An early spring had descended in full bloom on London. That should have made life feel more pleasant than it had felt in late January in Leipzig, but it did not. On those rare occasions when he felt much of anything now, it was a slow-burning hatred for everything German, from cuckoo clocks and short leather pants to schnapps and that all-too-polite Chief Bastard Otto Dietrich. Germans! They were the ones responsible for Hanni Steiner’s death, for Will Kenyon’s, and for starting the whole goddamned war in the first place. Now that he was trapped on the wrong side of the battlefield, the wrong side of the English Channel, and the wrong side of eight weeks, he had nothing to do but remember, think, and regret. Otto Dietrich might have stripped him of his manhood, his dignity, and his only reason for living; but these eight weeks in England had proved infinitely crueler than the basement of Gestapo headquarters in Leipzig. He spent four days and nights there, had eight weeks to think about them, and had not even begun to heal. How could he? His body was damaged and his nerves were shot. He was barely twenty-seven years old and already little more than an empty husk.
He looked down at the small table he was seated at. There was a neat row of shot glasses lined up in front of him. He frowned as he tried to focus his eyes long enough to count them. Six were empty and two were full, temporarily at least, so this must be his seventh round. He smiled as he picked it up and raised it to the light. Unfortunately, that was when he saw the pub’s front door open, and his smile went limp at the corners. It was Sergeant Major Rupert Carstairs himself, standing in the doorway squinting as he searched through the thick haze of the small room. Scanlon saw Carstairs’s nose twitch like a well-lathered bloodhound sniffing the air. He was on the hunt, and aggravation at first sight. Scanlon raised the shot glass until he had the big Brit’s head balanced on the glass’s wet rim, thinking he did not look nearly as intimidating up there. Unfortunately, there was no getting around it. Carstairs’s eyes were slowly adjusting to the gloom, so Scanlon tossed the rest of the scotch down the back of his throat, knowing he could not hide from the determined bastard for much longer. When he left the hospital, it was only a question of who found him first — Carstairs, the American MPs, or the Right Honorable Colonel Sir George Bromley himself, but Scanlon had slipped well beyond the point of caring.
Sure enough, Carstairs spotted him sitting in the rear corner. With a loud grunt and his best parade-ground, double-time stride, the Sergeant Major marched down the narrow aisle, chin up, baton under one arm, and the other swinging to the precise, well-practiced cadence beating in his head.
As Carstairs passed the bar, the innkeeper cautioned, “I don’t want no trouble in here, mate.”
“Bugger off,” he snarled back without a glance or breaking stride, “and I ain’t your bleedin’ mate!”
All class, Scanlon thought as Carstairs came to a crisp halt in front of him, heels locked, thumbs down the seams of his trousers, the front creases brushing against the forward edge of the table. Despite how much he detested this ill-bred, upstart American, Carstairs was an enlisted man and Scanlon an officer. That might mean absolutely nothing to Scanlon, but in the British Army, it was a gulf as wide as the English Channel.
“Begging the Captain’s pardon,” Carstairs began correctly enough, knowing he had Scanlon right where he wanted him. “It appears that you have absented yourself from your duty station, albeit a hospital bed, without an official by-your-leave. And you know how our people like to know where their Americans wander off to… Suh!”
“Rupert, my good man,” Scanlon slowly looked up at him. “I have wandered off to precisely here, and here is where I hope to be found most hours of the day — every day — by appointment only, of course,” he added with a soft, well-liquored grin. “And for the record, I am no longer running errands for the good Colonel Bromley. As the official emissary and Minister Plenipotentiary of President Roosevelt to this very pub, I have mustered myself out of our little colonial Army and declared myself a civilian.”
“Is that so, Sir? We English are but an insignificant little people, and I don’t know how we shall ever carry on the war without you.”
Scanlon drained the last drop from his glass and picked up the next one. “The war is over, Rupert, and I’ve had all I can take from you and that pompous ass Bromley.”
“The war is over, is it, Sir? Good heavens! I read the Times this very morning, and I don’t know how I could have missed a story like that.”
