The Secret Files of Lucky Ford: The Dragon, the Wolf, and the Maiden, Part 7 of 12

Lucky Ford has plunged headfirst into the Office’s strange war. Now he finds himself behind enemy lines. Does he have what it takes to face down the horrors of Department Three on their home turf?

The Dragon, the Wolf, and the Maiden is now available as a Kindle ebook, in paperback, or as a DRM-free ePub!

This Part 7 of our epic adventure with Lucky and the Office. If you aren’t caught up yet, check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6 before reading any further.

Content Warnings: Violence, Gun Violence, Death, Mild Swearing, Tobacco Use, Nazis

SATURDAY NIGHT, JULY 10, 1942
SAN GIORGIO A CREMANO
THE CITY OF NAPLES, ITALY

Lucky felt like he was holding onto the end of a snapping bullwhip when the wind caught his parachute. The eighty extra pounds of metal, wood, and explosives strapped to his body wrenched against every one of his joints, and Lucky wouldn't have been surprised if he was two inches taller by the time he hit the ground.

The Office's wind charts were spot-on, and the Angel's timing had been perfect. She'd executed the fastest, smoothest, quietest, most on-target jump Lucky'd ever pulled off. He touched down in the center of a blacked-out public park in an overgrown clearing that had once been a soccer pitch. None of the officials landed further than a couple hundred yards away, so it didn't take them ten minutes to reconnoiter, find cover beneath as copse of trees on the edge of the field, and set a perimeter.

Lucky, MacLeod, Bucket, and Lee gathered around the Colonel and Miller as they studied a street-level map of the city with hushed voices. The other officials spread out to keep watch for Axis patrols.

“It seems we have bull's-eyed our landing zone,” Miller said.

“Good Lord, she is as good as she says,” the Colonel muttered. He held a shielded blue flashlight over his map, squinting at the dimly illuminated criss-crossing streets.

“Colonel Halistone, despite the black-out conditions and the aerial bombardment, we cannot operate on the assumption that we were not seen,” Miller whispered urgently. The Colonel nodded in agreement, saying:

“Agreed. Corporal MacLeod, you are on point, I shan't delay us further.”

MacLeod grinned, splitting his painted face in two with a mischievous grin. He hefted his BAR but kept his claymore sword close. He clicked twice with his tongue, gathering the scattered squad to him:

“Aw'right lads, lets keep her quick and quiet, keep yer peeps open an' yer yaps trapp'd. Spread this gaggle oot.”

With that, MacLeod set off down the nearest cobblestone road, sticking close to the shadows of bomb-blasted buildings and rubble piled along the streets.

Bucket hunkered down and watched MacLeod advance. He tightened the straps on his pack, not wanting his demo charges to get jostled. His Thompson's drum magazine rattled as the hundred rounds inside shifted. Dutton stuck close, carrying an even larger pack as well as a Lewis machine gun that elicited a grunt every time he lifted it. The heavy load-out made the Chinese calligraphy inked across his arms and neck dance from the effort.

The pair stayed focused on the dark trees above and around them and the looming buildings beyond. Once MacLeod had moved up a safe distance, they warily followed.

Miller took up his position next to Lucky. He'd cover their left with his grease gun. Lucky kept his Garand at the ready and his eyes on their right. They waited for a moment to make some space between them, Bucket, and Dutton.

“You may be facing a new enemy, but this is the same war,” Miller whispered. “Remember your training, think on your feet, and keep your head. There is nothing in that mountain that is not in the domain of men to create, and thus, to destroy.”

“I know what we've got to do,” Lucky replied. Even if Miller wasn't asking a question, Lucky had to hear his answer for himself.

He knew he wasn't fighting to survive anymore, that is not the struggle of the airborne invader. His motivations were greater now, to clear a path and eliminate dangers to his fellow soldiers. He would watch these officials' backs and help them take down the Crying Maiden to ensure the safety of hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers, sailors, and airmen. On top of everything else, he was the only person who knew Grease had been captured alive. He was the only person who'd know to look for him, to stop whatever the Vargulf were doing to him.

“I'll be watching your back, private, no need for undue concern,” Miller assured him. Lucky nodded absentmindedly. That last thing he wanted was for Miller to be the next Parker or Wilson on the list of lives ended by his 'luck.'

