An Army of One: A John Rossett Novel

by Tony Schumacher

  He looked back at the driver, who was busy unhooking an MP40 from the rail behind him.

  “You wait here for me, do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dannecker followed his men toward the gates, where they were forming up in bottlenecks, too nervous to enter the yard.

  “Go! Go! Go!” He pointed into the yard. “Find Bauer! Bring him out alive! Go!”

  They were slow to move at first, but gradually, in teams of three and four, they started to filter through the gates into the firefight.

  Dannecker dropped down next to Corporal Kohl.

  Kohl pushed his helmet back off his eyes and tapped the rim in a weak salute.

  “Bauer?” Dannecker got straight to the point.

  “In there, sir.”

  “Becker?”

  “Same place.”

  “Rossett?”

  Kohl tilted his head quizzically, so Dannecker tried again.

  “The Englishman, the policeman?”

  “He killed Bremner, sir.”

  Dannecker’s turn to be confused.

  “My driver, sir. The Englishman shot him, and wounded half my men.”

  “Where is he?”

  Kohl nodded his head toward the yard.

  “All this shooting for Bauer and Rossett?”

  “Fucking resistance have turned up as well, sir.”

  “Where did they come from?”

  Kohl dipped his head as a stray round hit the wall a few feet away.

  Dannecker leaned forward and shouted in Kohl’s ear.

  “Your men know not to harm Captain Bauer?”

  “I told them, sir, but—” Kohl was twisting and trying to get back to the cover of the wall.

  “Have you told them?” Dannecker slapped Kohl’s helmet to get his attention.

  “Yes, but there’s so much shooting in there . . .”

  As proof, Kohl pointed to where his radio operator was lying dead just inside the gates. Kohl flinched again and tried to move back to cover, but was stopped as Dannecker gripped tight hold of his arm.

  “Go.” Dannecker pushed Kohl forward. “It’s time to stop this.”

  Rossett had caught up with Iris, and he was holding her arm by the time he made it to the mouth of the tunnel. Maybe it looked like he was helping her across the rough ground, but despite still being a little dazed, Rossett knew that the closer he got to the resistance, the less likely he was to be shot if he had their leader close at hand.

  As soon as they entered the tunnel, the resistance around its mouth started to fall back. Rossett walked with Iris until they reached Cavanagh.

  Cavanagh stepped between them, pushed away Rossett’s hand, and replaced it with his own.

  “The Bear?” He had to shout the question due to the sound of the gunfire echoing off the tunnel walls.

  “Gone,” replied Iris as she picked her way through the gloom.

  “Dead?”

  “No, just g-gone.”

  Rossett stopped and looked at the fighters who were falling back around him. They were firing as they went, covering each other from either side of the tunnel. It was tight, disciplined stuff that impressed him in its efficiency.

  He called after Iris, his voice still hoarse. “We can’t just let him go.”

  Cavanagh and Iris stopped fifteen feet farther into the tunnel, near one of the refuges.

  Iris turned on a flashlight. The beam danced high on the wall, then down into the alcove, where it found a canvas sack. Cavanagh knelt down and pulled out a reel of detonator cord, a small detonator box, and a plunger.

  “We’re falling back.” Cavanagh looked up at Rossett as he wound the charging key on the box. “And then when they follow us, I’m blowing this. If you want to stick around and carry out a search, feel free.”

  Rossett stared at the bag for a second, and then took a few paces and swept Iris up off the floor so he could carry her.

  “Let’s go.”

  Dannecker stayed to the rear of his men’s advance on the tunnel. He’d dispatched a few small groups to search the yard and the surrounding buildings, but a sick sense of dread was telling him that Bauer was either dead or miles away.

  Occasionally he dropped to one knee to inspect a facedown corpse, or to question an injured man, but the longer the search went on, the more pointless he felt it was becoming.

  One of his men found Becker.

  Dead in the mud with half of his head missing. Dannecker stood over his old friend for a moment, then looked toward the tunnel.

  “Get this finished.” He said it so quietly, Corporal Kohl didn’t catch it the first time.

  “Sir?”

  “Get our men into that tunnel, and kill everyone in it.”

  Kohl started running across the yard, shouting orders and waving his arms, urging the men forward, pushing them on and into the tunnel.

  The resistance inside seemed to give way under this new onslaught. They fell back quickly as Dannecker’s men tossed grenades into the darkness.

  Dannecker watched for a moment, took another look at Becker, and headed for the tunnel. He wanted to be in on the kill. His blood was rising, his friend was dead, and someone was going to pay.

  He was forty feet away when the bomb went off.

  He fell backward, then rolled onto his side and curled into a ball. The dust and rubble spewed out of the tunnel like smoke from a chimney. Pieces of stone bounced off him as he buried his head in his arms.

  He stayed curled for much longer than was necessary before he finally dared to lift his head. Dust was still belching from the tunnel entrance, and a few confused men stumbled out and collapsed at its mouth like spat-out teeth.

  Dannecker climbed back to his feet.

  The men who had been searching the yard were running toward the scene of the explosion. He looked around to see if there was anyone else to help the injured and saw five Luftwaffe troop carriers jerking to a halt outside the yard.

