This Fog of Peace (Moon Brothers WWII Adventure Series Book 4)

by William Peter Grasso

  TO: Allied Commands, Europe

  This command states unequivocally that it has not taken any actions against ships of other nations in the Baltic since the German surrender. It further states that no ships belonging to His Majesty’s Naval Service have been damaged or lost in this region in that same time period.

  It is highly likely that the loss or damage of a vessel of any nation in this region is due to German mines not yet collected.

  All commands are urged to exercise caution in coastal areas known to have been mined by Germany during the previous hostilities, especially the approaches to Polish, Estonian, and Russian port cities.

  SIGNED:

  L.V.E. Burnham C.B.E.

  Vice Admiral

  HEADQUARTERS, BALTIC FLEET

  SOVIET NAVY

  LENINGRAD

  11 July 1945

  SUBJECT: Naval Actions in Baltic, vicinity of Gdansk Bay

  The Soviet people categorically deny offensive action by any vessels of the Soviet Navy in the subject area.

  SIGNED:

  Medvedov

  Commander

  Baltic Fleet

  Translated by V.N. Krasilov, Corporal, British Army

  Headquarters, British Occupation Forces

  Sylvie Bergerac placed the two documents—one British, one Soviet—back on the desk of her OSS boss, Major Donleavy. Then she told him, “They’re amazing for what they don’t say.”

  She’d only been assigned to him a week. He was still sizing up her instincts and abilities. Donleavy asked, “What don’t you think they say, Sylvie?”

  “The British don’t deny they’re conducting operations in the Eastern Baltic,” she replied. “And the Russians don’t deny they might have lost a ship.”

  Donleavy nodded in agreement. “Very good,” he said, “but what about that bit with the mines?”

  “A clever misdirection on their part,” she replied. “A red herring, I believe, is the English term.”

  “A red herring, indeed,” Donleavy said, emptying his pipe against the ashtray on the desk. “But one thing’s clear: something blew up out there last night. The Russian radio and telephone traffic couldn’t shut up about it. Hell, they didn’t even bother to code half of it. Somebody got spooked real good, that’s for sure.”

  Interesting as this discussion was, Sylvie knew it was all just part of a test. She’d been tested like this many times in the early days of the Resistance. It was important to know that prospective operatives could pick up on nuance, see through a deception, and not run their mouths with silly conclusions that might reveal too much and get fellow maquisards killed.

  Whether or not a ship blew up in the night was not the reason she was here.

  “I’m told your German is excellent,” Donleavy said in German.

  She smiled; Like I said, this is all a test.

  Then, in flawless German, she gave Donleavy a short dissertation on how her command of the language had come to be so good.

  He pretended not to be startled or impressed. Hesitating at first, he asked, “Would you be willing once again to use…how should I say?...a woman’s wiles to lure suspects and secure intelligence?”

  “Do you mean sleep with them, Major?”

  Once again, his words came out hesitantly: “Yes. That’s what I mean.”

  Her first urge was to get up and walk out. A voice in her head cried, Would it always be the same? Whores and typists…is that all we’ll ever be?

  But then another voice said, Where would you go, Isabelle Sylvie Truffaut Bergerac, if you walked away from this new job here in Frankfurt? Back to France, so the de Gaullists can crap on you some more? You can never again live a normal life—not after what you did in the war—and these Americans, this OSS full of American military intelligence officers masquerading in civilian clothes, are the only chance left to be the person you need to be.

  And it’s your only chance to stay close to Tommy Moon.

  You survived the Germans and the French. Somehow, you’ll survive the Americans, too.

  She replied to his question with a tranquility that rattled Donleavy even more: “Only if absolutely necessary to fulfill the mission, Major.”

  As he pulled himself together, he was sure of one thing: If this girl is bullshitting me, she’s got to be the greatest bullshitter of all time.

  And if that’s the case, she’s just the girl for the Office of Strategic Services.

