Target Churchill

by Warren Adler

  That first night after the confession was torture. He had dropped her off at the hospital without a word.

  “I understand,” was all she said in parting, obviously misreading his reaction.

  He had held back from taking any action. He needed to think it through, but after a sleepless night of contemplating a plethora of scenarios, he was no closer to a definitive conclusion than he was at the moment of her revelation. Actually, it was less of a revelation than a rejection. Something was wrong here, something sinister and dangerous. A ruthless Jewess was fucking up his head.

  When he came down the following morning to make his daily call, the clerk at the desk signaled with his eyes toward the reception room where they had first kissed. She was sitting in the corner of the badly lit room. Her face was pale, and she was unmistakably upset and forlorn. Her eyes were puffy and red. Quite obviously, she had been crying. Seeing her in this condition, all the angst of the night before swept away. He wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her. At the same time, he was ashamed of such weakness and sentimentality.

  “I’m sorry, Frank,” she said, her voice tremulous. “I should have told you. But….” She paused. “I… never expected. I mean… I was the aggressor here. I didn’t think. Then the reality hit me.”

  “What reality?”

  “You could never understand, Frank. Maybe it will be different someday. But Jewish parents, my parents, would never accept the idea. Never. I had never gone out with a gentile boy. They would have disowned me.”

  Again he held himself back. Disowned you? Run you out of their disgusting tribe. Once a Jew, always a Jew. Such talk was beyond logic. There was only one conclusion. America was infected with these people. They controlled everything, directed everything. When would the Americans wise up? There was an evil disease in their midst. He told himself this, but observing her now, he could not reconcile such thoughts with the present reality.

  They were a dangerous people. Hitler had been right to characterize even the slightest hint of their tainted blood as a plague, worthy of elimination. The method of disposal, gassing and burning, had been exactly correct. Reduce them to ashes. That was the only way.

  “It hit me suddenly. There’s no future for us, Frank. I faced the reality of it, and it’s very painful.”

  She looked up at him with tearful eyes.

  “The truth is that I can’t….” She started to cry, her face a portrait of suffering. “I love you, Frank. I love you with all my heart and soul. I love you, and I don’t care what my parents or anyone else thinks. I want to be with you.”

  He watched her for a long moment. He was at odds with himself. He wanted to move forward, embrace her, smother her with kisses, and ask for forgiveness, although he could not find a reason. Was it possible for her to exist outside the circle of his hatred for her people? No, he decided. He could not excise his convictions. He had been invaded, attacked.

  “Leave me alone,” he said after a long pause. “I don’t want to see you again.”

  “But Frank…,” she began, her eyes clouded with confusion.

  She seemed stunned by his assertion, but he had made his choice and was determined to stick to it. Besides, she was in love with a fiction. She had no idea of his background and his mission. Or did she? She had been only mildly curious, which could have meant that she knew who he was and why he was here and the truth of his intentions.

  Yet, despite his assertion, he continued to stand there as if attached to the floor. He watched her nod, a gesture that bespoke an abject total surrender. A sob began to trickle up from somewhere deep inside him. Finally, he found the strength to turn away.

  “I understand, Frank,” she whispered. “Believe me, I will not bother you. I’ll respect your wishes.”

  ***

  After two weeks of agony, and despite his meandering analysis of her intentions, he still did not reach any conclusions, nor could he get her out of his mind. She dominated his thoughts and emotions more than ever, as if she had injected him with bacteria, which was devouring him.

  As for his so-called mission, after so many months, he began to believe that it had been put on the shelf. Was he free of them, he wondered? What were their intentions? He had been fully prepared to do whatever deed he was assigned. After all, they had him by the balls. All he wished for now was to get it over with.

  Other thoughts began to plague him. Suppose he was freed from their clutches? Was it possible to start a new life here? Had she planted such thoughts in his mind? Months before, as he was herded into that prison in the dead of winter, he was certain that his life was over. Along with his fellow officers, he was resigned to such a fate. The war was over for him. Life was over. Obersturmbannführer, you are dead meat, he assured himself, although for some reason, he was unwilling to accept the idea. Instead, he had opted for a chance at life and did his dance before Dimitrov.

  But what kind of a life? Then he had seen himself as preserving his life for the extension of the real war, the war against the Jews. Was he relenting suddenly, mesmerized by this manipulative, sinister Jewess?

  Eight weeks had passed since his arm and ankle had been put in a cast, two weeks since the cast on his arm was removed. It was still not perfect, but certainly workable. He could aim a rifle and pull a trigger.

  He had been warned that the ankle would take longer, and his mobility was still constrained, although he was able to clump around easily and without pain. He decided he would remove his ankle cast himself. He was strong. He was lucky. Surely, the bones had knit enough for him to take a chance. Besides, he did not wish to go back to the hospital. The sight of her might be a match to dry tinder. Why tempt fate?

  Instead, he went to a nearby hardware store and bought a wooden mallet and a rug cutter that might be adequate for the job. In his room, he managed to slice through the plaster and remove the cast. Although it was a relief to remove it, as he expected, the muscles and tendons had atrophied. He was able to walk, somewhat unsteadily, but that, he was certain, would get better with time.

