The Hess Cross (15 page)

"And if I had wanted to swim, I would've joined the French Navy," said Graf. His face assumed its evil leer. "Nice job guiding us to shore, Schwachheit. Without you, I probably would have gotten wet."

"That's enough, Graf. From this moment we speak English. No German. Understood?" asked von Stihl in accent-free Midwestern American English.

"Aye, aye, Skipper. Would ye have me talkin' with me Irish brogue," Graf said in a thick Emerald Isle accent, "or like a bloody cockney sailor 'ome after two months a' sea?" The latter sounded as if Graf had been born within earshot of Big Bend. Graf's ability at shading his perfect English into a variety of accents was duly noted in his SS file, which von Stihl had studied.

"American, Graf, just American."

"Would yew all want me ta be from the sovereign South?" he drawled in Piedmont North Carolinian, and continued in Iowan, "or from the corn belt up north?"

"Corn belt, Herr Obersturmführer."

"Aw, shucks."

Von Stihl rose to his feet, saw the raft bouncing in the surf fifty feet north. "Graf, get the raft and deflate it. Lange, dig a hole somewhere in those woods."

Von Stihl slipped off his pack, broke the watertight seal, and produced a map of the Owls Head and Rockford area. Not that he really needed it. He had committed the map to memory a month before. He knew precisely where they had landed—midway between the lighthouse and Dodge Point on the tip of the head. A rough dirt road just up the hill would lead them to the tiny shoreline village of Owls Head, a little over a half-mile away. Four miles beyond was Rockland and the rail spur.

Von Stihl walked into the woods toward the sound of
Lange's scraping shovel. Tiers of overhead branches filtered out the night's dim light. He moved slowly, with his hands extended to ward off tree trunks, and carefully lifted his feet to avoid vines and roots. He caught only glimpses of shadows in the black forest.

Childhood graveyard tales shivered through von Stihl as he approached the glade where Lange was hacking at the ground like a fiend. Thin gray trickles of night light broke through the forest and bounced off Lange's shimmering wet suit.

"That's deep enough. Let's change," said von Stihl as he peeled off the wet suit. He pulled a small cotton towel from the backpack and dried himself until the towel was saturated.

Hans Graf entered the glade and dropped the deflated raft into the hole. He carried his SS Blood and Honor dagger in his huge hand. He wordlessly joined the others and stripped off his wet suit.

From von Stihl's pack came an American-made wool shirt, which was old and patched on the elbows. Two buttons were missing and the collar was frayed. Next came underwear and a dirty pair of pants with a worn leather belt already in the loops. He wiped mud off his feet and donned a pair of argyle socks and scuffed brown shoes. Last came a black winter coat that suffered a rip in the right forearm. Lange and Graf dressed in equally disheveled clothes.

After they dumped their wet suits and empty packs into the hole, Lange shoveled dirt into it until it was level with the surrounding ground. He gathered several dead branches from the edge of the glade and covered the fresh dirt. He deliberately wiped his muddy hands on the seat of his pants.

"Well," said von Stihl as he led them into the woods, "we look sufficiently disreputable."

"I feel grimy," Graf jokingly complained. "If my
Standartenführer saw me now, I'd be sent to Stalingrad on the first train."

Without slowing, von Stihl said, "Colonel, not Standartenführer, Graf. Remember, if anyone overhears a single German word, we could be detected."

"Of course. Of course. Lange, I suggested to the colonel that we should use your regulation Wehrmacht uniforms for our American disguises. They're just as filthy and ragged as these clothes, don't you think?"

Graf laughed loudly. Lange said nothing as he brought up the rear of their single-file procession. I'm going to have to do something to get that idiot Graf off Lange, thought von Stihl.

They stepped from the woods across a small ditch onto the dirt road and followed the road south.

"What time is it, Lange?" the colonel asked.

"Five
A.M.,
sir."

"We've got about four and a half miles to Rockland. The camp is on the railway spur just east of town. Let's pick up the pace. We want to get there before sunrise."

After a quarter of a mile the road was paved. The walk was easy and warming. Only four times in the hour did they jump into the woods on the side of the road as a car or truck noisily sped past. As they neared Rockland, they passed small homes lining the roadway. Lights shone through most windows even at this early hour, the mark of a fishing village. The wind quieted as dawn approached. A slow fog rolled onto the highway from the sea, giving the streetlights ahead a blurred halo.

