Mac wingate 7, p.21
Mac Wingate 7, page 21
“Sure, Brad,” said Wingate, quietly. “He called himself Rasmussen then. He was calling himself Cesescu when de Lille knew him. But he’s not a kraut—he’s an American.”
“He’s what!” Manganaro exploded, half rising from his chair.
“Take it easy, Brad,” Wingate said, very calmly. “All we have to do is sit. He’s got to come to us in the end. That’s what the whole of his mission’s about—to get rid of me. He knows I know who he is. I can see it in his face. And he knows he can’t set up another espionage network as long as I’m around. So ...” He shrugged. The whole thing was self-evident to him.
It wasn’t self-evident to Manganaro. He was swimming in mud as far as he was concerned. He leaned back and said, “If he’s not a kraut and he’s not Rasmussen, maybe you’d tell me who he is, huh?” There was irritation in his voice. As far as he was concerned, he’d put his neck on the block without being given the facts.
“His name’s Rosen,” said Wingate. “Carl Rosen. He’s from Chicago. I guess his family was German originally, but he was born in the States. Maybe you won’t remember, but there was a lot of pro-Nazi feeling around in certain quarters right up to the outbreak of war. He was one of the rabble-rousers behind some of the student movements. I saw him just once, but that was enough. He came to the campus at Madison with some of his supporters and gave a speech. He was pretty good, I’ll give him that. Very theatrical—broad gestures, stabbing fingers, colorful phrases—that kind of thing. And he put over National Socialism the way FDR was putting over the New Deal. It still sounded nice in theory, but in action—that was something else. There was some heckling, not serious, not even organized. But I saw his gorillas in those shit-brown shirts wade into those kids as if they were cutting cane. I had a buddy who caught a nightstick across his face. Last time I saw him he was moving around town with a white stick and a German shepherd. Oh, I remember Carl Rosen!”
Manganaro muttered out of the corner of his mouth, “You’re about to meet him again, Mac.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Wingate saw Rosen leave the bar and come toward them. It took him back ten years to that lecture theater in Wisconsin. With his head held high and a ready smile poised on his lips, the guy moved with all the assurance, all the arrogance and personal confidence that he’d shown that night in the lighted auditorium. Wingate dropped his hand to his belt and took out his pistol. It was all he could do to prevent himself shooting the bastard before he even reached them.
“Jesus,” Manganaro muttered, his lips barely moving. “The son of a bitch could walk on water!”
“We’ll see,” Wingate breathed.
“Gentlemen!” cried Rosen, a hint of French in his accent. “How can I apologize to you? My friend—” he indicated the bar behind him where the girl sat glumly on a stool, “she is so—stupid. She has no conception of American humor. She has been—simply ruined by contact with the Boche. Those Germans have absolutely no sense of humor. Please—can you ever forgive her terrible manners?”
He waited, fixed smile on his face, arms open apologetically, for Wingate to reply.
“Sieg Heil!” said Wingate, quietly, bringing his heels together under the table with a sharp click.
The smile faded from Rosen’s face. He looked puzzled for a moment, then suspicious. His arms began to drop slowly to his sides.
“I’ve got a Colt automatic pointed right at your nuts, Rosen,” said Wingate, leaning forward, both hands out of sight under the table. “Just give me an excuse and I’ll have you singing countertenor at the Met. Let’s go somewhere quiet where we can talk. Hands by your sides, palms open where I can see them.” He put the pistol under his jacket, got up, and nodded in the direction of the rest room.
“But I—I don’t understand,” said Rosen, trying to grab hold of the situation again. “There’s been some mistake. What is this—Rosen? I am Pierre Saunier. Capitaine in the Free French 14th Brigade.” He looked disarmingly at Wingate.
“Bullshit!” said Wingate. It made no difference whether the French had a 14th Brigade or not—this was Carl Rosen.
