OPERATION LONG JUMP
by
LEO KESSLER

`;0;0' It's the old master at his very best.

OPERATION LONG JUMP

"Winston had heard his life was threatened.  He was very excited, even
pleased.  He looked into everyone's face now a bit more exactly .. .
The tension remained."  Inspector Thompson, Winston Churchill's
bodyguard, 1943.

"There was general uneasiness about the security arrangements,
aggravated by rumours of assassination plots against one or other of
the three leaders."  Joan Astley, secretary to General Ismay,
Churchill's Chief-of-Staff, 1943.

"We are not in a position to confirm or deny whether there was, in
fact, any German plot under the name of "Operation Long Jump" aimed at
the assassination of the "Big Three", as alleged by the Soviet Union.1
Spokesman for the US State Department 1977.

Further Titles by Leo Kessler from Severn House S.S. Wotan Series

ASSAULT ON BAGHDAD

FLIGHT OVER MOSCOW

FIRE OVER SERBIA

OPERATION LONG JUMP

OPERATION LONG JUMP

Leo Kessler

ARTS

U.S.S20.00

This first world edition published in Great Britain 1993 by SEVERN
HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of 9-15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey SM1 1DF.

First published in the U.S.A. 1993 by SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS INC of
475 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10017.



All rights reserved.  The moral rights of the author to be identified
as author of this work have been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Kessler, Leo Operation
Long Jump I. Title

823.914 [F]

ISBN: 0-7278-4493-8

All situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance
to living persons is purely coincidental.

Typeset by Hewer Text Composition Services, Edinburgh.  Printed and
bound in Great Britain by Redwood Books, Trowbridge, Wiltshire.

Prelude to a Murder He who eats with the devil needs a very long
spoon.

Old German Saying

BOOK ONE

A Mission is Proposed Mitgegangen .. . mitgefangen .. . mitgehangen Old
German Saying * Gone with, caught with, hanged with.  Transl.

"Bring in the French Jew," Reichsfrihrer SS Heinrich Himmler ordered,
looking up from his massive desk.

At the door the giant, black-clad adjutant clicked his heels together
smartly.  He opened the door and bellowed, as if he were on the
barracks square at Berlin-Lichterfelde, "Bring in the French Jew!"

As if waiting for the command, the two concentration camp guards,
rifles slung, appeared immediately.  Between them trudged the prisoner,
who had been taken so surprisingly from the squalor of the camp into
this opulent, modernistic Berlin HQ.

He was a short, skinny man.  The striped camp uniform hung from his
body.  His face was pale and hollow and wary.  But there was no
mistaking the glow in the prisoner's dark eyes.  They radiated some
kind of secret inner energy, coupled with a limitless intelligence. But
since he had been seized in Paris and taken to the camp the little
prisoner had learned not to let his tormentors see that look in his
eyes.  So he kept his gaze lowered: the epitome of the broken, wretched
prisoner and victim.

For a moment Himmler scrutinized the prisoner through his pince-nez.
Then he said, "I hear you speak our language.  You may sit there."

The prisoner gasped audibly.  For a second he didn't move.  Then,
hesitantly, he lowered himself onto the black leather as if he half
expected it to be red hot

But the prisoner was in for yet another surprise.  Opposite him, the
sallow-faced head of the SS, the second most important man in the Nazi
empire, opened the big silver cigar box on his desk and snapped, "You
will have a cigar."  Himmler clicked his fingers and as the prisoner
took the cigar gingerly, one of the guards fished out his cigarette
lighter and offered the little man a light.

Himmler allowed him a first gingerly puff at the expensive cigar, which
made him cough, before saying, "Jean-Jacques Beguin, you are a
Frenchman and a Jew.  We cannot, therefore, expect you to be a champion
of our holy National Socialist cause."

The prisoner kept his gaze lowered and said nothing, but his brain was
racing.  What was going on?

"Now I hear that you were once a famous hypnotist and a mind-reader
before our authorities in France er apprehended you."  Himmler grunted
and waited for Beguin's reaction.

"Jawohl Reichsfuhrer," the prisoner answered in his heavily accented
German.

"In France and also in Germany.  I performed here in Berlin at the
Wintergarten and Kroll's in the thirties before .. . he didn't complete
the sentence.

Himmler nodded.

"Yes, I understand.  I have your complete file here on the desk before
me.  We know everything about you, Beguin.  Now I am going to ask you
to perform for me.  Not for money.  Nor for fame.  But for your very
life.  Do you fully understand that?"

Beguin nodded, again without raising his head.  He didn't want the
sallow-faced SS boss to see the electric energy coursing through his
body, the intense light in those dark unfathomable eyes.

"If you help us," Himmler continued, 'we shall release you and send you
to a neutral country of your choice.  Switzerland say.  You understand
I have the power to do this?"

"Jawohl Reichsfuhrer," Beguin answered dutifully.  There was a chance
then.  Of course he didn't trust Himmler or any of these Nazi swine.
But the longer he could stay alive, the better the chance of his
escaping.  The alternative was the return to Sechsenhausen and a quick
trip 'up the chimney', as his fellow prisoners called the death ovens
cynically.

Himmler waved his weak, pale hand at the guards.  They clicked to
attention and marched out.  Himmler nodded his approval.  The fewer
people who knew about this strange affair, the better.

Himmler paused momentarily, then he said in a low voice so that Beguin
had to strain to hear him, "Now Frenchman, several very important
persons are about to meet somewhere in the near future, perhaps in a
few weeks, perhaps a month or so.  You tell me now where and when that
meeting is to take place."  He leaned back expectantly in his big chair
and pressed the tips of his manicured nails together like some high
school teacher waiting for a favoured pupil to answer.

Beguin's thoughts flew.  It was the old challenge, one he had faced so
many times before in the halls: it was the challenge of superimposing
his will on that of an audience who had to come to doubt and suspect.
Softly he said, Tn order to know about that meeting, Reichsfuhrer, I
need to know some details first."  Cunningly, knowing that Himmler
believed in the occult and astrology, he added, "After all, even an
astrologer cannot give the client an accurate horoscope without knowing
the client's date of birth."

Himmler nodded his understanding.

"Yes, I see what you mean, Frenchman."  But he did not volunteer any
further information.

Beguin knew he was fighting for his life.  Now for the first time, he
raised his head and gave the German the full benefit of those dark
electric eyes.

Himmler seemed to grow paler, as he met the full power of that hypnotic
gaze.  Suddenly he licked his lips which had become abruptly dry.

Beguin held his attention, while he said slowly and deliberately,
"Naturally, under certain conditions, I can find out who these
important persons are if you would allow me to read your mind,
Reichsfuhrer."

At the door the giant, black-clad adjutant cleared his throat, as if he
were angry at this little foreign Jew deigning to ask the Reichsfuhrer
a question like that.  Himmler himself remained silent, as if he were
seriously considering the request.

Beguin waited.  But his mind was frantically active, as he considered
the matter.  He was being treated royally here.  Therefore, the people
in question were very very important indeed.  So, were they Germans? If
they were, what kind of Germans could they be?  Obviously not friends
of Himmler or he wouldn't need to ask.  Were they some kind of
conspirators then, plotting against Himmler or his boss Hitler? Perhaps
they weren't German at all "Schon."  Himmler cut into his racing
thoughts.

"You may make the attempt then to read my mind," he said.

Beguin felt that old authority rise inside his wretched, tortured body.
He said, "I demand absolute silence."

At the door the adjutant opened his mouth as if to protest, but Himmler
shot him a significant look and he closed it again, looking angry.

"Now, Reichsfuhrer, I would like you to concentrate as hard as you can.
I shall now make the attempt to read your thoughts."

A heavy silence descended upon the big room, dominated by the larger
portrait of the Fuhrer over the mantelpiece.  The only sound was the
muted buzz of the Berlin traffic outside.  Outside the window a barrage
balloon bobbed up and down noiselessly like a great, tethered elephant.
Beguin felt a small cold bead of sweat trickle down the small of his
skinny back.  Suddenly -frighteningly he realized that this was going
to be the most important minute in his life.  His first words might
well decide his fate.

Abruptly it came to him.  De Gaulle.  Surely it had to be the rebel
French General in London, whom the Boche hated with a passion?
Hurriedly he said the name out loud.

Himmler sat up.

Beguin told himself he had hit the bull's eye.  Himmler looked
definitely surprised.  He felt the sweat begin to flow more freely. But
then at the door, the big adjutant grunted scornfully.

"After all, Reichsfrihrer, he is a frog eater  He would say de
Gaulle."

Beguin reacted instinctively and as quickly as he had always done on
the stage.  It wasn't De Gaulle.  He had said the name because he was
thinking in French terms.  But de Gaulle was an enemy of the Reich.
Were these people other enemies of the Reich who weren't French?

"Churchill," he snapped, completely out of the blue.  It was one of
those things.  As always he wondered whether or not he did not really
have genuine psychic powers.  For this time he saw he had really hit
the nail on the head.  Himmler wasn't saying anything, but it was all
too obvious that he was interested and at the door the giant was
holding his breath.

Beguin paused for a few moments.  Outside there was the faint blare of
a car horn being pressed angrily.  Perhaps there had been a crash on
the East-West Axis there were always crashes on that great road which
crossed Berlin from north to south.  He dismissed the noise and the
harsh sound of Himmler's breathing.  He had to concentrate in a way he
had never concentrated before.  Who could Churchill conceivably meet
who was of importance to the Nazi boss?  Stalin?  No, it couldn't be
the Soviet dictator.  Everyone knew that Churchill, the arch
right-winger, detested Stalin and his 'red pest'.

Roosevelt, the US President?  Roosevelt was a cripple.  Would he be
able to travel to meet Churchill?  Perhaps Churchill would go to
America to meet him?  Back in 1941 before Petain had ordered the
round-up of the French Jews for transportation to Germany, Churchill
had done exactly that; he had sailed to meet the US President off the
coast of North America.

Beguin took a calculated risk, "Roosevelt," he said.

"The other person is President Roosevelt."

Himmler mumbled something under his breath which Beguin couldn't
catch.

"Sale con," an anxious Beguin, who was now lathered with sweat at the
effort, cursed to himself.  Why doesn't the swine say something?  What
else did the Boche expect of him?  He took one last desperate risk.

"Churchill will also meet Stalin," he ventured.

Himmler's reaction was explosive.  He sprang to his feet and yelled,
"Bravo!..  . Kapital..  . You have got all three of them exactly right,
Frenchman.  Congratulations."  Suddenly Himmler clicked to attention.
He thrust out his right hand rigidly.  To the astonishment of the
little Frenchman he cried, "Heil Hitler!"  saluting the man who was
prepared to exterminate the whole of the Jewish race.

Hurriedly Beguin jumped to his feet, wondering whether he was expected
to return the Nazi salute, just as the giant adjutant was doing at the
door.  Wisely, he decided that it would be less than opportune for a
Jew to do so and refrained.

Himmler, his sallow cheeks flushed a hectic red now, said, "You have
done very well, Jew.  I must tell you that you now enjoy my full
confidence and that I am prepared to use you further."

"Danke, Reichsfrihrer."

Himmler did not seem to hear.  Instead he said: "You will be taken to
an apartment here in Berlin.  From thence you will attend other
sessions here till we can find out all we need to know about this
celebrated meeting.  During this period you will be under the command
of Haupsturmfuhrer Dietz here."  He indicated the black-clad giant.

Beguin nodded.

"Dietz will provide you with everything you need -clothes, drink,
women, if you so desire.  Naturally they cannot be German women.  It is
a question of racial purity."

"Naturally," Beguin echoed, but irony was wasted on the
Reichsfrihrer.

"Of course, you will say nothing of these matters to anyone you may
meet ... on pain of death.  Verstanden? 

"Verstanden, Reichsfrihrer." Beguin echoed hurriedly, realising that his life had been spared.  For a while.

Himmler nodded to Dietz.

"Take the Jew away," he ordered and bent his head over his papers once
more.

In a daze Beguin allowed himself to be bundled out of the office, into
the paternoster and down into the street below where the big black
Horch flying the tin flag of a four-star general in the SS was waiting
for them.  On the street people came and went.  But Beguin had no eyes
for them, though the sight of these ordinary people going about their
business was like a miracle after the harsh cruelties of the camp.  His
mind was too full.  What was going on?  What was so important about
this meeting of the three Allied leaders?  What further information did
Himmler want to know and why?

Dietz dug him cruelly in his skinny ribs.

"Come on, Jew.  Get in the front seat, or do you want a frigging
written invite?"

"No, no," Beguin said hurriedly and slipped into the seat next to the
immaculately uniformed driver, who pulled * A kind of German lift.
Transl.

a face at the sight of the prisonerin his filthy, striped pyjamas.

Dietz barked an order from the back seat and the Horch pulled away into
the evening traffic, as Beguin hunched there, his mind in a turmoil,
telling himself that in the midst of all this mystery and confusion,
one thing was crystal clear.  Once Himmmler, the swine, knew all he
wanted to know, he, Jean-Jacques Beguin would cease to exist.  Very
smartly .. .

ONE

Staff Sergeant Charley Kane, formerly of the 1st US Ranger Battalion,
raised his right arm and barked, "Heil Hitler!"

Hauptsturmfuhrer Klaasen grinned and using his good arm raised his
wooden right arm to return the greeting, "Heil Hitler," he said without
enthusiasm, 'when you see him."

Charley Kane returned the grin.  He liked Klaasen, who was his
'guidance officer', as his captors phrased it.  The tough young SS man,
who had lost an eye, an arm and 'various other uninteresting parts of
my anatomy', as he put it, in Russia, had a sense of humour uncommon in
a German.

Klaasen nodded to the group of little wooden huts behind Kane, over
which flew the Union Jack, the Stars and Stripes and the unit flag of
the Legion of St.  George.

"And how are our reluctant heroes getting on this fine autumn morning?"
he asked without much interest.

Kane pulled a face.

"Getting on?  As usual they're nursing a hangover or wondering whether
they've got another dose."

"You're a cynic, Charley, to talk about those fine upstanding young
Americans and Englishmen who have volunteered to fight for our holy
cause against the plague of red communism."

Charley Kane tugged the end of his big nose.  That'll be the day,
Klaus," he commented.

"That'll be the day."

Klaasen studied the American for a few moments as if he were seeing him
for the first time.  Kane was tall and broad with the figure of a good,
light heavyweight, he told himself.  The face was lean and not
unhandsome.  It was bronzed permanently like that of a man who had
spent most of his life outdoors; it was a tough face.  But the eyes
were the most striking part of the American's appearance.  They were a
light grey and careful: the eyes of a man who had seen a lot of this
world and who had become wary of his fellow men.  They said, "Don't
cross me, buddy, or you'll be in trouble."

From the little camp there came the sound of the cook rattling the iron
triangle outside the cook house indicating that breakfast was ready.

"Want some chow, Klaus?"

The SS officer shook his head.

"No time, Charley."  He lowered his voice a little and threw a quick
glance over his shoulder to check whether he was being overheard.  It
was a gesture that Kane had seen often enough in this last year in
Germany.  It still amused him slightly.  The Austrian wants to see
you."

"Obersturmbannfuhrer Skorzeny?"

"The same."  Klaasen was a Prussian.  He didn't like Austrians on
principle.  In particular he disliked Skorzeny, the "Viennese upstart'
as he called his boss contemptuously, who had shot to fame the previous
month when he had daringly rescued the former Italian dictator
Mussolini from his Italian captors and brought him to the safety of the
Reich.

Kane frowned.  A couple of unshaven members of the "Legion' were
struggling over to the cook house a still-drunken woman clutching onto
their arms, as if she might fall at any moment.

Klaasen caught the look.

"Stout fellers, the lot of them," he declared.

"Wait till they get to the Russian front, the Ivans'll fill their
breeches at the mere sight of them."

Kane sniffed and said, "What's going on, Klaus?"

Now it was Klaasen's turn to frown.

"Don't know exactly, Charley."  He looked at the big American's left
hand.  Where it had once been there was a wooden one, encased in a
brown leather glove.  It was that missing limb that bound the two
disparate men together.  Both had suffered grievously in the war.  Both
were what Klaasen called 'front swine'.  It was the bond between
them.

"But I do know, Charley, I'd watch my back if you get involved in
whatever it is.  Reichsfuhrer SS Himmler himself is behind this
business.  And wherever the Reichsheini* turns up, there's always bound
to be trouble.  Now come on, Charley, we're supposed to be at the
Austrian's HQ by zero nine hundred hours.  Let's go."

Moments later they were both seated in the back of the big open-topped
Mercedes heading for Skorzeney's remote rural HO, each man encased in a
cocoon of his own thought .. .

On that last August morning the eight volunteers from the 1st Ranger
Battalion had lined up with the Canadians and the Commandoes, who had
trained them, to be inspected by the man who had planned the operation.
Mounthatten, debonair and as elegant as ever, had come sauntering down
the stiff khaki-clad ranks, followed by his entourage from Combined
Operations Headquarters.  A warm August wind was blowing in from the
Channel and sweeping the cliff top, ruffling the smart uniforms of the
staff officers and Mounthatten had to keep clapping his gloved hand to
his jauntily tilted white cap to keep it from blowing away.

At routine, planned intervals he stepped and addressed a few words to
one of the soldiers, standing rigidly to attention staring at some
object behind the Admiral's right shoulder.  Kane standing to attention
with the rest could * A contemptuous name for Himmler.  Roughly
translated it could mean "Imperial Harry'.

imagine the words would always be the same.

"Going to be a jolly good show .. . We'll knock 'em for six of course
.. . God speed .. . The usual guff that senior officers, especially if
they were British, sped reluctant heroes off to their deaths with.

In due course, Mounthatten and the staff officers paused in front of
the eight Ranger volunteers.  The tall craggy-faced Ranger Colonel
threw him a tremendous salute and Mounthatten had been about to return
it when he had spotted him.  Chester Winthrop, the III, who was
standing next to Kane.  His handsome face had broken into a smile of
recognition and he had advanced on the Ranger officer, hand
outstretched.

"Why Chester," he had exclaimed, "I didn't know you were taking part in
this show.  I thought you were back in the United States breeding those
fine horses of yours.  Do you remember those days back in the thirties
when we played polo together?"  Winthrop's refined, somewhat
spoiled-looking face had coloured with pleasure and he had thrown
Mounthatten a tremendous salute exclaiming, "I didn't think you'd
remember me, Dickie - er Admiral."

They had exchanged a few hurried words and then Mounthatten turned to
the rest of Rangers and delivered what was probably a prepared speech,
one that the papers back in the States could use for copy.  'I'm glad
to see that the Yanks are taking part in this party," he said, as the
wind from the Channel buffeted the H party and already the first
Spitfires were flying out low over the leaping waves towards France.

"For you it will be the first time.  The first Yanks to fight in Europe
in this war.  All eyes will be upon you and I know full well that you
won't let your country or the Allies down.  God speed to you all.  I
salute you, gentlemen."  Mounthatten had drawn himself up to his full
height and given them a naval salute, touching his gloved hand to the
gold-rimmed peak of his cap as if he had really meant it.  Then he was
gone, leaving them to march back to their quarters and what was soon to
come.

As Ed Bain, who wouldn't survive the next twenty-four hours, had
remarked, as they swung down the narrow English street towards the
waiting assault craft, "Charley, when they give you that kind of bull,
with a full admiral saluting you, ya know the crap is really gonna hit
the fan with a vengeance !"  .. .

Poor Ed Bain had been right.  Ten miles off the French coast, with not
a single star in the night sky, the convoy had halted and the assault
infantry, Canadians, Commandos and the lone eight Rangers had
transferred to the landing craft bobbing up and down on the waves.
Silence was the strict order but as the Rangers had clambered down the
nets to the craft, an old sailor had leaned over the side and whispered
in a stage whisper, "Cheerio, yanks.  All the best.  Give the Jerry
bastards a good walloping for me."  But it was the Rangers who were
going to get the 'good walloping', not the "Jerry bastards'.

On and on the little boats had ploughed, curling up the white foam and
leaving a phosphorescent wave that stood out like diamonds on black
velvet.  Now their eyes had become accustomed to the darkness and they
searched their front anxiously for the first sign that the Germans dug
in in Dieppe and to both sides of the port had spotted them.

About eight miles off the coast and their ordeal commenced.  With
startling suddenness, red-and-white tracer came racing across the
surface of the sea to meet them.  It was followed by the angry clatter
of automatic guns.  Scarlet flame stabbed the night.  Angry white
spouts of wild water raced into the sky.

"Christ Almighty," Lt.  Winthrop cried in fear, 'we've been spotted!"

"Knock it off," the CO yelled angrily.

"You want the limeys to think we're frigging yeller?"

Kane felt his stomach knot tight.  He crouched closer to the steel
bulkhead.  Tracer hissed angrily over his helmeted head.  Later he
swore he had felt the heat of the flying slugs.

"Jerry E-boats," one of the limey sailors yelled.  They're in among the
sodding convey!"

A British destroyer came racing up.  Its sharp bow cleaved the water
into two huge white curves.  On its foredeck, twin five-inch guns were
belting away.  One of the E-boats was hit.  It started to burn
furiously.  Next instant its ammunition lockers exploded.  Maverick
shells zigzagged crazily into the night sky.  A moment later the whole
craft exploded.  Debris rained down on all sides.  Kane gasped with
horror.  A head, severed, but still wearing a German helmet, plummeted
down on to the deck next to him.  Winthrop began to vomit.

Still they pushed on.  A crunch.  The grind of steel against gravel.
They had hit the shingle.  The engines stopped abruptly.  The C.O.
stood up, fully exposed to the enemy fire pouring into the attackers
from the cliff head above.

"Move out, you guys .. . Come on, Rangers!"  he yelled above the angry
snap-and-crackle of small arms fire.

"MOVE OUT .. . and watch my frigging new boots!"

Despite the danger, Charley Kane smiled to himself.  The C.O. was
inordinately proud of his brown leather boots, hand-made by some fancy
London shoemaker.  He was always polishing and talking about them.

Crouched low like men breasting a fierce wind, the Rangers and the
Canadians started to stream ashore, fighting their way up to the
shingle rise to the German emplacements above.  Men went down
everywhere.  Gasping for breath, Kane ran by a young Canadian sitting
on the beach crying.

"We've got to do it ... we've just got to!"  Kane ducked.  Just in
time.  The wounded Canadian's breast was ripped to shreds by a vicious
burst of machine-gun fire intended for him.  He ran on.

The C.O. went down.

"My foot ... my frigging foot," he groaned, suddenly sitting at Kane's
feet.

"And my boot, too.1 Kane looked down.  There was a gaping smoking hole
in the shingle.  Beyond it the COs foot lay still encased in the brown
boot.  The Colonel had stepped on a mine.  His fighting career was over
almost before it had started.  Suddenly with a gesture of intense
irritation, the C.O. tore the boot from his good left foot and flung it
on the beach.

"New frigging shoes .. . First time in battle .. . Kraut bastards, take
the frigging pair .. . !"

Kane gasped something and ran on.  In front of him on the shingle
embankment the bodies of the dead and dying were piling up rapidly.
Bursts of spandau fire slammed into them time and time again
mercilessly.  Somewhere a flamethrower was in action.  It sounded like
some primeval monster drawing in its breath.  Then came the gasp and
burst of that terrible blue flame that incinerated all before it.  Kane
dodged to the right, firing his carbine from the hip as he ran.

A big German loomed out of the blazing darkness.  He thrust up his burp
gun.  Kane beat him to it.  The German went down screaming, his face
looking as if someone had just thrown a handful of red jam at it.  Kane
sprang over his writhing, dying body.  Overhead a flight of four
Hurricanes came howling in at treetop level.  His uniform was whipped
back and forth over his tough body with their prop wash.  Their cannon
splattered 20mm tracer shells ahead of them.  In their glowing light,
as the shells raced like myriad angry hornets for their target, he
could see the first houses.  They were tall, narrow and painted white.
From their windows everywhere, German machine guns spat fire
savagely.

It wasn't the Rangers' planned objective.  But it was the enemy.  It
was going to have to do.

"Follow me, Rang ersT he cried above the hellish racket.

There was no answering cry.  He was alone on that dreadful beach with
the dead and dying.  A savage animalistic fury overcame him.

"Fuck .. fuck .. fuck!"  he cried to himself and darted forward, still
firing from the hip, telling himself he was running out of ammo fast,
but what the hell!

He vaulted over a wire hurdle.  A German came running at him, screaming
his head off.  His bayonet flashed into the lurid red light.  Kane
didn't hesitate.  He parried the German's wild thrust easily.  Take
that, Kraut bastard!"  he gasped and brought up the butt of the
carbine.  The brass-shed butt slammed into the German's surprised face.
He went reeling back, spitting out teeth, which gleamed like polished
ivory in the welter of red gore.

Another German in his under drawers came out of the back of the house.
Kane pressed his trigger.  Click!  The German laughed in triumph.  He
raised his rifle.  Kane cursed.  The magazine was empty.  He grabbed
the grenade from his belt.  With fingers that felt like clumsy
sausages, he tugged out the pin, threw the grenade and ducked all in
the one same motion.  The grenade exploded in a burst of angry yellow
flame.  The German screamed piteously, the front of his chest ripped
apart.  He dropped the rifle.  He clawed the air as if he were climbing
the rungs of an invisible ladder, trying to stay on his feet and alive.
To no avail.  He gave one last, piteous moan and slammed straight
forward on his face, dead before he hit the pavement.

Kane crouched near the wall, trying to catch his breath.  His breath
was coming in short sharp gasps, like air pumped through a cracked
leather bellows.  All about him was noise, flame and confusion.  He
didn't need a crystal ball to know the Dieppe Raid had failed almost
before it had started.  What was he to do?  Should he fight on?  Should
he retreat to the beach and hope to be picked up?

It had been just then that he had been hit.  Suddenly the air was
shrill with hideous howl of the German multiple mortar.  Six dark
fingers of smoke thrust themselves into the sky.  Next instant the
great mortar shells fell out of the heaven.  They started exploding all
around him.  He was trapped.  He could go neither forward nor
backwards.  He yelped with sudden pain.  Something like a red-hot poker
had struck him on the left hand.  He reeled and would have fallen but
for the Canadian dead stacked five foot high behind him like logs.  He
looked down at his hand.  For a moment his shocked brain could not take
in what had happened to him.

He shook his head desperately like a man trying to wake up from a
nightmare.  His hand came into focus what was left of it.  All five
fingers had gone.  All that remained was a bloody stump from which hung
strips of raw flesh, dripping blood.  From his wrist more blood jetted
in a crimson arc.  He swallowed and started to vomit uncontrollably.

It was thus that the Germans found him, advancing cautiously from the
smoking ruins at dawn, bayonets fixed, tense wary looks in their eyes.
A big man leaning against a pile of dead bodies, a look of blank
incomprehension on his face.

"For you ze war is ofer," they joked in poor, accented English, as they
routinely slapped him and looted him of his cigarettes and money.

"War ofer understand?"

But for Charley Kane, late of the 1st Ranger Battalion, US Army, the
war had just begun .. .

Now as the big Mercedes hurried down the country lanes between brown,
baked fields in which the kerchiefed, barefoot peasant women were
taking in the last of this year's hay, Charley Kane realized at last he
would now learn what the Germans wanted from him.

"Charley," he told himself in the way that lonely men often talk to
themselves, 'now the Krauts are gonna make you earn your pay."

TWO

Obersturmbannfuhrer Skorzeny, head of the SS's own commandoes, rose
from behind the big desk as the visitors came in and clicked to
attention.

"Heil Hitler," he said without too much enthusiasm, adding in true
Viennese fashion, "Gruss Sic .. . Servus .. . ' Charley Kane looked
hard at the man who had rescued Mussolini the previous month, sending
in paratroops by means of a glider to disperse the Duce's guards and
then spiriting him away from the mountaintop jail in a light plane.  He
was a giant of a man, with slate-grey eyes and dark springy hair.  But
the most striking thing about the Austrian giant was his face,
crisscrossed by duelling scars gained as a student of engineering at
Vienna University in the thirties.  His face looked like the work of a
mad butcher who had run amok with a blunt carving knife.

Still Skorzeny's twisted smile was pleasant enough as he offered
Klaasen and Kane a seat and indicated that they should help themselves
to the cigarettes in the silver box on his desk.

"From the Fuhrer," he said.

"Sent me it personally with a personal dedication engraved on it.1 He
toyed with the glittering Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross at his
throat, as if he were reassuring himself that the coveted medal was
still there.

Klaasen sniffed contemptuously, but Skorzeny did not seem to hear.
Instead he said, "You are the Canadian captured at Dieppe last year."

"American," Kane corrected him, his nerves tingling a little as he
waited to hear what Skorzeny had for him.  For he knew instinctively
that now, at last, he was going to have to pay for all the months of
freedom the Germans had given him since he had been released from
hospital in the fall of 1942.

"Of course," Skorzeny said hastily.

"Foolish of me.  It's all in your dossier."  He smiled in what he
thought was a winning manner.

"But then I am not a very methodical man.  I hate files and office
routine."  He paused as if he expected some reaction.  When none came
he continued.

"Now it is quite apparent from your appearance that you are perfectly
fit, apart from your hand."

"Jawohl, Obersturm^ Klaasen butted in.

"The sawbones and pill-pushers gave him a perfect bill of health as
requested by you."

"Thank you, Klaasen.  Of course."  He looked at Kane.

"You speak German very well because your mother was German, I
believe?"

Kane nodded.

"Do you read it, too?"

"Yes sir," Kane barked loudly, for he had long learned that in the
German military everyone shouted at the top of their voices.  German
soldiers did not seem to speak in a normal conversational tone.

"Excellent.  Then read this."  He pushed an expensive-looking piece of
writing paper, emblazoned with the words "Imperial Chancellory Adolf
Hitler' in deepest black.

"Aloud please."

Feeling a little as if he were back in third grade, reading aloud to
the schoolmarm in front of a class of giggling kids, Kane read the
German: "Sturmbahnfuhrer Skorzeny has been directly charged by myself
with secret and personal orders of utmost importance.  All personnel,
military and civil, will assist Sturmbahnfuhrer Skorzeny by every means
and will forward all his wishes."

Kane looked up and Skorzeny said proudly: "You will note that it is
signed by the Fuhrer himself."

"Yes sir."

Kane handed him the paper back and Skorzeny said, "I had you read it so
that you realize the vital importance of my mission fully.  In essence,
it means that I have the power of life or death over you or anyone else
for that matter."

At Kane's side, Klaasen frowned, but said nothing.

"Now to put it frankly, Sergeant," Skorzeny continued, cutting out the
soft tread of the sentry on the gravel led path outside the HQ and Kane
had already noted there were armed sentries everywhere at the remote
headquarters, 'your own people will have classified you by now as a
renegade.  You realize that there is no turning back.  If you fell into
the hands of your own authorities, you would probably be shot."

Klaasen looked at Kane sympathetically and the latter mumbled, "I
realize that, sir."

"Good."  Skorzeny favoured him with a smile for reasons known only to
himself.

"I am glad you understand the position.  Now we are in a position to
offer you a fresh start."

Kane felt a faint stirring of hope for the first time since he had
fallen perhaps willingly into the trap the Nazis had set for him after
he had been released from hospital.

"How sir?"  he asked quickly.

"What we can offer you is a large sum of money say ten thousand
dollars, plus a genuine neutral passport and transportation to any
country in South America which does not have an extradition treaty with
the United States.  That would mean effectively you could begin again
under a new name with a different identity."  He paused.

"What do you think, Sergeant?"

Klaasen shot Kane a warning look, but the latter ignored the warning.
He said: "Sounds great to me, sir.

But what would I have to do in order to earn these things?  I'm sure
you're not doing this from the goodness of your heart, sir."

Skorzeny flashed him that crooked, scar-faced smile of his.

"Of course not, Sergeant.  Van nix kommt nix, as we say in German, if
you understand the phrase?"

Kane did.  His poor old mother had used the phrase often enough in
those poverty-stricken days of the Depression back in the thirties.

"Yeah," his father had always agreed drunkenly, swigging the moonshine
which he bought with the few dollars she could earn slaving away as a
cleaning lady 'there ain't no such critter as a free lunch."  And he'd
laugh stupidly and wipe the spilled liquor from his unshaven chin.

"I understand it, sir," he said.

"So what is the deal?"

Skorzeny did not answer for a moment, but when he did his reply was
simple and brutally direct.

"Murder," he said ... Back in Gold Fork, Nebraska, in the hungry
thirties, Charley Kane's father had been known universally in that
rickety, wooden, one-horse town as 'the Deserter', the only man from
the "Big Red One'* who had deserted and gone over to the "Heinies'
while the Division had been in the trenches in France in the "Great
War', as they had called it back then.  When he had finally come back
in 1921 he had brought with him Charley's mother, known as 'that Heinie
woman':

In fact Thomas Kane, Charley's father, had deserted after the shooting
was over.  He had been stationed with the "Big Red One' on the left
bank of the Rhine in US Army of Occupation.  One day he had gotten
drunk, gone over the river and had holed up with a German woman,
Charley's mother, whom he had found in Frankfurt.  Two The First US
Infantry Division, known thus from its red one divisional patch.

years after Charley's birth he had been repatriated and came back to
Gold Fork, where he took to the bottle while the "Heinie woman1
supported him by cleaning and working in the big houses of the area for
ten cents an hour.

As soon as he had reached eighth grade, Charley, gangling and raw bone
and big for his age, had run away.  The only thing that Nebraska was
ever gonna give me was malnutrition," he always maintained, 'and I
wasn't staying around till it hit me."  Like so many thousands of other
American teenagers of those Depression years, he took to riding the
roads.  By the time he was fifteen he had crossed the States twice,
hitting the colder states in the summer, the warmer ones in the winter.
He survived 'by begging a little, stealing a little and working a
little very little', as he phrased it.  For already he had developed a
hatred of authority sheriffs, railroad cops, Feds, local politics all
these folks with badges, guns, uniforms, clubs, who kept him and the
rest of the bindle stiffs as the hobos called themselves, always on the
move 'or else it's thirty days in the county jail, buddy'.

By the time he was seventeen Charley Kane had had about enough of the
life of a hobo.  He was constantly broke, lousy, and sick of asking for
handouts at back doors  There seemed no future for him or the States
for that matter.  His bitterness against a system which didn't seem to
work grew by the month and it was that bitterness which led him into
the 'uprising', as he always called it thereafterin his own mind.

The 'uprising' had started in the summer of 1937.  A whole bunch of
them had gone up to Massachusetts and set up a shanty town just outside
the resort of New Bedford.  Mainly kids like Charley Kane, they'd
thought they might get summer work in the coastal resorts short order
cooks, renting out boats, working on the local greens, the sort of
seasonal work common to that part of the world in the summer.  But in
the summer of 1937, the rich New Yorkers spending their summer vacation
on the coast did not want these ragged, emaciated young men reminding
them that the country was still in the grip of the Great Depression and
spoiling their holiday.  The order had gone out.  Only clean-cut
college boys and the like would be offered seasonal jobs this year.  No
hobos need apply.

For days they had lain and squatted in their rough lean-tos made of
crates and beaten-out old petrol cans, their stomachs rumbling with
hunger, discussing the ban, their anger rising by the day.

"Goddamit, we're American as well .. . What's that guy Roosevelt
talking about in the White House with his frigging New Deal .. . what
kinda New Deal is this, for chrissake?"

On the third day, a blazingly hot New England day, with the glittering
tin roofs above their heads too hot to touch, things had come to a
climax .. . Later the New York Times wrote it had all been the work of
'red agitators', but Charley Kane always maintained it had been a
spontaneous thing.

"We were kids and we'd just had goddam enough.  We wanted to take out
our revenge on somebody anybody, especially if he was rich."

They had set off walking, six or seven abreast, bringing the traffic to
a halt, past the Chapel-by-the-Ocean, the yacht clubs, the private
swimming pools, the well-manicured lawns with the sprinklers going all
out, costing the owners more money in a day in water bills than they
saw in a month.  A traffic cop tried to stop them.  He got kneed for
his pains.  A couple of state troopers came riding up on their
motorbikes but when they saw the size of the ragged army of hobos and
their mood, they wheeled round and rode off swiftly to the boos and
jeers of the crowd.

It was the huge Stars and Stripes flying above the sloping lawn of
"Winthrop Manor' that made them turn into the long gravel led drive,
kicking the iron gate adorned with the Winthrop arms until it opened
and admitted them.

A guard came running up with a wild-looking black dog.

"Keep out, you rabble ... go on, scum .. . Don't you know this is
private property .. . The angry words died away on the man's lips, as
one of the leading marchers dragged out a butcher's cleaver from inside
his ragged jacket and neatly dissected the savage dog's skull with one
blow.  Next moment the guard disappeared under a welter of blows and
angry kicks.

Now Charley Kane could see the big house quite clearly.  To him it
looked as big as a palace, with servants staring fearfully out of the
upper rooms and two grooms hurriedly leading away some fine-looking
horses, as if they were fearful that this bunch of ragged chanting
youths advancing upon them might well eat them.  And on the porch,
knees crossed, sat a single man in his high-backed rattan chair, a long
cool drink in an iced glass at the table to his right, a big cigar
clenched in the side of his big mouth.

His big handsome, tanned face was expressionless.  It was the
well-tended, well-nourished face, with few wrinkles, of a man who had
known few worries in his life and did not seem to have one at this very
moment.

He allowed them to come within ten yards of where he was seated, then
he commanded in a gruff voice, which was obviously used to being
obeyed, "Stay where you are, punks!"

Surprisingly enough they did stumble to a halt and stared at the big
tanned man in silence.  Calmly he took a sip of his drink, while
upstairs there came the cries of one of the maids having hysterics,
screaming at the top of her voice, "They'll kill him .. . Oh Lawd,
they'll surely kill him!"

"Do you know who I am?"  The big man in the immaculate cream-coloured
suit answered his own question.

"I am State Senator Chester Winthrop, the Second.  And I must advise
you urgently to get off my goddam lawn," his anger was breaking through
now, 'or I'll see the goddam lot of you in the county jail.  Now.r
Charley Kane was impressed by the old man's performance.  Here he was
facing up to a couple of hundred angry, half-starved teenagers and
there was not even a gun in sight.  But at the same time he felt that
old sense of anger at this man who obviously exuded authority; was so
goddam confident of himself that he felt he had the God-given right to
order them about.

"We're hungry, mister," somebody bleated.

"Then go and work and earn some money, then you can eat."

"But we can't get any work, Senator," someone else moaned.

"They won't let us work."

Senator Chester Winthrop, the Second, was not impressed.

"First we've got to look after our own young people," he said
dogmatically.

"You fellers shouldn't have left your hometowns ' ' Father," a soft
cultivated voice that smacked of Andover and Yale, interrupted the old
man's outburst.

All eyes turned in that direction.  A tall youth, bronzed and muscular
in his short-sleeved polo shirt and white breeches, stood there, a
white towel around his neck, as if he had just been sweating hard at
some sport.  The state troopers are coming from Sag harbor.  But Father
I do think you're overdoing it.  These men are simply protesting ' '
Stop it, Chester," now it was the Senator's turn to interrupt his
son.

"Ever since that cripple Roosevelt got into the White House this
country of ours has had too many goddam bleeding hearts.  In Sam Hill's
name these young punks are trespassing on my property."

"Yes sir," the boy answered dolefully and disappeared again.

It was then that Charley Kane had felt the hard metal placed into his
palm and smelled the gun oil for the first time.

"Give the old bastard it," a voice whispered.

"No one will ever know who did it.  There's too many of us."

He turned quickly, but whoever had given him the gun had vanished into
the crowd of ragged teenagers, as now the Senator rose to his feet,
glass in hand, eyes full of contempt.

"All right punks," he snorted.

"You heard my son.  The law is on the way.  Better be off before you
get your heads busted by their billies.  And rest assured whatever you
do, we're gonna run your kind right out of the county."  He took a sip
of his drink scornfully.  It was obvious he thought he was in total
control of the situation.  One old man against two hundred-odd youths,
controlling them because he was in charge of the political machine and
the cops and because he had plenty of money.

Charley felt that old anger against power and authority and money well
up inside him once more.  He could hear his heart begin to thump away.
His brain raced electrically.  Sweat began to pour down his face.  He
clicked off the safety on the little five dollar gun and raised it.  To
left and right of him in the suddenly shouting, yelling mob, the kids
backed off.  He could see the old man quite clearly now, down to the
thick knotted veins and brown liver spots of the hand holding the glass
so contemptuously.

"Bastards," he breathed, 'rich old bastards all of them!"  He swallowed
hard and took aim.  The old man's face was dissected by the sight.  At
that range he couldn't miss.  He took aim on the man's forehead.  In
one short moment he would fire and the old bastard would be blown to
extinction.  Now Suddenly he felt the anger and purpose drain from his
body, as if someone had opened a tap.  What the hell did the old guy
mean to him?  Why was he going to kill him?  He dropped the pistol as
if it was red-hot.  With his right foot he ground the little weapon
into the well-groomed lawn.  The cops might not find it before they got
away.  Then the police sirens began to howl in the far distance and the
mob of kids was running wildly for the gates before it was too late and
the old man stood there, glass raised in a kind of contemptuous toast.
He had beaten them one old man against a couple of hundred cowardly
punks .. .

"Well?"  Skorzeny demanded of him, while Klaasen looked on anxiously,
as that little drama of six years before unrolled before Charley Kane's
mind's eye.

"What is it going to be, Sergeant?"

Charley shook his head hard.  Everything came back into focus.  Outside
there was the same soft tread of the sentry's boots on the gravel.  The
big Commando leader's eyes bored into his.

Again Skorzeny repeated his demand.

Charley Kane swallowed hard and slowly nodded his head.  At his side
Klaasen looked suddenly worried, very worried.

"Yes, Obersturm," the American said softly, "I'll do it .. . '

THREE

Forty-eight hours after that meeting with Skorzeny at that remote
hunting lodge south of Berlin, Klaasen appeared again at the 'home', as
he called the Legion of St.  George's camp mockingly.  It was again
breakfast time and the hungover collection of former British, Canadian
and American soldiers in their Wehrmacht uniforms were rousing
themselves for another long day of boozing and whoring.  They had
pooled the last lot of Canadian Red Cross parcels, the best ones, and
had ordered a whole whorehouse from the nearest town, Doebberitz, to be
sent into the camp for the day.  Now they were slouching to the
ablutions to get cleaned up before going over to the dispensary to
obtain a ration of condoms.

"In the Wehrmacht, it appears," Charley Kane commented as the two of
them shook hands, 'getting a dose is considered a military offence."

Klaasen smiled.  The Fuhrer needs all the warm bodies he can find on
the Eastern Front, Charley.  The men'd rather fuck than fight.  The
Fuhrer thinks otherwise."  The grin vanished from his battered face.

"Charley, we're going on a trip again this morning."

Kane looked at him.  Tn connection with the other business of the day
before yesterday?"

Klaasen nodded and drew the big American to one side, out of earshot of
the middle-aged guards.

