Death's Head Legion (6 page)

 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Aboard the luxury airship
Graf von Götzen

Somewhere over western Greece

“E
xactly how do we proceed?” Deitel asked as he splashed more water over his face. “This airship has four ballrooms, probably two hundred parlors and observation decks, and accommodations for fifteen hundred passengers. Finding Professor Renault will be like hunting for a needle in a wheat field.”

Rucker didn't bother trying to correct the doctor. He was busy looking over the ship's guide he'd pried off the wall in the stairwell. Terah was watching the door.

“Gestapo and SS bigwigs or not,” he said, “the Lufthansa airline people aren't going to want anyone upsetting their guests. If they're interrogating Renault, they'll have him someplace passengers would never go and where no one could hear what they do to him.”

“Do you really think they'll need to torture him?” Deitel asked. “He is an academic, after all.

Terah snorted. “I've met the professor. He's not some deskbound, ivory tower type. He spent twenty years in the field, and he was a star rugby player back in the nineties. Renault won't be an easy nut to crack.”

Rucker snapped his fingers. “I have an idea.”

Terah and Deitel looked at him expectantly. He didn't say anything.

“Well?” they said at the same time.

“Well what? Oh. Call it a hunch. I don't know exactly where they'd be doing their dirty work on the professor, but I got a feeling who does know, and how to find him.”

Terah and Deitel were expecting more details. None were forthcoming.

“Let's find the pub,” Rucker said. “Who's up for a drink? Because I'm betting Lieutenant Skorzeny is.”

T
en minutes later and the trio were standing outside the Bogenaufenthaltsraum, the lounge on the foremost deck of the titanic German airship.

“There's only one problem,” Rucker said. “This is first class.” He pointed to Terah's pants and boots, his own leather flight jacket and cargo pocket pants, and Deitel's suit with no tie or ascot. “We're dressed like we're from steerage. Business class for the doctor, maybe. And we haven't got time to be hunting down frock coats and top hats.”

Terah nodded. “He's right. This may be a civilian airship, but it's a German one. We need to be subtle and discreet. The last thing we need is to cause a scene getting thrown out of here.”

“This is not a problem,” Deitel said. “Class isn't in your wardrobe. A lout in a Savile Row suit is still a lout. Class is in your attitude and the altitude of your nose.”

Deitel turned out the collar of his suit coat and secured it with a hairpin from Terah. He drew a few breaths, adjusted his posture and expression. With his wet hair slicked back he looked like a fashionable traveler just returned from the Orient, complete in a mandarin collar jacket.

“Follow my lead, walk as I do, and keep your answers to yes or a shake of the head,” he said.

The three walked into the first class lounge with a debonair swagger. Deitel began speaking loudly in German.

“Oh, Hans, I can't believe of all places we meet up in Rome,” Deitel said in a voice both bored. “Your safari must have been magnificent. I hope the royal family in Nairobi extended to you every courtesy—that prince owes me a tidy sum after the banco tournament in Monaco last year.”

Rucker could only smile and add the occasional
“Ja, ja.”
He had to admit the doctor was in his element dealing with German high society. He was starting to see why the Abwehr had recruited him.

“Hong Kong was just dreadful and tiresome,” Deitel continued. “The only thing that made it bearable were the shops and the gardens. Gardening seems to be in the blood of those little Celestials. We bought a whole floral farm—I wish we could have just bought their gardeners and florists and brought them over to tend the estate—ha!—but my father would have none of it. He's from that Heidelberg mind-set,” he droned on. “I know, I know—I can't believe your luggage won't be catching up until next month. I tell you, it's like . . .”

He went on like this.

And it worked. Even though they navigated through a sea of men in formal frock coats, Mansfeld ruffles, meticulously waxed mustaches, monocles, gold spectacles, expensive derbies and top hats, and women in the finest silken moiré jackets, Oxford skirts, dresses from Paris, touring hats and lace parasols—no one gave them a second look. They all had dealt with the trials of travel.

