Final Mission: Zion - A World War 2 Thriller

by Chuck Driskell

  “If he runs?”

  “Then, by all means, shoot him. I trust your judgment. Go now.”

  The Hauptscharführer hurried across the street, to where the motorcycle was parked.

  “Hauptscharführer!” Aying called out.

  The man halted, staring expectantly at Aying. “Sir?”

  Aying lit his cigarette, blowing smoke from his nose and mouth. “Töte den Hund.”

  It meant, “Kill the dog.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  FIVE MINUTES LATER, JUST AS THE BOY HAD SAID HE WOULD, Neil found Berchtoldshofweg. The road was marked by a massive stone on the corner, the name hand-painted on the rock. Thankfully, Neil reached it without any problem from the local polizei. The road was made of hard-packed gravel. It started as a slight incline through a narrow field but, upon reaching the trees, it climbed steeply. Neil looked upward at the mountainside, wondering how far the home was located up the road. Summoning his remaining energy, he turned to make his way up the road when the sound of a motor grabbed his attention.

  The flat and meandering road that had led him from town had been quiet, other than a few cars heading into Innsbruck. Neil peered back towards town. Between the trees, he saw a motorcycle with a sidecar coming his way. The vehicle was painted dark gray and was ridden by a man in a gray uniform.

  A gray SS uniform.

  The driver wasn’t approaching at high speed. He was puttering along, his head scanning as if he were looking for someone.

  Wasting no time, Neil crossed the road, dropping down into the walled basin of the River Sill. The drop was six feet and left Neil on a slightly elevated sandbar at the river’s edge. Schatze stood at the river wall until Neil reached up and deposited her softly with him on the sandbar. He ducked down and waited for the motorcycle to pass.

  As he crouched there, he wondered if the rider might be looking for him? He recalled the visual exchange between himself and the SS officer just minutes before. Even though he’d only gotten a few glimpses of the rider, Neil was almost certain he wasn’t the same dapper SS he’d seen earlier. The SS must have hundreds of men stationed in Innsbruck, perhaps even thousands. The rider might be on scheduled patrol or could simply be heading to see a lady friend. Setting positive thoughts aside, Neil also admitted that the officer he’d seen earlier could have sent this rider to find him and Schatze. And if the rider had keen eyes, he might have seen Neil and Schatze drop down into the river basin.

  As the old adage went—if you can see the enemy, the enemy can see you.

  Neil removed the Colt from his bag and took a series of steadying breaths. The engine was closer but the pitch hadn’t changed—meaning the rider hadn’t sped up or slowed down. Neil glanced upstream, back towards the city. The sandbar led nearly the entire way beside the wall. And approximately 200 meters from where Neil stood, poking through the northern river wall, was a large drainage pipe that led back under the road. The pipe appeared to be at least three feet in diameter.

  “Come on, girl,” Neil said, concealing his pistol at his side as he scurried to the pipe.

  ~~~

  The SS Hauptscharführer rode barely above idle, pondering the peculiar request from Standartenführer Aying. What was it about the hobo that had set Aying’s curiosity aflame? Well, it was of no matter. This was a golden opportunity for the Hauptscharführer to be awarded with the highest enlisted rank in the Innsbruck and Hall im Tyrol administrative area. The previous top enlisted man, carrying the rank of Stabsscharführer, had just been promoted back to Berlin. Any enlisted SS adorned with this highest of enlisted ranks enjoyed nearly the same benefits as an SS officer. To the Hauptscharführer, that meant more booze, more women and the freedom to beat—or kill—damn near anyone he wanted.

  So, it was critical he find this tramp and bring him back to Aying. After, of course, he killed the dog.

  Something up ahead had caught the Hauptscharführer’s eye. Admittedly, he was a bit cloudy after all the beers, not to mention the schnapps he’d been nipping since before lunch. But, had he just seen a dog drop down over the river wall? The dog had disappeared slowly, as if being let down by invisible wires. Unsure of himself, the Hauptscharführer slowed the BMW motorcycle and eased it into the grass. He rubbed his eyes, staring at the spot where the supposed dog had been. Nothing.

  Taking the MP-35, the Hauptscharführer slid a magazine into its side and chambered a round. He walked to where he thought he’d seen the dog, seeing fresh depressions in the green grass. Leading with the submachine gun, he carefully peered over the edge of the river wall, spotting two sets of footprints in the river sand.

  One belonged to a dog. The other to a man. The footprints led back to the east, and terminated at a drainage pipe that ran under the road.

  The Hauptscharführer glanced over his left shoulder. The vagrant and his dog were in the drainage pipe and were going to emerge on the other side.

  And that’s where they’d die.

  He sprinted across the road, the MP-35 at the ready.

