The Bavarian Gate

20

Das Weutische Projekt

The hospital's sitting room for convalescents held about twenty men ust then, some in summer khakis, most in pajamas, playing cars, checkers, or chess, reading, or just listening to the BBC. When the visitor crossed the room toward him, Macurdy knew him at once. The last time he'd seen him, the man had worn a German uniform and cropped hair, and been half scalped. Now he was dressed as an army officer, his hair longer than regulation, and he looked fit.

The man grinned. "Remember me, Macurdy?"

"Tunisia, last winter. `Vonnie,' you said. Captain William Von Lutzow."

Von Lutzow laughed. "You lit my cigarette with your finger, warmed me, healed me, and made us-what? Invisible? On top of all that, you hunted feldgrau with a trench knife; at least that's what your men claimed. I talked with some of them before I left Gafsa."

Macurdy shrugged. "I went off with Cavalieri a couple times, trying to be useful. There was a kind of thrill in it. But I never knifed a feldgrau. I suppose someone said, "I wonder what he's doing out there?', someone else made a guess, and a reputation was born." He paused. "That was a good platoon. Like brothers.

"Your new platoon must have been pretty damned good, too, considering what it did."

"How do you know what it did?"

"I researched you." Von Lutzow looked like the cat that got the cream. "I also know that Ike draped a Distinguished Service Cross around your neck for that night on Sicily. That's one hell of an honor."

Researched you. The words did not reassure Macurdy. His green-hazel eyes studied the captain. "How did you find me? And why? You connected with the provost marshal?"

Von Lutzow laughed. "Don't worry about that; it's already taken care of. We need to talk, you and I. Privately." He gestured, indicating the other convalescents in the room, some of them listening. "How'd you like to get out of here? Take a ride; eat in a restaurant. I've cleared it with your doctor."

Macurdy stood up, curious about where this was leading. "I could stand a change. Is this going to be your treat? I'm broke. My pay status is screwed up."

"That's taken care of too. Your back pay will catch up with you next payday."

"Huh!"

After he'd changed his slippers for shoes, Macurdy followed the captain outside and got into a jeep with him. Von Lutzow started it, then drove out the long driveway to the road. A country road; four years earlier, the hospital had been the palatial residence of a British earl. "You're walking well, Macurdy," he said, "for someone who had a chunk torn out of his ass by a piece of steel." He turned an intent eye on his passenger. "And that was about a month after a truck drove over your leg. According to Doc Alden, your leg looked like a giant purple watermelon."

Von Lutzow was enjoying himself; he grinned at Macurdy. "The doc here tells me I arrived just in time. Says if I'd come a week later, I'd have missed you- you'd have been off to rehab. He says your recovery has been nothing short of miraculous." He laughed. "Why is it I'm not surprised? Your right arm even healed to the same length as the left; that impressed him as much as anything. When they brought you in, they figured you might be ready to leave in four months. It's been less than one."

"How did you do that?"

Macurdy shrugged, a bit uncomfortable. "With mirrors," he said, then added, "honest to God." Quick-healing the shattered shoulder blade, after surgery, had involved holding a shaving mirror in his good hand to look at his back in a bathroom mirror. Then he'd manipulated the lines of force with his eyes and mind.

Von Lutzow gazed at him appraisingly. "I thought maybe it was your Aunt Varia. The guys in your platoon told me more about her than you did. They half believe in her, you know? And me? I believe in her all the way. Three-fourths at least."

Macurdy sidestepped the subject. "You were going to tell me how you found me," he said, "and why. I can kind of see the how-you knew I was with the 509th, they told you the outfit my mail had been forwarded to, and someone referred you to Doc Alden… That still leaves why."

Von Lutzow replied in German. "Because my outfit wants to recruit you."

Macurdy answered in Klara's baltisches Deutsch. "Have you cleared this with Division?"

Still in German, Von Lutzow replied, "You're not in the 82nd anymore. You've been assigned to ETOUSA-headquarters for the European Theater ofOperations U.S. Army. The whole shebang. It's also known as the paperwork capital of England and the chickenshit capital of the world. Which it needs to be."

Macurdy frowned. ETOUSA didn't sound like, anyplace he'd like to be. "And that's your outfit? I thought you were in G-2, some kind of spy."

"We're entirely separate from G-2. We're the OSS-the Office of Strategic Services. You'd like it; it's a good outfit, even more unconventional than the airborne." Von Lutzow cocked an eye at his passenger. "And it has an absolute minimum of chickenshit."

Macurdy introverted. It seemed to him he was being railroaded. The choice was the OSS or ETOUSA, and ETOUSA sounded worse than the MPs by a big margin.

They drove some beautiful country roads, Von Lutzow describing in general terms what the OSS did, which went far beyond spying. One of its principal jobs was to work with partisans in Nazi-occupied countries, training them in guerrilla warfare. Macurdy's impression was, that's what they'd have him doing.

By that time, evening was settling. In a town named Tonbridge, they went to a small Italian restaurant. The food and wine both were excellent, but the conversation-now in English, of course-was innocuous. Then Von Lutzow took him back to the hospital, not pressing for a decision.

