The Rat Patrol 6 - Desert Masqueraade

by David King

  "I thought you said American, Doeppler," Dietrich said disgustedly. "These men are macaroni."

  "The passports are here, Herr Hauptmann,'" Doeppler said, a trifle officiously, Dietrich thought. The lieutenant spread four green booklets on the table before him.

  Dietrich leafed through the passports, scanning them, lifting his eyes only briefly from the photographs to the faces and not really identifying anyone, noting the visas. The names were Sam, Jack, Mark and Sol Enna, brothers apparently; same address on North Rush Street, Chicago, Illinois; departed for Italy by way of Mexico, November 22, 1940; visas for Spain, Algeria and Tunisia.

  Dietrich addressed the affable scoundrel with the ostentatious gold tooth. The man also wore a large diamond on the little finger of his left hand. "Which of these," he said in English, waving his hand over the passports, "is you?"

  "Sam, Captain, Sam Enna, that's me," he said breezily. He jerked his thumb at the other three, who stared fixedly and unsmilingly at Dietrich. The men made him feel uncomfortable. "These, mi fratelli.'"

  "Yes, your brothers, of course," Dietrich said, sorting Sam Enna's passport from the others. He examined the photograph and looked back at Sam. He glanced at the photographs in the other passports and this time located the owners. "Remarkable family resemblance. According to these passports, you are citizens of the United States. This is correct?"

  "Well, yes and no, Captain," Sam said airily. "We're born there all right, North Rush Street, Chicago, U-es-ay, like it says in the books. Things got hot and we had to scram. In case it hasn't registered, them little books is phoney as a three-dollar bill. Laid out a grand per copy in old May-he-co but the info is legit. What the hell, Cap, when you gotta go you gotta go, and the cops was breathing down our neck. So back we come where the old man and old lady is from, Enna, Sicily. That's right, Cap, even got a town named for us."

  "The lieutenant reports you asked for me by name when you were captured," Dietrich said.

  "Captured!" Sam reacted violently. He wrenched at his hair with both hands and pounded the table with his fists. He shouted furiously, "Who says we was captured? That punk bastardo of a looey? I ought to of shoved a shiv in his gullet. He was poking along in that tin can and we passed him up like yesterday. By the time we got stopped to ask him how to get here, he was so far behind it took half a hour for him to catch up. We followed that lattaio here."

  "Just a moment, gentlemen," Dietrich said and glared at Doeppler. "You may leave, Lieutenant," he said. "Report to the duty officer. Inform him you have been ordered to relieve the regularly assigned officer of the guard tonight."

  "Ja, Herr Hauptmann," Doeppler croaked. The palm of his hand shot out. "Heil Hitler." He marched mechanically from the tent.

  "Now," Dietrich said in English, studying each of the Enna brothers in turn and coming back to Sam. "You are Americans of Sicilian ancestry who left the United States under doubtful circumstances on forged passports in 1940. What are you doing here and what possible business could you have with me?"

  "Just a minute, Cap," Sam said and his gold tooth gleamed. "We got a good reason for coming to see you. It took a lot of trouble and we drove all the way from Tunis, but before we go into that, I see we busted up your meal. How about we put on a spread, you know, like they say, turkey and all the trimmings? Maybe you like a change from this Army garbage, huh? Jack, Sol, Mark, lug in some stuff from the car. You got a boy, give us a hand, Cap?"

  Dietrich gasped audibly. He'd seen characters like these in American movies before the war but he'd doubted their real life existence. Now he actually was confronted by four of them who claimed to have business with him. It was fantastic. He supposed they were sinister and the three who so far had remained silent looked villainous but Sam fascinated him. Gangsters, he thought and admitted he experienced a chilling thrill. Childish, he rebuked his emotions but his interest mounted. They were hiding from some—how was it called?—some rap and engaged in dealings on the Black Market.

  "Grosse," he shouted, smiling at Sam. "He's my driver and orderly," he explained. "He'll assist your brothers. You have provisions of a sort stored in your car?"

  "Provisions? Hey, that's rich," Sam exclaimed, slapping his thigh and bending over with laughter. "We don't exactly go for provisions, Cap. We carry a little something along for a snack, see? Yeah, that's what we got. A snack."

