1920: America's Great War-eARC (20 page)

“I am also wondering just what is going on right now in the apartment,” she said and briefly explained that Elise had brought Josh over for “lunch.”

Luke chuckled and thought of the quiet young couple. “Still waters do run deep, don’t they? Want to just happen to drop in on them?”

She punched him on the arm. “We’ll do no such thing. Let the young lovers have their moments.”

“And when will we have ours?”

She took his hand, “Soon. Maybe someday very soon. Just don’t push. I’m very fond of you and you are the only reason I’m staying here, but I don’t want to rush into anything.”

Luke understood and was somewhat satisfied. He would take things one step at a time. He heard thunder and looked up. It couldn’t be raining, could it?

* * *

The flight of fifty Gotha V bombers was escorted by a score of Albatros fighters. The bombers came in at a height of ten thousand feet. They were unopposed. No American planes flew to meet them and no anti-aircraft guns could reach them. A few machine-gun batteries did open up, but were quickly silenced by their commanders. They were wasting ammunition shooting at targets that high and they weren’t accurate in the first place. Worse, the shells had to come down and, like the proverbial arrow, who knew on what and where. Shooting at the Gothas was an exercise in futility.

As Luke and Kirsten watched, the bombs started to fall, like dropping fruit, straight down and into the heart of the city to the bay side of the Presidio. They instinctively ducked as the explosions began even though no bombs had yet fallen anywhere near them. Ironically, it was the part of the city burned by the fire of 1906 that was being bombed.

Several bombers separated from the main force and dropped their loads on coastal batteries.

Kirsten grabbed his arm. “Look.”

A handful of American planes had begun to attack the bomber formation. It was a futile gesture. They were swarmed over by the escorting Albatros fighters. A couple of American planes spiraled downward, smoke trailing behind them, while the survivors raced for safety.

But, out of luck or skill, one of the bombers was hit and began to smoke and lose altitude. People on the street cheered the sight and both Luke and Kirsten joined in. The crippled plane was angling for a landing in the bay. Luke quickly realized that the military had to get to the wreckage first.

The remaining bombers and fighters were departing. It had taken but a few seconds for them to deposit their loads. Luke left Kirsten and ran to the waterfront. A Navy launch was just arriving. He hailed it and was soon on his way.

The wreckage was a couple of miles offshore and sinking slowly when they arrived. A couple of private boats were already there. Damn, he thought.

“Private boats get back,” he called out. “This is military property.”

A grizzled seaman looked at him. “Kiss off, soldier. I found it and I’m keeping whatever I want. Salvage, it’s called.”

Luke borrowed a revolver from the launch’s locker and a grinning bosun took another. “And I call it martial law and military property. If you don’t want your ass shot off, back off.”

The scavenger’s face fell when he saw the guns. “All yours,” he said, “but I’m keeping the pilot. We’re gonna hang his ass for bombing the city.”

Christ, Luke thought, how many enemies do we have besides the Germans? By now they were alongside the wreck and the scavenger’s little boat. An ashen-faced man lay in the bilge. He was bloody, but apparently alive.

Luke kept the gun in sight. “Maybe we can let you have him after we’re through questioning him, but we need his information.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Information like where did he come from, and how many more are there?”

“Makes sense,” the scavenger said grudgingly. He helped transfer the wounded German to the launch. “The other two are dead. You want them too?”

The mangled bodies were still in the plane, wrapped in the wreckage. As they watched, the bomber slipped beneath the waves. “Guess not,” Luke said.

CHAPTER 11

“It was a terror attack, nothing more,” said a clearly agitated General Liggett. Sims nodded agreement. “They made no attempt to hit anything of military value. No bombs fell on our defenses and none on the Presidio, and they had to know this was our headquarters. Nor were any Navy ships attacked. They bombed the heart of the city just to prove they could do it.”

“What are the casualties?” a slightly calmer Admiral Sims asked.

