Counting Up, Counting Down Read online

  That included conspiracies. If Colquit Reynolds was right, the ghost of the Great Rebellion haunted this cemetery, too, and the Johnnies were trying to bring it back to unwholesome life.

  “He’d better be right,” Michaels muttered as the jeep he was riding pulled to a stop before the front entrance to the cemetery.

  Morrie Harris understood him without trouble. “Who, that damn hearse driver? You bet he’d better be right. We bring all this stuff here”—he waved behind him—“and start tearin’ up a graveyard, then don’t find anything . . . hell, that could touch off a revolt all by itself.”

  Michaels shivered, though the day was hot and muggy. “Couldn’t it just?” Had Reynolds been leading them down the path, setting them up to create an incident that would make the South rise up in righteous fury? They’d have to respond to a story like the one he’d told; for the sake of the Union, they didn’t dare not respond.

  They’d find out. Behind the jeep, Harris’ all this stuff rattled and clanked: not just bulldozers, but also light M3 Stoneman tanks and heavy M3 Grants with a small gun in a rotating turret and a big one in a sponson at the right front of the hull. Soldiers—all of them men from the Loyal States—scrambled down from Chevy trucks and set up a perimeter around the wall. If anybody was going to try to interfere with this operation, he’d regret it.

  Against the assembled might of the Federal Union (it must and shall be preserved, Michaels thought), Girod Cemetery mustered a stout metal gate and one elderly watchman. “Who the devil are y’all, and what d’you want?” he demanded, though the who part, at least, should have been pretty obvious.

  Michaels displayed his FBS badge. “We are on the business of the federal government of the United States of America,” he said. “Open the gate and let us in.” Again, no talk of warrants, not in Reb country, not on FBS business.

  “Fuck the federal government of the United States of America, and the horse it rode in on,” the watchman said. “You ain’t got no call to come to no cemetery with tanks.”

  Michaels didn’t waste time arguing with him. He tapped the jeep driver on the shoulder. The fellow backed the jeep out of the way. Michaels waved to the driver of the nearest Grant tank. The tank man had his head out of the hatch. He grinned and nodded. The tank clattered forward, chewing up the pavement and spewing noxious exhaust into the air. The wrought-iron gate was sturdy, but not sturdy enough to withstand thirty-one tons of insistent armor. It flew open with a scream of metal; one side ripped loose from the stone to which it was fixed. The Grant ran over it, and would have run over the watchman, too, had he not skipped aside with a shouted curse.

  Outside the cemetery, people began gathering. Most of the people were white men of military age or a bit younger. To Michaels, they had the look of men who’d paint slogans on walls or shoot at a truck or from behind a fence under cover of darkness. He was glad he’d brought overwhelming force. Against bayonets, guns, and armor, the crowd couldn’t do much but stare sullenly.

  If the cemetery was empty of contraband, what this crowd did wouldn’t matter. There’d be similar angry crowds all over the South, and at one of them. . . .

  The watchman let out an anguished howl as tanks and bulldozers clanked toward the walls of above-ground vaults that ran the length of the cemetery. “You can’t go smashin’ up the ovens!” he screamed.

  “Last warning, Johnny Reb,” Michaels said coldly: “don’t you try telling officers of the United States what we can and can’t do. We have places to put people whose mouths get out in front of their brains.”

  “Yeah, I just bet you do,” the watchman muttered, but after that he kept his mouth shut.

  A dozer blade bit into the side of one of the mortuary vaults—an oven, the old man had called it. Concrete and stone flew. So did chunks of a wooden coffin and the bones it had held. The watchman shot Michaels a look of unadulterated hatred and scorn. He didn’t say a word, but he might as well have screamed, See? I told you so. A lot of times, that look alone would have been plenty to get him on the inside of a prison camp, but Michaels had bigger things to worry about today.

  He and Harris hadn’t ordered enough bulldozers to take on all the rows of ovens at once. The tanks joined in the job, too, knocking them down as the first big snorting Grant had wrecked the gate into Girod. Their treads ground more coffins and bones into dust.

