Legacy (6 page)

“I have a bill of lading and weight certificate right here, gentlemen.” Goetz half turned his head and nodded toward the interior of the station. Then he opened his satchel.

Ben saw movement and froze. Then he jumped forward toward the first truck.

“No!” he shouted loudly.

Just as Ben made his appearance, Goetz removed a Walther pistol and fired point-blank at the lead agent, then before the rest of the FBI team reacted Goetz slammed his body down onto the wooden platform just as the large glass windows behind him shattered as machine gun bullets started raking the three remaining agents and several laborers at the back of the truck.

As Ben ran around the blind side of the second truck, one of the agents was thrown backward into him. Ben saw that he was still alive and started pulling him back as bullets started to find their way back to his vulnerable position. Hamilton aimed as best he could with the wounded agent in his arms and then fired, but the agent’s weight pulled his aim off considerably. Not that it would have mattered. As he stumbled backward he saw ten men emerge from the station house and all of them had machine guns. They were raking not only the agents, but the Ecuadorian workers who were trying to flee in a panic.

Ben lost his footing and went down, pinned beneath the agent’s weight. Still, he was able to raise the .45 in his right hand and start firing low to the ground. He managed to hit the feet and ankles of the two men at the back of the truck. As they hit the gravel-covered ground, the OSS man placed two rounds each into their heads and then he ejected the spent clip and inserted another. Hamilton then started pulling the wounded agent along as best he could as he heard men taking position around the first truck. He knew they would soon be surrounded.

“Don’t kill the American. We need him.”

Ben Hamilton heard Goetz shout at the remaining man who had accompanied the trucks. Ben shrugged the agent, who was now dead, off him and stood. He retraced his steps and then took quick aim at Goetz, who was standing on the platform looking as if he were Julius Caesar. Hamilton placed pressure on the trigger and that was when he was brutally pulled backward, hard enough that the .45 flew from his hand. He lost his balance and fell, a strong arm pulling at him, his coat collar used like a suitcase handle to drag him through the gravel. Ben tried to warn whoever was pulling him that there was a man taking aim at them, and just as they reached the corner of the platform, the man pulling him to safety emptied a Colt .45 into the assassin. Finally, as they rounded the wooden platform, Ben was pulled to his feet.

“What were you going to do after you shot Goetz?” a strong voice asked as he was pushed toward the open door of an idling car. “Take the honorable way out and blow your head off?”

Ben was pushed through the open door as the man hurried around to the driver’s side of the idling car and smashed the accelerator down. The car sped away.

“I thought I taught you better than that. You live to fight another day, dumbass!”

As Ben tried to get his breathing under control, the rear window exploded inward and the driver swerved as he twisted the wheel hard to the right. Hamilton risked a look up at his rescuer. All he could see was a large bandage. Blood was seeping through as Colonel Garrison Lee turned toward him and angrily looked him over.

“Are you hit?” he asked. He then turned the wheel in the opposite direction and slammed on the brakes, throwing Ben up against the dashboard. “Are you hit, Hamilton?” Lee asked again, looking through the rear window frame.

“They said you were missing,” Ben stammered, checking for any leaks he may have sprung.

“Not missing—just beat half to death and cut up some. Now, are you hurt?”

“I don’t seem—”

“Good, we’ll talk later about how there seemed to be just about an entire SS regiment in your country of responsibility and you not knowing about it,” Lee said. He removed the empty clip and inserted another into the handle of his .45. He tossed Hamilton another ammunition clip. Then, as Ben watched, Lee laid his head against the steering wheel. He took some deep breaths. Blood had started a pretty good flow through the thick gauze across the right side of his face.

“Are you all right, Colonel?”

Lee laughed with his forehead still on the steering wheel.

“Do I look all right, Hamilton? I mean, I thought you were a Harvard grad.”

“What happened back there?” Ben asked, nervously looking through the windowless panel in the back.

