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

by William Brown

  With all Manny’s attention focused on the foredeck hatch, it never occurred to him that he was not alone on deck, either.

  A third set of eyes lurked in the shadows on the far side of the wheelhouse, watching both men with a cold, detached amusement; but watching the fat New York cop more. It was sufficient for Kruger to know that Lindstromm was working for the Russians, but Lindstromm could wait. For the moment, Eismer presented the more inviting target. The fellow was incredibly stupid to come up on deck alone, and the opportunity to reduce the numbers arrayed against him was too good to pass up.

  Earlier in the day, he flirted with the idea of grabbing the woman. No doubt she was a CIA operative, not the vacuum-headed civilian she pretended to be. Questioning her might have proved both informative and entertaining, he grinned, but these Americans were too sentimental for that to work. No, her disappearance would probably bring their entire operation to a halt, so he let that opportunity pass. That left him with a choice between the burly navy warrant officer, the little professor, the big American, Randall, or this fat policeman. The policeman could pose the greater threat, and Kruger believed in eliminating threats quickly and ruthlessly. Since Eismer was considerate enough to offer himself up on deck, alone, and in the dead of night, that decided the issue.

  So when Eismer crept out of the wheelhouse and headed for the foredeck hatch, Kruger smiled and followed. A swift blow across the base of the skull with the precision of a surgeon laid the fat cop out cold. As he toppled forward, Kruger’s arm caught him and stopped his fall; but it was like catching a sack of sand. The fat cop’s head dropped to the side, and his forehead grazed the edge of the hatch cover. It made only the faintest of sounds, but Lindstromm must have heard it, too. Kruger saw the flashlight go out in the hold. No problem. The little weasel was down there alone in the dark, and he wouldn’t be doing anything too daring for a while.

  Kruger slung the unconscious policeman across his broad shoulders, and turned toward the gangway. The man made quite a load, but even this prodigious weight was no problem for the German. Neither was Lindstromm. Eventually the skinny Swede would screw up enough courage to climb up the ladder and look around, but he wouldn’t find anything. Good. The last thing Kruger needed was another aggressive amateur getting in his way at the wrong moment.

  As Kruger looked back, he saw a small automatic pistol lying on the deck. Eismer must have dropped it. Kruger smiled and scooped it up. It was a Beretta. He preferred heavier, more powerful handguns, like a Luger or Walther; but he could not deny the fine Italian craftsmanship of a Beretta. Slipping the small automatic into his hip pocket, he glided across the deck with Eismer draped across his back, slipped down the gangplank, across the pier, and into the shadows beyond.

  “The night is early, my friend; and you and I have enough time for a long chat,” he patted the fat man’s rump. “I hope you enjoy the conversation, because it will be your last.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  It took a few moments for Mike Randall to realize that the faint sound disturbing his sleep was someone’s knuckles knocking on his cabin door. “Michael,” he heard an anxious voice whispering to him from the passageway. “Wake up!”

  “Huh? Whuzzit?” he grumbled as he rolled off the bunk and groped around the floor for his pants. “Hang on.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, hurry up." It was Leslie, he realized, as he opened the door to the dark passageway and let her in. "Manny’s gone," she whispered, her voice tense and worried. "I can’t find him anywhere."

  "Gone?" her words finally registered and he focused his eyes on the dial of his watch. "It’s only four-thirty. Isn’t he in his cabin?”

  “No! I told you he’s gone,” she insisted. “I couldn’t sleep. I got up early and as I passed his door, I noticed it was open a couple of inches and he wasn’t there. I figured he was up on deck, but he wasn’t there either. And he isn’t in the hold, or in the engine room, or any other place else on board either, Michael.”

  “You’re sure you didn’t miss him?”

  “Miss Manny? How can you miss Manny?” She gave him a look. “Besides, he wouldn’t wander off without saying something to one of us.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “And I think somebody’s been down in the hold, snooping around. I’m sure of it.”

