Chapter Twenty-Two.
Captain Peter Kincaid peered out of the cockpit windscreen into the swiftly-gathering twilight towards the distant necklace of lights that twinkled down the toe of Italy and stretched across his flight path as far west as Palermo. He glanced at the Direction Indicator heading; One-fifty, South-east by south. He called to his navigator, Simon Wallis.
'One-fifty indicated, Simon. OK?'
'OK; smack on, skip. You should see Etna out to port at ten o'clock, any minute now.'
Kincaid peered out through the port side window, and, yes! There; the shadowy shoulder of Mount Etna, about a mile, or so, away. The lights of Catania were dead ahead; about fifteen miles distant. Time for a course change. Simon's voice cut in.
'Turning point onto One-one-oh, East-south-east in ten... nine... eight... seven... six... five... four... three... two... one... Go!'
Kincaid gently fed in his turn to port, and the lights of Catania danced away to starboard. They were entering the down leg of their approach to Augusta, which would take them out over the coast to the north of Catania, skirting the southern edge of Lo Stretto di Messina; then they would make a turn to starboard taking them down over Cap Santa Croce into the wide bay at Augusta. OK. Nothing ahead except the black void of the Ionian Sea. Simon called again.
'Skip; Base leg on One-eight-oh, South, in five... four... three... two... one... Go!'
Kincaid eased the boat onto his final heading, and glanced across to his co-pilot, Tim Walker.
'Right, Tim. We commit as we come in over Brucoli. Normal approach at five-hundred feet; throttle back, trim nose up, and sink on.'
The radio operator, Johnnie Blake, as usual was silent. He didn't often say much, except when a particularly important message crackled through his headphones. He spent most of his time listening in to the weather stations and passing scribbled notes to Simon if a course change to avoid some particularly difficult weather conditions was needed.
Night landings were tricky. Apart from keeping the wings level until the speed was low... to avoid losing a float; there was little, or no vertical reference in relation to the water surface. The BOAC Fire control launch would have put out small pontoons about two- hundred-yards apart, carrying goose-neck flares to mark out the landing path. These flares were so named because of the long-necked spout on a container that resembled a large watering can. The main body contained kerosene with a wick placed in the spout. The Goose-neck would be positioned with the spout pointing downwind to prevent flaring when alight. It produced a bright light. The Fire control launch would then patrol along the port side of the flare lane, to prevent any craft straying into the path of the approaching flying boat, and Kincaid would alight on the starboard side of the flare lane.
The actual harbour landing needed care. He would have to maintain power until the boat alighted "on the step," then Tim would ease the throttles back to idle. The drag, when the boat settled, down "off the step", would slow her quickly. A careful watch was also needed for the running lights of other craft in the area. Were they moored, or moving? And if so, in which direction? Kincaid and Walker needed to be thoroughly familiar with these nautical niceties.
Kincaid saw the line of goose-neck flares shimmering, two miles ahead. The airspeed indicator read one-hundred-and-twenty knots. He switched on the pair of swivelling landing lights mounted in the port wing leading edge, outboard of the outer engine, and focussed his attention on the deceptive, glassy surface of Augusta inner harbour. He reached for the flap control switch and set it at one-third flaps. On his command; Tim began to gently throttle back the engines and checked that the engine cowling gills were closed. He set the mixture to "Rich" and checked that the airscrew speed controls were fully "Up." Kincaid double-checked, and set the flaps at two-thirds out.
OK; Final approach. One-hundred-and-ten knots on the final glide. The flare lane was a safe distance to port. He fed in a touch of flare to get the tail slightly down, and watched the altimeter needle drifting down. The lights of Augusta were shimmering past on the port side, and the far end of the line of the flare lane was getting closer. Airspeed was down to ninety knots... come on... come on! Then came the slight jolt and hiss of water under the keel. Tim closed the throttles... the nose was beginning to rise... he eased the outer engine throttle levers forward slightly; using the inners could damage the props with the spray thrown up by the hull. The nose came back down as she came off the step and began to slow rapidly with the drag on her hull.
