Mac Wingate 9, page 3
“Got it, sir,” said Manganaro.
“Which part of the island are we talking about, sir, when we talk about the target?” Wingate asked. As far as he could see, the place was one small town and ten miles of silt.
“That’s up to you to find out, Captain,” said Westerly. “You’ll have to identify the target, then track it and destroy it.”
“Track it, sir?” asked Wingate. He was used to targets keeping still long enough to be put out of action. The phrase, “track it,” suggested Indian scouts working their way through the wilderness, or bloodhounds baying in some 1930s convict film.
“Could you be more specific, sir?” Wingate pressed. “We’ve got an island here. It’s not very big, as long as we know what we’re looking for. An airfield, an ammunition dump, a fuel depot—they take up room, they leave a lot of telltale signs. There’d be no real problem. But a moving target, particularly something smaller—that could be tough.”
Westerly lifted his head from the map and looked at Wingate. There was deep concern in his expression, as he sought for the exact words he wanted. Finally he said, “You’re looking for a man.” Then he added, “He could be anywhere.”
Wingate nodded. “A man, sir,” he said. “Any particular man? Do we have a description—a picture, maybe?”
Westerly hesitated. He looked from Wingate to Manganaro, then back to Wingate. Finally he sat down and leaned well back in his chair. He picked up a pencil from the desk in front of him and began to turn it round and round between his fingers.
“Gentlemen,” he said, at last, speaking slowly and very deliberately, “a man’s loyalty is to his country. Particularly a soldier’s—most particularly an officer’s. If you can’t rely on a man in times of war, what can you rely on? But there are times when that loyalty’s severely tested. In the case of a conflict between friends and country, between family and country, no one can be sure which a man will choose when it comes to it.”
An appalling suspicion began to form in Wingate’s mind. “This man we’re talking about,” asked Wingate, leaning forward across the table and looking Westerly directly in the eyes, “do we know him?”
“Before you condemn him, Captain,” said Westerly, quickly, “let me tell you what kind of choice he faced. In fairness, ask yourself what you would have done in the same circumstances. A German agent came to him with a proposition. He has a daughter, this man we’re talking about. A fine little girl of nine. Unfortunately the Germans have her. She’s in Auschwitz. Now, suppose you were in his position, gentlemen. Suppose an agent came to you and told you that she would be removed from Auschwitz and sent back home and never troubled again—in return for certain information, hm? What would you do?”
“Jesus!” muttered Manganaro.
Wingate looked at Westerly, still leaning back in the chair, playing nervously with the pencil. “We’re talking about Colonel Erikson,” he said. “Am I right, sir?”
“Oh, come on, Mac—” Manganaro protested.
“No,” Westerly cut in, quickly, swiveling his chair a few degrees to his right to bring Manganaro into the center of his vision. “Captain Wingate’s quite right. We’re talking about Colonel Erikson. He’s defected. He’s gone over to the Germans. He’s on his way to the Führerhauptquartier in Berlin. The only thing that’s prevented him being there already is the weather in the North Sea. There’s a Force 9 storm blowing off the Dutch coast. As long as that’s operating, nothing can get off Schiermonnikoog. You have to get to Erikson while he’s still on the island. Once he gets to Berlin, it’ll be too late.”
Suddenly Wingate felt terrible. He’d built up a real relationship with Erikson during the year that he had worked with him. The guy was as trustworthy as steel, as far as Wingate was concerned. He’d have trusted his life to Erikson, under any other circumstances but these. But a daughter was a daughter. Erikson had mentioned her once before. His devotion to her had showed then. Wingate had to face it, every guy had his price and Erikson’s price was the safety of his daughter.
“Auschwitz, sir,” he said. “I thought Auschwitz was exclusively for Jews.”
Westerly got up, dropped the pencil on the desk and walked slowly over to the window that overlooked the Mall. In the distance was the long, rectangular line of Buckingham Palace with Constitution Hill and the Wellington Arch beyond.
