Death or Glory I: The Last Commando: The Last Commando

by Michael Asher

  There were footsteps outside the door. He closed his flies, drew out his .38 Smith & Wesson, and backed into the kitchen just as the door flew open. From where he stood in the shadows, he could see two British soldiers – a sergeant in khaki drills with a Tommy-gun at the ready, and an officer in full service dress holding a .45 Colt. The officer had a pale moustache and wayward blond hair and wore parachute wings on his sleeve. This must be Avery, Eisner thought.

  The two soldiers saw the dead girl at once. ‘God Almighty,’ the sergeant hissed.

  ‘Susan,’ Avery said. ‘Susan.’

  As he knelt down to feel her pulse, Eisner launched himself into the room with his Smith & Wesson blazing. He shot the sergeant twice in the stomach, sending him tottering back against the wall. As Avery came up Eisner put a slug through his right bicep. The captain gasped and sank back to his knees, panting, his weapon skittering across the room. In a trice, Eisner was looming over him. He brought the handle of his Smith & Wesson down towards Avery's skull with brutal force, but the G(R) man blocked the blow with his left forearm. He clamped Eisner's gun hand with a vice-like grip, prised apart the fingers, yanked the pistol free. The weapon clattered on the floor, but Avery didn't release Eisner's hand: he bent the index finger back in an expert aikido move, until the bone fractured with the dry snap of a pencil. Eisner yodelled in pain, staggered, tried to pull his hand free. Twisting it sideways, Avery heaved himself up and kicked the German hard in the balls. Eisner stopped shrieking: he doubled up in agony, his eyes bulging. Avery swung his good left arm, chinned him with a powerful roundhouse punch that loosened teeth and sent him sprawling against the wall.

  Eisner might never have got up again if, at that moment, the door hadn't suddenly been flung open. The Berberine concierge stood there, glowering in astonishment, a tower-like black-faced figure in a pure white turban and gallabiyya. As Avery turned, distracted by his sudden appearance, Eisner grabbed the G(R) man's discarded Colt .45 with his left hand. He squeezed iron. The pistol lumped, speared flame: a round whamped Avery in the shoulder, cartwheeled him down. The concierge's dark face was a mask of horror. He took a step back, gabbling in Arabic, throwing up his hands. Eisner shot him in the face and groin.

  He pulled himself to his feet, spitting blood and tooth-fragments, hissing with the pain from his broken finger and the throb in his balls. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the sergeant's hand creeping towards his fallen Tommy-gun. He shot him twice more, in the head.

  Eisner dropped the Colt and put his left hand against the wall to steady himself. He was chomping down air, his lungs windpumping so rapidly that his senses started to swim. He whiplashed his head to dissipate the faintness, examined his badly swollen finger, swore in Arabic, then in German. He staggered over to Avery's body: the captain's eyelids were quivering. Cursing him, Eisner toecapped him viciously in the ribs. Then, taking a deep breath, tensing his muscles, he bent over, picked up Avery in a fireman's lift, and heaved him over his shoulder. To his relief, the captain was relatively light. Rumbling with pain, Eisner carried him through the open door, stepping over the Berberine's corpse. He lugged the body downstairs into the atrium, paused to get his breath by the main door. His car was parked only a block away. He knew he was taking a big gamble carrying a wounded officer out into the street like this, but it was dark outside now, and in any case, it would be worth the risk and the agony. Despite his foolish mistakes, fate had put the one person he needed to talk to into his hands. Avery was a prime mover in the Runefish operation: once he'd been persuaded to talk, Eisner would at long last know it all.

  33

  Caine stood up in the water feeling furious. He'd almost made it: but for that creature, he'd be on his way up the iron ladder to the surface by now. He let the fury work through him, using its strength. He still had the knife, but he needed a different, blunter weapon, a crushing weapon rather than a stabbing one. On impulse he began to test the firmness of the stones around him. Within a few minutes he'd found one that was loose, and of the right size. He began to work it looser with the knife. Soon he had it in his hand – a stone the size of a large grapefruit. He stuffed it with some difficulty into the patch-pocket of his shorts, and began once more on the hard climb.