“Let's get moving,” Miller said, once Bucket and Dutton were about fifty yards ahead. Lucky double-checked that his Garand was ready for work, then followed them out of the park and into the dark neighborhood.

Their destination, just blocks away, had until recently been one of the largest industries in this end of Naples, the Mano Nera fish cannery. Intel marked the factory one of the first targets British bombers had prioritized when they’d starting hitting the city back in 1940. Once fascist paper pushers decided it was too badly damaged to warrant repair, the rusted-out cannery was left to the gulls and cats. It was large, secluded, unpatrolled, and four miles from their ultimate target.

The side-streets and back-alleys were eerily quiet as the infiltrators made their way south. The daily bombings had driven the population of Naples underground for the last two years, living in fear amongst ancient Roman sewers and catacombs. Some of the people holed up down there hadn't seen the sun in months.

“There are more miles of roads underneath Italy than on the surface,” Miller whispered.

“Neat,” Lucky said.

“Paris is similar,” Miller added.

“Tell me about it tomorrow,” Lucky hissed.

A standing puddle in an alley caught the very edge of a bomb's shockwave and rippled gently under Lucky's feet as he slunk by.

The Colonel and six officials hung back behind Lucky, with Neff holding down the rear. Within seconds of hitting the ground, Neff had unpacked and assembled the pieces of his massive rifle, and now all five feet of it was ready to pulverize anything that might come out of the darkness.

Up ahead, MacLeod lifted a clenched fist into the air. Lucky stopped immediately and clung to the nearest wall, Garand held tight to his shoulder, finger ready in the trigger well. The rest of the team behind him immediately melted into the shadows.

The loud clanking of metal on stone echoed down the block, and a Nazi halftrack rattled into view from behind the corner of a building. It was towing a FlaK 43 anti-aircraft gun behind it, with crew members dangling from any handhold they could get. The vehicle careened down the bumpy street toward the bombing zones by the docks.

With only a couple gun crew members and a driver, the biggest danger presented by the halftrack was any commotion the heavily-armed squad would cause by destroying it.

Its steel treads bit into the cobblestone street, tearing chunks from the road, but it didn't slow down. It took and hard left ahead of the officials. Its visored headlights protected it from aerial attacks during the blackout, but were unable to reveal the infiltrators lurking around it. As it rumbled away, Lucky released the breath he hadn't realized he was holding, then waited another fifteen seconds for MacLeod to give the all-clear signal.

The Scotsman led on, though a bit more skittish after the near-run-in with the halftrack, ducking into alleyways and behind piles of rubble at the slightest disturbance. Allied bombers continued to pound ton after iron ton of bombshells into the port. Explosions and tracers lit up the western sky, and they made it to the cannery undetected, just as the massive air force's operation was singularly designed to do.

The sheer cost in manpower and firepower for a simple distraction humbled Lucky. So much chaos solely to get twelve men to a mountain. If everything went right, none of the airmen involved in the last-minute bombing run, or their next of kin, would know what they had actually been fighting for.

MacLeod held his fist up one last time, and Lucky shoved those thoughts aside. The bomb-mangled cannery lay ahead, and his training kicked in, his senses reaching out into the night around him, all thoughts other than those that would help him survive until morning immediately cleared from his mind. He was ready for anything.

The cannery had been a massive corrugated steel building, large enough for dozens of trucks filled to the top with tuna and sardines to fit inside. The damage it had suffered was old already, and weathered. Wind whistled through the shattered building, carrying the stink of long-rotted fish and gull shit, the smell still strong enough to sting nostrils, even years after the last can had been pressed there.

MacLeod gingerly approached the trembling metal structure, BAR leveled and sword drawn as he crept to the huge delivery door, knocked off its roller tracks by a concussive blast long ago. He paused in the dark entrance, covering Bucket and Dutton as they crossed the last street to join him. MacLeod gave Lucky the signal, and he was up and running into the creaking building before he had a second notion about it.

As soon as Lucky was in the door he dropped to a knee and spun around to cover the officials advancing from behind. Neff brought up the rear, moving painfully slowly and deliberately, alert to any disruption in the buildings around the ruined cannery. Once the entire team was safely inside, Lucky allowed himself to take in what was left of the huge factory.

