one.
Scholn nodded at one of his men. ‘Jan, check inside.’
The soldier slung his MP-40 over one shoulder and pulled himself up inside the cargo hold of the plane. Scholn heard a muffled shout of surprise and a moment later a solitary mechanic emerged from the plane with his hands in the air; behind him Jan emerged intently studying a deck of playing cards. He jogged over to Scholn and showed him the deck.
‘Nice… very nice,’ he nodded appreciatively. The women on this deck weren’t just topless. He cast a glance at the American mechanic, who looked as embarrassed as he was frightened. ‘I presume he was playing solitaire?’
Jan grinned.
Scholn looked down at the deck. ‘When we’re done today, I think I’ll have another look through these.’ He passed the deck back to Jan, who pocketed them quickly.
‘Shit,’ said Buller as he studied the men twenty yards away, outside the guard hut. There were two of them that he could see, both had rifles slung over their shoulders. There might possibly be a third inside the hut; one of the men seemed to be having a conversation with someone inside. He turned to face his squad, all of them kneeling with him behind a stack of crates and awaiting instructions.
It looked like they were going to have to go in shooting. Buller wasn’t so much concerned about any bullets that might whistle towards them, but if the guards weren’t taken totally by surprise there was a chance one of them might slip away out of the front entrance and down the dirt track into town.
He cast a glance over his shoulder towards the hangar. He could see several men walking with raised arms away from the parked-up DC3s towards the building, escorted by another, which even at this distance could clearly be seen to be holding a gun. He turned to check out Koch’s progress and saw men being pulled unceremoniously to the floor at gunpoint. If either of the guards were to turn towards them, they would see something was wrong.
‘Buller?’ prompted one of his men. ‘What do we do?’
Whatever it is, it’s got to be quick.
Buller turned back to study the guards just in time to see one of them pace casually along the length of the barricade and turn round to pace back. He saw the guard look up from his feet tiredly towards the hangar and stop. The guard cocked his head, and then they heard him call out to the other one.
Fuck it, decision’s made for me.
‘Let’s get ’em!’ Buller rose from behind the stack of crates and fired a volley from the hip as he ran. His men emerged behind him, quickly spreading out and racing towards the two guards who now were beginning to sluggishly react to the alarming sight of ten German soldiers only a few dozen yards away and rapidly approaching them. One of them was swifter than the others in coming to his senses and swung his rifle down, firing in rapid succession four unaimed shots towards them. All of them missed wildly, thudding harmlessly into the wet ground. The other guard seemed to have woken up now and dived for cover behind a small sandbag bunker beside the barricade. The first guard dropped to his knee and prepared to fire some aimed shots this time. Buller found himself feeling a fleeting instant of sympathy for the guard as he aimed his sub-machine gun at the young man. It seemed like he’d been the only American on the airfield with his wits about him. He squeezed off half a dozen rounds in a short burst. Three puffs of crimson appeared in front of his chest and the young American was pushed backwards off his feet. Buller’s men covered the ground quickly and no more than three or four seconds later they were vaulting over the sandbag bunker. The other guard instantly dropped his weapon and threw his arms up quickly.
The hut.
Buller looked towards the open door of the hut and saw a flash of movement from within. The door to the hut slammed shut with a bang.
‘Someone inside!’ he shouted.
One of his squad, Bergin, rushed the door and kicked it violently open. From inside Buller heard several shots being fired and Bergin dived back out of the doorway.
There were another three shots that followed the direction Bergin had thrown himself in and ragged holes appeared in the flimsy wooden wall of the hut, one of them inches above his head.
Screw this.
‘Down!’ Buller shouted at Bergin and swung his MP-40 towards the hut. He emptied his magazine at the wall at about waist height. The rest of the squad followed suit while Bergin hugged the ground as a shower of wood splinters fluttered down onto him.
The firing ceased a few seconds later, their ears rung from the noise. The wall of the hut looked like a cheese grater.
Buller took a few steps forward and kicked at the door. It swung in quickly and bounced off a desk inside with a flimsy rattle. Buller raised his weapon and sidestepped into the hut.
As the acrid smoke cleared he could see the body of the third guard slumped over the crackling, hissing remains of a radio. The body slowly slid to the floor with a thump. One hand still holding tightly to the radio receiver.
‘Shit… I think we’re in for some company.’
Chapter 40
It was a good five miles along the coast road before Mark eased his foot off the pedal and another one before he was happy enough to slow down and pull over. He brought the Cherokee to a standstill down a slip road hidden from the main coastal interstate and applied the handbrake. He left the engine running, though.
‘You going to tell me what’s going on?’ he managed to calmly ask after a while.
‘Jesus, Mark. Those bastards were going to kill me!’
‘I noticed.’
Chris shook his head. ‘My God, if you hadn’t come in when you did
… Jesus.’
‘Yup,’ Mark answered drily. There was anger bubbling up in his voice. ‘You sure you’re telling me everything, Chris? Because all of a sudden, this has escalated from being an interesting find to being, well… I’ll be honest here, a fucking hazardous situation!’ He took a deep breath to compose himself once more.
‘You’re right, there’s a little more that’s gone on, Mark. I’m sorry, I should’ve kept you in the picture. But then, I honestly didn’t expect something like this to happen. I mean, for crying out loud, whatever happened with that plane out there, it was over half a century ago! Why the fuck does someone want to kill us for finding it?’
‘This is America, Chris… not good old England. The goons over here don’t box by the Marquis of Queensberry rules, if you know what I mean.’
‘Shit, yeah, I noticed already.’
Both men sat in silence for a moment, both still recovering from the experience.
‘So you going to tell me what’s been happening, then?’ said Mark finally.
Chris told him as quickly as he could about the call from Wallace, the old man on the beach, McGuire, and then the two men he’d seen down by the jetty. The disjointed events over the last few days, each on their own, had seemed much less disturbing in isolation, but putting them together now for Mark’s benefit, they tied together in a chilling way.
‘Jesus, Chris, it sounds like we’ve stumbled on something we probably shouldn’t have.’
‘I know, and I’ll be honest, this is really making me shit myself. Who do you think those guys were working for?’
Mark scratched his beard. ‘I dunno. CIA? Some other government agency?’
Chris looked out of the window at the blackness of the night, trying in his mind to colour the whole picture in. But there were so many gaps. It seemed they knew just enough to present a threat to somebody out there, but not