“I don’t know, Hamilton,” Lee said, straightening as he heard the train pulling out of the station. “Do you have any idea what in the hell was so important to Goetz that he risked being shot or captured thousands of miles away from home?”

“Well, sir, there’s the crates—”

Lee looked over and finally a smile broke out across his shattered face.

“Really, Hamilton. You think so?”

Ben caught on quickly that the colonel was making light of his obvious observation and he felt embarrassed having made it. Lee, with blood starting to course down his right jawline, put the car in gear and sped off in the direction of the eastbound train. Hamilton saw how gingerly the colonel was working the brake and the gas pedals, then he saw why. There was another bloodstain on his right pant leg at the calf. So the report was true. The colonel had indeed been ambushed and almost butchered in Argentina. How he could be doing what he was doing was far beyond what Ben could imagine.

“Look, we have one chance at this. You have to get on that train and stop it. The only thing I would be good for is throwing the car in front of it,” he hissed. He turned onto the narrow gauge tracks and started riding the rail, with two wheels on and two off. The ride was bumpy and with each jolt Hamilton could see Lee grimace. “What has your training taught you?”

Ben charged a round into the .45 and then thought about what he had to do. “Can you run the front bumper of this thing right into the ass end of the train?” he asked as he rolled down the right-side window.

“That’s my intention, Hamilton, and you can’t jump onto that damn thing sitting in here.”

Ben tucked the Colt into his waistband and then took off his thick jacket. As the car rumbled down the tracks its wheels were catching the ties, sending shockwaves through the suspension of the battered Ford. Hamilton slid easily if bumpily out of the window. He used his hands and feet and started to kick and pull.

“Hamilton? What in the hell are you doing?” Lee called out, trying to focus on ten things at once.

Ben glanced back inside as the car jumped once, then twice, almost throwing him from the Ford. He finally braced himself. “I’m getting ready to jump onto the train.”

“Damn it,” Lee said, shaking his head. Then he took the wheel with his left hand and with his right brought his own automatic up and fired three times into the windshield on the right side. Then he started punching the glass with the barrel of the gun until the glass was gone. “That may be a little easier, don’t you think?”

Hamilton slid back into the car and then, feeling like a scolded school kid, pulled himself onto the hood. Ben immediately saw that this wasn’t going to be like the serials at the movies. With the car being jolted first left and then right, and also up and down, he was finding it hard to stay in one place on the hood.

“Look out!” Lee shouted.

Ben turned and saw a man step out onto the back platform of the train to light a cigarette. It was one of the men who had opened up on them from inside the train station. His eyes widened as the match he was using blew out. He had started to reach for a sidearm when Ben, his reactions this time far faster, aimed his Colt and fired four rounds. The first three hit nothing but air as the car was jolted from side to side. The fourth caught the German in the center of his chest. Lee watched as the man’s weapon fell. Then, in slow motion, he leaned over the small railing and plummeted from the train. Ben was almost thrown from the hood when the car ran over the man’s body.

Lee gunned the engine. As steam started spewing forth from under the hood, partially blinding Hamilton, the Ford’s front bumper slammed into the train. Ben was thrown forward, losing his grip on the single windshield wiper. He started sliding down, unable to grab on to anything because of his gun hand.

Garrison Lee saw what was about to happen. He slowed the car until there was twenty feet of distance and then accelerated once more with the engine screaming in protest.

“Get to your knees and get ready,” Lee shouted. “Hold on to nothing.”

“What! Are you nuts?” Hamilton pushed the Colt back into his pants, then stooped and faced forward, following his orders no matter how crazy they sounded.

The last ten feet between car and speeding train was covered in less than ten seconds. The front bumper slammed into the train once more. The impact was so hard that without a handhold Ben was shot forward like a catapult. His eyes widened as he passed through the steam of the overheating engine and then the railing was right there. He grabbed at it as Lee backed the car away. With his heart racing faster than the car’s engine, Ben hung on to the thin railing as his feet bounced from railroad tie to railroad tie. Finally, he started to pull himself up as Lee’s car bounced once, twice, and then hopped the tracks to the right side of the caboose. Ben started climbing up the railing to the platform. As he slid to the floor he tried to catch his breath. Looking around, he wondered how he was going to get inside with at least ten armed men waiting for him. Then he saw the answer.

