The Bavarian Gate

32

A Captive for the General

The OSS duty officer got Von Lutzow on the line within a minute or so. Von Lutzow said he'd have a team on the way within ten minutes. He didn't notify MI5-British counterespionage-till after his own people were well on their way. The bobbies arrived well before any of them, of course, soon after Macurdy was off the phone. Anna answered the door. By then she'd dressed; even had her shoes on. Macurdy had tied Hansi's wrists and ankles with electric cord, and begun to work on Alice Gwynne's thigh wound. He told the bobbies a team from MI5 was on its way; actually they weren't, but they soon would be. As additional police arrived, they cordoned off the place, and after a few perfunctory questions, left him and Anna alone. Their functions did not include interfering with intelligence agencies.

Nonetheless, when the OSS team pulled up in front, led by Von Lutzow, the police lieutenant in charge wouldn't let them enter the building till MI5 arrived. That was fine with Von Lutzow; he'd just wanted to arrive first, to cover Anna, and of course Macurdy. When MI5 got there, they were welcome to Hansi and Alice, the corpse of Bahn, and everything they might find in the flat. Then, in the care of Von Lutzow, and with another lieutenant from MI5, Macurdy and Anna rode off in an army staff car for middle of the night debriefs. The custody of Anna was never brought up; probably the lieutenant didn't know his office wanted her. And with copies of the debriefs in hand, they had little grounds for demanding she be turned over to them. She was, after all, on the OSS payroll.

With the debrief finally over, Macurdy went to bed and slept till after midday. The duty officer had him wakened in time for lunch, and to shower and shave for an interview with the general.

Macurdy had never seen Wild Bill Donovan, who was gone a lot, but during training he'd heard stories about him, some no doubt apocryphal. They'd included World War One exploits and the Medal of Honor; he'd been a regimental commander noted for his boldness. Overall, Macurdy had gotten an image of a short, stocky, charismatic dynamo who could absorb a book in an hour and discuss it in detail, who believed in exercising his creative imagination and enthusiasm, and letting his people exercise theirs. Within limits, of course, but the limits were broad. He also had a large tolerance of eccentricity.

He recruited men on the basis of their self-confidence, a degree of daring, and established skill in some demanding and relevant area, even if only athletic. Usually they brought with them a competence in one or more useful foreign languages. Then they were thoroughly trained, and within their mission orders, given a large degree of operating independence. Some lacked judgment, some accountability, and more than a few humility, but as a covert operations organization, the OSS was a good outfit.

And Donovan was its father, its founding genius.

So Macurdy looked forward to the interview. He had no real notion of what it would be like, or what Donovan would want him to do, but he knew exactly what he intended to ask for and get.

The commander stood up when Macurdy entered, and shook his hand. His white hair was parted just off center and crookedly, as if he hadn't used a mirror, and he was older than Macurdy had expected. But at age 61, his blue eyes were sharp, his grin genuine, and his aura reflected a rare combination of aggressiveness and patience.

"I just read your debriefs," he said. "Last night's, and the earlier one on the Voitik Project. Major Von Lutzow is very strong on you, thinks you're better than Wheaties. I also read his report on your airborne history. Remarkable! Remarkable! I wanted to know you myself before we assign you anything further."

Even given the general's reputation as a reader, Macurdy wondered when the man had found time for all that. The debriefs were thick, and the latest, he suspected, were still only handwritten.

"And you knew Oberleutnant Schweiger as a boy! Makes one believe in destiny! You recommended leniency for him. Why? He'd been made welcome in America, then turned on her. And against family pressure, you said."

"He was a good kid," Macurdy answered, "but didn't know much. And I saved his life earlier that year, so I feel kind of responsible for him."

Donovan didn't look convinced, but he dropped the matter. "What do you recommend we do with Anna Hofstetter?" he asked.

"She's a functioning telepath," Macurdy answered, "and they're supposed to be really rare; at least those who can do it at will. She's also smart, experienced, knows German and the Germans, including the SS, and hates the Nazis. She'd be valuable as hell in an outfit like this, especially in internal security. Especially if people don't know what she can do."

