Winner Lose All

by William F. Brown

  The old man shifted nervously in his seat. Slowly, he nodded.

  “Back that way?” Scanlon pointed down the road.

  The man nodded again, his eyes not leaving Scanlon’s.

  “How long ago did you see it?”

  The man shrugged, as if time did not matter much. “Ten minutes, perhaps more.”

  “Let’s go!” Scanlon dropped back into the seat and pointed down the road.

  “I would be careful, if I were you,” the old man warned. “They are shooting.”

  “Who? Who is shooting?”

  The old man had a far-off, confused expression, and simply shrugged. “Them.”

  Shooting! Scanlon’s mind raced even faster. What had Hanni gotten herself into this time? They were too far east to have run into Americans. Germans? Renegades? Maybe it was the Red Army she had been trying so damned hard to find. The grim possibilities were endless.

  Scanlon leaned forward, pulled the driver’s .45 caliber automatic pistol from his shoulder holster, and dropped it into Paul Von Lindemann’s lap. “Just in case, Paul,” he said.

  “That’ll cost you a couple more bottles,” the driver grumbled, but he wasn’t worried; he still had his M-1 rifle wedged next to his seat, and that was all he would need anyway. Scanlon had his Thompson and the other jeep had three more men and a pole-mounted .30 caliber machine gun. If they need more firepower than that, they shouldn’t have come here in the first place. Over the next hill and around the bend, Scanlon got his first glimpse of the Maybach ahead through the trees. It was parked askew in the ditch on the side of the road, and there were two bodies lying on the pavement alongside it. “Slow down. Don’t get too close,” he warned the driver as he felt his heart race. Bodies, but whose?

  When they got within a hundred yards of the big car, he motioned for his driver to pull over to the right side and stop, and then signaled for the other Jeep to park on the left side. “You and I will work our way down through the trees with the other two GIs,” he told his driver, and then turned to the machine gunner in the other Jeep. “Stay here and be prepared to give us covering fire with the machine gun if things get sticky,” he told him. “Paul, you stay here, too.”

  Ed Scanlon and the three GIs stepped into the woods and crept forward tree by tree until they were halfway to the big car. He could not see more than ten or twenty feet ahead, but neither could the Germans. He heard several loud staccato bursts from a machine gun coming from their side of the road across from the Maybach, and heard the sound of breaking glass. Between the bursts, he heard a lone pistol fire back. With both sides screened by the thick trees or the car body, it sounded like a stalemate. That would not last long though, he thought, not with those odds. Scanlon motioned for the other two to follow him as they wound their way forward through the trees. As they got closer, Scanlon saw that the two bodies lying in the road wore SS camouflage uniforms. In the trees ahead he saw three more SS dug in behind some fallen trees, one behind a machine gun and the others covering him on each side.

  A nice set-up, he thought, and a perfect place for an ambush. Their machine gun had a commanding field of fire across the road. All they had to do was lie and wait for something good to come along. They were probably hunting big game — American or even Russian — but their orders would be to stop anything suspicious. The Maybach fit that bill quite nicely, he thought. Knowing Hanni, that was all it would take for her to retaliate. She had no papers, and even Dietrich’s documents would only get them so far. When a couple of smart-mouthed SS troopers waved her down in the middle of nowhere, all they got was a bullet for their troubles. She probably killed those two right off, but did not know there were three more men and a machine gun hidden in the woods across the road. Now she was stuck, and at what cost? Had Hanni or any of the others been hit, he wondered.

  Scanlon only knew one way to fight, whether it was a war or a barroom brawl. You go in hard and fast, throw the first punch, and make damned sure it is the last. No Marquess of Queensbery Rules, no warning shots, and no prisoners. It is kill or be killed.

  He dropped into a crouch and crept forward, motioning for the MPs to swing further around through the trees and come in from behind the Germans. Loud, powerful, and deadly, a Thompson submachine gun was not very accurate; but up close like this, it got the job done like nothing else and its heavy caliber bullets made up for a bad aim. Even a short burst could stop a charging elephant, cut down a tree, or punch big holes in a human body.