"Charley," he whispered after that usual glance over his shoulder
warily, 'watch what you're getting into, friend."

"What do you mean, Klaus?"

"I have nothing concrete, Charley.  I'm only a little fish at HQ.  Not
much more than a pen-pusher, a rear base stallion.  But it's going to
be a big op.  I've got the hooter for that kind of thing."  He lowered
his voice even more.

"My guess is that it's going to be an Ascension Day Commando."  It was
only later that Charley Kane learned that an "Ascension Day Commando'
meant a one-way mission.  But by then it was too late.  Now he said,
"Hell, Klaus, you fuss over me like a broody mother hen."

Klaasen led the way to the open Mercedes.

"Charley, you and I are honest front line stubble hoppers," he meant
infantrymen.

"We've landed in this shit due to circumstances beyond our control."
Stiffly he held up his wooden arm, as if by way of explanation.  But
you're not so deep into it that you can't get out of it yet.  Before
the war I was a Jurist I studied law.  I've been studying your dossier.
I can see a way out ' The SS driver got out of the cab and clicked to
attention as he opened the door for them.  Klaasen shut up like a trap
and for the rest of their journey through the flat, sunny Brandenburg
Plain he said nothing save to comment that the harvest for 1943
appeared to be very good: something which a puzzled Charley Kane felt
did not interest Hauptsturmbahnfuhrer Klaus Klaasen one tiny little
bit.

Straight away Charley Kane could see that Stalag 18B was as different
from the camp which housed the Legion of St.  George as chalk was from
cheese.  The barbed wire which surrounded the collection of little
wooden huts was intact and taut.  On the stark-legged towers which
guarded the wire the sentries behind their machine guns were alert and
keen eyed.  Ferrets, in their blue overalls, strode purposefully about
the compound, stopping to prod the earth with their steel wires at
regular intervals, checking for tunnels, while inside the wire itself,
helmeted guards patrolled, as if just itching to let loose the fierce
Alsatians at their sides onto the ragged looking prisoners who slouched
around moodily in the centre of the compound, their skinny shoulders
bent, hands dug deep into their trouser pockets.

"SS discipline," Klaasen commented and winked at Charley.

"No slackness here, what?"

Kane grinned.  Klaasen was a total cynic.

Moments later the two of them were standing, together with the Camp
Commandant, inside the inner compound, sealed off from the main camp by
a high stone wall, surmounted by barbed wire.  There was the usual
exchange of hand shakes, cigarette cases were opened, lighters flashed
and they smoked, while from outside came the harsh voices of German
NCOs barking out orders, accompanied by the usual exhortation "los .. .
los' to hurry those whom they were giving the orders along.

The Camp Commandant, an SS veteran like Klaasen, who walked stiffly
with the aid of a stick, said, "They should be coming in now,
gentlemen."

The metal door into the inner courtyard squeaked open, and twelve US
soldiers came marching, clad in ragged khaki of the kind the US Army
had worn in Africa during the recent fighting there.  The SS NCO barked
an order and the leading American, a blond tall corporal, bellowed in
time-honoured fashion, "Sound off!"

Immediately the US prisoners-of-war, all as tall and as lean as the
corporal, began to call out the cadence, their keen young voices
echoing in the still morning air and sending the rooks in the trees
beyond the wire rising in slow-winged, hoarse protest.

Charley Kane crushed out his cigarette with his right foot and frowned.
The POWs were dressed in American OD all right, they sounded off like
American doughs, but there was something strangely wooden and
un-American about them.  American men walked from the hips; these did
so from the knees.  There was a grim, hard purpose to their lean faces
that did not seem right either.  Suddenly the corporal cried harshly in
German, "Ein Lied ein .. . zwei .. . drei," and the whole group of them
burst lustily into "Oh du schoener Westerwald', the favourite marching
song of the German Wehrmacht.

The two SS officers turned on Charley, both grinning.

"Well, did that surprise you, Charley?"  Klaasen asked.

"Sure did, but what in hell's name is going on?"  Charley stuttered, as
the corporal yelled another order and the singing ceased.  Next moment,
he commanded, "Abteilung halt.r Stiffly as his men stamped to a stop as
one, the Corporal advanced upon the two SS officers, threw them a
tremendous salute, his light blue eyes blazing with true arrogant SS
fanaticism and yelled at the top of his voice, "Fahnenjunker Krause,
Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, mil zwolf Mann, meld et sich zur Stelle."*
Stiffly the two officers returned the salute and the Camp Commandant
ordered Krause to stand the men at ease.

Klaasen turned to a still surprised Charley who noted that the uniforms
of the thirteen men bore the Big Red One patch of his father's old
Great War outfit.  Obviously the uniforms had once belonged to men of
the 1st Infantry Division perhaps captured when the First had been
surprised at the Battle of the Kasserine Pass in February 1943 overin
North Africa by Field Marshal Rommel's Afrikakorps.

"They're yours, Charley," he announced.

"All yours."

"Mine?"  Charley Kane exclaimed in total bewilderment.

"Mine to do what with for chrissake?"

Klaasen didn't answer his excited question.  Instead he said, "Ask no
questions.  All will be revealed in due course.

Officer-Cadet Krause of the Liebstandarte Division (the Adolf Hitler
Bodyguard) reporting with twelve men."  This was the traditional manner
of reporting n the German Army.  Transl.

Come on, I think it's a time for a little drink.  It's almost ten in
the morning."

Used by now to Klaasen's unusual drinking hours, Kane followed him and
the Commandant into the latter's office, while the Germans in American
uniform relaxed a little in the autumn sunshine.

"Prostr Klaasen barked, as he raised his glass of ice-cold schnapps
level to the third button of his tunic, as SS regulations prescribed.

"Ex."

' */' the Commandant echoed and did the same.

All three of them drained the fiery schnapps in one gulp, and
immediately took a swallow of the cold beer standing in the glasses
next to their right hand.

Klaasen gasped and said, There's nothing like a "lutt uri lutf for
setting a man up in the morning."  He belched pleasurably.

Charley Kane whiped the back of his hand across his lips and frowned.

"You see Krause and his chaps are all experienced front swine who
served with the "Adolf Hitler Bodyguard" on the Eastern Front
volunteers to the man.  In addition they are all men who speak English,
some from school, some from visits to States, things like that."

"But what are they doing here, dressed up as American soldiers in an SS
prisoner-of-war cage?"  Charley asked, as puzzled as ever.

The Commandant answered that one.

"They're doing a little er postgraduate work, as you might say.
Polishing up their English by mixing with the real Ami- er," he
corrected himself hastily "American POWs.  They also learned how an
American lit a cigarette or used a knife or fork.  For example, a
German never cuts a potato or fried egg.  It's not regarded as
etiquette.  But you Americans cut *N.  German dialect, meaning 'little
and little': small glass of schnapps chased down by a small glass of
ice-cold beer.  Transl.

up everything with their knives beforehand and then only use your fork
to eat "Yeah, you're right."

"Well, such little things have to be learned or they might give you
away otherwise."

"Give you away to whom?"  Charley Kane asked.

The Commandant looked at Klaasen, who said, "Now Charley would you like
to meet some real Americans this time?  Not like those sauce hounds and
whoremongers back at the camp of the Legion of St.  George.  But real
fighting Yankees."

Charley Kane shrugged helplessly, completely out of his depth.

"Do what you like, Klaus.  You've lost me.  Totally."

The Commandant raised his voice again.

"Ziemanski," he called, 'bring in Vinzenz Ziemanski."

Kane tensed.

The giant pushed through the door almost scraping the jamb with his
cropped head.  The POW's face was flat and ugly, dominated by a huge
ski slope of a nose and the high cheekbones of the Slav.  He nodded to
the seated men, clicked to attention, short neck well tucked into the
ragged collar of his uniform and snapped, "First Sergeant Vinzenz
Ziemanski, US Marine Corps."  The accent was heavy and definitely not
native American.  But the two words that came next indicated that this
Slavic giant, with his permanently puzzled features, as if the world
was a little too complicated for him, was proud to belong to that elite
corps.

"Semperfi he growled, 'and you'd better believe it."  He clenched a
fist like a small steam shovel and glared at the three of them.

The Commandant looked down at the note on his wooden knee.

"Sergeant Ziemanski was part of the Marine Guard at the US Embassy in
Paris.  He was interned when the Reich declared war on the United
States in December 1941."

The giant must have understood German because he growled.

"Yeah, them pricks o' frogs handed me over to the Krauts just like that
and our own guys, them fancy pants o' diplomats didn't even try to get
me back."  Angrily he spat on the floor.

"Ziemanski, you can go into the inner courtyard now," Klaasen said in
English and the giant went ambling out, cursing to himself, as the
Commandant said, "Ziemanski thinks he was let down by our State
Department because the diplomats were all repatriated, but the Marine
Guard were turned over to us as POWs."  He chuckled.

"Ziemanski's a good hater.  His parents were killed by the Russians in
the Russian-Polish War of 1920 and his only surviving brother vanished
when the Ivans took over the part of Poland where he was born in
1939."

Charley Kane absorbed the information, but said nothing.  There was
more to come, he was sure of that.  There was.

"Bring in Lipschitz.  Private Hyman Lipschitz."

Charley Kane cleared his throat.  He hadn't the slightest clue of what
was going on, but this beat the book.  Klaasen seemed to read his mind,
for he said swiftly with a grin, "You'll see the SS sleeps with some
strange bedfellows."

Private Lipschitz, dressed in a shabby uniform which seemed to be much
too big for his skinny frame, came in with a swagger, an easy grin on
that sallow face of his dominated by a huge beak of a nose.

"Hiya, Herr Offizers," he said with a wave of his hand, his dark
cunning eyes taking in everything immediately.  For there was no
denying the intelligence in that ugly Jewish face.  He looked at Kane
and said without hesitation, "Nice to meet you.  Call me "Fingers".
That's what they used to call me in my old outfit.  Quartermaster's,
you know, service-of-supply."  But even as he spoke with that nasal
Brooklyn accent of his, he was sizing Kane up and Charley Kane knew
it.

The Commandant seemed quite fond of Private Lipschitz, for he said, "My
favourite Jew.  If you ever want your books working out or cooking for
that matter Private Lipschitz is your man.  Aren't you, Hyman?"

Lipschitz bowed eloquently.

"Anything to oblige a friend, Herr Kommandant."

Klaasen broke in, "Fingers here, as he likes to be called, had,
unfortunately, decidedly too long fingers.  He robbed his battalion's
payroll, deserted and was seemingly on his way to Palestine, when he
bumped into a patrol of the Afrikakorps last December.  He's been
boarding with us ever since, haven't you, Fingers?"

Lipschitz, who apparently understood some German, cocked his hand under
his cheek and shook his head from one side to the other side like some
comedian from the old country in the Yiddish theatre, "Oh veh, veh," he
cackled.

"What a smock I was!!  Trying to get to the blessed land through the
lines of the blessed German gentle mens

Kane laughed softly in spite of his inner tension.  Fingers Lipschitz
was smarter than the whole bunch of them.  He was playing the role of
the Jewish fool, exactly the role these arrogant SS officers expected
him to play.  But what other role was there for a Jew in Nazi Germany?
It was either fool or coward.

Lipschitz winked at Kane solemnly.

"And what is a nice gentile boy like you doing here among these German
gentle mens  he asked in English.  Now he wasn't fooling.

Kane felt himself flushing.

"I he began.

But Klaasen cut him short.

"All right "Fingers" or whatever your name is," he cut in briskly.

"That's enough.  We're asking the questions here."  He nodded to the
Commandant.

The latter said, "All right, Lipschitz.  Go outside into the courtyard
and join Ziemanski."

"Jawohl, Herr Kommandant," Lipschitz said promptly.

He had long learned as a Jewish kid growing up on the wild streets of
New York never to push his luck too far.  He went out.

Kane's brain raced electrically as he tried to make some sense of what
was going on.  First the Polish top kick in the Marines, now this
little Jewish pay clerk who had tried to desert to Palestine in the
middle of a battlefield.  What the hell was going on?

"Be patient, Charley," Klaasen urged, seemingly able to read Kane's
mind.

"You'll find out what's going on soon enough.  There's just one more."
Again he nodded to the Commandant.

"Bring in the last one," he ordered.

The door opened and a tall, well-remembered man entered.  There was no
mistaking that spoilt, weakly handsome face.  Kane's mouth dropped open
and he gaped like some village idiot.  Before him stood Captain Chester
Winthrop the Third!

FOUR

The day after the "Uprising' in 1937, Charley Kane had thumbed rides
all the way to Albany, New York.  He had reasoned that State Senator
Winthrop would not just leave the matter where it stood.  The gun would
be found and he would use it to launch a full scale police attack on
what he would undoubtedly call 'the work of communist agitators,
Wobblies and all the rest of that red trash'.  The sooner he was out of
the state the better.

But young Charley Kane was already wise to the ways of the police.  He
knew that even in New York State he wouldn't be altogether safe from
Senator Winthrop.  Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI, was a fanatical
anti-communist.  He saw red plots everywhere.  His G-men, as Hoover's
agents were called, could poke their noses into every state in the
Union.  What was he to do?

He found his answerin the local Albany US Army's recruiting office.
Even in a Depression there were few volunteers for the peacetime army.
The authorities accepted him with open arms and one month later he
found himself on board ship bound for the Pacific and Schofield
Barracks on one of the islands of Hawaii.

Surprisingly enough, Charley Kane took to the US Army like duck to
water.  He liked the feel of a crisp clean uniform and good, well-soled
shoes.  He liked the order, the planned day, the good solid food, the
pancakes and eggs and the extra half pint of milk for Sunday breakfast.
The usual bullying by the noncoms, 'the old heads', didn't worry him.
He took all their punishments in his stride, not that he was punished
much.  He was too eager to prove himself a good soldier to do anything
which might land him in the stockade.

By the end of 1938 he was a private first class, the regimental
light-heavyweight champion and the man picked by his company commander
to have precedence over all his fellow PFCs to have the first chance at
a second stripe whenever there was an open slot.  But in the pre-war US
Army, starved of cash and resources, where the only soldier allowed an
official car was the commander-in-chief himself, promotion was slow.

The introduction of the Draft two years later changed all that. Swiftly
Charley Kane shot up the ranks and unofficially he was told by his
company commander that if and when (for now everyone was predicting
that the USA would get into the world conflict raging outside the
States, whatever President Roosevelt said to the contrary) got into the
war, he would recommend Charley for a commission.

On that fateful Sunday of December 7th, 1941, Sergeant Charley Kane had
strolled from the quadrangle which housed his company at Schofield
Barracks to the mess hall when it happened.  He was spreading the thick
syrup on the piles of pancakes the cooks had heaped on his plate the
cooks liked him on account of his again winning regimental boxing
championship when explosions began to rumble at Wheeler Field, two
miles away.

They're doing some blasting," an old-timer said through a mouthful of
pancakes and maple syrup.

A moment later a Japanese Zero fighter came zooming over Schofield,
machine-guns chattering angrily.

As one they ran outside to see the columns of black smoke, tinged with
cherry-red flame, rising from the direction of Wheeler Field and an
excited speaker yelled over the public address system.

"Airraid Pearl Harbor .. .

THIS IS NOT A DRILL .. . I SAY AGAIN .. . THIS IS NOT A DRILL!"

Charley Kane, crouching beneath a low overhead, still clutching the
precious extra Sunday half-pint of milk, stared upwards as another
Zero, with the red suns on its wings, zoomed over the roofs.  Two lines
of sparkling blue holes suddenly appeared in the tarmac to his front.

"Christ," he told himself, 'those are real slugs!"

For a moment he caught a glimpse of the pilot's yellow face in the
gleaming square of perspex.  He was wearing a white headband, the kind,
Charley learned later, that medieval Japanese samurai warriors wore
when they went into battle.  But at that moment, Charley Kane had not
been interested in such matters as medieval Jap history.  Bullets were
slamming into the stonework over his head and he was realising in a
shocked manner, that America was at war .. .

For a while life had been hectic for the regiment and Charley.  He was
promoted to staff sergeant and was given a stretch of beach to defend
against the Japanese invasion which was sure to come soon or so the
authorities in Hawaii thought.  Charley did his best.  All his men had
were their rifles and puny thirty-inch machine guns.  But he had his
men dig in, stretch triple lines of barbed wire along the beach at low
watermark and even scrounge a few mines to make a thin and not very
effective minefield.  In time company commanders from other outfits
used to send their top NCOs to see "Kane's Beach' it was supposed to be
the best prepared on the island and the other noncoms knew that Charley
even smuggled native wa hine whores on Saturday nights to care of his
sex-starved men.  It was rumoured that four of them had taken on
Charley's thirty-seven men in a record forty-five minutes the first
time.

But if Charley's men came, the Japanese didn't.  Another 'green'
division was shipped over from the States to take over his regiment's
positions and it was clear that the regiment, composed of fifty per
cent draftees and fifty per cent regulars, would be sent to one of the
fighting fronts in the Pacific.  It was then that Colonel Harkins,
Charley's regimental commander, sent for him and 'laid it on the
line'.

"Sergeant Kane," he had said, his plump face beetroot red and
angry-looking from years of tropical sun and too much bourbon, 'we're
going into combat soon and I would dearly love to have such an
experienced and reliable noncom as you with me.  But I'll lay it on the
line, Kane."  He had leaned forward and treated Charley to a whiff of
whiskey-tainted breath and now Charley could see that the Colonel's
hands were trembling, "The Nips are mauling our people all over the
Pacific.  We've neither the experience nor the weapons, nor the guts to
beat 'em this year.  We will in due course, but not in 1942.  In short,
Kane, this regiment is going to be wiped out."  He had said this in a
statement of fact without any emotion.

"And the nation's gonna need good young officers to lead America to
victory.  I want you to be one of those officers, Kane."  He grinned,
but his faded blue eyes didn't light up and Charley Kane had seen for
the first time the tension the Old Man was labouring under.

"When I'm long gone, with my nuts cut off by some slant-eyed little
yella bastard, why Kane, you'll probably be leading a regiment of
infantry yourself."

So it had been.  Two weeks later, busted to buck private for that was
only way that the Colonel could get permission from 'higher authority'
to ship Charley back to the States when the Pacific was crying out for
experienced noncoms, Private Kane was on a transport bound for home.

America had been an eye-opener for Private Kane after four years
overseas.  The Depression had vanished overnight.  Kane was shocked at
just how rich every one seemed to be.  With the war industry working at
full swing, people were making money hand over fist.  The hobos and
beggars who had once stood at every corner, whining, "Can ya stake me
five cents for a cup o' Java, buddy?"  had disappeared as if they had
never even existed.  The bars were filled with men, who worked at war
plants drinking not beer but real imported, expensive Scotch whisky.
And not only men, but women too.  Women with bright-coloured scarves
and wearing slacks, something which had shocked him for a while, who
hit the sauce just like men and who were ready to get 'laid', that was
the word they were using in the spring of 1942, at the drop of the
hat.

For a while until his course, which would turn him from a buck private
into a 'sixty-day wonder', an infantry second-lieutenant started, he
enjoyed this new rich America.  He went with a little girl who worked
as a riveterin a defence plant.  The girl's parents and two sisters,
all small town poor folks like himself, worked in the defence plant
too. But their small town morals had changed a lot since the thirties.
Nobody in that household cared a damn that he slept with the daughter
in her little thin-walled room next to her parents' bedroom.  As long
as he didn't keep her from getting to the defence plant in time for her
shift and bringing home a fat pay check on Fridays, Charley Kane could
do exactly what he liked with her.

At the end of March 1942 Charley Kane had said goodbye to "Rosie the
Riveter', as he always called her after the popular song of that spring
(she wrote him a couple of times in her semi-literate scrawl and then
stopped; he guessed she must have found another lonely GI) and set off
for infantry officer training at Fort Benning, Georgia.

It was the doldrums of the war.  The British were running away again in
North Africa.  In the Pacific the Japs were overrunning island after
island.  In the Philippines, Mac Arthur was trapped, and off the New
England coast, Jtli

Kraut subs were sinking more ships than the Japs had done at Pearl
Harbor.

Not that Cadet-Private Charles Kane was concerned with such matters. He
was doing his utmost to train himself to become a good infantry 'second
looey'.  Naturally he could field strip a Bar automatic rifle quicker
than most of his fellow cadets could even find the magazine spring with
his eyes blindfolded!  The weekly thirty-mile hikes in the sweating
heat of Georgia did not even cause him a single blister. Night
exercises, compass marches, infantry field tactics were second nature;
he had done it all so often before.  Within a week he was selected the
smartest cadet in the battalion and was promoted to acting private
first class and was given the honour of marching his own particular
company to classes and chow.

There was a catch, however.  All his fellow cadets were ROTC graduates
of Ivy League colleges such as Yale, Dartmouth, Harvard, Cornell and
the like.  They formed an exclusive club, which Cadet Charles Kane
could not penetrate.  He simply did not have the money or education to
do so.

Charley Kane had always known he had been born on the wrong side of the
tracks so the fact that he did not fit into the group of his fellow
cadets did not worry him particularly.  But he was worried that he
could not keep up with them in the classroom.  The weekly written
examination was particularly difficult for him, for his full-time
education had ceased when he had been fourteen.  So it was that on a
Friday evening, after the last class of the day, he took to going to
"Daisy's Place' in the little town which had grown up around the
base.

"Daisy's Place' (and he never found out whether there was a real Daisy)
was a typical bar of the time.  Dim red lighting, an electric sign
advertising Budweiser beer, a collection of B-girls of various ages and
various prices and the star attraction which brought the sex-starved
officer cadets into the place in their scores French Lola.

Twice nightly "French Lola', who had never been closer to France than
Paris, Illinois, took off her clothes in front of ranks of silent young
cadets.  When she did her strip show, the cadets seemed struck dumb.
Their eyes never left her slim body, as she flexed her legs, thrust out
her pelvis provocatively and whirled her near-naked breasts so that the
tassels attached to her nipples swung round in tune to the raunchy
music.

By the time she was down to her black stockings and red silk G-string,
the hectic-faced, flushed young men were fighting each other to thrust
dollar bills under the bright blue garter she sported on her right
thigh.

More than once she performed directly in front of Charley Kane, so
close that he could smell her scent.  With the music beating
insistently, her navel pounding back and forth, she looked down at him
with a confident smile on her pretty face, as if she knew it was all
fun, not serious; that she'd never come to any harm.  Once she even
winked at him as if to imply that it was all a great big harmless game
played out between her and the sex-starved young officers-to-be.  By
the time Charley Kane had seen her 'performance' four or five times, he
had grown to like French Lola; her act was the high point of a long
hard week.

On the Friday night when it all went wrong, Kane stayed to see French
Lola's second performance.  It was payday and plenty of dollar bills
had been stuffed underneath her garter at her first act.  Kane had seen
her go off stage after a near-naked curtsey and watched he ring the
wings with a robe slipped over her young shoulders as she counted her
money like a careful housewife sorting out her housekeeping money for
the coming week.  Normally, he would have gone back to the camp after
the first act, but this night, for some reason or other, he decided to
stay for her second performance, which usually took place about eleven
so that the officer cadets could get back to camp and beat the midnight
curfew.

So he leaned against the bar, sipping his Budweiserin the smoke-filled
room, listening to the usual gripes, moans and sexual boasting of young
soldiers, who 'got drunk on a sniff of barmaid's apron and had lost
their cherry to a clenched fist', as the old stagers at Schofield
Barracks had been wont to quip contemptuously.

Precisely at eleven French Lola had come on to the rattle of the snare
drum and a blare from the trumpet.  Now she wore a sort of tunic, with
sergeant's stripes all the way up the right arm, and which came down to
her knees, just far enough to reveal that celebrated garter.  It was
open to show a lace G-string and a padded bra, drilled with two holes
through which peeped her nipples coyly and painted a delicate pink.

Her appearance was greeted with a burst of clapping, wolf whistles and
throaty cries of 'hubba-hubba!"  Here and there the more uninhibited of
the cadets grabbed his crotch and cried in mock agony, "I can't stand
... I can't stand it.  It's coming!"  To which others replied with the
traditional refrain of "Yeah, like Christmas is coming, buddy!"

French Lola gave the would-be masturbators her cheerful grin.  She was
used to it.  It was all in the line of business; the young guys meant
her no harm.  With her it was 'look but don't touch the merchandise."
So she went into her act.  Off came the tunic with a flourish.  She
shook her hips and pulled down one cup of her bra.  Coyly she posed,
kneading the firm young breast as if she was pounding dough.  The
cadets whistled and yelled.  Hands reached forward to thrust dollar
bills under the garter.  Someone cried hoarsely, "Get it off, Lola, for
chrissake get it off.  I can't stand much more!"

Her smile broadened.  She obliged.  With a quick movement she plucked
the G-string from between her legs and dropped it daintily on the
stage.  Next moment she put her arms behind her head and thrust her
silver-dyed pubes forward to a thump on the big drum.

Kane grinned.  Lola knew her business.  More cadets pressed forward,
faces red, serious and sweating, to thrust money into the garter which
was so tantalizing close to that naked vagina.  This Friday night, Kane
told himself, she was making more money in a quarter of an hour than
Rosie the Riveter made in a week's hard work.

Lola grinned back at him and winked like a fellow conspirator.  Now she
cupped her hand on her naked breast, forcing the nipple upwards, lips
pursed, as if she might kiss it soon.

But the audience was going to be denied that delightful prospect.
Suddenly, surprisingly, a young second lieutenant in an elegant
custom-made uniform sprang onto the stage.  He was red-faced, hair
tousled and very drunk, but Kane recognized him all right.  It was that
same young guy who had appeared at the door that day to warn State
Senator Winthrop that the state troopers were on their way.

Now that weakly handsome, spoiled face was contorted by drunken lust.

"Sonofabitch," he hissed, 'let's have a feel o' that silver snatch.
Come on, don't play coy, whore.  Gimme a feel of that cunt!"  At the
bar the watchers went wild with excitement, as the young second
lieutenant, swaying wildly as if he might fall over at any moment,
reached out to touch Lola between the legs.

"Give the poor guy a feel, Lola!"  they yelled.

"He's in the goddam infantry ... he deserves it!"

Lola retreated, her one breast trembling like jelly, as the drunken
officer advanced upon her, hands outstretched greedily, egged on by the
howling mob.

"Gee, mister," she pleaded, "I'm only a working girl, doing my job ' He
grabbed for her, missed her legs and caught her by the bra.  The strap
broke.  Her other breast fell out quivering.  The mob howled even
more.

Kane made a quick decision.  Drunk or not, Winthrop was an officer and
the son of a powerful politician.  People here in the room knew who he
was.  The combination was deadly.  He knew he was putting his chances
of getting a commission on the line.  Still he couldn't let the drunken
bastard treat Lola like some beat-up old whore at a cheap sex
exhibition.  He had to stop Winthrop.

He sprang up on the stage.

"Lootenant," he said above the racket, "You've had a few drinks too
many.  Let the lady go."

Eyes blind and red with drink, Winthrop pushed Kane's restraining arm
away.

"Get the hell outa my way, soldier^ he hissed, gaze fixed on the naked,
cowering woman, 'or it'll be the worse for you."  He made another grab
for Lola.

Kane did not hesitate.  He lashed out and caught Winthrop right on the
point of the jaw.  Winthrop was out before he hit the stage.  Then all
was confusion, with white-helmeted military policemen bursting through
the door wielding their white-painted clubs to the left and right and
with officer cadets scrambling frantically to get into the men's room
to escape through the window.  Kane did not even make the attempt.
While Lola collapsed on the dusty boards and began sobbing, he folded
his arms across his chest and waited for what had to come.

Seven days later, back in his old rank of staff-sergeant, his hopes of
getting a commission gone for ever, "Sorry, Kane," the Colonel
Commandant had said, 'you're the most promising cadet of the whole
intake.  But you did strike an officer, who admittedly was very drunk,
but who has a very, very powerful father."  A day later he was aboard
the Queen Mary, together with ten thousand other GI infantrymen heading
for Britain .. .

FIVE

"You knew that American officer, Charley, didn't you?"  Klaasen said
casually.

It was an hour now since they had left the SS Camp.  Now the two of
them were seated in the coolness of a roadside Gasthaus-zum Schwarzen
Schwan sipping ice-cold Steinhager, while outside the red-faced SS
chauffeur was sitting on a wooden bench burying his face in a huge
glass of Berlin Weisser, a mixture of beer and lemonade.

"Yes, he was in my battalion back in England.  I suppose he must have
been captured at Dieppe last year, as I was.1 Kane paused and listened
to the metallic sound of the old clock in the dark corner ticking away
the seconds of life with heavy inexorability.

4It was more than that, Charley."

"Yes, I guess so," Kane replied.

"The Winthrops seem to keep turning up in my life like bad pennies.
It's happened twice.  I hope this isn't going to be the third time." He
drained the last of the fiery schnapps and put the iced glass down on
the wooden table next to the little sticker, warning "Psst!
Feindhortmit!-Shush, the enemy's listening.

"Come on, Klaus," he said, 'fill me in.  What's going on?  First we
have a parade of SS guys pretending to be Americans.  Then we have that
Polack Marine, the little Jew and Captain Chester Winthrop the Third."
He shook his head.

"It's crazy, absolutely frigging crazy!"

Klaasen nodded to the shifty-eyed landlord lounging behind the
zinc-topped bar, apparently polishing beer glasses but in reality
listening to every word they said.

"Herr Wirt, two more Steinhagers.  Then off into the kitchen.  I have
important matters to discuss."

The landlord, who sported the ribbon of the iron cross and the Party
badge on his dirty waistcoat, clicked to attention and snapped.

"Zu Befehl, Herr Offizier."  He took the iced bottle from beneath the
bar, poured them two more drinks, then disappeared into the kitchen,
making a point of drawing the heavy felt blackout curtain behind him.

All the same Klaasen lowered his voice when he spoke again.

"Charley, you've been picked to command that lot, including your
Captain Winthrop."

Charley Kane looked at Klaasen incredulously.

"Command .. . me .. . he stuttered.

"Command them -in what?"

Klaasen did not answer his question.  Instead he said, "We've been
watching you ever since you were released from La Charite* and you have
proved yourself trustworthy and efficient, not like that bunch of
layabouts of the Legion of St.  George.  Obersturmbahnfuhrer Skorzeny
is confident you can handle the mission?"

In exasperation Charley Kane downed the fiery schnapps in one gulp and
snapped, "But what is the goddam mission?"

Klaasen gave that customary look over his shoulder.  Outside the SS
driver was still guzzling his drink.  Beyond, the barefoot peasant
women in the fields were bent over their tasks.  No one was
listening.

"Charley, you know I like you," Klaasen said.

"I don't want to see you getting into more trouble.  Now, as I said
before, I was a Jurist before the war.  If the war hadn't come along, I
wouldn't be lacking so many bits and pieces of my anatomy, I'd have a
fine pot belly from drinking too much beer, be making a A famous Berlin
hospital.

lot of money as a lawyer and probably be screwing a nice little blonde
secretary on the side.  Well, that wasn't to be.  But you don't forget
six years of legal training like that ' ' For chrissake, what's all
this leading up to?"

"Patience, Charley, patience.  So putting my somewhat rusty talents to
use, I've been investigating your past."

"My past?"

"Yes, here in Germany.  You know the International Red Cross arranged
for your mother and father and yourself, aged three, to be repatriated
to the United States in 1921 after the US Army dropped all charges
against your father for having deserted in 1919.  But in order to take
your mother with him to the States your father had to marry her."

Charley Kane gave a mock groan.

"Holy cow, as if I didn't have enough strikes against me!  You mean I'm
a bastard as well?"

Klaasen grinned.

"Well, you were, Charley, until 1921.  You were also something else."

"What?"

Klaasen took his time.  In the corner the clock ticked heavily.  Above
them, due to the heat of the day, the old timbers of the Gasthaus
creaked and groaned.  Like a conqueror pulling a white rabbit out of a
top hat, Klaasen said, "You were born a German citizen and," he raised
his finger like a lawyerin a court of law, 'you still are."

Charley sat up suddenly.

"You mean I'm not an American?"

Klaasen nodded.

"Your father apparently took no steps to have you naturalised.  You
travelled to the States on a Nansen passport issued by the
International Red Cross -there are still details of it in Frankfurt."

Charley shook his head, his face a picture of confusion and doubt.

"But what does it mean?"  he stuttered.

"This.  Ever since you were released from La Charite last year and
decided you'd throw in your lot with us, you have tortured yourself
with the thought you had betrayed your country.  You saw yourself as a
renegade, didn't you, Charley?"

Slowly, very slowly, Charley Kane nodded his head .. .

It all had been as he had expected.  As soon as his wound had been
roughly tended and drowsiness of the drugs had worn off, the Germans
had started interrogating him.  No rough stuff or threats, just
promises of better treatment if he 'co-operated'.  Despite the pain and
the shock of having lost his fingers of his left hand, he stuck to the
formula which had been hammered into him in England name, rank,
next-of-kin, but no more.

They had fed him some sausage and bread, given him a cigarette and left
him in a room of what had been once a seaside hotel in Dieppe with some
of the other wounded, Canadian and Commandoes.  The Canadians had
sounded off bitterly about the failure- of the raid and had begun to
blame their officers until he had silenced them with a curt, "Knock it
off, you guys.  Don't you know this room is bugged?"

It had been.  Next day they put him in a cell-like room by himself.
There the Germans had left him with no food and no water for
twenty-four hours until a bespectacled former professor of English had
begun to cross-examine him.  He had taken the interrogation in his
stride.  After all, during his days as a bindle-stiff he had been
worked over by fat-bellied railroad cops armed with billy clubs and
rubber coshes.  He knew he had nothing of that kind to fear from the
"Prof.

But in the end the "Prof did get under his skin when, after telling
Kane he was being sent to a 'great hospital' in Berlin for 'special
treatment' for his wound, he asked: "Why is America in the war,
Sergeant Kane?  What has this war got to do with you?"

During that long journey right across France and Germany in a slow
troop train packed with the thousands of wounded from the Dieppe Raid,
he kept repeating the Profs question to himself, as he lay in that
blood-stained bunk, with a wounded Canadian, whose legs had been blown
off, moaning and drugged beneath him and the wheels clattering over the
rails.

"Why was he in the war?  What had America ever given him personally
save malnutrition and a raw deal?  What could he go back to, now that
he was cripple?  Nebraska and searching through frozen ash cans on a
grey winter's morning for something to eat?  Who would give a guy with
one hand a job there?

That long painful journey, with men dying all around him, was the
beginning of a kind of primitive soul-searching for Charley Kane.  For
the first time in his short life he had time to think about his
existence and his future.  Four years in the Army training for battle
and he had been ruined for life and made a cripple in a matter of forty
minutes in combat.

Thus it was that he barely hesitated when the Germans came to see him
at the end of his treatment at La Charite to tell him he had the choice
of either a stalag or a 'rest camp' now he was to be released.  He
chose the 'rest camp' although he already knew that such places were
reserved for those POWs who were prepared to 'co-operate' with the
Krauts.

Thus he landed in the camp of the grandly named Legion of St. George's,
a couple of hundred renegades from the Allied armies who were being
prepared to fight for the 'holy cause' against the 'red plague' in
Russia.  In fact, the 'volunteers' spent most of their time drinking
and whoring, using the plentiful cigarettes and chocolate supplied by
the unsuspecting Swiss Red Cross to buy these commodities from the all
too willing locals.

For a little while Charley had gone along with the rest.  He was
twenty-four, at his sexual prime and anxious to prove that women liked
him despite the fact that he was now as he saw it a cripple.  By now
after four months in German captivity, his childhood fluency in his
mother's language had returned.  Using his knowledge of German he
roamed far and wide, making a point of getting away from the camp each
day.  For by now, he had come to detest and despise his fellow
'renegades' as he always called them to himself.  Before the war they
had mostly been petty crooks, small-time hoods who had taken the first
opportunity which had presented itself in the line to surrender to the
Krauts.  He could barely stand sleeping in the same hut as they did.
Now he was only happy when he was on his own, wandering through the
local countryside, stopping for a beer or a bowl of thin watery wartime
Karteffelsuppe, which was not rationed, at some local inn.  Now he did
not even miss the amateur whores, who would sell their skinny, unwashed
bodies for a handful of "Virginia' cigarettes, as they always called
the Red Cross cigarettes.

Thus it was that in the first week of December 1942 he was walking
through the new snow, enjoying the keen air and the bitingly blue sky
which reminded him of winterin the Nebraska of his childhood, and he
first met Magda - Magda von Kunnersdorf.  She was hacking down the
narrow trail to his front, clad in tweed jacket, black bowler and tight
doeskin breeches, the sides of her big black stallion glistening with
sweat, twin jets of warm breath ejecting from its nostrils.

He stopped as she rode closer, noting the broad Slavic cheekbones and
dark intense eyes.  She was not pretty by American standards she had
none of that girl-next-door sugar-sweetness, here was a real woman but
he fell for her hook-line-sinker right on the spot.

The track had been narrow and to avoid the horse and rider he stopped
to one side into the deeper snow waiting for her to go by.  She didn't.
Instead she reined the black stallion.  She patted its trembling neck
and looked down at him with those unfathomable black eyes of hers.

"An American,1 she said.

"What is a lone American doing here walking through our German woods?"
The accent was pure East Coast, Boston, private school, Syracuse
University.

By way of an answer he pulled out a Hershey bar.  They were the best.
In the past few weeks he had young German girls ripping off their
knickers in double quick time just for half a Hershey bar.  German
women were crazy for chocolate.

"Would you like a Hershey?"

She looked down at him coldly.

"No thank you.  Fortunately I do not have a sweet tooth like most
women."  She pointed with her leather crop.

"You have been badly wounded."

Charley Kane had frowned.

"Yeah," he said reluctantly, "I was hit at Dieppe in August."

She nodded and took in the information.

"My brother was killed there too.  He was with the Tenth Panzer
Division.  Really a foolish accident.  His driver panicked when you
landed, battened down the hatches and drove over a cliff.  He survived.
My brother broke his neck."  She said the words without any apparent
emotion like a woman who had long used up all her emotional
resources.

On Christmas Eve 1942 with a choir of soldiers on the Russian front
singing carols on the radio, a log fire crackling in the huge fireplace
and with the stern-faced ancestors of her husband staring down from
their fading portraits in disapproval they first made love.  Ever since
her husband had gone away to die with his tank battalion on the
Ostfront, she lived alone in the eighteenth-century hunting lodge deep
in the woods save for the red-checked, white-haired old dumpling of
housekeeper who had once been her mother's maid when she had first come
over from the States.

"My father was killed in action just outside Moscow in November 1941.
One month later my mother died of a broken heart.  It was the day after
America entered the war."

Now as they lay naked and damp with sweat on the big rug of white bear
fur, which her husband had shot before the war in the Polish mountains,
he stared at the portrait of her husband, arrogant and handsome under
the black tilted cap of the SS with its skull-and-bones insignia and
told himself, "One of Hitler's blue-eyed boys undoubtedly."  But he
said nothing aloud.  Instead he continued to stroke her lovely breasts
so that the big dun-coloured nipples started to become erect once
more.

She had seemed to read his mind, as they lay with the crackle of
"Stille Nacht, Heilige Nachf that came from thousands of kilometres
away on the Russian front.

"Erich believed in Folk, Fatherland and Fuhrer.  He was a one hundred
per cent National Socialist.  You know he had to get permission from
Himmler himself to marry me because I was half American and I had to
prove I had no Jewish blood back as far as 1760."

"And you?"  he asked lazily, ceasing caressing her breasts and sitting
up to look down at her.

"Are you a one hundred per cent National Socialist?"

There had been none of that hesitancy he had experienced with other
Germans at such moments, the glance over the shoulder, the lowered
voice.

"No," she had answered him straight away.

"No, I am not," she said firmly.  Now I believe in myself.  I shall do
everything anything to survive.  God, how I want to get out of Germany
.. . ' That Christmas Eve for the first time for a long time, he
realised that the future was important, worth surviving for.  But for a
while the two of them forgot the future, the past; only the present was
important, with the logs crackling and throwing out fiery sparks, the
carols from the front, the life-and-death struggle at Stalingrad, the
desperate attempts to stave off defeat in North Africa all forgotten.
All that mattered was themselves, two human beings, little unimportant
people, trying desperately to be happy for a little while in a world
that had gone crazy.

Now as he sat there in the little wayside inn, he thought of Magda and
her burning wish to survive and to flee Germany.  He knew that in some
way or other Klaus was offering him a chance to get out of whatever
mission they were planning for him.  But he remembered, too, Skorzeny's
offer of ten thousand dollars, a new identity and a fresh start in
South America.  It could be a fresh start for both of them.

He broke the heavy brooding afternoon silence.

"Klaus, I appreciate what you're trying to do for me I appreciate it
very much," he said.

"But I'm in this thing for the dough.  I'm going to take up Skorzeny's
offer, whatever this goddam mission is."

Klaasen drained the rest of his schnapps with a flourish, grabbed his
cap and put a five mark piece on the rough wooden table.

"So be it," he said almost angrily.

"But watch your back, Charley .. . watch your back."

SIX

The next twenty-four hours passed in a hectic rush.  After Charley had
told Klaasen that he was prepared to go along with the mission,
whatever it was, the latter had ordered the driver to take him to
Berlin and not back to the camp.  Two hours later, much to his
surprise, Charley had found himself at Tempelhof Air Field, housed in a
special guarded compound.  Two hours after that, he was surprised again
to see Krause and his Germans, plus the three Americans, being led into
the compound, though they were placed in a separate building from
him.

That night, a tall major of the Luftwaffe assembled them in a
blacked-out room and, without any fuss, said: "The flight is going to
be a long one.  We will fly from here to Kiev.  There we will refuel
and set off on the second leg of the trip.  This time we will be flying
over enemy territory.1 The others looked at the big major as if he were
crazy.  But he did not notice their looks.  Instead he continued with,
"Now there is no time to give you any parachute training.  Perhaps it
is wiser to take your chance on your first jump there is a good risk of
your being injured in training."

By this time all of them, including Charley, were gawping at the major
like village idiots.  Long flights over enemy territory .. . parachute
jumps.  What was the man on about?  Even Polack, the slowest witted of
them all and whose German was not particularly fluent, looked puzzled
and upset.  Charley could see too that Fahnenjunker Krause was
restraining himself only with difficulty and that one or two of his
eager young heroes were distinctly pale.

"I shall give you further instructions when the time is closer," the
major continued, "but for now I'll say this.  You'll jump at two
hundred metres.  There's likely to be snow at the DZ so it should be a
soft landing.  All the same you'll draw knee protectors and ankle
bandages with the rest of your gear once I have finished with you.  The
NCO in charge of the stores'll show you how to put them on."  He paused
and looked at them darkly.

"All of you, of course, will be issued with the L-pill just in case."

Krause could not restrain himself any longer, The L-pill, Herr Major?
What is that?"  ~ The major looked at Krause's long lean hard face, as
if he were seeing the officer-cadet for the first time.

"L-pill, Fahnenjunker.  It's something you swallow very smartish if you
fall into the hands of the enemy, especially the Ivans.  The Ivans have
some very unpleasant habits with people they suspect are spies or
saboteurs."