“So it is, Captain,” said Westerly. “But the child is Jewish.”
“I see, sir.”
It surprised Wingate. He’d never thought of Erikson as having any particular religious affiliation. He was Norwegian. He had the fair hair and blue eyes of the typical Norseman. Wingate had always assumed he had the Protestant beliefs he associated with Scandinavia. Clearly, he had been mistaken.
Westerly had turned around. He could see the confusion on Wingate’s face and he added, “Erikson’s wife is Jewish. As far as the Nazis are concerned, that makes the child Jewish.”
“Nice people,” said Manganaro. “Colorful.”
“And when I find Colonel Erikson, what do I do?” asked Wingate.
“What do you do?” asked Westerly, genuinely surprised. “You eliminate him.”
Wingate felt sick. He had known what the order would be, and he knew the logic of it. But still ... perhaps there was another way.
“Major Westerly,” he began. “Can’t we—”
“Those are not my orders,” snapped Major Westerly, suddenly bridling. “Though I happen to agree with them. They’ve come right down from the top. There’s to be no discussion with Colonel Erikson. You’ll find it much easier to carry out instructions if you shoot him on sight. He’s a traitor, whatever his reasons. If the information he carries reaches Berlin, fifty thousand of our lads will march straight into hell. I take it you’re as keen to avoid that as General Eisenhower.”
“This information, sir,” Wingate protested. “It must be pretty vital—”
“Vital?” snapped Westerly. “God Almighty, Captain, what do you think you’re here for? It’s crucial! Colonel Erikson’s the only member of General Eisenhower’s staff who knows the date and place of the new Italian landings. Now I don’t know whether that fits your idea of “vital,” but let me tell you it most certainly fits the Supreme Commander’s idea!” He glanced at his watch. “You’re going to have to hurry,” he said. “You’ve a couple of hours to get to Manston. The Briefing Officer’s waiting for you downstairs now. Room 206.”
It was 8:30 in the evening when the big Austin staff car pulled out of the Admiralty garage and headed south across the Thames. The snow that had been falling lightly all day became heavier, settling on the windows of the car and making visibility difficult. The driver sat forward in his seat, crouched over the wheel, peering through the narrow arc of windshield that the wipers kept clear. They drove through street after dreary street, each identical with the last one, as far as Wingate could see. Every fifty yards, a hooded streetlamp threw a confined circle of light onto the white surface below.
Wingate was out of uniform. He was no longer wearing the trim-fitting jacket, the serviceable shoes, the cap. He was wearing boots now, with coarse, dark trousers and a heavy fisherman’s sweater in navy-blue wool. A pea jacket covered the sweater and his army cap had been replaced by a peaked sailing cap with the word “Drammen” printed in gold on the band. Beside him on the car seat was a black duffel bag. The only parts of his old equipment that the Briefing Officer had left to him were the knife he carried by his right ankle, and the Colt .45 automatic that hung in a holster from the belt underneath his pea jacket.
“You don’t believe me, Mac, do you?” Manganaro asked. “I really can fly. OK, I was a navigator the last time we met. So who’s to say I can’t do a conversion course? What’s so goddamn special about handling an aircraft—Jesus, I’ve met pilots who couldn’t ride a bike! You’re looking at Manganaro the birdman. You ought to feel honored.”
“Just don’t forget to wind up the elastic. We’ve got the North Sea to cross in this weather. I don’t want you putting me down a couple of miles short.”
“Listen,” said Manganaro, slapping Wingate on the thigh, “you’ve got the best goddamn combination in this man’s air force. A trained navigator and a first-rate pilot, rolled into one. If I make a couple of slips with the controls, at least I’ll know where we’ve crashed.”
The banter was simply to deflect their thoughts from what was uppermost in both their minds. Erikson was a traitor. No matter how they looked at it, no matter how understandable the circumstances, they couldn’t escape that simple fact. He was prepared to sell his own men down the river. Prepared to let a whole invasion force walk right into the mouths of waiting German cannon. It was still incredible to Wingate, when he thought of those clear blue eyes of Erikson’s, without a trace of deception in them, and remembered the hatred that the man had shown when he’d talked about the German invasion of Norway.
