Security solutions, p.25
Security Solutions, page 25
Blackwell raised his voice. “I thought you had something on those horse thieves, too, Georg. It’s too bad it didn’t pan out. We’ll have to try something else.”
Blackwell turned toward the row of typewriters. “Men, do any of you remember messages about a couple dozen horses being brought in from Swabia?”
“No, sir!” they chorused. One added, “I would remember, sir. It is not ordinary.”
“It is unusual,” Blackwell allowed. “Where is Private Müffling? I should ask him, too. Just to be thorough.”
Georg studied physical evidence, not people. Moreover, he was about as far from the military culture as it was possible for a young man to be in Grantville. But even he could tell the two radio operators had just gotten tense. Each was half-turned in his chair, and as close to a position of attention as it was possible to be in such an awkward posture.
“I am not going to rip his head off,” Blackwell promised. “I didn’t give you a return time. But I would appreciate it if he turned up soon. Sooner we close this out, sooner I can send Georg on his way.”
Georg had to hand it to Blackwell for his casual approach.
“We do not know where he went, Colonel Blackwell,” the clerk in the middle said. “We went to the mess hall . . . ”
Blackwell nodded. “Naturally. Carry on, men. If you see Müffling before I do, send him over to my office with anything he might remember about some horses from Swabia.”
“Yes, sir!”
Blackwell gestured toward the door and ushered Georg out. Once they were outside, and the door was shut, his demeanor changed completely.
“Soldier,” he ordered one of the sentries, “do you know where the officer of the day’s office is? Near the main gate?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Tell him I want Camp Saale locked down—but do it quietly and then come to my office. I want Sergeant Reinhart there, too.”
A couple hours later, Georg was led to another of the buildings erected as a barracks in the fall of 1633. Now it was offices and meeting rooms. Colonel Blackwell arrived a few minutes later, having taken a different route. A third man stepped into the room. He was short and stocky with a fair amount of gray hair.
He asked one question. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Colonel Blackwell answered. “One of the MPs at the gate remembers seeing Müffling. He had no reason to stop him. Soldiers go into Saalfeld for one thing or another all the time.”
“Start from the beginning, if you would, sir.”
“You know about the forged orders,” Blackwell began.
“Yes, sir.”
“Georg Meisner here saw something we should have seen right away. In the forged orders, the umlauts were written as colons after the vowel. He says he’s seen that before, at Grantville High. He thinks he has also seen Müffling’s fingerprints in an apartment in Grantville.
“Someone should be here with Müffling’s file in a few minutes,” Colonel Blackwell continued. “I want to see if we can list the dates when he could have been in Grantville.”
“Tell me about this apartment, bitte,” the third man requested.
“It was rented by Tobias Sprunck,” Georg began.
The man muttered something under his breath. Aloud, he said, “I am familiar with the case.”
“Sir, there were four spots on a table in the second bedroom, the one Sprunck had converted to a laboratory.” Then he remembered something Barbara Kellarmännin had said. “Or a trophy room.”
Both officers shrugged.
“Four small circles, arranged in a rectangle, spots with no dust on an otherwise dusty table.”
The third man muttered something again. “A typewriter. You think Sprunck wrote those orders himself and gave them to Müffling.”
“Ja, sir, I do.”
The other officer looked at Blackwell. “I think he’s right.”
Blackwell nodded. “If Georg is right—and I think he is—Saxony is going to want to do something when the war starts. Or maybe right before. When they move someone out of position, I need someone else ready and waiting.”
“I think I know just the unit,” the other man said.
Chapter 6: The Reussian Front
State of Thuringia-Franconia/Saxony Border
Wednesday, August 1, 1635
“Why are we here?” Stefan repeated.
Otto looked up from where he was slouched against a tree. “Metaphysically?”
He drew a round of laughter, and Neustatter reflected on how far they had come. Just three years ago, none of his men would have joked about metaphysics.
“Nein. Why are we on the Reussian front? For that matter, why is this even called the Reussian front? We are still in West Virginia County.”
“It is a pun on the Russian front in the up-time World War II,” Neustatter answered. “But to answer your question: umlauts.”
“Umlauts?”
“Ja, umlauts. Now we are out here, I can tell you what is in our sealed orders. Somebody’s been feeding false orders into the patrol system.”
Everyone but Neustatter reached for a weapon without waiting to hear more.
“The National Guard knew someone was moving patrols and brought in Georg Meisner. It’s why we changed directions once we were a couple miles away from Camp Saale.
“So that’s why we are here.” Neustatter smiled. “Operationally.”
State of Thuringia-Franconia/Saxony Border
Friday, August 3, 1635
“This is annoying,” Stefan complained. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Birkig is right over there.”
“It is?” Jakob asked.
“Birkig would offer us some soft beds,” Stefan continued.
“They might,” Neustatter agreed. “But we cannot have four of us here and four asleep in Birkig. So we will use our bedrolls and stand watch.”
“If Lukas were healed, we could have three teams,” Stefan went on. “Two here, one in Birkig.”
Neustatter just laughed. “We could, of course, bring the other half of NESS out here—except the eight of us being on Reserve duty is normal enough. All of NESS disappearing would be noteworthy.”
