North Reich (65 page)

      
“I don’t either and I wasn’t an almost virgin, I was a virgin.
 
But, if I am going to work, what options are open to women?
 
Right now, maybe millions of women are working in factories replacing men who are in the military.
 
When the war ends, the men will return and want their jobs back and I won’t blame them.
 
It’d be a rotten thing to tell a returning GI thanks for saving our country and maybe for getting wounded and maimed as well, but now you’re unemployed because a woman took your place.”

      
“Life ain’t fair,” Missy said.
 

Her voice was slightly slurred.
 
They had been drinking for a while.
 
After the shooting, Alicia had been ordered to take a few days off.
 
A couple of days earlier she’d managed to get a phone call through to Tom who joked about her being in more combat than he, but his worries came through loud and clear.
 
He wanted her safe.
 
Well, she wanted him safe as well.
 
She knew there had been heavy fighting and she also knew he’d likely be more involved in the future.

She didn’t want him fighting anyone, not even the Germans.
 
No, she wanted him at home and in bed with her.
 
She wanted her legs wrapped around him and his manhood deep inside her.
 
Sometimes she broke out in a sweat when she thought too much of the times they had and, hopefully, would have in the future.
 
She understood that millions of wives and girlfriends were thinking exactly the same desperate and carnal thoughts and it didn’t matter whether they were American or German.

“Damn war,” she said and held out her empty glass.

Wade Dylan, late of the U.S. State Department in Toronto was getting worried.
 
When he’d volunteered to stay behind in Toronto and work out of the Swiss Consulate, he had no idea that there would actually be a war or that it would be getting so close.
 
He vaguely recalled some military thugs he’d had to chastise for trying to cause trouble in Canada.
 
He wondered if they’d had a hand in starting the war.
 
He thought it was a distinct and unpleasant possibility.

      
So far, his diplomatic immunity had kept him out of any difficulties with the authorities, although some Germans had looked askance at his American credentials.
 
Fortunately, a friend at the Swiss consulate had solved that problem by issuing him a Swiss diplomatic passport.

      
He knocked and entered Gestapo chief Oscar Neumann’s office.
 
As usual, Dylan was greeted warmly and offered some cognac which he happily accepted.
 
Neumann, he thought, was quite a gentleman.
 
After a few pleasantries, Neumann came to the point.

      
“And what can I do for you Mr. Dylan?”

      
“As you are well aware, my government knows that I remained behind as an unofficial liaison between our two governments.”

      
“Of course,” Neumann responded with a hint of impatience that went right over Dylan’s head.
 
Damn diplomats, he thought.
 
Must everything be a lengthy and tightly choreographed ballet?

      
“My people in Washington are concerned about the safety of American civilians and prisoners of war as the fighting gets nearer to Toronto.
 
My government would hope that nothing occurs to harm them.”

      
“They do realize we are at war, don’t they?” he said acidly. “Bombs are falling and planes are strafing anything that moves.
 
It is more than conceivable that prisoners could be hurt, especially if we decide to move them.”

      
“Will they be moved?”

      
Neumann shrugged.
 
“In large part, that depends of Guderian and Eisenhower.
 
Even though I am very confident that your Americans will be stopped in short order and well before reaching Toronto, we cannot rule out that possibility.”

      
“The American forces will be stopped?
 
Everything I’ve heard is that they are advancing steadily.”

      
“Of course,” Neumann answered.
 
He wondered just which side this Dylan creature was on.
 
“Guderian has many assets he hasn’t used, along with marvelous and deadly weapons that are quite secret.
 
My real concern is that Americans will infiltrate and try to force the prisoners’ freedom.
 
If that happens, there will be fighting and your American prisoners will be in the middle.
 
It cannot be helped.”

      
Neumann smiled and leaned over.
 
“Of course, anything you can do to help stop such rash actions would be greatly appreciated.”

      
Dylan stood and the two men shook hands.
 
Neumann did not give the Nazi salute.
 
That would be pushing it a little too much.

      
“I will endeavor to keep you informed if I hear anything,” Dylan said and departed.

      
Shithead, Neumann thought.
 

Chapter Twenty-three

Tinker slowly and quietly crawled along on his belly.
 
It had occurred to him that he’d been doing a lot of crawling lately, and especially on nights like this.
 
He didn’t mind.
 
If he could do something to hurt the Germans and help his friend Lambert, and his new friend Sergeant Farnum, it was fine by him.
 
If either man thought that a friendship between a petty thief and a career NCO was unusual, they were too polite to mention it.

      
He and Farnum slid through a gap in a fence that marked the end of a farmer’s field and moved silently through what remained of the crops.
 
It amazed Tinker just how quietly a big man like Farnum could move.
 
It was like he was just a whisper in the night.
 
Whispers, however, weren’t so heavily armed.

      
“We getting there, Tinker?”
 
      
“Soon, sergeant, real soon.”

