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  Pursuit

  Robert L. Fish

  MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

  For

  MAME

  Prologue

  Summer—1944

  The Russian T-34-76 tanks clank forward in the summer heat like huge beetles, their newly equipped 80-mm cannon weaving slowly, restlessly from side to side, rigid antennae searching out the enemy. The four-man crew take turns at the hatch, relishing a breath of air. Between the rows of moving tanks spread across the barren plain the cavalry ride, the horses gaunt, the riders’ faces wrapped against the clouds of powdered earth churned up by the tanks. The newly supplied American personnel carriers follow, and then the foot soldiers, unable to find room on the crowded trucks, the ear flaps of their caps buttoned back, their greatcoats almost brushing the ground, their eyes squinting against the acrid dust. In addition to his rifle, each soldier carries a bag on his back with bread or vegetables or anything else he has been able to collect from the fields or from the destroyed villages on the hurried march; the horses eat the moldy straw from the thatched roofs of razed cottages. Above, in the blue sky, the reconnaissance planes buzz like angry bees, darting ahead to scout and then swooping back in sight, radioing their findings. There is an even level of noise in the air, so steady as to appear as silence to the inured ears of the troops.

  Occasionally, when his supply lines are considered sufficiently shortened, when his reinforcements have arrived, when a supposedly advantageous terrain has been reached—or when the pressure from Berlin becomes too great or too dangerous to disobey—then the enemy turns and makes a stand, often against the better judgment of the Wehrmacht. His tanks wheel about awkwardly to dig in facing the Russians; his troops throw themselves down behind whatever protection they can find, bringing up their rifles and unloosening their grenades; the sky suddenly darkens with Stukas and Messerschmitts while Russian fighter planes rise like flies to challenge them. The heavy artillery in the Russian rear opens up, the big guns blasting their steel and smoke; the bursts plow huge craters in the earth, erupting great clouds of dirt, tossing tanks aside like toys. Truck-mounted rocket launchers send swarms of Katushas flashing across the battlefield like brief chalk marks against a sky suddenly darkened by the smoke of the struggle. The mortars give their deep asthmatic cough; the soldiers of both sides run, half-crouched, under the protection of the tanks to suddenly stand erect and throw their grenades. Then the Shturmovics come in, the dreaded flying tank-killers with their 37-mm cannon, disregarding the German fighters, concentrating on the enemy armor, and tanks explode and burn and tip over like helpless bugs while attempting to escape, and men burn and blow up with their grenades, and over it all the hellish shrieking of the planes and the roar of the cannon and the screaming of wounded horses and the cries of dying men, and the shaking, shaking, shaking, shaking of the tortured earth.

  And when the battle is over and the enemy has withdrawn leaving his dead and wounded on the plain together with the Russian dead, the torn bodies of the injured are given whatever first aid is possible, and sent to the rear with the prisoners. The tanks move forward once again, lumbering around their burning or dismantled or upended counterparts of both sides, past wrecked and smoldering planes, their pilots crushed into their instrument panels, picking their way through the carnage of burning men and equipment, trying to avoid having their huge treads pulverize their own dead, taking up the relentless pursuit again. And the cavalry gathers together what is left of itself and follows and the remaining personnel carriers wait until they are once again jammed with troops and then join in the advance, while the foot soldiers pause long enough to hastily search the corpses for whatever food they might be carrying, or hurriedly cut up the dead horses, sharing with each other, each man cramming as much as he can carry of the bloody carcasses into his bag before running to catch up.

  Villages come and go, all leveled to the ground. There are no cattle to be seen, and most of the people they find are either hanging from gibbets or laid in trenches, newly slain. They are not soldiers, these hanging bodies, these carelessly thrown corpses; they are civilians. At Zhoblin a trench contains 2,500 cadavers, their blood not yet congealed, old men, old women, children. The troops march past, the tanks slow so that their crews can stare wordlessly at the horror, and all faces grow harder and their hatred more bitter. It is three years almost to the day since their land was invaded, an invasion many had welcomed at the time, until they learned at firsthand the nature of the enemy in the endless senseless executions, the relentless and needless destruction, the wholesale enslavement of men and women, the brutal slaughter of the innocent. Now they are on the march, regaining their own territory, averaging between eight and ten miles a day, and they are determined not to be stopped by anyone or anything until they have reached Germany itself and have exacted from every German man, woman, or child their terrible revenge.

  Cities are come upon and marched through, the tanks crushing the rubble beneath their treads so the troops can pass, the personnel carriers bumping their way over the broken concrete, the horses of the cavalry whinnying at the strong smell of death. Half-standing walls confront them, mountains of debris, fumbled through by a few old women searching for God knows what. The mark of the retreating army is visible in the endless display of the dead, swinging from the well-used gallows in every town and village. The troops march past, eyes left, eyes right, their resolve made more cruel by the cruelty they see, and their hatred grows and expands with every rotting corpse in every ditch, with every devastated town, with every sight of a plowed-under crop, or a destroyed village, or a shattered tree.

