“Jamming right when you don’t need it to is a common failure of that particular weapon type, isn’t it, Fritzy?” Lee swiped at his eyes and then charged the large man just as he tossed his weapon away, grinning as he too leaned forward and charged Lee.
The two large men collided like charging locomotives. Lee lost his fedora from the impact. The German was powerful, but he was like most SS officers, unused to tangling with someone who fights back, giving Lee the advantage. Several blows to the German’s back and ribs brought on a fit of coughing. Then Lee brought his hand up into the blond man’s face and pushed up on his nose, crushing it into his brow. With the German grunting in pain, Lee took the man to the ground and then just as quickly brought up his right hand with the fingers extended outward. With every ounce of strength he had remaining he brought the fingers down and into the German’s Adam’s apple, sending his fingertips into the hardened cartilage of his throat. The pressure Lee brought to bear didn’t stop until his hand had sunk to the SS officer’s spine.
Garrison Lee, a former lawyer, and then one-term U.S. senator from Maine, rolled free of the dying man and lay beside him. His hand moved in the sand and he soon found one of his Colt .45s lying next to Isabel’s body. Then he saw his hat and forced a smile, a tired expression that didn’t come naturally at that moment. He slammed the hat onto his head and then cocked the weapon and waited, seeing nothing more threatening at the moment than the moonlit trees around him. He lay still as he tried to get his breathing under control.
He slowly reached out with his free hand and touched the wound on his leg. He knew the bullet had gone all the way through his calf just to the left of the tibia and assessed that the blood flow was of an acceptable level. He raised himself into a sitting position and was in the process of trying to undo his belt buckle for use as a tourniquet when he heard movement to his front. The man he had hit in the face with the .32 wasn’t as dead as Lee had thought. The man was up and charging.
“This isn’t my night,” Lee said as he brought the .45 up and aimed as quickly as his adrenaline-drained body would allow. He aimed with his left hand and fired the first of three rounds into the man’s face, chest, and abdomen. Still the Argentine came on.
Lee tried to roll to his left as he once more fired the Colt, but he wasn’t fast enough as the machete arced toward his exposed face. At the last second he turned his head as far to the left as he could, letting the man’s body fall upon him. The dying man’s momentum brought the large machete down on the right side of his face. The steel blade sank to the cheekbone and sliced cleanly through his right eye, brow, and then his scalp, knocking the fedora from his head. The pain hit immediately as he fired two more rounds into the man out of pure anger and fright.
Lee rolled the Argentine off his body and then turned over on his back. With the smoking Colt still in his hand he reached up and covered his face. He felt the blood flowing freely through his fingers and knew he had lost his right eye. He screamed out more in rage than pain. He was angry because he had been caught off guard and then wounded so badly he would more than likely bleed to death before his men found him.
Garrison Lee struggled to shut out the pain. He tried his best to focus on the moon above him. It flashed in and out of focus as he closed his left eye and placed pressure on his right. He tried to keep the eye open but soon allowed the blood loss to take its revenge on his stupidity. His last action for the night was to reach out and take hold of his battered fedora, his large hand crushing it to his body. He had allowed the German courier to escape with another communiqué to Ecuador. As Lee slowly lost consciousness, he kept his hand over his face and cursed out loud about the large slice the man had put through his hat.
As he finally passed out, Garrison Lee had no way of knowing that Operation Columbus was about to receive its final orders.
QUITO, ECUADOR, 37 HOURS LATER
Benjamin Hamilton watched the train station from a small café down the block. He alternated between watching the station and looking at the eleven snowcapped volcanoes that surrounded the capital city. He wished he were skiing instead of doing the most boring job of his life. He had made choices, and this was the inglorious end of the most important choice of his life. He’d had a chance at being a Regular Army officer after his graduation from Harvard Law School, but he had opted for the OSS, the United States intelligence service, and working for one of its more persuasive minions, Colonel Garrison Lee. Now he found himself far from the exciting life he had been promised, since Lee had sent him to the slowest, albeit most beautiful, region in South America. He had hoped for duty alongside the legend, Lee himself, in the south, but instead found himself watching for the occasional Nazi who just happened to wander into his operational zone.