  “That goddamn hearse driver better not have been lying to us,” Morrie Harris said, his voice clogged with worry. “If he was, he’ll never see a camp or a jail. We’ll give the son of a bitch a blindfold; I wouldn’t waste a cigarette on him.”

  Then, from somewhere near the center of Girod Cemetery, a tank crew let out a shout of triumph. Michaels had never heard sweeter music, not from Benny Goodman or Tommy Dorsey. He sprinted toward the Grant. Sweat poured off him, but it wasn’t the sweat of fear, not any more.

  The tank driver pointed to wooden boxes inside a funeral vault he’d just broken into. They weren’t coffins. Each had 1 Maschinengewehr 34 stenciled on its side in neat black-letter script, with the Nazi eagle-and-swastika emblem right next to the legend.

  Michaels stared at the machine-gun crates as if one of them held the Holy Grail. “He wasn’t lying,” he breathed. “Thank you, God.”

  “Omayn,” Morrie Harris agreed. “Now let’s find out how much truth he was telling.”

  The final haul, by the time the last oven was cracked the next day, astonished even Michaels and Harris. Michaels read from the list he’d been keeping: “Machine guns, submachine guns, mortars, rifles—including antitank rifles—ammo for all of them, grenades . . . Jesus, what a close call.”

  “I talked with one of the radio men,” Harris said. “He’s sent out a call for more trucks to haul all this stuff away.” He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, a gesture that had little to do with heat or humidity. “If they’d managed to smuggle all of this out of New Orleans, spread it around through the South . . . well, hell, I don’t have to draw you a picture.”

  “You sure don’t. We’d have been so busy down here, the Germans and the Japs would have had a field day over the rest of the world.” Michaels let out a heartfelt sigh of relief, then went on, “Next thing we’ve got to do is try and find out who was caching weapons. If we can do that, then maybe, just maybe, we can keep the Rebs leaderless for a generation or so and get ahead of the game.”

  “Maybe.” But Harris didn’t sound convinced. “We can’t afford to think in terms of a generation from now, anyhow. It’s what we were talking about when you first got into town: as long as we can hold the lid on the South till we’ve won the damn war, that’ll do the trick. If we catch the guys running guns with the Nazis, great. If we don’t, I don’t give a damn about them sneaking around painting YANKS OUT on every blank wall they find. We can deal with that. We’ve been dealing with it since 1865. As long as they don’t have the toys they need to really hurt us, we’ll get by.”

  “Yeah, that’s true—if no other subs drop off loads of goodies someplace else.” Michaels sighed again. “No rest for the weary. If that happens, we’ll just have to try and track ’em down.”

  A growing rumble of diesel engines made Morrie Harris grin. “Here come the trucks,” he said, and trotted out toward the ruined entryway to Girod Cemetery. Michaels followed him. Harris pointed. “Ah, good, they’re smart enough to have jeeps riding shotgun for ’em. We don’t want any trouble around here till we get the weapons away safe.”

  There were still a lot of people outside the cemetery walls. They booed and hissed the newly arrived vehicles, but didn’t try anything more than booing and hissing. They might hate the damnyankees—they did hate the damnyankees—but it was the damnyankees who had the firepower here. Close to eighty years of bitter experience had taught that they weren’t shy about using it, either.

  Captured German weapons and ammunition filled all the new trucks to overflowing. Some of the ones that had brought in troops also got loaded with lethal hardware. The displaced
soldiers either piled into jeeps or clambered up on top of tanks for the ride back to barracks, where the captured arms would be as safe as they could be anywhere in the endlessly rebellious South.

  Michaels and Harris had led the convoy to the cemetery; now they’d lead it away. When their jeep driver started up the engine, a few young Rebs bolder than the rest made as if to block the road.

  The corporal in charge of the pintle-mounted .50-caliber machine gun in the jeep turned to Michaels and asked, “Shall I mow ’em down, sir?” He sounded quiveringly eager to do just that.

  “We’ll give ’em one chance first,” Michaels said, feeling generous. He stood up in the jeep and shouted to the Johnnies obstructing his path: “You are interfering with the lawful business of the Federal Bureau of Suppression. Disperse at once or you will be shot. First, last, and only warning, people.” He sat back down, telling the driver, “Put it in gear, but go slow. If they don’t move—” He made hand-washing gestures.

