The Herrenhaus Forfeit: Chasing Mercury Book Two, page 17
They both looked up at the sound of the main entrance door and the glass that Mila had broken on her arrival a little over a week ago. This time it was Gerry Lonsdale in full Captain Prentice regalia, wearing his Sam Browne belt and service revolver, plus a big proprietary grin on his face. At Bradley’s side, Jack Penny muttered an obscenity.
“Hadn’t you better be on your way?” Gerry boomed as he descended the steps. “It’s a good ’undred an’ forty mile to Goslar – could take you the rest of the day.”
“We figured on hitting the border a little before nightfall,” Bradley said. “That way we can check out the situation and decide whether to cross in the dark or lie up and go early in the morning, just before they change the watch.”
“Okey-dokey…” A curl of the lip that put one in mind of a hyena baring its teeth in warning – before he turned it into a cheeky wink. He was having fun. “Oh, and Jack, don’t you worry none ’bout Marjorie. We’ll look after her.”
Bradley could sense Penny counting to ten and reaching maybe five.
“That’s Mrs Jessop to you.”
“Alright, alright, she’s your old lady, lover-boy.” Gerry sniggered, as if a thought had just occurred to him. “What is she, fifty? I suppose they’re grateful at that age…”
He was a head taller than Jack Penny, with the lean frame of a Billy Conn and the unpredictability to match. Penny, by contrast, was short in the legs, playful by nature and carrying a fair few extra pounds. But one look at the Jewish streetfighter and Bradley knew who he’d put his money on.
The problem was, if it came to it, he wouldn’t just be betting money. And while Penny was unarmed, ‘Captain Prentice’ was not.
The empty .45 had never felt so light on his hip as it did now.
“Say that again, Gerry.” Jack Penny jutted his jaw and cocked his head, as though presenting an ear to catch something he might genuinely have missed the first time. But he hadn’t missed it, as illustrated by the way he had also widened his stance and angled his left side toward his opponent.
Something like fire lit behind Gerry’s eyes.
“What I was getting at, Jack, is that it’s probably for the best – you being another dog that’s had its day.”
Penny’s breath, condensed on the bitter air, was like a bull’s.
“Just tell us where she is,” he growled. “Tell Bradley here where you’ve got her, here in Germany or back in the Smoke, then you and me can go for it.”
“Oh, I’d like that, Jack. But Jimmy might have something to say about it.”
“Fuck Jimmy. And fuck you.”
“Enough!” The girl’s voice sliced the atmosphere between them. Everyone turned to look at her. Carrying her helmet in one hand and her kitbag in the other, she was wearing the same bulky fatigues as the rest of them, which only served to emphasise the slightness of her neck and wrists and shoulders. Her eyes were bright and moist, her nose and cheeks red, her expression fierce yet tormented. She had been weeping.
“My God! How much have you already invested in this ‘caper’ of yours – and you’re going to waste everything on a schoolyard fight? If this is how professional criminals behave, no wonder so much is left for the amateurs!” She met Penny’s eye, then Bradley’s, then turned to the rest of the crew. “Get in the lorry, now. Let’s get out of here.”
As he turned back to his own men and their activities, Gerry Lonsdale chuckled, mirthlessly.
“Too right. Clock’s ticking. For all of you.”
* * *
As an honorary New Yorker, Doyle knew the joint from driving past on Houston Street (and he knew how to pronounce Houston also), but the truth was he had never dared venture inside. Although its neon sign stood proud amid the competing jumble of barrels and awnings, the plethora of Eastern European names and wares in this part of the Lower East Side – and the preponderance of beards, sidelocks and headscarves on the overflowing sidewalks – left him convinced he would stick out like a sore thumb.
Sensing his hesitation, his companion gave him a shove through the doors and pulled out his handkerchief to wipe the steam from his horn-rim eyeglasses. With the clatter of turnstiles, trays, dishes and knives, plus a hundred shouted conversations in a dozen languages, the cacophony inside the cramped delicatessen was deafening.
“Take the meal ticket he’s handing you,” Berman gave a grimace of combined exasperation and apology to the aproned bruiser whom Doyle had incorrectly assumed to be trying to take his hat and coat. “Let’s go! We want to eat sometime this year…”
The ensuring process, if it could be called that, made the increasingly bewildered Doyle wonder if this was what demobilisation was like. He followed Berman blindly as he shouldered through to join a series of lines at different counters, each time handing over his ticket in return for an incomprehensible exchange, a demand for a tip or bribe, and another plate of food that looked enough to feed the neighbourhood. Finally, they took their trays over to the close-packed tables in the centre, where Berman appeared to bully a young couple to vacate their seats.
“Sit. Eat,” he said.
“What am I eating?”
“You know what this is: the city’s finest pastrami and rye, with Russian dressing and sauerkraut. These knishes? Well, just try one. This? Matzo ball soup.”
“And no one’s joining us…?”
He meant it as a joke, but Berman chose to answer literally.
“Who would you wish to invite? Another of Hoover’s men? They couldn’t blend in here. Not that they can blend in anywhere, of course.”