  Despite the extra weight of the stone, it was easier this time – the knife-holds and footholds were familiar to him now, and some strange strength possessed him – it was like that point during his work with his father, when some divine force seemed to be working through him, directing his movements without any conscious effort on his part. He passed the place where he'd paused, twenty-five feet up, and moments later he had his hand on the ledge. Using that hand to secure his weight, he stuck the knife in his teeth, jerked out the stone. A second later the snake issued out of its lair, hissing ferociously. With a Herculean effort of his enormous arm, chest and shoulder muscles, Caine raised himself half over the ledge and brought the stone down on the snake's head with all the force he could muster. He felt flesh and bone pulp, and in the same instant, lost his handhold and felt himself falling yet again.

  Crouching in the water with the pain from his wound searing through him, it took all his willpower to brace himself for another climb. He did it though, working with unswerving tenacity and the knowledge that there was nothing to stop him but his own weakness. Time stopped. He was no longer willing or directing his own movements: his body was working to the authority of some all-powerful, primeval force. Suddenly, unexpectedly, he was hauling himself up on to the ledge at the thirty-foot mark, grasping the first of the iron rings. Naiman's groans were louder from here, and at once he began to climb up the iron ladder towards the sound, almost laughing to himself at the ease and speed with which he covered the last sixty feet after the unbearable exertion of the previous stretch. With a last effort of his aching muscles, he burst out into the moonlight and found himself lying on the stone rim from which they'd dropped him, God only knew how long before.

  Caine could see Naiman's body not much more than twenty yards away. The sobs had ceased now, but he could hear wheezing, rattling breaths that told him that his comrade was still alive. He knew that there was nothing he could do to save him, but he wasn't willing to let him continue to lie there in agony – it might take him days to die. Caine had put all thoughts of Maddaleine Rose out of his mind during his epic climb, but now, seeing Naiman's state, he was once again filled with utter loathing for her. If she had just kept her mouth shut they would already be back with the rest of the group, roaring off into the safety of the Green Mountains.

  Naiman lay only a short distance away, but he lay inside the minefield, and Caine knew there was no way he could approach his mate in safety without clearing the mines. The idea made him shudder – the most horrific experience of his life had been lifting German mines outside the Tobruk perimeter. This would be worse, because these mines were old and could be unstable. Still, there was nothing for it if he wanted to reach his mate.

  He scanned the area carefully – there were no enemy in sight. No one would have been expecting him to get out of that well. He made his way unsteadily to the gap in the fence, hesitated there a moment, then backtracked a few paces to a white-thorn acacia tree he'd spotted. The shrub was in full leaf, and Caine spent a few minutes breaking off the stiff two-inch-long thorns until he'd collected about a dozen of them. He put them in a pocket, returned to the gap and threw himself on the dry ground. Caine knew by experience that trained Sappers could clear a minefield by hand at a rate of a hundred yards an hour. If all went well, it would take him between twelve and twenty minutes to reach his mate. He began to probe the earth in front of him with the knife, keeping it at exactly the correct forty-five-degree angle. His first probes revealed nothing, so he inched forward into the area he'd cleared, then started to probe again. This time the knife struck metal. He crept forward, dug the sandy earth away with his fingers, exposing a dish-shaped anti-tank mine – a No. 2 landmine, a type now superceded but still on issue to the Allies. Very cau
tiously, he felt the mine's submerged skin for booby-traps or ‘daisy-chain’ wires – used to connect mines in sequence. He found none, and when the No. 2 was completely exposed, he lifted it out of the pit and set it aside. Then he moved into the space he'd cleared and began the process again. Almost at once he located an ‘S’-type anti-personnel mine – a slim iron cylinder from whose head protruded a set of small horns. If trodden on, the horns ignited a charge that shot the cylinder into the air, where it exploded at about waist-height, scattering ball-bearings and shrapnel. It was deadly to infantry advancing on foot, but a man lying flush with the ground had a good chance of escaping its main blast. The ‘S’-type mine could be defused by inserting a nail into the hole from which its safety-pin had been removed. Caine didn't have any nails, but this was where the stiff, hard spikes of the white-thorn acacia came in. Inserting a spike into the hole was unnerving work, requiring total focus. ‘In this job,’ he remembered his Sapper instructor saying, ‘you will exercise two things most: your hands and your nerves. Your hands must be steady as rocks; your nerves as cool as ice.’ Caine deliberately put every other thought out of his mind – Naiman's wheezing, his fury against Rose, the danger of being spotted by enemy sentries: he gave the operation his full concentration.

