“I understand, sir.”
“What?”
Krause laughed. “I understand, Bill.”
Some things had gone well. The two-story rental property he’d arranged through the shell company provided a shop and a place to store the truck, while the second floor above the shop included a comfortable apartment that would house both men. It amused Braun that his landlord was an annoying Jew lawyer named Zuckerman. When the time came, perhaps he would kill Zuckerman the Jew just for pleasure.
The freshly painted sign on the front of the building proclaimed it as the home of Swenson Engineering, which matched the Swedish passport he would use for identification if anybody asked. So far, nobody had, which also amused him. Once again, he concluded that Americans were gullible fools. Gunther Krause had become Gunther Swenson.
In Germany, Gestapo informants would be watching his every move and reporting everything he did. But not here. Apparently the Americans thought that nobody would use false identification or that Germany would be even slightly interested in America’s war against Japan.
The staff he’d left behind in Mexico had also given him some marvelously created fictitious contracts between the United States government and Swenson Engineering, including phony purchase orders, which enabled him to get rationed food and gasoline. Since his papers said he was a defense contractor for the government, he was eligible for more gasoline then he’d ever use.
The truck he’d driven across the border was a ruin, and he’d decided to drive it only in an emergency. Instead, he bought a 1937 Ford station wagon from a lady whose husband was in the service. It had wood paneling on the side and was commonly referred to as a “woody.” He made a removable sign identifying it as belonging to Swenson Engineering, along with several other business signs which he kept out of sight. This evening, however, there were no signs on the Ford.
It was getting dark by the time he and Krause had driven the station wagon out toward the small town of Lakeside, north and east of San Diego. A rail line ran through it and it was time for the two of them to earn their pay. He’d planned to do it alone, but it would be so much easier with Krause’s help. Braun thought a couple of sticks of dynamite and an impact detonator would do the job and Krause concurred.
Braun parked the Ford among some trees a few hundred yards away from the railroad track and walked slowly toward it with Krause a few paces behind. He found a place where the rail bed was built up and crawled onto it, after first looking around to see if anyone was in view. The dynamite went under the rails and the detonator, built to act like a land mine, went on top. When the train’s wheels ran over it, a spark should be created which would cause the dynamite to explode. The track would be shattered and the train would be sent hurtling down the embankment.
It was easy, almost too easy. The tracks were normally deserted. He’d checked it out before and seen no signs of activity, not even kids or bums or patrols checking for sabotage. Well, he said with a laugh, all that might change after tonight.
They looked around. There were people who spent a lot of time doing nothing more than train watching. However, he did not think he’d run into them as the late afternoon sky darkened. If the trains in California ran on anything resembling a schedule, the freight train they were waiting for should be along within an hour.
Even though it was dangerous, Braun felt compelled to stay and see the results of their handiwork. They drove to a spot where they could look down on the tracks and still remain out of sight. The place where he’d placed the dynamite was a good mile away and he hoped an innocuous Ford station wagon would go unnoticed.
He pulled out a cheese sandwich and ate slowly. He offered half to Krause, who said he wasn’t hungry. After what seemed an eternity, they heard a train whistle in the distance. Braun tried to will it to come closer, sooner, but when it finally appeared, it was a very long one and moving slowly. Braun was delighted.
Two steam engines sending clouds of white smoke into the sky were locked in an almost sexual embrace and pulling a line of freight cars and flatcars that stretched to the horizon. It was the type of train that blocked roads and drove drivers to distraction. Braun thought that blocked roads would be the least of people’s worries in a little while.
Braun smiled as he saw that the flatcars carried a number of M3 Stuart light tanks. They were the best the Americans had at this time, but were pieces of shit in comparison with German armor. He was confident the German Panzer III and the new Panzer IV would destroy them with ease. What disconcerted him was the fact that the tanks would be replaced by the Americans who turned them out like Ford used to make cars.
He wondered what the dirty little Japs had in the way of tanks and decided he really didn’t care. He just wanted this train to crash.
The whistle sounded again, loud and strident. Here I come, it seemed to proclaim. Not for long, Braun laughed, and Krause sighed.
He held his breath as the first locomotive passed over where he’d placed the charge. It drove on and, for a second, Braun thought he’d failed and set the detonator improperly. Then a white flash suddenly appeared underneath the second engine and was followed by an explosion. The train shuddered like a drunk trying to keep his balance. But it couldn’t. The rails had been destroyed. The train lurched and stumbled, and slowly turned to its left and began to careen off the tracks and down the embankment. The sound of metal crashing and tearing ripped through the sky. Car after car played the game of follow the leader and ran down onto the field to their destruction.
The sound of metal and wood colliding and ripping became deafening. Some train cars fell on their sides while others stayed upright and a few actually turned turtle. The despised Stuart tanks ripped free of their shackles and fell onto the field. In a couple of cases, the turrets came loose and rolled around. Braun was mildly disappointed that their crews hadn’t been traveling with them.
Smoke clouds began to obscure the site. The boilers on the locomotives exploded, sending shock waves across the wreckage and white clouds of steam roaring upward.
