Assassin's Sons: [#4] A Special Operations Group Thriller

by Stephen Templin

  “No, no, no,” Max cried out. “Come on, Dad, hang in there.”

  “Is Dad okay?” Tom asked.

  Max kept trying, but the grains of sand escaped his hand and the ocean’s waves swept them away.

  “Is Dad okay?!” Tom shouted.

  Max closed his father’s eyelids and dug deep for the strength to tell his brother.

  “He’s dead, Tommy. Dad is dead.”

  Tom’s mouth moved, but Max couldn’t hear what he shouted. Max’s hearing faded, and his vision narrowed. Part of Max had been ripped out, and he wished it wasn’t so. He hugged his father.

  The police—motorcycles, sedans, and vans—came down the street at them.

  Max looked up to see what was going on.

  Tom was on the road, but he pulled over and stopped for the cops.

  The police weren’t going to be happy with what they found. Max didn’t care—his father was dead, and he wanted to die with him.

  The first patrol motorcycle, painted silver and blue with “Polizei” written on it, drove past them. So did a police car. And the others.

  Tom resumed driving and took them out of Little Istanbul.

  Max stumbled to the passenger seat and collapsed in it. When he was little, he’d worried about Dad dying, but as each year passed and he didn’t die, Max gradually bought into Dad’s claims of immortality. Now it was clear that no one escapes this life alive—not even Hank Wayne. Max’s father and hero was gone. It was a nightmare within a nightmare.

  As they rode through a light snowfall, tears rolled down Tom’s cheeks, but Max’s cheeks remained dry. Even though he loved his father, too, and he wanted to cry, the tears didn’t come. Added to his grief, he felt guilty.

  PART THREE

  Never give in, never give in, never, never, never …

  –Winston Churchill,

  british prime minister

  31

  “Tommy, your shoulder is bloody,” Max said.

  Tom choked back the tears, but all he said was, “Yeah.”

  Max left the front passenger seat, stepped over Hank, and scrounged in the back for a first aid kit. Inside it, he found a direct compression bandage. He returned to the front seat and bandaged his brother as he drove through Munich.

  A bolt of pain shot through Max’s hip, and he looked down at it. He’d been so busy worrying about everything else that he forgot to worry about himself. He looked down at his wound and realized an enemy round had struck a pistol magazine, saving him from a souvenir in the pelvis.

  Max called Willy using CIA encryption software hidden in his iPhone.

  Willy answered. “What the hell’s going on? I’ve been trying to call Hank, but he doesn’t answer.”

  “He’s dead,” Max said.

  “Dead?!”

  Max gave Willy a moment to let it sink in.

  Willy said, “Oh, no—I told that crazy bastard—”

  Max cut him off. “We need to get Dad’s body out of here and get rid of this van.”

  “I’m on it,” Willy said.

  After driving an SDR, they returned to the safe house and parked the van in the privacy of the snow-covered evergreens in back. They left Hank’s body in the van. Willy met them at the door to the house and let them in. Inside, they waited for Willy’s cleaners to arrive. No one said a word.

  An hour later, the cleaners—three heavyweight guys and a small, wizened man—arrived in a gray van. They carried an extra-extra-large insulated duffel bag and handfuls of plastic bags. Still silent, Max, Tom, Willy, and the cleaners reverently placed Hank in the duffel bag. Next, the cleaners started filling the plastic bags with snow. Max followed their lead. They put the bags of snow in the duffel bag with Hank’s body to keep it cool and slow decomposition. Then they zipped up the bag and transferred him to the cleaners’ gray van. Hank’s body was so heavy—it weighed down Max physically and mentally.

  Max walked up to the wizened man and asked, “You in charge of this crew?”

  “Yes,” the man said.

  “Make sure you—you know—he was awarded the Silver Star for valor in combat. And he’s my father. Tom’s, too. And he’s Willy’s best buddy. Make sure you treat him that way, will you?”

  “You have my word,” the man said.

