The Assassins Gallery - [Dr Mikhal Lammeck 01]

by David L. Robbins

  “Zero three one zero five four.”

  “You are now The Sphinx,” anointed Lammeck. “Next.”

  “Languages,” answered the Frenchman.

  Lammeck asked, “Which?”

  “Japanese.”

  “Really?”

  “And, of course, Burmese.”

  “Of course.”

  “After all, we are going to Burma, n’est-ce pas?”

  “And he speaks French!” shouted the Scot. “Bloody talented.”

  “Say something in Burmese,” Lammeck egged the Frenchman.

  “Ein tba beh ma lei”

  “What was that?”

  “I said, ‘Where is the toilet?’ “

  “Loo!” Lammeck christened him, and the Frenchman’s nickname was permanent. The Frenchman attempted to contest it but the rest of the boys cheered and slapped him on the shoulders, crooning, “Looooo.”

  Lammeck took a sip. He set the beer down hard like a gavel, then tilted his chair back from the table to take more room for his belly and chest.

  “You.” With a jab of his hand, he indicated the Scotsman. “Specialty?”

  “Sabotage.”

  “Careful, Hunk,” the Irish lad said, leaning across the table to the sandbag dummy. “He’ll piss in your beer.”

  “Hesperus,” said Lammeck.

  “Crikey, man, what the hell kind of a name is that? Hesperus? Let me be something else, Professor.”

  “ ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus.’ Longfellow. Our greatest American poet.”

  Lammeck waited for the connection to sink in, and got nothing.

  “The Wreck?” one of the Canadians pitched in. “Get it? Wreck? You’re a saboteur?”

  “Ohhh.” The Scotsman understood. “Yeah, okay. I like that. Hesperus. A bleeding poet, too.”

  “In a skirt,” the Frenchman muttered.

  Lammeck spread his arms across the backs of the chairs on each side. He was easily the largest man at the table. These SOE Jedburgh boys were going to be parachuted behind Japanese lines in three-man paramilitary teams, as guerillas, W/T operators, underground liaisons for resistance, and wreckers. They needed to be fox-quick, steel-nerved, and clever, not brutes.

  “Then the rest of you are Weapons, yes? Good. Let’s see what you wee lads know before we start you out tomorrow. Sphinx, Loo, Hesperus, you pay attention. When we’re finished training, you’ll need to know as much as everyone else. Alright, favorite weapons. Who’s first?”

  He indicated the Canadian who knew about Longfellow.

  “Yukon?”

  The young man grinned, accepting the label.

  “A silenced M3 submachine gun, .45 caliber. The weight of the silencer adds balance to help keep the muzzle down. Inaudible at two hundred yards. Wonderful stopping power. Lightweight. Sturdy. Excellent for indoor use.”

  Nods accompanied this choice. Lammeck sipped his beer and said nothing, gazing at the Canadian.

  “Oh, oh,” muttered The Sphinx.

  Lammeck shook his head, mocking sadness.

  “Two things I don’t like about the M3 SMG. One, the silencer needs to be cleaned of carbon every three hundred rounds or it’ll actually sound louder than if you didn’t even have the damn thing on. In the jungle you may go through ten magazines in ten minutes or ten weeks, but either way you better keep track. And two, that’s an American OSS gun, not available to Section 136. Next. You.”

  Lammeck stabbed a finger at the small Irishman.

  “Easy,” the soldier said, an eager and devilish twist in his eyes. “But it’s another Yank gun, Professor, so don’t tear me an arsehole over it. The Thompson SMG with a 230-grain ,45-caliber round. Hundred-shot drum magazine, 879 rounds a minute. It can be stripped and reassembled in sixty seconds with no tools. Loud, powerful, reliable, balanced, spits flame. And the best-looking goddam gun ever made.”

  “True, true, and true,” Lammeck agreed mildly. “It also weighs twenty pounds with that magazine. You want to lug that son of a bitch through the jungle with Jappo on your tail, go ahead. I think it’d be better just to shoot yourself with it and be done.”

