Brosin was unaware—his orders strictly spelled out that he was to transport the teams and see that they made it to shore; he knew not who they were nor what they were doing, and they did not offer the information nor did he ask it—that all four men had spent years in the United States before the war and that if they had not already returned to the fatherland by December 1941 they had in the months immediately afterward. Koch and Cremer had served in the military; Bayer and Grossman, civilians, were selected in large part for their knowledge of America, then were trained for their mission by the Abwehr, the military’s secret service.
The teams were moving four black stainless steel containers, each roughly the size and shape of a large stuffed duffel, complete with black-webbed shoulder straps. One by one, they staged the heavy containers near the base of the ladder that led up to the hatch in the conning tower.
Feeling Brosin’s eyes on him, Koch glanced over at him, and nodded. Brosin did not respond.
Koch, a good six inches taller and forty pounds heavier than Brosin, had come to respect the commander—at the very least for his obvious professional care for his men and his ship, and surely for his temper. In view of the latter, Koch had—as difficult as such a thing was to accomplish on an undersea boat—managed to keep his distance from the captain the whole two weeks. And, as overall leader, he had made sure that Cremer and Bayer and Grossman had done the same. At one point, when they had confined themselves to their bunks to memorize the details of their mission orders for after landing—every phase had to be accomplished by memory only—two days passed without the captain seeing his unwanted human cargo.
Crouching, Koch helped Cremer position the last container, gave him a pat on the back, then, being careful as he stood upright so as not to strike his head on any of the ship structure, walked over to Brosin.
“Not long now, Commander,” Koch said.
“Not soon enough,” Brosin replied evenly, looking right through him.
That, Koch remembered all too well, was exactly what the captain of U-134 had told him when they had had their first meeting—a private one—in the captain’s quarters shortly after they had sailed from the bunker at Brest, France.
“Just so we are clear about this,” Kapitänleutnant Hans-Günther Brosin had said, waving his copy of the mission’s secret orders. “Landing agents from a U-boat on the shore of America was an idea that bordered on suicide when it was attempted only months ago and it is an idea that is more than suicide now.”
“Commander, not attempted but successfully—”
“I count Kapitänleutnant Linder,” Brosin interrupted, holding up his hand in a gesture that stopped Koch, “as a personal friend. He, as one professional to another, personally told me the complete details of how U-202, under his command, put ashore the four Abwehr-trained agents on the Long Island of New York. Including the fact that, as the agents and their containers of explosives moved to shore by raft, the U-boat became grounded on a shoal of sand.”
“Perhaps if the captain had—”
“Ach du lieber Gott!” Brosin snapped. “There is no perhaps! This boat is the same type as U-202, and I can tell you, Herr Koch, as I know every detail of this ship, stem to stern, that for it to float requires a minimum water depth of five meters. And what is more—”
He heard his voice echo down the ship. He had quickly been losing his temper and realized it.
He paused, took a deep breath, then with a lower voice had continued: “And what is more, Herr Koch, a U-boat’s only measure of safety is the silence of the depths. If she is in less than thirty meters—and certainly if she is in five, ten meters of water, or, worse, is aground—she is a sitting duck. As was the U-202.”
He shook his head.
Brosin went on, his disgust clearly evident: “Are you aware that when the emergency measures of dumping fuel to lighten the boat, then using her diesel engines full power astern, did not seem to be helping free her from the shoal—an act that not only resulted in the loss of more precious fuel but also served to ruin any stealth the boat might have enjoyed—Kapitänleutnant Linder had ordered the crew to begin to scuttle her?”
“Commander, I am more than—”
“Of course you are. And so, too, you are of course aware that the agents—those four in New York and another four the next day put ashore just south of here—were almost immediately captured? And those not put to death by the Americans were sentenced to spend their lives in prison?”
When Koch wordlessly stared back at Brosin, the captain threw up his hands.
“It was insanity to embark on such a mission,” Brosin said with disgust, “and it is insanity to repeat such a failure.”
“And, Commander,” Koch had said matter-of-factly, “as it was the U-202’s and Kapitänleutnant Linder’s, so is it our duty to serve as ordered.”
“That does not mean I will repeat mistakes made.”
“Nor will I, Commander,” Koch had replied coldly. “With respect, that is why this time we land during winter. And in deeper water. You will recall that Kapitänleutnant Deecke had no such problem with U-584 landing its agents on the Florida shore. And U-584 is a Type VIIC”—he paused for effect—“the same as this boat.”
“I have made my position clear,” Brosin said and stood up. “There is no margin for error.”
“Understood, Commander,” Koch said, rising. He started to leave, then added in a light and hopeful tone: “Remember, it is the new year. Victory for the Führer and the fatherland is soon, my friend.”
“Not soon enough,” Brosin had said.
Now, more than two weeks later, U-134 was within ten miles of the uppermost east coast of Florida.
Brosin turned to his executive officer, who stood with his forehead against the periscope, eyes pressed to its rubber eyecups.
“Good, Willi?”
“Nasty weather up top, sir,” Wachoffizier Wilhelm Detrick, a squat, dark-haired twenty-one-year-old, said. “Rain, light wind from the northwest. Visibility is not great. But nothing in sight, sir.”
