Mac wingate 7, p.13
Mac Wingate 7, page 13
“Fine,” said Wingate. “Anything more you’d like doing—Laval rubbed out, maybe? Hitler snuffed ...?”
De Lille was shaking his head. He wasn’t fooling around and he wasn’t delirious. He was too far gone for the first and not quite far enough for the second. He beckoned with a little gesture of his index finger and Wingate leaned closer to him. His breath was hot and fetid. Despite what Wingate believed, he felt sorry for the guy. He was in a hell of a state, forehead lathered in sweat, lips dry and swollen. The morphine was beginning to take its effect, but the pain from his injuries still made every breath he took an agony.
“I don’t—need any help,” de Lille whispered. “It’s too late for that, I can tell that. But you have got to finish my work. It cannot end like this. You understand me, Captain?”
There was desperation in the guy’s eyes and he put out a hand and clung to Wingate’s wrist with all the strength he could summon. Wingate nodded. “I understand,” he said.
“Cesescu set up the German intelligence network in England reporting on aircraft movement. Those tracking posts—the antiaircraft units we ran into across France—they were his work. We have word that he is being moved south. My superiors think Malta—even North Africa. But—” He shook his head painfully. “It is not the way they work. Why put a man like Cesescu in the desert? It does not make sense. Myself—I think Italy. Naples would be ideal. The Boche cannot hold the town. They will have to withdraw. When they do, Cesescu will have set up an underground intelligence network that will report on everything. Montgomery’s 8th Army, Clark’s 5th—they will be infiltrated from top to bottom. It could destroy the whole campaign in Italy!”
The thought was enough to bring him out in a new lather of sweat. The hand grasping Wingate’s began to tremble uncontrollably.
Wingate’s earlier suspicions eased. There was no reason to disbelieve the guy. He was dying. He was in agony. Why the hell would he tell such a crazy story unless it was true?
“OK,” said Wingate, after a moment. “I’ll buy it. But just who the hell are you? You’re not a French general, that’s for sure.”
De Lille gave a little shake of his head. “No,” he admitted. “I am a colonel. I was teaching marksmanship at St. Cyr when the war came. When France was abandoned by the British in 1940, I escaped to London and joined General de Gaulle’s staff. I am attached to the British SAS. I have been after Cesescu since the spring ...”
He broke off and let go his grasp of Wingate’s wrist and took a long, slow breath. The morphine was really getting to him now and some of the agony went out of his expression.
Wingate said, “Take it easy. I’ll do what I can. But what does this guy look like? What do you have on him?”
De Lille gave a little shrug and pursed his lips. “What you would expect. The kind of man who would never stand out in a crowd. In his kind of work, that is essential. But—dark, clean-shaven, middle height, around thirty. Born in the States—father in the Rumanian Embassy in Washington, mother American. His father was a member of the Iron Guard—the boy, I suppose, was a fascist from the time he left the breast. He was most visible just before the war—very active with right-wing student groups all over the U.S.A. Very—international. Bilingual Rumanian and American. Fluent French, German, Russian, Italian. A useful man to have: a useful man to get rid of.”
It didn’t add up to much in Wingate’s view. There must be a million guys in Italy alone who fit the physical description. As for the rest of the facts, how did you check them? Guys like Cesescu weren’t sworn to tell the truth. If you asked them point-blank if they were spies, there was an even chance they’d lie to you.
“I knew you could handle a gun when you downed that Messerschmitt,” said Wingate. “That was impressive shooting. But why the big act—why promote yourself to general, why the ‘Vive la belle France’ stuff?”
The faintest touch of a smile lifted the corners of de Lille’s mouth. “A disguise,” he said, a hint of pride in his voice: “Most disguises seek to hide. Mine sought to draw attention to itself. Both can be successful. Admit it, Captain—did you suspect the truth?”
Wingate’s attitude toward the Frenchman had changed. He admired the guy’s courage as he lay there with his guts ruptured and his ribs smashed, still able to muster a smile. He admired his skill with a machine gun, and his dogged determination to get his mission completed even though he was beyond completing it himself. He shook his head. “No, Colonel,” he admitted. “I suspected a lot of things—but I never suspected the truth.”