Rosen hesitated, then turned and worked his way through the tables and out through the door at the right of the bar. Wingate was right behind him, left hand nudging him periodically in the back, and Manganaro followed a couple of yards behind.
Beyond the door was a corridor, gloomy in the light of a single unshaded bulb. It was six feet wide with bare walls on either side and a pair of batwing half doors opening into the rest room at the far end. They walked toward the doors, three pairs of footwear clattering on the concrete floor. They walked out of step, Rosen a yard ahead of Wingate and Manganaro now at Wingate’s shoulder.
A yard before he reached the bat wings, Rosen suddenly increased his pace. He hit the half doors with his hands and shot through them into the room beyond. The doors flew back at Wingate. He checked a split second, took the slap of the doors on his left forearm, and pushed through them. He had the Colt out of his jacket now, cocked and thrust out ahead of him. He started to put pressure on the trigger the second he saw Rosen. Then suddenly he checked. Rosen was facing him and smiling. He had a Mills grenade in one hand and the pin in his other.
“Back off, Wingate,” said Rosen, quietly. “Right back where you came from.”
Wingate stopped. He had the Colt aimed at Rosen’s gut but he held his fire. If Rosen fell, they were all finished. The grenade might have an instantaneous fuse that would detonate the instant the lever arm was released. “Hold it, Brad,” he said, quietly. He looked at Rosen. The bastard’s cockiness had come back. He looked very relaxed and confident, standing with his feet apart and his hands held casually away from his body. He was daring Wingate to make some move.
“I said back off,” Rosen repeated, very deliberately.
Wingate shrugged and lowered the muzzle of the pistol. “You know what gave you away?” Wingate asked. “Sure, if I’d only seen you in that English barroom with that dyed hair and blond beard you might have fooled me tonight. And it might have taken me a long time to connect you with that goose-stepping punk I saw in Madison way back. But when I snap a guy’s wrist the way I snapped yours in that barroom, it tends to stay snapped. That crepe bandage on your arm—that’s what gave you away.”
“Don’t try it, Wingate,” said Rosen, reading the calculations that were going on in Wingate’s mind. “What have I to lose? What’s it to me whether I get taken out by a bullet or a frag bomb? Either way I’m dead. But you—you’ve still got a choice. You can die right here with me, or you can back out of here, grab a couple of drinks in the bar, and forget the whole thing. So what’s it to be?”
If Wingate had been alone, he might have taken the risk. He might have put a bullet in the bastard’s guts in the hope that the grenade wouldn’t explode before he had ducked out of the place. But there was Brad Manganaro standing right behind him and Wingate had no right to put Brad’s life on the line. He shrugged, “OK, Brad,” he said. “Let’s go have a drink.”
Wingate heard the doors behind him open as Manganaro went through. A moment later, he was through them himself. Rosen’s head and shoulders appeared above them. He was smiling his easy smile, confident that he had won. “All the way back,” he said, softly, his voice resonant with triumph and hatred.
They were ten feet back from the batwings, trapped in the middle of the corridor leading to the bar, when Rosen tossed the grenade.
“Brad!” screamed Wingate, the second he saw the movement of Rosen’s arm. He heard Manganaro racing for the far door, but he knew Manganaro would never make it. There was only one forlorn hope for either of them.
The grenade hit the floor a couple of feet to his right and scudded over the floor to the wall. Wingate leaped after it. He grabbed it, felt it slip through his hand, grabbed at it again. Seconds dragged past, minutes, hours. Everything was in slow motion. He was lying on his side with his arm extended over his head and his fingers clawing at the wall. He had it. It was in his fingers, and now in the palm of his hand. With infinite slowness he saw his arm move forward and the grenade fly back toward the bathroom and disappear under the batwing doors.
