Foo Fighters

by Daniel Wyatt

  Patton shook his head in disgust. He was peeved. Blasted, they were fighting the wrong enemy. The Russians were next. The Western Allies had to take Europe before the Russians did. But Ike couldn’t see it. Too bad Ike was more a politician than he was a soldier. This war was grooming him for the presidency.

  Patton opened the second dispatch, read it, and chuckled. What a joke! For the second time in two days, Eisenhower was ordering Patton to bypass Trier because it would supposedly take at least four divisions to do the job.

  The general stood and faced his adjutant squarely. “Send this message off to General Eisenhower’s headquarters,” he said in his high-pitched voice. “Right away.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The adjutant grabbed a pencil.

  “Tell General Eisenhower that I have taken Trier with two divisions. Stop. What do you want me to do? Stop. Give it back? Stop.”

  The adjutant grinned, and Patton laughed out loud. “Send it.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Antarctic

  The two-man British search team reached the snowy crest of the ridge, taking the last few feet on their stomachs. Their breath steamed in the frosty air. At first, they couldn’t fathom what they saw through their binoculars.

  “Will you look at that,” one of them said, astonished, glancing at the man-made buildings hundreds of feet nearly straight down. “No wonder our radio controllers couldn’t monitor any German communication, tucked away here in this valley.”

  “Righto, ol’ boy. Wonder how long they’ve been here? From the look of things, probably quite a while, I’d say. Imagine, right under our noses. And we’ve been on the other side of the peninsula almost two years. Telephone poles, electricity. A whole power station. Blimey, it’s a small town. They have the nerve to fly their bloody swastika this far from home.”

  “Yeah. Guess they didn’t expect anybody else to be around.”

  “Guess not. What’s that up the hill?”

  “Looks like drilling equipment, ol’ boy.”

  “What would they be drilling out here?”

  “Oil, maybe. Minerals.”

  “They must know something we don’t.”

  “Right you are.”

  They studied the camp for several moments, edging closer in their white snowsuits to the cliff’s edge.

  “What do you know, a ploughed runway out there.”

  “Yeah. Has to be at least a mile long.”

  “Perfect length for the Condor we saw a little while ago.”

  “Right. By the way, when do we move in and pay our guests a little visit?”

  “As soon as we get the clearance. But we need reinforcements. No telling how many blokes are in there.”

  “Let’s go. Stay down.”

  “You bet.”

  London

  Roberta Hollinger-Langford was thoroughly confused. “Zurich?” she said.

  “Yeah, hereby reassigned. That’s what Dorwin told me. Just after lunch.” Hollinger threw his suit jacket and fedora on the apartment couch. “Allen Dulles himself, the OSS Director, told him. And those orders came from Donovan.”

  “How many times have I told you to hang your coat up?”

  “Sorry.” Hollinger took the coat to the bedroom closet and placed it on a hangar. He threw the hat on the shelf, then returned to his wife’s side in the living room. His face was fixed in a frown. “What do you make of it?”

  “Don’t ask me to think like an American. I only married one.”

  Hollinger chuckled.

  “Maybe it has something to do with the Foo File.”

  “It’s possible.” Hollinger shrugged.

  “When do you leave?”

  “Day after tomorrow.”

  “For how long?”

  Hollinger seemed to be in a fog. “They wouldn’t tell me.”

  * * * *

  Winston Churchill’s telephone in his underground war room rang. His Majesty’s First Minister lifted the receiver gently, a smouldering cigar in his mouth.

  “Sir, it’s Colonel Lampert.”

  “Yes, colonel,” Churchill acknowledged.

  “Two things, sir. First, our MI-6 search team in Antarctica found what they gather to be a large-scale German mining expedition on the peninsula. They are currently under observation, waiting on our orders.”

  “What are you waiting for? Send them in, by God! But take them alive. I want those Germans interrogated. Use everything at our disposal, including the truth drugs.”

