Scanlon paused, and then slowly nodded. The deal still stunk and he knew he could never trust Bromley, but once he got over there, he could do what he wanted. Those days and nights with her had been the highest highs and the lowest lows any life could possibly offer — love, victory, comradeship, danger, excitement, fear, and pain. Together, they had stretched the envelope of life as far as it would stretch, and nothing would ever be the same for him. However, for the past two months, memories were all he thought he would ever have of her. He thought she was dead and that it was his fault. The thought of spending the next thirty or forty years with that dead weight hanging around his neck was more than he could bear. He knew he could not do that, and now he would not have to. Hanni was alive and nothing else mattered.
George Bromley was a man with limitless limitations. One thing he could do, however, was read men and he knew he had the young American hooked. “You are indeed a lucky chap, Scanlon,” he continued. “Life is giving you a second chance. It has laid hands upon you, and like Lazarus, it is raising you from the dead. Only a fool would say no. When your job for SOE is done, you may track down that Steiner woman if you want, or you may track down that bastard Otto Dietrich and put a bullet in him for all I care. That is entirely your choice. Remember, though, bringing those German engineers out is a valuable and honorable task. It is something you will take pride in for the rest of your life, which is more than you or any other man has a right to ask.”
Valuable? Honorable? And way over your pay grade, Bromley thought. The young American was damaged goods. Damaged or not, however, he was a perfect fit for this job. As the Colonel’s miserable, embarrassing shop clerk of a father once told him, “Give the customer what he wants, boy, always give him what he wants.” Not that the Colonel didn’t feel a twinge of sympathy for Scanlon, but the Yank was getting what he wanted and his OSS masters were getting what they wanted too. The lad was an emotional time bomb who had been dumped back on Bromley’s doorstep by that master craftsman of perversity, Gestapo Chief Inspector Otto Dietrich himself. Give the customer what he wants! Well, no one wanted Scanlon, but they shall get him back anyway, ever-so-carefully gift wrapped and tossed into their laps before the bomb goes off.
“Why do I keep thinking you’re using me again?” Scanlon asked.
“Using you? Oh, no question about it,” Bromley smiled, “and you would be a damn fool if you don’t use me right back. Use me, because I am the last chance you are likely to get.”
Scanlon looked across at him and slowly nodded. “All right, then what about this?” he asked as he raised his left hand and showed him the scarred, broken fingertips. “You’re the master of undercover operations, Colonel; tell me how I’m supposed to hide this little problem?”
Bromley did not even blink. “Not a problem, Captain. With all the one-armed, one-legged, and one-eyed cripples walking about Germany these days, a young officer with a gloved hand should pass without comment.”
Bromley seemed to have all the answers, Scanlon thought. That was what made the whole thing too slick by half. “All right, what’s the catch?” he finally asked. “Why’s this deal so important?”
“Catch? There is no catch,” the Colonel scoffed at the suggestion. “Have you ever heard of the Me-262?”
Scanlon answered with a blank stare.
“It is one of Willi Messerschmitt’s new creations — a fighter plane with no propellers or piston engines. It is powered by two jet turbines and I’m told it is as quick as a thief. It has been clocked at over six hundred miles an hour, and we have nothing in the sky that can come close, not even on the drawing board. Last week, four of them swooped down on fourteen of your B-17s on their way to Berlin and shot most of them down with machineguns and some kind of air-to-air rockets. Your Mustangs never even put a scratch on them. Needless to say, they have our Air Ministry and your Air Corps in a tizzy.”
“What difference does any of that make now?” Scanlon asked. “In a few weeks the Germans won’t have any air fields, much less gasoline, or repair parts to keep them in the air. The war’s over, Colonel. Doesn’t anyone understand that?”
“Yes, this one is indeed over, or it will be very soon; but you’re missing the point, boy. That isn’t what HQ is all worried about, it is the next one. The men who designed that infernal thing work at the Hermann Goering Research Institute at Volkenrode in the Harz Mountains just west of Leipzig, right in the path of Marshall Zhukov’s tanks. They don’t relish the thought of being carted off to Moscow with their blueprints and research notes, and neither do we. You can imagine the warm glow that would give Comrade Stalin.”