  The Irish lad was not defeated by the laughter and clinking glasses. Lammeck smiled.

  “Your name will be Capone. Next. Anyone actually want to use a British-made gun? Since you’re being equipped by Britain, I recommend it.”

  A handsome English boy raised his beer.

  “Sten gun. Lightweight, inexpensive 9mm. Can be used with a silencer—” The Brit glanced across the table at Yukon, who also favored a silenced submachine gun. “—but the Sten silencer works with baffles, not screens, so it requires less cleaning and upkeep. Makes more of a hiss than the regular clap of a firearm. Durable, withstands mud, sand, and water better than any other SMG.”

  The Brit paused. Lammeck waited him out, to see if the boy knew. He did.

  “And, yes, Professor, the silencer does reduce the penetrating power of the 9mm round.”

  “And?”

  The Brit sighed.

  “And it has an alarming tendency to loose off an entire magazine if dropped.”

  “The solution, fellows?” Lammeck challenged.

  Everyone chimed in, “Don’t drop it!”

  “And you, my lad,” Lammeck raised his ale to the Englishman, “I dub Thumbs. Now who’s left? You.”

  The other Canadian, the largest of the soldiers, a muscled young man with carrot hair and thick hands, pointed at the dummy. Hunk’s sand-filled hand rested around a stout that mysteriously had been half drunk.

  “I want to hear what Hunk has to say,” the Canadian replied. “I mean, he’s been shot by every weapon SOE has. What’s he think, Professor?”

  Lammeck waved away this diversion. “Hunk prefers hand-to-hand. He’s a knife man. Alright, then... hmm... let’s see... You, my boy, shall be Grizzly. Alright, no dodging. Favorite weapon.”

  The newly minted Grizzly shrugged. “I like the Welrod 9mm Parabellum.”

  “Ahhh, yes. A real killer’s weapon. Continue.”

  “Silenced pistol. Six-round magazine, three and a half pounds. The stock and barrel can easily be detached and concealed. The most effective close-quarters weapon in SOE’s arsenal. Accurate to fifty yards, virtually silent. Cheap to manufacture.”

  “Yes.” Lammeck nodded. “Excellent choice. You all hear this, you blazing machine gunners? Grizzly here wants a weapon that’s almost incapable of hurting anyone unless the muzzle is pressed against their fucking forehead. This Canuck is the only real man among you. And the one least likely ever to see home again. My condolences to your family for your courage, Grizzly. Now, who’s bringing up the rear? You, my lad. You’re awful quiet. You’re going last, so I expect a reasonable choice from you.”

  The young Brit grinned shyly into the table. He had wavy hair, light eyes, and looked to Lammeck to be a good boy, someone’s treasured son.

  “Silenced sniper rifle, .22-caliber LR round, fourteen-shot magazine. Lethal to one hundred yards. Less stopping power than a 9mm or a .45, but reduced recoil, plus less bang and flash. Lightweight, sturdy, easy to maintain. Ideal for special forces work in jungle conditions.”

  The boy braced his shoulders, waiting for the rebuttal the whole table knew was headed his way. Lammeck grinned.

  “Well, at last. Somebody finally picked one of my favorite weapons.”

  Everyone groaned. The shy Brit raised his head. Lammeck pointed across the table.

  “So, you are... The Wizard.”

  “Shite,” groused the Irish Capone, “he got the best one.”

  “I dunno. Hesperus isn’t so bad.” The Scot preened. “I rather like mine.”

  Grizzly raised his big hands, baring his teeth in a playful swipe at his countryman Yukon. The Frenchman Loo pretended to take the temperature and pulse of The Sphinx. The table swelled with calls for another round. Somehow Hunk’s beer got finished.

  Lammeck set his glass on the table. Under cover of the young soldiers’ horseplay, he dipped hi
s hands below the tabletop. He laid his left hand over his right forearm, then bent his right elbow.

