Order of Battle (29 page)

“Two hours. Two hours we tramped all over that damned piece of real estate. And not a damned thing. Not a sign of them.” Don looked disgusted. “Well, like they say, if all else fails we can always give up.”

“Very funny!”

“I wasn’t trying to be funny.”

“You succeeded.”

Klein came up to them.

“The last of the men is back,” he reported. “What now?” He squinted up at the sun. “It’s getting on toward noon.”

“We might as well go back to the farm.” Don sounded dejected. “There’s not a fucking thing we can do here.”

He turned to Erik.

“Erik?”

“Yeah. Guess so . . .” Erik was staring into space, frowning in concentration.

“I’m going to hate having to face Streeter.” Don glanced at Evans. “And I hate even worse having to look at the smug puss of that prick Evans.”

Erik sat up.

“We’re not out of the ball game yet,” he said.

He turned to Klein, suddenly resolute.

“Sam. You and your men take the PWs at the farm back to Corps. Turn the soldiers over to the IPWs and the civilians"—he nodded toward Gruber—"including that miserable little bastard over there, to the CIC for interrogation. Don and I are going to try one more thing.”

“Right.” Klein stood up.

“Okay, you guys,” he called. “Gather round. We’re going back.” He pointed at Gruber. “And bring that Kraut over here.”

The MPs got up and began to gather around Klein. Evans strolled toward Erik and Don. He was carefully breaking his cigarette butt, scattering the tobacco as he walked. There was an unmistakable air of vast self-satisfaction in the way he performed the task.

Don glanced at Erik.

“I knew this was coming,” he growled.

Evans came up to them.

“So you’re finally coming to your senses,” he said, a thin smile of derision on his lips. “I take it that now you’re ready to admit I was right?”

Erik got up slowly.

“Is that how you take it?” he said pleasantly. “Well, we haven’t closed the case yet, Major.”

“Really?” Evans sounded deliberately incredulous. He looked toward the MPs gathered around Klein. “Well, at least you won’t be wasting anyone’s time anymore, except your own.”

The implication that that was of little consequence was as subtle as a two-ton truck.

Don stood up.

“I don’t think you have any call to refer to this case as a waste of time, Major.” His voice was dangerously low.

Evans cocked a goading eyebrow at him.

“No?”

“No! You heard our evaluation confirmed with your own ears.”

Evans nodded in the direction of Gruber.

“You mean that old man?”

“Exactly!”

Evans smiled condescendingly.

“I think we can discount that, don’t you?”

“Why? He admitted the Werewolves were in here.”

“Yes. So he did.” Evans pursed his lips in exaggerated thought-fulness. He was enjoying himself immensely. It was about time those insufferable self-styled “agents” were put in their proper place. Methodically he rolled up the paper from his cigarette butt into a small ball. “But,” he continued, “you seem to forget the circumstances under which the old man made that admission.”

Don glared at him. “Just what are you getting at?”

“Don’t forget—uh—Johnson, I used to be in law enforcement back in the States, too. There are ways—and there are ways.” He shook his head slowly, regretfully. “I very much doubt if anyone will seriously
believe
that—uh—confession of his after I inform them how it was obtained.”

Don threw a quick glance at Erik. Erik looked grim. He said nothing. He had nothing to say. . . .

Evans went on. “After all, you had the poor fellow scared out of his wits. He would have said
anything
to save his neck.”

He looked pointedly from one to the other.

“I’m afraid—uh—gentlemen, your case is a bust.”

He flipped his paper ball away.

“I warned you.” Evans sounded reproachful. “I told you. There’s only one way to conduct a professional investigation. It takes—uh—experience to know
how.
You haven’t got it.”

Erik spoke with deliberate quiet.

“Nevertheless, Major, we’re going on with it.”

“Suit yourselves.” Evans shrugged. “
I
shall have to get back to some serious work.”

“Just a goddamned minute!” Don flared. “If you think you can—”

Evans whirled on him, his voice suddenly venomous.

“Don’t growl, my friend, if you can’t bite,” he snapped. “And I’m afraid
your
bite will be highly ineffectual.”