The trio reached Thomaston Street and turned southeast for several blocks. They crossed vacant lots and several acres of forests, skirting Rockland until they came to the Maine Central railway line. They walked east along the tracks away from town.

Several minutes later, through the first light of false
dawn, von Stihl saw the distant glow of several small fires in a field near the tracks. It was the camp.

The strains of a bawdy drinking tune sung by a husky, deep voice drifted to them through the fog. " 'Oh, Mary was my brother's wife. I loved her nearly all my life . . .' "

The song stopped, and they heard the clinking of a tin coffeecup being tapped against a rock.

" 'And Mary and me had lots of fun, 'specially when my brother was gone . . .' "

The startled singer looked up and saw the three men standing over him. His fear quickly dissipated when he saw they were his kind—men, as he liked to say, similarly situated in life.

"Ah, welcome to the Road Boy's camp, gentlemen," said the hobo. "Won't you join me in the last of the morning's coffee?"

He wore four filthy sweaters, one on top of the other. Somewhere he had gotten a clean, brightly colored scarf, which he wore around his neck, with the ends hanging in front of his chest, in the best avant-garde tradition. A sooty miner's sock cap covered his white hair.

"Glad to, old man," said von Stihl as he lowered himself to his haunches near the fire and held his hands out to gather its warmth. Graf imitated von Stihl. Lange found a log in the shadows and quickly unrolled his oilskin pack.

"But, as you know, the old coffeepot gets a bit weak this late in the morning. I've got some water if you've got a little coffee," the hobo said as he raised his eyebrows expectantly.

"That I do."

From his pocket von Stihl took a small, tattered paper bag and handed it to the hobo, whose eyes lit up at the offering. As he dumped a handful of coffee into the pot he said, "I'm the Road Boy. These here are some of my friends, all similarly situated, like you."

Over the Road Boy's shoulder von Stihl saw several other
small fires. Each had two or three hobos around it, and each fire had a small pot held over the fire by a stick planted in the ground. A mixture of low laughter and talk drifted over the crackling fires.

"Staying long?" asked the Road Boy as he stirred the pot with a twig.

"Nah, just long enough to catch the morning train to Portland. We got some friends down that way," von Stihl said as he rubbed his hands together in front of the fire.

"Say hello to Big Petey when you get there, will you? He's an old friend of mine. Him and the Pearl. They're both old friends of mine. Tell them the Road Boy sent you and it's worth a cup of joe."

From the shadows behind him, von Stihl heard the brittle clip of a Schmeisser submachine-gun bolt being dropped into place. Goddamn kid nurses that gun like it was a baby, he thought. Probably licking the salt out of the chamber.

"Hey, Sam Son, toss me three cups, will ya?" yelled the Road Boy.

Presently the tin cups landed in the dirt near the fire. The Road Boy tapped them together to shake bits of sand out and poured coffee. He handed one to von Stihl and another to Graf. Willi Lange walked from the shadows, lowered himself to the ground, and placed the oilskin package at his feet near the fire. He nodded his thanks to the Road Boy for the coffee.

Von Stihl opened the paper bag he was carrying and brought out a loaf of bread. He tore it into fourths and produced a half stick of butter. He smeared butter on each piece with his finger and passed them around. The Road Boy grinned toothlessly as he received the unexpected breakfast.

"I guess that old hag we flimflammed won't miss her bread and butter," said von Stihl.

"Certainly not as much as we appreciate it, eh, boys?"
The hobo chuckled as he bit off a huge chunk of bread and palpated it with his gums.

"When's the next freight, Road Boy?" von Stihl asked.

The hobo chewed hard, muttered indistinctly, chewed several more times, and said through the wad of dough, " 'Bout five minutes from now. Maine Central short haul. It'll have 'bout twenty Johny O'Brians."

"Running empty?"

"Yep, and the doors wide open. Won't be any problem for you boys. Heads by here 'bout ten mile an hour."

The information confirmed what von Stihl had been told by the mission briefer in Germany. The train traveled to Portland, Maine, with ten stops en route. The railroad police were lax and could be bought with a cigar. Von Stihl carried a supply in his breast pocket.

"You know," said the Road Boy, "it does my travelin' heart good to see you young fellows hittin' the rails. Ever since Roosevelt's depression got over, I ain't seen many of you young ones."

