MATT HELM: The War Years (15 page)

That particular job had taken only a week.  We'd made our touch right on schedule, earning a commendation from Mac, who wasn't in the habit of passing them around like business cards - but it had been a tough assignment, and Mac knew it.  He gave us a week to rest up in London, afterwards, and we spent it together.  We'd managed, quite illegally, to promote a car - a little twenty-seven horsepower Morris - that I was always having to use my Boy Scout knife on and dismantle that ridiculous electric fuel pump they must have got direct from the Tinker-Toy people.  She was very impressed with my cleverness as, of course, she was supposed to be.  That made a total of two weeks.  I hadn't known her previously, and I never saw her again.  If anyone asked me to guess, I'd have said she was still over in Europe.  She was a fierce, bloodthirsty, shabby little waif with the gauntness of hunger in her face and the brightness of hate in her eyes.

She carried a paratrooper's knife somewhere in her underwear and a capsule of poison taped to the nape of her neck, hidden by her hair.  She always held the knife as if she was about to chip ice for a highball; it had been strictly an emergency weapon with her.  I still carried the folding knife of Solingen steel that she'd watched me take from a dead man to replace the knife that he'd broken, dying.  I remembered the wet woods at Kronheim, and the German officer whose knife was in my pocket, and the way the blade of my own knife had snapped off short as he flung himself convulsively sideways at the thrust.  As he opened his mouth to cry out, Tina, a bedraggled fury in her French tart's getup, had grabbed his Schmeisser and smashed it over his head, silencing him but bending the gun to hell and gone.

I'd first made contact with her in a bar, pub, bierstube or bistro - take your choice according to nationality - in the little town of Kronheim, which is French despite its Teutonic-sounding name.

To look at her, she was just another of the shabby little female opportunists who were living well as the mistresses of German officers while their countrymen starved.  She had a thin young body in a tight satin dress, with thin straight legs in black silk stockings and ridiculously high heels.  I had briefly noted the big red mouth, the pale skin and the thin, strong cheekbones, but her most striking feature was her big violet eyes, at first sight dead and dull.  Then, those seemingly lifeless eyes had shown me a flash of something fierce and wild and exciting as they caught my signal across the dark and smoky room that was filled with German voices and German laughter, the loud overbearing laughter of the conquerors.  It was inconceivable at the time that I would soon be making love to this girl in a ditch in the rain, while uniformed men beat the dripping bushes all around us.

General von Lausche had his quarters - you could spot them by the armed guard in front - only a few doors down the street from the tavern I've already mentioned.  I kept a long-range watch over the house after I'd made my contact with Tina.  It wasn't in the orders, precisely.  In fact, I was supposed to show no interest in the place at all, until the time came.  I didn't really know what I was watching for, since I'd already received from Tina a full report on von Lausche's habits and the routine of the guards, but it was the first time I'd worked with a woman, let alone a young and attractive girl who'd deliberately placed herself in such a position, and I had a feeling I'd better keep myself handy.

The feeling paid off later in the week.  It was a gray evening, and Kronheim was having a little wet, belated snow just to make things more pleasant.  There was a stir of movement and Tina came running into sight partially undressed, a small white figure in my night glasses.  She stumbled past the guards out into the slush of the street, carrying in her arms what was apparently the cheap dark skirt and jacket she'd worn into the place an hour earlier.

I hurried out and intercepted her as she came around a nearby corner.  I don't know where she was going, and I don't think she knew, either.  It was strictly against instructions and common sense for me to contact her so openly and so close to our target; and taking her back to my place was sheer criminal folly, endangering the whole mission as well as the French family sheltering me.  But I could see that I had an emergency on my hands and it was time to shoot the works.

Luck was with us - luck and the lousy weather.  I got her inside unseen, made sure of the lock on the door and the blind on the window, and lit a candle; it was an attic room, not wired for lights.  She was still hugging the bundle of clothes to her breasts.  Without speaking she swung around to show me her back.  The whip had made a mess of her cheap blouse and underwear, and had drawn considerable blood from the skin beneath.

"I'll kill the pig," she whispered. "I'll kill him!"

"Yes," I said.  "On the seventeenth of the month, two days from now, at four in the morning, you'll kill him."