The lounge itself was a stunning example of Victorian and Bavarian styling. It integrated the latest in clockwork gadgets and games, brass fixtures, cribbage and bridge tables, oak and brass trim, and a stunning 270-degree panorama in the deck-to-ceiling windows. Lavish balconies and elaborate brackets and banisters in brass, sienna red, and hunter green framed the lounge's edges. Oak parlor chairs and asymmetrical padded love seats surrounded a number of marble-top tables, creating small discussion parlors. The floral wallpaper and grained wainscoting on the single aft bulkhead lent the illusion that one was in a Parisian or Berlin hotel rather than on an airship miles above the ground.

Deitel demanded a table from the
garçon,
and sure enough the three—no matter how ill-suited their attire—blended right in. He ordered a bottle of schnapps, and within minutes Terah and Rucker were joining him in a toast.

The formality, the gilded Victorian decor, the haughty expressions, the unnecessary extravagance in design and clothing—Deitel had never noticed before how overwrought was this life and world he'd lived in until two months ago. His previous experience with the depredations of places like Africa and Arabia had simply made him grateful to return to civilized European society.

But now, after two months in Brazil and a day in Texas—it all seemed different to him. Stifling, perhaps. Oppressive and at the same time pointless. Melancholy. Holding onto the past in fear of the future. Decaying from within. There appeared to be no Freeholders in the crowd, but the couple of Frenchmen he saw seemed to stand out because of how comfortable they seemed in their own skin. Lively in comparison, he reflected.

Deitel considered this. Then he saw Rucker wipe his mouth on the back of his sleeve.

As Rucker let the schnapps warm his throat, he scanned the expansive lounge. Despite the sea of formal black worn by almost every man, the black and silver-trimmed uniform of the Waffen-SS stood out like a paint horse among palominos.

“Excuse me,” Rucker said. “Terah, watch my six. Be ready to back my play. Doctor, best you find the ship's sickbay and scare up one of those black bags you sawbones always tote around. I conjure that Professor Renault will need some tending when we find him.”

Deitel was up and on his way out before Rucker finished the sentence. Terah grabbed Rucker's arm.

“Fox. That is . . .” she said, stammering. “Be careful.”

“Aren't I every time?”

She pulled him close and kissed him.

“That's for luck. Because you almost get killed every time.”

He just wouldn't stop making that cocky, lopsided grin of a face. She wanted to slap that off him. She wanted to kiss him longer.

Rucker sidled up to the deck-long oak bar and took the empty seat next to the SS officer who was hunched over his beer and smoking a Carolina cigarette.

“Lieutenant,” Rucker said.

Lieutenant Otto Skorzeny turned and his eyes widened for just a moment. He grinned slyly. There was a distinctly wolfish aspect to his expression.

“Captain,” he said, holding up his beer. The two toasted. “Most impressive. I expected you'd be in a diplomatic bag on the way to Berlin by now.”

“Germania. Don't forget your Führer renamed it Germania,” Rucker said, ordering a wheat beer.

Skorzeny rolled his eyes.

“Great man, great New Order. Silly cosmetics. So what's a Texan with nine lives doing in a place like this?” the German commando asked, his English almost without accent.

“I could ask you the same about how you got on Airstrip One, and on my crate. Remind me to send you a bill for the Trans-Atlantic ticket, by the way.”

Skorzeny laughed. Both men had their hands near their sidearms, and both men knew it.

“I expected I'd find you here,” Rucker said. “I didn't figure that beating on an old professor was to your taste.”

Skorzeny snorted bitterly.

“That's not soldiering,” he said. “Yes, it is necessary, but I'll leave it to the boys who pulled wings off flies in their youth. I came up here to get away from those Gestapo
falschamenn.
”

Two Teutonic beauties in elegant gowns walked by the pilot and the SS man, giving the two men lingering looks and inviting giggles. Skorzeny winked at them.

“Of course, the view isn't so bad up here,” Rucker said. “So just up the stairwell to drown your guilt in a pilsner?”

Skorzeny's faced reddened but he didn't raise his voice.

“I didn't climb those three flights of stairs because I felt . . .” His voice drifted off. He took a deep breath and nodded chivalrously. “Well played again, Captain.”

