Heroes

by David Hagberg

  The agent’s efforts to free himself increased when he heard his partner’s voice, but then subsided, and slowly the man’s eyes rolled back up into his head, and his body went slack.

  “Jesus H. Christ, what the hell is going on down there,” the agent upstairs shouted, and he started noisily down the stairs.

  Catherine had come to the kitchen door and saw her husband as he pulled the agent’s body aside.

  The baby cried out and Catherine screamed, her tension and fear bubbling suddenly to the surface.

  She leaped forward, and before Schey could do a thing to stop her, she was across the living room when the second agent came around the corner, his pistol drawn.

  She charged him, and reflexively he fired, the single shot catching her just to the left of her breastbone, shoving her backwards over the coffee table.

  “No!” Schey screamed in rage, and he was on the agent before the man understood what was happening. He batted the pistol away with one hand, chopped at the bridge of the man’s nose with the other, then rounded the heel of his left hand to the tip of the agent’s nose, driving the broken bone and cartilage directly into his brain, killing him instantly.

  The baby was screaming as Schey threw himself down beside Catherine’s body. Her eyes were open. There wasn’t much blood.

  The bullet had evidently pierced her heart, killing her at once.

  She was dead! There’d be no bringing her back. There’d be no explaining to her about the Thousand Year Reich. The Americans had killed her.

  Still the baby cried and coughed as Schey knelt beside his wife’s lifeless body and rocked back and forth. He was a professional. Time now was of the essence if he was going to have any chance at escape. He would have to go now. He couldn’t help Catherine. Dear God, she was beyond his help. But he still had a job to do.

  Slowly he got to his feet and went through the pockets of the two dead men, shuddering when he touched the body of the man who had killed Catherine. They were both FBI agents: Jerry Pole and Thomas Chastigin.

  He was not surprised. Not really. They had evidently been on to him for some time now. But why had they picked this morning to come after him?

  He looked again at Catherine’s body lying on the floor, and slowly the baby’s crying entered his consciousness, and he turned and went up the stairs to the back bedroom.

  The baby’s diaper was soaking wet, and he was warm with fever. He had lost his bottle.

  Quickly but gently Schey changed the baby’s diaper, speaking to the boy all the while in soothing tones. Then he covered him up again and propped his bottle up for him.

  At the door he looked back, his eyes filling with tears. It could have been so different. It should have been so different. After the war they were supposed to have taken up their lives again.

  He turned away and went into his room where he packed a single bag. Then he went downstairs as Robert, Junior, began to cry again. He picked up the phone and dialed the operator, asking to be connected with the hospital at Knoxville. When he had them on the line, he left a message for their doctor to come out this morning as soon as possible.

  “It’s my son,” he said. “I think he has pneumonia.”

  The baby was still crying when Schey got his coat. He let himself out of the house, climbed into the gray government sedan and drove off without looking back.

  Deland crouched just within the protection of the thick forest at the crest of a hill several miles to the northwest of Wolgast and watched the army truck rumble past on the highway in the valley.

  The wind was raw and blew snow in long plumes across the open field below.

  When he was certain the truck was not coming back, he ducked back into the woods and glanced up at his wire antenna tossed up into the tree branches, then sat in the snow in front of his radio set.

  The cold air was very hard on the warm tubes, but just lately Wolgast had become far too dangerous a place for him to transmit his weekly messages to Alien Dulles in Switzerland. Radio detection squads had been randomly driving around the streets of Wolgast. It was something happening in many cities, he had learned.

  He tuned the radio, picked up the microphone, and flipped the transmit switch.

  “Paris, this is Brussels. Paris, this is Brussels. Come in,” he radioed. The reference to those two cities remote from Bern and Wolgast served not only as code names but as an additional confusion for listening Germans.

  Deland held one hand to the earphone on his right ear and he heard the faint acknowledgment to his transmission.

  “Brussels, this is Paris. We have you. Go ahead.”

