by Ted Bell
“Well, that, too.”
“The man who constructed this vast complex for the Swiss government left behind this and many other Nazi mementos when he died. And a German and a Nazi, indeed he was. Until Hitler tried to assassinate him for political crimes he never committed. His name was Maximillian von Stroheim.
“A submariner and former Nazi Kriegsmarine chief of staff, Von Stroheim was a polymath who dabbled in engineering and architecture. I’m sure you’ve heard of, or perhaps seen his work, Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest in Berchtesgaden, for example. Von Stroheim and Albert Speer created that majestic lookout first, and then they based this mountain fortress on what they’d learned from building Eagle’s Nest. The need for high-speed elevators, camouflaged entries and exists for example.”
“Why here, Professor? In Switzerland, I mean.”
“Good question. Hitler, who hated the Swiss people, was intent on the success of his impending Operation Tannenbaum, the triumphant Nazi invasion of Switzerland. And he wanted Von Stroheim to create a vast military/residential complex worthy of the man who would now rule the planet from the top of the world. He and his architect, Speer, had discussed the idea for years. Hitler wanted an impenetrable fortress built inside a mountain here in the very heart of Europe. One gloriously appointed domain where he could both live in comfort and safety and rule the New German Europe he planned to create.
“Secret construction was completed shortly before Von Stroheim’s escape from Nazi Germany and subsequent defection to Switzerland in 1938. That monstrous death machine you just saw? The eighty-eight? The big gun was smuggled by train out of Berchtesgaden before people were paying too much attention to the Swiss-German border, you see. Hitler’s idea was for the conquering Wehrmacht to use the eighty-eight in the event of an Allied invasion that never happened. Now it’s mine.”
“I don’t mean to ask so many questions, Professor. It’s just that it’s all a little overwhelming. Our mutual friend gave me no idea what to expect. But Der Führer on steroids was certainly not on my radar.”
“Not at all,” the elderly gentleman said. “Sorry I’m tardy—been a busy day, you know. Please, have a seat. It’s late. You must be tired. My thought was just a quick hello tonight and then to bed. We’ll get down to cases tomorrow morning?”
“That sounds great.”
“You’ve come to me with some kind of business proposal, is that correct?”
“More in the nature of an offer, Professor. But yes, that’s right. It’s a business issue.”
“Well, I shall toss and turn all night long in wild anticipation,” the professor said with a wicked smile, a jolly old fellow.
Steinhauser strode across the priceless carpets and collapsed into the leather armchair at his desk. He was now sitting with his back to the spectacular nighttime views. Joe, who had a keen eye for character, an actor’s eye, sized him up very quickly. He was no banker. No, he was a philosopher, an economist, a scholar, a university professor, possessed of a keen intellect. He had a natural way about him, cheery, you know, and that too suggested brains and a quick wit.
“You bring news of our friend, the late president, I understand.”
“I do, sir. He asked me to give you his kindest regards.”
“You say he asked you. So he really is alive, is he? That old fox. Rumors of his premature demise a bit exaggerated, are they?”
There was that spark of humor again, in those big blue eyes fringed with bushy white eyebrows. His head was bald and he wore a pair of thin gold pince-nez eyeglasses. Glasses that gave him a slight Santa thing going on. But he was dressed like a banker. A three-piece navy chalk-stripe suit from Kingsman, a very good London tailor on Savile Row. A crisp white shirt, and a blue-and-white polka-dot bow tie like Churchill used to favor.
“He’s very much alive, sir,” Joe said.
“Ah, I thought as much,” Steinhauser said, and sat back and placed his folded hands on the expanse of green leather. “Where is he, Mr. Stalingrad?”
“Somewhere in darkest France.”
His smile brief, Steinhauser said, “Fine, fine. No need to be coy. I don’t really need to know.”
“Professor, you and I are the only two people on the planet who even know he’s alive. Even I won’t know where he is until the moment I get his GPS signal to extract him.”
“Well then, I suggest we all get a good night’s sleep and resume this fascinating conversation on the morrow, shall we?”