Rucker returned the nod.

“I expect they're in the valuable vault, and not the main cargo hold, where any crewman might happen upon them doing their dirty work,” he said.

Skorzeny nodded. “Excellent deduction. Only they're not working him over in the old Gestapo way. Der Schädel has his own ‘unique' methods.”

Under the bar but in Terah's line of sight, Rucker gave her the signal of where Renault was being held.

“You realize, of course, I can't let you interfere with our work. You know too much,” Skorzeny said. “The Führer would be most displeased if we failed to recover his spear. Project Gefallener, no matter what a soldier might think of it, is too important to the future of the Third Reich. Admittedly, it is nasty business. But then war is not for the squeamish, and honor is a trait that doesn't seem well-suited to this century.”

Rucker drained the last of his beer. “Imagine, if you will, Lieutenant, the damage someone skilled in both aviation and engineering—who's had several hours since boarding and who may have brought with him who knows what amount of ordnance—imagine what a man like that could do to an airship like this one. A man with a score to settle against the Huns. And this, the pride of Lufthansa. More than two thousand German nationals on board. That big red and black swastika on her stabilizer,” he said, and dropped the mock smile. “Imagine that I really don't like you people.”

Skorzeny likewise dropped the friendly pretense.

“You wouldn't dare. I saw firsthand how your people fought in the Great War. You go out of your way not to harm noncombatants. You're bluffing,” he said.

“I'd take no pride in it. But it wouldn't bother me a whit. If it's what it takes to stop that goose-stepping clown you call master from getting hold of the spear, then you're damn right I'd burn every last man, woman, and child onboard.”

Skorzeny's glare bore right into Rucker's eyes. Rucker didn't give an inch.

“You're not bluffing,” the German concluded.

“No,” Rucker said, meeting his glare.

“We can settle this like men, not monsters,” Skorzeny said, knowing full well what Der Schädel could do once Rucker and his team were isolated from the bystanders and innocents on board.

“Are you a man of honor?” Skorzeny asked.

Rucker stayed silent.

“Of course, who would attest that he is, is most often not,” Skorzeny said. “You are holding the cards, as you would say. The one thing our cultures hold in common is the code of the duel. Would you accept my challenge?”

Rucker wasn't expecting this one. If he pushed too far, his bluff would be called.

“Yes.”

Skorzeny smiled. It was that predator grin. “You and I are of a kind. We are out of place in this modern world. I expect we grew up with the same bedtime stories, only the details being different—heroes on horseback fighting incredible odds and slaying dragons. Maidens rescued.”

Rucker had to admit he was right. But seriously, he was sick of the “you and I are of a kind” speech—he'd heard it at least three other times. Was there a villain guidebook or something?

“Fifteen minutes, then? Forward-starboard cargo hold,” Skorzeny said.

“Agreed,” Rucker said, refusing again to be the first to blink.

Skorzeny stood, clicked his heels, and was off. When he was gone, Rucker let out a breath he'd been holding for too long. Terah moved in, and he recounted his conversation with Skorzeny.

“I'm a better liar than I thought,” he said.

“You said you were going to blow up the ship and he believed you?” she said, clearly disturbed by the thought of so many innocents slaughtered for a cause—any cause.

Rucker shook his head. “You have to understand how these people think. Even Deitel admits it: for them, individual lives are the means to the ends of the collective. He thought I was capable of such a horror, because he knows his people are capable of such a horror.”

“So now what?” Terah asked.

“Now? Old-fashioned showdown. Cowboys and Aryans style,” Rucker said.

F
ifteen minutes later they were in the forward cargo hold. Deitel, who'd found a doctor's kit, was prattling again.

“What is this, primary school? The fate of the world may be at stake—Hitler creating an army of monster men—and you two are settling it with a duel?” he said.

Rucker had stripped off his jacket and shirt, as had Skorzeny. They were each loosening up on opposite corners of the cargo hold.

“Would you shut up?” Rucker said.

Deitel threw up his hands in disgust.

Terah entered through the main platform door and approached Rucker.