Chapter Four.

The dull thud of a powerful diesel engine echoed across the meadow as Daniel Schneider brought his tractor from the barn. He was towing a low agricultural trailer. Arriving at the stranded helicopter, he turned the tractor around; stopped and unhitched the trailer. Menke helped him to manoeuvre it in front of the Huey. Satisfied; they returned to the girls.

Menke stood with his hands on his hips and glanced at Daniel Schneider.

'Has that old thing got enough power to haul this chopper across the field?'

Schneider laughed.

'Enough… and more! This is a twenty-five-horsepower, M.A.N. Ackerdiesel… and she's four-wheel drive. All we have to do is get the helicopter onto the trailer and lash her down.'

Stacey spoke up.

'We'll never get her fully onto the trailer; but, with the fronts of the skids tied down, you might be able to drag her across the grass.'

Schneider nodded.

'OK, let's do just that. Anything's better than leaving her out here in full view. How do we raise the skids?'

Stacey smiled.

'Easy. Richard and I will pull down on the tail skid. We might need Hannah to give us some extra weight on the tail. Normally, there are wheels fitted at the back end of the skids, and we pivot the centre of gravity balance on them.'

Schneider nodded.

'OK. What does she weigh?'

Stacey paused.

'She's two-thirds full of gas… that'll make her about twenty-seven-hundred kilogrammes.'

Schneider shook his head.

'No… the three of you will never do it. I'll go get my big hydraulic jack and a baulk of timber.'

He climbed back aboard the tractor; crunched it into gear and went thudding back across the meadow in the direction of the barn.

Whilst Menke and Schneider were jacking up the helicopter out in the meadow; Hannah Reichner had taken Stacey back to the farmhouse to brew coffee. In the big kitchen, as she ground the coffee beans, Hannah was making Stacey fully aware of what she could expect when she came face to face with the Neo-Nazi faction in Vienna. She paused and, turning from the kitchen countertop; faced Stacey with a solemn expression on her pretty face.

'When you encounter these swine; make no mistake; they are incredibly dangerous. The only way to treat these Neo-Nazi thugs is to put them down like the mad dogs that they are. They love to strut about putting the fear of God into normal, decent people. It is all they understand. It is in their blood. All this pretence of democracy is bullshit. These morons are infectious; and if there is one thing worse than that they should be exterminated; it is that they should be permitted to continue to spread their poison, and infect others. They lust after creating a Fourth Reich… all war, rape and mass murder... as long as the only war, rape, and mass murder that they incite is directed towards those of the Jewish Faith.'

She was interrupted by Menke and Schneider returning. Schneider smiled.

'Damn! That was tough; but we've managed to get the helicopter into the barn... just! Let's have a cup of coffee, and then, I'll make a couple of phone calls.'

As they sat around the big kitchen table and drank their coffee, Schneider said that they would need to cross the River Salzach to get into Austria. This posed a problem, inasmuch that the only bridge across the Traisen River for at least fifteen kilometres in either direction was at the little town of Laufen; five kilometres east of the farm. The bridge was patrolled by the Bavarian Border police, and, considering that Menke and Stacey needed to slip into Austria, undetected; this route was out of the question. The other two bridges; the one to the north at Tittmoning, and the southerly bridge on the outskirts of Salzburg itself were also out of the question for the same reason. Unfortunately, it was suspected that some members of the Bavarian Border police were sympathetic to the Neo-Nazi cause. There was a very real danger that encountering any of these officers, could disclose either Menke's or Stacey's identities to the faction they were about to infiltrate. The slightest hint of either of them being exposed could easily result in either or both of them being discovered floating face-down in the Traisen river.

Having made this observation; he went to make his phone calls. Hannah studied them both over the top of her coffee mug; and then asked quietly...

'What weapons are you using?'

Menke returned her thoughtful gaze.

'I have my Egyptian Beretta, and Steini is carrying a Walther PPK/S loaded with jacketed hollow point, Kurz rounds. I also have Masluh's little box of tricks.'

Hannah nodded.

'He didn't equip you with suppressors or contact weapons?'

Menke shook his head.

Hannah snorted.

'Ben zona! He should know better! I'll go sort something out.'

She disappeared into another room. The sound of drawers being opened and shut; sprinkled liberally with what sounded like exasperated Hebrew profanity drifted into the kitchen. Stacey glanced at Menke. He was trying hard to, and failing to keep a wide grin off his face. Five minutes later; Hannah returned and laid two black suppressors and two sets of mean-looking brass knuckles on the kitchen table. Stacey stared at her. Hannah gave her a cold smile, and picked up one of the sets of brass knuckles.