“Of course.”
“Good. I’m an early riser. You are staying in the guesthouse, Joe. A brief tram ride to another part of the mountain. I think you’ll find it very comfortable. Breakfast is at six sharp in the main dining room here in the residence. Just show up. Frau Emma Peek, whom I believe you’ve met, will lead you to it. Good night, Joe.”
“Good night, Professor. Oh, before you go, would you like to hear the last thing I heard from our friend before I left for Switzerland?”
Steinhauser paused at the door, the moonlight on his face. “Of course.”
“The president said, and I quote, ‘I’m going to build a million-man army, Joe. And you, Joe, are man number one.’”
“God in heaven,” the professor said as he left the room. “Whatever will that man do next?”
“I think he’s already done it, Professor.”
“Done what?”
“He’s planning to make you man number two.”
Steinhauser laughed heartily and said good night.
“God save us all,” Joe whispered after the professor had closed the door. There was a grandiosity about Putin’s already erratic behavior that was beginning to make him a tad nervous.
He knew Putin better than anyone on the planet. And a wounded, humiliated, narcissistic Putin was a greater threat to mankind than anything he could think of. He was truly capable of visiting the horrors of hell on an unsuspecting world.
That was the bad news. The good news was that little Joey stood to make countless millions of dollars orchestrating Putin’s glorious return to power.
He got up from his chair and went to the drinks table filled with cut crystal decanters. About to pour himself another dollop of schnapps, he paused a second, looked around, and then slipped the entire decanter inside his woolen topcoat.
And so to bed.
Chapter Thirty-One
A shot whistled past Hawke’s head. He dropped to his knees. “Hear that crack? Makarov nine millimeter, dead cert. These are KGB boys, all right.” Then he shoved both hands under Congreve and got to his feet, his portly friend now cradled in his arms.
“Hold on, old son, we’re going to run for it,” Hawke said.
He then carried the man the length of the shallow ravine at full speed, twisting and turning, zigging and zagging through the field of boulders as shots rang out above his head, rounds ricocheting off the rocks as he dodged this way and that. That a man could perform like this, running flat out while carrying someone weighing in at two hundred pounds on his shoulders, was astounding.
Congreve, the beneficiary of this rescue, knew it wasn’t just strength and training and iron will, nor was it simply adrenaline at work. Ambrose knew that Alex thought he’d bleed to death if he didn’t get him out of the firefight. Find better protection and someplace where he could stop the bleeding and apply a field dressing to that bloody wound. Just ahead! Up a small hillock where a free-form sculpture of large boulders would offer higher ground and sufficient protection. A place where they’d have a good field of fire when the gunmen came to finish the job.
“Constable, you’re a mess,” Hawke said, breathing hard as he lay the man down on a patch of soft snow in the shadows of huge boulders. Congreve’s pained face, a white moon, gazed up in supplication at Hawke.
“Just get us out of this one, Alex,” he said in ragged tones. “We’ve got a boy’s life to save . . .”
“I will. But you are hurt, you know. May have nicked something, internal bleeding. Here, I’ll give you a bullet to b
ite on while I do my worst.”
“Just a bee sting, my boy. Don’t get yourself all exercised about it.”
“A bee sting, he says. A B-52 bunker buster to the shoulder, perhaps. No, wait. Spoke too soon. A flesh wound, clean entry and exit. Now stop talking while I stanch the bleeding and bind you up.”
“I think I got one of them,” Congreve said, attempting to sound conversational as Hawke went to work on his shoulder.
“Well, sorry, you didn’t.”
“Are they coming?”
“Yes.”
“You can see them?”
“Yes.”
“How long have we got?”
“A few minutes. Good thing it’s your left shoulder, you old fossil.”
“Really? Why?”
“Because you might well be able to use your right to get off a few shots when they come up that hill. Unless you’re busy, of course. Otherwise engaged.”
