Winner Lose All Read online

“They are Germans. I doubt they trust anyone. That’s why they want an emissary, a trusty guide dog who can lead them through our lines.”

  “And that’s supposed to be me?”

  “Precisely,” Bromley grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “It will take a steady hand and some focus, lad. I’ll be the first to admit it. If they leave their base too early and are caught, the Gestapo will line them against the nearest wall. On the other hand, if they wait too long they could find themselves in Uncle Joe’s May Day Parade in Red Square.”

  “What makes you think it isn’t a set-up?”

  “Not this time. It is far too important. The whole thing has been wired from the top, by the Luftwaffe brass in Berlin. You can believe me about that, if nothing else. They are desperate to save their own backsides, of course; but more importantly still, they do not want to see Europe dominated by the Soviets any more than we do. If the Reds get those jets, that is precisely what will happen, too. Remember, the Germans have been hemorrhaging men and material on the Eastern Front for four years now and they fear Ivan far more than we could possibly understand. That’s why they contacted your Air Corps people, from one gentleman of the air to another, as they would say. A load of rot if you ask me, but it has all been arranged. As I said, from the top.”

  “So, what am I supposed to do?”

  “You? You’ll be the dutiful shepherd, my boy. Round them up, get them moving, and herd them on out. The man in charge there is a Doctor Wolfe Raeder, a mathematical genius, or so they say. He is the airplane’s chief designer. There are also four or five of his top assistants, Raeder’s daughter, crates full of blueprints, and some Luftwaffe handlers.”

  “His daughter?”

  “She is his personal assistant, or some such. The families of all the other staff were never sent to Volkenrode for security reasons, but the old man insisted she come with. She is eighteen now, so it has all been agreed to. Besides, they are engineers, for God’s sake — thick glasses, slide rulers, and shirt pockets full of pencils. All you need to do is pack them up and lead your little flock southwest out of harm’s way. It should be a piece of cake for a resolute young fellow like you.”

  All been arranged? A piece of cake? Scanlon knew there was no sense arguing with the pompous ass. You can’t take care of Heinrich Himmler or his SS, and you sure as hell can’t take care of Otto Dietrich or the Gestapo.

  “Why don’t I believe you?” Scanlon finally asked.

  “Excellent! I’m glad you don’t, it shows you’re getting the old touch back. A spy lives and dies on his instincts, Captain. You should not believe me and you should not believe anyone else, either. Do that and you just might make it through this thing and back to the arms of that raspberry red wench of yours, provided you do precisely what you’re told.”

  Scanlon glared at him. He knew Bromley was lying to him and using him all at the same time, but it didn’t matter. “I’ll go. I’ll be your guide dog.”

  “I never doubted you would.”

  “Don’t be smug, Colonel. I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for myself,” he said, and I’m doing it for Hanni, he thought.

  “Oh, don’t think too poorly of us, Captain,” Bromley said as he leaned back in his chair and gazed out his window to the lovely city square below. “It has been a long, hard war, and it will be an even harder peace, I am afraid, not that you would understand. You Yanks are blessed. You come over here to jolly old England and drink our warm beer, drive our cute little sports cars, seduce our women, and think what a grand adventure you have had. That’s all this war means to you. You cannot wait to get back to the States and pick up right where you left off. The Great American Dream! It goes onward and upward forever.”

  Bromley’s face grew flush, his voice spiteful and envious. “Unfortunately, that isn’t our way. Before the war, we were a nation of clerks and mechanics, very set in our ways. We were shipbuilders and lorry drivers, coal miners, sailors, bookkeepers, poets, and cooks — little people mostly. We knew our place and we knew our limits. We did not like change, and we put our faith in the stability of the pound sterling and the Empire. We have been bled dry in two wars now, and we haven’t much more to give. Like Oliver Twist, we want more now, we want what you Yanks have, and I’m afraid it shall destroy us in the end.”

