Chapters (45)
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- Prologue
- 2046
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- About the Author
He gets to his feet, dusts his clothes off and walks casually. There will be a curfew in place but the tide will be high soon and the German soldiers need fresh fish to eat. Another hour will see the local fishermen getting ready to set out. With luck, he will be taken as an early riser.
He stops to light a cigarette at the corner of a building, closing his eyes against the flare of the match. Nothing is less suspicious than a bearded fisherman in a fishing village smoking a cigarette. He checks his timing, pauses for a couple of seconds and then sets the next charge with a ten-minute delay, dropping it into the shadow of the building.
He strolls down a side road towards the harbour, smoking casually while picking a stray bit of tobacco from his tongue and showing no reaction to the sound of heavy boots from a night patrol marching nearby. Every commando knows the score if they are caught by the enemy. The Geneva Convention no longer applies to them and already the brass back home are getting reports of captured commandos being executed by firing squads. He is in disguise too so the luxury of being transported somewhere else before being executed is also highly unlikely. He will either be shot on sight or tortured to death. He should have been given a cyanide capsule but the mission was scrabbled together so fast no one had time to get them.
He stops at the corner of the next building showing a sliver of yellow light through the gap in the curtains and the voices of soldiers talking inside. He places the third charge with five minutes and change on the timer and walks on. With three minutes to go, he heads purposefully towards the harbour. With two minutes to go, he makes out the dark shapes of the U-boats in the water. With one minute to go, he reaches the old wooden huts used to store the nets and gear for the fishing boats.
With thirty seconds to go, he shakes his head at the poor level of security within the town. Twenty seconds and he stands in the deep shadows rocking on his heels while his right hand grips the first grenade. Ten seconds left and the first alarm sounds from the night patrol finding the hole in the fence. A shrill whistle taken up and returned by every other guard until the general alarm warbles through the town, rousing every soldier to his feet.
The explosions are not perfectly synchronised but are bloody close. The first detonation is the second charge placed. The second explosion is the dynamite placed by the main gate and the last is the closest, but all are within a few seconds of each other and it only serves to increase the level of confusion and mass panic within the town.