Sleeper agent, p.31
Sleeper Agent, page 31
The inner city was still crowded with exultant, joyful people. A red and white sea of flags—the white cross on the red field of the Danish flag, Dannebrog—waved and billowed triumphantly over their heads. But the mood was subtly different. The jubilant celebration was starkly punctuated with moments of panic and fear as snipers opened up from their hiding places and firefights broke out between the Freedom Fighters and the Danish Hipo traitors and their Nazi masters.
The Freedom Fighters were inexorably rounding up the hated informers and collaborators. Cars and trucks filled with grim armed and helmeted men roared through the streets, the names of underground groups proudly painted on their sides: BOPA. Korps Aagesen. Holger Danske. Ringen.
Suspects were being cornered everywhere and checked against lists prepared in advance for this day of reckoning. The subjects stood shaking, hands high, facing the wall, while being examined.
Open flat-bed trucks crammed with white-faced Hipo men and other traitors and informers, arms held stiffly above their heads, guarded by patriots armed with machine pistols, lumbered toward prisoner collection points throughout the city, followed by the derisive howls and shouts of the onlookers.
Girls with swastikas crudely smeared across their chests were marched away—the despised and accursed “field mattresses,” the mistresses of the Nazis.
As Tom made his way with Tove toward Rydberg’s he realized bleakly that he was searching for the proverbial needle. Only this needle was different. It was deadly.
They were hurrying past a complex of German military barracks. The crowd was less dense here. In the broad square in front of the barracks several octagonal brick barricades had been constructed to afford protection for the guard posts. They looked exactly like squat Teutonic pissoires. Each was manned by two apprehensive German soldiers. Only their steel-helmeted heads and their field-gray shoulders were visible above the concealing breastwork.
Suddenly a shot rang out. And another. They were instantly answered by a quick volley. Sniper! At once the German sentries brought their guns to bear on the sound of the firing.
Tom pulled Tove into a doorway. Directly before them, out in the square, was a German brick barricade. The heads and shoulders of the uneasy Nazi soldiers barely showed above the shielding.
Suddenly Tove laughed. She pointed at the barricade. “Look!” she said. “Look what someone has written on it.”
Tom looked. In white paint, under the barely protruding heads of the German guards, a crude swastika had been painted on the wall of the barricade, and under it the words NAZISTERNE HAR TABT BUKSERNE!
Tove giggled. “It means the Nazis have lost their pants!” she said.
Tom grinned. Danish humor was irrepressible. A few minutes later he found himself utterly devoid of any humor whatsoever.
Rydbergs Kaeller lay before him, devastated, ransacked, burned to a scorched and blackened empty cavern. His last lead had been obliterated.
Rudi felt uneasy. He did not like to be in the area around the demolished Café Tosca.
He’d spent the evening before in the Tivoli amusement park in the center of Copenhagen, losing himself effectively in the jubilant crowd celebrating the opening night of the garden with blazing lights. With music. Dancing. Singing. The thousands upon thousands of colored light bulbs strung overhead in garlands across the walks had made him feel as if he were diving in a sea of light and noise and sweating human flesh.
He had been there when the open air concert was abruptly interrupted and the message of the German surrender had been read over the loudspeakers. The throng had gone wild.
He had never in his life felt so depressed and bleak as he shouted and cheered with the rest and let himself be jostled through the park by the crush of frenzied people. But he solemnly resolved that he, Rudi A-27, would never surrender. His mission would be carried out!
When Tivoli finally closed, he’d gone to an all-night bar and spent the time drinking and carousing with new-found friends. As soon as the streets began to fill with people once again, he’d joined the crowds milling through town waving their stupid little flags and howling their stupid songs. Now he was only a few blocks from the Café Tosca.
The Freedom Fighters seemed to be more active in that section of town than anywhere else. Their trucks constantly roared through the streets. Patrols roamed the area searching for their victims. It was not an area he would have chosen to be in. But he had no choice. The time for his rendezvous with Wolff was drawing near. It was his last chance. He could not afford to lose it.