'Remember what I said about these morons? If you are going to impersonate one of them, you need to act like one of them; and believe me; every Nazi slut I have ever come across carries a set of these "Schlagring" in her purse.'

Schneider returned and sat down. He nodded and smiled.

'It's all arranged. We leave in ten minutes for Saaldorf-Surheim, about eight and a half kilometres to the south-east. A friend of mine will have a boat waiting to take you across; where you will be met and taken to a private airstrip for your journey onwards to Vienna. Now; your cover is arranged. Information has been leaked to the Viennese Kameradschaft Babenberg that a very influential member of a particularly virulent Berlin faction named "Kameradschaft Wolkenfeuer" is coming to Vienna to contact them. They took their name from the Nazi's last-minute "Cloud Fire" directive which was designed to obliterate evidence of atrocities. The group was actually eliminated three months ago, as a result of a targeted Metzada operation. There were no survivors.'

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Schneider drained his coffee cup and continued;

'Steini has been accredited as being an important member of this group with links to the South African, far-right-wing Boers. The cover story is that she escaped the destruction of the group by chance. She was out of Berlin on business in her position as a civilian administrator of the Bundespolizei. She has a deeply-ingrained hatred of the Jewish homeland by reason of the fact that her father… a notorious SS Officer; was assassinated in Cape Town in her presence, by Mossad agents.'

He turned to Menke.

'You are her bodyguard. You look Aryan enough… just don't take a piss in their company… or they might easily notice that you have a little something missing!'

Menke glanced at Stacey. She said nothing, and her expression didn't even flicker. Hannah, however, glanced at Stacey and gave a tiny, secretive, between-girls smile.

Schneider glanced at his watch.

'OK; time to go. We'll take the Munga. We have to use some pretty rough tracks through the woods to get to the pick-up point.'

The Munga was a particularly ugly, four-wheel-drive, DKW utility vehicle. It looked as though it was ex-military… and sounded like it… a thumping diesel engine, howling gears; and out on the asphalt roads it set up an almost deafening whine on its big, coarse-ribbed, military tyres. Fortunately; it seemed that this vehicle was well known in the area. As they came into the little village of Leobendorf; a couple of kilometres from the farm; where they turned south at the village outskirts; they passed a green-and-white Polizei Volkswagen parked up at the edge of the village. The officer recognised the vehicle and waved his hand in greeting as Schneider went up through the gears to slow for the corner that was signposted: Steinbrünning. Hausen. Saaldorf-Surheim.

Beyond Saaldorf-Surheim, Schneider drove down to the main highway and crossed it onto a metalled road that ran across an open field to the tree line. Where the metalled road finished; a grass firebreak ran south; parallel to the main highway. As he turned onto it he yelled above the din of the engine and gears.

'Not too far now… and, we're hidden by the trees!'

Within no more than a thousand metres, he swung left into another grassed track that cut arrow straight through the woods to end at the left bank of the river. As he braked the vehicle to a standstill, a figure came up the bank from the water's edge. Schneider raised his hand in greeting. Stacey and Menke climbed out of the vehicle and followed Schneider and Hannah to where the man was standing. Schneider turned and said,

'This is Helmut. He will get you across the river and take you to your arranged rendezvous point.'

The man smiled at Menke and Stacey

'Shalom, my friends. Come; there is little time to waste. The Border patrol boat will be coming up from Salzburg in a little while.'

Picking up the holdall, Menke followed Stacey and Helmut down a flight of roughly-cut steps to where a small, unexceptional motor boat of the type that any fisherman would use; was moored at the bank. As they climbed in and Helmut started the engine, Schneider called out,

'Good hunting, my friends. Show the swine what a modern "Din squad" can do.'

As Helmut pushed off from the bank; Stacey glanced at Menke.

'What did he mean by Din squad?'

Menke gave her a wry grin.

'Jewish Revenge Squads were formed in France just after D-day in 1944. While Nazis were still in parts of France, these squads set out to find those who they believed were guilty of crimes against humanity. Effectively, these squads took the law into their own hands as the men they found were given no formal trial because their guilt was taken as read. The squads operated for sixteen years between 1944 and 1960 and were responsible for the deaths of about fifteen-hundred high-ranking Nazi officials. After the war Holocaust survivors also joined them. Amongst themselves, they were referred to as Din squads… "Din" being the Hebrew for revenge. Daniel has just made it perfectly clear what he, and my controllers expect the outcome of our mission to be.'

The old saying that Sandman had often quoted, was:

"If you dance with the Devil, you don't get to pick the tune."