  Max, Tom, and Willy stood at attention, showing their respect, as the cleaners closed the van doors and drove away with Hank. After he was gone, the three lingered outside a moment longer. Tears flowed down Tom and Willy’s cheeks, but Max’s eyes were dry. He was cold and felt like his soul had leaked out. All he wanted to do was climb in a warm bed and die there. He headed into the house first.

  Inside, the room tilted and spun slowly. Tom and Willy joined him. Willy locked the door.

  “Goodnight,” Max said.

  “Goodnight?” Tom asked incredulously. “Dad just died, and all you can say is goodnight?”

  “Not now,” Max said.

  “You’re just going to—to go to bed as if nothing happened?”

  Max felt about to topple over and stared blankly at his brother.

  Tom raised his voice. “Talk about Dad’s death, don’t ignore it. Say you’re pissed off. Say you want vengeance or something. Say anything.”

  Max felt sick to his stomach and wanted to vomit. “I’m not pissed.”

  “You’re the most pissed off guy I know!”

  Willy put his hand on Tom’s shoulder. “Let him go, son.”

  Max left the room and crashed in his rack—within seconds he was out.

  “Max, you awake?” a kind voice asked. At first it sounded like Dad, but it was Tom.

  Max lay under a federbelt, a down comforter, and the sun shone through the curtains and warmed his face. He looked at his watch: 0906 hours. “Yeah.”

  Tom sat on a chair, and his lips moved.

  It took a while for the words to reach Max’s ears and even longer for him to process them, and he missed the first part of what his brother said. Then he caught the second part.

  “Willy cooked up some sauerbraten,” Tom said.

  Speaking was a burden. “Not hungry.”

  Tom sat quietly.

  Max’s bedroom looked different in the daytime. His eyes fell on the wardrobe. In Europe, it was less common to see built-in closets, and many Europeans used standing closets to hang their clothes. Didn’t make much difference to Max; he dumped his clothes on the floor like he did in the States.

  Tom stood, walked over to a window, opened the curtains, unlocked the windows, and tilted them all the way open. “Willy said that with the hot-water heating system in these German homes, it can get humid and moldy if we don’t open the windows at least a couple times a week.”

  Again, there was a delay between Tom’s words and them penetrating the funk in Max’s brain. The cold air chilled his face, but his body was warm. A breeze blew in, and it smelled fresh.

  Tom sat silently for about ten minutes. Then he got up and closed the windows before he returned to his seat.

  Max’s brain seemed clearer now, and he sat up. “I let him die.”

  Tom shook his head. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  Tears welled up in Max’s eyes. “It was. Ice came at you and Duck came at Dad, and I couldn’t get both—I had to choose.”

  “What’re you saying?”

  “I couldn’t get both, and I had to choose. After I popped Ice, I tried to get Duck, but I was too late. And the son of a bitch … I’m saying I saved you instead of Dad.” Max let the tears fall.

  Tears came from Tom’s eyes, too.

  Max wiped his eyes. “I don’t regret saving you, Tommy. Not for a moment. I only wish I could’ve saved you both.”

  “Thank you,” Tom said.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t save him.”

  “No need to apologize. It happened so fast. If you hesitated, all of us could’ve died. Dad always told you to take care of me. You did what he wanted.”

  Max got out of bed, picked his shirt and pants off the floor, a
nd put them on.

  Tom stood.

  Max stretched out his arms. “Come here.”

  Tom stepped toward him.

  Max gave him a bear hug, and Tom hugged him back.

  They left the room. Max followed Tom to the aroma of sauerbraten in the kitchen, where Willy finished making breakfast. Tom sat at the table, their places already set with tableware.

  Max sat, too.

  Tom turned to Willy and asked, “Did you sleep at all this morning?”

  Willy put the food on the middle of the table and sat down with them. “Help yourselves before it gets cold.”

  Max wasn’t hungry, but he knew he wouldn’t make it through the day without fuel in his body, so he forced himself to eat. It was unusual to think that they’d never eat breakfast with his father again. “Feels like a chunk of me is missing,” Max said.

