The Getting Back to Normal
Chapter 6
It was after midnight when the group reached the safe house in Ravensburg. It did indeed have a comfortable bed for Terry to catch a nap in. Garrison had watched his sister go upstairs to find her room. Her lack of energy would have concerned him more, but he was aware his own and Actor's stamina were not back up to their normal levels either.
They had to do this mission and complete it well. As long as they had all been down, recuperating from the concussions and injuries they had received in the previous mission, there was a chance that some of the heads at Allied Command would put an end to their group and send the cons back to prison. It was something Garrison and the others did not find acceptable.
Casino and Chief took turns on guard duty, while Goniff threw himself on a fine stuffed sofa and went to sleep. It was the pickpocket's turn to stand guard in the morning.
Their contact in the village of Ravensburg had informed them of a change in plans and that they would not be picked up until the coming night. It made them all a little edgy. So far things had gone as planned and that always was a cause of concern for the men who were used to something going majorly wrong.
Neither Garrison, nor Actor, slept. It had become the habit of both to stay awake during missions until they returned to the Mansion. Terry had become the same way, so for her to go straight to a bed, meant she wasn't handling her injuries as well as she would like. Garrison let her sleep.
GGG
The next morning, Garrison sat with the map and tried to force a particularly bitter cup of acorn coffee past his protesting taste buds. Actor sat down at the table, beside him, trying to force down the same bitter drink.
"You know," said Garrison speculatively, "They expect General Wagner to inspect the factory. So why don't we go inspect the factory?"
"Oh, no, Warden!" objected Casino loudly from the sofa. "How do we know they didn't tumble us after we left?"
"I'm sure we would have heard about it by now if they had," replied the officer, brushing it off.
"Yeah, and what if they're waitin' for us to show up there?" continued the safecracker.
"He has a point," said Actor in a calm, reasonable, low voice.
"I don't believe so," denied Garrison.
Terry came from the small kitchen with a grimace on her face from her first taste of coffee.
"What's Casino complaining about now?" she asked.
"Warden wants to go inspect that factory," answered the objecting man.
Terry stared at her brother. "You know, Craig, you're gonna get us all killed. Why? We got what we were sent after."
Garrison nodded. "But the more intelligence we can bring back the better."
"Well what we've already got isn't going to help anyone if we walk into a trap." Terry took a seat beside the confidence man. She turned to the tall Italian. "You're the con man. Talk some sense into him."
Actor turned his head to look at her drolly, as a snort came from Casino.
"Teresa, in a little over a year, he has not listened to any sense I tell him. Why would he begin now?" Actor's eyes turned to the officer. "Besides, 'this is not a democracy, and it is not up for discussion'," quoted the Italian.
Shaking his head, Casino looked at the girl. "So we're gonna drive right up there and hope it isn't a trap."
"Craig?" the girl asked pleadingly.
"That's what we are going to do," replied her brother. "End of discussion."
The front door opened quietly, and Chief let himself in. He looked at Garrison. "The cars are ready to go, any time you are, Warden."
Terry's incredulous eyes turned to the scout. "You knew he was going to do this?"
Chief shrugged and sat on the sofa beside Casino. "'Course. Haven't been on a mission with him yet he don't add something on. An' it figures he'd want tuh see that factory for himself." He turned to Garrison. "That's what we're doin', isn't it?"
The officer nodded.
"Terrific," said Terry grumpily.
Garrison folded up the map and tucked it in his shirt. He looked at the cup of bitter liquid and decided it was better to waste it than to put it inside him. He pushed it away.
"All right," he said, "let's get ready and go."
GGGGG
Chief drove the general's car with all of them in it this time. Garrison had said if anyone asked why, it was because they were looking or a place to live after Gen. Wagner had seen the factory. Everything was fine, until Chief reached the intersection to turn toward the factory entrance. He spotted the roadblock outside of the gate and stopped hard. It was too late. By the gesturing and the soldiers running, they had seen the flags on the front fenders of the car.
"They spotted us," said Chief, as he made the turn in the opposite direction from the gate.
Going up a block, he turned again and sped up, trying to lose the vehicles that would be in pursuit. Up alleys, down side streets, the scout tried hard to get far enough ahead to hide someplace. Whoever was tailing them was keeping them in sight.
Goniff, in the front seat, edged closer to Casino to give Chief more room to maneuver. Casino had his window rolled down and a schmeisser resting on the edge. In the back, Terry was stuck in the middle between the other two men, hand gun at the ready, but nothing to shoot at. Garrison had come up with another schmeisser donated by the resistance and Actor had a pistol.
Chief made a sharp turn onto another street and found he had turned in the wrong direction, into a dead end. He slammed on the brakes and tried to slide the car around. There wasn't room. It was a residential street and the curbs were lined with parked cars.
"Out!" yelled Garrison figuring to put the body of their vehicle between them and the approaching soldiers.
