Dry Bones (7 page)

Bassante rapped the table with the pointer. “You’re being insubordinate.”

“That’s enough.” Van Hull stood. “We’re taking a break. Lieutenant, follow me.” He led Bunde out the door. Bassante went directly into his office across the hall.

Dunne knew a college boy’s argument when he heard one. Van Hull was a college boy, too, except he’d been in the field. Like Dunne, he’d been to a lot of briefings, some bare-bone, others exhaustive, part history lesson, part operational instruction.

Though he knew 99 percent of this stuff would turn out to be useless, Dunne didn’t find Bassante’s criticisms unfair. He was only half kidding when he’d told Van Hull he was a pupil of Errol Flynn’s. No student of history, he skipped over the unbylined, back-page accounts of squabbles and sideshows outside the heavyweight title fights at Dunkirk, El Alamein, Stalingrad, Normandy, Guadalcanal, Midway—milestones everyone knew—that only muddled the straightforward, go-for-glory narrative of the war.

Bud Mulholland claimed he always took along several pages of the briefing book to use as toilet paper. “The point is,” he said, “to learn enough so you kill the right people. But don’t be afraid of making a mistake. Shoot the fucker before the fucker shoots you.”

When they resumed, there was none of the earlier contentiousness. Although he squirmed in his seat, Bunde had obviously been corralled by Van Hull. Bassante launched into a straightforward account of events since Slovakia participated in
the German attack on Poland and joined in Operation Barbarossa, committing a relatively small consignment of conscripts to an invasion force of three million.

Overawed by the early successes of the Germans, the Slovaks proved reliable if restrained allies. However, as the attack faltered and Slovak casualties grew, desertions and defections increased. After the defeat at Stalingrad, everybody but the Nazis seemed to accept they’d lost the war. The Romanians and Hungarians, German allies, looked for the quickest way out. High-ranking officers within the Slovak army followed suit.

The Russians infiltrated Slovak-Soviet teams to disrupt German supply lines and erode their defenses along the Carpathian Mountains. In June ’44, soon after the Anglo-American landing at Normandy, the Soviets crushed Army Group Center and sealed Germany’s fate. The plotting among the Slovak military command took on a new urgency.

The Germans grew increasingly suspicious, and when an entire military delegation of Wehrmacht officers was forced from a train and executed, they acted with customary efficiency and ruthlessness to get ahead of the uprising.

Bassante returned to the map. “Except in this triangle in the center of the country, from Zvolen in the south to Banská Bystrica in the north to Brezno in the east”—he traced the triangle with his pointer—“the rebels managed to secure a redoubt. In order to relieve the pressure on the rebels, the Soviets launched an offensive here”—he moved the pointer north and east of the rebel-held triangle—“at the Dukla Pass, in the eastern Carpathians. They suffered, it’s thought, about one hundred twenty thousand casualties. Having stopped the Soviets, the Germans brought the uprising to a bloody and speedy close.”

Pinning a second, smaller recon map to the wall, he said, “Here in detail is the triangle in question.” Contour lines and color-coded elevations limned an irregular landscape of rifts and rises.

Van Hull went to the board and stood beside Bassante for a closer look. Bunde joined them.

Dunne excused himself and headed to the latrine. Fueled by five cups of morning java, he pissed a stream in the steel trough. He aimed at the cigarette butt in the drain, steady, explosive rain on the Japanese carrier
Hiryu
at Midway, a turning point. The best way to fight any war: Imaginary aerial bombardment of a make-believe enemy vessel.
We will fight them in our urinals, and on our maps, and in our minds.
The paper hull broke apart and spilled cargo and crew into a yellow sea.
Bull’s-eye. Bingo. Banzai. Remember Pearl Harbor. Heigh-ho, it’s off to Banská Bystrica we go.

When Dunne returned, Van Hull was still huddled with Bunde and Bassante around the map. Bassante waved the pointer, wand-like, over the paper landscape. “This is the terrain you must live with. The Tiso regime kept American and British fliers downed during raids on the oil refineries under its own jurisdiction. Nearly twenty were held here.”

He rested the rubber tip on Banská Bystrica. “Once the rebels liberated them, Operation Dawson was sent in to bring them out and, simultaneously, land supplies and prepare the way for additional OSS teams to assist the rebels and gather intelligence.”

