As he walked quickly and quietly down the steps of the second tower, Cockran carefully reassessed Ted’s role in all this. The I.C.E. Building had been neither the time nor the place to tell Mattie about his fight with Ted Hudson at the elevator or Verschuer’s implication of MID in the twins’ kidnapping. He had thought there would be time for that later. Now, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to do that. If he did, he would leave out the rest of the story—that Hudson had been the Cathedral sniper and Cockran had probably killed him. Since he could not prove that Hudson had been the sniper in the cathedral, he would be admitting to Mattie that, without any proof and acting only on his intuition, he instinctively had shot her old boyfriend in the back in cold blood. Mattie didn’t need to know that. It had been bad enough when she had to see him execute the MID thug at Cold Spring Harbor. At least she knew that guy was going to do the same to her. Nope, no one else needed to know he had killed Hudson. Certainly not Mattie.
Cockran stepped out a side door of the Cathedral and walked back to where he had left Mattie and the others. Sturm, Ingrid and the others were nowhere in sight. Good, he thought. He hoped Sturm had them headed for Winston’s leased tri-motor and freedom.
“Where are the others? How is Ingrid?” he asked Mattie.
“Kurt’s on the way to the airfield. Ingrid’s alive. The bullet passed cleanly through her shoulder. He thinks Ingrid’s wound can be treated for now with the first aid kits in the autogiros. He didn’t want to risk taking her to hospital here. He wants Winston and Robbie to get her and all of the twins out of the country before any Nazi V-men can alert the authorities.”
“Thank God,” Cockran said. “Ingrid’s a tough girl and Vienna has excellent hospitals. And the twins will be safe enough in Vienna as well. But we need to get out of here also and back to Munich. You’ve got a helluva story to write and Hearst is gonna owe you one big bonus.”
TED Hudson watched impassively from an alcove in the narrow, cobblestone street as the twitching body of Captain David Baker grew still, the blood from the gaping wound in his skull forming a growing circle around his head. Plan B, Hudson thought, it was always good to have a Plan B.
Once he saw Cockran at the I.C.E. Building, he knew he could no longer depend upon Verschuer to eliminate the two women who knew too damn much about the Gemini Project. Cockran too but the women came first. So he had set himself up in the Cathedral tower close to the I.C.E. Building and waited patiently. An MID trained sniper, he had been prepared to wait all morning but the two broads had come along like sitting ducks. He still could not believe he had missed that first head shot but he hit her pretty good anyway. With any luck, the bitch would bleed out. When, improbably, his next shot missed Mattie and he failed to stop Cockran from reaching the cathedral, he had turned to Plan B. If the Gemini story broke, Ted Hudson was not going to be there. He was going to be a martyr to Bolshevism. At least until things calmed down.
David Baker had been waiting for him a block from the cathedral as instructed. They had switched leather jackets so that Baker was carrying Hudson’s credentials as he stepped into the street and sprinted away as ordered. Hudson had raised his silenced Luger, intending to put two rounds into Baker’s head when the man’s back suddenly erupted in blood at the same time he heard the sharp crack of a rifle. His MID sniper rifle. He had smiled. Thanks to Cockran, he only had to fire a single bullet into Baker’s head. Maybe Cockran wasn’t such a pussy after all.
Speaking of pussy, since the fickle Scottish bitch was still alive, Hudson was even more annoyed than before that he hadn’t managed to hump Cockran’s girlfriend again as he had boasted to him in the elevator. For old times sake. What’s an assignment for without fringe benefits? Especially since nailing her again really would have stuck it to Cockran.
After the ambush he had planned for her in the night club parking lot went south and he had to kill those two incompetent ex-MID agents, the sexy twist had held him so tight that he was certain she was all but begging him to take her in the backseat of their motorcar and drill her right there. That night in Ohio, however, he had been looking for more than an adrenalin-induced quickie. Something more like their last alcohol-fueled night in Paris in ’29 where he showed that ungrateful broad everything that she would be missing by having turned his marriage proposal down.
A reprise in Findlay of that night in Paris had appeared promising once they were back in her hotel room from the road house. Especially with all they had drunk earlier combined with both of them finishing an entire bottle of brandy and her stark naked beneath that flimsy gown, flashing those delicious freckled tits in his face. He smiled at the memory. Boy, she had been a handful. Two handfuls. A real stand-up double. He thought it was all down hill.
