Final Mission: Zion - A World War 2 Thriller

by Chuck Driskell

  Henry Janzen tugged at his ropes. “Will you please untie me?”

  Lord held up a finger. “Velden, you say?” He then spelled out the name for confirmation.

  Henry Janzen nodded.

  Lord stepped behind him and sliced the binding rope. He donned his overcoat and walked from the house. There was a late train back into London, and from there he would need to arrange transport into Germany.

  To Velden.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Peter Heinz swung the axe beautifully. The shiny head of the red and silver tool arced through the damp air, impacting the seasoned piece of elm and splitting it in two. Neil walked to the wood and picked up one of the halves, placing it on the stump and clapping twice.

  “That’s how you do it. Did you feel the difference?”

  Peter smiled. “Yes. I didn’t even swing it very hard.”

  “Exactly,” Neil said. “It’s the speed of the axe and the weight of the head that does the work. If you try to muscle it, you’ll be out here until spring. Hit this one.”

  Peter struck the halved piece of wood, and even though he was off center, he split it top to bottom. “Not so good.”

  “That wasn’t bad. At least you swung it properly,” Neil said in what sounded almost like native Bavarian German. “It’s just that your aim was a bit off. Happens to everyone. Just keep your eye on the spot you want to hit.” He lifted the two pieces, one small and one large. “This small piece will be a good starter log, and the big one will burn for a few hours.”

  It was nearly dark. A few droplets of rain had fallen earlier, but now only the gray sky loomed low over the farm as the day’s light waned in its last hour. The smell of beef stew had been wafting from the house for an hour, causing both men’s stomachs to rumble, and as soon as Neil finished giving Peter his lesson, he planned to eat the largest meal since his accident.

  “Can you swing it yet?” Peter asked while proffering the axe, smiling as he always did, displaying his large, gapped teeth.

  Neil took a step back. “When you get older, one of the best things you’ll do is to learn your limitations. I’ve had three weeks of healing. The pain is almost gone and I can get around, but I think I’ll probably need three more weeks before I can do something as swift as swinging an axe.”

  Peter nodded and dropped the axe straight down, planting it in the stump. “You look like you’d be good at this.”

  “You’re the one who’s good at it.”

  Peter grabbed one of Neil’s suspenders and tugged on it. “What can we do tomorrow?”

  “You’ll have school again, then homework.”

  “After that.”

  “I can help you with your chores.”

  “After that!”

  Neil tousled Peter’s hair. “Maybe we’ll take a walk somewhere.”

  “A walk?” Peter cried. “Zu langweilig.” After decrying Neil’s boring idea, Peter’s face ignited with an idea. “Let me drive the truck in the lower field, again.”

  Neil touched his finger to his mouth, hushing Peter. “I don’t want your mother to know I taught you to drive it—she’d kill me.”

  “Okay, I promise I won’t tell,” Peter whispered in that excited, child-like undertone which is louder than a normal tone of voice.

  Neil glanced around conspiratorially. He leaned over, placing his hands on his knees and beckoned Peter close, speaking in a hushed voice. “We’ll do a full circle of the property, and I’ll let you go through all the gears.”

  “You promise?”

  “Under one condition?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You pay close attention to everything I tell you. I’m leaving Thursday so you might as well learn to drive the right way.”

  Lowering his head, Peter kicked a stone. “I don’t want you to leave.”

  “I have to.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I do, Peter. And Thursday is the day,” Neil said firmly. “We can’t bargain about this.”

  “What’s the rush?”

  “It’s a bit of an emergency, Peter. In fact, if I was feeling well enough, I’d have already left.”

  “Will I ever see you again?”

  “I truly don’t know. I hope so.”

  Peter was quiet for a moment. Finally he said, “I want to do two circles of the property.”

  “Two?”

  “Please,” Peter replied, looking up at Neil.

  For a moment, Neil was stricken with thoughts of his unborn son. Then, rather than being overcome with sadness, he realized what a treasure this time with Peter had been.

