Kat and Die Wolfsschanze

by Michael Beals

  She caught movement in the corner of her eye. Heydrich walked down the steps. He wore his black uniform with the swastika armband, perfectly polished boots, his Sam Brown belt with a shoulder strap running diagonally across his chest. Getting back in the car, she steeled herself. She wasn’t going to open his door for him. It was hard enough pretending to be nice.

  The door opened, a whiff of shoe polish and shaving soap as Heydrich climbed into the car. There was no sign of his previous nervousness. He was in Command, and he needed them to know it.

  “Good morning,” she said cheerfully. “It’s a beautiful day.”

  “Yes, of course,” he said, stiffly, frowning as he pulled his jacket straight. “As you see, we’re on time.” He shot her a humorless smile. “Which is good. I have a meeting with General Hausse at 1100.” His smile widened. “You will see how efficient we are.”

  Hearing the brittle pride in his voice, she could imagine how efficient he could be, that no matter how confused or frightened the prisoners might be, they would be on that train and leaving Pisa in the next half hour.

  The drive to the railway sidings was different this time. Heydrich didn’t need to give directions, so no one spoke, least of all Capetti, who hadn’t even said good morning. He psyched himself up, preparing. The prisoners were Italian. They were his people.

  “You won’t forget my advice?” Heydrich asked, “that it would be better if you and the Colonel wait in the car. The prisoners can be quite… awkward. You know what Italians are like, they’re so emotional.”

  “Do they know where they’re going?”

  Pursing his thin lips, he shook his head. “It’s not my job to tell them where they’re going. I’m just following orders.”

  Slowing the car for a platoon of German soldiers, she wondered if they were heading for the railway station. The last thing they needed was an unexpected confrontation.

  She glanced at Heydrich. “Will you have extra guards this morning?”

  “No, just the usual number. We’re not expecting trouble.”

  She stifled a smirk. Wanna bet?

  There were four guards on duty when they reached the entrance to the railway sidings, so she slowed. Heydrich gestured her to continue with an arrogant wave of his hand. Following the cinder road, she drove past the now silent loading bays, past a steaming donkey engine, and finally pulled up a hundred yards from the nearest cattle shed. The prisoners had already been herded into a ragged row by the carriages. A murmur of voices, cries of distress, guards urging them nearer the train with the butts of their rifles. No one boarded yet. They were waiting for Heydrich.

  She counted the guards. There were only eight guards to keep the prisoners in place. There were three guards in each of the watchtowers. If not killed by the bazookas, they would die when the towers collapsed. She wondered what would happen when the train’s engine exploded. It seemed unlikely the prisoners would continue to board. In all likelihood, they would scatter.

  Oberleutnant Heydrich got out, brushing imaginary dust from his immaculate uniform as if it really mattered. She looked back at Capetti. He climbed out of the car with a look of disdain on his face. Taking a deep breath, she climbed out. A lovely warm, sunny day, but the railway sidings looked grimy and cold, the steam hissing from the engine unfriendly and threatening.

  “So,” Heydrich said, “I will leave you now. This won’t take long.” Then he strode off towards the line of prisoners.

  She stood there for a moment, watching. The guards were herding the prisoners into five groups. Several of the prisoners didn’t want to separate. A child suddenly became visible. A chill ran up her spine. There were children amongst the prisoners? Then she saw a woman, and then a second woman. Heydrich lied to them. The prisoners weren’t only men.

  To make matters worse, one of the guards tried to separate the child from its mother. The mother began to scream, begging to keep the child with her. The guard hit the woman, forcing her to stay with her group.

  Wrenching open the trunk, Kat grabbed the flare pistol and made a run for the nearest donkey engine. It prepared to shunt a row of carriages to another part of the sidings and steam hissed from its pistons. Ducking behind it, she cocked the flare gun. Capetti now stood by the trunk, waiting for her. Taking a last look at the guards, who were now shouting and clubbing people, she fired the flare. With a loud whoosh, the flair climb, as Kat held her breath.

  The flare erupted into a starburst of mini-flares that crackled and spun as they drifted earthwards. To Kat’s surprise, Heydrich peered up at it, staring at it as if he tried to work out what it meant. All at once, all hell broke loose.

  A bazooka rocket erupted in one of the watchtowers, flying timber and burning embers raining down on the sidings like hot confetti. The prisoners scattered, screaming in fright, as the guards looked up in shock. Moments later, the other tower exploded. A bazooka rocket hit the train’s engine. The 200-ton engine all but vanished in a roaring volcano of steam and smoke. People ran in all directions to escape the burning shrapnel and escaping steam.

  Racing back to the car, she grabbed an MP40 and followed Capetti into the vortex of frightened prisoners. The first guard she machine gunned was the man who’d hit the child’s mother. She glared at him as he staggered backward, his body being riddled with bullets. The second guard, she machine gunned him in the head almost cutting it off from his body. People were wailing, arms flailing as they fought to escape, the hiss of steam and, somewhere nearby, a machine gun firing. Was that Capetti? A guard immediately appeared in front of her. He held a prisoner by the scruff of his shirt, his mouth open, eyes blazing. Stalking towards the guard, she pulled back her fist and landed a mighty punch on his nose. Then she thrust her MP40 in his chest, pulled the trigger, emptying her remaining rounds into him.

