Kat and the Desert Eagle

by Michael Beals

  Crawling towards the nearest building, she stood up and waited for the others. They were a long time coming, and it annoyed her.

  “You’ve got to be quicker,” she whispered, when they finally joined her. “Your life may depend on it.”

  “I thought you were taking out the other Guard,” Kelly whispered. “Wasn’t sure what you were doing.”

  “I signaled you,” she said, irritably. She glared at them. “Anyway, follow me.”

  Brushing the sand from her uniform, she checked that Kelly and Capetti did the same. They walked stiffly past the Officers’ Mess. To her surprise, it wasn’t empty. In fact, it was far from empty. Two men sat at the bar, and she nearly froze when she realized who they were. She’d known that Pernass might be here, she’d even joked about it with Dore, but to see him sitting at the bar with Erwin Rommel was more than a little shocking.

  “You know who that is?” she whispered to Kelly. “Apart from your beloved uncle, and my daddy dearest.”

  “Holy crap!” he whispered. “Isn’t that Rommel?”

  “It certainly is, and I doubt if he’s unguarded. Let’s go.”

  Trying to remain calm, she walked on. The Adler’s hangar was at the far end of the camp. Fortunately, there were few people around, and no one on the path they were on. With any luck, they’d reach it without a hitch. They were passing a long white building. The lights were on inside, and it clearly was some kind of laboratory, with spotless workbenches illuminated by low-hanging lamps. She slowed her walk. Against the far wall of the laboratory, gleaming on its stand, was the strangest device she’d ever seen. It looked like an extremely heavy bomb and covered with a network of tubes and cables. With no fins at one end, it looked nothing like the flying bombs she’d seen, however, it was clearly some kind of bomb.

  “What the hell is that?” she asked Kelly, hoping he’d know.

  “Dunno. Never seen anything like it. It looks like a bomb.”

  “You don’t say,” she snipped. “I want to take a look. That may be the reason why Rommel’s here.”

  “What, now?” he hissed. “We could blow the whole operation.”

  “Sam, we need to find out.” Pressing her face against the window, she scanned the laboratory. Next to the door, hung two strange looking overalls. “You two go inside.. There are some weird looking lab coats by the door. Put them on and take a look. I’ll Guard the door.”

  While they slipped inside, she looked at her watch. It was 0130, yet Pernass and Rommel were propping up the bar. Something strange was going on. She scanned the camp for other people, but the billets were in darkness, and the only Guards she saw were standing by the hangar. The laboratory door opened and Kelly re-appeared, a white faced Capetti right behind him.

  “I don’t know what it is, but it looks very nasty,” Kelly said. “It looks like a bomb. It’s got strange signs painted on it, a sort of yellow wheel with three wide spokes. There are also warning signs on the wall read Danger. Wear protective clothing.”

  She stared at him. “What sort of danger?”

  “I don’t know. It didn’t say, but it felt scary just standing there.”

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  They continued walking, the hangar getting ever closer.

  “What do we do about security?” Kelly asked, in German. “There are two Guards there.” He squinted at the approaching hangar. “At least, there were. Where the hell have they gone?”

  “They’re probably at the other side of the hangar, so watch yourself.”

  The hangar clad in corrugated fiberglass, the interior lights on, and Kat could see the vague shape of the Adler. Besides the Guards, there was no sign of life. She breathed a sigh of relief. If they could find a way inside, at least they wouldn’t be disturbed. Then she caught movement from the far corner of the building. One of the Guards returned.

  “Get out of sight,” she whispered.

  The Guard was in plain sight now, walking towards her with a slow and steady gait. Wearing the full SS uniform he looked very intimidating. He stared at her legs with a puzzled look on his face, and in that moment she realized there were no women on the base. Putting on a flustered appearance, she walked quickly towards him.

  “What happened?” she cried, in German. “Why aren’t you helping?”

  The Guard stopped. Frowning at her, he asked, “helping?”

  “The other Guard,” she said, breathlessly. “He’s been wounded.”

  “What?”

  “Come with me. I’ll show you.”

  Grabbing the Guard’s arm, she ushered him around the side of the hangar where they were immediately confronted by Kelly, who looked as surprised as the Guard.

  “Where?” the Guard demanded.

  “Here,” she replied, and promptly shot him in the head with her suppressed .45. “Now we have a wounded Guard. Where’s Capetti?”

  “He’s… gone,” he stuttered, as he stared at the dead Guard lying at his feet, “to look for the other Guard.”

  At that moment, Capetti appeared, breathless and looking distressed. “I don’t like,” he said, wiping blood from his dagger. “Is not good for my stomach.”

  “You find a way into the hangar?”

  “Si. Is not locked. There’s door in back. What we do with bodies?”

  “Where’s your body?”

  He hooked his thumb. “In back. We take this one there. We put them in loving embrace. Homosexuality is so destructive.”

  Dragging the body to the back of the hangar, they placed a gun in the stabbed Guard’s hand and a dagger in the other, then intertwined their arms and legs. It wasn’t perfect, but love never is.