Hell, after he ripped her robe wide open, he hadn’t even bothered to touch third. With both her headlights firmly in hand and home plate left unprotected, he knew that once he scored, she would have melted like any other woman. Paris had proved that. A four bagger had seemed his for the taking. And it certainly was, right up until her knee, twice driven hard into his groin, had persuaded him otherwise. Cock-teasing bitch! He had been sore for a week. He owed her one. And Ted Hudson always paid his debts. Until then, they would always have Paris.
Hudson swiftly walked away in the opposite direction from Baker’s body. Tomorrow, he would call at police headquarters as Captain David Baker; identify the body as Hudson; and arrange for its cremation. In the meantime, he would make sure General Van Deman knew that it was Cockran who had killed Baker just as he had the unfortunate Schmidt brothers on Long Island. Then he would book passage back to Washington and await his next assignment, either under his new persona as Captain David Baker or whatever other identity MID chose for him. It was not the first time he had forsaken his own identity to defend America against her enemies, domestic or foreign. It would not be the last.
BOBBY Sullivan was worried as he supervised the loading of the twins into the Ford Trimotor, its engines idling, ready to take off once they were aboard. He breathed a sigh of relief when Sturm’s Mercedes touring car roared onto the field carrying Ingrid and her twin siblings.
“The police may be on their way here,” Sturm said as he stepped down from the big motorcar. “Ingrid’s been wounded. I’ll give her first aid but she needs real medical attention. In Austria, not in Germany.” In the distance, the sound of a siren was growing louder.
“Make haste!” Winston Churchill shouted as he approached the two, a Colt .45 automatic in his right hand. “Herr Sturm, after you see to Mrs. Waterman, secure our passengers and ask Sergeant Rankin to bring the plane about for a prompt takeoff. Mr. Sullivan and I will deal with the intruders.”
Churchill turned to Sullivan with a grin. “Bourke tells me you’re the best shot he’s ever seen with a Colt .45. Let’s see if he’s right.”
Sullivan and Churchill settled in behind Sturm’s Mercedes, Sullivan with a .45 in both hands, Churchill with one. To his surprise, the approaching siren was not on a police car but rather a large Nazi staff car with swastika flags flying on each front fender. The motorcar was approaching at a rapid speed and Bobby intended to wait until it was 50 yards away as, in his experience, that was the maximum range for a .45 if it was to have any real stopping power.
Sullivan was surprised once more when Churchill fired three quick shots at a range of 75 yards, all of which were tightly grouped squarely in the center of the oncoming Mercedes radiator. Steam began billowing immediately from the radiator and the car slowed its approach, coming to a halt 40 yards away. That was all Sullivan needed as he stood up from their perch behind Sturm’s car. He fired a shot from each of his .45s through the windscreen of the Nazi vehicle, both finding their target in the heads of the Mercedes driver and his passenger.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Sullivan thought, that old Englishman had just displayed the best shooting he had ever seen. After Churchill’s three shots at a moving target, Sullivan’s two shots at the stalled vehicle had been like shooting f
ish in a barrel. He once had heard his chief Michael Collins say about Churchill in relation to Irish independence “Tell Winston we could have done nothing without him.” He wondered if Collins had known about Churchill’s marksmanship.
The trimotor took off without incident thereafter with Churchill in the co-pilot’s seat, earphones over his head. Once airborne, Sullivan approached the cockpit. “Mr. Churchill, I was impressed by your shooting back there. Where did you learn to shoot like that?”
Churchill, an unlit cigar clenched between his teeth, growled back over his shoulder “Sandhurst. India. The Sudan. South Africa. Ypres.”
“But sir, that was a long time ago.”
“You asked where I learned, young man, not why I can still shoot so well today. I can answer in one word. Practice. I have a shooting range at my country home in Kent where I spend several hours once a week keeping up my skills. You can never tell when it will come in handy. I have many enemies who wish me ill. Sinn Fein. Hindus. Muslims. And now, undoubtedly, the Nazis.”
“But to hit a speeding motorcar going 40 miles per hour three times at a range of 75 yards with only a .45 automatic hand gun is remarkable.”
