"The solution is to destroy the ones on this side, and close the gate to more."
The general looked troubled. He'd suddenly remembered a report he'd seen that morning, that fitted nicely with Macurdy's debrief: An English lawyer and suspected German agent, Wesley Perham, had died of a heart attack the day before, in his office across from Tenley Park.
"What would you think of having the schloss bombed?" he asked. "Wouldn't that take care of it? With no harder evidence than I have. I can't get a squadron of 17s for a target like that, but I can get a flight of Mitchells with 500 pounders. I can't talk about sorcerers from another world, but I can come up with something acceptable to Bomber Command."
Macurdy shook his head. "It's too uncertain. The walls are thick, big stone blocks. They might make a wreck of it, but they'd need to put at least a couple of bombs right through the roof into more or less the right places. There are two rooms of TNT stored in the basement-that's in my debrief-but they wouldn't likely blow, much short of taking a direct hit."
"But I could blow them." Tension had tightened Macurdy's chest, his guts; this was really important to him. "I can blow them, and I can probably shut the gate. For good. To keep any more of them from getting through."
He changed tack. "If you think there's one chance in 50 that I'm right and they're real, it ought to be worth it to invest one man in the mission."
The general blew through pursed lips. "I'll tell you what, lieutenant. Bring me one of those aliens. I'll land you on the lake at night with half a dozen good men and a rubber raft. You grab one of the aliens, get him to the plane, and fly him to Naples, where we can examine him. You can even do the interrogating. The whole thing can be over with ten days from today." He paused, his eyes challenging. "What do you say?"
Despite himself, Macurdy grinned. "If I can do it my way."
"What way is that?"
"Alone. Plus a pilot. Because stealth is the key. But if I get you one, I want authority to go back and blow the schloss. And the gate."
Donovan stared at him. This was a compelling man, but his story was strange! Strange! Also, it seemed to Donovan that Macurdy wasn't being entirely candid. He still looked troubled when he stood up and shook Macurdy's hand. "Young man," he said, "you've got a deal. If you keep your half, IT keep mine. But don't talk about it to anyone except Major Von Lutzow. He'll be your mission officer again. He believes in you, and you've worked well together."
Macurdy's only moderately fictitious plan required making the flight on consecutive nights-the first to land him on the lake, the second to pick him up. The general signed it approved.
His pilot was a character out of Blue Book magazine: a burly, mustachioed, heavily tattooed man named MacNab, who looked part oriental and liked to wear kilts. The word was, he was a quarter Samoan, a quarter Chinese, and half Scot, and had learned French as a boy in Samoa. It was Von Lutzow who'd tabbed him for the mission. He claimed the man could fly a garbage truck, had the right mixture of caution and fearlessness, and was the best night navigator in the OSS, giving examples from missions over southern France.
With information from the Air Force's meteorological office at Norfolk House, Macurdy scheduled their departure a couple of days later than he might have, to take advantage of the moon.
On the night selected, it would cross the meridian of the schloss at 1:02, and on the next at 1:56, which was important to the part of the mission plan he was keeping to himself gating into Hithmearc to get his captive. To take one from the schloss would be much harder, and alarming both the SS and the crown prince, would make his followup mission almost impossible.
Also important, it was near the end of April, and the nights were getting short. It would only be fully night for about six hours at the schloss, and a route was necessary that avoided Axis airspace by day, while limiting exposure to German air defenses.
On the night of their flight, MacNab wore not kilt but a coverall, while Macurdy wore a paratrooper's jumpsuit. They took off from Naples at dusk, in a light flying boat: a twin-engined, three-seat Grumman Widgeon. They would cross the boot of Italy, and avoid German-held territory as long as possible by flying northwestward up the Adriatic for more than two hours. This left a hop of less than an hour and a half across Veneto and the Italy-Austrian Alps to land on der Kiefersee, the pilot gliding in the last few miles with reduced power.
Macurdy's experiences with long flights over water had left him apprehensive about coming down on target. MacNab, on the other hand, took it all casually, and Macurdy kept his concern to himself.
MacNab found der Kiefersee without difficulty. After deliberately bypassing it three miles to the west, he made their approach from the north, gliding lengthwise over the long narrow lake. After landing, they taxied a short distance almost to the heavily shadowed west shore. There Macurdy dropped the anchor in water surprisingly deep, and helped MacNab refuel the overhead gas tanks from 4-gallon jerry cans. Then, after inflating his small rubber boat from the attached COQ bottle, he paddled to shore, where he deflated it, then carried it and the paddle back into the woods. There, by a jutting rock outcrop that marked the place, he hid them in a patch of fir saplings.
From there he hiked around the end, traveling light, his only weapons a Fairbairn knife and his.45 caliber Colt automatic. An incendiary device, a pair of handcuffs, and some nylon suspension cord rode in appropriate pockets.
Shortly he came to the four-wheel-drive road and started up the Witches' Ridge. He might have hurried, but the forest was too dark for jogging, even with the nearly full moon. He was having second thoughts now: It would be far easier to ignore his agreement with the general-sneak into the schloss, hole up in the cellar, and blow up the building. He knew what he was up against there, or thought he did, and had already worked out how to pull it off. This capture mission, on the other hand, was full of unknowns. But a deal was a deal.
The gate hadn't opened yet. He couldn't be sure, of course, that it would, but if it remained on the schedule it had followed after that night of Voitik sorcery, it would open within-he looked at his phosphorescent watch face-within twenty minutes.
He'd nearly reached the crest when he felt the gate activate. If it stayed open as long as it had before, he had more than enough time. On the top he could feel it tug at him, and there, where the trees were more sparse, the moonlight let him trot, feeling the pull more and more strongly. Abruptly he experienced the now familiar indigo darkness, the bass resonance as much felt as heard-and tumbled sprawling into straw. He was in Hithmearc, in the gatehouse.
Scrambling to his feet, he crouched, drew his Fairbairn knife, and looked around. Here it was early afternoon. No one had been expected; no one was there waiting. Hopefully someone was around, but for now…
The only exit faced the hostel, so he sat down next to the doorway, back to the wall, and re-sheathed his knife. If necessary he'd wait till evening, he decided, before snooping around. His cloak had collapsed in transit-he could feel the difference-and he left it deactivated.
Three minutes later he heard footfalls, as someone stepped in no more than five feet from him-a uniformed, spear-carrying Voitu who failed to see him. Macurdy let him get well inside, then spoke in German: "Guten Tag, mein Herr."