"You mean it's poison?"  Winthrop said, speaking for the first time.

The major nodded.

"L for lethal."  He cleared his throat.

"All right, that'll be all for just now.  Off you go and draw your
equipment from the store bulls.  Not you, Sergeant," he said as Charley
rose to go out with the rest.

"I would like to have a few words in private with you."

"Yes sir," Charley said obediently and sat down again.

The major waited till the last of the party had gone through and closed
the door before saying, "I am authorized to tell you the rendezvous."

"Rendezvous?"

"Yes, you are to be met at the DZ by some of our own people who will
take you.  That DZ is in Northern Persia."  He raised his hand.

"Please don't ask any questions.  I am not authorized to tell you more
than that, and that you have complete authority over the party.  I will
give you further details of the mission on the plane."

"You're our pilot?"

The major smiled for the first time since he had appeared.

"Yes, to my cost.  I'll have a co-pilot of course for such a long
flight.  But I'll be in charge.  You see I've had some quite
considerable experience in missions of this kind long-range
penetration."

"Dropping spies and saboteurs over Russia?"  Charley Kane hazarded a
guess.

"Yes, that sort of thing.  Now," the major's smile vanished and he was
very businesslike once more.  I have been informed that you have a
woman friend and I have been authorized to allow you to call he ring my
presence before you learn any more details of the mission."  He
indicated the phone in the corner.

"There you are, use it please.  But not too long."

Charley nodded his thanks.  He walked over to the phone and began to
dial that well-remembered number.  Outside on the field they were
warming up a plane's engines, reminding him of what was to come. Behind
him the major placed a gold-tipped cigarette in a long ivory cigarette
holder and lit it slowly, as if it was very important to do it that
way.

The phone rang.  He could imagine Magda running down the long dusty
hall, hung with the tattered banners and flags of battles fought long
ago.

"Von Kunnersdorf," her voice, husky and controlled, sent a shiver of
pleasure and desire down his spine as it always did.

"Magda."

"Charley.  I've been waiting to hear from you all day, and last night,"
she added, her voice a shade darker and very seductive.

"I was very lonely upstairs."

Charley gave a mock groan.

"Please," he said, 'don't get started.  I couldn't stand the strain.
Listen, Magda, I'm not allowed to explain.  But I'm going off .. . on a
job of work for your people."

Behind him the major took his cigarette holder out of his mouth and
gave a significant little cough.

Charley heard it and continued hurriedly.

"I don't know how long I'm going to be away, but I'm going to be paid
ten thousand bucks for the job.  When I come back and I promise you I
will there'll be a new start for both of us.  Do you understand
that?"

There was silence at the other end, a kind of intense silence, as if
she were thinking hard and fast.  Then she said, "You must promise me
that you will look after yourself, Charley.  You must.  I want you
back."

"I'll be back.  You can't kill weeds that easily," he said using the
German expression, "I love you, Magda."

Behind him the Major said, "I'm sorry, but that's all we've got time
for."

"Hals und Beinbruch' she cried over the phone, her voice suddenly
hoarse, as if she were overcome by emotion.

"Happy landings."

"Thanks, Magda."  It was only later, much later that Charley puzzled
over the expression, "Hals und Beinbruch' happy landings.  How had she
known he was going to jump out of a plane?

In the dark hall, which smelled of dust and age, Magda von Kunnerdorf
stood staring at the phone on the little table.  On the opposite wall,
a long-dead Prussian ancestor, tight-lipped, neck taut in a high
cravat, waited for her to do her duty.  She did it.

She picked up the phone and dialled the special number which they had
given her right from the start back in December 1942.  "Magda von
Kunnersdorf," she said a little breathlessly.

"Reichsfuhrer SS Himmler bit ted There were several clicks.  A female
voice said, "Moment bitte."  More clicks and then a weak voice with a
noticeable Bavarian accent, said "Himmler .. . Ja?"

"The American," she said, straightening as she realised yet again she
was talking to the second most important man in Europe.

"You can trust him.  He is in it heart and soul."

"Good," Himmler snapped.

"You have worked well.  I shall see that you are suitably rewarded,
Frau von Kunnersdorf.  It is good that in hard times like these there
are German women like you who are prepared to sacrifice a great deal,
even their honour, for the holy cause of the Fatherland."

Now she stiffened to attention, her face glowing with pride.

"I owe it to the memory of those who have fallen in battle,
Reichsfuhrer.  It was what little I could do.  Heil HitlerT She raised
her arm stiffly in the "German greeting', as it was called.

"Heil Hitler," Himmler said routinely.  The phone went dead .. .

PART TWO

Flight Into Danger Hoppe, hoppe Reiter Wenn er fallt, dann schreit or
Fdllt erin den Graben Fressen ihn die Raben German nursery song *
Giddiup rider, when he falls he cries, if he falls into the ditch, then
the ravens will eat him up.  Transl.

SEVEN

"Schaffhausen .. . Grenzbahnhof Schaffhausen .. . alles aussteigen .. .
Passkontrolle .. . Schaffhausen .. . The harsh announcements echoed
back and forth in the stone cavern of the border station, as the night
express from Berlin shuddered to a stop, the locomotive expelling great
bursts of steam, as if sighing with the relief that the long journey to
the Swiss border was over.

Everywhere doors were flung open.  Luggage was handed through windows.
Soldiers slung their equipment over their shoulders.  Civilians grasped
their bulging imitation leather briefcases, which could contain
anything from sausage sandwiches to American dollars to be smuggled
into Switzerland.

The little man hesitated, then hitching up the trousers of the stolen
suit which was much too big for him, he stepped out onto the platform
and joined the crush heading for the barriers and what waited for them
there.  With a conscious effort of will he forced himself not to walk
in the shadows near the wall.  Instead he walked down the centre of the
platform where the blue lights of the blackout illuminated him, holding
up his first class ticket for all to see.  Psychology, he told himself;
officials always respect people who travel first class, and wore decent
suits.

"Kleider mac hen Leute' clothes make people, the Germans said and they
were right.

By now Hauptsturmfuhrer Dietz would be slowly waking from his trance
and would be wondering why he was sitting in his study clad only in his
underwear with a French book of pornographic photographs on his lap. In
due course, he would rise, tap around and discover to his horror that
his wallet, identity card, 'dog licence', as the Gestapo called their
official metal badge, were missing.  He would then stagger into the
other room and find something far more important was also missing. The
French Jew Beguin!  Now all hell would be let loose.  He'd try the
phone only to find, with an angry curse, that the French Jew had cut
the wires.  There would be nothing for it but to find something to wear
and hurry at full speed from the flat in the Charlottenstrasse to
Gestapo Headquarters at Number Ten Prinz Albrechtstrasse and raise the
alarm.  But by then, Beguin, now alias Hauptsturmfuhrer Dietz, prayed
he'd be over the frontier into Switzerland and safety.

It had been a walkover.  For all his threatening arrogance, the big SS
man had been easy meat.  Beguin had summed him up on that very first
evening they had spent together in the Charlottenstrasse flat where he
had been taken to await Himmler's pleasure.  Dietz had snapped, the
Reichsfuhrer had said he could have a whore if he wanted.  Say the word
and he, Dietz, would have one sent up.  There are plenty of foreign
whores around this area," he had sneered.

"Don't suppose they'd reject a Jew.  As long as he paid."

Politely he had declined the offer.  He had never felt less like having
a woman.  At that moment his whole mind was concentrated on some way of
escaping while he had a chance.  He knew Himmler would never let him
live.  He didn't know much, but for Himmler it would be too much.

Dietz, however, had persisted in talking about women whores, gash and
slit', as he called them bitterly and Beguin realized that the man was
somehow disappointed sexually.  Why else did he talk of women in such a
disparaging manner?

Over the evening it came out as Dietz got progressively more drunk.
Despite the fact that both Hitler and Himmler frowned upon the use of
alcohol, it seemed that Dietz and his fellow adjutants went on terrific
benders as soon as they were off duty.  Dietz, it appeared, was
successful with the 'grey mice', the plain uniformed females at
Himmler's HQ, who obviously 'sacrificed themselves to him for the sake
of the 'cause.  But in reality, Dietz lusted for 'elegant society
gash', as he phrased it, slurring the words.

"You know these dames from noble families who stay at the Hotel Adlon
and go to Fat Hermann's soirees "Yes, I know, Herr Dietz," he had
replied carefully.

"In my profession I have known many such high-born ladies."

Dietz had looked at him drunkenly, glass poised at his lips.

"Course, Jew, you're a hypnotist."

Beguin had nodded slowly.

Dietz had licked his thick red lips.

"You mean you can make a piece of gash, even a society bit, do what you
like?"  He looked left and right, swaying a little with the movement.

"I mean I've heard that your French slits, even posh ones, do all sorts
of piggeries with men.  Could you make a woman do that?"  Hastily he
had explained what 'piggeries' he meant.

Beguin had gazed at him levelly with those intense dark eyes of his,
knowing that the big Nazi swine was falling right into his hands.

"Yes, Herr Dietz, that-and things you perhaps have' not even dared
dream about.  Perversions of a kind they only put in medical textbooks,
locked away in university libraries."

"God in heaven!"  Dietz gasped and took a quick swallow of his
schnapps, his face beetroot red and sweating now.

"Hermann Geering, the immensely fat head of the German Air Force.

"But you couldn't get a German woman to do that?"  he breathed.

"Or could you?"

"Yes, I could .. . any woman, whatever her station or degree of
innocence.  Virgins even from Catholic finishing schools."

"Virgins .. . Catholic finishing schools .. . piggeries with a Jew,"
Dietz had stuttered, ripping open the collar of his tunic, sweat
pouring down his face now.

"Yes, with the power of hypnotism, a man, however ugly or
unpreposessing, can have any woman he likes."  He snapped his fingers
masterfully.

"She will fulfill his every sexual wish, however bizarre."

Dietz could restrain himself no longer.

"Could you .. . could you train me," he gasped, 'to do what you
said?"

"With a little patience on your part, of course," Beguin had replied,
his heart beating faster with joy, and triumph.  He had him!  A fat
stupid fish wriggling on the end of his hook ready for the taking ..
.

Within forty-eight hours, he had been able to put the big oaf of an SS
officer 'under' in thirty seconds.  Dietz had been one of the easiest
subjects he had ever worked on because he wanted to learn the
techniques so that he could get his paws on those 'high born society
cunts', whose bodies he craved for.

On the third night, knowing that he could not waste another day Himmler
might decide to send him back to the camp at any time he was ready to
do a bunk.  He had found out about the night express from Berlin to
Schaffhausen on the Swiss frontier; knew the whereabouts of Dietz's
documents and money and while the SS officer had been drunk had tried
on one of his suits, which he found would fit him passably if he worked
hard on the belt and braces.  It would do.

As usual Dietz came back to the flat eager to learn more of the
exciting new techniques Beguin was teaching him.  After a couple of
stiff drinks he produced the pornographic magazine which Beguin had
urged him to buy and said eagerly, "What now?"

"Very simple, Herr Dietz.  You turn to any particular-er piggery that
you would wish the woman to do for you."

Hastily Dietz found the photograph he had already selected.  It showed
two buxom women, clad only in black stockings and high heels,
apparently taking turns to give a naked, pop-eyed man lying, legs
outstretched, on a chair, intense pleasure.

"This one," Dietz had said thickly, "I'd like a couple to do that to
me.  Now show me the technique."

Thirty seconds later Dietz had been out, lying there foolishly in his
underwear, while Beguin had moved at speed to make his break.  When he
was finished he would have liked to have turned and gloated over the
big stupid creature, but he knew he simply did not have the time if he
wanted to catch that night express to Schaffhausen.

Now he hurried down the platform with the rest towards the barrier,
where a whole host of officials and military were already beginning to
check the civilians' and soldiers' papers; he knew that time was
running out again for him.

Schaffhausen was too close to the Swiss border for the barrier checks
not to be taken seriously, very seriously indeed.  Cross the street
outside and you were in that neutral country, a paradise for deserters
and those who were trying to escape from the ruin of Nazi Germany to
come.  Hence the border police, the leather-coated Gestapo officials
and the chain dogs the military policemen with the silver plate of
their office hanging from a chain around their necks, did their job
thoroughly.  Passes were examined, suitcases and briefcases were opened
and their contents checked and, here and there, civilians, both men and
women, had their limbs patted to see if they were carrying contraband
concealed about their bodies.

Slowly Beguin shuffled forward with the rest, his heart thumping
anxiously, as he fought to retain control over himself.  He had divided
the officials at the barrier into three groups: border police, Gestapo,
chain dogs  He had decided not to go to the chain dogs they'd probably
pass him on to the Gestapo, once he produced his 'dog licence' and he
wanted nothing to do with that leather-coated fraternity.  No, he'd
move towards the border police.  Since 1939 they had been incorporated
into the SS and now wore the German eagle on their shoulders.  In
reality, they were still the same pre-war civilian customs officials.
He felt they would be more impressed by his first class ticket,
expensive suit and Gestapo 'dog licence'.

Now he was almost up to the two border policemen, both comfortably
plump men of middle age, but both possessed shrewd eyes: men, he told
himself who knew their business.  How many Jews they must have sniffed
out here at this very same border and Beguin knew he looked Jewish.
Besides his accent was markedly un-German.  He would have to say as
little as possible.

He came level with the bigger of the two.

"Ausweis, Fahrkarte," he demanded routinely and held out his big paw.

Instead of pulling out Dietz's identity card, Beguin thrust his first
class ticket and then the 'dog licence' towards the official.

The latter nodded at the ticket, as if in approval, and then began to
straighten up to attention at the sight of the Gestapo badge when
abruptly he changed his mind.

Instinctively Beguin knew what was going on in the official's brain.
There was a clash between Beguin's dark swarthy, 'non-Aryan' appearance
and his membership of the Gestapo.  In a minute the official would
begin asking awkward questions and he could be discovered.  He felt
himself begin to sweat.  So near and yet so far.  As his fellow
passengers finished the check and opened the big door which led to the
street he could see a section of blacked-out street, the cobbles
glistening in the rain, and the simple barbed-wire hurdle, which marked
the border with Switzerland.  He could even see a Swiss border guard,
huddled in a cape, the raindrops trickling from the shiny brim of his
kepi.

"Wohin wollen Sic, Hauptsturm?"  the official said in that slow
ponderous manner that all officials adopt when they know they're on to
something.

"Bine?"

Beguin knew he would be sunk as soon as he opened his mouth.  It wasn't
customary for members of the Gestapo to speak their native tongue with
a Yiddish accent.

"Scheisskerl shithead!"  the curse came with startling suddenness from
a chain dog examining the pay book of a burly soldier, who looked as if
he had been drinking all the way from Berlin.

"You're a deserter .. . you haven't got a His words ended abruptly, as
the big soldier planted a punch in the centre of his stomach.  The
military policeman, gasping with pain, went down on his knees in the
same instant that the soldier kicked him in the face and vaulted neatly
over the barrier.

"HaltihnfestT the other MP yelled and started to unsling his carbine
frantically.

"Stop running or I'll fire!"

A woman screamed.  An elderly man dropped his case.  It burst open to
reveal scores of black market silk stockings.  In an instant all was
hectic confusion at the barrier.

In a flash, Beguin realized he'd never get a second chance.  He dropped
Dietz's case.  Instinctively the border guard bent, as if to pick it
up.  Beguin jammed his elbow into the man's side as he did so.

"Hey, Hauptsturm,1 he began to snort aggrieved.

"What ' Beguin pushed by him.  To his right the burly soldier had
skidded to a stop just inside the door.  More chain dogs were coming
in, carbines levelled menacingly.

That's him!"  Beguin yelled.

"Stop him!"

"Thank you, sir," the sergeant in charge answered, as the deserter
started to raise his hands, a look of sheer, naked defeat on his broad
face.

Next instant Beguin was out into the street.  He ran like he had never
run before.  Rain lashed his face.  Behind him someone was shouting. To
his front were the lights of neutral Switzerland.  They blazed from
every little house as if welcoming him.  Then there was the barrier.  A
barbed wire hurdle that could be moved to allow traffic to proceed back
and forth between two sandbagged pillboxes, both of which, he noted to
his relief, were unmanned.  Beyond it stood the Swiss border guard
huddled in his rain cape staring as if bewildered at the scene taking
place before his eyes in the pelting rain; the panic-stricken little
man, whose suit was too big for him; Franz and Hermann, his German
opposite numbers, shouting their heads off at the door to the station
and a big burly soldier having his face smashed in systematically by
half a dozen chain dogs  He grunted his surprise.

Beguin slipped on the slick cobbles.  He went down on one knee.  Behind
him he heard the sound of running feet.  Beguin groaned.  They were
going to take him.  He knew instinctively he had twisted his knee.  He
couldn't jump the hurdle now.  It was impossible.  He could hear the
Germans' cries of triumph as he rose to his feet and started to hobble
forward painfully, and slowly.

Slowly, as befitted the representative of a nation which did everything
very carefully and after due consideration, the border official walked
over to the hurdle.  His hand came out from beneath the gleaming wet
cape.  It grasped the wood and pulled the hurdle to one side.  With his
other hand, like some head waiter urging a prosperous client to enter
his restaurant, he said in thick Swiss German, "Bittschon der Hen .. .
please come in."

Incredulously Beguin hopped into Switzerland and collapsed by the
nearest wall.  He had done it!

EIGHT

"Well?"  Winston Churchill demanded.

The heat in Cairo this late September day was stifling as usual and his
white suit was crumpled and damp with sweat despite the roof fan
circulating at full speed.

Inspector Thompson, who had been Churchill's bodyguard for many years
now, thought he had never seen the Great Man, as he always called him,
look so rundown.  There were dark circles under his eyes and his hands
were shaky.  It didn't help any that Churchill was well into his second
whisky-and-soda although it was only nine in the morning.

"Sir," he said, 'we have just received a cable from the British Embassy
in Berne, Switzerland ' ' Dammit man," Churchill snapped in irritation,
"I know where Berne is!  Get on with it."

Thompson's face remained impassive.  He knew the Great Man's moods; he
never paid much attention to them.

"Well, sir, yesterday a Frenchman demanded to see ambassador there.
This was done and the Frenchman said he had escaped from a German
concentration camp."

"And pray, Thompson, what did he tell the ambassador which should be of
interest to me?"  Churchill waved his glass at the big policeman.
Outside, he could see an Egyptian on the street flogging his
skinny-ribbed donkey with his stick unmercifully.

"He said, sir, that he had reason to believe that the Hun is planning
to make an attempt on your life."

Churchill threw back his head and gave a great laugh.

"Mercy me, Thompson," he chuckled, 'people have been planning attempts
on my life before you were even born.  It is a thing one has to live
with when one is in politics, especially if you are the King's first
minister, as I am."

Thompson frowned.  The Great Man never took security seriously.  Here
he was travelling all over the world, right to the very front, guarded
by a single ex-Scotland Yard detective.  Why, when they went to America
in 1941 President Roosevelt had whole armies of Secret Servicemen, as
they called them over there, to protect him and he drove everywhere in
an armoured limousine.  The crippled US President even rode in an
armoured train; and in those days the United States were still at
peace.

"Anyway, sir," Thompson persisted, 'we've got to take these threats
seriously.  I hardly dare think what Mrs.  Churchill's reaction would
be if I let anything happen to you.  You must remember, sir, we are in
foreign parts and you can't trust foreigners, even if they are supposed
to be on our side."

Again Churchill threw back his balding head and laughed.  Outside the
barefoot Egyptian had thrashed the poor donkey right down to its knees.
It was bleating pitifully, but it still had not thrown the huge load it
was carrying.  Again Thompson frowned.  They wouldn't allow that sort
of thing in London, he told himself severely.  They'd soon have the
National League for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals coming down on
'em like a ton o' bricks.  Foreigners, he cursed to himself.

Churchill sat down under the whirring fan and took a sip of his
whisky.

"All right, Thompson, let me have it.  What is to be the security
system in Tehran?"

"Lousy, sir," Thompson answered promptly.

"One company of British infantry guarding the Embassy where you will
stay and the Embassy itself wide-open.  A one-legged midget with a
dicky heart could scale its wall, or so General Schwarzkopf, he's the
American head of security for Allied forces in Persia, told me over the
blower."

A flicker of doubt passed across Churchill's broad, very pale face.

"But we have a cover plan, Thompson, don't we?"

"Cover plan!"  the Inspector snorted.  The plan drawn up by the brass
hats here in Cairo wouldn't fool a babe in arms.  GHQ' he meant Cairo's
General Headquarters 'is going to send out a bunch of high-ranking
brass hats to a place near the border of Persia with Turkey.  They're
going to be given Turkish money, maps, phrase books and the like as if
they're intending crossing into that country.  The cover is that
they're going to talk or bribe Johnny Turk to come over to our side in
the scrap against the Hun.  A lot of ruddy nonsense, sir, if you'll
forgive my French," he snorted.

"Why?"  Churchill asked.

"Because if the Hun has spies in the Persian capital, which we are sure
he has, then they'll know we're in process of sending the best chef at
HQ to Tehran."

"So?"

"So, sir, why is the best chef in Cairo being sent there to the
Embassy?"  Thompson answered his own question.

"Because he is to cater for a very important person, as the Yanks say
nowadays."  He pointed his finger, almost as if in accusation at the
Great Man, "And you are that V.I.P."

Churchill nodded his head slowly.

"I see what you mean, Thompson."

The Inspector pressed home his advantage.

"And remember, sir, you will be spending a whole week in Tehran, giving
the Hun plenty of time to plan and carry out an attack upon you.  And
remember, too, that most Persians hate our guts.  They were siding with
the Huns until 1941 when we and the Russkis marched in the country and
took over, after deposing the Shah."

"Ah, yes, the heir to the Peacock Throne, the Shah of Shahs," Churchill
mused, rubbing his hairless chin a little happily, 'a jumped up cavalry
sergeant who couldn't read or write.  Yes, we soon saw him off, didn't
we, once he'd thrown in his lot with the Nazis."

"Yes sir."  Thompson pressed home his point.  The Persians can't be
relied on.  Their police, both the uniformed and secret police, will
undoubtedly be working for the Huns, especially if the Huns grease
their dirty brown palms."

Churchill looked at him.

"My dear Thompson, you must be the archetypal Englishman.  Cross the
English Channel and the niggers and wogs commence.  But still," he
reflected, sipping his drink, 'it is that attitude which made our
quaint little island great, I suppose the sense of the ordinary
Englishman, even if he came from the gutter, that he was better than
any ten foreigners."  He put the glass down.  Outside the donkey had
given up the struggle.  It lay on its skinny side, while the Egyptian
still continued to beat it, dying as it lay there in a pool of its own
blood.  Churchill sighed.

Thompson said, Ts there no chance of scheduling this great meeting,
sir, in some place more secure?  Gib perhaps?  Of course London would
be best of all in spite of these new Hun tip-and-run raiders that keep
coming up the Thames."

Churchill shook his head.

"I am afraid not, Thompson.  Stalin will not venture out of his own
sphere of influence.  He is a dictator after all.  He trusts no one,
not even his Party intimates.  Persia, under joint Russian and
Anglo-American control, is as far as he is prepared to travel.  Then
there is our friend President Roosevelt."  Churchill frowned
suddenly.

"I must tell you something, Thompson, which is going to cause you
somewhat of a headache."

"What is that, sir?"  the Inspector asked apprehensively.

"President Roosevelt is coming to Cairo first before he flies to Tehran
with me to confer with Stalin."

"Oh my sainted aunt!"  Thompson exclaimed shocked.

Churchill smiled.

"For a policeman and an ex-guardsman you have some strange expressions,
Thompson," he commented.

"I'm just thinking that security has problems enough on its hands.
First Tehran and now President Roosevelt.  It's going to be a devil of
a security headache, sir."

Churchill's smile vanished.

"Security is the least of our problems, Thompson," he lectured the big
policeman.

"You understand little of the great issues involved, Thompson.  Our
proud little island has passed the zenith of its strength.  We are
scraping the barrel for manpower and equipment.  We cannot continue the
war much longer and still exert power over our allies.  We must have
victory in 1944 or we will be overpowered, submerged by our allies
America and Russia.  Then we will have little say in the shaping of the
world after that victory .. . ' As he spoke Thompson realized that the
Great Man was not really addressing him; he was addressing a hidden
audience of his peers .. . "Britain must be able to sway Marshal Stalin
and President Roosevelt, while it still has the big battalions on its
side.  The alternative is that they will force upon us policies and
strategies which may well mean the end of the British Empire."  He
raised his fingerin warning like the old-fashioned orator he was.

"And I have not become the King's First Minister to preside over the
dissolution of the British Empire."

Churchill's voice sank.

"So we must take risks, Thompson," he said in a more conversational
tone.

"We will take them here in Cairo and we will take them in Tehran in due
course.  There is no alternative and if we are to die at the hands of
an assassin, then so be it."  He shrugged carelessly.

Thompson nodded glumly.

"I see, sir," he said in defeat.  Then you must excuse me.  I must
attend to the President's security as well.  I'll get on to Major
Sansom at GHQ."

Churchill waved his hand in careless dismissal.  He was no longer
listening.  Outside the battered donkey gave one last gasp, struggled
to raise its bloody head for one last time, then fell back dead .. .

By that evening Major Sansom, dark, swarthy and cunning, had used his
influence at GHQ to rally a tremendous force to ensure that the US
President was flying in to a secure Cairo.  Eight squadrons of
Spitfires were on alert at Alexandria ready to interpret any German
aircraft raiding from the German fields at Rhodes and Athens.  A whole
brigade of infantry was strung out about the area in which the
President would reside during his time in Cairo.  Within that same area
Sansom posted his own Field Security men, all fluent Arabic speakers,
disguised as lowly corporals and lance-corporals in the Military
Police.  As Sansom confessed to an equally worried Inspector Thompson,
"There's something in the air, Inspector."  He rapped the side of his
nose.

"I can smell it.  I've been in this game four years now and I know the
Jerries are up to something."

Thompson, who had been in the 'game' much, much longer, nodded his
agreement, and said, "Well, if all goes well in Cairo this week, let's
hope someone can convince the PM to have similar security arrangements
made in Tehran."

Sansom, who had had a particularly hectic day, rubbed his dark jowl and
said with a grin, "My task is to get them' he meant Churchill and
Roosevelt 'through their time here in Cairo.  Then I'm going to take a
spell of leave and let somebody else worry about Tehran.  Now come on,
Inspector, we'll go and greet President Roosevelt and then, my dear
Inspector, I'm going to treat you the stiffest Scotch you've drunk for
a long time at Shepheard's."

"Aye and I'll take you up on that, too," Inspector Thompson agreed, as
they headed out into the night to the waiting car.

The landing strip was as light as day.  Arc lights gleamed everywhere
and the flare path blazed as if in peacetime.

Black-out regulations had been ignored totally, but as the little staff
car came to a stop, Thompson and Sansom could see the field was ringed
by Bofors anti-aircraft guns and they could hear the drone of night
fighters patrolling the sky above them.  Sansom nodded his approval and
together the two of them walked over to the tarmac to where a group of
American generals was standing together with representatives of the
American Embassy in Cairo.

They were just in time.  The first silver Dakota came gliding out of
the sky, twin engines howling.  It hit the tarmac.  There was the
screech of protesting rubber.  The pilot throttled back.  The noise was
ear-splitting.  The brass and the American civilians surged forward, as
the second Dakota, carrying the President and his entourage, came in to
land.  But not for long.

Abruptly the door of the first Dakota burst open, as the R.A.F ground
crew pushed the landing ramp towards it.  Men in smart suits and dark
felt hats came falling and jumping out, tommy guns already at the
alert.  Someone shouted a command.  The men ran to form a circle, eyes
full of menace.

"Hold it there, you men," another cried at the advancing welcome party.
The brass and the civilians stopped in their tracks, as half a dozen
tommy guns were jerked in their direction threateningly.

Inspector Thompson who had seen it all before back in 1941 was amused,
but Major Sansom gasped, "Oh, I say, half the top brass from GHQ is in
that party!  There'll be a stink about this, Inspector."

Thompson told himself there wouldn't.  The American Secret Service men
who guarded the President were a law unto themselves.

Now the second Dakota rolled to a stop and, their eyes never leaving
the welcome party, the bodyguard backed off to form a circle near the
door.  It was opened by two men, already bearing sub-machine guns. They
said something to those on the ground.  The answer seemed to satisfy
them, for they turned and spoke to someone inside the plane. There was
a pause.  People craned their necks to see what was going on. A lightly
built steel chair on wheels, which gleamed in the arc lights appeared
in the door.  The two men held it firm.

Those outside waited.  Another pause.  Suddenly there he was.
Broadfaced, smiling, wearing a pince-nez, with a long cigarette holder
clenched between his strong white teeth, borne in the strong arms of a
black man.  The latter placed him effortlessly into the wheelchair.

President Roosevelt took the Bakelite cigarette holder from his blue
lips, the lips of a man dying of heart disease, and said, indicating
the bodyguards, "You must remember I am not the freest man in the free
world, gentlemen."

There was a spontaneous outburst of applause and Sansom said to
Thompson, "A bit of a card, your President Roosevelt, Inspector.  Worth
trying a bit harder to keep him alive a little longer, what?"

Thompson nodded dourly, but said nothing.  It was not going to be that
easy, he told himself, not that easy at all.

Two hours late ring Berlin, an excited Skorzeny woke Himmler at No 10
Prinz Albrechtstrasse, with "Sorry to disturb you at this time of
night, Reichsfuhrer.  But Operation Long Jump is on!"

"What?"  Himmler sat up in his bed abruptly, tugging at his night cap
so that he could hear better.

Vflwo/z/, Reichsfuhrer.  We have just learned from an informant in
Cairo that that cripple who sits in the White House has arrived
there."

"The Jew Roosevelt?"

"Yes, Reichsfuhrer."

"Grossartig, Skorzeny!"  Himmler chortled and slapped his weak little
hands together like a delighted child.

Then all the effects we have made have not been in vain."

"No, sir.  The team is on its way.  They cannot fail now.  They must
not fail, Skorzeny," Himmler admonished him, his voice suddenly very
serious.  The future of our Thousand Year Empire depends upon it .. .
'* * Hitler boasted his Third Reich would last a thousand years.  In
fact it lasted twelve years and five months.

NINE

"It is my guess," Fahnenjunker Krause stated, as the big, four-engined
plane droned steadily north-eastwards, 'that we are slated to help
start a popular revolt among the Persians against the Allies occupying
their country."

His young men listened with interest.  So far they had learned little
of their strange mission, save that Obersturmbahnfuhrer Skorzeny had
told them just before the Kondor had set off from Tempelhof that 'it is
of vital importance to our nation."  Their keen young faces had beamed
with pride and purpose, as he had said, "You are the cream of the army,
the elite of the elite.  If anyone can pull it off, it is you."
Whereupon he had saluted them.

Watching the big giant standing rigidly at the salute, Charley Kane had
remembered Mounthatten doing the same on their cliff top before the
Dieppe fiasco.  Commanders always saluted their men, it seemed, when
they sent them on those perhaps one-way missions.

"All the Persians need is a symbolic action," Krause was saying, 'and
the whole countryside will be up in arms against the enemy.  The Ivans
occupy Persia to the north, the Anglo-Americans to the south.  The job
of the latter is to supply the Ivans with tanks, guns and planes for
the eastern front.  If we can help to block the supply line, we will
have helped our comrades there greatly."  He looked at his men
proudly.

"That's what we're here for," he ended confidently.

"But how?"  Winthrop asked.  Like all of the Americans now he spoke
fluent German, though the American accent was very noticeable, Charley
Kane told himself.

"Perhaps we attack one of their supply dumps?  That's why perhaps we
English-speakers have been selected to attack a dump disguised as
Amis," he used the contemptuous German word for Americans.

Winthrop's face flushed a little, but he said nothing.

That attack could act as a signal for the Persians, give them hope that
they can deal with their oppressors.  We support the rebels with arms
and money dropped by parachute as we will be and then the Ivans on the
Eastern Front will find they are running out of weapons."  He shrugged.
That's the way I see it at least."

Winthrop turned to Kane seated opposite him in the big rump of the
four-engined long-range reconnaissance plane.

"You seem to be in charge of us, Kane."

"I am," Charley answered coldly, unable to conceal his dislike of the
officer, who was not only a coward but a renegade too.

"Well, are you going to share your knowledge with us, Kane?  I think we
deserve to know what we've let ourselves in for."

Fingers nodded his agreement and Polack, frowning slowly, as if he had
to think hard before he could formulate his words, said, "Yeah, what's
the deal, Sarge?"

Kane didn't answer.  Instead he said.

"We're all traitors in the pay of a foreign power.  Perhaps we've got
some reason for being traitors.  Winthrop and me were sent on a bum
mission at Dieppe which didn't have a hope in hell of succeeding.  We
were sacrificed so that the folks back home knew America was in the
shooting war.  Polack, you were abandoned by your adopted country."

Polack looked down at his massive hands, as if suddenly embarrassed.

"Yea," Fingers said, 'and it was no fun growing up a Jewboy in
Brooklyn.  Cockroaches, TB and the sweatshops in the garment district.
We didn't usually take tea with the Vanderbilts, ya know."  He lifted
his little finger delicately as if holding a fragile china cup and
looked cheekily at Winthrop.

The captain shot him an angry look.

"Fingers, we weren't all like what you think we were," he declared
angrily.

"Some of us were caring, compassionate ' ' All right, knock off the
Declaration of Independence," Kane interrupted him harshly.

"Anyway, let's get this clear right from the start.  The States let us
down and now we're letting the States down.  But that's behind us.  Now
we're buying our freedom and a new start with this mission -that's what
counts.  Now let me tell you what I do know."

There was silence now, save for the roar of the motors as the Kondor
ploughed its way through the sky at ten thousand metres, cleaving its
path free through the rolling cottonwool clouds.  The major had given
the first sealed envelope just before they had left Kiev and told him
he could open it now.  It wasn't much, but enough.

"As far as I know we are about to cross the Russian border with Persia.
Over there," he gestured to the left, 'there's neutral Turkey.  To our
front is Persia.  Soon we shall be coming down, once we have crossed
the border mountains," and even as he spoke, he could see the clouds
parting to reveal a brilliant panorama of jagged, snow-tipped
mountains; they were descending already.

"Our dropping zone will be in the shape of a burning swastika."

Fingers grinned in his cheeky fashion.

"It would be, wouldn't it?"  he commented.  They're really trying to
make this Jewish boy feel welcome.  Christ, a burning swastika!"

Kane returned his grin for a moment.

"We are to be dropped and are to aim at the centre of the swastika.
That's important.  There we will be collected by a welcoming committee
of local people under the command of a Major Evers - ' ' German?"
Krause asked.

"Yes, a member of the Abwehr," he meant the German Secret Service, 'who
Obersturm Skorzeny says has worked in Persia since before the war.  A
real old hand."

Krause looked pleased and Kane knew why.  The blond SS officer-cadet
didn't like being under the command of an American one bit.  Now he
obviously thought that the unknown Major would take over the mission.
Krause was in for a disappointment.  Kane knew he was to remain in
command until the mission was completed.  But he didn't tell a smiling
Krause that.  Instead he said, "Major Evers will then brief us on our
target and will ensure that we reach it in good order."

They all sat up in their canvas seats at the mention of the target.
This was what they had been wanting to know all along.  But Kane told
himself he was going to have to disappoint them.  Krause was wrong.  It
wasn't a base they were scheduled to; it was people.  He opened his
mouth to continue in the same instant that the dispatcher, a youthful
Luftwaffe sergeant in blue overalls, came swaying down the fuselage,
calling, "Hook up now .. . Sergeant, tell your men to hook at once!
It's an emergency' "Was ist los?"  Fahnenjunker Krause cried as his men
sprang to their feet and stumbled to the steel rail running the length
of the fuselage.

Fingers, the quickest of them all, didn't need to be told what was
going on.  He had already seen it for himself.

"Holy Shit," he cried as men pushed and shoved and cursed as they tried
to hook up their static lines, 'we're being attacked!"

They were.  Three barrel-shaped, single-engined planes were hurtling
across the bright blue of the sky.  Scarlet lights crackled the length
of their stubby wings.  Red-hot tracer came hissing towards the Kondor
gathering speed by the second.

Cursing madly, the Luftwaffe sergeant fought his way through the
throng, fumbling with their overhead metal hooks.  He flung the door
open.  Ice-cold air from the snow-tipped mountains flooded in.  Charley
Kane caught a fleeting glimpse of one of the little planes howling by.
The pilot pulled back his stick.  The plane shot upwards, white vapour
trails following it.  Kane saw the red stars under its wings and then
it was gone at a tremendous speed.

"Ivan," Krause cried, for he had seen the red stars, too.

"It's the shit Ivans!"

The Luftwaffe sergeant shouted an order.  They started to shuffle
forward, as they had been shown to do, each man's hand on the shoulder
of the man in front of him.  Kane was in the lead.  He peered out.  His
eyes flooded with tears.  Beyond the mountains there was a yellow area
of what might be desert.  There was no sign of a burning swastika.

Over the intercom, the metallic anger of the Major could be heard as he
vented his rage on the nose gunner "Lead the shit in, will your he
yelled as the fighters came zooming in once more, guns shattering
scarlet flame.

"Lead them in!"

Twin machine guns erupted into fire.  The fabric rattled.  The fuselage
was abruptly filled with the stench of burnt cordite.  Inside the men
tensed as the leading Russian fighter came hurtling towards them bent,
it seemed, on a collision course with the Kondor.  Startlingly,
frighteningly a line of gleaming metal holes appeared the length of the
fuselage.  The Luftwaffe NCO cursed and clapped a hand to his shoulder.
Bright red blood started to seep through his clenched fingers.  Then,
at the very last moment, the fighter broke off the attack.  They caught
a glimpse of a brown-leather-helmeted head and then the little plane
was off, engine spluttering wildly, trailing oily black smoke after
it.

"Bravo, Hansen," the Major yelled over the address system, 'bravo, you
got the cheeky shit!  Come on do it again."

Kane craned his neck and watched as the Russian plane went into its
final dive.  It exploded far below in a burst of scarlet flame,
followed an instant later by a great mushroom of smoke that started to
drift upwards.

But this time Hansen was not lucky.  As the second plane came hurtling
in, machine guns shattering, the cockpit perspex shattered into a
gleaming spider's web.  The Major reeled back, his face a mask of
red.

"I'm blinded .. . God in heaven, I'm blinded," he cried in agony and
began clawing glittering pieces of perspex out of the red pits where
his eyes had just been.

Crazed with fear and desperate, as the great plane's nose suddenly
tilted downwards, the second pilot attempted to push him from the
controls.  The Major, besides himself with pain and horror, fought
back.  Madly the two of them battled for control of the Kondor, as its
nose tilted downwards even more.

The two Russian attackers sensed something serious had gone wrong. They
came in again for the kill.  In a tight turn they swung round, one
coming in from each side.  Kane gasped as one of them flashed by the
open door at a tremendous speed, guns blazing.  Huge pieces of gleaming
metal flew from the starboard engine.  Seconds later thick black oil
spurted out and hissed as it ran the length of the fuselage.  Suddenly
the prop stopped.  The crippled plane was flying on three engines.  The
dive of death set in.

The wounded dispatcher could wait no longer.

"Out!"  he cried, 'it's our only chance."  Eyes wild with fear, he
flung himself out of the open door, arms outstretched, legs apart like
some diver at a local swimming pool showing off on the high board.

Kane gasped.

"What ' The question died on his lips.  The plane lurched again.

Another salvo of slugs ran the length of the fuselage.  One of Krause's
men screamed piteously, sudden bloody buttonholes stitched the length
of his chest.  He hung limp from the rack.

Kane knew there was no more time available.  Desperately he flung a
glance below.  No sign of a burning swastika.  Nothing!  Just a burning
yellow waste.

"What are we gonna do?"  Winthrop cried, his fear all too evident, the
wind snatching the words from his open mouth.

The cry made up Kane's mind for him.

"JUMP!"  he screamed.

"Frigging well jump!  .. . After me!  .. . But frigging quick .. . make
a tight stick .. . Without waiting to find out whether they had
understood, Charley Kane flung himself out of the dying plane.  Down
below him the wounded Luftwaffe sergeant was plummeting to his death.
His chute had failed to open.  Perhaps the same burst of fire which had
struck him had ripped his parachute apart.  Now he fell head over feet
to earth.  Kane flashed a look above him.  Blue angry flame was pouring
from the stricken Kondor.  Silhouetted against it came the stick, man
after man falling into blue space, arms flailing wildly.

Kane fought to control himself.  He had never felt so afraid, even at
Dieppe.  But he knew fear would kill him.  He had to regain control.
The wind slapped and tugged at his right hand, as it sought and found
the ring to the ripcord.  Below the ground was coming up to meet him at
a frightening rate.  In a second it would be too late.  He would smash
into the rocky ground to die there in this alien place.  Time had
almost run out.

He tugged the ring.  Nothing!  For what seemed an eternity, he
continued to fall at a dizzying rate.  Suddenly a crack.  There was a
violent tug at his armpit.  For a frightening second he thought his
arms were going to be pulled off.  Abruptly that terrifying rate of
descent was braked.  Above his head a white canopy of silk billowed and
flowered into a perfect circle.  Gently, swaying a little as he fought
the shroud lines, he started to come down.  He had done it!

Five minutes later they were all down, frantically scraping into the
yellow stony sand with their hands, digging furious holes to hide their
chutes, for they knew as soon as the two Russian fighters had dealt
with the stricken Kondor which had limped away to the east, they would
be back.

"Los .. . /os," Charley urged them in German, his dirty face lathered
with sweat.  They'll be back .. . LOS!"

They needed no urging.  They knew Kane was right.  They'd be sitting
ducks if the Ivans spotted them on this almost featureless plain with
the only cover short, gnarled, stunted trees of some kind or other.

The dull boom from a long way away which echoed and re-echoed among the
low foothills surrounding that yellow plain told them that the Kondor
had gone down.  The Russian fighters had finished the big transport off
as they had intended to.  Now they'd be coming back.  Kane rose, hands
trembling with the effort, breath coming in short sharp gasps.  That'll
do," he commanded.

"Into those trees .. . and keep your faces down.  They'll be coming
back!"

A minute later they came skimming across the desert, the perspex of
their globular cockpits glinting in the sun.  To left and right they
peeled out, as if to some unspoken signal and then lowered their
undercarriages.

"Holy cow," Fingers gasped, as he lay full length in the scented
undergrowth next to Charley, 'are they gonna land?"

Charley shook his head, as they lay there beneath a kind of stunted
pine.

"No, they're trying to reduce speed.  He remembered how the Jap pilot
with the white band around his head had done the same when he had
machine-gunned Schofield Barracks back in '41.  "Give them a better
chance to spot us that way.  Look, up go their ugly snouts too. That'll
reduce speed air drag -even more."  He stopped speaking abruptly, as
the closer of the two planes flew right overhead, burying his face in
the yellow dust.

