He glared at his commanding officer.
“Tell G-2 to shove it,” he said angrily.
Major Wallace, Stanley H. Wallace — H for Homer after his paternal grandfather — CO of Counter Intelligence Corps Detachment 212, calmly studied the young officer standing stiffly at the grimy-paned window in his office. He knew him Well. Knew he always bitched like hell before taking on an assignment not of his own choosing. But he always did take it on, and lit into it with imagination and guts. It would be no different now.
Major Wallace turned to a large area map on the wall behind him.
“It's thirty-two miles from Bitburg to Mayen,” he said.
“And thirty of them held by the Krauts!” the young officer flared and turned away from the map deliberately to stare out the window into the gray, dismal morning.
Below lay the little town of Fels, virtually untouched by the war. The bustling military traffic flowing around the Corps HQ buildings seemed totally out of place — like close-order drill in a convent.
The Forward Echelon of XII Corps had moved to the county- seat town of Fels — or Larochette, depending on your ethnic preference — on February 23, a short week before, and set up shop in a drab three-story hotel, a textbook firetrap with narrow corridors and steep, winding stairs. All the rooms were small with depressingly low ceilings, the CIC office on the third floor most certainly no exception. The town was nestled in a heavily wooded and hilly section at the edge of the High Eifel in Luxembourg, hard on the German border, a resort area often called Little Switzerland.
For a brief moment Lieutenant Martin Kieffer, counter-intelligence agent, CIC Det. 212, stared at the scene before him. The forest-clad hills ringed the little town. From among the dark evergreens the twisted, naked branches of leafless trees reached upward toward the leaden sky — skeletons of winter waiting to be fleshed out with new spring growth.
It would be the last one, he thought — the last Corps CP before entering enemy territory.
He turned to Major Wallace.
“You know what they'll do to me if they nab me, don't you? I'm Jewish.”
Wallace nodded. “Half Jewish. Your mother was Catholic.”
“Dammit, Stan, I'm circumcised.”
“Big deal. So am I. And I'm Presbyterian.” The major rose. He walked up to Kieffer. “Look, Martin,” he said quietly, “I know it's a helluva thing to ask. And nobody's ordering you to do it.”
Kieffer felt a wave of frustrated anger surge through him. That was the worst part of it. It would be his choice. He couldn't hide behind an order. He himself would have to make the decision to get his ass shot off, to take on the goddamned stupid assignment.
“Shit!” he said. “Let me see that message again. The decipherment.”
Wallace took a piece of paper from his desk and handed it across.
Frowning, Kieffer studied it.
IMPORTANT DEGUSSA SCIENTIST JOHANN
DECKER BELIEVED READY DEFECT STOP
PRESENT MAYEN OSTBAHNHOFSTR FROM 24
TO 28 FEB THEN TRANSFER INTERIOR
STOP EVACUATION VITAL STOP EULE
He looked up at Wallace.
“How was it sent?” he asked “What's the cryp history?”
“Double transposition cipher,” Wallace answered. Inwardly he smiled. Kieffer was hooked. “The standard OSS thing. Eule, the German underground operative in Frankfurt, sent it by short wave to a collection center in Switzerland. The monitoring agent there sent it on to London, and London shot it over to SHAEF—”
“—and it ends up in our eager little hands,” Kieffer finished for him.
“With an order for immediate action.” Wallace nodded. “And a lot of pressure from SHAEF.”
Kieffer looked at the message in his hand. Absent-mindedly he turned it over.
“Someone's worried about something,” he said pensively. He looked up at Wallace. “We know anything else?”
“Yeah. Degussa. It's a big Frankfurt outfit. Working on top- secret projects”
“Another goddamned secret weapon to win the war.”
“Don't sell it short,” Wallace said soberly. “V-1 and V-2 are no toys. Ask any poor bastard in London.”
“CIC is not supposed to operate behind enemy lines, Stan, and you know it. It's an OSS job.”
“No time for them to mount a mission.”
“Sure. They waited to the last fucking day.”
“Didn't get it before.”
“Damned SHAEF snafu. Why us?”
Wallace shrugged.
“We're here”
“Why me? It's not my meat. I've never operated behind enemy lines before.”
As he said it — he knew it wasn't true. But Wallace didn't know that. He'd never told his CO about the time he'd taken the wrong road and lost his way. It was shortly after the Siegfried Line had been smashed. He'd ended up in a small Kraut village on the Prüm River that hadn't been taken yet. Only he didn't know that. He'd strutted into the Bürgermeister's office, kicked the man out and replaced him with a non-Nazi farmer. He'd ordered the townspeople to dismantle a half-finished tank obstacle across the main drag on the double, and generally thrown his weight around. And he hadn't known that the cellar of damned near every house was filled with Waffen SS troops lying in ambush — any minute expecting the cock-sure Ami officer's support troops to roll in. He'd only learned that two days later when the town was occupied and he'd dropped in on the man he'd installed as mayor. He'd had one helluva time pretending that he'd known the situation all along.
But this time it was different. This time he knew.
“Your German is perfect,” Wallace said.
“Who is this Decker guy?”
Major Wallace just shrugged.
“Don't know. All I know is, they want him. Badly.” He glanced sideways at Kieffer, then looked back at the wall map. “You'll have to infiltrate to Mayen,” he said briskly. “Find Decker on Ostbahnhofstrasse and transport him back here.”
“That all?” Kieffer said bitingly. He threw the message on the CO's desk. “That damned message says believed ready to defect. What if the bastard doesn't want to go?”
“Persuade him.”
“As in kidnap? You're out of your fucking mind!”
“Play it as it comes.”
For a moment Kieffer stared silently at the map. Then he turned to Wallace.
“Okay,” he said “Okay. I'll go get him.” He glared at his superior officer. “But I'll do it my way!”
“And what way is that?”
“First, I go in uniform. Infantry insignia. Dogtags. The works. I don't want to be stood up against the nearest wall if they catch me.”
Wallace nodded. It made sense. Anyway, German troops had captured a lot of GI equipment and clothing during their abortive Ardennes offensive. They were putting it to practical use in the cold weather. A bastard American get-up would not attract attention.
“I'll go in by jeep,” Kieffer continued. He was getting caught up in the challenge of the mission. His eyes flew across the wall map. “I'll scrape off the stars. Muddy the numbers.” He turned to Wallace. “And I want a driver. Marshall. Jerry Marshall. That sergeant in the motor pool. He's crazy enough to go along.”
“Marshall?” Wallace was startled. “He can't speak a word of German.”
“But he can make a bathtub run like a Rolls. He's one damned good mechanic, and that's a helluva lot more important to me than language. I don't want to be stranded in a conked-out jeep in the middle of nowhere thirty miles into Kraut country. If we get into a situation we have to talk ourselves out of, we've had it anyway.”
“It's okay with me — if Marshall agrees.”
“He will. He's always bitching about not seeing any action.”