Mac wingate 6, p.12
Mac Wingate 6, page 12
Wingate rejoined his four-man unit as Kirsten attempted to bring Karl out of his grief.
“All set?” he asked the men.
“They didn’t know what hit them,” Biggins proclaimed. “Cleaned them out one, two, three.” The Australian snapped his fingers.
“What happened to you?” Neill inquired.
“Getting rid of the last witness to our attack,” Wingate answered honestly. “But he almost got rid of me. Snow Queen pulled my butt out of it before it was too late.”
“So what now?” Candy inquired, looking at the victimized girls with concern.
“We’ve done our duty by MILORG,” Wingate told him. “Now let’s see if we can get this operation over with and go home.”
Wingate turned to collect the Norwegian girls as Sumner commented, “Some vacation.” Kirsten came up at that moment.
“Can the girls travel?” Wingate asked her.
“I think so,” she replied. “Karl has finally recognized their need and I think his tragedy has lessened their own somewhat. They will be each other’s crutches as they walk back to town.”
Wingate glanced at the two girls, now standing with Karl in a huddled group. Then he saw Candy’s concerned expression again. “Is there some place for them there?” he asked Kirsten.
“They will come back to my house.”
“Is it safe?”
“Safe or not, that is all that’s left them.”
Wingate was in no position to disagree. He ordered Candy and Neill to stay by the three Norwegians. Kirsten would lead the way with Biggins and Sumner as protection, while he covered their asses. Slowly, at first, then with increasing speed, they made it back to the lone yellow house on the outskirts of Alten.
“Well, well, well!” blustered Walters as the group entered the whorehouse cellar. “What do we have here?” The British officer was still lying on the comfortable bed, only this time under the covers. Colonel Tyler sat off to the side of the overdone headboard, looking like a menial rather than an American officer of equal rank. And two girls Mac had not seen before were fussing with the bedclothes, making Walters as comfortable as could be. There were scraps of eaten food on a plate which rested on a tray on a nearby table.
“Maudit sot,” Candy swore at the Englishman in a mumble as he led the young girls across the room and through the curtains opposite. As soon as Kirsten entered, she clapped her hands together to gain the other female pair’s attention and waved them out of the room.
“Ah, my dear girl,” Walters said before realizing she could not understand him. “Captain, please,” he admonished Wingate, “tell her that I am most dreadfully sorry, but these two delightful creatures appeared and seemed intent on serving me ... I should say, us. I certainly hope I have not unduly trampled on her hospitality.”
Wingate turned to Kirsten and said in Norwegian, “This guy is a fucking idiot. If the whole operation didn’t depend on him, I’d shoot him where he lays.”
Kirsten answered, “He does look the fat oaf.”
Wingate turned back to Walters. “She says forget it,” he told his superior.
“Oh, that’s grand,” Walters replied, pleased.
Wingate pulled off his newly reloaded Sten and forcibly kept himself from slamming it down. Instead, he slowly laid it on a side table, turned, and started to undo his coat. “Been doing much planning while we were gone, sir?” he inquired pleasantly.
“Planning?” echoed Walters as the three other commandos found places around the room. “Planning? Whatever for, Captain?”
“For our operation here,” Wingate answered, leaning his butt on the edge of the side table and folding his arms across his chest. “Operation ...” Wingate looked up and crossed his ankles as he pondered a suitable name for the blind mission. “Operation Snow Queen,” he decided aloud.
To his surprise, Walters stiffened and nearly shot out of bed. Halfway up, in a rigid sitting position, the Englishman suddenly returned to the blind, affable pig he had been when they had first returned from the Harald farm.
“Now where did you get a name like that?” Walters inquired lazily, drifting back down to his propped-up pillows. “Something Queen, you said?”
“Snow Queen,” Wingate repeated. “You know, the MILORG code name.”
“Of course, of course,” Walters said easily. “You have been using your imagination, dear boy. There is no need to attach monikers to a minor diversionary mission. Especially since, I repeat, especially since we may not be called upon to perform it.”
“Yes, sir,” Wingate retorted. “You have said that before. But let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that we are called upon for that ‘minor’ diversion. Wouldn’t it help to know the target ahead of time?”
“Irrelevant, irrelevant.” Walters dismissed it lightly. “You must understand, Captain, that this has all been worked out by powers greater than yourself. You will have plenty of warning. If and when the time comes.”
Wingate maintained his nonchalant poise, but the others were leaning in, waiting for the main event to start. They didn’t know what Mac’s digressions were leading up to, but they could feel the tension in the air.
“I see,” he said. “In that event, it may be necessary then to know what we are diverting the enemy from, so we’ll know how large a diversion to mount and how thorough to be.”
Walter’s voice grew grim and authoritative. “I expect you all to be as thorough as possible, whatever the conditions. I have been assured by all your commanding officers that you are the finest men for this operation and I will expect you to live up to your orders at all times to the best of your abilities. Is that clear?”
Three listless, “Yes, sirs,” drifted through the room.
“Sir,” Wingate reminded the Britisher, “the diversionary source?”
