Mark Frost - The Second Objective

“It’s okay,” said Bernie. “This won’t hurt you.”

“Il ne blessera pas du tout,” said Von Leinsdorf, translating.

The Frenchman tensed as the needle went in, then relaxed as the morphine hit his bloodstream. Von Leinsdorf patted his shoulder.

“But I’m afraid this will a bit,” said Von Leinsdorf.

He touched the silencer to the man’s cheek and pulled the trigger. The bullet tore through his mouth and burst out the other side. Blood spurted, the man screamed and strained against the straps, nearly flipping over the stretcher. Bernie struggled to hold him down.

“Why the fuck did you shoot him?”

“If he’s not wounded, why would we be driving him to the hospital?” asked Von Leinsdorf.

“The other one isn’t.”

“The other one’s dead. Why would we need the siren for a trip to the morgue?”

“Well, you didn’t have to shoot him in the mouth, for Christ’s sake,” said Bernie.

“And have our wounded ‘GI’ spout French at the checkpoint? Think it through. That’s why we gave him the morphine. Reduce his suffering, keep him from flopping off that stretcher. You don’t speak French by any chance, do you, Brooklyn?”

“No.”

“So keep quiet at the checkpoint or I’ll shoot you, too.”

Von Leinsdorf took the driver’s seat, started the ambulance, and steered them back onto the road. He switched on the siren and flashers as they sped past the café. They rounded a curve, following the line of the canal as it turned south, then entered a roundabout, other vehicles yielding when they heard the siren.

South of the roundabout, they approached the American checkpoint. Two MPs stepped into the road, waving them down in front of the guard gate. Von Leinsdorf rolled to a stop. Soldiers were putting up a machine gun emplacement. Other MPs searched half a dozen American jeeps they’d pulled to the side of the road. One MP hurried to the driver’s side of the ambulance, another moved toward the rear. As soon as the soldier reached his window, Von Leinsdorf unleashed an agitated torrent of fluent French, gesturing toward the back, shouting over the siren.

“Okay, take it easy, buddy. Where you headed?”

“Hospital,” said Von Leinsdorf, in broken English. “Reims.”

“What’s on board?”

The other MP opened the rear doors. He saw Bernie in a driver’s uniform, sulfa packet in his hand, working on a badly wounded man, moaning and covered in blood.

“GIs,” said Von Leinsdorf. “Automobile accident. Un d’eux est mort et l’autre est critique. Nous devons nous dépêche! ”

The lead MP got the okay from his colleague, who closed the rear doors. Both men stepped back and waved the ambulance through. Von Leinsdorf stepped on the gas as the gate went up, and they sped off.

“How’s he doing?” asked Von Leinsdorf.

“Great. He just asked for a daiquiri.”

“He’s not going to die; it’s a superficial wound. We need him alive. There may be more checkpoints ahead.”

“Ask him how superficial it is.”

“Would you relax? It’s just a Frenchman, for Christ’s sake. Three aren’t worth one German. I don’t know that the going rate for Americans has been established. Do you?”

Bernie didn’t answer. They passed another road sign: REIMS 20 KM.

Reims

DECEMBER 19, 7:00 P.M.

Earl Grannit parted the curtains of a second-story window and looked down and across the street at an old, ornate movie palace. Light rain continued to fall, thinning out foot traffic through the small square below. After arriving in Reims in the middle of the afternoon, Grannit and Carlson reported to the commander of the local military police. He placed a twenty-man detachment of MPs under Grannit’s command. Half a dozen plainclothes agents from Army Counter Intelligence arrived an hour later, along with a platoon of regular army. Grannit pulled the entire detail together for a five o’clock briefing and broke down their assignments.

American forces used three movie houses in the downtown area to screen movies for Allied soldiers in Reims. Grannit’s men had all three under surveillance by early that evening. This one, near the old shipping canal that split the city, was the largest and most popular, and seemed to Grannit the most likely for Skorzeny’s men to use as a meeting place. He then commandeered as an observation post an apartment above and across a small square. Undercover men were assigned to circulate through the crowd at each of the theaters. The army detail deployed throughout the neighborhood with orders to stay off the streets until Skorzeny’s men were identified. Once they were inside the theater, the soldiers would drop perimeter roadblocks into place and close the net.

The first show was scheduled for seven o’clock, a glossy Hollywood musical to help enlisted men forget their troubles. Lights on the theater’s marquee remained dark, observing blackout restrictions, but Grannit had ordered that the foyer and lobby lights stay brightly lit so that anyone standing under the marquee could be seen from their post across the street.

Dozens of soldiers from different service branches milled around outside, smoking cigarettes, waiting for friends or dates to arrive. Behind-the-line types, thought Grannit, looking them over. He’d learned that the military was like an iceberg; only the small portion above the surface did the fighting. For every front-line dogface under fire in the Ardennes, there were six clerical types like these filling out requisitions in triplicate, calling it a day, and going to the movies. A police force ran the same way, a fraction doing the dirty work while everyone else cleaned up after them. Maybe it reflected basic human nature, this hunger for bureaucracy and order, and which side of that line you ended up on was a matter of luck. Everybody had a job to do. Some were just a whole lot worse than others.

Grannit scanned the soldiers’ faces with binoculars, searching for the face of the “Lieutenant Miller” that he’d glimpsed for those few moments in Belgium. A sketch of the man, drawn from Grannit’s recollection, had been distributed to everyone in the detail.

“I got a guy bringing over regulation SHAEF passes so I can compare ’em to our forgeries,” said Ole Carlson, standing eating a meal they’d brought in from a local restaurant.

“Good.”

“Think we’ll get to Paris, Earl?”

“I don’t know, Ole.”

“Ever been?”

“No. You?”

“Heck no. I’d love to see it. See Paris and die, isn’t that what they say?”

“I don’t think they mean right away.”

“Anyway, don’t figure I’ll ever get this close again.” Carlson leaned over Grannit’s shoulder to look down at the theater. “I’m heading down there.”

“The meet’s supposed to happen between nine and twelve. That’s not until the second show,” said Grannit.

“I’m supposed to meet the guy with those passes. Don’t want to miss him.”

“While you’re there,” said Grannit, looking through the binoculars again, “go tell that MP swinging his nightstick around in the lobby like the house dick at Macy’s to pull his head out of his ass. In fact, yank that half-wit out of there.”

Grannit pointed the man out to him and Carlson headed for the door. “It would be my pleasure, Boss.”

Grannit trained the glasses down each of the side streets and alleyways that fed into the old cobblestoned square. The neighborhood sported a flourishing nightlife, a number of hole-in-the-wall bars attracting heavy military traffic. Black-market profiteers flourished in an area with so many potential buyers and sellers. He spotted at least two brothels operating more or less in the open. He’d read in Stars and Stripes that in light of the attack in the Ardennes, dancing had been banned in Paris after dark, but young men in uniform still needed to get drunk or laid or both.