“You’re the best,” he said.
“You say that to all the girls,” she said.
So one day he found himself riding the rim on a horse called Horse, a good bay gelding, with spirt and more stamina than he had and a tendency to comment in horse on everything. Even Horse seemed to be telling him to get over it. Or get over himself, maybe that was it.
The cliff below was about thirty feet, and Horse wouldn’t go near the edge, a sound policy, but cantered along jauntily enough. Bob enjoyed the wind, which was cold, the distance to the blue mountains, which was immense, the architecture of the clouds, like ruined castles or damaged dreams rolling this way and that in unmeasurable complexity. He felt better. He felt okay. Next week he was flying to England to Jimmy Guthrie’s vintage sniper match at Bisley, and he knew a lot of old boys and a lot of active-duty younger guys would be there. That would be fun, that would be a toot. Then, Jen was going to meet him in London and—
His cell rang.
He pulled up on Horse, fetched the thing from his jeans pocket, slid it on, and saw a strange number come up. Who the hell? Only a very few people knew his number, and none of them ever had a number like that.
“Swagger,” he said noncommitally.
“Bob!” It was Reilly.
“Where the hell are you?”
She was laughing. “I’m in Australia.”
“Australia! What are you doing there?”
“I’ll tell you. But where are you?”
“I’m a cowboy, remember? I’m on a horse in the middle of nowhere. That’s what cowboys do.”
“Well, get off the horse.”
“Why? What is—”
“Trust me, Swagger. Get off the damn horse.”
“Okay, just a sec.”
He unlimbered from Horse, let the reins go. The gelding was well trained and would not go far.
“This better be good.”
“Oh, it’s good, all right.”
“Let’s have it.”
“The story isn’t over. There’s one more chapter.”
CHAPTER 58
The Carpathians
Ginger’s Womb
JULY 28, 1944
As Karl walked away from the woman, Wili joined him. “Nice shooting,” he said.
“I thought so,” said Karl.
“You missed her by what, two, three feet?”
“Hmmm,” said Karl. “Was it that obvious?”
“Yes. What’s the point, may I ask?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What is your motivation, may I inquire?”
“No motivation at all. It just turned out I couldn’t do it. I told her to drop when I fired. She did.”
“She’s a much better actress than you are an actor. Her fall looked quite authentic. On the other hand, every single thing about your performance was insincere. I would stick to race cars after the war. Forget about the movies.”
“Do the fellows know?”
“I’m sure they do.”
Karl yelled at the first two Green Devils he saw peering over the rear of the trench at him. “Get a shelter half and pick up the dead woman and move her to the trench.”
“Suppose she wants to walk, Karl?”
“I’m sure she’ll cooperate.”
“Sure, Karl.”
And off they went.
“I know you have a plan,” said Wili.
“Not exactly.”
“What do you intend to do?”
“Improvise, I suppose. I improvise brilliantly.”
“No, you don’t. You have no gift for improvisation at all. I’m the improviser. All the good ideas come from me. You’re just the symbol.”
“All right. Can you come up with something?”
“It would help if you’d alerted me earlier.”
“I didn’t know earlier.”
“First problem: what do we do with these assholes?”
He gestured, and Karl turned, looking down the road. All three SS Sd. Kfz 251s, mud spattering their dappled forest camouflage, their treads grinding through the soft earth, their MG-42s ominously scanning the horizon, lumbered toward them. In the first, recognizable even at two hundred meters, stood Captain Salid, like a statue above the rim of the armored driver’s compartment.
“He looks like Nelson at Trafalgar,” said Wili. “Resolute, heroic, triumphant, rolling toward his date with destiny, his triumph.”
“I see now I am not going to give him the woman,” said Karl. “He is going to be extremely irritated. Wili, tell the guys to be ready for anything. I don’t trust these characters, especially Sinbad the Sailor there.”
He reached down and unsnapped the flap covering the Browning pistol on his hip. His thumb lingered inside, found the knurled spur of the hammer, and eased it back until it cocked.