As his green eyes went back to the train depot, he thought about the message he had received from the main OSS operative in Brazil, relaying the news about Lee being missing and suggesting he be on the lookout for a Nazi named Heinz Goetz, an SS general they suspected of being in this hemisphere. Goetz was possibly coming to take something out of Ecuador. Hamilton examined the only picture Washington could forward of Goetz and saw that the small SS man had cruel eyes. He figured that, between the cruel eyes and his small stature, Goetz should be easy to spot if his destination was, indeed, Quito. There was no information or even an educated guess about what this Goetz might be removing from Ecuador, just that it might be more than one item.
Ben placed the photo back into the inside pocket of his jacket and then zipped the coat up to his throat against the chill of the day. As he watched the train that had just pulled in, he raised the cup of rich coffee and drank.
As he sat there waiting, Ben thought about the only thing that had occupied his mind for the past three years—his new wife, Alice. He had only been with Alice for three days after their wedding before he was shipped out for training at Quantico, Virginia, and then to Fort Knox, Kentucky. He missed his eighteen-year-old bride more than anything in his own young life, and couldn’t wait for the damned war to be over so he could get back to her. No matter what Garrison Lee said or how much he begged, the OSS was not the life for him, not if it meant being away from Alice.
His thoughts were interrupted by two large trucks speeding down the street. He half turned and watched as they pulled up to the loading platform at the station. He looked around, trying not to move his head, as though the trucks were of no interest to him. He saw three large Western-looking men start shouting orders in broken English to fifteen Ecuadorian workers as they piled out of the back of the first vehicle. They all ran for the covered bed of the second and started unloading crate after crate. Ben turned to his left and whistled. A man who was sitting at a shoeshine stand lowered his newspaper with the banner headline, HITLER DEAD! The medium-sized man saw Ben nod his head toward the trucks.
The man stood, tossing the boy shining his shoes a quarter, a real prize for the kid or for almost anyone else in the country. He stepped down and then gestured to his right. Three men joined him. They walked to a car parked along the street and opened the trunk. As Hamilton watched, he unzipped his coat and made sure the Colt .45 he had was there along with his spare clips of ammunition. He zipped the jacket back up as the four men removed two Thompson submachine guns and two large shotguns. They double-checked their loads and then the lead man walked casually over to the train station. Hamilton stood and tossed a dollar on the table, then slowly made his way out of the café, electing to go around the far side of the small station and its loading platform.
“One more mission, Alice, then your husband is coming home,” he said to himself with a smile as he dodged the few cars along the main thoroughfare of Quito.
The four men approached the truck that was being loaded. Two men split off and checked the back of the first truck. Four wooden crates had already been placed on the platform. The first two approached a large blond man who was laughing with another European-looking man as they leaned against the back of the truck being unload
ed. The third was in the back supervising the work.
The sound of a shotgun being charged with a lethal round brought all the activity around the trucks to a halt.
“Gentlemen, we are the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. We need to see a bill of lading before you transport these items out of Quito.”
The two men at the back of the truck straightened and the third poked his head out of the back and smiled.
“The FBI, in Ecuador?” the large man asked, hopping expertly down from the bed of the truck. The speaker’s words were in very passable English.
“We’re here at the invitation of the local government and the people of Ecuador, sir. Now, the bill of lading, please.”
The third man kept smiling as he took in the guns and the other two men who came up from the first truck on either side. The Ecuadorian laborers stepped back as the confrontation ensued. The blond started removing a thick pair of gloves.
“Would you mind if I saw some identification, gentlemen?” The man’s smile broadened as he shot a quick glance at the train station.