  “Yes, sir. Thought you might say that.”

  “What else?”

  “It’s Wesley Hollinger.”

  “What the blazes did he do this time?”

  “The OSS is sending him to Switzerland for some unknown reason. Temporary assignment.”

  Churchill dragged on his cigar, exhaling before he asked, “On whose orders?”

  “Donovan’s.”

  “Highly irregular, wouldn’t you say, colonel?”

  “Yes, isn’t it.”

  “I thought he was working on the Foo File with his wife.”

  “Not anymore. Dorwin and I decided to cancel it.”

  “When was this?” Churchill barked. “No one briefed me.”

  “We did it late yesterday. Nothing new was coming out of it. We’ll have to wait and see what our armies uncover once we overrun Germany.”

  “So, right after the Foo File is canceled, the OSS sends the bloke away.”

  “Perhaps it’s merely a coincidence.”

  “Or perhaps the Americans will somehow, some way, go back to being Americans, and not Allies.”

  “What do you mean by that, sir?”

  “This, colonel: Maybe they will cut a separate deal with Germany, through those damn money-grabbing Swiss.”

  “For the technology?”

  “Exactly. Bloody Yankees.”

  “I second that, sir. If what you say turns out to be true.”

  “Keep me informed, colonel.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  ELEVEN

  Peenemunde West — March 4

  Area 14 swarmed with activity in the early afternoon once the news broke that the Messerschmitt V-4 Experimental Series 1-2a pilot-controlled, titanium prototype with the new turbojet engine was announced ready for its first outdoors test.

  Two men slid the hangar door open. A third man jumped on a truck, started it up, and towed the V-4 fighter onto the tarmac. The scientists stood by the hangar door: von Braun, Zeller, and others in the team that had stayed behind after the V-2 facility had been vacated. Nearly two hundred technicians were milling off to the right near the parking lot.

  Von Braun folded his arms over his white smock. He saw the SS guards outside the fenced-in compound eyeing the strange machine. One of them had a set of binoculars to his eyes. “It’s no secret anymore,” the scientist said. “There’s no way of hiding this.”

  Zeller smiled. “Rest assured,” he said. “Someone is on the phone to Himmler as we speak.”

  They heard footsteps behind them. A pilot in flying gear walked by, nodded at the scientists, crawled over the wing, and got into the fighter through the open hatch. Once in the cockpit, he looked through the small Plexiglas opening to von Braun, sixty feet away.

  A loudspeaker blared, “TWENTY... NINETEEN... EIGHTEEN...” The pilot closed the hatch and locked it from the inside.

  Zeller leaned towards von Braun. “I can’t believe that the technicians constructed this titanium model so quickly.”

  “See what happens when we’re threatened by Berlin?”

  “Amazing. Simply amazing. Three weeks. And they sorted out the engine problems too. I just hope we’re not bringing it out too soon.”

  Von Braun frowned at his “Doubting Thomas” cohort. “Both teams worked twenty-four hours a day. Hundreds of people. Besides, it’s only a larger version of the radio interceptors. They only had to expand on the blueprints. Now, it’s our job to test this one and ready it for production.”

  �
��FIFTEEN... FOURTEEN... THIRTEEN...”

  Zeller handed out the earplugs with five seconds to go.

  “FOUR... THREE... TWO... ONE...”

  On cue from von Braun, the pilot started up the saucer-shaped machine, the latest in the astounding Nazi technical arsenal. With a blast, the twin turbojet caught fire, vibrating the tarmac beneath the scientists’ feet. At no time in their lives had anyone here heard a sound this loud and powerful from an aircraft.

  They cheered.

  The pilot glanced over, grinning.

  Von Braun spun his finger around, the signal for the pilot to try the next test procedure. Suddenly, the two turbojet exhausts pointed downwards. The fighter lifted off the tarmac, suspended a few feet in mid-air, turning slightly, slowly, undercarriage down. Then the nose dipped and it moved forward. It remained suspended, wobbling. It lifted higher, then sped smoothly away over the field, banked over the closest runway, and returned to hover over the tarmac.

