North Reich (53 page)

      
King shrugged, “Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do at this time.
 
Until and if we get a base closer to either the Falklands or Buenos Aires, we suffer from the same time and distance problems as the British.”
 

The plane was a Piper Cub, an old two seater that had been through a lot.
 
Maybe World War I as well as World War II, thought Tony Romano as he gazed at the patched up wreck.

      
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” said Farrell, his new OSS coordinator.
 

If Farrell had a first name, he never said it.
 
Nor did Tony know the names of the four other men who’d been working on the small plane.
 
After Sherry had freed him, he’d been hidden in a truck and driven to a small farm near St. Catharines, Ontario.
 
He was just a few miles away from the border between Canada and the U.S. and he could almost taste freedom and home.

Of course, a few miles might as well have been the distance from earth to the moon.
 
The area was crawling with Germans as they prepared to resist an invasion from the U.S., and they’d had to be careful.
 
As it was, they’d been stopped a couple of times, but their phony papers had been good enough to get them through.

“Well, can you fly the damn thing?” Farrell asked.

Tony had checked it over.
 
Aside from the obvious wear and tear, it looked like a sturdy little beast.
 
“Will I get an opportunity to try it out?” he asked hopefully.

“Nope, you get one chance and one chance only.
 
With all the krauts in the area, we can’t afford to let them see you flying around, especially with what looks like a bomb strapped to it.”

Tony had been told that the plane would be fitted with a 55 gallon drum filled with gasoline and fitted with a crude trigger that was supposed to ignite it on impact.
 
His target would be the first of a small column of German U-boats that would be transiting the Welland Canal on its way to Lake Erie.
 
If all went well, saboteurs would also have damaged the locks, preventing the subs from moving through them.

Farrell laughed.
 
“If this works, you might just get your fifth sub, ace.”

“Or get the words nice try engraved on my tombstone.”

“We’re planning on you doing a night attack.”

“Not a chance in hell,” Tony said.
 
“It’ll be tricky enough to locate and hit it during the day.
 
At night I’d be lucky to find Toronto.
 
I’ll fly in from the north right after dawn and maybe they won’t notice me until the last minute.
 
Maybe all their guns will be pointed south.”

Farrell concurred, not that it mattered.
 
Tony would be flying the plane, not him.
 

And maybe pigs will fly and maybe Hitler wears women’s panties, Tony thought.
 
But he had to do it.
 
He couldn’t let these other people take all the risks after getting him out of the camp.
 
But how would his family or Nancy O’Connor find out what was happening to him?

“And one other thing,” Tony added, “I’ll be flying real low, hopefully well under a hundred feet.”

Fortunately, he wouldn’t be going too fast.
 
On a good day, the little plane could do eighty miles an hour, which meant he should be able to dodge anything really tall.
 
He laughed bitterly.
 
He’d already lost two planes.
 
Would this little Piper Cub be the third?
 
And how many damn crashes could he survive?

Kommodore Reinhard Hardegan commanded a small squadron of three Type IX U-boats.
 
He was a combat veteran who’d been awarded the Iron Cross among other medals.
 
He was considered a fair, honest, and even honorable commander.
 
At forty-one he was thought to be a rising star in the U-boat command.
 
When the war with the United States started, he had launched attacks against American merchant ships and had sunk several.
 
He’d even penetrated Chesapeake Bay and given serious thought to doing the same with New York Harbor.
 
Cooler heads among his crew talked him out if it.
 
Still, he thought with a quiet smile, it would have been a good feeling to have sunk a merchant ship in the shadow of the Empire State Building.

      
At this moment, however, he felt impotent and foolish.
 
His sub, the
U-123
, was the first of the three to try and transit from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie via the Welland Canal.
 
His boat had been skillfully disguised by the addition of fake wooden walls that had been painted to make the
U-123
look like a small tramp steamer.
 
The same had been done to the other two boats that waited patiently behind him in other locks.
 
Like the
U-123
, they were all moored to the side of the lock, which meant they couldn’t move.
 
It didn’t matter.
 
They had no place to go.

      
There were no longer any German ships in Lake Erie.
 
There had been at least one sub and there had been no reports from it. Thus it was imperative that the three German subs make it into Lake Erie to forestall the possibility of an American amphibious assault behind German lines.
 
However, to get to Lake Erie he had to get through a lock on the Welland Canal that apparently had been sabotaged.
 
At least it hadn’t been blown up, he thought ruefully.
 
Had that occurred, the rush of water downstream to the lower Lake Ontario might have crushed the hull of
U-123
.
 
He didn’t think the damage to the lock was all that serious, but nobody could find the men who worked on the canal and could fix it.
 
Damn Canadians, he thought.
 
Are they allies or enemies?

      
The sun was rising which presented another problem.
 
He had the nagging thought that the damage to the locks presaged an attack by American planes at first light.
 
Hardegen had decided that if his ship was a sitting duck, his crew need not be.
 
He had ordered all but those necessary to man the 20mm anti-aircraft guns to go ashore.
 
