The Saboteurs (Men at War 5)

“We would in Amarillo.”

The year-old Army ordnance Pantex facility, on sixteen thousand acres of Texas Panhandle seventeen miles outside of Amarillo, was producing explosive-filled projectiles—bombs and shells—round the clock.

Cremer shook his head. Grossman’s appetite for blowing up things was insatiable—which of course made the Oberschutz more or less perfect for their mission—and taking out such an enormous target probably would make him happy only until he could explode something else.

“Why must I keep reminding you that Skorzeny’s orders are that we do not go after big targets?” he said. “We are successful in what we were trained to do.”

Otto Skorzeny, thirty-four, was a legendary Nazi lieutenant colonel. He had won the Iron Cross fighting with the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler against the Soviets and afterward had been handpicked by the Führer to lead the German commandos. With dark hair and deep, dark eyes, he had strong good looks that were crudely accented by a scar that went from the tip of his chin, arced across his left check, and ended at his ear—a wound he received dueling with sabers as a student in Vienna.

The radio mounted in the wall of the Pullman compartment was tuned to a news broadcast—heavy on the Dallas explosions—but the station’s signal was getting weak and the sound had deteriorated to mostly static.

Grossman got up and walked over to it.

“But taking out a bomb-building plant would be incredible,” he said. “Imagine the secondary explosions….”

Cremer could indeed imagine the incredible destruction of massive stockpiles of explosives erupting. Not to mention the setback it no doubt would cause the Americans in their war effort. But a task on that scale—if it was even possible—was best left to the Luftwaffe, not a lone pair of agents, and thus he had to constantly discourage Grossman and that had become a source of more than a little friction between them.

Cremer was convinced that taking this sleek, bright red train, with its routing from Dallas–Fort Worth to Oklahoma City to Kansas City, was the best way to put some distance between them and the blasts…and the crowds of cops who no doubt were swarming the area…and position them well for more sabotage opportunities.

During their week in Dallas, after having walked down to Union Station and collected pamphlets with each rail line’s schedule, he had gone over them and determined that from Kansas City they could get anywhere they needed to be in the middle and western U.S. The Rocky Mountain Rocket, train number 107-7, ran from Kansas to Denver; train number 43, the Californian, went from Kansas City to Chicago to Los Angeles; the Mid-Continent Special, train number 17, had sleepers to Minneapolis and Des Moines.

And so he had bought them tickets on the Red Rocket and secured for the duration of the trip a Pullman “master room” compartment.

He looked around the master room and was reminded of the railway brochure that had said it offered “the ultimate in refined comfort.” So far, he could not dispute that.

This one—on the left side of the train—had a big main room, about seven by ten, with four comfortable, cloth-upholstered, chrome-frame armchairs that could be put wherever a passenger pleased. (The smaller accommodations came with fixed bench seating.) When the chairs were slid to the side, there was room to fold down the two twin-sized beds from the walls. The compartment also had a large wardrobe, plus full-length dressing mirrors. And, off the main room, an attached private bathroom with toilet, sink, and shower.

Cremer had an armchair pulled up to one of the two large windows and was looking out to the west. He noticed that the Oklahoma countryside was changing. For the last hour or so, since at least the Texas border, it had been fairly flat, barren land, with occasional clumps of trees. Now it was turning dramatically hilly, with exposed uplifts of rock—what looked like the foothills of some small mountains.

Grossman was quickly adjusting the tuning knob of the radio, anxious to hear more of the news bulletins on the Dallas explosions. After a moment, some cowboy music came in clearly. It was the tail end of a tune by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. Cremer had heard quite a bit of them on the radio while in Dallas and actually was beginning to like this Texas swing music.

Grossman, however, would have none of it, and after hearing a bartender in the Adolphus Hotel alternately refer to it as “Western” or “shitkicker” music had used only the latter description whenever he heard it.

Cremer was surprised that he did not call it that now but decided it was probably because the radio announcer was promising that the news was coming up next, with updates on the terror in Dallas, and Grossman would rather suffer the music than miss a report.

Grossman went back to the table and continued working with the explosives as the Red Rocket swayed and clack-clack-clacked its way north toward Oklahoma City.

Considering all the time and attention he gives those, Cremer thought with mild disgust, one would think he could have properly set the goddamned fuses in Dallas.

A half hour later, Cremer felt the train begin to slow. He looked out the window and saw that the countryside was becoming more developed. Houses dotted the land, and there were more roads that were improved—ones paved with blacktop as opposed to all the bare dirt ones he’d seen.

He wondered if they already were approaching Oklahoma City.

The train slowed even further as it came closer to town. First there were nice wooden houses in tidy neighborhoods, then the two-and three-story brick buildings of downtown proper.

Cremer strained to peer forward, and, following the tracks, could just see the train depot to the left side of the tracks. It was a small one, about half a block long, of dark red brick with a black tile roof and a narrow wooden boarding platform—all clearly too small to be that of Oklahoma City.

Then, just as he noticed the standardized signage reading NORMAN on the station’s southern wall, he heard the porter passing outside the compartment door.

“Norman!” the deep, black voice announced, “Norman, Oklahoma! No stops, no disembarking! No stops, no disembarking!”

The porter’s voice grew fainter as he moved up the car repeating the station information.

Cremer and Grossman exchanged glances.

“I don’t like this,” Grossman said and quickly put the last of the explosives back in the suitcase. The only thing remaining on the table was one of the small black leather pouches.

“Don’t overreact,” Cremer said. “We may just be taking on mail or something.”