Robert Conroy - North Reich

Hitler’s secret weapons hadn’t worked either. Von Arnim had fewer than a hundred V-1 rockets, and these had all been fired on the first day of the war and to little effect. The Americans hadn’t even reported their existence.

Nor was the situation any better on the high seas. The once mighty U-boat fleet was being systematically destroyed by Americans who seemed to know exactly where they were going to pop up. The Reich was afraid that a massive invasion fleet would sail from the American ports and invade anywhere they wished. Hitler’s so-called allies were wavering and would soon decide that they’d made a terrible mistake by backing the Reich.

And as to his orders to help out Japan by attacking the U.S., the Japanese were beyond help. They were being bombarded day and night by American planes and ships and were helpless to protect themselves. Their people were starving and, for the first time in their existence, there appeared to be those harboring thoughts of revolution. He wondered if anyone in Germany was thinking similar thoughts. He doubted it. Hitler had created a nation of slavish cowards.

Damn Hitler, he thought. This was going to be worse than after the First World War.

It was time to end it. He called for an aide and instructed him to make radio contact with the American command. He would surrender.

He had a thought. After surrendering, he would inform the Americans that he would be willing to renounce Hitler and Nazism and help form a democratic German government in exile. He and it would work to overthrow Hitler. It would mean betraying his Fuhrer, but the man had betrayed Germany. He had to be stopped before Germany was destroyed by the Red Hordes who were surely gathering.

The Black Shirts saw the Americans and the Toronto police advancing and shot wildly before running away. A couple of them were cut down by police and army gunfire before they could go far, but a handful disappeared down the streets. Grant, Landry, and Lambert looked at each other.

“That was close,” Landry said. “That was just about all the ammunition we had.”

They went inside. Lambert led the way. He knew where Neumann’s office was located. They went in and saw the open safe and found Jed Munro lying on the floor. He’d been shot twice in the chest and once in the face.

“Damn,” said Lambert. “Someone beat me to it.”

“Well, there’s still the kraut,” said Tom, “although, on second thought maybe I wouldn’t count on it. The bastard’s doubtless gone to ground. My guess is that that empty safe contained all he needed to hide for years — little things like a lot of cash and false IDs. He could hide for a decade and come out a free and rich man.”

“Ain’t no justice,” said Lambert. “Of course, there rarely is.”

The men decided to keep their combined forces in the former German headquarters. They would sit tight until relieved by other American units who were heading towards the area. Landry had already made contact with units approaching the city and had gotten the word that the Germans were surrendering. It made no sense to go out and risk getting shot by either a trigger-happy American or a fanatic Nazi. No, their war was going to end with a whimper and not a bang. At least for a while and maybe for a long while, Tom thought.

The war would be moving across the ocean, but he would try to get stationed at the Pentagon where he could be close to Alicia. She hadn’t quite told him as much, but he was pretty certain she was pregnant and only waiting for him to get back safely before she broke the news. She didn’t want to burden him, but she’d told Missy who’d told her husband who, of course, let it slip.

He was contemplating this when Sergeant Farnum, his arm in a sling, dragged in a very disheveled former State Department rep Wade Dylan.

“Look what I found, colonel, and yes, he was hiding.”

Dylan looked like hell. His clothes were torn and his face was bruised. “You didn’t hit him, did you?”

“No sir, he was that kind of a mess when I found him.”

“Neumann did it,” Dylan said. He straightened up and fussed with his clothing. “For some reason, he thought I had betrayed him.”

“Had you?” Tom asked.

To their surprise, Dylan smiled. “Of course I had. That was my purpose in staying behind in the first place. Did you really think I was such a horse’s ass when you first talked to me? I had a role to play and I think I played it quite well.”

“Bullshit,” said Farnum. Tom noticed that Lambert was very quiet.

“Not so,” said Dylan, "and Detective Lambert can confirm it. When I was first left behind, my contacts were with the State Department. When the OSS came into being, Detective Lambert, aka Maple, was my connection. He will confirm that my code name was Stanley, as in the Stanley Cup.”

“Curiouser and Curiouser,” said Tom. Now more than ever he wanted to get back to Washington.

“What do we do now?” Farnum asked.

Tom stood. “First, we get everyone the hell out of this building in case somebody remembers that it is the German headquarters and decides to bomb or shell it. When we find another place to hole up, we wait for the cavalry to arrive. Landry can radio our situation and Lambert, since the phones are working, why don’t you call Sherry and let her know you’ll be home for dinner.”

Neumann had again changed his mind. Trying to make it west and then south to Mexico was absurd. The only safe course was the most obvious. He would surrender to the Americans along with the rest of Guderian’s army. To do that, he had killed a German soldier and taken his uniform. He then buried the cash he’d taken from the safe. It was all either American or Canadian and would prove useful when he was released. As a prisoner of war he would need no money and having any large amount would be suspicious. He kept a hundred dollars Canadian for incidental expenses.

Months earlier he’d had his SS blood type tattoo removed from his arm, and now he was proud of his foresight. When captured, the Americans would be unable to identify him as an SS officer. He would be able to get lost in the crowd. There was the remote possibility that someone would recognize him, but that was a chance he would have to take. He would let the Yanks intern him and then wait for the opportunity to escape if he wasn’t released first. At the rate things were going so badly for the Reich, it wouldn’t be long before there was an armistice. After all, who would want to punish a poor simple German soldier who’d been deluded by Hitler?

He staggered. There was a sudden sharp pain in his chest and he couldn’t catch his breath. He grabbed his chest and felt something sticky. Blood. What the devil, he thought as he slumped to the ground.

Almost three hundred yards away, Hipple grinned and lowered his rifle. “Got him,” he said.

Canfield, who had been only a short distance away, had mixed emotions. “Great shot, but we’re trying to encourage them to surrender.”

“Sorry, sir, but he had a rifle and didn’t much look like he was surrendering. I won’t do it again.”

Canfield had nothing to say to Hipple who was clearly un-contrite. It was one more dead German in partial payment for all the friends he had lost. He just wanted this to end so he could go home.

As head of the Irish Republic, Eamon De Valera had many conundrums to resolve and this was one of the worst. The old saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, had been Ireland’s mantra since Germany and Great Britain first went to war in 1914 and then in 1939. Hitler might be a monster, but he was fighting the country that had oppressed and brutalized Ireland for far too many centuries. For many living in Ireland, the thought of hated England being pounded into rubble by anyone, even Nazi Germany, pleased them. The rumors of what the Germans were doing to the Jews were dismissed. The idea of mass murder on the scale reported had to be untrue and besides, who liked the Jews?