That evening, Frank/Fritz met with Count Schloz, the assassin, and a team of 3 other saboteurs in the soundproof secret conference room to review the films, select targets for their sabotage campaign, and most important of all, set a trap for the Volunteer and Raptor.
The uncensored films showed them something about the security arrangements at the Navy Yard. At shift change, the departing workers went out one set of gates while the arriving workers came in through another. Each worker was required to show an official id card similar to a simplified passport which included a small photo of the worker. “If we capture some of them, we can easily replace the photos,” the team’s security expert noted. “With thousands of workers passing through those gates, no one will notice a few new workers. It may only work once before they tighten security. We should choose the most important target for our first attempt at inserting our saboteurs into the workforce.”
Further films showed the assembly lines, the shipyard with the giant cranes and the launching ways, and the small airstrip just outside the security fence. “The big hanger where they do the assembly work is a flimsy temporary building,” the demolition expert noted. “Small charges, small enough to be carried in a lunch pail, set at all 4 corners and the building would simply collapse. With a few scattered incendiary bombs as well, we could kill thousands – and send a message to the rest of Americans that resistance is futile!”
Count Schloz got excited when he saw the ‘tank farm’ where fuel oil for the big ships was stored. “This is where we begin! What a symbol it will make for the Americans to see the giant flaming torch of German power when we blow up these tanks!”
“It won’t be that easy,” the demolition expert warned the team. “Most of those tanks contain fuel oil, which won’t explode and requires high starting temperatures just to ignite it. But there are some gasoline tanks that WILL explode. It will take us a day to prepare – we strike tomorrow night! Wir werden es so machen!!!” (oops, sorry… this whole conversation was in German, not just this last!).
Fritz steered the conversation in the direction of the Volunteer. “We can demoralize the Americans even further is we can show them on film that their great patriot The Volunteer was the saboteur! And I am a cameraman now. What could be more perfect than I capture this footage as part of my job!” They spent another couple of hours planning, then the meeting broke up. Each member of the cell had a part of the job to perform. Tomorrow night they would begin their campaign of sabotage – and rid themselves of a great thorn in the side of the Reich!
***
Early the next morning, Frank went to his boss, Iron McCoy, and suggested some additional footage from the Navy Yard that would make excellent additions to this weeks reels. McCoy was impressed with his new hire’s enthusiasm for the job and his excellent suggestions, and assigned Frank the job – then he spent a good part of the rest of the day, bragging about the great hire he’d made and ‘boy, can I pick ‘em!’. At the yard, Frank caught sight of the Volunteer and Raptor more than once, but he wasn’t doing anything suspicious or even coming close to any secure areas – they’d got everything they needed already, and he just wanted to be sure the Volunteer would be extra vigilant about the Yard tonight.
***
That night, four small black boats, each driven by a silent electric trolling motor, slowly moved along the banks of the East River, converging on the Brookland Navy Yard waterfront from both sides. In each boat were two men, their skin darkened and wearing black clothing, lying uncomfortably under draped black canvas tarps, presenting the lowest silhouettes possible. They moved closer in stages, each stage designed to avoid the hourly ‘on foot’ security patrols Frank had learned about earlier. All reached their assigned entry points undetected, and the men aboard each dispersed to their designated targets, each wearing a heavy black backpack.
Three men went to the Yard’s motor pool, where one man stood watch while another broke into one of the small trucks and got it ready to be started without the key. Even with a flashlight, he worked quickly and assuredly. This was ‘Agent Kardieb’ who had been in prison in Germany for car theft (what else?) when the war broke out, and had been released with the promise of a pardon pending his work as a spy. The third man, ‘Agent Bombenleger’, rigged the back of the truck with powerful explosives. When the first explosions happened in the tank farm, that would be the signal for this group to start the truck and carry out their portion of the raid. Bombenleger slipped away to join the other teams, while Kardieb and the lookout removed their darkened outer garb to reveal the colorful costumes of… the Volunteer and Raptor!
Fritz cautiously placed a tripod at the road entrance to the tank farm, where he could film vehicles approaching and then swing around and film the road between the tanks all the way to the two big gasoline tanks, which were surrounded by fuel oil tanks. The remaining men slipped among the fuel oil tanks and positioned radio-controlled explosives at the bases of those closest to the gasoline tanks. The plan was to rupture a half dozed fuel oil tanks, while the team remained at a safe distance, allowing the oil to pour out onto the ground, then explode the gasoline tanks, which would ignite the flood of fuel oil – and for Fritz to film the whole attack, after which the team would slip away in the confusion. Then the cell would develop the file, edit it, and dub in some extra footage to create an Axis propaganda newsreel – the first of many to follow that would destroy American morale by showing the futility of opposing the far reaching, unstoppable power of the Axis!
When the explosions were set, the saboteurs all entered a shed, chosen from the earlier films as a convenient short-term hiding place where they could converse in whispers, safe from the eyes of the hourly patrols, and each agent reported on the success of his mission. And then, the whole plan went to Hölle as the door on the shed exploded inward, propelled by the hard-charging forms of… the Volunteer and Raptor!
Except… something on the floor near the door exploded with a poof, filling the room with smoke, and each of the saboteurs held his breath and slapped a gadget he had been holding in one hand over his mouth and nose, and the two heroes quickly passed out while the agents were protected by small breathing masks. They dragged the unconscious Volunteer and Raptor out of the hut, and Count Schloz pushed a button sent a radio signal to the waiting charges and caused explosions under some of the fuel oil tanks. Now they had to work fast! They tore off the dark camouflage on their outfits, revealing clothing similar to that worn by night shift workers and waited for their chance to blend in with the workers they expected to stream out of the assembly areas.
Thick, viscous fuel oil was starting to gush out of the breaches in the tanks – it wouldn’t ignite yet, but when the gasoline tank exploded, the flames produced by the burning gasoline would be hot enough to ignite all the oil on the ground, and the giant, leaking tanks would continue to fuel the flames! It might take hours to put out the fire, and with luck, it would explode other gasoline tanks and spread to the other buildings in the shipyard.
In the motor yard, the phony heroes started the truck and zoomed over to the shed. Meanwhile alarms were going off all over. They leaped from the truck. Fritz spun the camera their way and filmed them jumping into the truck. By this time, the unconscious Volunteer and Raptor had been dumped in the back of the truck, which was NOT captured by Fritz's camera. Then the truck zoomed off towards the gasoline tank, while Fritz swing the camera around to keep it in view the whole time. The plan was that the phony heroes would jump from the moving truck and run off, captured on film, before the truck struck the tank and set off the explosion. And Fritz would have it all on film – proving that the Volunteer and Raptor were the cowardly saboteurs, who ran away from the explosion and then disappeared! And since the real heroes would die in the explosion, there would be nobody left to dispute the story! It should even cast doubt on ALL mystery heroes – if they could commit acts of sabotage and then disappear without a trace into their secret identities, how could anyone ever trust them again?
The real team of saboteurs would escape in the added confusion that would result when the gasoline tank exploded. There was another truck wired and ready in the Yard’s vehicle depot, and the security personnel at the Navy Yard’s gate, if they were paying attention at all at that point to people leaving the Yard, would see the traitorous Volunteer and Raptor driving that vehicle as it crashed out.
Fritz and Count Schloz stood next to the camera and roared with laughter as the explosions and alarm started to rouse the forces stationed at the yard.
“Ich liebe es, wenn ein Plan aufgeht!” the Count crowed.
“JaWOHL!” Fritz agreed loudly, then they both saluted. “Sieg HEIL!”