“Why not just bomb the place?” Scanlon said.
“It has been discussed, but cooler heads have suggested the Germans there would be much more useful to us alive. Waste not, want not, eh?”
“Then tell them to pack up and head west. I’ve never seen a Russian tank that could catch up with a scared German.”
“A noble thought, but there is one small problem.”
Somehow, Scanlon knew there would be. With Bromley, there was always a catch.
“It appears they don’t trust us.”
“Imagine that. Wherever do you think they got that idea?”
“They are Germans. I doubt they trust anyone. That’s why they want an emissary, a trusty guide dog who can lead them through our lines.”
“And that’s supposed to be me?”
“Precisely,” Bromley grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “It will take a steady hand and some focus, lad. I’ll be the first to admit it. If they leave their base too early and are caught, the Gestapo will line them against the nearest wall. On the other hand, if they wait too long they could find themselves in Uncle Joe’s May Day Parade in Red Square.”
“What makes you think it isn’t a set-up?”
“Not this time. It is far too important. The whole thing has been wired from the top, by the Luftwaffe brass in Berlin. You can believe me about that, if nothing else. They are desperate to save their own backsides, of course; but more importantly still, they do not want to see Europe dominated by the Soviets any more than we do. If the Reds get those jets, that is precisely what will happen, too. Remember, the Germans have been hemorrhaging men and material on the Eastern Front for four years now and they fear Ivan far more than we could possibly understand. That’s why they contacted your Air Corps people, from one gentleman of the air to another, as they would say. A load of rot if you ask me, but it has all been arranged. As I said, from the top.”
“So, what am I supposed to do?”
“You? You’ll be the dutiful shepherd, my boy. Round them up, get them moving, and herd them on out. The man in charge there is a Doctor Wolfe Raeder, a mathematical genius, or so they say. He is the airplane’s chief designer. There are also four or five of his top assistants, Raeder’s daughter, crates full of blueprints, and some Luftwaffe handlers.”
“His daughter?”
“She is his personal assistant, or some such. The families of all the other staff were never sent to Volkenrode for security reasons, but the old man insisted she come with. She is eighteen now, so it has all been agreed to. Besides, they are engineers, for God’s sake — thick glasses, slide rulers, and shirt pockets full of pencils. All you need to do is pack them up and lead your little flock southwest out of harm’s way. It should be a piece of cake for a resolute young fellow like you.”
All been arranged? A piece of cake? Scanlon knew there was no sense arguing with the pompous ass. You can’t take care of Heinrich Himmler or his SS, and you sure as hell can’t take care of Otto Dietrich or the Gestapo.
“Why don’t I believe you?” Scanlon finally asked.
“Excellent! I’m glad you don’t, it shows you’re getting the old touch back. A spy lives and dies on his instincts, Captain. You should not believe me and you should not believe anyone else, either. Do that and you just might make it through this thing and back to the arms of that raspberry red wench of yours, provided you
do precisely what you’re told.”
Scanlon glared at him. He knew Bromley was lying to him and using him all at the same time, but it didn’t matter. “I’ll go. I’ll be your guide dog.”
“I never doubted you would.”
“Don’t be smug, Colonel. I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for myself,” he said, and I’m doing it for Hanni, he thought.
“Oh, don’t think too poorly of us, Captain,” Bromley said as he leaned back in his chair and gazed out his window to the lovely city square below. “It has been a long, hard war, and it will be an even harder peace, I am afraid, not that you would understand. You Yanks are blessed. You come over here to jolly old England and drink our warm beer, drive our cute little sports cars, seduce our women, and think what a grand adventure you have had. That’s all this war means to you. You cannot wait to get back to the States and pick up right where you left off. The Great American Dream! It goes onward and upward forever.”