At first the others had protested, but they saw the logic.
 
Since they were unable to move, they might as well have a form of shore leave even though the men were only a hundred yards or so away.
 
He could see them sprawled out on the grass and enjoying themselves.
 
He would rotate them to minimize any threat.
 
His men appreciated that and he appreciated them.

      
Enough of the fake walls had been removed to give his gunners a clear field of fire.
 
Any attack by the Americans had to come from the south.
 
As he peered through his binoculars for the first sign of danger, he heard in the background the sound of a small plane, either a Storch or one of the local Piper Cubs.
 
Regardless, it wasn’t a fighter or a bomber.
 
Perhaps, he thought, it was someone from Guderian’s headquarters wondering what the hell the problem was.

      
The sound of the small plane drew closer and it seemed like it was headed directly towards the
U-123
.

      
Hardegan turned to the north.
 
Shit.
 
The small Piper was headed straight towards him and there was something slung below it.
 
He screamed and the gunners turned their weapons around to face the new threat.
 
The enemy plane was coming in very low and was very close.
 
Tracers from the guns streaked through the air, but the plane was too close to stop.
 
It appeared to stagger as some shells struck it, but the bomb had already been released.
 

      
Hardegan watched in horror as it struck the wall of the lock and bounced into the air where it exploded.
 
A wave of burning gasoline poured over the sub, setting the fake walls on fire and sending flaming gas down the stern hatch that had been open to help air the boat out.

      
Burning gas drenched Hardegen.
 
As his clothes and skin began to singe, he jumped into the water.
 
His crewmen on the wall of the lock grabbed him and dragged him ashore.
 
His hands and face were burned, but the wounds didn’t look serious.
 
They began to hurt and he stifled a scream.
 
What was happening to his beloved
U-123
?

      
Black smoke and flames began to pour from the deck hatches and the conning tower.
 
The sub was loaded with torpedoes, diesel fuel, and ammunition for the deck gun and the anti-aircraft guns. They could all start exploding at any time.
 
The sub was doomed. Any possible fire-fighters were on the grass and staring in stunned disbelief.

      
“Abandon ship,” Hardegen yelled to the few who’d remained on the sub.
 
They needed no prompting.
 
The rest of his crew arrived to help him and the others onto higher ground.
 

      
He sent a runner to the other subs telling them to immediately withdraw back to Lake Ontario if they could.
 
He and his crew would try to make it overland to Toronto.
 
The Yanks clearly knew they were there and the next assaults would be by bombers and not Piper Cubs.
 
He turned to the south and saw that the Piper was a dot disappearing in the general direction of upper New York.
 
It seemed to be smoking and Hardegan wondered just how long the brave bastard of a pilot could keep it aloft.

      
As he thought that, he saw the plane dipping lower and lower.
 
“I hope you can swim,” Hardegan said to no one in particular.

Heinrich Stahl had intended to plan his next operation with his customary efficiency only to find that it really wasn’t necessary.
 
American security was so lax that all he really needed was to plan was his escape.

      
He’d been disappointed that the attack on the New York Stock Exchange had caused so little excitement.
 
He’d hoped for panic in the streets of New York and that had not happened.
 
It hadn’t even shut down the Exchange.
 
The Jewish capitalists had simply moved their operations to a different location a few blocks away while the old one was cleansed and repaired.
 
The exchange had been closed for only a couple of days.
 
Of course, there would now be heavy security.
 
The horse was out of the barn so now it was time to make sure the door was locked was how he thought an old saying went.
 

      
The Jewish controlled American press had even lied about the casualties.
 
He knew for certain from Krenz’s report that there had to be more than eight dead and ten injured and he absolutely knew that the gunmen had not been two lunatics who’d escaped from a nearby asylum.
 
He gave the Americans grudging credit for concocting such a story.
 
Goebels could not have done better.

      
Reinhard Krenz, the leader of the assault had escaped and was living in a Baltimore hotel under yet another assumed name and false identification.
 
Krenz had showed himself to be resourceful and brave.
 
He would be of great use when the time came for their next attack.
 
Stahl had circled an article in the Baltimore Sun.
 
It said that the intended target would be speaking to a group at the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington.
 
Even though it would be very close to the White House, he did not think there would be too much in the way of security.
 
Americans were such foolish asses in that regard.
 
Well, perhaps they would pay a price for that.

Chapter Nineteen

Lying naked on a bed with Alicia would normally be an erotic experience with an exciting and passionate conclusion.
 
This day, however, the pain from his broken ribs was almost more than Tom could bear.
 
It didn’t help that Alicia wasn’t quite naked; she was in her bra and panties, and she was trying to re-wrap the bandage around his chest, which hurt like a bandit.
 
It also didn’t help that their little flat was stiflingly hot in the heat of a Washington summer.
 
Both were sweating profusely.

      
“Does this hurt?” she asked with a smile.
 
Of course it hurt he thought as she continued.
 
“I broke a rib once as a kid when I fell off a horse.
 
I will never forget how much pain it caused and how helpless anyone was to do anything about it.”