Having cleaned the wound as best he could, Hawke stuffed his clean white linen handkerchief down into it. He then quickly sliced a few long strips of khaki material from the right leg of his trousers. These would act both to seal the wound and stop the bleeding.
“Here they come,” Hawke said, working furiously.
“How many?”
“Three.”
“See! I did nail one of those bastards!”
“All right, all right, so you did. Done. How do you feel? You may be hors de combat, I’m afraid.”
“Splendid offer, but no, thank you. Now let me get up, damn you!”
Congreve was pale and his breathing was shallow, but you’d never know it by the look of determination in those normally kindly blue eyes. “C’mon! Give me my revolver! I need to reload.”
The two men got themselves into position. The heavy boulders would provide solid cover, Hawke knew. At this point it was just a shooting match involving strategy.
“Well,” he said, “at least we now know they’re not CIA.”
“How do we know that?”
“Lousy shots.”
“Speak for yourself, dear boy.”
“I just did.”
Congreve laughed and said, “Any last thoughts?”
“Hopefully not last thoughts, Constable, but here goes. Their only chance is to try and flank us. Send one guy to either side while the middleman—the big boy in the red snow cap down there—advances straight up the hill. He’s the least dangerous to us, so concentrate your fire to the left. I’ll take the right-hand guy, primarily, and give the man in the middle enough entertainment to keep him occupied.”
“Alex, I shall dispatch my target with authority.”
“Of that I’ve no doubt, Constable. And don’t wait till you see the whites of his eyes. Okay, get ready. They’re moving again.”
“I can’t see from here. How long?”
“Take them five minutes to get within range. Maybe less.”
The two men now sat and Alex watched the approaching gunmen in silence. The Russian thugs were taking their time coming up the hill, sprinting between areas of cover until they got within shooting range. Ambrose was startled to hear the flick of Hawke’s Zippo.
“Hold on. You’re actually having a cigarette? Now?”
“Why yes, it appears I am, doesn’t it? What are you on about?”
“I mean really, Alex, sometimes you do drive one to distraction.”
“A balm for the nerves, that’s all. Quiets the hand that holds the gun, you see, the finger that pulls the trigger. By the way, change of plans,” Hawke whispered, expelling a plume of blue smoke into the frigid air and taking a quick look at Red Cap’s sneaky upward advance.
“All ears.”
“They’re getting close. I think I may have wounded your guy in the left leg. See how he’s dragging it a little?”
“Yes.”
“So in the opening salvo, I’ll focus on Red Cap, lay down suppression fire, then we both go for Lefty.”
“Check. Here they come!” Congreve said, opening fire on his man.
Hawke took aim at his man and fired three times in quick succession, trying to pin Red Cap in place. It was enough to make him drop to the ground and scramble for better cover. Hawke then turned his attention to Lefty. His attempt was to wing the man. Keep at least one of them alive so he and Congreve could interrogate them later.
But the big man on the left had a little surprise for Hawke. He jumped up suddenly and threw his nine-millimeter automatic to the ground, reached inside his windcheater, and whipped out a Heckler & Koch MP7 submachine gun. The smoking barrel started throwing lead their way immediately and the man pulling the trigger continued to advance rapidly up the hill toward their position.
“He’s not dragging his leg now!” Ambrose shouted above the gunfire.
“Good actor,” Hawke said, firing. He saw a flash of movement, Red Cap on the move, covering ground rapidly and coming right at him. “Heads up! My guy’s trying to storm the gate! You stick with Mr. Right, I’ll take this bastard to the left.”
Hawke’s target, who apparently did not have an H&K submachine gun tucked inside his jacket, had gotten a good deal closer. The rock he was taking cover behind was just below him, roughly a few hundred feet away. With his next move up the hill, Hawke’s position would be exposed.
Suddenly the guy’s head popped up. Couldn’t miss him. His bright red woolen cap was pulled down over his ears against the frigid wind. Hawke took dead aim three inches below the red pompon that adorned the top of the cap. He squeezed the trigger and the explosive crack jerked the barrel up.
Damn it.
He’d overshot him.