He rolled toward the wall and as he struck it he flung his arms over his head. For a long moment there was silence, then suddenly the place erupted. The air screamed, the enclosed space of the corridor was frantic with noise, and chunks of debris fell on his arms and back. The chaos lasted through a long eternity, and then suddenly was over. He could hear nothing at all. He concluded that the blast had burst both eardrums and he would be deaf forever.
“Mac!” someone called from behind him. It was a human voice. He wasn’t deaf, simply shocked and dazed. He had survived.
“Brad?” asked Wingate.
“Thank Christ you’re still alive!” came Manganaro’s voice. “Jesus, when I saw that bastard toss that thing, I thought sure as shit ...”
Wingate got to his knees and looked around. Manganaro was beside him, face and clothes smothered in dust. Ahead, the doors of the bathroom had disappeared and the area beyond was thick with smoke. Miraculously, the light inside still burned. He got to his feet and went inside. There was no sign of Rosen. He wasn’t around the corner where Wingate had expected him to shelter from the blast, and he wasn’t among the shattered porcelain of the urinals. Wingate lifted the Colt. There were three brick-walled cubicles at the far end on the right. Wingate checked them.
Rosen was crouching in the farthest one, still on his knees with his hands clasped to his ears. Wingate grabbed him by the hair, dragged his head back, and thrust the gun in his face. “You turd!” he breathed.
Rosen screamed, “No! You’ve got it wrong! You can’t do it!”
“Watch me,” Wingate whispered. “See my finger going white? That’s because I’m squeezing it.”
“Erikson!” howled Rosen. “Colonel Erikson! We’ve got his daughter!”
Wingate paused, then slowly relaxed the muscles in his trigger finger. “Talk,” he snapped.
“Jesus!” muttered Manganaro, filling the doorway of the cubicle. “The bastard’s not still alive!”
“We took her to Auschwitz a month ago. We intend to use her to subvert Erikson—get him to pass information to the Führerhauptquartier. Maybe we can do a trade-off ...”
“Subvert Erikson?” asked Wingate. “You really thought you could subvert Erikson? You poor, dumb bastards! OK—you’ve bought yourself a couple of hours. I just hope for your sake they attach enough importance to you in Berlin to go along with your suggestion. Just remember one thing—after the war, whatever happens, I’ll be looking for you.” They took him into the corridor, one on either side of him and the pistol against his neck. They made him drop his pants and Manganaro tied his hands behind his back with Rosen’s own belt. Finally they hobbled him by tying his shoe laces together, then got him to sit on the floor. He sat there for twenty minutes, staring down the barrel of the Colt while Manganaro brought the MPs.
Wingate took a final look at him as he stood handcuffed to one of the cops. He looked beaten. His head was lowered and he looked at Wingate from under his eyebrows with a vacant expression in his eyes. He’d been good at his job, setting up that network in the north of England that de Lille hadn’t been able to crack. Wingate felt hopeful. Rosen was a traitor who ought to be shot. But he’d been important to the krauts. There was every chance they would agree to take him back in exchange for Erikson’s daughter. It would take time. There’d have to be negotiations through the Swiss Embassy in Washington and maybe some money deposited in South American bank accounts in the names of prominent Nazis who had doubts about the outcome of the war. But maybe in two or three months ... Time would tell.
“I figure that transport ought to be just about ready,” said Manganaro, as they climbed back up the stairs to the reception lobby. We’ll just drop off the kid, then pick up the aircraft. We ought to be in Malta for breakfast.”
“They ought to call this mission ‘Code name: Kids,’” said Wingate, spotting Kenny Fields sitting on his tote bag by the reception desk. That’s what it’s been about. Giuseppe’s daughter, those convent kids, Erikson’s daughter, Kenny …
“I feel good,” said Manganaro. “Like I’ve done something positive for a change.”
They picked up the jeep and bounced down the coast road south. To their left, the sky glowed a dull red from Vesuvius, and to the right there were occasional glimmers of light from fishing boats in the bay.
“I don’t understand,” said Kenny, still turning over the problem that had been gnawing at him for almost an hour. “What was Uncle Charley doing here?”
