Impasse (The Red Gambit Series) (56 page)

This he opened carefully, exposing a British-made Welrod silenced pistol, an item he had clandestinely purchased whilst training at Sassy some weeks beforehand. It had been offered for sale by an ageing French Maquisard, and the old resistance fighter had died silently when the pistol was tested.

‘
Amethyst’ had not been in the first wave of ex-SS Legionnaires to go into action, joining up with Camerone only recently.

Even though he knew that the magazine was full and the weapon ready for use, he still went through the checks, inspecting the .32ACP rounds and testing the bolt action.

He quickly rolled an old map and slid the twelve inch long barrel inside it, concealing the magazine and trigger in his hand.

He took a deep breath
, and opened the door.

Jourdan had spotted the file without too much effort. Kowalski had awoken and remembered his acquisition, hiding it in plain sight in a small pile of paperwork, whilst concealing the ‘Top Secret’ markings. The red colour attracted her eye none the less.

Seizing the moment, he had leapt on Gisela as she removed her clothing and taken her roughly and hard, quickly expending himself and falling back onto the bed once more.

Gisela Jourdan had neared orgasm herself, but he had finished too quickly for her liking.

She slipped from the bed to where a
washstand was concealed behind a screen.

Splashing some cool water over herself, the combination of the surprisingly warm quarters and her recent
exertions having brought on a good sweat, she debated waiting for her lover to recover ,or whether to take matters into her own hands.

Her mind registered the smallest of sounds and tried to identify it, ending up with a choice between door
and cupboard.

The second sound was much
less open to interpretation, accompanied, as it was, by a spray of crimson over the headboard and wall.

She scrambled for her jacket, desperately feeling for the Walther PPK in the secret inside pocket, the same lump of metal that had caused Amethyst
’s unexpected bruise.

She made too much sound and the wooden screen opened up in the centre, riven by the passage of a .32.

The subsonic round clipped her thigh.

Jourdan dropped to the ground
, but failed to see anything worth shooting at.

Rolling out
, she found herself staring into the barrel of an all too familiar Welrod.

“
Gently, Fraulein, gently.”

The situation was bordering on surreal.

The Legion officer, clad in an ex-SS camouflage uniform with French markings, the OSS agent naked from head to toe, both holding pistols capable of killing the other.

However, only Amethyst had a gun pointed at a target.

Jourdan thought fast.

‘
If he was going to kill me, he’d have done it.’

Even though the thought process was flawed, it enabled her to relax and place the Walther on the floor.

‘Up and onto the bed, if you please... quiet... no nonsense, Fraulein.”

He permitted himself to enjoy the superb body as Gisela Jourdan raised herself up and onto the bed next to the dead Kowalski, ignoring the detritus that had been blasted from his skull as the Welrod
’s bullet took his life.

Her eyes flicked towards the pile of papers containing the file
, and instantly she knew it was an error.

The Legionnaire moved backwards and ran a hand over the same pile, uncovering
the words that betrayed its importance.

The German Legionnaire had clearly been after the Polish officer and, equally clearly in Jourdan
’s opinion, was now deciding how to proceed.

She tried her normal tactic.

“Want to fuck me then, eh?”

Amethyst, his mind busy resolving the unexpected situation, allowed part of his mind to assess the pleasures he was going to miss sampling.

Jourdan saw the eye movement and misinterpreted it, opening her legs wide to expose herself to more intimate examination, as well as creating a distraction of her own.

Kowalski had been a man of habit and one habit, so he
had said, was because he was a Pole, and always felt unsafe. He slept with a gun as well as a woman.

As part of Amethyst
’s mind examined the body of the woman he was about to kill, another part saw the small movement.

Jourdan
’s hand found the cold metal and slipped around the Beretta M1935 that Kowalski always kept under his pillow.

It was out and moving, even as the German reacted.

He was quickest.

The Welrod chugged and the bullet hit Jourdan in the throat.

Quickly, Amethyst picked up his spent cartridge cases, slipped them into his pocket, and then dragged Kowalski’s corpse off the bed, changing the dynamics of the room sufficiently, in his own mind at least, to confuse any investigation.

Slipping the folder into his trousers, Amethyst took a last look
at the woman struggling for breath, her eyes widened both by the shock of the wound, and in indignation at her approaching premature death.

He listened at the door and, deciding that the landing was clear outside, opened it and slipped
out into the corridor.

The last
lifeblood spilled from Jourdan’s wound, even as she found the strength to pull the trigger.

The .32 Beretta round caught Amethyst in the left upper arm, passing through flesh and muscle.

Stifling a yelp of pain, the Legionnaire moved quickly along and into his room, aware of the sound of a pistol dropping onto the floor, and easily imagined the Beretta slipping from lifeless fingers.

Hässelbach, t
he first man to arrive at the open door, found a room full of blood and two naked bodies, one still utterly compelling despite the obvious neck wound.

Everything was placed in the hands of the Legion Military Police.

Or it was, until forty-nine minutes later, when an OSS detachment, complete with De Walle, arrived with a set purpose; they found that the situation was very different to that they had anticipated.

Whilst the loss of Agent Jourdan was regrettable,
she was way down the priority list for the OSS team searching the room.

