Robert Conroy - Germanica

Lena was stunned. She had never heard him criticize the Fuhrer. Perhaps he was drunk. Or, like everybody else, perhaps he was frustrated with the war. But from what she’d seen of it in the air and the remains of the wreckage on the ground, the plane was indeed unique. There were no propellers and the shape had been sleek and looked like a predator. She’d heard people talk of jets and presumed that this was one of them. She was not impressed. Herr Schneider was right. How could it be a super-weapon if it could be shot down? The thought pleased her.

Gudrun tried to calm her husband. There were no spies or informers around, but one shouldn’t get careless, not even if they were themselves closely allied to the Gestapo. “There will be other weapons and other opportunities to stop the Americans,” she said soothingly.

Gustav glowered. “Certainly there are,” he said sarcastically. “Just like the V1 rocket was supposed to bring England to its knees, and then the V2 was supposed to finish the job. I’ve talked to people who know these things and the V1 flies so slowly and predictably that it can actually be shot down. The V2 is much faster but neither of them can be aimed with even the slightest degree of accuracy. They only thing they can guarantee hitting is the ground. Did you know that thousands of both rockets were aimed at the Tower Bridge in London and not one of them hit it? Thousands were fired, but not one hit. Not only that, but their warheads are too small. Even a direct hit on Target 42, which was the Luftwaffe’s name for the Tower Bridge, wouldn’t have destroyed it.”

He angrily and petulantly stamped his foot. Anton had wandered close to the corpse and his mother pulled him back. Astrid averted her eyes. She had no wish to see more death.

“Damn it to hell,” Gustav continued to rage. “Germany is being betrayed by the scientists. I’ll bet they are all Jews pretending to be real Germans.”

The fire was rapidly burning itself out. The local fire and police continents had arrived and contented themselves with containing it. The dead pilot had been pulled from the ground and laid on a stretcher. The impact had flattened the man’s body and left a rough outline of his corpse indented in the ground. She shuddered. At least he’d died quickly. Or she hoped he had.

Gustav Schneider decided that the show was over and they all headed back to the house. Lena maneuvered so she was last. They hadn’t noticed her and she had not spoken. Only Anton had been aware of her presence. He had turned and looked at her. The glance had turned into a stare and then into a leer. Her dress was an old one and the hem was too short, showing more of her legs than she realized she should have.

He grinned and winked. She turned away and walked just a little faster.

* * *

When Ernie Janek presented himself to the Marine guard at the U.S. embassy in Bern, he expected to be told to wait. The summons from the old man in the park had been simple-be at the embassy at ten in the morning. To his surprise there would be no waiting. He was immediately ushered into a small room with a card table and two chairs. Not impressive, was Ernie’s first thought.

The old man entered and took a seat. A servant brought coffee and cakes and left. There was silence while they enjoyed the coffee. Switzerland might be neutral, but good, real coffee was still rare and the cakes were excellent. Even better, from Ernie’s perspective, they were free.

“My name is Allen Dulles, Captain, and I am in charge of all the OSS activities in the area. I won’t be more specific for security reasons and the fact that my job seems to change every day, if not every hour. Just for the record, you do know what the OSS is, don’t you?”

“Yes sir. OSS stands for Office of Strategic Services and it involves all kinds of spying and espionage activities. For the record, I wouldn’t mind doing something more useful like that than taking up space in a cheap Swiss hotel.”

Dulles took out his pipe, stuffed some tobacco, and lit it. He drew deeply and a blue cloud of smoke rose to the ceiling. “You were a fighter pilot. How many Germans did you shoot down?”

“Eight.”

“You were a fighter pilot and all fighter pilots are congenital liars. That means you actually shot down four. Is that correct?”

Ernie shrugged and grinned. “Guilty. One more and I would have been an ace, but I guess that’s never going to happen, is it?”

“Not in this war. Tell me, do you speak German or any other language and do you have any skills that might be useful in my line of work?”

“No sir.” Aw shit, he thought. Was he going to turn me down?

“What about Morse code? Do you know judo or karate?”

“I used to be good with Morse when I was in the Boy Scouts, but I know nothing about Judo and I don’t even know what karate is.”

Dulles’ next comment allayed his fears. “No matter. So many of my agents started out as willing amateurs and you are already way ahead of them. You’ve been in combat and you’ve faced down death. But you have always killed at a distance. Could you kill someone who was staring at you and was only a few feet away? If you had to, could you kill with a knife? Could you strangle a man? Could you kill a woman if you had to?”

“I don’t know but I think so.”

“Good. If you had told me you were certain you could, I would have thought you were a fool as well as a liar.”

“I hope I am not a fool, sir.”

Dulles ignored the comment. “What you will now do is go back to that hotel and gather up all your belongings and return here. You will be living and training in the embassy until something appropriate comes along. We will issue you diplomatic credentials which give you a great deal of legal immunity and you will not abuse them.”

“Understood, but won’t the Swiss notice that I’ve gone from the hotel?”

“Probably not, Captain. I hate to tell you this, but you are simply not that important. And if anyone does notice, a few discreet comments will satisfy them.”

Dulles stood and held out his hand. “Captain Janek, welcome to the OSS.”

* * *

The P51 Mustang was arguably the finest propeller-driven fighter plane in the world. It was powerful, durable and, with drop tanks, had enormous range, which enabled it to fly as an escort to bombers as they attacked far into Germany. With the right pilot at the controls, it could hold its own against Germany’s best and that included their vaunted jet, the ME262. The German jet was vulnerable during take-off and landing and required a long runway. Thus, American pilots learned to tail the jets back to their bases and, if they could not actually kill them while landing, damage the runways so they could not be used until repaired. Not only was the P51 a great plane, but there were thousands of them, something that could not be said about the German jets, which maybe numbered in the hundreds. Overall also, American pilots were much better trained then their German counterparts, who were poorly trained because of chronic fuel shortages and a lack of safe places for training.

Lieutenants George Schafer and Bud Sibre were bored. They hadn’t seen a German plane in days. This afternoon they flew their birds over southern Germany and were looking for prey on the ground. While George searched the roads below, Bud scanned the skies for Germans. They were not having any luck. The skies were empty and so too were the roads. The only traffic was clearly civilian and they’d been told to not attack civilians, even if they were Germans and doubtless Nazis.

“We know there are Krauts down there, so where are they?” said George over his radio. He was frustrated. They both were. Every briefing said the Germans were moving by night and hiding during the day. On a few occasions they’d shot up some hayfields and barns or some woodlands, especially if they saw tracks that might mean Nazi activity. Aside from destroying some farmer’s livelihood or mutilating some trees, it wasn’t clear that they’d accomplished anything.