Harry Turtledove - Tilting the Balance

Skorzeny turned to the Croat and said, “Patience, my friend. We want to do the job properly, not just quickly.”

Petrovic scowled. His beard and scars made that scowl fearsome, but the look in his eye chilled Jager more. To Petrovic, it wasn’t just a military problem; he took it personally. That would make him a bold fighter, but a heedless one: Jager performed the evaluation as automatically as he breathed.

“What’s the complication?” the Croat demanded. “We’re in easy shelling range of the place now. We move in some artillery, open up, and-”

The idea of shelling a building that had stood since the start of the fourth century sickened Jager, but that wasn’t why he shook his head. “Artillery wouldn’t root them all out, Captain, and it would give them an excuse to expand their perimeter to take in these hills. They’re staying in town; I’d just as soon keep them down there as long as they’re willing to sit quietly.”

“You would not be bleating ‘patience’ if Split were a town in the Reich,” Petrovic said.

He had a point; Hitler waxed apoplectic over German territory lost. Jager was not about to admit that, though. He said, “We have a chance to drive them out, not just annoy them. I aim to make certain we don’t waste it.”

Petrovic glowered-like a lot of the, locals, he had a face that was made for glowering:, long and bony, with heavy eyebrows and deep set eyes-but subsided. Skorzeny swatted him on the back and said, “Don’t you worry. We’ll fix those miserable creatures for you.” He, sounded breezy and altogether confident.

If he convinced Petrovic, the Croat captain did a good job of hiding it. He said, “You Germans think you can do everything. You’d better be right this time, or-” He didn’t say or what, but walked off shaking his head.

Jager was glad he’d gone. “Some of these Croats are scary bastards,” he said in a low voice. Skorzeny nodded, and anyone who worried him enough for him to admit it was a very rugged customer indeed. Jager went on, “We’d better get the Lizards out of there, because if we don’t, Ante Pavelic and the Ustashi will be just as happy in bed with them as with us, as long as the Lizards let them go on killing Serbs and Jews and Bosnians and-”

“-all their other neighbors,” Skorzeny finished for him. He didn’t acknowledge that the Germans had done the same thing on a bigger scale all through the east. He couldn’t have been ignorant of that; he just deliberately didn’t think about it. Jager had seen that with other German officers. He’d been the same way himself, until he saw too much for him to ignore. To him, a lot of his colleagues seemed willfully blind.

Skorzeny pulled a flask off his belt, unstoppered it, took a healthy belt, and passed it to Jager. It. was vodka, made from potatoes that had died happy. Jager drank, too. “Zhiveli,” he said, one of the few words of Serbo-Croatian he’d picked up.

Skorzeny laughed. “That probably means something like ‘here’s hoping your sheep is a virgin,’ ” he said, which made Jager cough and choke. The SS man had another swig, then stowed the flask again. He glanced around with a skilled imitation of casual uninterest to make sure nobody but Jager was in earshot, then murmured, “I picked up something interesting n town yesterday.”

“Ah?” Jager said.

The SS colonel nodded. “you’remember when I went into Besancon, I had the devil’s own time finding any Lizards to do business with, because one of their high mucky-mucks had gone through there and cleaned out a whole raft of the chaps who’d gotten themselves hooked on ginger?”

“I remember your saying so, yes,” Jager answered. “It didn’t seem to stop you.” He also remembered his own amazement and then awe as the bulky Skorzeny writhed his way out of a Lizard panzer several sizes too small for him.

“That’s my job, not getting stopped,” Skorzeny said with a mug grin that twisted the scar on his cheek. “Turns out the name of that mucky-muck was Drefsab, or something like that. Half the Lizards in Besancon thought he was wonderful for doing such a good job of clearing out the ginger lickers; the other half hated him for doing such a good job.”

“What about it?” Jager said, then paused. “Wait a minute, let me guess-This Dref-whoever is down there in Split now?”

“You’re clever, you know that?” The SS man eyed him half in annoyance at having his surprise spoiled, half in admiration.

“I wasn’t stupid to bring you along here, either. That’s it exactly, Jager the very same Lizard.”

“Coincidence?”

“Anything is possible.” Skorzeny’s tone said he didn’t believe it for a minute. “But by what he did back in France, he’s got to be one of their top troubleshooters. And there aren’t any ginger lickers down there. The locals would be selling to them if there were, and the ten kilos I brought with me is gathering dust here in Klis. And if it’s not about ginger, what’s he doing down there?”

“Dickering with the Croats?”

Skorzeny rubbed his chin. “That makes more sense than anything I’ve come up with. The Lizards need to do some dickering, not just to get their toehold here but also because the Italians were occupying Split until they surrendered to the Lizards. Then the Croats threw ’em out. The scaly boys might be making a deal for Italy as well as for themselves. But it’s like a song that’s a little out of tune-it doesn’t seem quite right to me somehow.”

Jager was indignant at having his brainchild criticized.

“Why not?”

“What this Drefsab did in Besancon, that was police work, security work-call it whatever you like. But would you send a Gestapo man to negotiate a treaty?”

Now Jager looked around to make certain neither Captain Petrovic nor any of his merry men could overhear. “If I were negotiating with Ante Pavelic and his Croatian thugs, I just might.”

Skorzeny threw back his head and bellowed laughter. A couple of riflemen in the khaki of the Independent State of Croatia glanced over to see what was so funny. Wheezing still, Skorzeny said, “Wicked man! I’ve told you before, you were wasted in panzers.”

“You’ve told me lots of things. That doesn’t make them true,” Jager said, which made the SS man give him a shot in the ribs with an elbow. He elbowed back, more to remind Skorzeny he couldn’t be pushed around than because he felt like fighting. Jager gave away, centimeters, kilograms, and nasty attitude in any scrap with him; he didn’t think Skorzeny knew what quit meant, either.

“Here dig out those plans again,” Skorzeny said. “I think I know what I want to do, but I’m not quite sure yet.” Jager obediently dug. Skorzeny bent over the drawings, clucking like a mother hen. “I like these underground galleries. We can do things with them.”

The halls to which he pointed lay below the southern part of Diocletian’s palace. “There used to be upper halls above them, too, with the same plan, but those are long gone,” Jager said.

“Then screw them.” Skorzeny didn’t care about archaeology, just military potential. “What I want to know is, what’s in these galleries?”

“Back in Roman days, they used to be storerooms,” Jager said. “I’m not so sure what’s in there now. We need to talk to our good and loyal Croatian allies.” He was proud of himself; that came out without a hint of irony.

“Yes, indeed,” Skorzeny said, accepting the advice in the spirit in which it was given. “What I’m thinking is, maybe we can dig a tunnel from outside the wall into one of those galleries-”

“Always making sure we don’t happen to tunnel into the Lizards’ barracks.”