Braun and Krause exulted as scores of freight cars kept falling to their destruction, screeching as more metal ripped apart, taking large sections of the track with them. When it seemed it couldn’t get any better, something in one of the cars exploded and started a chain reaction. Moments later, a score of freight cars was burning and others threatened to catch fire.
Curiously, they could hear no sounds of screams although a couple of figures could be seen running around in apparent shock and panic. Doubtless what was left of the crew, Braun thought. Too bad it wasn’t a passenger train. Perhaps the next one would be.
As he pulled the station wagon onto the road and drove away, he could see emergency vehicles heading toward the crash site. He turned to Krause and laughed. It was a good start.
* * *
Harry Hopkins was a confidante of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and had advised him on many important and delicate issues. He’d traveled on his president’s behalf to Moscow and London and was noted for his bluntness when dealing with foreign leaders. He was so valued by FDR that he now lived in the White House. However, the chain-smoking Harry Hopkins was dying of a stomach cancer, and he looked far older than his fifty-two years.
Hopkins looked at Admiral Nimitz and Lieutenant General John Lesesne DeWitt. Even though he was gaunt, disheveled, and dressed in an ill-fitting suit, Hopkins was clearly in charge. He was also a little annoyed that he’d been sent west to negotiate what amounted to a truce between the army and the navy and the nation’s overall war goals. At least, he thought wryly, he didn’t have to deal with the arrogant General Douglas MacArthur, who was busy trying desperately to hold onto Australia.
Hopkins coughed and began. “Gentlemen, enough is enough. We are now certain that the Japanese will not invade California or anyplace else on the West Coast. Therefore, we have to make some changes consistent with plans for coming events. In short, we now have more than a million American soldiers sitting on thei
r thumbs, waiting in trenches and pillboxes along the Pacific coast for an enemy who isn’t going to come.”
“Is your intelligence that good?” DeWitt asked with a trace of sulkiness.
As a three-star, DeWitt was junior to Nimitz and strongly suspected that he wasn’t getting all the information the higher-ranking admiral was. He was also getting a lot of flack for interning Japanese civilians even though he was convinced that the actions were necessary and his efforts were supported by FDR. DeWitt was painfully conscious that most of his experience in the army was as a quartermaster and not as a combat officer. He now commanded the sprawling Fourth Army area, which also included Alaska, and was being heavily criticized for the ease with which the Japanese had taken Anchorage.
The internment of Japanese civilians and American citizens was another major problem. The short-tempered DeWitt had been infuriated by the lack of preparedness and common sense shown by civilian authorities. This included failure to black out cities and several absurd false alarms when people thought the Japanese fleet was approaching. The sixty-two-year-old DeWitt felt all of those years.
“Our intelligence is excellent,” answered Hopkins as Nimitz looked down at his hands. The admiral was among a chosen few who knew the United States had broken at least some of the Japanese codes. DeWitt was not.
Hopkins continued. “I assume everyone has heard the rumors that we are going to invade North Africa. Well, the rumors are true and, in order to do that, we are going to need an army. Specifically, General DeWitt, we are going to need many of those several hundreds of thousands of troops who were sent here after the Midway battle to protect against what we now know is a nonexistent invasion, and to forestall the hysteria among the civilian population that was assuming epic proportions. Gentlemen, there never was any threat of an invasion. The Japs can and will continue to raid, but they will not invade. Therefore, we need significant components of the Fourth Army sent back east pronto so they can be prepared to land in North Africa in November.”
DeWitt was angry. He’d been an officer in the army for more than forty years and didn’t like the bullshit that was being shoveled in his direction.
“And just how the hell am I supposed to forestall raids without an army? And how also am I supposed to recover Alaska, or do we let the Japs keep on beheading people?”
Hopkins glared at him. He wasn’t used to people arguing with him. “General, it has been noted over and over again that your Fourth Army cannot ever be large enough to defend literally thousands of miles of coastline. We have to depend on air and naval patrols along with coastal radar to identify the Jap fleet’s location and plan accordingly. Yes, I understand that the enemy can cruise up and down the coast causing the army to run up and down as well. Nor can we stop the Japs from shelling small towns like they’ve been doing with impunity since we don’t yet have enough ships to stop them. It can’t be helped. The president is under extreme pressure from the Russians to open up a second front against the Nazis and support Stalin.”
DeWitt was not impressed. “The Russians are a long ways away, while the Japs are here on our soil. Even worse, the shelling of small towns has resulted in hundreds of thousands of refugees heading inland. We can’t handle all that. We need more help here and to hell with the Russians.”
Hopkins seethed. He felt his stomach aching, but he chose to continue, ignoring DeWitt’s outburst. “It is also imperative that we prevent Rommel from defeating the British in North Africa. If that happens, fascist Spain is likely to decide that allying with Nazi Germany is the better good bet and scrap its neutrality. Don’t forget that Hitler supported Franco in Spain’s civil war and has been pushing for that debt to be repaid. We believe Spain is wavering and, if the British are defeated by Rommel, they will either attack Gibraltar directly or permit German troops to cross Spain and take it. If Gibraltar falls, the Mediterranean almost automatically becomes a German lake, which could cost us a fortune in blood to retrieve. Therefore, the forces arrayed against Japan must be reduced.”
