Ulterior Objectives: A Lillian Saxton Thriller

by Scott Dennis Parker

  Lillian turned her attention to the remaining motorcyclist. He was gaining on them, but driving in a zigzag line. She let off a few shots, but all missed their mark. She tried again. Still missed.

  She swore and looked forward.

  Henry was driving like a professional. He edged all across the road, making it difficult for the black car to gain any advantage. She had to admit he was doing a remarkable job. He had closed the driver’s side door so the wind swirling inside the convertible and rattling the canvas top came only through the shattered window.

  Lillian got an idea.

  She shoved her gun back into her jacket pocket. Reaching around to the bottom of the passenger seat, she pulled a lever and the back of the seat fell forward. She dove to the front passenger seat, extending herself along the entire passenger side of the car.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Henry demanded.

  Lillian reached up and put her fingers around the fastener that held the top in place. “Grab the release. Slow down and let the motorcycle get closer. On the count of three, release the top.”

  Henry got what she meant in a second. He eased up on the gas. The motorcyclist closed the gap.

  “One, two, three!” Lillian and Henry both yanked on the latch. Henry gunned the engine. The wind caught the underside of the convertible top. Like a sail on a boat, the convertible top plumed and rose into the air. The combination of the wind and the convertible’s speed wasn’t enough for the rear latches to compensate. The canvas top with its metal frame ripped out of the convertible and flew backward.

  Directly onto the second motorcyclist. He didn’t even have a chance to swerve. The canvas top slammed into him. Within a second, he was on the pavement.

  Two down. One to go.

  With the canvas cover gone, Lillian and Henry were completely exposed. Not that canvas offered much in the way of protection, but it forced the shooter to guess at their position.

  No more guessing.

  A bullet flew by Henry’s face. The front windshield on the passenger side blew out. Lillian plunged her hand into her jacket and pulled out her gun. She rose to return fire but ducked just as fast, sliding down to the floorboard in the back seat. The shooter drew a bead on her position and fired.

  The sound of metal on metal screeched through the air as the black car rammed into the back quarter panel. Henry adjusted and swerved, creating more space between the cars.

  Other automobiles in the oncoming lane blasted their horns. Henry and the enemy driver both maneuvered to avoid a head-on collision. The movement also threw the bag of golf clubs on top of Lillian.

  More gunfire erupted from the chasing car. One blew a plume of stuffing and fabric from the leather seat. If something didn’t change, they were going to get murdered out here.

  Lillian knew it was up to her to even the odds. Henry was doing all he could to keep them on the road. Despite all the gunfire, no one else was coming to their rescue. She needed a distraction. She also needed to take out the shooter. She was good, but the road wasn’t perfectly smooth and her accuracy was off. She needed something bigger to aim for.

  Or strike with.

  Staying below the line of fire, Lillian wrestled the golf bag into a position where she could get a grip on it. She slid the a thick iron out of the bag and got ready.

  “Let them get closer,” she called to Henry.

  “What?”

  “Keep your head down and slow a bit. And trust me.”

  Henry grunted but complied.

  The black car edged closer and banged against the convertible’s quarter panel. Lillian didn’t have to see the gunman to know he was taking aim at Henry. That was what she would have done in his position. In one fluid motion, she heaved the golf bag up and over the side of the car.

  The clubs and the bag descended on the hood and into the broken windshield of the black car. Despite the wind, Lillian clearly heard a shouted curse. In German. Not waiting another second, she sat up on the seat. The remaining iron was in her grip. With all her might, she swung. Her target: the gunman’s arm.

  Metal crunched bone when her blow connected. The gunman’s forearm broke. His gun tumbled to the pavement. He pulled his broken arm inside the car. He howled in pain. Lillian was proud of herself as she threw the club at the black car and reached for her gun in her pocket.

  But the driver had other plans.

  He knocked the convertible’s back fender. The collision veered the convertible sideways. Lillian, resting only on her knees and holding her gun, fell forward. The convertible moved the opposite direction. She lost her grip on the gun when it slammed into the side of the seat and tumbled to the floorboard. Unfortunately, her momentum kept her moving to the side of the car. Enough of her was above the side of the car that she caromed over the side.

  In a desperate move, Lillian reached out. Her fingers found the channel into which the canvas cover folds. Still, she started sliding over the driver’s side. With nothing to break her fall, she was seconds away from certain death.

  Whether he noticed her predicament or not, Henry steered the convertible back onto the middle of the road. The change in trajectory enabled Lillian to bang onto the back trunk. Her shoes hung perilous inches above the pavement. She held onto her perch only with one hand. The other flailed helplessly in the air.

  The black car’s driver saw an advantage. He eased his car directly behind the convertible. He must have gunned the engine because the black car moved inexorably to the convertible. Lillian saw it and realized the high front of the black car coupled with the low slope of the convertible’s trunk meant she was going to be crushed. Yet, she didn’t have enough time or strength in one arm to pull herself to safety. Her hair flapping around her face, there was nothing she could do.

