The Ian Fleming Files by Damian Stevenson, Box Set, Espionage Thrillers, European Thrillers, World War 2 Books, Novels Set In World War 2, Ian Fleming Biography, Action, Adventure Books, 7 Books, Spy Novels Page B

Hayes and Miss Blythe were drinking
tea and gossiping.
    The radio squawked
with life. It was McGhee, the Airspeed pilot.
    “Hotel Charlie,
this is Foxtrot One. Over.”
    Godfrey grabbed
the control mike. “Foxtrot One, this is Hotel Charlie. Uncle John here. What is
your status? Over.”
    “Package
delivered. Mercury got out all right. Slight mishap with 17F… he’s probably
fifty miles or so of course. Over.”
    Godfrey glowered.
“Did you say fifty? Over.”
    “Affirmative.
Over.”
    “What happened?
Where the bloody hell is he? Over.”
    They waited for
the voice to respond but heard only static.
    “Foxtrot 1? Over.”
    The line went
dead. Godfrey turned to a tech who was seated at a communications booth with a
headset on.
    “Well?”
    “Nothing's coming
in from 17F, sir,” said the tech.
    Godfrey clicked
the mike off and went over to a large perspex map connected to machinery and
scrutinized it with his arms on his hips. He looked confused and angry.
    “Why can’t I see
Fleming’s homing device on this board? Or the gold’s for that matter?”
    “It’s an audio
monitor, sir, I have to trace his transmission first before giving you a
visual. And right now he seems to be... well, it’s not quite clear.”
    “There’s
supposedly a radio in his flight suit. Where is Suffolk? Somebody get that
idiot in here!”
    “His suit
transmitter may have been damaged on impact. Also there’s a lot of mountains in
that area which interferes with radio. He’s, uh, definitely somewhere near the
French Spanish border.”
    “This is what we
pay you for?! Don’t just sit there gawking! Get me a precise reading of 17F’s
whereabouts!”
    The young tech
scurried off.
    A different tech
approached. “Good news, sir! Looks like Nichols hit the drop zone. We’re
picking up a faint signal from him.”
    Godfrey scowled.
“Good news my arse! He’s no use without Fleming! How’s he going to negotiate
with Darlan? Nichols speaks French like I play the trombone!”
    He punched the
perspex map with his fist, smashing it.
     
    Fleming was in a
flat saddle of forest on the gradient of a frozen mountain somewhere in the
Pyrenees. He took a deep, sore breath and tried to get his bearings, wincing as
he felt the injuries from his plane battering. Frozen blood matted his forehead
and a necklace of rope burns ringed his throat. His flight suit was destroyed.
A torn shoulder pad hung by its threads, revealing the mangled mechanism of the
embedded transmitter which Fleming decided was wrecked beyond repair.
    He collapsed his
chute, pulled it in, rolled it and buried it in the snow. His kit was gone. The
Colt M1 had survived the drop. He checked it and then began to gather scattered
playing cards and looked for the one with the map of where he was. Badly
shaken, in obvious pain, he made a swift 360 sweep of the horizon but there was
nothing to be seen, no landmarks, nothing but white mountains for miles.
     

Chapter
Eight
     
     
    The mid-June sun rose to a cloudless sky and stretched
its tendrils over the dewy meadows at the foot of the Pyrenees.
    Nichols was using his flight shovel to dig a hole for
his pack and chute in an empty pasture where a crude airstrip was marked. It
was private land that belonged to a patriotic beetroot farmer whose name he
would never know. The strip was under a mile long and had relatively clear edge
markings and reflectors for landing at dusk.
    Nichols had retrieved his radio pack by shinning up a
spruce and lugging the pack back down. He located the gold’s location via its
radio beacon. It was easy. He had made it to the drop zone on time and
contacted H.Q. Not a foot had gone wrong. With a proud mug he stopped to take
in the rustic beauty of his foreign surroundings. It was stunning. Dew
glistened on the grass. The war felt far away.
    He smiled as he thought of his young wife and kid and
the big hero’s homecoming. From inside his flight suit, he produced a rumpled
cigarette which he straightened