“Astrid has her hands full leading the train guard,” Hjalmar pointed out. “Plus training the new agents and handling all the new business we got during messe week. Somebody has to handle the missions for the paying clients.”
That produced a round of soft laughs.
“All right,” Neustatter said. “Four shifts, but I want a patrol out while Ditmar and Hjalmar are cooking dinner.”
“I will go,” Otto said.
“And me.” Jakob was very light on his feet in the woods.
Dinner was dried and salted meat, a small loaf of bread, and packets of peas and beans. Karl had already dug a firepit, piling a berm of dirt on the west side to cut down the chances of anyone seeing the flames. Each man dropped his rations off with the cooks. Ditmar fried the meat while Hjalmar cut each loaf in half and hollowed out the halves. The beans and peas went into the pan once the meat was already cooking. Then Ditmar dumped strips of meat and the vegetables into the bread bowls, and Hjalmar pressed the bread he’d hollowed out back into place.
“Just about ready,” Ditmar said, “although I’d wait for Stefan and Wolfram to return with full canteens. It is bound to be salty.”
“We should have Ursula figure out what to make with these rations,” Karl suggested. “Or Astrid.”
“Astrid’s solution would involve pasta and tomato sauce,” Hjalmar predicted.
“We have not had much tomato sauce,” Karl protested.
“No, we haven’t. Astrid and Georg Meisner have been going out for pizza or spaghetti just about every Sunday,” Hjalmar said.
“What have you two been taking your young ladies out for?” Neustatter asked.
“Good German food,” Ditmar answered.
Neustatter smiled. “Speaking of which . . . let’s eat this food and then let the campfire die down.”
* * *
Late in the second guard shift, Stefan had just flipped the quarter-hourglass when Ditmar’s hand slowly drifted up.
“I höre etwas.” He softly announced he heard something, not whispering but making sure to drop the CH and blending his S into a Z so the sound wouldn’t carry quite so well.
“Seven turns.” Stefan reported the time in the same manner.
The SoTF National Guard had given Neustatter a list of sunrise and sunset times for the local area for more days than their mission was scheduled to last. Ditmar figured they must have an astronomer from the University of Jena on the National Guard payroll. He also figured there was a certain amount of error, but the times ought to be accurate to within a few minutes. Those times had allowed Neustatter to set the night sentry duty shifts at two and a quarter hours, a greater level of precision than they’d had before. Sunset had been about 7:30 p.m., so seven turns on the second shift made it . . .
“Twenty-three thirty. Whatever it is, is getting closer.”
“Could be an animal,” Stefan pointed out.
“Or someone with orders to cross the border about midnight.”
Ditmar listened again, then reached out and shook Neustatter’s shoulder. Neustatter opened his eyes at once.
“Movement to the east. Maybe man, maybe animal,” Ditmar reported.
Neustatter nodded. He listened for a moment, then reached for his gun belt, shook Karl.
“We may have someone out there,” he murmured.
Karl nodded and reached out to tap Otto. Within a couple minutes, all eight of them were awake and armed.
“Rifles here. Pistols, come with me.”
Ditmar acknowledged with a slow nod. He had a .22 rifle, and Hjalmar, Karl, and Stefan had U.S. Waffenfabrik rifles. It made sense for them to get into defensive positions while Neustatter, Wolfram, Otto, and Jakob came in on the flank with their pistols.
Soon the noise he’d heard resolved itself into people moving through woods at night. Either this was a few people with no idea what they were doing, or it was a larger group with some skill. Since they had eight NESS agents present, Ditmar was hoping for the first alternative.
“Hold your fire.” Ditmar spoke quietly. “Wait to see what Neustatter does.”
“You know he is going to do something,” Stefan agreed.
* * *
Neustatter lay behind a couple trees, waiting for the swishing sounds to come closer. It reminded him of Flieden. He’d found a couple sticks about a foot long and almost an inch thick, as well as a rock about as big as his fist.
Definitely more than one person. Probably not just two or three, either. Neustatter glanced to his right, gauging whether they would need to pull back to avoid being walked into.
Then he saw the first man. He was just a dim shape, pushing low branches out of his way. The man did not appear to have a weapon in his hands. He moved slowly and seemed to have something slung on his back.
Neustatter thought he saw another figure, but he was screened by trees. The first figure continued to approach, not blundering so much as just doggedly pushing forward. Whoever this was, he wasn’t examining his surroundings much at all. Neustatter turned to his left and signaled Wolfram to stay in place. Wolfram nodded, turned, and passed it on.
Now Neustatter could distinguish the second figure, and he could tell there were more behind this one. He supposed single file might make sense in the dark—if the men were staying close together.
The first man was sort of looking around, but Neustatter saw no indication the man had seen him. He continued to swish through leaves and step on branches. He was not a woodsman, but far enough out ahead he might be attempting to scout for the others.
The next two were even less competent in the woods, Neustatter decided. They were slow and clumsy. Then he saw the third person was wearing a dress . . . skirt . . . whatever. Neustatter studied the two of them as they trudged past.
