Chapter 393 Details

It took less than three hours from the discovery of the body to the collection of the briefcase by the British consulate.

At first glance, it was a very ordinary thing. The body was found, and then Spain did what a neutral country should do, returning the body and the briefcase to Britain.

But there was a turmoil in it...

The briefcase had of course been opened, but it was opened very carefully without leaving any traces. The reason was that Spain was a neutral country and should not participate in any intelligence or military-related events between the warring countries. The contents of this briefcase obviously had intelligence value, and the only question was how much value it had.

After opening the briefcase, the people in the Spanish Navy Office were shocked when they saw the contents, because one of the documents revealed that the British attack on Sicily was just a feint, and its real goal was to attack Greece and then attack Romania to the north and Italy to the west... This was almost exactly the same as the analysis of the generals in Rommel's headquarters.

The Spanish office staff hurriedly reported to the Navy Headquarters.

Because the delay would arouse the suspicion of the British Consulate... As mentioned before, if the British side realized that the briefcase had been opened, the intelligence would lose its value, because the British would change the combat plan, and its offensive target would be uncertain.

So the Navy Command made a prompt decision and ordered to notify the British Consulate and take photos of the documents in the briefcase, including the body and the things carried in the clothes.

The people in the British Consulate knew nothing about this, and in fact they knew nothing... because they didn't know that this was a trap set by the British MI5 for the Germans. They just received a message from the British military: "Be sure to keep the secret of the briefcase strictly and get the briefcase as soon as possible!"

So, the performance of the British Consulate was real.

At the same time, because they were not professional intelligence personnel, they could not see the flaws during the acceptance and didn't know that the briefcase had been opened.

When the briefcase was handed over to the MI5, the intelligence personnel carefully opened the most important document... and found that the black powder left in the page had disappeared, so they knew that their plan was half successful.

Some of the details are so thorough that it is hard to believe.

For example, MI5 chose Spain because they knew that although Spain was a neutral country on the surface, because Hitler helped the Spanish leader Franco win the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), Spain had always maintained friendly relations with Germany and would definitely report to Germany in secret if they found any important intelligence.

The town of Huelva was chosen because there were many German spies here, as well as British spies, which not only helped Germany obtain intelligence but also helped Britain to know the progress of the matter.

In order to prevent the autopsy from being too thorough and discovering anything, MI5 people hung a St. Christopher amulet on the body so that the Spanish would mistakenly believe that the unfortunate Major Martin was a Catholic.

The Spanish were Catholics, and out of respect for religion, they did not want to "disturb" him too much, so they hurriedly checked and buried him... The body found by MI5 died of rat poison poisoning. The homeless man was probably starving and accidentally ate the poisoned rat while looking for food. (Note: This is different from the online reports of death from pneumonia and water accumulation in the lungs)

The reason why it was named "Martin" is that German spies had a list of almost all naval officers starting with the letters A to L, and "Martin" starts with M.

...

The other things were to forge Major Martin's life, such as having a newly engaged fiancée, bank overdraft slips, etc., which were relatively simple.

The people of MI5 did everything perfectly, so the intelligence soon became as they imagined. The Spanish revealed the intelligence to the Germans, and the Germans sent the intelligence to Berlin as if they had found a treasure...The German intelligence department even believed that the British did not realize that the information had been leaked, so the intelligence was valuable, which meant that the British would continue to follow these plans.

At this time, Qin Chuan certainly did not know this...In fact, he had known this for a long time. He even knew that MI5 had revealed several flaws in the operation, but these flaws were ignored by the German intelligence department for various reasons.

From this point of view, the German intelligence department is still much more naive than the old spy country Britain.

Qin Chuan was staring at the rumbling drilling... Yesterday he had heard from Professor Buckhouse that Well No. 3 had reached 2,100 meters because the process went smoothly.

This depth was close to hitting oil, which made Qin Chuan a little nervous. He couldn't help but think: What if I remembered it wrong? Or what if there was an accident and no oil was hit?

If oil was not found, then his Algeria layout could be said to have been all in vain, and it even attracted a large number of Allied troops in North Africa... The Allied forces that the African Corps was facing were at least four or five times stronger than it, and the number of Allied fighters and bombers had also increased sharply to more than a thousand, which had reached an overwhelming numerical advantage.

At this moment, the drill rod slowly rose, and then the drill rod was dismantled one section at a time.

"What happened?" Qin Chuan asked.

"It's time to change the drill bit, Captain!" Hans, whose face was covered in mud, replied.

Qin Chuan shook his head and sighed that it was really a long time to change the drill bit... However, Hans and others did not know that they were about to hit oil, so it was understandable.

The drill rod is generally about nine meters per section, and there are more than 200 drill rods for more than 2,000 meters. When changing the drill bit, it is necessary to remove it while ascending, and then lower it while installing it after the drill bit is installed. The whole process takes at least several hours.

So Qin Chuan leaned on the recliner and covered his face with newspaper to block the sun.

I don’t know how long it took, Qin Chuan dazedly heard Hans shouting in surprise: "Professor, you should come and see!"

Qin Chuan woke up dazedly and saw the exploration members gathering towards Well No. 3 from all directions. Qin Chuan seemed to realize something, and he turned over and stood up and walked towards Well No. 3.

"Captain!" Colonel Buckhouse looked at Qin Chuan who was walking towards him with a handful of black gravel and said, "We are in luck!"

"This is a sand-bearing oil layer, Captain!" Hans explained excitedly, "It is rich in oil and has a strong smell, which means we are not far from the oil field!"

"Are you sure?" Qin Chuan looked at Professor Buckhouse.

Professor Buckhouse nodded and answered with certainty, "Yes, I am sure!"

At this time, Qin Chuan's hanging heart was completely put down, and cheers came from all around!