“Nonsense,” Churchill growled again over his shoulder. “How could anyone miss a target as large as a Mercedes radiator? Try hitting the brain of a charging bull elephant, a white rhino, a cape buffalo or a black-maned lion with one shot. Because frequently you only get one shot. Now that’s remarkable.” Churchill paused, took his cigar from his mouth, turned his head, and smiled. “Of course, I’ve done all that as well.”
90.
Brandy and Cigars
Waterspiel Restaurant
Munich
Sunday, 5 June 1932
TED Hudson is dead!” Mattie McGary exclaimed as she sat down at the table, signaled the waiter to fill her wine glass and then proceeded to drain half the glass.
Winston Churchill was bemused. His god-daughter was 30 minutes late for their dinner and his other guests—Cockran, Ingrid and Sturm—reluctantly had agreed with his suggestion that they begin in her absence. They had just finished their soup and were awaiting the fish course when she arrived.
“That’s terrible,” Ingrid said. “How? When? Was it the SS?”
“I don’t know,” Mattie replied. “It’s why I was late. A press release came in from the U.S. Embassy over the AP wire. It said that Hudson had been killed in a hunting accident yesterday in Bavaria and that he had been scheduled to become the military attaché to the embassy in Berlin effective July 1.”
“But no details on the circumstances of his death?” Ingrid asked.
“No. I talked to the U.S. embassy in Berlin but I couldn’t get a straight story out of them. I called the U.S. consulate in Munich and tried to talk to Captain Baker to see what he knew but I was told Baker was no longer there and had been transferred back to the states. Damn it, it’s a cover-up! Hudson was with both of us in the I.C.E. Building and we were all bound to chairs.”
Ingrid nodded her agreement.
“When the SS took us away, Verschuer had pulled out a scalpel to torture Ted and we never saw him again. Verschuer and the SS must have killed him and for some reason the American embassy is covering it up.”
“That’s quite possible,” Cockran said. “MID could just be covering its tracks. Verschuer claimed MID was backing the Gemini Project and, if that’s true, then they won’t want it known that one of their own was killed in the process. You realize there’s been no publicity at all about what happened at I.C.E. even though we left at least seven bodies behind. The same thing happened at Cold Spring Harbor.”
“Well, it’s just wrong,” Mattie said, “that Ted’s death should be passed off as some hunting accident when he was actually killed attempting to save innocent American lives.”
Ingrid nodded her head in agreement again but Cockran did not reply and neither did Sturm. Churchill found this curious but said nothing as the conversation changed to other subjects. For his own part, Churchill found it strange that the tunnel into the clinic had been discovered by Hudson and that the SS had been waiting in ambush when their party emerged. Coincidence? Possibly. But a more likely scenario was that Hudson’s SS source for the tunnel’s location had betrayed him. That was the benign answer. But, if the American MID had supported Verschuer, it was also possible Hudson had been the one to betray them. That thought must have occurred to Cockan as well so his silence on this point was telling.
For his part, Churchill didn’t care. He had more important things on his mind. The former German naval airship officer seated to his right was one of them. When the table arose upon the dinner’s completion, he laid a restraining hand on Sturm’s forearm. “Herr von Sturm, I realize you may have other plans for the rest of the evening but if you could possibly join me in my suite at 11:30 p.m., there are several matters of potentially mutual interest which I would like to discuss with you.”
Sturm nodded and bowed. For a moment, Churchill feared he was going to click his heels. But he simply said “I am at your disposal. Since last we met, I have become familiar with some of your military exploits in South Africa and elsewhere and I have questions about them which are best not discussed in mixed company.”
“Splendid,” Churchill replied with a smile on his face. “I’ll see you then. I’ll furnish the brandy and cigars.”
CHURCHILL set out two crystal snifters and a bottle of Hennessey VSOP on the low table between the two burgundy leather club chairs which flanked the suite’s firplace in which newly set coals glowed. He had not decided the best way to approach Sturm with his proposition. While he had been briefly introduced to the man during his stay with William Randolph Hearst at his estate near San Simeon, California in the summer of 1929, he hadn’t had any prolonged exposure to him until a year ago in Germany.
