. Out here the burning smell was so strong it was choking and the night was bright enough to read by. Kantokari glanced to the east, where the bomber had come from. There he could see the glow of the fires already spreading across the roof-line.

“Go west Antti; go west.” It was a local policeman, one who was trying to be more helpful and comforting to the people who he worked with every day. “The Americans dropped incendiaries and the Skatudden is burning. The fires are spreading this way. If you don’t get away from them soon, you never will. Stay in the wide roads, in the middle. The snow and slush will stop the fires from getting to you. Now go, quickly. And be careful. The American aircraft are still overhead.”

All around them, people were scurrying from their homes, some empty-handed; some carrying pots and pans or their household treasures. Some had bags of food. One was even carrying a flowering plant in an ornamental pot. All around them, bright little flakes were beginning to drop, strange fireflies in the cold of the night. Kristianna reached out for one. She yelped as it burned her hand.

“Embers from the fire.” Her father sounded genuinely frightened. “The fires are spreading fast. The police are right; we must run for our lives.”

“But our things.” His wife wailed, thinking of the home she had carefully built over the years.

“Are already gone. We have only our lives. If we stay we will lose those as well.”

Already, the crowd was beginning to run for the west. Now, the reason why those who abandoned everything would live while those who paused to try and recover their treasured possessions or encumbered themselves with their goods would die became obvious. As the crowd moved, a strange filtering mechanism started to work. Those who could move fastest and had least to carry moved to the front. Those who hesitated or had their arms full fell to the rear. And the fires were closing in all the time.

Overhead, a late-arriving B-29 swept past, heading for its target. Normally such a straggler would be easy prey for the antiaircraft guns but the Black Widows were watching and waiting. Streams of tracer arched up from the ground. Before they could contact the bomber, two Black Widows dived in on the source. They hosed it with gunfire, then released four objects that wobbled as they fell on the gun battery. Kristianna saw great orange balls rising into the sky and the anti-aircraft fire ceased as suddenly as it had started.

“Jellygas.” Kristianna’s father muttered, “They are dropping jellygas on the city.” His stomach squirmed with fear at the ugly orange balls and what he knew they represented. And all the time the embers descending on them were getting thicker and hotter.

There was another thunder from behind them. At first Kristianna thought it was another bomber releasing its load, but it was a house collapsing. Helsinki was made of stone and stone doesn’t burn but the wood and the paint and the fabric inside stone buildings do. The bombs had blown windows in. That let the fire inside to gut the houses. Deprived of support, the stone shells were collapsing. She risked a glance behind and realized that the house that had just collapsed was in the street she had lived in. Her own home would follow, as surely as if it were already ablaze. If that was not already the case.

Nobody said anything. She and her family broke into a run, pushing anybody who got in their way to one side. They had to head west, as fast as they could. Ahead of them was the Mannerheiminte, a wide street that would act as a firebreak. Helsinki was lucky. The snow of the great storm turned the streets into rivers. They would stop the fires wouldn’t they? Only when the family saw the Mannerheiminte, it was already crowded with people, running south.

“Go back, go back! The Ilmala is burning. The fires are coming.”

Above the yelling of the crowds, Kristianna could see the glow of fires to the north as well as the east. There was no choice and Antti Kantokari knew it. He grabbed his daughter’s hand and the five of them plunged into the stream of people fleeing the fires started by the air raid. Already, the street was littered with discarded possessions as people threw away everything in the desperate urge to flee faster, to run further. Already, the old and the young started to collapse as the run for safety exhausted them. Over the sound of the fires, the cries of the crowd, yelling, weeping and sobbing, hammered at the ears. Over on the left, the great San Nicolas cathedral was already a mass of flames. That told Kantokari the truth. The Mannerheiminte lead east. It was taking the crowds on it back into the mouths of the fires. In running down it, people were simply heading back to their deaths. He grabbed his wife and daughter’s arms and angled his family across the road. They took the first westward-leading street he could find.

“They told us to stay on the wide streets.” His wife was sobbing with exhaustion.

“Not the ones that lead east. The fires are north and east. We must go south and west.” He looked around, this street was quieter. Perhaps all the people had already run to the west. “Come, we must go.”

