An Army of One: A John Rossett Novel

by Tony Schumacher

  “Very lucky.” Dannecker this time.

  The double doors behind them opened and the nurse appeared with Rossett’s clothes. Neither Becker nor Dannecker looked around as she took a few steps toward them.

  She coughed.

  “I’m a suspect?” Rossett said, ignoring her.

  She spoke. “Mr. Rossett’s clothes.”

  Becker finally flicked his head, indicating that she should hand the clothes to Rossett. She edged past, holding the clothes across her chest as a shield.

  The nurse almost curtsied as she gave them to Rossett. “They’re a little wet.”

  “I’ve a feeling that’s going to be the least of my problems.”

  Dannecker led the way down the cast-iron staircase that ran through the hospital like a spine. Each floor looked as immaculate as the one on which Rossett had been recovering, and he noticed that the lower they got, the more uniformed guards there seemed to be. By the time they reached the first floor he counted at least twenty men milling around and trying to look busy as they dodged doctors and nurses going about their work. For every German, there were two British Home Defense Troops in their royal blue dress uniforms and Sam Brown belts.

  As Dannecker stalked past, smartly presented salutes snapped up.

  He ignored them all.

  Rossett realized he’d been stowed away from the other patients. He wondered if that was because he was English, or because he wasn’t military. Either way, he was cold and his shirt, trousers, and coat were still wet and stank of smoke.

  The lower they went, the quicker Dannecker and Becker seemed to walk. It was as if gravity were pulling them down. They hit the ground floor at almost a run. A fifteen-foot-high portrait of Prime Minister Mosley hung at one end of the entrance hall to the hospital. The reception desk sat opposite the revolving entrance doors, and behind it a huge Union Jack mural filled the wall. Up the other end of the hall, a portrait of Hitler glared down determinedly at six German army privates. They were hunkered behind a row of sandbags, on top of which three heavy machine guns stuck out like oars on a longboat.

  The soldiers looked a lot less confident than their leader behind them.

  “What’s with all the guns?” Rossett asked Becker as they headed for the exit.

  “Resistance assault a few months ago. They made it inside and shot up the ground floor.”

  “They made it inside?”

  “Ten of them. There wasn’t much security back then, it being a hospital.”

  “What happened?”

  “They killed thirty-four people, a mix of doctors, soldiers, and a few patients. Then they set a fire before fighting their way out again.”

  “I didn’t hear anything about it.” Rossett looked around the foyer and realized the fire was the reason for the fresh paint everywhere.

  “It isn’t the sort of thing they stick in the papers.” Becker flipped a hand and the revolving door started to spin. He stepped back as Dannecker exited first without having to break step or touch the door.

  Rossett stopped and looked at the Union Jack mural. He could see slight shadows dotted across the wall. He stared at them and saw they were cast by ceiling lamps falling across fresh plaster. The dots traced an arc, left by a spray of machine gun fire.

  “Did they catch them?” Rossett looked at Becker, then touched the lump on his head lightly again.

  “Who?”

  “The people who attacked the hospital.” The lump behind his ear ached a little as he turned his head again.

  “Some dead, some got away.” Becker glanced at the dressing over Rossett’s eye. “We rounded up a few locals, killed them outside, then left the bodies there for a few days.”

  “What?”

  “A lesson.”

  “How many?”

  “Seventy.” Becker shrugged. “I think.”

  Rossett tested the dressing with a fingertip for blood. He felt weak and useless in the face of casual violence. When he looked up again, the door was spinning and Becker was gone.

  It was gray and cold outside. A thick cloud that felt like it was only inches above his head pushed down on Rossett as a slight drizzle carried on the wind. Dannecker was standing at the top of the steps that led down to the street, where his staff car waited, boxed in by an armored half-track at either end.

  Rossett could see a roadblock at one end of the street, topped off with coiled barbed wire, like iron icing on a concrete cake.

