MATT HELM: The War Years

MATT HELM
®

The War Years

A Pastiche

By Keith Wease

Based on the works of Donald Hamilton

Copyright 2012 by Keith Wease

M
ATT HELM
®
was created by Donald Hamilton and is protected  by copyright and trademark law.  The works of Donald Hamilton,  including MATT HELM
®
, are used with the kind permission of Integute AB and the family of Donald Hamilton.

First Edition

Introduction

This book start
ed on a whim several years ago.  I was on vacation at a campsite beside a lake in South Texas, across from Louisiana, prepared to re-read the Matt Helm series for the umpteenth time.  As I started
Death of a Citizen
, I began wondering just how much information Donald Hamilton had included about Matt's early days during the war.  I made notes of any references to Matt's previous career, as well as biographical details.  By the end of the vacation, I had finished the first dozen or so books and continued at home with the rest.  As the series "aged," the war references stopped for obvious reasons, but I still got some more biographical information from the later books.

At the time, I was working in a one-man shop doing professional writing for clients and had a lot of "down" time.  Going through my notes and the books, I transcribed all the references into my computer, including a few favorite passages typical of Donald Hamilton's amazing descriptive talent.  I organized the file into an arbitrary timeline for my own amusement.  Once this was done, I had a fairly accurate, if rather sketchy, portrayal of Matt Helm's early career and biography, enough for about a 25-page essay.  Other than trivia for myself and other Matt Helm fans, it had no practical purpose whatsoever.  I toyed with the idea of sending it to Donald Hamilton in the hopes he might be persuaded to give us a prequel, but gave up the idea as presumptuous.  I saved the file to a disk and pretty much forgot about it.

Shortly after I learned that Donald Hamilton had died, I got the idea of writing the prequel myself.  I located the disk and, as time and my imagination permitted, I filled in details for the various missions I already had, invented many more, and fleshed out my ideas of Matt's initial recruitment and training.  My first complete chapters were the first and the last, once I had decided how to start and end the book.  A couple of years later, I still needed two or three more chapters, including the one leading back to where the book began, but life got in the way for two or three more years before I finally finished it.

I spent the next year and a half trying to track down Donald Hamilton's heirs to get permission to publish the book, but all I could find were old references and old addresses.  Finally, a random search brought up a post on some blog by the ex-husband of one of Donald Hamilton's daughters.  I emailed him and he forwarded the email to his ex-wife.  She responded directly to me and, once I explained the situation, sent an email to Gordon Hamilton, the CEO of
Integute AB
, the company he and his father had formed to hold his father's intellectual property rights.  Gordon emailed me and graciously agreed to read my manuscript.  After several back and forth emails over the next year, including some valuable editing advice, Gordon approved the book and we had a contract.  Thanks, Gordon!

In closing, I'd like to make a point about my inclusion of verbatim quotes from Donald Hamilton's books.  While being comfortable mimicking his "voice," I was not comfortable changing his words, so I chose not to rewrite those passages and included them as originally written by him.

Keith Wease, 2013

Chapter 1

Lying in the Army hospital near
Washington, I had a lot of free time to reflect upon Mac's offer.  Officially, I was recuperating from a near-fatal jeep accident and undergoing physical therapy to restore full mobility to various parts of my anatomy.  Well, the physical therapy part was correct - my left arm and leg were just now beginning to work properly - but the jeep was largely imaginary, unless you counted being bounced around for three days in the back of a German Mercedes-Benz L4500A as an accident.

There were occasions during those three days when I'd wished they'd left me to die, rather than beat me to death slowly.  Fortunately, I was unconscious most of the time, but my waking moments were filled with agony as we bounced and bumped along back roads - and quite often no roads - to avoid German patrols and make it back behind the front line to a field hospital.  From there, I'd spent a lot of time in various hospitals before ending up here for some fairly specialized treatment.

The "accident" was no accident; the bastard had meant to kill me.  Well, I'd tried to kill him first, so I couldn't really blame him and it was my own stupidity that had given him the chance in the first place.  I'd naively assumed that half a magazine from the old MP38 I'd appropriated had killed him and hadn't made sure before turning to take out his partner.  He had managed to pull the pin on the grenade and toss it in my general direction.  Fortunately for me and unfortunately for his partner, the grenade had landed behind a tree, partially shielding me from the blast, but blowing his partner to hell and gone.  I vaguely remember cursing myself as I was lifted and thrown like a leaf by the pile-driver blow that slammed into my left side....

The only thing I remember clearly from the following weeks, other than the pain, was looking up at Martinson as he helped load me into the back of some vehicle.  I had a terrible feeling of something important left undone.  Sensing the unspoken question in my eyes, he whispered, "It's okay, Eric, I made the touch."  Satisfied that the job had gotten done despite my blunder, I lapsed back into unconsciousness.

I'd briefly seen Mac in the London hospital where most of the final repairs had been accomplished, some five weeks and four operations later.  Apparently I was going to live and even get to keep my left leg - there had been some doubt for a while, due to a particularly nasty infection that could have gone either way.  Mac had told me I was being transferred to Washington for some plastic surgery.   We needed to cover up some potentially embarrassing round scars which were inconsistent with my cover as an Army Public Relations Officer who had never seen combat, but had been dumb enough to overturn a jeep near Paris.