  Deland had pulled a single sheet of notebook paper from his pocket on which he had written a series of numbers in rows and columns. He keyed the microphone and began reading in a clear, distinctly enunciated voice, but he spoke as rapidly as he could.

  His transmissions were being recorded, so they’d miss nothing.

  They had to keep these things short to avoid being pinpointed.

  He was finished in less than ninety seconds, and Bern was back.

  “Acknowledged. Copy?”

  Deland had his notebook and pencil out. “Ready.”

  The operator on the top floor of a four-story hotel in Bern read the series of numbers slowly and distinctly. The list was short.

  When the operator was finished, he signed off.

  “Acknowledged. Brussels out.”

  He cut the power to the radio set, pulled the wire antenna down out of the trees, coiled it up, and stuffed it in the back of the case that contained the small, oddly shaped radio.

  A cover went over the radio itself and a handle fit into the side, transforming the electronic machine into a mechanical machine—an advanced calculator of the type used by engineers and mathematicians. Some of the functions even worked. It was a marvelous machine.

  The calculator went into a leather case, which Deland buckled, then slung over his shoulder by a long strap.

  He checked the road again, then trudged back through the woods, down the far side of the hill to the woodcutter’s road that connected with the highway a few kilometers to the southeast. He retrieved his bicycle from where he had hidden it behind a pile of cut logs, then headed back into town.

  Among other things, Deland had sent information to the OSS on the next V2 test firings, as well as Rudy Schlechter’s work on high speed pumps for corrosive fuels.

  The code was a simple one-time address method based on the Berliner Zeitung. The first set of numbers in the message gave the date of the newspaper. Thereafter, pairs of numbers gave the line and word. The first row corresponded to the last page, the second row to the first page, the third row to the second to the last page and so on.

  In addition to its simplicity, the beauty of the code was that its numbers roughly corresponded to the types of figures Deland dealt with in his study of trajectory mathematics. So if and when he was ever stopped and searched, and his notebooks and papers examined, the messages would appear to be nothing more than his work.

  It took him almost fifteen minutes to reach the highway and another half-hour to make it back into town. It was just past one in the afternoon when he pulled up behind his rooming house on the north side of the town and leaned his bike up against the woodshed. He threaded a thin chain around the bike’s frame and through a heavy metal ring in the side of the building, and locked it.

  Then he trudged up the back stairs, through the pantry and into the back hall between the kitchen and the landlady’s office. The old woman was seated behind her desk. When Deland passed, she rose.

  “Herr Dorfman.”

  Deland stopped and came back. The house seemed almost too hot after being outside. His nose was running. “Guten Morgen, Frau Gardner,” he said pleasantly. He took out a tissue and blew his nose.

  The old woman looked at the watch pinned to the front of her dress. “Guten Nachmittag, Herr Dorfman. It is afternoon, not morning. You have again missed your lunch.”

  “It i
s all right, Frau Gardner,” he said placatingly. Despite himself he had grown fond of the old woman over the past months. She looked after him as a mother might care for a recalcitrant son.

  “Where have you been all morning?”

  “Working.”

  “Working?” she sniffed. “At the island?”

  Deland smiled. “Why, Frau Gardner, I am surprised by such an indiscreet question.”

  “I only ask because of the man who was here for you,” the old woman said. She was portly, and she always wore dark clothing with a crisply starched white apron. It made her seem severe. Almost as if she were a nun.

  Deland’s heart skipped a beat. “A man? Did he leave a message?”

  “He asked to wait in your room until you returned. I refused him, naturally. But he left no name or message.”

  “Was he in uniform? S. S.? Wehrmacht?”

  “Civilian clothes,” she said. “Quite sloppy, I might add.”

  The relief began. “Tall? Graying, perhaps? Distinguished looking?”

  The woman nodded begrudgingly.

  “He’s a friend, Frau Gardner. A co-worker. Rudy Schlechter,” Deland said. But what the hell had Rudy been doing here? On a Saturday morning? Both of them would normally have been at work, but the test firing had been canceled and only the maintenance crew were out there in force today. He figured Rudy would be with his girl. He had talked enough about her.