For what seemed an age the two little fighters swept back and forth
over their section of the plain.  Up and down, round and round, filling
the plain with the roar and snarl of the engines.  Charley Kane felt
they would never fly away.  But then abruptly one of them waggled his
wings.  The other did the same.  In unison they jerked back their
joysticks and rose, gathering speed by the instant, flying high into
the sun, leaving them helpless and bathed in sweat on the ground,
knowing that they had gotten away with it.  At least for the time being
.. .

TEN

It had snowed just before dawn: soft, heavy flakes sweeping in from the
mountains.  That had been the end of their fitful sleep on the hard
ground.  They had risen stiffly and grumpily and had quenched their
thirst with the new snow.  Their stomachs had rumbled hungrily, but
apart from a few biscuits which Polack was carrying, there was no food.
Hastily they had made their plan.  It wasn't much of one simply to keep
going away from Persia's frontier with Russia, heading south, in the
hope that Major Evers and his people would be out looking for them.

Now with the sun, rime-ringed and a pale luminous yellow to the east,
they struggled in a long column across that limitless plain.  In the
lead there was Charley Kane, with the compass strapped to his wrist.
Behind him came Krause, the only one to have sense enough to grab a
weapon, one of the SS's new automatic assault rifles, before they had
jumped from the Kondor.  In the rear came Polack, posted there to pick
up any stragglers.  For the Marine NCO was tireless, a tower of
strength, who seemed to go on for ever.

The going was tough.  The snow in places, especially in hollows and
folds in the ground, was nearly waist deep and had them cursing and
purple in the face as they fought their way through it.  There were
potholes, too, below the surface of the snow, perhaps the work of wild
animals making burrows.  At regular intervals someone would curse or
yelp with pain as his feet went through the snow and right into a hole,
forcing him to his knees.  Those potholes worried Charley Kane most. He
knew that anyone breaking even an ankle out here in this remote,
featureless place was done for.  They'd be able to carry the injured
man for a while; but for how long and to where?

They were questions Charley hardly dare pose to himself because there
were no answers to them.  Instead he concentrated on the way, his gaze
constantly searching the white horizon for any sign of life.  But there
was not one, not even a bird or some wild animal.  They seemed like the
last men on earth, condemned to tramp across this endless, barren
landscape until they could go on no longer and Death granted them the
boon of oblivion.

By noon that day they were beginning to clear the area of the snowfall.
Something for which they were glad.  For the hard going was exacting a
toll from even the tremendously fit and hard young SS men.  More than
once a red-faced angry Krause had gone down the long-drawn column
berating his weary men.

"Come on, you dogs," he would bark, his breath fogging the cold air,
"Don't you know you're the SS?  March or croakT The Americans, save
Polack, were weakening fast too.  The soft life of the camps had not
prepared them for this kind of exertion and Winthrop was in a
particularly bad way, occasionally weaving off from the column like a
drunk so that in the end, Polack caught hold of the officer, clamped
his massive arm around him and half-dragged him along in that manner.

It was about this time that Charley spotted smoke way off on the
horizon.  He stopped the column and called up Fingers, who had the
keenest eyesight of them all, to have a look.  The little ex-criminal
screwed up his eyes against that flat glare of the noonday sun and
stared hard at what Charley had taken to be smoke a faint smudge on the
horizon to their left taking his time, knowing just how much depended
upon his being right.  Finally he declared, "Sarge, I think you're
right.  It looks like smoke to me, too."

Charley made a quick decision.

"We march towards that smoke.  It must mean that somebody's living
there and that means for us shelter, warmth and food."

The sighting put new hope into the men.  Even Winthrop seemed capable
of marching along without Polack's help now.  Another hour passed and
now the weary men, their lips cracked by the wind and swollen and
parched, could see that Fingers had been right.  There was definitely
smoke to their right.  Indeed, there were several black plumes of smoke
rising to the pale blue sky and one or two of them began imagining they
could see the faint outlines of human habitation, croaking, "I'm sure I
can see huts."

Now Charley Kane was making plans.  He told himself, out in this remote
spot there could be no military.  There were no roads and no railroad;
and Western armies, especially the US Army, couldn't move without
'wheels'.  He reasoned they were approaching some sort of native
village, where grub and shelter could be bought.  He touched the little
leather bag of gold coins attached to the inside of his belt.  The
Horsemen of St.  George', the big Luftwaffe major had called them.

"English sovereigns they'll buy you anything in the East."  Now as he
fingered them, Charley hoped that the British coins would also buy him
information about the Abwehr officer, Major Evers.

By two that afternoon, they had left the snow behind them.  They were
moving through pathetic little patches of fields, probably ploughed by
hand with wooden ploughs, where the parched straw revealed the unknown
peasants had earlier harvested maize there.  There were animal
droppings, too.

"Goat shit," Polack, the former country boy, identified the hard green
balls of waste.  Charley nodded his agreement and looked for signs of
tyres, but there were none.  The hamlet, now clearly visible about a
mile away, was as he thought it was.

Relaxing, allowing his mind to indulge itself in thoughts of warm food
and rest in front of a fire, Charley Kane was caught completely off
guard, as Krause shouted suddenly, "NdhmaschineT "Sewing machine?" Kane
queried in bewilderment, as Krause pointed to the north where a small
biplane was heading in their direction, growing larger by the second,
its radial engine giving off a sound like an overworked sewing
machine.

"It's a Ratal' Krause yelled, shading his eyes against the glare of the
afternoon sun, "I'm sure .. . Ivan recce plane!"

Now Kane reacted.

"Get down everybody .. . take cover in the corn!"  he cried above the
tinny clatter of the biplane's engine.

"DOWNT

As one they flung themselves into the stalks, all weariness vanished
now, as they realized the Russians had not let up.  They were still
searching for them, a clear indication that they were still within
Persian territory occupied by the Russians.

Now while they lay there, hardly daring to breathe, the little plane
came down to about five hundred feet, circling slowly, as the pilot
leaned to left and right in his open cockpit, scrutinizing the ground
below.

"Freeze!"  Kane hissed as if the pilot might hear him, his mind
racing.

The Russkis, he reasoned, were definitely after them.  But there was
more to it than that.  How had they detected the Kondor in all that air
space between Russia, Persia and Turkey: one lone plane in territory
which covered thousands of square miles?  Could it be mere chance?  Or
had the Russkis known they were coming?

Next to him Krause broke into his brooding with an urgent, "He's coming
down lower and in this direction."  Next instant, he buried his head in
the stalky ground, as the 'sewing machine' came surging towards them,
its radial engine going all-out.

Charley Kane froze.  He buried his head in the stubble.  He daren't
look up now.  He watched as the black shadow of the biplane swept the
ground to his front and then it was directly above them, drowning out
all other sound, filling the world with its frantic, whirring noise.
And then it was gone, the sound of its motor receding rapidly.

A few feet away, Winthrop gave a sigh and said, "Christ in a crutch,
that was a near thing!  .. . Well, he's gone now .. . I've got stalks
sticking to me everywhere."  He sighed again and began to rise patting
his body, sweeping off the straw.

"Keep down!"  Krause yelled urgently.

"It's an old trick-' He broke off abruptly.  It was too late.

About five hundred feet away, the Rata had swung round in a tight
circle and was coming straight at them.  Kane knew with the one hundred
per cent certainty of a sudden vision that the Russian pilot had
spotted them.  It was no use trying to hide any longer.  Perhaps he was
already radioing his base that he had made contact.  At all events he
certainly would be seen, once he had made certain that the men below
were not some nomadic peasants.

Krause rose to his feet and unslung the automatic assault rifle.  His
face was crimson with fury.  For a moment Kane thought he was going to
turn the weapon on Winthrop who stood there, looking apparently
puzzled.  He didn't.  Instead, he barked, "Duck .. . come on, duck
quick!"

Instinctively Winthrop reacted to the harsh command.  He bent hands on
his spread knees, his face still bearing a look of bewilderment. Krause
didn't hesitate and Kane had to admire the officer-cadet's
professionalism.  It was a trick he had never seen before.  Krause
threw the rifle, with its air-cooled barrel, across Winthrop's back and
took aim.

Unsuspectingly the Russian pilot came lower and lower.  Krause followed
his path.  His finger curled white about the trigger.  His lean face
revealed no emotion, save a primeval lust to kill.  Krause steadied his
breathing.  It wouldn't be long now, Kane told himself.  He could see
the white blur of the Russian pilot's face as he peered down at them.

Startlingly, suddenly, Krause fired.  Slugs hissed upwards.  The
bullets streamed to left and right of the biplane.  A strut was hit. It
snapped.  Fragments of wood flew everywhere.  The wing sagged. Still
the pilot kept on.  Now he was above them.  The black shadow of the
plane was dragged across their upturned faces like that of some giant
hawk.  Krause swung round, face hard and intent, firing furiously all
the time.

Little bits of wood flew from the Rata's fuselage in a thick dark rain.
Suddenly a click.  Krause cursed.  His magazine was empty.  Kane bit
his bottom lip with worry.  The Rata was still flying.  He was turning
to begin his return flight to his base.  He was getting away with it!

Furiously Krause thrust home another magazine, knowing as he did so it
was too late.  The 'sewing machine' was out of range.

"Heaven, arse and cloudburst!"  he cursed angrily.

"What a shitting mess ' The words died on his lips.  There was a series
of thick throaty coughs.  The little biplane shivered visibly. Abruptly
the engine cut out.  It fired once more and then stopped again.  The
Rata began to glide down.

The tension snapped.  Everywhere the weary anxious men cheered.  The
little plane was hurtling down, out of control.  Kane could just
visualize the pilot, face contorted with fear, fighting the controls.
In vain.  The biplane was heading straight for destruction. Frantically
the pilot heaved at the joystick, trying to stop the inevitable.  He
couldn't.  The right wing tipped the ground.  It was torn off like a
great wooden leaf.  Next instant the biplane sheered round to the
right.  The prop shattered against a rock.  Crazily the plane skidded
along for a few more yards, throwing up a huge wild wake of soil and
stones behind it.  Suddenly it upended altogether.  There was a muffled
crash and the petrol tank exploded.  The plane disappeared in a furious
ball of crimson flame.  No one got out.

For a few moments they simply stood there in the loud echoing silence,
broken only by their own heavy breathing and the crackle of the flames.
All of them were lathered in a sweat of apprehension, tension. Finally
Fingers said, breaking the tension at last, "Don't look now, but
somebody's coming to meet us and I hope it's the welcoming
committee."

It was.

Half an hour later all of them were sitting in a smoky low hut, with a
kind of charcoal brazierin the middle of the dirt floor, drinking warm
goat's milk from wooden bowls and munching huge slabs of un leaven
maize bread and cheese, while Major Evers spoke.

The middle-aged German intelligence officer seemed totally out of place
in these surroundings.  He was faultlessly dressed in a white linen
suit, underneath an expensive leather-and-fur coat.  On his greying
head an astrakhan hat was perched jauntily.  He even sported a red
flower of some kind in his buttonhole.  In this place and with his band
of swarthy, heavily armed brigands, who he said were his bodyguards, he
looked completely out of place.

Now he told the weary survivors that he and his men had scoured the
area for the last twelve hours in the hope of finding survivors of the
crashed Kondor, but that the snowfall of the previous night had put
them 'off the scent', as he phrased it, whereupon he sniffed a lace
handkerchief soaked in eau-de-cologne, as if the word 'scent' had just
reminded him just how awful the hut smelled.

"But, gentlemen, happily I didn't lose you altogether, did I?"  he
smiled pleasantly at the survivors slumped round the walls, already
beginning to scratch; for the hut, Charley had discovered, was lousy
with fleas.  He turned and snapped something in Farsi.  One of the
brigands, a big swarthy fellow, with a great hook of a nose above a
flowing jet-black moustache, took a bottle from his pouch and went from
man to man pouring a generous slug into the wooden bowls.

"Raki," Evers explained.

"We are all Muslim, of course, and are not allowed to touch alcoholic
liquid.  But this is an emergency, isn't it?  Prost!  They needed no
urging.  As one they lifted their bowls and said, "Prost."

The brigand with the bottle said what he thought was 'prosf and drained
what was left of the fiery spirit, made of date palm.

Charley gasped a little as he downed his share and then said, "What's
the drill from here in on, Major?"

"I have several roles to fulfill in this operation Operation Long Jump
is its official name by the way, Sergeant Kane."

Charley looked surprised.  There had been no time to introduce
themselves yet the middle-aged dandy of a major knew his name.
Obviously Evers had been well-briefed for this operation.  Now he
looked at Evers with new respect.

"But my first task is to get you from here to the capital, Tehran.  We
are, you see, in the zone of Persia occupied by the Russians."

At the mention of the word "Russian', the big brigand with the bottle
spat on the dirt floor and drew his finger across his throat.

Evers smiled slightly.

"You can see how popular they are with the local populace.  But make no
mistake of it, gentlemen, when it comes to trouble with the Russians
the Persians are not the bravest of people.  If it were their life or
yours, they'd betray you to the hated Russians at the drop of a hat,
remember that."  He beamed at the big brigand, who had obviously not
understood a word save "Russian'.

"Now gentlemen," Evers continued.  The Russians here are thin on the
ground.  Fortunately.  They are concentrated on the road system leading
from the capital to their own country.  Their prime task is to guard
these roads for the vital war supplies coming up from the
Anglo-Americans in the south.  However," Evers held up a manicured
finger Charley suspected the nail was lacquered, too in warning, 'the
Russians do send out patrols periodically.  Greencaps, the locals call
them, and the locals fear them intensely."

"Greencaps?"  Fingers queried.

But it was Krause, not Evers, who answered.

"The Ivans' secret police, the NKVD."  His face contorted bitterly.

"When we retook Kharkov last summer we found the well at their
headquarters stuffed with the dead of the Adolf Hitler Bodyguard.  The
Greencaps had murdered them slowly.  It's better to die a swift, clean
death than fall into the hands of those fiends."

"Exactly, Fahnenjunker."  Evers said pleasantly.

"Now gentlemen, I suggest you rest.  It's going to be a two-day journey
through rough country, off the beaten track.  By mule."  He smiled
softly.  'I'm afraid your minds are going to be broadened considerably
before you reach Tehran."

Fingers tittered.  Charley grinned too.  Even Polack managed a slightly
puzzled grin.  Only Winthrop of the Americans did not react.  His face
was set and preoccupied, as if he was doing some hard thinking.

ELEVEN

Charley Kane awoke with a start.  He wondered why.  Then he shivered
and realised he was cold; that was why.  Outside the big hut a chill
wind came straight down from the mountains.  Inside the men snored,
tossing and turning like men do who have just undergone some great
tension.  Each time they did so the straw upon which they slept
crackled noisily.  Charley Kane pulled the goatskin around him more
tightly and sat up.  The little charcoal burnerin the centre of the
room had nearly gone out.  By dull glow of the dying embers, he could
just see the dim outlines of the men under his command.  For a moment
he wondered how they would all bear up to what was to come, then he
told himself with a groan, he'd have to brave the cold outside.  He
needed a piss.

With the goatskin tucked over his shoulders, Kane threaded his way
carefully and pushed aside the piece of sacking which served as a door.
It was a clear cold night.  Above him in the sky myriad stars blazed
down, bathing everything below in the hard silver light.  It was
pretty, but damned cold.  He shivered again and ripped open his flies.
The urine came out in a great stream of yellow, splashing against the
wall, steaming suddenly in the cold.  Charley Kane gave a faint sigh of
relief.  He told himself he'd nip straight back in and grab some more
shut-eye.  It was nearly two hours before dawn when they would set off
under Evers' command.  Might as well enjoy He stopped short suddenly.
There was someone else out there!  Suddenly wide awake, he buttoned up
his flies and narrowed his eyes.  He stared hard.  At the edge of the
little settlement, outlined a stark black in the cold silver light of
the stars, a man was standing.  For a moment he thought it might be one
of the villagers or a member of Evers' brigand bodyguard.  Then he told
himself that that couldn't be.  The man was dressed in European
clothes, not the loose robes, complete with headdress, of the
natives.

Charley frowned.  It couldn't be Evers, who had a hut to himself.
Whoever stood there was a head taller than Evers.  It had to be one of
his party.  But why was he standing out there on a freezing night like
that?  Charley shrugged.  He told himself he better go and see.  Almost
silently, his footsteps muffled by the thick dust of the dirt street,
Charley nearly reached the lone figure, before he turned startled and
said, "Oh it's you, Kane."

"Yeah, me, Winthrop," Charley answered.

"What ya doing out here this time of night?"

"Couldn't sleep.  The pong and the snoring, you know, Kane?"

"Yeah, I know.  I had to get up and take a piss myself."

"Want a butt, Kane?  I've still got some decent cigarettes left."  He
proffered the packet and held up his Zippo lighter, which for some
reason he had in his hand already.

"Why, sure, thanks," Charley said a little surprised.  Ever since they
had met again, Winthrop had kept his distance.  For a time Charley had
told himself it was because they had once been officer and noncom in
the same outfit.  Later he had felt it had gone deeper than that, but
he had not been able to put his finger on the real cause.  Now he drew
in a lungful of smoke gratefully and, in that way that darkness brings
out confidences in people, said casually, "Do you know, Winthrop, I
first met you in '37 ... at your place outside New Bedford."  Even as
he spoke, Charley smiled ruefully at the memory of the second time he
had met Winthrop at "Daisy's Place'.

Winthrop frowned in the glowing darkness, his face lit up by the ruddy
tip of his cigarette.

"I can't say I remember you," he said slowly, as if thinking hard.

"I only used to go down there in the summer when I was at Yale."

Charley laughed drily.

"Well, I certainly wasn't there down from Yale," he emphasized the
words.

"I was in New Bedford strictly from hunger.  We marched on your
father's house ' ' - I remember now," Winthrop interrupted, sudden
interest in his voice.  The commie mob, as Pa called it!  You were with
those kids, Kane?"

"Yeah, I was with those kids, and who popped out of the door to tell
your old man you'd called the State Troopers?"

"I didn't call them," Winthrop corrected him, as if it was important
now.

"That was Ma.  You see Ma and Pa were old school.  My grandfather had
made his pile through hard work and determination he'd been a
blacksmith to start out.  Ma and Pa thought that every red-blooded
American could do the same rags to riches sort of thing.  They never
realised that things had changed.  In the new America there was no
place for the individualistic entrepreneur.  In this new kind of
America, everyone had to pull together.  There had to be state planning
for everybody .. . ' Charley Kane listened in slightly amused
bewilderment as Winthrop babbled on about the 'common man' and the
'rights of man' before cutting him short with, "You sound like a New
Dealer?"

"No, Kane, Roosevelt is all right, but he didn't go far enough with his
New Deal.  We've got to go further than that.  There's got ' '
Gentlemen," Evers' soft voice cut into Winthrop's lecture, "I think
we'd better start rousing the men."  Soft as the voice was, Charley
Kane could sense the urgency beneath it.

"Anything wrong, Major?1 he snapped, tossing away the cigarette and
grinding it out with his boot.

"I thought we were moving out at dawn?"

"Change in plan, Kane," Evers said and now for the first time, Charley
noted he was already fully dressed, wearing elegant riding breeches
beneath a short, fur-lined leather coat.  He had a big automatic
strapped to his waist, too.

"I'm in radio contact with our people in the nearest town.  The
Russians are moving out.  They've already dispatched six patrols.  It's
time we got away from here.  Their patrols always head for the villages
and hamlets."  As if to emphasize the urgency of the matter there was
the sudden hoarse braying of stubborn mules or donkeys from the other
end of the village and Kane could hear the clink of a harness.

"My bandits," Evers said, 'are getting your er transport ready for
you."

Kane wasted no more time.

"Right, Major, let's get the show on the road."

Winthrop seemed to hesitate and Charley snapped, suddenly angry with
him.

"Come on, Winthrop, get the lead outa ya butt.  Move it!"

Winthrop 'moved it' ... By mid-morning, with a heavy leaden sky
overhead indicating either rain or snow soon, they were miles from the
Persian village.  Strung out in single file with brigand outriders to
either side, their little donkeys bore them patiently down rocky tracks
and remote paths, which Evers seemed to know like the back of his hand.
The Russians," he had told them early, 'do not know this country, but
they use locals as guides, especially the Greencaps.  They have to live
up to their reputation as being infallible, naturally.  Again there was
no sign of human habitation and again Charley Kane, in the lead with
Evers and the big brigand, felt as if they might be the last ones alive
in the world.  Now Magda in Germany seemed so remote, as if she might
be living on another planet.  Would he ever see her again?  He frowned
and dismissed the thought.  To survive this thing, he told himself
firmly, he had to live day by day.

Now they were entering a deep valley.  On both sides the granite rock
was smooth and fissured, as if might well have been polished and
chiselled by centuries of glaciers during some remote ice age.  In a
way the place was harshly pretty, though Charley could see that Major
Evers had no eyes for the grey beauty of the place.  His gaze was fixed
anxiously and firmly on the bare peaks which now towered above them.
Charley could guess why.  If they were to be ambushed, this tight
valley would be the ideal spot for it.  The riders were trapped in the
place until they reached the open spaces of the other side.

Now the big brigand who had served the raki the previous evening was
scanning the ground carefully.  Kane guessed what he was looking for
footprints.  But he could see himself there were plenty of them and
those of domestic animals too, the cloven hoof marks of goats or sheep.
Why bother?

Suddenly the big Persian uttered an exclamation and said something
hurriedly in Farsi to Evers.  Evers looked worried and said, "He's
spotted Russian boot marks  Look there.  You can't mistake the pattern.
Exactly nine stud marks per boot."

"So that's it," Charley said.

"I was wondering why he bothered.  What now?"

Evers shook his head.

"We'll just have to carry on.  It is clear that the Russians have been
here recently, after the snow or rain or whatever it did here.  But
whether they were the same Russians who were alerted this morning He
shrugged and didn't complete the sentence.  Charley knew why.  Major
Evers did not want to dwell on the unpleasant possibility that these
were boot marks of the dreaded Greencaps looking for them.

Time passed slowly as they ambled through the valley at the slow pace
of the little donkeys.  Above their heads the sky grew ever greyer.
Slowly, almost sadly, the first heavy wet flakes of snow started to
trickle down.  Next to Charley, Major Evers cursed.

"Damned shit," he snorted.

"Now our visibility is going to be cut off."

Evers was right.  Within five minutes, with the snow now coming down
ever more strongly, they could not see more than five yards ahead of
them, each man draped in white and cut off in a cocoon of his own
thoughts and fears.  There was tension in the air.  Charley could
almost smell it.  Time and time again he imagined someone looming out
of the flying snowflakes.  Almost unconsciously, he loosened the pistol
in his holster and clicked off 'safety' with his thumb.  He knew
trouble was on the way: from where and how, he did not know.  But
trouble was coming all right.  He knew that.  In spite of the cold, he
felt a rash of warm sweat beginning to break out all over his body.

By now they had almost reached the exit from the tight valley.  Before
them in the flying white wall of snow lay the open plain.  They had
almost done it.  Charley felt his tension start to recede.  Out there
they would be safe.

Suddenly star tingly there was a dry soft hiss.  For a moment none of
them could make it out.  Then the first of white-clad shapes came
hurtling across their front, going at a good thirty miles an hour.

"Ski troops!"  Evers yelled.

"Soviet ski troop sT Evers' party did not wait for the command to open
fire.  They knew their lives depended on dealing with the Russians
before they got organized.  Rifles blazed.  Pistols barked.  As more
and more Russians came hurtling out of the gloom into that murderous
blast of fire, Charley, snapping off shots to left and right, told
himself that they had been betrayed.  Somehow, even in this weather,
the Russkis had known they were coming.  Someone had informed on
them.

But at that moment Charley Kane had no time to reflect on what appeared
to him to be treachery.  The Russians were everywhere, hissing into
their death, writhing and screaming in the snow, staining it red with
their blood, as they were massacred mercilessly.  There could be no
prisoners, Charley knew that instinctively.  All the Russkis had to
die.  Not one of them could be allowed to escape.

In vain the Russians attempted to return their fire.  They stumbled
right into the fire.  Even the brigands, who Evers had said had little
stomach for a real fight, kept on firing, screaming with joy every time
that they brought one of the surprised Russian ski troopers down,
already moving forward here and there to loot the bodies.

Then it was over, with the firing echoing and re-echoing up and down
the valley, the snowflakes pelting down, heavy wet and thick, already
beginning to cover the dead, sprawled out in the extravagant postures
of those done violently to death.

Evers wiped the back of his hand across his face, his chest heaving as
if he had just run a race.  Thank God," he muttered, almost as if to
himself.  Thank God that's over!"

"What now?"  Charley Kane asked, his voice seeming to come from far
away.  He realised that his hands were trembling violently.

"We get out of here quick!"  Evers shouted something in Farsi and the
brigands looting the bodies of the Russians, already half buried in the
new snow, left their task and clambered hastily back on their mounts.
They realised, too, what would happen to them if another Russian patrol
caught them now.

"Something's gone wrong.  It's almost as if the Ivans knew we were
coming this way.  It was just lucky for us that this snowstorm came up
so unexpectedly and covered us."

"Yes," Charley Kane said grimly off again, emerging at last from valley
into the broader plain.

"The He sat up in the middle and flung if he were looking for something
snow was too thick for him.  So he and concentrated on guiding the
fast-vanishing track.

, as they began to move that tight, threatening Russkis knew all
right."  a look behind him, and specific.  But the flying cursed softly
to himself little donkey along the

TWELVE

"Zurkane," Evers announced, as the ancient bus which he had hired once
they had reached the outskirts of Tehran, started to nose its way
through the noisy throng of pedlars, barefoot, undernourished children
and veiled women clad in black from head to foot.

"We are as safe here as if we were in Berlin.  Here they hate all
foreigners, especially the Allied occupiers.  Fortunately we are
exceptions."  He grinned and made the German gesture of counting money
with his thumb and forefinger.

Charley Kane returned his grin and asked, "And what do we do here,
Major?"

"First we find our safe haven and then we rather you, for I am a little
too old and cowardly for that sort of thing continue with the great
plan."  He emphasized the word 'plan', as if it was something that he
did not quite agree with.  Then he said something to the driver who was
clad in dirty European clothes.  The latter nodded, honked his horn at
a group of the black-clad women and turned off left, narrowly missing a
stall selling live chickens, tied, and hanging upside down from a
stanchion.

Minutes later they arrived at Major Evers' 'safe haven'.  It was a
large, rundown building from which came the sound of grunts and now and
again shrill exclamations, as if of pain.  Heavy, swarthy men, many of
them naked to the waist, clad only in dark bloomer like cotton pants,
were lugging inside great cauldrons of boiling hot water, while others
laboured with cauldrons of what looked like ice-cold water.

"They're pahlavane," Evers said, as they got out of the rickety
vehicle.

"Persian wrestlers!  And this is their training-hall-cum-home.  You
see," he continued, saluting the wrestlers, most of whom seemed to know
him, 'here in Tehran wrestlers are admired like foot ballers were in
the Reich before the war."

They passed through the entrance.  Just inside, naked men were pouring
first hot water and then cold over their huge bodies, muscles rippling
with every motion.  Others were juggling huge clubs, nearly as big as
themselves, while in the centre of the big hall groups of men were
grunting and straining, faces set hard, trying to trip each other up.

"That one, that one over there," Evers said to Kane, 'that's Ebtehay,
the wrestlers' leader, perhaps one of the most respected and feared men
in the capital."  He indicated a huge man with a surly scowling face
and heavy flowing moustache standing in the corner of the room,
surrounded by what appeared to be a crowd of fawning toadies.

"That man can have a mob on the streets of Tehran at the drop of a
hat."

"How do you mean, Major?"  Kane asked, as they pushed their way through
the sweating, water-dripping throng, towards the wrestlers' leader.

"Well, as I have said these wrestlers are extremely popular.  They
have, too, a whole hierarchy of trusted followers, the tescharukeher
literally "knife-bearers", that is cut-throats; the kotlot, the
bruisers, pimps and the like.  With the help of the police, who can
always be bribed to look the other way, he can have a mob on the
street, baying for blood in a matter of hours."

Fahnenjunker Krause, who was following them, sniffed disdainfully.

"Sub-humans," he said, 'racially inferior."

"Probably," Evers agreed easily.

"But in this business, Fahnenjunker, we can't be too picky about our
sleeping partners.  We'll need people like Ebtehay for what we have to
do ' Kane held up his hand to silence Major Evers.

"Major, better not say any more, eh.  The fewer people who are in the
know the better, don't you think?"

"Yes, I suppose you're right," Evers agreed.

Krause flushed.  He didn't like the big Ami giving orders but he knew
Kane was Skorzeny's man so he closed his mouth and said nothing, as
Evers led Kane over to the big wrestlers' leader and introduced him.
Together the three of them strolled off into a side room, busily
engaged in some sort of whispered conversation, leaving the others
staring at their surroundings in slight bewilderment .. .

"Penny for them, Fingers?"  Winthrop said casually, as they watched a
couple of the Persian giants attempting to grab for each other's
crotches and lift one another off the ground.

The little Jew shrugged and said, "Don't pay to think too much."  He
winced as one of the wrestlers caught the other by the testicles and
lifted him, whimpering shrilly, clean off his feet before slamming him
to the ground.

"Listen Fingers," Winthrop whispered urgently.

"We've got ourselves in one helluva mess.  But ' ' Listen, Cap,"
Fingers interrupted, "Isn't it a bit late for all this?"  His sharp
little eyes were suddenly very serious.

"All we can do is to get the job over with, take the dough and run."

Winthrop wasn't convinced.

"But there is a way out before it's too late," he hissed as the
wrestlers grunted and groaned to their front.

"This is the capital, a big city.  There'll be Allied embassies
here-British, American."  He hesitated momentarily, face taut and
cautious.

"Russian."

Fingers caught that note of hesitation immediately.

"What do ya mean Russian?"  he asked.

"Well, if we can't go to our people because they'd take us for
turncoats traitors we could still go to the Russians.  Tell 'em what we
know and .. . his voice faltered to nothing.  For Fingers was shaking
his head firmly.

"No Cap, this is no way back.  This Jewboy is gonna play ball with the
Krauts till he gets his money.  Then somehow he'll powder ... go to
Palestine, where he'll take no crap from anybody any more about being a
Jew.  I'll be among my own people at last."

"Yeah, I guess you're right, Fingers," Winthrop said after a moment's
silence.

"It's too late."  He shrugged.

"Gotta take a leak, Fingers."

The little Jew nodded with no interest.  In front of him the bigger of
the two wrestlers was on the floor once again, writhing back and forth,
holding the testicles in agony, while the other wrestler was kicking
him methodically in the side of the head, his face bored and without
malice.  Silently Winthrop stole away .. .

"Winthrop's gone!"  Polack burst into the little side room where Kane,
Evers and the Persian were hunched around a little table deep in
conversation.

"What?"  Kane snapped.

"I said no one was to leave this place."  He pushed back his chair
hastily.

"Well, Winthrop did.  He told Fingers he was going to try to find a
place to take leak and then one of the niggers," Polack meant the
Persians, 'saw him go out of the door into the street.  And he hasn't
come back.  So I thought I'd tell you, Sarge.  Hope I did right?"

"You did, Polack.  Thanks.  Where's Fingers?"

"Here, Sarge."  Hastily the little Jewish soldier told him what
Winthrop had asked him to do just before he had left.

"He said the Russian embassy?"

"Yeah.  That put me off for a start.  My folks had to flee Russia, on
account of them pogroms.  I didn't think they'd welcome me with open
arms .. . He stopped speaking, for he realized that Kane was no longer
listening.

"Shit on the shingle!"  Kane cursed suddenly.

"If Winthrop gets to one of those embassies, our goose is cooked.
They'll be stretching our necks at Leavenworth sooner or later."

Evers went pale.

"In three devils' name," he said urgently, 'we've got to find him."
Hurriedly he spoke to the big wrestlers' leader.

Ebtehag nodded and rushed outside.  Suddenly wrestlers, many of them
tugging dirty shirts over their naked upper bodies, were swarming
through the door and spreading out into the bustling market beyond,
grabbing hold of stall holders and questioning them before pushing
deeper into the throng.

They'll find him," Evers said after the commotion had died down.  If
anyone can, it'll be Ebtehag's men."

Charley Kane slumped down on the hard wooden chair, suddenly realizing
that all he had been working for these last few weeks was at stake.  If
the Persians didn't catch Winthrop before he contacted Allied
authorities, his plans for a new life with Magda would be destroyed and
worse.

"God, I hope so," Kane said.

Evers closed the door, leaving just the two of them in the little
room.

"Sergeant Kane," he said in a low voice.

"I think you'll have guessed by now that we are gambling for the
highest stakes here in Tehran."

Kane nodded, but said nothing.

"But I don't think even you can guess just how high those stakes are."
Evers gave that look which Charley had seen so often back in Germany in
these last few months: the one Germans always gave when they were about
to impart a secret.

Abruptly he forgot Winthrop's defection.  He realised suddenly later he
couldn't recall how that this was going to be one of the most momentous
moments in his life.  A strange chill ran through his body.  He
shivered involuntarily.

"What is it?"  he asked, his own voice seeming to come from a long way
away.

"Charley I can call you that, can't I?"

Kane nodded.

"Charley, for some time now we have known that there is going to be a
great meeting of the Allied powers here in Tehran.  Don't ask me how,
but we've known.  Our three principal enemies," he smiled a little
painfully, and corrected himself.

"Sorry, I mean, Germany's three principal enemies are scheduled to meet
here very soon."  He licked suddenly dry lips.  They are the Russian
dictator, Stalin, that fellow Churchill from England and he hesitated
for a fraction of a second, 'your own president.  Franklin Delano
Roosevelt."

Charley Kane's mouth dropped open foolishly.

"You mean he said and stopped short, unable to continue.  The enormity
of it all was just too much for him.

Now Evers plunged into the details, as if he was only too eager to get
the dreaded facts off his chest now.  Two of them, your Roosevelt and
Churchill, are currently in Cairo.  We know that for sure.  Stalin is
still in Moscow.  We have that on good authority and we know too Stalin
will not travel out of his own sphere of influence, which ends here in
Tehran.  We know too ' ' You want us to kill them," Charley blurted
out, unable to contain himself any longer.  That's what it is all
about, isn't it?"

Evers nodded mutely.

A heavy silence fell over the little room, broken only by the muted
buzz of voices from the street market outside and Krause's bitter,
harsh voice, The Ami officer is a traitor .. . there is only one
punishment for treachery .. . The Ami must be liquidated ... I hope
they," who 'they' were was anyone's guess, 'understand that?"  .. .

"But President Roosevelt is one of the world's most important men,"
Charley Kane objected a little desperately.

"He will be so well guarded.  How can you get at him?"

"Not me, Charley," Evers corrected him, 'but you!  Of course he is.
Stalin, too.  But we have a foolproof plan, one that simply cannot fail
to eradicate the three of them at one go."

"But ' Winthrop's shrill cry of pain and tearful, "Please don't hit me
again.  Please!"  broke into his objection.  He rose to his feet.

"It's him," Kane exclaimed.

"They've caught Winthrop.  Come on, Major."

Thank God," Evers said fervently.

Together they went out to where a bleeding Winthrop, one eye blackened
and closing rapidly, was surrounded by burly wrestlers, while Krause
and his men looked on.  Evers snapped something in Farsi and the
wrestlers relaxed their hold on the American.

For a moment Kane felt a sense of pity for Winthrop, mixed with a
little admiration.  Winthrop was scared, that was obvious.  But at the
same time his ashen bleeding face bore a look of defiance, a kind of
triumphant defiance.  It said, "Do what you like to me, but in the end
I shall win."

Kane grabbed one of the wrestler's towels and handed it to Winthrop
with a curt, "Wipe the frigging blood off your face."

Thanks," Winthrop mumbled through his split and swollen lips, and did
so.

Kane waited till he was through, then said, "All right", Winthrop,
start talking and buddy, believe me, you'd better make it good, if you
know what's good for you."

"Yeah," Polack snarled, clenching a fist like a steam-shovel.

"Spit it out or ya gonna get a bunch o' fives in ya kisser .. . '

THIRTEEN

Winthrop 'spat it out', his face still that queer mixture of fear and
defiance.  He stared around the circle of angry faces glowering at him
and said to Kane, "What a traitor to your class you are, Kane.
Intelligent, a born leader, determined, yet you don't have an idea in
hell on how to work for your class!"

The attack caught Charley Kane completely by surprise.

"My class?"  he echoed stupidly.

"What are ya goddam talking about, Winthrop?"

Winthrop didn't answer Kane's question directly.  Instead he said, "Do
you think I would have gone along with all this Nazi crap, if I didn't
have something up my sleeve?  They," he nodded scornfully at Krause's
hard, but puzzled face, 'would never have broken me.  I hate them too
much for that."

"So you tell us," Charley snapped, 'why did you work for them?"

"For the cause, that's why," Winthrop declared proudly, staring at Kane
through `;0;0' eyes which were now puffed-up slits.

"The cause .. . you mean you're ... a commie?"

"Yes, I have been a member of the Party ever since I was at Cambridge,
England in thirty-eight, the year after you saw me at New Bedford."

"Why did you get in this caper, then?"  Fingers breathed, as if he
couldn't quite believe the evidence of his own ears.

"It was all part of the plan," Winthrop answered hastily, as if he was
only too eager to get it off his chest after so long, 'a plan they
worked out for me back in forty-one .. . ' In 1941 Winthrop had been
ordered by the Party to leave his safe job in Wall Street and join the
Army.  The Party had reasoned that sooner or later Roosevelt would get
America in the war.  Now it was a matter of urgency for the Party, and
Moscow, too, to have agents in the US Army to report on America's
military.  With his background and connections, Winthrop had been
commissioned almost immediately.  When America entered the war in
December 1941, Winthrop had again been ordered by the Party bosses to
volunteer this time for the new Rangers being formed and trained in
Britain.  The Party wanted him to gain infantry experience before being
transferred to the staff of the new US command being set up in
London.

"You mean you was gonna spy on our generals?"  Polack said in that slow
deliberate manner of his.

"Why that's disloyal!"

Winthrop laughed bitterly.

"Disloyal, you can talk, Polack!"  His ashen face twisted bitterly.

"Why not?  There they were in London sitting on their fat keesters,
screwing around with titled English ladies, while the Russians were
dying in their thousands doing the only fighting.  Our people wanted to
know just how long it would be before those self-same generals finally
started the Second Front in Europe and took the pressure off Russia."
He calmed down a little.

"Anyway at Dieppe, it went seriously wrong.  They had to find a new
role for me."

Evers who had been straining hard to follow the rapid flow of English,
held up his hand and said in German to Kane, "Charley, if I understood
correctly, Winthrop just said, they he means the Reds had to find a new
role for him?"

Charley Kane nodded numbly, his mind still reeling at Winthrop's
disclosures.

"Then you have people in Germany?"  he addressed Winthrop directly.

"Of course we have.  Our people are everywhere," Winthrop declared
proudly.

"Even in your damned Nazi paradise.  They ensured I got on this
mission.  They knew all about Skorzeny's previous long range
penetration flights into the Soviet Union.  They knew everything."  He
shrugged.

"But something went wrong.  The fighter pilots were supposed to force
the Kondor to land.  Instead they shot it down."

It was then that Charley Kane hit Winthrop.  His clenched fist slammed
into Winthrop's nose.  Something cracked.  Thick red blood welled up
from Winthrop's shattered nose.

"You bastard!"  Charley Kane snorted.

"You go on about class traitors and all that crap, yet you betray your
oh hell, I wish I'd never set eyes on your goddam treacherous mug."  He
turned away in disgust, as Evers clicked his fingers.

Ebtehag nodded his understanding, as Evers leaned down to where
Winthrop was sobbing softly now, his hands holding his broken nose, red
with blood.

"Do the Russians know what our mission is?"  he asked quietly, as the
two wrestlers approached in silence.

Winthrop did not answer.

Evers repeated his question quietly.

Winthrop raised his head, defiant to the last, "Do you think I'd tell
you," he said thickly.

Evers moved back to allow the bulky wrestlers to take hold of Winthrop.
His head fell.  Like a lamb being led to the slaughter, he allowed
himself to be taken away.

For what seemed a long while they stood there staring at the empty
chair and the pool of Winthrop's blood on the tiled floor.  Once
Fingers started nervously, as the faint muffled scream of agony
penetrated from next door.

But for the most part they remained still, hardly seeming to breathe,
each man wrapped up in a cocoon of his own thoughts.

Ebtehag came back into the silent room.  He was wearing Winthrop's
watch now.  He approached Evers, cupped his hand to Evers' ear and
whispered something in Farsi.  Evers nodded his understanding, his face
grave.  For his part the wrestlers' leader grinned evilly and turning,
he drew his finger across his throat.  He was making sure they all knew
what had just happened to Winthrop.

Evers waited until he had gone out.

"Gentlemen," he announced slowly, "Winthrop said no more.  I think he
had no more to say.  Now he's finished speaking for ever.  Before they
killed him, they cut out his tongue.  It is their way with traitors."

"Boshe moil" Polack exclaimed and crossed himself in the Slav fashion.
Even Krause's tough face blanched.  For a fleeting second Kane
remembered that first time he had seen Winthrop on that hot summer's
day in his polo shirt and elegant white breeches, face full of
confidence and money.  Now he lay dead with his tongue cut out in some
back street Persian gutter.

Evers waited patiently.  Then he said, "Well, we can see that this
mission has been dogged by a traitor right from the start.  Perhaps it
was he who summoned up those Russian patrols at the village near the

DZ."

Kane remembered the Zippo lighter so readily available in Winthrop's
hand the night he had offered a 'butt' and concluded he might have used
it to get some sort of signal out.

"We can assume," Evers was saying, 'that Winthrop had no contacts
directly with the Soviets after he left the Reich.  Now that he is
gone, we are secure.  But," he gave a little shrug, 'there is a slight
possibility that Russian Intelligence is now aware that we are
operating in Tehran.  The Russians are no fools in the field of
intelligence.

But what little I know of them tells me that they are extremely
secretive and that they will not share whatever they may know about
Operation Long Jump with their Anglo-Saxon allies."  He saw that the
shocked look on his listeners' faces had been replaced by one of
bewilderment and, turning to Kane, said, "Charley, I think it is time
that we explain what exactly Operation Long Jump entails, don't you?"

"Yes, I think you'd better."

Major Evers cleared his throat formally.

"Gentlemen, you have come this very long way to assassinate the three
leaders of the Allied powers."

The shock was total.  Even Charley Kane, who now knew what was going
on, was shocked once more by the enormity of the proposal.  The handful
of them, American renegades and German fanatics of the SS, were to kill
three of the most powerful men in the world.  At that moment, it seemed
crazy; a mission that it would be impossible to carry out.

Krause was the first to recover.  His eyes glowed with fanatical
enthusiasm, "Himmel, Arsch und WolkenbruchT he cried out loud and
clicked to attention.

"Did you hear that, comrades!  .. . This is a mission worthy of even
the greatest sacrifice."