He shrugged off his feeling of foreboding. It was probably just his imagination. Being forced to be at a certain spot at a certain time robbed him of his own initiative. He did not like it at all.
He had seen the Freedom Fighters round up their suspects. Once caught, there was little chance of getting away, at least not without a thorough examination and a long delay. For him, both prospects would be disastrous.
He was walking quickly along one of the narrow streets in the old part of the city. There were not many people abroad. Not the crowds still rampant in the more open parts of town. That was another thing that bothered him. He felt too exposed without his cover of revelers. Ahead of him a group of half a dozen young men were hurrying down the street toward him.
Suddenly a small truck roared into the street behind Rudi. He whirled toward it. Several armed Freedom Fighters leaped from the truck. The pedestrians stopped dead in alarm.
In the same instant another truck came screeching to a halt in front of him, disgorging more grim-looking Freedom Fighters, guns trained on Rudi and the little group.
He and the others were effectively boxed. The young men instinctively huddled together, backing up against the wall of a building.
The Freedom Fighters shouted at them, “Up! Up! Up with the hands!” They gestured menacingly with their guns. “Up!”
The men raised their hands high above their heads. Rudi followed suit.
The gun stuck in his belt in back under the blue jacket suddenly felt like a cannon.
Verflucht! he thought bitterly. Caught in a verschissene—stinking—dragnet! His thoughts raced. He had to get away. How?
His eyes flew over his fellow captives as the Freedom Fighters ran toward them. They all looked apprehensive. Unsure. His trained mind took in each one of them. In detail.
Two of the young men stood quite close to him. One was barely into his teens. The other—Suddenly Rudi flew into action. He threw himself on the man next to him. He grabbed him in a painful armlock.
The startled man sank to his knees with a groan of pain.
“Here!” bellowed Rudi excitedly. “Over here! I got him!”
Several of the Freedom Fighters ran toward him.
“I got him!” he shrieked. “The Hipo swine! Look at his boots! His boots! The bastard is trying to hide them with his pants. But they are boots! Look! German boots!”
The Freedom Fighters grabbed the shaken man and slammed him roughly against the wall. “Papers!” one of them demanded brusquely.
The man began to fumble with his coat He was petrified.
Rudi leaped at him. “Swine!” he shrieked furiously. “Traitor! Hipo bastard!” He began to hit the man viciously with his fists. “Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!”
Two of the Freedom Fighters pulled him off. “Hey, hey, hey, easy!” one of them said with a cold grin. “Easy. Leave him to us. He’ll get what’s coming to him!”
Rudi backed off.
The Freedom Fighters turned toward the battered, shaken young man, fumbling in his coat pocket. “Get those papers out, damn you!” one of them growled. “And make it fast!”
Rudi backed slowly away. He watched the Freedom Fighters. They were all absorbed in examining their victim. The victim he had given them. They did not notice as he quickly ducked into an alley and silently slipped away.
The bleak feeling of frustrated impotence lodged like a tight lump in Tom’s chest. Somewhere in this city of frenzy and turmoil was a man infected with a deadly disease that he would spread throughout the world if he were not stopped. Now.
Here. So close. And yet beyond reach.
He clenched his jaws. There had to be a way. There had to be another lead to Rudi A-27! He strained every cell of his brain. He fought to conjure up the key. He could think of nothing.
Rudi was able to masquerade as a native Dane. Even if he, Tom, knew his cover identity, which he did not, it would be impossible to ferret him out in the tumultuous chaos of the liberated city. His only possible lead remained Wolff.
To find him, he’d have to be too damned lucky. He did believe in luck. But only the kind you made yourself. He had always believed that luck was a tag given by the nondoers to account for the accomplishments of the doers. But there was nothing he could do. Nothing.
He suddenly tensed. He turned to Tove. “Who exactly are the men the Freedom Fighters are rounding up?” he asked. There was a new urgency in his voice.
She gave him a quick look. “Hipos. Traitors. Informers,” she said. “Collaborators. They have lists—”
“Who else?”
Tove frowned. “No one,” she said. “The girls . . .”