He reached forward; set the mixture controls to "Normal," and opened the engine cowling gills. Kincaid put out full flap as "Pembroke" wallowed gently and began to come to a standstill. Kincaid reached forward again, and pulled out the port and starboard inner engines' slow-running cut-off controls as Tim closed the throttles. Any manoeuvring from here on in would be done with the two outer engines.
The Fire control launch was moving across from his port quarter to direct him to the mooring buoy. Tim gently opened up the outer engines, tickling the throttle levers up and down to steer the big boat towards the mooring buoy which, by now, had been illuminated by the Fire control launch's searchlight. He heard the bow hatch opening as the bowman prepared to release the sea drogues out each side of the bow. These were three-foot long, canvas water parachutes, similar in shape to land aerodrome wind socks, which were attached each side of the bow and acted as water brakes to further slow the big boat down as the bowman prepared to catch the mooring line that was thrown to him from the Fire Control launch which was now waiting by the mooring buoy. For the last few feet, the procedure was to steer and slow down the flying boat by temporarily shutting the engines on and off with the magneto switches.
As the mooring cable was attached; the running lights of the BOAC Marinecraft Unit control tender could be seen approaching from the town to disembark the passengers. The purser was making his rounds, advising the passengers to prepare to make their way to the rear starboard door where the two stewards were waiting to help them into the passenger tenders for the short trip across the bay to the pontoon raft moored alongside the walkway to the shore. From there; they walked straight off the boat into Canopus House... an elegant "air posting-house"; named after the first of the Short Empire boats; which had a fine view over the bay, and of Mount Etna. Here, they would spend the night in pampered luxury, whilst the flying boat was re-provisioned and refuelled, ready for the morning flight across the Mediterranean to Alexandria.
Ulrich Krössner slipped through the dark, dingy streets of Hamburg's Altona-Alstadt district, heading for a seedy little dog-kennel of a bar up on Struenseestrasse, where he had arranged to fence the remaining flawed emeralds that the shifty Chink, Lee WonJin had refused to buy. He'd be glad to be rid of them; they were dangerous goods. They had been part of the stash that he had picked up from the corpse-robbers that had preyed on the victims of the bombing raids... and especially the firestorm of '43, when they had prowled the streets stripping valuables off the still-smouldering corpses. To be caught with any of this loot... even now; would be a certain death-sentence. Both sides... the Polizei; and the Hamburg gangsters had all lost someone during the bombing attacks, and their justice would be summary... but not necessarily swift.
The bar called "The Happy Release" was down a dead-end, deep-cobbled close flanked by towering warehouses off Hoheschulstrasse. Krössner had arranged to meet his fence there; a little Belgian named Raouel Vallain, who fenced the gems on to the Paris jewellery houses.
Vallain was a weird little bastard, with even weirder sexual predilections. He always chose these out-of-the-way shit-holes in which to do his business deals; and when the deals were completed; he invariably picked up one of the drab snappers from the selection that always seemed to infest these places. You could almost feel the throb and itch of a dose of the drip, just by looking at them. Whatever he got up to with them was only rumoured... which was probably just as well; but was rumoured to involve various bodily functions.
Krössner turned down the shadowy close and approached the hutch they called "The Happy Release." He shoved the grimy door open and entered. Just as he had expected, the clientele was made up of a few pissed-up sailors, a motley selection of over-the-hill snappers, and a handful of spinners... real pretty boys, right down to the false eye-lashes, kohl eye-makeup, and Daiquiris.