Bromley’s face grew flush, his voice spiteful and envious. “Unfortunately, that isn’t our way. Before the war, we were a nation of clerks and mechanics, very set in our ways. We were shipbuilders and lorry drivers, coal miners, sailors, bookkeepers, poets, and cooks — little people mostly. We knew our place and we knew our limits. We did not like change, and we put our faith in the stability of the pound sterling and the Empire. We have been bled dry in two wars now, and we haven’t much more to give. Like Oliver Twist, we want more now, we want what you Yanks have, and I’m afraid it shall destroy us in the end.”
“That’s your problem, Colonel. Don’t try to pawn it off on me,” Scanlon warned as he leaned forward and locked his ice-cold, steel-gray eyes on Bromley’s. “Just remember, if this whole thing is just more of your bullshit, if Hanni isn’t alive, then you better pray to hell I don’t make it back. If I do, there isn’t a hole in jolly old England that will be deep enough for you to hide in.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
London
“No need for theatrics, Captain.” Bromley said as he leaned back in his desk chair and smiled contentedly. “As I said, it should be a piece of cake."
A piece of cake. Scanlon wanted to jam a fistful of it down the Brit’s throat. A piece of cake! Those were the very words Will Kenyon used to describe their escape from Gestapo headquarters in Leipzig just before they shot him down in that street. A piece of cake? Scanlon didn’t know if his stomach could handle another one.
“It shouldn’t take you more than three days, five at the most, I should think.”
Classic, Scanlon thought. What could he possibly know about even a single day over there, about the pressure, the responsibilities, and the stark terror? Bromley’s war had been fought sitting on his dead, bony ass behind this big desk in London, not out in the field trying to keep it from being shot full of holes.
“Those engineers at Volkenrode know they have no choice,” he went on. “The roof is caving in on them, and if they want out before they get buried, we are their only option. Besides, they appear to be a pathetic enough lot. They should be putty in the hands of a clever chap like you, Captain. Keep them one short step ahead of Ivan, and they will kiss your boots all the way to Bavaria. If they don’t, give them the back of your hand. You might even shoot one every now and then. You know how Germans love a strong leader.”
The icy expression on Scanlon’s face never changed. He appeared to be listening intently as Bromley droned on, but he wasn’t. It was a useful technique he learned from that roomful of old men back in Leipzig. Keep quiet, look interested, occasionally nod, and give nothing away. That was the code of the survivor, as Georg Horstmann once told him, and it usually worked.
“It looks like you have it all worked out.”
“Me? No, no. I’m told your Air Corps higher-ups contacted your OSS man in Berne, a chap named Dulles, and he worked out the details with them,” Bromley said. “Lucky you, eh? You will be traveling under Luftwaffe protection with real papers. Imagine that.”
Scanlon couldn’t, not for a minute.
“Hermann Goering and his bloody Luftwaffe; GHQ thinks they’re the most civilized of the Hun. Goes back to Von Richthofen in the last war, I assume — knights of the air, the proper sort of gentlemen, people we can work with, and all that rubbish!” Bromley said, as his face turned scarlet. “Like they worked with Coventry, Leeds, and the West End, no doubt. What a lovely turn of events. I could invite the lot of them to a pub I know down in Cheapside. The windows and half the roof are gone from a stick of bombs, and a Heinkel crashed into the rear wall, but no hard feelings, eh? We could belly up to the bar and sing some old songs, eh? ‘Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella’? ‘The Last Time I Saw Paris’? No, no, I’m sure they’d prefer ‘There’ll be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover.’ We could even deck them out in tweed suits and bowler hats and let them raise a pint with the boys — forgive and forget, eh!”
Finally, it was Scanlon’s turn to smile. “You never cease to amaze me, Colonel.”
Bromley bristled. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those who think we should mollycoddle the Hun? After what they did to you?”
“Me? I’d be happy to tie the rope and kick out the stool, but let’s make sure we’ve got the right Hun.” As he thought it over, the operation seemed straightforward enough, but Hanni’s words kept ringing in his ears. “Do not trust the British,” she said. “They will use you and throw you out with the trash when they are done.”
