North Reich (42 page)

The FBI had finally shown a little interest in the missing personnel from the German embassy.
 
Just how much interest was shown by the fact that they sent only one very young agent to the Pentagon to discuss matters with Grant.

      
Special Agent Travis Dunn was about five-ten, lean, and looked about twenty-five and, if he was intimidated by the military brass, he didn’t let it show.
 
Like all agents, he wore a dark suit and a white shirt that was as much a uniform as the khaki worn by the army.

      
Dunn looked at his notes and put them away.
 
“Major Grant, first of all, I would like to know why you didn’t bring in the FBI in the first place.”

      
“Let me assure you that I had no voice in that decision.
 
It was made way above my puny rank.
 
Our concern was simply professional.
 
We wanted to know how many had not been swept up when the German embassy was surrounded.
 
We all knew that a number of them were military personnel regardless of their cover title and that had us somewhat concerned.”

      
“So you sent your monster, Sergeant Farnum, to get the information from the State Department.
 
Apparently he absolutely terrified some of the twinkle-toes there.”

      
“Don’t let Farnum hear you call him a monster or he’ll rip your arms off and make you eat them.”

      
Dunn turned to where Farnum was seated a couple of desks away and pretending to be deaf.
 
“Good point,” Dunn said.

      
“At any rate, we found, just as you did, that there were three people missing, and one was likely military.
 
I don’t know about the other two.”

      
Dunn actually laughed.
 
“The other two we found in a hotel in the Bronx.
 
They’re a couple of queers who didn’t know the war had started and were deliriously butt-fucking their little hearts out when we crashed their party.”

      
“That would’ve been an interesting sight,” Grant said.
 
He was beginning to think that Special Agent Dunn might be okay.

      
“It gets better,” Dunn said.
 
“We threatened to tell their chums at the embassy about their tryst if they didn’t cooperate and tell us everything they knew.
 
They asked for asylum and it was declined.
 
We felt that the krauts would retain a couple of our people if these two stayed behind.
 
So, in return for our silence about their sexual preferences, they sang and sang, and what they told us was that your friend Stahl is a very bad man.
 
I guess they didn’t want to go to a concentration camp and wear a pink badge telling the world that they were fags.”

      
“But what about Stahl?” Grant asked.
 
“Where is he?”
 

Tom had been briefed on the attempted treason by Professor Morris.
 
He’d been shocked to find that Alicia had played a part in it.

      
Dunn continued.
 
“We believe that Stahl has set up a number of safe havens in the area and is probably holed up in one of them.
 
We also believe he has a small number of associates available to help him.”

      
“I understood that your FBI had rounded up all enemy aliens and sympathizers.”

      
Dunn rolled his eyes and looked around, concerned that someone might be listening.
 
“Don’t believe everything you hear. Hoover’s going crazy at the possibility that some have been missed, a fact that he will never admit happened.
 
His man Tolson told everybody that we had it totally under control and that’s the way it’s going to be, at least publicly.”

      
“But that doesn’t tell us what Stahl and any of his comrades will actually attempt.
 
Until they come out of their holes, we’re blind, aren’t we?”

      
Dunn grimaced.
 
“As blind as bats.”

Heinrich Stahl looked out the living room window of the small two bedroom bungalow he’d rented several months earlier.
 
It was several miles away from the center of Washington.
 
The landlady, an old woman who lived several blocks away, thought Stahl was a Swedish refugee.
 
Nobody had challenged him yet, but he did have the proper passport and other documentation and, even more fortunately, had spent several summers in Sweden and even spoke it passably.
 

      
He lit a cigarette and poured a couple of inches of bourbon into a reasonably clean glass.
 
From a strictly military sense, he should be alert and watching everything like a hawk.
 
As a practical matter, he was no superman and was exhausted, both physically and emotionally from the unexpected early start to the war.
 
He needed some sleep.
 
If the FBI was surrounding his house right now, there really wasn’t much he could do about it.
 
He would surrender and try to bluff his way out of the predicament by claiming he thought he’d be killed if he turned himself in.
 
The Americans were so naïve they’d probably believe it.

      
He’d contacted two of the four cells that remained to him after the surprisingly effective FBI sweep.
 
They were the only two with their own telephones and their response to his coded message indicated that they’d been undetected.
 
He would get in touch with the others by meeting with them in a public park, and then in Lansburgh’s Department Store, a very large building on the curiously named Eighth Street.
 
He’d checked out their residences and concluded that they weren’t being watched.

      
Stahl took a swallow of the bourbon and wished the Americans made better whiskey.
 
He had enough cash to live on for quite some time, especially if he didn’t have to share it with as many operatives as he’d originally planned.
 
Thank God for small favors, he thought ruefully and took another swallow.
 
Christ, it was vile.

      
Of course he paid cash for everything.
 
Just about everyone did.
 
Checking accounts were very rare and only for the elite; ergo, his financial transactions couldn’t be traced.
 
He would take public transportation, again just like most people, and hide in the crowds.
 