The suburbs thinned, and finally the streetlights and the dim houses disappeared. There was nothing ahead but the narrow, flattened beams of the headlights filtering through the blackout masking, and the white veil of snow.
Wingate said, “Let’s go through this again, Brad. Once we’re airborne, there’s going to be too much noise to hold a decent conversation. We take off at 2230 hours. Average speed, say a hundred miles an hour. We try to stay below the radar, which means that if anything goes wrong, you’ve got to put her down in this weather, somewhere in the middle of the North Sea. Otherwise, we should be over the target around 0200 or 0230.”
“Depending on headwinds,” said Manganaro. “This Walrus they’re giving us to fly in—it’s not a B-17. Headwinds can just about stop it dead.”
“OK,” said Wingate. “We’ll have to play that by ear. But one way or another, you put me down as near to the beach as seems practicable. You’ll have to make the final judgment. But remember, I’m going to be on that sea alone in a life raft. I don’t want to have to paddle too far. I’d hate to run into some beautiful Dutch girl with blisters all over my hands.”
Manganaro laughed. “That’s some act you’re going to have to carry off,” he said. “Posing as a shipwrecked Norwegian fisherman. D’you figure you can pull it off?”
“Ask me in a week,” said Wingate. “If you don’t see me, figure that someone pulled the curtain down.”
The driver was slowing. The car skidded a little, then regained traction. Wingate peered through the little clear area of the windshield, beyond the driver’s shoulder. Someone was standing in the road waving a flashlight back and forth.
“Can you make out what it is?” asked Wingate, resting his forearms on the driver’s backrest. He could see two sets of feet in the flashlight beam, but nothing above the knees.
“Police, I think, sir,” called the driver, his eyes fixed on the light ahead. “I expect there’s been a pileup somewhere ahead.”
“God damn it,” muttered Manganaro, leaning back in his seat. He hated waiting, once he had been briefed for a mission. He wouldn’t feel comfortable until he’d pushed that throttle forward and lifted the Walrus into the air.
The car came to a stop and the driver rolled down the window. The flashlight shone full on the driver and he sat with his mouth open, gaping into the darkness. A moment later, Wingate saw the glint of a weapon in the beam of light.
“Brad!” he growled, beneath his breath. “Quick! The door!”
It took Manganaro a moment to grasp what was happening. He slid his hand to his left and got a hold of the door lever and slowly lowered it. He did it silently, until it had almost reach the limit of its traverse; then as the door bolt slid clear of the frame, there was a sharp click.
The light beam turned instantly toward the back of the vehicle.
“Now!” yelled Wingate, driving his shoulder directly into Manganaro’s bulky frame.
Manganaro rolled to his left, hit the door and disappeared into the snow outside with Wingate a mere couple of feet behind him. That same second, the gun opened fire and the driver gave a long, anguished scream.
Wingate slid and scrabbled, clawing his way toward the ditch that must run along the side of the road. They were dead if they didn’t make cover before that beam hit them. The bastard who was holding it was also holding a submachine gun. At this range, he could cut them in two. As Wingate moved, he grabbed Manganaro by the pants and dragged him with him.
They had the car between them and the gunman. They covered ten yards before the light beam came around the front of the vehicle and began probing the darkness to their right. They still hadn’t reached the cover of the ditch. Then, as they continued to lunge forward, half crouched, half crawling, the ghastly truth dawned on Wingate. There was no ditch. The ground ran level from the road, right up to the hedge running alongside.
“The hedge!” muttered Wingate. “Go through it!”
He hit the hedge at the base, arms in front of his head to protect his face. He hit it with the full force of a dive, broke through the first tangle of thorny twigs and rammed himself through to the other side. He could hear Manganaro clawing his way through beside him.
