Before Herries could bring his throwing arm down, he sensed the lurch of the bomber. He tried to move, but he was caught completely off balance and the Arado’s nose gave him a glancing blow to the side of the head. He fell full-length and lay frozen for an agonizing, hysterical split second as he watched the Arado’s nosewheel loom over his body.
21000 lbs of pressure crushed the traitor’s pelvis and his testicles to pulp in the same moment. Herries screamed, the noise rising to a howl, audible even above the engines, as the wheel trundled over his chest, splintering his ribs. Every last gulp of air was squeezed from his lungs, the vocal cords rattling until the wheel flattened his face.
Kruze felt little more than a bump as the Arado moved forward. His mind focused on the task ahead. He eased back on the throttles, making sure that the limiting jetpipe temperature of 6500 centigrade was not exceeded. He looked down to his rev-counters, saw both needles pass 6000 rpm and felt the slight change in engine tempo as the governors cut in. Now the aircraft could be handled with a little less caution.
He looked out, dipping the brakes with toe action on the rudder bars to line the aircraft up on the main runway, thankful that the smoke from the burning aircraft on the other side of the field shielded him from the marauders above.
He turned the aircraft onto the runway, set flaps to twenty-five degrees, scanning the instruments once more before opening up the engines to 8500 rpm. He almost stood on the brakes, felt the power of the aircraft as it strained to go, pushed the power setting up a little more, taking the revs to 8700, quickly checked fuel and burner pressure, plus the jetpipe temperature and then pulled his toes off the pedals.
The Arado shot down the runway like a wild mustang. Suddenly remembering the RATO bottles, he scanned the panel for the switch, found it and punched it home. There was a second kick as the rockets cut in, ramming him back into his seat.
Out of the corner of his eyes he saw a Meteor sweeping along the edge of the airfield, then bank tightly to try and get its guns to bear, but he knew he was already in the clear. Once in the air he could give the fighters the signal that proved it was him at the controls.
He pulled the bomber off the runway at 225 kph and pulled in the flaps a few seconds later. Then he hit the RATO jettison button and felt the aircraft buck a little, as the rocket packs fell away from the wing-tips. He leant forward, spotted the undercarriage selector and pushed it forward, hearing the clunk of all three wheels as they locked into the belly of the aircraft.
Suddenly he was out of the smoke and pulling up into the clear dawn sky. He checked the periscope mirror, saw a gaggle of Meteors about a mile behind him, and carefully moved the horns of his control column from right to left and back again.
The Arado’s wings responded to his touch, waggling easily and obviously.
The sign that would call them off.
He settled back in his seat, felt the sweat for the first time soaking his clothes, and banked the jet bomber to the north-east.
Fleming pulled up to one thousand feet and held the Meteor in a tight bank over Oberammergau, searching for signs of life below the smoke that hung like a blanket above the airfield.
His first thought was for his fellow pilots. He had seen one of the six Meteors go down, the aircraft taking a direct hit from a 37mm Fliegerabwehrkanone mounted on a tower at the edge of the base. The fiery trail described by the fighter as it ploughed from two hundred feet into the forest beyond the runway still left a scar across his vision. He blinked again, trying to rid himself of it, but the memory stuck with him.
His second was for Kruze. If the Rhodesian had been down there, there was no chance now of him fulfilling his mission. Before the smoke of their strafing run closed in over the airfield, Fleming had witnessed the lines of broken fighter-bombers at their dispersal points on the edge of the runway, in the lee of the woods. There were no more Arados left at Oberammergau, Staverton could have that in his report when he returned to Stabitz.
“Wolf leader to Wolfpack,” he spoke into his mask, “break off and head for home. Breakfast time.” An empty feeling inside. Was Kruze down there, looking up at them and wondering what the hell they were playing at? More likely he was rotting in a Gestapo jail, waiting for another bout with the interrogator, or lying dead in a Munich backstreet.
Five replies came back over his headset. Four acknowledgements.
One warning. A young pilot’s voice, vibrant, excited.
“Wolf leader, there’s one of them lifting off now, pulling up through the smoke, off your rear starboard quarter. Christ, the cheeky bastard’s waggling his wings at us. Thinks he’s got away with it. Can I take a pot at him?”
“No! I have to be sure!”
“Sure? Of what? It’s got bloody great black crosses on it!” Bewilderment and frustration in the young fighter pilot’s voice. Because of the change in plan there had been no need to tell them about Kruze. How could they understand what he, Fleming, was feeling now?
Fleming strained over his shoulder for a look. The Arado was clearly visible, soaring above the pall of destruction, wings rocking gently in the early morning sunlight.
He watched the wings a moment too long, willing the lateral motion to be the result of some terrible coincidence, a turbulent updraught from the airfield, or a gust of wind off the mountains beyond.
The signal. As clear as day. Kruze.
He peeled the Meteor off in the direction of the Arado, pushing the throttles to the stops. Despite the range of the German aircraft, a good two miles away from him by now, he still had a height advantage and, while the Arado was still climbing, a little extra speed.
He dipped the transmit button. “Get back to base, Wolfpack. This one’s mine.”
He could still catch him. Had to catch him. Branodz was only thirty minutes’ flight time away and Kruze was heading straight for it, three bombs strapped under his wings. 3000 lbs of high explosive that would rip through the Alpine headquarters of the architect of Archangel, turning it into matchwood, then plough on into the compound beyond, where the chemical weapons were stored.
He was gaining on the bomber, perhaps halving the range since the moment he had first spotted it pulling away from the airfield. But Kruze’s speed was picking up now. The Arado levelled, then scudded between two mountain peaks. Fleming flew on, keeping his eyes fixed on the point where the bomber had entered the valley. He pulled the Meteor round the edge of a grey, jagged peak, his left wing tip dangerously close to the trees which grew intermittently on its rough scree slope. He held his breath for the moment the Arado would spring into view, flipped off the safety catch of the gun-button on his joystick in preparation for the warning burst of 20mm that would make the Rhodesian turn, maybe even turn and fight in the skies above the mountains. But he would see the Meteor, recognize the markings of the aircraft from Stabitz and know instinctively that something was wrong, that Guardian Angel was finished.
A bank of cloud, like a wall stretching from one side of the valley to the other and as high as the peaks themselves, rushed to meet him. Too late to do anything about it, he saw the two hundred feet of clearance between the base of the thick rolling mist and the ground, then everything went white.
Fleming fought the panic. The mountains rose around him, invisible, but there. He could almost feel them reaching out to his wing tips. There was no time to look to his attitude indicator, he just prayed his wings were level with the surface of the earth and pulled back on the stick, waiting for the split-second of jarring noise, as hurtling metal thumped into bare, gargantuan rock, that would precede infinite blackness.