Lips pursed, Donovan let his gaze slide away in thought, then returned it to Macurdy. "The debrief of your Weutische mission includes things some people find hard to believe. How would you answer them?"

"I'd offer to light their cigarette," Macurdy answered wryly. "Or-would you turn around a minute and look at the bookcase behind you? There's something I didn't include in either debrief. Something that can make the rest of it more believable."

Donovan's black eyebrows raised, but without speaking, he turned away. Macurdy cloaked himself, moved quietly several steps toward one side of the room, and waited.

"Are you ready?" Donovan asked. Macurdy didn't answer. The general turned back, saw nothing, and frowned, then stood up again as if Macurdy might be crouching out of sight against the desk. Still seeing nothing, Donovan stepped around it.

"Right here," Macurdy said, and dropped the cloak. He was only four feet from the general, who took a quick step back. "I can make myself hard to see," Macurdy said. "It's one of quite a few things my first wife taught me."

Donovan peered intently at him, then sat down. "You're right. That does make things more believable. Not all of them, but some." He paused. "You said in your Weutische debrief that you regard the mission as incomplete. What would you recommend to complete it?"

"Drop me on some cow pasture near the schloss. At night. I need to destroy it, the aliens at least, and the gate if I can." Donovan frowned. "You just put your finger on some of the things I find difficult to accept: the gate, the world on the other side, and what you say their threat is to the invasion. I can't go to SHAEF and tell them they need to watch out for monsters set loose by sorcerers from another world. I can't even recommend something to do about it!"

"The solution is to destroy the ones on this side, and close the gate to more."

The general looked troubled. He'd suddenly remembered a report he'd seen that morning, that fitted nicely with Macurdy's debrief: An English lawyer and suspected German agent, Wesley Perham, had died of a heart attack the day before, in his office across from Tenley Park.

"What would you think of having the schloss bombed?" he asked. "Wouldn't that take care of it? With no harder evidence than I have. I can't get a squadron of 17s for a target like that, but I can get a flight of Mitchells with 500 pounders. I can't talk about sorcerers from another world, but I can come up with something acceptable to Bomber Command."

Macurdy shook his head. "It's too uncertain. The walls are thick, big stone blocks. They might make a wreck of it, but they'd need to put at least a couple of bombs right through the roof into more or less the right places. There are two rooms of TNT stored in the basement-that's in my debrief-but they wouldn't likely blow, much short of taking a direct hit."

"But I could blow them." Tension had tightened Macurdy's chest, his guts; this was really important to him. "I can blow them, and I can probably shut the gate. For good. To keep any more of them from getting through."

He changed tack. "If you think there's one chance in 50 that I'm right and they're real, it ought to be worth it to invest one man in the mission."

The general blew through pursed lips. "I'll tell you what, lieutenant. Bring me one of those aliens. I'll land you on the lake at night with half a dozen good men and a rubber raft. You grab one of the aliens, get him to the plane, and fly him to Naples, where we can examine him. You can even do the interrogating. The whole thing can be over with ten days from today." He paused, his eyes challenging. "What do you say?"

Despite himself, Macurdy grinned. "If I can do it my way."

"What way is that?"

"Alone. Plus a pilot. Because stealth is the key. But if I get you one, I want authority to go back and blow the schloss. And the gate."

Donovan stared at him. This was a compelling man, but his story was strange! Strange! Also, it seemed to Donovan that Macurdy wasn't being entirely candid. He still looked troubled when he stood up and shook Macurdy's hand. "Young man," he said, "you've got a deal. If you keep your half, IT keep mine. But don't talk about it to anyone except Major Von Lutzow. He'll be your mission officer again. He believes in you, and you've worked well together."

Macurdy's only moderately fictitious plan required making the flight on consecutive nights-the first to land him on the lake, the second to pick him up. The general signed it approved.

His pilot was a character out of Blue Book magazine: a burly, mustachioed, heavily tattooed man named MacNab, who looked part oriental and liked to wear kilts. The word was, he was a quarter Samoan, a quarter Chinese, and half Scot, and had learned French as a boy in Samoa. It was Von Lutzow who'd tabbed him for the mission. He claimed the man could fly a garbage truck, had the right mixture of caution and fearlessness, and was the best night navigator in the OSS, giving examples from missions over southern France.

