Frank Barnes was emboldened by the lack of response to his comment. “And look at you. You’re supposed to be couriers for some important documents. An old man and two women. Weak, undisciplined civilians. You need to be in peak condition and have specialized training for this sort of thing. I’ve a good mind to make a report to Washington on this. What would happen if Nazi agents attacked you? Huh? Suppose a Nazi came at you with a knife?” Barnes pointed at Achillea. “What would you do? Huh?”
“I’d take it out of his hand.”
“This isn’t funny. A Nazi could take that case away from you right now. Look, let me teach you what to do.” Barnes reached into a pocket and pushed a pencil across the table. “Pretend that’s a knife and come at me with it and I’ll show you the tricks.”
Achillea looked down at the pencil. “No need to pretend. Uhhh, wait a minute.” She got up and walked across to the counter where a selection of chef s knives hung on the wall. She inspected them for a minute before selecting one, not quite the longest but one with a broad, strong blade. Then she touched the edge with her thumb and pushed her lower lip out in disgust. Blunt as a spoon. She disappeared through the service hatch and a few seconds later the sound of a knife being drawn across a sharpening steel rang through the empty cafe.
Frank Barnes started sweating slightly. “I’m only trying to help you know. This is a dangerous business, too dangerous for amateurs. You should leave it to us.” Igrat smiled at him; in the other corner, Henry just stared
“Madam, you can’t come in here. Staff only.” The cafe manager’s voice was smooth and cultured, although muffled by the closed service door.
“Hand please.” Achillea’s voice was abrupt. A split second later there was an outraged squeal followed by an irritated “still blunt.” The sounds of a knife being sharpened grew in energy.
“Uh, I just hope my old war wound won’t interfere with this.” Barnes was sweating heavily now and glancing around. The cafe was still empty. Then the service door swung open and Achillea stepped through. Her eyes fixed on Barnes and she dropped into her habitual crouch, knife in her right hand, down low, point aimed unerringly at Barnes’ groin.
“Err, good Lord, is that the time? I have to make my scheduled call to headquarters.” Barnes tried to rise, but his foot got caught in something and he half-tripped. Igrat steadied him and helped him to his feet. “Perhaps we can schedule this another day.” He was backing towards the door now, colliding with it, trying to open it the wrong way before finally getting out. He climbed into a passing taxi and was swept away.
“I wonder where he’s going.” McCarty sounded vaguely amused. Achillea sighed with disappointment and put the knife back in its rack.
“I don’t know, but he’s in for an interesting time when he gets there.” Igrat sounded smug as she reached inside her blouse. “I’ve got his wallet.”
Gusoyn’s snort of laughter almost caused him to crash the car as he backed out of the parking spot. “When did you give it back to him?”
“Give it back? Moi?” Igrat’s eyebrows arched. “It’s going to his boss as soon as we’re in the office. That fool could have messed up the delivery with his grandstanding.”
McCarty nodded, for all the incident’s funny side, it could have been a serious breach that endangered the information pipeline and they were all aware that the information they carried was literally priceless. Then he frowned. “Iggie? Wasn’t there some money in there?”
“There was.” Igrat confirmed. One of McCarty’s eyebrows lifted. “New hat. And the cutest little switchblade for Achillea. It was mine by right of conquest after all. To the victor the spoils and all that.”
The eerie wailing of the sirens sounded the all-clear and the room relaxed. A few seconds later the telephone rang and Phillip Stuyvesant picked it up. He listened, absent-mindedly nodding as if the person on the other end could see him them acknowledged the message briefly.
“Three missiles Sir. One shot down, the other two hit south of here, down around Alexandria. Both exploded in open country, no casualties this time. My guess is they were trying for the torpedo factory.”
“Not a damned chance, not with those things. If they were aiming for anything specific it was for the East Coast and they did well to hit that.” President Thomas E. Dewey sounded relieved. The wild inaccuracy of the Fi-103 ‘Doodlebug’ didn’t mean that they couldn’t do a lot of damage.
“Coastal have backtracked the missiles and we’ve got a good fix on the sub that launched them. Navy PBJs and a hunter-killer group are prosecuting it now. They won’t get away.”
That was a bit hopeful, Stuyvesant thought. The casualty rate for submarines launching missile attacks on the East Coast is around 50 percent. A bit safer for them than attacking convoys but not that much more. Outside, Washington was shrouded in darkness. Anybody breaking the blackout would be on the receiving end of a shouted “Put out that light!” and a stiff fine. That was the lucky outcome. It was not unknown for people careless with their lights to be accused of signaling to submarines off shore. Their neighbors took a dim view of that supposed act. As a matter of fact, the FBI had been unable to substantiate a single accusation of signaling to German submarines, but the very fact the accusations were being made was a symptom of a deeper problem.
“So, Seer, progress on Downfall?”
“We’re getting started Sir. For all its faults, JANSP-23 provides us with a base to start from. It’s given us the magnitude of the task we have to undertake even if it overstates the measures needed to execute the mission.” Stuyvesant, already better known in military planning circles as ‘The Seer’ after his USSBC code-name, paused for a second. The Joint Army-Navy Strategic Plan No.23 had enormously overstated the number of atomic devices needed to destroy German war-making potential. It wasn’t that they’d overstated the task; they had underestimated the sheer destructive power of the new weapons. It was easy to say ‘equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT’ but another thing entirely to appreciate the incredible destruction that implied. Only when one saw the mushroom cloud boiling upwards, felt the ground shuddering under one’s feet, heard that all-encompassing, crushing roar did the reality sink home. But then, nobody had, until Trinity back in August. Stuyvesant had been there and he had realized then that ‘destroying German war-making potential’ with these weapons actually meant totally destroying the country.
It quite surprised him that the realization was taking so long to sink in. Didn’t people realize that the moment the doctrine of strategic bombardment was accepted, it axiomatically meant the complete destruction of the target country? Because it was impossible to draw the line between where the war-making potential of a country ended and the purely civilian began? Years before, when Mitchell and his supporters had proposed Strategic Bombardment as a ‘humane’ alternative to the slaughter of the Western Front in World War Two, Stuyvesant had seen where it would lead. As the doctrine had gained strength and its supporters had seen it become an accepted doctrine worldwide, his worst fears had been confirmed. Technology was advancing so fast that it had outrun the ability of people to understand or control it.
“We’re convinced it has to be The Big One?”
“Yes indeed Sir. It has to be. What we have is a one-shot deal. We have two complementary military secrets of equal importance, nuclear weapons and the ability of the B-36 to overfly enemy defenses. If either is prematurely compromised, the whole thing falls apart. The first blow has to be cataclysmic, so appalling in its power that the enemy cannot continue the war. Anything less just doesn’t have the necessary impact. I think even General Groves is coming around to that opinion now.”