Wolf Angel, Mark Hobson [best free ebook reader for pc .txt] 📗

plates resting on their laps, the bottle of wine with two glasses on the coffee table. The TV was on, showing some silly comedy movie starring Robert De Niro, but the sound was turned way down so that they could talk.

Pieter told her all about life with dad. About his own upbringing as a boy growing up in Zandvoort on the coast during the 1980’s, some of which she knew from their chats, and about his dad’s time in Bosnia and the subsequent boozing and violence, most of which she knew. Then he gave her a brief rundown on today’s events, about the phone call from Famke and his dash over to the houseboat, the recovery of his dad’s body from the river. The dull acceptance that the tragedy seemed almost destined and preordained, regardless of whatever help he had tried to give him. Towards the end, Lotte reached over and took his plate, placing it on the coffee table with her own, and then leaned into him with her arm stretched across his chest, snuggling into him with her face.

Pieter pondered on whether to tell her of last night’s intruder, but quickly decided this would be unwise. The last thing he wanted was to freak her out and send her running for the hills. And besides, he liked her company.

They finished off the wine and watched a bit more TV and then Pieter told her of the sleeping arrangements. She could have the big bedroom while he would make up the single bed in the smaller bedroom for himself. Lotte briefly looked up at him through her blonde fringe, the way she did, and wriggled her eyebrows mischievously, before grinning and nodding.

It had been a long and stressful couple of days for them both.

With a quick kiss on his cheek, she said night, night, and skipped off to bed.

◆◆◆

For a second night running, his sleep was disturbed by more bad dreams.

This time he was walking down an endlessly long, wooden jetty, through dense fog. To either side the grey sea was choppy and stormy, even though there wasn’t a breath of a breeze. Everything was in monochrome, and totally silent.

On and on he walked. Glancing down, he saw that his feet were naked and dirty, like he had walked for days and days, and he felt the rough wood of the jetty scrape and chaff the bare skin.

After an age, he noticed the dim outline of a man standing before him. He had his back to Pieter and was at the end of the jetty, looking out at the stormy sea. Slowing down, Pieter came to a stop.

“Dad?” he asked, his voice echoing in the foggy silence.

The figure, really just a dark outline of a person, did not respond.

“Dad, is that you?”

The person started to turn slowly, the shoulders and head coming around, until Pieter could see the face. But there was no face, just a large, black smudge where the features should be. Not a hole, just a shadow. And out of this ghastly countenance spewed mud and blood, in an endless stream of vomit.

Pieter turned to flee in terror, but arms reached around his sides to embrace him, and the two of them toppled backwards into the water.

Another dream.

Something heavy on his chest, pressing down so that he could hardly breathe. Soft hands on his body. Cold lips kissing him.

The gentle knock on his door roused him from his slumber. Pieter glanced across at the alarm clock, seeing the time was just after midnight. After a slight pause, there came another light tap on the door, and then it opened a few inches.

Lotte slipped into the room dressed in her nightie and stood by his bed, looking down at him. In the moonlight filtering in through the curtains her face was a pale oval.

“I can’t sleep,” she simply told him.

Pieter hesitated for a moment, and then lifted the covers.

Lotte climbed into the bed beside him, and they lay gently embraced in each other’s arms, quietly crying together. Eventually they slept.

◆◆◆

They awoke to the sound of bells ringing out from Westerkerk

OPERATION CARNIVAL

“I am so savage, I am filled with rage, Lily the Werewolf is my name. I bite, I eat, I am not tame. My werewolf teeth bite the enemy. And then he’s done and then he’s gone. Hoo, Hoo, Hoooo!”

RADIO WEREWOLF BROADCAST, 1945.

PART OF JOSEPH GOEBBELS PROPAGANDA MACHINE.

THE CITY OF AACHEN IN OCCUPPIED GERMANY.

MARCH 1945.

The mission had gone wrong right from the start.

By early 1945, as the Allied noose had tightened around Nazi Germany, Hitler, Himmler and the German leadership had become increasingly desperate to stave off defeat. In an almost final throw of the dice they had launched the fiercely loyal and utterly dedicated Werewolf Commandos at the Americans, Canadians and British approaching from the west.

Their role was to infiltrate enemy lines to carry out acts of espionage, sabotage and assassinations, to sow the seeds of confusion and mayhem, to launch ambushes against enemy supply columns. To bring terror to the allies. To delay the inevitable defeat for the Fatherland. Operation Werewolf.

Swift Strike II, led by Commando Unit No 1, was to conduct possibly the most daring of these operations. Codenamed CARNIVAL their task was to assassinate Burgermeister Franz Oppenhoff – the Mayor of Aachen, recently selected by the Americans as the pro-western new leader of the city after it fell to the Allies in late 1944.

Commando Unit No 1 was led by Herbert Wenzel, with the ever loyal Joseph Leitgeb as second-in-command. She-wolf Ilse Hirsch, the female assassin who had continued to train with them for the past few months, was also part of the team, as was the young 16 year old crack-shot cadet Morgenschweiss. The final two members were Hennemann and Heidorn, both former scouts who knew the area around Aachen like the back of their hands, and who had chosen various rendezvous points and safe houses for the operation.

They had left on March 20th, flying in a captured B-17