Dark Full of Enemies(63)

McKay stopped himself from swearing. The Germans had strengthened the garrison, he knew, but if all of the extra hands were Panzergrenadiers, his team could expect a fight. What had he said during the briefing? Or was it the Major? Plan like they’re Waffen SS. Jinxed me. Might as well be Waffen SS.

He checked his watch. 1209. He would give the Germans their half-hour and then move in.

The sergeant did not go away. The shouting finished, the old guards found enough energy to quick-step back to the barracks and the sergeant spoke quietly with another of the new guards for a moment, then took up a patrol inside in the barbed wire.

In half an hour he had not grown bored.

The sergeant bothered McKay. He was an old hand, what the Marines called salts, the old breed. The man had marched thirty minutes at a unvarying pace in the cold without so much as a sniffle. And he had remained alert. McKay thought of Gunny Bazemore, his old platoon sergeant—none had eyes sharper than a veteran NCO’s. This man would make things tricky. But now was the time.

The sergeant’s post followed the inside of the wire from the E-boat sailors’ barracks down to the edge of the lake, along the shore past the dock to the dam, and back. In his walk he passed the foot of the watchtower, and usually rapped on the ladder to wake up the guard there.

McKay watched the sergeant as he completed his circuit—up from the lake at a steady pace, watchful, past the foot of the tower, and up to the barracks. He stopped, seemed to look for the guard who walked the other half of the wire, then turned and continued. McKay took a breath and held it. On his way back to the shore the sergeant would pivot to follow the wire, and from that point on he would have his back to McKay. That was his opportunity.

McKay looked at the guard in the tower. The man idled, looking out over the lake. The sergeant reached the corner. His boot pivoted, churned up a rind of snow. McKay rose and sprinted.

The crunch of his steps seemed like gunshots and every inch of fabric in his suit seemed to swish and scrape. His heart pounded—they would hear him. He reached the wire and dropped, lay parallel to it. He looked up. The sergeant had just passed the watchtower. He knocked three times on the ladder.

“Wake up, Private Frühauf.”

The private started, acknowledged the sergeant, and shook himself.

McKay drew a pair of wirecutters and laid their jaws across the nearest strand. He wrapped his gloved hand over the wire—two fingers on each side of the cutters—and clipped. The wire shuddered beneath his fingers but kept silent. He repeated the action on the two strands above him and crawled forward between the rows of wire. He clipped three more strands, rose, and dashed into the shadow of the nearest barracks. He was in.

He had chosen the spot carefully, a point in the wire near the back corner of the fence, where the tower guard would have to peer through the angled rows of wire to spot him, a point on which none of the many brightly burning lights in the complex shone. The barracks blocked all but the light borne up and diffused in the mist. He stood and waited.

He leaned around the corner of the building and looked down toward the shore and the dam. The sergeant had just ended his walk and turned, heading back for the dock. McKay drew the Welrod. He seated the magazine and worked the bolt. Behind him, he heard footsteps. New snow crunched as someone hurried toward him.

“Forgive me, Sergeant, but I had to take a piss—”

The footsteps stopped. McKay turned. A German in steel helmet and heavy winter overcoat stood fifteen feet away, goggling at him. The other guard had arrived.

McKay aimed and fired into his face—tok—then lunged forward and caught the man by the straps of his gear. The man choked and gargled and tried to feel his face. McKay lowered him to the snow by the foot of the barracks and worked the Welrod’s bolt again. He looked back to the wire. The sergeant approached the tower, looking up at the private, speaking. McKay rose and pressed himself against the barrack wall, planted his heel on the German’s throat, raised the Welrod and took a breath.

“You should change your name from Frühauf if you cannot stay awake.”

“But it’s noon, Sergeant.”

“Shut up, Frühauf.”

The sergeant had not broken stride. He came steadily up the fenceline, watching. McKay waited. The sergeant had almost reached the angle when he spotted the tracks in the shadow. He stopped. McKay breathed and fired.

The sergeant stood farther off than the guard had, and the Welrod’s weaknesses showed. The bullet McKay had aimed for the head caught the sergeant in the front of the throat. It must have struck the man’s spine—his body unstrung, he toppled onto his face in the dark angle of the fence.

As McKay worked the bolt he heard Frühauf call the sergeant’s name. He looked up. Not yet, not so quickly.

“Sergeant B?uml?” The voice was very young.

The sergeant made a noise, a low hiss, and McKay remembered the first guard. He looked down. The man’s face lay a bloody mess—a neat black hole at the joint of cheek and nose had caved in a handbreadth of bone and leaked thick black out of the body. The man lay still. McKay raised his foot.

Private Frühauf leaned out of the tower almost past his ability to balance and looked toward the sergeant. “Sergeant B?uml, everything good?”

The sergeant made the noise again. He was trying to speak.

Frühauf went to the ladder and climbed down. He had his rifle at port arms as he came, but slung it as he neared. He laughed. “Sergeant, you think I am the one who is asleep on his feet?”