Winner Lose All

by William F. Brown

  She took a step backward and looked down. There was a dark stain spreading on the front of his pants. She smiled. “Now, get out of here,” she whispered, knowing the humiliation was the most useful wound she could inflict on him. He turned and ran out the door of the cabin.

  She followed and looked around at the assemblage of thoroughly shaken faces on the front porch. “Doktor Raeder, you and your daughter will ride in the back seat of the car. You too, Herr Nossing, and the Chief Inspector will drive.”

  “I refuse to leave Paul! You cannot make me,” Christina Raeder told her. She knelt on the ground next to the unconscious Major, glaring up at Hanni.

  Exasperated, Hanni pointed the Luger at the wounded Luftwaffe officer’s head. “Do not start that again, girl. I really will shoot your handsome major.”

  “No!” Emil Nossing stepped between them. “No more killing! The girl will go with you. We all will, but not if there is more blood shed here. If you kill him, you will need to kill us all, and then you will be left with nothing — nothing!”

  Hanni could only stare at the unarmed and exceptionally brave engineer. “Fair enough, provided you get her into the car, Herr Nossing. The rest of you, too. Let’s go.”

  “Come, Christina.” Emil Nossing held out his hand to her. “The two doctors will remain here with Major Von Lindemann. It is the only choice you have.”

  Slowly, Christina bent down and kissed Paul Von Lindemann’s cheek. “Numi, pieta del mio martir.” Oh Gods, take pity on my suffering, she whispered. The girl rose to her feet, turned, and let Emil Nossing lead her away.

  Dietrich held his hands clasped over his crotch, but had regained a modicum of composure as he told Hanni, “The man has a point. I would strongly advise against more shooting. You know how detrimental it can be to morale.”

  “Really? That is a very touching sentiment, considering that you will undoubtedly get the first bullet.”

  “Perhaps, but an old homicide detective once told me that it’s never wise to be found around too many dead bodies. They become harder and harder to explain away.”

  Christina Raeder turned back and glared at Dietrich as she opened the car door. “And you were a policeman," she said accusingly. “To think my father tried to push me onto someone like you,” she said in total revulsion.

  “He is a miserable wretch, is he not?” the Chief Inspector laughed. “But I prefer my chickens cooked a bit more. Is that not right, Hanni? No offense,” he said as he saw her finger tighten on the trigger once more. “No offense, but I suggest we get moving before your handsome dark-haired lover returns.”

  He opened the driver’s door and quickly slipped inside to escape her glare. Running his fingers across the polished wood and the hand-tooled leather, he gushed, “Ah, my marvelous Maybach. You and I shall make such an elegant statement driving through Red Square. Old Lenin will be spinning in his grave.”

  “Lenin?” Hanni laughed. “It is Josef Stalin you should be worrying about.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  When Hanni stuck her Luger into Paul Von Lindemann’s ribs, Ed Scanlon was already twenty miles north of the cabin, turning west on the main road leading to Bad Tolz. It was a narrow tunnel of trees with thick alpine forests cascading down the steep mountainsides right up to the road shoulders, only occasionally broken by broad, colorful meadows and small streams. This might be gorgeous scenery for a tourist but to a soldier it was an invitation to an ambush. As he drove west from Gmund, Scanlon first got those old feelings again. They always began in his gut, they told him something was not right, and his gut was rarely wrong. He knew he was taking a major risk leaving the others alone in the cabin but he had no other choice. Bad versus even worse were sometimes the only ones life gives. Since he was the only one who could contact the Americans and expect them listen, he went.

  While he was worried about running into remnants of the retreating German Army along the road, he was wearing a German army uniform and driving a German army truck. That meant running into the lead American units could be seriously fatal, as one of his old instructors loved to say. The war was almost over. The Americans were amped up by now, and the GIs with the bad luck to draw point that day were sure to shoot first and check out the bodies later. Why not? He would. No one wanted to be sent home in a box when it was this close to being over.

