Hands of the Traitor by Christopher Wright

memories. The
black case on the young man's wrist, and the girl with the blonde
hair. The case might contain priceless secrets on Hitler's missile
program. And because Sophie was French, not German, she might be
persuaded to part with vital military information. A double source
of top secret information could be within his grasp.
    It would be dark soon. Tonight he would go
back for the case -- and back for the girl.

Chapter 7
    ALEC RIDER crouched in the shelter of the
reeds and tried to absorb every detail in the German compound. V1
bombs. Fieseler 103s to give them their correct name. The details
of the airborne craft had been drilled into him during seven days
of intensive training. Doodlebugs. Buzz bomb was another popular
term back home. The giveaway sign was the metal ramp on slender
legs facing the south east coast of England.
    He realized that the German military
were in a no-win position. If they lit the compound at night they'd
draw attention to the site from the air, but total darkness invited
a commando attack from the ground. On balance, darkness was
probably the safer option. Any sort of lighting would break the
essential blackout requirements, and British and American bombers
were roaming the skies more freely now that German troops were
being rushed south to the defense of Normandy.
    Presumably there were some Fieseler
doodlebugs on this site, although the long catapult ramp was empty.
Alec stood up slowly, trying not to make a sound. The concrete
store, heavy with camouflage netting, must be the bunker that held
Hitler's terror weapons. The only sound of life on the site came
from the large wooden hut by the flag pole. People seemed to be
eating in there, and occasionally a flash of light shone from the
door as a guard or possibly a servant entered.
    A frog croaked in the wide drainage
ditch. Another replied from close by. One of the guard dogs barked,
and Alec could hear a murmur of voices as the door to the main hut
opened again. Two sentries started to laugh in their high tower as
they shared a joke. He buried his face in his hands. It had been
easy to make decisions on training exercises. You didn't end up
dead when you got it wrong.
    The door of the large hut opened for
longer now, and enough light escaped from the smoky room to reveal
the blonde girl slipping out arm in arm with the young man who'd
arrived in the Storch. He still carried that black case. They made
their way to one of the smaller huts. Alec wondered if the man
would keep the case chained to his wrist while....
    A light snapped on in the window,
bathing a large part of the compound in a blaze of
yellow.
    One of the guards shouted something in
German and a hand reached up quickly from inside the hut to pull
the blackout blind shut. The dogs barked for a couple of minutes.
Then the site became silent.
    Alec Rider fingered his heavy knife.
The girl might not want to be liberated; not all French people were
ready to receive the British and American troops with joy. Some
were doing very nicely, thank you, with the Germans. But at least
the girl had not informed on him. She must have been suspicious,
the way he'd held back from speaking to her.
    He waited and watched for an hour
before moving forward to find the weak spot he'd noticed earlier in
the wire link fencing. A sound inside the compound. Perhaps a
guard, or one of those damn Alsatians.
    Then silence again.
    The clouds began to thin slightly to
show a clear outline of the huts against the horizon. According to
his luminous watch it was only just after three a.m.. Surely it
wasn't getting light already. The massive doors to the concrete
bunker were open, and he could see two men working on a V1 bomb.
Maybe the Germans were preparing for an early-morning
launch.
    As Alec squeezed under the high wire
fence, he froze as he saw a faint silhouette of someone coming his
way. It looked like the French girl. He stayed, crouched tight
against the wire, his chef's knife at the ready. As he reached