Mac wingate 4, p.20
Mac Wingate 4, page 20
As soon as Wingate had taken all that in, he was waved through and instructed to follow another man in coveralls who ran to the right. Wingate turned the wheel, seeing the Church of St. Jean-Baptiste off to the far right as he did so. Everything outside the beams of the strung lights was dark gray against the blue night sky. The other man in the coveralls held up his hand for Wingate to stop. Wingate braked the vehicle, bringing it to a stop midway between the gate and the smaller buildings. The disguised American hopped out as the other man trotted to the back of the truck. Wingate stared at the Junkers.
That was it, he thought. That was what Granite had come down to. One gigantic plane and one American in somebody else’s coveralls. Up until that moment, Wingate hadn’t seriously considered how he was going to destroy the ammunition. But now his mind was in turmoil. At first he thought he could commit suicide—hurl the remaining grenade he had into the plane, and see how many milliseconds before the explosion engulfed him or the dozens of guards shot him down. Then he realized it wouldn’t do any good. If the plane and the supplies blew up on the ground, there was a possibility they could replace them in time to wipe out the Allies at Salerno. If Wingate was going to do those fighting men any good, the ammunition had to detonate in the air, after the plane had taken off.
But for that he needed a time fuse, and he didn’t have a time fuse. All he had was a number 15 detonator and a fragmentation grenade. He couldn’t very well walk up to the Junkers, steal a block of TNT, then arm it and try to get it going with a cigarette lighter. He looked off to a small reconnaissance plane. He thought about what he might be able to piece together out of the cockpit of that. But with all the lights, he couldn’t get to it without being spotted, and how was he going to explain hanging around a Messerschmitt 108 and ripping out the altimeter?
The altimeter got him thinking about pressure, which had him wishing for an anerometer, one of Thomas’s delightful little toys. It was an explosive weapon detonated by height, especially designed for use on enemy planes. Once the seventeen-inch-long, two-pound device was concealed in a grounded target, it was armed by the removal of a safety pin and “arming strip.” Then, once the plane had taken off and reached a height of 1,500 feet, the charge would blow with the power of a 75 mm antiaircraft shell. On the Junkers, it would completely tear off the wing or tail assembly. If he had one of those, planting it in the Junkers’ wheel well would be child’s play. He stared down the field, thinking about the anerometer, the altimeter, and pressure. He thought about the device’s composition. A triggering mechanism, a booster, and a flexible container for a pound of plastic explosive.
Suddenly he spun a full 180 degrees to face the airfield buildings. He saw what he was looking for at the end of the squat enclosures; a small cabin with a large antenna protruding from the roof, and next to that, an even smaller hut with a wind meter slowly twirling in the breeze. As quickly as he could without actually running, Wingate moved toward the weather hut. His mind had locked onto a plan of action. While the other men were intent on loading the Salerno-bound aircraft and unloading the truck he had brought in, he would make the detonator he needed.
He glanced in the hut’s one window as he went by, saw no one was there, then stepped in and pulled the wind latch closed against the shut door. Now, if he could just be efficient enough, there might be a happy ending to this whole affair. Wingate switched on the small desk lamp on the weather reader’s desk and searched the bank of instruments. He knew that a barometer worked on the same principle as an altimeter, reading the atmospheric pressure. He searched the weather panel for a mercury indicator that read in inches, but he couldn’t find one. “Christ,” the American spat under his breath, until he remembered that he was reading European instruments where mercury would be measured in millibars.
He quickly found the round face of a meter graded in thousands and reading 900M. He did the math necessary as quickly as his addled brain would allow him. At sea level, mercury would read at 29.9 inches, which he could safely round off to thirty. If his college education had been worth anything at all, that meant one “atmosphere” was equal to 1.013 bars, or, for the sake of his sanity, one bar. And one bar was equal to one thousand millibars, which meant a thousand millibars for each atmosphere. Wingate recalled the upward slope of the road he had traveled to get here. A barometer would only read 900 millibars if they were already three thousand feet above sea level. Wingate then remembered the lighthouse perched on the horizon line. It all figured. The airport was probably on its own cliff.
