Warsaw, Poland: August 1, 1944
Someone was furiously pounding at my door.
My eyes still shut, I grabbed the pillow next to me and crammed it over my ear. I began to fall back into a dream-like state.
The incessant knocking refused to stop. My brain began to plead for me to get up and cut off the fist of the person making me lose sleep, but my body remained defiantly on the mattress. I had finally gotten to sleep in the past hour, and would have to get up at 5 a.m. Opening my bleary eyes a crack, my clock read 3:45.
I exhaled a short breath of air and heaved my six-foot frame off of the bed. I grabbed my gun off the desk, just in case, and started towards the door of my shabby hotel room.
I checked the peephole and did not see anyone in front of it. Frustratingly, the sound had not gone away with the person. Opening the door, I had to look down to see a boy who could not have been older than ten with his arm outstretched.
"Mister, you need to come quick!" the boy said in Polish, while wildly motioning me to follow him down the corridor.
Normally, I would inquire what was going on and who had asked him to get me, and how he knew where I was, but the urgency in the young boy's voice made me race for my army jacket and follow him.
Wars were no time to hesitate. Anywhere else, 'look before you leap' is preached, but in war, if you look, you're blown to bits by enemy fire.
Running down the hallway, I pieced together the tiny scraps of Polish that I had to learn while here.
"Who are you, kid?" I asked briskly while we sprinted down the three flights of stairs leading to the ground floor of the hotel.
"Aleksy Dembowski," he said, huffing heavily, "and I've been RECRUITED."
"Recruited? Whom by?"
He looked at me as if I was crazy. "The rebels, of course."
My brow furrowed. I had no idea who these rebels were, but for some reason I followed Aleksy three or four more blocks to a black building.
"Here," Aleksy said, puffing hard.
We walked into the building that I thought had been deserted, and found a group of men standing around a map of Europe. One man in a uniform came up and nodded briefly to Aleksy in a gesture of 'thank you'.
"You better get home quickly, boy," he said, as he slipped the messenger some Polish currency.
Aleksy's head bobbed up and down in response and he scampered off.
The man lifted up his face and turned to me. That's when I recognized him.
"Officer Wenton," I said, surprised. My hand snapped up to my face in a quick salute.
"Hudson Graham," he responded. "We need your assistance in a very...concerning problem."
A year ago, when I was eighteen, I graduated from high school and was drafted immediately into the United States military. Three months later, by chance, Officer Wenton had recognized my talent in code breaking and offered me a position in a secret base in Europe. I had been living here for the past six months, jumping around from hotel to hotel.
"Mr. Graham," Wenton said, "It is against my wishes but the circumstances require me to be blunt. I need a spy, and your fluency with the German language combined with your youth will raise no suspicions."
He paused to look me over. I was stunned. The Nazis had been taking over parts of Europe for the last five years. They had bombs and armies and officers with no concern for human life. Polish rebels didn't stand a chance.
"Tell me what I need to do," I said, softly and a little too curiously.
"You need to warm up to Hitler. Become his confidant. We need to know exactly what he plans to do about the rebellion, so we can come up from behind his back and - "
"Sir!" I said. "What rebellion? No one has rebelled yet! The Nazis are still controlling us into submission!"
"Why," he said, staring at me like he had no idea why I wasn't aware of the plan, "I'm talking about the rebellion that starts...today."
Against my own will, I shouted, "This is madness! They have tenfold the manpower we have! They'll tear us and this city to pieces!"
The Officer frowned at me slightly, and I registered what an act of disrespect it was to raise my voice out of turn at a commanding officer. I took a slight step back and straightened my spine. I pressed my lips into a tight line.
"Mr. Graham, I understand this completely, but the civilians have already gathered up their weapons. You'll find that your two cents will not sway so much as a single gun in this war. Your choice now here is to either let the Nazis continue to oppress Poland, or become our eyes and ears for their government."
Well, when you put it that way. I took the pen that Officer Welton held out to me and scrawled my name on a contract while skimming it over. I refused to read it in depth because a)that's how I roll and b)I couldn't risk chickening out at the last second.
Welton nodded when he was satisfied with my signing of the contract. "Excellent," he stated, "your training begins tomorrow."
A/N: Time to enter Hudson Graham's minddd! Dang, I've been wanting to write about him for so long, I can't wait for him to be a badass war hero in this, guys. Hudson has helped Sammy with safecracking, has different types of recorders, and has a ton of dictionaries in foreign language. Doesn't it make sense that he's an army spy for the United States?!
I made it so that his age is realistic for the times. In 1998, when the first Sammy Keyes was published, Hudson was around 73, so in 1944 that would make him 19.
Nothing really has happened yet; don't worry, just setting the stage for future events. I just needed to crank out this idea so I could get into it. Another chapter is coming soon! What else do you guys want me to update?
X,
DKMV