  The Polish border is crossed at last, and the marching soldiers look about themselves in utter amazement. It is as if they had been led by their tanks into a new world, a world that has never seen war. The cottages are newly painted in neat white, the cattle graze peacefully, trees are leafy, people stare at them from the evenly planted fields as if they were men from another planet.

  And the fury grows, and the tanks and the cavalry and the troop carriers and the foot soldiers roll on, an army grinding out its daily advance, its ultimate goal never out of sight. Berlin—and blood. And whatever stands between.

  BOOK I

  Chapter 1

  Colonel Helmut von Schraeder surveyed the lobby of the old hotel as he gently tugged his gloves free. He was remarkably young for his rank, a tall athletic figure, handsome, with clear ice-cold slate-blue eyes, and a sharp, almost classic profile. His military cap with its SS insignia was cocked just a trifle to give the wearer a look of insouciance, his uniform was neatly pressed and fitted perfectly, and his boots gleamed.

  There was no sense of nostalgia in his inspection; Colonel von Schraeder was not a man who lived in the past. Usually he lived just in the present, but of late he had been living more and more in the future. But, he thought, one would think he would remember the physical appearance of the place, at least. After all, it was the last place he could remember having been happy; it was after their Rhine vacation that year of 1924—he had been seven at the time, he remembered—that things in Mecklenberg had begun to fall apart. But either his recollection was faulty or the place had been done over, for nothing looked familiar. The colonel shrugged and tucked his gloves into his pocket; nothing could have been of less importance. Instead he glanced at the clock over the reception desk, saw there was ample time for a drink before the meeting was scheduled to start, and moved in the direction of the arrow pointing to the bar. And then he heard his name called.

  “Helmut!”

  He swung about and smiled, his usual cold smile. “Hello, Willi.”

  “Heading for the bar, weren’t you? I’ll join you.” Major Willi Gehrmann, a friend since their days as fellow students at the Technical Institute, now holding down
a desk at the War Ministry. Gehrmann was a short, stocky man with thick glasses; he took von Schraeder’s elbow and led the way into the bar. It was quite deserted and they selected a corner booth, isolated but commanding a view of the room. They ordered their drinks and then sat and smiled at each other with the meaningless smiles of people waiting to be served. Von Schraeder placed a cigarette in a long holder and leaned across the table to accept a light from the major. He leaned back, exhaling smoke.

  “What do you know about—?”

  He paused to allow the waiter to place their drinks on the table, waited until the waiter had discreetly retired, and then returned to his question.

  “—this meeting?”

  Gehrmann shrugged. “Quite a bit, I suppose. What about you?”

  “Nothing, other than it’s supposed to be top secret. I was in Berlin taking care of some personal business when I was asked to attend—very quietly—and asked to keep pretty quiet about it, too.” He sipped his drink, placed the glass back on the table, and returned to his smoking, speaking about the holder, exhibiting perfect teeth. “I was also told, without details, that there would be some rather important names here today.”

  “There will be.” Gehrmann tried to sound noncommittal, but there was a glint in the eyes swimming behind the thick lenses. “Georg von Schnitzler of I. G. Farben, for one. Krupp von Bohlen of Krupp steel, for another. Top representatives of Roehling, of Messerschmitt, from the Goering Werke in Linz, and others. Some important bankers, the leading men in the chemical and oil industries, a few like myself—very selected, I assure you—from the War and Armament ministries, as well as some of the big family names who can be trusted—like you.” He smiled. “Are those people important enough for you?”

  Von Schraeder returned the smile coldly. “The last one or two, at least. And what are all these important names here to talk about? So secretly?”

  Willi looked him in the eye, assuming an air of importance that struck von Schraeder, who knew him, as being both theatrical and ridiculous.

  “They’re going to talk about the future of Germany and the future of the Party.” He lowered his voice. “It is their feeling that the war is lost. It’s also mine. They want to start making plans now, for the time when that fact finally sinks into the heads of—well, into other heads.”

  “Such as our Fuehrer, for example. Yes.” Von Schraeder crushed out his cigarette, tipped it free into an ashtray without having to soil his fingers, blew through the holder to clear it, and tucked it neatly into a pocket. The action had all the ceremony of a ritual. His cold eyes came up. “What type of plans?”

  The major shrugged. “We’ll learn the details at the meeting.”

  Von Schraeder nodded, and then also dropped his voice, although they had not been speaking loudly. He did not make the mistake of leaning forward in any manner to compensate.

  “And are these important names aware that certain officers in the army have their own plans?”

  Despite himself the major could not help but look about to see if von Schraeder might possibly have been overheard. With an effort he tried to erase the look of alarm that had instantly crossed his face.

  “Helmut! For God’s sake!”

  “Smile,” von Schraeder said quietly, and did so himself. Gruss Gott! If the army plot was in the hands of men as nervous as Gehrmann, he couldn’t picture it being successful! “Smile; I just told you a very funny joke. And asked you a question.”

  “No,” Gehrmann said, and managed a weak smirk; it looked like a rictus. “No, they have no idea of our plans. They not only don’t know, but they would be the last people on earth to be told. They’re loyal, you know, at least in their fashion.”