Head of them was a small park with people already crowded into it for shelter. Kantokari lead his family into it in the hope it would give at least a temporary respite. The snowy slush made sitting down impossible but at least they weren’t running. Overhead, the Black Widows were prowling; goading the anti-aircraft funs into opening fire. One passed directly over the little park. For a moment Kantokari thought it was going to drop its jellygas onto the crowded spot of green but it ignored them and vanished again into the darkness.

“Father, look.” Kristianna’s voice was quiet. She pointed at the buildings to the west. They were highlighted by an evil glow of red. There were fires to the west as well. They were spreading towards the park that had seemed such a refuge.

Kantokari cursed to himself but thought quickly. There were only two ways out of this park that did not lead north or east, and one of them led back to the Mannerheiminte. The other was diagonally across the square. They did not have time to waste. “Come, we must move.”

“I cannot.” His wife was crying. “We must wait.”

“If we do we die. The fires are coming from the west as well. As soon as people realize it, they will try and escape and there is only one narrow street out of here. If we wait, we will not get to it in time.”

They set off. They moved as fast as they could towards the one street that promised a hope of safety. By the time they got there, the danger had become obvious. People were converging on it, driven by the reflections of fire in the windows and the steadily-increasing rain of embers. There was a crowd of people, fighting to get on to the one road out. Antti Kantokari waded into them, kicking and punching. He threw others out of his way, dragging his wife and daughter with him. His two young sons tried to help him through. It was primeval survival. Everybody was fighting to escape from the death-trap that had so recently been a place of refuge. Antti Kantokari broke through, dragging his daughter with him. He turned to reach for his wife and sons but they were swept away and beaten down by others, equally desperate to escape the fires. He tried to get back to them. The sheer force of the torrent of people forcing through the narrow gap gave the crowd irresistible momentum. It drove him and his daughter down the street.

Kristianna realized how desperately late their escape had been. Already, the buildings down one side of the street were burning. Flames tried to reach over to the fresh fuel on the other side. She saw people who got in the way of the hungry reach of the fires just burst into flames themselves. They fell to the ground in miniature copies of the great fireballs made by the jellygas. She knew nothing, except the need to run, to get away from the fires, to escape. What if the fires were in the south as well? Her mind held a map of the city, the Americans had started these terrible blazes to the north, east and west of the city. They blocked off every way out, trapping everybody in the great fires. The road she was on led south, towards the great church of Saint John. Beyond that was the Kaivopuisto park. Surely that would be safe?

The road split. One part led west back towards the dockyard. Kristianna avoided it. She looked for her father as she did so. He had gone; swept away in the crowds or caught by the fire. Saint John’s Church was already burning. The sight dissuaded many from taking that road but Kristianna ignored the fire and took the southern path. She skirted the inferno and headed away from the great fire to the north. She was exhausted. Her legs felt dead but they continued driving her south, past the fires that closed in from the Helsinkihafen on the east and the Aker Shipyard to the west. They carried her south, through the narrowing bottleneck between the three great fires that were gutting Helsinki and into the Kaivopuisto Park. Her legs only stopped when they took her all the way to the sea. There she collapsed. She lay on the beach as the waves washed over her. The long run had left her unable to move as she watched the fires converge on the city center.

Later, much later, she managed to half-drag, half-walk, half-crawl her way over to Harrakka Island, just a few hundred feet offshore. There with the rest of the refugees who had made it, she was safe. In her heart, she knew the truth. She was the only one of her family who had survived.

“Bratischka, the army calls for the assistance of our gallant comrades in the partisans!” Lieutenant Stanislav Knyaginichev looked around at the men and women who had answered his call. His words had been carried on the winds, to the units hidden in the villages and in the forests. The men and women had recovered their carefully-hidden weapons and come to aid the Army in its moment of need. Knyaz looked at them with pride. To do so took more courage than could easily be measured. The Army would fight its battle and be gone. The partisans would still be here when the fighting was over and the Hitlerites came to take their revenge. When the people had bravery such as this, the Rodina was safe. Embattled, hungry, besieged but safe. In his look at the Partisans around him, he had noted something else. They were better-armed than his men were. Every Partisan carried a German banana-rifle and were supplied with large numbers of grenades. Even those who had rocket launchers, either the German Panzerfaust or the Russian RPG-1 copy, still had a rifle and grenades as well. That was the measure of these men and women. Every banana rifle they carried meant a Germans soldier lying dead in the night.