He thought he might buy a car, used of course as there were no new ones.
 
It would give him freedom of movement and, as long as gasoline remained available, it was something to consider.
 
He smiled as he thought of him committing an attack on the United States and then having to wait for a damned bus.
 

A rented warehouse outside of town contained his weapons.
 
He’d been dealt a setback by the unexpected start to the war, but he would persevere.
 
He chuckled and took another swallow.
 
He always persevered.
 
The United States was rich with targets and the Washington area was the richest by far.
 
The Americans had a decent idea how to protect things but not people, and even then the guards were usually old and lazy.
 
A handful of men with guns and dynamite could wreak havoc on them.

He smiled and raised his glass high.
 
“For the Reich.
 
For the Fuhrer.”

The wedding went off without a hitch.
 
Tom’s and Alicia’s relatives got along reasonably well together, although each side was very curious about the other.
 
Missy Downing compared it to two packs of dogs sniffing each other’s asses.
 
Tom didn’t think he was supposed to have heard the comment, but agreed nonetheless.
 
Not everyone’s relatives could make the service which took place in a Methodist church in Alexandria.
 
That neither of them was Methodist didn’t bother the minister or the families.
 
The cleric was an army chaplain, a good guy, and, most important, was available.
 
Civilian travel had a low priority and there was talk about the government finally rationing gas.
 
Colonel and Missy Downing were the best man and matron of honor.
 

      
After the ceremony and a brief reception, the bride and groom got into a car that Master Sergeant Farnum had borrowed from the local police who had confiscated it from a criminal, and drove down to their cottage.
 
It was located roughly where the Potomac met the Chesapeake and was on the Maryland side.
 
The view of the river and the bay was breathtaking.
 

Too bad they didn’t notice it.
 
They had one week and they spent almost all of it indoors, either making love or getting ready to make love.
 
Alicia did manage to take a couple of snapshots of them, dressed of course, with her Kodak Retina I, a gift from her father.
 
A couple passing by was easily talked into taking their picture together in front of the cottage, after which they raced inside and got undressed.

On the last night of their honeymoon, she played for him.
 
It was like he’d dreamed and she’d promised; only this time they both were naked.

      
Thus it was with immense sadness that they returned to their uniforms and duty the next week.
 
Alicia knew that Tom would be treated to cheers and jeers while she would have to endure the winks and knowing smiles from other women.
 
She would smile bravely and endure it.
 
Like she had a choice, she thought.
 
Missy told her to tell the girls that she had totally worn the poor boy out.
 
Alicia assured her that would not happen.

      
She was at her desk at Camp Washington, going over some redundant reports, when she heard the piercing scream.
 
She jumped up and ran down the hallway, nearly knocking over a Western Union delivery boy whose shocked expression told her everything.
 
Oh God, she thought.
 

      
Mrs. Kosnik, everybody called her Mrs. K, was seated at her desk but slumped over in her swivel chair.
 
She’d fainted and two other women were trying to revive her and hold her up.
 
Mrs. K was a retired math teacher with two sons in the navy.
 
Without being told, Alicia knew that now she had only one.
 

      
The telegram was on Mrs. K’s desk.
 
It was short and terse. The navy deeply regretted that her son, Stanley, had been killed in action.
 
There was no word as to when or where.
 
She vaguely recalled that Stanley had been on a destroyer.
 
Alicia wondered if the destroyer had been sunk, in which case the casualties might have been heavy, or if he had just been one of a smaller number because of Jap kamikaze attack.
 
Did it matter?
 
There was no mention of burial, so that meant he’d likely been lost at sea or buried at sea.
 
Poor Mrs. K wouldn’t even have a grave to visit.

      
Mrs. K had revived a little and was looking around wildly.
 
She caught sight of the dreaded telegram and moaned like her heart was breaking, which it surely was.
 
Her two friends continued to hold her upright.
 
Alicia tried not to sob, but it was helpless.
 
Was this going to happen to her?
 
For how much longer could Major Tom Grant avoid going into combat?
 
How would she handle getting such an awful telegram?

      
Alicia’s stomach churned.
 
She turned and ran into the women’s room and vomited into a toilet.

Captain Franz Koenig had been ordered to report to Guderian’s underground and hidden headquarters and wait for the general to return.
 
As everybody else seemed to have something to do, Koenig went to the map room and studied a map of Canada, looking for updates and changes, and finding very few.
 
Still, it was fascinating to see the forces arrayed against each other and wonder just how much of the information was accurate and how much of it was speculation when it came to the enemy’s forces.

      
The map of the Soviet Union on another wall was particularly vague.
 
A massive German army had crossed the Volga near Stalingrad and was advancing towards the Urals.
 
Curiously and despite the fact that the Reds were being pushed into a corner, there was little indication of any major Russian forces threatening the German Army.
 
He found that difficult to believe. Were the Reds planning an ambush?
 
They’d tried that before and had almost pulled it off at Stalingrad.