With information from the Air Force's meteorological office at Norfolk House, Macurdy scheduled their departure a couple of days later than he might have, to take advantage of the moon.

On the night selected, it would cross the meridian of the schloss at 1:02, and on the next at 1:56, which was important to the part of the mission plan he was keeping to himself gating into Hithmearc to get his captive. To take one from the schloss would be much harder, and alarming both the SS and the crown prince, would make his followup mission almost impossible.

Also important, it was near the end of April, and the nights were getting short. It would only be fully night for about six hours at the schloss, and a route was necessary that avoided Axis airspace by day, while limiting exposure to German air defenses.

On the night of their flight, MacNab wore not kilt but a coverall, while Macurdy wore a paratrooper's jumpsuit. They took off from Naples at dusk, in a light flying boat: a twin-engined, three-seat Grumman Widgeon. They would cross the boot of Italy, and avoid German-held territory as long as possible by flying northwestward up the Adriatic for more than two hours. This left a hop of less than an hour and a half across Veneto and the Italy-Austrian Alps to land on der Kiefersee, the pilot gliding in the last few miles with reduced power.

Macurdy's experiences with long flights over water had left him apprehensive about coming down on target. MacNab, on the other hand, took it all casually, and Macurdy kept his concern to himself.

MacNab found der Kiefersee without difficulty. After deliberately bypassing it three miles to the west, he made their approach from the north, gliding lengthwise over the long narrow lake. After landing, they taxied a short distance almost to the heavily shadowed west shore. There Macurdy dropped the anchor in water surprisingly deep, and helped MacNab refuel the overhead gas tanks from 4-gallon jerry cans. Then, after inflating his small rubber boat from the attached COQ bottle, he paddled to shore, where he deflated it, then carried it and the paddle back into the woods. There, by a jutting rock outcrop that marked the place, he hid them in a patch of fir saplings.

From there he hiked around the end, traveling light, his only weapons a Fairbairn knife and his.45 caliber Colt automatic. An incendiary device, a pair of handcuffs, and some nylon suspension cord rode in appropriate pockets.

Shortly he came to the four-wheel-drive road and started up the Witches' Ridge. He might have hurried, but the forest was too dark for jogging, even with the nearly full moon. He was having second thoughts now: It would be far easier to ignore his agreement with the general-sneak into the schloss, hole up in the cellar, and blow up the building. He knew what he was up against there, or thought he did, and had already worked out how to pull it off. This capture mission, on the other hand, was full of unknowns. But a deal was a deal.

The gate hadn't opened yet. He couldn't be sure, of course, that it would, but if it remained on the schedule it had followed after that night of Voitik sorcery, it would open within-he looked at his phosphorescent watch face-within twenty minutes.

He'd nearly reached the crest when he felt the gate activate. If it stayed open as long as it had before, he had more than enough time. On the top he could feel it tug at him, and there, where the trees were more sparse, the moonlight let him trot, feeling the pull more and more strongly. Abruptly he experienced the now familiar indigo darkness, the bass resonance as much felt as heard-and tumbled sprawling into straw. He was in Hithmearc, in the gatehouse.

Scrambling to his feet, he crouched, drew his Fairbairn knife, and looked around. Here it was early afternoon. No one had been expected; no one was there waiting. Hopefully someone was around, but for now…

The only exit faced the hostel, so he sat down next to the doorway, back to the wall, and re-sheathed his knife. If necessary he'd wait till evening, he decided, before snooping around. His cloak had collapsed in transit-he could feel the difference-and he left it deactivated.

Three minutes later he heard footfalls, as someone stepped in no more than five feet from him-a uniformed, spear-carrying Voitu who failed to see him. Macurdy let him get well inside, then spoke in German: "Guten Tag, mein Herr."

The man left the floor with both feet, spinning, and came down with spear at the ready.

"Who are you?" The German words came robotically and ill pronounced-drawn undrilled from the hive mind. Macurdy answered slowly, distinctly. "I am Lieutenant Montag. I do not know how I came here."

