MATT HELM: The War Years

by Keith Wease

  About 45 minutes later, we found a dirt road running into a mini-forest and turned onto it. While driving, I had Vogelmann sitting on a bench seat on one side of the van while I sat across from him, holding the gun on him. The other two I-Team members were up front, one driving and the other in the passenger seat. They had shaken my hand and introduced themselves, but hadn’t said anything else. As far as I knew we had two I-Teams in our little group and both had four members. I never asked why.

  All around us were interesting pieces of equipment, most of which I didn’t recognize. Some of them, however, were very recognizable, which probably accounted for the beads of sweat on Vogelmann’s forehead and the darkening stains at his armpits. He hadn’t said a word since Rusty and Evan had broken into his house.

  Finally, we stopped. A couple of minutes later, the back door on the van opened and the other two I-Team members motioned me out and climbed into the van. Rusty and Evan were waiting outside.

  Rusty looked a little uncomfortable. “Eric, I have a request from Mac for you. He said he would understand if you declined, but he would like for you to watch the I-Team at work. He said the knowledge might come in handy some day.”

  I paused for a moment and then, to buy a little more time I asked if he had witnessed an interrogation. “No,” he replied. “I was given a chance once, but decided not to, but that was an I-Team member asking, not Mac.”

  And, of course, that was the crux. I nodded. “Ok, I’m in. Where are we going?”

  Rusty grinned. “Right here, right now. We don’t know how long we’ve got before someone finds Vogelmann missing. Hell, he might have called someone while you were on the way to his house and they’re on the way now. We’ve got to get the information on the moles before they’re alerted.”

  “What about you and Evan?

  “Evan is going to report in by radio from a safe house we have access to about 40 miles away. I’ll stay here until they’re finished and drive us to meet Evan and relay the information.”

  “What happens if they can’t break him?”

  “They will. Trust me.”

  They did. I had to leave twice to throw up and I still have nightmares…

  Chapter 29

  There were a lot of people - actually, most - in Mac's outfit I didn't know; and while we were vaguely aware that the British had at least one group that approximated ours, I had not been formally introduced to one before. We didn't have cozy get-acquainted office parties, quite the contrary. Mac operates on the principle that the fewer of your colleagues you've met, the fewer you can betray if somebody starts asking the rough way.

  It was, therefore, surprising that I knew only one guy in the group assembled in Mac’s briefing room. What was more surprising was just how many – eight in all – I didn’t know. Being one of his senior operatives by then, simply by virtue of survival, I knew quite a few more of Mac’s people than most, and had worked with many of them several times. In line with his philosophy, when teams were needed on a field operation, Mac tended to use people who already knew one another rather than unnecessarily exposing too much information about another agent, unless the agent had talents necessary to the operation.

  I glanced over at Martinson, who responded by raising his eyebrows and giving a slight shrug of his shoulders. Martinson had already been working for Mac when I first arrived and we had been on two missions together. He was, perhaps, the deadliest fighter I had ever known, myself definitely not excepted. Give him a rifle, a pistol, a knife, a garrote, or no weapon but his hands and feet, and his opponent was dead. Off duty, he had a wide-ranging sense of humor and enjoyed practical jokes, which seemed a little odd, given his single-minded pursuit of mayhem in the field. In any organization like ours, legends grow about the senior operatives who managed to survive, passed along in whispers to the new boys - Fedder and Rasmussen, who almost always worked as a team, Barnett, who moved like a ghost … and Martinson, who was rumored to have personally killed over three dozen targets, not counting collateral damage.

  Martinson’s presence – and my own, to flatter myself a bit – among such a large group of unknowns being briefed by Mac personally, signaled a wide departure from our usual modus operandi. Usually, in a large operation, two or three agents were briefed on the objective, allowed to formulate their own tactics, and either hand-picked or were assigned the rest of the team who were brought up to speed individually. This had the feel of a fully-planned operation, and I started to get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I just hoped it was Mac’s plan and not one passed on by the group of geniuses who had ignored all the signals of the impending Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein the previous December, which had come close to giving Hitler a reprieve from the seemingly inevitable defeat of Germany. Apparently, intelligence reports, some supplied by one of Mac’s people, second hand, had been largely ignored. Translated as Operation “The Guard on the Rhine” or Operation "Watch on the Rhine," depending upon your translation preferences, it became known to the public as “The Battle of the Bulge.” Taken by surprise, the allies put up little resistance at first and the offensive nearly succeeded. Only extraordinary heroism and a refusal to quit on the part of an amazingly large number of troops, both British and American, had eventually turned back the advance. It cost us over 70,000 casualties, but Germany suffered even more.

  My reverie was interrupted by Mac’s entrance. Carrying a briefcase, he strode up to the lectern and turned to face us, setting the briefcase down beside him. I couldn’t tell anything from his expression, but then, I never could. Ignoring the briefcase, he started speaking to us. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said, “Welcome to Operation Silver Bullet. I’m not going to make any introductions, as those of you who will need to know each other already do, and the less the rest of you know, the better. For purposes of identification, you will be known as ‘Blue Two’” – he pointed to a blond guy on his far left – “’Blue Three’, ‘Blue Four’ …” He continued in order until all of us had been given a designation. I was “Blue Eight” and Martinson was “Blue Five.”

