Sleeper Agent (38 page)

He was dead.

The German Sleeper would not hesitate another heartbeat before he fired.

He wondered why the man had found it necessary to call out to him. Did he want him to know he was about to die? Was it that important for him to . . . to gloat? The trait of a true Nazi?

In a rush he was suddenly flooded with the meaning of
death.
Never again to fill his lungs with crisp air on a forest walk, never to feel the cool surf breaking over his body, never to listen to the Moonlight Sonata, never to fall exhausted into bed, never to read a good book, watch a fine movie, never to enjoy a juicy steak heaped with smothered onions, never to laugh or hear laughter, never to cry, to weep, never to shake the hand of a friend, never to pet a dog, never to sit quietly and think, never to know sorrow or joy, pleasure or pain, never to hold a woman, to love—

Tove.

He felt infinite sadness. Not to live . . .

With the ultimate speed only thought can achieve, it all raced through his mind before he acted. He knew he had only a dismally small chance. He knew he could not possibly whisk his own unwieldy relic of a gun halfway into position before the slugs from the Sleeper’s gun would tear into him.

He did not try. He let the gun fall from his hand—and in the same instant he hurled himself down on the beams. The sudden motion slightly shifted the steel girders, one grating against the other with a metallic screech.

Rudi’s finger was already tightening on the trigger when the screeching sound struck his ears. It penetrated to the very essence of his being—
the hideous scream of a mangled beast shrieking from hell.
For a split instant his finger froze on the trigger. It was enough.

Tom had gripped the beam with both his arms and was dangling beneath it He swung toward the wall. He planted both his feet against the massive stones and kicked with all his power. He felt the beam jar violently, and dimly felt the piercing pain of the sharp metal edge biting into his arms.

He heard the shot explode in the black stillness and felt the bullet sear across his left forearm. He heard a dull thud. And silence.

He tried to pull himself back up on the beam. He did not have the strength. The pain in his left arm was a knife of fire. He looked down into the black void trying to make out what was below him. It was too dark. He let go. He plunged down into the shadowy pit Consciously he relaxed his entire body. Jarringly he struck a pile of broken bricks and other rubble. The sharp and jagged corners bit into his knees and arms.

He rolled away from his point of impact and crouched tensely in the darkness, deliberately ignoring the throbbing, burning pain in his arm.

Rudi was there. Rudi was with him. In the black basement pit. He waited. Listening. Nothing. . . .

Gradually his eyes made the final adjustment to the deeper gloom in the cellar depth. Any instant he expected to see the red muzzle flash of a gun and feel the slug slam into him.

Nothing. . . .

Slowly he stood up. And he saw his enemy. Rudi A-27. A contorted form sprawled against a bizarre jumble of steel. Motionless.

Slowly, cautiously he worked his way closer. He stopped, eyes wide with shock.

Rudi had fallen on a spiked steel fragment. It had entered his back, impaling him as on a spit. The sharp, moist steel point protruded through his guts, glistening red.

For a moment Tom stared at the mangled apparition that was Rudi A-27. His mind sought escape from the sickening sight, hiding from the horror in ironic thought The ruins. The concert hall, created by the Danish people for beauty, pleasure and enjoyment, had been turned by the vengeful Nazi terrorists into an instrument of execution for one of their own.

He stared at the Sleeper Agent, the twisted nightmare shapes of destruction looming over him like ghoulish guards of steel. Guarding death.

He felt a sudden chill. Not so. Rudi was not dead.

He was watching his
Ami
enemy with burning eyes, black holes of unspeakable agony. Rudi had trouble focusing his eyes. He seemed to exist, unable to move, in a sea of livid red pain washing over him in torturous waves. He knew he was dying. He looked uncomprehendingly at the crimson-tipped steel spit protruding from his stomach. He had failed.

His eyes roamed the dark, distorted ruins around him. For a moment he thought he saw a gray cat sitting in the shadows, its tail curled around its paws. Waiting. Patiently.

He was aware of a figure beside him. The
Ami.
He stared up into the face of his enemy. His mouth worked. “Kill . . . me,” he whispered, his face a taut mask of pain.

Tom’s mind whirled in abysmal darkness. He could not kill the German Sleeper. He knew he would find the final list of Sleeper Agents destined for the States given Rudi by his Gestapo contact. He knew the network would be destroyed. He also knew that Rudi had to live. Sooner or later he would give up everything he knew.

“Rudi,” he said quietly. “What is KOKON?” He stared into the young German’s eyes. It was like plunging down into hell itself.

Slowly, fitfully, a mocking smile stretched the Sleeper’s pallid lips.

Suddenly Tom grew aware of movement among the twisted beams above on the rim of the cellar pit He saw a figure appear. Another. And another. Silently, ominously, converging on the edge. He saw someone hurriedly climbing down into the hole.

Tove. The Freedom Fighters had arrived. Tove ran to him.