      
A short while later, Tinker put his hand on the other man’s arm.
 
“Now tell me what you see.”

      
Farnum snorted.
 
It came out as part laugh and part snarl.
 
“It looks like a German tank trying to disguise itself as a haystack.”

      
“That’s right and there are dozens of them like that, all scattered around and hidden.
 
If you were a pilot flying overhead you’d only see a blob of hay, and anyone one the ground is being kept away.”

      
“Really?
 
I didn’t see any sentries or guards.”

      
“It’s the middle of the night and they’re getting tired and sloppy.
 
Contrary to what they’ve been told, they ain’t supermen and they need their beauty sleep.”

      
Farnum silently agreed.
 
If what they’d been told was true, the German army was being whittled down and the men left were under great strain.
 
American planes could be dropping death on them at any time.
 
This reminded Farnum of something.

      
“Tinker, do our people know about this place?”

      
“I don’t think so.
 
I just found it yesterday.
 
Why, are you worried you might get bombed?”

      
“It crossed my mind.”

      
“I don’t think there’s anything to worry about, sergeant.
 
I don’t think the info’s gotten through to your pilots, and I haven’t seen a nighttime attack by your boys yet.
 
Now we’ve got to get closer to that tank.
 
There’s something else you should see.”

      
When they reached the tank, they carefully stood up in the shadow cast by the moon.
 
The tank was immense and made larger because it was literally wrapped in hay that enhanced its bulk.

      
“It’s huge, sergeant.”

      
“That it is,” Farnum said quietly.
 
There was something different about this tank.
 
Not only was it larger, a monster, but the silhouette was different.
 
It dawned on him.

      
“Tinker, are all the tanks you found shaped like this?”

“A lot of them, yeah, but not all of them.
 
Why?”

      
“Because this is trouble, big trouble.
 
This is one of their God-damned Panthers, and they are perhaps the best tank in the world.
 
Killing these things has got to be a priority.”

      
The Panther weighed more than forty tons, had sloped armor, and its main weapon was a high velocity 75mm gun.
 
The U.S. simply didn’t have anything that could stand up to it.
 
Of course, there hadn’t been any fights between Panthers and Shermans, but it looked to him like that time might be right around the corner.

“We could open up the fuel cap and drop in some dirt and rocks.
 
That’s stop them.”

      
“That’d only slow them down, Tinker.
 
Somehow I think they’ve got mechanics who would fix them, and an inventory of spare parts.
 
No, these babies have got to be bombed.”
 

      
Farnum smiled.
 
He liked the idea of sabotaging at least one of them.
 
As a kid he’d done it to a neighbor’s car.
 
He’d hated the neighbor for kicking his dog and nobody had ever found out.

They found the cap, opened it and quietly dropped in several handfuls of debris.
 
The sergeant wondered if the tank had any kind of filter that would stop trash from getting through to the engine.

They heard voices.
 
A barn at the other end of the field showed light as a side door opened.
 
A couple of German soldiers walked out.
 
They were unsteady; they’d been drinking.
 
He thought about killing them but decided against it.
 
It would be easy, but then the Nazis would know that they’d been discovered.

No, they would get the word up the chain to someone who could send a few dozen bombers to saturate the field with bombs. That would be by far the better way to do it.
 
Get them all, not just one or two.

“Halt!”

“Shit,” muttered Tinker.
 
Someone had seen motion from across the field.
 
The sentry who’d spotted them yelled again and then called for help.
 
He had a whistle which he blew frantically, the shrieks piercing the night.

Tinker and Farnum forced themselves to move slowly and deliberately.
 
Maybe the might would still protect them.
 
It would take some minutes for the guard to get reinforcements and get to where they were.

They found the gap in the fence and slithered through.
 
In a short while they were protected by trees and bushes.
 
Behind them, they could hear Germans yelling to each other and arguing. The two men continued on to where they’d parked Tinker’s car.
 
They got in and drove away.
 
They started laughing.
 

Farnum slapped Tinker on the shoulder.
 
“Let’s go call in some bombs.
 
Then what say we get ourselves a couple of beers and watch from a safe distance.”

Private Hipple no longer felt like deserting and returning to west-by-God Texas.
 
His comrades now respected him, perhaps even feared him.
 
Even Colonel Canfield had become aware of his actions and this time in a positive manner.

      
Like many men who lived in the still primitive west, he could shoot and shoot extremely well.
 
In his opinion, most of the northern city boys in his unit were miserable shots and, when the fighting began, had either fired wildly or frozen and not fired at all.
 
A lot of them simply shot in the general direction of Europe instead of at the enemy.
 
Not Hipple.
 
He’d killed his first German when they’d attacked the beachhead.
 
It hadn’t been a difficult shot at all.
 
The German had only been a hundred yards or so away and he’d dropped him with one bullet square in the middle of his chest.
 
The kraut had stopped, flailed his arms, and then dropped backwards.