  “Will you be wanting some lunch, Herr Dorfman?” Frau Gardner asked.

  Del and could smell the potato dumplings and what was probably a chicken stock. It made his mouth water. But he shook his head. “Nein, danke,” he said. “I am going out again.”

  “As you wish,” the woman said, and Deland hurried upstairs to his room.

  Schlechter had never been here before. But it really didn’t mean a thing, he told himself. The man had introduced him to Katrina. Perhaps now he wished to socialize even further. So far as Deland knew, Schlechter’s only friend was Maria Quelle. He ‘was not close to anyone on the island. Perhaps his coming here was nothing more than a gesture of friendship.

  Nothing had been disturbed so far as Deland could detect. His pillow lay at a slightly odd angle; the left door of his Schrank was slightly ajar and the small brass key in the right door, cocked to the left. Nor had any of his clothing or his papers been bothered.

  No one had been up here. He was certain of it. He locked the door and set the calculator up on his desk, as if he had been working with it. Then he pulled off his coat and tossed it over on the bed.

  Seated at his desk, he opened his notebook and unfolded yesterday’s Berliner Zeitung to the back page. The first pair of numbers after the date were for the forty-seventh line and the fifth word: Erforden, German for REQUIRE. The second pair was for the third line, second word: Studenplan, SCHEDULE.

  Within ten minutes Deland had the brief message from his control officer translated.

  REQUIRE SCHEDULE OF OPERATIONAL TESTS VICTORY THREE THROUGH NINE MOST IMMEDIATE—EVIDENCE YOUR POSITION SUSPECT—TAKE CARE

  Deland suddenly saw himself as he had been with his parents at the University of Wisconsin Mathematics Research Center in Madison. Donovan had flown out from Washington to speak with him. Matter of the gravest national importance we have a man like you in position. But you will be in constant danger. You have to understand that right up front. The Germans will always suspect there’ll be someone like you in place. Be on your guard.

  There’ll be support, of course. But in the end it’ll be up to you.

  You will have to make the final decisions to hold or run. It won’t ever be easy.

  He got up from his desk with the translated message which he carefully burned in the large floor-stand ashtray near his chair by the window. When the paper was completely destroyed, he mixed the ashes with his pencil, breaking them into a fine powder which he dumped into the lower body of the big ashtray. Not even the mighty scientists of the Third Reich could put that message back together, he thought bitterly.

  He looked out the window and shivered. He took a cigarette from a small wooden box and lit it. He rarely smoked, but this seemed to be the time for it. The schedule for the V3 rocket tests as well as the tests for the more advanced models would be relatively simple to come up with. There were several operational readiness manuals floating around. His section security supervisor, Major Preuser, had one. There were others.

  But the other matter. That was something completely different.

  His position here was suspect, Bern had radioed. By whom?

  Major Preuser, who was so obvious, or by Rudy Schlechter, who was slightly less obvious but a no less likely candidate, or by someone else?

  Deland smoked as he stared down at the narrow cobbled lane.

  Someone in the parlor began playing the piano. A Liszt tone poem, he thought, and whoever was playing it was very good.

  The warm music was a fine counterpoint to the cold, windblown scene outside (it had begun to snow again and the wind had risen). He himself was caught somewhere between the two. He was doing something positive about the war; he was making his contribution. When it was all over, he wouldn’t have to hide his head. It gave him a warm feeling to know that he’d be returning home a hero: It was a feeling he’d never confide to anyone else, of course. He’d be too embarrassed. Nevertheless, he had that feeling of pride in himself that was like a warm brazier on a chill day. That would come later. For now he was here in Germany, and his position was suspect. He didn’t feel much like a hero.

  Nor did he feel even particularly grown up. He felt more like a lost, frightened boy. He wanted to go home, or at the very least be with someone who cared.

  He stubbed out his cigarette, grabbed his coat, and left his room, after first making certain he was leaving it exactly the way he wanted it left.