He looked at the instruments again, got his bearings, and went to work. With the hilt of his knife he broke the face of the barometer. The glass tinkled to the desk and the needle wavered. Wingate prayed he had not killed the seal. The needle returned to 900M. Wingate breathed again. The device was still working. Turning the knife around, he unscrewed the four screws holding the barometer to the panel, pulled it out, then lay it carefully on the desk.
Now he needed some special wiring. He took a moment to look around the room, shaking his sweaty palms. Finally his eyes returned to the desk lamp. He leaned down and pulled the plug out of the wall, dousing the light. The blue light of the sky, moon, and stars would have to do. He had been making do all along, he wasn’t going to give up now. He lifted the lamp for a closer examination. It was one of those close work lamps with the bendable stems and adjustable metal necks.
With his blade, Wingate cut the plug off the end of the cord, worked the socket and bulb out of the lamp, and pulled the whole mess through the metal neck. He was left with a bulb that had a long cord. Trying to organize his next move, Wingate glanced through the window behind him. Through the foggy glass he saw the Junkers still being loaded. What he couldn’t tell was how much longer it would remain.
He worked faster. He stripped the thin rubber coating off the double-stranded wire about twelve inches from the bulb, pulled one of the strands loose, then cut it and stripped the primary coating off both leads. Then he cut both strands a foot down its length, exposed the two wires, and stripped their leads clean. He placed it all down on the weather desk next to the barometer.
Pulling a spool of black tape from a pocket, he did the math in his head. The barometer’s needle would drop about thirty millibars for every thousand feet of altitude. He wanted to give the transport plane 1,500 feet before his makeshift anerometer would blow, so he took one of the screws he had undone from the instrument panel, wrapped one of the exposed leads from the middle of the cord around it, and taped the screw over the 850M reading. Then he took the other exposed lead and taped it to the base of the indicator needle. The barometer was now nestled in the middle of the double wire strand, held in place by the two exposed leads of the single wire he had cut twelve inches from the bulb.
With that done, he turned his attention to the bulb itself. As carefully as possible he held the light bulb by the base of its metal socket and tapped it down on the edge of the desk. As he had hoped, a tiny crack had appeared in the glass. With his knife blade he poked away the thin, transparent material to expose the bulb’s filament. Wingate laid all the components down on the desk and went through his pockets. Out came the cutters, the number 15, and the remaining strand of primacord, which was only about three inches long.
Taking the latter item between his fingers, he sliced it open, laid the filament gently in the slit, then taped the cord shut—completely covering the bulb’s tender filament. His breath was coming faster now, as he placed the number 15 on the other end of the cord. He crushed the detonator down over the end of the short fuse quickly, turning his head away to avoid losing an eye if the temperamental 15 decided to blow. Thankfully it held and was quiet. The first part of the job was finished. He had a number 15 detonator attached to three inches of primacord, which was attached to the filament of a light bulb, which was attached by wires to, first, one screw taped to the 850 millibar level on a barometer, and second, the base of the barometer needle. The other wire stretched behind the weather instrument. Wingate now had the integral section of his homemade anerometer. All he needed now were the two ends.
On one end would be a block of high explosive with the number 15 detonator placed inside its priming hole. The two ends of the light fixture wire would have to be attached to a simple battery to supply the needed electrical charge. He had a sinking feeling the whole thing would blow the second he attached the battery; but first he had to get a battery, then he could proceed to kill himself. Wingate stood up from his hunchbacked position over the weather desk. He was soaked to the skin, but he was grimly pleased. If he could just get his hands on some explosive and a battery, the device ought to work once it was taped together. As soon as the plane took off, the barometer’s needle would start to rise. Once the Junkers hit the 1,500 foot mark, the needle would touch the screw at the 850M level. That would complete the connection. The wire taped to the bottom of the needle would carry the battery’s charge to the light filament, which would ignite the primacord fuse, which would detonate the number 15 and the TNT.
