Stahl could scarcely contain his anger. Replace Hitler? Never. How do you replace a god?
Langford picked up a half-filled glass of what looked like whiskey and took a long swallow. “And do you know what’s even more ironic?”
“I have no idea, Professor Langford.”
“The fucking Italian bitch miscarried. All I had to do was wait and there would have been no pregnancy. I’ve heard that she’s coming back to work and that her absence will be blamed on a stomach condition. Of course, all you had to do was believe me and you might still have your precious submarines since we were picking up all their transmissions. Admiral Doenitz requires them to call mommy every day and the Americans just listen and locate and then kill.”
This cannot be happening, Stahl thought. Could it really be that the Yanks were indeed reading Germany’s prized codes? He could not be certain, but Germany had to be informed of the possibility. But how to let the Reich know?
There was a more immediate problem, however. “Professor, does this squalid palace have a basement, a cellar?”
“Yes, but it has a dirt floor. Why?” he laughed rudely, “Were you thinking of living down there?”
“Show me.”
Walking unsteadily, Langford led him down to the dark and dank cellar. The ceiling was barely five feet high. There were no windows. Stahl smiled. “How much longer is your leave?”
“I just started. Two weeks.”
“Excellent,” Stahl said. He pulled out his pistol and smashed the butt into Langford’s nose.
The professor grabbed his bloody face and collapsed, gasping and bleeding profusely. Stahl hit him several times more. He crumpled on the floor and lay still. Stahl checked for a pulse and there was none. Langford was dead and he deserved to be.
Stahl looked around for something to dig with. He smiled as he saw a shovel leaning against the wall. A grave would be so much better than leaving him to rot like he’d had to do with the skinny nigger who’d tried to rob him. Now he had a place to live, at least for a short while. If any neighbors cared, he was a friend from Camp Washington where he knew they had a lot of foreigners. Now all he had to do was figure out a way to inform Germany that their codes might be compromised and, oh yes, find a way to get to safety.
Alicia had decided that she’d had enough of gunfights and seeing bodies laid out on slabs. She’d been spared the ordeal of telling the police and FBI that none of the dead Germans was Stahl as none of them even remotely resembled him. Agent Dunn had handled that part.
“Just what happened to the naive young school teacher I used to be?”
Missy Downing handed her another glass of cheap wine. They’d come to the conclusion that cheap was all that was available in Washington.
“As we’ve discussed before, it’s called growing up and growing up in wartime is more intense than at any other time. Look at yourself. You showed up a shy little almost virgin and now you’re a combat vet with a Purple Heart and married to boot. When this is over, I don’t see you being satisfied with teaching art and music to adolescent girls.”
“I don’t either and I wasn’t an almost virgin, I was a virgin. But, if I am going to work, what options are open to women? Right now, maybe millions of women are working in factories replacing men who are in the military. When the war ends, the men will return and want their jobs back and I won’t blame them. It’d be a rotten thing to tell a returning GI thanks for saving our country and maybe for getting wounded and maimed as well, but now you’re unemployed because a woman took your place.”
“Life ain’t fair,” Missy said.
Her voice was slightly slurred. They had been drinking for a while. After the shooting, Alicia had been ordered to take a few days off. A couple of days earlier she’d managed to get a phone call through to Tom who joked about her being in more combat than he, but his worries came through loud and clear. He wanted her safe. Well, she wanted him safe as well. She knew there had been heavy fighting and she also knew he’d likely be more involved in the future.
She didn’t want him fighting anyone, not even the Germans. No, she wanted him at home and in bed with her. She wanted her legs wrapped around him and his manhood deep inside her. Sometimes she broke out in a sweat when she thought too much of the times they had and, hopefully, would have in the future. She understood that millions of wives and girlfriends were thinking exactly the same desperate and carnal thoughts and it didn’t matter whether they were American or German.
“Damn war,” she said and held out her empty glass.
Wade Dylan, late of the U.S. State Department in Toronto was getting worried. When he’d volunteered to stay behind in Toronto and work out of the Swiss Consulate, he had no idea that there would actually be a war or that it would be getting so close. He vaguely recalled some military thugs he’d had to chastise for trying to cause trouble in Canada. He wondered if they’d had a hand in starting the war. He thought it was a distinct and unpleasant possibility.
So far, his diplomatic immunity had kept him out of any difficulties with the authorities, although some Germans had looked askance at his American credentials. Fortunately, a friend at the Swiss consulate had solved that problem by issuing him a Swiss diplomatic passport.
He knocked and entered Gestapo chief Oscar Neumann’s office. As usual, Dylan was greeted warmly and offered some cognac which he happily accepted. Neumann, he thought, was quite a gentleman. After a few pleasantries, Neumann came to the point.
“And what can I do for you Mr. Dylan?”
“As you are well aware, my government knows that I remained behind as an unofficial liaison between our two governments.”
“Of course,” Neumann responded with a hint of impatience that went right over Dylan’s head. Damn diplomats, he thought. Must everything be a lengthy and tightly choreographed ballet?
“My people in Washington are concerned about the safety of American civilians and prisoners of war as the fighting gets nearer to Toronto. My government would hope that nothing occurs to harm them.”
“They do realize we are at war, don’t they?” he said acidly. “Bombs are falling and planes are strafing anything that moves. It is more than conceivable that prisoners could be hurt, especially if we decide to move them.”
“Will they be moved?”
Neumann shrugged. “In large part, that depends of Guderian and Eisenhower. Even though I am very confident that your Americans will be stopped in short order and well before reaching Toronto, we cannot rule out that possibility.”
“The American forces will be stopped? Everything I’ve heard is that they are advancing steadily.”
“Of course,” Neumann answered. He wondered just which side this Dylan creature was on. “Guderian has many assets he hasn’t used, along with marvelous and deadly weapons that are quite secret. My real concern is that Americans will infiltrate and try to force the prisoners’ freedom. If that happens, there will be fighting and your American prisoners will be in the middle. It cannot be helped.”
Neumann smiled and leaned over. “Of course, anything you can do to help stop such rash actions would be greatly appreciated.”
Dylan stood and the two men shook hands. Neumann did not give the Nazi salute. That would be pushing it a little too much.
“I will endeavor to keep you informed if I hear anything,” Dylan said and departed.
Shithead, Neumann thought.
Chapter Twenty-three
Tinker slowly and quietly crawled along on his belly. It had occurred to him that he’d been doing a lot of crawling lately, and especially on nights like this. He didn’t mind. If he could do something to hurt the Germans and help his friend Lambert, and his new friend Sergeant Farnum, it was fine by him. If either man thought that a friendship between a petty thief and a career NCO was unusual, they were too polite to mention it.