I was now remembering our conversation earlier in the day.  Mac had come into my room wearing a medium weight gray suit - even though it was spring over here, it was still a little cool outside.  I had never seen him without a suit and never in any color but gray; just different weights, depending on the weather.

"Good morning, Eric.  You seem to be recovering nicely."  My real name, if it matters, is Matthew L. Helm, but in Mac's organization I was known as Eric, a name he'd apparently chosen due to my Scandinavian heritage.  Except under special circumstances, we always used our code names when on official business.  Of course, with Mac, everything was official business.  I still knew nothing more about his background or personal life than the first time I met him, over three years before.  Hell, I didn't even know his real name.

I sat up in the bed, a little painfully.  "Yes sir, everything seems to be working right, finally."  I thought I saw his lips twitch into a brief smile at the "sir" - it had been a small joke between us since our first meeting - but I could have been wrong; he wasn't really a smiling man.

"I understand the last of the more obvious scars have been covered."

"Yes sir, all seven of them.  The Doc also took care of two stab wounds that seemed a little excessive for peaceful little me.  That only leaves me with a half dozen or so, caused by pieces of my imaginary jeep landing on me.  May I ask why you've gone to all this trouble?  Not that I don't appreciate it - at least I think I do.  I'm not sure which hurt more, the bullet or covering up the scar."  I seemed to be sore all over.  I wouldn't have believed how painful plastic surgery could be.

"Bullet wounds always raise a few eyebrows, especially for a known noncombatant.  We like to be thorough when we construct a cover, as you know.  Besides, you wouldn't want to shock your lady friend."

I gave him a sharp glance.  How he'd found out about Beth I had no idea, but I shouldn't have been surprised.  There was damn little that ever got past him.  I decided not to ask.  "What now, sir, the Pacific?"  I already knew that our particular role in the war in Europe - actually, everybody's role, other than the mopping-up crew - was over.

"I think not, Eric.  You did quite well in Europe."  I was flattered; coming from Mac, this was high praise.  He continued dryly, "However I can't quite envision a six foot four, two hundred pound, blond Swede with blue eyes infiltrating Tojo's army."

I grinned.  "You may have a point, sir.  But it's not two hundred pounds - not yet, but I'm gaining on it."  I had lost over twenty pounds in the first three weeks and had only got back ten of it so far.

"In any case, the Pacific is not our kind of war.  There's a new kind of war coming, Eric, one which will require our particular talents."

"You mean the Russians?"  I had had similar thoughts.  Even though they were still considered our allies, I had a feeling that wouldn't last long once Hitler was taken care of.

"Soviets, please."  Mac was always precise in his language.  "Yes, in the immediate future.  However, the world is a savage place, and once a weapon has been developed, it tends to be used when needed.  I foresee a use for our specialized type of weapon for a long time to come."

I should have known.  Mac wasn't the type to just fade away and he had some very definite ideas when it came to solutions to problems of a violent nature.  To the very few who were aware of our existence, we were known as the
M-Group
, "M" meaning "murder."  Actually, the name had been suggested by the Germans.  Their word was
Mordgruppe
, and the counter-intelligence people in Britain began picking up whispers of such an Allied organization from their spies in Germany.  They thought it was just an excuse dreamed up by some German bureaucrats to explain certain failures - after all, we wouldn't stoop to such underhanded methods, would we? - but for those in the know, the name stuck.

I hadn't given much thought to what I would do once the war was over - at least not until very recently, after meeting Beth.  She was a slim, lovely New England girl who was working at the hospital with the USO.  I had met her a little over a month ago and we had hit it off big.  So big, that I found myself thinking rather strange thoughts.

Mac brought me out of my reverie.  "Eric, we are preparing your discharge papers.  In the next few days, you'll be out of the Army and free to do whatever you want."  Again, he surprised me.  He seemed to know what I was thinking.  He continued, and I knew what was coming.

"We will also be out of the military, if we were ever really in it.  I have received permission to continue our little operation under civilian authority, never mind just
which
authority.  If you'll consider it, I would like to have you continue with us.  I have a feeling this will be a bigger decision for you than it might have been a few weeks ago, so I'll give you time to think it over.  The doctors tell me you'll be ready for release in another few days.  Let me know your decision at that time."

I couldn't think of anything to say other than, "Yes sir."  He turned and left.  Well, he never was much for pleasantries or long goodbyes.

Check to the gent in the pajamas with the stupid look on his face, bandages covering half his body and a scary, half-formed idea of the future beginning to percolate in his thick skull.

Chapter 2

How he'd ever managed to sell the project to someone in authority, I never found out.  It must have taken some doing, since America is a fairly sentimental and moral nation, even in wartime, and since all armies, including ours, have their book of rules, and this was certainly not in the books.

Exactly why he - or whomever he used for recruiting purposes - picked me, I never found out for certain.  After all, I had the impression there were very few of us - an elite few I often thought in youthful enthusiasm - although I didn't know for sure.  Curiosity wasn't encouraged and we operated on the principle that what we didn't know, we couldn't be forced to tell.  I just didn't think there were that many people suited to that type of work, but why me in particular?