The Special Delivery Raid

By: AliasCWN

Chapter 2

"The Germans are sending a high ranking officer to all their desert bases to do an inspection." Captain Boggs looked at the four men crowded around the map on his table. "Headquarters just happens to want a high ranking officer to question about their latest offensive. Someone suggested that we grab the officer doing the inspections; they think he'll have lots of useful information on the German bases and troop strengths. And it just so happens that by 'we', they mean 'you'. Your orders are to intercept the column and somehow grab the officer in charge."

"Just how are we supposed to grab an officer in front of a whole column of Germans?" Sam Troy stared at the map in front of him as he asked the question.

"That's up to you Sergeant. Headquarters doesn't care how you do it, as long as it gets done." The Captain shrugged.

"Great." Troy grunted, almost to himself. The other three members of the team looked on without comment. "So suppose we manage to grab this guy," Troy looked up at the Captain, " where do we have to deliver him?"

"Right here Sergeant. Headquarters will send someone to pick him up once you get him here."

"They do know that we're going to have half the German Afrika Korps on our tail the minute we grab him, right?"

"Then I suggest that you grab him and move fast Sergeant." Captain Boggs responded with a straight face. "I know this assignment is not ideal, but it is what it is. You've done something similar several times before this."

Troy let his breath out in a huff. "Yeah Captain, we've grabbed more than one high ranking officer for headquarters to question. The difference is, we've been seen in the area. They're going to be watching for us, expecting something. If they even suspect what we're after, they'll set a trap for us." Troy sighed as he ran out of steam. "We can do the job Captain, I just wish that they wouldn't pick such high profile targets. Heck, Dietrich would be easier to grab right about now." He added in disgust.

"But Command doesn't want Dietrich." Captain Boggs informed him with a small smile.

"Yeah, I hear you Captain." The sergeant resumed studying the map. "So what route is this column expected to take?"

The Captain ran his finger across the map, pointing out the expected route. There were several places where the terrain was too rough for the column to deviate from the road and others where they could wander off course by miles. Troy studied the known path, looking for good campsites where the Germans were likely to stop.

"What makes this guy so special anyway?" Hitchcock asked as the meeting wound down.

"He has ties to Berlin and some of the high command of the Nazi Party. According to G-2, he just finished a tour of the bases in Europe and is in the process of doing the same thing here. He'll have a lot of useful information on those bases too, if we can capture him and convince him to talk."

"The Germans aren't going to like our getting our hands on him." Tully observed quietly.

"Troy's right. Jerry will be after us the moment they realize that we have him." Jack Moffitt met Troy's gaze. "They'll throw everything they have at us."

"Then maybe we should convince them that we don't have him." Troy said thoughtfully. "Maybe we should just kill him off."

"No!" Captain Boggs interrupted the conversation. "Headquarters wants him alive!" He glared at Troy.

"Yeah, we know." Troy growled. "But the Germans don't need to know that. If we can convince them that he's dead they won't have any reason to chase us….Other than the usual ones, that is."

"At least not much." Tully added with a grin.

"You mean fake his death?" The Captain was looking at Troy suspiciously.

Troy cocked his head and smiled a crooked smile. "It might get them off our tail. If they think he died, they won't come looking for him or put so much effort into looking for us."

"How are we going to pull that off Sarge?" Mark Hitchcock questioned. "They'll look for a body. If he's that important, they're going to need some kind of proof."

"What if he were to get blown up?"

Everyone turned to stare at Tully.

"If a bomb hit the jeep, there wouldn't be any bodies left to find." Tully shrugged as if it made all the sense in the world.

"You volunteering to drive it?" Troy asked.

"I was sort of thinking we could blow up an empty one." The lanky driver answered with a grin.

"How are we going to convince the Germans that this officer was in it?" Hitch asked again. Troy was staring past Tully, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Captain, is there any chance we could call in an airstrike?"

Captain Boggs looked from one man to another; all of them were watching him expectantly. The more he thought about it, the more appealing the idea sounded.

"Where and when Sergeant?"

Troy shrugged. "We won't know that until we get our hands on that officer. We'll only need one plane and hopefully only one bomb." Troy was considering the possibilities. "It might be better if we made it look like he got killed in one of his own staff cars. They might question which jeep he was in, but, if they thought he got away in his car and then got killed, they might buy it."

"Good." Hitchcock smiled in relief. "I hate to blow up a perfectly good jeep."

"I got to admit, that part bothered me too." Tully added. Moffitt laughed at the two drivers as they grinned happily.

"I'll see what I can do Sergeant. You boys get some sleep, I'll get back to you before you pull out in the morning."

The four men nodded absently. Troy was still looking at the map while the other three watched silently. Moffitt looked up to meet the eyes of the two privates and smiled at them. They nodded solemnly and waited for Troy to explain the plan. None of them doubted for even a moment that he would come up with a plan to complete the mission.

With a final nod he backed away from the table and saluted the Captain. Leading the way, he left the tent, trailed by the other three.