  ~~~

  Neil heard the motorcycle stop before the engine was shut off. Damn.

  Thankfully, Schatze didn’t seem unnerved in the close quarters of the drainpipe. She leaned against Neil, probably calmed by his presence. While the pipe offered Neil plenty of room for movement forward and backward, it would prove extremely difficult to turn around, especially with his stitches. The bottom of the pipe was covered in at least six inches of dirt, silt and rock. This took away precious free space a man of Neil’s size would need to change direction. He’d pushed Schatze in and gone in head first, meaning he was facing away from the river, to the north side of the road.

  Neil knew it was only a matter of time before the SS would see their footsteps leading to the pipe. The question was: would the man follow the footsteps, or try to intercept Neil on the north side of the road?

  While it was far from an educated guess, Neil gambled that since this particular SS rated a motorcycle, he was in a senior position. A high-ranking officer or NCO must possess some sort of intellect, correct? Thus, Neil took the chance that the SS would attempt to intercept him and Schatze on the north side of the road. A flimsy theory but, at the moment, it was the best Neil could come up with.

  Testing his ability to turn and shoot backward, Neil finally settled in, satisfied he could shoot without hitting Schatze. He attuned his ears to listen for his hunter.

  But all he heard was the quiet murmur of the River Sill.

  Where was the SS? What was he doing?

  ~~~

  The SS Hauptscharführer eased his way into the summer undergrowth at the north side of the road. He was sweating. To his left was a steep and winding road that led up the base of the nearest mountain. To his right was the mouth of a road that branched off in three directions, leading to a populous area known as Hötting, overlooking Innsbruck.

  Just ahead were the numerous ditches that converged to dump their water in the drainage pipe. They were dry at the moment, as was the basin at the mouth of the pipe. The Hauptscharführer placed his finger on the trigger and began to creep down into the catch basin.

  ~~~

  Schatze growled. It was quiet, more of a rumble from her throat. She was facing north, her ears perked in that direction. Neil calmed her, keeping his Colt aimed to the north. If the SS were to appear at the pipe, Neil estimated the shot to be no more than thirty feet.

  This situation didn’t call for a summoning of his Shoshone training. This was a real-life reckoning, putting Neil on the precipice of killing—or being killed. Here, there was nowhere to go, nothing to do—other than survive. Though Neil hadn’t seen them in action, he knew the SS were chosen for their distinct traits, and one of those traits was ferocity.

  This man who was pursuing Neil was almost certainly doing so with bad intentions. Capture, torture, interrogate, death—it was the SS routine. While Neil had confidence in himself, he knew all about torture. They would eventually break him.

  And t
hat would lead to the children being found. Found by the SS.

  Such an outcome was not an option. Neil would rather die.

  As Schatze growled again, he gripped the Colt with both hands and focused his aim on the mouth of the pipe.

  A bead of sweat dangled on Neil’s right eyebrow. He ignored it, every ounce of his being trained on the flaxen disc of daylight thirty feet ahead.

  ~~~

  The Hauptscharführer didn’t like this. He was now able to see the silt just inside the mouth of the pipe, and it appeared undisturbed. So the tramp was either hiding in the pipe or had backed out the other end. The Hauptscharführer doubted the latter. The tramp would have no way of knowing which direction the Hauptscharführer had taken. And it was just like some old hobo to hide in a pipe—to take the easy way out and shy away. And who shies away?

  A coward.

  While the Hauptscharführer wanted to please his superior, he also enjoyed killing. And cowards were near the top of his list of undesirables. Why go to the trouble of soiling his own hands on some worthless vagrant by bringing him in? Perhaps, instead, he’d kill the filthy bastard and concoct a story that would leave himself looking like a hero? Maybe a verbal exchange with the tramp, outing him as a sicko pedophile, followed by a chase and a killing?

  Heureka!

  Recalling that he had a battered old Dreyse pistol in his bag—the one the Hauptscharführer had used to brutalize the artist, beating him about the head and face—the SS decided he could plant the pistol on the vagrant’s dead body. He’d simply tell Aying that the vagrant had pulled it on him and—voila!—the killing was justified. The Hauptscharführer suppressed a menacing chuckle.

  Time to die, you dirty prick.

  The determined SS gripped the MP-35, twisting as he dropped down to the opening of the pipe. He landed perfectly, facing south in a ready shooting position as he pulled the trigger.

  Bullets pumped from the MP-35 like angered wasps.