A brief burst of automatic fire from the crest of the slope behind them brought a sudden look of alarm to de Lille’s face. “What is that?” he demanded.
Wingate sighed. “It’s some crazy idea of Giuseppe’s,” he said. “The Gestapo are holding hostages in Naples. Giuseppe wants the gun and the explosives to attack them. I said I’d help him. I want to reach the Allied lines and see the kid safely through. We’re waiting for transport. His guys are pinning the krauts inside that half-track.”
“What?” snapped de Lille, and at once gasped with pain. When he recovered, he asked, “You mean—the Boche ...?”
“Sure,” said Wingate. “Just over the rim.” He indicated with his hand exactly where he meant.
“The man is mad,” de Lille muttered. “They must be destroyed—totally eliminated. They will be sending back a stream of information by radio about our position. Do you still not appreciate how vital this Cesescu is to Berlin? They will send whatever they can spare to get rid of us. The boy would be safer in Buchenwald than here!”
The effort to make his point with all the force he could was too much for him. He finally fell back against the rock behind him and gasped for breath.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Wingate protested. “How the Christ do they know who we are? How do they know what mission you’re on? Jesus, they haven’t even set eyes on you. You were down here with Betty long before we hit them with the 37 millimeter ...”
De Lille put a hand up to his forehead and drew it slowly down his face. The morphine was beginning to lose its effectiveness. It showed in his deep-lined expression. “Merde!” he muttered, at last. “Are you really so naive, Captain? It’s the woman I am talking about! What do you think she was doing down here when you were up there with the gun?”
Chapter Seven
Wingate considered de Lille’s question. Anything was possible, he supposed. He glanced up the slope behind de Lille to where Betty Andrews was crouched over another wounded partisan. It was difficult to believe she was anything other than she appeared—a dedicated, hardworking nurse. He didn’t want, to make any snap judgments. Experience had taught him that snap judgments could be fatal in wartime. He had made one about Rita. It had cost her her life.
He still wasn’t certain about de Lille himself. There were questions that had to be asked, whatever the Frenchman’s condition was. Wingate braced himself. Finally he said, “When did you first see the kid?”
De Lille turned his head a few degrees and made an effort to bring Wingate into focus. His lips made a couple of shadow movements but he didn’t make any sound.
“The kid,” Wingate repeated, with a little nod toward the boy who had gone over to Manganaro and was now helping him unload the wrecked truck. “Kenny Fields.”
It took an age for de Lille to get his thoughts organized. Finally he said, “He was asking for you. He wanted to know which aircraft you were flying in. He said you were expecting him. I—directed him.”
“For Christ’s sake, why?” Wingate demanded. “You knew what the mission was about. You’re supposed to be in Intelligence ...”
De Lille interrupted him with a little shake of the head. “It’s because I am in Intelligence—that’s why I did it. Wingate—do you think you can have a boy wandering about an airfield asking for a Captain Wingate without someone getting suspicious? You are too well known. The name means something to too many people. I knew how many precautions had already been taken to keep your mission a secret. Could I let a child give the whole thing away? No! I silenced him in the best way I could. I put him on the aircraft. Would you have preferred that I kill him?”
Wingate nodded. It hung together as an explanation, though it still hadn’t kept the krauts off their backs. He got up and walked down the slope to where Manganaro was still pulling supplies off the truck.
“How is he?” asked Manganaro, indicating de Lille propped up twenty yards away from them.
“He’s rough,” Wingate admitted. “He’s got a lot of pain. Maybe if we could get him to a medical post ...”
“And how you figure on doing that?” Manganaro asked. “We can’t move with that half-track sitting there. We can’t use the gun because of that ape in the sheepskin. Not that that really bugs me. I’d chop the bastard if I thought that would help. But we’d never get the thing in position without having the shit shot right out of us. There’s got to be some other way.”