  CHAPTER 20

  The silence inside the hangar was almost spiritual, the Adler’s huge form dwarfing the two towing tractors and a Junkers 52. The hangar must have been built specifically for the Adler, because it’s high tailfin almost reached the roof girders and its enormous wingspan, made even more impressive by its six massive engines. Kat stared up at it in awe. It smelled of fuel and new plastic, and its jet-black wings and fuselage were immaculate. She’d never seen anything like it. Compared to the Adler, the DC-3 was a toy, an airplane from ancient antiquity. Even the Adler’s four sets of giant double wheels were extraordinary. The tires alone must have been six foot high.

  Walking under the wings, she peered up at the retracting undercarriage. She couldn’t see inside the plane, but she could see into the outer fuselage, and without a doubt in her mind, two, maybe even three people could climb inside. There were bound to be inspection hatches that led into the plane itself. They looked for other entry points, and the only one she could see were the bomb bay doors, which were now open.

  A rolling ladder now attached to the plane, accessing the open twin cargo hatches, would certainly be closed before the plane took off.

  She glanced at Kelly. “Shall we check the cockpit? This might be your only chance.”

  “Absolutely. I’d also like to check the cargo door mechanism. If someone could board the plane through the undercarriage, we might be able to open them before takeoff.”

  “You’re not more interested in learning how to fly this thing?”

  “You can’t be serious,” he laughed. “That could take months. Even if we knew what all the controls did, it would need a great deal of skill. I’ve only ever flown Spitfires, and Sandro can barely fly a Junkers 52.”

  “So what are we going to do?”

  He shrugged. “Their own pilot can fly it.”

  “And if he refuses?”

  “Then we suck it and see, but I wouldn’t want to promise anything. I doubt if th
ere are even parachutes. Even if there were, unless there’s another cargo door at the rear, we’d probably get sucked into the engines.”

  She held out her hands in despair. “But aren’t aircraft controls all very similar? I mean, they all have wings.”

  “For a jet? I doubt it, but let’s have a look.”

  One by one, they climbed the ladder, stopping to listen when each reached the top, but the air base was silent, a ghostly silence that raised the hair on Kat’s arms. They worked their way forward to the cockpit, past rows of instruments and hydraulic racks that could only be used to drop bombs, a great many of them, judging from the length of the racks.

  Kat thought about this morning’s destruction, the stream of bombs she’d seen spewing from the Adler’s belly. Would the plane be armed to the teeth when they tried to board it? Would the bomb bay be blocked by a tangle of hydraulics and dozens of bombs? She imagined the team struggling to board and being mowed down by machine gun fire. There must be a better way.

  “Crickey. The controls are mind-boggling,” Kelly said, when they reached the cockpit. “I‘ve never seen so many instruments. Where does the ignition key go? And how do you shift the gears? Or are we suppose to peddle this thing?”

  “No problem,” Capetti said. “We have pilot. He fly plane. If he refuse, we kill his family. No problem.”

  Kat laughed. “You’re not a member of the mafia are you, Sandro? We cut off-a your legs,” she mimicked.

  “Si, si, my grandfather was clan.”

  “Your grandfather was mafia? Sandro, I’m shocked. Is that how your mother got all her blood-money?”

  “Is not-a bloody-money,” he said, indignantly. “We good-a family.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  Kelly suddenly froze. “Listen! Someone’s here.”

  A hollow, metallic clink echoed through the hangar, followed almost immediately by another, and then a soft swishing sound.

  Making their way down the fuselage again, they peered through the cargo doors. An SS soldier had entered the hangar and suspiciously looked around. They waited as he peered through the windows of the Junkers 52, a worried frown creasing his forehead. Something was wrong and he could sense it. He obviously hadn’t seen the bodies, or he would have raised the alarm, but perhaps he’d noticed that the Guards were missing. He was a Corporal. Maybe it was his duty to check on them.

  Which may include the perimeter Guards, Kat thought, drawing her gun.

  The man seemed to hesitate and looked up at the Adler, his gaze scanning its fuselage. He trudged towards the plane, his head cocked to one side listening. Had he heard them talking? Sound seemed to carry in this hangar. He stopped at the ladder, listened for a moment, and looked up. A gust of wind rattled the hangar’s cladding, and he almost jumped.

  Capetti moved. Stepping into the doorway, he looked down at the man. “What are you doing here, Corporal?”

  “Sir!” the man cried and stood to attention. “I was checking the hangar. Sir!”

  “Then look at the doors. They’re not closed.”

  The Corporal’s head jerked around.

  At that moment, Capetti threw the knife. It embedded itself with a sickly thud deep in the man’s temple. He swayed for a moment, and crumpled, a trickle of scarlet coloring his perfectly shaped jaw.

  “Now we leave,” Capetti whispered. “We don’t-a wait.”

  “Sandro… What would your mother think of you, for not cleaning up your mess?” Kat said, clambering down the ladder. “We have to dispose of the body.”

  “We put him in the Junkers,” Capetti said. “And leave a note.”

  “A note?”

  “Si. He can take blame for all dead bodies.”