There was no sign of Vallain. He sauntered across to the bar, ignoring the coquettish, come-hither glances of the grim old bags, and ordered an Alsterfleet Top. Named after Hamburg’s famous Alster canal in which the water’s surface was often polluted with a layer of oil or gasoline, an Alsterfleet Top was an Elbschloss beer with a Bommerlunder Schnapps in it. This little shit-hole's proprietor... a billowing, ugly blonde Rottweiler who went by the totally inappropriate nickname of "Tinker Bell"...presumably referring to the delicately sexy, yet demure fairy character in the Peter Pan stories; banged the full Elbschloss beer Stein onto the sticky bar-top and turned to get his schnapps. Lit by the garish glare of the neon advertising sign on the wall behind the bar, she resembled something straight out of a guy's worst fucking nightmare... that is, waking up next to her in the morning, and being unable to remember anything about the previous night... with the awful realisation dawning, that it wouldn't have been fairy dust that she'd sprinkled over you.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
She turned back and shoved the brimming stein across the bar, then picked up the tarnished pickled-gherkin fork that was lying on the bar, and began scratching her pendulous left breast with it as she waited for his money. He handed her a twenty Reichsmarks banknote.
'Keep them coming until that's used up.'
She nodded, and stuck the banknote down her vast cleavage. Krössner gave a wry grin. It would be safer down there than in any Bank vault in Hamburg. No one in his right mind would ever contemplate sticking his hand down into that valley of flab... under any circumstances. Whoever had christened her "Tinker Bell" must have been very, very brave; very, very drunk... or really fucking stupid. It really was taking the piss on the Grand scale.
He was well into his fifth Alsterfleet Top when the sound of a car reversing down the close drifted through the thin, grimy window glass. The spinners scampered away through the back door, as the sound of car doors slamming echoed outside, and two mean-looking heavies rumbled in through the door of the bar. The one on the left... a huge, barrel-chested thug with a head resembling an over-size turnip, seemed to be the boss. His buddy was thinner. His build resembled that of an Olympic swimmer, but the powerful athletic impression was badly marred by bright, carroty hair and a pock-marked, weasel face that resembled a heavily rusted hatchet.
Turnip-head towered over Krössner.
'Well, well... Damifitain't Krössner. We hear you're touting hot ice... very hot ice. Let's take a little ride.'
They grabbed Krössner and frog-marched him outside to a black Mercedes saloon waiting in the close with the motor running. Throwing him into the back seat, they piled in either side of him, went through his pockets, and found the little velvet bag of emeralds, as the driver banged the Mercedes into first gear and tore off down the close with squealing tyres. As he turned left into Struenseestrasse; Turnip-head and Carrot-top were just getting warmed up in the back seat, beating the shit out of Krössner with ex-Gestapo issue, lead-loaded coshes.
By the time they reached the Sankt Pauli Brewery yard, Krössner was a real mess. He was mumbling painfully through broken teeth and torn, split lips,
'Why Me? What have I done?'
Turnip-head dangled the little velvet gem pouch he had found in Krössner's jacket pocket under Krössner's badly broken and bleeding nose.
'I suppose these just happened to drop into your lap? Cut the shit, Krössner; we've been watching vultures like you for months.'
The big Hamburg detective smacked Krössner in the mouth again, pulled his head back and forced the flawed emeralds down his throat; punching his throat at the same time.
As Krössner retched and choked blood; Carrot-top grinned.
'Seems the fucking corpse-robber doesn't like the taste!'
Krössner tried to say something. Too late! They heaved him out of the car; threw him down onto the worn flagstones, and began to give him a proper working-over with pickaxe handles. When they had beaten him until their arms were aching; they dragged the barely-breathing, unrecognisable wreck back to the car and drove down to the Sankt Pauli Landungsbrücken. There, they slit Krössner's throat with an old-fashioned cut-throat razor and pitched him down the number two lift-shaft of the Alte Elbtunnel to join the equally-ruined corpse of his Belgian fence, Raouel Vallain, who lay splattered across the steel roof of the lift, twenty metres below street level.
Turnip-head grinned, as he tossed the two splintered and bloody pickaxe handles down after him. That would send out a fucking loud and clear message to the other low-life bastards when these two pieces of shit were pulled out in the morning and it was reported in the newspapers. They would soon realise that you didn't do any freelance fucking around on the Davidwache sector without permission.