The Voitu stared, slowly relaxing, and after a moment raised the spear to a casual port arms. "You not expected."

"I did not expect to be here. Where am I?"

"You in Hithmearc. I take to corporal. He know what to do."

A corporal in charge? That meant only a handful of Voitar, half a dozen at most, plus human servants. Macurdy got to his feet and deliberately staggered, almost fell. "I feel sick," he said. "I have already puked."

The Voitu said nothing, and Macurdy straightened a bit. He looked at the possibility of jumping him then and there-this one would serve the general's needs as well as any-but the Voitu was armed and suspicious, and having him on the other side through an entire day? Kurgosz and his people would surely pick up his presence.

Scowling, the Voitu jabbed the air with the spear, a gesture with more than a hint of threat. "You come with me now," he said.

"Of course." Macurdy turned and stepped out the door. He twitched all the way to the hostel, remembering the wounds he'd received the last time he'd been herded from a gate by a man with a spear, fourteen years earlier. That, he told himself, had worked out well enough in the long run, but this had to work out in the short.

He'd been right about the number; there were a corporal and four privates. The domestic staff of five humans was enough to serve if a group came through from the other side. Macurdy hoped devoutly that it wouldn't happen.

The corporal's name was Trosza, and he spoke German much better than the spearman. Macurdy talked him into letting him spend the night and return the next day, meanwhile asking questions. At first about the Voitusotar, and what it was like to be a Voitik soldier. By supper they were on relaxed and congenial terms.

He slept till late morning, but that was no problem. He had till afternoon, sleeping had killed time, and he'd been hit by what in later years would be known as jet lag. After lunch he talked with the corporal again, until they felt the gate activate. "It is time," the corporal said.

"Yes, I suppose we should leave soon. Perhaps I could have one more cup of your tea. We have nothing like it where I come from. It is very good."

He lingered over the refill, talking, deliberately using up time. The gate always remained open for close to an hour, and he didn't want to be followed. While they finished their tea, Macurdy slipped an object from a thigh pocket and pressed it against the underside of the table, where it stuck. About midnight, if the device worked on this side, it would flash into dripping flame, and hopefully burn the place to the ground. Perhaps even killing any eye witnesses to his being there. At least it would fix their minds on something else.

Finally he and the corporal went to the gatehouse. By the time they reached its doorway, they felt the repulsion quite distinctly, the reverse of the attraction on the other side.

"I will stop here," said Trosza. "I wish you well."

I wish you welll Macurdy had a job to do, but the Voitu's words would trouble him afterward. He reached as if to shake Trosza's hand, a civility the Voitusotar shared with humans. When they clasped, Macurdy pivoted abruptly away, pulling sharply on the hand, bending, kicking backward and upward, all in a fraction of a second. The pull half turned the startled Voitu, the kick striking him below the right ribs, compressing the abdomen, and though Macurdy didn't know it, tearing the liver. In someone shorter, it would have broken ribs, collapsed a lung, perhaps resulted in heart spasm.

Trosza blacked out instantly, and Macurdy, hoping no one had seen, dragged him by the ankles into the gatehouse. If he was pursued, his.45 would be operable on the other side, but Macurdy wanted to avoid attention on either side.

As before, he had to lean and push against the gate's repulsion, but within half a minute experienced the utter blackness, the utter silence, the sense of absolute nothingness of the return transit. Then, knees buckling, he dropped on the crest of the Witches' Ridge, the unconscious Trosza behind him.

After handcuffing his captive and tying his ankles, Macurdy struggled the ungainly burden across his shoulders and started down the road. The Voitu was slender, but at nearly seven feet, he weighed at least two hundred pounds. Still it was downhill, and Trosza remained unconscious, which so far as Macurdy knew, meant that any wakeful Voitu in the schloss wouldn't pick up via the hive mind that he'd been captured. If necessary he could kill him; judging by his aura, he was badly hurt already. A Voitik corpse would establish their reality for Donovan, but the general wanted him questioned. A live Trosza could verify from the hive mind what the threat was.

A live Trosza. But if Voitar could die of seasickness, might they also die of airsickness?