The production floor was ruined, with nothing but the blackened sore of a bomb crater burned into the center of the building. Rusted machinery lay crumpled all around the blast point, twisted as if it had been wracked with pain as it transformed from essential tools to tons of ruined, useless scrap. The same blast that had decimated the canning machines had burst the steel roof up and out from the building, with tatters of sheet metal frozen in place like a corrugated steel tulip. The team spread out to clear the building. MacLeod was the first to speak, moving to the burnt crater in the center of the concrete floor, open sky above:

“She's all clear, colonel, sir,” he reported, “Clean as a bobby's pin.”

Lucky had no idea what the Scotsman said half the time and could've sworn he'd just made up half the words he used.

“Thank you, Corporal, excellent work, as always. I rue the day I need return you to Brigadier General Stephens' command,” the Colonel said. He fished around his various pockets before finally retrieving a gold pocket watch to check the time. “Gentlemen, it appears Corporal MacLeod has led us to the rendezvous point in capital time. Agent Boots' compatriots should already know we are here. Ready your gear and your minds, for shortly we will be venturing into the very heart of the beast.”

The Colonel snapped his watch shut, then stepped back and pulled Neff aside. Lucky checked his rifle and sidearm for readiness yet again while the Colonel had a whispered conversation in French. Lucky looked down for a second to adjust his pack straps, and when he looked up the surly Frenchman was gone, melted into the gloom between the gnarled fish processors.

The Colonel returned to the center of the work floor, illuminated by bright moonlight pouring through the ruined roof. He gathered everyone around him.

“Gentlemen, I have the utmost faith in each one of you. We all understand how vital it is that the Crying Maiden is disabled if we ever want to regain air superiority on the continent, much less be able to coordinate logistics in any of the myriad theaters this conflict has overrun. When Agent Boots arrives, listen, learn, follow his instructions to the letter. Commodore Dixon has assured me that Boots has an intimate knowledge of the workings of the Vesuvius base, as well as the former Etna installation. We will enter the compound, permanently disable the Maiden, collect any intelligence items for immediate cataloging, and exfiltrate to the waiting Saint. George.”

The Colonel looked around the assembled group, then pulled his pipe from his pocket, prepacked with his strong blend of tobacco, asking:

“Anything to add, Miller?”

“Only to stress the importance of stealth and precision. Our strike team is one of the first Allied ground forces to set foot within Europe proper n nearly one year. Our only objective is disable the Maiden. We can't afford to linger. Even now we are surrounded by - !”

“Wait,” Ajax interrupted. He had his head cocked, listening.

“Mortar!” Rossling yelled as he dived into cover and pulled Ajax with him.

SATURDAY NIGHT, JULY 10, 1942
THE SITE OF THE FORMER MANO NERA FISH CANNERY
THE CITY OF NAPLES, ITALY

Lucky dropped to the ground, his training taking over. The ominous whistle of incoming mortar shells cut through the night air, quickly growing in volume.

The explosions deafened him, popping his ears as the air pressure in the building instantly doubled then disappeared. Small bits of shrapnel peppered him, stinging like hail. An earthy rotten stink descended on the factory, familiar and alien at the same time.

“Damn!” Bucket yelled, strangely muffled: “The goddamn Italians! They double-crossed us!”

Lucky opened his eyes to find the whole inside of the cannery white. Terror spiked in his heart, sending adrenaline coursing though him. His mind went wild wondering what had happened. Had he taken shrapnel in the eye, the brain?

He reached up to try to touch his eyes and couldn’t. Lucky’s arms were wrapped in sticky, smelly, white fibers, each as thin as hair. He felt his heart start racing but he pushed panic aside for the moment. He thrashed against his the bindings until he found the smallest amount of give. A moment of coordinated wriggling allowed him to squirm onto his side, where he found a gap in the strands near his face.

The rest of the squad in no better shape than him, all bound to the floor by a thick blanket of white threads. The closest wriggling pile was only about two feet to his left.

“Hey, see if you can reach my trench knife,” Lucky told it, “It's right next to you, strapped to my boot.”

He didn't have enough slack in bindings to reach even his own foot, but Lucky hoped someone else might have gotten abetter deal. The squirming lump heard him and tried its best, flailing about, but it gave up its efforts quickly. His knife might as well have had cement poured on top of it.

“Private Ford, I am sorry but it's of no use, even were I able to reach your knife,” Miller conceded, doubly muffled by his mask and the strands.

