The Haigerloch Project

Major Wallace, Stanley H. Wallace — H for Homer after his paternal grandfather — CO of Counter Intelligence Corps Detachment 212, calmly studied the young officer standing stiffly at the grimy-paned window in his office. He knew him Well. Knew he always bitched like hell before taking on an assignment not of his own choosing. But he always did take it on, and lit into it with imagination and guts. It would be no different now.

Major Wallace turned to a large area map on the wall behind him.

“It's thirty-two miles from Bitburg to Mayen,” he said.

“And thirty of them held by the Krauts!” the young officer flared and turned away from the map deliberately to stare out the window into the gray, dismal morning.

Below lay the little town of Fels, virtually untouched by the war. The bustling military traffic flowing around the Corps HQ buildings seemed totally out of place — like close-order drill in a convent.

The Forward Echelon of XII Corps had moved to the county- seat town of Fels — or Larochette, depending on your ethnic preference — on February 23, a short week before, and set up shop in a drab three-story hotel, a textbook firetrap with narrow corridors and steep, winding stairs. All the rooms were small with depressingly low ceilings, the CIC office on the third floor most certainly no exception. The town was nestled in a heavily wooded and hilly section at the edge of the High Eifel in Luxembourg, hard on the German border, a resort area often called Little Switzerland.

For a brief moment Lieutenant Martin Kieffer, counter-intelligence agent, CIC Det. 212, stared at the scene before him. The forest-clad hills ringed the little town. From among the dark evergreens the twisted, naked branches of leafless trees reached upward toward the leaden sky — skeletons of winter waiting to be fleshed out with new spring growth.

It would be the last one, he thought — the last Corps CP before entering enemy territory.

He turned to Major Wallace.

“You know what they'll do to me if they nab me, don't you? I'm Jewish.”

Wallace nodded. “Half Jewish. Your mother was Catholic.”

“Dammit, Stan, I'm circumcised.”

“Big deal. So am I. And I'm Presbyterian.” The major rose. He walked up to Kieffer. “Look, Martin,” he said quietly, “I know it's a helluva thing to ask. And nobody's ordering you to do it.”

Kieffer felt a wave of frustrated anger surge through him. That was the worst part of it. It would be his choice. He couldn't hide behind an order. He himself would have to make the decision to get his ass shot off, to take on the goddamned stupid assignment.

“Shit!” he said. “Let me see that message again. The decipherment.”

Wallace took a piece of paper from his desk and handed it across.

Frowning, Kieffer studied it.

IMPORTANT DEGUSSA SCIENTIST JOHANN

DECKER BELIEVED READY DEFECT STOP

PRESENT MAYEN OSTBAHNHOFSTR FROM 24

TO 28 FEB THEN TRANSFER INTERIOR

STOP EVACUATION VITAL STOP EULE

He looked up at Wallace.

“How was it sent?” he asked “What's the cryp history?”

“Double transposition cipher,” Wallace answered. Inwardly he smiled. Kieffer was hooked. “The standard OSS thing. Eule, the German underground operative in Frankfurt, sent it by short wave to a collection center in Switzerland. The monitoring agent there sent it on to London, and London shot it over to SHAEF—”

“—and it ends up in our eager little hands,” Kieffer finished for him.

“With an order for immediate action.” Wallace nodded. “And a lot of pressure from SHAEF.”

Kieffer looked at the message in his hand. Absent-mindedly he turned it over.

“Someone's worried about something,” he said pensively. He looked up at Wallace. “We know anything else?”

“Yeah. Degussa. It's a big Frankfurt outfit. Working on top- secret projects”

“Another goddamned secret weapon to win the war.”

“Don't sell it short,” Wallace said soberly. “V-1 and V-2 are no toys. Ask any poor bastard in London.”

“CIC is not supposed to operate behind enemy lines, Stan, and you know it. It's an OSS job.”

“No time for them to mount a mission.”

“Sure. They waited to the last fucking day.”

“Didn't get it before.”

“Damned SHAEF snafu. Why us?”

Wallace shrugged.

“We're here”

“Why me? It's not my meat. I've never operated behind enemy lines before.”