  Once the spike was in the hole and the mine secure, he resumed his probing. There were whole stretches – two or three yards at a time – that were free of mines, but occasionally he found two mines in close proximity – the No. 2s were relatively easy to locate but the smaller ‘S’-types more difficult. Where the two different kinds were close together, he had to be careful not to set one off while dealing with the other. Caine knew that to rush it would be fatal, and kept reminding himself to work slowly. By the time he reached Naiman, he'd cleared half a dozen mines.

  Instead of closing in on his mate at once, though, he probed around him vigilantly. As he'd anticipated, there was an ‘S’-type mine within a few inches of his friend's body. He started to clear it but realized that he was working too fast now, and without caution. He checked himself consciously, sat back on his haunches, took deep breaths, willed himself to calm down. He held out his hands and examined them – they were scarred, grazed and pitted: the knuckles of his left hand were mutilated from the gunshot wound he'd taken at Umm Aijil. Both hands were trembling badly. He kept them spread out. He went on taking deep breaths until the trembling ceased.

  He began work again, slowly and methodically as before. In minutes he'd cleared the anti-personnel mine and inserted a thorn into its pin-hole, disarming it. He crawled nearer to Naiman's body and touched him. The young interpreter was lying face down in sand that was completely saturated in his own blood. His left leg had been ripped apart by the same blast that had severed his foot, leaving a ragged stump. With this, the bullet-wound in his calf, and his amputated thumb, Caine was astonished that he hadn't bled to death already. He wondered if the heat of the explosion had somehow sealed and cauterized the wounds.

  Naiman's face was grey in the moonlight, so creased with pain lines and concussion cracks that the nineteen-year-old might have been ninety. His dark-shadowed eyes flickered open, and he recognized Caine. ‘Do me in, Sergeant,’ he croaked. ‘I can't stand it… Do me like you did Cavazzi.’

  Caine choked back his own tears. ‘I'm going to get you out, mate.’

  ‘No. Just kill me… please… stop the pain.’

  Caine cast about him desperately, wondering if there were any other possibilities. Sadly, he realized that there weren't. Naiman was going to die: it would happen even if Caine managed to drag him out of the minefield. The only question was how long he was going to suffer this agony.

  ‘All right,’ Caine whispered, biting his lip. He recalled shooting Gian-Carlo Cavazzi at Umm 'Aijil. It had seemed hard at the time, but compared with this it had been a piece of cake. He had no firearm now, nothing but a rusty knife. He considered cutting Naiman's throat, but the idea made him shudder. Using the blunt weapon, he would make a pig's ear of it, only adding to his friend's torture. He knew he couldn't do it. He looked at the ‘S’-type mine he'd just cleared, and a thought occurred to him. ‘Can you move, mate?’ he asked.

  Naiman spluttered, drooling saliva, and Caine realized he was trying to laugh. The sound was spine-chilling. ‘Can you roll over?’

  ‘I… can… try.’

  Caine dug a shallow depression in the sand next to Naiman, then reached out, lifted up the anti-personnel mine and set it in the hole. He took a deep breath and gently removed the white-thorn pin. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I've laid an ‘S’-type anti-personnel mine next to you, and I've armed it. All you have to do is make a last effort, roll over on top of it with all your weight, and it will go off. You must roll on top of it, you hear, Moshe? If you don't, it'll go off in mid-air and the blast won't touch you. Just give me two minutes to get clear. You got that?’

  With huge effort, Naiman extended his maimed hand an inch, touching Caine's leg. Caine put his ear to his mouth. ‘Caine,’ the youth whispered. ‘There's something about this mission… something wrong. The way that woman… acted. Just be… bloody… careful.’

  ‘I'm sorry I got you into this mess, Moshe.’

  He saw that Naiman was trying to smile. ‘It has been an honour… to serve… with you.’

