Cold War Trilogy - A Three Book Boxed Set: of Historical Spy Versus Spy Action Adventure Thrillers

by William Brown

  Scanlon knelt at the edge of the hatch, looked down, and counted the seconds as a patchwork-quilt of shadowy grays and blacks rose up towards him. He never had any intention of following Bromley’s plan and intended to jump late to land well-past the original drop zone. Any second now, he thought, any second, but not yet — not quite yet; knowing full well that if he waited too long, he would be splattered across someone’s wheat field.

  With their faces only inches apart now, Scanlon looked across at Carstairs for a long moment as if he were studying a bug, without the slightest hint of pity. “Rupert, old man, how careless. You seem to have forgotten your parachute.”

  “Uh, Captain Scanlon… look, mate, I…” he said, his eyes pleading.

  “Not my problem… mate!” Scanlon answered with a thin, cruel smile. “The long flight home should give you plenty of time to reflect on the errors of your ways.”

  Carstairs’s face turned red. “I’ll kill you, Scanlon, I swear I will.” He seethed with anger, his knuckles turning white on the hatch cowling. “When I get back, I’ll…”

  “When? If you get back, but I’m not the one hanging over the hatch, am I?” The big bastard had tormented him for weeks, and it was time he learned some humility. “You’re a strong guy, Rupert. I’m sure the pilot will take a look back here sooner or later, so who knows? If you do make it back and bump into the Colonel, tell him he made a big mistake. I have my own plan now. Before you go see him, however, you might want to change those pants. They’ll start smelling before long.”

  Getting back at Carstairs was priceless; but they were now miles past the drop zone and the ground was dangerously close to the belly of the Ju-52.

  “Goodbye, Rupert. Have a good flight,” he said as he leaned forward and dropped through the open hatch, just missing Carstairs.

  “You bastard!” Carstairs screamed after him. “I’ll kill you; I’ll kill you…” but his voice was soon lost in the roar of the engines.

  Scanlon immediately yanked the ripcord, praying he had fallen far enough to get past the Junker’s tail. If he waited any longer, though, he would surely pancake into the German countryside. Fortunately, the parachute caught the wind. In a split second, it filled with air and opened, wrenching him sideways and upright like the crack of a whip. He had not tasted dirt yet, but the ground was coming up fast. Fortunately, it was a freshly plowed field, still soft from the heavy spring rains. When he did hit, he splattered in the mud and rolled as they taught him to do. He came to rest on his side, gasping, and trying to get his wind back. Nothing felt missing or broken, so he got to his feet and turned his attention to the stark, foreboding landscape around him. Get moving, he reminded himself. Got to get moving.

  Under the bulky flight suit, all he carried was a regulation Luftwaffe uniform, money, a German Luger, and a pair of black leather gloves. Not much to work with, he realized. Dragging the parachute behind him, he set off across the muddy field to a tree line. He stripped off the flight suit, cleaned what dirt he could from his hands and boots, and buried the parachute and the jump suit beneath some rocks at the bottom of a drainage ditch. To the east, he saw a gravel farm road and set off toward it at a brisk pace. There was no time to waste. He needed to get as far away from here and from the original landing zone as he could. Scanlon never intended to meet his contact, that Luftwaffe Major, Von Lindemann. Trust a German and George Bromley on the same day? Never. He knew his only chance to stay alive was to work alone, so the Colonel could go screw himself. He had his own agenda this time, and it began and ended with Hanni Steiner. Once he found out what happened to her, he might try his hand at the airplane designers, for Allen Dulles’s sake if nothing else, but not before he tracked Hanni down.

  Looking around, he saw nothing but muddy, abandoned fields and patches of woods running to the far horizon. The Harz Mountains were nowhere to be seen. Funny, he thought. The gently rolling farmland reminded him of Johannes’s farm, and the hay barn where he and Hanni spent those long winter nights together. How long ago was that? Three, maybe four months now? Like everything else, the blustery sky, the sounds and smells of the night, his anxiety and tension, and even the air he breathed reminded him of her.