  Now wide-awake, Michael quickly threw on a shirt and motioned for her to lead as they retraced her steps from Manny’s cabin to the wheelhouse and around the perimeter of the deck. Nothing, nor was the fat man in any of the compartments below deck, or on the pier, or in the water around the boat. Michael stopped and let his eyes slowly circle the deck. She was right. Something was very wrong. He walked over to the open cargo hatch, knelt down, and looked into the hold. That was when he saw a small dark stain on the sharp metal lip of the hatch and wiped a finger across it. The stain was reddish brown and not quite dry in the damp night air. It was blood, no doubt about it. He had seen enough of it over the years to know what it looked like.

  Leslie hadn’t seen what he’d found; but she saw a grim, angry expression on his face, and she knew something was wrong. She had only seen that expression on him a couple of times before, like that morning in New York on the docks when he stepped out of that blue van. She shook her head. When he went into his shell, he could be a complete mystery to her. Then again, maybe it was time she should stop kidding herself. Maybe she never would understand him, because there were parts of him deep down inside that he wasn’t about to share with anyone.

  “We’ve got to find Manny,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Michael said, hands on hips, looking around the empty deck, frustrated. “Wake the others and tell Einar to call the police.”

  “The police?”

  “We have no choice now, Les, Trelleborg’s a small town, but it has way too many doors. We’ll need the police if we want to open them up.”

  “Manny won’t like bringing them in.”

  “There’s no choice. I just hope it isn’t too late. Look, until the police get here, we’re going to recheck everything below deck in the rooms and in the hold. That means all the gear, each and every piece. We’ve got to make sure nothing’s been tampered with.”

  “Search the hold? Is that going to help us find him?”

  “I don’t know, but you said someone was down there. It might give us some clues as to what the hell’s going on.”

  “Maybe Manny went off to look for something.”

  “Or something came looking for him.”

  “I’m so afraid. Why would he leave his cabin like that?”

  “He must have heard something, but I’m glad you’re finally getting the picture. These people are playing for keeps.”

  “So am I,” she said as she looked up at him with an angry glint in her eye.

  “What if it was me? Or you? I know you don’t want to hear this, but it would be better if you went back home until this thing is over.”

  “Better for whom? You? Because it wouldn’t be better for me.”

  “Leslie, I couldn’t take it if you got hurt.”

  “You’ll have to figure something out, because I’m not leaving,” she said as she turned away and went below.

  Michael knew he hadn’t made a dent in her resolve. Finally, he turned away and began making a second careful search of the deck and the water around the boat.

  “A bit early to start work, isn’t it, Mister Randall?” he heard an overly friendly voice call out to him from the wheelhouse.

  Michael looked up and saw the Mate, Balck, smiling down at him. “I couldn’t sleep. Tell me, Balck, you haven’t seen Manny Eismer this morning, have you?”

  “Mr. Eismer?” he frowned as he considered the thought. “No, I can’t say I have. Did you try his cabin?”

  “Yes, a few minutes ago.”

  “Well, it has been a beautiful night; perhaps he went for a walk in town?”

  “Yeah, perhaps he did at that,” Michael studied Balck’s face, trying to read t
hose hooded blue eyes. There was something irritating about the man, a confidence bordering on arrogance. Michael knew he didn’t like it, but what could he prove? That was when Leslie came back on deck. She saw Balck and stopped dead in her tracks. Michael turned and found Leslie staring at Balck. The German was staring back at her, seemingly amused by it all. Finally, Balck turned and disappeared into the wheelhouse. That was when Michael knew there was something in the Mate’s cold blue eyes. It was an icy detachment, as if he was observing laboratory animals in a cage, and Michael didn’t like it.

  Neither did Leslie. Her face was flushed and angry. “He makes my skin crawl. Can’t we get rid of him?”

  “No. His papers were in order, and Einar didn’t have any choice.”

  “Surely you don’t trust him, do you?”

  “Trust him? I’d like to rip that irritating smile off his face; but I can’t, so be careful around him. Meanwhile, let’s get to work,” he said. “We’re going to tear the boat apart inch by inch if we have to.”

