Alaska’s forests in search of game they could kill and eat. He thought their incessant and undisciplined firing was scaring off more potential food than they were going to kill.
In Bear’s opinion, the Japanese soldier was a major disappointment. From what he’d read in the news and heard from other people, they were supposed to be great at operating in the jungle, which meant they should be able to do well in Alaska’s forests. Since it was generally agreed that the average Jap was less than human, they should have had no problem moving like cats through rough terrain. Not the Japs he’d seen. They did not move through the forests with anywhere near that level of skill. Instead, they were downright clumsy and noisy, always talking and sometimes yelling to maintain contact with their comrades. Worse, their gear rattled. Not the thing to have happen while you are stalking big game that walked upright. He’d been told that their shooting wasn’t very accurate, though he was not going to take a chance. In his opinion the Japs would never make anything of high quality. He’d concluded that their ferocity in battle was what made them so damned dangerous, not their technology.
Colonel Gavin would be pleasantly surprised to find out that the Japs were in such bad shape physically. Bear wondered about their morale. They could be desperate, and desperate men could be very dangerous. Hell, even a cornered rabbit would bite. The Japs weren’t yet cornered, he thought, but if they were having trouble feeding themselves they could soon be as desperate as any cornered animal.
Gavin would also be surprised to find out that the enemy had managed to drive three Type 95 light tanks up the road toward Fairbanks. Where they’d gotten the fuel, he didn’t know. For that matter, he’d been told the Japs had no armor, that it had all been destroyed by the navy. These tanks must have been brought ashore with the first group, or maybe they got off the transports before they were sunk, or maybe retrieved after the ships were sunk. It didn’t matter. The only important thing was that three of the beasties were clanking toward Fairbanks. They were miserable-looking things, each had a small cannon, and they too rattled and sounded like they would fall apart if they hit a pothole in the road.
A Japanese officer was haranguing the men below him. He slapped them several times. The blows were hard enough to stagger the soldiers, but they just stood there and took it. Bear growled. Anybody do that to him and the guy would get his head stuffed up his ass along with that big sword the shit of an officer carried. It was no way to treat men, not even Japs. American officers wouldn’t dream of beating their men like that.
Bear sighed as he looked at the tableau below. Should he or shouldn’t he? What the hell, he decided. He held the Mauser to his shoulder and looked into the scope. The officer’s head was clear as a bell in the crosshairs. Normally, he’d aim for the chest, but it was obscured. He gently squeezed the trigger and, as hoped, the sound was largely muffled by the ground and the earth he’d piled around the barrel.
The officer’s head exploded and the dead man dropped like a rock. The soldiers around him ducked for cover. A couple of them returned fire, sort of, shooting in all directions. Enough fun, Bear thought as he got up and sprinted away. That was the third Jap he’d managed to kill on this patrol. He retrieved the small motorcycle that had carried him down the road and through the forest. Like his rifle, the bike’s engine was muffled. The Japs were only about seventy miles away from the American lines. It was time to talk to Gavin.
Dane and Harris looked through the one-way window at the little man in the chair. He was slight, bald, and had a pasty complexion. Not exactly an advertisement for a German superman, Dane thought. A dirty and badly scuffed briefcase lay by the German’s feet. It actually bore the emblem of the old Imperial Germany and not the swastika.
“Are we really going to make a deal with this guy?” Dane asked.
“Well now, that depends, doesn’t it? Frankly, I hope this little man does have something interesting to say. I got a telegram from J. Edgar telling me to get off my ass and get this sabotage thing solved, so I guess that gives me carte blanche to do whatever I have to.”
“You heard from Hoover himself?”
Harris chuckled. “And why the hell not? Seriously, he and I go back a long ways, even before there was an FBI for him to take over and shape into his image and likeness. You do recall that Hoover was head of the Bureau of Investigation before it became the FBI, don’t you?”
“Sort of,” Dane admitted.
“Well, I was one of his very bright young agents back when the Bureau was small. I helped him a lot and taught him a lot, and sometimes he’s a little bit grateful.”
“I bet you also know a lot, which is why he tolerates you.”
“Damn straight. He wants agents now who are straight-arrow and wear a suit well, not some rumpled old fart like me. But he tolerates me because of our shared history. Well, at least he does so far. I’m one major screw- up away from retirement, which is beginning to look more and more attractive. Now, you want to talk to this guy or to me?”
Dane said that Harris should lead the questioning. They walked into the interrogation room and took seats across from the German. The man seemed a little surprised to see a naval officer, but quickly recovered.
Harris took out a notebook. “Let’s get through the formalities. What’s your name and occupation?”
The man was in his late forties, early fifties, and clearly uncomfortable. “My name is Johann Klaas and I work for the German embassy in Mexico City, or at least I did until the Mexican government shut it down and put us in house arrest pending travel arrangements to get us safely back to Germany. My position would best be described as an accountant. I was in charge of the embassy’s money.”
Dane thought the man’s English was excellent, but then, the man was a diplomat of sorts. He did look very much like an accountant.
“What do you want from us?” Harris asked.
Klaas took a deep breath. “Asylum.”
Harris pretended to make a note in his book. “I understand you faked a heart attack just before embassy personnel were to be repatriated back to Germany. Is that correct?”
“Yes. During my time in Mexico City I made some friends and one was a physician who detested the Nazis for what they were doing to the Jews. He gave me some medicine that made me very ill and then confirmed that I was having a heart attack when I was sent to the hospital. As a result, they left for Germany without me with the understanding that I would follow if and when I was well enough to travel. Hopefully, that will be never.”
“Why do you wish to defect?” Dane asked, earning a quick glare from Harris, who clearly wished to control the conversation.
“I am not a Nazi. This may come as a shock to you but many, many Germans are not Nazis and are horrified at what is happening to our country. It is especially true in the diplomatic corps. Yes, we applauded when Hitler gave us back our dignity and pride, but we did not desire war and we did not want the slaughter of our enemies and the massacres that are happening to the Jews.”
Harris smiled wickedly. “I dare say there will be more of you denying you were Nazis when you lose the war.”
Klaas smiled. He had bad teeth. “Of course. However, I have two other reasons for wanting to leave Germany. First, my late wife and I had two children. One is a daughter safe in Brazil. The second is a son who was an officer in the German army, what you call the Wehrmacht. He was killed just before Christmas fighting the Russians. Actually, he wasn’t fighting when he was killed. One of his comrades wrote and told me he had frozen to death because the buffoons in Berlin hadn’t planned on a long war; therefore, there were no winter uniforms for the men.”
“So you want revenge on Hitler,” Harris said.
“In a way, yes, but more than that. I want to help destroy the barbarians who’ve stolen my beloved Germany. Before he died, my son wrote several letters in which he described in vivid detail the atrocities being committed in the name of Germany and Hitler. He told me of mass rapes of scores of women at a time, and how even reluctant soldiers were required to participate, actually given orders to assault innocent women by their officers, in particular the SS. He told of systematic looting, and the indiscriminate slaughter of thousands of civilians simply for being Slavs or Jews, again with reluctant soldiers being required to participate so that none could ever be blameless.”
Klaas shook his head sadly. “The army of my beloved Germany is behaving like the most savage of barbarians because the Nazis believe that the Slavs are less than human. The Jews, of course, are being treated far worse. There are even rumors that all Jews will be exterminated, if you could believe that.”