  “That’s your problem, Colonel. Don’t try to pawn it off on me,” Scanlon warned as he leaned forward and locked his ice-cold, steel-gray eyes on Bromley’s. “Just remember, if this whole thing is just more of your bullshit, if Hanni isn’t alive, then you better pray to hell I don’t make it back. If I do, there isn’t a hole in jolly old England that will be deep enough for you to hide in.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  London

  “No need for theatrics, Captain.” Bromley said as he leaned back in his desk chair and smiled contentedly. “As I said, it should be a piece of cake.”

  A piece of cake. Scanlon wanted to jam a fistful of it down the Brit’s throat. A piece of cake! Those were the very words Will Kenyon used to describe their escape from Gestapo headquarters in Leipzig just before they shot him down in that street. A piece of cake? Scanlon didn’t know if his stomach could handle another one.

  “It shouldn’t take you more than three days, five at the most, I should think.”

  Classic, Scanlon thought. What could he possibly know about even a single day over there, about the pressure, the responsibilities, and the stark terror? Bromley’s war had been fought sitting on his dead, bony ass behind this big desk in London, not out in the field trying to keep it from being shot full of holes.

  “Those engineers at Volkenrode know they have no choice,” he went on. “The roof is caving in on them, and if they want out before they get buried, we are their only option. Besides, they appear to be a pathetic enough lot. They should be putty in the hands of a clever chap like you, Captain. Keep them one short step ahead of Ivan, and they will kiss your boots all the way to Bavaria. If they don’t, give them the back of your hand. You might even shoot one every now and then. You know how Germans love a strong leader.”

  The icy expression on Scanlon’s face never changed. He appeared to be listening intently as Bromley droned on, but he wasn’t. It was a useful technique he learned from that roomful of old men back in Leipzig. Keep quiet, look interested, occasionally nod, and give nothing away. That was the code of the survivor, as Georg Horstmann once told him, and it usually worked.

  “It looks like you have it all worked out.”

  “Me? No, no. I’m told your Air Corps higher-ups contacted your OSS man in Berne, a chap named Dulles, and he worked out the details with them,” Bromley said. “Lucky you, eh? You will be traveling under Luftwaffe protection with real papers. Imagine that.”

  Scanlon couldn’t, not for a minute.

  “Hermann Goering and his bloody Luftwaffe; GHQ thinks they’re the most civilized of the Hun. Goes back to Von Richthofen in the last war, I assume — knights of the air, the proper sort of gentlemen, people we can work with, and all that rubbish!” Bromley said, as his face turned scarlet. “Like they worked with Coventry, Leeds, and the West End, no doubt. What a lovely turn of events. I could invite the lot of them to a pub I know down in Cheapside. The windows and half the roof are gone from a stick of bombs, and a Heinkel crashed into the rear wall, but no hard feelings, eh? We could belly up to the bar and sing some old songs, eh? ‘Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella’? ‘The Last Time I Saw Paris’? No, no, I’m sure they’d prefer ‘There’ll be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover.’ We could even deck them out in tweed suits and bowler hats and let them raise a pint with the boys — forgive and forget, eh!”

  Finally, it was Scanlon’s turn to smile. “You never cease to amaze me, Colonel.”

  Bromley bristled. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those who think we should mollycoddle the Hun? After what they did to you?”

  “Me? I’d be happy to tie the rope and kick out the stool, but let’s make sure we’ve got the right Hun.” As
he thought it over, the operation seemed straightforward enough, but Hanni’s words kept ringing in his ears. “Do not trust the British,” she said. “They will use you and throw you out with the trash when they are done.”

  “Well, I know you worked undercover with them,” Bromley continued, “but don’t harbor any naive illusions about them. The Hun has the loyalty of a Calcutta whore, especially now, when they are selling themselves to the highest bidder. Don’t think they wouldn’t have called the Russians if they thought they could get a better offer and get away with it,” he warned, “and don’t think they still won’t turn and stab you in the back if a better one does come along.”

  “You forget I’ve been there.”

  Bromley stared at him for a moment, and then finally nodded. “Yes, yes, of course. Sorry about that, old man. I tend to get carried away and forget myself. You are correct. You have already given more than your share and it was wrong of me to forget. That’s why this whole business is such a bloody travesty. They flatten our cities, kill thousands, and nearly ruin this island. Now, they switch sides and end up with cushy jobs in California, or wherever your blasted aircraft industries are, while our people sit here and pick through the rubble.”