  Neil stuck out his hand and Peter shook it. “Two laps, it is.”

  “Fantastich!”

  “Also, I don’t think it’s good to have secrets from your mother, but this is one that she’d probably understand.”

  “I’ll pay attention.”

  “Let’s go eat that roast.”

  As they crossed the yard, Peter tossed an old ball to Neil, clapping his hands for Neil to throw it back. Hildie Heinz was certainly an excellent mother, but over the past few weeks, Neil could tell Peter craved male companionship, the way all men do. Their trip to Nürnberg, while bizarre in its purpose, had been an excellent time for the two men to get to know one another. Sometimes a man simply needs another man to correct him, laugh with him, and even crack a crude joke or two, if only to remind them that they’re members of the coarser sex.

  When Neil reached the porch, Gabi appeared from the steep drop that led to the lower fields where she had been tending to some of the grazing cattle. Her fair cheeks were splotchy and she was out of breath. Neil stopped to wave at the pretty farm girl.

  Before he realized there was terror on her face.

  “What is it?” Neil asked.

  “Men,” she hissed. “Two carloads of them, down near the crash.”

  “What are they doing?” Neil asked, turning to peer through the growing darkness.

  “Looking all around, pointing at everything, examining the area. I think they know,” she cried.

  Frau Heinz must have heard her because she opened the storm door from the house, staring at the lower fields. Neil used the only tree on the valley side of the yard as cover. He stood behind it, peering around the thick trunk as he looked downward into the flood plain. The light of the day was fading fast, making the people in the lower field appear as silhouettes. The men were three hundred feet from the crash site, standing with hands on hips, one of them pointing in the sky and all around the fields.

  Neil turned, finding Peter watching for his reaction. Gabi’s expression was still one of alarm, and her mother’s was a hardened, scornful glare. Neil hurried to the house, pushing past Frau Heinz. He walked to the bedroom, throwing several items from his grip into a small handbag. The family congregated in the door of the bedroom. As he worked, Neil spoke without turning.

  “You should be able to hide my grip and the rest of my things. If they find them, just tell them they were your husband’s.” He found the tin and removed two more diamonds, large ones, and placed them on his bedside table. “Hide these too.” It only took him a minute to get the items he needed. After buttoning the small bag, Neil pulled on his light jacket and his bowler’s cap. He spun around to view Frau Heinz standing defiantly in the doorway, Gabi and Peter behind her. Both of Frau Heinz’s hands were firmly planted on the doorjamb.

  “You’re not leaving,” she said.

  “If they catch me here, Hildie, they’ll kill you and your family.”

  Frau Heinz stood her ground. “Stop packing that bag.”

  “There’s no time.”

  “We’re going to hide you.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “The hell we’re not.”