  Although the accident was the cause of his present dilemma, he had the urge to show Stephanie his unfettered self. She had only seen him as an invalid.

  He began a process of self-rehabilitation, taking walks, first for short distances, then longer. The arm was growing stronger, and he was quickly regaining full mobility. The ankle was healing more slowly. Each morning, he seemed to need more and more time to unstiffen the ankle and get moving. He was conscious of a progressing limp. Yet he felt certain that he would work his way through it. He began to rely more and more on aspirin to relieve the pain.

  The weather had turned icy cold. Although he tried in his mind to resume his so-called research into the president’s schedule, he noted that, at least on very cold days, Truman did not take his walks. Miller also found it difficult to renew his interest in world events.

  Still, although he fought against it, railed against it, hated it like an addict hates and loves his habit, he could not resist the temptation to pass the hospital where she worked. For days, he stood outside in the cold morning air to catch a glimpse of her as she came off duty, cursing himself for his weakness. He likened his situation to being caught in a magnetic field, unable to resist the unseen power of its pressure.

  Hiding behind a car or a tree, he occasionally caught a glimpse of her, watching her move into the distance. His heart jumped in his throat, his knees trembled, but he could not bring himself to reveal himself.

  His mood shifted between longing and boredom. He felt as if he were in a state of suspended animation. At times, he felt a loss of identity and would often wake up from a nightmarish dream panicked and in a cold sweat, wondering who he was.

  His leg pain was increasing and his dosage of aspirin had to be increased. He acknowledged that he might have been premature in removing the cast, but he felt convinced that his luck would not desert him an
d that the ankle would heal with time.

  One morning in the lobby of the Y, just as he began his call, he felt a tap on his shoulder. Turning, he saw a man who was vaguely familiar. He was clean-shaven and wore a fedora pulled low over his head and a light topcoat. For a brief moment, Miller was puzzled, and then it struck him.

  “We meet again, Obersturmbannführer.

  Chapter 15

  “Mr. Miller, is it?” Dimitrov said, offering a thin smile. His eyes narrowed, and he looked from side to side. He motioned for Miller to follow, which he did.

  Dimitrov walked briskly to the edge of Georgetown, not looking back. With his stiff leg and increasing pain, which even larger doses of aspirin could not mask, Miller had trouble keeping up. Dimitrov turned left on M Street and then right to enter the footpath beside the old canal. Only then did Dimitrov stop, waiting for Miller to catch up.

  “So we meet again, Mueller.” He paused. “Miller, I mean.” Dimitrov inspected his face. “You don’t look so good.”

  “I’m fine,” Miller muttered.

  They began to walk together along the footpath as if they were two old friends reuniting. Miller was conscious of using all of his willpower to disguise the limp in his leg.

  “It’s been a long time, General,” he said.

  Miller was astonished and puzzled by Dimitrov’s presence. He hadn’t expected his instructions to come directly from him. Dimitrov looked different in his ill-fitting civilian clothes, more like a government flunky than the powerful NKVD general Miller had confronted in Germany.

  Dimitrov checked behind him from time to time, obviously to be certain they were not followed.

  “We’re ready now,” he said.

  “I hadn’t expected it to be you,” Miller admitted.

  “Your mission is too important to trust to others.”

  Dimitrov lowered his voice, although there seemed no necessity for doing so. They were beyond the capacity of audio surveillance.

  “Should I be flattered, General? I thought I had been forgotten. I was getting ready to walk away.”

  “We would have found you, Miller. We have a long arm.”

  They exchanged glances. Dimitrov’s eyes narrowed as he inspected him.

  “Are you ready?” Dimitrov asked.

  Miller nodded. He needed to put this mission behind him, although he did not know what he would do next. He thought suddenly of Stephanie and his stomach tightened. Why now, at this moment?

  “You must listen carefully and absorb these instructions,” Dimitrov said. “If you have questions, ask them now. We won’t be in contact again.”

  “No more calls?”

  “Finished,” Dimitrov said.

  “Good,” Miller said, confronting Dimitrov’s icy stare. “I was running out of dimes.”

  The little joke fell flat. For some reason, he felt deeply alien to the situation, as if he were hovering above, watching, not participating. He felt Dimitrov’s intense stare, like harsh pinpoints of light beaming directly into his eyes.

  “You will kill Winston Churchill,” Dimitrov said.

  Miller was thunderstruck. It was a name totally out of the blue.

  “Winston Churchill?” Miller cried.

  Dimitrov put a finger on his lips to quiet him.

  “But I assumed….” He interrupted himself. “…I thought Truman. He presents an easy target on his walks.”

  Dimitrov grunted then looked behind him again. They were moving north on the footpath, which was deserted.

  “What you assumed is irrelevant. I’m here to give you instructions, not to explain motives.” He paused and looked directly into Miller’s face. “Your assignment is to kill Winston Churchill. Do you understand?”

  “Why Churchill?” Miller blurted. It seemed a strange choice. The man was no longer prime minister.