Fingers was more sanguine.

"Jesus H .. . fancy trying to kill the President of the US-of-A!"

Kane flashed a hard look at both of them, his shock overcome now.

"Let me tell you this loud and clear," he said, iron in his voice
now.

"I'm not going to let anyone come between me and that ten grand.  It
means a new beginning for me.  So we carry out this mission, if we've
got to kill the King of England to do so.  We'll do it and after that,
for all I care, the whole goddam lot o' ya can go and fry in frigging
helll' "Gentlemen," Evers said hurriedly, looking at Kane's suddenly
flushed and angry face.

"Let us try to be calm about this matter.  Indeed the only way we er,
you will carry it off is to keep cool heads."

"If the Amis are already beginning to fill their breeches," Krause said
scornfully, leave the matter to us of the Waffen SS."

Evers held up his hands for calm.

"No, Fahnenjunker," he said firmly.

"Without our Americans the plan cannot succeed.  That is why an
American, Sergeant Kane here, is in charge.  Now let us waste no
further time talking.  We have less than a week left for our
preparations and I can assure you that everything must be correct, down
to the smallest detail, if we are going to succeed."

Krause mumbled something and then fell silent, as Evers said, "Now
gentlemen, I advise you to relax there will be food and drink in a few
moments.  For tonight we are going on a guided tour of the European
quarter of Tehran."

And with that Evers left them to their own thoughts.  They weren't
pleasant.

BOOK THREE

Operation Long Jump Man kann nichts uber seinen Schatten spring en Old
German Saying You can't jump over your own shadow."  Transl.

FOURTEEN

They stood in the shadows carefully and listened as Evers explained.

"That bigger building is the English embassy," he said pointing to a
long low, white building, ablaze with lights, even though it was now
nearly eight at night.

"It is clear that the English are working overtime," he went on and
chuckled, 'something they do not like.  By this time they should be
drinking those whisky-sodas of theirs.  But they are working overtime
instead.  Why?  Because their leader, Churchill, is soon to come."

They nodded their understanding and stared hard at the building.  In
particular, Charley Kane surveyed the low wall which ran round the
place and the gate, where a kind of old-fashioned sentry box, holding
one single sentry, stood.  As far as he could see there were no special
security precautions, though he guessed that might change when the big
shots arrived in Tehran.

Evers turned and pointed down the dark street.  The embassy of the
Russians.  Perhaps a matter of two hundred metres away.  We shall not
go any closer to it.  The Greencaps provide the security there and they
are a little more thorough than their erstwhile allies, the Tommies. In
practice then the two embassies, English and Russian, are almost
adjacent, linked by the road the Russians and the Americans must use
when they visit Churchill."

"How do you know they will use the road?"  Krause asked sharply.

"Because the American is a cripple.  He can only be moved in a
vehicle."

"But it will be very easy to protect this one road," Krause objected
again, obviously wanting to make his presence felt.

Patiently Evers said, "But our plan does not include this road,
Fahnenjunker."

Kane did not have the Major's patience.  He snapped, "All right,
Krause, knock it off!  We don't want to be standing around here all
night.  Sooner or later someone in authority is going to come along and
ask what a dozen or so men are doing standing around like this.  Let's
get on with it."

"Yes.  You're right, Charley.  Let us begin walking again.  You can
listen as we do so.  Now naturally we do not know the agenda for the
meeting of the three enemy leaders.  It is possible they will meet on
some occasions just in pairs and we want all three of them.  That is
vital.  However," he stopped suddenly and all of them pressed
themselves into the shadow cast by the nearest wall.  A jeep was
passing slowly.  Kane stared at it hard, but the three Americans inside
were unarmed and did not wear helmets.  They were off duty, out on the
town.  That was obvious.  They were laughing and chewing gum, garrison
caps stuck carelessly at the backs of their cropped heads.  For a
moment Charley Kane watched them almost enviously and then they were
gone.

"As I was saying," Evers continued, 'there is one occasion, which we
can date precisely and know that all three of them will be present."

"When is that?"  one of the SS asked.

"On Tuesday evening, the 30th of November, 1943," Evers answered
precisely.

Even Krause was impressed.

"But how do you know that so exactly, Herr Major?"

"Intelligence spends years finding out the precise details of how the
leaders of their enemies live and work.  We know of Roosevelt's
mistress, Churchill's drinking and smoking habits, the way Beria
procures nubile young females for his master Stalin etc.  etc.  Mostly
this information is of absolutely no use at all.  But sometimes it can
be."

Evers stopped speaking as they crossed over another street.  At the far
end, standing on a little raised box under a lighted dome, a Persian
policeman was watching them intently.

"One of ours," Evers reassured them, 'bought by Ebtehay.  But you never
know with the Persians."

They moved into the shadows on the other side and Evers went on.

"Now on November 30th Churchill has his birthday his sixty-ninth.  He
will give a party to which Roosevelt and Stalin will be invited."

"But how do you know, Major," Fingers asked, 'that Churchill's having a
shindig?"

"I know he's having era shindig, as you phrase it, because the English
legation has hired the best pastry cook in the whole of Tehran, one who
works on occasion for the Shah himself, to prepare a splendid cake for
the birthday party."

They were impressed.  The somewhat dandified middle-aged major, who
they thought was sitting out an easy war here in Tehran had done his
work well.  Still several of them were not altogether convinced. Polack
said, "Okay, we know where they'll be and what they'll be doing on that
Tuesday.  But G-men'll turn that limey place into a fortress. I've seen
the President on the news at the movies, he's surrounded by guards and
Secret Service men.  It'll be like," his broad peasant face contorted
as he struggled to find the words to express his feelings, 'like trying
to break into Fort Knox."

Beria, feared head of Stalin's secret police.

Evers allowed himself a gentle smile.

"Agreed, Sergeant, but you're not going to break in.  You'll be there
already, and you shall be out long before the balloon goes up."

Kane sucked his teeth and said, "A bomb of some kind, planted
beforehand and timed to go off when they're all assembled?"

"Yes," Evers answered.

"Several bombs in fact."

"But, surely, they'll use mine detectors?  They'll sweep the whole
place before the three of them get together.  I'm sure it's standard
operating procedure."

"It is, undoubtedly," Evers agreed.  He stopped and took something out
of the pocket of his elegant linen suit.  Kane had a sudden whiff of
something that smelled like bitter almonds.  By the light reflected
from the hissing nap ha flares at a stall across the road where a group
of Persian men were sipping mint tea out of glasses, they stared down
at what looked like a lump of brown plasticine.

"What is it?"  Kane asked.

"A Tommy secret weapon.  Plastic explosive, the Tommies call it.  Right
throughout the summer they have been parachuting the stuff in to Dutch
resistance, right into the hands of Obersturmbahnfuhrer Skorzeny's
agents."

"Looks like a lump of dog shit to me," Fingers said unimpressed.

"Exactly.  Indeed the Maquis in France, before we learned what it was,
were fashioning it into what appeared to be cow pats and strewing it in
the road to blow up our trucks, even tanks a lump this size."

"You mean a lump this size can blow up a tank?"  Kane said a little
incredulously.

"Yes, Charley.  All you need to do is to stick a time-pencil in, go
quietly away and let it do its dangerous work.  No mine detector in the
world can detect plastic explosive."

Now they had left the European quarter altogether.  The streets had
become shabbier and narrower.  The gutters were overflowing and stank
of urine.  Persians pushed by them, eating yoghurt out of glasses and
shooting them glances of hatred, covertly.  A hot-tea vendor waved his
big metal urn at them hopefully and the little glasses attached to
various parts of his ragged clothing jingled.  Two men in white
overalls went by grunting under the weight of a huge silver fish.

"Sturgeon," Evers said.

"Fished illegally.  Brought here to be sold on the black market for its
caviar."

Some of them nodded, without too much interest.  Their minds were too
busy with what Evers had just told them.  Slowly all of them were
beginning to realize that they were finally committed.  This was no
longer a plan, but a reality: something which was going to happen soon,
very soon.

Five minutes passed and now the noise of the streets of the native
quarter started to be overshadowed by a hammering, the cries of brisk
orders, the sudden roar of heavy motors and sharp hiss of welding
torches.  Ahead now they could see the glare of many bright lights and
to Kane, at least, it sounded like they were approaching a large
factory or some extra big machine shop.

Evers paused.

"From now on we must take extra care and not hang around too long.  We
are approaching the sector of Tehran occupied by the Ivans and the
Russians are not slack like the Tommies.  They had their Greencaps
everywhere.  Listen and observe and say as little as possible in German
or English.  We do not want any unnecessary attention drawn to our
presence."

Now the civilians began to thin out and the vendors of food and drink
became fewer.  It was clear that Persians did not dawdle close to the
Soviet sector.  Kane tugged the end of his nose and wondered why Evers
had brought them here to this dangerous place for the last stop of what
he called their 'guided tour'.

For a couple of months in '36 Charley Kane had worked as a
grease-monkey for Ford of Detroit; he had become used to giant
factories, with their smoking chimneys and buildings sprawling as far
as the eye could see.  But when they turned the last bend to face the
barbed wire and arc lights which marked the start of the Soviet sector,
he was not prepared for the huge open-air work site, which seemed to go
on in every direction to the dark horizon.

Here civilians in ragged clothes hammered and painted, trotted back and
forth under heavy boxes, while others helped Russian soldiers in baggy
breeches and earth-coloured smocks load trains, their engines already
belching steam as if impatient to be on their way north.  And
everywhere there were guards, armed with round-barrelled tommy guns and
clad in spick-and-span uniforms, heavy green epaulettes seeming to
weigh down their broad shoulders, with caps marked with a green cross
on their shaven heads.  Kane and the others did not need Evers to tell
them that these were the feared Russian Greencaps, Beria's secret
police.

"What is it, Major?"  Fingers exclaimed.

"Hell, there's half the US Armored Corps down there!  Look at that
nearest train.  I can count at least thirty brand new Sherman tanks on
the flat cars .. . Yeah, and over there, them's White scout cars and
yeah, half tracks.  Scores, hundreds of them .. . What the Sam Hill is
going on over there?"

"Keep your voice down, Fingers," Major Evers admonished the surprised
little American gently.

"What you see is the main Russian military equipment and vehicle
staging post in the whole of Persia.  The Anglo-Americans ship in all
that stuff from Basra and Mosul to the south, send it by rail or by
road to here in Northern Tehran where the Russians then ship it north
to their own country.  Daily, thousands of tons of arms and equipments
and hundreds of vehicles pass through that staging post, all provided
for by American and English taxpayers' money to aid their
freedom-loving democratic Allies in the East."  He laughed a little
cynically.

"Yes, that equipment, the Anglo-Americans believe, will show their
solidarity with their Russian allies.  The only thing is that the
Russian allies never find out where all those expensive goods come
from."

"How do you mean?"  Charley asked.

"Do you know," Evers answered, 'that in Soviet Russia people still have
to have a passport to go from one city to another, just as they did in
Czarist days."

"Russian pigs," Polack cursed and spat in the dry dust.

"Perish the lot of them!"

Evers smiled indulgently.

"The Ivans have always had a passion for secrecy.  No one must know
more than he ought to.  Why, therefore, should the ordinary Russian
know that millions of marks' worth of Anglo-American equipment is
flooding to the East Front daily?  So that is the reason for this
place.  Every detail which might reveal its country of manufacture is
removed from the equipment over there before it is allowed to proceed
any further .. . Look at that jeep over there at three o'clock."  He
pointed to a line of US jeeps, painted in the olive drab of the
American Army and obviously brand new.

"Those Persians with the pots are painting out the registration numbers
on the rear fender and the hood.  The chap with the hammer and wrench
is pulling off the vehicle specifications on the little metal plate on
the dash.  For all I know they chisel off the markings on the motor,
too."

Kane whistled softly and said, "Some allies!"

"Never trust a Russian," Polack growled and spat again.

A squad of Greencaps came marching by, fixed bayonets over their padded
shoulders, their left arms swinging back and forth across their chest
rhythmically.  Evers let them march by before saying, somewhat more
hurriedly now, as if they couldn't afford to watch here much longer,
The reason for bringing you?  We need three of those vehicles a jeep
and two White half tracks complete with fifty calibre machine guns."

"Are we going to try to steal them from that place?"  Kane asked
swiftly, not wasting any time asking why they needed the three
vehicles.

"No," Evers replied.

"That would be too difficult.  We steal them while they are on the road
north.  They usually leave just before dawn in small convoys again that
Russian passion for security.  These convoys are guarded by the
Greencaps, but the drivers are Persian.  Now I have tried bribing
drivers to go off the one road north and come over to us, but they are
too afraid of the Greencaps.  So steal them we must."

Kane frowned.  So did some of the others.

"You know, Major," he said to Evers, 'that if anything goes wrong while
we're trying to steal those vehicles, it could abort the whole op?"

"Yes, I have already realized that, Charley.  But I think we ought to
take the risk."

"But why?"

"Because, Charley, the possession of those vehicles on the night will
add that final little detail," he made a curving gesture with his
manicured right hand like a painter touching up a canvas, 'to your
disguise."

"Disguise?"  Charley queried.

But Evers ignored the question.  Instead he said, "Tomorrow morning we
shall drive out with the wrestlers to the site I have picked where we
ambush the Russian convoy.  I shall leave the details of the attack to
you real soldiers.  You know better how to do those things than a
broken-down desk soldier like me."  He allowed himself a careful
grin.

Charley Kane returned it, though again his mind was racing electrically
as he considered this new turn in Operation Long Jump.

Then when you have made your plans I have already had Ebtehag prepare a
suitable hiding place for the stolen vehicles you strike."

"So soon?"  Krause surprised.

"It gives us little time to prepare."

"Remember, Fahnenjunker, we have only five days till that celebrated
thirtieth November.  Besides, Fahnenjunker, you of the SS are renowned
for your speed and dash.  At them like Blucher*, what."

"Yes," Krause said a little hesitantly.

Again there was harsh regular stamp of marching feet.  To their right a
plateau of Greencaps was marching in their direction, arms and legs
moving like those of wooden soldiers.

"Time to go," Evers ordered.

"We've been here long enough."  Like grey sinister timber wolves,
preparing to attack and slinking back into the trees to wait, they
moved back noiselessly into the shadows.  They'd be back .. .

* Reference to Prussian Marshal Blucher of the 19th century, renowned
for his dash.

FIFTEEN

Inspector Thompson did not like what he saw he didn't like it one bit.
The Great Man would be arriving here from Cairo at midday.  It didn't
give him much time to make many changes before he settled down for his
four-day stay at the British Legation.  Thompson rubbed his weary eyes,
for he had flown overnight to Tehran and had managed only an hour's
sleep in the overcrowded Dakota, and stared around at the building and
grounds.

The 'compound', as the legation officials called it, was a rectangle of
well-watered lawn, surrounded by a low wall.  There was a main gate
fronting the street outside and a wicket one leading out into the back.
Both were guarded, of course, by two helmeted soldiers in immaculately
pressed khaki drill with gleaming white-blancoed webbing: but as
ex-guardsman Thompson told himself, those squad dies would be as much
use in a surprise attack as some great boob of a guardsman in his busby
would be outside Buck House.  Real security would be wandering patrols
going about the grounds at irregular intervals, so they couldn't be
timed.

Inspector Thompson turned and looked at the main legation building.
Again he did not particularly like what he saw.  The windows were too
large for security purposes.  In part, they were louvred, too, to allow
as much air as possible to circulate in Tehran's stuffingly hot
summers.  Thompson frowned.  It would be as easy as pie to stuff a
grenade through those vents or poke in a sniper's rifle and take a
potshot at the Great Man.

The big policeman considered.  You couldn't tell the Great Man that, of
course.  Churchill was a law unto himself.  He took these security
matters lightly.

"If it's my fate to be struck down by the assassin's bomb or bullet,"
he had lectured Thompson more than once in the twenty-odd years they
had been together, 'so be it.  A quick, sharp death rather than a long
lingering one in one's dotage."

For a few moments Thompson stared at the outline of the low white
building, wondering what could be done to improve security.  Churchill
would only spend his nights at the legation, save for the day of the
great birthday party which would probably start in the early evening.
His first task was to ensure then that night-time security was
tightened up.  More troops would be needed and they would have to be
deployed in a better manner than just a load of bulled-up sentries,
turning out the guard and presenting arms whenever some important
person made his appearance.

"A penny for them, Inspector."

Thompson turned quite startled.  He had been so engrossed in his own
thoughts that he had not heard the big American, clad in an immaculate
khaki uniform with the one star of a brigadier-general in the US Army
glittering on his epaulette.  Instinctively, old soldier that he was,
Inspector Thompson half came to attention, and said, "General
Schwarzkopf?"

That's right," the American said with a smile and reached out a big
firm hand.

"You must be Mr.  Churchill's bodyguard, Inspector Thompson, and you
were looking right serious."

"I am ... and I was," Inspector Thompson agreed.

"What's the problem?"

"Security."

General Schwarzkopf's broad grin vanished and suddenly he looked very
serious.

"I know what you mean, Inspector.  Both of us have been in police work
a very long time and I think both of us know, too, that soldiers are
amateurs when it comes to dealing with determined, professional
assassins."

"Yes, General, I agree."  Thompson knew Schwarzkopf's record.  He had
been in charge of the State of New Jersey's state troopers way back at
the time of the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, one of the most
celebrated criminal cases in US history.  He had been tireless in his
efforts to find the kidnapper and have the little babe released,
unharmed.  Something had gone wrong, Thompson did not know what, and
Colonel Schwarzkopf, as he was then, had been severely criticized by
the US press.  All the same Thompson knew that Schwarzkopf was
generally regarded in US police circles as a highly efficient
organizer.

"But what are we going to do about it?"

"Tomorrow," Schwarzkopf answered, 'they're flying in the President's
Secret Service Bodyguard or part of it at least under a Mr.  Reilly.
Mike Reilly, naturally, with a mick name like that.  Reilly is a very
experienced agent who has been with the President for years.  He and I
talk the same language and army security will just have to take orders
from him.  However, Inspector, the reason I am here today is to check
out security if I may here and on the access route between here and the
Russian legation where the President will be staying.  Frankly I think
there's trouble brewing."

"Have you any concrete leads, General?"  Inspector Thompson asked
hopefully.

"Anything I can feed back to Mr.  Churchill that will make him take
this personal security business much more seriously?"

Schwarzkopf sucked his front teeth, his broad fleshy face suddenly very
thoughtful.

"More hunches than anything, Inspector," he said after a moment, or
two.

"You see the whole goddam country is in a turmoil.  Although we and the
Russians appear to be in control, we aren't.  We are in charge of the
main cities and the main roads, and even in the cities, we are merely
in control of the European sections.  Elsewhere," he shrugged, 'the
nomad tribal heads, warlords, chiefs of secret societies half a dozen
of them Persian Army generals sulking at the defeat you British
inflicted upon them in forty-one and the two main religious leaders run
the show and all of them," he emphasized the words, 'are supported by
the Boche and hate us and the Russians."

For a moment Thompson prayed that he was back in London, solely
concerned with the machinations of some IRA crackpot straight from the
bogs or some madman who heard voices telling him he should shoot the
prime minister.  With such people he could cope quite easily.  But his
good sense and logical policeman's mind told him he wasn't.  He was in
the middle of this big foreign city dealing with a lot of wogs in their
nightshirts, every one of them a potential killer.

"However," Schwarzkopf went on, as at the gate the sergeant of the
guard began to change the sentries, reading out standing orders to them
at the top of his voice, as if this was some damned peacetime garrison
duty, 'one thing is beginning to emerge here in Tehran."

"What?"  Thompson leaned forward eagerly.

The money-changers, here in Tehran."

"The money-changers?"

"Yes.  The Persian to man nobody wants.  Anyone who is anyone in
Persian society has been trying for years now to hang on to dollars,
British pounds, sovereigns preferably, as financial security for the
future. Nobody wanted French francs, Russian roubles and the like.  Now
suddenly everyone's buying German marks.  Why?"  General Schwarzkopf
answered his own question.

"Because they think there's going to be a run on our currencies."

At the gate the guard commander was barking in a cockney voice, "And
when his nibs he meant Churchill 'comes with even sniffing distance of
yer post, you come to the present, as if somebody had just stuck a
bayonet up yer arse.  Don't forget that yer frigging feet won't
frigging well touch the ground on yer frigging way to the frigging
guardroom."

"But why should people buy marks?"  Inspector Thompson objected.

"It's clear now that sooner or later the Huns are going to lose the
war, now that we've beaten them at El Alamein and the Russkis have at
Stalingrad.  They're on the run everywhere!"

"Exactly, I agree," Schwarzkopf said.  There can be only one reason.
The locals know that there is going to be an attempt on the lives of
our heads of state."  He paused momentarily, "And they know enough to
believe," he continued, picking his words very carefully, 'that that
attempt is going to succeed, Inspector."

Inspector Thompson looked at the big heavy-built American aghast.

"You really mean that?"

"I do."

Inspector Thompson recovered himself swiftly.  In his profession, it
did not do to indulge in too much introspection.  Then we must do
something about it."

"Agreed."

For a while the two men, one haggard and very British, the other heavy,
perhaps even fat, and very American, walked in silence through the
compound, each man wrapped in a cocoon of his own thoughts.  At the
wicket door, the sentry admitted a Persian.  He was bold and plump and
when he showed his pass to the sentry, the sharp-eyed Inspector noted
his hands were soft and smooth like those of a person who washed them
often in hot water.

"Who's that?"  Thompson called over to the sentry after the Persian had
waddled into the backdoor of the legation.

"Pastry cook, sir.  Sez he's got something to discuss with the butler,
sir.

"Some kinda do, sir.  Sorry sir, party sir.  Come to see about a party,
sir."

Thank you, sentry."

"Yes sir."  The sentry touched his hand to the butt of his rifle and
Thompson grinned softly.  The sentry had classed him rightly as below
field rank; hence the butt salute.

Schwarzkopf stopped suddenly.

"Did you hear that?"  he demanded urgently.

"What?"

That sentry said something about a party."

"It's Mr.  Churchill's sixty-ninth birthday party," Thompson
explained.

"Mr.  Churchill wants a special cake made for the occasion.  Probably
that's why the wog - er, Persian pastry cook is here.  But what about
it?"

Schwarzkopf did not answer his question immediately.  Instead he asked:
"When is it Mr.  Churchill's birthday?"

"Next Tuesday."

He pursed his lips and then said, "And today is Saturday the
twenty-seventh, Inspector."

That is," Thompson agreed, irony wasted on the American, "I think
correct."

Schwarzkopf s broad Germanic face revealed all too clearly that his
brain was working overtime.  Next to him Thompson waited impatiently,
though his lined face revealed nothing, for him to speak.  Finally he
did.  That Tuesday party," he said, striking his open hand with a
clenched fist, 'must be it!"

"Be what?"

The time and place when the Boche strike.  The Russian legation where
our people meet with Marshal Stalin is like a fortress.  The place is
surrounded by at least a regiment of tanks and those NKVD special
troops of theirs who'd shoot a guy as soon as they looked at him. Every
spare GI in Tehran will be helping to guard the US legation and you can
be sure, if I can put it crudely, that even when President Roosevelt
goes to pee Reilly's Secret Service agents will go with him. The only
place which is decidedly insecure is this one."

For a moment Thompson, his national pride roused, opened his mouth to
protest.  Then he thought better of it.  The big American general was
right.  He nodded and said, "I suppose you're right."

"I know I am.  Therefore this is the ideal place for the Kraut killers.
I can feel it in my bones.  This is the spot where they're going to
make the attempt."

For a moment Thompson considered.  Then he nodded his agreement.

"You're right, General.  That must be it?"

"That Tuesday night I'll put the whole US garrison of Tehran on alert.
It'll be a max effort.  We must protect the President and naturally Mr.
Churchill, too at all costs."

"May I make a correction, General?"  Thompson said carefully.

"Of course."

"You said on that night, you'll put the US garrison here on full alert.
I differ, General.  It is my considered opinion that we should put
everyone British, American, I can't speak for the Russkis on alert
status now!  Why give the would-be killers time to develop their
plans?"

"You're right, Inspector.  Of course, we'd be playing into their hands
just waiting for them to move.  Have you any concrete suggestions
before I go?"

"The access road from the Russian legation where Mr.  Roosevelt will be
staying must be guarded with effect from now, day and night.  It ought
to be patrolled too -at irregular intervals."

"Wilco," Schwarzkopf snapped.

"Go on."

"Aerial surveillance.  Just in case of an attack from the air."

"Lord in heaven, I hadn't even thought of that!"  Schwarzkopf
exclaimed.

"Natch, the Boche might have bombers capable of launching an attack
from their bases in Russia.  More, Inspector," he beamed at Thompson.

"Sewers .. . any underground tunnels of that nature leading into the
legations, probably into the cellars.  Get on to them.  Perhaps even a
heating system."

"Why?"

"Poison gas.  They could be used for pumping in poison gas."

Schwarzkopf whistled softly.

"Christ on a crutch, now I know why you limeys excuse me, English write
such good thrillers.  You've got that kind of special imagination."

Thompson smiled grimly, his grey wary eyes almost disappearing in a sea
of wrinkles.

"We've been at this nasty business a long time, you must remember,
General, a very long time.  Now, let's get on.  Mines."

"Yes."

"We ought to have the road between the Russian legation and here swept
twice no three times daily, as well as the grounds here."

"Wilco.  What else can we do, Inspector?"

Inspector Thompson favoured the big General with a wintry smile.

"Pray, I suppose," he said .. .

SIXTEEN

Time passed leadenly.  Twice convoys had rolled by their hiding place,
but they had been too large to attack.  Besides they didn't contain the
half-tracks which Evers had said they wanted.  Now as they crouched
there in the freezing undergrowth, they shivered and waited for the
signal from Fingers.  He had been posted further down the steep slope.
When he whistled twice, that would indicate that another convoy was
heading their way.  If he whistled three times, it meant the convoy
contained the White half-tracks.

Kane breathed on his frozen hands.  His fingers must not be allowed to
stiffen.  Their attack would have to be swift and decisive.  And there
could be no survivors.  Dead men don't talk, he told himself, as down
below at the curve where the road north started to climb up to the pass
where they were hiding, Fingers whistled once .. . twice.  All about
the men tensed.  There were soft clicks as safety catches were unlocked
once again.  One of the Germans said something and Krause cursed softly
and told whoever it was to shut up.

Now they could hear the clatter of tracks and the soft hiss of rubber
tyres from down below, as Fingers whistled one more time.  It was the
signal.  This time they were going to have to do it; there were
half-tracks in the Russian convoy.

Swiftly Kane turned to Krause.

"Do it," he snapped.

Krause, his face a pale set blur in the darkness, grunted something. He
rose to his feet and with one of his SS troopers tugged at the rope.
The tree, which they had almost sawn through an hour ago creaked in
protest.  The two of them heaved again.  Crack!  The stem gave. Hastily
the two SS men dropped the rope as the tree came tumbling down. It hit
the tarmac with a bang.  Its branches snapped and cracked.  It lay
there effectively blocking the road, as down below the drivers of the
Russian convoy double-de clutched noisily in order to take the steep
ascent to their front.

Kane licked lips which were suddenly very dry.  He told himself that in
a very few minutes he would be committed for good.  There would be no
turning back once he had fired upon the Russians.  They were America's
allies; he would be sentenced to death for that, if he were caught.
Grimly he told himself he wasn't going to be caught.  Soon he and Magda
would be on their way to a new life.  The thought warmed him and gave
him new hope.  Of course he wouldn't be caught!

Now he could see the first dim blue lights of the first blacked-out
vehicle, as it turned the corner and began to grind its way up the
ascent.  It was an American deuce-and-a-half, with the back hood
canvas.  Kane told himself that's where the convoy's guards would be
huddled under the warmth of the canvas hood.  Instinctively he gripped
the American tommy gun, which Evers had bought on the Persian black
market, more tightly.  Those Russians would get the first burst.

The clatter of tracks grew louder.  Just behind the jeep which was
following the truck, there were two White half-tracks, squat,
blunt-nosed shapes, the cab machine gun clearly outlined against the
night sky a stark black.  He wondered if the gun would be loaded and
decided it wouldn't.  Why should it be?

Now the lead truck was fifty feet or so away.  In a second its driver
had to see the trees blocking the road.  Kane felt the tension rise all
about him.  His own heart start to thump more quickly.  It was the
adrenalin pumping through his veins.  His hands gripping the
sub-machine gun were suddenly damp with sweat.

The lead truck was not twenty feet away.  Next to him Krause hissed in
German, "Feuer frei!  His young SS troopers raised their weapons.  Kane
did the same.  This was it!

Suddenly, and startlingly, though Kane was expecting it, the driver of
the lead truck hit the brakes.  The big truck shuddered to a stop.
Behind it, the jeep driver braked just in time.  Abruptly drivers all
along the little convoy were bringing their vehicles' to a halt.  The
trap had been sprung.  Now all that remained was for Fingers to spring
into action.

The grenade which Fingers had thrown exploded with a thick muffled
crunch in the same instant that a young shaven-headed Russian driver
jumped out of his cab to inspect the fallen tree.  To the rear of the
convoy, the driver of the open jeep screamed with sudden agony.  Next
instant he slumped across the wheel, dead or unconscious, his horn
screeching dolefully under the pressure.

Curses, commands, cries of anger.  In a flash all was confusion and
sudden death, as Kane stood up and fired on the lead truck from the
hip, swinging his tommy gun from side to side.  The slugs ripped the
length of the canvas hood.  Men came tumbling out of the back screaming
and yelling with pain.  Krause, Kane and the rest showed no mercy. They
knew everything depended on killing all of the Russians.  There could
be no survivors.

Carried away with the wild atavistic lust of battle, Krause, followed
by a handful of his troopers, leapt into the road, firing as they went.
Angry scarlet flame stabbed the darkness.  Somewhere further down the
slope, there was the high-pitched burr of a Russian tommy gun.  Kane
ducked as slugs struck the earth all around him.

"Get that bastard!"  he screamed shrilly.

Polack ripped the pin out of his grenade.  Take that, sucker," he
yelled.  He lobbed the grenade with all his strength in the direction
of the firing.  A ball of angry yellow light.  Metal hissed through the
air.  For one second Kane caught the sight of a body being ripped
apart.  Then the blinding light vanished.  Something rolled to his
feet.  He gasped with horror.  It was a severed head!

Now the Russian drivers, those who had survived, were dropping from
their vehicles, with their hands upraised, crying piteously for mercy.
But the SS gave no quarter.  Deliberately they shot them down one by
one, with Krause digging his boot into every fresh body to ascertain
that the Russian was really dead.  If he wasn't, he would bend, hold
his pistol to the base of the man's head and blow his skull apart.

Kane, for his part, was now doubling down the length of the stalled
convoy, followed by Fingers and Polack, both of whom knew how to drive
the White half tracks  He pushed the dead driver of the jeep to one
side and clambered behind the wheel, yelling to the other two, "Get
those big bastards rolling .. . at the double now.r The other two
needed no urging.  Already they could hear the rumble of the next
convoy approaching, for traffic moved on this vital road north to the
Russian front day and night.

Kane threw home the gear.  The jeep started straight away.  Hastily he
began to nose it in and out of the stalled trucks, while Krause
completed the ghastly work of slaughtering the last of the helpless
Russians.

Behind him Polack and then Fingers started up the big half-tracked
vehicles.  Their engines thundered into life once more.  With a rusty
creak, the Whites began to move forward following Kane in the jeep, but
even as he did so Fingers' ears were suddenly assailed by a new sound.
It was the steady drone of a plane, coming down low, right above the
road.  Instinctively he knew that the only plane flying in Persia at
this time of the night had to be military; and if it was military; then
it belonged to the Russians or their Western allies.

Up front, Krause leaned down for one last time and pressed the red
barrel of his pistol to the neck of a dying Russian.  He was gasping
with a kind of sexual pleasure, his hand crimson with blood right to
the wrist.

"Croak, Ivan, croakr he hissed throatily, taking pleasure in the feel
of the hard straight gunmetal pressing into the soft yielding flesh of
the Russian's neck and the involuntary contraction of the man's body,
as he sensed what was going to happen to him now.  He heard himself
breathing hard, sensed the stiffening of his muscles as he took that
last final pressure that would extinguish the sub-human below him,
blast his skull apart in a great flurry of gore.

He pressed the pistol's trigger.  In the very same instant that the
weapon exploded in his hand, drenching his fingers with the Russian's
blood, the searchlight above clicked on.  Suddenly, frighteningly,
everything was bathed in a blinding icy-white light.  Krause, his face
contorted and bathed in sweat in spite of the cold, flung a look
upwards, eyes blinking in the glare.

A dark shape was zooming in above the stalled convoy.  His eyes,
narrowed to slits, caught a glimpse of the red stars on the plane's
wings.

IV ANT he shrieked.

"IVAN FIGHT '

The rest of his words were drowned by the sudden electric hiss and
chatter of machine guns.  Tracer zipped downwards in a kind of lethal
morse.  Slugs howled through the air.  To Krause's right, one of his SS
troopers flung up his arms melodramatically.  His rifle fell from
abruptly nerveless fingers.  He slammed to the ground among the dead
Russians.  Krause ran over to him.

"Schulze," he yelled above the snarl of the plane's engine as it soared
upwards in a tight turn, prior to a second sortie.

Krause pressed his blood-red fingers to Schulze's neck.  There was no
pulse.  The trooper was dead.  No use wasting any more time on him. Now
the half-tracks were clattering up.

"Los," he cried above the engine's roar.

"Get into that vehicle.  Los!"

Madly the troopers scrambled to fling themselves over the steel sides
of the half-tracks, as the plane came zooming in once more, its
searchlight cutting the darkness with its icy-white knife.  Slugs
howled off the metal.  Polack cursed and pressed hit foot down on the
accelerator.  He slammed into the side of the lead truck.  It swung
round under the impact.  Its fuel tank burst.  Momentarily the night
air was full of the cloying stench of escaping petrol.  Whoosh!  The
tank exploded in a scarlet spurt of flame.

Crazily Polack spun the wheel to one side, as the flames scorched the
side of the half-track, making the olive drab paint bubble and burst
like the symptoms of some loathsome skin disease.  Behind him the SS
troopers raised their weapons and blazed away frantically at the
persistent little plane.

In front Kane topped the rise.  Before him the road twisted and turned
in a long descent to the thick forest below.  If he and the rest could
make the trees, he knew they would be safe.  But they'd have to make it
first.  He jammed his foot down hard.  The little jeep shot forward.
The first bend loomed up out of the blue darkness.  He braked.  The
rubber screamed in protest.  Bullets splattered against the rock wall.
Something stung him on the side of his face.  He cursed angrily.  Next
moment he was round the bend and shooting down the next stretch of
road.

Now the three vehicles were going all out down the steep hill, skidding
round each new bend in a shower of stones and earth, brakes shrieking.
Still the plane hung on to them.  Red tracer followed them like a swarm
of angry hornets.  Time and time again, they missed death by inches,
but all of them, the sweat-lathered drivers and the angry SS troopers
balancing themselves the best they could to fire at the plane, knew
their luck couldn't last much longer.  The safety of the trees seemed
so far away and the pilot did not relax his relentless attack for one
moment.

In the lead Kane prayed like he had never prayed before.  Again he took
a sharp bend in a flurry of flying stones, tyres howling, drowning the
chatter of machine gun bullets.  The start of the forest was about two
hundred yards away now, the road leading to it in five more bends.  And
the pilot was now beginning to change his tactics.  Instead of coming
in from the rear as he had done so far, he was swinging the plane round
in tight turns, undercarriage lowered in order to reduce speed, and
attacking from the front, searchlight glaring and blinding the drivers.
Twice already Kane had almost lost control of the flying jeep when that
icy-white light had flashed dazzlingly into his eyes.  Soon the bastard
would get lucky, Kane told himself grimly, as he clutched the wheel in
hands that were bathed in hot sweat.

Suddenly Kane's heart leapt with joy.  Just fifty yards to the right, a
trail led from the main road straight into the trees.  For a moment he
caught a glimpse of it as the plane swept by, bathing his immediate
front with light.  It looked rough, but it might provide the way out of
this death trap.  It was a chance: one he had to take.  He pressed his
foot down hard on the accelerator.  The jeep shot forward.  The trail
loomed up.  He hit the brakes and in the same instant swung the wheel
round hard, praying that the others would follow suit.

The sudden move surprised the pilot.  As Kane hit the trail, bouncing
up and down as he drove over the potholes, he could hear the wild snarl
of the plane's engine as the frustrated pilot gave the throttle all it
had.  He chanced a glance behind him.  The two half-tracks were
following, every steel plate rattling, as if they might fall off at any
moment.

Now the trees were only yards away.  Kane floored the pedal.  The jeep
bounced and bobbed, stones and rocks spurting up behind it in a wild
wake.  The plane came in one last time.  Tracer zipped in a lethal
morse through the night.  Kane's windscreen shattered.  For a moment he
was blinded.  Desperately he hung onto the wheel.  Next moment he had
smashed into a small pine, his nostrils abruptly assailed by its
fragrance.  He slumped over the wheel, the motor still running.  He had
done it ... he had frigging well done it!

Next instant the two half-tracks came blundering into the wood,
smashing the fragile pines like matchsticks, as they buried themselves
deep and out of sight.  The little plane fired one last angry burst
blind, missing them by yards.  Then it was gone, leaving behind a loud
echoing silence, broken only by the heavy breathing of men, who had
diced with Death once again and won.

SEVENTEEN

The lone sentry yawned and wished he dared risk a spit-and-a-draw.  He
decided against it.  Old "Black Jack' was orderly officer tonight and
he'd probably have you in the glasshouse on a thirty day fizzer for
smoking on duty.

The sentry looked around the dark courtyard.  The moon was now
beginning to peep through the clouds and was lightening the darkness,
but still most of the compound lay in deep shadow.  A whole sodding
regiment could be hiding there, he told himself, realising once again
that he was guarding the prime minister.  There'd been a party for his
arrival earlier on and high jinks, so he'd been told by the guard
commander before he'd come on stag.  Now, however, all was silent and a
bit sinister.  Once again he looked at the green-glowing dial of his
wrist watch.  God Almighty-, it was still another hour before his stint
was over and he could grab himself a mug of hot cocoa from the bucket
resting on the stove in the guard room.

He began to think of women, though the M.O. had told them when they had
been first posted to Tehran, "Half the women are poxed up and the other
half hate the British so much, you'd be lucky if they didn't slice off
yer balls as soon as you had your slacks down."  He shivered at the
thought and told himself he'd probably die of wanker's doom here.

Abruptly the vision of Rita Hayworth, clad only in red silk knickers
with black lace trimming exhorting him huskily, "Come to bed, Reg.
Quick!"  vanished.  Beyond the gate he could hear feet and what he took
to be a snatch of singing.  Drunks, he told himself, suddenly wide
awake and alert, sodding drunks at this time of night!

There was a thunderous knock on the door.  The sentry remembered the
drill.  He brought down his rifle smartly to the challenge position and
yelled at the top of his voice, "Halt!  Who goes there?"

"It is the Prime Minister and Mr.  Eden," a thick voice which was now
familiar to half the world replied.

The sentry hesitated.  The voice was about right, even down to the
slight lisp.  A lot of the lads could do it.  It was one of Chalky
White's standard bits at company concerts.

"Fuck off," he said after a moment.

"Drunken sods."

The drunks persisted.  There came another thunderous knock at the door
and a demand for admittance.

The young sentry had had enough.

"Sod off," he barked.

"Trying to pull my pisser like that.  Now I've had enough of your
sodding larks.  Once more and I'll get the guard commander.  Yer boots
won't touch the sodding ground!"

The drunk's voice grew clear.  Now it was full of authority when it
said, "Young man whoever you are I advise you to open this gate.  At
once!"

The young sentry almost wet himself.  This was the real thing!  He
wedged his rifle in between his knees and peered through the spy-hole
in the gate.

"Oh my Gawd!"  he gasped at what he saw.  There stood Churchill and
next to him the dapper figure of the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden.
There was no mistaking them; he had seen the pair often enough in the
newsreels over these last three years.

With fingers that felt as if they were clad in boxing gloves, he
fumbled with the gate's catch and finally managed to open it.  He
pulled the gate open and snapped to attention, his gaze fixed on some
remote horizon.  His mind was racing furiously.  For this they'd
probably send him to the Tower of London.

Churchill looked up at his rigid face, breath smelling of good cigars
and whisky.  Wagging a stubby forefinger under the sentry's nose, he
growled, sending a shiver down the soldier's spine, "Young man, many
men have cursed me in my time.  But never to my face.  You have the
doubtful honour of being the only soldierin the whole of the British
Army to have done so in this great war -and to have got away with
it."

Eden laughed shortly and Churchill snapped, "Now goodnight to you."

The two men staggered off, leaving the sentry feeling faint.

"What did you say?"  Thompson bellowed into the phone, his cheeks
sunken and fallen in, for his false teeth were still in the glass next
to his bed.

The guard commander whom Thompson had ordered to report on all
Churchill's movements, told the Inspector what the shaken sentry had
just told him.

Thompson's face went purple with rage.

"You mean to say, Sergeant," he cried, 'that Mr.  Churchill and Mr.
Eden were wandering around at this time of the night without a proper
guard?"

"Yes sir," the NCO replied miserably, looking at his arm as if he could
already see his three stripes disappearing over this.

"God Almighty .. . what is the British Army coming to?  Get me the
orderly officer.  Is he there?"

"Yes sir," the Guard Commander answered smartly, glad to be let off the
hook so soon.  Let Thompson tear a strip off him; officers got paid to
think, not other ranks, or at least that is what the officers always
said to them.

An affected voice came on the phone and began to explain in a languid
middle-class-aping-upper-class sort of a way.  Thompson cut him short
with a harsh, "Sonny, I'm going to have your bloody pips for this one.
The Army was supposed to be looking after Mr.  Churchill's security
while I had a rest and you are the Army!"

"But sir, I'm only a subaltern ' ' Shut up.  You are the orderly
officer and therefore in charge.  You slipped up and now you're going
to have to face the consequences."

The knock on his bedroom interrupted Thompson's angry flow.

"Come in," he cried and then slammed the phone down after saying, "I'll
deal with you tomorrow morning, young man."  But in the event Thompson
had much more important things to do than see that the subaltern was
court-martial led  He survived to be killed in action a year late ring
Italy.

General Schwarzkopf stood in the doorway, head nearly reaching its top.
Obviously he had dressed in haste, for his fly buttons were still open
and the tail of his khaki shirt was hanging out.  Thompson saw at once
that this was an emergency.  His anger at the army vanished and he
said, "What is it, General?  Trouble?"

"Yeah, plenty."  He eyed the half empty bottle of whisky on the other
table and said, "Do you think I could have a snort?  I need one
badly."

"Of course, of course."  Thompson hurried to find a glass and poured
out a generous 'snort'.  "You'll not be needing water, will you?"  he
asked.

"Nope."