“Well, it’s a long story, Kenny,” said Wingate, his arm around the kid’s shoulder. “I don’t think he was a very nice guy. I think he lied to you and he lied to your Mom. As a matter of fact, I don’t think that present he handed you was from him at all. I think it was from your Mom. I think it was a present from your Mom to your Dad. I’d tell him so when you see him, if I were you. And as for Uncle Charley, I’d forget him. He’s done something pretty bad, according to the cops. I don’t think he’s going to bother you anymore.”
The Salerno field station was down by the water. It was in a small hotel that had been commandeered and the whole area behind it had been badly shelled. Wingate picked up Kenny’s tote bag and escorted him inside. They were expected. The receptionist saluted and said, “I’ll take you through, sir.” Wingate shook his head. “Just the kid,” he said.
“Don’t you want to meet my Dad?” asked Kenny Fields, taking the tote bag that Wingate was holding out to him.
“Sure I want to meet your Dad. But I’ll get to meet him later. I’ll look you up next time I’m in your area. Right now, I figure it’s better if you meet him by yourself. A guy doesn’t like strangers staring at him when he’s lying in bed.”
Kenny nodded. “Course not,” he said. “And Captain—hey, thanks!”
He put out his hand and Wingate shook it. “My pleasure,” he said. It was the simple truth. It had been a pleasure knowing the kid.
Back in the jeep, Manganaro was checking his watch. “Listen, Mac,” he said, casually, “it’s nearly an hour before that crate flies. What do you say we pick up a beer first?”
Wingate laughed and shook his head. “Listen, Brad,” he said. “Every time I go in a bar with you I hit trouble. I’m not risking it again.”
For a moment Manganaro was silent, then he relaxed against the backrest and folded his arms. “What the hell,” he shrugged. “I can take the stuff or leave it alone. Maybe when we get to Malta ...”
“OK, driver,” Wingate cut in. “Let’s go to that aircraft.”
About the Author
Bryan Swift was a composite of Arthur Wise, Richard Meyers and Will C. Knott, who between them penned the entire series, which itself was created by Ejan Productions.
The series comprises:
Mission Code: Symbol (1981–Arthur Wise)
Mission Code: King’s Pawn (1981–Will C. Knott)
Mission Code: Minotaur (1981–Will C. Knott)
Mission Code: Granite Island (1981–Ric Meyers)
Mission Code: Springboard (1981–Will C. Knott)
Mission Code: Snow Queen (1982–Richard Meyers)
Mission Code: Acropolis (1982–Arthur Wise)
Mission Code: Volcano (1982–Richard Meyers)
Mission Code: Track and Destroy (1982–Will C. Knott)
Mission Code: Survival (1982–Richard Meyers)
Mission Code: Scorpion (1982–Richard Meyers)
Arthur Wise (1923-1983) was a UK drama consultant and author, most of whose works were thrillers; he also wrote as by John McArthur.
Richard Meyers (born 1953) is an American author, ghostwriter, screenwriter, consultant, actor, editor, and teacher, who may be best known for his contributions to the martial arts film industry (Rim Films having called him “one of the men most responsible for the acceptance of Asian action movies and stars in America”).
Will C. (Cecil) Knott (1927-2008) He was best known as a Western writer and contributed to three long-running series – Longarm, the Trailsman, and Slocum – as well as working on other series and writing stand-alone traditional Western novels under his own name. He also wrote several mystery novels, some house-name men’s adventure yarns, and a number of mystery and sports books for the young adult market.
The Mac Wingate Series by Bryan Swift
Mission Code: Symbol
Mission Code: King’s Pawn
Mission Code: Minotaur
Mission Code: Granite Island
Mission Code: Springboard
Mission Code: Snow Queen
Mission Code: Acropolis
… And more to come every month!
Bryan Swift, Mac Wingate 7