Actually; more often than not, he used to say: "If you dance with the Ferryman".... but the meaning was the same. Lady Fate was fickle. She could smile down on you... or, be just as likely to bite you in the ass when you least expected it. Stacey had no idea why this thought suddenly popped into her head as the pilot of the Pilatus PC-6 Turbo-Porter belonging to Fleigerregiment 1, of the Austrian Air Force fed in sixty degrees of bank, side-slipped in, cranked on eleven turns of flap on the crank protruding from the cockpit roof above his head; and hit reverse pitch as he touched down. The Turbo-Porter stopped within a little more than fifty metres of its wheels first touching the grass of the meadow that was completely enclosed by trees.

She glanced at her fellow passengers. Richard Menke sat relaxed with a totally unperturbed expression on his face. The other passenger was not quite so relaxed. His face was pale, and beads of nervous sweat had appeared on his forehead. The man was Tobias Walner; Stabswachtmeister in the Nachrichtendienstliche Abwehr; the Counterintelligence Service of the Austrian Army. The pilot lifted the power control lever, moved it forward beyond the detent of the quadrant to select normal pitch, and taxied along the remaining four hundred metres of grass towards a large, single-storey, "U-shaped" house with an adjacent barn, at the northern end of the meadow. Turning the airplane through one hundred and eighty degrees, he braked to a standstill and retarded the throttle until the turboprop engine was whispering quietly and the propeller was idling. Menke opened the port passenger door; threw out his holdall, and jumped down onto the grass. Turning, he helped Stacey out of the fuselage and led her under the wing, where they waited for Walner to exit the airplane.

Walner climbed out ponderously. He was a big man; portly rather than muscular. Aged about forty; he already showed signs of saggy flesh about his lower cheeks and jaw area; and his hair was thinning at the temples. Menke glanced at Stacey and raised an eyebrow. Counterintelligence? Walner resembled a well-fed bureaucrat rather than an operational officer… perhaps, a little too much Wiener schnitzel, Apfelstrudel; and a few too many steins of beer?

The flight had commenced at another secluded meadow to the north of the village of Acharting; just inside the Austrian border. Daniel Schneider's friend Helmut had taken them across the River Salzach to the Austrian side in his little motor boat; where they were met by an elegant old lady in her late sixties who must have been strikingly beautiful in her youth, who said that she would take them to the meadow on her farm to await the pick-up. Their transport was an old, 1940's, diesel-powered Mercedes-Benz 260D… the car of choice for the dreaded Gestapo and the SS.

The elegant old lady drove it like the Gestapo too… at up to at least eighty km/h though the long, grassed fire breaks, with Menke and Stacey hanging on for dear life to the roof grab straps. When she finally skidded to a halt at the edge of the wood, she turned in her seat and clapped her hands delightedly.

'Oh my! Such fun! It must be thirty years since I last drove like that.'

Stacey smiled obligingly.

'You always drove like that?'

The old lady nodded enthusiastically.

'Oh yes, my dear. We opposed the Germans almost from the beginning of the Anschluss in 1938. We didn't amount to very much; but I was part of the resistance group known as "O5." It was non-party, but dominated by the middle classes. Our headquarters were in Vienna; and most of the time we carried messages from one group to another, and painted anti-German slogans on walls. Eventually, we became an annoyance, and were chased by the Vienna Gestapo on a regular basis. Some were caught, but most of us were not. I had a boyfriend who had raced on the Avus in Berlin in the thirties, and he taught me how to drive properly… much better than those stupid Germans. We were young and silly, but it was such fun!'

Her memories were interrupted by the sound of an airplane… a familiar sound to Stacey; a sound that belonged to distant friends in far-distant places. Getting out of the car, she and Menke walked to the tree line, as, over the treetops to the north of the long meadow came the airplane; flaps out on final approach… another Turbo-Porter from the Fleigerregiment 1, of the Austrian Air Force! The old lady came and stood beside them as the pilot touched down. She slipped an envelope into Stacey's hand and murmured conspiratorially,

'Your arrangements for your meeting with those fascist animals in Vienna. They are expecting Fräulein Steini Brasack; and have an accurate description of you. Do be careful, my dear; they are unprincipled thugs, and not to be trusted.'

Stacey thanked the old lady and walked with Menke to the waiting airplane.The pilot checked that they were safely strapped in, and turned the porter round to point in the direction in which he had landed. Throttling up, the Turbo porter began to gain speed and lifted off from the meadow banking over to the north east, and rapidly gaining height.

As the airplane flew deeper into Austria, Stacey opened the envelope. The contents were concise. When they reached Vienna; Menke was to report to the Army Intelligence office with Walner for briefing; Stacey was to go to the Schloss Schönbrunn Gardens in central Vienna, and wait to be contacted by a member of the Aktionsbüro Babenberg.