“This has gone far enough, Captain,” Walters said sternly. “I have told you before that everything you need to know or do has been worked out to the smallest detail. The target is known, the source is known, and all the ramifications and possibilities have been duly noted and worked out. If and when, I say, if and when the time comes, you will get your orders from me, and me alone, then pass them to your men. Is that clear enough for you?”
Wingate stood up straight. “Yes, sir,” he said. Walters nodded, and rested more comfortably on his pillows, muttering. “I was just worried, that’s all,” Wingate said, seemingly to himself.
“What is it now, Captain?” Walters responded with infinite patience.
“Well, sir, headquarters can get accurate information on things like ammunition depots and U-boat pens from air-force reconnaissance.” Wingate nodded at Tyler. The American colonel smiled slightly and nodded back. “But they have no real way of knowing how large an enemy force there is and their state of readiness. Even spies with the best courier system can’t keep us up on the day-to-day troop movements in a given area.”
“So?” Walters complained. “Get to the point, man.”
Wingate slowly but purposefully approached the end of the bed. “Sir. We have to know what we’re dealing with. Not just the target and source but the opposition we can expect to face. We must know the size and makeup of the enemy. It is absolutely vital to the success of the mission.” Wingate couldn’t help himself but put the capper on his speech. “Whatever it is.”
There followed a silence that would have been filled by applause from the commandos if Walters hadn’t been in the room. Finally he said coldly, “What do you suggest?”
“Tell me about your system.”
Kirsten looked up from her sewing. “What?” she asked.
“Your network,” Wingate elaborated. “Your organization. Your informants. Tell me how you get your information.”
He was sitting on her ornate bed, staring at the fireplace, while she knitted in the chair across from him.
“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” she said demurely, eyes glued to the fabric in her hands.
“Come on, Kirsten,” prodded Wingate. “Don’t pull a ‘Walters’ on me. I can assume you get a lot of material late at night, but I’m talking about the news Karl came roaring in here with earlier today. How did he know there was going to be a reprisal?”
The girl sighed and put down her busywork. “Very well,” she confessed. “Karl knows of two men who work with the Germans. One works at the Post Exchange. The other is a tailor. The Nazis like the Norwegian workmanship better than their own. These two men know several others. And so on, and so on. Why?”
“I need a target,” Wingate mused, thinking over the new information she had given him. “It has to be small, strategic, and vulnerable.” He hopped off the bed and started to walk aimlessly around the room, rubbing his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger. As an afterthought he asked, “How is Karl doing?”
“Better,” Kirsten reported, returning to her knitting. “He knows the Harald girls need him to lean on. It is making him strong again. Giving him a reason to go on.”
“Do you think I can talk with him?” Wingate asked.
Before she could answer, another voice entered the room. “What do you want?”
Mac turned on his heel, still holding his lip. Kirsten looked up in slight surprise. Karl was standing amid some hanging curtains near the door.
Wingate dropped his arms and studied the young man for a moment. He looked sullen, but otherwise no worse for wear. Mac assumed that in the three years the Nazis had been occupying Norway, Karl had seen many tragedies and cruelties. It had toughened him.
“Are you all right?” Wingate asked anyway.
“Do not concern yourself,” Karl answered flatly. “What do you want?”
Wingate explained the situation again, even though he was fairly sure Karl had heard it the first time. The young man pondered Mac’s request for only a few seconds.
“Yes, I know of a site like the one you describe. I can take you there.”
The American remembered the repeated evidence that time was the most valuable commodity in the mission. He looked at Karl’s steady but haggard face with its darkening pockets under the eyes. “That won’t be necessary. Just tell me where it is. We’ll have to go tonight.”
“Then we will go tonight,” Karl maintained. “I said I will lead you and I will.”
“Look,” Wingate began understandingly, “it isn’t necessary to prove anything to …”
“I’m not trying to prove anything!” Karl burst out, his calm demeanor breaking down. “Don’t you understand? I want to do this! I need to ... I need to get out of here. Just for a while. Either I lead you or you will not go!”
Without waiting for a reply, the young man strode out. Both people remaining in the room stared at the empty doorway for a second. Then Mac rubbed his face with one hand, scratched his temple, and sighed. He felt like a father in one of those heart-tugging melodramatic movies.
Dutifully, Kirsten seemed to take on the understanding mother’s role. “Is it that important?” she asked. The infamous hooker’s heart of gold was beginning to appear.
Wingate shrugged. “It has to be done.”
“What does?” Kirsten demanded with sudden anger. “What is so important?”
Wingate would not be drawn in or drawn out. He had enough problems on his mind to be sucked into the emotional turmoils of a grief-stricken youth and a hate-filled, idealistic resistance fighter.
All Wingate would say was, “Walters called this a minor diversionary mission, so a minor diversion is what he’ll get. Just to see who comes running.”
Mac stopped crawling when he reached the tree line at the edge of the clearing. He looked back just as Karl did the same beside him.
“You see?” the young Norwegian whispered, pointing.
Wingate peered out from behind a large pine into the predawn grayness. He saw a clearing that extended only about a hundred and fifty yards from the edge of the woods where they lay. Then it dropped off abruptly over a hill. The trees encircled the area, as if the location had been chosen by the Germans and then bulldozed in preparation for the camp.