  “I suppose so.” Von Schraeder didn’t sound as if he considered this a particular virtue, or the big names particularly virtuous. In fact, he honestly considered them little better than shopkeepers. Rich, certainly, and shopkeepers on a grand scale, but still not Junkers, not gentlemen. “Of course, the army maintains if their plan works there would be no need for any other plans. Incidentally, speaking of plans, when is the Valkyrie plan supposed to be put into effect?” He suddenly laughed aloud. “Get that look off your face. We’re just telling funny stories. I asked you, what is the schedule for von Stauffenberg and Valkyrie?”

  Willi did his best to smile but it was a ghastly effort.

  “July the twentieth, at Rastenburg. We don’t speak of this. Let’s drop it, for God’s sake!”

  “All right,” von Schraeder said easily. “Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” He raised his glass in a small gesture of a toast, drained it, and dabbed at his lips with a handkerchief taken from his sleeve. “Well, drink up and let’s get to that meeting. Let’s find out why such important names want such unimportant people as Major Gehrmann or Colonel von Schraeder, trusted or not, to attend their precious secret meeting.”

  They sat around a large rectangular table, some thirty of the most important people of Nazi Germany’s industrial machine, speaking with a frankness that had been unknown in the country for many years. Beyond the circle of the chosen ones at the table were observers, of whom Gehrmann and von Schraeder were two; these sat on hard wooden chairs along the walls of the room. The meeting had been going on for several hours, the room was filled with blue smoke from thick cigars, and von Schraeder had the beginnings of a headache. At his side Major Gehrmann sat silently, leaning forward a bit, listening intently as speaker after speaker gave his views. And then, at long last, there was a brief intermission during which those at the table conferred quietly, scribbling notes. When the meeting was called back to order, the chairman came to his feet.

  “Gentlemen—”

  The room slowly settled back to silence, chairs scraped and were raised to be moved more quietly, someone shut a window that had been opened for ventilation during the intermission. Von Schraeder bit back a yawn and tried to find a more comfortable position on the hard chair. He sincerely hoped the statement would be short. If he wanted to reach Lublin during daylight hours the following day, he would have to leave Strasbourg soon. If he made Munich by nightfall, he would be all right; if they drove a while longer and got as far as Salzburg, all the better. The chairman cleared his throat and bent down, making reference to the paper in his hand. He straightened up.

  “Gentlemen, let us try and summarize our discussions. If we have differed today it has only been in degree, not in substance. We are in substantial agreement on the following points—that Germany has lost the war and that German industry must prepare for the postwar economic campaign. Each of us here—and others in industry who will be contacted who we know are in agreement with us—must seek contacts with firms abroad without creating attention. We must be prepared to finance the Party, which will be forced to go underground for some time. We will establish appropriate committees to select the countries where money must be invested, and by whom and how much. The first step in our program, of course, is to see that no funds, deposits, blueprints of new weapons or designs of new equipment or information on new processes fall into the hands of the Allies.”

  He paused to sip from a glass of water. Even von Schraeder had to admire the detail that had gone into the planning for the meeting, and the detail with which the meeting planned for the future. But then von Schraeder had always admired planning. The chairman continued.

  “We must also expect, from the continuing Allied threats, that there will be war-crimes trials and that some of our members will be convicted as war criminals. Therefore, preparations must be made now to see that as many of those members of the Nazi Party, particularly the SS, who find themselves in that position, be given means of escaping from Germany when the proper time comes, as well as the financial assistance they will require. It is why we are here. We shall call ourselves ODESSA. It stands for Organisation der SS-Angehorigen. Those members we help can be useful in our foreign enterprises; in many spheres.”

  His eyes left those around the table to sweep over the observer
s on the hard chairs along the walls. The hard stare touched on von Schraeder in passing, took in Gehrmann and the others, and then came back to the table.

  “Some of the younger members present today fall into this category. They will be expected to take advantage of this offer, and to carry out any decisions of this meeting or of future meetings with the full devotion of loyal and dedicated Party members. A committee will be established to study escape routes and to arrange safe-houses along those routes, as well as permanent refuge in certain selected foreign countries. Preparations are also under way, also through ODESSA, to—”

  There was the harsh sound of a chair being scraped back, and two men were heard to argue in subdued tones from a place beyond the table of the chosen, somewhere along the wall. The chairman frowned impatiently in the direction of the disturbance.

  “Yes? What is the problem? Is there a question?”

  One of the two men threw off the arm of the other and came to his feet.

  “You keep talking about the Party. I just want to know if these plans, these preparations, have the authority of the Fuehrer and the other top Party officials?”

  There was a moment’s silence. Then the chairman spoke quietly.

  “These preparations are being made in the best interests of the Fuehrer, of Germany, of the Nazi Party—”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  The chairman’s heavy jaw tightened. “That’s the best answer I can give you.”

  Von Schraeder stared through the gloom of the room at the stupid person who had asked the stupid question, as someone near the man pulled him back into his seat. Stupidity, to von Schraeder, was the unforgivable sin. Someone would undoubtedly talk to that man in depth—as well as to the person who invited him to the meeting—and if he didn’t get the message he would probably end up in a ditch. Which was where stupid people belonged.