  There was a dirty-orange pall hanging low in the sky up ahead, which he figured had to be Leipzig. Well, at least he would not need a compass. Bromley’s drop zone had been closer to Volkenrode. By waiting, the airplane had carried him a lot closer to Leipzig than he expected, and he was almost in the city’s suburbs. That was good. If he pressed, there was a chance he could reach that dirty-orange glow before dawn. A half-mile further on, he saw a small decrepit farmhouse near the road. It had an old bicycle resting by the side door. Despite a barking dog and an angry shout from an upper window, he was off and pedaling down the road before he could be stopped, thankful that this farmer didn’t have a shotgun stashed near his bed. Scanlon’s first stop would be in a neighborhood near the rail yard and the old bookshop where he and Hanni first met some six months before. Last winter, he trusted Georg Horstmann with his life many times. The old man was a rock and he would know what to do.

  As he reached the outskirts of Leipzig, he saw that the long months of Allied bombing had broken the back of the quaint old city. He peddled in from the west through Lindenau and King Albert Park, and then on to Augustus Square. Everywhere he looked, there were piles of brick and burnt wood where proud old buildings once stood. Their distinctive steep-pitched tile roofs and half-timbered facades had been smashed and broken like so many doll’s houses. No need for lights, by the time he reached the city center, the dull-orange haze easily lit his way. Unfortunately, the haze carried in it the stench of burnt wood, burnt rubber, and human flesh. It was more than enough to make him gag. How sad, he thought, as he bicycled past the ravaged parks, the boarded-up museums, and the bombed-out shops where he and Hanni once walked. The Leipzig he remembered was full of life and character. Now, its once-beautiful boulevards and squares were filled with piles of rubble, twisted streetcar tracks, and burned vehicles. The stores were dark, their windows and doors gaping wide open. Destruction was everywhere and there had been no place to hide.

  Never as wicked as Berlin, Leipzig had been a cosmopolitan city long before the war. Practical, Protestant, and liberal, it was not a place where the Nazis or any of the other right-wing parties prospered. Not that it mattered; by the spring of 1945, liberal, democratic Leipzig had been pounded into the ground just as methodically as every other German city. Still, if he looked closely, he could see shadowy figures moving through the rubble by ones and twos, clutching each other for support as they negotiated the rubble. Survivors. As he drew closer, he saw their faces showed the same numb, wide-eyed helplessness once reserved for the people of London, Coventry, and Manchester. Bromley would be so pleased, he thought.

  It was nearly 4:00 a.m. He had little more than two hours of darkness left, and his progress through the rubble-strewn streets had slowed to a crawl. Reluctantly, he abandoned the bicycle and set out on foot. The damage appeared to be random, but finding the neighborhood, much less the street, would be difficult. However, as he got closer to the rail yards, while many of the buildings were badly damaged, a few on Horstmann’s street were still standing, albeit dark and abandoned, including what was left of the boarded-up bookshop. There was a new, gaping hole in the roof, part of the end wall was open to the night, and the boards over most of the windows had been blown off; but the other walls were still standing.

  Scanlon circled the block, looking for any surveillance. He saw nothing suspicious, so he drew an even tighter circle around the building. Still, he saw nothing. Finally, he worked his way to the building’s rear side. The outer cellar door was missing, but the familiar, dark stairwell leading to the basement was still there. He pulled out the Luger as he went down. “Georg,” he whispered down the stairs. “Georg Horstmann, are you in there?” After getting nothing in reply but silence, he crept to the makeshift door and knocked. “Georg, open up. It’s me, Scanlo
n.”

  Finally, he heard a familiar shuffling on the other side and the rattle of a dead bolt. When the old man finally opened the door a crack, he held the stub of a lit candle in his hand and raised it up to try to see outside. Squinting, all the old man could see was the dim figure of a man in a Luftwaffe uniform standing in his stairwell. “Well, I’ll be damned!” he said with those sad, knowing eyes as he saw the face. “Is it really you?”

  “I’m afraid so, Georg,” Scanlon said as he brushed past him and closed the door.

  “Then you are a bigger fool than I thought you were, my boy.”

  “Always was, Georg, always was.” This was hardly the welcome he expected. They had always been friends, and now he desperately needed the old man’s help if he ever hoped to find Hanni. If she was still alive and in Leipzig, Horstmann would know where she was. If he did not, Scanlon’s only choice was to break down the doors of Gestapo headquarters and beat the truth out of Otto Dietrich.

