W. E. B. Griffin The Devil's Weapons

Book 8: Men at War

by Peter Kirsanow

Genres: War & Military; Mystery; Thrillers

Synopsis

Dick Canidy and the agents of the OSS scour war torn Poland looking for a rocket scientist who holds the secrets to the Nazis most dangerous weapon in this new entry in W.E.B. Griffin's New York Times bestselling Men at War series.

April 1940. By terms of the Soviet Nazi Nonaggression pact, the two dictatorships divided the helpless nation of Poland. Now, the Russians are rounding up enemies of the state in their occupation zone, but one essential target slips away. Dr. Sebastian Kapsky had spent years working with Walter Riedel and Werner von Braun in the early days of rocket science, but as a man with a conscience he refused to continue when he saw the perversion of their work by the Nazis. That makes him the most knowledgeable person about German superweapons outside of Germany. 
 
The Germans want him. The Soviets are desperate to grab him, but Wild Bill Donovan knows there's only one man who can find him in the middle of a war zone and get him out—Dick Canidy. 

 

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Release date: December 6, 2022

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons

Print pages: 416

Sample

 

CHAPTER 1

It was the peculiar smell that he remembered most.

Not the hideous scenes, the horrific sounds, or the paralyzing cold. Not the terrified faces, or even the bodies mangled beyond recognition.

It was the smell. Utterly unlike anything he’d experienced in his nearly forty-one years on Earth. It was almost a tactile sensation, damp and suffocating. The product of blood and urine and intestines; rotting flesh and pulverized organs. It seemed to have lined his nostrils, penetrated his skin.

As he trod carefully through the woods, trying to orient himself while remaining alert for patrols, he recited the names of his four contacts and the three passwords assigned for each. The passwords had been given to him just once, hurriedly and in a hushed tone. He hoped he’d heard correctly. If he hadn’t, he’d be dead within seconds of uttering the error.

There was little risk of his forgetting the names and passwords, no matter how tense the circumstances. Dr. Sebastian Kapsky had a prodigious memory capable of retaining and retrieving the most complex equations ever generated by the human brain. Equations that could affect or alter history. Memory wasn’t the issue. Rather it was whether what his brain retrieved when he spoke to the contacts was actually what was spoken to him by his seatmate, Bronislaw Haller.

Katyn, Soviet Union

1430, 23 April 1940

Bronislaw Haller was a jeweler from Białystok. He and Kapsky had been rounded up by Red Army soldiers within days of the Soviet invasion of Poland, ostensibly for “administrative processing”—at least that’s what they’d gleaned from the statements from the praporshchiks taking their names before herding them onto transports. A lumbering open-bed lorry transferred them to the Ostashkov Camp in Katyn Forest, where they would be funneled into concrete bunkers along with thousands of other men—mainly soldiers and policemen—but also a fair number of municipal officials, clergy, and academics.

From the moment they clambered aboard the lorry and sat next to each other, Haller had been anxious. More than anxious; his face was covered with a look that ranged between apprehension and dread. Within seconds of sitting next to Kapsky, Haller leaned near and whispered, “Find your opportunity, friend, and run. Don’t hesitate. You’ll only get one chance. Run and run fast.”

Kapsky was startled. None of the detainees had spoken a word since they’d been marched toward the transports. Haller recognized the indecision on Kapsky’s face. “Listen to me, friend. This isn’t going to be random questioning, temporary detainment.” Haller nodded toward two Russians dressed in civilian clothes standing apart from the Red Army soldiers. “That is NKVD. They do not send NKVD to verify names and addresses. They send NKVD for one thing: to kill.”

Kapsky glanced toward the two civilians. Each wore dismissive, contemptuous expressions as they surveyed the Poles arrayed on the lorries. It was as if they were looking at something that would soon be irrelevant, like spoiled food being hauled to a dumpster. Kapsky leaned toward Haller. “Run where?”

“Anywhere. Just run. You’ll know where to go later, but you must go.”

Kapsky looked back at the NKVD officers, then leaned closer to Haller. “You lead. I’ll follow.”

A sardonic look came over Haller’s face. “Obviously, you were not paying attention when I came aboard.” He moved his long coat aside and gestured toward his legs. They were encased in a latticework of metal braces. “I’ve not run since I was eighteen years old.” He shook his head. “I have no chance. But you may have one. And I can help.”