“Well, I know you worked undercover with them,” Bromley continued, “but don’t harbor any naive illusions about them. The Hun has the loyalty of a Calcutta whore, especially now, when they are selling themselves to the highest bidder. Don’t think they wouldn’t have called the Russians if they thought they could get a better offer and get away with it,” he warned, “and don’t think they still won’t turn and stab you in the back if a better one does come along.”
“You forget I’ve been there.”
Bromley stared at him for a moment, and then finally nodded. “Yes, yes, of course. Sorry about that, old man. I tend to get carried away and forget myself. You are correct. You have already given more than your share and it was wrong of me to forget. That’s why this whole business is such a bloody travesty. They flatten our cities, kill thousands, and nearly ruin this island. Now, they switch sides and end up with cushy jobs in California, or wherever your blasted aircraft industries are, while our people sit here and pick through the rubble.”
Scanlon almost felt sorry for him. The war had taken a dreadful toll on England and its people; but the tide had turned now, and it was the German cities being pounded into rubble with a blind, savage vengeance. Serves them right, Scanlon decided, serves them both right; but an eye for an eye never did much for anyone’s vision.
Bromley turned in his chair and stared vacantly out the window again. “I find it interesting that until two weeks ago, neither your Air Corps nor our Air Ministry had even heard much of this Hermann Goering Research Institute,” he said. “Now, you would think this Herr Doktor Raeder had invented the bloody wheel. Remember that name, though, because he is the one GHQ says they really want. A lot of drivel, if you ask me, but we both have our orders. Don’t we, Captain?”
Bromley was right, Scanlon had to agree. We both have our orders. As long as they took him closer to Leipzig and closer to Hanni Steiner, they were fine with him. Bromley was right about that much, anyway. This could be the last chance he would ever get to find her, to find out if she really was alive, and to settle an old score if she wasn’t. So, he would go to Leipzig again, but he would do it his way, not Bromley’s.
“You are to be dropped in disguised as a Luftwaffe Captain, a supply officer on temporary assignment to Volkenrode. The Hun’s worse than a French chambermaid when it comes to spreading her legs for a man in a uniform, provided the fellow acts arrogant and obnoxious enough.” Bromley clucked. “Think you can play that role, Captain?”
“I don’t know, Colonel; I’ll try to come up with a g
ood model for the part.”
Bromley gave him a cold, humorless stare; certain he was being insulted, but opting to ignore it as he reached into a drawer and pulled out a thin manila folder. He placed it on the desk and opened the cover. Picking up a small black-and-white photograph, he slid it across the polished mahogany surface toward Scanlon. “This is your contact. You’re going in dressed in a Luftwaffe uniform, and he’ll meet you at the drop zone.”
“The drop zone? No thanks. I’d rather go find him, if that’s okay.”
“No, it’s not okay, Scanlon. He is a Luftwaffe Major and he will have an official Luftwaffe car and your papers. This time, it should be the safest way to get you in, and get you to Volkenrode,” Bromley said as he leaned forward and glared at Scanlon. “Besides, it’s what your man Dulles set up, so be a good chap and do what you’re told.”
Scanlon glared back and reluctantly nodded.
Bromley tapped the photo with his finger. “His name is Von Lindemann, Major Von Lindemann, of course, another of those damned Prussians! You know the type. They say he never was a Nazi, but none of them were saying that when they were winning. They couldn’t very well do anything about the Nazis, either, could they? Well, I suppose it isn’t fair to blame them all, eh? Forgive and forget? He never flew bombers or participated in any of the other unfortunate business like bombing one of our cities. Oh, no, he flew an Me-109 and was one of the good Germans, a knight of the air, mano-a-mano, to the death. Apparently he got so good at it that they made him a test pilot for the new Me-262. That is, until he splattered himself and his new toy across a frozen wheat field last December.”
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