  Leslie walked away, and Michael watched her go. Lying awake on his bunk the night before, he thought long and hard about chucking it all and taking her back to South Carolina or Wisconsin, or someplace fresh. A fresh start? That might be exactly what they both needed, a place far, far away from an old war and the people who had fought it. He had hoped that returning to Sweden would get him the answers he needed and bring him closer to a resolution of six years of pain and searching, but he’d been a fool. Everywhere he went, everywhere he looked dredged up all the old memories and they were too damned strong for him to cope with.

  At noon, they cast off. The Brunnhilde motored slowly out through the harbor entrance into the open sea. Under better circumstances, running south along the coast of Sweden might have been a very pleasant trip, Michael thought. The air was warm; and the sky was a high, clear blue, with only the faintest traces of silky-white clouds. A light breeze skimmed across the surface of the water, giving it a glittering chop. The Baltic? Hard to believe this was the same frozen, wind-swept sea he faced that cruel February six years before, but it was.

  The trip out would be a good opportunity to observe the others more closely. Einar Person’s expression never changed as he scanned the water from his high perch in the wheelhouse. Balck’s expression never changed either. He went about his chores with alert eyes and a confident swagger, leaving Lindstromm the odd-man out. The little Swede appeared nervous. His eyes darted about, constantly looking at the others, as if he expected something to sneak up and bite him on the ass any minute. What was he afraid of, Michael wondered. Or, who?

  Captain Person had given Michael the grim news before they sailed, and he had already told most of the others. It was mid-afternoon, and time to tell Leslie. She was working up on deck near the bow, coiling hoses and ropes. “Looks like you’re about finished,” Michael said as he knelt beside her and watched her work.

  “You bet,” she replied. Her voice sounded firm and confident, but he could tell the edges were brittle. She refused to look up, hoping he wouldn’t see the dark rings around her eyes, but he did. "Well, you might as well tell me,” she said. “I saw you whispering to the others, and I’m not stupid. It’s about Manny, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” he answered, knowing he was not a good liar anyway, not up close like this.

  “He’s dead,” she said, not needing him to tell her.

  “Yeah,” he nodded as he looked down at the deck. “The police found his body in a warehouse up on the pier. They’re treating it as a robbery gone wrong. That kind of crime doesn’t happen around here very often, so foreigners are usually the first ones they look at.”

  “So they think it’s one of us? Why did they let us leave?”

  “We aren’t the only ship in town, and they know Einar. They know where to find us. Meanwhile, they are still investigating.”

  He saw her strain mounting. “You know, I really do wish it had been me and not him,” she said. “Does that make any sense?”

  “Yeah,” he agreed, remembering Hodge and the pain and anger of that cold morning in Königsberg. “It makes a lot of sense.”

  “When you get somebody else hurt, the pain blind-sides you.”

  “Yeah, that’s the worst. I think it hurts less if you were the one who got it.”

  “But I didn’t get Manny hurt any more than you got Eddie hurt.”

  “No, and we need to keep telling ourselves that, don’t we.”

  “Yeah, we do. And it helps?”

  “Sometimes… sometimes, but not all the time,” he nodded slowly as he thought about what she had just said. “Your father told you what happened in Königsberg, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, he told me everything the night before I left. He said I needed to know; it was only fair. He said you’d tell me when you were ready; but if I want to understand what you’ve been going through, I need to know. And now, I do understand.”

  This was her first trip down the road. Eventually she’d learn the way, but it isn’t something you can give someone else directions to. He put his arm around her shoulder and drew her to him. Her head dropped to the nape of his neck, and they both knew she had a big cry coming. Well, he thought, she might as well get it all out. She had been trying to play a man’s game in a man’s world for so long that she had forgotten there was a woman hidden beneath the hard, aggressive shell she had been building.

  Finally, her tears stopped but her head remained pressed into his shoulder. “I understand, but I was wrong, Michael,” she said. “The price is too high.”