He’d failed to account for the quirky windage up here and their differences in elevation! His man ducked again, probably unaware that his silly red pompon was still visible above the lip of the rock. Hawke waited till he saw it start to bobble upward again. He took careful aim and fired, neatly separating the pompon from the cap.
That would give the Russian bastard pause for a moment, Hawke knew, and he used that precious moment to his advantage. He’d spied two large boulders to his right, maybe twenty feet away.
He jumped up and dove into a tuck and roll, coming to a stop behind the big rocks. He’d gained a twenty-foot altitude and distance advantage and no shots had been fired at him. Maybe he’d gotten away with it. He could see the crown of the crouching gunman’s head. He aimed, thinking it was a low margin shot, and the guy popped up and fired two rounds, still focused on Hawke’s old position while firing.
Hawke took careful aim and fired one round.
Head shot.
Red Cap never saw it coming. He crumpled, dead before he hit the ground.
Meanwhile, Congreve was having a hard time with his guy, Mr. Right. He had climbed swiftly upward too, and now he was almost flanking Ambrose’s position. Lefty too had advanced a good hundred yards up the hill, unaware that Hawke had moved. If Hawke was very lucky, both remaining gunmen had missed his move to higher ground to the right.
They were both focused on Congreve at the moment. Perhaps if Hawke could keep his head down and make a swift dash right and down the hill, pivot, maybe he could come up at them from behind. What the hell . . . why not? He was up and running.
The thunderous chatter of Righty’s HK machine gun masked the crunch of Hawke’s footsteps approaching him from behind. Hawke was closing. He was able to get close enough to reach out and touch the gunman’s shoulder.
Instead, he raised his weapon and fired two rounds into the back of the man’s head.
“Ambrose! Over here!” Hawke shouted, diving for cover as he began taking fire. “Over here!”
Instinctively, Lefty had turned his submachine gun at this noisy new threat. But Hawke was nearly invisible on the ground, lying behind a corpse, the only available cover.
Hawke, knowing Congreve only had maybe two seconds left, cried out. “Ambrose! Take the shot!” Lefty was already firing again, swinging the muzzle of the machine gun back toward Congreve
. . .
“Take the bloody shot, Ambrose!”
Hawke saw his friend Congreve rise up, raise his weapon, aim, and exactly one second before dying in a swarm of whistling lead, take the shot and duck for cover.
The KGB thug dropped soundlessly to the rocky ground. Dead? Hawke wondered.
Hawke, his gun at the ready, ran up and knelt beside the fallen man Ambrose had shot and started going through his pockets methodically . . .
“This one’s still alive,” Hawke said. “I’ll call EMS and get an ambulance up here.”
“Is he going to make it?” Ambrose said. “Let’s hope so.”
“Shot in the chest, but it was high and shallow and there’s a clean exit wound. Pray we get lucky. Call the carabinieri and tell them what happened up here. Full report.”
The Arma dei Carabinieri was a military corps with police duties, the Italian version of the French Gendarmerie Nationale. “What’s up with EMS, for god’s sake? You called them, right?” Congreve said, aware that his own wound was beginning to throb painfully.
“Not picking up the bloody phone.”
“Oh, right, I forgot. We’re in Italy.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
An hour later, EMS and the military police had finally arrived at the scene. They’d administered first aid to Congreve and rushed the sole survivor of the gun battle to the nearest hospital. Once the man Congreve had shot was stable, Italian police would interrogate him and forward the results to Congreve.
A squad of carabinieri had assisted in that process, taken Hawke’s report of the incident. CIA officers from Rome had done only a cursory investigation before taping the scene for Hawke. So the Italian police investigators were more than happy to help Hawke and Congreve comb the burned-out wreckage. For nearly an hour, the team scoured the site for evidence with the proverbial fine-tooth comb. There was zero evidence of human remains, leading the chief inspector to believe that this was indeed the stolen Swiss chopper.
Minutes afterward, the two men were back in the car and headed for the airstrip where Hawke’s airplane was waiting.