  “Me, too,” Tom said.

  “Ditto,” Willy said.

  Mealtime was somber. Max loved sauerbraten, but he picked at it more than he ate until finally he gave up, leaving half of it on his plate. “What do we have on Grub?”

  “Grub ain’t no more,” Willy said. “He was several months behind on his rent, so when he continued to ignore his landlord, she let herself into his apartment and found his body. Police reported that he was cut from the ends of his mouth to his ears.”

  “A Glasgow smile,” Tom said.

  “Yep,” Willy said.

  “Couldn’t have happened to a better human being,” Max said.

  Willy swallowed his last bite of sauerbraten. “Speaking of upstanding human beings, Vlad is still giving us info.”

  “What’d he say?” Tom asked.

  Willy had eaten everything on his plate. “He said that he’d arranged for a shipload full of explosives to arrive tonight at St. Pauli Piers in Hamburg. The bombs were to be used for an attack in the US, but there was a change of plans, and they’ll attack the US embassy in Berlin tomorrow—during their Christmas party.”

  “Do we have a specific pier number for where the shipment will arrive?” Tom asked.

  “Working on it,” Willy said.

  Max didn’t want to do anything, but he owed this much to his father—at least. “Dad would’ve wanted us to finish this.”

  Tom stood up from the table. “Tis the season for giving.”

  Max stood, too. “Give till it hurts.”

  32

  Max was prepped for battle—plasticuffs, a sound-suppressed German HK MP7 submachine gun, and a frag grenade in case shit hit the jet turbines. Willy drove him and Tom out to Munich Airport. They loaded onto Willy’s Gulfstream and flew over an hour north—closer to the head of the snake.

  From the Hamburg Airport, Max drove his brother in a local rental car thirty minutes northwest. Max passed Elbe Park where its ten-story granite statue of Otto von Bismarck stood shining in the noon sun. Then he rolled beneath a vehicular overpass and a railroad bridge before he pulled into the parking lot of a distinctively long building made with volcanic rock and topped with a clock tower and domes. A flag on the terminal drooped, and Max was grateful there was no wind to increase the chill factor.

  The winter weather didn’t seem to deter vacationers from strolling along the piers and floating on pleasure boats on the Elbe River, which ran north into the Black Sea. This area was St. Pauli Piers, the largest landing in the Port of Hamburg, busier than the Port of Los Angeles and second only to Rotterdam as the busiest port in Europe. From here, highways, railways, and river ways connected the North Sea and Germany to the rest of Europe.

  It was noon rush hour and vehicles packed the parking lot, so Max waited until someone pulled out. Another driver aimed for the same spot, but Max cut him off and took it.

  The driver pointed to his own head and hollered something, but his car windows and Max’s windows were up, so Max couldn’t hear the words. In spite of the added challenge of trying to lip-read in German, Max understood what the driver meant.

  Max grinned at him and rubbed it in: “Merry Christmas to you, too.”

  The driver angrily sped away to find parking elsewhere.

  Max turned off the engine. “This port stretches from hell to breakfast.”

  Tom unbuckled his seatbelt. “During World War II, most of this place was destroyed.”

  “Wouldn’t know it just by looking at it. Hamburgers have been busy.”

  “We’re going to need more information if we’re ever going to track down this explosives shipment before it makes its way to Berlin.”

  “Like finding a piece of hay before it turns into a needle in a haystack.” Max exited the vehicle, and his stomach growled. “I’m hungry.”

  Tom stepped out of the car and pointed across the street. “There’s a seafood restaurant.”

  “That’ll work.”

  They crossed the street and sat in the restaurant. There they ate smoked eel; marinated, fried, and pickled herring with baked potatoes; and shrimp on toast sprinkled with dill. Max picked up the dessert menu. The words käsekuchen and schwarzwälder kirschtorte made no sense to him, but he recognized the photos of cheesecake and Black Forest cake. Normally he’d be tempted to try some, and if he was fiercely froggy, try both, but now Max was far from froggy. The shock of losing his father lingered, and the fragility of his own mortality had shaken his confidence. Because his father’s luck had run out, it was possible his luck could run out, too, and all the preparation in the world wouldn’t change that. He didn’t mention this to his brother over the lunch table—just before going into combat wasn’t the time to talk about such things. So he did his best to forget it. “Let’s check out these piers to get a feel for the place and an idea of where they might bring the shipment in,” Max said.