  Beneath his shirt, an elastic band stretched. He cupped his right-hand fingers to snag the inch-and-a-quarter pipe sliding into his palm. The weapon was called a Welwand, or sleeve gun. Just twenty-six ounces, 9mm, essentially a silenced, single-shot Welrod without the pistol grip. Ejected no telltale cartridge. Great care had to be exercised to avoid shooting oneself in the foot.

  “Proprietor!” Lammeck called. He thrust his left hand high to join the others barking for another round. His right forearm hovered an inch off the table. He set his thumb on the Welwand’s trigger near the muzzle. The silencer coughed. He shot Hunk in the chest. No one noticed.

  Lammeck let go of the Welrod. The elastic lanyard tugged it back up his sleeve.

  He stood. “I’ve got to hit the WC, boys. Wizard, make sure I get an India Pale. And another Guinness for poor Hunk. He looks like he’s sprung a leak.”

  Lammeck shuffled off to the toilet. When he returned, the entire table was in an uproar.

  “Professor! Hunk’s been shot. Poor bugger.”

  Thumbs wriggled his index finger in the hole of the Royal Marine’s tunic. “How in blighty... ?”

  Hesperus laid an elbow on Hunk’s shoulders. “Drink up, my lad, that looks bad. Here, let me help you with that.” The Scot guzzled Hunk’s stout.

  Lammeck set his hand on Hunk’s other shoulder. He patted in sympathy, squeezing a small flexible tube he held secreted in his palm. Instantly, the chemical in the tube squirted onto the dummy’s neck.

  “Oh, for the love of Christ!” Hesperus leaped from his chair. “Hunk, old sod, you’ve soiled yourself!”

  Chairs scraped back from the table, soldiers shot to their feet, waving open hands to ward off the reek. Lammeck’s knees bent with glee. He stumbled to his chair and sat, well accustomed to the strong fecal smell of the chemical.

  A few in the ring of repulsed and grousing Jedburghs pinched fingers over their noses. Lammeck wiped away tears and fought to find his voice through his laughter.

  Again he slipped the Welwand into his right hand. He held it up for the boys to see, then with his open left hand palmed the tube of the substance christened by SOE as “Who, Me?” It was well known that the Japanese found the accidental odor of feces particularly offensive and humiliating. Locals could use this chemical agent to cause disturbances, as well as embarrass and assault the morale of Jap guards.

  “What the hell are those?” Yukon inched closer to get a look. The others braved the stench to return to their chairs. Hesperus smacked Hunk on the back of his sandbag head for the offense.

  Lammeck laid the weapons on the table.

  “These,” he said, still chuckling, “are my other favorite weapons. Now which of you is buying this round?”

  * * * *

  January 3

  Lochaber Forest

  Highland, Scotland

  THE ANCIENT PICTISH FOREST clutched the gloom of the highland dawn to itself with bare limbs and thick evergreen. At sunup, Lammeck and a dozen Jedburghs tramped out of stove-warmed barracks into the woods. They climbed a shallow, frosted hill to SOE’s shooting range.

  The dozen soldiers spent three hours with 9mm pistols inside a heated Quonset. Some of the boys lamented that one of the sandbag dummies at the far end of the hut might be their pal Hunk, now anonymous and naked before them. Lammeck assured them that Hunk gave gladly of himself for the war effort and they should do the same. Before heading to the open-air rifle range for scope training with .22s at one-hundred-plus yards, Lammeck gave them a coffee and piss break. When they’d regrouped, he handed out nicknames to the few who were not in attendance last night at The Cow & Candle. Outside, wind swirled on the hilltop, the temperature stalled just below freezing. Lammeck suspected none of the boys would score better than seven out of ten with the sniper rifles until he had them versed in windage and friction. He knew he could expect a nine from himself, hoping as always to be lucky as well as good.

  Lammeck let his boys have a half hour to themselves while he sat alone, watching. In addition to teaching weapons, his job was to help assess who worked well with whom, and to advise on how to split them into three-man teams. In two months all of them would drop into occupied Burma. They were not to be spies, but resistance saboteurs and killers.