Nolan sadly gave the numbers. “Just over three hundred dead with at least twice that many injured, almost all civilians. Women and children are included in the total. Certainly some of the injured will die and other dead will be found in the rubble. Overall, however, the actual damage to San Francisco was slight. The fires have been contained and crews are already clearing up the rubble. More people are homeless, though, which is a problem.”

“Which we will minimize by shipping still more civilians out of the city,” Liggett snarled, “and Mayor Rolph be damned. Nolan, in your opinion, will they attack again and what can we do about it?”

“Absolutely they will come again, and there is precious little we can do to stop them. We can elevate machine guns and our few cannon to shoot skyward, but hitting a moving airplane at ten thousand feet is virtually impossible. If one of their planes should deign to fly low, we stand a chance, but not against high-flying bombers. Until and if we have enough airplanes of our own to intercept the bombers, we are helpless. I believe the only practical and useful thing we can do is dig trenches for people to take shelter in.”

Nolan allowed a moment for that unpleasant truth to sink in. “Could we use civilian airplanes as interceptors?” Liggett asked. “I understand there may be several hundred in the area.”

Sims decided to interrupt. “I’ve had conversations on that score and civilian planes are small, slow, and frail. They would be slaughtered by the German fighters and many couldn’t attain the altitude necessary to fight the Gothas in the first place.”

“But what concerns me more,” Nolan said, “is just where did they come from? The Gotha V bomber has a range of just over five hundred miles, which means it can only be based about two hundred and fifty miles away for them to get here and back. To the best of our knowledge the Germans have still not taken San Luis Obispo, which is about two hundred miles south, and I can’t imagine they’d put a bomber base too close to the front lines.”

“A hidden base?” Sims asked.

At that moment, Luke entered the room and quietly took a seat behind Nolan. Liggett spotted him immediately. “Captain, you interrogated the German prisoner. Did he talk? And please tell me that you didn’t threaten to cut off his testicles or anything like that.”

“Wasn’t necessary, sir,” Luke grinned. “It seems the man is an enlisted gunner, not a pilot or an officer. He was conscripted into the German Army a few years ago and wants out of it. His name is Schmidt and he is pathetically eager to please. He also informed me he has family in Milwaukee and, in return for his cooperation, he would like to be released to them. I told him we’d consider it.”

Liggett stifled a smile. “Tell us what you’ve found.”

“First, sir, the Germans have sixty of the Gothas and a hundred fighters. Ten of the bombers didn’t go on the attack because of mechanical problems. Schmidt said his officers told him the attack was designed to bring us to the negotiating table by emphasizing how helpless we are against their bomber attacks. Again, sir, it was terror, plain and simple, and designed to get us to negotiate.”

“They do have a point,” Liggett muttered. “Tomorrow, I’m going to have to endure a meeting with local merchants who will doubtless want San Francisco either surrendered without a fight or be declared an open city. I will, of course, tell them exactly where they can put their precious business interests. Now, how the devil did the Germans accomplish the attack? Where are they based?”

Luke continued. “Sir, they are based just south of their lines at Obispo. They managed to cover the additional distance by reducing their bomb load and by carrying additional fuel in cans. Schmidt’s job was to take cans of gas and pour the gas down a funnel into the gas tanks as they flew along. By those means, they greatly extended their planes’ range. It’s almost like warships carrying extra barrels of oil or, in days past, bags of coal.”

Sims chuckled. “It’s a trick that works, but I cannot imagine sitting in a plane, ten thousand or more feet in the air, and pouring gasoline down a funnel. Instant immolation would have been only seconds away at any time.”

Luke smiled, “Schmidt felt that way as well, which is another reason for him to want to change sides. He says he cannot imagine American generals being so reckless with human life.”

“I can think of a few,” Liggett said, drawing laughter. “But did he give you a precise position where the bombers are based?”

“He did, sir,” Luke said. He caught Eisenhower smiling at him. “And I think we can come up with a way of disrupting their operations.”

“But will it be in time to forestall another attack?” Sims inquired.

