Look Behind You (The Order of the Silver Star) (15 page)

“Well, thanks for that.”

“Welcome.”

They sat down, and Matt said grace, which Chris hadn’t realized how much he’d missed. After that, they ate in companionable silence for several minutes.

Then the stillness was broken by the radio crackling to life. “San Felipe to Austin, 10-33,” called a worried older male voice.

Chris frowned as Matt looked up, grim-faced. “What’s 10-33?”

“Emergency,” Matt replied. “This is a new code DPS adopted three or four years ago, when radio traffic became more common. Not that it’s much of a secret, but I’d be surprised if the Gestapo happened to know it.”

“So why didn’t you use it last night?”

“Other agents needed to be able to understand.”

“Austin to San Felipe, go ahead,” Hamer answered after a brief pause.

San Felipe, whoever that was, stated, “Brenham’s had a heart attack.”

Matt snorted and looked torn between amusement and sympathy. “Poor Halberson.”

“Ten-4,” Hamer replied, keeping his voice neutral. “Ten-71?”

“Ten-4, 10-52, Code 1,” the other Ranger replied.

“Needs an ambulance,” Matt translated, “but it doesn’t have to get there right this minute.”

Chris jumped up and grabbed the radio. “Austin, this is Hercules. If Cleopatra’s headed that way, I’ll have her stop by.”

“Ten-4, Hercules, thank you.”

Matt took the radio next. “Castell to Austin. Can Hercules have Brenham’s horse?”

Hamer sounded amused. “Ten-4, Castell. San Felipe, you copy?”

So did San Felipe. “Ten-4, Austin, I’ll see what I can do.”

Matt grinned. “Ten-4. Thanks. Castell out.”

“Everybody 10-3,” Hamer ordered. “Austin out.”

“Ten-3 means stop transmitting,” Matt explained as he set the radio down.

“Where are they?” Chris asked.

“Halberson and Wilkins? Should be about to Dieppe.”

“Good. That’s where Cleo was headed, and she should be to town soon.”

Chris jogged to the communications room and fired off a quick message to the Dieppe Resistance unit that Cleopatra was scheduled to meet to get the Jewish lady Matt had saved to England. Matt followed more slowly and was lounging in the doorway when Chris finished.

As he left the radio transmitter, Chris asked, “Why’d you ask for his horse? I figured I’d stay here.”

Matt shook his head. “No dice, little brother. You’re riding with us. And….” He glanced down at Chris’ boots. “Guess we can see if our friends can get you some riding boots, too.”

Chris smiled and decided not to argue. “C’mon. Dunno about you, but I could use some more bacon.”

Matt chuckled. “Sure.”

As they walked back to the kitchen, Chris glanced outside and saw a second horse in the courtyard with Silver. And when they passed the window where he’d set out the fairies’ breakfast, the bread and cheese were gone and only a drop or two of cream remained in the saucer.

*****

Managing the flow of information into Berlin through natural means was easier than one might imagine, given that Nimrod was on Hitler’s staff and accustomed to ordering large-scale operations. No matter where he himself was, Allied agents operating throughout Europe were at his disposal to command, and he now mobilized them, through contacts like Cleopatra and Cuchulain, to disrupt the stream of news coming out of France. Resistance units in Normandy jammed radio signals and/or produced false broadcasts. Other units, especially in Paris and Berlin, intercepted couriers and newspapers to replace unsafe written reports. Since Chris had control of the Luftwaffe communications center in Paris, he could ignore or misdirect messages from Normandy as needed as well as keeping up appearances for Berlin. The switchboard operator at the Führer’s headquarters was also an agent and ran interference on calls coming in from France, diverting them or taking messages that could be conveniently lost or replaced, depending on the occasion.

