Iron Cross

In the early morning, a day of intense and busy work has begun at No. 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the Prime Minister of the British Empire.

Winston Churchill, who looked tired, was reading the situation reports submitted by MI5 and MI6. He had been feeling very bad for the past two days, and his sleep quality was also very poor. He was always nervous that something would go wrong. In order to resolve this situation, he Feeling an ominous premonition, he sent telegrams to the front line continuously, and the top priority was the North African front line - he thought the Germans would make a fuss there. Within two days, he sent five telegrams to the Eighth Army and Lieutenant General Montgomery. The Prime Minister's Secretary remembered clearly that Montgomery had responded politely to the first four telegrams, but by the time of the fifth telegram, the good-tempered lieutenant general probably couldn't help it anymore and directly sent the fourth telegram again. Shot once. He remembered clearly that when he received the exact same telegram, he asked the other party again whether it was sent by mistake. As a result, the North African side only responded angrily: "Hell, we have said what we need to say four times. Since you If your memory is so bad, I’ll remind you again.”

He didn't dare to show this response to the Prime Minister, but the Prime Minister was pressing for a reply from the Eighth Army. He thought about it for a long time and finally decided to take it intact. If he got angry, he might shirk it. The front line sent the wrong one, and asked them to reissue it again - he could take the opportunity to remind them to send something different.

When he took the call back, he found that all worries and preparations were unnecessary. The Prime Minister was listening to the report from General Big "C" Menzies. Judging from the tension of the scene and the degree of surprise of the Prime Minister himself, he should No more attention was paid to the telegrams from the North African front.

"Prime Minister, the super secrets were severely damaged last night. You know the power of the solidification weapon. If it is released into a dense area, the destructive power can be imagined, although the final loss has not yet been fully calculated. But I think it will be very, very big." Menzies, who was always cautious, said two times in a row, "If the translators can be retrained, then we will lose this group of cryptography experts. The code-breaking power is almost finished. More importantly, since the Germans can actively change the code and accurately bomb the manor, it can be proved that they have accurate information, and maybe there are their people among our senior officials. "

Of course, Menzies’ words are not alarmist: Behind every new code-breaking mechanism is the process of logical argumentation and algorithm verification by a large number of cryptographers and math experts, while translators are just applying their ideas into practice. The former is the designer of the building, while the latter is just the construction team. This is a core secret that only very high-level people know. If the Germans didn't have someone at the top, how could it be so accurate?

"This secret was bought with the blood and lives of the entire city of Coventry, but why did they know it? How did the Germans learn about this? Who cooperated with them in dropping bombs? Who is hidden among us? German spies? We need to get to the bottom of it!" Churchill yelled through gritted teeth.

During the Battle of Britain in 1940, the German side had expressed doubts about the possible loss of the Engeni code, and therefore specially formulated a plan to attack the city of Coventry for verification. Of course, this news was also grasped by the British side. After repeated thinking and Churchill finally decided not to take any defensive and diversion measures and allowed the German bombing, and even weakened the normal defense forces to avoid suspicion. In the "Horrible Ghost Night", 50,000 buildings in the entire Coventry city were destroyed, 50,000 shops were damaged, and more than 600 residents lost their lives. 150 of the bodies were buried in the same cemetery because they could not be identified - - Coventry became the most heavily bombed city in Britain during the Battle of Britain.

Now that the Germans had easily destroyed the manor and taken away the "golden egg" that the Prime Minister had been guarding, how could he not be furious?

"How long will it take to rebuild our code-breaking system? How much investment?" Churchill asked with red eyes and changed the topic.

"I'm afraid it's very difficult... This group of experts and scholars cannot be copied, and the equipment used to decipher the codes has also been destroyed. If it can be rebuilt, I think..." Menzies pondered for a moment and thought for a long time before saying, " Taking into account various factors such as personnel, team, equipment, and the complexity of the Germans’ new password, I think it will take at least 2 years—this is still less.”

"Two years?" Churchill stared at Menzies, his eyes seemed to be on fire. "How many things will happen in two years? How many more people will we die?"

Menzies was speechless and did not dare to look at the Prime Minister's angry face, so he could only lower his head and remain silent.