“Okay, Karl, I’m going to nonchalantly mosey away as if nothing has happened. But I’m on you the whole way. We’ll play it as it breaks.”
“First to hairpin takes the flag,” said Karl.
* * *
Salid ordered himself to be calm as his vehicle lurched along the road to the canyon. As they came into range, he could see the parachute officer standing alone in his baglike camouflage smock and ludicrous helmet, complex chin straps unconnected, waiting with a somewhat disinterested look on his face. These bastards weren’t impressed by anything. They had to let you know in every single way they could think of how much better than you they were.
Salid did not see the woman. Presumably she was tied up in the trench complex they had built to the right of the road, a little nest of canvas-roofed machine-gun positions behind sandbags, barbed wire stretched on wooden struts, and other camouflaged men in those stupid helmets bent over their weapons. But even he could see there weren’t very many of them. What did they expect to do against a Soviet army?
He leaned over to his radio operator, seated before the transmitter. “Signalman, connect me to the Luftwaffe base at Uzhgorod.”
“Yes sir.”
The signalman consulted his codebook, diddled through channel finding, reached up to turn the diamond-shaped aerial to a more propitious angle, made his contact, and turned the microphone and headset over to Salid.
“Elephant, Elephant, this is Zeppelin Leader, are you there?”
“Hello, hello, this is Elephant, yes, Zeppelin Leader, acknowledging your call.”
“I am about to pick up the package. I want the aircraft ready to fly. This is high-priority SS, as per instructions of Lieutenant General–SS Muntz, area commander, and RHSA, Berlin, do you understand?”
“Zeppelin Leader, you are acknowledged, the aircraft is on the runway.”
“I worry that when the Russians get here, with artillery, we might be in range. Berlin demands this shipment, so please accommodate.”
“Zeppelin Leader, we are briefed and prepped at this end for immediate takeoff.”
“Very good, Elephant. Zeppelin Leader, end transmit.”
“End transmit,” said the Luftwaffe operator, and Salid handed the earphones and speaker back.
He looked, saw they were even closer, and turned to Ackov. “I’ll get out to talk to him. I want you on the gun, covering me. On him, so he feels it. I want the men in this track and the other two ready to deploy. These bastards have it in for us. And remember, we’ve got the vehicles out of here and the Condor waiting to fly us to Berlin. They’ve got to stay and hold this pass until no more Germans are coming, then blow it. They could be hit by Reds at any time.”
“Yes sir,” said Ackov, and got on the radio transmitter to instruct the other two vehicles to assume combat readiness. Then he said, “Captain, are you anticipating a firefight?”
“With these arrogant bastards, you don’t know what might happen. If it happens, I want to be ready with maximum firepower. If they fuck with us, we’ll destroy them. They’re basically traitors anyway.”
* * *
The three panzerwagens pulled into the clearing just before G
inger’s Womb, and Karl watched carefully, noting a gunner at each MG-42 mounted in each cab. He saw that the men in each vehicle wore helmets, and no gun muzzles were visible over the rim of the armored beast, signifying that the troopers inside carried their weapons unslung in hand, ready for action.
He heard the clank of the heavy door opening on the far side, and a second later, Captain Salid, his eyes burning with intensity under the rim of his helmet, his SS camouflage tunic bright with dots and flecks of forest coloration, as if he’d washed it last night for a ceremonial function, stepped around the big vehicle. He carried a Luger in his right hand. That was not a good sign.
As he approached, the gunner in his command wagon pivoted the machine gun onto Karl and jacked the cocking handle, pulling a round into the chamber. The man was not visible behind the double gun-shields.
“Heil Hitler,” barked Karl, throwing his arm up and out in perhaps the best salute he’d given in two years.
“Heil Hitler,” returned the Arab.
“I am glad you are here. We need the firepower. I want your people on the left line, and I think it best you move the panzerwagens to the right of the road so your field of fire—”
“We are not here to fight a battle. The woman, Herr Major. You know that is why I am here, and I have my orders.”