  As he got within two miles of Bad Tolz, an ominous silence fell across the countryside. The wind died and the trees stood still. Even the birds were quiet, as if they knew a storm was about to hit and decided to get the hell out of its way. For the past few miles, the only Germans he saw were a few stragglers, one staff car, and one badly dented truck, all fleeing east and avoiding even eye contact with him. Now, even they were gone and the road was completely deserted. That was when he saw the dim outline of a tank coming toward him in the distance around the next bend. He quickly pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. From its round shoulders and tall hump of a turret, there was no question it was a Sherman with a squad of American infantry riding on top. As soon as his truck was spotted, the GIs jumped off, fanned out, and came towards him along the shoulders of the road. Scanlon knew that tank jockeys got a little crazy after being cooped up too long inside one of those big cans. Freezing and baking, stinking from diesel fumes, and stone deaf from the god-awful clanks and shrieks of metal on metal, if they couldn’t have a little fun by firing off an occasional round from their main gun, they might as well get out and walk with the infantry.

  Scanlon got out of his truck and pulled out a white handkerchief from his pocket. He raised his arms over his head, gave them a big, toothy smile, and began waving the handkerchief as he walked forward down the centerline of the road. The Germans were very good at setting ambushes, using their powerful eighty-eight millimeter cannons as anti-tank guns. Scanlon would not blame the tank commander if he fired at the truck just to be safe, so there was no sense staying too close to it. The tank finally stopped a hundred yards away like a large beast eyeing its dinner. Finally, the turret began to swivel. First, the cannon pointed at the truck. After a few moments, it swiveled back and Scanlon found its 75 mm cannon aimed straight at him. He raised his white handkerchief higher and waved it again, hoping he was not merely providing a better target. Good old American overkill, he thought. One round would be enough to blow him into the next country, which was exactly what the supporting infantry hoped would happen. As soon as they dropped off the tank and started walking, he heard them cussing and grumbling over the low-throated roar of the tank engine. They were not happy about the prospect of walking into a Kraut ambush, nor were they happy about being forced to walk again.

  He heard a sharp Crack! as an M-1 rifle bullet zipped past his ear and shattered the windshield of the truck. “Knock it off, soldier!” he yelled back at the top of his lungs. “Can’t you tell a goddamned white flag when you see one?”

  “Yeah, and ah can tell a goddamned Kraut truck when ah see one ‘a them, too!” came the wary reply as the soldiers drew closer. “Who the hell are you, wise-ass?”

  “The name is Scanlon, Captain Edward T.,” he shouted as loud as he could as he kept his hands high over his head. “US Army, OSS.”

  “Ah, shoot the bastard, Larry. That’s a Kraut uniform, ain’t it?” another infantryman mumbled as they closed in around him, their rifles at the ready.

  “Maybe, but it ain’t SS or Kraut army — so what the hell is it?” Larry asked, pointing at Scanlon’s uniform.

  “Luftwaffe. German Air Force. Like I said, I’m American, OSS, working undercover,” Scanlon answered as he looked around at them. What a filthy, unshaven lot they were, Scanlon thought — red-eyed, worn-out, frazzled, and absolutely beautiful. They were just the kind of irreverent, ill-mannered amateurs who had pushed the German veterans back, mile after mile, since Normandy. Too bad that prig Bromley couldn’t join them for tea.

  The guy they called Larry wore sergeant stripes and seemed to be the man in charge. He eyed Scanlon from head to foot
, and then motioned for the tank to come forward. “Scanlon, you said? … OSS?” he asked as he lowered his rifle and a curious expression came over his face. “Hey, Fred, what was that crap the Lieutenant said about a case of whiskey?”

  “Who you kidding? You were sleeping. I saw you sleeping.”

  “Until I heard him say something about booze.”

  “G-2 is looking for a guy named Scranton, or Thornton, or some goddamned thing,” another trooper shot back. “He said Patton put up a case of his own Tennessee bourbon for the guy who finds him and brings him in.”

  “The name was Scanlon and I’m sure he said you had to bring him in alive,” Scanlon emphasized with a friendly smile.

  “Yeah, he probably did say alive,” Larry had to concede.

  “So do us all a favor, Sergeant, get on the radio and have somebody call Colonel Haggarty at Patton’s headquarters, G-2. Looks like you guys just won the door prize.”

