June 30th, 1940
Near Orly Airport, Paris, France
0900 Hours
It was another beautiful, bright morning in Paris, the sun playing off the cracks and cuts in the windshield of the ambulance as it sped towards the tarmac. The driver of the ambulance, however, was in no condition to appreciate the beauty of the morning - this was a uniquely tense job. He was accompanied by a particularly unwelcome pair of orderlies - two German Gestapo officers, both of them armed. According to them, their presence was needed, as the man the ambulance was transporting to the airport (now laying in a stretcher in back) was an Allied pilot, and thus their prisoner. He would be transferred onto a transport plane at Orly, and then be sent to Germany, to spend the rest of the war in a prison camp.
There was something very strange about this explanation, however. The man had been picked up in a fire at the Royal Orleans Hotel, not in any sort of plane crash, and on that same day, there had been numerous shootouts and explosions throughout the city. Now, the man lay semiconscious in a stretcher, completely unarmed, and yet he still required two elite German MPs to guard him? This man had to be one of those hellraisers from a few weeks ago - which meant he was potentially very, very dangerous.
The ambulance pulled onto an access road, and from there drove towards the waiting German transport. It was an ugly, angular thing, with the engines already roaring. A man stood at attention in front, wearing a pilot's jacket and tinted goggles, and sporting a massive mustache - clearly, the master of the aircraft. The ambulance rolled to a stop at the rear of the aircraft, where the cargo bay door was already down. The orderlies jumped out and carried the stretcher onto the aircraft, securing it to a platoform on the side of the bulkhead, made for the purpose. The pilot ran over to them.
"This is the pilot? The one they found in the hotel fire?"
One of the Gestapo men nodded.
"Yes, he's the one. Unconscious, but stable. Don't worry; we know he's dangerous. We'll be watching him the whole flight."
The pilot stroked his mustache at this.
"Wait...you're coming along? No one said anything about that."
The Gestapo men looked puzzled.
"Of course we are. General von Sporrenburg was very clear on that. This man has to be guarded at all times. Didn't you get the message?"
The pilot looked back and forth, and seemed to stammer.
"N...no, of course I got the message, it's just that...we don't have much room on the plane, and I was thinking- "
Suddenly, the pilot whipped his right sleeve, and a knife slid out. Catching it in his hand, he darted forward and stabbed the Gestapo man closest to him in the chest with all the force he could muster, following with a slash across the throat. He fell down, blood shooting out. The other Gestapo man went for his Luger, only to find the pilot already at close-quarters, with a strange, long-barreled pistol pointed at his ribs. The pilot hissed to him in English, audible over the engines:
"Step outside."
The remaining Gestapo man was utterly confused. He slowly paced his way back off the plane and onto the tarmac. He turned around, and noticed his cohort was still bleeding on the floor of the plane. The pilot leveled his pistol, aimed for a moment, and (the gun making a strangely quiet noise), fired, hitting him in the leg. The Gestapo man screamed in pain, and toppled over, clutching his leg.
The ambulance driver, lost in his own thoughts, suddenly snapped awake when he saw what had happened. He watched as the pilot turned from the screaming German back into the plane, and kicked out the body of the knifed man. Finally, the pilot turned to the ambulance. Seeing the stunned driver inside, the pilot put his finger to his lips as if to shush him, and then ducked back inside the transport. The driver gaped as he watched the cargo door wind itself back up...
Back on the plane, Captain Robert Page of the Special Operations Executive, and formerly of the Royal Air Force, tucked his knife and Welrod pistol back into his holsters. He pulled off his ridiculous fake mustache and the tinted goggles, substituting them for a pair of Aviator pilot's glasses. He gingerly stepped over the pool of blood, and checked Tom's pulse and breathing. All seemed normal. He put his hand on his shoulder, and whispered:
"Hang in there, Tom. We'll get you out of here."
He quickly paced his way to the cockpit, and strapped himself into the pilot's seat. "We ready to go, Lieutenant?" He inquired of his co-pilot.
The co-pilot tore off the scarf and similar tinted goggles, meant to conceal her identity from any potential passers-by. "I should think so. Engines running, with enough fuel to get us home. Any trouble over on your end? I couldn't hear anything over these damn props."
Page grinned, and the plane began to creep forward onto the runway. "There were a few men to see Tom off, but there was no need to worry, Lieutenant Noble....the Gestapo can be real bleeding hearts if you know how to handle them."
She laughed. "I'm sure, Captain."
The plane soon took to the air, and winged it back towards home. As they lifted through the air, Page's mind began to wander back to how this little mission had come to be. When the squadron first returned home from Guillotine, they thought for sure Tom had been captured or killed in the fall of Paris. And so, when a radio broadcast was intercepted saying that a pilot had been captured and would be moved to Germany via plane, the SOE saw an opening. Simply sending a fake transmission resetting the time of the pickup allowed Page and Noble to have Tom at the airfield a full two hours in advance of the actual pickup time. In about an hour and a half, a very confused German pilot would land at Orly, with his only greeting party being one dead and one bleeding and very pissed off Gestapo agent. As for the German transport they were using, it was the same one from Lancer - only bought back from the Swedes, who had left it in a hangar for the last 9 months. It was a thing of beauty...
It didn't take long, however, for the Germans to catch up with them. Page spied a group of 109s off in the distance to the east - at least 12 of them, bearing down fast. He wondered how they had caught on...was it the fact that they'd cut in front of no less than three planes on the way up, without checking in with the tower? Did the ambulance driver squeal? No matter. The transport was slow, and totally unarmed. Thankfully, there had been a plan for eventualities of this sort. Page keyed the radio:
"Alright Excalibur, time for you guys to bail us out. We got 109s coming in from the east, and we're sitting ducks here. We could sure use you..."
