between his teeth as much now that Rushbrooke replaced Godfrey as head of the Naval Intelligence Division. We’ll still use him. He’s setting up a network for us in Spain under Operation Golden Eye, and his boys are slated to go after intelligence during the upcoming Torch Operation. Sorry about that failed pinch operation at Dieppe. I hope that didn’t set your efforts back here, Turing.”
“No major setbacks, sir. Fleming has been promising me things for some time, and seldom delivers. I managed without it.”
“Good enough, but as you can see, our list is going to be a long one. How do we manage to keep an eye on all these men? The manpower required would be enormous.”
“Perhaps I could help, sir. I can’t put a man’s fate onto my perforated machine tapes, but I could certainly encode his name. Then we could use a machine to do some pattern matching. Should something unusual come up, and should it match one or more of the names on the list, why we might then have a closer look at those individuals with human assets. We could just hand that off to MI5. It’s what they do for a living, yes?”
“Something tells me I would hate to have my name on such a list. It’s damn uncomfortable.”
“I agree, sir. Most things having to do with war are somewhat unsavory, but we muddle through.”
“War? You make it sound as though we are at odds with our own people here, Turing.”
“We will be, sir. Why do you think we even have an organization like MI5 in the first place? Yes, they run down foreign agents on British soil, but they keep an eye on the rest of us as well. If it were to be learned that one of these men on our list does something… compromising, then he becomes an enemy of fate and time as it were. If you mean to set this watch on the history, then you’ll have to be prepared to do some unpleasant things, Admiral. Suppose we suspect a man on this list for some reason-say he’s been reported captured by the enemy. He was supposed to be dead, and we all know dead men tell no tales. Yet now he’s alive, a bit of a zombie, eh? Now he can tell tales. Loose lips sink ships, to put it plainly.”
“Zombie?”
“A Haitian word for an animated corpse, sir, brought back to life by witchcraft. I use this metaphorically, but it’s a perfect image for what these men actually are, and it gets worse. Any one of these walking dead men could do something significant, and they could also have sons and daughters who might do very much more. The cancellation of Operation Jubilee is just a small part of the picture, sir. Geronimo has upset operations all through the Med and also in the Pacific. Our point of divergence is getting quite wide now, and our list will be very long indeed. The more time that passes the worse things might be.”
“Damn confounding business, Professor. The more I think about it, the more impossible it seems. There were German soldiers who might have died if these cancelled operations had gone forward. How in the world do we sort them out? There were Italian ships tangling with Geronimo in the Med, and now the Japanese. Our list now grows to a point where it becomes truly daunting, perhaps impossible to even attempt.”
“Right, sir. It’s also a rather dark feeling to think the history may now be playing out in a way it was never meant to-at least from the perspective of the men aboard Geronimo. As you suggested earlier, they have a unique position of knowing what happens in the decades ahead. Why, they’ve most likely got boxes and boxes of files on it all-enough to fill a thousand libraries. Should we be vigilant? Of course we must, but here’s the rub, sir…How do we know if anything has been changed, and what effect it might have had on the course of events? We don’t sit on the top of the hill like they do. We just see this particularly unpleasant gully we’ve blundered into with this bloody war. ”
“Good point, Turing. We might ask the Japanese if they feel their plans have been changed by this ship. I think we both know how they would answer.”
“Right sir, but we don’t know what was meant to be, or what may have changed. Was America meant to declare war in September of 1941? This ship had an awful lot to say about it. It’s very frustrating, sir. Think of it like a good book we’re set to revise. We want it all to turn out well, with our Ts crossed and Is dotted. Yet here we are stuck in the early chapters. What we need now is some way of knowing how the story was supposed to end, yes? Only then can we decide what to do about this particular chapter and the men that live in it. Some changes may be for the good as we see it. Suppose this Dieppe raid was a bloody disaster? In that light its cancellation may weigh in as a benefit. Does that make any sense, sir?”