They rolled and lay still. The flashlight beam scanned the far side and picked up their trail through the snow. There were mutters in German and one of the two attackers came toward the hedge, probing the darkness with the light. From the mutters, it was clear the men were in disagreement. The one still by the car simply wanted to move. The other wanted to eliminate witnesses who might report their whereabouts.
Wingate rolled on his side and took out the heavy Colt from under his pea jacket. “Toss a snowball over to my left,” he whispered to Manganaro.
Manganaro scooped a double handful of snow from in front of him and pressed it into a ball. “What the hell is it?” he whispered. “Commando raid?”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Wingate muttered. “OK, let it go—”
The snowball struck the hedge five or six yards to Wingate’s left. The flashlight snapped off instantly. They waited, Wingate craning his neck for the slightest sound, the light wind blowing flakes of snow into his face and down the gap between the collar of his jacket and his throat.
When the light beam snapped on again, the gunman had moved. He was standing immediately in front of Wingate, on the far side of the hedge. Wingate could judge his position by the position of the flashlight, but he couldn’t actually see the guy. He was going to have to wait for him to move another couple of yards.
He waited while the gunman checked the hedge ahead of him, pausing every couple of feet to make sure that nothing hid in the shadows. Finally, he was satisfied and began to edge forward.
Wingate watched him, breathing as slowly as he could manage, refusing to blink despite the drift of snowflakes into his face. He thanked God it was Manganaro with him, not some inexperienced guy who didn’t know when to fight and when to lie low. A second later, the narrow beams of the big Austin’s headlights silhouetted the muzzle, and then the stock of a 9 millimeter MP-40 Schmeisser. Wingate held his breath. One more step, and the silhouette of the gunman would come into view.
Wingate raised the Colt, grasping it around the butt with both hands. He narrowed his eyes to make sure the snow didn’t blind him at the crucial moment, and began to squeeze the trigger. His mind was already racing ahead to the move after this one. Had the other gunman moved, or was he still standing on the other side of the car? More important—was he armed?
Finally, the hands of the guy with the Schmeisser came into view, then the arms and at last the body. As the black silhouette passed in front of the Colt, Wingate fired. The figure swayed away from him, checked for a moment, then slipped silently into the snow.
“Nice going,” whispered Manganaro.
“D’you see the other guy?” Wingate asked, his breath clouding the icy air.
“No,” said Manganaro. “Do you want me to try for the Schmeisser?”
Wingate shook his head. “Too risky,” he whispered. “Let me take a look.”
He felt for an opening in the hedge in front of him, and slowly slid his way through. He paused and listened, head tilted first this way, then that. There was no sound above the steady purr of the car’s engine. If anyone was moving on the far side, the snow and the engine noise would mask him. He was going to have to make visual contact. If the guy had a gun, that contact could be lethal. He began to work his way very slowly forward toward the road, driving himself with his elbows, pushing forward with his toes, all the time maintaining his grip on the pistol with both hands.
He was a couple of yards from the road when he heard a sudden snap of metal from ahead of him. He froze, trying to figure out what it was. There was a little squeak of cable as someone took the tension off the hand brake, and a moment later a gear wheel clunked into position.
Wingate was on his feet, racing across the intervening space between himself and the big Austin. He heard the accelerator open. The rear wheels spun, sending a spume of snow up through the red beams from the taillights, then finally bit. As the vehicle surged forward, Wingate leaped for the running board and the handle of the passenger door. He caught the handle, but missed the running board. The sudden snatch forward on his arm pulled him off balance and he slid to the ground in the churned-up slush from the front wheel just ahead of him.
The car dragged him with it, still clinging to the door handle. He fought to regain his balance, but failed, and as the car gained momentum it became more difficult for him to do so. One of his problems was the gun. It was in his right hand. As long as it stayed there he could only use his left hand to hang on to the Austin. It was too late now even to let go. He would never get clear before the rear wheel went over him.
“Mac!” yelled Manganaro from somewhere behind in the darkness. “Tell me when you’re clear! I’ve got the Schmeisser!”