Wingate was sure of it now. It would work. But he had to get the two missing items. That shouldn’t be too hard on an airport site crawling with explosives. But then, how would he get the explosives back to the weather shack without being seen? And how would he get the finished device to the Junkers without being stopped?
He decided not to consider the problems even as he was moving toward the door. He didn’t have time to be concerned. He opened the hut door and stepped outside. Moving over to the cabin with the antenna outside, he glanced in the window. It was like looking into Santa Claus’s workshop, for there on the floor were a rack of five field radios flanked by cases of stick explosives. The only problem was that one of Santa’s merry elves had stayed behind. Wingate could see an operator was hard at work, transmitting at a main bank of communicators.
He made a quick decision. He walked to the door, opened it, and stepped inside. The operator didn’t turn or even look up from his work. Wingate hastily moved over to the radio rack, removed a loose dry-cell pack with one hand, lifted a small box of TNT with the other, and turned to leave. The radio operator had turned as well and was looking at him. Wingate was about to smile, nod, and continue on his way when he noticed the pistol in the operator’s hand. It was aimed at Wingate’s chest. Stiffening in surprise, the disguised American took his first good look at the radioman’s face in the gloom of the cabin.
It was the face of Rinucchi Wernzelli.
Chapter Ten
“Captain Wingate,” he said, “you are remarkably stupid. Your gun, please?”
Wingate kept his eyes locked on the young Corsican as he slowly reached inside his coveralls and pulled out his Browning.
“Throw it on the floor, please,” Rinucchi instructed. Wingate complied. “And your knife, too,” he impatiently demanded.
“I don’t have a knife,” Wingate lied.
“Oh, come, come, Captain. I saw what you did to those two Ovras in the back of that truck. Pull your knife out or I’ll shoot you.” The seated man raised his weapon. Wingate immediately reached down, lifted his pant leg, and tossed his blade to the floor.
“Yes, I suppose you did,” Wingate said, straightening. “You were ahead of me every step of the way, weren’t you?”
“I’m glad you recognize superiority, Captain,” Rinucchi answered smugly. “It was fun. When I couldn’t kill you all the first night, I found it entertaining to see just how much I could outsmart you. It was disappointingly simple at first until you stumbled into the Ovra headquarters.”
“You had to think a little faster after that,” Wingate concluded, his manner casual, his arms at his sides. “But what I can’t understand is why you didn’t kill us that first night.”
“That’s what I get for listening to my father,” Rinucchi complained. “He didn’t tell me about that damn streghi and her army of children. I was just as surprised as you were when they responded to my first shot. I had to get under cover. But it was all for the best. When I reported back to the Germans, they saw it as a way to kill two birds with one stone. They knew they couldn’t get past the maquisard sentries in the mountains, so they had to get everyone away from camp.”
“So the whole train mission was a setup?” Wingate inquired, moving his hands toward his pockets.
“Eh, eh!” Rinucchi sharply advised, pushing his gun forward. “Who knows what you might have in your pockets, Captain. Please empty them one at a time.”
Wingate slowly removed the NAG’s papers from one and pulled his last grenade from the other.
“Ah,” Rinucchi exhaled. “Look what we have there. Please place it on the floor next to your other weapons ... if you would be so kind.” Wingate did so. “Better and better,” the boy continued, beginning to rock back and forth on his wheeled chair. “For your information, Captain, the train information was leaked to the Free French on purpose. So, realistically speaking, it was not a complete setup. It was just a well-planned trap.”
“Not that well planned,” Wingate taunted lightly. “Both Poppa and I escaped.”
“I can’t do everything. Captain,” Rinucchi bragged. “I will admit you were slippery, getting away from me twice, but here I am and there you are, at last. I don’t need the Nazis or my father now. Now, it is just me with the gun and you with nothing. I think you’ll admit that that’s pretty good planning?”
“Yeah, that’s another thing,” Wingate rambled on, his brain in turmoil. He had to keep Rinucchi talking so he could think of something to do. “How did you know I’d come in here?”