Cuchulain even arranged for a note to be delivered to Wannsee purporting to be from Goering, claiming that his flight had been delayed by heavy fog (which would have been true) and then diverted to Carinhall because his old wounds were acting up. The men at the conference had no suspicions and accepted the explanation; officially, Goering wasn’t even supposed to be in Wannsee, so the conference could and did proceed without him. Yet even though the note was completely plausible, Hitler was still disturbed enough when he learned of Goering’s sudden “ill health” to insist that the invasion of Russia begin at once, not on May 15 as he had ordered in December, and he would not accept any objection that the troops weren’t ready yet. No one quite knew why.

The replacement of actual news with messages asserting Situation Normal to be ongoing was key. So was permitting the usual sorts of reports, studies, and the like to get through. Cutting off communications from France altogether would be just as suspicious as allowing news of the Rangers to reach Hitler. And there was plenty of harmless news to allow through, even from the areas where the Rangers were active. What the Rangers didn’t know was that part of the protection afforded by the fairy pendants was shielding against unfriendly eyes. That feature wasn’t absolute, of course—for that, one would need either an actual cloak of invisibility or divine intervention—but it did prevent them from being spotted by casual passers-by unless they did something to draw particular attention to themselves. That wasn’t to say that all the news was harmless in a more general sense, given the nature of Vichy’s relationship with Berlin and of the German governance of France, but quite a lot of the dispatches that were allowed through the net would pose no danger to the mission.

Nevertheless, even apart from official word from cities like Paris, rumors had begun to circulate that something was afoot in northwestern France. Underground agents across the Third Reich had been waging a whisper campaign about the Rangers ever since Hitler’s meeting with the Mexican consul the previous July; now, Resistance units were hard at work managing the rumor mill in France to present the Rangers as heroes and liberators. Nimrod couldn’t keep those murmurs from reaching Berlin altogether, but he did succeed in keeping them from getting to Hitler until Operation Barbarossa was well underway, the Wehrmacht having great success despite not having been quite ready, and the Rangers were closing in on Paris.

Then he broached the topic himself by simply looking at one of the horoscope charts that were in Hitler’s office and uttering a quiet “Huh.”

He immediately had Hitler’s full attention. “What? What is it?”

Nimrod shook his head. “Oh, nothing, nothing. It’s just… a curious alignment of planets today, that’s all.”

Hitler hurried over to look. “What do you mean?”

“Well, Pluto is in Cancer, Neptune in Virgo; Mars is in Aquarius; and all the other planets are in Taurus, except for Saturn, which is in Aries. I’m hardly an expert, Your Excellency, but that ought to mean something, surely?”

Hitler frowned and muttered under his breath as he tried to read the chart for himself. Nimrod knew perfectly well what it meant—exactly nothing—but it was the opening he needed.

He cleared his throat quietly and whispered, “I, er, have heard rumors….”

“Rumors of what?” Hitler demanded sharply.

“Your Excellency, they may be nothing.”

“Engelbrecht, your place is in Abwehr. You are my eyes and ears. Speak!”

Nimrod sighed a little. “One of our agents in London claims to have seen Frank Hamer there two weeks ago.”

“Why wasn’t this reported to me?”

“Your Excellency, we have found no proof that Hamer is in London.”

“Where is he now?”

“Our agents have not been able to find out.”

“Then he could already be in Berlin!” Even this long after the meeting with the Mexican consul, the Rangers remained Hitler’s greatest fear, and his eyes were wild with it now, though Nimrod might be the only one who could tell.

Nimrod shook his head. “No, Excellency, of that I can assure you. Our men are watching around the clock. He has not entered Germany. And besides, what mortal unaided could cross the wall of enchantments the SS has laid?”

That appeased Hitler somewhat. “True, true. Himmler swears they used the oldest grimoire they could find. Still, the Mexicans say Hamer is a devil.”

“The US State Department forbade his travel to England. And we are not at war with the US.”

Hitler grumbled a little.

“As soon as there is credible word, I will make sure you are told.”

Hitler nodded. “Very well. Thank you, Engelbrecht.”

