Designated Targets

He pointed a control stick at the wide screen that had been affixed to the brick wall less than a week earlier. Everyone turned toward it as the display winked into life and a map of the British Isles and Western Europe appeared. It was always a marvel to see these things, but Churchill was frustrated by the size of the screen. He privately felt that he could get a much better appreciation of developments on the old plotting table.

“Real-time drone surveillance and signals intercepts indicate that German forces are moving rapidly into final position for an assault on the British Isles. Army Group Central is on the move out of Tours, Orleans, and Lemours. Army Group North is consolidating rapidly in Caen, Dieppe, and Calais.”

As Lieutenant Williams spoke, icons depicting the various units began to move north toward the Channel.

“The Luftwaffe has ninety percent of its five operational air fleets either up or in preflight. Some formations are already moving into position for raids on all air-defense-sector assets. Allied air units are being vectored on to the incoming hostiles by Fighter Command via Trident’s battlespace management system.”

Churchill saw Air Chief Marshal Portal nod vigorously.

“Kriegsmarine capital ships are moving out of Norwegian waters at full steam. At least sixty U-boats are converging on the Channel from the North Sea ahead of them, taking up a position between the Tirpitz battle group and the Royal Navy’s Home Fleet.”

The lieutenant flicked his controller at the screen again. As Churchill watched, a mosaic of smaller windows filled the screen. They seemed to show movies of airfields with transport planes banked up.

“The first German forces we can expect to directly engage will be airborne units. The Fallschirmjager which dropped onto Crete. They have regrouped and will most likely be joined by specialist Waffen-SS airborne units which have been hastily put together in the last few months. At this stage, we cannot provide a projected drop zone with any certainty. But there are a limited number of options. It appears the assault will go ahead without the Luftwaffe establishing air superiority . . .”

A chorus of mumbled astonishment greeted that statement of the obvious. It was a measure of Hitler’s desperation that he would persist in the face of such odds. A measure of his criminal insanity, too, thought Churchill.

“Taken in concert with the capture of multinational elements and technology by the Axis powers, it does raise the prospect that the Germans have rushed the development of some weapons systems with which they hope to tip the balance in their favor. As of this moment, however, none of our sigint or Elint scans have returned data which would help clarify that issue.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” said Churchill, who did not wish the meeting to descend into an undergraduate bull session about the specter of Nazi superweapons. “And so to our reply, General?”

General Wavell, recently returned from North Africa with General Montgomery to coordinate the defense of the British Isles, got to his feet.

He turned to an old-fashioned map at the opposite end of the room to the PM.

“We expect a seaborne assault across the narrowest section of the Channel, landing at Dover, probably near Ramsgate and Margate. Army Group Central is expected to make their attempt between Weymouth and Sidmouth, placing immediate pressure on the defensive position to the south of Birmingham and Wolverhampton. These are the logical avenues of German advance and we have prepared our response accordingly . . .”

Wavell frowned and seemed to lose himself in the map for a moment.

“Of course,” he resumed, “it is entirely possible that the attack will not follow a logical course. Many of the Wehrmacht’s better commanders have been lost to the purges since the Transition. We shall not have to face Rommel on our own turf, but Field Marshal Kesselring will probably do just as well. And while the Germans do not have our advantage in drone technology, they have had enough old-fashioned planes flying overhead to make a reasonable guess about our preparations. With this in mind, and given that they can probably only get four divisions ashore in the first wave—”

Churchill sighed audibly at that. Only four divisions!

“—we will hold in reserve the Canadian First Army, Free French Second Armored, and American infantry divisions on the GHQ Line, with our XXX Corps armored and infantry units advanced to engage the enemy at the bridgehead, wherever that may be.”

Wavell swept his hand across the breadth of the map covering all of the southern counties.

“The imponderable question is where General Ramcke’s paratroopers will land. Here I think we find the hinge of victory or defeat. Without control of the air or the sea-lanes, the Germans must plan on massive losses for their seaborne forces. We know they have made a massive investment in rebuilding the Fallschirmjager, and Himmler has personally overseen the creation of a Waffen-SS air-assault division. Wherever they land, we must fix them and destroy them. To this end, I am holding in reserve the Guards Armored and the First Infantry Divisions.”

Wavell, who had been reading from a paper on the table in front of him, looked up from his eyebrows at Lieutenant Williams.

“For what it’s worth, the SAS Regiment has been attached to the First Infantry and will do whatever it is they do when we know where Ramcke has set down.”

Churchill ignored Wavell’s bad grace. He had faith in the young prince and his merry men. They seemed just the right sort of bastards to turn loose on the Nazis.

31

LONDON, ENGLAND

RAF Biggin Hill in the London borough of Bromley was one of the most important airfields in the defense of London during the Battle of Britain. Built at the end of the First World War, it sat on high ground above the village of the same name. The first RAF flights controlled by radio flew out of there, and the first kill of the Second World War was credited to a fighter from Biggin Hill. It had been the object of endless attacks during the Battle of Britain, suffering massive damage, which almost but never quite closed down its operations.

Three of Halabi’s crew were quartered there, coordinating battlespace management with the ’temps, and supervising a number of experimental programs, such as the Super Spitfire night fighter squadron. Those twelve prototype planes were located in hardened bunkers at the eastern end of the airfield, protected by radar-controlled Bofors guns. They weren’t specifically targeted, but they were amongst the first casualties of the incoming strike.

Of the Trident crew on station at Biggin Hill that morning, only Petty Officer Fiona Hobbins was on duty. The others, a flight sergeant and a pilot officer with an advanced electrical engineering degree, were both asleep in their billets down in the village. Both had worked through the previous thirty-six hours.

The Trident flashed an alert to all her shore-based personnel, twenty-nine officers and others of various rank, as soon as the threat of the incoming missile strike was detected. When Hobbins’s flexipad began screeching, she was lying on a gurney under one of the Spitfires. She didn’t even bother to look at the screen—she’d been through hundreds of drills, and five actual alerts. She just spun off the gurney and started yelling as loudly as she could.

“Incoming! Get out. Get out! Move! Move! Move!”

Five seconds later, sirens began to wail all over the base.

Twenty-two men and women had been working in the hardened hangar when the alert came through. That had surprised Petty Officer Hobbins at first. She’d come to Biggin Hill expecting to find an exclusively male domain, but had been chuffed to discover a large number of women “auxiliaries.” Equal opportunity debates were by the by now, though.

Everyone was running for their lives.

Hobbins hammered out of the aircraft shelter, overtaking a couple of lead-footed ’temps who’d spent a few too many quid on the real ale down at the Black Horse in the village.

“Move your fat arses,” she yelled at them.