“And how may the Partisans assist the Army, Tovarish Lieutenant?” The speaker was the leader of the largest of the partisan bands. It was rumored he had a brigade of no less than fifty men and women answering to him.

“There is a great gun on the railway; a gun that belongs to the American Navy. The fascists want to capture that gun very badly but it has escaped them. Every trap the Hitlerites have laid, the gun has escaped. American sailors, Russian engineers, my own Ski-troops; all of us are fighting together to get the gun to safety so that it can once again fire on the fascist beasts.”

“Why do they not give the gun to us? We could use some artillery!” There was a murmur of agreement that swept around the meeting.

Knyaz grinned. “Bratischka, this is a forty centimeter gun!”

The partisan leader lifted his hands up, about 20 centimeters apart at first and then spread them apart so they were about the diameter of the railway gun. There was a few muffled cheers and some gasps of admiration. This was certainly a great gun. A Tsar of guns thought some of the older men. They were careful to keep the description to themselves.

“It needs much preparation and special railway tracks to fire. When it does, it hurls a shell fifty kilometers and the shell makes the very ground turn to jelly under it. Truly, bratischka, this is a great gun and of much value. The Americans have fought hard and sent many aircraft to help it escape. Now it is we who must make a great effort. The Hitlerites have set an ambush just short of the river bridge. The survivors of a mechanized battalion, about a reinforced company in strength. With artillery and anti-tank guns. They have torn up the railway tracks so the train must stop. The engineers cannot repair the tracks until the fascists are killed.

“Bratischka, I will be honest with you. The men on the train have done well but they are sailors and railway engineers. Even so, they have beaten the fascists like a drum, inflicting great loss on them. But they are sailors and railway engineers, not real soldiers. This task is beyond them. My men are the only real infantry on the train and there are but twenty of us left. Can I count on you to join us, to kill the fascists and show the American sailors what the partisans can do?”

There was a moment’s silence. Then the leader of the largest of the groups stepped forward and hugged Knyaz in a bear-like embrace. “Tovarish Lieutenant, we will be there at your side. Now, how are we to go about this task?”

Knyaz got out his map. “The train is coming along the line here. It will stop behind the ridge where it is safe and as many men as can be spared will come forward to a position on that ridge, facing the fascists. We will move in on the fascist’s flanks and rear while they are watching the ridge and attack them. Then we can drive….”

“My apologies Tovarish Lieutenant. I have news we all should hear. The Americans have just bombed the lair of the Finnish Hitlerites. They have set the whole city on fire. The radio in Petrograd says they can see the glow of the fires from streets of Petrograd itself. The fascists are calling fire brigades from all over southern Finland to try and stop the fires spreading further but they struggle in vain. The fires have created a great wind storm and nothing can stop the spread of the flames.”

The meeting erupted in cheers. Knyaz felt his back being pounded by the Partisans. The Americans weren’t around to get the praise, but he was with them and that was near enough.

“Yes, Tovarish Lieutenant, we must indeed help the Americans save their gun. The whole city on fire? Good, that is very good.”

“You might at least have given me a cushion to sit on.” Igrat’s voice was indignant. Half her mind was in a screaming panic but she had locked that part away. Instead she concentrated on the task in hand. That was buying time so Henry and Achillea could catch up with her.

She was sitting in an old-fashioned wooden chair. Her wrists had been tied to the rails at the back, her ankles to the chair legs. It was a good, old-fashioned interrogation set-up that had her facing a desk with several lamps on it. The brilliant bulbs had been angled so they shone right in her eyes. She could see very little of the rest of the room; just the vague shadows of two men. One of them had a very heavy German accent. The other never spoke at all. He had opened her blouse and was pawing her, like a schoolboy, roughly and crudely. Igrat had noticed his hands had been shaking when he had unfastened the buttons. She looked at his shadow and put as much sympathy into her voice as she could. “You don’t have much experience with women do you?”

Silent-One whinnied with outrage. His fist came out of the darkness, hitting her in the face. She ran her tongue around her mouth noting the salty taste of blood.

“Where did you get the papers from? Talk to us.” It was German-Voice speaking.

“You want me to talk to you? Fine.” Igrat looked at the shadow of Silent-One. “You hit like a girl. OK? And by the look of your pants, you have to pee like one as well.”

