The Second Objective by Mark Frost Read Free Book Online

stubbornly held the gun with both hands, trying to inch a finger toward the trigger. Eyes wild, Preuss looked up at Bernie, standing a few feet away.
    “Das Gewehr!”
he said.
“Erhalten das Gewehr!”
    Bernie didn’t move. Von Leinsdorf marched over, pointed the pistol, with a long steel cylinder attached to the muzzle, at Ellis’s head, and fired twice. Once the American went slack, Preuss slapped the rifle away and rolled off the body, breathing heavily.
    Bernie felt shock stun his system. He’d never seen anyone die before. He couldn’t think; he couldn’t move.
    “What the fuck?” whispered Bernie. “What the fuck?”
    “Get hold of yourself,” said Von Leinsdorf; then he turned to Preuss and pointed. “Drag the bodies into those woods.”
    Von Leinsdorf jogged back toward the gate. Private Anderson lay dead, sprawled facedown in the dirt, bleeding from half a dozen wounds. The driver—merchant seaman Marius Schieff, from Rostock—had propped himself up against the base of the gate, pistol still in hand, looking down at a dark stain spreading across his field jacket.
    Von Leinsdorf knelt down beside him and spoke to him gently. “Marius? How bad is it? Can you walk back to the line?”
    Schieff smiled grimly. “Walk five miles?”
    “We can’t turn back, my friend,” said Von Leinsdorf.
    “Ich weisse,”
said Schieff. “Go on, leave me here, maybe someone finds me—”
    Von Leinsdorf stood up and without hesitating fired twice into Schieff’s head at close range. He unscrewed the silencer as he glanced into the guard house, then holstered the weapon and walked back to the jeep. Gunther Preuss was already on his feet, grunting with effort as he dragged Ellis’s body toward the nearby woods. Bernie hurried toward Von Leinsdorf.
    “Jesus Christ, what the fuck did you do?”
    “I told you to be quiet. Collect their tags, get the bodies off the road—”
    “You know the orders, god damn it, we’re not supposed to engage, somebody must’ve heard those shots—”
    Von Leinsdorf walked past him to Mallory’s body, flicked open his lighter, and fired up a Lucky Strike as he looked at the dead American. “Who’s married to Betty Grable?”
    “Betty Grable, the movie star? Fuck if I know—”
    “Mickey Rooney?”
    “No, it’s not him—wait a minute, let me think a second—it’s that bandleader, Harry James—what difference does it make?”
    “I gave him the wrong answer. He was about to do something heroic.” Von Leinsdorf picked up Mallory’s legs and glared at Bernie. “Are you just going to stand there, Brooklyn?”
    Bernie grabbed Mallory’s arms, and they carried him toward the woods. “But how did you know that? How could you possibly know that?”
    “There’s no radio in the shed,” said Von Leinsdorf.
    Gunther Preuss, the overweight former bank clerk from Vienna, stomped past them on his way from the woods back toward the guard gate.
    “Was sollten wir mit Schieff tun?”
asked Preuss.
    “Take his papers, empty his pockets, put him with the others,” said Von Leinsdorf.
    “Kann ich seine Aufladungen nehmen?”
    “For Christ’s sake, Preuss, the body’s not even cold—”
    “Mine...they fit no good,” said Preuss elaborately.
    “That the best you can do?” asked Bernie. “You sound like fucking Frankenstein.”
    “Then take one of the American’s boots,” said Von Leinsdorf.
    “Danke, Unterstürmführer
—
”
    “And speak English or keep your mouth shut, you fat, fucking, useless piece of shit.”
    Preuss dropped his shoulders and broke into a harried trot. Von Leinsdorf looked over at Bernie, with a sly smile. “What do you think? My slang is improving, yes?”
    Bernie glared at him. “You said ‘kit.’”
    “What about it?”
    “It’s not a ‘kit,’ it’s a toolbox.”
    “You’re right,” said Von Leinsdorf. “Kit’s British. Fuck all.”
    “And you’re on Preuss’s case? You’re fuckin’ nuts, you know that?”
    Von Leinsdorf