After a moment, two more shapes shuffled into view. Neustatter watched them through the trees. They weren’t on the same course as the others. This pair was veering north—away from Neustatter and NESS’ other pistoleers rather than behind them.
He waited. He would have had one more, a competent rear guard, someone who could move through the forest. Sure enough, a sixth shape flitted between the trees. Neustatter heard an occasional scuff, but this man seemed to be at least a competent woodsman. It was hard to tell in the dark, but he appeared to be carrying a weapon.
Neustatter had to act before the point man literally walked into Ditmar’s riflemen. He did not want the sixth man loose in the woods. As soon as the sixth man passed, Neustatter looked to his right—east—and decided this was the last one. Then he looked left and signaled Wolfram, who passed it on.
Neustatter was already up and moving. He closed in on the rear guard. When the man started to turn, Neustatter whipped one of the sticks off to the right. The man turned in that direction. Neustatter charged.
The rear guard whirled around. His arm came up. Neustatter dove. He heard the crack of the rifle as he rolled. Then he was back up and running.
The man reversed the rifle, preparing to club him with it.
Neustatter threw the rock at his head.
The man was good. He got mostly out of the way. He was, however, off-balance when Neustatter charged the last few yards and tackled him.
The man went down flat on his back. Neustatter fell on top of him. The man kept his grip on the clubbed rifle and drew his arm back to strike. Wolfram bellyflopped on him and pinned the rifle in place.
“Roll him.” Neustatter was going to—
“Lauf! Lauf!” The man started shouting as soon as Wolfram rolled off him.
Neustatter punched him in the mouth. “Wolfram, hang on to him! I’ll be back!”
He could already hear the rest of the party running. In all directions, no doubt. Neustatter picked the sounds moving away from his pistoleers. He heard a man’s voice tell someone to keep running.
Sure enough, he soon found one of the men standing his ground, fists balled up. Neustatter squared off. One of the few features of up-time movies he disagreed with was the hero’s need to engage in an unarmed fight with the bad guy when he had a perfectly good weapon. No, in his mind one of the greatest scenes was Indiana Jones shooting the swordsman. But there was something about this group . . .
Neustatter snapped a quick sidekick, right shin catching the man’s left leg below the hip. The man shifted away. Neustatter sidekicked him again. He didn’t quite succeed in deadlegging him. But the man shifted all his weight to his right leg.
Neustatter took three quick steps, grabbing his right shoulder as he stepped past him. He brought his right leg back sharply and took the other man’s leg out from under him. The man fell hard.
Neustatter continued on in search of the other person he heard thrashing through the trees further north. He ran with his left arm up, shielding his face from low-hanging branches, right arm pointing his pistol down and away. It took a few minutes before he spotted a caped figure.
“Stopp!” he shouted. “Stopp!”
The figure kept going. Neustatter paced him. If he ran any faster, he risked running into a tree before he could spot it in the dark.
Somewhere up ahead, a sudden yelp told them it had just happened to his quarry. Neustatter ran up and saw it wasn’t a cape. It was a dress. The woman scrambled to her feet. He caught her by the arm. She whirled around, flailing with her other hand.
Neustatter brought the .45 down sharply across her wrist. “Stop it! Come with me. I am taking you back to the other five.”
The woman refused to move.
“I am not going to hurt you. But if you do not cooperate, I will throw you over my shoulder and carry you back.”
The woman looked terrified but complied.
It took longer than Neustatter expected to find their way back. He heard the others before he saw them.
“Martin!”
Neustatter called “Katie!” and quickened his pace. When he reached the others, he asked, “Ditmar, why are you shouting?”
“We have a problem.”
Neustatter counted. “I brought one. Wolfram has the rear guard. The rest of you have the other four.”
“That is not the problem.”
Neustatter handed the woman off to Hjalmar, then he and Ditmar stepped aside.
Ditmar spoke quickly. “They are terrified.”
“I noticed.”
“Four men, two women. No field craft I saw.”
“Last man has experience,” Neustatter said. “A soldier, I think. Took his shot and then clubbed his rifle.”
“Who are they? Why are they in the forest at night?”
“On the route supposed to be open to anyone coming from Saxony,” Neustatter pointed out. “If this were a movie, they would be a team of spies.”
“They could . . . ” Ditmar trailed off. “Ja, maybe. Why now?”
“Don’t know yet.” Neustatter shucked off his pack, opened it, and pulled something out. Standing with his back to the prisoners, he spoke into the walkie-talkie.
“Mary, Hans.”
“Hans, Mary.”
“Mary, we found your mittens but you need a heavier coat. Over.”
“I will bring you a coat. Just a minute. Over.”
“Hans out.”
“What was that all about?” Ditmar asked.
“Colonel Stieff set up some plans, depending on what we ran into. More National Guard will be here in an hour.”
“What are we going to do until then?”
“Post two guards closer to the border. Otto and Jakob. Separate the prisoners into pairs. You and Stefan take the point man and rear guard. Hjalmar and Karl take the two men who were in the middle.”
“You and Wolfram guard the women? You usually take the hard assignment, Neustatter.”
“I think I might be. Did you notice both women are blonde?”
Ditmar muttered something vicious under his breath.