A Soviet soldier closed the lorry’s tailgate. One of the NKVD officers motioned for the driver to drive. As he waved his arm, the seams of his overcoat parted, revealing a Tokarev semiautomatic. The lorry lurched forward slowly.

Kapsky asked, “What do you mean you can help?”

Haller said, “You don’t have much time, and few opportunities.” He glanced about the bed of the vehicle and reached into his pocket. Most of the passengers were watching the Soviet troops lining the lorry’s path. He withdrew a small cloth purse and pressed it into Kapsky’s hand. Kapsky inspected it quizzically before opening it. Inside were several dozen złoty.

Kapsky snorted. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Train fare.”

Kapsky handed the purse back. “No disrespect, but that is no help. I will get nowhere near a train.” He waved at the scores of troops escorting the caravan of lorries. “They will seize the purse as soon as we get to our destination.”

“No. They will not.”

Kapsky squinted. “Why not?”

“Because you will give them something much more valuable. Something that will make them ignore your train fare.”

“I have nothing of value.”

“But I do. And I will give it to you in return for an oath.”

Kapsky struggled not to appear impatient. “Oath? Is this a child’s game? No riddles, please. Tell me what you want from me.”

“Go to my family. Keep them safe.”

Kapsky inspected Haller’s face. It was a practical face. The face of a man with few illusions. A man who assessed Kapsky in scant minutes and judged him up to the task. Or perhaps the only one who would consider performing it.

Nonetheless, Kapsky gestured toward the escort vehicles on either side of the convoy carrying scores of Red Army troops. “Seriously? You ask the impossible.”

Haller drew closer. “I did not say it would be easy, but it ispossible. With money all things are possible. Indeed, probable.”

“A few złoty?”

“More than a few. More than train fare. Much more.”

“Show me.”

“I cannot at this time.”

Kapsky turned away sharply and scanned the muddy road ahead. It was lined on each side by tall pine, the tops enshrouded in depressing gray mist. It produced a sense of foreboding. Haller was silent for several seconds, then leaned forward. “I have several grams of uncut precious stones. Their value is considerable. Very considerable. You may use some to secure your release, the remainder to see to my family’s safety.”

Kapsky returned his gaze to Haller’s face. He scanned it skeptically for several seconds. “Show them to me.”

A sheepish look came over Haller’s face. “I cannot.” He paused, then added hurriedly, “But understand, I do have them with me.”

Kapsky continued examining Haller’s face. It looked as if it were imploring him to understand what Haller was saying. After a few seconds, Kapsky blinked and sat erect. “You have them with you . . .”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

“. . . Within you.”

Haller nodded. “Undetectable, yet retrievable.”

Kapsky gazed toward the tops of the pines, then at the guards brandishing Soviet submachine guns. “How do you know that I won’t simply abscond with the remaining stones after bribing the guards?”

“I do not.”

Kapsky said, “We have no options . . .”

“We always have options, friend, always.”

Kapsky stared at the floor of the lorry for nearly a minute. “How do I find them, your family?”

“They’re in a hamlet outside Białystok. The address is in the purse.”

Kapsky nodded and said nothing. They rode in silence for several minutes. Then Kapsky asked, “And when I find them, your family, what should I tell them about you?”

Haller smiled. “Tell them I escaped but had to take a different route, a longer route. It will take a while for me to arrive. Tell them I will join them when circumstances permit.”

Kapsky understood. It was the response of a man who believed he was doomed.

CHAPTER 2

Washington, D.C.

1330, 24 April 1940

The humidity in Washington, D.C., was oppressive even in late April. It was compounded by Professor Aubrey Sloane’s unfortunate choice in clothing. Originally from New Hampshire and now a lecturer at Cornell, his wardrobe consisted primarily of clothing suitable for New England. For his meeting today with Secretary of War Henry Stimson he’d worn his best suit—pure wool. Though it breathed well, it nonetheless caused him to perspire, which in turn caused him to itch. Consequently, he was about to enter the most important meeting of his life miserable and distracted.

He was astounded that he’d even secured the meeting. Obscure associate professors of physics didn’t score meetings with the secretary of war—especially one as formidable as Stimson—unless the secretary had collected information validating the purpose of the meeting.

Sloane’s purpose was to warn Stimson that the United States of America, and much of the world, might soon be in peril.

Sloane walked slowly up the steps of the Munitions Building trying not to exert himself and precipitate a flood of perspiration. His footfalls echoed throughout the cavernous halls until he came to the tall wooden door of the Office of the Secretary of War.