He contemplated Don for a brief moment, savoring his superiority, a nasty little gleam in his eye.

“You don’t like me, do you—uh—
Agent
Johnson?” he queried.

‘That’s correct,
Major.”
Don’s voice was cold.

Evans smiled expansively.

“Well, I’m sorry if you think I’m acting like an SOB, but that’s what they’re paying me for.”

Don looked straight into his smiling face.

“They sure are underpaying you, aren’t they?” he commented.

Evans turned red with rage. Erik had trouble not laughing out loud. The MP officer eyed the two CIC agents maliciously. A note of shrillness crept into his voice.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. You’ve crawled way out on that limb. I shall take great personal pleasure in chopping it off.”

Abruptly he turned on his heel and stalked off.

Don glared after him.

“That bastard’s got a mind like concrete,” he growled. “All mixed up, and permanently set!”

They started after the departing MPs.

Erik felt oddly keyed up, almost elated. He wondered briefly if it was a reaction to the slump he’d hit when the search of the Werewolf area turned out to be a flop. No, it wasn’t that. He suddenly knew why. He suddenly realized that he didn’t give a hoot in hell about Evans. Or what the man could do to him. He had to go on with the case because he truly believed it was important. Because he honestly felt it had to be done. And not just to save his own neck. Although he freely admitted to himself that he’d like to be proved right. Of course. But that wasn’t the real motive. . . .

He turned to Don.

“Don,” he said. “We won’t give up. Dammit! We aren’t licked until we do.”

“All right,” he agreed. “I’m with you. What do you have in mind?”

“Okay, here it is. Remember what Plewig said about the supplies the Werewolves are supposed to have?”

“Sure. Lots of everything. From soup to nuts. So?”

Erik spoke slowly, deliberately.

“Isn’t it possible they cached some of the stuff in different places? Somewhere around their bivouac area?”

‘They might have. . . .”

“Even if they weren’t in that damned square where Gruber thought they were, they could still be somewhere around here. After all, he
did
point out the supply tree.”

He looked earnestly at Don.

“Look. I hate to go back to Streeter looking like a couple of empty-headed—and empty-handed—idiots. Suppose we
could
find a supply dump? Or even a trace of one?”

“Yeah. We wouldn’t look quite so stupid. If we could prove those damned Werewolves had been here, we’d sure blunt Evans’ hatchet!”

“And there’s more to it than that. If we can prove the Werewolves do exist, we can take steps—”

“Right. Beef up security—”

“Streeter said, ‘Stick with it!’”

“So we stick!”

“We stick! We’ll take the jeep. Cruise around the area. We’ll use that square of spruce as our pivot point. Maybe—just maybe something’ll turn up. . . .”

Weiden

1129 hrs

The battered bicycle leaning against the shrapnel-pitted wall of the bombed house had no tires. A heavy chain had been passed through one of the wheels and locked to the frame with a massive padlock. The debris of broken masonry had been partially cleared away from the stone steps leading to the cellar below the ruins, leaving a narrow path down into the darkness.

The two men talked in urgent whispers.

“You know what to do.”

Heinz shifted his weight to his good leg. The lame one ached.

He’d been too active. It was this damned Plewig business.

“Unit B,” he continued. “Five-man operational group. Emergency orders.”

He felt a sudden stab of pain in his left arm. It happened. Even though the arm, severed at the shoulder, lay rotting somewhere in North Africa. It used to startle him. Now he tried to ignore it. He peered at the other man with his good eye.

“Understood?”

“It is understood.”

Krauss was uneasy. He had a vague feeling that the situation was getting out of hand. All because of those two
verfluchte
American Gestapo agents. He felt like spitting on the floor, but Heinz might not understand.

“As fast as you can. Krueger
must
be warned.”

“And the American agents?”

“Impossible. For now. The forest and the farm were swarming with Ami troops.”

Krauss’s apprehension grew.

“Then one cannot know. . . . They might—”

Heinz interrupted harshly.

“They may search as much as they wish. They will find nothing.”

He paused. He put his weight on both legs and stood straight, facing Krauss.

“The rest is up to you. You will be held responsible.”