  Neil turned back to his bag and continued packing.

  ~~~

  The lower Heinz field was damp with rich, brown earth. Each footstep in the dirt sent earthworms wriggling, doing their best to burrow back down int
o the safety of the fertile soil. Above the field in a wide panorama, the western sky was deep gray and quickly fading to black. And Hörst Baldinger, the local veterinarian who’d “seen something,” was speaking far too quickly for Thomas’ taste. Fast-talkers were typically someone Thomas would be wary of.

  Earlier today at first light, the canvassing crew, upon questioning Hörst at a farm five kilometers away, had noted the way his eyes had widened when asked about an airplane. After several minutes of questioning, Hörst had finally acquiesced, saying an airplane had crashed and that he thought it was a part of a military exercise that he wasn’t supposed to discuss. This was the same tale he was telling now.

  Thomas stepped away, leaving the vet going on and on about seeing an airplane come in low and crash. He was giving so much detail that some of it was conflicting. Now, Thomas’ investigative crew and a few men from the local constabulary began to look wearily at one another as Hörst prattled on.

  Thomas had stopped believing Hörst twenty minutes earlier.

  Oh, he believed the vet knew something, but when he began to contradict himself about the airplane, Thomas wrote off his own personal interrogation and decided to let his associates handle him. What interested Thomas the most was this location’s proximity to Hausham and Miesbach. Earlier, when the call came in, Thomas had rushed to the map, viewing the veterinarian’s location: Hausham. It had been almost exactly where Thomas’ calculations predicted the plane’s fuel would run out.

  The western ridge was nearly as dark as the sky above, most of the departed sun’s radiance diffused by the heavy layer of high clouds. Thomas looked in that direction, seeing the silhouettes of a farmhouse and barn perched on the crest. He squatted down, scooping the tilled earth and holding it to his nose, smelling it. Usually the land this close to the mountains wasn’t as arable as the foothills near his home in Velden. But this was a choice piece of property, fed by streams from the mountain snow and containing just enough rich earth to allow crops to flourish. Thomas knew these things from his time as a boy, helping three generations of Lundrens tend to a farm that would later be wiped out in only two growing seasons by a destructive fungus. He turned his head to listen to the exchange.

  “If a plane landed here, then where is it?” asked the policeman who had first found the veterinarian.

  “It landed…crashed rather, somewhere near here. I saw it as it came down.” Hörst Baldinger sounded as if he were drunk. Thomas had seen him nipping covertly from the flask, time and time again.

  Thomas dropped the earth from his hands, clapping them together. He stepped to Hörst and silenced everyone. “So, if you saw this plane crash-land, what were you doing here in the first place?”

  Hörst’s eyes cut to the right. He was either trying to recollect, or trying to make something up. “I was trimming a hoof.”

  “What hoof?” Thomas asked.

  “The hoof of a horse.”

  “Whose horse?”

  Despite the cool air, sweat emerged on the oily head of the veterinarian. Time slowed to a crawl as Hörst licked his lips. Finally, he pointed up the ridge with a shaky hand. “The Heinz family.”

  Thomas turned his head slowly, drinking in the lights of the farmhouse and the shadowy outline of the barn. “The Heinz family,” he repeated.

  “Yes.”

  “Is this their field?”

  “Yep.”

  “Fine.” Thomas motioned to the cars parked on the service road. “Then let’s all go and visit the Heinz family.”

  ~~~

  “Stop packing,” Gabi demanded.

  Ignoring her, Neil fastened the bag. When he turned, he witnessed Gabi pointing his Colt at him with a trembling hand. Her finger was not on the trigger.

  “You’re not leaving,” she said again, this time using her jagged English. Her mother reached for her arm but Gabi shrugged her off.

  Neil held Gabi’s gaze for a moment, chuckling despite the tension. After a moment he reached into the side of the handbag, holding up several pistol magazines. “Remind me, Gabi, assuming we someday have time, to show you how to load that pistol.”

  Gabi twisted the empty pistol, studying the empty slot in the grip before allowing her mother to take it.

  “I aimed it at the veterinarian,” Gabi said.

  “Good thing he didn’t know,” Neil remarked.

  Frau Heinz spun the Colt around properly, holding it out to Neil by the barrel. “To run now would be foolishness.”

  Neil accepted the handgun, holding it to his side. He stared at Gabi, who stared back. There was an emotion in her eyes Neil hadn’t yet seen.

  Peter pushed past and clung to Neil’s side.

  Frau Heinz shoved them all out of the way and crossed the room, pulling back the dusty curtain to peer into the lower field. “They’re still down there. What do you think about the barn?”

  Neil cocked his head, frowning. “What about it?”

  “As a place to hide?” Frau Heinz asked.

  “My leaving is the best option. That’s your field down there. It’s only a matter of time before they come up here, and they will look in the barn.”

  “They won’t know where to look.”

  “This is a bad idea, Hildie.”

  Frau Heinz snapped her thick fingers. “You don’t know what I’m referring to. Go to the second stall. Underneath the hay, you’ll find a cellar door. It’s a hidden cellar, built by my husband many years ago. Go down there and wait.” She grabbed Peter’s collar. “Go with him and cover the trap door with hay. Cover it well. Run!”