For a moment they stood close to each other, no words spoken. He felt a small soft hand steal into his. He knew he would want to keep it there forever.

Rudi was drifting on his sea of agony. He suddenly became conscious of a leaden weight pulling at him, weighting down his right arm hanging limply at his side, dipping into the blackness below him.

Abruptly, with startling lucidity, he knew what it was. His gun! Miraculously, as if each separate muscle in his body had been individually trained to perform its own specific duty and had obeyed, he had held on to his gun, even through his fatal plunge into the pit.
His . . . gun.

He watched the two shadowy figures before him swimming indistinctly in the gloom. With superhuman spasmodic effort he moved. He brought up the hand clutching the gun.

Closer . . . closer . . .

Suddenly a flashlight blazed to life from the rim of the black hole. It quickly found and speared the German Sleeper Agent with a beam of light. At once another joined, and another, imprisoning Rudi in the center of a web of light.

Quickly Tom turned. Mesmerized, he saw Rudi bring up his gun.

Suddenly the Sleeper barked a short, coughing laugh. His gun was at his ashen face. Lovingly he placed his bloodless lips around the blue-black muzzle. His blazing, mocking eyes never left Tom.

KOKON . .
.
would . . .die.

He pulled the trigger.

POSTSCRIPT

The Sleeper Agent project is fact. Sleeper Agents went into operation in the United States prior to and during World War II, planted here long before by both Japan and Germany.

There
were
—and
are
—more than one far-flung escape organization in existence to aid high-ranking Nazis and war criminals. During the latter part of the war, Sleeper Agents were trained in Nazi espionage schools such as Schloss Ehrenstein, and many hundreds of them were graduated.

Where are they today?

Who are they?

And to whom do they owe their allegiance?

ESCAPE ROUTES

Of the escape route organizations that successfully assisted thousands of high-ranking Nazis, war criminals and Sleeper Agents in exfiltrating Germany and finding concealment and refuge abroad, the best known are the following three:
Die Schleuse
(The Sluice),
Die Spinne
(The Spider), and
ODESSA.

These organizations, which all had their beginnings during the last months of the war, were aided through the years by numerous other societies and agencies that sprang into being throughout Germany and the rest of the world, organizations such as General von Manteuffel’s
Brüderschaft
(Brotherhood);
HIAG
—
Hilfe und Interessenge-meinschaft der Ehemalige Angehörigen der Waffen SS
(Aid and Mutual Interest Society of Ex-Waffen SS Members);
Der Rudel Klub,
originally founded by the Nazi ace Hans Ulrich Rudel in Argentina;
Stille Hilfe
(Silent Aid);
Die Vatikanische Hilfslinie
(The Vatican Aid Line, also known as The Monastery Route);
Der Salzburger Zirkel
(The Salzburg Circle);
HINAC
in Holland;
St. Martin Fonds
in Belgium;
Dansk Frontkämpfer Forbundet
in Denmark;
Kameradschaf IV
in Austria;
Hjelporganisasjonen for Krigskadede
in Norway; and many others.

All the secret escape routes operated along similar lines. With organizational headquarters in a major German town and branch offices located wherever needed, they were financed by the numerous hidden Nazi accounts and funds, as well as large caches of money and looted valuables within Germany itself or secretly transferred to neutral foreign countries well in advance of the contemplated escape operations.

The organizations set up a series of “stops” every thirty or forty miles along the escape route—
Anlaufstellen
—staffed by one or two loyal members who knew only the next point on the route. They provided the members “traveling” the escape route with money, transportation, safety and new identification papers made out in false names.

Die Schleuse
(The Sluice or Lock-Gate) was one of the first major escape routes to be organized. Already in the fall of 1944, selected high Nazi officials received their false papers—passport, identity
Kennkarte,
birth certificate, marriage license, and work permit—prepared by the special bureau of the Gestapo set up for the purpose, or by such operations as
Aktion Birkenbaum
(Operation Birch Tree), which was created to manufacture such false documents for use by the future escape route travelers.

The main routes of
Die Schleuse
were the Northern Route: Hamburg, Kiel, Schleswig, Flensburg into Denmark, and on to the Americas; and the Southern Route: Austria to Italy and Spain as the gateways to the Middle East and South America.

Die Spinne
(The Spider), the organization that planned to cover Europe like a giant spider’s web, was at war’s end undoubtedly the main secret underground escape route, its network spanning Germany, Austria and Italy.

Known in Spain as
La Arafia
and in France as
L’Araignée,
the organization for a while was headed by General Paul Hausser, a co-founder of the Waffen SS. With headquarters in Augsburg or Stuttgart,
Die Spinne
operated the successful
B-B Achse
(B-B Axis), a north-south route using the B’s from Bremen in northern Germany and Bari on the southern tip of Italy in its code name identification.