  Colonel Pruitt, Tommy Moon’s long-time C.O., was in a truly foul mood. Not what you’d expect from a man who’d just returned from two weeks in the States. It had been the first time he’d spent with his wife of fifteen years since the squadron had embarked for England in 1943. He’d been looking forward to this leave for longer than he could remember.

  The first thing his wife told him was how much weight he’d lost. The second thing: she was divorcing him to marry some 4-F insurance executive who, despite his unfitness for military duty, still managed three rounds of golf per week.

  “I don’t know how I could have gotten through these last two years without him,” Evelyn Pruitt gracelessly confided. “He’s such a sensual man. And he actually listens to me when I speak.”

  Qualities her husband, who’d been too busy fighting the war against Hitler, apparently lacked.

  All Pruitt could think to ask was, “The whole two years, eh? Were our kids around while you two were being sensual?”

  “Really, Galen, do you doubt my discretion?”

  “At the moment, Evelyn…yeah, I do.”

  As Colonel Pruitt had slumped into his seat on the transport plane bringing him back to Germany, all he could think was, Now I don’t have to deal with all the rigmarole of moving my family lock, stock, and barrel to Europe, once Ike says it’s okay.

  But it’s a rigmarole I would’ve gladly put up with.

  So I guess I’m still a father. I just don’t have a family anymore.

  Now that he was back in his office at Eschborn Airfield—back commanding the 301st Fighter Squadron again—it seemed like the war had never really ended. Tommy Moon was standing before him as living proof. And asking one question too many:

  “You okay, sir?”

  “Yeah, I’m just fucking ducky. Now give it to me straight and quick, Tommy. Just what the hell is going on up north with the Limeys? It says here you were on that damn mission that’s got the whole world riled up. Did some ally sink another ally’s ship or not?”

  Tommy made his reply as straight and quick as he could. “I don’t know, sir.”

  “But you were there, Half!”

  It had been a while since anyone had called Tommy Moon Half. It was only natural a person of short stature named Moon would be hung with that nickname since childhood. But it wasn’t something just anyone called you; its use was reserved for relatives, close squadron buddies, and even your C.O. when things got personal. And right now, the only person who fits that bill is the colonel here. I haven’t seen Sean since May, and all the guys I was really close to in the squadron packed up and went home.

  Pruitt’s last statement still hung in the air, clamoring for an explanation: But you were there, Half!

  “Yeah, I was in the area, sir,” Tommy said, “but whoever knows what blew up and how isn’t telling. You know how that fog of war shit works.”

  “Sure, sure…but Ike’s HQ is convinced that whatever the hell happened may have just triggered the next damn war. They’re seeing Reds coming out of the woodwork. I hope you and your boys haven’t unpacked yet.”

  “Unpack? Hell, we just got here, sir. The ships are getting refueled and serviced as we speak.”

  “Good. Because we just got the word that the whole damn squadron is going up to Bremen. There’s real concern the Reds are going to make a play for the British zone and Denmark—and all the Baltic ports from there back to Leningrad.”

  Tommy didn’t know much about Bremen except it was a North Sea port on the Weser River in northern Germany, the British zone of occupa
tion. Ike had finagled American control of Bremen and its nearby sister port, Bremerhaven, to ensure easy access to bulk logistics arriving by sea for the landlocked American zone of occupation. He’d had enough of the costly and inefficient trucking of supplies across France and Belgium that had gotten him to VE Day, and the European rail system was still in shambles from the wartime beating it had taken. Resupply by sea was now the American zone’s lifeline.

  “Ike wants those ports defended at all costs,” Colonel Pruitt said.

  “Okay,” Tommy replied, “but are we moving ground troops into the area, too?”

  “No. The Brits will still be the ones on the ground.”

  Tommy scowled. He didn’t like that situation at all. It was hard enough making air-ground coordination work with your own troops. Doing it with a different army entirely was a far more daunting task, and it didn’t sound like they’d have much time to run joint exercises and iron out the procedural bugs.

  “What’s the matter, Half? I thought you liked working with the Limeys.”

