Authors: The Sands of Sakkara (html)
Schellenberg smiled. 'We have a
little trick up our sleeves that should resolve the particular problem you
speak of, if it comes up. But all in good time, Jack. You'll get to know the
full facts before you depart. But be aware that Skorzeny's part of the
operation will be done at lightning speed, with no hanging about. After the
paratroops land, and you consult with Skorzeny and furnish him with all the
relevant details he'll need, you'll be transporting him and his men straight to
where the targets are, with no unnecessary detours, I hope.'
He put aside the map of
surroundings, and spread it out on the table. 'And now to the tricky bit, the
Mena House at
where we assume the Allied leaders will be staying. All we know for certain is
that the area around it has been heavily fortified and put under strict guard.
We have some precise details of the hotel layout, from the usual tourist
information published before the war, and we'll study that this afternoon. But
I expect Besheeba to have more exact information when you rendezvous in
numbers, defence details of the compound, and so on. However, I repeat, the
main point is, before our attack can commence you'll have to find a way of
getting inside the compound grounds and confirming that Roosevelt and Churchill
are being quartered there. And if so, where exactly. Getting in - and out again
with the information you need - is the difficult job. But you've got to do it
somehow, and without being detected.'
Schellenberg pointed to the
can achieve that, you'll need to secure and hold this airfield, here about
twenty minutes' drive from the hotel - so Skorzeny's men can land safely. We
had considered parachuting them in, but it's too risky. Their parachutes could
easily be spotted from the air and the alarm raised. The airstrip itself is ten
kilometers south of
near a town called Shabramant. It's a training field belonging to the Royal
Egyptian Air Force, an insignificant organization that's largely symbolic, and
the airfield's only very occasionally used by the British and Americans. From
Besheeba's past intelligence reports, it would seem it's poorly guarded, but
considering Cairo's about to host a visit from Roosevelt and Churchill, that
might not be the case. Again, a problem you'll have to solve once you get
there.'
'How in God's name are you going
to get a couple of planeloads of SS paratroops past Allied air defenses?'
Schellenberg smiled at Haider.
'There are always ways and means. And basically it's the exact same way we're
going to get you in. It's rather ingenious, really. But as I said, you'll have
to wait with bated breath for that particular surprise, and a few others into
the bargain. As for getting you out afterwards, I'll give you precise details
long before you depart, but at present the intention is you'll make your way back
to Shabramant, where one of our aircraft will be waiting to fly you out. Along
with Besheeba, I might add. He'll have outlived his usefulness in
this. If things go horribly wrong at Shabramant which they won't - Besheeba
will have already arranged an alternative escape route for you. He'll give you
details when you arrive.'
'Surely our departure by air is
going to be risky? The Allies will probably have their air defenses well up by
then.'
Patiently, Schellenberg said, 'To
cover that eventuality, I've arranged for a couple of air raids on Alexandria
and Cairo from our bases in Rhodes and Crete as a diversion, just after
Skorzeny's men land, so the Luftwaffe should keep things busy for several
hours. Yes, Kleist?'
'When do we get to meet the girl?'
'The day after tomorrow, when we
distribute your clothes and personal belongings. As I explained, she's not
going to know the true purpose of your mission, so none of you will discuss
anything of relevance in her company. Be particularly careful about that.'
There was a knock on the door and Schellenberg said, 'Enter.'
A huge man strode into the room
with an air of total self confidence, as if he could walk through a brick wall
unscathed.
He towered well over six feet,
¦with bullish shoulders and a hard face that looked as if it had been hewn from
rock. He wore an SS colonel's uniform with paratroop flashes, the Knight's
Cross displayed proudly at his throat. He gave the Nazi salute and clicked his
heels.
'Herr General.'
'Colonel Skorzeny.' Schellenberg
beamed. 'What perfect timing. I was just finishing my preliminary briefing.
This is Major Haider.'
Skorzeny returned a salute and
offered a massive hand, his grip like iron. 'Major - a pleasure to meet you.'
Haider shrugged. 'From what I
hear, the pleasure should be all mine. I believe the Reich's newspapers are
calling you the most dangerous man in
Rescuing Signore Mussolini was quite a feat.'
'And one which I hope to repeat,
with even deadlier effect.
But you have an enviable record
yourself, Haider. I must say, I'm impressed. I could do with an officer like
you in one of my paratroop battalions.'
'Sadly, Colonel, I prefer to keep
my feet firmly on the ground. It's a lot safer.'
'A pity.' Skorzeny shrugged. 'But
who knows? After this little adventure, you might change your mind.' He turned
to Schellenberg. 'But my apologies, Herr General. I'm holding up your
briefing.'
'Not at all. I was almost finished
for now.' He turned to the others. 'Except for the matter of the Jeep and
military police uniforms, which I said I'd return to. As you can imagine, guard
duties will have to change at the compound, reliefs will have to be made.
