[Icelander]

Obviously, the PCs are only in their current position because of visits from Mr. Murphy. That is to say, before the start of play, there had been persistent failures to arrange a face-to-face meeting with the Nazi traitor Hermann Fegelein, with several rendervouzes failing to work.

In addition, while scouting the target area on the 24th of April, one of the SOE agents on the advance team (disguised as a Waffen-SS man, having attached himself to the Volkssturm defenders in the area) suddenly abandoned cover in the Tiergarten and walked slowly in the direction of the Reichkanzlei. He proved unable to explain himself and was captured by SS security troops, but was able to commit suicide by hand grenade before being further questioned. This led to the SOE advance team adopting more stringest security measures and moving the insertion of the Gurkha witch-finder Kharuk Bahadur Rai forward, as they suspected that the lost agent had been influenced by some sort of occult energies.

Plan A of a massive bombardment of the Weltmittelpunktbunker had, according to Fegelein, not been successful. The bunker was too well protected from bomb blasts for that method to be reliable.

Plan B was to insert the assault unit by glider or parachute in a safe landing zone established by a team of SAS men either outside the city or in a suburb where there was light fighting, and then use the authority of Fegelein and disguised SOE agents provided with papers by him to get them to the attack area without fighting through German defences by pretending to be an elite Waffen-SS unit with secret orders from the Fuhrer (and/or Himmler).

The complete encirclement of Berlin by the Soviet forces after the 24th of April made landing outside the city impossible. That, as well as Fegelein being declared a deserter, perhaps even traitor, and him being wanted by the RSD combine to make this plan both impractical from a logistical point of view and too risky from an operational point of view. Aside from the problems of any potential landing zone being overrun by Soviets or being the scene of pitched fighting, the odds are that any German troops within practical message distance from the Fuhrerbunker might have been instructed to arrest Fegelein on sight.

It is therefore time for Plan C, or Operation Brünnhilde, which calls for the PCs, and the four SAS men who've been receiving resupply drops, to covertly infiltrate the Tiergarten and establish an emergency landing zone right there. Four DFS 230 gliders will then land there in darkness and the surviving men of the assault element will move quickly into positon to storm Himmler's bunker. They'll then doff their German uniform disguises before attacking in their own American uniforms*, so as to not violate any laws of war.**

No one really expects them to succeed***, but if they do, they will ideally rendervouz with a convoy disguised as Swedish soldiers removing diplomats from Berlin, which will extract any survivors as well as the Amber Room, before the Russians arrive.


*They'll be wearing Airborne kit, but belong to an OSS Operational Group.
**The PCs are much more relaxed about that sort of thing, however, as many experienced SOE agents tended to be.
***But those who believe in the signs and portents which lead to them considering this mission at all, i.e. that Himmler and his inner circle will somehow manage to use the Amber Room as a weapon of occult mass destruction once all hope is gone for the Third Reich, perhaps even ending all life on Earth, are unwilling to allow such an ending without at least attempting something. Hence, the last ditch attempt to let the fat lady sing. Unknown to the PCs, the very few people in the world privy to certain knowledge are, perhaps, praying that there will be time to counter any Nazi superweapon by letting a Fat Man sing instead.