  They were coming to arrest him.

  “Fuck,” he said out loud. He started walking back toward the tunnel.

  He couldn’t keep on fighting. It was over. The Luftwaffe of all people had shot his wild dreams out of the sky and sent them crashing down to earth. Dannecker had raged through Europe for the Führer, then fallen out of love with him when he saw through the sham. He’d committed crimes against mankind, and now it was time he stood before his maker.

  His Walther felt like lead in his hand. He couldn’t remember pulling it out of his pocket as he looked down at it. Small and black. Deadly. Waiting to do its final duty. He heard someone calling his name. They were coming for him, so he pulled back the slide and took one last look at what was left of his command.

  He scanned the yard, full of bodies and blood.

  One man, fifty or so feet away, half propped up against some crates, blood on his forehead, blacker than the night, waving to him, saying something he couldn’t hear and pointing.

  Dannecker lowered the gun, which had found its way up and under his chin.

  He stared at the soldier on the ground, tilted his head, and then looked toward where he was pointing.

  The other tunnel, the one that led to the Kings Dock.

  “There!” the soldier was shouting. The words became clearer as Dannecker took a few steps toward him. “The Bear ran into there!”

  Chapter 26

  The Bear was running.

  A flat-out, fast-as-you-can high-stepping sprint.

  It was dark. He was in the Kings Dock tunnel after taking advantage of the fact that when soldiers start shooting, they tended to look nowhere else but down the barrel of their gun. Aside for the one who had tried to stop him just before he made it inside, he’d been able to pass almost unnoticed in the shadows and confusion during the firefight.

  The Kings Dock tunnel was the leftmost of the three tunnels. The minute he saw it, he’d known what to do. He’d found a dead resistance fighter, relieved him of a cheap flashlight, then started running.


  Three minutes later, the sound of the gunfire was nearly a quarter of a mile behind him and almost drowned out by the sound of his breathing.

  He thought about Rossett.

  The Englishman had beaten him in hand-to-hand combat. Beaten him easily, if the truth were to be told. The Bear was still alive, though, and that, at the end of the day, meant that he had lost a battle but won the war.

  Rossett had his rules, his honor, his Britishness, and all that meant the Bear had nothing left to prove.

  “I won,” he said out loud between breaths. “I’m free and he got captured, so I beat him.”

  He fell, picked up the flashlight he’d dropped, then got back to his feet and got moving again.

  He ran for another three minutes until he finally broke out into the open air.

  The Kings Dock was one of the docks farther up the River Mersey. It was close to the city center, and it was right in front of him.

  He followed the train track for another fifty yards as it curved around to meet the warehouses. In the dock basin itself, he could see a few ships’ lights shining through the rain.

  The tunnel had emerged out of another limestone cliff, its single track breaking out of the wall of rock and then snaking toward the distant quayside. The Bear finally left the track, then ran over to a huge stack of cotton bales. He hid behind them while he got his breath back and assessed the lay of the land.

  He inspected the StG 44 he had picked up back at the yard. The magazine was half full, so he slammed it back home and glanced around the corner of the bales toward the dock.

  The light breeze was wafting a wet flag and a string of red lights hanging from the mast of an old fishing boat.

  The dock looked deserted.

  A bell rang in the distance and caused a gull to cry out.

  The Bear wiped some blood off his swollen face, then tried to smooth his hair. The longer he remained still, the more his injuries from the fight started to sting. He touched just under his left eye and felt an egg swelling on his cheekbone.

  Rossett had a good right hook.

  The Bear stood up, tucked the StG tightly in to his side, and started walking. He moved quickly through the dock. The shadows shielded him here and there as he made his way past piles of packing cases toward the dock gates.

  To the left of the exit was a gatekeeper’s lodge. Outside of it sat an old battered van with port police painted on one of the back doors. A yellow light shone through the window of the lodge and splashed some watery light onto the cobbles outside.

  The window was angled toward the gates, positioned to allow the gatekeeper a view of what was coming in, not what was going out.

  The Bear’s original intention was to head straight past the lodge, but then he spotted the telephone line coming off a pole on the roof.

  It was worth a try. Sometimes phones could be out in one part of the city and working in the next. It was just like the rest of the country—unpredictable, chaotic, and likely to fail.

  He didn’t bother knocking.

  The port policeman was an old guy who was wearing something that looked like it had once been a smart tunic. He needed a shave, and the collar of his shirt was almost as dirty as his fingernails. He half rose out of the chair as he turned toward the Bear, then fell backward over it as the butt of the rifle slammed into his cheek and shattered it.

  The Bear had the phone out of the cradle before the old man had managed to finally slide into the small gap, between a filing cabinet and the table where he had been eating his supper.

  “Operator?” The Bear glanced down at the policeman and picked up one of his sandwiches off the table.

  “Operator.”

  “Get me the Adelphi Hotel.”

  “Putting you through, sir.”

  The Bear took a look at the sandwich. It was some sort of gray thing that smelled vaguely of fish. He frowned, sniffed it again, then took a bite. He chewed and nodded toward the old man on the ground.