  Closer and closer the black car came. Lillian screamed at Henry but the wind carried her voice away from him. She was hanging by her right arm, lying on her right side. If she turned onto her stomach, she might be able to get her left hand to hold onto the car and pull herself up. She didn’t think she had the time. Besides, she wouldn’t have a visual on the approaching car. She certainly wasn’t going to lie on her back and hope her left hand found purchase.

  The black car forced her hand. It rammed the convertible. At the last moment, Lillian brought her legs up to her chest. Still holding onto the convertible, she glanced back at the German driver. Both hands were on the steering wheel, a maniacal grimace etching his face. The gunman, still in obvious pain, now held another pistol in his uninjured hand. With no windshield between them, Lillian was a sitting duck.

  Without thinking of angle or trajectories, she put her feet down. They landed on the front hood of the car. Using it as leverage, she pushed up with all her strength. At the same time, she pulled with her right arm. All the exercises and drills Tanaka had forced her to conduct paid off. She launched herself up and over the trunk and back down into the backseat floorboard of the convertible.

  Her gun shook on the seat in front of her. Her lip curling into a humorless smile, she grabbed it and sat up. With a perfect two-handed grip, she shot the remaining bullets into the driver. She noted his surprised face when her bullets struck him. He jerked violently back. He lost control of the car. The gunman, a pistol in his uninjured hand, could not grab the wheel in time. The black car skidded, swerved, and ran into a small ditch on the side of the road. It struck something, because it started flipping over and over into an adjacent field.

  Lillian slumped back into her seat. Her chest was heaving as she gulped large lungfuls of air. Adrenaline coursed through her. She was ready for the next attack.

  But it didn’t come. There were no more pursuers. “You okay?” she called up to Henry.

  “Yeah. You?”

  Lillian sighed. It had been quite some time since she had performed anything remotely close to that kind of activity. She nodded.

  Henry slowed the car enough to let her right the passenger seat, climb over, and plop herself next to him.
She stared off into the distance. “How much farther?”

  “Fifteen miles.”

  “Sheesh,” she muttered. “It’s amazing how fast you can get to London when someone’s trying to kill you.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Max Muller drove his stolen car along the same highway as Clark and the woman had fled. He drove the exact speed limit. He didn’t want to alert the police he was a spy.

  His assignment was simple: follow behind Klein and the other three. Render assistance if possible, but gather intelligence. Above all, do not be outed as a spy.

  He knew the route they took as it was the main road that led to London. He didn’t need to tail them directly. There was another man in London who would fill him in on the details.

  One thing Muller noted as he drove along the road, was the ingenious ways Clark and the woman had dispatched their pursuers. The first casualty was Erich. When Muller passed his fallen comrade lying in a pool of his own blood on the road, local policemen cordoning off the area, he was surprised to see another body. He didn’t recognize the corpse, but but the dead man wore golf clothes. That was the man who had met Clark and the woman in Dover. A corner of Muller’s mouth turned in appreciation that they had managed one casualty.

  The policemen had eyed him as he passed along the shoulder, but they eyed everyone. Nothing to see here, the eyes had said. Muller drove on.

  Robert was a surprise. The second comrade on a motorcycle appeared to have been hit by…Muller couldn’t get a good angle on the black shape resting on the road near Robert’s body. Some sort of cloth. With a wire frame. Muller started when he realized it must have been the cover for the convertible in which Clark and the woman had left Dover. How desperate must they have been to use that as a weapon.

  And how resourceful. His admiration for Clark grew. Even more, his curiosity about this woman knew no bounds. She had to be military. There was no way Clark could have done all this by himself.

  The billow of smoke rising from a burning car in a field gave Muller hope that his comrades had been successful in forcing Clark off the road. His hopes died when he recognized the car as the other one they had stolen with the intent of pursuit.

  “Hey, mate,” a policeman told Muller, “keep on moving. Don’t wanna cause another wreck.”

  Without realizing it, Muller had slowed to get a better look. The lawman’s words startled him and he jerked forward. “Yes, sir,” Muller said through his open window.

  The policeman had already forgotten him.

  Muller hadn’t forgotten a detail. It was one of his most prized assets as an agent for der Führer: he forgot nothing.

  He continued along the road, heading north to London. In his mind, he tried to make sense of what he had seen and what he had been asked to do.

  Max Muller considered himself in deep cover. His allegiance to Germany and her cause he kept secret from his friends and family in Ramsgate. He knew the time was fast approaching when he would have to declare his allegiance publicly. He would lose all he had built, but the promise of reward after the Nazis successfully invaded Western Europe and Britain kept him true to his beliefs.

  He had been told his services would be needed only after the invasion began. He hadn’t been told when that day would be, so he found himself surprised when the call came. It was a coded message from Berlin with instructions to pursue a British agent and his female companion from Dover to London. The agent’s name was Clark.

  Funny, Max had thought. He knew a Henry Clark. He was Simon’s son. All Simon would say about his son’s activities was that he was working for the king. He never mentioned Clark was some sort of spy. You never could tell about people.

