"It's all right!" she said breathlessly. "I'm an American!"
"Sure," I said, wondering where she had come from and what she was doing here. "And I'm Bugs Bunny."
"I'm serious," she said, brushing her dark hair out of her eyes. "We just landed here ourselves."
I leveled my gun at her.
"Lady, I may be dumb, but I ain't stupid!" I snarled. "Who are you, and don't give me that hogwash about being an American!"
"But I am!" she insisted.
Her two companions were approaching at a trot, and I'd seen enough of their weird weapons to know my pistol wasn't likely to be a match for them, so I grabbed the girl, whirled her around in front of me, put one arm around her neck, and placed the muzzle of my pistol to her temple with my other hand.
"One more step and I'll blow the top of her head off!" I yelled.
They froze.
"Okay," I said. "Suppose you tell me who you are and what you're doing here?"
"You wouldn't understand," said the taller one.
"Try me."
"Look, we just subdued three German soldiers. Shouldn't that act as a show of good faith?"
"I've known the Gestapo to kill one of their own just to gain acceptance and infiltrate an underground group," I said. "You'll have to do better than that."
"My name is Jamie Hamilton," said the girl. "I'm an American reporter. I was born in Glencoe, Illinois."
"Who's the last White Sox pitcher to throw a no-hitter?" I asked.
"How should I know?" she said. "Billy Pierce? Joel Horlen?"
"Never heard of them, lady," I said. "It was Bill Deitrich. A nice German name. You should have known that."
"I'm not a German," she said. "Won't you please let go and listen to me?"
"No way," I said. One of the men took a tentative step toward me and I cocked the pistol. "I'm not kidding!" I yelled. "I'll kill her here and now!"
"There are more Germans coming," said the shorter one. "They'll be here any minute."
"When I want to hear a good story, I'll turn on the radio," I said. "You saved my ass from the Nazis, which is why I haven't killed you yet, but I've got to know who you are and what you're doing here."
"Espionage," said the girl.
"Come on, lady," I said. "When did an espionage team ever take a reporter with them?"
"It's too complicated to explain," she said. "Just let me go and let's get out of here before—"
Suddenly half a dozen Nazis broke into the clearing. The two guys, cool as cucumbers, turned their silent handguns on them, and all six fell like a sack of rocks.
"Now can we get out of here?" said the girl.
Well, what was I gonna do? They'd pulled my fat out of the fire twice. Even if they weren't Americans, they sure didn't act like Nazis, and I had to trust somebody, so I nodded and let her go.
"Good," said the taller of the two men. "My name is Troy, and this is Dillon."
"And I'm Jamie," said the girl. "Now let's scram!"
I followed the three of them into the forest. They seemed to know where they were going, and after a couple of miles the trees thinned out and we came to a large farm field.
"About here, weren't they?" asked the one called Dillon.
Troy checked some gadget he was wearing on his wrist, then shook his head. "About fifty yards to the left."
"What are you talking about?" I said. "I don't see anything!"
"You're not supposed to," said Troy.
"What are you doing here?" said Dillon to me.
"None of your business," I said. "Thanks for helping me out, but I've got to be going. I've got a lot of work to do, and I can do it a lot better alone."
"Jamie?" said Troy.
"As I recall," said Jamie, "the American and Royal Air Forces worked independently except for a few special missions involving spies and sabotage. I think they started collaborating at Peenemunde, which was the first V-1 rocket base."
"Hey!" I said. "You're not supposed to know that! And what's all this crap about recalling, as if this all happened years ago? This is the closest kept Allied secret."
"So if he's really an American, and he was in a British plane," continued the girl, "then he's probably here to sabotage the V-2."
"Good," said Troy. "We're prepared to help you, Colonel . . .?"
"Guidry," I said. "Colonel John Guidry. And I don't need any help!"
"You need all you can get," said Dillon with a smile. "Or do you forget who just saved your life a couple of times?"