Apparently discontinued shortly after the war, it formed the foundation for the largest and most efficient of the escape networks,
ODESSA.

ODESSA
—
Organisation der Ehemalige SS Angehörigen
(Organization of Ex-SS Members) had, and possibly still has, its headquarters—
Verteilungskopf
(Allocation Center)—in Munich, after being controlled from Augsburg and Stuttgart in its earlier period of operation, with branches all over Germany and Austria as well as in South America.

ODESSA
operated two main southern routes—from Bremen to Rome, and from Bremen to Genoa—and a northern route through the Flensburg escape hatch into Denmark.

One of the most notorious travelers along the
ODESSA
escape route was Adolf Eichmann.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The following books and publications in English are among those that, together with the author’s own observations, investigations and documentation, have furnished authentication and facts for
Sleeper Agent.

Allen, Robert S.
Lucky Forward: The History of General George Patton’s Third U.S. Army.
New York: Vanguard.

Bar-Zohar, Michael.
The Avengers.
London: Arthur Barker Ltd.

Bezymenski, Lev.
The Death of Adolf Hitler.
New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.

Brassard, Chandler.
The Insane World of Adolf Hitler.
New York: Fawcett.

Carlson, John Roy.
Under Cover.
New York: E. P. Dutton.

Cookridge, E. H.
Gehlen, Spy of the Century.
New York: Random House.

Delarue, Jacques.
The Gestapo.
London: Macdonald.

Dollinger, Hans.
The Decline and Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
New York: Bonanza Books.

Dulles, Allen W., ed.
Great True Spy Stories.
New York: Harper & Row.

Dyer, Georges.
XII Corps, Spearhead of Patton’s Third Army.
XII Corps History Association.

Eisenhower, Dwight D.
Crusade in Europe.
New York: Doubleday.

Farago, Ladislas.
Burn After Reading.
New York: Pinnacle Books.

_____.
The Game of Foxes.
New York: David McKay.

Flender, Harold.
Rescue in Denmark.
New York: Simon & Schuster.

Gehlen, Reinhard.
The Service.
New York: Popular Library.

318

Goldston, Robert.
The Life and Death of Nazi Germany.
Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett

Harbottle, Thomas B.
Dictionary of Battles.
Briarcliff Manor: Stein & Day.

Hymoff, Edward.
The OSS in World War II.
New York:

Ballantine Books.

Koch, H. W.
Hitler Youth: The Duped Generation.
New

York: Ballantine Books.

Lampe, David.
The Danish Resistance.
New York: Ballantine Books.

Laager, Walter C.
The Mind of Adolf Hitler.
New York:

Basic Books.

Leckie, Robert.
The Story of World War II.
New York: Random House.

Lenton, H. T.
German Submarines.
New York: Doubleday.

Manvell, Roger.
The Gestapo.
New York: Ballantine

Books.

_____,and Fraenkel, Heinrich.
Himmler.
New York: G. P. Putnam.

Mentze, Ernst.
Five Years: The Occupation of Denmark in Pictures.
Malmö: A. B. Allhem.

Military Intelligence Services.
Order of Battle of the German Army.
Restricted.

The Military Service Publishing Company.
The Officer’s Guide.

National Archives, Records, U.S. Army Historical Division.

Neumann, Robert
The Pictorial History of the Third Reich.
New York: Bantam;

Payne, Robert.
The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler.
New York: Praeger.

Pia, Jack.
Nazi Regalia.
New York: Ballantine Books.

_____.
SS Regalia.
New York: Ballantine Books.

Roussel, Aage.
The Museum of the Danish Resistance Movement.
Copenhagen: The National Museum.

Ryan, Cornelius.
The Last Battle.
New York: Simon & Schuster.

Schellenberg, Walter.
Hitler’s Secret Service.
New York: Pyramid Books.

Shirer, William L.
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
New York: Simon & Schuster.

Smith, Harris.
OSS.
London: UCLA.

319

Speer, Albert
Inside the Third Reich.
New York: Macmillan.

Stevenson, William.
The Bormann Brotherhood.
New York: Bantam.

Sulzberger, C. L.
Picture History of World War II.
New York: American Heritage.

Toland, John.
The Last 100 Days.
New York: Random House.

Trevor-Roper, H. R.
The Last Days of Hitler.
New York: Macmillan.

Tully, Andrew.
Berlin: Story of a Battle.
New York: Simon & Schuster.

U.S. War Department.
The German Campaign in Poland, September 1 to October 5, 1939.

Whiting, Charles.
Gehlen: Germany’s Master Spy.
New York: Ballantine Books.

_____.
The Hunt for Martin Bormann.
New York: Ballantine Books.

Wiesenthal, Simon.
The Murderers Among Us.
New York: McGraw-Hill.

Wighton C, with Guenther Peis.
Hitler’s Spies and Saboteurs. New York: Universal-Award House.