“Which I’m sure the Soviets regarded with suspicion.” Bunde retook his seat.

“Yes, Lieutenant, precisely. They regard this theater as theirs alone, and unlike the rebels within the Slovak military, loyal to the government-in-exile in London, the partisans take their orders directly from Moscow. Yet they’ve proved cooperative, or at least not as paranoid and secretive as the Russians.

“In the middle of October, along with arms and medical supplies, a half-dozen B-17s delivered additional agents led by Lieutenant Michael Jahn. This was Jahn’s first mission. His job was to set up a permanent base for American support of the
surrounded insurgent Slovak military forces until either the Soviets or the Allies broke through.

“The rebels’ position deteriorated rapidly. It was soon clear the Germans and their Slovak minions would crush all resistance. The insurgents were told to flee best they could and join the partisans in the mountains. By then the contingent consisted of thirty-seven men, twelve OSS agents and the rest newly rescued pilots. They waited on an airfield outside Banská Bystrica. Dense clouds made it impossible to land or take off. Jahn finally divided them into six units and sent them on different paths into the mountains.

“The SS teamed up with the Hlinkla Guard to hunt them down. Jahn’s party reunited with several others. They suffered frostbite. Nurses who’d served in the Slovak army treated them. The SS captured the nurses the following day. They raped and killed them.

“Unfortunately for Jahn and companions, the pursuit was led by Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger, a collection of multinational thugs and psychopaths whose wanton ferocity has made it notorious even within the ranks of the Waffen-SS. You can recognize them by their collar patch.” Bassante formed an X with his forefingers. “Crossed potato-masher grenades on a black shield.”

Dunne looked over at Van Hull. He sat with shoulders slumped, eyes shut. If Bassante knew of Van Hull’s friendship with Jahn, he didn’t bring it up.

“We know from the partisans that Jahn and his men eluded their pursuers for another week. The day before Christmas, they stumbled on an abandoned lodge and were able to get out of the cold. They woke to find themselves surrounded.

“The Slovaks and Czechs in the party were shot. Despite Hitler’s threat to execute enemy troops caught assisting partisans, the Americans and Brits were spared. Jahn is Jewish, which of
course puts him in special danger. Our contacts report that he and the others were taken back to Banská Bystrica. That’s the last report we have of their whereabouts. We’re acting on the presumption they’re still there.”

“Are they still in the hands of the SS?” Van Hull had gone back to doodling.

“That’s for you to find out.”

“Anyone use Victor?” The circles Van Hull drew folded themselves around lightning-bolt runes, insignia of the SS, and crossed potato-masher grenades.

“Not that we’re aware of.”

“You’ve lost me,” Bunde said. “Who’s Victor?”

Van Hull fished in his pocket. He took out a dime and a plastic-coated lozenge. He put the dime back. “
Ecce Victor.
” He laid the lozenge on the table. “Behold the lethal pill—the LP—the ‘new and improved’ insoluble capsule, not glass like the Brits use, filled with potassium cyanide. Swallowed, it travels through the digestive system harmlessly; chewed, it causes instant death. Operatives behind enemy lines have the option to take Victor along. It’s up to them when and if to use it.”

Bunde shook his head. “They mentioned it in training, although nobody called it Victor. It isn’t something a Catholic can avail himself of.”

“There are times merely knowing you have a choice brings comfort of its own.” Van Hull returned it to his pocket. “Wouldn’t you say so, Fin?”

“The final lesson of war: Never say ‘never’ because you never know. Billy Coughlin declined to bring Victor along on a drop we made in Croatia. He stepped on a land mine. His testicles and everything below were Mixmastered into mush. We left him with his rosary in one hand. We put Victor in the other.”

The blood had drained from Bunde’s face. “That’s terrible. But I’m not taking it with me. It’s out of the question.”

Dunne studied the torpid rotation of the fan. The question remained:

Which one did he use?

Maybe both.

Perpetual light, Billy.

Victor was nestled in a small aperture sewn in Dunne’s fatigues, option, amulet, proviso.

Never say “never” because you never know.

Bassante referred them to a small, detailed map in their briefing books of the drop zone, a meadow twenty miles north of Banská Bystrica. “The success of last summer with some five hundred downed pilots rescued from Yugoslavia and three times that number from Romania set the bar high. Our goals are no less important. We want to erase the embarrassment of our men falling into German hands, bring them out alive, and make clear our interest in helping shape the future of a restored Czechoslovak state.”