Nimrod nodded back and walked away, leaving Hitler staring at the chart.

One of Nimrod’s Abwehr juniors met him in the hall with a note. “
Herr Oberst
, a report just came in from Paris. A group of men on horses is converging on Luftwaffe Headquarters.”

Nimrod took the note and pretended to study it. “I’ll look into it. Thank you.”

The junior officer clicked his heels and went on his way.

The note conveniently disappeared before Nimrod got back to his desk.

*****

Another point the SS warlocks had overlooked was the necessity of protecting their own. A great number of the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine installations in France that remained manned despite Operation Barbarossa were in the area formerly covered by the Atlantic Wall, and almost all of the personnel at those installations had become ill and had not miraculously recovered when the wall came tumbling down. One Luftwaffe base was shut down with a pneumonia outbreak, for example, and another with a wave of Hepatitis A. As a result, there was almost no one available to mount a defense when, on the second night the Rangers were in Paris, the RAF mounted a wave of bombing attacks on submarine pens and air bases across the coast, which both achieved their goal and provided cover for the Commandos to destroy the
Normandie
dock at St.-Nazaire—after all, it wouldn’t do to have
Tirpitz
on the loose in the Channel just now.

Of course, word reached Hitler. Nimrod made sure of it. And of course, Hitler was furious. “Where is Goering?” he demanded. “
Where is Goering?!!
”

Nimrod coughed politely and put on his gravest expression. “I had hoped, Your Excellency, to have further confirmation—”

Hitler rounded on him. “What? What, what, what? What do you know?”

Nimrod sighed and silently handed Hitler a folder containing a photo of Goering taken through the wire of the POW camp. Once Hitler had looked at it and looked back at him in alarm, Nimrod replied truthfully, “One of our agents in Scotland took that two days ago.”

“No,” Hitler breathed, looking back at the photo. “No, it—it cannot be… it’s some kind of a trick!” And he stormed out of his office, screaming for someone to find Goering.

Nimrod very carefully did not smirk. Hitler’s reactions were seldom predictable, but in this case, he’d just sent himself on a wild goose chase that would consume his attentions for the entire day—and the Rangers, having handed off control of Luxembourg Palace to Cleopatra and the French Resistance units she managed, were passing the outskirts of Bobigny and Drancy.

*****

With Hickman and Hamer taking point, the Rangers rode three abreast on their way out of the Paris metropolitan area. They still weren’t sure what would be waiting for them once they were back in the countryside, whether the warlocks would have tried to set up another defensive line of enchantments somewhere that would necessitate spreading out or whether continuing to travel as a unit would be wiser. Matt suspected it would be a day or two before anyone had enough info to make a decision. But his own decision had been made long before they’d saddled up that morning. Chris was currently riding between Matt and Martinez, and as long as Matt had anything to say about it, Chris was damn well going to stay there where Matt could keep an eye on him.

It didn’t matter that Chris was a grown man and a senior agent, capable of handling himself well in a fight against flesh and blood. It didn’t matter much that he and Cleopatra had potential—and there
had
been a spark there, faint but definite, when Matt had seen them together that morning. What mattered at the moment was that Chris was still Matt’s little brother, and if Matt failed to bring Chris home in one piece, even if Mama and Papa (and Cleo) forgave him, he would never be able to forgive himself.

Chris seemed to pick up on what Matt was thinking and met Matt’s eyes with a wry smile and a rueful chuckle. “Y’know, the Army’s got rules against brothers being in the same outfit, especially when they’re single and their parents’ sole support.”

“We’re not in the Army,” Matt and Martinez chorused, and the other Rangers laughed.

Chris just shook his head but didn’t stop smiling. “I’m just saying, I could have stayed in Paris.”

“The palace isn’t on lockdown anymore,” Matt noted. “And while I don’t think anything will come after Cleo, because you’re my brother….” He couldn’t make himself finish the thought.