  Scanlon almost felt sorry for him. The war had taken a dreadful toll on England and its people; but the tide had turned now, and it was the German cities being pounded into rubble with a blind, savage vengeance. Serves them right, Scanlon decided, serves them both right; but an eye for an eye never did much for anyone’s vision.

  Bromley turned in his chair and stared vacantly out the window again. “I find it interesting that until two weeks ago, neither your Air Corps nor our Air Ministry had even heard much of this Hermann Goering Research Institute,” he said. “Now, you would think this Herr Doktor Raeder had invented the bloody wheel. Remember that name, though, because he is the one GHQ says they really want. A lot of drivel, if you ask me, but we both have our orders. Don’t we, Captain?”

  Bromley was right, Scanlon had to agree. We both have our orders. As long as they took him closer to Leipzig and closer to Hanni Steiner, they were fine with him. Bromley was right about that much, anyway. This could be the last chance he would ever get to find her, to find out if she really was alive, and to settle an old score if she wasn’t. So, he would go to Leipzig again, but he would do it his way, not Bromley’s.

  “You are to be dropped in disguised as a Luftwaffe Captain, a supply officer on temporary assignment to Volkenrode. The Hun’s worse than a French chambermaid when it comes to spreading her legs for a man in a uniform, provided the fellow acts arrogant and obnoxious enough.” Bromley clucked. “Think you can play that role, Captain?”

  “I don’t know, Colonel; I’ll try to come up with a good model for the part.”

  Bromley gave him a cold, humorless stare; certain he was being insulted, but opting to ignore it as he reached into a drawer and pulled out a thin manila folder. He placed it on the desk and opened the cover. Picking up a small black-and-white photograph, he slid it across the polished mahogany surface toward Scanlon. “This is your contact. You’re going in dressed in a Luftwaffe uniform, and he’ll meet you at the drop zone.”

  “The drop zone? No thanks. I’d rather go find him, if that’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not okay, Scanlon. He is a Luftwaffe Major and he will have an official Luftwaffe car and your papers. This time, it should be the safest way to get you in, and get you to Volkenrode,” Bromley said as he leaned forward and glared at Scanlon. “Besides, it’s what your man Dulles set up, so be a good chap and do what you’re told.”

  Scanlon glared back and reluctantly nodded.

  Bromley tapped the photo with his finger. “His name is Von Lindemann, Major Von Lindemann, of course, another of those damned Prussians! You know the type. They say he never was a Nazi, but none of them were saying that when they were winning. They couldn’t very well do anything about the Nazis, either, could they? Well, I suppose it isn’t fair to blame them all, eh? Forgive and forget? He never flew bombers or participated in any of the other unfortunate business like bombing one of our cities. Oh, no, he flew an Me-109 and was one of the good Germans, a knight of the air, mano-a-mano, to the death. Apparently he got so good at it that they made him a test pilot for the new Me-262. That is, until he splattered himself and his new toy across a frozen wheat field last December.”

  Bromley picked up the photographs and spread them across the desk. “Here’s Raeder’s photo, Von Lindemann’s, and all the rest of them. Learn the faces.” As Bromley looked down at the photographs, a thin, bitter smile crossed his lips. “Whatever shall we do with them, eh, Captain? All those fine German gentlemen in their pretty blue uniforms. There aren’t enough second-rate hotels in Germany to put them all to work as doormen, and most haven’t the temperament to make a good butler. Perhaps they could drive a bus or deliver the mail.” He shook his head, amused at the thought. “Personally, I like to think they’ll end up like all those penniless Russian counts after the Great War — loitering about the tea rooms in Paris and Monaco all decked out with their shiny medals and lovely brass buttons.”

  Bromley stacked the photos, jammed them into the envelope, and pushed it across the table. “Well, they are your problem now. They bloody well know not to come here hat in hand. Who knows, in time you might even be able to teach them table manners. If I were you, though, I’d be sure to count the silverware afterward.” Bromley did not even try to contain his contempt. “Your Luftwaffe contact will have all the documents you’ll need to travel, not ones the Section puts together back here in London, but the real thing from their Berlin headquarters. As I said, Captain, it should be a milk run, a piece of cake. You are Bo Peep, and all you need to worry your little head about are your bleeding Jerry sheep. Pack them up and head south toward the American lines where General Patton and his Third Army will be waiting to give you a big hug and kiss.”