  “Sounds good,” Tom said.

  They paid for their meals and walked out of the restaurant. The icy tingle of a slight breeze brushed Max’s cheeks and chilled his body, so he zipped up his jacket. Exhaust drifted from the tailpipes of tour buses, and the flag on the terminal building waved at a slight angle. Max and Tom crossed the street and kept walking until they reached the pier. Passenger ferries, paddle steamers, and cruise ships floated on the river. Across the water, an army of cranes stood above dry docks to repair ships.

  Civilians went about their lives without knowing what a great man Hank was, or how he died trying to remove bad men from their midst. Max felt disconnected from them. Even if he tried to explain what happened, they couldn’t understand. They could never understand.

  “If I were unloading bombs, I wouldn’t unload here,” Max said.

  “Too many passengers and tourists to ask too many questions and not enough cargo to blend in with,” Tom said.

  “We’re on the right landing—wrong spot.”

  “Let’s take a look at the rest of these piers,” Tom said.

  They returned to their car and cruised east past a couple ship museums and other tourist traps to the end of St. Pauli. Max braked at a stoplight and said, “Nada.”

  He turned around and headed west, backtracking where they’d been until they reached an area they hadn’t inspected yet. There was a pier for passenger ferries and a U-boat museum. Next, they discovered the Fischauktionshalle—Fish Auction Hall. On the pier, a fishing trawler unloaded its catch.

  “There,” Tom said.

  “You read my mind.” Max didn’t have a place to turn the car, so he drove until the piers ended. Where the beach began, he found a place to turn around and returned to the Fish Auction Hall. He parked in the lot, and he and Tom exited the car.

  “This is where I’d unload the bombs,” Max said. “And at night, it’ll be more difficult for any passersby to make out the contents of the cargo.”

  “They’ll assume its fish,” Tom said.

  Like curious tourists, the brothers sauntered over to the pier and watched the fishermen unload their catch. “They look like they know what they’re doing,” Max said.

  “Like they’ve been doing this for years,” Tom sai
d.

  Fish flopped around inside open containers that were transferred to a truck.

  “Don’t see any explosives,” Max said.

  “Me neither,” Tom said. “If we’re right about this, the tangos will wait until dark to dock at the pier and unload their bombs.”

  “Let’s check out the auction hall,” Max said.

  “Yeah.”

  They did an about-face and ventured to the Fish Auction Hall, a red brick building with a glass dome that resembled a Roman basilica. A small convoy of vans and trucks pulled into the parking lot. From the vehicles, caterers pushed ovens on wheels and carried tables, lots of them, into the hall. Then the caterers rolled out stacked racks of glasses, other tableware, and linen.

  Tiny snowflakes floated on a light wind. Max and Tom grabbed some stacks of glasses off a truck and helped carry them in. The interior of the auction hall was the size of a football field. There were no fishmongers auctioning off raw fish; instead, there was a lounge, bar, stage, and a couple platoons of caterers marching in and setting up for some shindig. Some of the staff hastily erected a Christmas tree and hung decorations.

  “They shouldn’t call this the Fish Auction Hall,” Max said. “There’s no fish and no auction. They ought to call this the Party Hall.”

  “Maybe the tourists and parties pushed out the fishermen,” Tom said.

  The brothers followed a caterer with a stack of glasses. She placed hers on a stack, and Max and Tom did the same with theirs.

  The brothers split off from the working party and ventured further into the hall. They passed under a wide shaft of light that extended like a cosmic ramp from the dome. “I dead-on want to finish this and get home in time for Dad’s funeral,” Max said.

  “Me, too,” Tom said. “Has Willy said when it’ll be?”