“I have a military responsibility first. Intelligence matters can wait until after we have repulsed the Reds and allowed the maximum number of German staffers to escape via the passage code-named Ginger. Then we’ll blow Ginger. Then and only then will I release the woman.”
“That is not your option. You are not making decisions here, RHSA is, through me. Rank is immaterial. I knew I’d run into business with you, Von Drehle. You think yourself superior.”
“No, I think I have a battle to fight.”
“Where’s the woman? That’s what I need to know.”
“Oh, the woman,” said Von Drehle. “That’s right, SS is making war exclusively on women and generals these days.”
“I am not going to banter with you. Von Drehle, I grow impatient and have obligations to superiors. Have your men—”
“She’s dead,” said Von Drehle.
Salid looked at him, eyes wide open. His jaw may have trembled. Something between rage and panic flashed through him, draining the color from his face. “You were explicitly ordered—”
“Yes, well, she tried to escape, and rather than run after her, one of my men shot her. All German military units are under orders to execute bandits and have been for three years. It was a snap shot, very well placed. I could not blame him. So it goes in battle zones.”
“I demand to see the body.”
“We let bandits lay where they fall. Care to come into the woods with me, Herr Captain? Although we may run into Red guerrillas.”
“You are lying. She is a witch, her beauty is legendary, she cast a spell, you now protect her. You are weak and soft. I demand that you get her. Get her or there will be terrible consequences for you. We represent the armed righteousness of the Reich, you are mutineers.”
He leveled the Luger at Karl. “Do not test me, Von Drehle. I will shoot you and my men will wipe out your detachment. You are traitors, as is well known.”
“You’re getting a bit melodramatic, aren’t you, old man? I have had many weapons pointed at me, so I do not find it frightening. As for death, I accepted mine years ago. If it comes today, it comes today. Put the pistol down and get your goddamned vehicles out of here. You can use the ride to Uzhgorod as a chance to think up invective against me for Muntz and prepare the arrest documents. Meanwhile, we’ll stay up here and fight to the last man. I’ll see you in Valhalla. Oh, wait, I’ll wave to you from Valhalla as you’re on your way to some kind of Arab hell, where the women don’t wear veils.”
“Infidel! Infidel!” screamed the Arab as his face went red and his eyes hid behind slits. Spit flew from his mouth. “You insult God. You will be consumed in fire, I swear it.”
“Almost certainly,” said Karl, “but not before I watch you burn.”
“You swine,” said Salid.
And then he was fire itself.
Wili Bober hit the SS man with a compressed-nitrogen-powered spurt of blazing Flammol-19 from the Flammenwerfer. The flame took everything. His hair burned, his face burned, his eyeballs burned. His eyelids burned, his nose, tongue, palate, and esophagus burned. His chest and heart and lungs burned. His bones burned. His loins burned, his muscles burned, his legs burned, his feet burned.
Even his boots burned.
The incandescence of his immolation filled the space, and the overhanging arches of the trees captured it, turning full green where the dullness of the day had kept them a kind of lusterless gray.
The flaming apparition took two or three ghastly, lurching steps, screaming something unintelligible, before it toppled to the ground.
A moment of silent horror followed, and then Ackov pivoted his MG-42 to the right to cut Wili in half, but he was a second slow, as Karl had drawn his Browning and shot him expertly from thirty meters under the rim of his helmet but over his shoulder, through his left ear.
Almost at once the 21 Para weapons opened up. A front of pure firepower blew in heavily. The supersonic bullets pelted off the camouflaged armor, the sound of high-velocity steel striking static steel like some kind of lead sleet against a tin roof. Some expert athlete tight-spiraled an egg grenade perfectly into the second Sd. Kfz, and it detonated, taking the fight totally out of that cargo of Police Battalion soldiers, a piece of it severing the spine of the MG-42 gunner, who went down with a finger on the trigger, so that his gun ate a full belt, though the rounds went straight up to descend, presumably, somewhere in Czechoslovakia.