Garrison Lee was using the last of the car’s momentum to catch up with the passenger cars. As he looked to his left with his good eye, he saw the shocked face of the small SS general, Goetz, widen in astonishment. Lee grimaced, raising his .45 and shooting into the windows of the Pullman. Glass was flying as at least three of the wildly placed bullets hit their targets. The unsuspecting Germans never saw it coming. Lee didn’t know if he had hit Goetz, but suspected he hadn’t.

Ben knew when to act. He took a deep breath and then stood. His legs were no longer shaking and his heartbeat, while still fast, had calmed enough that he could put his makeshift plan into motion.

Hamilton turned the knob and stepped inside the caboose. He saw a shocked conductor and caboose man as they cowered in a corner. Ben placed a finger to his lips and then ran forward. He went through the next door and onto the open platform between the two cars. He once more took a deep breath and then stepped through the adjoining door. He saw men starting to pick themselves up from the center aisle, and at least two more firing their submachine guns from an open window. Ben opened fire, taking out the most obvious threats first—the men at the windows. Then he fired twice more at two men who were attempting to stand. Then, as he saw Goetz start to run down the aisle, Ben aimed. Click. His Colt was empty. He looked around. He noticed a wounded German prone in the aisle and Hamilton saw what he was reaching for. He kicked out viciously with his right boot, catching the man in the chin and sending him to the Thousand Year Reich. He reached down and recovered the machine gun. Without hesitating, he jumped over the dead and dying guards and ran after General Goetz.

Outside, Lee knew he had to get on that train. The car was as near to death as he himself had been four days earlier. He saw a break between cars coming up and slammed the steering wheel to the left. The Ford once more hit the berm on the tracks and jumped three feet. Instead of sliding back down, the small car hugged the side of the speeding train. Lee reached out and took hold of the railing that protected passengers going from one car to the next. The Ford suddenly jerked right and he lost his hold. Cursing, he tried again, once more slamming the slowing car into the side of the train. The engineer in front started blowing his whistle and the train sped up. Lee was fast losing his window of opportunity to get on the train and help young Hamilton.

“Damn it,” he yelled, ripping the soaked bandage from the right side of his face. He reached out again through the window, this time holding the steering wheel steady with his wounded leg. He took a firm hold of the railing and pulled. As he did so his right leg straightened and the wheel began to spin crazily. Lee was pulled out of the window and left dangling by one hand as the speeding Ford turned sharply to the right and then simply rolled over, crashing into the tree line that ran beside the feeder road. The OSS colonel found himself in the same situation his onetime student Hamilton had been in a moment earlier as he dangled from the train. His right leg was screaming in agony and he knew his strength could not hold out much longer. He felt his fingers starting to lose their hold on the rail. He closed his eyes and felt the blood from the damaged stitches on the right side of his face begin to flow in earnest. He cursed himself for his lack of strength. Now he would fall and be crushed underneath the train’s wheels. It wasn’t dying that bothered him. It was letting young Hamilton down. He silently wished him luck as his fingers slid from the railing.

Just as he felt his hand let go, his fall was stopped. He was still dangling as he looked up and saw why. Hamilton had come from the car and reached out and grabbed Lee’s hand at the last second. Lee saw him struggling with his weight and against the forces of the speeding train. Still Hamilton pulled. Finally Lee was able to grab the railing with his right hand. Then, before he knew it, he was pulled aboard. Both men collapsed and sat breathing hard. Hamilton swallowed and then looked over at Lee, who was sitting with his chin on his chest. Ben saw the horrible wound on the right side of the colonel’s face. He grimaced and then stood with the help of the machine gun.