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Instead of bombs, the bomb bay held the rest of the Blackhawks, wearing parachutes. A light on the forward bulkhead changed from red to green. One by one, the team stepped off into the darkness below. The B-26 wheeled and headed back to Blackhawk Island as five black silk canopies blossomed in the night.
They landed within a few hundred yards of each other and quickly assembled. They stripped off their black coveralls, revealing a strange combination of dress. Stanislaus wore the uniform of a Waffen SS corporal. The rest wore the gray work fatigues of slave laborers.
Their chosen disguise had given Chuck and Chop Chop the pilot duties. Neither could pass for a European. Stanislaus' home in Poland was not far from the German border and he spoke German with no detectable accent. That and the blonde, Aryan looks that could have made him a model for Nazi propaganda posters made him the logical choice to pose as a German soldier. Blackhawk spoke nearly every European language fluently and his black hair and darker complexion would make it easy for him to pass as a conscripted laborer from one of the conquered countries east of Germany. Andre was no problem either. When the Germans completed the military occupation of France after the D-Day Disaster, they had a free hand to smash the French underground. French prisoners were common.
Hendrickson spoke only German and English and he was too old to pass as a soldier, but he'd come up with a disguise that no Nazi would question. He had sewn a yellow Star of David to the left breast of his tunic. There was more to his choice than expediency. Hendrickson's wife, Violet, had been Jewish. Hendy had once confided to Blackhawk that he was thankful that Violet had not lived to see the Nazis round up her family and send them to the "work" camps. They hadn't known for sure in 1939 that they were death camps, but there were rumors even then that they were not what the Nazis claimed. His inability to prevent that had sparked his hatred of the Nazis and led him to join the Blackhawks.
And Olaf, of course, was Norwegian. Blackhawk turned to him, "Olaf, this is your country. Is this area familiar to you?"
A look of pain washed over the big man's normally genial countenance, but it was gone in a moment. "I never been in this fjord before, but my home is in one yust like it. I know vere to find the paths."
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