Schönsee Forest

1227 hrs

It seemed to Erik that the hundred-meter forest squares were getting bigger and bigger as the jeep crawled past them along the narrow path, but he knew it was only his growing frustration deceiving him.

Don was at the wheel. The trails were heavily overgrown in some places and he’d engaged the four-wheel drive for maximum traction at the slow speed. They’d been cruising along for over half an hour, and Erik estimated they’d covered three to four miles. They’d stopped repeatedly to investigate various spots that might serve as concealment for supplies, any kind of supplies: fallen trees, boulders, mounds and depressions, heavy clumps of brush, piles of dead branches, any conceivable hiding places.

They’d found nothing.

Erik scanned the woods intently as the jeep slowly crept on. They were on the path three squares removed from the pivot point. The timber was taller and less well kept here. Erik pointed to a small pile of cut firewood stacked at the side of the path. Don stopped the jeep and Erik jumped off. He went up to the stack of wood. He looked it over carefully. He picked off a few logs and then kicked the stack apart.

Nothing.

Without a word he climbed back into the jeep and Don drove off again.

Ahead the path dipped into a short downgrade. At the bottom the trees stopped at a small clearing. Erik pointed to it; he made a “cut” motion across his throat. Don killed the jeep motor. Quietly they coasted down the slope almost to the open field below. Don stopped the vehicle and both men got out. Cautiously they crept to the edge of the clearing, taking cover in the underbrush.

Before them stretched a typical Bavarian forest pasture planted with alfalfa. An overgrown wooden fence badly in need of repair surrounded it. About fifty feet from the forest edge, where Don and Erik crouched in concealment, stood a small timbered hut. There were no windows or doors in the wall facing the trees, only the back of a crudely made stone fireplace climbing up the side of the hut and ending in a squat chimney. A pile of cut wood was stacked next to it, and a big scarred chopping block had an ax stuck in it at an angle. The area looked drowsily deserted.

For a few moments Don and Erik observed the scene in silence.

Suddenly Erik stiffened. He touched Don on the shoulder and pointed toward the hut.

Don squinted. He frowned. He turned to Erik with a puzzled look.

“The chimney!” Erik whispered. “Watch the chimney!”

Don stared.

And he saw it.

Rising from the squat chimney was the quiver of hot air. No smoke. Only the peculiar characteristic effect of rising heat, making everything seen through it shimmer like a mirage.

“Got it,” Don whispered. “Hot air! Someone’s in there!”

“Or was. Recently.”

Don contemplated the hut.

“Could be just farmers. . . .”

“Careful not to make smoke?”

“Only one way to find out.”

Erik nodded. He bit his lip. Then his face twisted into a wry grin.

“Shall we make like Dick Tracy?”

“Why not. Pruneface, here we come!”

Both men drew their guns and checked them. Don glanced at Erik. He gave a short nod.

At once the two men broke cover. Noiselessly, in a zigzag run, they sprinted from the forest across the clearing toward the hut; Erik to the left, Don to the right.

Erik ran easily. Fast. The distance to the hut suddenly seemed alarmingly greater than he’d thought. He was vaguely aware of Don reaching the opposite corner of the shack and disappearing from sight. And then he was at his end of the hut, running past a shuttered window. One part of his mind blazed with the hope that the place would be swarming with Werewolves, the other coldly realized the folly of such a hope.

He shot around the corner to the front of the hut. His pounding heart skipped a beat. Don. He was not there! And then he saw him as he came racing around the far corner.

There was another shuttered window. And a door. Closed. The two men stopped before it. They listened.

There was not a sound.

Erik took a firmer grip on his gun. He looked at Don—and nodded.

At once Don aimed a crushing kick at the wooden door. With a splintering crash it burst open. . . .

Erik was through it before the thunderous noise had died.

In a lightning flash his eyes and mind took in the scene confronting him: the hoes, spades, rakes sticking up from a big, dirty barrel leaning against the knotted wall planks in a corner of the hut; the large iron pot in the fireplace, the bright, smokeless fire; the big roughhewn table—and the five people sitting on stools around it, eating soup from plain bowls, their eyes riveted upon him in frozen shock . . .