The fist that hit her that time meant business. Igrat’s vision exploded into brilliant flashes and pinwheels. When they cleared, her sight was distorted and she could feel the eye on that side swelling shut. German-Voice was speaking again. “Tell us what we ask or by the time we finish with your face, your own mother will not recognize you.”

“She wouldn’t recognize me anyway, she dumped me in the trash outside a brothel as soon as I was born.” That, Igrat reflected, was quite true enough but I doubt it is what these two idiots wanted to hear. The panic started to rise again. She squashed it down ruthlessly

She was right. Her reward was another flurry of blows, some full-force punches, other slaps. She could sense the bleeding in her mouth was much worse and she let the stained saliva trickle from the corner of her lips. She was tempted to spit it at the men but resisted. The time for defiance like that would come later, when her chances of survival had gone.

German-voice was screaming at her. “What is in the briefcase?”

“My sandwiches. The food on the train is terrible so I got a packed lunch.”

“You want more beating?” There was urgency and lust in the voice. He looking for excuses to hurt her. That scared Igrat more than the beating.

“Well, look if you don’t believe me.” Igrat was genuinely irritated in addition to putting on an act for the men’s benefit. She was telling the truth and the idiots wouldn’t believe her.

“And the case is booby trapped and we all get blown up, right?”

That was when Igrat’s mind snapped at the way the phrase was constructed. The same way fish snap at bait. She’d thought that German accent was too heavy to be real. Well, hello, fellow American.

“With me in the room as well? Don’t be a bigger fool than you can help.” German-voice hesitated for a second and opened up the case. Inside were three packages, wrapped up in paper. The faint odor of salami and cheese was more than noticeable.

“So where are the papers and where did you get them from?”

“I don’t know and the sandwiches came from the deli on the Rue Henri Fazy. My boss likes Limburger but no way am I carrying that. He’ll have to make do with Helvetia.”

The reply got her another serious of blows. She felt the crunch of her nose breaking and fill with blood. She snorted, trying to breathe through the sudden rush that threatened to suffocate her. “Now look what you’ve done. That blouse is silk, I’ll never get the bloodstains out of it. You know how many coupons a new one will cost me?” None at all. thought Igrat. If I can’t wheedle some parachute silk out of somebody, I’m losing my touch.

There was another enraged whinny; this time from both men. There was a rattle from the desk that forced Igrat to fight the blind panic back into its corner again. “Last chance.” German-Voice was really beginning to lose it. “Where do you get the information from?”

“What information?” Igrat gasped as the doubled-up length of tow-chain hit her across the chest. Suddenly her breathing was painful. Rib fractured at least. She coughed and some blood splattered out. The chain hit her again; the pain was on both sides of her chest. She was expecting another blow from the chain but instead something hard and heavy hit her over the kidneys. The pain was excruciating. Her efforts to scream through the broken ribs doubled and redoubled her agony. Her vision started to gray out. Igrat began to believe she was dying.

That was when the door exploded. Igrat had seen Achillea kick doors down before but never from this side. The door just fragmented, only wooden splinters were left to hang in the lock and hinges. Normally Achillea would have landed on her left leg and dropped straight into her fighting crouch but this time she hit the floor rolling. The reason was simple, Henry McCarty was following her, moving terrifyingly fast for an old man. His right hand was blurring. Three shots, a tiny, almost undetectable pause, and three more.

By the time Igrat could register what was happening, both German-Voice and Silent-One were down. Behind Henry, a figure switched on the lights. Achillea was already up and moving over to the desk, flipping off the lamps as she passed. The semi-darkness was a blessed relief. Igrat still found the effort to keep breathing unbearably painful.

“Henry, call for an ambulance. Emergency ward, right away. This isn’t good.”

“They’re already on their way, Branwen called them as soon as she’d followed the car to this place. Thank the gods that Loki kept her as a back-stop watch. And told her there would be bodies around tonight if things went sour.”

Achillea nodded, Loki had turned up trumps. His foresight had probably saved Igrat’s life. Then, she turned to Igrat. “Iggie, can you hear me? Good. You’re a mess but you know that don’t you? Nothing fatal though and the Boss will get your nose fixed. Where else did they hit you?”

“Shest, with a shain.” Igrat’s voice was blurring.

“Stay with me Iggie. You’re not in any danger unless you let go.” Achillea ran her fingers down the sides of Igrat’s chest. “Right, at least two ribs fractured probably on both sides and your tits are bruised. Tell Mike, you’ll have to go on top for the next few months.”