  With the German soldiers’ attention focused on the Maybach, the chatter from their own machine gun masked the sound of Scanlon’s approach through the trees. The three SS troopers did not hear him until he was no more than ten feet away, and that was their mistake. The machine gunner must have caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye or heard the faint crunch of a boot in the thick leaves. As he turned his head to look, Scanlon pulled the trigger and never gave it a second thought, as a long, sweeping burst of .45 caliber slugs from his Thompson tore into the all three of them. These were SS, they had been careless, and it was what they deserved. It was a lesson every soldier learns sooner or later. Do it right or die.

  The other three GIs quickly closed in and took up a defensive perimeter. They looked down at the German bodies, saw the blank expression on this secretive OSS Captain’s face, and exchanged a few quick glances. Maybe he was okay after all. For sure, he was as quick and deadly as a rattlesnake, and a stone-cold killer.

  Scanlon quickly looked around. The thick woods fell silent, as if nature itself was holding its breath. This had been a five-man SS squad, and he could see they were all dead now. Whether they deserved it or not, their little ambush had failed, and they became the latest in a long line of bodies that stretched back to Dachau, Volkenrode, and Leipzig. These dead Germans added to the body count, but they meant nothing to Scanlon now. They were merely obstacles he had overcome, like that bastard George Bromley, Otto Dietrich, Wolfe Raeder, and even Allen Dulles. None of them meant a thing to him now. All he wanted was Hanni.

  Scanlon slipped behind the trunk of a thick pine and looked out to the road, trying to see into the dark woods on the other side without much success. The hour was growing late. All he saw were tree trunks, underbrush, and too many dark shadows. The Maybach had a few bullet holes in the door and two shattered side windows, but the SS were not stupid. The old automobile was still a beauty, so it had been spared. Why not? If things turned bad, a fast car might be the ticket out of here, and it still was.

  “Hanni, dearest,” he called out in a loud, clear voice, “I think you and I need to talk.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “Liebchen? Is that really you?” Hanni answered in disbelief.

  “It isn’t Sir Galahad,” she heard him answer from the trees on the other side of the road. “Just a guy from the big city who dropped in to teach the locals a few new tricks.”

  Yes, she knew it was Edward all right. There was no mistaking his voice.

  “It looks like you’ve gotten yourself in a little jam over there,” he went on. “Why don’t you come out, before someone else gets hurt?”

  “That is most generous of you, Liebchen, but I have the Raeders and Emil Nossing back here with me — and I have a gun.”

  “Of course you do, but I have a lot of them now, and a squad of American infantry.”

  Hanni and the others were hiding in the deep ditch on the opposite side of the road, screened by the Maybach. By looking under it, she could see across the road; but she had not yet located Scanlon’s position behind the trees. Still, it was not Edward she was worried about. That was the reason she kept the Luger pointed at Dietrich and Raeder.

  “You have Otto Dietrich with you too, don’t you?” Scanlon asked.

  “Ah, yes, I forgot. I have him too but he is not very eager to see you.”

  “Christina?” She heard another voice call out to them from down the road. It was that damned Luftwaffe Major, Von Lindemann.

  “Chri
stina! Are you all right?” he called to the girl again.

  “Yes, I am fine, Paul. Do not worry,” Christina answered. Hanni glared at her, but the girl only glared back. No fear at all in that girl, Hanni thought, and immediately liked her.

  “We shall have you out of there shortly,” Von Lindemann stated as he came limping haltingly down the center of the road directly toward them, leaning heavily on his cane.

  “I would not advise anything rash, Major,” Hanni warned him. “Believe that I will shoot her if you do.”

  “No need for any shooting, Hanni,” Scanlon warned. “Let’s call a truce, you and I. We need to talk. If I leave things up to two stubborn people like you and the Major, we’ll have a road full of bodies, and I don’t think that’s what any of us wants.”