That was what I was there for, to see that she didn't go off half-cocked - it was her first mission with us - to make sure of the touch, and to get her out alive afterwards, if possible.  There might be guards to silence; that was also my job.  I was kind of a specialist at silencing guards silently.  I never touched her, or even indicated that I might like to, those first half-dozen days.  After all, I was in charge and it would have been bad for discipline.

"You mean," she whispered, "you mean, you want me to go back?"  Her eyes were wide and dark, violet-black now, deep and alive as I'd never seen them.  I found myself, quite irrelevantly, wondering just how some middle-level bureaucrat in headquarters had gone about describing the color of Tina’s eyes.  "Back to that swine?"

I drew a long breath and said, "Hell, kid, you're supposed to enjoy it."

Slowly the darkness died out of her eyes.  She sighed, and touched her dry lips with the tip of her tongue.  When she spoke again, her voice had changed, becoming flat and toneless: "But of course,

Cheri. You are quite right, as always.  I am being stupid, I love to be whipped by the general.  Help me on with the clothes, gently."

Two days later, we laid in the bushes while they hunted us in the dark and the rain.  I ran my finger lightly over the scabbing gash across the back of her bare arm.  "How bad is it," I asked.

"Not so bad now.  We killed the pig, didn't we?" she murmured.  "We killed him good."

And we killed the one who almost caught us as we were getting away, and, hiding in the bushes, waiting, we made love like animals to wipe out for her the memory of that Nazi beast.  And then the planes came in, those beautiful American planes, coming right on the hour, on the minute, coming in with the dawn, filling the sky with thunder and the earth with fire.

Chapter 17

"Good morning, Eric," Mac said.  "Did you and Tina enjoy your little vacation?"

I had just said goodbye to Tina and was still feeling the lingering effects of a wartime romance, this time from the opposite viewpoint.  I was the one who watched the other go off to war - if you could call what we do war.  Tina had been assigned another mission the previous day and had left this morning.

Having given us the opportunity to rest up and recuperate from a difficult mission, I guess he felt I needed to get back to work before I started brooding about her.  In a way, it was like having a second mother, working for Mac.  Not that he was warm and loving, by any stretch of the imagination, but he felt he knew exactly what was best for us at any given time, just like my mother.  The fact that we disagreed with his assessment was entirely beside the point, just like my mother.  And the sad part was that, after the fact, he usually turned out to be right, just like my mother.  It was funny, in a way, and probably some psychologist would make a big deal of it, but none of us ever compared him to our fathers.  He just projected a mother image, albeit a particularly feral, deadly mother.

I tried to shake that thought out of my mind.  Sometimes it seems Mac can read my mind - I'd heard others voice the same thought - and I wasn't sure I wanted to be anywhere around if Mac ever got the idea we compared him to our mothers.

"We enjoyed it very much, Sir," I answered his question.  "At least until this morning," I added, dryly.

"I only promised you a week, Eric.  The war presses on and Tina was needed for a special job.  Just like I need you for one."  His voice was slightly reproving.  He was not one to put up with much complaining, and I had taken one step too far with my last comment.

He went on in his normal voice, having made his point.  "It seems you have some professional driving experience."  It was not a question.

Before the war, as kids will, I used to play around with some fairly rapid machinery.  I raced some and covered other races with a camera; and a couple of times, on assignments for Mac, I had occasion to do a little driving under fairly hectic conditions.

"I don't know that you would call me a professional, Sir, but I did do a little racing."

"That's what I meant.  Does your expertise also include starting an automobile when the owner has the keys and is not anxious to share them with you?"

"You mean hot-wiring a car?  Yes, I guess you could consider me experienced in that area.  I used to hot-wire my Dad's old pick-up when he wasn't around, until he caught me at it one time and started watching the odometer.  But I haven't tried it since the time in college when I lost my keys while …" I shut up, remembering what I
had
been doing when I lost them.  Some things were none of his business, damn it!

He continued without comment.  "I assume it's not something you forget.  I have a team that needs a car expert, and you're as close as we've got."