  Larry fixed his eyes on the GI who wanted him to shoot. “Yeah, and it’s a damn good thing none of youse listened to dumb ass Dombrowski here, ain’t it.”

  An hour later, three mud-spattered US army jeeps charged up the gravel road from Tegernsee, spread out, and bounced across the meadow to the cabin. Scanlon sat in the passenger seat of the lead jeep wearing a borrowed US army helmet and a khaki US fatigue jacket over his blue Luftwaffe uniform. One hand was braced on the Jeep’s dashboard and the other gripped a Thompson submachine gun. There was another GI in the rear seat behind him, and three more men plus a thirty-caliber machine gun mounted on a post in both the second and third Jeeps. He had donned an American army fatigue jacket and infantry helmet in deference to the badly frazzled nerves of the GIs forced to ride along with him. None of them wanted to be the last name added to that plaque hanging on the wall of the American Legion hall back home. This was the heart of Nazi Germany. Unlike the drive through Holland and France, there were no adoring crowds of women with bottles of wine and kisses to greet them in Bavaria. They met nothing but broken people, downcast eyes, hostile glares, and hardcore SS.

  His driver was an unshaven PFC with bloodshot eyes and a cigarette dangling out of his mouth. Sitting in the shallow rear well behind them was a large, heavily muscled GI nervously fingering his own Thompson. It was obvious from their faces that they still weren’t too sure about this OSS spook Captain who was now taking them on a sightseeing trip deep into Indian Country, and they sure as hell weren’t sure about the Colonel from G-2 who told them to “get their asses in the goddamn Jeeps and do whatever he says” whether they liked it or not.

  Their regiment had spent the past thirty-six hours digging the last SS fanatics out of Bad Tolz, building by building and body by dead body. They liked the dead body part. No quarter would be asked and none was ever given when it came to the SS. The men in black might be scraping the bottom of the barrel now, filling their ranks with young boys, old men, and foreign volunteers; but the GIs did not relish the prospect of running into strays. It no longer mattered which language the bastards spoke — Croat, Dutch, Polish, Lithuanian, or Hungarian — one nut with a new Sturmgewehr assault rifle could kill you just as dead as another.

  “Hurry up!” Scanlon told the driver as the jeep broke into the clearing and headed straight for the cabin. Unfortunately, even from the bottom of the hill, he saw that something was very wrong. The Maybach was gone. The only people he saw were the two concentration camp doctors, Bauerschritt and Rendler, and the truck driver. They sat side by side on the front porch with their backs against the front wall of the cabin as the jeep skidded to a halt and Scanlon jumped out. All that the three Germans saw was a maniac in a GI helmet waving a Thompson submachine gun, so they immediately raised their hands high over their heads. Scanlon saw the prostrate form of Paul Von Lindemann lying on the ground in front of them. His head rested on a pillow and he was not moving.

  “It’s me, Scanlon,” he shouted as he looked down at Von Lindemann. “Is he…?”

  “No, just another knock on the head,” Bauerschritt replied. “He’ll be fine.”

  Scanlon ran inside the cabin, but it was empty. There was no Wolfe Raeder, no Otto Dietrich, no Christina, and no Emil Nossing. All he found was the body of Eugen Bracht lying in the middle of the room where he fell. “How long ago did they leave?” he came back out and shouted at the two terrified doctors.

  “Perhaps a half hour, no more; and they took the big black car,” Bauerschritt quickly answered.

  “It was a woman,” Bauerschritt tried to explain.

  “A very determined woman, with blonde hair and a gun,” Rendler added.

  “Damn it!” Scanlon screamed in frustration.

  That woke up Paul Von Lindemann. He opened his eyes and blinked. “You might give some consideration to the near-dead, Captain,” he said. “Then again, you never were much for manners, were you?”

  “Paul.” Scanlon dropped to his knees beside the German officer and asked, “Where did they go?”

  “It was all my fault,” Von Lindemann groaned.

  “I doubt that. You don’t know Hanni.”