They left her corpse stiffening on the bed in a pool of congealing blood, only disturbing her when it became necessary to check the bed itself.

The file already nestled under the floorboards four rooms away, in the care of a man biting hard on a wad of cloth as he fished inside his arm for a .32 bullet.

De Walle had a brief meeting with Knocke
to explain the full situation.

The search was widened and Amethyst, his arm
wound bandaged and concealed under long sleeves, found his room being searched by a man in American uniform and a French legionnaire military police corporal.

He sat and watched proceedings as he moved swiftly with a needle and thread.

He was comfortable that the hiding place would not be found, even when he had to get off the bed in order to let the American move the bed frame.

He was comfortable that the uniform holed by Jourdan
’s bullet and marked with his blood would not be discovered. Quick work with scissors and a razor had transformed the hole into a tear such as blemished many of the uniforms worn by members of Camerone and, in any case, he was studiously working on its repair even as the search continued.

What made him uncomfortable was the silent presence of Knocke, stood on the threshold, sometimes
watching those in the room, sometimes checking other activities out of Amethyst’s sight.

The search completed, the L
egion Captain found himself alone, save for the presence at the doorway.

“
You look tired, Hauptsturmfuhrer. White as a sheet, in fact. Get some rest. Start at 0900hrs at the earliest. Alles klar?”

“
Alles klar, Brigadefuhrer. Danke.”

“
And make sure you do, Weiss. You know I’ll know.”

“
Zu befehl, Brigadefuhrer.”

The door closed and Amethyst,
also known as Ulrich Heinz Weiss, formerly of the 12th SS Panzer Division, smiled to himself, safe in the knowledge that there was a very great deal that Herr Knocke did not know.

Patton slammed the telephone down so hard that it shattered the cradle, leaving him still holding the damaged Bakelite handset as his staff sought cover from the shrapnel generated by his anger.

“
Goddamned weather. No air until further notice.”

Taking up from where he had left off before the telephone interrupted, Patton drop
ped his voice and continued calmly, ignoring the signaller who started to replace the broken telephone.

“
So, they chewed the Fourth Armored up real bad at Blankenheim this morning. Bruce Clarke’ll get ‘em back on line for sure, but it’s messed up the timetable again!”

Charles H. Travers, the Major General commanding US Seventeen Corps scowled.

“Yes he will, General, but the boys are dog-tired and the equipment’s breaking down. Clarke’s report shows that one assault failed purely ‘cause of the icy conditions and engine failures. We gotta give the tankers some maintenance time.”

“
No... hell no! We’re pushing the Commie bastards back and we will not stop! Give ‘em some help, Ben. Whatcha got to give them some impetus?”

A quick look at the map suggested something.

“The 808th is tucked in behind and close, General. It’s been knocked about some, but they can be on the road immediately.”

Patton couldn
’t remember what the 808th TD rode into battle, so asked the question.

“
M36’s, Sir.”

“
Get ‘em rolling, Ben. I’ll leave you to put a burr under Clarke’s arse. But I want your Corps in command of this area, and particularly the junction of Routes 51 and 477 today. No excuses, Ben.”

“
Sir.”

Like a whirlwind, Patton swept out of Travers
’ headquarters as swiftly as he arrived, leaving only shattered Bakelite to mark that he had ever been there.

His Dodge WC57 car was already hammering across country for his next call to
‘encourage’ Ernie Harmon’s Twenty-second Corps to greater efforts.

“
OK you sleeping beauties! Rack ‘em up and move ‘em out!”

Christensen
, Master Sergeant of the HQ Company, 808th Tank Destroyer Battalion, strode amongst the snoozing men, clapping his hands and shouting, occasionally taking a kick at a reluctant body.

The 808th had been on a maintenance run all morning and
had stopped for lunch. It seemed to the tired men that it was only two minutes since the order to rest had been given.

Gear was made up and stowed as the roar of V8 engines filled the air.

A jeep containing the commander of the 808th, Lieutenant Colonel McDonald, swept up the road, to join the head of the column.

This move was all about speed.

The M36 Jacksons started to move off as the entire battalion took to Route 51, heading towards Blankenheim.

‘
Spectrum’ was already coming apart at the seams, its timetable in tatters as stiff Soviet resistance and Mother Nature combined to make things very difficult for the Allied forces.

There were five schedules in the Spectrum plan.

‘Black’ had actually been too successful and brought down the hounds of hell upon the Legion Corps, inflicting huge casualties on one of the Allies’ prime formations. Whilst that smoothed the way for the US Third Army, the concern now was that the large Soviet forces drawn to Alsace might find other employment, possibly looking westwards once more. The dilemma facing the Allied Generals was that the enemy needed to be kept in place in Alsace, not permitted to return to the north, where George Patton had plans for a change of ownership.

However, the Red Army units left opposing Patton
’s advance fought like mad dogs, extracting a heavy price from the attacking US units.

To the north, the German thrust
towards Cologne went well at first, not quite the Blitzkrieg, but close enough to make one or two of the German veterans recall happier days.

However,
the attack of 101st Korps ran into stiff resistance from the 3rd Guards Tank Army and elements of 5th Guards Army, before being fought to a bloody standstill at Leverkusen and Wipperfürth.