“This is an ammo dump?” Breaker harshly, but quietly, inquired.
Wingate studied the scene carefully. Nothing more than twelve winter infantry tents sat squarely in the middle of the clearing.
“Could be,” he replied softly. “Nothing short of a concrete roof would protect it from a bombing, so maybe they thought the tents would throw the air force off.”
“Yeah,” Neill added. “It hardly looks worthy of a full-scale raid.”
The six men lay on the cold, hard ground and stared at the tents in silence. Karl began to fidget, feeling left out of the English-language conversation. “So,” he whispered. “You see. What now?”
“What are the guard details like?” Wingate questioned him quickly.
“No guard detail.”
“No guards?” The American didn’t need to whisper the words. His face admirably expressed his disbelief.
“No guard details,” Karl stressed. “One or two men pass by occasionally. As the mood hits them.”
Terrific, Wingate thought. There was no way to judge the best time to move in. In addition, he could be moving into a disguised ammo dump, devoid of personnel; or he could be moving into exactly what the camp appeared to be—a full platoon of sleeping Nazi infantry men.
Wingate looked at Karl’s young, set face. Then he looked through the trees at the still, quiet clearing. He made a decision.
“Fan out,” he whispered to the four commandos, lying behind him. “Take up positions along this line of trees.”
“What are you going to do?” Candy asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Wingate shot back, then thought better of it. Unlike Walters, he didn’t want to leave his men with too little information. “If it’s what Karl says it is, I’m going to blow it up. If it isn’t, I’ll need all the cover you can give me.”
“If it is,” Sumner interjected, “we’ll be lucky if we’re not fried at this distance.”
“If it’s not,” Neill told the Aussie, “we’ll be lucky if we die that easily.”
“Move,” Wingate ordered them. Without another word, they complied.
“What are you going to do?” Karl inquired softly.
“Stay here,” Wingate answered in Norwegian. “You’ll know soon enough.” The American captain looked around to make sure no Nazi was in sight and all his men were in position. Only Sumner caught his gaze. Mac pointed at the lithe Australian, then covered his right fist with his open left hand. It was the sign that he wanted cover if spotted by the enemy.
Sumner nodded and smiled. The joke was obvious. If the place was an ammo dump and everybody started shooting, the chances were that the whole team would make it back to Alten by air and in millions of little pieces.
Mac started out from the security of the trees and across the open area toward the tents. Just a few yards along, he found himself chewing on his lower lip. He felt hot sweat cool and chill on his back. He listened to his subconscious. It told him that if the tent formation was an ammo dump, there would be no protective mine field. But if it wasn’t ...
Wingate closed off that thought and concentrated on a possible plan of action, whatever happened. He crawled along the soggy ground for what seemed like hours, stopping every few yards to check for guards. The last time he did so, he noticed the sky beginning to lighten in the east. He crawled the last few yards faster than before.
He made it to the first tent and he wasn’t dead. He was thankful, but still cautious. He lay outside for several minutes, listening for sounds of human activity inside. During his wait, he yearned for the solid, protecting feel of the Sten in his hands. But all he could do was wish. He had left it back at the tree line to afford him more mobility.
Finally, he was satisfied that no one was inside—that it was neither an infantry nor guard tent. He pushed himself into a squat, undid the flap ropes, and lifted the flap out. Looking in, he saw a demolition man’s dream. Wooden ammunition crates were stacked on truck bed skids. Cardboard mortar shell containers peeked out from oil tarp covers. Packs of loose-grain TNT lay in front of his right foot. A single coil of German primacord lay in a wooden crate in front of his left foot.
It was everything he hoped for, except detonators. Even the Nazis weren’t stupid enough to house explosives and detonators in the same place. They’d house them separately, so there would be less chance of an accident. An accident Wingate was quickly going to mount.
The American tried to mentally figure the primacord’s length. But since there was only one coil in the box, Wingate had little choice but to use it. Hopefully it would reach back to the edge of the woods, and from there, everybody would just have to take their chances.
Again, by instinct, Wingate reached inside his coat for something that wasn’t there. His detonators, like his grenades, wire cutters, and tape, lay at the bottom of the Norwegian Sea. Those that didn’t sink with the ship were ruined by Wingate’s little swim. Cursing his luck, Wingate duck-walked inside the tent, already formulating another demolition method.
Primacord, he remembered, was not set off by a flame, like a fuse. It was, essentially, an exploding wire that needed a booster on both ends to work. And without his lipstick-sized detonators, Wingate had no immediate boosters at hand.
One end at a time, he mentally told himself, calming. He lifted his pant leg and slid out his commando knife. At the same time, he pulled one of the packs of loose-grain TNT and set it on the ground between his bent knees. He cut a small hole near the top of the sack. He grabbed the primacord and allowed a meter of the stuff to fall free. With it, he tied a large double knot in its length.
Mac also remembered that primacord burned at a rate of 200 miles per second. With that kind of ferocity, any mass of the stuff would have the cumulative power of a bomb. It was conceivable that the cord could serve as its own booster if tied into a big enough bunch.