  “It is, but I’m not stopping,” he answered, sounding more determined than ever. “Whenever they commit another outrage like this, I become more and more determined to pay them back for all the killing and the hate and the sorrow they’ve caused. Finding that U-boat is the best way I can think of to get my revenge — not by going out and trying to kill them — but by finding their precious U-boat. That’s going to be my revenge.”

  She looked up into his eyes and saw that expression again. It made her pull back, terrified of the anger he kept bottled up inside. “You scare me when you talk like that, Michael,” she said. “Is that all you want? Revenge?”

  “No, Leslie; it’s a lot more than that. It’s like there’s a big part of me trapped inside that U-boat. And it’ll stay buried there until I go back down and set it all free. That is worth the price, Leslie. You’ve got to believe me about that. It’s worth the price.” He looked into her eyes. It was obvious from her expression she finally understood his reasons, but she did not like them any better for the knowing. “When they came on board last night, they weren’t trying to stop us, or they would have killed more than just Manny. No, they’re after information again. Like Manny said, they were after information.”

  “But Manny didn’t know any more than we did.”

  “And like he said, they don’t know that, do they? And they still don’t know. They’re betting we’ll keep going on and lead them to the U-boat, on their terms," those black eyes flashed. "And they’re daring us to try.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The young radioman shook with fear as he inched his way into the dark cabin. “Comrade Varentsov?” he whispered as he reached out his hand to wake the MVD Colonel. “It’s Petrov, Sir. The Captain told me to wake you,” he said as he touched Varentsov’s shoulder ever so lightly, as if it were a ticking bomb. “Sir… We received another message… from your agent, and…”

  “What! What did you say?” Varentsov shouted as the name registered and suddenly bolted upright in bed. He grabbed the young seaman’s wrist and pulled him down toward the bunk. “What message? What? Give it to me, man!”

  The radioman twisted his arm to break free, but Varentsov’s grip was like a vice. In desperation, the young man shoved the message into the older man’s chest. “Here, here!” the sailor screamed, having heard more than enough stories about the perverted tastes of these Kremlin big shots like Beria and all the rest of them.

&n
bsp; But the message was all Varentsov cared about. He released Petrov’s arm and snatched up the paper, fumbling in the dark to turn on the small reading lamp next to the bed. Varentsov was so absorbed in the words, he did not notice that the young sailor had already retreated to the safety of the passageway.

  “Is this all?” Varentsov bellowed, stopping the young man in his tracks.

  “Yes, yes, Comrade Colonel! I swear it, I swear it,” the radioman stammered. “That is the message, all of it.”

  Varentsov glared at him, then quickly turned his eyes back to the small slip of paper, carefully re-reading each word. The New York City policeman was found dead in town. Murdered! By whom, Varentsov wondered? If Lindstromm had nothing to do with it, who did? Varentsov slammed his fist on the nightstand, realizing he was being outplayed again. It must be those Fascist SS bastards. Like a game of speed chess he once played with a “street” master at a little table in Gorky Park, Varentsov was in way over his head. The pieces on the board were moving too fast. They were coming at him from every direction, attacking faster and faster, too fast for him to hope to understand the pattern and execute a strategy of his own.

  It was that imbecile Neptune’s fault, Varentsov raged. All of it. That coward! That traitor! He sold out and gave Varentsov’s entire plan to the Nazis. That must be it! But what could one expect from a German? Even after all the training on doctrine and technique, those goose-stepping bastards were worse than the Armenians or the Georgians. They stick together like glue.

  Varentsov suddenly sat up. “Petrov! Tell Ruchenko I want a message sent to the MVD Rezident in Stockholm,” he screamed, his rasping voice echoing through the small boat. “I want a complete dossier on every member of that fishing boat’s crew by noon. Do you hear me? By noon!” As he turned toward the radioman, Varentsov saw his cabin door stood wide open; but Petrov was long gone, leaving nothing behind but the sound of his feet running down the passageway.