“Child’s play. Captain. Simply child’s play. Once I discovered Poppa hadn’t killed you at the Opera House, I knew you would try to destroy the ammunition here. You Americans may be stupid, but you’re stubborn. I also knew you weren’t stupid enough to try and blow the supplies while they remained on the ground. You needed a time bomb. And you needed explosives for it. Since all your equipment was destroyed along with the train, I knew you’d search the unguarded buildings for what you needed first. I just made sure this cabin was filled with everything you might need.”
Wingate had to hand it to the slime. He had moved all his pawns unerringly and he was obviously quite proud of it. He had the Nazi pride—that sneering assurance that everything he did was right. The American realized that he had been taught very well by his barbarian father. As a result, Rinucchi lusted for power. Taking over his father’s band of barbarians wasn’t enough for him. Once he had tasted what the Italians, and then the Germans, could offer him, he wouldn’t have been satisfied with life in the mountains. As Poppa had no doubt driven into his brain, a Wernzelli always attained the highest position possible. Wingate didn’t know when Rinucchi had started double-dealing. He didn’t want to know about all that. He just wanted to know one thing.
“What now?” he asked.
“We wait, of course,” replied the young man. “You get to watch the plane take off for Salerno, then I get to take you to General Etterlin himself. It’s a trifle dramatic, I admit, but he’s here at the airport and I can’t resist. The promotional value to my new career will be immeasurable. That’s what it’s all about, by the way. It’s the little touches that lead to success.”
“Like the killing of the Ovras by the maquisards?” Wingate asked. “Like sending Poppa to kill me?”
“Oh, the Germans loved that,” Rinucchi happily admitted. “Poetic justice, they called it. The Ovras didn’t know what hit them. And as for Poppa, he’s been the best father a man could ask for. Before I came out here to kill you, I sent him after my dear sister. I told him that she was the traitor. And once he kills her, he will be shamed before the entire community. He won’t lead any more maquisards. No Corsican would have him—even if he were to live.” Rinucchi stopped speaking when a low thrumming sound filled the room. Wingate glanced out the window. The Junkers was warming up. Sweat instantly appeared on the American’s face and his brain went into overdrive.
“So you’d kill your father,” he said with disgust.
“He’ll come back to find me,” Rinucchi replied with certainty. “When he does, I’ll kill him. Gladly. If he was in my place, he’d do the same, the ambitious bastard.”
“And you’ll let the ammunition reach Italy? You’ll let all those men die?”
“If the Nazis don’t kill the Americans, then the Americans would kill the Nazis. It’s all the same to me.”
“Why don’t you work for us then?” Wingate cried, the noise from the Junkers getting louder.
“What do you have to offer?” Rinucchi laughed, the gun barrel raising to Wingate’s head.
“The Allied command can offer you as much as the Nazis,” the American babbled, his hands before him, pleading. “Just let me get my bomb on board. There’s still time ... please!”
Rinucchi had to shout to be heard over the plane’s engines. “Look at you beg! Look at you whimper! The Nazis are right. You’re weak. You deserve to die!”
Wingate looked around wildly, catching a glimpse of one of the Junkers’ props beginning to move. He saw the pilot joining his partner in the cockpit. “Oh, God, Rinucchi!” he screamed like a schoolboy. “You can’t do this! Not after all my work! You can’t! Please! Oh, God, please! I beg of you! I’ll beg on my knees!”
Liquid literally pouring down his face, Wingate fell to his knees and stumbled toward Rinucchi, his arms open wide and his mouth working.
The Corsican did exactly what Wingate hoped he’d do. With a look of infinite disgust, Rinucchi kicked Wingate as hard as he could in the stomach, then swung down with the barrel of the pistol.
Wingate immediately doubled over, his arms wrapped around his middle and his shoulders hunched. The gun barrel bounced off of one shoulder and tapped the top of his head. Tiny stars hopped into his vision, but he could still move and think clearly. His hands digging around his stomach, he continued to crawl feebly in place, and kept a tortured, piteous expression on his face.