He could make out the plane in the deep shadow of lakeside forest, and lay the unconscious Trosza on the shore nearby. From the Voitu's aura, it was clear now that he had serious internal damage. Silently, Macurdy cursed the force of his kick. After getting the raft and inflating it, he loaded his captive, then paddled the dozen or so yards to the plane, where a curious MacNab helped him fold the Voitu inside. The pilot had worn his kilt this time.

"Long skinny son of a bitch," he commented. "Got a flashlight?"

"Sure." MacNab took one from a compartment and turned it on the Voitu's face. "Jesus Christ! Look at those goddamn ears! They all look like that?"

"Yep. Really tall, really slim, red-headed, and ears like a goat."

"How'd you get him?"

"Trickery and a close-combat move."

"Huh! Did he carry a gun?"

"A spear and a sword. I left them there."

MacNab put the flashlight away, shaking his head. Macurdy's replies had posed more questions than they'd answered. "We've got a complication," he said, as if in passing.

"What's that?"

"Fuel. Some flak batteries fired at me when I crossed the coast near Venice. Took a hole in one of the wing tanks. Lost the gas it still had in it, and it won't hold any now. And the other one won't hold enough to get us to Naples."

Hell, Macurdy thought, I didn't need that. "How is this crate for crash landing on dry ground?"

"Good, if we could stay in the air long enough to reach allied territory. But I can guarantee we won't."

"Can't we land on the water when we run low, and refuel the other tank with what's left in the cans?"

"Maybe; I've got my fingers crossed. But it's windy down there, and the forecast's for more of it. The chop will make it tricky at best."

MacNab climbed atop the wing, Macurdy handing the cans up to him, and refilled the other tank, then taxied to midlake and took off. Well, Macurdy thought, at least I've got a pilot who knows how to navigate. Meanwhile he hoped earnestly that the weather down south would ease off.

After take-off, Macurdy spent about half an hour working on the energy threads in Trosza's aura. They responded, but the results held only briefly. Within seconds they "unraveled," so to speak, la sing into chaos. He hoed that bit by bit he'd get them to hold-that gradually the effects of even such brief normalization would bring improvement. But after 30 minutes they seemed more chaotic than when he'd started, and reluctantly he gave up. It was, he told himself, up to God now, and he wasn't at all sure that God intervened in things like this, especially to lighten the killer's conscience.

Crossing the coast brought no flak this time. "How's the wind?" Macurdy asked.

"Worse. You might as well put on a life jacket. Get me one too."

Macurdy followed his advice. Trosza's aura told him his captive's grip on life was tenuous, and he decided not to struggle him into a life jacket unless it became necessary. Instead he worked again on the chaotic energy threads in the vicinity of the damage. The disorganization was more severe and widespread than before, and the threads, when he adjusted them, didn't remain adjusted even for a moment.

Glumly he quit, thinking that at least the Voitu wasn't airsick, and sat down beside MacNab again. He remembered something Arbel had told him: A body can be too damaged to save, a shaman had to be prepared for that.

Closing his eyes, Macurdy dozed, to dream about the fuel gauge.

After an uncertain time, he awoke to dawnlight, gray and grim, and with an odd sense of detachment watched the slatecolored Adriatic for several minutes. The fuel gauge needle was very near the peg.

"How are we doing?" he asked.

"Better than I'd expected. We're almost far enough south to angle toward the coast. Better put a life jacket on your passenger though."

Macurdy got in back with Trosza. What Arbel had termed "the spirit aura" was gone, and properly speaking the body aura too. All that was left was residue: the energy of tissues that survived, temporarily, the death of the integrated organism.

Meanwhile MacNab radioed a mayday call, giving their location, bearing, and intended course, then reported "urgent living cargo." Macurdy removed the handcuffs and put a life jacket on the corpse; a lot better to bring in a dead Voitu than none at all. When he had the laces tied, he got back in front again. "How's your goat-eared buddy?" MacNab asked.

"Dead. His name was Trosza. He wished me well, and shook my hand. That's when I did it to him."

