The thirteen men were sitting in a variety of tatty chairs, some of which had been pinched from bombed-out buildings in town. Standing in front of a blackboard he had wangled, Lockhart looked at each of them in turn. They all seemed nervous, apprehensive. Pugh gave him a wink, Hull, Andreae and Stafford knowing nods; the rest caught his eye, save for Maclaren, who avoided his gaze. He would have to watch him, thought Lockhart, he could ruin everything.

“I’ll give it to you straight,” Lockhart began. “We leave on Sunday morning.”

They gasped as one.

“But sir,” said Andreae, “that’s not enough time!”

“You’re right,” said Lockhart. “It isn’t enough. But we don’t have any more time. If the Germans are going to use the sarin, then I suspect they’ll use it soon.”

“Couldn’t we get the RAF to bomb it?” asked Allan.

“I wish we could,” Lockhart replied. “But there are two problems there. First, as Stafford here will tell you, London has been singularly uncommunicative over the past few weeks. And even if they did order an air raid, I expect it would fail, because the gas and the rockets are buried deep within a mountain. A raid would do little more than knock down a few trees, perhaps take out some satellite camps. No, we actually have to get inside and deal with it.”

“But how?” asked Allan.

“Patience! I’m coming to that.”

Lockhart turned to face the blackboard, and spent a couple of minutes chalking up a simplified plan of Mittelbau. He had remembered every detail of the blueprint, had got Leni to quiz him repeatedly on the layout, which materials were stored in which hall, and so forth. There was no need to tell the men the complete layout—it would only confuse them. The basics were all that they required.

“The place we are going to is called Mittelbau,” said Lockhart. “It is a factory built into the Kohnstein Mountain near Nordhausen, about a hundred kilometers from here. On Sunday morning, we will drive there in the truck, dressed in our uniforms, although we shall have to strip them of the BFC insignia—Simpkin, I’d like you to see to that. Upon arrival, we shall present ourselves to the commandant. We will say that we have been sent from Berlin, and tell them that we are delivering some machinery, as well as forming a new guard detachment.”

“What if this doesn’t work?” Hull chipped in.

“It will,” said Lockhart, producing a piece of paper from his tunic pocket, “because I have typed orders from Berlin to that effect. I expect I will be told that they are not expecting us. I will answer that that’s not my fault—they can either take it or leave it and incur the wrath of the supposed signatory—a certain Brigadeführer Karl Kammler. I’m gambling that they’ll take it. The last thing anyone is expecting is a raid carried out by an SS unit.”

“And what happens when we’re actually in the plant?” asked Pugh.