Nor did Macurdy volunteer one. It seemed to him his only choice was the OSS, but there were questions he needed answered before he'd commit himself.

When Von Lutzow showed up again the next day, Macurdy suggested a walk in the estate's woodland park, and while they walked, they talked. "You've gone to a lot of work to recruit me," Macurdy said. "Why? Why not just order me to report?"

"The OSS is like the airborne: volunteers."

"Volunteers? Sounds like the only other choice I've got is ETOUSA."

Von Lutzow ignored the comment. "We have a mission that so far as I know, you're the only person suited for. In the whole damned world. In fact, you're ideal for it: intelligent, resourceful, you speak German…" He paused meaningfully. "And you have psychic talents."

"Psychic talents? If that means magic, about all f can do is light fires and heal. What good is that to the Office of Strategic Services? You're not part of the Medical Corps."

"There's one other thing." Von Lutzow paused. "Apparently you can make yourself invisible, and others around you if they're close enough. How else did that German patrol miss seeing us in Tunisia? One of them actually stumbled over your leg, for chrissake!"

"Foot," Macurdy corrected.

"Foot, leg, whatever. He even cussed the rock he thought he'd tripped on. And in Oran, how did you get out of the hospital without being seen? And get Sergeant Keith out the next night? With him holding on to your shirttail, for chrissake." Von Lutzow paused. "Invisibility's one talent I didn't mention at headquarters."

Macurdy grinned. "They'd think you'd gone over the edge." Von Lutzow shook his head. "Most of them would, but that's not the reason; not a decisive reason. Because turning invisible is strange enough, weird enough, it might get talked about. We're supposed to be smart enough to keep our mouths shut, but it might get talked about, and word could get to the Germans that we have someone like you. So it's between you and me. In our work, a talent like that, especially unsuspected, could make the difference between success and failure."

The path they'd been walking had come full circle. Now Von Lutzow changed the subject. "Let me take you out to supper again. I can charge it to my expense account, and it gets me away from army chow."

This time they ate Chinese. Macurdy didn't talk much, and guessing his thoughts, Von Lutzow didn't either. When they'd finished eating and were sipping their tea, Macurdy made his decision. "Captain," he said, "I hate to see someone go to so much trouble for nothing. Get me out of the hospital, and you've got a volunteer."

It wasn't at all like volunteering for the airborne; even as he said it, he felt serious misgivings.

That night he had a long disjointed dream, which after he woke up, remained with him in the form of impressions. There were Germans in black SS uniforms, and 50-foot monsters that strode through a battlefield crushing GIs under their feet; it seemed to him he'd dreamed about them before. And Varia was in it, not in the usual gazebo, but riding on Vulkan, with Blue Wing perched on her shoulder. That seemed strange to Macurdy; Melody had been the spear maiden, and Blue Wing had been her buddy, not Varia's.

After breakfast, waiting for Von Lutzow, he found his misgivings had faltened. Why not? he asked himself. It'll be interesting, and if Von Lutzow is any kind of sample, Ill like the OSS.

He wasn't sent to an ordinary rehab company. His new bosses wanted him trained as quickly as possible, and sent him to an OSS school on a rural estate in the Midlands. There, while going through rehab, he worked intensively on his German.

OSS headquarters in London had sent an ex-professor to tutor him, a refugee from Konigsberg, in East Prussia. From listening to Macurdy, the man actually pinpointed the rural district from which Klara and Fritzi had come. But while Macurdy might at first pass as a native Baltic German, the tutor explained, in Germany people would soon realize he was foreign. He had usages distinctively German-American-artifacts of a foreign environment. In the States, they were used even by Germans who spoke no English, and were common in German-language newspapers there. Meanwhile in Germany, particularly under the Nazis, new uses had developed that few German-Americans had ever heard.

The tutor's job was to have Macurdy sounding like an East Prussian who'd never been out of Germany, and writing German cursive as it might be written and spelled by a poorly educated East Prussian peasant.

"That will also help in the development of a personal history for you, with documents," he explained. "To a German from Munchen or Frankfurt or Berlin or Hamburg, all Baltic Germans sound alike. Like your southerners sound to someone from New York. But we need to do better than that, you and I. When I've finished with you, you can pass even in Konigsberg as a rural East Prussian, and pass very well. And it will not take so long; your wife's grandmother was a good teacher."

After two weeks, his therapist reported him fit enough that he could complete his rehab by exercising with the other students. Meanwhile Macurdy began training in covert operations: Among other things he learned the use and maintenance of various communications devices, and more refined techniques in demolitions than had been needed in the airborne. He drilled Morse code intensively, learned to pick locks of various kinds, practiced finding his way crosscountry by the stars and sun, and became thoroughly familiar with German geography. He learned how to conduct himself in German homes, restaurants, railroad depots… and how to deal with German government bureaus, especially at local levels.

Then he was sent to the therapist again. The man grinned at him. "Macurdy, your recovery's been too damned complete. Headquarters says you need a limp, a good consistent limp, and I'm supposed to coach you on it. Along with your scars, it'll help explain why you're not in the German army." He laughed, then spoke in a burlesque German accent: "You vill be a gout, patriotic Cherman poy vhat hass sacrificed his body for his Fuhrer, but can still vork on de docks."