  Grosse stepped into the tent and stopped short, staring at the four barbarians in civilian clothing.

  "Four chairs, Grosse, and service for five," Dietrich said. "See if there is more coffee."

  "Nix, Cap," Sam said, shaking his head and waving his hands. "This is on us. We got java, we got a little stove. We're going to brew you up a cup that will carry you right back home. Tell your boy here to lug out what you was going to eat and help Sol and Mark and Jack get organized. You got some bread, we got the butter. It ain't necessary, we got toast and crackers but maybe you like bread with ham. You got some glasses, Cap? We got some Eyte bubble water. It ain't necessary, it drinks from a cup." He swung on the other three and waved both hands at them. "Move, move, riccotari! We're making a party."

  To his own surprise, Dietrich found that he was amused and smiling. Sam's ebullience had caught him up and he was enjoying himself. "Grosse," he said, "clear the table, help the men remove what they wish from the car. Bring in chairs, the service, glasses, some bread. Geh', Grosse, geh'."

  Grosse had scarcely cleared the deflated soufflé from the table when the piratical Sicilian-American named Sol bore an enormous Westphalian ham to the table and unwrapped the cloth to display the succulent red smoked meat. Mark and Jack Enna, trailed by Grosse, filed in and out of the tent loading the table with cheeses, seafood, garnishes, sausages, condiments, toast, crackers, cookies, fresh oranges and limes. Sol brought in a large can of American coffee, a coffee pot and a stove with a chemical burner. Grosse had an armload of sparkling Italian wine and liqueur.

  Dietrich examined a few of the cans at random: smoked sturgeon, pickled lambs' tongue, hearts of palm. He glanced at the Liederkranz among the cheeses and at the ham that dominated the board. Not even in the peaceful days of abundance had he seen such a buffet. When the four brothers were lined together in the tent again and Grosse had departed for the chairs and service, he found his voice.

  "You came bearing gifts," he observed. "I am certain the board groans but not my stomach. It is chuckling."

  "There's more of the same in the car, Captain," Jack Enna spoke up. "We get hungry when we travel. We didn't bring gifts, but what we don't clean up tonight, you get to keep, see?"

  Grosse came in with chairs, paused long enough to give each of the Enna brothers a searching look and went out again. Dietrich smiled inwardly. He could well understand the man's curiosity.

  Jack reached for a bottle of the sparkling wine. "A glass or two before we dig in, okay, Captain?"

  "In a moment," Dietrich said. "In just a moment Grosse will have the glasses here."

  He had only spoken the words when Grosse reappeared and placed five stemmed glasses on the table. He stared openly at Sam and Jack Enna.

  When the glasses were filled, Dietrich lifted his to his guests. He was in rare good humor and kindly disposed to this band of cutthroats. "I do not know your business with me, gentlemen," he said and a smile touched his lips. "But may it be such that it can be successful."

  "We'll drink to that," the one called Sol said and his mustache lifted when he smiled. The smile did not touch his eyes. They were dead as fish eyes.

  Dietrich glowed as the wine effervesced on his empty stomach. He mellowed as he gorged. He was surfeited and warmly content by the time coffee and liqueur was poured. Mark passed around American cigarettes. The five of them sat about the table, sprawling in the camp chairs.

  "I don't know when I've enjoyed anything quite so much," Dietrich said and sighed. "Now I suppose you will want to get, as I believe you say, down to brass tacks. I hope this business that has brought you here is something we can ne
gotiate. Technically, since you are citizens of the United States, we are enemies although I imagine your present residence in Sicily could be considered a mitigating factor."

  There was a soughing sound and a series of pops as several rockets launched flares. Outside the tent the flat white light made the acetylene lantern hanging above the table seem dim. Sam looked startled.

  "Flares, to prevent an unexpected attack," Dietrich explained, amused, as Grosse stepped in and began to clear the table. He covertly examined the profile of each of the Ennas as he removed the jars and cans near him. The man's curiosity was one thing but this close inspection was another. Dietrich was becoming annoyed.

  "I see you pose as musicians," he went on, nodding at the violin cases piled near the side wall of the tent. "I do not imagine that is your profession."