  “This is different, sir. I can see some of our jugs getting shot down by jumpy Brit ack-ack gunners while we never run into a damn Russian. I just don’t envision the Reds moving into new territory right now. Not unless we let them.”

  “I hope you’re right, Half. Can your flight be airborne in an hour?”

  “Depends, sir. What’s our ordnance load supposed to be?”

  “Just guns. I need you light and clean for possible air-to-air action.”

  “Good,” Tommy replied. “As long as we don’t need to bomb up, we’ll be ready, sir.”

  “Outstanding. Oh, and one more thing, Tommy. HQ has allowed some news correspondent access to the base. A radio guy, I think. His name’s Pearson. Tell your boys that mum’s the word regarding anything tactical. Nothing but happy stories of peacetime occupation duty, understood?”

  The reporter buttonholed Tommy on the ramp halfway to his ship. “Ah, Captain Moon,” the reporter said with a smile, reading the name on Tommy’s flight jacket. “I’m Jim Pearson from the Mutual Network, and you’re just the man I want to talk to.”

  Tommy didn’t bother to slow a step. “Really, Jim? How am I so lucky?”

  “You just got back from cooperation duty with the RAF at Stralsund.”

  That question made Tommy’s pace falter for just a second.

  How the hell does he know that? Who’s got the big mouth?

  “Great little place, that Stralsund,” Tommy said. “Ever been there? Good boating, fishing, swimming…”

  “Tell me, Captain…are the British and Americans really gearing up to fight the Soviets?”

  They’d reached Eclipse of the Hun IV. The other three ships of Butternut Flight were already cranking their engines. Tommy told the reporter, “You’d better stand clear now, Jim. You don’t want to be anywhere near here when this big prop starts to swing.” He climbed up into the cockpit, checking back over his shoulder that the newsman wasn’t trying to follow him up the wing root.

  He’d stayed put, but Pearson wasn’t going to be dismissed that easily. An airfield’s ramp was one of the safer places in Europe he’d been this year. “I think I’ll be all right for another minute or two, Captain,” he shouted. “But you haven’t answered my question…are you gearing up to fight the Russians?”

  Ready to spin her big prop, Tommy gave the start engine hand signal to his ground guide. The guide ushered Pearson well clear. Then he returned the start engine signal.

  The jug’s radial engine came to life, first with a hesitant clatter and then a mighty growl and a cloud of white exhaust smoke. Annoyed that his question had been ignored, Pearson stood off the left wingtip, waggling his finger in a naughty-naughty gesture. Yelling his protest would’ve been pointless. Nobody would hear it. There was simply too much engine noise.

  Tommy replied to the waggling finger with a sly wave of his hand. It was a gesture he’d learned as a kid on the streets of Brooklyn, used when slipping the grasp of a con artist trying to fleece you. Pearson knew what it meant, too: So long, sucker.

  Every day, Allied convoys had to ply the hundred-mile stretch of autobahn that crossed the Soviet zone to West Berlin. On this particular day, Sean Moon found himself as NCOIC of the team supervising those convoys. He’d driven his jeep to the American zone CP in Berlin to use the phone; he needed to report the arrival without incident of convoy QM7-11-2 to American occupation HQ in Frankfurt. The convoy consisted of twenty-one tanker trucks full of automotive gasoline, semi-trailer rigs hauling 100,000 gallons in total. There had been much speculation—and a fair amount of anxiety—that the Russian checkpoints and roving patrols along the autobahn would make every excuse to detain at least several vehicles from this convoy. Once quarantined at a Russian checkpoint, their precious cargo could be drained into Soviet tankers. There would be little the GIs riding shotgun could do about such a theft but file a protest with Ike’s HQ; they were under strict orders not to start confrontations with fists or firearms.

  But this convoy had been lucky. The Russian officers at the checkpoints had seemed preoccupied and processed the required transit paperwork with unusual speed. The one roving patrol that had flagged the convoy down consisted of only one officer and three uneasy Red soldiers in an armored car. The officer’s threat to impound several of the vehicles for phony “safety violations” quickly lost steam as he and his men were stared down by two dozen GIs with fire in their eyes and Thompson submachine guns slung on their shoulders.