“Probably not, Admiral. Schmidt said they want to hit us again fast so we don’t get the idea they’re short on fuel. And by the way, sir, they
are
short on fuel. There’s scuttlebutt in the German camps that tanker ships full of oil are only days away which will at least partially solve their problem.”

Sims leaned forward eagerly. “Did your man say where the tankers were headed, San Diego, Los Angeles, or elsewhere?”

“No sir. He didn’t know.”

Liggett stroked his chin. “And these plans of yours to, ah, disrupt the Germans, how soon can they be implemented.”

“A week to ten days,” Luke answered, looking at Eisenhower who smiled slightly. There was sadness in his eyes and the smile wavered. Ike had just gotten word that his son, David Doud Eisenhower, was deathly ill. Ike wanted to be by the boy’s side, but duty called. Luke continued. “Provided we can get the equipment and other resources we need.”

Liggett stood. “I will personally see to it that you get everything and then more. Anybody who fails to cooperate will be on permanent latrine duty for the remainder of their lives. Tell me, Martel, is there anything that might prove difficult?”

Luke grinned. “Well sir, I could use a couple of German uniforms.”

* * *

Roy Olson had seen death many times lately, but the dead body on the ground before him bothered him greatly. It was one of his Mexican soldiers and the man’s skull had been bashed in. From the look of it, someone had snuck up behind him and struck him with something like a hammer and hit him a lot of times.

“Another one?” Steiner said with a sneer.

Olson jumped. He hadn’t noticed the captain come up beside him. “Yeah,” he finally answered. “And it’s the fourth one if you’re counting.”

Steiner steered Olson away from the corpse. There would be no investigation. They had a man’s footprints as evidence and that was all, and that told them absolutely nothing.

“And what will you do this time besides send out search parties, Mr. Olson?”

“Captain, if you’ve got a better idea, I’d love to hear it. You want me to hang a prisoner or two to make a point, I’ll do it, but the prisoners are surly enough now. I don’t think they’ll take to having some of them being strung up, especially in payment for a dead Mexican that they couldn’t possibly have hurt.”

Steiner’s response was silence. The American prisoners of war worked slowly at best, and neither man felt that a retaliatory execution would be a motivator. They needed the Yanks, however slowly they worked, to keep supplies flowing north to a hungry and thirsty German Army. The American prisoners had gotten over their shock of defeat and imprisonment and now their eyes were filled with hate. They seemed on the verge of bloody insurrection. No, it was better they work a little than not at all.

“I’m almost a hundred percent certain it’s Lew Dubbins,” Olson said. “He’s the last of the brothers alive and the only one with half a brain.”

“Maybe more than half by the way he’s eluded your men.”

“Maybe,” Olson admitted. “Dubbins was raised here, so he knows every place to hide. He could be fifty feet from here, laughing at us while we send patrols into the mountains that come back with squat.”

“So where is he?” Steiner asked.

“Probably in a hole in the ground, preferably in the shade. He’s likely got a full canteen and his head is covered with a dusty brown blanket. We could walk within ten feet of him and not see him. And the son of a bitch is definitely taunting us. He could have killed the four Mexicans he murdered earlier with a rifle, but he’s chosen to do it with clubs or knives.”

Olson shuddered. The first two’d had their throats slit, while the third, like the latest, had his skull turned to red and gray pulp.

Steiner disagreed. “If he’d used a rifle, it’d give us a direction and distance so we’d stand a chance of tracking and chasing him. No, by killing like he does, this Dubbins creature gives away nothing. Strange, but I did not visualize any of those unwashed Dubbins cretins as being great American patriots.”

Now Olson was on firmer ground. “They aren’t, Captain. Lew Dubbins is out for revenge for his brothers, nothing more than that. He’ll keep killing until he’s caught, or until you and I are both dead. Killing the Mexicans are just ways of keeping us on our toes and up all night.”

Olson mentioned that he’d found a scrawled and misspelled note on the latest victim saying that he and Steiner would be killed, too.

To Olson’s delight, Steiner looked nervous and glanced around. “Send out your patrols, Olson. The fool could not have gone too far.”