He shook his head impatiently. “What about Germans?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “No Germans.”
“What if a man—a German—was thought to be a Dane. A collaborator. Would he be on the lists?”
“Yes.”
“What happens to the men the Freedom Fighters pick up?”
“They . . . they will be investigated,” she said.
“Where?”
“At collection points. Throughout the city. That is where they are taken on the trucks.”
Tom frowned in concentration. “Is there . . . is there one point, one central place, where information about the captives would be coordinated?”
She nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Arrestgaarden, near Domhuset—the court house. That is the main collection and detention point.”
“Take me there!” he said.
The area around Arrestgaarden teemed with curious people, watching and jeering the truckload after truckload of ashen-faced, fearful prisoners brought to the detention center.
All the shops and offices in the neighborhood had been closed up tight. One had a hastily scrawled sign prominently displayed on the door: LUKKET PAA GRUND AF GLAEDE!—CLOSED ON ACCOUNT OF JOY!
Inside, the center was a madhouse of controlled confusion. Tom and Tove were making their way through the flow of men and women when Tove spotted Klaus marching a pinch-faced young man toward a holding tank. The dark streaks from a bloody nose were still caked on the prisoner’s chin.
“Klaus!” she called.
The man stopped. They hurried to him. “Who do we see about the arrest lists?” Tove asked.
Klause shook his head. “No idea.” He nodded down the corridor. “Sven is here. In the main office. He may know. If you hurry, you might catch him before he is off again.”
They were already on their way.
Sven was pleased—and surprised—to see them. “Any luck?” he asked at once.
“We need your help,” Tove said urgently. “We need to look at some sort of master arrest list. Do you know if there is such a thing? And where?”
Sven frowned. “I know of no master list,” he said. He looked at Tom. “You think your man may be on it? He will not. He just arrived here, did he not?”
Tom nodded. “I know the Sleeper won’t be on any list. Under any name. I’m not concerned with him. I want Wolff!”
Sven and Tove glanced at each other. Sven nodded. “There is a chance. He was a waiter. A Dane. Working in a pro-German place. Yes. It is quite possible.”
He walked quickly to a desk. “I shall put out an alert. To notify me if the waiter Wolff is caught and brought in. Especially the patrols in the Tosca neighborhood must know. If Wolff is not on their list now, he will be.”
He scribbled something on a piece of paper. He gave it to Tom. “Take this, my friend. It is the telephone number of this office. If you are picked up, tell them to call here. You will be cleared.”
Tom took the paper. “Thanks,” he said.
“I cannot know where I will be,” Sven continued. “If you will go to the apartment, our meeting place, at”—he looked at his watch—”six o’clock tonight, I will call you there if I have any news.”
He started to leave. He turned, soberly. “Be careful,” he said. There is much fighting. SS troops and Hipos. Some parts of town are very dangerous. Stay away from them. The Guards Barracks. The Nyboder School. The gasworks. Lyngby Road. There are fire battles going on there.”
“I need a gun, Sven,” Tom said. “How about it?”
Sven pointed to a pile of confiscated guns lying in a corner of the room. “Help yourself,” he said. He gave them a last look. “Take care.” He left.
Tom quickly searched through the stack of weapons. He selected a black-handled pistol. A Walther P-38 9-mm automatic. He was familiar with it. He checked the magazine. It was full. Eight rounds. He stuck it in his belt. He felt whole again.
Rudi felt keyed up, wholly alert, as he hurried down the street toward Frihavnen, the city’s Free Harbor.
The meeting with Wolff had been brief. The undercover agent had been visibly on edge, nervous and resentful at having to be out in the open near the hated Café Tosca and forced to stay operative during this most dangerous period only for Rudi’s sake. He had been eager to return to the safety of the German barracks.
But he had given Rudi new instructions. He was ordered back to Flensburg at once. Alternate exfiltration plans were being activated. He was to report immediately to the German cruiser Nürnberg lying in Copenhagen’s Free Harbor. The captain had orders to wait for him. The cruiser would take him to Flensburg, where the ship would join the remaining German fleet under Admiral Doenitz. He was to use the password Siegerfähre—Ferry of Victors.
