He was twenty-four.
He didn’t want to die.
He tried to get through another mag change but dropped the heavy weapon. He got a Gammon bomb out but couldn’t get the cap unscrewed. He pulled out his.45, jacked the slide, held it up stupidly without aiming, blinked in the bright light of another flare just overhead and squeezed off a few pointless rounds.
The gun locked back. He saw two Panzergrenadiers quite close with their fancy new rifles and was amazed that at this ultimate moment his lifelong interest in firearms reasserted itself, and he thought for just a second how interesting it would be to ring one of those cool babies out at a range, then take it apart lovingly, taking notes, figuring out what made it go, running tests on the ammo. It would be so damned interesting.
Then the two Germans sat down, as if embarrassed.
A wave of explosions wiped out the reality that was but a few yards ahead of him.
“There, there, Beets, chum,” said Basil. “The fellows are here with a stretcher. I see a bit of bone, but any horse doctor can set that.”
“Basil, I, what, get out of here, oh, for-”
But Basil had turned and was busy running mags through his Sten, as around him, the other maquisards fired whatever weapons they had.
Somehow Leets was on a stretcher and being humped at speed the remaining few yards to the treeline.
“Basil, I-”
“There’s the good chap. Beets, these fellows will take good care of you. Get Leftenant Beets somewhere to medical aid. Get him out of here.”
“Basil, you come, too, come on, Basil, we got the bridge, we can-”
“Oh, someone has to stay to discourage these fellows. They seem so stubborn. But I’ll be along in a bit. We’ll have that chat. Good luck, Beets, and Godspeed.”
Basil turned and disappeared back into the forest. For Leets, it became an ordeal of not passing out as the maquis heaved his sorry ass along a dark path until he seemed to be being slid into some kind of vehicle, and then he did in fact pass out. Neither he nor any other of the man’s army of friends, lovers, and acquaintances ever saw Basil St. Florian again.
On June 9th, 1944, Major Frank Tyne, U.S.A. attached to OSS, found a florist who would deliver, and he had a bouquet of mums and roses sent to Millie at 72 Grosvenor, Mayfair, office of Colonel David K. E. Bruce.
He got no response.
Finally, on the 11th, he got his nerve up, parked himself on her floor, and finally caught a glimpse of her rushing from one office to another.
“Millie!”
“Oh, Frank.”
“Millie, did you get my flowers?”
Millie seemed both nonplussed and busy. She was clearly anxious to flee but stayed and faced him with a somewhat tense, unpleasant face.
“Yes, Frank, I got them. They were very nice. Who knew there were florists in London in wartime?”
“Wasn’t easy to find one. Listen, Millie, I wanted to apologize about the other night. Really, I don’t know what came over me. I’m so glad I passed out before I did anything inappropriate. I’m just hoping you’ll see a way to forgive me. It would mean so much.”
“Frank,” she touched his hand. “It’s fine. Everyone had too much to drink. Please, don’t worry about it.”
“Thanks. Say, I was wondering if-”
“Frank, there’s so much going on now that we’re ashore. The colonel’s going to the front soon on instructions from General Donovan.”
“Yes, I know, I’ve heard-”
“So his scheduling is a nightmare.”
“Sure, Millie, maybe sometime.”
“Maybe. Say, what happened to Casey, if I may ask?”
“You didn’t hear?”
“Just rumors. Not happy ones.”
“No. They hit the bridge, did some damage, maybe cost elements of Das Reich a day or two, but they were wiped out, along with the French maquis group. Then Das Reich shot fifty hostages. So it was no good, really, a waste. OWI’s going to try to do something with Casey. Maybe a short little movie for the home folks, ‘The Heroes of the Bridge at Nantilles,’ something like that.”
“It’s so sad,” she said. “Sometimes there’s no justice in this world.”
Stephen Hunter would like to thank Helge Fykse, LA6NCA, of Norway, for information on German radio technology.
MAX IS CALLING by Gayle Lynds
Vienna was cold that spring, and dreary. The sixteenth- and seventeenth-century buildings of the Innere Stadt stood like sentinels against time, cloaked in a chilly mist. Dressed in rain gear, businesspeople and students, hausfrauen and doktoren hurried through pools of yellow lamplight, umbrellas bobbing. Only the cafés and pubs could be counted upon for gaiety. The last refuge, they were bustling of course. The rich aromas of coffee and beer scented the gray air.
Watching carefully all around, two men in dark trench coats moved quickly past St. Stephens Cathedral, its Romanesque entrance alight. The old city of Strauss and Mahler, Freud and Klimt felt like a dream, an exciting dream to one of the pair- Bayard Stockton. But then he was with Jacob “Cowboy” Crandell, a Langley undercover legend, in a city storied for its espionage.
As Bay had learned, the Viennese were a melancholy lot, relentlessly self-absorbed with their glorious past of the Hapsburg empire. Flamboyant fatalism, some called it. But then they had survived the Nazis and the Cold War to become the political ground zero of east and west, north and south. Some seventeen thousand diplomats operated in the city, a full one percent of the population-and about half had links to intelligence services.
They worked at embassies and global agencies such as OPEC, the IAEA, and the UN. From business to government, Langley wanted to know what they were thinking, who was on the take, who was in line to get the next contract, and the peccadilloes, peculiarities, and vulnerabilities of all players and potentials. Naturally, Vienna was awash with foreign agents. The freewheeling ones occasionally murdered in broad daylight, while the authorities, who often knew them, looked the other way. As it had historically, Vienna handled everything diplomatically, especially when a political connection existed.
Bay loved it. Fresh from Langley’s grueling training courses, he had been there two exhilarating months. He was young for the business, only twenty-five, a wiry man not quite six feet tall. His collar was up against the frigid damp, and a black beret covered his head, wavy red hair showing beneath. There was nothing unusual about his smooth face, his blue eyes, or his shaved chin, which was just the way he liked it. In his pocket was an unmarked envelope containing 5,000 euros-about $6,250- which made anonymity even more important tonight.
“Stop walking like an athlete,” Cowboy rumbled under his breath. “Dammit, boy, you should’ve learned that in CIA 101. Rolling off your feet shows the strength of your muscles and your training. The Viennese are always looking around, which means they’re going to check you out. Don’t give them a reason to remember you. What were you-a runner? The one hundred?”
Bay blinked. In his enthusiasm for being with Cowboy and his mission tonight he had forgotten himself. “Yeah, the hundred.” And free weights, of course. But he did not mention that. He flattened his feet, tightened his joints.
Cowboy’s cool blue eyes appraised him. Then he dipped his big head in a short nod. He seldom gave compliments, so Bay was pleased with the nod.
“Hell, this is a beautiful antique burg.” Cowboy was peering around at the buildings, grande dames decked out in soaring pediments, ornate rococo, and regal porticoes. Hands dug into his coat pockets, he was fifty-two years old, a tall, rangy man with a neutral expression. His brown hair, broad face, and rimless eyeglasses were wet, but he seemed immune to what would annoy the rest of humanity, which Bay admired. From the wilds of Wyoming, Cowboy wore Tony Lama snakeskin cowboy boots. They were incidental to his nickname. The real reason was his shoot-from-the-hip boldness, which occasionally got him into trouble but more often resulted in success. Close-mouthed and adaptable, he knew the city like the veins in his hands and was the most productive of the station’s case officers, handling an impressive twenty assets.