* * *

He hadn’t. Lew Dubbins was in a storeroom in the back of one of Roy Olson’s warehouses. Through a crack in the wall, he could see the two men conversing and they looked pissed. Good.

He heard a key turn in the door and he grabbed his rifle. He would go down fighting.

It was Martina Flores, Roy Olson’s mistress. She laughed at him. “Put down your weapon.”

Dubbins grinned at her. She’d brought food and water. Better, she’d brought him something else. She pushed him over on his back and unbuttoned his pants. She hiked up her skirts and put one of Roy Olson’s expensive condoms on Lew’s erection, then straddled his manhood. She smiled down at him. It felt good to betray Roy Olson by fucking this ignorant savage.

* * *

Martina had known for some time that her husband was dead and that Olson was using her. Maybe Dubbins would kill Olson, just like he bragged he would. In the meantime, she would reward him for each enemy soldier, Mexican or German, that he killed.

She had first seen Dubbins when his brother was executed. She had seen the rage in his face and knew that he would help her. She had made contact through one of the women in the village, an older woman who understood her situation and felt sorry for her.

Dubbins wasn’t much of a lover. After pawing her breasts and thighs a few times, he grunted and relaxed. “God, that was good,” he said.

Martina smiled warmly. To her, his exertions were far less than average. But it was a good reward for Dubbins. Someday, when the time was right, she’d get him to kill Olson for her and maybe even Steiner. In the meantime, he could stay in the storeroom for a couple of days until the patrols came back from their fruitless endeavors. Then she would smuggle him out of the camp and he could rest and wait for his next target of opportunity.

* * *

Winter in the mountains was unpleasant at best, even to an expert like Klaus Wulfram. He was cold, miserable, and alone. He felt numbness in his fingers that presaged frostbite. The last of his men had abandoned him. He still had some dynamite on his pack horse, though, and planned to use it.

After blowing the bridges he’d been assigned, Wulfram and his crew had hidden in an abandoned barn for a few days. Then they had simply taken an eastbound train to St. Louis, this time as Swedish businessmen. Fortunately, Wulfram’s ID was good, his Swedish language skills passable, and his cartoonish Swedish accent good enough to be accepted. He harbored some wild thought that he could destroy the bridges across the Mississippi, but quickly ascertained that the now aroused United States was watching them like a hawk. Also, there were more bridges than he could handle, but in the north where the great river wasn’t quite so wide.

In St. Louis he received a coded telegram saying that the bridges in the northern pass had not been sufficiently damaged, if they had been damaged at all. He was saddened by the obvious fact that a team of men he knew quite well had simply disappeared. His new orders said that he would try to rectify the situation.

A simple look around St. Louis showed how necessary destruction of the northern rail line was. Military supplies were beginning to pile up by the hundreds of tons, and there were literally thousands of men in uniform. They would not be anywhere near as good as a German soldier, but there were so many that they could possibly overwhelm a German force or, worse yet, successfully defend against the German advance on San Francisco. The northern pass must not reopen until after San Francisco fell and the American Army in California was destroyed, at which time it would be a moot point.

Money talked and ten dollars got him on a train to Spokane. There he changed to a train headed towards Seattle, where the railway was blocked by snow. The conductor told him the delay was temporary and that crews were shoveling as they talked. When no one was looking, he got off and began hiking into the woods. This time he was nowhere near as well equipped or armed as before and the tracks were being guarded.

He wished the others were with him, but he’d given them the choice of volunteering to stay with him or try to make their way south to the German or Mexican lines as best they could. They’d all said no to staying with him. They’d had enough. He was disappointed, but didn’t blame them.

Still, American guards could not be everywhere. Wulfram rented two horses, one for him and one for his supplies, and trekked into the snowy passes.

He managed a wan grin when he saw how deep the drifts were and how America’s Pacific Northwest was cut off from the rest of the world until the tracks could be dug out. But, deep as they were, that wasn’t good enough. His orders were to extend the problem for an additional several months.