“Maybe there is,” muttered Wingate, more to himself than to Manganaro. He was walking around the boxes of equipment that had already been unloaded from the truck. He put his hand down automatically to pull the knife from his boot and found it wasn’t there. He was still in the SS uniform that Giuseppe had given him.
“Do me a favor, Brad,” he said to Manganaro. “Rustle up that woman who had my outfit. I don’t want to walk into a bunch of marines wearing this goonskin.”
Some of the boxes had sprung open in the impact of the crash and he bent to inspect their contents. There were blocks of amatol and coils of slow fuse. But there were no blasting caps and no wire and no sign of a single blasting box. Trust those damn partisans! Burning with enthusiasm, but not a specialist among them. They were going to have to improvise, and do it under fire from the half-track. Either that or they were stuck until it was dark. By that time de Lille would be finished. And de Lille wasn’t the only one. If this guy Cesescu really was important to them, and the half-track was in radio contact with its unit, they could expect the krauts to divert a couple of Messerschmitts onto them.
Wingate changed uniforms and took out the knife. The undamaged boxes that he opened simply confirmed his suspicions—they had five hundred pounds of amatol and no way of detonating it. His mind began to turn over the possibilities. It worked fast, the way it always did under pressure, weighing this idea and rejecting that. He finally turned to Brad. “How good’s your shooting?” he asked.
Manganaro screwed up his face. “So-so,” he said.
“You think you could carry de Lille to the top of that crest?” Wingate indicated the brow of the slope where Giuseppe was still crouched behind cover directing occasional bursts of fire from his troops.
Manganaro took a quick glance at de Lille, head rolled back against the rock buttress, mouth a little open. He shrugged. “I can stand it if he can,” he said.
“Kenny,” Wingate called, to where the boy was struggling to pull a case of ammunition from the truck. “Do me a favor. Take a look around. See if you can come up with a length of rope. Tow rope, maybe. Coil of wire.” He turned to Manganaro. “Let’s go talk to your friend,” he said, nodding toward Giuseppe.
Wingate peered over the rim of the depression. The half-track was exactly where he had left it. It was exposed to attack from the air, but its field of fire commanded all the ground between the partisans’ position and the distant escarpment. Periodically, a chink opened in the armor plating and half a dozen rounds of small arms fire chipped the rock in front of the position. One of the partisans replied, but there was no return fire from the 20 millimeter. Either the guys inside the vehicle were conserving it, or some lucky shot had put it out of action. It was safer to take the former view.
Giuseppe was enthusiastic. “We move out when it gets dark. We take the convent tonight, huh? Kill every Tedeschi. Stuff their Iron Crosses right up their asses! You like that? Right up!”
“Suppose they put up flares from that thing?” Manganaro asked, nodding toward the half-track. “We’re dead ducks once we leave this hole. And how the Christ are you gonna get transport in here if they can illuminate the place?”
“We shoot out the illuminations, my friend!” cried Giuseppe. “A few lights stop us? Never!”
He gave Manganaro a blow on the back that knocked the breath out of him and made him shake his head to clear it. Wingate couldn’t remember a time when he’d met a guy as sanguine as Giuseppe, with absolutely no reason.
“I got an idea,” Wingate said, as if the thing had just occurred to him. “Why don’t we just blow it up now? Save us the trouble of waiting till dark. As soon as the transport arrives, we move out. Simple.”
Giuseppe turned to him, deep suspicion in his expression. “This—blowing up, Captain. How you mean?”
“I don’t mean use the gun,” said Wingate quickly. “I agree. That’s for the Gestapo. But we’ve enough explosives back there to blow a dozen half-tracks all the way to Wolfsburg.”
Suspicion remained in Giuseppe’s voice as he asked, “What will it cost?” He indicated his men, lying to his left just below the rim of the defile.
“Not a man, not a woman,” said Wingate. He tried to sound casual, as if it didn’t matter to him what they did. “We’ll do it for you. Say it’s our contribution to the war effort. All your guys have to do is cover us.”
Giuseppe turned the proposal over in his mind.
“It’s up to you, of course,” said Wingate, knowing that the one approach to Giuseppe that would never work was to challenge his leadership. “You’re in charge. Whatever you say goes.”