  ~~~

  Whatever rifle the SS held spit fire as soon as the man’s feet struck the ground at the north end of the pipe. The tri-slotted muzzle brake produced a muzzle flash that resembled a snake’s mouth—twin fangs and a spitting tongue. It was a sight Neil had seen before, and among the scariest sights on earth.

  Neil’s right index finger had already answered the call, returning fire with the Colt. Fighting not to close his eyes, Neil had begun low and walked each shot upward, expending four rounds that had knocked the SS backward.

  The noise!

  Neil shuddered over the intense ear pain from the blasts in the enclosed space but remained focused on his target. The SS was splayed unnaturally backward, his exploded right leg folded underneath him, as if he had a new joint mid-shin.

  His head collapsed onto his extended arms as Neil took a series of great breaths. There must have been fifteen rounds that had roared through the pipe, all of them too high. He rotated his eyes upward, seeing the long striations where the bullets from the submachine gun had sparked across the top of the pipe.

  Shooting high with a submachine gun was a common misstep. Thank God.

  Neil turned. Schatze had backed away and was cowering as low as she could, trembling with her tail underneath her. Neil hurriedly checked her to make sure she wasn’t hit. Satisfied she was unharmed, he offered what reassurance he could before scurrying forward and viewing his aggressor as the ringing in his ears reached a fever pitch.

  Indeed, the man was a senior SS of some sort. Though it had been some time since Neil had viewed Schutzstaffel rank, he assumed the man was an NCO in his mid or late thirties. He was quite dead. Neil decided to deal with the body later. For now, he made his way up to the road, seeing no cars in either direction. He hurried to the BMW, bringing the already warm engine to life on a single kick. As Schatze emerged above the catch basin, Neil popped the clutch and roared across the road, driving the motorcycle down into the undergrowth. He looked all around, satisfied that the SS machine couldn’t be seen from the road.

  Now, with a few more minutes on his hands, Neil sat in the catch basin and comforted the dog for a moment. Then, he undressed the bloody corpse and covered the dead man’s body in saplings and leaves. Neil stuffed his own clothes down in the sidecar and donned the bloody, undersized clothes of the SS. Unable to lace the man’s boots, Neil removed the laces and tied off the top of the boots around his calves. Though he might pass a casual glance, Neil knew he’d never pass any sort of visual muster. But he’d also seen no traffic emerge from Berchtoldshofweg, so he might not have to.

  There was no choice. If he attracted more trouble, he’d simply have to deal with it.

  Neil hoisted the now calm Schatze into the sidecar and slowly puttered through the undergrowth to the turnoff at Berchtoldshofweg.

  He studied both sides of the steep road. The undergrowth was too thick and loaded with mountain rocks in the ditches to attempt to ride the side and stay hidden. He’d have to take the road and hope for the best.

  Pulling the gray SS garrison cap down over his shaggy hair, Neil twisted the throttle, let out the clutch, and roared up the steep climb.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  SINCE NEIL’S NEW ADDRESS WAS 2 BERCHTOLDSHOFWEG, he didn’t think the house would be very far from the bottom. He was wrong. Though the motorcycle didn’t have an odometer, Neil estimated that the cabin was several kilometers up the impossibly steep road. Thankfully, Schatze loved the windy ride. Whatever fear she’d had over the gunfight melted away as her tongue flapped in the breeze. And despite his fear of being discovered, Neil would have been lying if he’d said he wasn’t grateful not to have made the climb on foot.