"Well, when you got to travel, you got to travel," said von Stihl as he slurped the scalding coffee.

"Ain't that the truth."

As the colonel wiped his hands on his pants he heard the deep wail of the Maine Central pulling out of Rockland.

"That'll be your train," said the Road Boy. "It's been a real pleasure having you boys for breakfast."

"We'll be back," von Stihl said as he held out his hand to the hobo. "Keep the bag of coffee."

The train drew near and they saw black smoke spewing from the locomotive's stack into the blue dawn. It labored to pick up speed. The ground began to rumble and the train whistle pierced the camp. Lange strapped the package around his waist and Graf slung his cloth satchel over his shoulder. The engine and coal car rolled past the camp fire.

Von Stihl shot from his crouch to a dead run toward an
open box car. He grabbed the door frame and kicked his feet up onto the car bed in a practiced maneuver. He pivoted and grabbed Willi Lange's arm and pulled him aboard. Graf ran easily alongside the car until they pulled back from the doorway. He leaped to a sitting position on the bed and rolled backward into the car.

The Germans leaned against the front wall and within seconds discovered what every hobo knows; it is impossible to be comfortable riding in a box car.

"Well, here I am, a lieutenant in Germany's finest, the SS Death's Head squadron, trained to perfection, physically fit," Graf said with his usual sneer. "And here I also am, a bum traveling across enemy territory in a freezing boxcar. Can you finally tell us where we're going, great leader?"

Von Stihl unwrapped a cigar, bit off the end, spat it out, and said, "Chicago. We've got important business in Chicago."

VIII

T
HE
P
UMP
R
OOM
was a disappointment. Chicago's finest retaurant was everything Crown had heard and, unfortunately, more.

Ernest Lessing Byfield had decorated his restaurant with a flair quite in contrast to what one would expect from the portly businessman who invariably wore three piece, pinstripe suits. The Pump Room's color scheme was garish blue and white and from the high ceiling hung heavy crystal chandeliers with spangled arms reaching out like grasping octopi. Murals of Sarah Siddons and Princess Amelia covered the walls.

Some waiters wore bright red, swallow-tailed morning coats given a military flavor with arm stripes and gold buttons. Tight black pants were tucked into knee-high black boots. Other waiters wore brilliant green, knee-length Indian caftans decorated with gold braids across the chests, and small matching green turbans on which perched three giant white ostrich plumes. The waiters were widely recognized as being the most professional in the Midwest.

All dishes were served from wagons: hors d'oeuvre wagons, fruit wagons, roast-beef wagons, chafing-dish wagons, and dessert wagons. Byfield liked to brag that everything but shashlik was served on flaming rapiers. The food was simply the finest in Chicago.

Located in the Ambassador East Hotel on Chicago's Near North Side, the Pump Room was a focal point for the city's nouveau society. Averell Harriman, Eddy Duchin, Ethel Barrymore, Clifton Webb, and Mrs. Potter Palmer regularly held court in the Pump Room. Gossip columnists loitered near the doors, hoping to interview the restaurant's clientele for a story, and, failing that, to invent a story based on any recent change in the seating arrangements.

John Crown had wanted a quiet, dark restaurant where he and Heather McMillan could talk for the first time. This the Pump Room was not. When ringing laughter and boisterous conversation spilled into the lobby of the Ambassador East as the maître d'hôtel ushered Crown and Heather to the headwaiter's post, Crown knew the Pump Room would be a disappointment. The carts and waiters were constantly embroiled in loud traffic jams in the aisles. Shouts of recognition and noisy embraces filled the room. Obligatory gasps followed bursts of flame from exotic desserts. The din was overpowering.

They were led to a white leather half-circle booth against a side wall. Almost before Crown had settled himself a polite distance from Heather—an awkward maneuver, because the booth was large enough for six, and he had to slide along the seat for yards—Jimmy, the diminutive wine steward, approached their table. Crown scanned the wine list, which was written in eighteenth-century script and was almost impossible to read, and asked, "What do you recommend?"

"That depends on what you order for dinner," replied Jimmy with transparent obsequiousness, instinctively knowing Crown and Heather were outsiders. The weight of
the corkscrew suspended on the large-link chain around his neck seemed to pull the little man into a deferential, subservient stoop, which regulars knew was a ruse.