  Darling Edward. Darling, darling Edward. She could run all the bluffs she wanted, but he knew her too well. It was a stalemate, an old-fashioned Mexican standoff, but this was an exceedingly dangerous place and time was not on her side. More American troops would be pouring down this road in the very near future, like the ones Edward had already brought with him. If not them, it would be the SS or retreating German Army units, but her money was on the Americans. One pregnant woman with a Luger was not going to stop any of them. She had hoped to make it to the Red Army lines before the Americans showed up, but if anything came rumbling down the road now, the odds were ten-to-one it would be bad for her, and Darling Edward knew it too.

  “Why don’t you and I meet in the middle of the road and talk things over?" he called out to her again.

  “No tricks?” she asked, still not sure.

  “No tricks. I promise, just talk.”

  “Then you need to keep that Luftwaffe Major of yours under control.”

  “I’ll try, but he doesn’t like you very much.”

  “And leave the Thompson behind.”

  She saw him step into the light and lean the submachine gun up against a tree. He was already standing in the middle of the road before she stood up. She remained behind the car, screened by the engine block, as she turned and glanced down at Otto Dietrich, the two Raeders, and Emil Nossing.

  “Have no doubt that I will kill you — all of you — if you cause me any trouble. Do you understand?” she told them. Even Dietrich nodded, so she turned her attention back on Edward. She was a strong-willed woman but she had not bargained on seeing him up close like this. The late-afternoon sun filtered through the trees and illuminated the center of the road, making his disheveled jet-black hair shine like a raven in full flight. And those soft gray eyes. God, but her mind kept flashing back to the feel of his body on hers and the touch of his hands. She loosened her heavy coat as she stepped around the car and walked toward him, feeling the heat rise within her with each step she took. No matter how hard she fought it, she knew she must absolutely glow. Another hot flash? Or him? You silly little girl, it was not supposed to be like this. It was not. Unfortunately, she was Icarus and he was the sun. She was doomed to fly closer and closer to him until she melted, and there was nothing she could do to stop herself.

  “Liebchen, Liebchen,” she muttered in frustration as those memories of him caught fire like flames leaping into the branches of a tall pine tree. “What am I to do with you?”

  “I can offer a few suggestions.”

  “I bet you can. Me too,” she said as her memories raced back to that first night they spent together in Leipzig. Then she was the teacher and he ever the willing pupil. Slowly, painfully, the memories took her back to those snowy winter nights in the hayloft of the old barn in the mountains, as the flames grew hotter and leaped higher, racing through the tall trees. Damn you, Hanni Steiner, she cursed herself. You are built of stronger stuff than this. You are supposed to be the one in control, always in control. You were never supposed to fall in love with him.

  She stopped five feet away and drank him in. That was as close as she dared go, because she could feel him all over her. He looked tired and badly worn, pale, and years older, with deep lines prematurely scored across his forehead and around the corners of his eyes and mouth. She could only wonder what else had changed deep inside him where it counted. Was he the same man she had fallen in love with those long months ago, or was he the man she tried to hate in Otto Dietrich’s office two days ago? Two days? God, she thought, was that all it had been? Looking at him now, she knew the hold he had over her would never change. She tried to fight it, but she felt her lips twisting into a stupid schoolgirl grin. Face it, girl, you are still hopelessly in love with the man and there is nothing you can do about it. When the time came, she could only hope she had the strength to leave him, because leave him she must.

  “You look tired, Edward,” she finally managed to say.

  “And you look like you swallowed the canary,” he smiled at her.

  She looked away, trying to regain her composure. The flames were roaring now as she remembered his lips and his hot breath on her sweating skin. “Why did you have to come back?” she asked.

  “You know why. I came back for you.”

  “Even if that is true, you should not have.”

  “It is true.”

  “Perhaps, but you caused me many problems and much pain when you did,” she said sadly. “You will never know how much, Liebchen,” praying he did not know about the child she was carrying.

  She turned her head and saw Major Von Lindemann standing there too, next to Edward. He appeared concerned but no threat, not yet. His head was bandaged and he had a cane in one hand and a .45 caliber automatic dangling from the other. “I am very sorry I had to hurt you, Major," she said. “Nothing personal, you understand.”

