assistance of his staff of ten men.
The large man suddenly stopped and knelt low to the sandy ground. The natural cover was something he wasn’t comfortable with as he watched the barren area to his front. His backup had not arrived as scheduled and that made him apprehensive.
He heard a noise behind him as a small bush hit the trunk of a tree. There was no wind to make it do so. He immediately turned and pointed both Colt. 45s at the dark silhouette in front of him.
“Don’t shoot me, Garrison,” said the female voice from the darkness.
“Damn it, Isabel! What are you doing? Get the hell out of here!” Lee hissed.
The woman he had known for two years, Isabel Perione, the very best OSS informant they had in the region, came forward cautiously. To Colonel Garrison Lee, she looked out of place in pants and shirt. Her usual attire was evening wear smuggled out of Paris by the OSS and used as payment to the Argentine spy.
“I am sorry, Garrison. I had to come. Two of your men were taken right from the Club Dubois in the city.”
“What do you mean by taken?” Lee asked as he watched Isabel’s eyes in the soft moonlight.
“All I know is that your men were removed from the club and taken away. I know they were supposed to meet you here.”
“Haney and Rafferty are too damn good to get snatched from a public place,” Lee said. His eyes never left the woman, nor did the guns he held waver.
“Nonetheless, Colonel, your men will not be here for you.”
Lee was about to respond when he heard voices. He realized whoever they were, they were speaking a heavily accented form of the castellano Spanish of the Argentine region.
He risked moving two small branches of the bush they were hidden behind, using the barrel of one of his Colts, all the while keeping the other automatic pointed in the general direction of his informant. He knew beyond a doubt that the best thing to do would be to back away right then, call the operation a bust, and return to Buenos Aires to learn about the situation from his only two-man team in the region. However, he needed to see who he was dealing with.
Lee counted six men. They were only ten yards away. Four of them were Argentines; the other two men were dressed in dark clothing and woolen hats, the sort used by men just coming in from the sea. The smaller of the two was holding a satchel and the taller, a very lethal-looking submachine gun. Automatic weapons weren’t the norm for anyone sneaking into Argentina. Lee looked at his. 45 and shook his head, then half turned toward Isabel.
“We have to let this one go, doll face. I’d say the better part of valor tonight is-”
He heard the click of a hammer being drawn back and felt a gun being placed to his head.
“I would hate to put a bullet hole into what I know is your favorite hat, Mr. Lee. So if you would, please release the hammers of both of your Colts as gently as possible. I am not the only one with a weapon on you.”
“I must say,” Lee said, as he did what was ordered, “you were good, Isabel.” He finally turned and saw the Argentine woman with the pretty face and perfect body holding the gun, now pointed at his nose. The more menacing view came from another man he hadn’t counted in the small circle of men to his front. He was also carrying a submachine gun. Garrison added his and Isabel’s number value to the equation-nine altogether. “Have you been accepting dresses from another man?” Lee asked as he slowly stood to his full height.
The woman smiled, showing her perfect white teeth as she backed away from the most dangerous man she had ever known.
“Yes, many dresses, and a small monetary amount to tide me over after the war.”
The man with the submachine gun gestured for Lee to raise his hands.
The American did as he was told, feeling sick at being caught so easily. As he stood, the. 45s were taken from him by Isabel, who watched for any sudden movement. The man with the heavy artillery called out in horrible Spanish and the six men stopped and turned as he was pushed out of the small grove of trees with his hands in the air.
“We have caught the Oso of an American who has been preying on your agents,” Isabel said from behind him. He had to smile when he heard the nickname the Argentines had bestowed on him-Oso, Bear. He figured that compared to the short sons of bitches around him, he was a bear-sized American. Well, there was one German that was as big as he was, the one next to the small man with the satchel.
The Satchel Kraut, as Lee now thought of him, approached and looked him over. He turned to his colleague and muttered in German, “The OSS is getting more brazen every day. And attempting to take us right from the beach? Such treatment by a colleague.” He laughed.
“Kill him and be done with it. We have to be in Quito for the second part of the operation in two days time. We have no time for this.”
Their final destination: Quito, the capital of Ecuador.
The smaller German turned to face the American and tilted his head. His glasses and black leather jacket shone in the moonlight. He smiled as he removed the wool hat.
“Before you are disposed of, may I say that you have quite an admirer in Herr Himmler, Colonel Lee?”
The American reached up and tilted back his brown fedora, making the other six men, along with Isabel, flinch. The smaller Argentines brought up their only weapons-four large machetes. All of their uneasiness at his supposed killing prowess brought a smile to the American’s lips.
“Anyway, I wanted to inform you of that fact, Mr. Garrison Lee,” the small German said with a grin. “Before you are shot.”
“That’s Colonel Lee to you, Fritz.”
“You fools, stop your playing. This man is a killer,” Isabel said. “I know. I’ve watched him do it.”
The American’s smile was infuriating to the large German who stood behind the man he was there to protect, the smaller Kraut with the satchel. “According to our reports in Berlin, you were quite a thorn in our operations here in South America, Colonel Lee. It will be a feather in our caps, so to speak, to have been the ones to eliminate such a man who has caused our organization such hardship.”
“Organization? You’re being far too kind to yourselves. You must mean the SS, or what we in the states call Murder Incorporated.”
“Witty, Colonel Lee-I hope that wit will be available to you in the moment of your death,” the small man said. He turned away and whispered something to the larger German and then turned to face the woman. “As for you my dear, we are not in the habit of rewarding spies who assist in the killing of our agents.”
The large SS man finally smiled. He brought up his submachine gun and shot three rounds into Isabel’s head and chest. She fell backward and Lee caught her before she hit the ground. As he did so, his plan was formed.
Without a second’s hesitation, Lee spun Isabel’s lifeless body and tossed her into the third German. He dove for the sandy ground, grabbing for the small. 32 caliber pistol that Isabel had dropped at the moment of her death. He shot before striking the ground, hitting the German in the chest. He twisted to his backside and fired another shot, hitting the nearest of the Argentine guides, dropping him and the machete he was holding.
The small German grabbed two of the Argentine guides by the arms and started running. The larger man knew his orders, but they were shouted out anyway as the man with the satchel made his way through the beach scrub.
“Kill him!”
Lee rolled as the submachine gun opened up. One bullet struck his calf as his own bullets hit another of the Argentine men. Lee grabbed the man’s body and used it as a shield, bullets stitching the dead man’s back. Lee was momentarily stunned when the corpse reared its head as one of the heavy caliber rounds struck its face. The head hit Lee’s nose painfully, bringing a flood of tears across his vision. He fired blindly with the dead man still against his chest. One of the small bullets hit the last Argentine in the right eye, flinging him backward. Lee rolled again, knowing the last man standing, the German with the machine gun, was aiming right at him. Just as he expected several bullets to slam into him, he heard the loud click. The SS man’s weapon had jammed on him. Lee suddenly found the strength to stand. Then he realized that somewhere along the roller-coaster ride of his derring-do he had lost the small. 32. He looked at the German, who was trying desperately to clear his machine gun.
“Jamming right when you don’t need it to is a common failure of that particular weapon type, isn’t it, Fritzy?” Lee swiped at his eyes and then charged the large man just as he tossed his weapon away, grinning as he too leaned forward and charged Lee.