  Even by the dim light of the small candle, the dank basement had not changed much. Neither had Horstmann, he thought as he looked at the old man’s craggy face, his disheveled mane of white hair, and his thin, bony frame. Maybe it was a knock on his door in the middle of the night, but Horstmann looked badly worn. He should have been glad to see the young American, for old time’s sake if nothing else, but he was not.

  “I’m bone tired, Georg,” he said. “I’ve been biking and walking across half of Saxony tonight, and I don’t have a lot of time.”

  The old man ignored him, put a dented old teakettle on a small Sterno stove, and lit the wick. “Then you need a cup of tea, Edward.”

  Scanlon started to argue, but knew that would be a waste of time. He truly was exhausted, and the tea sounded good. “Where is Hanni?” he asked.

  “Hanni?” The old man turned and stared at him for a long, painful moment, and then turned away again, shaking his head. “Leave it alone, boy, leave it alone,” he said, refusing to look at Scanlon.

  “Georg, I must find her; where is she?” he asked, his voice taking on a sharp, angry edge. Old friend or not, exhausted or not, Scanlon was in no mood for games.

  “Those days are gone, boy, gone forever; and it is better you let them stay that way.”

  Frustrated, Scanlon stepped forward and grabbed the front of Horstmann’s shirt in a tight fist. Firmly but insistently, he pushed the frail old man back against the wall.

  Georg looked up at him. He was surprised, but he showed no fear. “Is this how you treat an old friend?” he asked.

  “Not if you start acting like one. Where is she?”

  Horstmann turned his eyes away again and Scanlon let him go; both men were embarrassed that it had gone that far. “You should not have come back, Edward. You will not like what you find here.”

  “I’ll take my chances. The Russians say she is alive.”

  “The Russians,” Horstmann sighed heavily. “They told you that? Those two-faced bastards. There was a time they were on our side, but that ended long, long ago. Now, they are no better than the Nazis or the British. All they care about is themselves.”

  Scanlon studied the old man’s face and realized for the first time that Bromley had not been lying. She really was alive. “They say she has gone operational again, that she’s in touch with Moscow Center, with Beria himself.”

  “Hanni? Talking to Beria?” The old man looked surprised as he scratched his head and Scanlon’s words sank in. “Otto Dietrich has her, so you know what that means. But Hanni, talking with Beria? … Yes, now I see,” he said as he looked up at Scanlon. “Do you?”

  Scanlon heard him, but he ignored the old man’s warning. “Where does he have her? At Gestapo Headquarters?”

  “You are mad, boy. You cannot get in there, not even in that uniform.”

  “What did Kenyon say? They build jails to keep people in, not out.”

  “There were a lot more of us back then, and Dietrich had a rare, careless moment. If you try to get in there now, he will kill you.”

  “Kill me? Sometimes, living can be a whole lot worse than dying, Georg,” Scanlon said as he pulled the glove off his left hand and held up the scarred fingertips for Horstmann to see. “Can you get a message to her?”

  “A message? To her?” Horstmann frowned, thinking. “I do not know, Edward. In there? Truly, I do not know.”

  “Yes you do, Georg, and you owe me that much,” he said as his eyes softened.

  “We have rules. Like the nuns in the convent, we took holy vows and I cannot simply break them. So show some respect for an old man.”

  “Tell her I’m here, that’s all I’m asking. Tell her I’ve come to get her out.”

  “Edward,” he groaned. “You do not know what you’re asking,” he said as his eyes reached out for understanding.

  “Okay, but is she all right? You can tell me that much.”

  “That is not for me to say. They have had her in there for weeks. You know what they do — especially to young women.” Horstmann poured two cups of tea and handed Scanlon one as a puzzled expression crossed his face. “You said that she has been talking to Beria, from in there? That can only mean one thing, and you must let it be, I beg you,” he pleaded. “You can come back here with those big cow eyes of yours and ask all these questions, but in the end you will not like the answers. You will not like them at all.”

  “Tell her I’m coming for her. See that she gets that message, Georg.”