Besheeba should have more exact details of the guard duty changes when you
arrive, but it seems to me that this might present an opportunity to get into
the compound.'
'How?' Haider asked.
Schellenberg smiled. 'An able
fellow like you, and with your talents, I'm sure you'll come up with something,
Jack. Have any of you more questions?'
The room fell silent. Schellenberg
stood there, hands on his hips. 'Good. For the next few days you're going to
familiarise yourselves with your cover identities. You'll study the maps
thoroughly, until you're acquainted with
don't want anyone getting lost. We'll go over our plans and the layout of the
Mena House with Colonel Skorzeny, and he'll be joining you at intervals over
the coming days to check on your progress and make sure you're totally familiar
with any details pertinent to his own drop. And just so you'll know, I'll be
with you as far as
He looked at Kleist and Doring.
'As to any questions you might have about the rudiments of archaeology to
enhance your cover stories, I've arranged for Major Haider and a couple of
other experts to give you a crash course. In the meantime, get to work,
gentlemen.'
It was raining hard that evening,
a real
and stepped in, his hat and coat dripping wet. Rachel was there alone, sitting
on a bunk. 'Schellenberg told me I'd find you here.'
'What do you want?'
He removed his hat, shook water from
it, and smiled uncertainly. 'Hardly the warm welcome I'd expect on a miserable
evening like this. I thought we might have dinner together in my quarters.'
'I'd prefer to be alone.'
'Is there really any need for all
this, Rachel?'
'All what?'
'The cold-shoulder treatment.
Despite the unpleasantness of the situation, I thought we could still be
friends.'
She made to turn away, but Haider
gently gripped her arm.
'Do you really despise me that
much?'
'Let go of my arm!’
He let go, and suddenly there was
a tired, vulnerable look on his face. 'No doubt you're thinking I've sold my
soul to the Nazis. But you want the honest truth? A simple case of life not
turning out the way you planned - you take the wrong road and before you know it
you've gone too far to turn back.' He hesitated. 'I never told you this, but
when you didn't write, I met and married someone else. She was a good woman,
very much like you in many ways.'
Rachel looked at him blankly.
'She died after giving birth to
our son. And none of us has escaped this war unhurt, Rachel - we're all
victims. Three months ago, there was an Allied air raid on
My father perished, my son survived. If you call being a cripple and scarred for
life survival.'
Her face darkened. 'I - I'm sorry
to hear that. Truly sorry.'
'Water under the bridge.'
She started to say something, but
seemed to change her mind. Haider turned to go. 'Schellenberg will be along
tomorrow to go over your cover story. In a few days, you'll meet the others.'
'Who are they?'
'No doubt he'll tell you about
them. All you need to know for now is that they're both SS. I'm sure they're
hardly your idea of perfect travelling companions after four years in a camp.
Nor mine either. But nothing can be done about that. In the meantime, try and
get as much rest as you can. You're going to need it.'
There was a silence between them.
Haider tugged on his wet hat, turned up the collar of his coat, crossed to the door
and went out. Rachel moved to the window, tears in her eyes as she watched him
cross the barrack courtyard, his head down against the sheeting rain, and then
he was gone.
It was Sanson who found the memo,
just as they were about to give up.
They had searched until after
midnight and by then they were exhausted. They were in the depository building
in Ezbekiya, near the Opera House. A large room on the second floor, with
shuttered windows, a wooden table and some chairs.
The documents and files were
stacked in thick piles on the table and floor. Many of them had been scorched
by fire and bore the marks of water damage, others were in a complete mess.
German intelligence staff had been caught in the act of trying to burn their
papers when the Allies had taken
Weaver had noticed heavy bloodstains on several. Someone had died trying to
destroy these papers.
Sanson studied the memo, suddenly
coming awake. 'I think we've got something here.'
He showed Weaver the page, typed
in German and dated nine months earlier. It had been partly burned, but the
contents were still readable. The name Besheeba leaped out at him and Weaver
looked up eagerly. 'What does it say?'
'It appears to be an internal memo
from an army intelligence officer, Hauptmann Berger, to his commanding officer
in
Sanson handed it to one of the NCO translators, a young sergeant with
black-framed glasses. 'Give us an accurate translation, sergeant.'
'Yes, sir. "Rommel urgently
pressing for more details: troop numbers, armour and artillery movements.
results." ' The sergeant looked up. 'That's about the gist of it, sir.'
Sanson said to Weaver, 'It seems
our friend Besheeba got himself some help.'
'Why was that?'
'Easy enough to understand. Nine
months ago, Jerry was having a bad time of it from Monty, and needed all the
intelligence he could get. Pretty much everything passed through here -
signals, reinforcements, equipment.' Sanson shrugged. 'Not that it matters much
at this stage, except that if they're still working together, we could have a
double act on our hands.' He yawned, rolled down his sleeves, pulled on his
jacket, and dismissed the two NCOs.
