The body was headless, it had no fingers. Identification would be difficult, if not impossible, and so the mystery begins.

Aircraftsman 2nd Class Jeremy Carter is the rawest recruit at Royal Canadian Air Force Station Scoudouc – a training center for British, New Zealand and Australian pilots during World War 2. Ordered to clean debris from the back fields, he makes a startling discovery.

Reporting the incident directly to his superiors, he’s warned to keep the finding to a small and select group of airmen of which the base’s commanding officer is one. There are too many secrets at RCAF Scoudouc for this to go public.

Warrant Officer Stefan Kravchenko of the Royal Canadian Air Force is with the Service Police and his reputation is on the rise. Stationed at RCAF Saint John, he works out of the Milledgeville Airport. Thinking his day is finished, he’s called to the office of his commanding officer. He receives orders to proceed to RCAF Station Scoudouc, 150 miles away. Immediately. He is not given a reason why, only that it is orders.

A German spy was sent to New Brunswick by the Abwehr before the war broke out. German intelligence receives rumours of the existence of a highly classified device leaving England, destined for the shores of Atlantic Canada. Iron Spear is activated and sent to Scoudouc.

In civilian life, he was a butcher.

Sampler: Cod Name: Iron Spear

October 1^st

The roar of the airplane taking off echoes through the fields. A Tiger Moth rises into the glare of the yellow lip cresting on the horizon. The huge hangars of the Scoudouc Air Force Base are muted silhouettes on the skyline giving no evidence to the sounds of hundreds of men and women waking up and going to work. Tim Grant stands astride a borrowed bicycle shielding his eyes from the rising sun to watch the plane veer off to the north on what’s likely a training flight. It’s mostly what they do at the air base, from what he hears. There are lots of British gents and some from New Zealand with their funny accents around these days. Air force people from all over Canada too. Teaching them how to fly. He’d like to fly a plane, see things all tiny he imagines. Glances down at his bum ankle with a look which says it’s all your fault and knows it will never happen.

Tim took off early with his little brother’s bicycle, his first day off from his crazy shifts at the store for seven days and he doesn’t have to be back until Saturday. He’s standing at the gate where the Air Force put up their No Trespassingsign and he waits behind a cluster of trees, out of sight. His best friend, Lloyd, is supposed to join him this morning. Said he’d meet him here at the gate at 6:30, daybreak and they’d sneak in together. It’s already almost seven and no sign of him. Tim thinks he may have changed his mind and enters the wooded area leading to the fields.

He’s doing some end of season fishing. There’s still trout in the brook. He knows he’s not supposed to be on the land, expropriated and all when the government built the base and still building but he’s been coming all summer when he could and nothing happens. The road in is the one used before the farmers stopped working the soil, mostly tall dead grass covers the fields now. He wanted to come in earlier in the dark, but now it’s almost seven and he’s not waiting any longer. The last days off he had were over two weeks ago when he asked for an extra day to move into his new apartment. His friends all teased him about living at home and too old at twenty to be under his momma’s wings. He laughs to himself thinking all he owns is a bed, a small table and two chairs. He has a lot of work to do and he has to remember to pick up some bread on his way home. The milkman, Mr Doucet, called out from his van to him earlier, thinking it was his brother.

“Hey Donnie boy, you can only be up to no good if you’re awake this early?”

And drove off with both chins jiggling at his own humour. It’s no wonder, folks say he and his brother look so much alike. Donnie’s a few inches shorter, tall for a sixteen-year-old. Same curly hair always looking unkempt, same color as their mother, the halfway point between blond and brunette, like caramel. Strong chins and wide jaw. The eyes are different with Donnie’s being frivolous blue and Tim serious brown.

He parks the bike under a cluster of alders at the edge of the field near the road he pedaled in on and using the thin trees lining the brook to hide behind, he carries his rod and a creel hung over one shoulder and makes his way toward the wooded area where a deep hole exists and the fishing is best where it bubbles out to a shallower area. When he nears the tree line, he hesitates, gets a mild scare when he sees movement off to his left, twenty feet away from the waterway. Someone disappeared behind a large pine tree older than his grandfather, thick and heavy branched. Looking down, he sees trodden patches of grass. Not heavily used but obvious. It makes him look at his own trail, he didn’t notice any disturbance on his way in. His curiosity gets the best of him wondering who would be in the woods so early. His eyes dart everywhere, treading on the balls of his feet he moves toward where he saw the movement.

No one will know he’s missing until he doesn’t show up for work.

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