MacNab recognized contrition when he heard it; he nodded and said nothing more until, a few minutes later, he repeated his mayday with a new location and bearing. And got an answer. Three destroyer escorts operating out of Termoli were on an intercept course. Macurdy resisted asking what the prospects were. In the distance he could see the Abruzzi coast now, farther ahead than he liked.

Again MacNab repeated his mayday, with location and bearing. "I'm at 3,600 feet," he finished, "and starting my letdown."

"The engine hasn't quit," Macurdy pointed out.

"I have to land crosswind, and have fuel left to maintain steerageway. Otherwise forget it. The weather's worse than predicted. Those are storm seas down there."

Several miles farther on, Macurdy made out the three warships moving toward them in the distance, and wondered if they'd seen or heard the plane. The altimeter read 640 feet, and MacNab had cut power, radioing that the shi s were in sight and on course. Short minutes later they were dose above the water. No way in hell, Macurdy realized, could they refuel in waves like those. MacNab touched her down, running parallel with the seas along a crest, skipping once. Contact slowed them abruptly, and shortly they were an enclosed boat, not an aircraft. Rolling heavily, they rose like a cork on a large wave, then slid sideways into the trough. Macurdy didn't know if they were in trouble or not.

"How's it look?" he asked.

"If the fuel holds out, we should be okay."

"Should I inflate a life raft?"

"Not in the plane. I'll tell you when."

The fuel nearly did hold out. The destroyer escorts were perhaps a half-mile away when the engine quit. Almost at once the Widgeon weather-vaned, the wind on the rudder surface turning her into the seas. She nosed into the next wave, water washing over the windshield. With a pang of fear, Macurdy wondered if they'd recover, but the plane rose, shedding gray-green sea water, then slid into the trough and buried her nose in the next wave, staggering again as it washed over her.

"Get in back," MacNab ordered, "and be ready to evacuate through the cabin door, with the life raft. I'll tell you when. It'll be a helluva lot easier for them to take us aboard from a raft than from the plane. As you go out, then pull the inflation cord- and for chrissake hang onto the lifeline! Pull yourself on if you can, but the important thing is to hang on to that lifeline."

"What about you?"

"I'll be right behind you."

"What about Trosza?"

"I'll bring him out. You get the raft out."

Macurdy waited at the door, the pilot close behind, gripping Trosza's collar. "Now!" MacNab barked, and Macurdy opened the cabin door just as the Widgeon nosed downward into the trough. The abrupt change in tilt drove him back, and briefly water poured in. As the plane rose again, he made it out the door, face down on the rubber raft, gripping the lifeline with one hand, pulling the inflation cord with the other. Then he was in the water and under it, shocked by its cold. The raft popped to the surface, Macurdy somehow spread-eagled on top. MacNab was not with him, and he looked re around as best he could.

Long seconds later Macurdy saw him; he'd gotten out. The plane was riding another wave, tail higher, the open cabin door briefly clear of the water again, then it behind the crest. Macurdy rolled off the raft on the side toward the pilot, who was swimming laboriously toward him. Keeping a death grip on the lifeline, Macurdy tried with some success to stroke toward him. After a minute their hands -met and gripped, then MacNab reached the lifeline and held on, coughing and gagging on salt water.

He didn't try to climb on, just held on. The Widgeon crested another wave, tail skyward now. They didn't see her again. What they could see were two circling DEs, with the other moving in on them at "slow ahead," men in life jackets and swimming trunks at the rail.

"Sorry," MacNab said. "About what?"

"That I didn't get your goat-eared buddy out. She was tilting to the bow too much, and I had to let him go. It was that or we'd both go down."

"He was dead anyway," Macurdy answered. He wished to hell he had the body though. It would make his story a lot more convincing.

Then the DE was beside them, and seamen jumped in with lines. A couple of minutes later, they were hoisted aboard.

They got some strange looks from the crew and officers- Macurdy in jumpsuit and jump boots, MacNab in a kilt. Macurdy found himself grinning despite his loss. At least I've got another witness to what they look like, he told himself. That wouldn't answer the questions the general wanted asked, but Donovan would still okay the other half of the bargain.

The thought didn't actually convince Macurdy, but it made him feel better.