'What next?' Weaver asked tiredly.
He needed to sleep, had stayed up half the previous night making love to Helen
Kane, and his body was full of pleasant aches and pains. In the office that
day, it had been difficult to keep their relationship strictly formal. Whenever
she came near him, she would give him a knowing smile, and he couldn't ignore
the heightened sexual electricity between them. If it weren't for the problem
of having to find the Arab, he would have liked to have seen her that night. He
looked back as Sanson replied, felt sympathy for him now that he knew his
personal tragedy.
'We'll carry on searching here
after we get some sleep, in case anything else turns up. And I'll check with
the prison camps and see if we captured Hauptmann Berger, or his CO, when we
took
Despite their discovery, Weaver
felt oddly deflated. He knew they were still no closer to finding Besheeba. If
Signals couldn't locate him, their chances were even slimmer.
'That sounds like a long shot I
wouldn't bet on. We still haven't got much hope of catching him, have we?'
Sanson rubbed his good eye. It
stared back at Weaver. 'In a city of two million? Not much. But we've got to,
Weaver.
We've got to.'
The Sultan Club was packed that
Tuesday evening. There was a band playing on the stage, a group of displaced
Frenchmen wearing ridiculous fezzes. Harvey Deacon went down the steps just
before ten and clicked his fingers at the head waiter. 'Find me a table near
the back, Sammy. Number seven would be perfect.'
'Of course, sir.' The waiter
scurried off, anxious to please his employer. Deacon watched as he went over to
a group of American soldiers sitting in the back shadows. An argument developed
as the waiter tried to convince them the table was reserved. The men grumbled,
but eventually agreed to move with the promise of a complimentary beer. When
the waiter came back, he led Deacon over to the table.
'I'll have a glass of champagne.'
Deacon looked at his watch moodily. 'What the bloody hell's keeping the
performance?'
'It begins any moment now, sir.'
When the waiter had poured his
champagne, Deacon lit a cigar. He was tense, and had hardly slept in the last
twenty-four hours. There were dark circles under his eyes and he felt
exhausted, but with it came a sense of elation. The signal from
and the intention unambiguous. Four people arriving to set up the operation,
and then the paratroops.
It was certainly a daring plan;
only time would tell if it was brilliant. One thing he was certain of. If it
worked, the war was as good as won.
But just as important, he'd have
revenge for what had happened to Christina.
He still felt a chill go through
his blood when he thought of how she had died. During the first American
daylight raid on
They never found her body, and
Deacon had been devastated when he heard the news, delivered via his Spanish
courier. The thought of killing Roosevelt and Churchill sent a surge of
vengeful adrenalin through his veins.
But things had to move fast, and
Deacon didn't particularly like the sense of urgency. These were deep waters he
was getting into, and he had to tread carefully. But there was no doubt the
feeling it caused was electric.
As he sat there a spotlight
suddenly went on and the red curtains parted. A half-dozen women paraded on to
the stage, wearing tiny sequinned tops and harem pants, and accompanied by the
sound of an Egyptian drumbeat. Tanya, the star of the show, was in the middle,
and her charms were obvious: long dark hair and dark, almond-shaped eyes,
complemented by a voluptuous body with splendid curves and incredible breasts.
She was half Italian, half Arab -
a potent combination.
The band struck up and the girls
danced and peeled away their clothes. The musicians tried their best to keep
the whole thing in tempo, but the girls were a pretty hopeless bunch of
dancers. Not that the audience cared.
A man wove his way through the
crowd, carrying a glass of champagne high above his head, his eyes glinting
appreciatively as he watched the girls perform. He was tall and dashing, with a
devil-may-care look about him, his manicured hands and expensive Western suit
hinting at a privileged upbringing. A Royal Egyptian Air Force captain, Omar
Rahman was the son of a senior government minister, and an ardent Nazi
sympathiser. He couldn't keep his eyes off Tanya as she undressed. 'My God,
she's some woman. And those breasts could drive a man crazy with desire.'
Deacon smiled indulgently. 'Time
for that later. You have the information I need?'
Omar deftly slipped an envelope
from his pocket, handed it under the table. 'It's all there, everything you
asked for.'
Unseen, Deacon tucked the envelope
into his pocket. 'Well, Omar, can you do it?'
The captain smiled. 'You know me,
I'm always willing to take a risk.'
'But can it be done?' « 'Stealing
the aircraft isn't a big problem. Until a few months ago, the British
controlled the Egyptian Air Force with a tight first - we couldn't take off or
land without their permission, and our fuel was rationed. But since Rommel's
gone, they've relaxed things a bit. And I'm certain the plan you suggest is
workable. So long as you keep to your end of the bargain.'