“Believe me, it’s over. So, you can go volunteer for Borneo, or Burma, or some other goddamned place, as long as it’s the hell away from me.”
The Sergeant Major’s face turned red with the veins popping out on his forehead, yet he remained rock-hard. “Funny you should mention Burma, since I’ve already been there, and North Africa, and Italy too, behind the lines, doing one dirty job after another with SOE. I go where they send me, you see. In our little army, we call that discipline. We call it following orders. Today, my orders are to come to this pub and retrieve you; so retrieve you I shall.”
The Sergeant Major had a mean streak that ran wide and deep. Officer or not, after the incident in the DC-3 six months before, Scanlon knew it did not pay to push the big bastard too far. However, Scanlon had paid his own dues. “You Brits are really something, aren’t you?” he said. “God save the British Empire. That’s all that really matters, isn’t it?”
“Not really,” Carstairs stared down at him contemptuously. “I’d have been satisfied if God saved me Mum’s little flat in Coventry. Nonetheless, we poor Brits, as you call us, do retain a few quaint, dusty notions. We think an officer should shave in the morning, we cringe when they dress like the Polack cavalry on parade, and we would prefer they don’t reek of cheap gin.”
Scanlon slowly shook his head. “This happens to be an incredibly good single-malt scotch whiskey, Rupert. It isn’t gin, not that you’d know the difference.”
“I’m so glad to see you haven’t lost any of that keen Yank wit of yours, Sir. You know how much we enlisted men do enjoy your little jokes.”
“You don’t need to stand on formality with me, Rupert,” Scanlon said as he looked around the dimly lit bar, knowing how his comments grated on the big man. “After all, you can’t stand me, and I sure as hell can’t stand you, so I figure that makes us about equal.”
Rather than placate the big Sergeant Major, that only enraged him even more. “Equal? I am not your bleedin’ equal!” Carstairs glared down at him. “You coward. When you ran away from the hospital this morning, you should have thrown yourself off the first bridge you came to. It would have been a whole lot quicker than drink, and a whole lot cheaper.”
Scanlon’s eyes always showed his mood like the red tube on a barometer. Today, the storm flags were up and flying. “Carstairs, it is amazing how much ignorance and stupidity you Brits can breed into one big body,” Scanlon said. “It is a bleedin’ miracle.”
“That it is, Sir; and it’s equally amazing how one visit to the Gestapo can turn a man into a sniveling coward.” Carstairs leaned across the table and grabbed Scanlon’s left wrist. It had been hiding in his lap, out of sight and out of mind until the Sergeant Major pulled on Scanlon’s arm and twisted, bringing the badly scarred hand up between their faces.
“What have we here, Captain? Did the manicure at the Officers’ Club get a bit close this morning?” Carstairs held the wrist in a vice-like grip despite Scanlon’s desperate attempts to pull free. The two men were alone in the dark at the back of the pub, but they both knew things had gone too far for it to matter any longer. “Oh! I forgot,” he went on. “You are a war hero now, aren’t you? Lose a few fingernails, get a few dents and dings, and suddenly there’s a new star in the firmament, a new hero for us to worship,” Carstairs said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Who knows, if Himmler’s boys had gone to work on your other hand too, you might have got the Victoria Cross.”
Scanlon jerked his hand free, but the Sergeant Major was not finished. He too had crossed the line,
and he was not about to come back until he let it all out and vented the frustration and anger that had been building up inside him for months now. “And a right proper hero you are, Sir. You might not give this any credence, but I can tolerate your rich-boy American background, your amateur training, and even your smart mouth, because I’ve dealt with much worse in my day. No, what galls me most, is that a proper officer, a proper hero like Captain Kenyon had to go and get himself shot dead trying to save your pathetic backside. Now, there was a lad England could have put to good use; and the lad had to go throw it all away on the likes of you.”
“Don’t you think I know that!”
“Some job you did. The Gestapo rolled up your whole ruddy network like a cheap rug — all of it, even that raspberry-red tart of yours, the Steiner woman. A clean sweep you gave them there, Captain, a clean sweep, indeed.”