Igrat chuckled and erupted into a burst of coughing. “He won’t like that. Very strictly brought-up Catholic he is.” She lost control of her voice at the end. That, more than anything else showed how badly she was hurt.

“Well, he’s going to have to make an exception or take Holy Orders. Keep coughing, I know it hurts but it will clear liquid out of your lungs and save you a bout of pneumonia.”

“Achillea, look who we have here.” McCarty was speaking, he’d finished looking at the bodies. “Our old friend from Casablanca.”

Achillea looked down at the body of Frank Barnes. Two holes in his chest so close they touched; one between the eyes. The other man’s wounds were identical. Six shots, no misses. From a moving man at moving targets in the darkness. There was nobody better with guns than Henry McCarty. She looked again at Barnes and spat on his body.

“You should have left him alive Henry. He wanted a lesson in knife fighting. I’d have given him a long one.” The wreckage of the door to the room swung open as a group of men with a gurney hurried in.

“Please, sirs, you have a wounded person here?” It was a Swiss ambulance team.

“Over here.” Igrat’s voice was weak but steady. Quietly, Achillea was proud of her. She’d seen professional street-fighters making a worse fuss over lesser wounds. The ambulance men went quickly to work, getting Igrat on to the gurney and out of the door. As they left, three policemen, one in plain clothes, the other two in uniform came in. None of them saw Branwen quietly slip out to join Igrat.

“Mister Smith. Have we an explanation for this?” The implication that the detective didn’t like foreigners shooting each other on his patch was quite clear.

“These two men abducted one of my associates, holding her for ransom. With the assistance of your department we traced their taxi to this building. We were working our way up here when we heard screaming. We couldn’t wait for your men; my associate’s life was in danger. One of the men, that one, was beating her with a chain. That chain.” Henry pointed at the blood-stained links on the floor. “He would have killed her, already she was badly injured.”

The detective picked up the chain and looked at it, thinking hard. He didn’t like the gunplay and foreigners causing trouble but he also had a teenage daughter. The sight of the blood-stained chain decided him. “I think a man who would do such things to a woman is no loss. Very well, this is just for the young woman they brutalized. This one time only, I will write this up as self-defense against two hardened criminals.”

“Mr. Smith?” The doctor was looking around the waiting room.

“Doctor?”

“Ah Mister …. Smith. I’m pleased to tell you your associate is resting comfortably and is in no danger. We’ve reset her nose and splinted it but she will need some further attention to straighten it when she is stronger. You have good surgeons in America for such things I believe? Her face is badly bruised. There is also a possibility one of her eyes might be damaged. Her ribs are fractured; two of them on one side, one on the other, but we have taped these up and this is easing her discomfort. She also received at least two very heavy blows to the kidneys. There is blood in her urine but they are functioning. She is a strong woman. She will recover unless something unexpected happens.”

“Can she travel?”

The doctor was indignant. “Of course not. Did you not listen? She was treated with sadistic cruelty and received serious injuries. She must not travel; not for a week, perhaps ten days. Then only with great care. But she will be as well-treated here as in any of your American hospitals.”

“I have no doubt of that, Sir. And thank you for all your efforts.” McCarty turned to Achillea. “Looks like she’ll have to stay while we go ahead.”

“Excuse me. Mister Smith?” The speaker was a man so tall he had to bend down to leave the elevator. “Hartzleff, from the German Embassy. The Cultural Department.” There was an awkward silence. Everybody knew that the Cultural Department of the German Embassy meant Gestapo or Abwehr or both. “Perhaps we could speak privately?”

The two men drifted over to a deserted corner. Once there, Hartzleff resumed. “I have heard what has befallen your associate Mister Smith. I do not know who was responsible, but you have my word it was none of our work.” McCarty did his best to look skeptical. “Mister Smith, if that it’s your name which I doubt, I know you are a smuggler and a black marketeer. You bring women’s stockings and other luxuries over from America and sell them in France and Germany for an enormous profit which is banked here because your IRS would catch you if you took it back with you.

“I tell you this because we do not care about your activities. If anything, they are helpful to us. A few luxuries keep many people quiet. So, although our countries are at war, there is no quarrel between us and you have nothing to fear from us. You may be certain your associate may recover here in peace as far as we are concerned. I have posted two of my men downstairs. If you wish, they will remain here to help protect your associate. In case of misunderstandings. Or if you prefer, they will leave with me.”