  "Musicians we don't pose as, Cap," Sam said and this time he did not smile. His face was hard and ruthless as he leaned back tilting his chair and reached the near case. "I guess you better wise up your boys. Now don't jump and yell for help, Cap. All I'm going to do is show something to you." He unlatched the lid and lifted it.

  Despite Sam's warning, Dietrich was startled. A submachine gun and a dozen clips of ammunition were in the case. Sam snapped the case shut and carelessly pushed it across the sand floor toward the wall. Of course, Dietrich remembered, shutting his eyes, that was the way American gangsters carried weapons about the city streets. He felt a passing wave of nausea. At any time during the last hour, these men could have murdered him and been out of the camp in their powerful car before anyone was aware of what had happened. Whatever business the Enna brothers had with him, he was convinced of their good intentions, but at the same time that he acknowledged a genuine feeling of fellowship with them, he burned with rage at Doeppler for failing to take elementary precautions.

  "I won't mince words, Cap," Sam said, coldly serious now. "We're mobsters. You want a heist, snatch, somebody liquidated, that's our business. Like I said, it got too hot for us in the Windy City. We beat it. Now we got a little racket going in Tunis. Black Market stuff. Run in the contraband from Spain and Portugal, ship it out to the U.S.A., England, Germany, Italy. You want to check us out, that's okay. Get on the radio and have your boys in Tunis get out their files on the Mercato Succoso Trading Corp., that's us. We do business with your boys, the top brass. We come here to help you, Cap."

  "That's very thoughtful," Dietrich said with a smile. "You already have helped me to remember one of the pleasures life can hold."

  "I guess we won't be forgetting this night either, Cap," Mark Enna said pleasantly, although he was scowling fiercely. Dietrich decided it must be a habit with these men to look ferocious.

  "What did you have in mind we could work out together?" Dietrich asked, suspecting the Ennas wanted his assistance in some Black Market operation.

  "I know you ain't going to like this, Cap, but I got to tell you so you see why we're here," Sam said. "Cap, they're laughing at you in Tunis. At your headquarters and in the officer's clubs, at the bars and the casinos. They talk about a Rat Patrol and somebody says 'Dietrich' and you get a horse laugh. Everybody says this Rat Patrol has made a monkey out of you."

  The blood drained from Dietrich's cheeks and he felt pale and frozen inside. "What do you know about the Rat Patrol?" he asked guardedly.

  "Just what we hear, Cap," Sam said. "Common gossip, nothing official. They say this Rat Patrol are four GI commandos who tear around in jeeps blowing up your gas and ammunition. There's lots of stories about them. One is they took you prisoner and tied you up like a pig on a stick. Another is they came on you when you was taking a bath, stole all your clothes and you had to walk back to camp from the pool stark naked. They're saying it'd be better if you let yourself get shot by them instead of them always laughing at you like you didn't count."

  "These stories about the Rat Patrol and me are prevalent throughout Tunis?" Dietrich asked in a lathering rage.

  "Yeah, with your Army," Sam said. "I don't guess the Ay-rabs give a damn. You just take it easy, Cap. Getting mad ain't going to undo the dirt. You got to turn the trick. That's what we came to see you about. We got a proposition. We take the Rat Patrol on for you, rub them out, nab them, whatever you say. The job has got a price tag. It's business with us, see? What do you say, Cap?"

  "I think you are gracious men whose company I enjoy," Dietrich said evenly although inside he was smoldering at what Sam had told him. "I am afraid I must also tell you I think you are foolish. You have made a long and tiresome journey for nothing. We are two Armies opposing one another in the field. This Rat Patrol is comprised of soldiers. This is a military affair. What in heaven gave you the idea that four civilians inexperienced in war could succeed where a company of elite soldiers has failed?"

  "From what we hear about the way they operate, these guys in the Rat Patrol ain't soldiers," Sam said. "They're hoods just like us. They operate like us. Make a hit and run. They think like us. Do the job sneaky and dirty. Look, Cap, we're specialists in the rub-out. Like you said, we ain't soldiers and that's a plus. That Rat Patrol ain't going to tie a can on our tails if they spot us like they would your men. We can get next to them where you can't. We can get the job done."

  "You're U.S. citizens; they are American soldiers," Dietrich pointed out. "Why would you be willing to kill them for an enemy of your country?"