“Carstairs, you ignorant bastard!” Scanlon screamed as he felt his fingertips burning.
“What? No more jokes, Captain Scanlon? None of that famous Yank humor? How pathetic,” Carstairs said as he put his hands on the table and leaned forward, their faces only inches apart, taunting him. “I’ll wager the Gestapo had a jolly good laugh with her. I can picture her now, tied down to a table in one of their basement “beauty parlors.” Some joke, eh Captain Scanlon? Some big bleedin’ Yank joke, isn’t it.”
Scanlon finally lost control. Carstairs had him by at least four inches and fifty pounds, but the American came out of his chair swinging. His fist caught the big Brit under the chin with a powerful uppercut, compact, from the shoulders and the hips, with all of his body weight behind it. It snapped the Sergeant Major’s head back and lifted him up onto his toes. He hung there, stunned, rocking back and forth for a moment, glassy-eyed.
“Oh shit,” Scanlon muttered as he shook his right hand, the knuckles screaming in pain. Worse still, like a wounded bear, the big Brit did not go down. He was still standing there. Scanlon debated whether to hit him again, but by then it was too late.
Carstairs’s eyes cleared and he stood stock still, staring across the table at Scanlon as an expression of sublime contentment came over him. “Now you’ve really gone and done it, haven’t you, Captain,” he chuckled. “Imagine, an officer striking an enlisted man. That’ll cost you a pretty penny, lad, indeed it will. Well, the Colonel said I was to fetch you back, no matter what. You won’t mind if I go about doing just that, will you?”
Carstairs released the hand, reached across the table, gathered up half of Scanlon’s shirt in one big paw, and lifted him off the floor. He held him there for a moment, while the other paw shot across in a powerful, straight right that caught Scanlon flush on the forehead.
That was the last thing the American remembered.
Carstairs tossed Scanlon over his shoulder like a rag doll and set out for the front door. “Innkeeper, a round for the house, if you please,” he said as he strode by. “Put them on the Captain’s tab. That’s a good fellow. Not to worry, though. As long as you have another bottle on the shelf, this sot will be back. You can wager on it.”
Yanks! The Sergeant Major was not one to question orders, no matter how stupid they might seem; still, there were times that made him wonder. Anyone could see this lad was done for. He was burned-out, and would no longer be fit for fieldwork or much of anything else for that matter. Never! And wishful thinking would not make it so.
“Captain Scanlon, I do insist that you stop abusing my enlisted men like this,” Colonel George Bromley’s voice droned on. He was a little man, Scanlon observed, the type who felt safest behind a very big desk. Safe he was, too, as long as Sergeant Major Rupert Carstairs stood in the doorway hoping the American would give him another excuse. Scanlon was not that stupid, however, at least not when he was sober. He glanced around the spacious, well-appointed office. No doubt, Bromley had commandeered the mahogany desk, the Persian carpets, crystal chandelier, oil paintings on the walls, and the rest of the expensive furnishings in the white-columned Edwardian row house he used as an office. It was located on a tree-lined square in Kensington, complete with a bay window, a flower box, and bright red geraniums. Clothes do not make the man, and an interior decorator cannot make a gentleman, Scanlon knew; but it appeared that a “national security” chit was carte-blanche to requisition anything and everything you wanted in London. Reluctantly, Scanlon turned his eyes back to Bromley. He decided that what he disliked most about the aggravating little man was his perfectly trimmed black mustache, but it was a close call. He could have just as easily chosen the pomaded hair that lay in thin, gleaming rows across the top of the Colonel’s bony head, or the way he sat in his over-sized, leather desk chair, chin up, and hands folded neatly in front of him. All things considered, Colonel George Bromley was a limited man with very limited abilities, Scanlon quickly concluded.
“Well?” Bromley raised his chin a tad higher and began to fidget. “What do you have to say for yourself, Captain?”