  The old man groaned and shook his head. “If that is what you really want, Edward.”

  “It’s what I want. Tell her I’m coming, and I’ll take my chances on all the rest.”

  “All right, I’ll try,” the old man said as he pulled his heavy overcoat down from the peg on the wall and went to the door. “The Greeks used to have a saying, ‘When the Gods really want to punish a man, they grant him his wishes.’ I hope you know what you are asking,” he said as he opened the door and slipped away into the night, leaving Scanlon alone in the cold, damp basement. With no doctors or nurses, no Colonels, and no big, ugly Sergeant Majors picking at him and telling him what to do, he found the sudden silence deafening.

  What had Otto Dietrich done to her? Had she been beaten, tortured, raped, and hideously disfigured? Scanlon shuddered, but even that bitter truth would be better than the agony of not knowing at all. One way or the other, he had to know the truth. It was the only way the healing process could begin for her or for him. He had to see her; he had to talk to her; and he had to get her out of there.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It had only been eight weeks since they carried him out of Otto Dietrich’s basement. Eight weeks. Like Dorothy’s Tin Man caught in the rain, he could feel the rust and hear the plaintive creaks and groans in his joints with every step he took. Worse, he felt pathetically awkward, out of place, and a half step slow. He had lost his razor-sharp edge and his confidence. The loss of either could be fatal.

  There was a small sink in Horstmann’s basement. Scanlon bent over it and splashed cold water on his face to clear the cobwebs. Looking up, he saw himself in the small cracked mirror hanging on the wall above it. As he had seen in so many other men, the eyes always told the story. They are windows into the soul and his told him that eight weeks could be a lifetime, if they were filled with hospitals, pain, self-criticism, doubt, and far too much scotch. However, while they may have made him slow and rusty, they did not make him stupid. Perhaps Horstmann would be able to get a message to her, and perhaps he would bring one back out. Still, waiting here in the basement for the old man to return was not the smartest way to find out. Scanlon blew out the candle, tightened his greatcoat around him, and slipped out the cellar door, quickly disappearing into the shadows.

  It was a moonless night, but the burnt-orange pall that hung over the city provided enough light for him to navigate through the battered old neighborhood. Despite the destruction all around, his memories came back in bright flashes and the place felt strangely familiar. He pulled
his Luger from its holster, quickly checked the magazine, and released the safety. Two doors down stood what was left of an abandoned rooming house. It had a fenced rear yard and brick storage shed on the alleyway. The main building appeared ready to collapse, but the shed was untouched. It would do nicely. As he approached its rear wall, Scanlon heard the loud clatter of a board falling to the ground not ten feet away and nearly jumped out of his skin. He dropped into a low crouch and spun sideways, fumbling with the Luger as a trickle of cold sweat ran down his back. He peered around the corner, but all he saw was a large, mangy cat glaring up at him over the body of a dead rat. Back arched and teeth bared, there was not a hint of fear in the cat’s eyes. It hissed, fully intending to fight rather than give up its first meal in a week. Scanlon lowered the pistol. “Okay, cat. It is all yours,” he said. From the determined look on the beast, it was a good thing he did.

  The fence ran from the rooming house to the shed. It appeared sturdy enough, so he climbed to the top, pulled himself over the eave, and onto the shed’s low-slung roof. It had grown sway-backed over the years. On the far side of the ridge, he found a dark depression that offered him a good view of both the alley and the street out front. Yes, this would do, he thought as he lay down. Forty minutes later the choice paid off. Through the gaps in the buildings, he saw a shiny black car snaking its way through the rubble in the next street, followed by a large, canvas-covered military truck. The car stopped, and the truck ground to a halt behind it. In seconds, he heard the muffled crunch of hobnail boots on cobblestone as two squads of heavily-armed SS troops climbed over the truck’s rear gate and dropped to the ground. Their ragged clatter was accompanied by the frustrated growls of a platoon sergeant trying to prod tired, half-awake men in the dark. SS or not, anyone who had ever been in a uniform knew that sound, Scanlon smiled. Crack combat troops or not, getting rousted out of bed in the middle of the night for a police raid was not about to get their best effort.