Everybody slid out and took positions. Terry had moved ahead to crouch behind a parked car. Actor was at the front fender of their car, Garrison behind the rear fender, and Chief between them. Casino jerked Goniff around the two in officers uniforms and behind the front fender of a car parked behind theirs.
The lead vehicle of soldiers stopped down the street and six men got out. They took cover behind the truck and along the sidewalks. Garrison did not have to tell his men to keep the soldiers far enough back they could not throw a grenade. Sporadic shooting began.
"Shit!"
Garrison swung his head around toward the sound of the swearing. Another truck pulled to a stop farther down the road they had turned onto. They were now effectively trapped. Goniff and Casino concentrated on the soldiers behind them. The other four remained focused on the ones from the first truck.
A Leutnant, more foolhardy than anything else, stepped into the road and started toward them. A couple of soldiers followed him.
"We have you trapped," called the Leutnant. "Surrender."
Garrison waited for him to approach a little farther, then shot him. Now the firing began in earnest, with soldiers jumping and ducking forward to get closer down both streets. German bullets were getting closer.
The sound of a car door had Terry's eyes darting to a parked car across the street and stared in shock. There was a woman sprawled on the road by the driver's door, blood pooling around her. There was a little girl sitting next to the body, crying.
"Oh, dear God," she murmured to herself. "Cover me!" she screamed with a touch of fear in her voice.
No one knew what they were covering for, but the five men opened fire. Terry sprinted across the street, bullets flying all around her. She almost made it to the child when she was hit in the leg. With a giant effort, she flung herself forward and reached the child. Terry threw herself on top of the little girl to protect her. At any second she was afraid she would feel more bullets slam into her. At least she had the child protected. She looked at the woman whose eyes were open sightlessly.
A slight lull came after the volley of shooting. Actor tried to see what Teresa was doing. She was curled up in the street in an odd position. "Teresa, are you hit?" he yelled to her in Italian.
"Sì!"
A stab of fear shot through the con man, but he stifled it. Still in Italian that the soldiers could not understand, he called to her. "Can you get to cover behind the car?"
"If you can keep them off of me!" she called back in Italian.
"Cover!" yelled Actor.
They started shooting heavily again. Terry forced her leg to work and scooted around the back of the car to the sidewalk, hiding behind the closed passenger door. She hugged the crying child to her and tried to curl as much of her body around the little girl as possible. She looked down at her bloody thigh and felt it. The bullet was still in there, but the bone was intact.
Terry went back to trying to comfort the child. She had dark brown curly hair down to her shoulders. Terry thought she might be three or four years old at best.
"What is your name?" she asked in French.
"Ange," said a tremulous little voice.
"Angel," translated Terry. "I am Teresa," she said in French.
Air raid sirens began screaming around them. Great, thought Terry, can anything else go wrong? It was enough to send the German soldiers fleeing for shelter.
Garrison looked for his sister and saw the dead woman by the car. The clothes were not what Terry had been wearing. He started to yell for the girl, but Actor was up and moving.
The con man sprinted to Terry. He stared in shock at the child in her arms. "Is she hurt?"
"I don't think so," replied Terry.
Actor looked at her leg.
"Bullet's in there. It isn't broken."
Bombs started falling in the distance, but coming closer. Actor looked back to the other men. Garrison was motioning him to come. There was no way they could squeeze an injured Teresa and the child into the General's car. Actor motioned Garrison to go and pointed at the car.
"This thing better run," he said tensely.
He opened the back door and placed the child on the seat. Then he practically lifted Teresa and thrust her in beside the child. Racing around the back of the car, he stepped around the mother's body and tried to avoid stepping in the woman's blood as he climbed in the driver's side. He pushed the starter and grinned grimly as the big engine roared to life. Actor floored it. As they screeched away from the curb, he looked in the rearview mirror. Garrison and the others turned their car down a side street on a right angle to the con man. The bombs were getting closer. Actor tromped on the gas pedal.
They ran out of gas before they could reach the safe house. At least they were outside of the city and in a wooded area. Actor came back to Teresa. The child had stopped crying and was unusually quiet. He figured the little girl was in shock. Terry was holding a hand tightly to the wound on her leg with blood oozing between her fingers. Actor took out his clean white linen handkerchief and managed to tie it very tightly around Terry's thigh.
"Can you walk?" asked Actor. "We have about two miles to go."
"You carry Angel here and I'll hoof it," said Terry with more optimism than she felt.
The young woman climbed out of the car and limped badly out of the way. Actor knelt on the seat and held his arms out to the child. He spoke in a gentle voice to her in French, telling her it was all right. The little one scooted over and put her arms around the con man's neck. Actor backed out of the car and lifted the child into his arms.
"Boy, you charm them at any age," cracked Terry.
He shot her a wry look. Setting the child on her feet with Teresa, he pushed the car into the woods. It wasn't completely hidden, but it was better than being on the road. Shifting the child onto one hip, he reached for Teresa with the opposite arm. He held it stiffly bent as she wrapped her arm around it to use for support. They started walking, just inside the tree line, in the direction of the safehouse.
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