  Kat bent over the guard’s bullet riddled body and removed the magazine from the dead man’s MP40. She checked the to see how many rounds remained, and replaced her empty magazine with his. After racking her submachine gun to chamber a round, she continued.

  Kat began to look for Capetti when she heard a muffled explosion, and when she looked towards the sound, she saw a plume of smoke rising from the city center. She smiled. Gramigna attacked Army Headquarters.

  She could see Heydrich now. He’d drawn his gun looking lost as if he didn’t know what to do. Racing over to him, she grabbed his arm and pulled him towards one of the cattle wagons.

  “We’re being attacked!” she shouted, hauling him up the ramp. “Stay inside! We’ll cover this!”

  “What the hell’s going on!” he howled. “Who’s doing this?”

  Kat laughed, pulling a pin from a grenade, “We are.”

  She handed Heydrich the grenade’s pin, “Here, hold this.”

  As he stood there studying the pin placed in his hand, Kat grabbed Heydrich’s belt, pulled his trousers opened and dropped the live grenade down his pants, “you’re balls up on this one! Hah!” She punched him square in the nose, knocking him a couple of feet back and on his arse inside the cattle car. Kat slammed the door shut and ran. The whole car shook when it exploded.

  Grabbing the child she’d seen, she dived between the wagons and scanned the prisoners, with no sign of the girl’s mother. Another volley of gunfire erupted. Capetti killed the last of the guards. Searching around until she found the child’s mother, she began herding prisoners away from the train.

  “Correre!” she shouted. “Mentre hai la possibilita!”

  The prisoners didn’t need urging. By the time she got back to the car, most of them had disappeared. Starting the engine and hoping that Capetti was still in one piece, she hauled the steering wheel onto full lock and executed a howling U-turn. She saw Capetti in the rearview mirror. With
blood on his jacket, he sheathed his knife as he ran towards her. She shook her head, how typical of Capetti to kill someone with a knife when he was heavily armed.

  “Vai! Vai!” he panted, hurling himself into the passenger seat.

  Flooring the gas pedal, she headed for the exit gate. A platoon of soldiers ran towards them, spreading out through the sidings as they ran. The soldiers wouldn’t try to stop them. They were driving a German staff car. They slowed when they reached the exit.

  Capetti wound the window down. “Don’t just stand there!” he yelled. “We’re being attacked!”

  And then they were through and heading for the river. Two fire engines flew by, their sirens wailing, followed by a convoy of personnel carriers, and more soldiers running across the bridge. Not far away, a plume of smoke roiled up into the morning’s sunshine.

  CHAPTER 15

  Kat let out a sigh of relief when she saw Gramigna’s truck in the driveway and Kelly, looking down at her from the terrace.

  “You’re still breathing!” she called.

  “You should have been there!” he replied, making his way down the steps. “It was like the bloody Yanks 4th of July.”

  “What, with a couple of bazookas?”

  “There must have been an ammo dump in the basement.”

  “Really? Strange place to have an ammo dump.”

  Kat signaled Capetti to go on without her. Kat led Kelly into the garden. He gave her a quizzical look. “Where are we going?”

  She grinned. “We need to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “Have you read the message that came through from Fleming?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have. It doesn’t say much. You have to call him. Why are you being so secretive? The General’s read the message.”

  “Because I’m worried about Vienna. What did the message say?”

  Sitting down on one of the garden benches, he pulled a piece of folded paper from his pocket. “There,” he said, handing it to her. “Read it.”

  Unfolding the piece of paper, she studied the radio operator’s neat handwriting. The message read,

  Wily Fox & Co.

  Attack window 6/15 to 6/16.

  Call me.

  Cmdr Bond.

  She let out a snort of suppressed laughter. Commander Fleming certainly had a sense of humor. He’d shown her the book he was writing with a Commander Bond as one of the main characters. No wonder the man worked for the SOE. It gives him fuel for his novels. She looked at her watch. Today was June 13th. In two days, they must be in Vienna.

  “Does it make sense?” He asked, pulling a plum from an overhanging branch.

  “Yes, it does, and it’s why I want to talk to you.” Re-folding the piece of paper and putting it in her pocket.

  Hesitating, he looked at her for a moment and asked, “Should I be worried about this?”

  She smiled. “You’ll probably be relieved.”

  “For God’s sake, Kat, spit it out. What are you trying to say?”

  Kat gazed around the garden. The unmown grass long and going to seed, and begonias were growing in earthenware pots. “We’ve got one day to prepare for Vienna.” She turned to look at him, studying his eyes. “Not all of us are going.”

  He frowned. “We’re not? Who isn’t going?”

  “Atkins is staying with Gramigna… and so are you.”

  For a moment, he stared at her, smiling. “Okay.”

  Now Kat stared. “You don’t mind?”