  “We should have been better prepared,” Von Lindemann brushed the comment aside. “I was in charge, and I should have anticipated something like this. I should have…”

  “It wouldn’t have made any difference. Hanni is a force of nature and you couldn’t have stopped her. I’m not sure anyone could after she found this place.”

  “As I said, a very determined young woman,” Bauerschritt ventured.

  “Determined? Like a Doberman,” Scanlon replied. “I should never have left you guys alone here.”

  “She is taking them east, toward the Russian lines.” The Major struggled to sit up. “We must stop them before it is too late.”

  “I’ll handle it, Paul.”

  “No.” Von Lindemann grabbed Scanlon’s wrist and pulled him lower. His grip was weak, but his eyes were blazing. “It is not your Fraulein Steiner that I’m worried about, Edward, it is Christina Raeder. I must come with you. I gave her my word that no one would take her, so help me to my feet,” he said as he sat up and leaned heavily on his cane.

  Scanlon didn’t like the idea, but it was obvious Paul Von Lindemann refused to stay behind. With his arm around the German’s waist, Scanlon helped him to the jeep and lifted him into its rear passenger seat. Turning to the group of American GIs who had accompanied him from Bad Tolz, Scanlon said, “I want one of the two gun jeeps to stay here with the doctors. Cover the road with your 30-caliber and guard those wooden crates.” He pointed. “Make sure they get to Colonel Haggarty at Third Army G-2 and nobody else.”

  “What’s in ’em? Gold?” one of the GIs asked hopefully.

  “There might as well be, for what they’ve already cost,” Scanlon answered as he scanned the large pile of wooden crates. “But no such luck. They contain drawings and blueprints for the new German jet fighter plane. A lot of good people died getting them here, so treat them like they really are gold. You got that?”

  “Yes, Sir.” The GI scratched his head.

  Scanlon jumped into the passenger seat of the lead jeep, told the driver to put it to the floor, and motioned for the second gun jeep to follow. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover and I’ll double that case of bourbon if you can get us to Rosenheim ahead of that sedan.”

  The two jeeps raced back down the steep mountain road, going airborne over the crests of hills and taking the sharp turns on two wheels. When they reached the main east-west highway at Gmund, he turned east this time, toward Austria, all too aware that they were well outside American lines now and as likely to run into the German Army as they were to catch Otto Dietrich’s black Maybach. They covered the seven miles to Miesbach with the jeep’s small engine racing wide open while he studied every line on the old Michelin road map in his lap, looking desperately for a miracle. In the third village they entered, the road forked. Scanlon motioned for the driver to leave the main highway and take a dirt track to the left. The jeep careene
d along a narrow logging road that sliced downhill through the thick alpine forest. If he was correct, the Maybach could never have taken this rugged shortcut, and it would save them precious minutes and several miles by cutting across the base of a long, looping curve in the main road. If he was wrong, they would end up in a ditch or wrapped around a large pine.

  “It’s our only chance,” he yelled to the driver as the tall tree trunks closed in, turning the road into a narrow canyon between the walls of pine. “We’ve got to make up some time.”

  “Ain’t my jeep, Captain,” the driver laughed as the road got even worse. “Just make sure you get that bourbon.”

  In less than ten minutes, they were back on the main highway, saving themselves twice that much time as they raced east again. Up ahead, coming toward them down the highway, Scanlon saw a dilapidated farm wagon drawn by an old sway-backed dray horse and an even older driver. The jeep skidded to a halt in front of it, and Scanlon stood on the seat so he could speak eye-to-eye with the old man. Beneath his floppy, wide-brimmed hat, he had a thick gray moustache that stuck out wider than his ears, and he looked as if he had been here as long as the mountains. If there was a war about to burst upon him, the old fellow did not seem to know or even care much about it.

  “Have you seen a big, black car go by in the past few minutes, mein Herr?” Scanlon asked in a friendly voice, trying to imitate the deep, guttural accent of rural Bavaria.

  The old farmer wore a floppy hat pulled low on his forehead, but there was a pair of sparkling brown eyes hiding back in the shadows. “I do not know cars,” he answered.

  “You would remember this one. It’s big, shiny, and noisy.”