  Frau Gardner was not in her office when he left the house, but whoever was playing the piano was still at it. Outside, he could hear the music halfway down the block as he strode into town, and for some reason it made him very sad.

  The square was busy and Deland looked into a few of the shops that had any goods before he finally crossed to the far side and entered the Hansa Haus Bierstube.

  There were still quite a few people inside having late lunch, but it wouldn’t be until after four, Deland suspected, that the work crowd would fill the place.

  The beer hall was dark, closed-in, warm—a safe haven from the cold outside. A few of the patrons looked up and Deland smiled and nodded as he went around and took a seat at a small table in one of the tiny front windows. The small panes were thick and very old, yet he could make out people coming and going on the street.

  A young girl dressed in a neat dirndl took his order for a Bier und Brot mil Kase, and when she was gone, he went up to the counter in the front and bought a small packet of four cigarettes and a few matches.

  Back at his table he lit one just as his beer came.

  It had been several days since he had been here last. When Schlechter had dumped him unceremoniously with Fraulein Mueller. All week nothing had been said about the incident. But each time Deland had seen Schlechter, the man had had an impish grin on his face.

  His hand stopped in midair as another, an uglier thought crossed his mind. His position here was suspect. If not by Major Preuser, then perhaps by Schlechter … Deland had missed her when she had skipped across the street, so when he finally saw her by the front counter, he was surprised.

  At first he sat stock-still as he watched her. She was purchasing a newspaper. Katrina Mueller. The words rolled off his lips. Even her name was lovely.

  If Schiechter was suspicious of Deland and if he had picked a handmaiden, it would be Maria Quelle, not Katrina Mueller.

  Deland could not believe that of someone so beautiful and so young.

  Yet, he told himself, he was young and innocent-seeming.

  And he was a spy.

  Even if it was her, however, he rationalized, it would be necessary
for him to discover the extent of her knowledge. It was his duty.

  She turned away from the counter, and Deland jumped up and waved. When she spotted him, she smiled and came across the room. His heart was thumping nearly out of his chest.

  The stars shone brightly from a perfectly clear but moonless sky, providing only a scant illumination for the two long black Mercedes super sedans that pulled off the narrow coastal highway from Huelva. At this point they were only a couple hundred yards from the border with Portugal. Down a gentle hill the guard huts on both sides were lit up—an oasis in the middle of the very dark countryside.

  Canaris climbed out of the rear of the lead Mercedes. He glanced nervously at his watch. He was a few minutes early.

  Thank God for that. If their man was coming across tonight (and their intelligence unit out of Lisbon indicated he was), he’d be showing up at any time now. The penetration window was from 0130 until 0330.

  A second man, this one much larger, much heavier, but also dressed in civilian clothes, got out of the big car after speaking with the driver and the other three men who scrambled out the opposite side.

  He looked down toward the border posts, then handed Canaris a pair of powerful night glasses.

  “Try these, Herr Admiral,” he said, his German very precise, definitely a Berliner.

  “Danke,” Canaris said in a coarse Bavarian drawl, barely concealing his dislike for the man. He took the binoculars and brought them up to his eyes. At first he could not get the powerful glasses in focus, but then the profile of one of the Spanish customs men jumped into view, illuminated by the light within the hut.

  The guard lit a cigarette, scratched his nose, and then stepped outside around to the side of the hut, where he undid his trousers and relieved himself.

  Canaris felt like a voyeur and he was having trouble holding the binoculars steady. He was tired, and extremely nervous. He felt burned-out. Too much was riding on what was about to happen tonight. For the past month Meitner had been back in Berlin making sure that the transfer of Hamburg Radio to Zossen went smoothly. At the last minute he had cut the captain out of this operation. The man was too vulnerable. When the hell came, he would not be able to protect himself. Besides, Canaris thought, he wanted one relatively pristine man in Berlin. If and when the end came for the Abwehr, his own movements might very well be restricted. He wanted someone with the freedom of the city.