  “Your only business is to kill him. Beyond that, don’t trouble yourself.”

  “All right then. Where is the target? Am I now to go to England?”

  Dimitrov laughed slyly, looking around him.

  “Not more than a mile from here at the British embassy.”

  Dimitrov paused and Miller felt the intensity of his stare washing over him like a prison beam. “But the deed will be done elsewhere.”

  “Where?”

  “Fulton, Missouri.”

  “Where is that?”

  “In the middle of this country.”

  They continued to move farther along the footpath. For a few moments, they maintained silence between them. Miller tried to absorb the information. For years, Churchill and Roosevelt had been the face of the enemy. Now Roosevelt was dead. In Germany during the war, Churchill was cast in the newspapers and radio as a blustering fool, a fat, incompetent, drunken pig. He was ridiculed, laughed at, derided.

  The mention of his name stirred old memories. When the troops of the SS saw newsreels of him, they laughed at his stupid cigar, his two-fingered V sign, his silly derby hat. Himmler had called him a Jew lover and promised to hang him by the balls after the war.

  Yes, he decided, his sense of mission rekindled and inspired, he would gladly put a bullet in that bastard’s skull.

  “It won’t be simple, Miller. Not just bang bang, you’re dead.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We’re asking for a public execution.”

  “I’m not following,” Miller said, confused.

  “You must listen carefully. This requires your utmost concentration.”

  “Of course.”

  They walked on for a few moments more. It was hard going for Miller. The pain in his ankle grew more intense. Dimitrov looked behind him a number of times then began his explanation and instruction.

  “You will proceed immediately by car to Westminster College in the town of Fulton, Missouri, where Churchill will speak on March 5.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Not quite all,” Dimitrov said. “Churchill will be traveling with the president in his private railroad car. They will stop in St. Louis, go on to Jefferson City, then drive to Fulton, where they will have lunch at the home of the college president and then go on to the college hall where Churchill is to speak. There will be elaborate preparations. You must arrive in Fulton in time to investigate the town, the surrounding area and the general conditions, and plan your attack.”

  Miller listened with deepening interest, making tentative plans as Dimitrov spoke.

  “Six days,” Miller calculated. Short notice, he thought. “Why there? If he’s here in town….”

  “Please, Mueller.” He checked himself. “Your assignment is to kill him while he is speaking.”

  “In public? With an audience?”

  Dimitrov nodded.

  “In the hall where he’ll speak,” he continued, “while he speaks.”

  Miller was confused.

  “Why such a public exhibition?”

  “The eyes of the world will be on this man.”

  “But dead is dead. Isn’t your objective to silence him?”

  “We’re looking for the maximum impact. We’ve chosen not merely the target, but also the moment.”

  Miller was baffled.

  “Is this a game, General? Kill Churchill while he’s speaking? I think you exaggerate my potential. Am I supposed to be flattered? It sounds as if I’m to be sacrificed.”

  “Sacrificed?” Dimitrov shot back angrily. “Obersturmbannführer, I gave your life back to you. I have kept my word. It’s up to you to keep yours.”

  Miller felt a rising anger.

  “And if I refuse?”

  “You’ve seen too many American movies, Miller. You have no choice. You must be aware of that.”

  “Kill me now, what happens to your plan?”

  “We’ll find another plan,” Dimitrov said
, calmly. “But we’re betting on your survival instincts.”

  “Is that a compliment, General? You make it sound so simple.”

  Miller’s mind was a jumble of alternatives. But he was quick to recognize Dimitrov’s strategy. Okay, it’s risky…. But Miller sensed something missing, a detail withheld….

  “It’s a hard gamble, General.” He paused. “You’ve given me nothing but a date—no details, no maps. You’re setting me loose like… Alice in Wonderland.”

  “Exactly.”

  “It’s stupid. I’ll be caught or killed.”

  “Maybe. We’re all taking risks.”

  “You? You’ll be back in Europe, fucking some fräulein.”

  Dimitrov ignored the comment.

  “Think in these terms, Miller: You’ll find your way into the hall, where there will be great excitement. The great Churchill will rise and speak. His speech, whatever it is, will be interrupted by great applause. When he spoke to the Congress of the United States, his speech was practically drowned out by applause. There’s no reason to think it won’t be the same. The noise of applause will mask the fatal shot and, if you’re clever and have planned well, you’ll escape. Newspaper people will be in attendance, newsreels will be running, and the film will bear witness. After the shot is fired, there will be confusion, perhaps hysteria. You’ll find a way out. Your only instructions are to shoot, hit your target, leave your weapon to be found, and lose yourself in the melee. You’re a bright young man, one of Himmler’s young stars. Surely, you can figure out a workable exit plan.”

  “Leave the weapon?”

  “As you know, it’s a Waffen-SS-issue rifle, and marked as such.”

  He pulled out another packet from his pocket and handed it to Miller. It was flat, an envelope wrapped in a cellophane pouch. Miller studied it.

  “You will leave this note beside the weapon.”

  “What does it say?”

  “Death to tyrants! Heil Hitler!”

  Miller shook his head and smiled.