The lead agent slowly lowered his shotgun and reached into his leather field jacket. He brought out a green ID card with “FBI” written in bold, golden letters.
“Looks real enough,” the man said, leaning closer to the ID card, “Agent Ferguson.”
Two of the agents suddenly turned as the doors to the station house opened and a small man with a long black leather coat emerged. He carried a satchel and his glasses reflected the light of the afternoon sun.
“Is there a problem, gentlemen?”
As Ben rounded the far side of the platform, he saw the small man who stood on it looking down at the scene below. Hamilton fumbled for his .45 and at the same time he brought out the picture the OSS in Brazil had forwarded to him a day earlier. Ben smiled as he recognized General Heinz Goetz. The SS officer was even shorter than his description.
“No problems here, Mac, as long as you have the proper paperwork for these crates,” the lead agent said, placing his ID back into his jacket. “Why, you boys didn’t even have these things weighed in. I believe the Ecuadorian government requires the weigh-in of all freight.”
“I have a bill of lading and weight certificate right here, gentlemen.” Goetz half turned his head and nodded toward the interior of the station. Then he opened his satchel.
Ben saw movement and froze. Then he jumped forward toward the first truck.
“No!” he shouted loudly.
Just as Ben made his appearance, Goetz removed a Walther pistol and fired point-blank at the lead agent, then before the rest of the FBI team reacted Goetz slammed his body down onto the wooden platform just as the large glass windows behind him shattered as machine gun bullets started raking the three remaining agents and several laborers at the back of the truck.
As Ben ran around the blind side of the second truck, one of the agents was thrown backward into him. Ben saw that he was still alive and started pulling him back as bullets started to find their way back to his vulnerable position. Hamilton aimed as best he could with the wounded agent in his arms and then fired, but the agent’s weight pulled his aim off considerably. Not that it would have mattered. As he stumbled backward he saw ten men emerge from the station house and all of them had machine guns. They were raking not only the agents, but the Ecuadorian workers who were trying to flee in a panic.
Ben lost his footing and went down, pinned beneath the agent’s weight. Still, he was able to raise the .45 in his right hand and start firing low to the ground. He managed to hit the feet and ankles of the two men at the back of the truck. As they hit the gravel-covered ground, the OSS man placed two rounds each into their heads and then he ejected the spent clip and inserted another. Hamilton then started pulling the wounded agent along as best he could as he heard men taking position around the first truck. He knew they would soon be surrounded.
“Don’t kill the American. We need him.”
Ben Hamilton heard Goetz shout at the remaining man who had accompanied the trucks. Ben shrugged the agent, who was now dead, off him and stood. He retraced his steps and then took quick aim at Goetz, who was standing on the platform looking as if he were Julius Caesar. Hamilton placed pressure on the trigger and that was when he was brutally pulled backward, hard enough that the .45 flew from his hand. He lost his balance and fell, a strong arm pulling at him, his coat collar used like a suitcase handle to drag him through the gravel. Ben tried to warn whoever was pulling him that there was a man taking aim at them, and just as they reached the corner of the platform, the man pulling him to safety emptied a Colt .45 into the assassin. Finally, as they rounded the wooden platform, Ben was pulled to his feet.
“What were you going to do after you shot Goetz?” a strong voice asked as he was pushed toward the open door of an idling car. “Take the honorable way out and blow your head off?”
Ben was pushed through the open door as the man hurried around to the driver’s side of the idling car and smashed the accelerator down. The car sped away.
“I thought I taught you better than that. You live to fight another day, dumbass!”
As Ben tried to get his breathing under control, the rear window exploded inward and the driver swerved as he twisted the wheel hard to the right. Hamilton risked a look up at his rescuer. All he could see was a large bandage. Blood was seeping through as Colonel Garrison Lee turned toward him and angrily looked him over.
“Are you hit?” he asked. He then turned the wheel in the opposite direction and slammed on the brakes, throwing Ben up against the dashboard. “Are you hit, Hamilton?” Lee asked again, looking through the rear window frame.