  As Sean told his nervous convoy OIC, “Hey, we can’t punch ’em, stab ’em, or shoot ’em, but nobody said we can’t give the sons of bitches dirty looks. Ain’t that right, Lieutenant?”

  Lieutenant Bennett, a Transportation Corps officer who, despite a year in a Europe at war had never had direct contact with an armed adversary, wasn’t comforted by Sean’s attitude. “You were a tanker, weren’t you, Sergeant Moon?”

  “Not was, Lieutenant…am. Thirty-Seventh Tank Battalion, Fourth Armored Division. The finest of Patton’s finest. The tip of the spear.”

  Bennett continued, “I stand corrected, Sergeant. But wouldn’t it be great if we could use some of those tanks as convoy escorts?”

  “Are you kidding, Lieutenant?” Sean replied. “They can’t do the fifty miles per hour these convoys need to make to stay on schedule. Not even close. Besides, we’d spend more time towing broken-down Zippos back to the boundary line than playing wagon master.”

  Bennett knew that Zippos referred to the Sherman tanks, the backbone of American armored forces throughout the war. And he knew why: their reputation for coming to flame quickly when hit, like the American cigarette lighter of the same name all the GIs carried.

  “But what about the new Pershings, Sergeant? Aren’t they supposed to be a better vehicle?”

  “They got a bigger gun, that’s for damn sure, Lieutenant. But what the hell good does that do you when the brass tells you that you ain’t supposed to use it first? If the other guy gets off the first shot, you’re already dead. We got cemeteries full of tankers all across France and Germany who’ll back me up on that.”

  At the Berlin CP, Sean finished the call to HQ at Frankfurt. He was walking out the door when a voice called after him, “Sergeant Moon…got a minute?” He turned and saw the voice belonged to the day’s Duty Officer, Captain Netterton.

  “What’s up, sir?”

  “We’ve got some info I thought you might be interested in, Sergeant. That murder you investigated the other day? Well, it appears you had it pegged from the start. Those two young GIs—Meacham and Slattery—their stories check out to the letter. About a dozen guys over at Tempelhof confirmed Meacham’s alibi. And as far as Private Slattery, well…a certain female German civilian showed up here yesterday. Blonde, I might add. Had a fit of conscience, I guess. Confirmed she was there and why. Even wanted to give back the can of Spam the late Sergeant Pickens gave her. And she was absolutely sure those thieves and killers were Russians.”
>
  “That’s great, sir. If it was up to those damn MPs, both those boys would’ve got their asses railroaded to prison. Or worse. But that woman…she was whoring for food?”

  “Afraid so, Sergeant. She was just trying to feed her kids, she said.”

  “You didn’t take that Spam back, did you?”

  “Hell, no, Sergeant. I felt sorry for her. But as a whole, the Germans deserve some hard times, as far as I’m concerned. Don’t forget, they elected Hitler.”

  “I ain’t forgetting, sir. But we’re running their show now, and these people still ain’t got enough to eat. Damn good thing it’s summer or they’d be freezing to death, too. No coal, you know?”

  Captain Netterton shrugged. His small act of kindness to the woman was all the charity he was able to dispense.

  Sean made his way to the door once again. But before he could pass through it, the desk sergeant called him back. “Frankfurt wants you back on the phone, Sergeant Moon. Says there’s some kind of trouble on the autobahn.”

  Chapter Five

  The phone call with Frankfurt was brief. The trouble on the autobahn was some sort of collision between an American and Russian vehicle. Other details were sketchy; once on the Soviet-controlled highway and beyond the few miles of radio range with its American endpoints, convoys could only report mishaps by handing an accident/incident form to an American vehicle either passing or headed in the opposite direction. The form would be handed to the Allied MPs once clear of the Soviet zone, at whichever end of the autobahn they happened to be. Only then were the American authorities aware of the problem and able to devise a rescue plan.

  One word in that sketchy report Sean held in his hand caught his attention: confrontation.