I didn't say anything to that.  If Mac needed a driver, he could find one.  Apparently he needed a driver with some extra talents.  The nice thing about working for Mac was that he didn't believe in wasting resources.  If a job seemed a little demeaning at first, you could bet that, before it was over, you would have brought into play some of the specialized training you'd received to get out alive.

"Everyone will have his own assignment, but in the event of problems, you will be in charge.  This will be your first time into Germany itself, however, so I've assigned a new agent, Herman, to help you out.  He was born near Loewenstadt and knows the country, so he can help you plan your escape.  In France we have much more help available; however, in Germany, getting clear is often the hardest part of the mission.  Herman should be of assistance in this area."

"Who else is in the team?" I asked.

"Jacob, Thomas and Brent are the other three.  You haven't met them yet.  Thomas will make the touch, while the rest of you provide backup and camouflage.  Jacob will play the part of a German Colonel, with Brent and Thomas as his assistants.  You and Herman will be enlisted, Herman a personal aide and you, of course, the Colonel's driver."

"I assume the car is up to me?"

"That's right.  You will steal an appropriate vehicle in or near Loewenstadt and drive it to your destination, which will accomplish three things.  It will get you far enough away so the theft will not likely be noticed; it will make the car look suitably driven and dusty; and it will provide you with a - I believe the term is 'get-away car'?"

"Yes, Sir," I agreed.  "As in Jimmy Cagney movies."

"I believe that's where I heard the term."  As usual, he ignored my feeble attempt at humor.

"What's the destination and who's the target?"

He told me.

Chapter 18

I took us through the city through the sparse evening traffic and sent the overpowered beast snarling up the long grade out of town.  There was a release of sorts in turning loose all that horsepower.  I've always enjoyed driving, fast or slow, but fast added to the enjoyment.  The fact that I was driving in enemy territory with my life on the line in more ways than one, somehow added to the thrill.  I do what I do because I'm good at it, which makes me lucky.  The world is full of people stuck in jobs that don't suit them.  To some extent, it's the danger that drew me to it and kept me in it.  I never gamble with money, because neither winning nor losing money means a hell of a lot to me.  But when I gamble my life, that's something else again.  The biggest goddamn crap game in the world.  It's a compulsive thing, and very few women seem to have it.  Maybe that makes them more sensible than men, I don't know; but I can tell them they're missing something.

It was a big black Mercedes I'd stolen outside Loewenstadt, with a six-cylinder bomb under the hood, a four-speed transmission as smooth as silk, and a suspension as taut and sure as a stalking tiger.  A few miles out of town I let it out a bit.  When I glanced at the speedometer - on a dirt road, yet - the needle was flickering past a hundred and eighty kilometers per hour, which translates to a hundred mph and some change.  And I'd thought I was kind of babying the heap along.

It almost scared me to death, but for the rest of that job I was known as Hot Rod, and all driving chores that came up were left to me without argument, although I could get an argument from that bunch of prima donnas on just about any other subject.

Well, I never saw any of them again, and some of them hated my guts and I wasn't very fond of theirs, but we moved our sniper into position and made our touch on schedule, so I guess it was a pretty good team while it lasted.  Mac didn't believe in letting them last very long.  One or two assignments, and then he'd break up the group and shift the men around or send them out to lone-wolf it for a while.  Men - even our kind of men - had a perverse habit of getting friendly if they worked together too long; and you couldn't risk jeopardizing an operation because, despite standing orders, some sentimental jerk refused to leave behind another jerk who'd been fool enough to stop a bullet or break a leg.

I remembered solving that little problem the hard way, the one time it came up in a group of mine.  After all, nobody's going to hang around in enemy territory to watch over a dead body, no matter how much he liked the guy alive.  I'd had to watch my back for the rest of the trip, of course, but I always did that, anyway.

I was hoping to get a chance to try out some of Hitler's new roads, but progress seemed to have passed by this particular part of the country.  By the time we arrived at the town Mac had described, never mind the name, we were suitably dusty and travel-worn.  We checked into the hotel and found that they had been properly notified of our arrival and had accommodations prepared - four rooms.  It seemed the German Army operated similar to our own.  Our three officers each rated their own room, while we lowly enlisted types were forced to share one.  I made a mental note to ask for an officer role on my next undercover assignment, not that Mac would pay attention to any such request.  Assignments were strictly on a mission-requirement basis, and officers were usually too high-profile.  You attracted less attention as an enlisted man.  Actually, I didn't mind it so much except for sharing accommodations - I like sleeping alone, or at least choosing my own roommates.