  It took five minutes to drag the body across the hangar and heave it into the Junkers 52, and an infuriating amount of time for Kelly to find a notepad and pen. The note read,

  ‘YOU HAVE ALL BETRAYED ME!’

  Wedging the note in the dead man’s hand, they quietly left the hangar.

  The pathways were deserted as they made their escape, but the lights were still on in the Officers’ Mess and to Kat’s surprise, Pernass and Rommel deep in conversation. They’d moved to a table near the window and she could almost hear what they were saying, something about altitude and stall speed.

  “I’ll catch up to you,” she whispered. “Wait for me at the perimeter.”

  “Are you crazy?” Capetti whispered. “Why you stop?”

  “I want to hear what they’re talking about.”

  “For god’s sake,” Kelly hissed. “We got what we came for. Let’s go.”

  “Three minutes,” she demanded. “I want to listen.”

  “You’re crazy. What if you’re caught? It’s almost 0200.”

  “I won’t get caught. Go with Capetti. I’ll catch up.”

  She watched them as they made their way down the sandy pathway. When they’d disappeared from view, she crept up to an open window and listened.

  Rommel drummed his fingers on the table. “You’re not even going to do a trial run? Is that wise?”

  “It’s not just wise, it’s imperative,” Pernass replied. “What if the Adler’s shot down? All this work for nothing.”

  Rommel poured himself another whiskey and shook his head. “I don’t see the problem. The plane would be almost undetectable at 7,000 meters, and at 800 kilometers an hour, it could carpet bomb half of London in minutes.”

  “General, you’re not seeing the bigger picture. The bomb we’ve developed is nuclear. It’s called the Zentner-76. It will destroy all of London in one hit and end the war.”

  Kat’s blood ran cold. All of London, with a single bomb? That’s impossible. She stared at the two men, astonished by what her stepfather had said. This was what the Adler was for? To end the war? But how could a single bomb wipe out an entire city?

  “And you’ve actually tested this bomb?” Rommel asked. “You’ve done controlled tests?”

  “We tested a smaller version in the Pacific Ocean. A bomb one quarter of the present size caused a tidal wave that reached New Zealand. So yes, we tested it.”

  Rommel frowned and played with his drink. “Rudolph, there are six million men, women and children living in London.”

  Pernass waved a hand at him. “It won’t kill everyone, maybe two or three million, and think of the lives we save. No more war. It will all be over.”

  Kat’s feet felt frozen to the ground and she could hardly breathe. What Pernass proposed sounded impossible. But he said it to Erwin Rommel, the most respected General in the German army. It must be true. They were going to drop a nuclear bomb on six million people.

  “Holy mother of god!” she hissed and headed for the perimeter.

  CHAPTER 21

  A full moon cast an eerie glow across the treacherous rock face, the narrow crevice they’d climbed down, deep in shadow, so they huddled at the foot of the cliff and waited. In three hours it would be light enough to make the final ascent, hopefully before the Germans started finding bodies. Kat wasn’t concerned. Even when they did, with any luck, the bodies in the Junkers would serve as a warning, the airfield had not been attacked by an unseen enemy, they had a home grown killer on the loose.

  “Are you sure you didn’t misunderstand?” Kelly whispered. “No bomb in the world is big enough to destroy all of London. It would have to be massive.”

  “Not if it’s nuclear.”

  “What d’you mean, nuclear?”

  “A German scientist, Otto Hahn, had discovered the fission of uranium in 1938. I guess the Germans figured out how to achieve an atomic chai
n reaction. It was bound to happen. Pernass said that their tests caused a tidal wave in the Pacific. The point is, we’ve got to steal the Adler… whatever it takes.”

  Kelly squinted at her in the darkness. “What are you suggesting, Kat? That we might have to forfeit our lives?”

  “That possibility happened the moment you began military service.” Kat squinted at him and said, “I guess you didn’t read the fine print.”

  Three short bursts of a distant whistle pierced the darkness. People with flashlights moved around at the airfield’s perimeter. Commands shouted, headlamps moving. A spotlight blinked on from one of the watchtowers.

  “They’ve found the Guards,” Kelly said, getting to his feet.

  Kat pulled him down again. “Stay where you are, Sam. They’ve got a renegade killer in their camp, and they won’t do anything until it’s light.” She gazed at the horizon. A pale sliver of pink beginning to show. “Which won’t happen for at least an hour.”

  He sat down again. “You must be wondering why you brought me with you. I haven’t killed anyone, and I don’t know if I can fly the Adler.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll do the killing and who said you can’t fly the Adler? You might take to it like a duck to water.”

  “Yeah, a lame duck.”

  “Don’t be a wuss. You’re part of the team and nothing is ever simple. This whole bomb thing isn’t straightforward. Unless they flew it down with the Adler, they must have built it here, and it looked bloody complicated… and heavy. They’d never be able to transport it in a Junkers 52. They need the Adler, and it’s not ready.”

  “How do we know it’s not ready? They were bombing the desert yesterday.”

  “Exactly. They were dropping conventional bombs, and the hydraulic equipment for dropping those bombs is still in the Adler. They’d have to have a different system for dropping a single, massive nuclear bomb.”