Churchill had been impressed. Though Mattie had told him Sturm was a dedicated Nazi, she also told him he was no anti-Semite. The man had turned down an invitation to join the SS in 1930 and had crossed swords with them last year and a week ago, both times in concert with him and Cockran. Such a man was formidable but opposing anti-Semitism and the SS as he did scarcely put him in a position for what Churchill had in mind. Or so Churchill had thought.
That all changed on the first day of June when Adolf Hitler failed to stop by Churchill’s table as Hanfstaengl had arranged. He had followed Sturm and his attractive blonde companion when they retired for the evening and had watched from afar as the two of them as well as Bourke and Mattie had been greeted by Hitler. When he saw the genuine warmth in Hitler’s eyes as he grasped Sturm’s hand in both of his, Churchill immediately changed his mind about Sturm. His opposition to Himmler, the SS and anti-Semitism notwithstanding, such a man was worth cultivating. Which is what Churchill intended to do.
The door bell to his suite rang and Churchill rose quickly to open it. “Herr von Sturm, thank you for agreeing to join me. May I offer you some brandy?”
Sturm accepted the brandy but declined a cigar as the two men sat down.
“Tell me about Hitler,” Churchill said after a brief puff on his cigar. “My son covered his election campaigns for president this year and my god-daughter has interviewed him on several occasions including one as recently as last year. Mattie says that you know Hitler also and, judging from his reaction to you a few days ago, you appear to be in his good graces.”
Sturm’s eyes momentarily registered surprise, Churchill thought, but he quickly recovered. Still, Churchill wondered if it was his mention of Mattie having talked to him about Sturm that caused the reaction. Well, young man, he thought, there’s a lot more Mattie has told me about you—and her—which would surprise you even more.
“Why does he interest you?” Sturm asked.
“Randolph believes there will be another war if Hitler comes to power,” Churchill replied. “I’m not in government right now and I may never be again if some people have their way. Still, I will have the ear of those who are in power an
d, some day, I may be in a position to advise them about Herr Hitler and his intentions. I hope Randolph is wrong about a war but I fear he is not.”
“I also hope there will not be war but if the enemies of my country do not return that which was stolen from us at Versailles, the fault will lie with them and not Hitler. He is not like other politicians. He urges us to rise above our petty individual interests. He does not pander to us as farmers, laborers, shopkeepers, office workers or even as Catholics or Protestants. He appeals to us as Germans to put our country first and not ourselves.”
“Randolph has told me as much based on his coverage of Hitler’s campaign,” Churchill said. “But I am more interested in Hitler the man and his ‘struggle’ as he termed his memoirs. The story of that struggle cannot be read without admiration for the courage, the perseverance, and the vital force which enabled him to challenge, defy, conciliate, or overcome all the authorities or resistances which barred his path. He and the ever-increasing legions,” Churchill paused for a sip of brandy, poured more into Sturm’s snifter, and looked again at the young German “who worked with him—which I daresay includes you—certainly showed, in their patriotic ardour and love of country, that there was nothing they would not do or dare, no sacrifice of life, limb or property that they would not make themselves or inflict upon their opponents.”
“There is much truth in what you say and I am impressed that, as an Englishman, you have such insight into those of us who support Hitler. But he is not yet in power.” Sturm said.
“He will be, young man,” Churchill replied. “One way or another, by constitutional or other means, he will be in power and soon. I hope it is by the former but a man with such popularity cannot be denied. So, tell me more about him.”
“He is widely read and knows a lot about history, especially German history,” Sturm replied and drained his brandy snifter, prompting Churchill to pour him another. “He is most articulate in private conversation as well as in public speeches. But what really attracts you about him—what attracted me almost eight years ago—are his eyes. Hitler’s physical appearance is not especially distinguished but when he’s talking to you, his eyes are focused only on you and he makes you feel you are—at that moment anyway—the most important person in the world to him. When he’s addressing a crowd, he gives the impression of growing anger as he continues to talk but he is always in complete control of himself. He is in many ways a consummate actor on stage. In private—at least with me—he is always cool and calm, never at a loss for words. And he often displays a sense of humor.” Sturm smiled. “Something we Germans are not especially known to possess.”
The Gemini Agenda Page 44