  Von Braun ran a line across his throat. The undercarriage tires touched the tarmac, and the pilot cut the engines. Von Braun was pleased with the speed and the manoeuvrability. The turbojets were certainly healthy. “Next on the agenda, I’ll call Reichmarshall Goering and give him the positive report. Karl?”

  “Yes, Wernher?”

  “Make the arrangements to ship everything out as soon as possible. We are transferring our operation south.”

  Berlin

  The Fuehrer was in a sombre mood in his underground Fuehrerbunker office. Throwing a chocolate in his mouth, he said to his secretary, “Bormann, I want your advice on an important decision that I will have to face.”

  Bormann sat up, pen and tagebuch in hand. “Me, mein Fuehrer?”

  “Yes, you,” Hitler replied, his voice raspy, older than his fifty-five years. “I can rely on very few people. It makes me sick. Germany will be left without a leader. Who will be my successor? Hess is mad. Who? Himmler? Goebbels? I must decide on whom I shall hand total power over to in an emergency in the event of my death.”

  Bormann was startled that Hitler was finally admitting the end was near. “I don’t...” He paused.

  “Well?” Hitler asked calmly.

  Bormann knew that a civilian choice like himself, Himmler, or Goebbels would not hold water. Those in uniform would not go for it. “I have two in mind, perhaps.”

  “Let’s have them. Quickly.”

  “Admiral Doenitz is loyal, and has the leadership qualities to represent the Fatherland. He is a military man, widely respected in the Navy.”

  Hitler gave the suggestion serious thought. “Doenitz is a possibility, yes. The other?”

  Bormann held his breath. “May I suggest Goering?”

  “What!” the Fuehrer exploded, his placid face reddening. He jumped to his feet with energy he hadn’t had in months. “That buffoon. Why would you say him? He’s not fit... not fit to lead a pig to its trough. I told you before we should have hung him along with his cowardly Luftwaffe.”

  Bormann began writing. “May I remind you, mein Fuehrer, that you did appoint him your successor in 1940.”

  Hitler eased up. “I did, didn’t I? Well, he’s not anymore. That will soon change. Doenitz it is. But keep that to yourself. I will wait until the appropriate time.”

  “Yes, mein Fuehrer.”

  “How are the secret weapons coming along? The new V-4, what of it?”

  “It has passed its first run-up, mein Fuehrer, at Peenemunde.”

  “When will it be put into full production?”

  “As soon as the facilities are up and running in the Thuringia Mountains.”

  Hitler began to soften and reminisce. “Look what it’s come to. I had a solution to mankind’s problems. A New World Order. But I see a new and different order rising up, controlled by financial supermen of strength, power, and prestige. Everyone worldwide will be subject to this elite of the earth. These sons of gods. These kings. We could have put a stop to it, Bormann. I shudder to see the world to come in the next few years.”

  “Me too, mein Fuehrer,” Bormann admitted.

  “I know I don’t intend to be around for it.”

  But I, for one, plan to, thought Bormann, writing in his tagebuch, while taking on the expression of the cat that had swallowed the canary. “It’s a terrible shame, mein Fuehrer.”

  TWELVE

  Bern, Switzerland — March 9

  The OSS director stood, bent over his desk, and reached out his hand to his first visitor of the early afternoon series of appointments. “Good afternoon, Mr. Hollinger. Welcome to Switzerland.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Pull up a chair, young man.”

  “Thank you.” Hollinger sat and looked around the large, panelled office, impressed with the spaciousness. It was twice the size of his London office. To the right was a two-foot-square wall clock with long, pewter hands.

  “How was your trip?”

  Hollinger would never forget the flight. It was the closest he had come to throwing up in the air. “Kind of... on the bumpy side.”

