Nearing sunrise, and with gunfire in the distance, the pilot gave up his tinkering. He announced to Rode that he was ready to try, although with the discomforting logic that ditching along the Swedish coast would be safer than staying in Germany to surrender to Ivan.
In fact, the Stork flew, but unusual headwinds slowed the trip. For a craft that cruised at only ninety miles an hour, forty in the face was a daunting handicap. The pilot kept the manifold pressure as close as possible to the red line, and the lights of Malmo came shortly before sunrise. The pilot pointed out the vague Swedish coastline to his passenger, who sat in the rear. Rode s outlook brightened considerably.
It was a pair of early risers from the Royal Air Force's 609 Squadron who spotted the Stork just at dawn. The two-ship of Spitfires eased up to the transport from behind, and the flight leader edged forward to be in the pilot's lateral field of view. He saw the Stork pilot clearly, and tapped his headset to suggest that a bit of radio contact would be in order. Instead, the Stork pulled down and headed for the dirt.
The flight leader shook his head with disbelief. Heaving a sigh, he sent his wingman to a covering position and armed his guns. He also double-checked that his gun camera was turned on. With three Messerschmitts and a Heinkel to his credit, he had nearly finished the war one victory short of becoming an "ace." Now, fortune had interceded. An unarmed enemy utility aircraft presented little challenge, yet, by trying to evade, the craft had fallen well within the Rules of Engagement. And as they said around the squadron, "A kill's a kill."
Little maneuvering was necessary. Two hundred rounds later, the boxy gray Stork pancaked hard into a foggy valley below. A brilliant incendiary flash stabbed through the mist for an instant before being swallowed by the low clouds. The Spitfires circled for a minute to confirm that there were no parachutes, then the flight leader arced his two-ship toward home. There he would make his claim.
Colonel Hans Gruber came the closest. Traveling with a young woman and a bodyguard, he departed a monastery just outside Vienna in the early morning, heading south. Hoping to blend in, his little group wore workers clothing, old and in need of a wash. Neither of the men's faces had seen a razor in two days.
Unfortunately, the car, a dusty but still magnificent Hispano-Suiza, was altogether too conspicuous, and they ran afoul at the first roadblock. The Russian troops had no complaints with the fine counterfeit documents, nor did they notice that the occupants' polite answers were accented not in Austrian, but something farther north. The soldiers did, however, take exception when the nervous, heavyset driver pulled out a Lugar and plugged the nearest man in the chest before trying to race away.
The rest, a contingent of battle-hardened veterans, were quick to their Kalashnikovs and sure of aim. The Hispano-Suiza made no more than ten meters before its two left tires were shot out. The car skidded abruptly into a ditch, but the soldiers took no chances — they'd all made it this far, and with one of their brethren already lying in a pool of blood, they kept at it. Their weapons blazed until nearly spent of ammunition.
The soldiers approached the smoldering mess carefully, and one of the men pulled out his last grenade, icing for a ghastly cake. He was about to lob it through what had been a window when the authoritative voice of his lieutenant called clearly.
"Wait!"
It was a word that Colonel Hans Gruber, wounded and writhing in the wreckage, would later wish he had never heard.
Chapter 4
U-801 cut a rough line through the North Atlantic, choppy ten-foot seas washing across her dull black deck. Alexander Braun stood atop the sail — the boat's hardened oval watchtower — straining to see through the blackness that was amplified by a thin overcast above. The wind was out of the west, perhaps ten knots, but added to the fifteen-knot headway of the boat, and a temperature in the forties, it made for a brisk experience.
Two other men were also stationed atop the sail, the assigned lookouts, one to port and one to starboard. They'd started their shift thirty minutes ago, but neither had yet found a word for Braun. He wasn't surprised. It was part of the reason he was up here to begin with — to escape the crew, who were not enamored with the stranger who wore civilian clothes. Nine days ago they had plucked Braun out of a raft just off the Baltic coast, an orphan rescued from a war that was going badly in every quarter. From there, U-801 had followed the balance of her orders and churned west.
She was a Type IX, a long-range variant, and each day her course remained steady, the longitude increasing. Aside from the boat's captain, no one knew the precise destination, but it mattered little. Everyone understood that they were getting dangerously close to the well-guarded shores of America — carrying no torpedoes, little food, and perhaps not enough fuel to make the return leg. The risks were enormous, and with the war nearing its end, the hardened crew of U-801 wanted only to go home.
Footsteps clanged up the metal ladder from the control room below, and Braun turned to see the captain appear. He was a young man, only thirty Braun had discovered, though the war and weather had given him ten years more. He sported a scraggly beard, as did most of the crew, and his teeth were a sailors, yellow and rotted from years of rough coffee and neglect. He sauntered ahead against the breeze and took up a post next to Braun at the forward rail.
"So, Wermacht, we are nearly there."
Braun had never volunteered a name, and the captain had never asked — probably guessing he'd not get the truth. He simply addressed Braun as "Wehrmacht," an unclassifiable specimen of the German war machine. And it always came in a pointedly derisive cadence.
"One more day beneath the surface," the captain continued, "and we will be rid of you."
Braun responded, "And I will be rid of you."
The captain grinned. "The seas, they have improved. Better than the first night."
The man was goading him. During daylight hours, the boat was forced to run submerged, to avoid being spotted by ships or patrol planes. But at night she surfaced to vent and charge the batteries, and also because, there, her speed was eight knots better. On the first night of the voyage a weather front had moved in, rocking the boat mercilessly. Braun, having not been to sea in years, had retired to his tiny room, and the crew clearly found amusement in his mal de mer. The next day Braun had recovered, and it had not been an issue since, but the captain still prodded.
"Have you taken any messages tonight?" Braun asked.
The captains humor faded. "No. Our request for refueling on the return leg — it has not been answered. This is very unusual."
A rogue wave slapped audibly against the boat, and both men ducked their heads as salt spray flew over the rail.
"I expected them to deny it. But not even a reply."
"Are you sure the radios are working properly?" Braun asked. He knew the boat was tired. Her hull was pockmarked with dents, as if the ship s provisions were regularly dropped aboard from a great height. And the crew seemed to spend most of their time on repairs, often makeshift jerry-rigs to skirt around the shortage of spare parts. Every time they surfaced, a bucket-line detail emptied out the bilge. The engine fuel was being filtered through old underwear.
"Our radios are fine. We are just beginning to capture the broken signal of a Canadian radio station. No, it is not our gear."
"The end — it can only be a matter of days now," Braun said pensively.
"Yes. Which leads me to the question — should we continue?"
Braun himself had given the question much thought. He was to be dropped in a raft three miles off the coast of Long Island, with clothes, identity documents, and ten thousand American dollars that would allow him to immediately blend in. If the war should end before they arrived — or if it had already ended — what were his options? U-801 would return to Germany for surrender. The crew would be vetted, and some would undoubtedly point their fingers at the man who claimed to be a military officer, but was certainly a spy. The Allies would be most interested, and jail time was possible. Of course, if it was the Russians doing the questioning, there would be nothing beyond a single bullet in Braun's future. Returning to surrender was not in his best interest.