  A year ago, Lammeck’s fellow Americans made up a third of the Jedburghs. Those teams had been dropped into France and the Low Countries, from June through November. Once the European theater moved to the German border, the American Jeds stayed in the States to train with their own OSS for drops into China and Indo-China; at the same time, the British SOE formed Section 136 for operations in Burma, Malaya, and the Dutch West Indies. Lately, most of the French Jeds were dropping into Vietnam to protect their interests there. With the war progressing into the new year, each of the Allied nations seemed to be going her own way. This multinational-effort training in Scotland, once a mainstay of the Allied guerilla agenda, was becoming a rarity.

  Lammeck leaned against a woodpile in the Quonset, cleaning his nails with a switchblade. He watched and admired these young Jeds while they tested each other and weighed who was fit to parachute in with whom. Lammeck envied the certainty of their impending months, the uncertainty of their outcomes. He wondered what was in store for him, and wished that it be different from what he expected. Then he grabbed a rifle and moved to their center. He smacked the stock on the ground. The gun made a cheap jangle.

  “It’s a good bet,” Lammeck said, “that if you get killed in Burma, this is the weapon that’ll do it.”

  He tossed the gun in the air and snatched it with one hand.

  “The Japanese Arisaka Type 99. It fires only a 7.7mm round, which isn’t exactly a show-stopper. However, as you will find out, the Asian soldier believes his willingness to die fighting is sufficient to make up for any deficiencies in his weaponry. Your job, of course, will be to prove him wrong.”

  Lammeck hefted the 99 into firing position at his shoulder.

  “The 99 weighs about the same as any other rifle, just over nine pounds. The lighter-caliber rounds reduce recoil and muzzle flash, and are judged to be more suitable for the smaller physiques of your typical Japanese. Although the rounds are of lesser power, be advised they tumble in flight and break on impact. That means when one hits you, it makes a mess. So, what is the solution, my boys?”

  “Don’t get hit!”

  Lammeck grinned. “Where do they come up with such clever lads? Correct. Now, do not suppose you will find these rifles just lying around the jungle. Your Jap grunt does not drop his gun and run. He breathes his last holding it. You see this chrysanthemum emblem here on the receiver? This is the symbol of the Japanese emperor Hirohito. If a Jap soldier surrenders his weapon, he will first scratch out this mark, because it’s a humiliation to surrender a gun belonging to the emperor. On this 99, you see the mum is untouched. That tells you it was taken off a dead Jap. You will seldom discover a scratched-out chrysanthemum.

  “The Arisaka 99 is for the most part a lousy weapon. It’s a bitch to disassemble. It may fly apart on firing due to compromises in Japanese metallurgy this late in the war. So I suggest you just shoot the little man holding it with your lovely British weaponry and keep moving. Questions? Good. Now let’s head out into this brilliant Scottish afternoon and fire the damn thing.”

  “Professor?”

  “Yes, Thumbs?”

  “One question, sir. The chaps and I were all wondering. Well, we know you’re an American, of course. If it’s not impertinent, the lads and I would like to ask why you’re in the Scottish outback doing training for the SOE, instead of in the States working with your own blokes. Sir.”

  Lammeck looked about the seated ring of Jeds.

  “The U.S. wasn’t in the war when I wanted to be,” he replied. “England was. So I came over in ‘40 to do my part. I took a position at the University of St. Andrews. And I volunteered with SOE.
Now everyone on their feet. It’s time to go play with this rotten Japanese rifle.”

  Yukon asked, “What made you do it, Professor? I mean, you left your home in the States, your family...”

  Lammeck sighed. He tapped the stock of the 99 on the floor.

  “What made you do it, son?”

  The Canadian glanced around, not eager to reply. He swallowed and plunged ahead.

  “Well, no offense, sir, but we all signed up to fight. You’re a bit too...”

  “Old? So I am. You might as well mention fat while you’re at it.”