McCarty thought for a moment. He had little doubt that if Hartzleff had pulled Igrat in as part of his political or intelligence duties, she would have suffered just as badly and probably worse. It was the thought that something like this could be done unofficially, in the private sector as it were, that genuinely appalled the Gestapo officer. “All the evidence suggests that this was just some gangsters trying to muscle in on my operation. The responsible parties are dead; so I think this incident is concluded, Herr Hartzleff. But your reassurances are welcome and the assistance of your men also.”

Hartzleff nodded brusquely and headed back out. McCarty shook his head and rejoined Achillea. “Well, the Gestapo have just denied responsibility, for what that’s worth. There’ll be two Gestapo men downstairs. They’re going to be there anyway so I thought it better we know where they are than have them lurking around somewhere else.”

“Good thinking. We knew they weren’t involved anyway. The Boss is going to be really mad at Donovan for trying to pull this one.”

“Yeah.” McCarty shuddered slightly at the prospect of the news getting back to Washington. “He’d be really mad if it was any one of us. Since it’s Igrat, he’ll go completely ballistic.”

The Seer flipped through the code book, looking at some of the code-names assigned to people. He’d chosen his own, a name he’d won a long time before. Curtis LeMay was “The Diplomat,” a reference to the time when a Canadian fighter squadron had brought their Sopwith Snipes down to the US. He’d taken one look at the antiquated aircraft and blurted out “Jeez, they’re crap.” Leslie Groves was “The Architect” after his construction of the Pentagon. Thomas Power was “The Butcher”. On a whim he checked his own staff, Lillith was “The Librarian” and Naamah “The Doctor.” Igrat was “The Champ”. It occurred to him that whoever awarded these names was a pretty fine judge of character.

“General LeMay is here, Boss.”

“Thanks Lillith. Please find Sir Archibald Mclndoe and get him ready to work on Igrat when she gets back. When are they due in?”

“Twenty four hours, Boss. Igrat sneaked out the hospital and joined Henry and Achillea. They’re treating her like eggs. They’ve got what amounts to a complete hospital, complete with a bed, a doctor and a couple of nurses, in the front end of a Connie.”

Stuyvesant nodded. C-69s were used to evacuate casualties from Russia. The experience had been put to use in getting Igrat back quickly and safely. “Good. Impress upon Sir Archibald that he’s the finest plastic surgeon found practicing on the North American continent. If he doesn’t fix Igrat’s nose properly, he’ll be the finest plastic surgeon found floating in the Potomac.” He hesitated slightly and controlled his temper. “No, he’s a good man, you don’t need to say that. Just tell him a pretty girl has placed her trust in him. That’ll work a lot better. “

Lillith nodded and went out. A few seconds later, Curtis LeMay entered

“Curt, good to see you. How did the strike go?”

“Helsinki? So-so. One of the three groups hit the wrong target. They missed the main marshalling yards and hit a smaller set further south. Radar pictures look similar. I’m going to speak to Tommy about that. He can do better. We burned out most of the southern part of the city. It would have been less if the 7th had hit their assigned target. We lost 17 aircraft. Nine B-29s, five F-61s and three F-65s. In exchange we got around a dozen Heinkel 219 and Me-110s.”

“110s? I didn’t know they had any of those left.”

“Finnish. We lucked out. Next time the low-level flak will be waiting.”

“We’re leaking out that the purpose of the raid is to force the Nazis to pull back low-level flak from the front line and ease the pressure on the fighter-bombers. They won’t believe it, of course. They’ll see it for what it is, a one-shot trick pony we can’t repeat. They’ll also see it as desperation on our part; a last-ditch attempt to find some way to use all the bombers we’ve bought. Tomorrow the papers will be running the story about how Tommy Power has cracked the way to destroy cities. Low and fast, over the rooftops with incendiaries.”

“Once more with the low altitude and over-the-rooftops. God help us if we really had to do it that way.” LeMay rubbed his eyes. “You wanted to set up a meeting?”

“Yes, with you, General Groves and the supervisory committee. We’ve got some paperwork arriving that everybody needs to consider. It got held up a little but it’s safely on its way over. We’ll invite Major General Donovan as well, but I don’t think he’ll be able to attend.”