After getting settled into the hotel, Herman and I did a quick reconnaissance of the General's home and found the neighboring house Mac had described to me.  It had the right vantage point and was located just over a hundred and fifty yards away.  Perfect.  I had to admit I was impressed with whoever was responsible for the intelligence work on this job.  The neighbor was, I was told, a widower who lived alone and was somewhat of a recluse.  The only other house in sight was far on the other side of the General's.  It was a nice quiet street and I didn't foresee any problems and we headed back to the hotel to brief the others.

Our primary target was a
Luftwaffe
General who, our intelligence said, was the most likely candidate to replace another General as commander of a top secret German project, so secret we couldn't be trusted with the details.  The current commander was scheduled to get sick and die in the very near future, and Allied Command didn't want our particular General to succeed to the post.

As Mac had put it during my briefing, we couldn't add much to the total casualty count of the war, but we could make an impact all out of proportion to our flyweight status.  "Wasps, Eric," he had said.  "That's what we are.  A wasp doesn't weigh very much and doesn't even have that powerful a sting - it may hurt, but it certainly isn't fatal.  Most of the time you probably just ignore a wasp.  But take a certain set of circumstances, say four big men driving down the highway at a high rate of speed.  Let that wasp fly in the window and start darting around.  It is possible for that wasp to so distract the attention of the men that the driver loses control of the car, drives off the road and crashes into a tree.

"When the dust has settled, four men are dead, a two-ton vehicle is totally demolished and the wasp flies gently out the window to freedom, leaving behind no evidence whatsoever of the cause of the accident.  If one or more of those men are important enough, a major impact on history had been accomplished by an insect weighing a fraction of an ounce."

I had to admit it was an intriguing analogy.  Matthew Helm, wasp.  Well, I've been called worse things.  The main difference was that what we did was not an accident, no matter how distracting it might be to the enemy.  It was nice to think what we were doing was that important, but it would have been nicer to know what the hell we were accomplishing most of the time.  We had to kill this General, someone else would kill another General, and the result would help the war effort in a way we weren't trusted to know.

From then on it was absurdly easy.  That night the General was having a party out on his patio in the spring weather.  We pulled up a short distance away from the neighbor's house, approaching from the direction opposite the General's and parked just off the road, hidden from view by the trees.   As planned, Jacob and Thomas got out and went to the front door while the rest of us stayed in the car.

Within forty-five minutes we heard the muffled sound of two shots, evenly spaced.  As our cover story required, we pulled out on the road and drove to the front of the neighbor's house.  Just as we pulled up, there was a third and final shot.  Herman and Brent got out and stood guard with two brand-new German MP40s at the ready.  The MP40 is not as nicely made a firearm as the MP38 that preceded it, but was much easier and cheaper to manufacture.  It's an ugly beast.  I've seen handsome rifles and truly lovely shotguns - the British make some real beauties - but I've never seen a good-looking machine pistol, although I'll admit the old Thompson with the drum magazine had a certain brutal charm.  But the misshapen little killing machine, the MP40, was a well-tested and reliable piece of equipment.

We waited, keeping an eye on the General's house.  No one came out.  We could see the back corner of the patio, where several people were forming a knot over what we hoped was the General's body.  No one seemed to be looking in our direction, although with the light in their eyes and our car in darkness, it was unlikely they would be able to see us.  After sweating it out for what seemed like several minutes, but was probably no more than thirty seconds, Jacob and Thomas came out of the door sans the scoped sniper rifle Thomas had carried inside and the handgun that Jacob had stuffed into his waistband.

Brent opened the back seat door, the signal that we were still clear, and followed them into the back seat while Herman climbed in beside me.  It was my call at that point and I decided upon the least exposure, not knowing how much time we had before someone came out.  I quickly made a U-turn and headed back the way we had come.  As we turned the corner out of sight of the house, Brent confirmed that we were in the clear.  Breathing a collective sigh of relief, we headed for the main road out of town, toward France and our rendezvous point, some three days away.