“Take us up, then, Willi. Keep her running on batteries, prepared to go immediately to full diesel power, if necessary.”
Brosin paused and looked at Koch and his teams, then added: “The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can get back to our real work.”
“Yes, sir,” Detrick said.
[ TWO ]
Manhattan Beach, Florida
0201 28 February 1943
United States Coast Guard Yeoman Third Class Peter Pappas, who was five-foot-five, 130 pounds, and blessed with the chiseled look of a Greek god bronzed by sun and salt, tugged the hood of his poncho tighter around his head, trying to seal out the cold rain that was dripping in around the brim of his hat.
The rain had been coming in what seemed like almost regular intervals the whole time—two hours so far, with two to go—that he had been patrolling the beach. The wind had been light but steady out of the northwest. A very, very quiet Saturday night, and now early Sunday morning.
Pappas stopped at another one of the somewhat regular indentations between the sand dunes, paths cut by the feet of countless beachgoers during warmer and happier times. He looked inland and saw nothing suspicious. Then, with his handkerchief, he wiped rain from the lens of the U.S. Navy binoculars hanging from his neck, raised them to his eyes, carefully fitted the eyepieces to his eye sockets, then made a 180-degree sweep of the beach and ocean, slowly scanning from north to south.
And seeing absolutely nothing but black-gray sand, black-gray sea, and black-gray sky.
Again.
He snickered. He had just remembered the line he’d joked with the girls to get them to meet him at night on the beach: “Want to go watch the submarine races?”
Damned submarines, he thought, the smile long gone. Joke’s on me now.
It had been about a year ago when, as a seventeen-year-old senior at Tarpon Springs High School, Peter Pappas first began to seriously consider joining the United St
ates Coast Guard.
Being around boats and water was more than natural for him. His grandparents had come from Greece and settled into what then had been a village of fishermen and sponge divers. In time, Pappas’s father and uncles had followed their father into the business that had fairly rewarded their families for their hard labors. And so, too, had Pappas begun working the boats as a young boy, learning the business from the bottom—literally, cutting sea sponges from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico.
By age seventeen, though, after five-plus years of pulling sponges and filleting fish, Pappas had more than convinced himself that he needed to do something with his life other than work the family boats.
Actually, it had been Ana who had convinced him. Not that Anastasia Costas had told him that specifically, but Pappas could figure out that a sponge diver had little chance at a long-term relationship with the only daughter of Alexander Costas, Esquire, mayor of the town of Tarpon Springs.
Pappas had the Greek-god-like looks and a seemingly endless, easy charm that went a long way to masking the fact that he had not necessarily been blessed with smarts. He was a nice guy, even honest (something that could not be said of many of the boat guys), and that coupled with the looks and charm had caught the attention of fifteen-year-old Ana. And he intended to keep it.
When Pappas had looked around Tarpon Springs and considered his options, he found few. He had not excelled academically—it had taken some tutoring for him to actually graduate high school—and he certainly had not performed well in any sport. Working long hours on the boats had not allowed for any athletics.
Then, last summer, as the Sophia, one of his father’s two wooden work boats, headed for port loaded with sea sponges and grouper and snapper, he had seen a Coast Guard cutter rumble past. The ship was at least one hundred feet long—more than three times the length of the Sophia—and fast. More impressive, though, was a crew member at the stern: He stood at what Pappas was pretty sure had to be a machine gun. Maybe a .50 caliber. And he seemed to be making a slow salute or wave in Pappas’s direction as the cutter continued past.
Pappas, hosing fish guts off his boots and the deck, had made his decision then and there. Joining the Coast Guard would give him the opportunity to be paid to travel far, if he wanted. Or he could stay close to home, as this cutter proved was possible. And with the United States having just been bombed into the war, women loved a man in uniform. Including Ana.
When Pappas went to enlist, the United States Coast Guard recruiter down there in Tampa could not have agreed with him more.
“And I can request where I’d want to be assigned?” Pappas had asked him.
“Hell, son,” the recruiter said, handing him a pen and the enlistment papers, “you can request anything you want!” He pointed. “Your autograph goes right there.”
Pappas had not requested Jacksonville Beach, Florida.
The last place on God’s green earth that Pappas expected to be in the middle of winter was on a deserted beach in a cold rain. With the world at war and being two-thirds water—that was one thing he had actually absorbed when he hadn’t been daydreaming at Tarpon Springs High—Pappas figured the odds should have been in his favor that, rain or shine, he would instead be manning, say, a USCG cutter .50 caliber machine gun in the act of protecting U.S. merchant marine ships shuttling war supplies.
Or something, for Christ’s sake.
Certainly not a yeoman third class on coast watch, standing on a dune in wet sand up to his ankles and looking out through binoculars at the black-gray seas of the Atlantic under an even blacker-grayer layer of clouds.
Sure, there had been more than a little hysteria about the security of America’s shores after they caught those Kraut spies last summer, but that had long ago died down. And what idiots would again try doing something with subs that had already failed them? Even the Krauts couldn’t be that stupid.
