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.
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
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
Up in the cockpit, Power turned