  After the last “Blue” had been named, he continued, “You will meet Blue One once the operation has begun. Memorize the name and face of each member here. You will need to know both later. Other than that, all you need to know is that several different organizations are represented here, never mind which organization or who belongs to which.”

  He paused a moment as we each looked around at the others, putting the names and faces together as we had all undoubtedly been trained to do. I mean, “Recognition 101” or whatever you choose to call it is pretty standard fare for any intelligence organization, even a specialized unit like ours. My stomach was not soothed by the revelation that the group included “several different organizations.” I often had enough trouble putting up with the prima donnas that Mac had trained, let alone some unknown spymaster.

  “OK,” Mac continued, “Some background first. Has anyone here ever heard of Otto Skorzeny?”

  A couple of hands went up. Mac nodded at Blue Nine, who asked, “Isn’t he the guy on all those ‘wanted’ posters Eisenhower papered Allied territory with?”

  “Yes, that is he.” There were a few nods around the room. “Part of his mission was to create confusion and spread disinformation during the recent German offensive, using hand-picked German soldiers who could pass for Americans. His people had instructions, if captured, to tell their interrogators that Skorzeny’s mission was a raid on Paris to kill or capture General Eisenhower. It worked and, evidently, General Eisenhower was not amused by spending Christmas in a security lockdown.”

  He waited for a moment as the inevitable smiles appeared on some faces, including mine. I had heard the rumors too. Mac continued, “General Skorzeny has been very valuable to the Fatherland in many different capacities; however, only one of those is of concern to us here and it is related to the Eisenhower incident. A couple of years ago, Skorzeny came up with the idea of recruiting and training German soldiers to
pass as Americans. His goal was not espionage, but sabotage, spreading disinformation and generally creating havoc among the Allied troops, usually in support of German operations.”

  Blue Three, obviously from another organization, interrupted, “So Skorzeny is our target?”

  Mac frowned. He liked getting to the point in his own time and wasn’t fond of interruptions, something we all learned early on. Apparently, Mac was in a cooperative mood, so he didn’t fry the guy. “No, Skorzeny has been promoted to bigger and better things; however, the training of American imposters continues … with a twist.

  “As the defeat of Germany became more and more inevitable, the purpose of the training was changed to dealing with the eventual occupation by the Allies. As envisioned by Himmler, it was to become a stay-behind Nazi organization, which would engage in guerrilla warfare against the occupying troops. However, the Nazi generals, including Skorzeny, soon realized that the groups of recruits were too few in number to be an effective fighting force. It has now been decided to use them to set up systems of escape routes, called ‘Ratlines’” – Mac pronounced it correctly as “rattlins.” The word comes from a nautical term for lines used to form a rope ladder – “a sort of secret ‘underground railroad’ to help leading Nazis escape after Germany's surrender. These escape routes are intended mainly to lead to safe havens in South America, particularly Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil and Chile; however, there are hints that other destinations may include the United States, Canada and the Middle East.”

  From the expressions around the room, this was news to everybody. I wanted to ask where all this inside information came from, but I knew Mac too well; he would either tell us in time or simply fall back on the old “need to know” axiom.

  “The organization,” Mac continued, “which is now calling the shots is called ‘Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen,’ or ODESSA for short.” I assumed we all spoke German because Mac didn’t volunteer the English translation: "The Organization of Former SS-Members." I guessed things must be pretty grim in Berlin when new secret organizations were already using “former” in their descriptions.

  “Himmler’s designation for these highly-specialized agents of Skorzeny’s training course was Werwolfs.” Nobody needed a translation for that one. “Most of the new crop of Werwolfs are relatively inexperienced, since the main requirements are having an extensive knowledge of America and the ability to speak American English fluently. Although they are given training in sabotage, demolitions, small arms, survival and radio-communications, their success will be largely dependent upon leadership from a small group of experienced officers, hand-picked from the ranks of the German Army and the Waffen SS. In two weeks, most of these officers will meet at Schloss Hülchrath; a castle near the Rhinish town of Erkelenz, to plan their final strategy before disbursing throughout Germany. Our objective is to eliminate as many of these Werwolfs leaders as possible, especially their Commandant, one Colonel Franz Weiss.”

  Chapter 30

  Fortunately, the Mercedes-Benz L4500A cargo truck had been fitted with a canopy. The “A” designation appended to the truck model indicated a four-wheel-drive and, in the sloppy and rutted piss-poor excuse for a road we were following, that drive was necessary. Having a cloud cover with a steady drizzle was all well and good for a parachute drop in enemy territory, but driving for hours exposed to the cold and rain would not have put me in the proper frame of mind to start a dangerous mission. I don’t like cold, which is a hell of an attitude for a Scandinavian kid born in the cold Northern part of the U.S., but we’d moved to New Mexico – Santa Fe, if it matters - when I was a kid, and I preferred relatively warm, dry climates.