The parachutist FG-42s and STG-44s hammered the opening armored doors of the big vehicles, ripping up clouds of metallic jet spray, lashing against the troopers who tried to disembark to get into action. They went down as the spitzers scythed them, plunged into the compartment, and ricocheted off the heavy armor. Wili was already adjusting his aim on the long nozzle that was the flamethrower’s snout, and he squeezed another half second’s worth of oxidation off, this gust to shroud the third vehicle in the same cloak of burning, and those poor devils, screaming, flaming, tumbled over the rim of the machine and landed, ran, and went down, smoldering and still.
Suddenly there was nothing to shoot. The stench of burned fuel and meat filled the air, and a cloud of grimy smoke hung over everything. The captain still flickered away on the ground, as his flesh had not all been consumed.
“Comrade!” came a call from inside the second panzerwagen.
“We will throw more grenades next, then burn out the rest of you. Leave your weapons, come out hands high. If we do not see palms, we fire. Quick, quick, quick.”
The Serbian survivors emerged from each vehicle; they were searched and led to the road and ordered to sit, hands still up, hands always up. Parachutists with their STG-44s circled them.
Wili dumped the fifty-pound apparatus, which was almost out of fuel anyway, and walked over to Karl. “Well,” he said, “I don’t think this is the battle they had in mind, but we won it nevertheless.”
“Interesting development, isn’t it?”
“Good shot, by the way.”
“Yes, I did better this time. Now what? Have you figured anything out?”
“No, I’ve been rather busy.”
“I know this is hard to believe, but I have an actual idea myself.”
“Amazements never cease.”
“I note we have two basically undamaged panzerwagens at our disposal.”
“Some bodies inside. But they’re easily attended to.”
“I note also that if we strip our prisoners, we have, what, fifteen or twenty, whatever, enough SS jackets and helmets to cover us all.”
“Yes, we do. I think I see where you’re going with this.”
“We have Die weisse Hexe, our ticket to that FW-200 now on the tarmac at Uzhgorod.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s put on the SS tunics. Let’s release the SS boys, who, naked, will be of little harm to us. They can walk out of the mountains in any direction they choose. Then let’s take the young woman. Let’s blow Ginger. That’s our mission, after all. Let’s drive to the Uzhgorod airfield. Let’s board the plane.”
“So far, so good,” said Wili.
“Then let’s fly to—somewhere we won’t be executed, as will happen if we fly to Berlin.”
“This plane has great range. We can fly low, so no radar will read us. I’m sure our pistols will convince the pilots to cooperate. After all, they benefit, too, assuming we can find the right airfield.”
“I’m open to suggestions.”
“I don’t want to go to prison, either,” said Wili. “It involves being locked up, I understand.”
“Well,” said Karl, “that means Moscow’s out. Russians. Rome’s out. Americans. Alexandria’s out. Brits.”
“Hmmm,” said Wili.
* * *
Karl jumped into the trench. She sat in a corner, no longer guarded, and looked at him.
She had shaken her hair loose, so it tumbled down, tawny and complex. Her blue eyes were wide open, her cheekbones sharp, pulling her tanned skin tight, almost concave. There was no panic in her, only a kind of languid intelligence. She wore the peasant smock over a white blouse, with a bright scarf around her elegant neck. He had not noticed these details before.
“Care for another cigarette?” he said.
“That would be nice. By the way, who got killed?”
As Karl got out the cigarette, and one for himself, lit then them both, he said, “They were from Police Battalion, attached to Thirteenth SS Mountain Division, called Scimitar, which is a kind of sword, I’m told.”
“One of those curved things, is that right?”
“Yes. More dramatic than effective. I suppose it has symbolic meaning to certain people.”
“Since you’re alive and I don’t see any lightning flashes about, am I to assume you shot it out with the SS?”
“I suppose we did.”
Sniper's Honor Page 34
