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Men At War, Book 3
by W.E.B. Griffin
The easiest thing for them would be to round up the twenty French officers and Baron
Eric Fulmar and accept the congratulations of their superiors. It was hoped, of course,
that, as their contribution to a quick end to the war, they would take the twenty to
Second Lieutenant Fulmar and safety at Ksar es Souk. Which, of course, was treason.
More important, they would be compromised. Thereafter, the Americans would be able to
demand other services--under threat of letting the SS know what they had done in Morocco.
When he had parachuted into the desert near Ksar es Souk three days before, Lieutenant
Eric Fulmar would not have been surprised to find himself immediately surrounded by
Waffen-SS troops. As it happened, German troops did not meet him; but this was no proof
that Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz and Müller were playing the game as they were expected
to. They may well have been waiting until he had furnished the names of the French
officers before arresting him.
As soon as the code word signaling that the invasion was about to begin came over the
Zenith portable radio, he had called Rabat to order the delivery of the list of French
officers to Müller. Then he had telephoned Müller and told him the list was in his
mailbox. To Fulmar's surprise, Müller had told him the precise hour he expected to be at
Ksar es Souk.
Müller was so clear and careful about the time of his arrival that Fulmar immediately
suspected that when the truck appeared, it would be full of Waffen-SS troopers, not French
officers. In view of that, he decided to change his plan to accompany the Berber force
that would intercept the Müller convoy before it reached Ksar es Souk.
He decided he would watch the intercept from the palace tower.
Pawns are put in jeopardy, he thought. That's part of the game. But nowhere is it
written that they have to put themselves in jeopardy.
When the announcer began to repeat the presidential proclamation, Fulmar searched
through the broadcast band, hoping to pick up something else. There was nothing.
He turned off the radio and picked up the binoculars again. This time there was a cloud
of dust rising from the desert floor. Right on schedule. Fulmar slid off the antique chair
and knelt on the stone floor in a position that would allow him to rest his elbows on the
parapet to steady the binoculars.
It was two minutes before the first of the vehicles came into sight. It was a small,
open, slab-sided vehicle--a military version of the Volkswagen, Germany's answer to the
jeep. Four soldiers in the black uniforms of the Waffen-SS rode in the Volkswagen. Behind
it was a French Panhard armored car.
Fulmar frowned. The armored car was unexpected. It smelled like the trap he worried
about. Behind the Panhard was a Citroën sedan, and behind that a civilian truck,
obviously just pressed into service. The truck was large enough to conceal twenty French
officers. Or that many Waffen-SS troops. Behind the truck were two other slab-sided
Volkswagens holding more Waffen-SS soldiers.
Reprinted from THE SOLDIER SPIES by W.E.B. Griffin by permission of G. P. Putnam's Sons, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. Copyright © 1986 by W.E.B. Griffin. Originally published under the pseudonym Alex Baldwin. First G.P. Putnam's Sons edition 1999. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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