  “That’s what? A couple of hundred miles we’ll have to drive? I’m not worried about the Luftwaffe. They haven’t many planes left now, and what they do have will be chasing bombers; but what about our own planes? Those Spitfires and Mustangs will shoot anything they see moving on the roads.”

  “GHQ thought of that. They suggest you paint a red cross on the top of the trucks, and our pilots will be told not to go after any with that marking.”

  “A red cross? Is it bulletproof?”

  “No, and I thought that might be a bit too obvious as well. Jerry could already be disguising their own trucks and that would be too obvious. I suggest you paint a white circle up on the roofs, perhaps two of them.”

  “White circles?” Scanlon looked across at him and shook his head, wondering how things had gotten this insane. “Those would make better targets, I guess.”

  “No, no, as you said, our boys will be the only ones up there anyway; so they’ll know it is you and they can help keep an eye out. See how I’m trying to help, old chap? As I said, a piece of cake. However,” Bromley leaned back across the desk, his expression turning deadly serious, “when you do reach Volkenrode, if you discover this whole thing is a trap, don’t let them get away with it. Kill them. Kill the lot of them. It’ll teach the Hun that we aren’t good sports when it comes to bad jokes.”

  Running through a hundred miles of Germany in an army truck? Killing civilians? That must sound incredibly easy to a man sitting behind a desk here in London.

  Bromley finally relented. “You must excuse an old Londoner, Captain. No doubt, I am not being entirely fair. I’m confident all these little details have been taken into account up on high, and there is no cause for the slightest concern,” his lips formed a thin smile. “God’s in his Heaven and all’s right with the world, miracles do indeed happen, droughts are broken, plagues are cured, the mightiest of typhoons have been known to stop dead in their tracks, and a giant whale even spit out old Jonah and gave the poor bastard a second chance, just like we’re giving you.”

  The Colonel pushed
a button on his desk. The office door immediately swung open and Sergeant Major Rupert Carstairs stepped into the office. His eyes locked on Scanlon, hoping he was being given another shot at him, until Bromley waved him off.

  “Your airplane takes off tomorrow night at Eighteen Hundred,” the Colonel said as he rose to his feet, signifying their meeting was over. “Until then, you’ll spend the night in the Park Lane, under guard, of course. So, eat, sleep, relax, and be there tomorrow as prompt and sober as the parson’s wife or I will let Carstairs play rugby with your head again. He would enjoy that immensely, but you would not. So Godspeed, Captain, and be gone. Frankly, I’ve had more than my fill of Yanks for the day.”

  Scanlon stood and looked back at Bromley. For a moment, he almost felt sorry for the little shit, but that twinge of sympathy quickly passed. Scanlon brushed past Carstairs and walked through the open doorway without saying another word.

  In the long, empty silence that followed, Bromley turned in his chair and stared out the bay window behind his desk. He watched the young American come out the front door and down the steps with an American MP at each elbow. They hopped into the back seat of an olive-green sedan and drove away. That was when Bromley realized how much he hated the young man. Not personally, of course. He did not know Scanlon well enough for that. No, he hated this American and the rest of his country as one might hate a talented but undisciplined child who had no conception of his own abilities and was simply pissing them away. He could understand and sympathize with him up to a point, but he would prefer to give him a good thrashing for general principles.

  His eyes drifted into the brightly dappled flowerbeds of the small square below. It was finally spring. The park was surrounded by a decorative wrought-iron fence and its elm and maple trees were budding in the warm afternoon sun. The tulips and crocuses were peaking. Children were playing. Old women and old men sat silently on ornate wooden benches, eyes closed, savoring the warm spring sun with no fear for the first time in years. Peaceful and quiet, the scene reminded him of a long-gone and far gentler era. Is it long-gone? Yes, and perhaps never to come again, he had to admit.