The Second Objective by Mark Frost

Author:Mark Frost [Frost, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Fiction, Historical, War & Military, General Fiction
ISBN: 9781401387730
Google: cG1rAwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1401309526
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2007-05-14T23:00:00+00:00

Liège

DECEMBER 18, NOON

They didn’t turn off the tape recorders until Earl Grannit had squeezed every last detail out of Karl Heinz Schmidt. Less than three hours later, stripped of his uniform and dressed as a prisoner of war, Schmidt was handed over to a squad of Army Intelligence officers. They began roving patrols of the main highways south and west of the front lines, using Schmidt as their watchdog, looking for elements of what Schmidt had called Operation Greif.

Ongoing Allied communications problems prevented First Army Interrogation from notifying Counter Intelligence in the city of Reims, France, about Schmidt’s final revelation: that the German assassination teams were planning to rendezvous at a cinema there on the evening of December 19. Earl Grannit and Ole Carlson drove out of Liège at noon and headed south to deliver that news in person.

Carlson held Karl Schmidt’s forged blue SHAEF pass in his hand, studying it as they drove, then suddenly slapped it against his leg. “Staring me right in the face. That’s what’s wrong with this thing.”

“What?” asked Grannit.

“This is U.S. government issue watermarked paper, and everything else is so well crafted you’da thought the Krauts’d catch this, it’s just so danged obvious once you notice—”

“Notice what, Ole?”

“They transposed the e and a in ‘headquarters.’ They misspelled the doggone word.”

Carlson showed it to him.

“Get on the radio,” said Grannit. “Make sure they know that at the border. With luck we’ll get there before they cross over.”

Carlson cranked up the radio, trying to find a signal. “They’re gonna execute him, aren’t they?” he asked. “Schmidt?”

“That’s right, Ole.” Grannit glanced over as he drove. “What’s the problem?”

“You promised him he wouldn’t die for it.”

“We don’t even know he’s telling the truth. Maybe he made the whole thing up to save his ass.”

“Sounded pretty straight to me. How many more teams you think they sent over?”

“He said eighty men.”

“They’re desperate enough to try something like this. He had too many details. I think it’s real and he got caught up without knowing what it was about—”

“Every bad guy’s got a sob story, Ole.”

“I’m just saying that if he’s shot for it after helping us and us telling him different so he’d talk, it’s a raw deal—”

“Guy comes over the line, war time, in our uniform, confesses he’s got orders to kill our commanding general, and you feel sorry for him.”

“We lied to him, Earl.”

Grannit said nothing.

“Well, how do you feel about it?”

Grannit took a long look at him. “Do I look troubled to you?”

Lieutenant Karl Heinz Schmidt would not see the other three men from his own jeep squad again until two days before Christmas. That night a group of captured German nurses were brought outside their cells and sang Christmas carols to them in their native language.

The four men were marched out at dawn the next day, Christmas Eve, tied to posts, and executed by an American firing squad. Schmidt’s protests about a secret arrangement with Counter Intelligence that was supposed to have spared his life fell on deaf ears.

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