“They said you were missing,” Ben stammered, checking for any leaks he may have sprung.
“Not missing—just beat half to death and cut up some. Now, are you hurt?”
“I don’t seem—”
“Good, we’ll talk later about how there seemed to be just about an entire SS regiment in your country of responsibility and you not knowing about it,” Lee said. He removed the empty clip and inserted another into the handle of his .45. He tossed Hamilton another ammunition clip. Then, as Ben watched, Lee laid his head against the steering wheel. He took some deep breaths. Blood had started a pretty good flow through the thick gauze across the right side of his face.
“Are you all right, Colonel?”
Lee laughed with his forehead still on the steering wheel.
“Do I look all right, Hamilton? I mean, I thought you were a Harvard grad.”
“What happened back there?” Ben asked, nervously looking through the windowless panel in the back.
“I don’t know, Hamilton,” Lee said, straightening as he heard the train pulling out of the station. “Do you have any idea what in the hell was so important to Goetz that he risked being shot or captured thousands of miles away from home?”
“Well, sir, there’s the crates—”
Lee looked over and finally a smile broke out across his shattered face.
“Really, Hamilton. You think so?”
Ben caught on quickly that the colonel was making light of his obvious observation and he felt embarrassed having made it. Lee, with blood starting to course down his right jawline, put the car in gear and sped off in the direction of the eastbound train. Hamilton saw how gingerly the colonel was working the brake and the gas pedals, then he saw why. There was another bloodstain on his right pant leg at the calf. So the report was true. The colonel had indeed been ambushed and almost butchered in Argentina. How he could be doing what he was doing was far beyond what Ben could imagine.
“Look, we have one chance at this. You have to get on that train and stop it. The only thing I would be good for is throwing the car in front of it,” he hissed. He turned onto the narrow gauge tracks and started riding the rail, with two wheels on and two off. The ride was bumpy and with each jolt Hamilton could see Lee grimace. “What has your training taught you?”
Ben charged a round i
nto the .45 and then thought about what he had to do. “Can you run the front bumper of this thing right into the ass end of the train?” he asked as he rolled down the right-side window.
“That’s my intention, Hamilton, and you can’t jump onto that damn thing sitting in here.”
Ben tucked the Colt into his waistband and then took off his thick jacket. As the car rumbled down the tracks its wheels were catching the ties, sending shockwaves through the suspension of the battered Ford. Hamilton slid easily if bumpily out of the window. He used his hands and feet and started to kick and pull.
“Hamilton? What in the hell are you doing?” Lee called out, trying to focus on ten things at once.
Ben glanced back inside as the car jumped once, then twice, almost throwing him from the Ford. He finally braced himself. “I’m getting ready to jump onto the train.”
“Damn it,” Lee said, shaking his head. Then he took the wheel with his left hand and with his right brought his own automatic up and fired three times into the windshield on the right side. Then he started punching the glass with the barrel of the gun until the glass was gone. “That may be a little easier, don’t you think?”
Hamilton slid back into the car and then, feeling like a scolded school kid, pulled himself onto the hood. Ben immediately saw that this wasn’t going to be like the serials at the movies. With the car being jolted first left and then right, and also up and down, he was finding it hard to stay in one place on the hood.
“Look out!” Lee shouted.
Ben turned and saw a man step out onto the back platform of the train to light a cigarette. It was one of the men who had opened up on them from inside the train station. His eyes widened as the match he was using blew out. He had started to reach for a sidearm when Ben, his reactions this time far faster, aimed his Colt and fired four rounds. The first three hit nothing but air as the car was jolted from side to side. The fourth caught the German in the center of his chest. Lee watched as the man’s weapon fell. Then, in slow motion, he leaned over the small railing and plummeted from the train. Ben was almost thrown from the hood when the car ran over the man’s body.
Legacy: An Event Group Thriller Page 4