'You can be sure of that.' Deacon
beamed. 'Good, that's settled, then.' The girls' performance was coming to an
end. A solitary drumbeat struck up. Tanya stepped forward, completely naked
except for a couple of sequinned tassels on her breasts and a tiny pair of
flimsy pants. She proceeded to swing the tassels in circles, at the same time
sashaying her hips and giving a ridiculous rendition of 'Let Me Entertain You'.
Her erotic gyrations whipped the audience into a sexual frenzy, until the
drumbeat climaxed with a bang and she finished performing.
There was a moment of silence, and
then the men at the tables went wild, getting to their feet, cheering and
clapping. Tanya took a bow, her lush breasts even more seductive. Deacon saw
Omar lick his lips.
'You'd like a couple of hours in
her bed?'
Omar grinned. 'My friend, that
would be heaven on earth.'
Deacon laughed. 'Come, I'll take
you to her dressing room.'
Back in his office ten minutes
later, Deacon had finished reading the contents of the envelope when there was
a knock on the door. Hassan came in. Deacon barely recognized him. The beard
was gone, and so was the djellaba, a suit in its place. He looked like a
changed man. The Arab flopped into the chair beside him.
The swelling had gone down on his
jaw and lower lip, the flesh dark and yellow from healing.
'Well, did you see Salter?' Deacon
asked. 'He's expecting us at the warehouse in half an hour.'
'Excellent.' Deacon relaxed a
little.
help him solve most of them.
'I don't trust Salter, or that
conniving Greek partner of his,'
Hassan said moodily.
'Short of stealing the vehicles
and uniforms ourselves, which would be impossible and highly dangerous, we
haven't much choice. He might be one of the biggest gangsters in
everything we need, and with a guarantee he won't go to the police. Who can ask
for more than that?'
Hassan gingerly massaged his jaw.
'But will he do as you ask?'
Deacon finished his champagne,
crushed out his cigar. 'Let's bloody well hope so, or we're finished before we
start.'
Malta Twelve hundred miles away
that same night, Prime Minister Winston Churchill had just finished a simple
meal of boiled chicken and fresh vegetables in the small private dining room
set aside for him on board the battle cruiser HMS Renown, anchored off Valetta,
the Maltese capital, for a brief stopover en route to Egypt Having spent the
earlier part of the evening at the governor's residence pinning North Africa
ribbons on Generals Eisenhower and Alexander, he had returned to ship to attend
to a hefty pile of urgent paperwork, before a late supper. He followed his
meal, not with dessert, but with his customary indulgence, a cigar and a large
brandy and soda, poured for him by one of the ship's officers.
'Not so much soda, young man. It
bloody well kills the taste.' Churchill's gaze swung from the officer to
General Hastings 'Pug' Ismay, his chief of staff, who had shared his table.
'Well,
shall we stroll back to my cabin?'
'Of course, sir.'
Churchill thanked the officer who
handed him his brandy, and led the way out on deck, clutching his glass. It was
a mild night, a gentle Mediterranean breeze blowing, the moonlit waters lapping
against the hull. Churchill, out of respect for fire regulations on board,
rightly desisted from lighting his cigar until they reached his cabin. It was
quite small, spartan almost, just a bedside locker, a couple of chairs and a
metal bunk, the simplicity not at all in keeping with the man's perceived
larger than life personality, but then few among the public realized what a simple
warrior their Prime Minister was, cigars and brandy apart.
'Take a seat,
As Churchill slumped into a chair
and touched a match to his cigar, Ismay saw that the Prime Minister looked
pasty-faced and far from well; a severe throat infection and the effect of his
typhoid and cholera inoculations for the trip had already kept him in bed for
days. To make matters worse, a punishing three week schedule of top-secret
conferences lay ahead: five days in Cairo with Roosevelt to discuss Operation
Overlord, the invasion of Europe, and with Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese leader,
to decide tactics in the Far East and Pacific, then on to Teheran with
Roosevelt to confer with Stalin on Allied strategy, then back to Cairo again
with Roosevelt to attempt to resolve the tactical considerations the
conferences had raised. A critical point had now been reached in the war: with
the invasion of
The judgments made in the coming weeks, Ismay knew with certainty, would
clearly decide their success or failure.
'You're looking forward to the
conference, Prime Minister?'
Ismay said, pulling up the other
chair.
'I'm growing tired of bloody
conferences,
and weary of war. I wish to God this whole wretched business was over. Which is
why we've got to tie it all up at
Every last thread. Our strategy from Europe and the Balkans, to
Then take the ball on the hop and run with it as fast as we bloody can.'
Churchill gave his chief of staff a steely look, which could have been
frightening had it not been meant to convey his complete honesty. 'If we don't,
I fear we could find ourselves losing the entire war.'