  Neil jammed one of the magazines into the grip of his Colt. He jerked the slide backward, watching a round as it slammed home. “If they make trouble, any at all, scream to the top of your lungs and I’ll come running.”

  Frau Heinz shooed him on. “They won’t know anything if you’ll just move your stubborn ass!”

  Neil eased away from the farmhouse, hearing Frau Heinz and Gabi discussing how to conceal his things. He squatted as he peered into the fields below. Peter appeared behind him.

  “Are you scared?” Peter asked.

  “Yes,” Neil answered, glancing around the tree.

  “Scared of those men?”

  Neil looked at Peter. “No, Peter, not really. I’m scared of getting your family in trouble.”

  “Mama will run them off.”

  Neil could see the headlights of the cars. They began to move, turning onto the service road, nearly a mile away. They were gaining speed.

  “They’re coming,” Neil whispered. “We need to hurry.” He scurried across the yard with Peter by his side. “You have to get back inside before they get up here.”

  Once inside the barn, they sprinted to the stall. Peter exposed the cellar and Neil whipped the door open, flinging himself down into the blackness as he fell to his good side.

  “Are you okay?” Peter asked.

  Neil stood, brushing dirt from his pants. “I’m fine. Don’t act scared, Peter. Be curious, but not scared. Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Now, close the door, cover me, and haul ass!”

  Peter did as he was told.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  THE HEINZ FAMILY STARED AT THE GROUP OF MEN. Thomas stepped forward and removed his hat, motioning for the others to follow suit. This was the type of family that kept Germany moving. Down-to-earth, practical people who did a full day’s work six, and often seven, days a week. He had no idea if they were party members, nor did he care. It wasn’t Thomas’ style to come in heavy-handed. He eyed each of the Heinzes.

  The woman was probably about fifty, big and stout. She had a tan, lined face that appeared to be all business. The daughter was plain in her work clothes and pinned-up hair, but she still managed to be quite pretty with her large hazel eyes and delicate features. Thomas focused on the boy. Not that he felt the boy knew anything; rather, the Heinz boy wore an expression like Thomas once wore, as had countless other boys before him. Seeing the as
semblage of frowning, important-looking men with guns on their hips makes most boys feel as if somehow they are being left out. Like watching a posse chase out after a bandit, and feeling like the only man in town who didn’t get an invite.

  The boy eyed Thomas. Thomas smiled briefly before turning his eyes to the mother.

  “An airplane crash, you say?” Frau Heinz asked, holding the screen door open.

  “Yes’m,” Thomas answered. “Herr Baldinger, who I would imagine you know…” Thomas motioned him forward “…said there may have been a crash on your property down there in the fields.”

  Thomas watched as the Heinz woman looked at the veterinarian. There was no malice in her eyes, only the expression a mother might wear when she has learned her child has told an umpteenth fib. “You must be referring to the airplane we saw flying around a few weeks ago,” she said, turning her eyes back to Thomas.

  “Actually, it was over three weeks ago. So, you did see it?” Thomas asked, a note of hope entering his voice.

  Frau Heinz grasped her son’s shoulders and pulled him forward. “This is Peter, my son. That airplane has been all he could talk about since then. It flew low all around here and then disappeared over the mountain pass, over at Tegernsee.”

  Thomas turned and glared at Hörst, the veterinarian. He was staring at Frau Heinz dumbly, his lips parted. Thomas turned back. “Could your boy please describe this airplane?”

  Peter looked at the expectant men. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he struggled to swallow. “It was a black airplane,” he said, his pre-pubescent voice croaking. “It flew low and slow all around the valley and then, like Mama said, went through the lowest pass over there.” He pointed to the southwest.

  “Could you see the pilot?” Thomas asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “That pass?” Thomas asked, turning to the dark shapes of the mountains and pointing.

  “It’s too dark to see it, but the pass is right there,” Peter said, pointing thirty degrees to the right of where Thomas aimed his hand. “Like Mama said, it looked like the plane went right through the peaks.”