  Sandbag emplacements were everywhere. He started to button his coat as he waited for Dannecker to finish lighting a cigarette. Becker took one step down so that he was a little below eye level with Rossett. Everyone seemed to be waiting for Dannecker to make a move.

  Dannecker sucked on his cigarette as he stared at the roadblock. He exhaled smoke, then turned to look at Rossett.

  “Understand this.” Dannecker used the cigarette to point at Rossett. “I don’t like you, and all the hero British Lion bullshit doesn’t wash with me either. So do as you’re told, and don’t fuck me about. Yes?”

  Rossett didn’t reply.

  Dannecker tilted his head as he slipped his lighter into his coat pocket. “Yes?”

  “So I’m not a suspect?” Rossett replied to the question with one of his own.

  “London says you aren’t. And that you’re to help in finding Neumann and Bauer.”

  “Help?”

  “That’s what they said.”

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  “I’d like you to fuck off, but I’ve a feeling that isn’t going to happen, so you can shadow Becker. Take notes or something, offer suggestions, I don’t care. I just don’t want to see you.”

  Rossett looked at Becker, who stared back at him with the sort of look people had when they were waiting for a bus to turn up.

  “It’ll be a pleasure,” Rossett lied.

  Dannecker took a few steps toward his car, then stopped and looked back at Rossett.

  “Just remember, this isn’t London, with its ring of steel and solid security. This is Liverpool, so do as you are told.”

  “I always do.”

  Dannecker’s coat was spattered with rain, and the black leather seemed to glitter. He set off down the steps toward his staff car. Rossett watched as his SS protection squad started to move closer to the half-tracks.

  “Is he always so cheerful?” Rossett asked Becker.

  “He is under a lot of pressure.”

  “If you can’t stand the heat . . .”

  “Burn down the kitchen.” Becker started off down the steps.

  The sun was still sulking behind the clouds by the time Rossett, Dannecker, and Becker reached the SS garrison. The rain had come and gone and then come back again as what was left of Liverpool slid past on the journey from the hospital. Dannecker had made Rossett sit with the enlisted men in the lead half-track. It had been a snub, and Rossett knew it was meant to sting, but it didn’t. He was happier with the enlisted men, even as he wiped rain off his face and shivered in the cold wind.

  Rossett spent the journey taking in Liverpool.

  It wasn’t a pretty sight.

  Buildings stared back at him like charred skulls. Big granite blocks looked like crumple-creased charcoal drawings. Many were bomb damaged. Rubble piles and half-collapsed walls stuck up out of the ground like carcasses. Picked clean, rotting, and forgotten as time slipped by.

  The brick piles showed that at some point streets had been cleared and reconstruction had begun. Reconstruction seemed long forgotten now, though. Money and motivation had wandered off forgetfully to head down south to London. Rossett had a feeling the ruins would be there as reminders for generations not yet born.

  The dereliction wasn’t the worst thing, though. The worst thing was the people. Pathetic stick figures. Dirty and gray, like listless bruises smudged on the landscape. Hollow eyed, blue lipped, dead but not realizing it, as the convoy snaked through the slums.

  Children sat in doorways, limp like half-stuffed sacks. L
ittle bruised legs with bare feet and black grazes stretched out and lifeless. Just bones wrapped in paper skin.

  Here and there huge bloodred flags hung from buildings like shrouds.

  Swastikas.

  Curtains in a crematorium, the decoration of death.

  Rossett noticed there weren’t many Union Jacks on show. Nor were there many pictures of Mosley or King Edward at street level. Hitler still had the nerve to hang around, though. Shameless, high up on billboards, furrowed brow looking down disappointedly on the edge of his empire.

  He spotted the odd crude painting of the hammer and sickle on boards and walls. Some looked like they had been there for some time, which surprised him. Down in London graffiti didn’t last long, but in Liverpool it just seemed to be ignored and left to fade like a memory of freedom long lost.

  It wasn’t all dereliction.

