NOW 14

Chapter Fourteen

The early December morning in Gloucestershire was usual for this time of year and the place but the Chief had no eye for the weather, stared out over the English countryside without seeing it. The Chief hated the weather, but there was little he could do about that, but it still gave him depressive thoughts.

Luckily the head of Five was walking up the private staircase that led from the parking space directly to the executive level, through a door disguised as a wall panel that held one of the numbers of this part of the parking lot. Inside Five would have cleared the sentry there by now and be walking up the stairs and would knock on the door....

knock knock knock

Right now.

“Sir.”

A nod and a grunt was all that the Chief got in reply but such were things between two men who had been working together for years.

Five sat and went straight to the point.

“Four days ago the Joint Field Office at Aden was approached by a man who was badly wounded. Before he died he identified himself as a member of the Saudi-Arabian Counter-Intelligence arm of their Home Office.”

That explained how MI-5 had come to be involved. The Joint Field Office was the base of British Intelligence Operations in the Red Sea and along the southern edge of Arabia, hence the presence of MI-6, but since Aden was a British Crown Territory[1] MI-5 had the final say.

“When we searched him he was having two sets of papers with him, one in Arabic which turned out to be a dispersal list for some sort of Shipment, the other was a message paper that turned out to be written in the Board of Trade Cypher.

Now that got the Chief's attention. The Board of Trade Cypher was hardly the most secure or most important one, in fact it was based on a version of the old Enigma Machine that had been broken when both the men in the room had been young men back at Bletchley, but it was still a matter that demanded immediate attention. Whatever the cause and reason it might mean that one part of the intricate system that guaranteed Imperial Communications was compromised.

“Do we have anything more?”

Five shook his head.

“Nothing. Now, what I want you to do is to prepare to switch the BoT Cypher immediately, but not do it yet. I'm having a meeting with C and Six tomorrow and we decide what to do then.”

That made sense. If this was handled carefully it was quite possible that you might smoke out the leak both on station and on British Territory. And that was something the GCHQ didn't concern itself with. Their mission was to ensure the safety of the Cyphers and codes.

Tonight a lot of people would work overtime.

Five went on.

“In any case, the Field Office wasn't able to decode the message and they instead sent it back with the bag.”

With that Five handed the Chief the envelope that contained the message even as the Chief pressed the button on his desk that summoned the in-house messenger. He handed the envelope over with orders to have it de-crypted yesterday.

It was most likely nothing more than the next complaint by the trade attaché at the Embassy about how the Saudis were hampering his duties with whatever new law they had enacted, something that if the BoT and the Foreign Office deigned it worthy of their attention would be resolved in different rooms of the halls of power in the British Empire.

Even so, Government Communications mustn't be compromised and the Chief was certain that those who would put their heads together tomorrow would try to decide what to do and if they did then GCHQ would oblige.

“Well, we should have that decoded within half an hour, Sir.”

“Good.” Five replied and nodded.

“Now,” he went on, “do we have anything on that American Spy near Galway?”

Five was referring to an American Spy near the western-most base in Ireland which mostly hosted several Squadrons of Irish and Allied (but no British) maritime patrol aircraft. The Irish Air Force[2] had detected unauthorized transmissions. They had bounced that to military Intelligence who had in turn contacted Five through his opposite number in Dublin in case the Brits had anything on that. They hadn't and thus a small Anglo-Irish work group was taking advantage of the better facilities in the basement that was connected via landline to stations all along the West Coast.

~**---**~

' RAF Veritas, British-Sudan

23^rd December 1963

Dear Mother,

I know you probably won't read this until well after New Years but I could not not write a letter on this day. Tomorrow both the Germans and the Brits will have their very own Christmas party and as the only Canadian present I can hardly not attend, even though in this weather it is decidedly odd to hear men rehearsing Christmas Carols in six different languages and have them hanging decorations on whatever local tree is available. Not all are partaking, but such is life. The Germans are actually fitting in better here than I expected.

It's almost endearing how eager they seem to be and if I didn't know better I'd be actually worried, but what I also have to admit to myself is that these aren't the people I thought they would be. I still have my reservations but there is no point in making this Squadron any more my enemy than it already is.

As you know I did put the foot into my mouth more than once since I joined them but this is...'

Charette brushed the sweat on his forehead away with a quick move of his left hand. He decided to finish this letter after dinner. When he had arrived here he had found that it was not the collections of tents and low huts he had expected but rather more a full-fledged Air Base with most of the amities that any Air Base in Canada or Britain had. No TV, but he didn't have the time to do much anyway. The course they were due to begin on the 1^st was as new for him as it was for them and he pitied the mechanics who had arrived yesterday in several old Yorks belonging to the Egyptian Air Force.

Now they were hounded around by two dozen of their British counterparts who used a mixture of English, Indian and Arabic cursewords in a way that was particular to NCOs since the Roman Legions and that no Officer had yet really for just as long.

Even Late Entry Officers kept these secrets to themselves.

As he stepped out of his quarters and onto the base he was almost thrown down to the ground when four Swifts raced overhead and the sonic boom made every window pane on the base rattle. The planes still wore the standard Luftwaffe camouflage which made them look oddly out of place but they were shaping up well.

Since RAF Veritas was a permanent training base the Officers Mess was a very good one. Still it took time to get used to the local cuisine and so he considered himself lucky that today fresh beef was at hand.

He was sitting alone at a table while on the other side the German pilots were welcoming their comrades who were still wearing their flight suits and Charette was not surprised to notice that Commodore Marseille was among the pilots. However far he might rise in the Luftwaffe, the man would always be a Fighter Pilot at heart.

He watched as the men loaded food onto their trays and joined their countrymen and for the first time in weeks Charette wondered if he was doing those men a disservice. Even in spite of his attempts to rile them up and his cold professionalism he had never been met with anything but hospitality, the inevitable flat jokes and references to The War not withstanding.

He shrugged and decided that whatever one thought about the Germans, at least he did get to fly low and fast and that was something that any fast jet pilot liked very much, and as an added benefit it was rather warm.

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Comments, questions, rotten Tomatoes?

[1] In effect the OTL Overseas Territory, but that term doesn't really work ITTL.

[2] The Irish are rather enthusiastic members of the Allied Pact. They found they liked it when the Brits suddenly started treating them as equals. Also, and this is rather hush-hush, they get special price whenever they buy British kit.