  "You forget, we got no country, Cap," Sam said. "We go back now, we get the hot seat. We already took our share of U.S. citizens for a ride. We do it for you for a fast buck. In Chicago the boys paid us five grand per head. We ain't going to stick you like that because maybe you ain't got that kind of dough and also, there's four of them. One grand each, four grand for the lot. Gun them down or grab them, you name it. What do you say, Cap?"

  Dietrich's narrowed eyes wandered from one face to another. He thought he never in his life had seen such utterly dead eyes. None of them was smiling and in the harsh set of their features was death. There was no doubt of it. These men were killers. Indian lore was Dietrich's hobby and the name for such men burned in his mind. They were bounty hunters. He looked covertly at the violin cases and suddenly was very happy that they had not approached the American Colonel Wilson first and asked him to place a price on the Dietrich head.

  Grosse stepped just inside the tent and his eyes jumped from Sam's to Jack's to Sol's to Mark's head. He looked at Dietrich, eyes flashing a warning as he shook his head violently.

  "What is it, Grosse?" Dietrich snapped irritably.

  "Is there anything else, sir?" he asked, continuing to shake his head negatively and pointing at the backs of the Enna brothers.

  "That is all," Dietrich said angrily. "I'll call if I want you."

  Grosse shook his head again and stepped out into the white light that continued to glare overhead from the flares.

  "Very well," Dietrich said. "It is, as you call it, a deal. Shall we shake on it?"

  Ceremoniously, each. Enna brother stood to clasp Dietrich's hand.

  "Now," Dietrich said, abruptly down to business. "I shall assist you as much as I am able. Until approximately nineteen hours, that is until seven o'clock last night, the Rat Patrol was in the American camp which lies in the desert valley below. Sometime soon after that, they departed in their two jeeps to the south. We had a patrol within the Allied lines which has not reported for almost twelve hours. I suspect that patrol is a victim of the Rat Patrol. The next report we have of them placed them on a ridge of land between two salt marshes traveling west. This was at a location approximately fifty miles south from here. We were testing robot mines at the area. The Rat Patrol destroyed the mines. The next clue we have is another patrol about fifty miles west and forty miles south which the Rat Patrol blew up killing four men. We have had patrols in halftracks out all day searching for the Rat Patrol, but there has been no further report of them."

  "Looks like they was swinging wide to get at you from the rear, Cap," Sam said with a dark scowl. "They might
be in your camp right now."

  "That is possible," Dietrich admitted.

  "If they was here, what would they be doing?" Sam asked. "Blowing up your gas and ammunition like they said in Tunis?"

  "I think more likely they would be determining the location of the guns we have defending the ridge," Dietrich said. "They have a long range gun in the Allied area, a British twenty-five-pounder. If they could place the positions of my armor and guns, they could knock them out."

  "They got a gun that can reach you?" Sam asked, apparently impressed with Dietrich's knowledge. "How'd you know that? Oh, I get it. You can see down in the valley from up here."

  "Yes," Dietrich said. "But this gun is concealed. They have a pit where the Rat Patrol has kept the jeeps and where the four men have been living. That has been a deception. The pit contains the gun. I bought the information from some Arabs."

  "You wasn't born yesterday, Cap," Sam said admiringly. "So we better start right here in your camp and work through the gun positions. You want to give us the layout, Cap?"

  "On top of the ridge, the heavy guns, 75 mm. cannon and rocket-launchers," Dietrich said unhesitatingly. "Down the slope, mortars and below them, machine guns and riflemen. At the bottom the field is mined, as well as trails and approaches on the slope."

  "Sounds like you got yourself a fort, Cap," Sam said. "Okay, here's what we'll do. Two of us will work the ridge, the other two will slip down to them mortars. If we don't find anybody, then your Enna-buddies—" He stopped and laughed delightedly at his pun. His gold tooth gleamed. "Anyway, we'll go through the camp with a fine tooth comb. If we still don't find them, we'll move on outside the camp and do some slow driving in and out, enough to make them curious."

  "Very well," Dietrich said with a smile. He had planned much the same operation himself within the camp and it pleased him that the professional killers suggested the same plan. He handed each of the Ennas his passport as he stood.

  "We'll get started, Cap," Sam said. "Better pass the word. I'd hate to have some trigger-happy jerk mistake us for the Rat Patrol."