Along with his demolitions training, this led Macurdy to suspect he'd be sent to Germany as a saboteur, instead of training partisans.

He was wrong about that, too.

In late autumn he was sent to London, to OSS headquarters in Grosvenor Square. There he was promoted to warrant officer-a W-2-which paid much better than staff sergeant.

Then he was briefed. He'd been told that Von Lutzow would be his briefing officer, but Vonnie was in the south of France, in the maquis, working with French partisans. Besides, this was only a preliminary briefing, sketching out his mission.

What it oiled down to was that Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler was very interested in the occult. And Himmler, who now ranked second only to der Fuhrer himself, commanded not only the Gestapo-the German secret police-but the Schutzstaffel-the elite guard. Within the SS he'd established a small de facto office called the Occult Bureau. At one point, the Gestapo had been ordered to investigate all reputed Aryan psychics, some of whom were then conscripted into the Bureau.. This was not a roundup of astrologers, as in Aktion Hess. It was on a much smaller scale, and not punitive.

The Occult Bureau had lost credibility with the Reichs Chancellery over the past several years, had even been reported cancelled. But what seemed to be an Occult Bureau project was housed in rural southern Bavaria, near a lake known as der Kiefersee. Not a lot was known about the project except its name: das Weutische Prajekt, and even that was mysterious, because in German there was no such name or word as Weut (phonetically, Voit). The OSS wanted to know what that project was-its mission and its methods-and Macurdy's job was to find out.

In the neighborhood of the Kiefersee, local tradition held that in early centuries, on the night of the full moon, witches gathered on the crest of dem Hexenkamm-"The Witches' Ridge"-to sacrifice, and hold orgies with demons. Among the local peasants, some still took those stories at least semi-seriously. Some said that even today, in the vicinity of the ridge, dogs howled and cats refused to go out when the moon was full. The Occult Bureau project was housed in what was called locally Schloss Tannenberg-Tannenberg Castle-after the most prominent local hill. It wasn't actually a castle, but a 19th century baronial manor, built on the site of an old ruin. And Schloss Tannenberg stood at the foot of derv Hexenkamm.

It occurred to Macurdy that the briefing officer might be pulling his leg, but the man kept talking. Supposedly a number of psychics were held at the schloss in some sort of training, and the rumor was that the trainers were foreigners, whic might be the source of the word Weutische. It was definite that an SS guard platoon was quartered there. It was from a local "party girl" agent, who'd drank and slept with some of the SS, that they'd learned most of what was known about the project. Which wasn't much, if one allowed for the inevitable exaggerations of troops sporting with girls.

The project commander and his executive officer were subject matter specialists. Lt. Col. Karl Gustaf Richard Landgraf was a Prussian aristocrat, a decorated veteran of horse cavalry on the Eastern Front during World War One. During the 1920s and early '30s, he'd published a journal of occult studies. His managing editor, a Wilhelm Kupfer, was now his XO.

Macurdy would be provided an identity, suitable papers, and a German wife; it hadn't been determined yet who she'd be. And no, he wasn't expected to actually marry her. He and his "wife" would then travel to Bavaria, where they were to get him recruited by the Weutische Project.

He was to find out the nature and goals of the project, and as many of the details as he could.

At one point, Macurdy had interrupted to clarify what "occult" meant. The question had startled the briefing officer. Macurdy had been recruited, the man told him, because supposedly he had occult powers, yet he didn't even know what occult meant!

Before they left the briefing room, Macurdy set the man's mind at rest: he lit his cigarette with a finger.

Among other things, for the next four weeks he worked with a drama coach on his role as an East Prussian peasant. He was to seem marginally retarded, providing an apparency of harmlessness. That would also help explain why, limp and all, he had not been drafted by the military. And of course, he was familiarized with the S S table of organization, including the SS titles of rank, which differed from those of the German army.

He was also given some old Swiss parapsychology journals to read, to get a sense of the field.

He proved a quick study; by the fourth week, the role was second nature to him.

During those four weeks, he was also put through intensive, personalized short courses in Bavarian geography, and the advantages and disadvantages of possible escape routes to Switzerland. He studied contour maps of those routes, even made rough clay table models of the likelier.

His limp had been well perfected: Repetition had programmed it thoroughly into his motor system. It was not severe, but worsened when he was tired.

Meanwhile he was given a further briefing. He'd been provided an identity: He would be Kurt Montag. And a landing site: He'd be taken to the Baltic on a British submarine, and landed by rubber boat on the Mecklenburg coast. There he'd be met by an agent who would take him to Lubeck, to his wife, a woman named Gerda Montag, nee Schwabe. She in turn would take him to Bavaria, her home state.

When he'd finished his training, he was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant.

Meanwhile he'd written to Mary several times, and again to his parents, telling them nothing meaningful; if he had, the censors would have deleted it. He was, he wrote, on staff in London. Let them think the dangers were over.