He began to slip back down the slope. Giuseppe called, “Captain!”
Wingate stopped and looked up toward Giuseppe. The suspicion had gone out of the Italian’s expression. He was ready to accept Wingate’s offer. All Wingate had to do was stay casual. Any sign of urgency on his part and Giuseppe might back off again.
“Something I can do for you?” Wingate asked.
Giuseppe hesitated. Then he said, “Tell me what you need.”
“Give me five minutes,” said Wingate. “Brad—I could do with a hand.”
Kenny had come up with a long coil of wire cable and a set of tools from one of the storage compartments of the truck.
“OK, Mac,” said Manganaro, joining Wingate beside the truck. “Spell it out for me—and try to keep it simple.”
“Nothing difficult about it,” said Wingate, taking one end of the cable and starting to uncoil it. “You think you can feed it to me as I pull it out?”
Manganaro looked puzzled, but he gave a little resigned shrug and said, “Why not? I figure if I can tie my own bootlaces, I can handle a piece of wire.”
“Good thinking,” Wingate grinned, trying to keep the mounting tension as low key as possible. He turned and set off back up the slope toward Giuseppe with the end of the wire grasped in his hand.
“Hey, Mac!” Manganaro called after him. “Where you going?”
“I’m going to run this around the half-track,” Wingate said, calmly.
It was a moment before Manganaro realized what Wingate meant. When he did, he flung the wire cable to the ground and yelled, “Like fuck you are! You dumb bastard, you show your head to those goddamn krauts and they’ll shred you! You hear me?”
Wingate paused. He turned his head and looked back down at Manganaro. “It’s our only hope, you know that Brad. If they don’t get us, somebody’s air force will. Just follow me up here when I go over the top. Keep the cable coming but stay behind cover. You with me, Brad?”
Manganaro nodded. He bent and picked up the cable and said, resignedly, “Yeah, Mac. I’m with you.”
Wingate turned to Giuseppe. The Italian had the muzzle of his Beretta poking forward from the rocky rim of the defile. “You ready, friend?” he asked.
“Ready,” Giuseppe growled, glancing at his supporters waiting on either side of him.
“Just keep their heads down in there,” said Wingate, nodding ahead of him toward no-man’s-land. “I’ll be back.” Wingate lifted his head very carefully above the cover of broken rocks that lined the rim of the protective defile behind him. “Now!” he breathed, to Giuseppe.
Giuseppe let rip with a short burst of 9-millimeter fire. The slugs slammed into the plating of the half-track and ricocheted off into the distance. The same moment, Wingate pulled himself over the rim and ran toward the half-track. He wanted to get as close to the thing as he could before any of the krauts inside spotted him. Once it dawned on them what was happening, there was no way they were going to let him cross the intervening space unchallenged. Even with the covering fire from Giuseppe and the partisans, they were going to try to cut him down in the open.
He covered ten yards, fifteen, without any opposition, gripping the end of the wire cable that Manganaro was steadily feeding out behind him. He tried to imagine what was going on inside the half-track. Giuseppe had hit the vehicle with a lot of shit and the impact of the 37-millimeter shell must have caused one hell of a physical shock. There could be wounded in there demanding attention from the survivors. Someone could have taken one of the partisans’ slugs through the visors in the plating. Even without any serious internal damage, the slam of slugs into the sheet metal would produce a ringing reverberation that could drive a guy nuts. Chances were no one was going to see him. Nobody would risk looking out.
He was wrong. He had covered half the distance when a sputter of machine gun fire chopped the rocky ground a foot to his right. Instinctively he rolled, got up, ran and rolled again. With a rope it would have been easy. As he rolled it would have twisted with him. But the wire cable had little flexibility. It resisted every twist he gave it, turning back in the palm of his hand and burning the flesh as it did so. The further he ran, the heavier the cable became. At thirty yards he began to have doubts about the whole plan. Even if they missed him with the machine gun, could he hold on to the cable and drag it another twenty yards before its own weight pulled it out of his hand?