  “Mind? You’ve got to be kidding. There are so many good-looking young women around here. It’s enough to send you blind.”

  “Will you be serious,” she said crossly. “The team’s too big for a job like this. I can’t take everyone.”

  “And I understand that,” he said, biting into the plum. “If you don’t need me, you don’t need me.”

  “Will you stop being so understanding? It’s really annoying. I may have to kill your uncle.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “You mean your stepfather? The man who raised you?”

  She felt the blood rush to her face. “God Almighty, Sam. It’s not my decision! Although I can keep you out of it.”

  Leaning against the wooden backrest, he gazed at her. “You know what this reminds me of?”

  “No,” she snapped. “What does it remind you of?”

  “It reminds me of Snow White and the evil queen… my uncle being the evil queen. He’s been trying to kill you for the last two years or so, and if one of us doesn’t kill him, eventually he’s going to succeed.” He frowned. “Thing is, we don’t really know the truth.”

  “About what?”

  “Politics.”

  “Politics?” she retorted, wondering where on earth this was going.

  “Remember the Adler, the Jet Bomber we stole… and the nuclear bomb it was supposed to carry?”

  “Yes,” she said, withdrawing her hand.

  “That whole thing was Top Secret. Imagine if the public ever found out.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Remember Nora Baker, codename Madelaine?”

  “Yes,” she said cautiously. “She’s a British intelligence agent.”

  “She was… She’s dead now. The SOE betrayed her to the Germans.”

  “She was a double agent?”

  Kelly grunted. “So they say. The thing is, Pernass is a very high-ranking German Officer… and he’s your stepfather.”

  “And?” she replied.

  “Are you sure the SOE don’t think you’re a double agent?”

  She stared at him for a long time. Sam was highly intelligent and used his words with care. He wouldn’t say such a thing if he wasn’t worried. She thought about her last meeting with Fleming, how friendly he’d been. She thought about Vienna, how much easier it would be for the British to simply bomb the hotel where the Generals are meeting.

  “You think the Vienna mission is a trap?”

  He shrugged. “Just a thought.”

  As always, it was hard to ignore Sam’s logic. “Pernass would never collaborate with the British. He hates them almost as much as he hates Hitler.”

  “Well, I hope you’re wrong because I’ve got to go through with this.”

  “Kat, Pernass is my uncle. If anyone’s going to watch your back, it should be me.”

  She tried to imagine how Vienna would play out, where the team would be when she was in the hotel with Capetti. She would have to be heavily disguised for Pernass not to recognize her. And what would happen if he did? Would he have her killed, or would he do nothing, as he usually did, playing for time until he could disappear… again?

  “So you’re coming?”

  “Of course.” He laughed his Sam Kelly laugh. “Think of it as a family reunion.”

  “Ya. A family reunion where everyone is heavily armed and trying to kill each other.”

  The radio room was set up in the attic. She had to wait before putting a call into Fleming. The Germans were monitoring radio transmissions, and it was dangerous to call at certain times. While Kat waited for the okay, she talked to Gramigna about finding a car for her. And clothes, she needed elegant clothes.

  “I don’t have a problem with clothes,” he told her. “The car’s more difficult. You need something like a Daimler or a Bentley, except the Germans have commandeered most of them, and they’re very recognizable. There’s a beautiful Mk V Bentley in Porretta, confiscated by a Colonel Kunze. It belonged to a Jewish family. I think he’d be quite upset if we
stole it. He’d have half the Army looking for it.”

  “Then we have an even better reason to steal it. Anyway, we’re in the middle of a war. Who gives a shit about a stolen Bentley?”

  The operator waved her to a seat when she got back to the radio room. “No more than two minutes, Major. Any longer and the Germans will triangulate the signal.”

  “I’ll be quick,” she reassured him, putting the earphones on. “You’ll also need to trust me to disconnect. You can’t stay here while I’m talking.”

  “So what’s happening?” she asked Fleming when she was finally connected. “Is there a problem?”

  “Not exactly,” Fleming replied. “We’re being advised to bomb the hotel, rather than send you in.”

  “So we don’t have to go?” she asked, remembering Sam’s warning.

  “The thing is, I need you to. This isn’t as simple as it seems. We always had the option of bombing the hotel. Pernass is up to something. I’d like to know what it is.”

  Fleming was silent for a moment. “We think Pernass is about to kill Hitler and commit a military coup. If you can corner him, he might confirm that.” He paused. “You are his stepdaughter, after all.”

  She thought about Sam’s warning. If Fleming wanted to get rid of her and Pernass, this might be a perfect way to do it. High-altitude bombers were remarkably accurate these days.

  “And Flight Lieutenant Kelly?”

  “He should be with you. Pernass is his uncle.”

  A warning bell sounded in her head. Fleming was definitely up to something. “Alright. Then we go ahead. Do we have a contact number for Pernass? When he’s at the hotel, I mean.”

  “You’re going to call him?”

  “It depends.” She looked at her watch. “Commander, I have to disconnect. My two minutes is up.”