* * * * *
SHAEF, LONDON, ENGLAND
(14 FEBRUARY, 1943)
Major Throckmorton read the document before him. Then, he compared it to what he had been given over a week earlier. Finally, he looked up and angrily glared at his GRU* counterpart.
"How did you get this information?" he demanded
Major Sergei Yerkov's grin could only be described as maddeningly smug.
"Our listening post in Murmansk intercepted the same radio transmission as your Norwegian comrades did. We did not approach you sooner as we wished to ascertain this was not some elaborate attempt at disinformation by the Gestapo."
"It's not," Throckmorton grudgingly assured him: "The Yank SIS in Argentina picked up a nearly identical transmission to the German embassy in Buenos Aires. The only difference was the name of the intended recipient. After that? They began noting a series of weekly flights to and from a certain island in the Bahia Huemul area of Lake Nahuel Huapi."
"Da!" replied Yerkov: "Aircraft in question is a Fokker trimotor currently owned by Aeropostale de Venezuela in Caracas. But, pilot of aircraft is a German expatriate who was conveniently once employed by Dutch Guiana branch of KLM in Paramaibo!"
Throckmorton nodded, before adding: "He's supposedly making cargo runs to a Red Cross refugee camp on that island. And then bringing refugee Dutch nationals up to Surinam."
"But, you highly doubt this. Nyet?"
Yerkov's grin was now mirrored on the British army officer's face.
"If I did, would the GRU be willing to work in concert with the SOE in verifying such doubts as justified?"
Yerkov leaned forward in his seat and offered his right hand.
"Why not?"
Whereupon, Throckmorton leaned forward in his own chair and grasped that right hand with his own.
* * * * *
(8 MARCH, 1943)
The moment that Liebenkraft made that boastful admission, Gonsalves went for his gun. Unfortunately, he was grabbed from behind by two of Hans' men while the other two whipped out nine millimeter Lugers. Only then did Hans, himself, deprive Gonsalves of his Browning. Whereupon, Liebenkraft (in fluent German) instructed the two men holding the bounty hunter to use the latter's own handcuffs in binding their prisoner's arms behind him.
The Portuguese expatriate was naturally somewhat curious as to why he was being spared, and said as much.
Liebenkraft grinned: "We shall wait until we are over Lago Nahuel Huapi. I am told the view of it is quite spectacular from the altitude at which will be flying! You will have just enough time to confirm or deny that before you...deplane."
It was ten o'clock in the evening, local time, when the Fokker's co-pilot exited the cockpit just long enough to announce (again, in fluent German) that they were now over the lake. And that they would be arriving at "Isla Utgard" in less than ten minutes.
Liebenkraft looked at Gonsalves, with a shamelessly sadisitic smile.
"It is almost time, Herr Gonsalves. Any last requests?"
"Sih!" replied the bounty hunter (in his hybridized Spanish): "What are you going to do when Marisol wakes up? Any shackles you bind her with, she will simply break when she regains giant size!"
"That difficulty has already been anticipated, Herr Gonsalves. An old friend of mine is in charge of the research facility on Isla Utgard. A brilliant man who is quite expert in the use of narco-hypnotic drugs like scopolamine. He will see to it that she receives a steady intravenous supply of that drug, while he isolates the secret behind her power of self-gigantism...and duplicates it for the benefit of Der Third Reich!"
"That is assuming, of course," Gonsalves rebutted: "...that she allows you to reach your destination."
He indicated, with his chin, the canvas-enshrouded body occupying the bulk of the floor of the passenger/cargo compartment.
"I do not see how she can do otherwise," Liebenkraft declared: "...when she is obviously still sedated."
Gonsalves grinned: "Have you never heard of the norteamericano game called 'Playing 'Possum?' PRONTO!"
That last part he shouted at the top of his lungs in the direction of the canvas bundle. Whereupon, the latter sat bolt upright and tore the canvas apart by expanding her size to an even ten feet! Which, in turn, increased her mass just enough to make the Fokker begin a right-angled power dive...
...straight towards the surface of the lake.
NEXT: WATER "SPORTS"
Giantess World
Chapter End Notes:
GRU: Cyrillic initials for Soviet Red Army Intelligence.
SIS (Special Intelligence Service): semi-autonomous branch of the FBI that monitored Nazi activities in South America all through World War II.
SIS (Special Intelligence Service): semi-autonomous branch of the FBI that monitored Nazi activities in South America all through World War II.