HEROES by DAVID HAGBERG
The rubber raft, with four men all dressed in black, their faces corked, materialized from the darkness, and Schey helped pull the boat up on the beach. All four of the men jumped ashore.
“Heil Hitler,” one of the men said, raising his right arm in salute.
Schey returned it, a sudden surge of pride coming over him. It had been a long time since he had been among friends and had been able-to use that greeting. Schey pulled the tightly wrapped package from his pocket. “This “is Very important, Lieutenant.” C .. - ‘*.
“You don’t have to tell me, sir. We came all the way across the Atlantic to pick; it: up.”
The three crewmen had wandered up the beach. When they returned home, they’d be able to brag to their friends that they had actually invaded the U.S. Suddenly, Schey saw the crewmen racing back, waving their hands frantically.
“There’s someone up there,” one of the crewmen gasped.
“Probably the coastal watcher,” Schey said. “Get the hell out of here; I’ll take care of this.”
Look for this other TOR book by David Hagberg HEARTLAND
ATOM DOHERTYASSOCIATES BOOK
THIS BOOK IS FOR LAURIE
HEROES
Copyright Š 1985 by David Hagberg
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
First printing: January 1985 A TOR Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, 8-10 West 36 Street, New York, N.Y. 10018
ISBN: 0-812-50409-7
CAN. ED.: 0-812-50410-0
Printed in the United States of America
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This is a work of fiction, based in part on fact. I must give thanks to the historians for their work: to Heinz Hohne for his perceptive book, Canaris, Doubleday; to Joseph E. Persico for Piercing the Reich, Viking; to David Kahn for Hitler’s Spies, Macmillan; to Lynn Montross for War Through the Ages, Third Edition, Harper & Row; and no novel encompassing any portion of the war in Germany would be possible without reference to William L. Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Simon and Schuster.
—David Hagberg July, 1984
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
—The United States Pledge of Allegiance
(1944)
I swear to Thee, Adolph Hitler, As Fvihrer and Chancellor of the German Reich, Loyalty and bravery. I vow to Thee and to the superiors Whom Thou shall appoint Obedience unto death, So help me God.
—Nazi SS Oath to the Fiihrer
HEROES
Look, we had our heroes in Nam, too; so don’t ride off on your high horse. There was the kid from South Dakota Terry, I think his name was who later went to work for the Associated Press in Sioux Falls.
Hell, he held back or something to take a piss, I guess when out of the corner of his eye he saw the little slope coming out of the hill.
Terry spun around, scared shitless, pulled out his .45 and blew the mother away. Let me tell you, when his pals all ran back to find out what the hell was happening, they found Terry puking his guts out. He was just a green kid, but he did his job.
Saved the entire platoon.
The story was familiar to the older man, who at forty wasn’t really much older, actually, and he raised his beer in salute and took a deep drink. He was remembering, just like the kid was.
Only he was going back further, when he was really just a snot-nosed kid from Wisconsin. Frightened. Unsure of himself, the way all kids are. But back then people were certainly not as I naive as the young buck seated across from him seemed to think
everyone was. Hell, there were Benny Goodman, Ike (forget about Truman for the time being), the New York Times, and Edward R. Murrow. What’d they have nowadays: Dan Rather, Miller Lite, and Star Wars?
The younger man brushed his long hair back. He didn’t look so good. Probably the dope he was smoking.
Major Fisher. Now there was a bonafide hero. Even got the Medal for what he did up in the Ashau Valley. Fuckin’ A. Four thousand VC against four hundred fifty Special Forces. They \ were steamrolling us, when Fisher and his Air Force pals came * to the rescue in their Ale’s. Meyers went down and Fisher just went in after him. Screw the VC and their machine guns and mortars; screw the whole bunch of them. Fisher was goin’ after his buddy. He pulled it off.
The bar was a sleazy joint, and they had to shout to hear each other over the noise of the jukebox. Normally, the older man wouldn’t have bothered, but at this juncture in his life, for some reason even he could not define, it was important for him to make the younger man understand. —How about the Viet Cong themselves?
—Those motherfuckers? What about ‘em?
—How about their heroes?
The younger man looked across the table at the other, incredulously, as if he had just committed a sacrilege. —Man … oh, Jesus … man, you just don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
—Heroes.
—Fuckin A—heroes, not slopes! The little bastards didn’t know what the fuck they was doing half the time. They had their sack of rice, some dried fish, and a little wine, and they was set.
Shit.
The older man was thinking back again to the stories he had been told, and the younger one reached across the table and punched his arm.
—Come on now, don’t go space-city on me. I didn’t mean nothing. I just like hearing about the old days, that’s all, and you know what you’re talking about most of the time. Makes me think of the way Nam could have been.
Heroes, the older man thought to himself. The kid had absolutely no conception of what it was all about. Oh, he had been doing a lot of talking about heroes—genuine heroes, all right— but he was just like a bird, like a parrot or something, just mouthing words that meant nothing.
Christ, but it made the older man mad. Yet