  “How was the weather in Lisbon?”

  “Rainy.”

  “And London.”

  “Foggy, as always, sir, in March. Director Dorwin sends his regards.”

  Hollinger smiled at Allen Welsh Dulles, Washington’s spymaster in Switzerland, appointed by Roosevelt in 1942. Dulles had a distinct grandfather image. In his fifties, he was tall, statuesque, grey-haired, and wore glasses and a navy, pin-striped suit. A lawyer by trade, he was a product of America’s elite, educated at Princeton and George Washington University. Only a few people in the right places knew that in the years leading up to war that he had been a staunch Adolf Hitler supporter.

  Dulles sagged into his padded chair, and tapped his ballpoint pen on his desktop. “Mr. Hollinger, do you have any idea why you’ve been sent here?”

  “Not in the least, sir. I’m dying to find out.”

  “The orders come directly from General Donovan. I don’t exactly agree with how this is being done. However, like any good soldier, no matter what the field, I only obey. Furthermore, my name is not to be mentioned in this little undertaking. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir. I was informed of that already.”

  “Good. Don’t forget it.”

  Hollinger was suddenly aware of the wall clock ticking. “I will, sir. I mean I won’t, sir. I mean... you know.”

  The intercom box on Dulles’s desktop buzzed and he pressed a button. “Yes.”

  “Mr. McCreedy is here, Mr. Dulles,” a woman’s voice said.

  “Thank you. Send him in.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The office door opened.

  Dulles turned. “Good afternoon, Mr. McCreedy. You recall Wesley Hollinger from your days together in Washington and London?”

  Hollinger turned and stood up. Yes, he knew McCreedy, and he also remembered how much he couldn’t stand the man. “Hello again, Tom,” he said, coldly.

  “Hello, Wesley, old buddy.”

  They shook hands.

  “Get to it,” Dulles informed McCreedy. “Kindly brief Mr. Hollinger on the way. Remember, I don’t have anything to do with this little scheme.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  * * * *

  Outside, the sun was shining brightly, the temperature in the mid-fifties. They hopped into a nearby tavern, where McCreedy downed two stiff drinks to Hollinger’s one. Then they walked a few blocks, and entered a private compartment on the train to Lake Lacerne.

  Hollinger had disliked Thomas McCreedy from the moment they first met in 1940, during their early cipher training experience at Washington. McCreedy was always too cheerful, too intelligent, too damn political for his thirty years, and he also drank too much, too often. In addition, McCreedy was too weird. Too smart for his own good. Oftentimes, he was in his own world. He still wore those goofy round glasses with the thick lenses and his hair was still parted in the middle. Born and raised in Virginia, McCr
eedy majored in accounting and political science at a South Carolina college. His first job out of school saw him at the giant Rockefeller-owned oil firm of Standard Oil. After two years in the business world, he jumped to clandestine work, another one of those handpicked recruits, compliments of the mysterious Mr. Donovan. Currently, McCreedy was a monetary and special affairs specialist for the OSS in Switzerland.

  Together, McCreedy and Hollinger looked out the wide window as the train hissed and steamed in the station.

  “How’s London, old buddy? Been to Piccadilly lately?” McCreedy’s speech was slightly slurred.

  Hollinger knew McCreedy was referring to the streetwalkers of London. “Come now, I’m a married man, Tom.”

  “So I hear.”

  “Yes, and my wife is great with child.”

  “Congratulations.” McCreedy removed a cigarette from a small pocket case. “When’s she due?”

  “May.”

  “Still wearing the flashy ties, I see.”

  “And you? Still single?”

  “Engaged. A Swiss girl.” McCreedy lit the cigarette with his lighter.

  “That’s nice. I wish you both all the happiness in the world. OK, let’s cut the bullshit.” Hollinger turned directly to McCreedy. “What’s up, Tom? Dulles didn’t look all that happy with my coming here. What is this all about?”