David Healey - Winter Sniper

Himmler had expected as much. He recalled those triumphant summer days of 1941 when the Wehrmacht rolled across Russia like boys on a spree. The dirt roads baked hard as concrete by the sun so that their Panzers moved on and on into Russia with almost nothing to stop them. Victory seemed within their grasp as the Wehrmacht reached the Moscow suburbs. But progress slowed as autumn came and the weather quickly grew bitter. The German spearhead came within ten miles of Moscow, then faltered. The roads turned to mud, then froze into rutted nightmares. Truck and tank engines locked up as oil thickened to sludge in the cold. Ill-equipped, the Wehrmacht shivered as the snow began to fall. Forced to retreat, the Germans made a last stand at Stalingrad. The fighting was now in its second winter. For the 200,000 German troops in Russia, Himmler knew there would be no spring.

He turned to Brock. “Did you bring my message to Admiral Canaris?”

“I delivered it personally, Herr Reichsfuhrer.”

Himmler shuffled papers to hide his annoyance. It was just like Wilhelm Canaris to take his time responding. Whenever Himmler thought of the commander of German naval intelligence, a greyhound came to mind. Maybe it was those mutts Canaris took with him everywhere, two fat dachshunds that the admiral fed under the table. Or the admiral’s smug, aristocratic face. Canaris, however, was the sort of greyhound who had teeth. And was inclined to use them. Someday, Himmler hoped to be rid of Canaris, but for now, he had need of the admiral to help him carry out this plan.

He already had the full cooperation of Admiral Donitz, commander of the German Kriegsmarine. A U-boat had been assigned to the mission. Now it was just a matter of finding the right man for the task, which was the real reason Himmler had sent Colonel Brock to Stalingrad.

Once Stalingrad was lost, the Reich would be in desperate straits. Germany faced the possibility of losing an entire army of more than eight hundred thousand men.

Where once their enemies had been swept before the Fatherland’s legions, now the Russians, the Americans and even the English had shown they were resolved to fight until the end. Himmler believed that end was approaching faster than anyone in the Reichstag imagined. Allied bombers swept in waves toward Germany each night; on the Eastern Front, the Wehrmacht was stretched so thin that Himmler doubted they could withstand a direct assault if Stalin pressed the issue.

Yet it was the Americans that Himmler most feared because they held Germany’s fate in their hands. The United States had almost unlimited resources and what Himmler found to be an annoying attitude that they would win because God was on their side. And that was why he had come up with a plan that, while it would not win the war, might make the Americans doubt their superiority and buy Germany precious time to rebuild the army mauled by Russia. With renewed strength, Germany could meet the Americans on the battlefield. And triumph.

Himmler noticed that Brock huddled closer to the fireplace. “Are you cold, Herr Obersturmbahnfuhrer?”

“In Russia it snowed every day —”

Himmler cut him off. “I did not send you there for a weather report. Did you find the man I was looking for?”

“Yes, Herr Reichsfuhrer.” Brock gave a stiff smile as if his face might still be frozen from the Russian cold. “He hits whatever he can see.”

“Have him brought to Berlin. We must send the Americans a message and make them realize they are not invincible.”

“Does the Fuhrer know?”

“You let me worry about the Fuhrer,” Himmler replied icily. “And not a word of this to anyone.”

“Of course, Herr Reichsfuhrer.”

The colonel turned to go, but Himmler was not yet done.

“And Brock?

“Yes, Herr Reichmarshal?”

“Tell him to bring his rifle.”

The gloom of a London evening was settling over headquarters but there was no sign of the workday ending anytime soon. Captain Ty Walker sometimes wondered if there was a war being fought at all because he had yet to hear a gun fired in combat. At SHAEF — an acronym for the far more ponderous Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force — there was a flurry of paperwork and ringing telephones under bright lights that seemed at odds with the damp gray English night descending beyond the rain-streaked windows. But the rooms at 20 Grosvenor Square never grew dark until long after midnight. The staff was busy planning Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Europe, which was shaping up to be the greatest amphibious attack of all time. That invasion would decide the fate of Europe and the outcome of the war.

Ty was startled from his thoughts when the general asked, “Is there any more coffee?”

A flustered young WAC hurried up. “I’ll make some right away, sir.”

Ty had to smile. Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower was one of the most important men in Europe, if not the world, but he would never think to shout at someone because the coffee pot was empty. That just wasn’t Ike’s style, never mind that he had just been appointed Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.

Not that he wasn’t demanding in his own way. Six-feet-tall, bald, broad-shouldered and still fit at fifty-four, Ike worked brutal hours — he depended on coffee and up to four packs of cigarettes a day to keep him going — and he expected the same dedication from his staff. His rural Texas upbringing had instilled in him a belief that the greatest sinner was a lazy man. He preferred eating a hot dog at his desk to dinner at one of London’s remaining restaurants. And yet here was a man who had dined with Winston Churchill and FDR. He never forgot that his purpose was to win the war against the Nazis. Nor did he ever forget that soldiers were sleeping tonight in the rain while the SHAEF staff worked where it was warm and dry.

Watching the general light up yet another cigarette, Ty decided that he loved Ike more than his own father. His old man had fought against the Germans in the Great War and had scars from a machine gun bullet to prove it. Ty’s father was not only impossible to please — the old man held on to praise like it was gold — but he also made it clear he didn’t think much of a man who hid at headquarters while others “did a man’s duty” with a rifle and a bayonet.

The general must have caught Ty watching. It was as if he had a sixth sense for inactivity. “Ty, why don’t you check on our driver situation.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ty felt mildly rebuked that the general had felt the need to remind him to do his job and he hurried from the huge room. That room was like the sun, the center of all activity, and the farther Ty got from Ike the fewer scurrying people he saw. The rainy night beyond the windows seemed to grope and clutch into the headquarters building wherever it could. England was a gloomy country, not at all what he had expected when he arrived six months ago. Back then, his idea of England was thick green woods like Sherwood Forest, castles, maybe even an occasional glimpse of the king. He thought the English would be more like Eva Von Stahl, the aristocratic German actress with whom he’d had a fling before heading overseas. Eva had tried to warn him. “The English are not an adventurous people,” she had said. “They thrive on routine. It makes me wonder how they ever won an empire.”

Thinking about Eva now brought a smile to his face. She had been right. This was a land of tepid tea slurped from cracked teacups, damp wool clothes that emitted a stale smell from not having been washed in years, and pale children who could have benefitted from a few days in the sun. But yet, they were not a defeated people. They had stood up to Hitler when other nations failed. The English had resolve. Ike was always reminding his staff of that fact.