“It makes a good deal of sense. As I say, you are a man of some imagination. But I don’t think we could ever take that look ahead in the story to see how things turn out-not unless we manage to get our hands on this ship and take a ride with them when they pull their next disappearing act. I mean…well they must go somewhere, don’t they?”
“Yes,” Turing sighed. “They must go somewhere, only where? Getting a man on board that ship would be no easy task. It’s vanished again. You seem to get on fairly well with this Russian Admiral. If this ship ever does return why not call him up and have another chat?”
The phone rang, jarring and insistent as every phone can be when it isn’t expected or wanted, but coming on the heels of Turing’s last suggestion both men had the odd feeling that it was to be a call of some importance. Tovey nodded and Turing lifted the receiver.
“Hut four, Turing here… Yes… Yes… I see… he said what? You’re certain of this? At Gibraltar? Yes, of course! Send him at once, on the very next plane if you can do so safely. Otherwise we’ll handle the matter from Hut 4. Very good. Thank you, gentlemen.” He hung up the phone, his eyes alight with some surprise.
Admiral Tovey could see the hint of a smile on his face now. “Some news, Professor?”
“My God… that was MI6 out of Gibraltar. They picked up a man who may have something to do with Geronimo. We may not be able to get a man aboard that ship any time soon, Admiral, but we may just have a man from that ship-sitting in an interrogation room under the Rock at this very moment!”
Chapter 6
The car drove quickly along the narrow winding roadways carved in to the Rock, down from Sentinel Hill to Queens Road and then along Ward Way to turn north up the eastern coast towards the North Front Airfield. The field itself was a narrow rectangular strip that cut across the isthmus north of the Rock and extended out onto the bay, supported by limestone quarried out of the Rock itself over the last three years. The small airfield around it could support up to 100 fighters and several squadrons of twin engine Hudson Bombers, enough air power to provide a strong defense, yet also a highly vulnerable target from any hostile force to the north.
If Spain had ever thrown in with Hitler, their artillery could have made short work of the field, rendering it all but useless in a matter of hours. The 15,000 man garrison might hold out a while in the tunnels, but the lessons of Singapore and Corregidor proved that no fortress was invulnerable. Thirty-two miles of tunnels under the Rock were some comfort, but of limited real defensive value against a determined enemy. The Rock had no source of natural water beyond a series of catchment pools at the top of the 430 meter outcrop, designed solely to capture rainwater.
For these reasons, the British always feared their small bastion here was as vulnerable as it was important, and rumors of enemy plans to attack Gibraltar had given them fits since the outbreak of the war. There had been a plan, Operation Felix, that had been set aside when the Germans invaded Russia. Yet if the Germans could capture Gibraltar they would gain a commanding position from which to influence both naval theaters, the Atlantic and the Med, along with a deep water port that could hold and service Germany’s biggest ships. The capture of Gibraltar would drive a wedge of steel into the heart of the Royal Navy, or so Admiral Raeder believed and argued.
The detailed plans for this operation had been drawn up by the Wehrmacht in the Autumn of 1940 and personally signed by Hitler, reemphasized in Fuehrer Directive #18. It was only the failure of diplomacy that prevented the operation going forward earlier that year. Franco’s list of demands had run on and on. He worried over British reprisals should he join the Axis, a blockade or possibly even an invasion on his Atlantic coast. He insisted any German troops involved would have to wear Spanish Army uniforms as a point of honor. He asked for thousands of tons of wheat and other resources to feed his shattered state. He fretted over the possibility that the United States would shut down their extensive Telecom system in Spain. In the end Hitler became so frustrated with the man that he exclaimed he would rather have a tooth pulled than speak with him again.
Yet others in all three branches of service, had managed to persuade the Fuehrer to resurrect the old plan, codenamed and give it new life with a new name as well. Now called Operation Valkyrie, General Ludwig Kubler's