Thompson handed the big American General the glass and Schwarzkopf
downed half of it in one greedy gulp.  His massive frame shook and he
said, "Thanks, Inspector.  I sure needed that."

"Where's the fire, then?"

"God knows.  But let me show you this."  He took a photo out of his
inside pocket carefully, saying, "It's barely dry.  The lighting's bad
and it's not the best of prints, but it'll tell you all you need to
know."

Curiously, wondering why Schwarzkopf felt a photograph was so important
at this god-forsaken hour, Thompson took it.  He was too vain to reach
for his spectacles to view it more clearly.  So he held it close to his
nose and looked.

He had seen the same type of photograph often enough in his long career
with Scotland Yard and the Special Branch: grainy prints of bodies
sprawled out grotesquely on slabs, naked, with perhaps a towel thrown
over the loins, some gaping wound or laceration emphasized by the
photographer's flash.

This was no different.  A naked young man, with a nasty wound below the
heart, with both his arms raised above his head, showing the black fuzz
of hair beneath the armpits.  He frowned and said, "I'm puzzled,
General."  He peered shortsightedly again at the photo.

"What is unusual about it?"

Instead of answering his question straight away, Schwarz-kopf pulled a
small magnifying glass from his pocket.

"Have another look, especially on the upper left arm."

Thompson took the glass and ran it the length of the arm.  Just under
the tuft of dark hair there appeared to be a mark, perhaps a tattoo.
There's a mark there," he said.

"Exactly, Inspector.  It's that of the dead man's blood group."

Thompson looked surprised.

"You see, Inspector," Schwarzkopf explained, 'we try to keep tabs on
our er Russian allies, you know what I mean?"

Thompson did.  Even though Soviet Russia had been Britain's ally since
1941 now, Special Branch still discreetly observed the comings and
goings of certain Russians in London and their British sympathisers.

"One of our informants is a Persian in the pass department of that big
depot of the Russians in North Tehran.  He took this photo you have in
your hand.  It is the body of a man killed during an attack on a
Russian convoy late yesterday evening."

"I see," Thompson said, though he didn't.

"Now, this is the only one of4he attackers the Russians managed to
apprehend after the rescue party arrived on the scene to find,
incidentally, that several vehicles had been stolen, probably by the
attackers.  You can see the dead man is no Persian."

Thompson studied the photograph more closely through the glass.

"Yes, looks like a northern European to me.  In fact he's blond ' '
Yes, blond and German," Schwarzkopf cut in grimly.

"That mark you see under his arm is a clear indication that this fellow
was in the Kraut SS."

Their elite?"

"Yes, only the Waffen SS, so I have been informed reliably, have their
blood group tattooed underneath their left arm so that if they are
wounded and need a blood transfusion, it can be given on the field of
battle without delay.  No other unit of the German Army does that."

Thompson was impressed.  He whistled softly.

"So the Hun has got some of his best troops right here ' "On our own
doorstep."

For a moment a heavy silence fell on the bedroom, broken only by the
soft tread of the sentry outside, while the two men just stood there,
as if frozen for eternity.  In the end Thompson broke that brooding
stillness, with, "But why alert the Russians us by attacking one of
their convoys, if they are the Huns who are after our leaders?  You say
that vehicles were stolen?"

"Yes, so the need for vehicles was greater than the risk of being
discovered in advance, Inspector."

"Exactly.  What kind of vehicles were stolen?"

That my informant does not know save that by the nature of things they
are going to be ones of British or American manufacture.  That's the
only kind of wheels the Russkis are shipping out of Persia to their own
country.  That stands to reason."

That it does."

Again the two policemen lapsed into silence and pondered the problem.

Hardly knowing he was doing so, Schwarzkopf took out a stick of gum,
pulled off the silver wrapper and popped it into his mouth.  Slowly,
thoughtfully, he started to chew on it.

Thompson, his mind wandering a little, smiled softly and said, "Typical
American, if I may so, General.  I've noted that various nationalities
do their thinking in different fashions.  The Frogs, they light up one
of those stinking gaspers o' theirs, plant it in the corner of their
mouths and leave it glued there, smoke pouring up in front of their
faces.  Your Englishman, if he is a pipe-smoker, well he'll light up
his .. . He stopped short, for he could see from Schwarzkopfs broad
face he was no longer listening.  He repeated the American's query of
the other day.

"A penny for them?"

"You said that various nationalities have their own peculiar habits me,
with my gum and all that.  Now then, these Krauts who attacked the
Russian convoy wanted Allied vehicles.  Now dressed in civvies or in
Kraut uniform they'd look kinda strange driving an Allied truck or jeep
or whatever, wouldn't they?"

Thompson's face came alive.

"What are you driving at, General?"

"Thisf Schwarzkopf snapped his fingers urgently.  These vehicles are
going to be used in the attempt.  So it stands to reason that the
Krauts who drive them will be dressed in either British or American
uniforms."

Now it was Thompson's turn to snap his fingers.  Then that's one
security measure we can institute right away."

"Yeah, anyone found driving an Allied vehicle without ID comes into the
category of automatic arrests."

"Exactly.  I'll see our people have an order issued within the hour.
Mind you there must be hundreds of Americans and Britons driving
vehicles in Tehran every day.  No matter, they'll just have to be
checked.  So, General, this is what we have so far.  An elite SS unit
is operating near the capital.  It has stolen X number of vehicles and
we conclude that they are to be used in the assassination attempt."

"We also conclude, Inspector, that that attempt will be made on the day
of your Mr.  Churchill's birthday."

"And we can add to that that the attempt won't be made on the approach
road to this legation on which both Stalin and your President Roosevelt
will travel separately.  No, the killers will want to get all three of
the big shots and the only place they can do that is inside the
legation during the party."

"Agreed, Inspector.  I'm betting my bottom dollar on it that the
evening of Tuesday, 30th November is going to be time and the place
here."  He frowned.

"Goddamit, Inspector, this kind of thing could drive a man to drink."
He eyed the bottle again and Thompson read the look.

"Have another er shot, General."

"Don't mind if I do, Inspector."

Thompson poured the big American a generous drink, handed it to him and
said, "When you've finished, General, we'll go over the agenda of the
birthday party again.  The clue .. . the clue to what is going to
happen has got to be there."

EIGHTEEN

"I think it is time, Charley, to get down to the nuts and bolts of the
operation," Evers said thoughtfully.  Above them in the bedrooms, bed
springs were squeaking furiously.

Yesterday Evers had taken over the city brothel to hide them and the
stolen vehicles.  Now obviously one of the men was enjoying the free
fun.  Kane smiled a little at the thought, took a sip of his raki and
said, "Yes, I think it's time to do that and other things."

"Well, as you know, you use the vehicles to enter the Tommy legation.
Obviously the place will be crawling with security guards etc.  once
the birthday party gets underway, but it is our intention to have you
in the compound as soon as it is dark which is about four in the
afternoon.  That is three hours before the first guests start to
arrive.  How do I know when it starts?"  Evers answered his own
question.

"Because the Persian pastry cook has been ordered to make an ice cake
for the celebration.  It will be kept in the legation's cold store till
then, in case it melts in the heat of the dining room."

"I see.  So we nobble the sentries in the back compound and plant the
charges just like that," Charley Kane said sardonically.

"But surely the limeys just won't let us in because we're driving in US
vehicles and wearing some kind I guess of an American uniform.  They'll
be checking everybody."

"Agreed.  But Charley, you will be someone special."

He clapped his hands.

"Krause," he raised his voice, rein kommen bit ted As if he had been
waiting there all the time for the summons, Krause opened the door and
marched in smartly.  It was a transformed Fahnenjunker Krause Instead
of the shabby, nondescript European clothes he had been wearing up to
now, Krause was dressed in smartly pressed white drill trousers, and an
immaculate blue tunic, its brass buttons shining.  On his head he wore
a white cap, its globe badge glistening in the light.

Kane whistled softly as Krause clicked to attention and saluted,
American style.

"Goddammit," he exploded, 'an American marine's oxitfit!"

Evers smiled, evidently pleased with his surprise.

"A genuine one, too, left behind by US marines in embassies all over
Europe."  He waved Krause to come over and sit down, pushing a bottle
and glass towards him wordlessly.

"Now every other unit in Tehran has got some commander or other who can
vouch for his troops signals, engineers, military police and the like.
Anyone calling headquarters to check whether men are genuine or not can
soon be told so by their commander.  That is not the case with the US
marines.  They have no commander because there are no real marines in
the whole of Persia, not even at the US legation.  In effect, Charley,
you are the commander of the marine guard of honour which will enter
the compound to wait for the appearance of the US President and
Stalin."

"All right, that sounds OK to me.  Undoubtedly you'll have fake ID,
etc.  But how, after we've done our bit, are we going to get out of the
compound again?  I mean the limeys will expect us to stay until the
President does arrive we are the guard of honour.  Then the place will
be swarming with security and some striped pants from the US legation
might just tumble to the fact that there are no marines in Tehran."

Evers was prepared for the objection.

"By now the Anglo-Saxons and the Russians will have tumbled to the fact
that something is going to happen in Tehran.  We lost one of Krause's
men during the attack, poor fellow."

"A good soldier," Krause said routinely.

"Well, I think we can take it that the Russians will have identified
him.  If that's the case, they'll be asking themselves what is a dead
German doing attacking Russian convoys, and it won't take them long to
come up with an answer.  So let us give them what they want a riot and
an attack on the foreign embassy quarter one hour before the party is
due to start."

"You mean the Persian?"  Krause asked.

"Yes.  He has planned to raise a Couple of thousand locals.  There'll
be some rioting and ari^butbreak of firing.  The local police have been
bribed to keep away.  It'll be up to the legation's own security people
to sort out the problem.  So," Evers looked keenly at Kane, 'what would
be more normal than the marine guard of honour becoming fighting
soldiers and rushing out of the British legation to give a hand?"

"Yes, I see," Kane said slowly.  That would work.  It would be the sort
of thing red-blooded US marines would do."  He rubbed his chin.

"So we take a powderin our vehicles, pretending to be heading for the
scene of the trouble, but what then?"

"You disappear'."

"Something made Kane turn and look at Krause.  The SS man was smirking
as if Evers had said something very funny.  But as he did so his hard
blue eyes remained icy and menacing, why Charley did not know.  He
dismissed Krause.

"How?"  he asked.

"Ebtehaj will have two red crescent the Persian equivalent of the red
cross ambulances waiting for you.  You will be casualties from the
rioting being taken under police guard again Ebtehaj's people for
medical attention.  By midnight you will be on the night express for
Ankara.  From there you will fly to Istanbul.  An Italian freighter
sailing for the Allies, but secretly in our pay ' ' Damned spaghetti
turncoats Krause cursed, 'always ready to work for the highest
bidder."

"Will from there," Evers continued, 'take you to Lisbon.  Arrangements
have already been made for your lady friend to be reunited with you in
that city."

"Yes, and then we can get on with winning the war, this time without
the aid of foreign renegades," Krause sneered, his voice full of
hatred.

"That's enough of that, Krause!"  Evers snapped.

"So you see we have done our part of the bargain," he addressed Kane
once more.

"Now it's up to you to do your bit."

"Papers and money?"  Charley said.

"I have them with me," Evers replied, indicating the briefcase nestling
next to his chair leg

"With Ebtehaj's rogues all over the place, it is wise to keep such
things on one's person."

Up in the shadows in the gallery above which, in Persian fashion, ran
around the hall in which the three of them were seated, Fingers sucked
his teeth thoughtfully.  He had just left the whore to find somewhere
to urinate.  Now, almost naked save for his undershirt, he stood there
in the shadows, stopped in his tracks at the mention of money and
papers, his urgent need forgotten.

Charley Kane said, "If anything happens to me ' ' It won't," Major
Evers said firmly.

"Well, if it should, will you see that my er friend is taken care for
in Lisbon, Major?"

"You have my word on it, Charley.  The Abwehr* representative at the
German embassy there, who is in charge of the arrangements to get you
both to South America in due course, is a personal friend of mine.  But
nothing will happen to you, Charley."  Evers' face * German
intelligence.

softened.

"You're tired, Charley.  Why don't you go up to your room.  There's a
woman waiting for you."  He smiled.

"They tell me that sends you to sleep better than sleeping pills and
you need the sleep.  I'd like to discuss the plans for Krause's men
with the Fahnenjunker."

Lazily Kane rose to his feet.  Up above Fingers dodged hastily deeper
into the shadows, as Charley Kane headed for the broad open stairway,
lined with fading photographs of various sexual acts, natural and
otherwise.

"Night," Charley said and began to climb them.

"Night, Charley," Evers said.  Krause remained silent and sipped his
raki.

From his vantage point, Fingers watched the two Germans, every now and
again glancing almost greedily at the leather briefcase in which Evers
had just said there was the money and the documents.

"Thirty thousand bucks," he told himself.  It had to be if each of
them, Kane, Polack and himself, was to be given his ten thousand.  Then
he thought of his problem.  Polack, as well as Charley Kane, would be
shipped to Portugal from Turkey.  But what about him?  How were they
going to get him to Palestine?  Or perhaps, the frightening thought
suddenly ran through his cunning little mind, they weren't going to
send him to Palestine at alll He was a Jew, wasn't he?  He knew the
Nazi mentality.  They'd think nothing of breaking a promise to a Jew.
He craned his neck forward.  Suddenly it seemed important, very
important, to hear what Evers and Krause were saying down there .. .

The Persian whore was really only a girl, perhaps fifteen at the most.
She was naked save for an artificial silk gown and her pubic hair had
been shaved off in the Arab fashion.  She had breasts, but only small
ones, with the nipples painted the same bright scarlet as her lips. For
all the world she looked to Charley Kane like a kid 'dressing up' and
acting 'grownups'.

She said something in Farsi.  He shook his head to indicate he didn't
understand.  She was quick on the uptake.  With her hands, then her
lips and finally opening her legs to reveal the pink slit between them,
she mimed what she could do for him.

Charley sat down on the bed suddenly.  He felt tired, but at the same
time faint stirrings of lust.  The girl looked down at him.  He thought
he saw a kind of pity in her dark eyes, made large and luminous through
a generous application of kohl.  She laid her hand on his hair and
stroked it.  He looked up at her.

She nodded.

For the moment he forgot Magda.  He took off his clothes and lay back
on the bed, legs spread.  She understood.  She knelt and clapped her
hands around his organ as if it was something very precious.  He felt
himself rise almost instantly.  It had been a long time since Magda and
that last day.

She giggled a little, a giggle that was stifled a moment late ring the
most pleasurable manner possible for him.  He began to breathe more
heavily.  She redoubled her efforts.  He forgot Evers, the plot, the
war, everything.  All his past, present and future seemed concentrated
on just this one overwhelming moment of passion and pleasure.  Later
they fell asleep, with her cradling his ruined hand, as if it was
important to do so.

Charley Kane awoke with a start.  A hand was clasped tightly round his
mouth and someone was breathing into his ear.

"What ' "Charley," Fingers' soft hiss said, 'don't make a noise.
They've just hit the hay .. . It's all right.  The little whore's gone.
I gave her some dough and told her the best I could that I wanted to
talk to you alone.  Christ Almighty, I don't know what she thinks we're
gonna get up to."  Fingers chuckled softly.

"But I think it's the worst."  Slowly, he released his hand and Charley
Kane took a deep breath.

"What the Sam Hill's going on, Fingers?"

"Keep it down to a dull roar, willya, Charley.  I think the crap's
gonna hit the fan, Charley."

"What do you mean?"

"Get yer duds on nice and quiet does it and I'll tell you."

Kane scrambled into his clothes as Fingers related what he had managed
to overhear below.

"Evers said to Krause, "Now make quite sure that the Americans use the
jeep when they leave."  He said that twice over, Charley."

Kane paused in buttoning up his shirt.

"Well, it's kinda funny, but why do you think it is important?"

"Well, in the way that Evers said it.  You know he made a big
production of it the way the Krauts always do when they say something
important and don't want to be overheard.  Looking over their shoulder,
voice going down and all that."

Slowly Kane completed buttoning up his shirt, musing over what the
little New Yorker had just said.

"And there was something else as well, Charley."

"What?"

"Just before the two of them turned in for some time in the sack,
Krause said to Evers, "Then we'll be rid of the Ami swine at last " he
meant us, Charley.  And again old Evers said, "Now remember the Amis
are to leave in the jeep."" Charley made up his mind.

"Come on, Fingers.  We'll get Polack and have a look at the jeep."

"Ner, let's leave Polack out of it for the time being.  He's too dumb
to keep a secret.  Besides he's in the hay screwing one of the broads
going at it like frigging fiddler's elbow."

"Okay."

Barefoot in spite of the night cold, the two of them crept down the
marble stairs, with its obscene photos, across the darkened hall, heavy
with the odour of cheap scent and ancient lecheries, out into the inner
courtyard.

The vehicles, draped in tarpaulin to protect the new paintwork, in case
it rained, stood in the shadows at the far end.  They were unguarded,
for the wrestlers in Evers' pay patrolled the complex of native streets
outside the brothel.  They would ensure that no unauthorized person got
into the place or out for that matter.  Quietly Fingers lifted the
tarpaulin off the jeep and their nostrils were assailed by the smell of
the new paint; that day they had painted the numerals and insignia of a
fictitious Marine Corps outfit on its fenders and hood.

Together they stared at the little vehicle, both wondering exactly what
they should do; why Major Evers had emphasized that the "Amis should
take the jeep'.  Hesitantly Charley fumbled inside.  The hard seats
were empty.  He groped around the floor.  Again nothing.

"What do you think we're looking for, Fingers?"  he whispered.

By way of an answer, Fingers hissed back, "Open the hood .. . I'll have
a gander at the motor."

The clasp seemed to make a devil of a noise when Charley released it.
He stared up anxiously at the brothel.  But nothing stirred there, as
Fingers lifted the hood and began poking around inside the engine.

After a few minutes he raised his head and said, "Nothing there either,
Charley."

Again they stood there in the chill darkness, puzzled, and wondering
what exactly they should be looking for.  Then suddenly Charley's
nostrils were assailed by a faint smell of bitter almonds.

"Christ on a crutch!"  he hissed urgently, as he remembered when he had
last smelled that odour.

"Under the jeep.  Let's get underneath it!"

The two of them bent hurriedly and while Fingers shielded the flame of
his lighter with his other hand, Charley Kane peered at the underside
of the jeep.  He didn't have to look long.  Next to the petrol tank
there was a dark irregular shape, which played no part in the machinery
of the jeep.  He touched it with his finger, pressed a little and held
the finger to his nose.  The finger smelled bitter.  Grimly he held his
finger up to Fingers.

"Plastic explosive.  They've got the jeep rigged with plastic."

"Holy shit," Fingers exclaimed, face aghast in the cold moonlight.

"The rotten bastards they're gonna blow us up!'

NINETEEN

Churchill looked around the long circular dining-room and waved his big
cigar happily.

"Well, what do you think of it, Inspector?"

Outside the mine-sweeping squad were working their way through the
compound for the second time this grey Tuesday.  Automatically Thompson
told himself they would do so once again after dark just before
Roosevelt and Stalin arrived.  He eyed the thick red velvet curtains
suspiciously, as if he half expected an assassin to be lurking there,
not even looking at the great table sparkling with polished silver and
glittering crystal.

"Not bad, sir," he said.

"Not bad!"  Churchill chortled, pointing his cigar at the Inspector, as
if it might be a deadly weapon.

"Don't you know you are looking at the epitome of taste Persian style?
Though I fear they, the designers, must have got drunk in a heathen
temple to have been able to produce this little lot."

Outside the engineer-corporal in charge was crying, "Come on, Sapper
Johnson, get that detector under the frigging bush.  Yer not using a
vacuum cleaner, yer know."

"Yes sir," Inspector Thompson said dutifully, as a series of Persian
waiters, clad in blue livery, with powdered wigs and immaculate white
gloves, started to come in and out bearing more champagne glasses on
silver trays.

"I wonder if you'll excuse me, sir.  I want to go over the security
again with General Schwarzkopf of the US Army."

"You worry too much, Thompson.  Who would attempt anything here, within
His Majesty's legation?  Why I am as safe here as I am at Number Ten
Downing Street."

Thompson was about to make the tart reply that only two years before
German bombers had ripped a damn great hole in Number Ten, but decided
against it.  Instead he said, "Before it all starts, sir, may I wish
you many happy returns of the day.  And many of them!"

Churchill smiled.

"Obviously if anyone is going to ensure that I am going to be alive to
celebrate my seventieth, it will be you, my dear fellow, and naturally
the Lord God.  Thank you, Thompson.  Now go and fuss about security."

Thompson felt himself flush.  He could see that the Great Man was moved
a little.

"Thank you, sir."  He made a little bow and then went out, pushing
through the crowd of servants and harassed embassy staff who were
bustling back and forth, preparing for the birthday party.  Thompson
could see they would be glad when it was all over; he would, too, that
he would.

Schwarzkopf was waiting for him in the little office that had been
assigned to him at the back of the embassy.  From the look on the big
American's face, Thompson could see he was tired and worried, too.

"God am I bushed!"  Schwarzkopf exclaimed.  The Lindbergh affair took
two years to clear up and I was exhausted after it.  This business had
been going on for only two days or so and I feel just as bad."

Thompson had little time for sympathy.  The situation was too urgent.

"What's the problem?"  he demanded.

"First, trouble's brewing in the native quarter.  Our informant tells
us that the locals are going to go out on the streets later today. That
could well be timed to coincide with what might happen here.  Two, I
still have not cracked that agenda business.  Any time after seven when
the President arrives could be when they might strike, Inspector."

Without noticing he was doing so, Thompson clicked his false teeth,
something he always did when he was thinking hard.

For a moment the big American was disconcerted at the sight of
Thompson's uppers bulging out of his mouth as if they might fall out at
any moment.

"General, I've looked at that agenda time and time again, trying to
find the best time for the killers to strike.

"At seven, your President makes his appearance.  Then ten minutes later
Stalin does the same.  So we have till say quarter past seven before
the would-be killers might start something.  Now all three of them are
inside that room over there," he indicated the dining-room and
Schwarzkopf nodded his agreement.  There are security guards everywhere
outside and inside.  The three leaders are surrounded by people who are
intensely loyal to them and, in addition, who have been vetted by our
intelligence people time and time again.  None of them would ever be
likely to kill their political masters, eh?"

"Agreed."

Outside the engineer corporal said, "All right, that'll be it for now.
Off yer go and get yersens a char and a wad.  Report back for duty at
six.  At the double now!"

There was the sound of heavy hob-nailed boots stamping smartly away.
Thompson told himself automatically, the sappers had found nothing yet
again.

"However," Thompson continued, 'the Buffs, that's the nickname of the
British regiment which is providing the guards and sentries here at the
Legation, are to make a presentation to Mr.  Churchill just before the
festivities commence.  I believe it is to be some kind of silver piece
adorned with the regimental crest.  Now those men will be the only ones
not one hundred per cent vetted by our security outsiders in other
words."

"You mean the Krauts could have their killers mingling with these er
Buffs of yours?"

"Exactly."

"But they wouldn't have a chance with all that security.  They'd be
mown down," Schwarzkopf objected.

"Perhaps they don't want to live, General.  I've read about these SS
chaps.  In Russia, so I read, they'd rather shoot themselves than
surrender.  Others have walked across known minefields in order to
clear the way for their comrades.  For these fanatical young kids, it
is the highest honour in the world to die for their Fuhrer.  What if
they have explosives strapped to their bodies and make a mad rush for
the Big Three .. . ' "Holy Cow!"  Schwarzkopf whistled softly, as
Thompson's voice died away, as if he didn't have the courage to express
the enormity of the thought.

"Do you really mean it?"

Thompson looked grim.

"I do.  We know the Nips are already doing it in the Far East.  They
pretend to lie wounded on the battlefield and when our chaps go out to
pull them in, they blow both themselves and our medics up with grenades
tied to their chests.  The Huns are the same sort of fanatics.  Why
shouldn't they do something similar?"

"Then we must stop the Buffs coming into the legation," Schwarzkopf
said urgently.

Thompson shrugged a little bitterly, "You tell Mr.  Churchill that,
General.  The Prime Minister is very proud of the British Army and its
traditions.  No, General, we cannot get Mr.  Churchill to stop the
Buffs attending."

Schwarzkopf frowned.

"Hell," he muttered softly.  Then what can we do, Inspector?"

By way of an answer, Thompson opened his jacket to reveal the automatic
concealed just below his left armpit.

"This.  The first person at that reception tonight who makes one false
move, we shoot him dead!"

Schwarzkopf opened his mouth to say something, but his words were
drowned by the clatter of tracks coming from the access road which
linked the British and Soviet embassies.  He nodded his head in silent
approval.  The US Army command in Tehran was pulling out all the stops,
it seemed.  They were even getting armour on the streets to face up to
the street violence to come.  He reached for his cap, as the clatter of
the tracks died away slowly.

"Okay, Inspector, let's leave it there.  I'm going to go back to HQ
until it's dark to check out what's happening with those damned
Persians.  I'll come back here then.  You'll hold the fort,
Inspector?"

"Yes, General," he said grimly, "I'll hold the fort.  But let's hope
the Red Indians don't arrive before then .. . ' "Hup .. . hup ..."
Polack growled, as the Marine <* squad left the vehicles, stepping out
at a fine pace with Second-Lieutenant Kane at their head, gleaming
silver sabre over his right shoulder.  Polack, now once again a first
sergeant, nodded his approval.  Only Fingers seemed out of place.  The
Krauts looked like real marines.  Each man was immaculately uniformed,
with their gleaming rifles held at the correct angle over their
shoulders and Krause, as the standard-bearer, looked the real gung-ho
marine corporal, carrying the little guidon as if it were an honour to
do so.

Suddenly Polack felt a surge of the old pride in the "Corps', as he had
always called it.  The Corps had taken him in as a skinny
seventeen-year-old refugee kid, who could barely speak English, and had
made a man of him.  They had given him rank, pride in himself, shipped
him about to half the world.  Each new dawn when they had hoisted Old
Glory, wherever it had been from China to Panama, he had felt that lump
rise up in his throat.  And now he had come down to this.  He was
letting down the old Corps.

At the gatehouse the guard commander watched them come.  Next to him,
the corporal said, "They're not our mob, Sarge."

"Of course they're frigging not.  They're Yanks .. . Marines."  He
looked at the clipboard with his duty roster, scribbled with new
additions and deletions.  They're not down here though."  He frowned.

The corporal shrugged.

"Well, it's all this big do for Winnie, Sarge.  They've been coming and
going all frigging day.  New 'uns added, then the cancellations.
Besides everybody knows the Yanks don't know their arses from their
elbows."

"Spect you right.  All right then, nip outside and tell the sentry to
challenge them.  Looks like an officer, too," he strained his eyes in
the growing darkness.  Tell the sentry not to forget the butt salute,
even if the officer's only a frigging Yank."

With a brisk command, his breath fogging in the cold air, Kane halted
his squad in the circle of light around the sentry's box, as the sentry
stepped out and challenged them.

"Embassy Marine Detachment .. . Guard of Honour for tonight."

The sentry, his bayonet gleaming in the hissing light of the nap ha
flare, flashed the NCO a look.

"Is it all right, Corp?"  he hissed out of the side of his mouth.

The corporal of the guard looked at the keen-faced American officer and
the rigid marines staring at some object known only to themselves and
told himself they looked like real soldiers.

"Yes," he hissed back.

"Let 'em pass and don't forget the frigging butt salute."

"Pass friend!"  the sentry yelled at the top of his voice.

Kane gave a command.

As one the marines began marching again.

The sentry and the corporal slapped their left hands against the
polished butts of their rifles.

Kane raised his sword in acknowledgement.  To the rear Polack barked,
"Hup .. . hup .. . as they disappeared into the darkness of the
compound.

The corporal of the guard watched them go.

"Almost good enough to be in the British Army," he muttered and then
realizing how cold it was getting now dusk had fallen, he hurried back
to the guard house promising himself a mug of cocoa and a crafty look
at the tattered copy of the Health and Strength they kept hidden there,
the Yanks forgotten already.

Automatically Inspector Thompson took in the sound of marching feet.
Suddenly they stopped.  Thompson frowned, and he heard the soldiers,
whoever they were, dispersing without an order to fall out.  His years
with the Brigade of Guards had made him very conscious of the niceties
of military discipline and etiquette.  The NCO outside should have been
given a rocket for letting his chaps go just like that.

Abruptly the phone on his desk began to jingle.  He forgot the Buffs,
if that was who they were.  He reached for it.  Already he knew why it
was ringing so urgently.  It was Schwarzkopf's office calling to let
him know the rioting had commenced.  For now he could see the dull red
glow of flames in the darkness.

"Blast," he snorted.  Now it was starting .. .

TWENTY

Without assistance, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the US President,
reached for his wheelchair and with his powerful arms, supplanting
useless, wasted legs, no bigger than those of a three-year-old child,
lifted himself out of his chair and into the wheelchair.  Carefully he
tugged the sharp crease in his dark suit and then, lifting his other
polio-stricken leg by its crease, placed one leg over the other.  Now
he could face the world through his rimless pince-nez.  The most
powerful man in the world was ready to listen.

Mike Reilly, his no-nonsense Secret Service chief, snapped, "The locals
are rioting only half a mile away."  He opened the nearest window for a
moment and the President could hear the muffled cries and the
occasional snap-and-crackle of rifle fire.

"Our people are holding them for the time being and General Schwarzkopf
assures me they will continue to do so.  But there is still doubt ' '
Get to the point, Mike," Roosevelt interrupted him firmly.

"The point is, Mr.  President, we think you shouldn't go to Mr.
Churchill's birthday party.  Too risky."

Without haste Roosevelt took out his Bakelite cigarette holder, placed
a Lucky Strike in it, lit the cigarette and took a first draw.

"Mike, I'll tell you this.  I have got to go to that party.  I can't
let Winston down simply can't.  He's a touchy old bear and I still need
his help to win this war."

"Yes sir," Reilly grumbled.  He didn't need a lecture.

"Winston has no concern for the peace to come after we win the war. But
I have, Mike.  I'm already trying to prepare for that peace here in
Tehran by getting to know Marshal Stalin and win him to our side.
Winston is part of that deal.  After the war things will be different
and when Stalin and I start to dismantle the British Empire in the name
of democracy, well," he shrugged and left the rest unsaid.  He gave the
burly Secret Service chief his big toothy, winning smile.

"Mike, whether you like it or not, I have to go to Winston's party."

Reilly gave in.

"Yes Mister President," he said.  Turning to his waiting Secret Service
operatives, all big men with bulges under their armpits where they kept
their .38s, he snapped, "Okay, men, let's roll it."

Reilly went over to the table, lifted up the President's knee braces
and then bending, snapped them on the President at the locked
position.

The President did not seem to notice.  He did not even look down.
Reilly always told himself that the President didn't want to notice. It
was the same with his weekly physicals.  When the Admiral* prescribed
treatment, pills, medicine, Roosevelt did what he was told to do
without a single question.  Perhaps it was the President's way of
overcoming his many illnesses.  Reilly didn't know.

Reilly rose and dusted his knees.  Someone fetched the President's hat
and big naval cloak.  Then Reilly personally started to wheel his chair
to the open door.  The rest followed: the agent bearing a change of
clothes, just in case; the agent with the rubbing mixture that could be
used when the President became soaked with sweat, as he often did; the
third carrying the black bag of emergency medicines, including a bottle
of whisky which the President always insisted upon.  Reilly always *
Admiral Mclntire, Roosevelt's chief doctor.

thought it was a sorry sight, but he was rigorous in its maintenance.

They reached the door.  The armoured Packard with the bombproof chassis
was already waiting there, dead on time.  Unconsciously Reilly nodded
his approval.

"Ready, Mike," the President ordered.  Reilly braced himself.  The
President raised himself on his wasted legs, holding on tightly to
Reilly's big shoulder, using the agent's strength to support him.  The
people outside, even though they were only a small crowd of military,
agents and embassy staff, must never see that their President was a
cripple.  It was always thus.

There was a small cheer and the President beamed and tilted up his
cigarette holder jauntily.  It was his favourite pose, but Reilly had
no eyes for it.  His gaze was fixed anxiously on the lurid flames over
Tehran.  He could hear the mob out there baying for blood and the
racket they made was getting closer.

"Holy Mother of God," he told himself, 'let him get in the car quickr
It wasn't God but perspiration that made the President do that.  He was
already sweating all over due to the strain of supporting himself by
the one arm which clutched Reilly's.

"Okay, Mike, in I go."

Reilly breathed a sigh of relief as the President slumped in the back
seat, the cigarette holder still tilted jauntily for the little crowd,
but with his face now ashen and plastered with sweat.  Reilly gave an
order.  The bodyguard of agents closed in.  Men armed with tommy guns
clung to the side of the car.  Others started to trot behind it.  In an
instant the President's Packard was shielded by a solid wall of human
flesh.  The most powerful man on earth was commencing his slow progress
to Churchill's party .. .

Beria's agent, watching him go, gave the agreed-upon signal with his
torch.  Beria was waiting for it in the upper room of the Russian
embassy.  His master Stalin always had to be last to arrive at any
function.  Lateness was yet another expression of his power.  Churchill
and now Roosevelt would have to wait for him.

Briskly Beria, the head of the Russian Secret Police and Minister of
the Interior, went over to the centre of the room where Stalin sat on
an armchair on a raised dais, as if he were ensconced on a throne.

Stalin was a little man.  Like all little men he was vain.  Now he sat
there, while a flunky.  powdered his face to hide the deep pits caused
by the smallpox he had suffered while he had been training to be a
priest as a youth in his native Georgia.

Beria was a Georgian, too.  This gave him, so he felt, a special
relationship with the dictator.  Now he said in their common language
so that the flunkey couldn't understand, 'The American has gone, Comrade
Stalin.' 

Stalin looked at him.  His eyes were dark and unswerving,
impossible to read.  But Beria did not need to read them.  He knew he
was looking at the face of a tyrant: a man without a heart.
Involuntarily he shivered.

Stalin answered in Russian, again a means of showing Beria that he was
no one special.

"Horoscho," he said.

"We shall leave soon."  He pushed the flunky's arm away and looked at
his face in the mirror.  The pockmarks and sallow skin, which gave him
the nickname "Old Leatherface' behind his back were covered
satisfactorily.

"Go," he said.

The servant went, backing out and bowing as if he were in the presence
of the old Imperial Czar.  Stalin waited until he had closed the door
behind him, then he said, "What of the riots?"

"We know who started them.  We have them under control.  We can stop
them when we wish.  I have already told the populace that we will shoot
a hundred of them for one Russian dead.  Plans are afoot to take the
young Shah into custody if necessary."  Beria rapped out what he had
done like a common NCO reporting to his C.O.

"You just have to say the word, Comrade Secretary-General, and it will
be done."

Stalin tugged at his long nose.  It was a sign that all his court knew.
The head of state was thinking and did not want to be disturbed by
other people's talk or advice.

Outside the sounds of the mob were coming ever closer.  Beria thought
he heard the crackle of machine-gunfire.  He wondered if it was one of
their own guns.  How many times in the past had his Greencaps broken up
mobs in every one of the sixteen Soviet states with a calculated burst
of machine-gun fire scything down the front rank of the protestors. His
Greencaps' machine guns were proving a more effective method of dealing
with that kind of scum than the Czar's Cossacks had ever been.

Stalin spoke.

"We shall let the mob rioting continue," he announced.

"It may remind the plutocrats, Churchill and Roosevelt, that one day
such a mob may well decide their fate."  He smiled, but there was
nothing pleasant about it; his eyes still remained unemotional and
unfathomable.

"Let those gentlemen be aware that their reigns may well be limited."
He bent and took the lipstick that the flunky left behind.  He looked
at himself in the mirror and applied it carefully to those thick lips
of his under the heavy old-fashioned moustache.

Beria shuddered slightly yet once again.  Old Leather-face looked now
as if he had just drunk blood .. .

"Well, Lavreti Pavlovich," Stalin demanded once they were safely inside
the big Zis saloon, flanked on both sides by outriders from the NKVD,
'you have done a good job on the plutocrat Churchill.  But it is the
American I fear more.  He represents a vast and young country the
British Empire is already finished.  The Lion, Churchill, has lost his
teeth.  Ha, ha."

Dutifully Beria laughed with him.  Now that they were on their way to
the party Stalin seemed to have relaxed a little.

"He is a very sick man, Comrade Secretary-General, if that is what you
want to know about the American."

"Yes, that is good.  Weaknesses drink, women?"

"Our people in America tell me that he has women," Beria answered.

"There was a Lucy Mercier when he was a little younger.  More recently
Roosevelt has been infatuated with the Crown Princess of Norway, a
certain Princess Martha, who is an American exile since the Fritzes
took over the country in 1940.  Whether the relationship is sexual is
not known to our people there.  But he is besotted with her and she has
moved into his residence with him, much to the consternation of a Miss
Leland, supposedly his secretary, but according to Washington gossip,
his morganic wife."  Beria paused as the big Zis groaned on in second
gear.

"Recently he presented the Norwegian Navy in exile with a submarine
chaser.  Gossip in Washington says that is typical of this fellow
Roosevelt.  Anyone else would have given her a diamond ring."

Stalin laughed.

"Very good!"  he exclaimed slapping his 'leg.

"So the man has known weaknesses, eh?"

"Yes, Comrade."

"What do our people over there make of Roosevelt's politics?"

The Minister of the Interior adjusted the pince-nez he affected and
said, "Typical American.  Naive, provincial, more concerned with
winning votes from some obscure provincial town than with the great
affairs of the world.  But he has ambitions, Comrade Secretary General.
He wants to go down in the history of the world."

Stalin favoured Beria with a crooked smile.

"I think, my dear Lavrenti Pavlovich, we can ensure that he does as a
dupe and a fool to boot.  Such a man can be no match for us Russians,
eh?"

"Yes Comrade," Beria agreed hastily.  The dictator never tolerated a
contrary opinion.  People either agreed with him or died.

"Of course there is that old dog, Churchill.  He is cunning and knows
this world.  He is washed with all the waters," Stalin added, using the
Russian expression for cunningness.

"But with Roosevelt coming over more and more to our point of view,
there is little that old dog can do."  His tone changed.

"Anything else, Comrade?"

Beria hesitated momentarily.  Even above the racket the motor cycle
outriders kicked up with their machines, he could hear the cries of the
mob growing louder.  They reminded him of the need for ever constant
security.

"Da, tavorich, there is.  For some time now we have been receiving
reports of a group of Fritzes and others who intend to kill you and the
other two plutocrats here at Tehran.  We have reason to believe that
the assassins might well be dressed as Americans."

"Mm," Stalin was not impressed.  He said, "What can a handful of Fritz
killers do against the resources of three great nations, eh?"

Beria hesitated before saying, "May I remind you, Comrade
Secretary-General, that in your youth, you, too, were in a position not
very different from that of the Fritzes.  Every man's hand was against
you as you fought the might of Czarists."

The dictator smiled softly, perhaps flattered by the reference to his
dangerous youth as a revolutionary.

"Ah, Lavrenti Pavlovich, but I was no ordinary assassin or bank robber.
I was among my own people.  I could vanish into them as I wished. These
Fritzes will stand out from the Persians.  Their detection should be
simple.  See to it.  Have them liquidated!"

"It will be done, Comrade."  He lapsed into silence, as did the
dictator, his cold mysterious gaze fixed on nothing.  He had solved the
problem, as he solved so many before: solved it by murder.  So the mass
murderer, who had the blood of millions of his own people on his hands,
drove, too, to the party.

Churchill had staggered and almost fainted just after dark.  Hastily
Thompson had summoned his doctor, Lord Moran.  The personal doctor, a
big bluff man, a veteran of the trenches in the First World War, wasted
no time.  He made Churchill lie down on the nearest sofa, checked his
pulse, blood pressure, and reflexes.  Then after a moment he rolled up
Churchill's sleeve and gave him an injection, saying as he pressed home
the plunger slowly, "You are overdoing it, man.  Remember you are
sixty-nine years old today.  You've been burning the candle at both
ends The colour started to return to Churchill's cheeks and Thompson
breathed a sigh of relief, though the worried look did not disappear
from the Inspector's craggy face.

"I wanted to leave two days ago," Churchill whispered weakly.

"But I stayed ... for this day .. . when we decided when we will invade
.. . Europe .. . All must be planned and ready."

Moran held up his free hand for silence.

"You must cancel this wretched birthday party and go to bed for at
least twenty-four hours before we return to Cairo, do you understand.
If you go to the party, Winston, you'll only over-excite yourself.
You'll drink too much and smoke too much, as well.  I know all your
little tricks by now, Winston."

The Prime Minster shook his head feebly.

"No, I must go ... They must not find out .. . how weak I am ... I must
display strength .. . otherwise all is lost ... I must hold that
party."  Abruptly Churchill sat up, a strange light in his eyes.

"What is this place?"  he demanded.

Moran shot Thompson a look of alarm.

"Why, Tehran, sir," Thompson answered aghast.

"Tehran, sir, you've been here for days."

Churchill didn't seem to hear.  He held out a limp hand, as if reaching
for help.

"Must I ... I die in this strange place?"  he asked pitifully.

Thompson turned away his head to hide his tears.

BOOK FOUR

End Run Ende gut, alles gut.  * German Saying * End good, everything
good.  Transl.

TWENTY-ONE

"Move it, Polack," Kane hissed as they moved to another stone support.
From inside the legation they could hear the buzz of many voices.  From
the direction of the access road the noise of the mob was getting ever
louder.  There wasn't much time left.

They had been planting the plastic explosive all round the legation for
nearly half an hour, stopping in their tracks whenever one of the
British sentries came too close, crouching in the shadows, their hearts
thumping painfully with tension, hardly daring to breathe.  Krause, in
particular, was like a demon.  Every now and again as he stuck a lump
of the explosive on a stone or pillar he would breathe through gritted
teeth, "We shall win the war now .. . we shall .. . kill the three
swine .. . /' It was a litany of triumphant hate that was shared by his
fellow SS troopers.

Now it was taking Polack's every last ounce of energy to keep up with
the Germans, as he waited till they had planted the plastic and then
deftly removed the time pencil which would cause it to explode.  But
Polack was a happy man, now that they had changed their plans.  It was
almost as if he was back in his beloved Corps.  He addressed Kane as
'skipper' and responded with 'ay, ay skipper' to any order until Kane
had hissed angrily.

"For frig's sake, knock it off, Polack.  I ain't your skipper .. . I'm
just old Charley Kane."

By this time Kane's head ached with the acrid bitter odour of the
plastic explosive.  All the same his mind was moving with the precision
of clockwork.  Everything was going according to Fingers' plan.  But
this was the easy part, Kane knew that.  Once they had left the
compound that's where the trouble would begin.  He dismissed that
problem for a moment and concentrated on the task on hand.

Another of Krause's young fanatics darted out from the shadows and ran
over to the buttress which supported the main dining room.  For a
moment Kane caught a glimpse of his sweat-lathered excited face in a
shaft of light that came from inside.  Kane nudged Fingers.