  This time, Caine couldn't stop the tears. ‘No, brother,’ he said, his voice shaking. ‘It's been my privilege. I don't care what god you pray to, if there's a hall of heroes somewhere, you'll be up there with the bravest of the brave. I'll see to it that you get the highest decoration for this, mate. I'll see that your parents are so proud…’

  ‘No,’ Naiman hissed, drooling blood and spit. ‘Both… both dead. The Nazis… killed them… in 1939.’ He gripped Caine's arm with unexpected strength, and when he spoke again, it was with a last-ditch surge of lucidity. ‘Caine… swear… swear the Nazi scum won't win. Swear you'll kill them… kill them all. Let me hear you swear.’

  ‘I'll do my best, mate.’

  ‘No… say it. Swear.’

  Caine suckered breath. ‘All right, Moshe,’ he whispered, trying to keep his voice from breaking. ‘I swear by all the gods of war, by the most sacred bond of the commando brotherhood, that these Nazi scumbags won't win. I swear that I won't stop fighting until every last man jack of them gets what's coming to him, or I'll die doing it. I swear…’

  Naiman's eyes were closed: the faintest glimmer of a smile played round his mouth. ‘Goodbye, brother,’ Caine said.

  He didn't bother crawling back through the minefield, but ran as fast as he could along the path he'd cleared, tears streaming down his face. He had passed through the gap in the fence, and was already racing for the streets of Biska, when he heard the mine go off.

  34

  Half an hour earlier, Johann Eisner had left his car in the usual place, ditched his facial disguise and made for his houseboat. His broken finger was still cucumber-sized, but at least the morphia he'd shot up had reduced the pain to a dull throb. He was anxious to get to his wireless transmitter, but was too old a dog in the security game to neglect the customary precautions. Somebody would certainly have found the dead girl and the sergeant by now – not to mention the Berberine concierge – and the hunt would be on. Of his associates, only Shaffer knew about the houseboat, and Shaffer was certain he hadn't been followed from the Nolan flat earlier in the day. There was no reason why the boat shouldn't be secure.

  Eisner's interrogation of Avery hadn't been as successful as he'd hoped. At his safe-house on Roda Island, the G(R) officer had revealed that Betty Nolan was indeed posing as Maddaleine Rose, but on the content of Runefish's message had refused obstinately to say anything at all. Eisner, frustrated, infuriated by the pain of his broken finger, and aware that he'd promised Rohde an answer within two hours, had grown increasingly abusive – and careless. With the two gunshot wounds Avery had received, Eisner hadn't believed him capable of standing up, let alone making a break for it. The man's effrontery was unbel
ievable. While his back was turned, the G(R) officer had somehow managed to get free of his bonds. He'd almost made it to the villa's gate, when Eisner had shot him five times in the back, like a dog.

  It irritated him that he hadn't been able to discover the text of the message, but he consoled himself with the knowledge that he at least had a definitive answer to Rohde's query: First Officer Maddaleine Rose was an impostor.

  He slowed down as he reached the end of the street where he'd left his car. He stopped. The houseboat was there, as peaceful as ever in the light of the three-quarter moon. Nothing looked out of place, but Eisner couldn't rid himself of the feeling that something was badly wrong. He smelled the jasmine, heard the familiar honk of the bullfrogs, the lap of the water. What was missing? The crickets. There was no sound of cicadas in the sycamores, which suggested to him that someone – a group of people, in fact – had invaded their territory. He knew suddenly, and with stone-cold certainty, that a whole squad of men was lying there in the darkness among the sycamores, waiting.

  A voice yelled. ‘Hey. You there. Stop.’ Two men in battle-dress uniform were running towards him out of the shadows. Eisner pulled out his Smith & Wesson and fired six times in their direction. He fired left-handed, not expecting to hit anything, but to keep their heads down long enough for him to leg it. He fled back the way he had come, made his car in two minutes flat. His escape route had been planned out long before. Minutes later he crossed Tahrir Bridge into downtown Cairo, heading by a tortuous back-street route to the place where his reserve transmitter was concealed.

  Major John Stocker jogged back to his wireless van, parked further down the quay, where a field telephone link had been set up. He opened the back door and found Pieter Shaffer staring at him expectantly, still wearing handcuffs. Next to him was his MP guard, and behind them a wireless operator, hunched over a No. 19 set. A driver lounged in the cab with a cigarette in his mouth. ‘He got away,’ Stocker announced, his blue eyes flashing furiously behind his thick lenses.