While the atmosphere was tense, the intelligence adjutant suddenly came in and reported: "Prime Minister, General Menzies, the search team came to report that the fire has been completely extinguished. It is currently judged that there are no survivors, and the missing group of personnel has also been found. ”

"Okay!" Churchill suddenly jumped up from his seat, his whole face filled with brilliance, "Where are they? Are there any practical difficulties? Give the order, no matter where they are or which unit is currently in contact. , give them the best protection and send them to London immediately, we can’t afford to lose another one.”

"I'm afraid... this is difficult?" The adjutant's face looked ugly.

"What do you mean?" Churchill's face suddenly elongated.

"All the experts we found are dead..." the adjutant reported in a low tone. "Except for one expert who was shot in the head and died, the others all died in a pond. They were basically killed with daggers. , all the bodies were thrown into the pond afterwards, and the water inside turned red. The murderers were very professional. The troops checked several recovered bodies and found that they were all killed by one knife. The salvage at the scene was still going on. They were probably killed. There will be 50-60 people, and the scene is quite tragic..."

After hearing this, Churchill felt as if he had been electrocuted. He fell down heavily and muttered to himself: "How could it be? How could it be?"

"The situation is now obvious. The Germans should have infiltrated a special operations team. They guided the aircraft to the air strike targets and at the same time carried out a massacre of the survivors - their goals were very clear and direct, that is Our super secret." Menzies remained calm, "Judging from the situation just now, there may be a lot of them, and they must have sneaked in pretending to be our troops - otherwise so many people would not be able to conceal their whereabouts."

"How did this situation come about? Check it out for me! Check it out! Now! Now! Now!" Churchill roared, "Also, if you want to lay a dragnet for me, this small team must be hiding somewhere. They can't sneak away during the day, and I have to dig three feet to find them."

After another half an hour, more news poured into the Prime Minister's residence: the bodies of all the military police were found at the town's military police station. There were no traces of crossfire. They were all killed with daggers. The method was the same as at the pond. It was very special. Skilled and cold, it is expected to be done by the same group of people; according to the memories of other local residents, three vehicles drove in from outside yesterday evening, a jeep and two military trucks, and the people on them were all in military police uniforms - they thought It was the normal deployment and defense change of the troops, so they ignored it; then the navy sent a report that the port guard found three stolen vehicles during the day yesterday. After comparison and verification, it was confirmed that they were the vehicles that appeared near the manor - they should have come from the port. Landing; the radar station reported that yesterday it was discovered that several aircraft of our military returned early. After verification and verification, they did not keep track. Now it is suspected that these aircraft are German aircraft disguised as our military that came to drop bombs.

Clues came out one after another. Members of the war cabinet who had received the bad news had gathered at the Prime Minister's residence. They all saw it. Churchill went crazy and cursed all parties, including the Air Force, the Navy, etc. Curse the military police, curse the army troops who are closest and the first to rush to the rescue, curse the intelligence agencies...

The phone rang suddenly, and the adjutant answered it. On the other side was an urgent and anxious voice. He nodded repeatedly while listening, and then said: "Please wait a moment."

"The leader of one of our search and rescue units would like to report directly to you."

"Okay." Churchill took the phone, "I am Winston Churchill, who are you?"

"Your Excellency Prime Minister..." The voice coming from the other side was trembling a little. I don't know whether it was panic or nervousness, but the reporting process was smooth. "After discovering a fire in Bletchley Town late last night, we rushed to the scene as soon as possible. During the rescue, we met a mathematical researcher who called himself "McDonald". He told us that he was a survivor of the air raid by a secret unit in the manor. He also said that a group of survivors were taken hostage by the Germans. Because the atmosphere at the scene was tense and the visibility was very poor, and the other party spoke fluent local English and had a work permit issued by the government department, we believed his words and pursued him in the direction he pointed out. At dawn today, We still haven't caught up with the so-called German spy force. We became suspicious of him and wanted to control and verify him. During the resistance, he detonated the grenade he carried and died on the spot. We led the captain, Major James, and several others Two soldiers were killed together. We asked the government to verify the identity of the 'McDonald' researcher and confirm whether he was a spy - we still have all the traces at the scene, but the pursuit cannot continue and we have lost the target..."

"I will find someone to verify." Churchill hung up the phone and sat down dejectedly, "Another clue has been broken."

Many years later, the secretary wrote in his published memoirs: "...At that moment, the sky of the British Empire fell. The Prime Minister was furious and had no choice. To say something very disrespectful to him - he was like a man that day. Catch the old dog who bites whomever.”