“Incidentally, the one you launched off the roof survived. Seems there’s a setback under there after all. I gather he’s spent the past three months learning to eat through a straw.”
Berman just looked at him.
“This is not a game,” he said. “The people I represent…”
Letting his discomfort and frustration get the better of him, Doyle couldn’t help it: he looked around and faked a compassionate smile.
“Truly God’s chosen!”
“I will assume,” Berman said icily. “That was my admonishment for the FBI man and not an outward expression of your antisemitic soul.”
Doyle contrived to look sheepish.
“Hadn’t you heard? We don’t have souls at BSC.”
“I thought you said you were on the side of the angels.”
“That was for Mr Bradley. As you said, he is one of Nature’s innocents.”
“And as you told him, BSC does not exist anymore.”
“Not in so many words… or so few letters.”
Berman took a huge bite of his huge sandwich and chewed purposefully. Doyle, on the verge of using his knife and fork, set them down and attempted the same. Berman laughed.
“My problem is not so different to yours. The people I represent are not a concentrated force but a loose amalgamation of causes. On the one hand we have… let us call it the ‘escape’...”
“From Europe. To Palestine.”
“Precisely. And, of course, connected to this is what we can call the ‘defence’.”
“Of Jews in Palestine?”
“And of the right of Jews to be in Palestine.”
“That’s a broad interpretation of defence. Not to mention the fact that it rather brings you into conflict with the local Arab population, and the British who are running the place.”
“Just so. And then, you see, there is a third imperative.”
“Which is?”
“Vengeance.” Berman said.
“Of course.”
“So, you will see how these different strands of thinking both complement and contradict one another...”
“I do see that, Berman. I mean, that was the whole reason for sending Bradley in.”
“Yes. But my point is that when you have three different masters – at least – then matters can become many times more critical. Things can get out of control, fast.”
“And I would argue that they’ve come pretty bloody close to doing just that. Your people wreaking vengeance have been so hot on my man’s heels they’ve nearly taken him out in the same breath. Twice.”
“I understood that he took MERCURY’s target out himself.”
“So we believe, although we’ve lost our direct contact with Bradley.” Doyle, cursing Hoffman’s lack of discretion and wondering where the other man was getting his information, gave a rueful shrug before continuing: “But Berman, no one has yet taken out our target. It would be a crying shame if someone did before Bradley and the girl can work their magic. Especially as it would likely mean that they are walking into a lethal trap.”
“This is why I have warned you about things becoming critical.”
“And it’s why I’m telling you now to get your house in order. The people I represent – a thoroughly godless bunch looking after long-term British interests in the Middle East – are very closely aligned with both American interests and yours, in a way that official British policy may never be. But as I said to you before, there have to be limits, especially when it comes to that rather generous definition of defence that you’ve advanced.”
Off came the horn-rims again. Handkerchief. Steam. Weary eyes.
“I will see what can be done. But you must understand that these are brutal, dangerous men, the hardest we have ever known. They do not respond to appeals to common humanity. They no longer believe in humanity.”
“Then you must give them something else to believe in, before my people stop believing in you.”
Berman nodded.
“I understand, my friend. It’s good to clear the air.”
Finding himself unable to prevent a tangy burp, Doyle covered his mouth apologetically. Apologetically – and by definition too late, of course. He hoped that such lateness wasn’t a new trait he was developing.
“Fresh air sounds pretty good to me right now.”
“Fresh air? What are you, a farmer? I know exactly what you need. Chocolate babka, washed down with an egg cream soda...” As he levered himself to his feet, Berman grinned and snatched Doyle’s ticket from him. “My treat. What do you say?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It was unwelcome, but not unusual, for unannounced visitors to come knocking at all hours. Refugees and other vagrants roamed the countryside and would often resort to begging for food or work. Yet although this was a place from which alms had once been dispensed, lately any vagabonds were more likely to be seen off with a dose of birdshot.
So when, as darkness fell that evening, the gatehouse keeper unbolted his front door and raised his lantern, he was no doubt expecting to have to threaten some ragged band with a few choice expletives that would cross the language barrier from Ostfalian to the Slavonic tongues. Instead, he was surprised by a smartly dressed lady of uncertain age who had a dramatic streak of grey woven through the wave of dark hair at the front of her headscarf.
“Please help,” she said, in a fluster, and in German. “I was being moved by Mister Lonsdale and Mister Becker’s men, but there’s been a terrible smash-up on the road and they are hurt!”
The gatehouse keeper, a beefy, moustachioed fellow wearing only his undershirt with a thrown-on shooting jacket, regarded her curiously. He moved his light to show the gun in the crook of his arm.
“What cock-and-bull is this? Are you drunk, Madam? Be off home – don’t you know what time it is?”
“I was with Herr Lonsdale, and Herr Becker…” She was sobbing now, yet kept repeating the names.
“I know of no such gentlemen. This is a private establishment. You’ve come to the wrong place.”
Good enough.
“Oh well,” Mila said. “It was worth taking precautions.”
She pulled her hand from her coat pocket and put the big American pistol to his head. Her other hand reached for the shotgun.
“I’ll take that, if you don’t mind.”