Scanlon rolled his eyes back in his head and slumped deeper into the tall, red-leather armchair, but there was no escape. Bromley had set him up too well this time, sending Carstairs into the pub and knowing how easy it would be to provoke him; and Scanlon fell for it. Now, badly hung-over and with the front of his head still throbbing from its collision with Carstairs’s fist, they had him right where they wanted him. He had struck a senior non-commissioned officer. Drunk or sober, that was a court martial offense, so Scanlon decided to wait until their little charade played itself out. Eventually, Bromley would get around to what he really wanted and it must be a doozie, Scanlon thought. The man would not have gone to this much trouble just to torture him, no matter how much pleasure he took in the sport.
Finally, the silence became more painful than his throbbing head. “You said that was the last job I’d have to do for you, Colonel — the last — that meant there wouldn’t be any more.”
“Did I?”
“Bastard.”
“Probably.”
“Well, count me out; the only place I’m going is home.”
“It is more likely you’re going to a penal battalion on the South docks, lad,” Bromley’s lips parted in a thin, bloodless smile, “and don’t think I wouldn’t do it.” He looked pleased with himself, thinking the hook was sunk and he could reel Scanlon in at his leisure like a fat brook trout on a fly line. “Fortunately for you, I do have some discretion in the matter, provided you cooperate,” Bromley droned on. “It appears we have need of you and your unique talents once again. SHAPE headquarters passed a chit to Joint Operations last night and the mission fits you to a ‘T,’ my boy. Just think, no more wasting away in the hospital with all those slackers and malcontents, and no more wasting your afternoons and evenings in a pub. You get to take another whack at Jerry and clear these unfortunate charges off your record. A stroke of luck, eh?”
“And if I say no?”
“Oh, then I shall have you court-martialed, of course.”
“You mean you’ll try.”
“No try about it, lad. I damn well will, and you know it.” Bromley’s expression turned hard and pitiless. “First, you struck a non-commissioned officer, and then there’s this little matter of desertion. Those should do for starters.”
“Good luck making them stick.”
“Stick? This is March 1945. Half of your Army is out chasing Germans and the rest are getting ready to have a go at the Japs. You? You will be an embarrassing afterthought. They will pass you about from hand to hand like an old fruit cake, and it will be Christmas before they figure out what to do with you. ‘Make it stick’? That’s hardly the point, is it? Your reputation will be ruined and all of your father’s Wall Street money won’t save you then.”
Scanlon stared at him, realizing the bastard was serious.
“So it is ‘to horse,’ as they used to say, my fine young colonial Captain,” the Colonel smiled confidently. “I’m afraid you’re off to fight the good fight on the continent once again.”
“The war is over, for Chrissake, Colonel.”
“Over? Perhaps, but not quite — not quite,” the Colonel was quick to correct.
“Look at me.” Scanlon held his hands out for examination.
Bromley’s expression did seem to soften for the briefest of moments when his eyes came to Scanlon’s hand, but then he quickly turned away. “They want you to go back in tomorrow night. It seems that some of Hermann Goering’s aeronautical engineers want to come over to our side, and SHAEF thinks they may need help finding their way out.”
“Engineers? You’re kidding.”
“Not in the slightest. There’s a bit more to it than that; but suffice it to say, they’re important, very important, and they are in a compound near Leipzig.”
“Like I said, Colonel, the war is over.”
“Ah, but you see, it is the next one that the politicians are worried about now.”
“The next one?”
“Against the Russians, of course. Oh, on his own, Ivan might have problems fixing the wheel on an ox cart; but give him enough of those German scientists — the ones who designed the V-2 rockets, jet airplanes, tanks, chemicals, and munitions — and even he can figure it out. That’s why we can’t let the Russians get their hands on them. It is as simple as that.” Bromley’s expression softened a bit and he leaned forward, trying to commiserate. “See here, Scanlon, I know you’ve had a bit of a rough go, but Leipzig is your old patch. You spent four months there and you know it better than any man alive. How hard could it be?”
Cold War Trilogy - A Three Book Boxed Set: of Historical Spy Versus Spy Action Adventure Thrillers Page 6