  He caught sight of a few cars, some battered, some in decent shape. Occasionally the odd smartly dressed person picked their way through the detritus. Like some sort of diversity quota, put in place to protect a propaganda picture of normality in the despair.

  One thing that struck him was the lack of troops on the streets. He’d gotten used to seeing squads of men, sometimes individual soldiers, strolling around London and taking in the sights. In Liverpool the only troops he saw were the ones he was traveling with.

  Rossett looked around the half-track.

  Steel helmets wet from the drizzle, rubber ponchos pooled with rain. Faces set, wary eyes flicking here and there, weapons clutched in pink, cold hands dotted with white knuckles.

  Tired, wanting to go home.

  Rossett knew the look; he’d had it himself once upon a time. It came from fighting too long and living on the edge of a blade that could cut you in two if you relaxed for one second.

  He wondered how much longer they could hold on. The Germans here seemed desperate. Like they were tilling barren soil long after it had nothing left to give. Knee-deep in dust, looking for something to crush, without the energy to do it.

  London was different.

  Down there things seemed stronger, brighter, better for the powers that be. Liverpool made Rossett wonder if all that was an illusion.

  Gossamer, waiting to be blown away on the wind.

  He wiped his face again, then elbowed the young private sitting next to him on the bench.

  “Cigarette?” Rossett held his fingers to his lips as he spoke, just in case the German couldn’t hear him over the roar of the diesel engine.

  The soldier shook his head and went back to watching the passing rooftops. Rossett followed his gaze and realized they were in bandit country. He remembered he had lost his Webley. He started to watch the rooftops himself.

  Eventually, the half-track slowed a little, then swung a right. Rossett found himself back on the street where he had been blown up. The truck that had blocked the road was still there, but this time he was heading back toward the garrison instead of away.

  About half of the cars were gone, with just the ones too damaged to be moved remaining. Rossett saw that there were two new sandbagged machine gun emplacements by the truck, which had been shunted aside just enough to allow the half-track to squeeze past.

  Rossett looked over his shoulder and saw Dannecker’s car tucked in behind them. Becker was in the front passenger seat, almost filling the windscreen, which was reflecting gray clouds as the wipers swept the glass.

  Rossett couldn’t see Becker’s eyes, but he had a feeling they were staring back at him.

  He leaned forward and clapped a hand on the driver’s shoulder.

  “Stop!”

  The driver looked around, unsure, the revs dying slightly as he lifted his foot.

  “I want to get off.”

  The vehicle clattered to a stuttering halt.

  Rossett dropped down and waved to the driver to get moving. He didn’t need much encouragement. The half-track lurched, then rumbled away toward the garrison in a cloud of burnt oil, rattles, and squeaks.

  Rossett tried to wave the staff car through, but instead it stopped and Becker unfolded out of the passenger seat. He straightened up, then slapped a hand the size of a dinner plate on the roof.

  The car moved off and Rossett caught a glimpse of Dannecker sitting in the back. He had one elbow on the window frame, while the palm of his hand shielded his eyes, perhaps trying to keep the nightmare out.

  The second half-track passed between Rossett and Becker, and then the two men faced each other across the road as the rain and the silence fell around them.

  “I want to look at the car.” Rossett could still taste diesel fumes.

  Becker shrugged, then started walking along the line of vehicles snaking back toward the garrison.

  Rossett fell into step about five feet behind and slightly to the right, closer to the cars. They were all empty. A few driver’s doors were hanging open, and the rain was drifting in and soaking their seats and carpets.

  “You’ve not moved anything?”

  “We’ve not had time.” Becker didn’t bother looking over his shoulder as he answered. “And now we’ve closed the road off, there isn’t much point. Besides, they are good for slowing down truck bombs.”

  “Truck bombs?”

  Becker looked at him. “Trucks filled with bombs; the clue is in the name. They’re a resistance favorite.”

  Rossett didn’t reply. They walked for a while, Rossett making a cursory inspection of each car they passed.

  “Have you interviewed the drivers of these vehicles?”