  The drop had gone off without a hitch. The pilot had managed to get all 10 of us landed within a mile of the rendezvous point, no mean feat. We had all been equipped with narrow-band, short-range radios and had quickly found our way to the truck. The driver was Blue One, our missing 11th member. According to the insignia on his uniform, he was an SS Captain. During our briefing, Mac had explained that he actually was an SS Captain – and a deep cover American agent who had spent four years working himself up through the ranks. He had been responsible for providing the Allies with a lot of valuable information, including some tidbits regarding a top-secret code used by the German Enigma Machine. A few months earlier, he had been recruited as one of the leaders of the Werwolfs, and was not only the source of most of our intelligence regarding the group, but was the key to the entire operation – he was our ticket into Schloss Hülchrath.

  In the back of the truck, Blue One had provided us with an assortment of weapons, including MP38s, grenades, knives and garrotes; various uniforms; and, best of all, several blankets. I was beginning to like this guy. Once we had changed into the dry uniforms – apparently, some of us had been picked for the mission based upon size – Blue Three, our designated expert with the Mercedes cargo truck, got into the driver’s seat while Blue One got in back with the rest of us, after opening the back window of the cab to provide us with a little heat as well as allowing Blue Three to listen in on the two-way briefing. We introduced ourselves by our code names.

  Mac had briefed us on the overall plan and most of the details, but Blue One hadn’t been there, so Blue Two had been appointed to bring him up-to-date…

  Mac had opened his briefcase, pulled out 11 folders, passed out one to each of us, and returned to the lectern with his copy. “Gentlemen,” he began, “The first page is a diagram of the layout of Schloss Hülchrath, courtesy of Blue One. It’s a little crude, but he will update you when you see him in Germany. You’ll be in a truck and enter at the South across the drawbridge. Yes, there’s a drawbridge. It no longer is able to be raised, but it’s still the only entrance into the castle. There’ll be a checkpoint with a barrier and two soldiers in a shed, more to keep out sightseers and the curious than anything else. Blue One will get you past them with no problem, so leave them alone. You probably can’t neutralize them without gunfire and we can’t take any chances of alerting the rest of the castle’s occupants.

  “We don’t expect any trainees to be present during the meeting – Blue One wasn’t clear on whether the compound is in between training classes, or any trainees were just given the weekend off – so we will ignore the complex on the West side of the grounds for the purposes of this operation. That complex is a replica of part of the downtown area of a small Kansas town called Kingman. The original is located a few miles West of Wichita. There’s a movie theater, a drugstore, a hardware store, a grocery store and a couple of other businesses, all of which are normally manned with people who are completely conversant in American slang and culture. The idea is total immersion in anything and everything American for the duration of the training.”

  There were a few exclamations and hissings of breath around the room as the scope of the Skorzeny’s brainchild became evident. In our business, passing for a German was a necessary part of many of our operations, but only for short periods with limited contact. Skorzeny’s graduates could wreak havoc with any occupying forces, especially in the chaos following the fall of the German government.

  “Exactly,” Mac responded to the unspoken, but evident sentiments. “We don’t know how many of these fake Americans there are or where they are, and have no idea who they are. Our only hope is to disrupt their command structure to the point that they become largely ineffectual, other than on an individual basis.

  “As the trainees won’t be in residence, we will also ignore these barracks on the East and South sides. This brings us to the castle proper, located toward the North. If you will all turn to the second page, you will see a drawing of the castle itself. Here’s an enlarged view.” He turned to an easel beside the lectern and flipped a page over the top, revealing the larger drawing of the castle. Picking up a pointer from the tray, he started pointing out rooms. “This large area in the front was designed for entertainment purposes, sort of a massive ballroom. As you’ll be arriving late at night,
it should be empty except for a soldier or two, who will be expecting you. That should make it easy to take them out … silently, of course. Since we will have no idea exactly where they’ll be or which of you will be closest to them, whoever has the opportunity will accomplish that task.”

  He looked around and was apparently satisfied with the reactions he saw. Well, the squeamish didn’t really get very far in our business. He continued, “Back here are the bedrooms, currently set up for four to a room. There are eight bedrooms scattered along these two corridors. There are supposed to be between 25 and 30 guests, not counting the Commandant; however, you 10 will be replacing 10 of the guests, with Blue One’s help, leaving you with 15 to 20 targets. We have no idea of the sleeping assignments – perhaps Blue One will be able to provide more information – so anywhere from five to all eight bedrooms may be occupied. Of course, we’re hoping that all the guests will be in bed at that hour.” I thought I saw a small smile cross Mac’s face, but I could have been mistaken.

  “Over here, to the West of the castle, is the Commandant’s quarters. Colonel Weiss is not fond of sharing a bedroom, so he makes his home in the large guest house. He will have two of his personal guards with him in the house, awake, plus another two or three, depending upon how many are waiting for you in the castle, in the smaller guest house, sleeping during their off shift. Blue Five, Blue Eleven and Blue Eight, you are assigned to take out the Commandant, after disposing of the four or five guards. The rest of you will clear out the bedrooms and anyplace else that might have insomniacs wandering around. Once you have cleared the castle, assist Blue Five and Blue Eight, if necessary, then take care of the two guards you left at the drawbridge.