If the people at the entrance to the abbey complex had been in on it – working with Becker or somehow forewarned by Gerry Lonsdale, for whatever purpose – they would have been expecting a soft approach, quite possibly from a harmless-looking woman. More pertinently, they would have been expecting a particular woman, a woman versed in the art of disguise and subterfuge. So the appearance of any woman would have aroused their suspicions and put them on their guard: unless it was a woman they thought they knew. Giving them someone who looked and sounded like a second-hand account of Marjorie was a chance to get in close without a fuss, and potentially to expose any double-dealing.
As it had turned out, the ruse appeared to have been unnecessary. The gatehouse keeper was presumably one of Elster’s men but not, it seemed, Becker’s or Lonsdale’s.
While she came to this conclusion, Ludvík and Miro had gone in past the pair of them, fast and hard. By the time she shepherded her captive down the passage and into the kitchen, which was the only room illuminated, they had a rosy-cheeked woman at gunpoint, the gatehouse keeper’s wife. They had seen her going about chores around the compound throughout the day, breaking ice on the well to draw water, feeding the chickens, taking steaming pots and cloth-covered baskets into the quad. Now she had been caught arming herself not with another plausibly rustic shotgun but a German army-issue machine pistol.
Behind this public face of the abbey’s security, it was evidently a para-military base.
Stas came in behind her to report, with Bradley trailing sheepishly in his wake.
“The four sentries are where the American pinpointed them. The others are watching them.”
“And the watch changed half an hour ago as he predicted? Are you happy with his assessment?”
A nod from Stas, more embarrassed than grudging. It was Bradley who had spotted the fourth sentry after all, the one they had missed. And yet she was speaking as though he wasn’t even present.
“Still armed the same?”
“All MP 40s, like this one.”
“Very organised. Elster probably has quite an arsenal here as well as a treasury…”
Taking off the headscarf with its wave of paint-daubed hair still affixed – and digging into her cheeks to remove the cloth pads that had altered the shape of her face – she unbuttoned her coat to unstrap the extra padding around her chest and waist. This was her American uniform, which she pulled on again.
“They wouldn’t carry guns like that cocked, but even so we can’t risk an itchy trigger finger raising the alarm. We’ll take the sentries all at once if we can.” When Stas ran his own finger across his throat she shook her head. “Not if we can help it. If we tie these two up, that gives us two men per sentry. Enough to use the chloroform, if we give it time to work.”
“And you?”
Mila picked up the wife’s MP 40 and checked the 32-round magazine. She shrugged into the wife’s shabby coat and woolly hat and went over to the stove, where a casserole that smelled like rabbit stew was bubbling and another pot stood ready.
“Let’s assume this is for the men who’ve come off sentry duty half-frozen. If not, it will be a nice surprise. I’ll walk into the quad with it and stay in the shadows to give you all a good five minutes with the sentries. But if something goes wrong and anyone sticks their head out of any of the buildings, I’ll make sure they pull it back again.”
When Bradley butted in, he sounded more anxious than at any other stage of the preparations.
“You don’t know how many of them are in there...”
Mila’s reply was almost contemptuous.
“We have a good idea. Four tired sentries chilled to the bone. Four more to take the next watch, most likely resting now. Plus Elster and his inner circle, we guess. We counted two or three women who went to the outhouses during the day… wives, whores, ex-Aufseherinnen from the camps... these are Nazis after all. But no way he’s got an army in there.”
“We could cut the power – disorient them.”
Those shadows she would be using as cover were cast not by the moon, for it had yet to rise, but by the exterior lights that were dotted around the abbey complex. The location was not on the local power grid, which was itself barely functioning. They could hear the hum of the generator behind the outhouses from here. It was a valid suggestion the American had made, but again she treated it dismissively.
“I don’t think we’ll gain anything by getting them jumpy. Now, all being well, once you’ve dealt with the sentries and we’re back to strength, we’ll take each side of the quad one at a time: that’s two men watching for anyone sneaking out the back, four men going in through the cloisters, and two of us – that’s me and Jack Penny – watching the other sides and running the show from the middle.”
“Where am I?” Bradley asked. “Leading the assault team?”
Mila did not even look at him.
“You’re here at the entrance, ready to handle any unexpected visitors, or to make sure no one comes sniffing around where we’ve hidden the lorry, or to deal with anyone who tries to get away.”
“Get Penny to do that. You need me in there.”
And now she did look at him, without a shred of sympathy.
“I don’t need you at all, Mister Bradley. I thought I had made that clear. But if a local busybody or, God forbid, a Soviet patrol comes down the road, I want our genuine American on the spot to spin our story about getting lost, breaking down and encamping here for the night. That’s your only value now.”
They had arrived at the location two days ago, after an uneventful journey on snow-choked back roads that had seen them cross the demarcation line before even recognising that they had done so: a perfect endorsement of their cover story. She had split the team and reconnoitred the two sites on the first day: the abbey complex and, half a kilometre further into the hills beyond the derelict oil mill and farm buildings, the caves. They had decided that the latter, apparently watched over by a single caretaker-cum-poacher, had been abandoned as a stronghold. So, for the bulk of the first night and second day they had concentrated their surveillance on the abbey itself.