  Sullenly, the young men gave way as the jeep moved forward. The gunner swung the muzzle of his weapon back and forth, back and forth, encouraging them to fall back farther. The expression on his face, which frightened even Michaels, might have been an even stronger persuader.

  The convoy rattled away from the cemetery. The Johnnies hooted and jeered, but did no more than that, not here, not now. Had they got Nazi guns in their hands . . . but they hadn’t.

  “We won this one,” Morrie Harris said.

  “We sure did,” Michaels agreed. “Now we can get on with the business of getting rid of tyrants around the world.” He spoke altogether without irony.

  Ready for the Fatherland

  We win. The Nazis win. Does that cover the waterfront for World War II? Not quite. There’s one other possibility—a military stalemate, followed by a peace of exhaustion. That’s the world of “Ready for the Fatherland.” This story was written before Yugoslavia self-destructed, but I take no great credit for prophecy—anyone who’d watched the Balkans a bit could see that that was in the cards. Much of the local color comes courtesy of my wife, who’s been to Rijeka.

  * * *

  19 February 1943—Zaporozhye, German-Occupied USSR

  Field Marshal Erich von Manstein looked up from the map table. Was that the distant rumble of Soviet artillery? No, he decided after a moment. The Russians were in Sinelnikovo today, yes, but Sinelnikovo was still fifty-five kilometers north of his headquarters. Of course, there were no German troops to speak of between there and here, but that would not matter—if he could make Hitler listen to him.

  Hitler, however, was not listening. He was talking. He always talked more than he listened—if he’d listened just once, Manstein thought, Sixth Army might have gotten out of Stalingrad, in which case the Russians would not be anywhere near Sinelnikovo. They’d come more than six hundred kilometers since November.

  “No, not one more step back!” Hitler shouted. The Führer had shouted that when the Russians broke through around Stalingrad, too. Couldn’t he remember from one month to the next what worked and what didn’t? Behind him, Generals Jodl and Keitel nodded like the brainless puppets they were.

  Manstein glanced over at Field Marshal von Kleist. Kleist was a real soldier, surely he would tell the Führer what had to be said. But Kleist just stood there. Against the Russians, he was fearless. Hitler, though, Hitler made him afraid.

  On my shoulders, Manstein thought. Why, ever since Stalingrad, has everything—everything save gratitude—landed on my shoulders? Had it not been for him, the whole German southern front in Russia would have come crashing down. Without false modesty, he knew that. Sometimes—not nearly often enough—Hitler glimpsed it, too.

  One more try at talking sense into the Führer, then. Manstein bent over the map, pointed. “We need to let the Soviets advance, sir. Soon, soon they will overextend themselves. Then we strike.”

  “No, damn it, damn you! Move on Kharkov now, I tell you!”

  SS Panzer Division Totenkopf, the force with which he wanted Kharkov recaptured, was stuck in the mud outside Poltava, a hundred fifty kilometers away. Manstein said as much. He’d been saying it, over and over, for the past forty-eight hours. Calmly, rationally, he tried once more: “I am sorry, my Führer, but we simply lack the resources to carry out the attack as you desire. A little more patience, a little more caution, and we may yet achieve satisfactory results. Move too soon and we run the risk of—“

  “I did not fly to this godforsaken Russian excuse for a factory town to listen to the whining of your cowardly Jewish heart, Field Marshal.” Hitler invested the proud title with withering scorn. “And from now on you will keep your gross, disgusting Jewish nose out of strategic planning and simply obey. Do you understand me?”

  Manstein’s right hand went to the organ Hitler had mentioned. It was indeed of impressive proportions and impressively hooked. But to bring it up, to insult it, in what should have been a serious council of war was—insane was the word Manstein found. As insane as most of the decisions Hitler had made, most of the orders he had given, ever since he’d taken all power into his own hands at the end of 1941, and especially since things began to go wrong at Stalingrad.