So far, Pappas had heard only what sounded like some drunken celebrating—at one point that naughty, deep-throated laugh of a female having too much fun—but that had been inland, toward the bungalows and bars of the town of Jacksonville Beach, the voices carried out on the wind.
Here on the beach, he had not seen anything all night, and he had no reason to think he would see anything all morning. Especially in this impossible soup.
And, he thought, for Christ’s sake, what if I did? They didn’t even issue me a weapon. Just a damned whistle, these binocs, and as a special treat—whoopee!—a hoagie sandwich.
Peter thought about Ana.
At least that part of his plan had not soured. Yet. They still wrote to one another, though the span between her letters seemed to be getting longer each time, and the length of her letters shorter and less, well, personally detailed.
He reached inside his poncho and felt in his breast pocket for the letter that he’d received from her just a few days ago. She had written after Valentine’s Day, all excited about the chocolates he had arranged to have sent to her, but the letter otherwise was filled with generalities, and certainly no specifics about their plans together.
Peter was more than aware that if he had not volunteered to join the Coast Guard, he very likely would have been with Ana on Saturday night—and maybe into this Sunday morning—and there would have been absolutely no chance that she was with some other guy who also had found her many fine qualities desirable.
He suddenly felt very sad and lonely.
And while he was a little hungry—Hell, I always seem hungry—the hoagie sandwich, a thick, soft roll slathered with butter and packed with turkey, was really not going to be much of a consolation.
Pappas walked toward one of the footpaths between the dunes until he found a weather-beaten log that looked as if it had been beached there for decades. He sat on it.
He considered rereading Ana’s letter—it was upbeat and would probably cheer him—but realized it simply was too dark to see much of anything, let alone read a piece of paper. Besides, the rain would make the ink on the letter run and likely dilute the delicate fragrance of the perfume that she had misted it with and he didn’t want to risk ruining a letter that he had read only three times so far. And who knew when she’d write next?
Instead, he put the binoculars beside him on the log, then dug down in his wool coat till he found the inside pocket that held the wrapped-in-waxed-paper hoagie. He pulled it out, pulled back the paper, and was surprised to discover that it was somewhat warm, at least in relation to the conditions outside his poncho.
Pappas again thought of the letter and the perfume and suddenly had a mental image of Ana. The vision caused a stir in his groin. He could see Ana, deeply tan and in her black swimsuit, the one with the low-cut front and the back open impossibly far down. She was lying on her side, on a towel just above where the gulf surf rolled to its highest point on the bright white sand.
He looked at the sandwich, looked into the dark distance, shrugged.
Pushing back the pangs of hunger, he ducked his head completely inside the poncho, brought the sandwich in under the same cover, then unbuttoned his fly, made himself accessible, ran his fingers through the bun in order to coat them with the butter, and, his hand thus lubricated, reached down and found himself again as he pictured Ana peeling off her black swimsuit.
[ THREE ]
Unterseeboot 134
30 degrees 36 minutes 5 seconds North Latitude
81 degrees 39 minutes 1 second West Longitude
Manhattan Beach, Florida
0130 28 February 1943
The German submarine was motionless on the slick surface of the Atlantic Ocean three hundred yards off the shore of the United States of America and barely afloat in a water depth of thirty-one feet.
Its conning tower was crowded. Kapitänleutnant Hans-Günther Brosin stood there, as did his executive officer, while a line of sailors worked to move the four stainless steel containers from down below out through the conn hatch and onto the deck, where the two teams of commando-trai
ned agents were quickly and efficiently inflating the last of the six-foot-long rubber rafts and preparing the three coils of three-quarter-inch-diameter line that would be tied end to end to eventually tether all of the rafts to the U-boat.
Brosin glanced up nervously at the thick clouds. Though there was a steady, cold drizzle, he was content to suffer it in return for the air cover that it and the clouds provided.
It was eerily still and calm and quiet…too damned quiet. What little wind that there was came out of the northwest, causing the only surf—if the absence of such could be called that—to be a soft lapping of waves on the shore. No surf and no wind meant no natural sounds to mask any loud noise that they might make.
As Brosin fitted the soft rubber eyepieces of his Carl Zeiss binoculars to his eyes and made a slow sweep of the coastline, he said, “What is our time, Willi?”
Detrick trained a penlight on the chronometer strapped to his wrist.
“Nine and a quarter minutes so far, sir, twenty and three-quarter to go.”
“An eternity,” Brosin muttered. Then he asked, “Engines?”
“On standby, crew awaiting your orders.”
When Brosin took the binoculars from his eyes, he saw that Richard Koch was coming up from the deck to the conning tower.
As the agent approached, Brosin said, not kindly, “What is it? Troubles?”
Koch held out his hand. “As this will be our last communication, Commander, I wanted to say thank you. We go now.”
Brosin nodded. “Go with God,” he said more warmly, shaking Koch’s hand. He then added, in a serious tone: “But go quickly. This exposure becomes more dangerous by the moment. In precisely twenty minutes, we will be under way, with or without the rafts.”
Brosin knew that while it was not absolutely critical that the U-boat take the four rubber boats with it when it left, everyone would be better off if it did—the agent teams especially.
The Saboteurs Page 6