Upon his entry, the sternly efficient receptionist sitting behind a massive oak desk startled him by immediately addressing him by name. “Please have a seat, Professor Sloane.” She gestured to the wooden chairs arranged along the wall of the anteroom. “The secretary will receive you presently.”

Sloane proceeded to the chair closest to the entrance. But before he could sit, a buzzer sounded on the receptionist’s desk and she said, “The secretary is ready for you.”

Sloane straightened and walked through the wooden gate next to the desk and knocked twice on the door to the office before entering. Secretary of War Henry Stimson, seated at the desk, was sifting through a sheaf of documents. Another man Sloane didn’t recognize was seated in one of the two chairs opposite Stimson’s desk. He had the countenance of a bulldog, a taciturn expression. He said nothing.

Stimson glanced at Sloane, tilted his head toward a seat, and returned his attention to the papers. Sloane sat in the chair for a full minute before Stimson placed the papers neatly on the corner of the desk and said, “Thank you for coming to see me, Professor.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“There have been a few scientists and mathematicians who advised us that there have been some rather profound developments in certain academic quarters of Europe. No one provided much by way of specifics, other than the developments could be rather transformative.” Stimson nodded toward the bulldog. “Professor, this is Colonel Donovan. He, in fact, is the person who first alerted me to these transformative issues. When I related your message, he advised that I should, indeed, meet you face-to-face. And he insisted on being present.”

Sloane nodded at Donovan, who was dressed in civilian clothes. Donovan remained expressionless.

“I gather the purpose of your visit has something to do with these developments.”

“Yes, it does. It relates to an individual who is integral to what you referred to as ‘transformative’ scientific developments. He is one of a small group of kindred spirits. These are rather gifted physicists who I met two years ago at a conference in London. They had common, in fact parallel, pursuits in a field known as quantum mechanics. Since that conference we’ve been collaborating by correspondence, occasionally with Fermi of the University of Chicago, Niels Bohr of the University of Copenhagen, and Robert Goddard. They are the most renowned—”

“I know who they are, Professor. They are rather well known. Please continue.”

“Yes, well, the individual of whom I speak was the key, the most integral, member of the collaboration. He was the man who initiated the joint correspondence among the group, developed the foundational theories, and produced the ‘transformative’ applications . . .”

“. . . and?”

“. . . and we haven’t heard from him in nearly a month. Nothing. No cables. No letters. Even after the invasion of his country last September by the Red Army, he kept up regular correspondence without interruption—two, three times per week. He was prodigious. Then, suddenly, nothing.”

The man introduced as Colonel Donovan had an intense expression on his face. Sloane could see muscles protruding like cables beneath his jawline.

“What do you think happened?”

“I don’t know,” Sloane whispered. “But with the Nazis to the west and the Soviets to the east . . .”

“You’re concerned, obviously, that some harm has come to him,” Stimson said. “But it’s more than that, isn’t it? This isn’t just about looking out for a friend or colleague.”

Sloane appeared anguished. “Mr. Secretary, I know nearly nothing of international affairs, war, or diplomacy, but I’m wholly capable of making reasonable deductions.

“I read the newspapers and see the Movietone reels in the theaters like everyone else, and it seems only a matter of time before we’re drawn into the war in Europe. Heck, we’re already assisting Great Britain logistically and with matériel.” Sloane halted abruptly, raising his palms plaintively. “I don’t mean to be speaking out of school, I just . . .”

“No apologies necessary, Professor. I think I understand where you’re going with this.” Stimson looked at Donovan.

“The Germans are quite proud of their array of modern weaponry—superweapons, they call them. We’ve been watching the development keenly. Although they pose no threat to us at the moment, Mr. Churchill is obsessed with them.” Donovan paused and withdrew a cigar from his breast pocket. “Your colleague . . . I assume his work would be of utmost interest to the Germans?”

“Not just to Hitler, but to Stalin as well.”

“And to America, I suppose?”

“The potential strategic value of his work is unparalleled. Not only did he work with the likes of Bohr and Goddard, but before the war he also worked with Walter Riedel and Wernher von Braun. He is intimately familiar with the science behind the German rocket programs. Clearly, they would not want those revealed. But it goes even beyond that. I do not say this lightly. Bohr, Fermi, and the rest of us are knowledgeable about discrete components, but this individual is the glue. He is knowledgeable about all. Moreover, he has multidisciplinary proficiency. He is gifted, and not just in one subject. Although it remains hypothetical, the matters upon which we’ve been working have extraordinary implications, and he is the one among our cohort who is most capable of turning theory into reality.”