He turned his sharp profile to the map and poked it with the pointer. “Before we commit any significant force to a rescue attempt we must know the size, strength, and reliability of the partisan network in this area. The worst possible result would be to end up with the new group of rescuers suffering the same fate as the last.

“You’ll have to assess the commitment of the partisans to risking additional losses in carrying out the rescue. This means paying attention to nuances. The partisans loyal to Moscow might be reluctant, believing the best course is to await the arrival of the Red Army. Those loyal to the government-in-exile in London will be eager to demonstrate their commitment to the Anglo-American alliance. The configuration of forces in Czechoslovakia needs to be explored. The information you gather will be helpful.”

“You’ve left out one detail,” Dunne said.

“What’s that?” Bassante put down the pointer.

“Our exit.”

“It depends.”

“On whether we’re still alive?”

Bassante leveled his sharp, inquisitor’s face at Dunne’s. “Save the sarcasm for the SS. They might find it a novelty. I don’t.”

Tired and distracted, conscious of the long list of items to attend to after the briefing—inventory of supplies intended for the partisans, equipment checks, final packing—Dunne hadn’t intended his question to sound as sarcastic as Bassante interpreted it. “I didn’t mean that the way it came out.”

“No need for an apology.” Bassante waved his hand dismissively, as if brushing away one of Bari’s fat, lethargic flies. “It’s a lot to absorb, so let me finish up. The timing of your exit depends on whether there’s a rescue operation. If the prisoners have been removed to Germany, which can’t be ruled out, your radio operator, Lieutenant Bunde, will let us know and we’ll make arrangements to get you out.

“Finally, there’s the matter of making contact with Dr. Schaefer. The man is a bit of a mystery. A medical doctor who’d served in the Austrian army in the first war, he founded a highly respected pharmaceutical firm. Its success reflects Schaefer’s savvy as a salesman as well as his ability to navigate among the treacherous shoals of national and ideological antagonisms.”

In the interwar years, Bassante explained, “Schaefer had traveled extensively. Along with headquarters in his native city of Brünn—Brno to the Czechoslovaks—he had branch offices in Vienna, Prague, and Zurich, and maintained a villa in the Grunewald district of Berlin, where, despite his well-advertised disinterest in politics and failure to join the Nazi Party, he acted as open-handed host to members of the regime’s hierarchy.

“Unfortunately, no photographs of him are available. One of the few times he spoke for the record is a short interview he gave the
Pharmaceutical News
—it’s in your briefing books—during a visit to the United States. After the outbreak of war, he served as
an adviser to the Wehrmacht’s medical corps, helping expedite delivery of supplies to frontline units.

“In late 1942, the day after the Allied landing in North Africa led the Germans to occupy all of France, Allen Dulles arrived in Bern, Switzerland, on the last train from Vichy. His mission was to set up an OSS listening post on the Reich’s doorstep.”

Practically every German industry, Bassante related, had ties with Swiss businesses and maintained offices there. Schaefer made several visits to his company’s office in Zurich, which aroused no suspicion. Eventually, he contacted Dulles’s office in Bern and began providing information on the Wehrmacht’s deteriorating position in the east. He also intimated he was privy to a growing body of information of an “especially alarming nature.” When the intelligence Schaefer provided proved useful, Dulles arranged a meeting.

Bassante paused and cleared his throat. “It’s been no secret the ‘special treatment’ the Germans have meted out to the Jews in endless rounds of confiscations, deportations, and pogroms. But Schaefer claimed to have chronicled something on a whole other scale, involving systematic extermination at the hands of special firing squads—Einsatzgruppen—and in a network of camps in occupied Poland whose sole purpose was the liquidation of Jews.
All of them.

“In the spring of ’42, in order to fill the quota of labor conscripts demanded by the Germans, Tiso offered to deliver Slovakia’s fifty thousand Jews. He did the added favor of using the Hlinka Guard to round them up. Learning of the Jews’ deportation to the sprawling operation under way at Auschwitz, Schaefer used his connections within the regime and his firm’s status as subcontractor to chemical giant IG Farben to wheedle the authority to visit its plant there.