"All right, after him, Fingers."

The little man needed no urging.  Just as Kane did, he knew that this
was the most vital part of the operation, whatever else might go wrong
later, they didn't want to be accused of the murder, or attempted
murder, of the three most powerful men in the world.  Noiselessly he
stole after the German, fingers itching to pull out the time pencil and
fling it away.

Now Charley Kane, acting as lookout, turned and surveyed the compound
from his hiding place next to the conservatory.  Lurid flames were
leaping up high on the horizon and it was clear it wouldn't be long
before they'd have to make their break.  Soon the Allied authorities
would put a really decisive force of troops on the streets and chase
off the mob.  They would have to.  The top brass wouldn't dare slip up,
he told himself, not with the big shots partying here tonight.

Suddenly he caught his breath.  There was the crunch of hobnailed boots
on the gravel over to the left beyond the ornamental shrubs.  A
Britisher stood there.  There was no mistaking his pisspot of a helmet.
And the man was staring straight at the conservatory.  There was the
soft scratch of a match.  Kane breathed a little sigh of relief.  The
striking of the match was followed an instant later by the ruddy glow
of a cigarette being lit.  The sentry had chosen his concealed spot to
have an illegal smoke.  But not for long.

"Hey you," a gruff voice demanded, 'what the hell do you think yer at?
Smoking on stag."

Kane saw the red blur of the cigarette dropping to the gravel.

"Just having a quick puff, Sarge," a weak voice said apologetically.

"I'm sorry."

"Ay, you're gonna be sorry all right, mate The voice stopped short.

"Hey, what's that?"

"What's what, Sarge?"

"Oh shut your stupid cake hole the British NCO snapped in disgust.
There's something moving over there.  Come on.  At the double!"

Kane's heart missed a beat.  The Limey had spotted one of Krause's men
at the far end of the house.  For a moment or two he had been visible
in the light that came from one of the big windows.  Kane hesitated.
Should he tackle them?  It might spoil everything.

Now the two of them, rifles at the ready, advanced on the legation.
Their bodies were slightly crouched as if they were expecting trouble
soon.  Kane prayed the sergeant or whatever he was wouldn't shout for
any help.  Now they were almost parallel with his hiding place.  He
ducked deeper into the shadows.  He could hear their steady breathing.
If he had wished, he could have reached out and touched the bigger of
the two.

"Listen," the sergeant with the gruff voice whispered, 'there's some'
un larking about up there.  Something fishy's going on His words ended
in a soft groan as Kane hit at the base of his neck with his pistol
butt. He pitched forward, unconscious before he hit the ground, the
rifle tumbling from suddenly nerveless fingers.

The other soldier reacted quicker than Kane expected.  He spun round
and lunged in one and the same movement, Kane dodged just in time, he
grabbed at the bayonet.  But the soldier withdrew too swiftly for him.
He lashed out with his foot.  The soldier expected the move.  He sprang
back.  In a moment Kane knew he would yell for help.  He had to stop
him and quick!

On impulse he swung the pistol at the soldier.  By sheer chance the
blow landed on his opponent's shoulder.  He yelped with pain.  His
rifle dropped, as if his shoulder might have been broken.

"Bloody the cry ended in a grunt of pain, as Charley Kane lashed the
pistol across his nose and slammed into the Englishman.  The two of
them fell to the ground.

Instinctively the sentry brought up his knee.  It caught Charley in the
groin.  A wave of sick agony shot through his body.  For a moment he
thought he would vomit.  He caught himself in time.  With all his
strength, his hand wet and sticky with the blood jetting from the
soldier's broken nose, he crashed his pistol down on the other man's
face.  Once .. . twice .. . three times.  Suddenly the soldier gave a
soft moan.  His battered head fell to one side.

For what seemed a long time, Kane knelt there, panting as if he had
just run a great race, his chest heaving.  He shook his head.
Everything came back into focus.  Up ahead he could just make out the
shadowy form of Fingers working on the time fuse.  Down the road the
noise was getting louder and he could hear the angry snap-and-crack of
small arms fire.  The authorities were reacting.  It couldn't be long
now.  He rose to his feet.

"Polack," he hissed urgently.

Polack appeared out of the shrubs, moving with extreme silence for such
a big man.

"Semperfi Charley," he whispered, taking in the scene at once, 'you
ought to have been a gyre ne

"Semperfi my ass!"  Charley grunted angrily.

"Let's get these two out of the way quick.  Before their buddies start
looking for them.  Move it!"

"Ay, ay, skipper."  Polack picked up the big unconscious NCO as if he
weighed nothing.  Effortlessly he placed him down again behind the
conservatory, while Charley tugged the other one in the same direction,
his boots dragging on the gravel seeming to make a devil of a noise.
Wordlessly, they tied the men's hands behind their backs with their own
web belts and gagged them the best they could with their khaki
handkerchiefs.  They'll be out for a while, Charley," Polack said
approvingly.

"Let's hope so," he snapped, noting as he worked on his soldier that
his hands were trembling badly.  He told himself he had to keep control
of himself .. .

It had been Fingers who had worked out the plan in rough as they had
crouched there next to the jeep after they had made their awesome
discovery.

"Charley," he had whispered, after they had recovered a little from
their shock, "Evers, the bastard has got us by the short and cur lies

"How do you mean?"  he had asked.

"Well, let's say we tried to blow now that we know he's planning to
kill us.  How far do you think we'd get?"

"Not far, especially with the place being filled with all those Persian
plug-uglies of his."

"Exactly.  And even if we did get away with it, where would we run to?
Definitely not to our own people.  They'd have us inside the nearest
stockade before our feet touched the ground."

Charley had nodded his head glumly.  Fingers was right.  Evers did have
them trapped.

"So all we can do is to go along with Evers' plan.  Until we're on our
own.  That'll be on the evening of the attempt on the big shots."

"And what do we do then, Fingers?"  Charley had asked, his voice
lacking in hope.

Fingers had not replied directly.  Instead he had asked, "Was you ever
in the Boy Scouts, Charley?"

"What the frig is that supposed to mean?"

"Well I was Jewish Boy Scouts of Brooklyn," Fingers had continued.

"And as a kid I got interested in this guy Baden-Powell a limey who
founded the Scouts.  Well in some war or other BP, as we called him,
got himself surrounded by the enemy at a place called Mafeking,
somewhere in Africa, I think ' ' For chrissake, get on with it,
Fingers."

"Well, he managed to hold out there for eight months by bluffing the
enemy, cos the other guys were a lot more than him.  And he did it by
playing lots of tricks on them, making the attackers think he was more
powerful than he was.  For instance, he only had one searchlight, but
he switched it all around the de fences turning the light on in the
middle of the night so that the enemy thought he was going to do a
night attack.  He wasn't 'cos he didn't have the men.  But he did wear
the enemy out and in the end he won."

"Fingers," Charley had pleaded.

"Get on with it.  It's frigging freezing out here."

"Well, it's like old Baden-Powell, Charley, in a way.  We've got to kid
old Evers that we're going along with his plan, while at the same time
using the plan to our advantage."

"How?"

"When the shit hits the fan and the mob blows its top, we're all
supposed to run for the vehicles.  We're heading for the jeep in which
we came, while the Krauts run for the half-tracks."

That's the plan."

"Right, but what say something happens to that jeep?"

"How do you mean, Fingers?"  Charley had asked.

"Something is going to happen to the crappy jeep!"

"Yeah, but what say it happens before we get to it," Fingers' dark eyes
had looked very cunning in the silver gloom, 'and we nab one of the
half-tracks and it's vital we do because Major frigging Evers is
expecting a half-track.

And remember this, Major frigging Evers is our ticket to freedom.  He's
got the dough and the passports.  We've got to fool him just like that
old Limey BP did his enemies."

Charley's brain had raced electrically.  He could see vaguely now that
there was a way out.  If they could fool Evers to the very last and
could get their hands on the money and the ID, they'd reach Lisbon
somehow.  Once there he'd get Magda out, he knew he would.  Suddenly he
felt new hope surging through his lean body and he had asked, "All
right, Fingers, what's this with the jeep?"

Hurriedly Fingers had told him, making up the plan as he went along,
telling himself as he did so that it was as full of holes as a sieve,
concluding with, "I know, Charley, I know.  It's a lousy plan and half
a hundred frigging things could go wrong with it, but it's the only
plan we got."

Now as he and Polack crouched there, listening to the harsh, shallow
breathing of the two injured limeys, Charley Kane had an awful feeling
that it had gone wrong already.  Wouldn't the two limeys be missed
soon?  What if a search party was sent out to look for them before
Krause and his troopers had finished the job of preparing to blow the
Big Three to kingdom-come or so they thought?  It wouldn't take
determined limeys, armed with flashlights, long to discover what was
going on.

Krause came scuttling up.  He was breathless and very excited.

"We're almost finished," he gasped.

"There is just one more charge He stopped.

"What's that?  What happened?"  he hissed, examining the two
Englishmen.

"Nothing much .. . just a little argument," Charley answered.  Ever
since he had discovered the bomb underneath the jeep he could barely
restrain himself when speaking to Krause; he would dearly have loved to
have taken the German apart with his bare hands.

"Just hurry it up.  They'll come looking for the English at any
moment."

"Einverstanden."  Krause doubled away.

Hastily Charley turned to Polack.

"Better go after him and collect that last time pencil while ' His
words were drowned by a sudden fury of wild noise.  Three red rockets
screeched into the darkness, trailing a shower of fiery sparks behind
them.  One second later they exploded each in turn, colouring the night
sky a blood-red.  It was the signal arranged by Evers.  It meant the
paid mob would attempt not seriously to rush the access road.

Charley grabbed Polack's arm just in time.

"We're off," he commanded above the sudden burst of wild shouting and
shooting coming from the access road.

"But what about the President, Charley?  There's one we ain't nob
bled

Charley Kane shook his head.

"Roosevelt'll have to take his chance just like the rest of us common
mortals.  Come on, Polack, let's run for it .. . '

TWENTY-TWO

"You gunners," Schwarzkopf yelled above the roar and the chant of the
advancing mob, 'give them one last warning burst .. . over their goddam
heads!"

In the light of the rockets exploding overhead, bathing everything in
their sinister blood-red hue, the General could see there were
thousands of Persians, some with locked arms, advancing on the flimsy
barrier which blocked the entrance to the access road.  He was
desperate.  It could be only a matter of minutes before the President's
car passed.  He dare not even think what would happen if the hysterical
mob broke through and saw the President's car.

Sweating despite the night cold, the gunners, crouched behind the heavy
machine gun and supported by half a dozen other GIs, most of them
hastily rounded-up clerks from Schwarzkopf s HQ, took aim.  The
gunner's knuckles whitened on the machine gun's handles.  Then he
pressed the trigger.

Slugs sliced through the air.  A hundred yards away, chunks of masonry
rained down on the heads of the marchers.  One reeled back, blood
spouting from his face.  For a moment the Persians faltered.  But not
for long.  Standing on a raised platform a huge Persian armed with a
megaphone shouted something to the mob.  They gave back an answering
roar.  Some raised their fists and shook them at the handful of
Americans.  Here and there a few of them waved long curved knives,
which glittered in the light of the flames coming from the buildings
they had just set on fire.  They started to move forward again.

Evers standing in the shelter of a doorway nodded his approval. Ebtehaj
was doing his work well, he would be suitably rewarded.  Of course,
once the Amis really let loose at the mob, he told himself, the
Persians would break and run.  The Persians had no stomach for a real
fight.  But for a few minutes more they'd kept the Anglo-Saxons
occupied, and, with luck, that would be all they needed -a few more
minutes.

Major Evers glanced at the green-glowing dial of his watch.  It was
nearing six now.  Krause and his party should be about finished.  Soon
they'd make their dash for freedom.  A couple of metres behind him the
two red crescent ambulances already had their motors running, the
impatient drivers gunning their engines at regular intervals as if they
could not wait to be off.  Evers felt the same.  He, too, was desperate
to get to the station and on the train to Ankara.  For he knew full
well that the Anglo-Saxons would launch a massive search throughout the
whole of Tehran once the assassination had taken place.  No one-would
be safe.  Ebtehaj, who was well known to the Persian police, would be
picked up almost at once.  He would sing like a canary once the Persian
cops started to put pressure on him under Allied orders.  The Gestapo
had a lot to learn from the Persians.

Unconsciously Major Evers tapped the bulging briefcase chained to his
wrist and smiled a little.  Thirty thousand dollars would take him a
long way.  Undoubtedly the successful assassination of the Big Three
would be a massive blow for the Western Allies, but they would recover.
Only fools like Himmler believed that by killing the Allied leaders he
would win the war for Germany.  The Allies would find other leaders to
succeed Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin.  In every country there were
always other politicoes just panting to take over power.  It was what
the game of politics was about.  But he did not want to be a German
still when Germany lost the war, which it would.

He had already got his escape route planned indeed he had been planning
it ever since he first became involved in Operation Long Jump.
Naturally the Gestapo, aided by the Abwehr, would begin looking for him
once his disappearance was noted.  He knew they'd begin their search in
South America.  After all they had been the ones who had suggested that
continent as a safe haven for the Amis and in South America they had
many agents and allies.  He smiled softly at the thought.  But the
Gestapo would be looking for him on the wrong continent.  Kabul that
was the place.  He spoke the language and he had been told that the
young boys there were very pretty and obedient.  He licked his lips at
the thought.  Now all that remained to be dealt with was Krause and his
young thugs of the Waffen SS.  Then he was gone.

The sudden burst of machine-gun fire made him jump, startled, though he
had been expecting it.  Panic broke out in the front ranks of the
advancing mob as the volley slapped right into them.  Men went down
screaming and writhing on all sides.  Others pressed themselves against
the wall or dropped to the ground, while others fought and struggled to
get out of the way of that murderous fire.

Schwarzkopf yelled, "Give 'em another burst, gunner!  They're gonna
break and run in a minute .. . Another burst for God's sake!
Frantically the gunner, the sweat pouring down his young face, fumbled
with the breech.

"I've got a stoppage, sir," he yelled above the cries of the crowd. '/4
stoppage!"

Schwarzkopf realised the danger they were in.  If they didn't stop the
mob now, they'd rally already their leaders were screaming at them to
attack and they'd massacre the handful of Americans holding the
entrance to the access road.

"Clear it," he cried above the roar.

"Move it, man!"

Hardly knowing that he was doing so, the General moved a few paces
forward, pulled out his .45 and, as if he were standing at some
peacetime firing range back home, he aimed the heavy automatic at the
big Persian who was yelling his head off and seemed to be the leader of
the mob.  Take the leader out, he told himself, feeling very calm and
in control of himself, as behind him the gunner worked feverishly to
clear the stoppage in the machine-gun, and the whole damn bang shoot'll
fall apart .. .

Now the lot of them were pelting for the gate, Kane and the other two
Americans in the lead with Krause and the rest just behind.  At the
main gate, British soldiers were busy tugging on their helmets,
grabbing at their weapons in the guard house, rushing to man the
barrier there, their faces coloured a lurid red in the mounting flames.
Everything seemed confused and out of control.  Kane, panting hard,
told himself it was all too the good.

A young officer, still in his shirtsleeves but with a pistol-in his
hand, almost collided with Kane.

"What's going on?"  he demanded.

"I was told you were the guard of honour."

"We were," Kane gasped.

"Now we're just fighting marines.  Everybody's needed out there."  Kane
pushed his luck.

"And put a "sir" on that.  After all I do outrank you."

Kane's ruse paid off.  He'd guessed that the limey wouldn't be able to
recognize the single gold bar of a US second-lieutenant.

"I'm sorry er he began.

"Major," Kane helped him.

"Now come on, get the lead outa ya tail.  All hell is being let loose
up there."

Together they continued running to the barrier, the British officer
shouting, "Sergeant of the Guard, open the gate and let this American
officer through .. . Come on, quick now!"

Hurriedly the wire hurdles were drawn to one side and Kane sprinted
through.  Behind him the others followed, with the Buffs yelling,
carried away by the excitement of it all, "Go on, Yanks, get the wog
buggers!  Give 'em one for us!"

Krause caught up with Kane.  His face was still wild with excitement,
his blue eyes gleaming with the crazy fanaticism of the SS.

"We've almost done it, Ami .. . They're virtually dead men .. .
Remember what Major Evers said .. . take the jeep."

"Yes, yes, I know," Kane gasped in feigned irritation.

"You don't need to draw me a picture.  Now cut out the cackle and let's
get on with it."

Now the three vehicles, the jeep and the two half-tracks, were only a
hundred yards away.  They were clearly illuminated in the fires which
seemed to be burning on all sides.  Kane swung a glance behind him.
Fingers was running all out, arms working like pistons, trying to keep
up with the long-legged SS troopers, who were beginning to catch up
with the Americans in the lead.  He formed his forefinger and thumb
into a circle.  Fingers did the same.  It was the agreed-upon signal.
With a last burst of energy he surged ahead, leaving Krause behind him,
running all out.

"Hey!"  Krause yelled, "Remember ' But Charley Kane was no longer
listening.  This was the moment of truth .. .

General Schwarzkopf s knuckle on the trigger whitened.  He fought to
control his breathing.  Behind him the gunner still tried frantically
to eject the cartridge which was blocking the machine gun.  Schwarzkopf
took first pressure.  The mob was beginning to move again, being
carried forward by the momentum of those behind, shoving the leading
ranks over the bodies of the dead and dying in the road.  He couldn't
afford to miss.  The big swarthy bastard was obviously the leader of
the mob.  Take him out and they'd run, he knew that instinctively.  He
said a final little prayer and pulled the trigger.

The big Colt erupted in his hand.  Scarlet fire belched from its
muzzle.  The muzzle was flung upwards as the heavy slug shot out.  To
his front the ringleader staggered visibly.  A scarlet patch coloured
his dirty white shirt abruptly.  He threw up his hands, as if climbing
the rungs of an invisible ladder, fighting for life to the last.  To no
avail!  Suddenly, star tingly Ebtehaj pitched forward to slam into the
cobbles dead.

A great collective hush went up from the crowd around him.  It was
followed an instant later by a kind of wild keening, a banshee-like
howl which reminded General Schwarzkopf of the one he had once heard at
a Red Indian funeral in his youth.  The mob started to pull back.

Schwarzkopf knew he had won.

"Gunner," he cried, not turning round, but keeping his gaze on the
retreating crowd, 'have you cleared that stoppage?"

"Yes sir," the youth sang out joyfully.

"Shall I fire?"

"No," Schwarzkopf said, knowing that no advantage could be gained by
any further slaughter.

"No, that won' the necessary .. . They've had it now."  Suddenly he
felt very weak.  It was as if a tap had been opened and all energy had
drained from his body.  He knew at the same time that he had done all
he could do.  The rest was in the laps of the gods .. .

Charley Kane flung the grenade.  The little egg-shaped bomb hurtled
through the red night.  At that range Kane couldn't miss.  He ducked in
the same instant that the jeep exploded.  The little vehicle rose high
into the air with the force of the plastic exploding.  Two of its tyres
burst and flew away.  The engine caught fire.  Flame seared the
night.

Krause, caught completely off guard, was thrown to the ground with the
blast.  The SS troopers all around him skidded to a halt, faces shocked
and confused.  One of them cried, "What's that for?"

Charley, Fingers and Polack, who had been planning this all along, did
not stop to explain.  As the jeep thudded to the ground, wreathed in
flame, scattering burning petrol from its shattered tank to left and
right, they ran on.  Deftly they sprang over the flames and headed for
the first half-track.

Fingers flung himself behind the wheel while Polack grabbed the big
half-inch machine gun in the wheel-house and swung it round
effortlessly, as if it were a child's toy.

"Himmelherrgottr Krause cried angrily, suddenly awaking to what the
Americans were about.  The swine have tricked us.  Los/' The SS
troopers surged forward.  Wild firing broke out, as Fingers started the
engine and rammed home first gear swiftly.  The big half-track all five
tons of it shuddered and creaked.  Slowly it began to move.  Slugs
bounced off its metal sides, as at the barrier the British sentries
reacted.  There were angry cries, yells, someone shouted, "Hey, what's
the bloody game?"

Neither the Americans nor the SS troopers answered.  Krause flung
himself in the cab of the second half-track, as Polack fired a vicious
burst at the vehicle.  A SS trooper reeled back, clutching his
shattered face.  Savagely Krause turned the key.  The Ami were already
fifty metres away and the Tommies were running from the barrier,
weapons at the ready.  They had to get away!  There was no response!"

"Heaven, arse and cloudburst!"  Krause cursed.  Frantically he turned
the key again.  Once more nothing happened.  Suddenly it dawned upon
him.  The Amis had known of the plan from the beginning.  Just as they
had avoided the trap of the jeep, they had also sabotaged the second
half-track.

Abruptly all fight went out of Fahnenjunker Otto Krause.  There was no
hope for him, trapped in this city thousands of kilometres away from
the homeland.  Slowly, as if his hand weighed a ton, he took his pistol
from inside the tunic where he had concealed it.  He clicked off the
safety.  Now the running English soldiers were almost up to the stalled
half-track.  For a moment Krause thought of those great days at
Nuremberg when he had been a boy in the Hitler Youth, the bands, the
flags, the great crowds cheering as the Fuhrer himself had marched up
the steps to address the Party Rally.  What high hopes and dreams had
possessed him then.  Now?

As all around him his young troopers started to throw down their
weapons and raise their arms in surrender, Krause thrust the muzzle of
the pistol into his mouth.  He noted how unpleasant the taste of gun
oil was, then with only the slightest of hesitation, he pulled the
trigger.

TWENTY-THREE

"Guard .. . present .. . PRESENT ARMS!"  the guard commander bellowed
at the top of his voice, his breath fogging on the cold November air.

The boots of the Buffs' guard slammed to the concrete as one, hands
slapped the rifle butts and the officer raised his right arm in
salute.

Molotov, the Soviet Foreign Minister, stepped out of the first Zis.  He
peered at the guard through his gold-rimmed spectacles like a
moderately successful travelling salesman inspecting his wares.  He was
followed by Voroshilov, the Soviet Chief-of-Staff, whose face was broad
and battered, as if he might have taken some severe beatings in his
youth.  Together they waited until Stalin descended from his own Zis.

The youthful guard commander tensed.  For the last two days he had
practised the three words in Russian to welcome the Soviet leader.  He
hoped he wasn't going to drop a clanger, especially with Winnie
watching at the head of the steps.

"Slava Krasnaya Armyaf he cried.

Stalin did not seem to notice.  He walked straight by without turning
his head.

"Sod you," the guard commander said to himself.

"You might have soddingly well looked at me."

Stalin started to climb the steps, where at the top Churchill, now
recovered, was waiting for him.  He was dressed in a saffron-coloured
cloak, lined with blue velvet, a military-looking cap on his head.  But
Churchill's gaze was fixed not on the Soviet dictator's dress, but on
his eyes.  He tried to fathom their mystery, but failed.  But whatever
secrets lay behind those eyes, Churchill knew that this man was his
next enemy after Hitler.

Stalin paused.  He raised his clenched fist in greeting.  It was like a
lump of rock coming to life.  Immediately he stopped he was surrounded
by his Georgian bodyguards, with Beria close to him, his dark eyes
peering everywhere.

For a few moments there was an embarrassing silence.  A Persian
servant, perhaps unaware that he was in the presence of the great man,
tried to slip by the bodyguard.  The Georgians reacted immediately.
They broke ranks.  Two grabbed the unfortunate Persian roughly. Another
jabbed an automatic into his ribs.  Unwittingly the Persian servant had
broken the golden rule in the Kremlin.  No one approached Marshal Josef
Stalin from behind.

Churchill cleared his throat.

"Welcome to my party," he said and at his side the interpreter hastily
put the words into Russian.

Stalin did not react.  His powdered face remained impassive.  For what
seemed an age he stared hard at Churchill's pale sick features, as if
he were searching the face for something which only he knew was
there.

Wordlessly he moved forward, followed by his aides and bodyguard.  The
big door of legation slammed behind him.  It was seven o'clock on the
night of Tuesday 30th November 1943.  The great party could commence.

Round the back, Inspector Thompson stared hard at the sullen young men
in American marine uniform lined up against the wall.  There was still
firing and shouts coming from the access road area, but they were dying
away and Schwarzkopf had just phoned to say the mob was dispersing.
When Thompson had told what had happened at the legation, he bellowed
over the phone, "You get to work on 'em, Thompson.  I'll put out an
all-directions alert for the other vehicle.  And for chrissake,
Inspector, don't let anything happen to the President!"  He had slammed
down the phone and had left Thompson to deal with the prisoners.

Now Thompson turned to the effeminate-looking third secretary, who had
been hastily summoned from the party because he was supposed to be able
to speak German and rapped, "What were they doing here ask them
that."

The third secretary stuttered his way through the question in
heavily-accented German and paused.

One of the prisoners, a tall fellow with a nasty scar running down the
left side of his face, sneered, "Go and piss in your boot, fairy
queen."

The others laughed.

The diplomat flushed and told Thompson what the German had said, though
he omitted the 'fairy queen'..

Thompson flushed too, angrily.

"Don't come the old acid with me, chum," he snapped and stared along
the line of hard, sullen faces.  They were a tough bunch, he told
himself.  They wouldn't break easy.  But they had to be broken and
broken soon.  Obviously they had been up to something, he knew that.
Already he had the sappers with their mine detectors sweeping the
ground yet once again.  Others had been down to the cellars to check
for the poison gas cylinders, but they had found nothing.  Soon, if he
didn't discover what the Huns had been about, he would be forced to
order the evacuation of the legation and then all hell would be let
loose.  How did you move the three most important men in the world
without fuss?

"All right," he controlled himself with difficulty, 'tell them this,
please.  They are dressed in Allied uniform.  We can, if we like, shoot
them for that as spies or agents.  Tell them that."

Again the diplomat stumbled through the translation and waited.

"Now tell them that we won't do that, if they come clean with us.  Tell
them, it's either talk or die."

The diplomat did his best and came up with 'talk or croak' as the
German version of the Inspector's words.

The one who had told him to 'piss in his boot' looked scornful at his
use of the tough phrase, but this time he didn't respond.  None of them
did but Thompson felt he could detect a look of unease on their faces,
as the message hit home.

The third secretary waited a moment and then looked at him.

"Should we shoot one of them as an example to the others?"  he asked
brightly, as if it were perfectly natural to take men out without trial
and shoot them.

"What about that surly brute who talked back to me?"

Thompson's trained eye caught the reaction on their faces immediately.
Why, the bastards understand English!"  he exclaimed angrily.

"We've been wasting our time on them .. . they've been dragging it out,
the crafty buggers."

"Oh I say," the third secretary said.

"They've duped me too."

"Go and screw yersen, fruitcake," the one with the scar said with a
heavy American accent.

"Do what you like," he addressed Thompson now, 'we won't talk ever."
Suddenly he sprang to attention and flung up his right arm, "Kameraden,
Heil Hitler7' As one the prisoners sprang to attention and threw out
their right arms in the Hitler salute, their breath fogging the air as
they stood there rigidly to attention, eyes gleaming fanatically.

It was just then that the sergeant in charge of the Royal Engineers
came up and began to report that the compound was free of mines and
other lethal devices, when he stopped short suddenly.  It wasn't the
sight of the young Nazis shouting their defiance at the aged police
inspector which had distracted him; it was the smell.

He came closer.  Watched by a bewildered Thompson and the baby-faced
diplomat, who exclaimed, "I say, he's sniffing those Germans' hands!
What is the fellah up to?"  the NCO placed his nose almost to the palm
of the one with a scar, his eyes suddenly very alert and suspicious.
Suddenly he turned to Thompson and said, "These are the blokes who were
larking about in the grounds, aren't they, sir?"

"Yes, they are.  Why?

"Well, sir," the engineers sergeant answered, 'they've been mucking
about with plastic explosive recently."

"With what?"  Thompson rapped sharply.

"What is plastic explosive?"

The sergeant told him and Thompson yelled, "Oh my God.  Get that lot of
yours looking for it right away .. . There's no time to lose .. . '
They had been chatting and sipping champagne for ten minutes or more
now.  Soon they would go in for dinner.  The alcohol was beginning to
have an effect.  Stalin was starting to relax.  He had toasted
Roosevelt and Churchill as 'my fighting friends', adding, "That is, if
it is possible for me to consider Mr.  Churchill my friend?"

" Churchill had admitted that after the First World War, he had done
everything in his power to prevent the spread of communism in Europe.
Stalin had replied that he, Churchill, had little cause for worry; it
was not easy to set up communist regimes in countries where the
populace didn't want them.  Anyway, Stalin said, and for once his
pock-marked face had cracked into a wintry smile, he was glad of one
thing Mr.  Churchill had never been a 'liberal'.  He had pronounced the
word with such contempt that Roosevelt, the liberal, dropped his eyes
and pretended he had not heard it.

Churchill, pale cheeks flushed a little with champagne, felt everything
was going well now.  Perhaps Roosevelt, who was getting too close for
his liking to Stalin, had got the hint.  Stalin's concept of the world
was that of friend and foe, black and white.  Obviously he had no time
for wishy-washy liberal thinking.

For some reason perhaps it was the champagne -Churchill had an impish
urge to cause both Stalin and Roosevelt, his newfound friend, some
embarrassment.  Stalin had just mentioned the fact that it would be
only a matter of weeks before the Red Army re-entered Poland and
regained the territory Russia had lost there in 1941.  "How
interesting," Churchill now commented.

"Perhaps it is opportune at this moment to remind everyone that it was
to protect Poland's independence that His Majesty's government and
naturally France declared war on Germany in 1939."

Molotov, the Soviet Foreign Minister, the man who had agreed to split
Poland between Germany and Russia on August 22nd 1939, actually flushed
and for once Stalin's dark eyes showed some emotion anger.  Roosevelt,
for his part, said, "Winnie, don't you think we should go in now?"

Churchill, suddenly the perfect host, said hastily, "Why of course, I
was forgetting myself."  He grinned and turned to hide his delight. His
dig had struck home.  He had reminded Roosevelt that "Uncle Joe', as
the US President like to call the Soviet dictator, had once been an
ally of Hitler himself.

So they went in to dinner, Churchill alone, his only weapon, the
massive cigar clenched between his forefinger and thumb; Roosevelt in
his wheelchair, pushed by Reilly and flanked by two Secret Service men
armed with tommy guns; and Stalin, hardly visible in the midst of his
Georgian bodyguards.  Watching them go in Foreign Secretary Anthony
Eden thought of them as the sick, the halt and the lame.  Of the three
old men only Churchill seemed something akin to a normal human being.

Frantically the sappers and Thompson ran the length of the legation
walls ripping out the slabs of plastic explosive which seemed to be
everywhere.

"Can't understand, sir," the panting sapper NCO gasped, 'all of them
have had the time pencils which would set them off removed.  What a
funny caper!"

Thompson gasped, "Dont ask questions.  Just get rid of the bloody
things and quick!"  They ran on.

Inside the guests were sitting down to dinner, its centre piece the
Persian pastry cook's piece de resistance, the great towering ice cake.
It dominated the table, white and glistening, decorated with rosettes
in the national colours of the three great powers.  Already the first
toast had been drunk and Stalin had risen to make a little speech,
which would be interpreted by his translator Berejkov.  There, all was
orderly and civilized.  Outside was all confusion and panic, as the
soldiers ran back and forth in the shafts of light streaming from the
dining room windows searching for the plastic.

Suddenly Thompson saw it.  The brick-sized piece of dung-coloured
plastic explosive, with a metallic gleam in its centre.  This one's
wired!"  he yelled and grabbed at it.  With feverish, trembling hands,
he ripped it from its hiding place.  There was no time to pull out the
time pencil.  Conscious that he might be a dead man in a moment, he
flung it as far as he could and ducked.

The dining table trembled, the music of the orchestra drowning the
sound outside.  Those guests still sober enough to notice told
themselves the tremor probably had something to do with the earthquakes
for which Tehran was notorious.  Now the great edifice of ice and cream
started to shake and tremble.  At first it was hardly noticeable.  Now
it had become increasingly obvious.

Stalin, however, did not seem to notice.  He droned on while his
pudgy-faced, bespectacled interpreter translated to the bored guests.
Now the ice-cake had taken on the angle of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Bits and pieces of the rosettes started to drop off like fallen
masonry.  The interpreter eyed the trembling structure apprehensively.
Still Stalin continued to speak and no one dared interrupt "Old
Leatherface'.  He ploughed on.

Suddenly it happened.

"Look out!"  Anthony Eden cried to his neighbour.  Grabbing the
unfortunate ambassador by the scruff of the neck, he kicked aside his
own chair and both of them tumbled to the floor.  Just in time.  With a
rending crash, the sugar la vine rolled and rolled over their bent
heads.  A second later it exploded in a cloud of icing sugar on the
table.

The interpreter Berejkov took the full blast.  The mess engulfed him
completely.  Sugar, ice and cream slithered down his body right to his
very feet.  Still the fear of the Soviet dictator was so great that he
kept on translating, hardly missing a word of Stalin's speech.

Persian servants rushed in bearing towels and napkins.  Hastily the
guests pushed back their chairs.  Reilly and the Secret Service men
formed a small circle around the President, weapons at the ready.
Churchill repressed his laughter with difficulty.  But the cold eye of
Stalin did not even flicker.

Outside as the sirens began to wail all over Tehran indicating that
General Schwarzkopf had already commenced what he called his
'all-directions alert' for the remaining would-be assassins, Thompson
slumped against the wall exhausted.  His policeman's instinct told him
that the immediate danger was over now.  Thank God," he whispered to
himself.

"Thank God."  Tomorrow he'd get the Great Man back to Cairo and the
comparative safety of the Egyptian capital.  Now, he told himself, he
thought he had earned a Scotch a very large Scotch.  Wearily he turned
and trailed back to his little office, the animated chatter of the
masters of the world unheard.  The Tehran Conference was over .. .

TWENTY-FOUR

There he is," Polack yelled above the racket.  To the left there,
standing in the doorway.  Got him?1 Fingers at the wheel nodded and
Kane, standing in the swaying cab of the half-track next to him, ducked
down.  He didn't want Evers to see him yet and run for it before they
had a chance to get to him.

Now the mob was moving back down the debris-littered street, dodging
the half-track and then shaking raised fists at it when they recognized
the foreign uniform.  Every now and again Polack swung the big machine
gun round on its swivel as if he were about to fire and the Persians
cowered back.  But not for long.  Here and there cobblestones and other
missiles pattered against the vehicle's steel sides.

Kane peered through the slot in the metal windscreen.  Evers was
standing with the case in his hand, surrounded by some of the burly
wrestlers.  Behind in the side street, there were the two red crescent
ambulances he had promised to have waiting, clearly outlined in the
flames of fires burning everywhere.

"He's seen us," Kane hised to Fingers, as if Evers might hear him
despite the noise.

"Don't let him see you."

"Yeah and do you see he's got the case with the dough and the ID," he
said happily, as a molotov cocktail bounced off the side of the
half-track, shattered on the cobbles below and burst into angry
flame.

"Jesus H. The natives are restless tonight!"  He grinned and Kane,
whose nerves were tingling excitedly, snapped, "Keep your mind on the
goddam wheel!"

"Wilco."

Kane could see now that Evers was wondering why there was only one
half-track coming down the street.  He kept glancing to the corner
behind it as if searching for the second one.  Kane told himself grimly
the treacherous bastard would soon find out where it was.

Fingers crashed home first gear and slowed down.  A group of Persians
were fumbling with some kind of weapon on the cobblestones, feverishly
loading what looked like a fat-bellied bomb into the awkward
contraption, while the man behind it waited impatiently, as the
half-track rumbled ever closer.  Evers stepped out of the shelter of
the doorway, together with his bodyguard, and cried something in Farsi.
Perhaps he was telling the Persians that the men in the half-track were
friends.  But they took no notice of the European.

Suddenly Kane recognized the weapon.  He had seen it once before when
he had been in training with the commandoes before Dieppe.  It was a
primitive form of anti-tank weapon, which had a recoil like the kick of
a mule.  But the Piat, as it was called, was deadly at close-range. Its
bomb would certainly penetrate the thin armour of the half-track.

He didn't hesitate.  He grabbed the wheel and swung it to the
right-hard.

"What the fuck.T Fingers started to cry in the same instant that two
things happened: the long snout of the half-track smashed into a wall
and, like a blow from a gigantic fist, the bomb slammed into the
half-track's rear axle.  It collapsed in a burst of flame and rending,
tearing metal.  Shards cut the air everywhere.  Polack howled with pain
as one piece sliced his hand like the blade of a razor-sharp knife.

Next to a shocked Kane, Fingers slumped over the shattered wheel,
bleeding from his ears and nose.  He shook his head.  Everything spun
into focus: the little Abwehr man staring aghast at the shattered
vehicle; the triumphant Persians slapping each other on the back, while
others surged forward to finish off anyone who might be left alive in
the wrecked half-track.

Charley Kane realized with a sinking feeling that at the very last
moment when everything seemed to be going their way, disaster had
struck.  Still groggy from the explosion, he called to Polack, "Give
the bastards a burst .. . keep 'em off."

"Ay, ay, skipper," Polack replied and shook his hand so that the blood
flew everywhere.  He clambered back to his position over the smoking
torn metal.

"Shit!"  he cursed, as the swivel refused to turn.  It had been damaged
and bent in the explosion.  He grunted and heaved.  With all his
massive strength he lifted the machine gun off its mounting and placed
it on the cab stanchion.  He pressed the trigger.  A stream of lead
swept the ranks of the advancing Persians, "Eat that, towel heads he
grunted savagely, as they writhed, twitched and fell like puppets in
the hands of a puppetmaster suddenly gone mad.  Behind them the others
scattered wildly, screaming with fear, ducking into doorways, flinging
themselves on the ground.

Madly Kane shook Fingers and slapped him across the face.

"Come on, Fingers, snap to ... Come on for chrissake!"  His voice was
desperate.  For the situation was virtually out of control.  In a
moment Evers would recognize them and know his plot had failed, or he
would take off, uncertain of his power over the Persian mob now that
Ebtehaj was dead.

Finger sT The little man moaned.  Kane shook him again frantically.
Fingers opened his eyes.

"Where am I?"  he asked a little weakly.

"Right in the crap, that's where you are!"  Charley Kane snapped.

"Come on, you've got to try, Fingers.  Otherwise it's curtains for us."
He grabbed him and hauled him to his feet.

Polack sprang over the side of the shattered half-track, machine gun
cradled in his arms.  Groggily Fingers followed and then Charley
Kane.

Evers' mouth fell open foolishly when he saw them.

"You!"  he gasped.

"But ' "Yeah," Kane snarled, holding on to Fingers while Polack covered
them with the machine gun.  Things didn't turn out the way you
expected, Major."  Charley Kane looked at the wrestlers who stared at
these Americans in their soiled, burnt uniforms sullenly, "And tell
those ugly mugs to keep their distance or Polack here will blow them
off the face of the earth."

Polack, his hand dripping blood again, said cheerfully, "That's telling
'em, skipper.  Semperfi

"What do you want?"  Evers quavered fearfully as the three of them
advanced upon him.

"Hell's teeth, you know what we want," Kane snapped.

"The money and the passports.  You've got them in that briefcase,
haven't you?"  He indicated the bulging bag strapped to Evers' wrist by
the steel chain.

"Yes, but ' ' No frigging buts.  Take out the key, unchain that thing
and give it toot sweet!"  He clenched his fist as if he might strike
the Abwehr man.

Somewhere in the distance a siren started to shrill like Kane
remembered from the gangster movies of his youth.  Instinctively he
knew what that meant.  It was the siren of a military police automobile
and it was out looking for them.  The alarm had already been sounded.
There was no time to be wasted.  Impatiently he stood there, as Evers
fumbled with the key and finally managed to unlock the chain.

Kane snatched the briefcase from him.

"Here Fingers," he snapped.

"Take a look inside.  Check it out."

"Wilco."  Clumsily, for he had still not recovered from the crash,
Fingers opened the leather flap and rummaged about inside the
briefcase.

"Dough's there he announced.

"One .. . two .. . three passports."  He squinted hard in the light of
the flames, "Republica de Chile it says.  South American, ain't it?"

"Yeah, hang on to it."

One of the Persians clenched his fists and moved a pace forward
threateningly.  Polack didn't hesitate a second.  He swung the heavy
machine gun hard.  The Persian reeled back spitting out his broken
teeth.

"Okay, towel heads Polack snorted, as Kane grabbed a frightened Evers
by the arm, 'keep yer distance, if ya knows what's good for ya!"

"What are you going to do?"  Evers asked fearfully as Kane started to
steer him towards the first ambulance, followed by Fingers clutching
the precious briefcase, as if his life depended upon it, and Polack,
walking backwards with his machine gun levelled on the sullen
Persians.

"I need you," Kane replied, as yet another siren began to howl
somewhere in the maze of little streets to their left and started to
become even louder.

"What .. . what for?  You've got the money and passes.  What use can I
be to you ' ' Shut up!"  Kane ordered him brutally.

"Tell that first driver, we're going with him."  Kane eyed the Persian
driver's dark rapacious face; it was the face of the born petty
crook.

"Tell him to drive due north into the Russki sector."

The Russian sector?"  Evers protested.

"But the plan was to take the midnight express to Ankara."

"Yeah, well there's been a change of plan, Evers.  Now tell him and
damned quick!"  .. .

"American?"  General Schwarzkopf echoed incredulously.

"Did you say American, Captain?"

"Yes sir," the Buffs' intelligence officer answered over the phone in a
very clipped, British sort of a way.

"I

questioned the prisoners personally I speak German.  They said they set
off on this mission under the command of four Americans who had been
POWs in Germany ' "Renegades," Schwarzkopf interrupted.

"Precisely, sir.  Well, one of them apparently got killed on the way,
leaving the three who got away after the officer of these chaps, a man
named Krause, committed suicide.  Now that the jig's up, they're all
singing like yellow canaries," he repeated the phrase as if he were
proud of it.

"Give me the names of those three Americans, Captain, please,"
Schwarzkopf requested.

"The one is called Ziemanski, apparently of Polish origin, very big and
tough."

"Got it."

The other names might be garbled, sir.  The one is a Jew all the
prisoners make a point of that.  Funny though a Jew working for the
Nazis."

Silently Schwarzkopf agreed, but said nothing, life for him had been
full of strange surprises like that.

The prisoners had never seen his name written.  Something like
Fingenstein .. . Finkelstein.  That's roughly it."

"And the last one?"

"He was the leader, sir," the Buffs captain answered promptly.  This
American had been in charge since the start.  Tall, athletic and very
pushy.  Oh yes, sir, one other thing.  He had lost part of his left
hand.  Often wore a leather glove over the stump apparently.  That
should be good for identification purposes."

"Yes, so it should," Schwarzkopf at the other end agreed, writing
furiously.

"And this guy's name?"

"Again the prisoners have never seen it written, sir.  They spelled it
out phonetically like "cane" as in a schoolmaster's cane, though it
doesn't seem to me to be a very common Anglo-Saxon name, sir."