  Insane . . . Of itself, Manstein’s hand slid down from his nose to the holster that held his Walther P-38 pistol. Of itself, it unsnapped the holster flap. And of itself, it raised the pistol and fired three shots into Adolf Hitler’s chest. Wearing a look of horrified disbelief, the Führer crumpled to the floor.

  Generals Jodl and Keitel looked almost as appalled as Hitler had. So did Field Marshal von Kleist, but he recovered faster. He snatched out his own pistol, covered Hitler’s toadies.

  Manstein still felt as if he were moving in a dream, but even in a dream he was a General Staff–taught officer, trained to deduce what needed doing. “Excellent, Paul,” he said. “First we must dispose of the carrion there, then devise a story to account for it in suitably heroic style.”

  Kleist nodded. “Very good. And then—“

  “And then—” Manstein cocked his head. Yes, by God, he did hear Russian artillery. “This campaign has been botched beyond belief. Given the present state of affairs, I see no reasonable hope of our winning the war against the Russians. Do you agree?”

  Kleist nodded again.

  “Very good,” Manstein said. “In that case, let us make certain we do not lose it. . . .”

  27 July 1979—Rijeka, Independent State of Croatia

  The little fishing boat put-putted its way toward the harbor. The man who called himself Giorgio Ferrero already wore a black wool fisherman’s cap. He used his hand to shield his eyes further. Seen through the clear Adriatic air, the rugged Croatian coastline seemed almost unnaturally sharp, as if he were wearing a new pair of spectacles that were a little too strong.

  “Pretty country,” Ferrero said. He spoke Italian with the accent of Ancona.

  So did Pietro Bevacqua, to whom he’d addressed the remark: “That it is.” Bevacqua and Ferrero were both medium-sized, medium-dark men who would not have seemed out of place anywhere in the Mediterranean. Around a big pipe full of vile Italian tobacco, Bevacqua added, “No matter how pretty, though, me, I wish I were back home.” He took both hands off the boat’s wheel to show by gesture just how much he wished that.

  Ferrero chuckled. He went up to the bow. Bevacqua guided the boat to a pier. Ferrero sprang up onto the dock, rope in hand. He tied the boat fast. Before he could finish, a pair of Croatian customs men were heading his way.

  Their neatly creased khaki uniforms, high-crowned caps, gleaming jackboots, and businesslike assault rifles all bespoke their nation’s German alliance. The faces under those caps, long, lined, dark, with the deep-set eyes of icons, were older than anything Germany dreamed of. “Show me your papers,” one of them said.

  “Here you are, sir.” Ferrero’s Croatian was halting, accented, but understandable. He dug the documents out of the back pocket of his baggy wool pants.

  The customs man
studied them, passed them to his comrade. “You are from the Social Republic, eh?” the second man said. He grinned nastily. “Not from Sicily?”

  Ferrero crossed himself. “Mother of God, no!” he exclaimed in Italian. Sicily was a British puppet regime; admitting one came from there was as good as admitting one was a spy. One did not want to admit to spying, not in Croatia. The Ustashi had a reputation for savagery that even the Gestapo envied. Ferrero went on, in Croatian again, “From Ancona, like you see. Got a load of eels on ice to sell here, my partner and I.”

  “Ah.” Both customs men looked interested. The one with the nasty grin said, “Maybe our wives will buy some for pies, if they get to market.”

  “Take some now,” Ferrero urged. If he hadn’t urged it, the eels would not have got to market. He knew that. The pair of fifty-dinar notes folded in with his papers had disappeared now, too. The Croatian fascists were only cheap imitations of their German prototypes, who would have cost much more to bribe.

  Once they had the eels in a couple of sacks, the customs men gave only a cursory glance at Bevacqua’s papers (though they did not fail to pocket his pair of fifty-dinar notes, either) and at the rest of the ship’s cargo. They plied rubber stamps with vigor and then strode back down the dock, obviously well pleased with themselves.

  The fishermen followed them. The fish market was, sensibly, close to the wharves. Another uniformed official demanded papers before he let Ferrero and Bevacqua by. The sight of the customs men’s stamps impressed him enough that he didn’t even have to be paid off.