"I'm mulling on that," I said slowly. "But who are you guys? The Allies don't have any weapons like the ones you're carrying."
"It's too long to explain," said Troy. "Just believe us: we're on your side."
"I'll settle for your not being on the other side," I said, "and for your forgetting that you ever saw me."
"No chance," said Jamie. "You can't succeed without their help."
"I've been training for this mission for two years," I said. "I probably can't make it with their help. I work alone. Thanks for the offer, but just go your own way and don't butt in."
"And he's one of the Good Guys?" said Troy, shaking his head with an unbelieving smile.
"What's that supposed to mean, wise guy?" I snapped.
I reached for my gun, but before I could pull it from my holster Troy had knocked me flat on my back and Dillon was holding one of those weird weapons on me.
"Let me put it this way," said Troy, his expression unchanged. "Either you work with us or your mission is over."
Mama Guidry may have raised some silly kids, but she didn't produce any suicidal ones. I agreed to let them come along, at least until I could figure out a way to get my hands on one of their crazy pistols.
19
REPORT FROM
GENERAL WILHELM YODEL:
When our men did not return within the hour, I sent Oberleutnant Branham out with a detail of thirty men to look for them. All were found lying unconscious at two locations in the woods. There were no signs of violence, nor any marks on their bodies. Upon regaining consciousness they adhered to the wildest imaginable fantasy to explain their failure to capture the Allied flier. They showed no signs of drunkenness, but I am convinced that, for whatever reason, they have disgraced the uniforms of the Third Reich.
Recommendations:
J. Huber: Transfer to the Russian front.
W. Blumenstritt: Transfer to the Russian front.
L. Steinhardt: Transfer to the Russian front.
W. Kappstadt: Transfer to the Russian front.
J. Streck: Transfer to the Russian front.
T. Staunning: Transfer to the Russian front.
L. Blaumann: Transfer to the Russian front.
P. Plaga: Transfer to the Russian front.
J. Gansz, officer commanding: Immediate court martial.
Respectfully submitted on
this 4th day of June, 1944
Gen. Wilhelm Yodel
20
RECONSTRUCTED FROM
TROY'S DEBRIEFING SESSION:
They made a motley crew: an American soldier of 1944, an American reporter of 1980, and two warriors from a distant galaxy. They remained in hiding until sunset, then made their way into Obersalzberg, keeping to the shadows and remaining hidden from view.
"My contact is at Number Three Morganstrasse," said Guidry. "I'm not supposed to get in touch with her unless it's an emergency, but our information says that the V-2 won't be tested until late tomorrow afternoon, and I sure as hell don't see any way of remaining undiscovered for twenty hours without help."
"Is your contact in the Underground, or is it another Allied agent?" asked Jamie.
"Underground," said Guidry. He looked up. "Well, the moon's gone behind a cloud. We might as well take a crack at it now. Morganstrasse's two blocks past that railroad yard," he said, indicating a large depot.
The four took a step out of the shadows. Then Troy held out an arm and gestured them back.
"What is it?" a
sked Jamie.
"I don't know," said Troy. "But half a dozen vehicles are pulling up to the station."
"Troop movment, I suppose," said Guidry.
"I doubt it," said Troy. "There aren't very many soldiers."
The four of them peered into the darkness. Six large trucks were unloading hundreds of people, each of whom wore a large star somewhere on their clothing.
"Those are Jews," whispered Jamie. "They're being shipped off to concentration camps. Most of them will be killed there."
"Women and children too?" said Troy. "What could they have done to deserve that?"