  The driveway dropped off the left side of the steep mountain road. Neil silenced the bike, holding in the clutch as he let it coast down the driveway, parking beside a detached garage and well out of sight of the road. Pistol in hand, Neil petted Schatze and listened. His ears were still ringing but his hearing had come back for the most part. Other than the birds in the trees, he heard nothing.

  After lifting Schatze from the sidecar and petting her a few times, Neil dug into his bag and retrieved the round ring with three old-fashioned keys. They’d been given to him in New York by the Jewish forger. Silencing the keys in his hand, Neil walked across the driveway and viewed the house, silhouetted by the sundown occurring on its opposite side.

  The house was charming.

  Made of stacked river stone, it was built in cottage style, almost perfectly square, topped off with a shake roof. The rear of the house faced to the west. Neil peered to the side of the cottage. Although it was nestled on a level lot that reached about 50 feet beyond the cottage, the back yard appeared to fall straight off at its rear. As Schatze sniffed all around, Neil moved back to the front of the cottage. He studied the sizeable, unattached garage he’d parked next to. It was covered in the same shake shingles as the roof of the cottage. The garage was barred shut, the end of the bar marked by a large padlock.

  Neil turned back to the cottage. It had several flower boxes on the front windows, bursting with petunias in full red bloom. The stoop was covered in a clean, brushy mat, and the hedges around the front of the cottage were neatly trimmed.

  The house certainly didn’t appear to be vacant.

  Neil eased up the walk, chewing the inside of his lip. After climbing the low stoop, he knocked. Nothing. Knocked louder. Nothing. He yelled a German “hallo” several times. Nichts.

  Making a full rotation, Neil still saw no one, so he decided to try the keys. He tried one. Didn’t fit. He shook his head. Was he at the wrong address? He tried the second key—it did fit. He turned it. The thick wooden door opened. After calling out again, Neil stepped inside the darkened cottage and listened to the silence. Schatze waited politely on the front stoop. Standing inside, Neil removed his pistol and allowed his ears to adjust to the silence, alert for the slightest noise, his head and eyes on a swivel. All he could hear was the faint ringing in his ears.

  The cottage smel
led pleasant and lived-in. After a minute, Schatze groaned as she lowered herself to the ground, unwilling to stand for the duration of her new master’s cautious entry.

  It took Neil only a moment to clear the cabin’s three darkened rooms—the large room with a kitchen, a bedroom, and a bathroom off to the side. Satisfied, he came back to the entry, clicking his tongue to beckon the dog. He found a switch and flipped it, surprised that the electricity was connected and working. The main room, just like the entire house, was small. It had a low ceiling and, against the far wall, a large rock fireplace. On the back wall of the house were two windows covered in drapes. He pulled both open, allowing the gloaming to seep in.

  Neil walked back outside, further concealing the BMW behind the garage. Unless someone searched the property, they wouldn’t see it even if they came to the front door. But when would the SS be missed? Was he on an actual mission or just out for the evening? Neil recalled the heavy smell of alcohol coming from the dead man’s settling body.

  The catch basin where the man’s body was located was well off the road. Neil doubted anyone would find it in the next few hours. After dark, he’d have to go back down and retrieve the corpse. For now, he decided he was safe for the moment. He went back inside.

  The back windows afforded a fine view of the grassy back yard and the mountains in the distance. The kitchen was part of the main room, only separated by a small row of cabinets with a working surface on top. He opened several cabinets in the kitchen, finding plates and utensils. He walked to the simple bedroom with the one bed. It looked inviting. He stepped into the bathroom, noticing that the massive claw-foot tub had gas heat. Without hesitation, Neil opened the water full force and lit the heat to the tub.

  As the tub filled with clean, clear water, he locked the front door and went back into the kitchen, filling a bowl with water and placing it on the floor for Schatze. He found a can of beef stew and a can opener, pouring the stew into another bowl so she could replenish herself after their journey. While she ate, Neil opened another can of stew meat, devouring all of it cold, even turning the can up to drink the remaining juice. He opened another, repeating the process. As he finished his meal, he spied a container of Naphtha, next to a row of pipes. He used it to refill his lighter. It took several tries before the memento lighter produced flame and, when it did, he lit a cigarette. Feeling markedly better, he went back to the bathroom.