  Max’s assignment was reconnaissance. The message from Berlin had stated another team would likely try to capture Clark and the woman. If they failed, Max was to ascertain what went wrong and report. His secrecy was too valuable to risk exposing himself before the invasion.

  As such, Max Muller drove all the way to London. Four of his fellow German assets had been killed by Clark and the woman. Strangely, for a service that prided itself on knowing everything, his source in Berlin couldn’t tell Max who the woman was. As Max had already surmised, she wasn’t some dainty little flower. She had to have been an integral part of the escape. That would go into his report.

  The location in London from which his report would commence was a remote house on the outskirts of London, just south of the Thames. He pulled up to the printing office and parked. He walked in.

  The man behind the counter looked up. “What can I do for you?”

  “I am needing a leaflet for an upcoming church picnic printed. Who do I need to talk to?”

  The man behind the counter nodded. His eyes flicked to the doorway, then back to Max. “Right this way, sir.”

  Max followed the other man to a corner desk. They both sat. The man slid a piece of paper over to Max. “Please write what you need.”

  Max complied. He had to restrain himself from giving every detail he observed. He could have written multiple pages. Instead, he wrote only one. The man watched him the entire time.

  Finished, Max gave the paper back to the man. He read it. “Four?”

  Max nodded.

  The man nodded. “Okay, we’ll get this printed for you. When do you need it?”

  “As soon as possible. They’re expecting it.”

  “Understood.”

  The man stood. Max stood. The man walked Max to the door and held it open. Max exited and got back into his car.

  He beamed with pride.

  ***

  Herr Colonel sat in his office and smoked. The daily reports rested on his desk, unread. For all the preparations for the impending invasion, he only wanted one thing: word from Rolf Klein.

  It had been hours since his last communication with the field agent. The instructions were simple: get the book, eliminate Clark, determine the identity of the woman and what that might mean. Herr Colonel had all faith in Klein, but things in war often went awry. As a professor of history, he knew that all too well.

  His stomach rumbled. A second night in a row without Wilma’s cooking. Instead of eating the dried beef, he smoked and felt worse. Resigning himself, he opened his drawer and pulled out the hunk of meat.

  His door opened. Wilhelm entered and stood at attention. “Herr Colonel, General Siegfried needs to see you.”

  Herr Colonel sighed, the knife poised in his hand, ready to cut the meat. “Tell Herr General I’m waiting on word from our field agent, Klein. Once I get word from him...”

  From the outer office, General Siegfried barged into Herr Colonel’s office. “Klein is dead. Your agents have failed to do what is required.” As always, his uniform appeared impeccable.

  Colonel Graf jerked to his feet to assume attention. He cut his thumb. He forgot to hide his grimace of pain.

  Siegfried sniffed derisively. He remained standing and didn’t let Graf relax. He waved his hand at Wilhelm. “Close the door on your way out.”

  Wilhelm gulped and complied.

  “How do you know?” Graf asked.

  “You don’t think I’d let our organization only rely on people you chose. I have my own people. And you’ll never see them.” He reached over and snatched up the dried meat. He gnawed off a hunk and chewed.

  Graf could hear the chewing sounds.

  Siegfried began to pace around the room. “You know the difference between you and me? Practical knowledge. For you, spy craft and espionage are merely academic pursuits. They’re something to be studied. You read papers”—he jammed his finger on the piles of paper on Graf’s desk—“and write reports. You lack the intrinsic knowledge and understanding to be an effective leader. You seem to excel in administration but not in the field. I, on the other hand, did not have to rely on personal connections to get my position. I earned it in the trenches of Belgium and France.”

  Graf remembered not to lock his knees or else he might faint. He bent his knees and felt the war
m rush of blood to his feet.

  “If I understand it correctly, you were not even aware the American banker was being followed. How can you expect to lead if you don’t know all the pieces?”

  “Herr General, sir, I am aware of all our organization’s plans. That was one I had delegated to a subordinate and had not followed up with.” He regretted those words as soon as they left his mouth.

  Siegfried barked out a laugh. “Not aware? I wonder if others in our organization are aware of your lack of awareness.” He let the threat hang in the air.

  Graf felt beads of sweat form on his cheeks and forehead. He wanted to sit. He knew now was not the time.

  “The British agent Henry Clark and his friend killed four of our men, including Klein. They did it on the road from Dover to London. By now, they will have learned that Ludlow is dead and by whom. You have to thank the heavens Klein is dead or else Clark would certainly come after him. Small treasures, yeah?”

  “Yes, Herr General.” Graf nearly committed a huge mistake by asking to sit or at least stand at ease. He wanted to wipe the perspiration from his face. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead and into his eye. The salt stung.

  Siegfried continued. “By now, the morons in London are probably determining whether to continue. They might also be thinking the coast is clear.” Herr General came to stand in front of Graf. “It’s not.”

  “Yes, Herr General.” Another bead of sweat rolled down his cheek. Interestingly, Siegfried watched its progress.

  “Where is James Geiger?”