"Nothing," said Jamie. "They're part of what Hitler called the Final Solution. He needed a scapegoat, a group against which all his dissidents could vent their fears and rage. It's a simple matter of psychology: give them a common enemy to hate and they tend to overlook the fact that you're doing a terrible job of running the country. The economy was in terrible shape when Hitler took over, so he blamed the Jews, many of whom were in the banking and finance business. Also, Germany had come out of World War One in such wretched condition that his people had lost most of their self-respect as a nation; by convincing them that the Jews were an inferior people, it automatically upped their own self-esteem. Then, when the war began going badly, he blamed a lot of it on the Jewish underground. None of it was true, from beginning to end, but it was a diabolical way of uniting his people, and to a great degree it worked."
"If this is what they do to innocent people," spat Dillon, "maybe we ought to let Xaviar do his worst here in Germany."
"No!" said Jamie harshly. "Those men with swastikas—twisted crosses—on their armbands are the kind of people he'd be bringing to power throughout the world."
"Who is this Xaviar that you guys are after?" asked Guidry. "Gestapo?"
"Galactican," said Jamie.
"You're making me very uneasy with all this strange terminology," said Guidry "What's a Galactican?"
"I'll explain it all later," said Jamie. "Right now we've got to help those people on the train."
"We can't, Jamie," said Troy. "Remember your rice example."
"But I can't just stand by and watch them all get carted off to the camps," said Jamie. "You don't know what they were like: Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau . . . Some of them were geared to kill 20,000 people a week!"
"We can't interfere," said Troy firmly.
"But we've got to!" said Jamie. "I don't care what it does to history! We've got to do something!"
"I think she's flipped her wig," said Guidry.
"No," said Troy. "She's just forgotten a few very important facts."
As they spoke in the shadows, a little girl, no more than four years old, crawled out from under one of the trucks, frightened and alone. Her parents had already been loaded into the train, and after a moment of fearful indecision, she began running away from the trucks.
"She's coming right at us!" whispered Dillon.
A guard noticed her and gestured to two of his companions. They began trotting after her.
"She's leading them right toward us!" said Guidry. "We've got to get out of here."
Troy drew his hand weapon and set it to stun. Then, turning to Dillon, he said: "You get the girl, I'll take care of the soldiers."
Dillon nodded, and as the girl raced past them he reached out and grabbed her, simultaneously clasping his hand over her mouth to stifle her scream of fear and surprise.
As Dillon grabbed the girl, Troy leaped out into the street, leveled his weapon at the three guards, and fired it. They collapsed in their tracks, but other soldiers had seen them fall and began running toward Troy.
"Dillon, get them to Guidry's contact. I'll meet you there later."
"Three Morganstrasse," said Dillon, taking Jamie by the hand and starting to run off into the darkness.
"You can't leave him at their mercy!" said Jamie, pulling back.
"Believe me, Jamie," whispered Dillon urgently. "Those Germans have got a lot more to fear from Troy than he has to fear from them. Now let's get going!"
He raced off, the girl under his arm, followed by Jamie and Guidry.
Troy showed himself, then ran in an opposite direction from his companions, stunning five more Germans in the process. Soon the train and trucks were forgotten, and the seventy remaining Nazis began encircling the young warrior. Two shots that missed his head by inches sent pieces of brick flying into his face and he darted into an alley between two buildings.
Four Germans reached the alley a moment later, and he felled them with his sidearm. Then, holstering it, he raced through the alley, emerging at the other end just in time to run into three more Germans.
They were as startled as he was, but Troy's reflexes were quicker. He slashed the first German in the neck with the edge of his hand, ducked a blow from the second, gave a quick kick to the solar plexus of the third, and then hurled himself at the second. The man fell backward with Troy on top of him. His head thudded against the ground, and despite the protection of his helmet he immediately lost consciousness.
The noise of the scuffle had brought more troops, and Troy darted into a nearby building. Taking the stairs four at a time he was on the third floor in a matter of seconds. From here he looked out a window and saw that a large number of the Nazi soldiers were converging on the building.
With a confident smile Troy reached for the switch that activated his personal invisibility shield—and discovered that the controls had been damaged during his brief scuffle with the three soldiers. His energizer wasn't depleted, which meant that the field still worked, but he had no way to turn it on.