“What do you suggest I do about the Japs?” DeWitt snarled.
“You can do whatever the hell you want, General,” Hopkins snapped back. “I’m not going to strip your cupboard bare. You’ll still have more than a half million soldiers and Marines along with more than a thousand planes. I expect you’ll move your troops in detachments large enough to defend the major cities from an attack that isn’t going to come in the first place. The Japs simply do not have an army tagging along with their fleet and they don’t have the ability to bring one across the Pacific and supply it. And as to the shelling of our cities, until and if we get radar all up and down the coast, they will have to be endured.”
“What do I tell Governor Olson?” DeWitt asked. Culbert Olson was the Democratic governor of California and a long time supporter of Franklin Roosevelt. It was a clear implication that Olson would complain to the president, who might then change his mind.
Hopkins smiled. “Tell Olson he’s fucked up so badly he’s going to lose to the Republican candidate, Earl Warren, in November. Olson once described hell as being governor of California. He’ll be glad to be able to blame someone else for his screwups.”
Nimitz leaned forward to Hopkins. “In all fairness to the general and me, we still don’t have a radar wall in place and the Japs will be able to strike heavily at certain points without our knowing it until the last minute. You’re right, though. We could have millions more men and there would still be gaps in the coverage. When will the North African invasion take place?”
“Mid-November is the target,” Hopkins said and fished in his jacket pocket for a cigarette. People with stomach cancer weren’t supposed to smoke, but he didn’t care.
“Which is why we have to move as many troops as we can back to the East Coast as soon as possible. And when we do win in Africa, don’t expect the troops to return. North Africa will be only the first step in the reconquest of Europe.”
“Do you have any good news for us poor souls in the Pacific?” Nimitz asked.
“Yes. The Panama Canal will be back in business very shortly and we’ll be sending some new submarines out to you.”
“What about carriers?” Nimitz asked, even though he was certain he knew the answer.
“None until we have enough on line to make a difference, and that includes the merchant ships we are converting to smaller carriers,” Hopkins responded. “The same holds with your getting new battleships, although additional cruisers and destroyers can be expected. Until then, the Saratoga will have to cruise alone. By the way, where the devil is the carrier?”
Nimitz smiled. “Truthfully, I don’t know.”
CHAPTER 10
DANE STEPPED OUT OF HIS STAFF CAR AND WALKED ACROSS THE field to the ruins of what had once been a very long freight train. Now it was little more then piles of charred wood and metal. Blackened train wheels stuck out of the debris, incongruous and looking totally and pathetically out of place. So too did a number of tanks, their guns pointing uselessly in all directions.
FBI agent Roy Harris waved him over to a section of track. Dane had to walk past a locomotive that lay on its side like some mortally wounded animal, an iron whale that had washed up on an unfriendly shore. He could see where the boiler had exploded, ripping the guts out of it.
“This is where it happened,” Harris said. “Right here is where the son of a bitch placed the charge that blew the track and sent the train down the hill. Along with destroying all that material and equipment, he also killed four people and injured two others. The engineer and fireman in that locomotive you walked by were killed, scalded to death when the boiler exploded. I hope to hell they died quickly because their bodies were pretty damn awful to look at. The other engineer and fireman got out although they were injured.”
Dane looked up and down the tracks which had been ripped up for quite a ways. “And you’re certain this is the place?”
“Never doubt the FBI, Dane, we know everything. Seriously, k
indly note that while other rails are damaged, none are twisted quite as sharply as this one, and that none of the rails ahead of the train are in any way disturbed. Ergo, this is the spot. We also found dynamite traces and pieces of what he used as a detonator.”
Dane looked down the tracks at the chaos. A number of small fires continued to smolder and there was the smell of ash in the air. Four dead wasn’t a large number in the middle of a war, but they were civilians who were supposed to be alive, even protected by the military. It was like the execution of the customs agents.
“Well,” said Dane, “we were waiting for him or them to do something and now he has. You’re going to tell me this is only the beginning, aren’t you?”
“Yep. And it also means we’re going to have to expend manpower to try to prevent it from happening again. The army is going to start patrolling the train lines as well as looking under bridges and along roads. Sad part is, we have no idea who or what we’re looking for. Some people saw vehicles leaving the area, but nothing of note, just the usual litany of Fords and Chevrolets, with the odd Hudson or Packard thrown in. Assuming the obvious, that he or they drove here, and I think it’s likely more than one man, they’re using a nondescript vehicle.”
“Like a Ford or a Chevy.”
“Exactly, and that narrows the field down to a few hundred thousand cars.”
“Would they need a truck to carry the explosives?”
Harris smiled. “Good question, and the answer is no. It’s shockingly easy to derail a train, and only a little bit of dynamite would be needed to blow up a track and set the whole calamity in motion. It could all be carried in a suitcase with plenty of room left over to stuff in some underwear and socks.”
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