Later that night, his nighttime mistress tried to make a run for it. She got about a hundred yards before she was caught and had her throat slit.
Tony sipped his thin potato broth and looked across the small fire they’d lit to warm their food. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never forget the feel of that knife alongside his throat. The man on the other side of the fire had said his name was Joe Baker and would give neither his rank nor his branch of service. But he did say he was with the Office of Strategic Services, the OSS. To Tony, the OSS was the stuff of legend. Cloak-and-dagger boys trained to kill and destroy. They made movies about the OSS, and here he was with one of those people. It was even more comforting than the bombing attack during his captivity at the work camp that had gotten him into so much trouble in the first place.
Baker was the man who had been watching him in the Russian camp, and now looked innocuous enough. Like Tony and the others, he was a little on the small side and thin, although unlike the two Poles who were now Tony’s only other companions, Baker looked like he was in fine shape, like an Olympic distance runner.
After Baker had been convinced that Tony would not betray him, they had located Vaslov, who then found the other Pole. The remaining refugees had already scattered.
Baker, it turned out, had also been rounded up by the Russians and forced to work and had chosen that same evening to make his break. He had suspected Tony was an American by the fact that he looked fairly healthy, and then had confirmed it by reading Tony’s lips when he was trying to communicate with Vaslov.
Baker had assumed leadership of the little group. No one had argued. Baker could be lethal when he wanted, as the incident with the knife had proven. He had told them that it was better they remain few in number so as to not attract either attention or people who might talk under torture. When Tony had told him about the two Jews, Baker had been deeply touched. Tony, who didn’t think Baker was his real name, now thought that the OSS man might be Jewish.
Baker said he had a job to do and he could do it either alone or with the help of a handful of others. Too many would get in the way. His assignment was to cause as much harm as possible to the Russian transportation system. Specifically, he was to find their local oil stores and call in air strikes on the small shortwave radio he’d parachuted in with and hidden. As a last resort, he would try to destroy the targets himself.
To Tony, it seemed like a wonderful idea. He was now firmly convinced, if there ever had been a doubt, that he would never see home and family again if the Russians weren’t defeated. Oh, they had talked about trying to gain the relative safety of the Potsdam perimeter, but that had been decided against for some very good reasons. First was the fact that they would have had a helluva time getting through the Russian and American lines without being shot. Second, what would they have gained? Baker had said it best: “All you would be doing is changing one prison camp for another.”
Baker was right, of course. While they would not have been alone in Potsdam and the sound of more American voices would have been nice and comforting, Potsdam was surrounded and there was little he could do in there to help the war. Potsdam was also possibly doomed. Out here he was free. Sort of. Tony kind of liked that better than being sort of not free.
Baker had earlier been out scouting and had reported the location of a couple of tanker trucks hidden nearby. Hardly enough to call in a flight of bombers, but something that should be taken care of.
“Hey, Joe, what are you gonna do about them trucks?” Tony asked. “Can’t leave ’em there, can you?”
Baker smiled slightly. “Haven’t decided.”
“You speak Russian?”
“Maybe.”
“Bullshit,” Tony laughed. “I’ll bet you speak it real good.”
Baker took out his knife and began to sharpen it. “I’ll bet you’re right, Tony. I’ll bet I speak German too, and maybe a little French. Why? You got an idea?”
Now it was Tony’s turn to smile. He knew Joe didn’t think much of Tony’s brainpower although he did respect him as a survivor. “I was thinking, Joe, why don’t you just walk up to them trucks and blow them up.”
Joe shook his head and grinned tolerantly. “And what would you put on my tombstone? That the dumb shit thought he could get away with it?”
“Joe, what if you were wearing a Russian uniform? One of their NKVD things that seems to scare the shit out of the regular Russians.”
“Tony, if I had one of those I could cause so much damage it would make your head spin.”
Tony laughed and told him about the uniform they’d taken and hidden, along with the weapons. Joe’s jaw dropped. Then he too started laughing.
CHAPTER 19
Elisabeth Wolf was entranced. It had been years since she had seen a baseball game and she had forgotten how much she liked the sport. It was like a touch of an earlier home, of Canada, a time and a land that belonged to another her. Pauli, however, was simply confused by all the running and yelling. He would much rather have had a ball that could be kicked.
Jack Logan had explained to her that the baseball tournament had been a source of controversy for some time. There was the real fear that the Reds would either bombard or attack during a game and cause needless casualties, while others had feared that the exertion of playing might unnecessarily weaken young men who were already on short rations.
General Miller had asked a number of the men what they had thought. They had frankly and tersely responded to both fears. “Fuck it, General,” one soldier had summed it up, “we all gotta die sometime. If it’s gonna be here, I’d just as soon be playin’ ball as hiding in some goddamn trench waiting to starve to death or get hit on the head by a Russian shell.”
Thus inspired, the engineers had used lathes to fashion a kind of bat and made baseballs out of discarded tires. Gloves and catcher’s masks were in short supply, so the rules of the tournament were adjusted to fit the fact. Even so, the games were a huge success and a boost for morale, and now football games were being planned.
Ball hit bat with a solid thwack and there were cheers. Pauli looked up and tried to figure out what was happening as a runner slid gracelessly into third base. Elisabeth looked up from where she was sitting on the ground and noticed a number of German women cheering on their particular soldiers. It would appear that she was not alone in having an American friend.
Logan trotted over from the field and plunked himself down beside her. “You look great,” he said.
“Thank you.” For the first time since he’d met her, she was wearing a skirt. She had made it from some blue drapes she’d found in a house. It was a little long, but it did make her feel a little more feminine than the men’s clothing she had been wearing. She knew she had nice legs and knew that the reduction in food hadn’t created any problem for her in that area.
“How come you stopped playing?” she asked.
“I took myself out. I wasn’t playing all that well and I really should let the enlisted men have their fun. Besides, I’d rather sit here with you.”
Elisabeth smiled. Jack had made two errors in the field and struck out once. Captain Dimitri had yanked him and sent him off with a swat on the rear while his team hooted in good-natured derision. He hadn’t pulled himself out; he’d been booted.
Elisabeth shifted, and Jack caught a quick glimpse of knee and thigh that widened his eyes despite the fact that women wore far shorter skirts in the States. God, he thought, am I that horny? Yes, he answered. I am.
A familiar shape darkened their horizon. “Am I intruding?” It was Lieutenant David Singer. His one hand rested on a cane.
“Hardly,” Elisabeth answered as she gestured for him to take a seat with them. “How are you feeling?”