He raced back into the hallway, climbed another flight of stairs, and lifted a skylight that allowed him access to the roof. Before the Germans knew he was there he had raced the length of the rooftop and leaped through space to an adjacent roof some twenty-five feet distant.
"There he is!" cried a voice, and a hail of bullets cascaded around him. He hit the deck, waited until the guns had stopped after a few seconds, then abruptly stood up and swept the area around the building with his weapon set on stun. Five more soldiers dropped in their tracks, but the remainder started firing again, and he ran to a door leading to the interior of the building.
It was an old, dilapidated apartment house, and he soon found a door leading to a four-room flat. He kicked it open, quickly stunned the man and woman who began screaming for help when he entered, and began rummaging through their closets. He found a tattered overcoat and a battered fedora, put them on over his clothes, and ran out into the hallway, where he descended to the first floor. He heard a number of soldiers entering and backed away.
"He must still be in here!" said one of them.
"All right," said another voice. "We'll proceed methodically. Schlutter, you take four men up to the top floor and begin working your way down. The rest of you men, check all the apartments on the main floor and then proceed up the stairs. And be careful! I don't know what kind of gun he's got, but he's disabled more than a dozen men so far between that weapon and his physical prowess."
Troy waited until five soldiers began climbing the stairs, and others had entered the various main floor apartments. Only one man remained on guard and Troy finally stepped out into the hall, in full sight of the soldier.
The man whirled, trying to level his gun at the warrior, but Troy was quicker, striking him with a blow that would have felled an ox.
"Help!" Troy cried, and soon the corridor was filled with soldiers.
"A strange man struck this officer and then ran out the doorway," said Troy in perfect German. "He had a strange-looking pistol in his hand."
"Which way did he go?" demanded an officer.
Troy shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. Everything happened so fast."
The Nazis raced out the door, leaving one man behind in case the intruder returned. Troy waited until they were out of sight, then dropped the man with a quick chop to the back of the neck, and began searching for a rear exit
. He found it, kept to the shadows for a couple of blocks, and then, pulling the fedora down over his face, he stepped to the middle of the sidewalk and began looking for Morganstrasse.
He had walked perhaps half a mile when two German officers called after him to halt. He did so and turned to face them.
"You, there!" said one of them.
He indicated himself questioningly.
"Yes, you! What are you doing out at this time of night? Don't you know there's a curfew? Let me see your papers."
"Papers?" repeated Troy.
"Don't be so dense," snapped the higher-ranking of the two. "Your identification papers."
"I must have left them in my apartment," said Troy.
Both men drew their pistols immediately.
"Come with us!" snapped one of them.
"You insist?" said Troy.
His answer was a guttural curse.
He shrugged, pretended to take a step in the direction they had indicated, and quickly drew and fired his side-arm. Both men fell to the pavement before they could utter a sound and Troy dragged them into a nearby building.
"This isn't exactly the greatest town in the world to be a civilian in," he muttered, stripping one of them and donning his clothes. "But soldiers seem to come and go unchallenged." He pulled out the man's I.D. photo and wallet. "Sergeant Josef Lammers," he mused. "An officer would have been even better, but beggars can't be choosers."
He tied and gagged the two men securely, deposited them in a darkened basement, and soon was walking through the city again, once more seeking Morganstrasse. It took him about half an hour to find it, and a few minutes more to come to the door of Number Three.
He knocked twice, then waited.
After a long moment a light went on and a wizened old woman came to the door.
"Yes?" she said.
"Excuse me for intruding," he said, "but I believe that three of my friends are at this address."
"There's nobody here but me," said the woman coldly.
"Don't let my uniform scare you," he said. "Their names are Dillon, Jamie and John."
"Nothing scares me any more," said the old crone. "And I repeat: no one's here."
Battlestar Galactica 5 - Galactica Discovers Earth Page 9