Still grinning, he clambered into the front seat of the Mecedes which took off up Hafenstrasse towards Davidstrasse in the direction of the Polizeirevier, with its exhaust note echoing back raucously from the cavernous arches of the Sankt Pauli brückenhaus, causing the snappers loitering for customers to huddle deeper into the shadowy, urinous depths.
As Krössner lay sprawled across the mangled corpse of his Belgian fence, spurting his life away; there was no way he could ever have known that it was the Garnet gemstone that had brought him to this gruesome end. Any Garnet was said, in one of the superstitions surrounding it, to be a curse to those who had acquired it unlawfully... and Krössner's manner of acquiring it had been as unlawful as it could possibly get. The malignancy of this ancient gem that Göring had named "The Red Horseman" was apparently stirring again.
Tuesday, September 27th was a bright, typically Mediterranean morning. At precisely 00.9am, Captain Peter Kincaid turned the flying boat into the wind and began his take-off run across Augusta Bay. She lifted clear of the water, and he began his gentle turn onto his heading of One-two-five south-east by east, as the Magnisi peninsula slipped away under the starboard wing. Now, it was eight-hundred-and-nineteen nautical miles to their next sight of land at Alexandria, Egypt. They would alight there at approximately 3.15pm in the afternoon, subject to a fair wind.
Charlotte and Max had spent the night in a comfortable room overlooking the harbour, and had been awoken by one of the stewards bringing them breakfast in bed. On the sturdy bed tray were scrambled eggs, a rack of toast, Croissants, a dish of butter pats; two coffee cups, a coffee pot, cream and sugar. There was also a single long-stemmed rose in a crystal flute. He placed the tray on the bed with a practiced flourish, and apologised for the lack of a morning newspaper. These would be available once they had boarded the flying boat. With a smile, he advised them that he would return to call them for boarding at 08.30am. Charlotte glanced at her wristwatch. It read 07.00am.
Having taken breakfast, they squandered half an hour gently making love, then washed and dressed in preparation for the next leg of their journey. The BOAC passenger tenders were waiting for them at the pontoon, and ferried them out to the flying boat. As they settled in their seats; Charlotte turned to Max, gazed solemnly at him, and spoke.
'It's only fair that I tell you of what's going on, Max. I am hunting a dreadful artefact that I discovered in Siberia. It seems to have the power to unleash untold catastrophe on the world. It is possibly the most malignant artefact ever to have manifested itself on humanity. It is a large garnet that was encased in a metal block I found at Tunguska.'
Max nodded.
'The gemstone that Göring named "The Red Horseman."
She stared at him.
'How could you possibly know that?'
He smiled softly.
'Remember, Milaya moya, that I was an intelligence officer at Karlshorst. We know that it was accidentally freed on Himmler's orders in 1939, and probably initiated the Second World War. The problem is, what will it do next?
She studied him carefully.
'Then you know why I have to find it and destroy it.
He nodded.
'Yes. That is why they believe that you are a re-incarnation of "The Golden Child."
Charlotte stared at him.
'The Golden Child?... The heroine from the ancient volumes? Max, that is ridiculous.'
He shrugged; the typically Russian shrug.
'Perhaps; perhaps not; but that's what they seem to think, and who am I to argue? And besides which; that first day, back in the safe house in Die Weisse Stadt at Berlin; the way you looked and moved reminded me of something... some memory of the Legends I grew up with about this "Warrior Maid of The Shining Lands"...this "Golden Child." I couldn't place this feeling back then; but now... I'm not so sure. Perhaps... just perhaps, they might be correct in their assumption."
She stared at him.
'That's crazy, Max; but I must admit, as I said to Washburn, back in Dahlem; seeking out this Garnet is just something I know I have to do, I have no sensible reason for doing it... it's just an intuition.'
He smiled.
'So, it's crazy. Then I'll be crazy with you. Let's see where it leads us.'