He grinned coldly. Whoever the idiot was who thought up passwords was either hopelessly out of touch or full of gallows humor.
Wolff had addressed Rudi with his cover name, Rudolf Rasmussen. He had not told the undercover agent about his new ID papers.
‘Trust no one,” Bormann had said. He would remember.
Now that his evacuation was imminent, he realized how tense he had been. And he realized it was of paramount importance to get out of Denmark before he was caught in the maelstrom of total surrender, the wholesale roundup of anyone even remotely cross-eyed.
He had already had one close call. It was enough. He was crossing Østergade. He was almost there. He’d make it. The first sudden shots shocked him out of his reveries with a cruel jolt. A volley of small arms fire abruptly rang out from the waterfront ahead.
Rudi hit the ground. Almost at once the rifle fire was answered by savage machine gun fire. Heavies. Rudi rose to one knee, hugging the wall. He peered ahead. The firing intensified. Crouched low, he ran to the corner.
The Nürnberg was under attack! A large group of determined Freedom Fighters were attempting to take over the cruiser by force! Their positions on the quay were being raked by heavy machine gun fire from the warship.
Suddenly the deep-throated bark of heavier guns hammered through the clattering staccato machine gun bursts and the sporadic crackle of small arms fire. The cruiser was employing its 20-mm guns. Geysers of broken pavement and shattered brickwork shot into the air from the position of the Danes.
Suddenly, from behind Rudi, came the sharp reports of high-power rifles. Snipers. Shooting from vantage points in buildings on Østergade.
The massive barrels of the Nürnberg’s 27-mm guns pivoted ponderously in search of the sniper nests. They roared their wrath, belching fire and smoke. In the dust-billowing explosions of masonry and shattered glass from the blasted buildings the snipers fell silent.
Rudi withdrew. He was shaken. With the Nürnberg under attack, under siege, his last avenue of escape from the city had been effectively cut off. Things were happening too damned fast!
Hugging the walls, he ran away from the field of battle. He could not afford to become involved. A few streets away he stopped. The firing could still be heard in the distance. Whatever the outcome of the foolhardy attack, the Nürnberg could not possibly be of any use to him now. He had to find a way to get to Flensburg by himself. He was on his own.
Quickly he walked away from the harbor area. He looked grim. But he had no doubts he would make it.
Tom looked at his watch. He had performed the identical gesture countless times in the last few minutes. He knew it. It was an obsession. He stared at the telephone. Ring, dammit! Again he glanced at his watch. 1817 hours. Where the hell was Sven?
Tove sat quietly on the big worn sofa, hugging her knees. She was watching Tom with grave concern.
He suddenly jumped as the shrill ring of the telephone knifed through the silence. He snatched up the receiver. “Yes?” he barked.
It was Sven. “We have him,” he said.
Tom felt a wild surge of excitement shoot through him. “Where?” he shouted. “I’m on my way!”
“Hold it,” Sven said quickly. “First listen.”
Tom stood impatiently, coiled for action, the telephone receiver pressed to his ear. “Make it fast!”
“Here it is. Wolff had his meeting with your man Rudi,” Sven said crisply. “He relayed orders to him to report in Flensburg. At once.” He stopped.
“What else?” Tom asked.
“That is all we got,” Sven said. He sounded drained.
“That’s a piece of shit!” Tom flared. “Where is he? I’ll get that bastard to open up!”
“I think not, my friend.” Sven sighed.
“Don’t bet your ass!” Tom retorted fiercely.
“He is dead, Tom.”
Tom took the telephone receiver from his ear. He stared at it. Accusingly. As if the black instrument itself were to blame. He sank down on a chair. Slowly he put the receiver back to his ear. “What the hell happened?” he asked, his voice flat and dull.
“Some BOPA men cornered two Hipo snipers,” Sven said. “In the inner city. One was liquidated on the spot. The other took refuge in a doorway. There was a man already hiding there. In the shoot-out he was badly wounded. It was Wolff.”