  “No.” Becker kept on walking.

  “Do you know who they were?”

  “They are at the garrison.”

  “All of them?”

  “The ones still alive, yes.”

  Rossett stopped and looked into the interior of a Rover saloon. In the passenger footwell there was what looked like a doctor’s bag. It was brown leather, open, and its contents were tipped out on the wet carpet.

  He leaned in and lifted the bag so he could see what had fallen out. There was a stethoscope, dressings, a few bottles of pills, and a prescription pad.

  The pad was stained with blood.

  Rossett frowned, dropped the bag onto the passenger seat, and saw that the carpet was saturated with blood, then wiped his hand on the seat.

  Becker had stopped and was watching him.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for evidence.”

  “This car is fifty feet from where the bomb went off.”

  “Which is why I’m surprised there is blood in it.”

  “What does it matter?”

  “I’m a detective. Spilled blood matters, wherever it is.”

  “That blood”—Becker nodded his head to the Rover—“doesn’t matter.”

  “What happened after the bomb went off?”

  “You were here.”

  “I’d just been blown up.”

  “Blown over, you were blown over.”

  “Either way, I was out of the game.” Rossett resisted reaching up to touch the lump on his head again.

  Becker sighed, looked over his shoulder toward the garrison, and then back at Rossett. They stared at each other for a few seconds until Becker removed his field cap, looked up at the gray sky, and then finally spoke.

  “The bomb went off. The sentries sounded the alarm at the garrison, even though everyone had probably already heard the explosion.” Becker glanced at the garrison as he continued. “The men on the gate were experienced enough to know that it can be suicide to rush toward a bomb site.”

  “In case it is a trap?”

  Becker nodded and hooked his thumb through the strap of his MP40. “Oldest trick in the book. A small bomb followed by a big bomb. You know how the resistance play.”

  Rossett knew how the resistance played only too well. He looked at the palm of his hand to check that he’d gotten all the blood off it.

  “Go on.”

  “Our standard drill is t
o wait, let the dust settle, and then slowly approach the site of the explosion.”

  “And that’s what you did?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “You.”

  “Me?”

  “We knew Captain Bauer was out there, and Neumann . . . and you.”

  “So you came out?”

  “Major Dannecker led out the reaction squad.”

  “The major?”

  Becker nodded.

  “It took maybe three minutes before they were out the gate.”

  “And?”

  Becker started to walk alongside Rossett. “There was a firefight. A few resistance pinned them down for a few minutes before they forced their way out.”

  “Neumann and Bauer, was there any sign of them?”

  “A vehicle fled the scene as our men made it onto the street, and we think they were in it.”

  “What vehicle?”

  “A van.”

  Rossett thought about the van that had been parked behind them in the jam, then wondered if he would recognize the driver if he saw him again.

  They stopped at the Jaguar. The windows were shattered and both the driver’s-side doors were hanging open, but Rossett was relieved to see that aside from a lot of broken glass, the interior didn’t look too bad.

  “There’s no blood inside. Hopefully Neumann was uninjured.” He looked more closely at the driver’s seat.

  “Neumann would have been better off dying in the explosion.” Becker looked around at the empty buildings, then back at Rossett. “You don’t want to be caught by these English bastards . . . no offense.”

  “None taken.” Rossett stepped back from the car and pointed to the inside of the back door. There were holes in the red leather. “Two holes.”

  “What?”

  “Two holes.”

  “So?”

  “The metal is punched through from the inside out.” Rossett crouched down and inspected the broken glass on the ground. “There is blood here.”

  “There was a body, shot in the chest.” Becker pointed to just under his throat with a finger it would take a lumberjack to break.

  Rossett picked up a shell casing from under the front seat of the Jaguar. “Bauer had Neumann’s gun.” He looked at the inner door again, then straightened up. “Bauer shot through the strap I used to secure him, killed the man here, and then . . .” He looked around the scene, then back at Becker. “Who knows?”