Donovan exchanged a knowing look with Stimson, leaving Sloane to suspect that the two may have heard something similar from other sources. Donovan shook his head as if he were hoping Sloane would have dispelled or downplayed what these sources had said.

“What do you propose be done, Professor Sloane?”

“Keep him out of the hands of the Russians and Germans. If we’re too late for that, rescue him from the Russians and Germans.”

Donovan glanced at Stimson, who nodded almost imperceptibly.

“What’s your colleague’s name?”

“Sebastian Kapsky.”

---

—

“You know what I think of these kinds of operations, Bill. The kind MI6 performs,” Stimson said after Sloane had left to take the train back to New York. “This isn’t what civilized nations do.”

Colonel William “Wild Bill” Donovan didn’t need a reminder. Stimson was old-school. Civilized nations, gentlemen, didn’t engage in clandestine operations on another nation’s soil unless they were at war. And even then, there were rules, conventions.

“Henry, we are at war. Maybe not formally. But we’re assisting the Brits, we’ve got aviators in Indochina. The professor’s right, it’s inevitable and you know it. Churchill’s been hounding the President for months, and you know that the President won’t be able to withstand that man’s relentlessness.”

“I cannot go to the President and ask that he send troops to Poland, even if it’s a small tactical force. Both the Nazis and the Soviets would declare war,” Stimson said.

Donovan inclined his massive bulldog head forward, a fullback about to plunge into a defensive line. “You’ve seen the reports, Henry. Hell, you have access to more reports than I do. Britain can’t hold out much longer, even without the Germans deploying these ‘superweapons’ Hitler keeps going on about.” Donovan jabbed his meaty index finger on Stimson’s desktop. “That’s a strategic disaster for us, even if we’re not at war. And that’s even without whatever superweapon Sloane’s talking about. If either Hitler or Stalin get the type of capability Sloane implies, we won’t have a chance in hell. The mere threat of its deployment will cause us to cave. We’d have to.”

Stimson was taken aback. He’d never imagined Donovan was capable of even entertaining any result other than success, victory.

“You don’t know that, Bill. This is all theoretical. Sloane even said so. Even if it got off the drawing board, it would be several years—as much as a decade or two—before it would become a reality. By then, the war in Europe will be long over.”

Donovan remained adamant. Stabbing the desk again, he said, “You cannot take that chance. Right now it might be just a bunch of numbers and hieroglyphs on a chalkboard, but what if Hitler’s math wizzes can turn those equations into reality a lot faster than we think? You heard Sloane. Hell, you heard that white-haired guy from Princeton, Eisenstein . . .”

“Einstein.”

“. . . You heard him, too. What if Hitler’s people—or Stalin’s—get it off the chalkboard with this Kapsky’s help?”

Stimson, who’d been secretary of war under Presidents William Howard Taft and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, struck a pose familiar only to his closest friends. It was a pose of deliberation and concern, a patrician pose. Nearly a full minute passed. He nodded to himself, then looked at Donovan. “What do you propose?”

“We don’t need a large force, just one or two men. With adequate support, as needed.”

Stimson shook his head. “That codicil is what worries me. ‘Support, as needed.’ That almost inevitably means an escalation.”

“No, it wouldn’t. I’m not talking about military support. Not artillery, not aircraft. Just logistical support.”

Stimson shook his head again. “One or two men—with some undefined logistical support—to find one man somewhere in Europe? In the middle of a two-front war?”

“Put that way, it does sound absurd. But it can be done.” Donovan’s bulldog head remained inclined toward Stimson. His eyes, though plaintive, were locked in.

A rare, wan smile creased Stimson’s face. “And who is the remarkable man who would achieve this? You must already have someone in mind.”

“I do.”

“Who, then?”

“You don’t know him.”

“I sure as hell will if you expect me to approve this.”

Donovan straightened from his incline. “I haven’t really decided yet. But I’m thinking of some Rangers.”

“Why these particular fellows? What qualifies them for a task like this?”

“They’re somewhat reckless, yet deliberate.”

As he spoke he was considering another option. Someone who didn’t stay in the lanes. Borderline reckless, even brazen, but dependable and effective. A young major by the name of Dick Canidy.