  “The fortunes of war, Fraulein Steiner,” he answered with a curt bow, keeping his eyes on her and his anger in check. “I understand completely. I was attempting to do my job, but you did yours far better. As you said, nothing personal — not yet anyway.”

  “Good, but keep that .45 down by your side, if you please.” She knew he was a problem, but her eyes seemed to have a mind of their own. They turned back toward Edward, and nothing she could do would stop them.

  “To the good times, Hanni,” he said. “When they were good, they were the best.”

  “Yes, but they were doomed from the very start.”

  “Back in Leipzig, in Dietrich’s office, I begged you to come with me. But you wouldn’t listen. Now, you have no choice. Give it up and come with me. Please.”

  “Oh, Edward,” she groaned as she shook her head. “I cannot do that. I told you before; I told you a dozen times. I cannot.”

  “It’s because of your father, isn’t it?”

  She turned away. “Someday, I hope you can understand.”

  “Moscow will never keep their part of the bargain, Hanni.”

  “Probably not, but we do not know that, do we?” she insisted, as his eyes caressed her face, her neck, and her arms, making her glow even more brightly. She wanted him so badly, she almost screamed. “I know what the Russians are like, better than anyone. Even if you are right and I am all wrong, he is my father. I must take that chance, and you must understand.”

  “All I understand is, if I let you leave I will lose you forever,” he said. “It is as simple as that. I don’t give a damn about them.” He made an off-handed gesture toward the Maybach across the road where Dietrich, Nossing, Raeder, and his daughter were hiding. “I never did. I came back for you. That is what this has been all about, ever since London, and ever since Leipzig. So you can’t leave. I won’t let you.”

  It was those damned gray eyes! “Edward, if you love me — if you truly love me — you must let me go,” she whispered. “I love you too, more than you can ever know, but you cannot keep me here, not like this. I will never forgive you if you do. So let me go, while there is still time.” She turned and looked at Dietrich and the two Raeders, and said, “I do not care about them either but I cannot arrive in Moscow empty-handed. Please, Edward, stop tormenting me. I am begging you. If you do not
let me go, you will be sentencing me to death — both me and my father — and I will never forgive you for that. Never.”

  Scanlon stared at her, looking deep into her eyes, until he realized that nothing had changed. She was not the one who was trapped, it had always been him. Despite his carefully laid plans, and despite all he had said and done to find her and stop her, in the end, all he had accomplished was to chase himself into a different corner.

  “If I let you go, I will lose you,” he pleaded.

  “No. You will lose me if you do not let me go, Liebchen. I cannot stay here with you. So if you really do love me, let me go. There will be a next time and there will be another place for us, I promise.”

  “No, there won’t be," he insisted, “not if you go back to Moscow. You know that as well as I do.”

  “I told you a long, long time ago, we each have a page in the Book of Life. It will take a lot more than Josef Stalin or Lavrenti Beria to fill mine. Trust me, Liebchen. Trust me, there will be a next time. You shall see.”

  He stared at her and she could see from his face that she had won.

  “Oh, go ahead and go. You know I can’t stop you,” he said in a thin, painful voice.

  “I am taking them with me," she said, looking back at Dietrich and the other three.

  “You aren’t in a real good position to be making any more demands, Hanni,” Scanlon said, trying to hide the hurt in his eyes.

  “You do not need them. You have a whole truckload of blueprints back on that mountain. That is all you need. I will even throw in Emil Nossing, if that will make you happy — and the Major can have the Raeder girl too. All I want is her father and Otto Dietrich." Hanni paused, looking for the slightest gap in his armor. “Please, Edward. You know I cannot return to Moscow empty-handed, so let me keep Raeder. He wants to go east anyway. You heard him say it a hundred times, so let me have him.”

  “Raeder?" He shook his head. “I can’t do that, Hanni.”

  “Don’t be greedy, Edward, or you shall end up with nothing. Half a loaf, for old times’ sake. Please.”