  “It’s good.” He put the sandwich down and noticed there was blood on the white bread from his mouth. He picked up a steaming mug of tea.

  “Adelphi Hotel?” The voice on the phone changed as the line worsened.

  “Mr. O’Kane’s room, please.”

  “It’s very early in the morning, sir. May I take a message?”

  “It’s urgent. He’ll thank you for connecting the call.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  The Bear took a sip of tea and felt the sting in his gum where his tooth had been knocked out. He picked up the sandwich again and took another bite as the old man on the floor groaned.

  The phone rang once before it was picked up.

  “Hello?”

  The Bear took note that O’Kane had been awake. He tried to reply, but his mouth was so full he couldn’t.

  The Irishman called out again. “Who is this?”

  “O’Kane?” The Bear’s mouth was now half full, but it was still difficult to speak.

  “Who is it?”

  “Bauer.”

  “The Bear?”

  “The very same.”

  “Have you got my—” O’Kane paused and collected himself a little. “Do you have what I want?”

  “I do.” The Bear swallowed the last of the sandwich by craning his neck forward. He picked up the tea again. “Or, rather, I will when I go and get the truck it’s loaded on.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Not far from where I am.”

  “Tell me and I’ll get it for you.”

  The Bear smiled. “Nice try, but I’d rather collect it myself.”

  “Are you going to give it to me?”

  “I want to give it to you, and I want to go with it. I trust that won’t be a problem?”

  “I don’t care who gets the ride, Captain. I just care that the cargo is sitting under them.”

  “I can trust you?”

  “As I explained to the other parties involved in this matter, my organization couldn’t work without our word being reliable. People have to trust us or people won’t deal with us. If I let you down, and news of that got out . . . well, that would be bad for business, and in turn, bad for me.”

  “What are you paying me, Mr. O’Kane?”

  “Ten percent of what we get wholesale, with approximately five percent immediately on arrival in New York, and the remaining five percent due after we have worked out exactly how much the gold is worth.”

  “Ninety percent profit seems a steep markup.”

  “It’s a buyer’s market.”

  “Yes.” The Bear took another sip of the tea. “I suppose it is.”

  “You are aware that time is of the essence?”

  “How long do I have to make delivery?”

  “The ship has to sail in two hours; I can’t hold it any longer without it attracting interest. So I’d say you have one and a half hours, if we include loading time.”

  The Bear looked at the clock on the wall above where the port policeman was bleeding on the floor. “That should be fine. Where do I deliver the cargo?”

  “Do you know the Huskisson Dock?”

  “Regent Road?”

  “The men at the gate will be expecting you. Oh, and Bauer?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you for changing your mind.”

  “Not at all, Mr. O’Kane. I find it refreshing seeking out new challenges with new people.”

  “I look forward to meeting those challenges with you.”

  “As do I.” The Bear put down the phone and looked at the old gatekeeper. “May I borrow your van, please?”

  Dannecker wasn’t as fit as he thought he was. He emerged from the tunnel onto the dock just in time to see the Bear pulling away in the port police van. He dropped to his knees, gasping for breath. It took a full minute for him to be able to get back to his feet and start walking toward the hut.

  He guessed he had probably failed, that he’d lost the gold, lost his best friend, lost his reputation and his
career. But the despair faded like a wave on the shore.

  Dannecker was alive, and he wanted to stay alive.

  He wasn’t going to give up, not yet, not again.

  As he walked along the quayside he considered stealing a boat and making for Ireland. Then a squall of fresh rain dappled the dock’s water, slammed into the buildings, and changed his mind for him.

  “I don’t even know where fucking Ireland is,” he said quietly to himself.

  No, he was still in the fight. It was the last round, but he wasn’t knocked out yet. He just needed to figure out a way to win.

  As he approached the port police hut, he stopped when he saw the overturned chair through the window. He listened, then opened the door and stuck his head tentatively into the light. The policeman groaned as he felt the movement of the air in the room. Dannecker reached in, then pulled the small wooden table across and away from the old man on the floor, who groaned again and weakly waved his hand.

  Dannecker considered the old man for a moment, and then finally entered the hut and crouched down. He rested a hand on the old man’s shoulder and rolled him slightly so that he could see how bad the injury to his face was.

  It was bad. So bad that Dannecker doubted the policeman would be of any use to him, and he started to rise back to his feet.

  “Huskisson . . .”

  “What?” Dannecker stopped and looked back at the old man.

  “Huskisson . . .”

  Dannecker crouched again, then set his rifle on the floor. The old man had covered his face with his hand, so Dannecker had to pull it away before he could drag him half up and prop him against the wall.

  “What did you say?”

  “He is going . . .” The old man’s words seemed to bubble out of his broken face. Dannecker gave him a shake and watched a thick gob of blood trickle free from the copper’s mouth onto his shirt collar. His head lolled, so Dannecker shook him again and then used the flat of his hand to hold it still.

  “What did he say?”

  The old man managed to blink open one of his eyes.

  “Huss . . .” He trailed off, then tried again. “He is going to Huskisson Dock . . . hour and half . . . he’s going there, catch him.”