Dirk and Sig arrived at the shack at 0937 hours. They were early, keyed up by the heady mixture of excitement and apprehension.
Dirk fished a key from his pocket and unlocked the big padlock Oskar had placed on the door to the nearby shack. They stepped in and closed the door behind them.
The place was dimly lit. The windows to the right and left of the door were sooted over. The shack was cluttered with rusty railroad equipment and old tools. In a corner lay a stack of empty sacks. Dirk strode to it and pulled the sacks aside.
It was all there. Two one-pound cans of borax. Nine sticks of dynamite — Oskar was handing them a bonus. Six detonator caps and about twelve feet of standard fuse — more than enough. A large roll of electrical tape — and two Panzerfausts. Dirk handled the weapons curiously.
The device consisted of a three-foot-long metal tube about an inch and a half in diameter. It had a simple backsight that could be raised from the tube, and a trigger. The hollow-charge warhead was affixed in the front of the tube. Shaped like two cones joined at their bases, it was about six inches in diameter at its widest point, at the edge of which the foresight pin was mounted. A metal plate screwed onto the warhead itself gave the simple firing instructions.
Dirk carefully dismantled the first Panzerfaust. The tail stem of the warhead had four flexible fins wrapped around it so it could fit into the firing tube. He left it intact. Inside the tube was a small charge of gunpowder, which would propel the bomb from the tube when fired. It was not enough to bother with.
He put the two separated warheads aside and picked up the dynamite. He would make three charges. One large one for the steel door, two smaller ones for the laboratory.
He decided to use five sticks for the large charge, two for each of the smaller ones. He placed them together carefully and wrapped tape around to hold them. He handled the stuff with respect. He did not know how old it was: how stable — or how dangerous. He cut a length of fuse and set one end of it in one of the sensitive detonator caps. He had no crimping tool, so he put the cap in his mouth and crimped it onto the fuse with his teeth. He knew a split second of icy fear as he bit down. His mission could end right there… With deliberate care he made a slit in one of the dynamite sticks, pressed the detonator cap into it and fastened it in place with tape. Finally he wound the fuse around the charge.
While he was preparing the smaller charges, Sig chose the tools he and Oskar would need to dismantle the valve on the heavy-water storage-tank pipe. Oskar had left a selection in the shack.
Dirk glanced at his watch. 0949 hours. It was time.
They went outside to the signal mast. A telephone box was mounted on it. Dirk opened the box. He took a deep breath. He cranked the handle.
“Yard emergency!” he cried, his voice excited “Quickly!” For a brief moment he waited. Then—“Emergency! This is Weber. At Signal Post Forty-nine. I need an ambulance. At once! There's been an accident!” He listened tensely. “Hurry!” He hung up.
He looked at Sig.
They were committed.
Quickly they returned to the shack and went inside. Oskar had estimated it would take the ambulance twenty minutes to get to the post. It had seemed a long time to Dirk, but Oskar ought to know Apparently the Germans didn't break their asses over an accident to a foreign worker.
Again he glanced at his watch. 0952 hours.
They had eighteen minutes to wait.
He could relax. He tried.
But he could feel the muscles knotting in the back of his neck….
Oskar nursed the small switching engine along the branch track toward the Haigerloch Sperrzone. He had maintained yard speed for the entire distance. As agreed. He consulted his watch. It was 9:52. Ahead he could see the railroad gate in the barbed-wire fence. It was closed. He was due there in three minutes.
He looked back at the single flatcar behind the engine. Two large, heavy crates were lashed down on it. For the hundredth time he looked them over. Critically. They looked good. They ought to do the trick.
He turned to Gisela standing tensely beside him He gave her a smile. She returned it tremulously. She looked strangely alien in the field-gray Wehrmachthelferin uniform.
“It will go well, my little one,” he said encouragingly. “You will see.”
Gisela nodded. “I will be fine,” she said softly.
Oskar eased the engine to a stop in front of the closed railroad gate. He jumped to the ground, followed by Gisela. He strode to the heavy-wire gate. Two SS guards eyed him suspiciously, their weapons at the ready. Oskar recognized one of them from his previous trips to the area. A fellow named Kurt. Couldn't hurt.
“Open the gate, Kurt,” he demanded. “I cannot unload the damned crates out here!”.
“We have orders to let nothing through,” one of the guards said gruffly.
“What?” Oskar sounded incredulous. “Have they not told you?” He pointed to the crates. “Look!” he said. “It is a special shipment. Look at all the damned signs all over the crates. It is an important shipment. From Stadtilm! Can you not read? Special Handling, it says. Urgent!”
The guards looked uncertainly at one another.
“Stadtilm?” the guard named Kurt asked tentatively.
“Read it yourself, Kurt,” Oskar said. “The damned stenciling is big enough.”
It might work, he thought. It had to. The Ami agent Dirk had been right. Stadtilm was important. A magic word. As he had thought it would be from having watched the cars marked STADTILM on the siding during their orientation trip to the Sperrzone. Those cars had been under heavy guard.
“And how the devil will I get the damned things unloaded,” Oskar asked querulously, “with these fat-headed new rules forbidding foreign workers in the area?” He looked at the SS guards. “Or are you going to do the job?”
“Wait here,” the SS guard said sourly.
He walked to the guardhouse Oskar and Gisela could see him making a call.
Gisela could feel her legs trembling. She tried desperately to stop them. She dreaded that the SS guards would notice. She thought of Dirk. His was the far more dangerous part of the job.
She watched the SS man return from the guardhouse.
“Security has no information about any special shipment,” he said, his face grim.
“Dammit!”. Oskar exploded “Is that my fault? Do I run your outfit? Very well, I will take the damned crates back to the yard. They can sit there and rot, for all I care. I have done my duty. I am off the hook!” He shrugged elaborately. “Let the Bonzen bitch — let the big-shots bitch! It is no skin off my ass!” He turned to leave.
“You are ordered to go to the Kommandantur,” the SS man said.
“Delays,” Oskar grumbled. “Damned delays.” He turned to Gisela. “Come with me, Fräulein Führerin,” he said. “Die Beamte—the bureaucrats — are waiting!”
“You go alone, Weber,” the SS guard said. “She stays.”
“Oh, brilliant!” Oskar exclaimed “The Führerin is from the Reichsforschungsrat—the Reich Research Council. From Kernphysikalische Forschung—Atomic Research. She has all the papers. Waybills The works. You don't think she will just dump the damned crates and leave without getting an official receipt, do you?”