"No it doesn't," Schwarzkopf agreed.  Hastily he scribbled "Cane' and
then asked, "What was the escape drill for these bastards?"

At the other end, the Buffs officer grinned.  The brass hats were
really getting hot under the collar about this one, he told himself. 
They were all scared of getting a terrific rocket, he supposed.  Aloud
he said, They had a rendezvous with the spymaster man named Evers in
one of the streets running off the access road.  They didn't know the
name. From there they were to be transported in two red crescent
ambulances red cross to us, sir to Tehran's main railway station."

The railroad station?"

"Yes sir.  They were scheduled to catch the midnight express to
Ankara."

"Had they papers, civilian clothes, money and the like?"

They thought this man Major Evers would have all those things ready for
them, perhaps in the ambulances.  They couldn't very well travel into a
neutral country dressed in the uniform of the US marines, sir."

"I take your point," Schwarzkopf said thoughtfully, doodling on his pad
with his pencil.

"So we're looking for three men, perhaps four, if they take this guy er
Evers with them.  Did the prisoners say if Evers spoke the native
tongue?"

"Yes sir.  Apparently he is a German intelligence officer who has been
here a long time."

"So it's four.  The renegades would need somebody who spoke the lingo,"
Schwarzkopf mused.  He raised his voice.

"All right, Captain, you've done good work.  I shall mention your
efforts to your C.O. in due course."

Thank you, sir," the Buffs officer replied.

"Now keep up the good work and let me have anything new you can dig up
as soon as you've got it."

"Yes sir, I will."

The line went dead and for a moment Schwarzkopf stared down at his
doodle.  Unconsciously he had transformed the name of the traitor from
"Cane' to "Cain1.  He nodded slowly.  It seemed an apt enough
transformation.  The unknown American renegade had indeed tried to kill
his brothers.  His fleshy face set hard and determined.  But this would
be the last time he tried.  Now he'd nail this "Cain', if it was the
last thing he ever did .. .

TWENTY-FIVE

They had been going now for a day and a half.  Kane's knowledge of the
geography of Persia was very sketchy.  But he knew that they must bear
north for a start and then turn north-west to reach the Turkish
frontier.  Of course, Evers, the 'old hare', as the Germans called the
veterans, could have told him, but he wanted Evers to know as little as
possible just in case.  For the first day he had chanced his arm by
ordering the Persian driver to stick to the primitive road network
which ran parallel to the railroad line from Tehran to Oazvin.  He had
reasoned that the Allied security people would concentrate their
efforts on Tehran itself before spreading their net wider.  Besides at
Oazvin he guessed he could obtain the gas they needed before venturing
into the unknown rugged country between the seedy rundown township and
the route he had planned south of Lake Urmia and from thence to Turkey
itself.

Naturally he had reasoned that the main road leading due north to the
Russian frontier at the town of Maku would be very busy with Russian
traffic all those trucks and tanks from Allied sources which were so
urgently needed on the Russian Eastern Front.  He wanted to keep away
from it, though he knew he would have to cross it somewhere before they
reached Lake Urmia.  But Kane told himself he'd cross that bridge when
he came to it.

Now on the afternoon of the second day, Thursday 2nd December, he felt
reasonably confident that their luck was holding out.  As they began to
bear north-west over what were little better than rough tracks, the
villages and hamlets grew ever more sparse and there was no sign of a
military presence whatsoever.  This afternoon they had not even spotted
one of the self-important, usually fat, village policemen in their
spiked helmets.  They were leaving civilization behind them, it
seemed.

Evers had by now calmed himself and he obeyed orders without question,
telling the driver what to do according to Kane's instruction,
reassuring the Persian that he would be given a 'great gift', as he put
it, at the end of the journey.  Naturally Charley Kane did not trust
him after what Evers had planned to do with them in the jeep.  As Kane
said privately to Polack; "Keep yer eyes peeled, Polack, on him."

"Yeah, like a can of tomatoes, Charley."  All the same the little
Abwehr officer did appear to be co-operating to the best of his
ability.  Once he had pointed out a Russian convoy coming in their
direction before the three of them had spotted it and on another
occasion he had urged them to drive quickly into a narrow ravine when
he had heard the sound of the engine of a spotter plane.

As he had proposed to Charley Kane, "I will help you the best I can
until we reach Turkey.  You understand I have no desire to be left in
Persia now the danger is too great.  Once we have crossed the Turkish
frontier then I should be pleased if you set me free and give me enough
money to get to Ankara so I can report to our authorities there."

Kane had agreed to nothing, saying simply, "We'll see how it goes,
Evers.  You play ball with me and perhaps," he had shrugged carelessly,
"I'll play ball with you."  And with that Major Evers had to be
content, though his restless cunning brain was already working out a
scheme to reverse the order of things to his own advantage.

By three that afternoon the sky was beginning to darken and Charley
Kane started to realize that it was slowly getting time to bed down for
the night.  They couldn't risk the ambulance breaking an axle in one of
the potholes which dotted the rough track north-west.  It was getting
cold, too, and he told himself it would be better if they could find
some warmth; for although they could all sleep easily in the back of
the ambulance, the previous night doing so had felt like sleeping
inside an icebox.

By four it was already dark and Charley Kane was beginning to despair
of finding some sort of cover for the night when he smelled the place
even before he saw it.  Ever afterwards he would associate that odour
with Persia: an aromatic smell of pistachio nuts, saffron rice,
charcoal and slightly singed goat meat.  He swallowed hard and felt his
stomach rumble in anticipation.  Someone just round the next bend was
cooking and he realized he had not eaten anything save a piece of dry
bread and old cheese for the last forty-eight hours.

The ambulance rattled round the bend and goats still cropping the
sparse grass at the edge of the collection of little huts scattered,
bleating in alarm.  People streamed from the wooden huts, with candles
flickering behind tiny windows.  Children, swollen-bellied and barefoot
in spite of the cold, women muffled in black to their eyes, swarthy,
hook-nosed men in sheepskin cloaks, skinny-ribbed, half-wild dogs
barking and yelping at their heels.

Evers ordered the driver to stop and the four of them, Polack again
cradling the machine gun in his brawny arms, stepped out into the
circle of curious, half-apprehensive villagers.

"Shall I ask for the ket koodaT Evers asked, bending his head so that
Charley Kane could hear.

"Who is he?"  Kane asked, his stomach still rumbling noisily.

The village headman, appointed by the provincial governor.  They won't
do anything for us without his permission."

Kane didn't consider long.  They were tired and hungry and they
couldn't continue much longer without risking an accident in the
darkness.  Besides the villagers looked a downtrodden, harmless lot.

"Okay," he said a little wearily, 'get him.  Tell him we need a place
for the night and some chow.  We'll pay him."

Evers said something in Farsi.  One of the goatherds crooked a dirty
finger at them.

"We are to follow him.  He'll lead us to the headman," Evers said.  He
spoke to the driver and the battered old ambulance started to creak
forward in low gear, heading for a house which was a little larger than
the rest.

Kane turned to Fingers.

"Once he's stopped," he commanded, 'take off the distributor head.  I
don't want that guy trying to do a bunk in the night."

"Wilco," Fingers answered.

On foot they followed the goatherd and halted outside the house,
guarded by skinny underfed dogs which barked and snapped at their heels
while their goatherd guide shouted something inside.  Again he crooked
a finger at them and indicated they should enter.  While Fingers
immobilised the ambulance, they went down a low dark passage, which
gave way to a large room lit by a hissing petroleum lantern.  In the
corner a wood brazier burnt, filling the place with acrid smoke.

Kane coughed and blinked his eyes a couple of times as he tried to
penetrate the smoke and gloom.  A man was sitting at a low wooden table
draped with quilts, dirty of course for everything, so it seemed to
Kane, was dirty in Persia.  Below the table a fire was burning in a
hole in the dirt over which he was warming his bare dirty feet.

"Salaam alekum' Evers said.

The skinny deathly-pale headman, unshaven and seemingly bowed down
under his black sheepskin, repeated the greeting and looked at the
strangers without any of the obvious curiosity of his villagers.  Kane
told himself the headman obviously thought of himself as very
important.

Even the arrival of these white strangers could not be allowed to
disturb his self-importance.

Evers spoke again.

The headman raised two dirty fingers at the end of Evers' words.

"He says," Evers said, 'that we can stay the night in his village with
food for two silver to mans

"For chrissake give the old creep the money," Fingers choked, tears
streaming down his skinny face from the smoke.

"Anything to get out of this goddam place."

"Yeah, do that," Kane urged.

"I can't stand this much longer."  He coughed throatily.

Evers produced the money and the headman rasped something to their
goatherd.  Moments later they were outside in the blessed fresh air.

Half an hour later, they found themselves in a kind of hayloft, lit by
naphta flares, wolfing down a huge meal of rice, white beans and
tough-as-nails goat meat served by two women, who Polack maintained
were so ugly that even Fingers couldn't get horny if he saw their
faces. And all the while they ate, they were watched by the headman
whose skinny face bore a look of sinister well-wishing.

Kane, feeling the fleas in the straw already beginning to bite, didn't
like the Persian one bit.  He smiled but his dark shifty eyes didn't
light up and he kept rubbing his skinny dirty paws together as if he
were trying to wash away some ancient sin.  Next to him, Fingers,
chewing away at a piece of goat meat which was as tough as leather,
whispered, following the direction of Kane's gaze, "Charley, I wouldn't
trust that guy as far as I could throw him."

"Yeah, you're right, Fingers.  But I don't think he can cause us any
headaches.  His villagers are too poor to have a pot to piss in, never
mind a weapon and I can't see how they can communicate with the outside
world.  In this arse hole of the world there's no electricity for a
telephone or anything."

"Sure, I 'spect you're right, Charley," Fingers agreed and resumed his
battle with the tough goat meat

The headman seemed to read Kane's thoughts for he said to Evers in
Farsi, "We are poor people.  Nobody bothers us, not even the taxman."
He gave a gap-toothed smile.

"Our crops are too poor, our herds too small and our women too ugly so
that even the Russians do not come to this place."

Some time later the headman bade them good night, but despite his
words, Kane did not trust him.  He said, "Okay, tomorrow we'll see us
to the Turkish border, I guess.  We've got just enough gas and I guess
the ambulance will last out till then."

"Will I be glad to see the end of that meat wagon," Fingers exclaimed,
picking goat meat from his teeth.

"It ain't done my keester much good."  He felt his skinny rear.

Kane shared his smile.

"Okay, one more day and I'm not taking any chances.  You," he indicated
Evers, 'and the driver will sleep over there where we can see you ' ' -
I shall cause no problems," Evers interrupted Kane, T, too, want to get
to Turkey."

"I'm just making sure," Kane said coldly.

"And we watch that headman, too."  He pointed to the window.

"That window covers the only exit from the village.  We're gonna take
turns watching it throughout the night.  If anyone -and I mean anyone,
man, woman or child leaves, I want to know, toot sweet."

"Semperfi Skipper," Polack said enthusiastically.  That's the way the
gyrenes do it, skipper."

Kane was tempted to blurt out 'fuck semperfi he had never gone for that
gung ho marine corps bullshit, but he liked the big man too much to do
so.  Instead he said, "Okay semperfi you get the first turn of guard
duty.  Two hours at the window."

Polack grinned and reached for the big machine gun, picking it up as if
it was a toy.

"Saddle up, skipper," he said and rose to go to the window.

Minutes they were bedding down in the light of the hissing flickering
flare.  Kane was tired and full, but he couldn't get to sleep at first.
He was tormented by a strange sense of foreboding which he couldn't
quite define.  After all they were nearly there.  When he did finally
sleep, his rest was also not trouble free  He dreamed of Magda, but
somehow she was locked in the embrace of the gap-toothed headman who
grinned and grinned as she begged him to do impossible things to her
writhing naked, sweat-lathered body .. .

He awoke to find his fears groundless.  Dawn came bright and clear,
though it felt cold enough for snow.  Down below the two ugly women
were brewing a fragrant herbal tea.  There was a smell of bread being
baked in the small mud oven.  Kane rubbed his eyes and looked a little
accusingly at Fingers who was now manning the gun at the tiny window.

"Hey, you didn't wake me for my turn of guard?"

"Polack did it for you," he indicated the snoring hulk in the corner.

"Said the skipper need all the rest he could get.  Semper frigging fi,"
he mimicked Polack's standard phrase good-humouredly.

Kane shook his head in mock wonder.

"You two guys look after me like frigging maiden aunts.  Okay, let's
wake Polack and get some of that towel head chow.  Time's a-passing."

Hastily they drank the mint tea, sweetened with honey, and ate the
unleavened flat cakes, coated with wild strawberry jam, which tasted
delicious and made them forget the misery of their fleabites.  A quick
swill in the ice-cold mountain stream, which served the village as
waterworks, open-air laundry and undoubtedly latrine too, did the
rest.

By eight, with a sickly yellow sun just slipping over the jagged edge
of the mountain peaks to their front, which marked the border with
Turkey, they were on their way again in the battered Persian ambulance.
Once Kane looked back.  The skinny figure of the headman, surrounded by
his tribe of ragged villagers and their animals, was still waving good
bye.

"Asshole," Kane said and forgot him, his mind already engrossed with
the problems this new day might bring.  Then they were gone.

The headman didn't waste any time once they had disappeared.  With his
skinny paws, he dug the heliograph up from underneath the manure in the
goat pen  He would be well rewarded for his message, he knew that.  The
German had promised more to mans silver that the whole village made in
a year.  He started to signal.

TWENTY-SIX

"Can I stop him?"  Evers said with a soft moan.

"I'm sorry, I've got to go again."

Kane cursed.

"For chrissake that's the third time you've wanted to take a crap in
the last hour."

"It was the food last night," Evers said.

"Please/' "Let him crap in his pants, Charley," Fingers said.

"Look at that sky, it's gonna snow soon."

Charley Kane did look at the sky ahead.  The sun had vanished
completely.  Now the sky was a sullen, leaden colour.  Fingers was
right.  There was snow to come.

"Please," Evers pleaded.

"I can't wait much longer.  My stomach is going crazy."

"All right," Kane relented.  Tell the driver to stop.  But make it
snappy."

Hastily Evers spoke to the Persian driver.  The latter hit the brakes
and the truck rolled to a stop, with Evers springing off the running
board even before it had done so.  Fumbling with his flies he ran off
to a little crevice and squatted there.

Kane watched him for a moment, then dismissed him.  Evers couldn't
escape.  Where would he go in this barren wilderness, devoid of any
kind of vegetation, and soon, by the looks of it, to be swept by a
snowstorm?  Out here a man could starve to death quickly.

Charley Kane considered for a few moments while they waited for the
little German.  If it did snow, it would be all to the good.  It would
help to cover their crossing of the frontier.  He assumed the track
they were on would end in some kind of border post, where there would
be Russian frontier police, he supposed.  A snowstorm would give the
fugitives the chance of getting by them without being seen.  He relaxed
and when Polack said routinely, as he had been saying for the last hour
or so, "Won't be long now, Charley," he answered, "Tonight, Polack
you'll be wrapping yourself around the biggest steak you've ever eaten
in all your born days.  With the trimmings."  He patted the briefcase
containing the thirty thousand dollars.

"We can afford it now."

"Will there be women as well, Charley?"  Fingers asked.

"All this bumping up and down in the truck makes a guy horny."

"Sure, Fingers.  If there's a Turkish dame available, you'll get
her."

"Thanks, Charley," Fingers said gratefully, as if he were greatly
relieved at the information, 'you're a real swell guy."

Kane opened his mouth to say something else, but closed it firmly.  The
Persian driver was staring hard into the rear view mirror, a strange
look on his run tish hook-nosed face.  Charley flung a look over his
shoulder.

Far to their rear, there was a small cloud of dust and it was moving.

"Fingers," he snapped to the little GI who had the keenest eye-sight of
them all, 'what do ya make of that?"

"What?"

"That cloud of dust.  It looks as if it's moving in this direction."

Fingers stared hard while the other two waited tensely for his
identification.

"Well, it looks .. . like a lot of horsemen .. . That's about all I can
make out, guys, horsemen perhaps fifty or more of them heading this way
at a gallop."

Kane's brain raced, as Polack put his thoughts into words.

"Could be damned Russkis, Charley.  Could be the local towel heads  But
my guess is that whoever them guys is, they're bad news for us."

"You're damned right, Polack," Charley Kane found his voice at last.

"They are."  He poked his head out of the cab and shouted angrily,
"Come on, Evers ... at the double!"

"One minute, please," Evers called back, only his head visible as he
crouched.

"Come on," Kane commanded, as he, too, started to make out the riders
who were covering the rough ground at a tremendous rate.

"If you don't make it now, we'll leave you behind."

"I'm coming," Evers quavered and stood up, buttoning his flies with
what seemed to angry Charley Kane incredible slowness, while the
frightened Persian driver gunned the engine.

"Only a half a mag left, Charley," Polack said.  Good marine that he
was, acting on his own initiative, he was smashing one of the
ambulance's rear windows and poking the machine gun through the
opening.

"But if them towel heads get any closer, I'm going to make 'em eat
lead."

"Hold it for the time being, Polack," an anxious Kane warned.

"We don't want to start anything if we can avoid it."

Evers clambered into the battered ambulance and the driver set off at
once.  But as usual the track was full of ruts and potholes and he was
forced to drive in second gear, hardly making more than fifteen miles
an hour.  But it was enough.  The horsemen started to drop behind, as
the sky grew ever greyer and more threatening, with an icy wind howling
through the hole Polack had smashed in the rear window.

Half an hour passed.  Now the riders were tiny figures to their rear
and they began to relax once more.  Polack lowered his weapon and blew
hard on his frozen hands.

"Jesus," he sighed, 'it's colder here than it used to be in the old
country when I was a kid in short pants."

Charley Kane didn't respond.  He was too busy thinking.  What did those
riders signify?  Instinctively he figured that they meant no good and
it wasn't just chance that they had ridden after them.  Perhaps someone
in the village where they had slept had reported their presence?  The
headman maybe?  He had looked as if he would sell his own mother for a
quarter.

Time passed and Evers, who seemed to have overcome his problem, warned
them that the track would cross the Russian supply route to Maku.

"They move stuff along it day and night.  Twenty-four hours a day it's
always busy ferrying stuff to the Eastern Front."

Kane nodded his head in understanding.  He prayed that it would start
to snow.  That would reduce visibility considerably and they might be
able to dodge across between two of the Russian convoys.  Now he kept
looking up at the sky in hope every few minutes, but the snow refused
stubbornly to come.

One hour later the ambulance was parked in a ravine as Kane and the
rest surveyed the road leading to Maku.  As Evers had said it was in
constant use.  Singly and in groups of several vehicles, the vehicles
drove north to the Russian border, heading for the hardpressed Eastern
Front where hundreds of similar tanks and trucks were destroyed every
day.

Charley Kane tried to establish some order, a timetable, for the
passing of the vehicles.  But there wasn't one.  At the best there
seemed only a gap of a few minutes.  Fingers, seemingly reading his
thoughts, said, "We could abandon the truck, Charley.  Chance it on
foot."

Kane shook his head.

"No, Fingers, we need the wheels.  Not only here, but on the Turkish
side as well.  We've got to get deep inside the country.  I'm not
chancing us being handed back by some Turkish cop at the frontier whose
palm has been greased by the Russkis."

"Yeah, you're right, Charley," Polack agreed.

"Ya can't trust the Russkis."

Kane turned and caught a glimpse of Evers' face.  The hangdog look of
the first day had vanished.  It had been replaced by what Kane could
only call a look of expectancy.  Kane frowned.  What had Evers to look
forward to?  he asked himself.  He had burnt all his bridges.

It was just then that first fat snowflake started to drift down lazily
to come to a rest on the tip of Polack's big Slav nose.  Kane forgot
the look in Evers' eyes.  He looked at the sky and willed it to snow
remorselessly.

"Come on, God," he pleaded under his breath, 'gimme snow lots of it!"

It seemed as if God had heard that plea.  For almost immediately, the
first gentle flakes turned into a solid wall of white, driving down in
an angry fury, as if the deity had decided to obliterate the war torn
world below.  In a flash visibility was reduced virtually to nil.  Kane
wasted no more time.  Tell him," he indicated the driver, 'to start up.
We're going across that road toot sweet and no lights."

In Farsi Evers gave the driver his instruction.  He looked suddenly
frightened, but obeyed all the same.  In low gear, the windscreen
wipers flicking back and forth in a vain attempt to clear the glass of
the heavy wet snow, they jolted forward.  Dimly to their right, they
could perceive the headlights of another Russian convoy heading north.
Kane put his hand on the driver's arm.

"Stop!"  he commanded.

The Persian might not have understood the word, but he understood the
gesture all right.  He braked and the ambulance shuddered and slithered
a little in the new snow.

The headlights came closer.  Without taking his eyes off his front,
Charley Kane said urgently, "Tell him to gun the engine.  I want no
slip-ups.  When I give the word, we're across.  At the double.  Got
it?"

"Got it."  Hurriedly Evers translated Kane's words.  The driver started
to rev the engine, his face anxious.  He knew, too, what was at
stake.

Now the Russian convoy began to pass, a brief buzz of dim white light
as each truck went by, the drivers hunched over their wheels, eyes
glued to their fronts, as their windscreen wipers flicked back and
forth, trying to keep the glass clear of snow.  Tensely Kane waited for
the blue light on a truck which would indicate the end of this
particular convoy, straining to see through the whirling wet wall of
falling snow.  There it was, dimly perceived, a faint blue light coming
up the road.

"Get ready," he yelled to Evers.

The German repeated his order.

The driver gunned his engine even more.  He knew it would be the end if
he stalled the vehicle in the middle of the road.  He rammed home first
gear.  Next to him Fingers swallowed hard and muttered something in
Yiddish.  It might have been a prayer, but Charley had no time to ask.
He bent forward, eyes aching with the strain, as if willing the Russian
convoy to pass and let them go on.  The strain was almost unbearable.

Then there it was.  The blue light which signalled the end of this
particular convoy was passing to their front.  Wow/' Kane rapped
urgently.

"Boshe mo," Polack gasped and crossed himself in the Slavic fashion.
The big man's nerves were as tensely strung as all of theirs were.

The ambulance lurched up the little slope.  The road was twenty yards
away now.  Kane prayed as he had never prayed before.  No more Russian
vehicles just yet!  Let them get through!  In first gear the Persian
steered the boxlike ambulance up the track.  It bumped on to the road
itself, slithering and slipping in the mushy, crushed snow left by the
convoy.

"Come on," Fingers hissed urgently, his knuckles white with tension.

"Get the bitch across .. . come on, manV His hawklike face lathered in
sweat despite the cold, the Persian driver fought the snow, spinning
the wheel back and forth as the tyres failed to grip the wet slushy
snow, his beaklike nose pressed almost to the windscreen.  Next to him
Evers sat bolt upright, obviously scared out of his wits.  For he knew
better than they all did what would happen to them if they fell into
the hands of the Greencaps.

Kane rolled down the side window.  A gust of icy, snow-laden air blew
in.  He peered out down the road to the south.  He thought he caught a
glimpse of more lights.  Another convoy was approaching.

"Goddammit," he cursed aloud, overcome by inner tension, and added his
plea to Finger's, "Come on .. . get across!"

Suddenly the ambulance began to go.  Desperately the driver fought the
wheel.  But the clumsy vehicle started to slither sideways towards the
drainage ditch on the opposite side of the road.

"Hold it!"  Kane cried.

"Hold the fucker!"

The driver tried.  But there was no stopping the ambulance.  It
continued on its course of destruction, as the driver turned the wheel
back and forth with hands that were slick with sweat.  Suddenly they
hit the ditch.  Fingers' head thudded against the windscreen.

"Sonovabitch!"  he cursed.  Next instant the engine stalled and the
Russian convoy came bearing down upon them out of the whirling snow
storm.

Kane made a quick decision.

"Lights on!"  he cried frantically to Evers.

"And duck everybody."

Evers shouted his instruction to the driver.  Shaken as he was, he did
as ordered.  They ducked, as the first vehicle, a jeep with two men in
the front came slithering and slipping out of the snow.

Kane held his breath.  Through the open window of the cab he could have
touched the nearest Russian; he was that close.  But obviously the
Russians, too, were totally engrossed in keeping the jeep on the road.
It rolled by without stopping.

Now a big two and a half ton American truck followed, the chains on its
wheels clanking as they bit through the snow to the asphalt below.
Again they ducked, hearts pounding, wondering if they would be
discovered this time.  Surely someone would get out and try to find why
an ambulance had been abandoned in this place?

No one did.  Truck after truck rolled by them in the blinding snow, the
drivers and the men they contained totally absorbed in the tough
business of trying to keep on the road in this awful storm.  Twice or
three times Kane's heart skipped a beat when a driver changed gear
noisily or a truck slowed down dramatically.  But in each case the
driver was concerned with the road, not with them.  Then they were gone
and Kane gave a hasty order for them to get out and shove the truck out
of the ditch before the next convoy came along.

Cursing and gasping they did so, while the driver laboured at the
wheel, fighting his way out of the ditch, as the snow came down in
relentless fury.  Five minutes later they were on their way once more,
driving straight into horsemen looming out of the white gloom on all
sides.  The riders had caught up with them at last.

"Fuck it," Kane cursed and gave up in resignation.

"Tell the towel head to stop."

Evers grinned for the first time since they had kidnapped him in that
Tehran side street.

"Yes," he said carefully, "I think that would be wise, Herr Kane .. .
'

TWENTY-SEVEN

The ambulance creaked to a halt, as the riders came in closer, the
hoofs of their horses noiseless in the thick snow.

"Who are these people?"  Kane rapped.

"My friends," Evers answered.

"My very good friends.  You see I have been their paymaster ever since
1941 when the Allies took over here in Persia and Berlin decided that
the Pahlevi tribe should be supported as one way to raid and stop the
Anglo-American supplies getting to Russia.  Indeed," he grinned
maliciously, as the riders got ever closer, 'we even brought old Chief
Pahlevi to Germany, supplied him with a German woman.  That is a sure
way of ensuring a foreigner's allegiance, you should know only too
well, Charley, eh?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"  Kane's voice was hard and
threatening.

"Well, you knew the same woman.  You have something in common with the
old goat.  Apparently he satisfied her well despite the fact that he
was twice her age."

Kane's arm flashed.  He grabbed the little German by his collar and
tugged him towards him.

"Do you mean to say that my Magda - ' "I mean nothing and take your
filthy American hands off me," Evers gasped, 'at once, if you know
what's good for you."

"Charley," Fingers pleaded.

"Leave him alone.  The goddam towel heads are all over the frigging
place.  It don't look good."

Charley Kane released his hold.  He slumped in his seat, stunned.  His
whole world seemed to have fallen apart.  He had done all this only for
Magda.  Now she had been betraying him all along.  She had been working
for them right from the start.  He shook his head, eyes filled with
sudden tears.  What a god-awful, fucking world it was!

Now the riders had surrounded the stalled ambulance.  Here and there
they were getting down from their horses, skinny men, muffled up to
their eyes in dirty sheepskins, ancient rifles clutched in their hands
purposefully.

Evers' grin broadened.

"You'd better give me that briefcase for safe-keeping, Charley," again
he emphasized Kane's first name maliciously.  The Pahlevis tend to have
long fingers."

Kane didn't react and Evers leaned forward and picked up the case from
the seat as Fingers stared at him aghast.

Evers saw the look and said, "I'm afraid there is no Jerusalem for you
this year or the next or ever, shit Jew!  .. . The Pahlevis don't like
Jews, good Moslems as they are."

"You rotten bastard!"  Fingers spat out and reached out to grab Evers.
But the latter was already beginning to open the door of the cab on his
side saying, "Well, this is an honour indeed.  Chief Pahlevi himself
has come to greet me.  You have something in common with him, don't
you, Charley?"  Kane peered out into the whirling white gloom.  A tall
bearded figure had descended from his horse and followed by a dozen or
so of the riders was approaching the ambulance.

Kane felt physically sick.  Could Magda have made love to that
degenerate old man?  Instinctively, however, he knew that Evers was
telling the truth.  She had and she had betrayed him as well.  It had
all been a goddam set-up.  Abruptly the wretched feeling of being sick
was replaced by one of burning rage.  God, they were not going to get
away with it.  These towel heads weren't going to stop him and Polack
and Fingers after what they had been through to get this far.

"Polack," he hissed, as Evers shook hands with the bearded Persian in
front of the headlights.

"Slip out back with that popgun."

Polack grinned.

"Ay, ay, skipper."

"Fingers, when I give the word.  Give the driver a push and grab hold
of the wheel."

"What's the deal, Charley?"  Fingers hissed back, new hope in his
voice.

"It's no great shakes as a plan, Fingers," Kane replied, not taking his
eyes off their front.  Behind him Polack had slipped out into the snow,
carrying the big machine gun easily, as if it were a child's toy.

"If we can take out Evers and the towel head with the beard, we'll
unsettle the rest."

"How take out?"

"By driving right into them."

"It'll give me the greatest of pleasure, especially to slam into that
kraut bastard, Evers.  But what about Polack?"

"Polack'll know what to do.  We hit the two of them, then come round in
a circle.  It'll give Polack a chance to fire his popgun.  We pick him
up and then we're off toot sweet."

Fingers said enthusiastically, "I'm with you, Charley.  Just say
when."

Kane licked his lips which were suddenly very dry.  The two of them
were still talking in the falling snow, outlined in the circle of
yellow light from the headlamps, while their driver strained forward,
as if he were trying to hear what they were saying.  It was now or
never.  He nudged Fingers.  The latter nodded.  Slowly, secretively,
Kane began to draw the pistol from his waistband.

"Now!"  Charley Kane hissed.

Fingers didn't hesitate.  He slammed his skinny elbow into the driver's
ribs.  The Persian howled.  Next moment Fingers had pushed him out of
the door into the snow and in the same instant had thrust himself
behind the seat.  Kane leaned out of the window, as the ambulance
lurched forward.  He fired at Evers.  The German clutched his shoulder,
bellowing with pain.  Not for long.

As Charley Kane had hoped, that single pistol shot acted as a signal
for Polack.  His automatic spurted fire.  The surprised riders went
down everywhere.  Horses whinnied in a sudden frenzy of fear.  They
reared up on their hindlegs, tossing their riders.  Others panicked
completely.  They galloped off into the night, carrying their dead
riders with them.  In an instant all was chaos .. . confusion.

Fingers didn't waste the opportunity given him by Polack's diversion.
The boxlike ambulance shot forward.  The window shattered.  With the
butt of his pistol, Kane knocked out the glass shards.  An icy wind
buffeted their faces.  Fingers's eyes narrowed to slits, as he hunched
over the wheel, cursing to himself in Yiddish.

Evers reacted first.  He saw what what was coming.  Kane caught a
glimpse of his horror-struck face as he attempted to stagger away, the
bloody arm hanging uselessly at his side.  To no avail.  Evers threw up
his good arm, as if attempting to ward off what was to come.  Next
moment his mouth opened in a silent scream as the ambulance slammed
right into him and the old man with the beard.  They disappeared
beneath `;0;0' the flying wheels, with Charley Kane loosing off shots to left
and right in the crazy melee that swung back and forth around the
vehicle.

To the right, Fingers!"  he yelled above the wild shouting, cursing,
moaning.

"Polack's over there."

"Got it!"

Fingers spun the ambulance round.  A horse, riderless, ran into the
side of the flying ambulance.  It went down on its hindlegs.  A rider
blasted his ancient rifle at the side of the vehicle at pointblank
range.  Great chunks of metal flew everywhere.  A Persian tried to
mount the running board.  Kane crooked his fingers into the man's
nostrils and ripped upwards.  He fell off screaming, blood pouring from
his broken nose.  A bullet slammed into the right rear tyre.  It
started to lose air noisily.  A sweating, cursing Fingers fought
desperately to keep the ambulance from skidding.  Polack loomed out of
the whirling white mist.  His machine gun had vanished.  Instead he
wielded a curved short sword taken from one of the riders, slashing
mightily from left to right and then back again.  He looked as if he
were enjoying himself.

Kane leaned out of the cab.

"Get in quick!"  he cried.

"Let me finish off the towel heads  Polack roared back and aimed
another mighty blow at one of them.  The Persian screamed shrilly like
a hysterical woman and reeled back, as his severed arm fell to the
ground.

"Get in, Polack!  .. . Gimme me the wheel now, Fingers!"

"Okay Charley."  Polack tossed the blood-red sword aside and grabbed
hold of the rear door stanchion.  He heaved himself aboard in the same
instant that the bullet struck him in the small of the back.

"Boshe moi," he cursed in his native language and fell flat on the
floor of the ambulance as Kane put his foot down hard, dying as he lay
there.

Charley Kane spun the wheel to one side furiously.  More riders were
looming up out of the snowstorm, firing their ancient rifles as they
rode.  Slugs pattered off the sides of the battered ambulance.  Leaning
perilously out of the side window, Fingers, carried away by the wild
blood lust of combat, fired a whole magazine into them.  Men slapped to
the ground.  A horse struck in the flank, blood jetting out from the
wound in a scarlet arc, reared up, its forelegs pawing the air for a
moment before it keeled over on its side, trapping its screaming rider
beneath it.  Crazily, panting as if he were running a great race,
Fingers thrust home a new magazine into his pistol and continued firing
at the riders.

But Kane, his face lathered in sweat, had eyes neither for Polack nor
Fingers.  He was concentrating in getting the ambulance through before
a lucky shot holed the petrol tank of some other vital part.  He
bunched over the wheel, eyes bulging from his head like those of a man
demented.  This was their last chance.  Stop now and the riders, who
were everywhere, would massacre them on the spot.  They wouldn't have a
chance.  Madly, swinging the wheel from side to side, the lead
pattering off the ambulance's sides like heavy tropical rain on a tin
roof, he fought his way through.

Fingers said something abruptly.  He stopped firing and leaned back in
his seat, pistol hanging smoking from his hand.  He looked as if he
might be sleeping.  Kane cursed.  But still he had no time for the
little man.  Another group of riders came out of the snowstorm.  Mad,
angry and scared, Kane drove straight for them, cursing crazily as he
did so.

"Fucking towel heads .. . cocksuckers .. . get outa my way!"  he
shrieked at them, tiny bits of foam flying from his lips.

One rider was slower than the others.  The ambulance smashed into the
man's horse.  The horse whinnied and went over.  But its rider vaulted
from the saddle like a circus acrobat and sprang right onto the
ambulance's hood.  Abruptly Kane's vision was blocked.  He hit the
brake instinctively.  The vehicle shimmied and rocked in the snow.  It
started to skid crazily to the right.  Kane fought desperately for
control.

On the hood the Persian, hanging on to the broken window frame with his
left hand, aimed wild blows at Kane with a curved short sword.  Charley
Kane's luck held out.  Twice he dodged the frenzied blows, feeling the
man's stinking, garlic-laden breath hot on his face.  The ambulance
stopped skidding.  Charley felt he had it under control again.  He
risked taking one sweat-drenched hand from the wheel.  He had to get
rid of the Persian.  The man blocked his vision.  He had to!  He
brought back his arm.  With all his strength he slammed his fist into
the Persian's bearded face.  The man howled with pain.  His nose bone
shattered.  Hot blood spurted over Charley's clenched fist.  The man
slithered down the hood, fighting desperately to stay there.  In vain.
He disappeared beneath the wheels.  They bounced as they ran over his
body, then the ambulance was surging forward into the snow storm.
Charley Kane was through .. .

Dawn came reluctantly.  The snow had ceased falling now.  There was no
sound outside.  No bird sang in that white expanse that stretched to
the horizon.  Polack had been dead two hours now and Fingers was dying,
Kane could see that.  He was in a kind of delirium, speaking weakly in
Yiddish, now and then cluthing Kane's right hand, as if seeking
comfort.  But Charley Kane could give him none save to keep reassuring
him, "It'll be okay, Fingers, once we get to Turkey ... I tell you,
it'll be okay."  He looked across to where Polack's big body lay
slumped on the floor of the ambulance in a pool of his own blood.

"Honest, it'll be okay, Fingers .. . He looked down at the gaping wound
in the little man's chest and felt the tears well up in his eyes.  It
would not be okay, never okay, never again.

After a while Kane got out and clutched a handful of snow, pressing it
until his body heat started to melt the snow.  He swung back into the
cab and pressed the liquid into Fingers' open mouth.

"It's all I've got, Fingers, but it's gonna be okay ' ' Charley,"
Fingers interrupted weakly, his eyes flickering open, his face pinched
with that look on it Kane had seen before in men about to die, 'we
didn't do wrong, did we?"  His hand sought and found Charley's.  Tell
me that."

"Of course, we didn't, Fingers," Kane answered softly.

"The President's .. . okay?"

"Yes.  He's still alive."

"Well, I'm glad, Charley."  Fingers' eyelids flickered, closed and
opened again.

"Next year Jerusalem," he whispered huskily.  His head rolled to one
side and he was dead.

Half an hour later, Charley Kane had buried them the best he could
underneath the snow.  He supposed in time some wild animal or other
would find the bodies.  But for the time being the snow would conceal
their bodies from predators.  For a moment or two he stood in that
empty white waste, staring down at the two mounds.  There seemed
nothing he could say, save, "Goodbye Polack .. . Goodbye Fingers." Then
he turned and walked back slowly to the ambulance.  The engine sprang
to life at once.  Wearily he thrust home first gear and set off for
Turkey in the distance.  The first few snowflakes of a new storm began
to drift down.  They started to cover the tracks left by the ambulance.
Soon they would cover them altogether and no one would know that he
had ever passed this way.  Charley Kane was on the run again .. .

ENVOI

Amor y pesetas."

* Love and money.  Transl.

The Florida sun blazed.  The sky was cloudless.  The sea sparkled.  And
the oldies gawped.  Sitting in the rocking chairs outside their
run-down rooming houses, waiting to die, their rheumy eyes popped out
of their heads with envy.

The man was old as they were.  But he was still lean and erect.  His
white seersucker suit was immaculate and obviously custom-made.  It
fitted him like a glove.  His face was bronzed and fit.  It was obvious
he still worked out a lot in the gym.

The woman was a third of his age at the most.  She clung to his gloved
hand, full of Latin high spirits and vivacity.  Her breasts bulged out
of her low-cut red silk dress.  When the sun shone between her
silk-clad legs, it was obvious she was wearing no underwear.  This was
no father and daughter.  These two were lovers.

The old men looking at the happy pair strolling to the monument, with
their yellow false teeth bulging out of their wrinkled lips, thought
nasty thoughts; it was all they had got left.  The old Jewish ladies
with their blue rinses and diamante glasses cursed at being surrounded
by the same old farts, with their bad hearts and prostate problems. The
old man with the gloved hand obviously had no such problems.  Oh veh,
it'd be a change from goddam bingo and bridge every night of the
week!

But the elegant couple had no eyes for the dying oldies in their
rocking chairs.  They stopped in front of the simple white monument
adorned with the green and gold badge of the Rangers.

"To The Glorious Dead," the old man read out the legend aloud and then
translated the words into Spanish for the girl.  With gnawing envy the
oldies noted that the man didn't even need a reading glass.  SOB!

The girl's beautiful sultry face grew pensive for a moment.  But then
once again her sunny nature reasserted itself.  She hugged the old
man's good arm encouragingly.  He smiled faintly, showing even, very
white teeth.  In return for her gesture he reached for the plump silken
globes of her pert bottom.  Gently he began to caress them as he ran
his gaze down the list of names inscribed in gold.  They were the boys
of the six Ranger battalions killed in the war.

The oldies started to drool.  One of them had a coughing fit.  He
nearly swallowed his false teeth.  Another clutched his flies with a
gnarled hand, heavy with brown liver spots.

"Winthrop C. First Lieutenant," he mused softly.

"K.I. A.!  .. . Killed in action."  The old man stroked Conchita's
buttocks a little more strongly.  He told himself that the late State
Senator would have had it arranged that his son should be reported
killed in action.  If only that confident rich bastard had known just
how sordid the death of his son had been.  He stroked Conchita's butt a
bit harder.

"Disgraceful!"  one of the blue rinsed matrons exclaimed as Conchita
started to wriggle her haunches provocatively, clearly excited by the
man's hand.

"The cops ought to stamp out that kinda business!"

"Knock it off, Myrtle," her neighbour croaked, leaning forward and
peering hard through her glasses at the sight.  'I'd give half of
Hyman's dough God rest his soul if that guy'd do that to my ass."  She
licked her bright scarlet old lips, as if she were suddenly very dry.

The old man leaned a little closer to the simple monument erected for
some reason unknown in this Florida dormitory of death.  There it was:
"Kane C. S./Sgt .. . M.I.A. Missing in action."  He translated the
words for her.

She laughed, misunderstanding the words.

"Well, Carlos, you were never missing in action en la carnal She spread
her legs slightly.  Those splendid thighs, on which she had once rolled
the celebrated Havana cigars to give them a sheen, bulged through the
sheer silk.  One of the oldies groaned and clutched his chest as if he
might be having a heart attack.  Another slumped and fell out of his
rocking chair.

"God Jesus Almighty," he groaned, 'it's just too goddam much!"  He
closed his eyes as if he might be dead.  No one took one bit of notice.
They were too engrossed in the spectacle.

"Why you come here, Carlos?"  the girl asked, suddenly pouting her lips
in a sulky manner, as if they were wasting precious time.

"You knew that man, Kane?"

"Yes, I knew him a long time ago when I was young."

"And happy?"

"No, just young, not happy.  Now I'm happy.

"Querido Carlos," she breathed and squeezed his thigh hard.

"Let us go back to the hotel."  She fluttered her long eyelashes at
him.

"I am sick of old people.  It is time for our siesta."

He laughed softly.

"Oh yes, siesta.  The trouble is we never manage to sleep."  He crooked
a finger at the driver of the big white Cadillac, which they had hired
for a week when they had flown in from Santiago de Chile.  It had been
following the couple at a discreet distance.  Now it purred forward to
catch up with them.  The chauffeur in full livery, complete with what
looked like riding boots, got out, took off his peaked cap and bowed as
he waited for them to enter.

One of the blue-rinsed matrons cried, "It ain't fair.  Not * In bed.
Transl.

only can he get his shlong up, he's gotta lotta dough as well.  Ain't
that a crying shame?"

"Furreners," one of the oldies proclaimed sourly.

"I know cos I heard 'em speak Spick just then."

"Hold ya water, Herman," his pal growled.

"Look, the dame's getting in the Caddy and her tits are falling out of
her dress.  Wow.r The chauffeur waited till the old man entered then
closed the door with that satisfying, heavy rich Cadillac clunk.  He
got into his own seat and engaged first gear.  Charley Kane took one
last look at the monument, the only symbol of his lost past.  For a
moment he thought of Fingers and Polack, dead these fifty years now,
buried under those mounds of snow on that desolate plain.  Then the
Cadillac was moving away smoothly and Conchita's cunning fingers were
already inside his flies and working on him excitingly.  He forgot them
instantly.

On their porches the oldies relaxed back in their rocking chairs and
waited for death .. .