“Come on, Miller, you just need a good budge or two and we can cut ourselves out of this shit,” Lucky urged. The strands seemed to be growing tighter around him.

“We've been caught, Private Ford. Department Three knew we were coming. These are spinnennetz mortar shells, pre-sighted on our exact position. Nothing short of a blowtorch or industrial acid could cut us free now,” Miller explained. He sighed behind his thick mask, adding: “Even before their chemical hardening, spider web is stronger per volume than folded steel. I would dull your knife and we would still be in this predicament.”

“Spiderweb? This is just some cobwebs?” Lucky asked. His struggle against the stinking bindings began again with renewed vigor.

“Don't waste your energy, Lucky, we still got a long night ahead of us,” Bucket interjected from somewhere off to Lucky's right. He was calm enough to start breaking down their situation. “This stuff is based on Malay dog-hunting spider silk. Those little tiny spiders weave it to trap dogs even before Dee-Three messes with it.”

“Indeed, now's no time to panic,” the Colonel advised. Lucky twisted around to catch a glimpse of him. He looked calm, though ridiculous with his pith helmet webbed cock-eyed to his face. Somehow his pipe had remained lit; he puffed away as he spoke: “We've obviously been had, and our fates are in the hands of Department Three.”

A shadow crossed over the Colonel's face. A lone silhouette had appeared in the factory's shattered entrance.

“My, my, look at our little snare. It seems we have some officials on the line,” a German man said. The silhouette paused, then barked orders in German. Two dozen more men stepped into the light next to him. “Tell me, officials, you are on a line, shall we cook you like fish? I have not have had a good steckerlfisch since… quite a long time. Who do we clean first?”

The assembled Nazis laughed nervously.

“Hey, ugly!” Lee shouted. He'd been ensnared near the factory's entrance, closest to the new arrival. “How about a taste of this?”

Lee's hand had been webbed to his grease gun grip. He twisted the weapon around as best he could despite it being glued to the floor, and squeezed the trigger. A chattering rip of sub machine-gun rounds knocked two of the Nazis off their feet. Before Lee could twist around more to get an angle on a new target, a single pistol shot silenced the grease gun. Lucky watched red blossom through the white web.

The silhouette tucked a Mauser back into his holster and stepped over Lee's now-still body.

“Ye mangey wanker!” MacLeod shouted. The Nazi waved him off and walked across the blanket of webs until he found who he was looking for.

“Colonel Halistone? Is that you?” the Nazi asked in a sing-song whisper, as if he hadn't just shot a man. The stranger's tongue stumbled over his German-tainted words. “I would not have believed this had I not seen it for myself.”

The tall Nazi was clad in a floor-length trench coat. He removed a thick file folder from an inner pocket and flipped through the pages.

The Colonel, bound and immobile, remained silent as he puffed on his pipe.

“Ach, a disgusting habit,” the kraut said, and he bent over and smacked the pipe from the Colonel's lips. As he stood back up, an errant ray of moonlight gleamed off a polished pin on his collar, the death's head emblem of the SS. Instead of a grinning skull, however, the dead eyes of a skeletal wolf stared back.

This Nazi was one of them, one of the Vargulf Korps. He smiled and removed a photo from his folder, comparing it to the stoic Colonel.

“You have many new wrinkles, Colonel Halistone. This war has aged you. A man of fewer years might not have been so arrogant as to bring a force of just, what? Eleven men?”

Lucky's breath caught in his throat. If the Nazi had only snared eleven of them, it meant someone had gotten away.

“You are going against the might of the Reich, the next level in the evolution of humankind, and the technology that will guide the future of this planet. Would you expect the most powerful civilization in the history of the world to not know of your pathetic attack, or your Agent Boots?” the Nazi asked.

“That damn Boots double-crossed us, I knew it!” Bucket yelled.

“Not a bloody word, sergeant!” the Colonel snapped. The Nazi left the Colonel's side and made his way to Bucket. He flipped through his folder until he found what he was looking for.

“Indeed, Sergeant Hall,” the kraut hissed. “You will have much time to speak to me, I will make sure of it. I am insatiably curious to understand why a member of the Negroid race, so persecuted in his home country, would risk his life in its name. Do not be surprised that I know you, sergeant. You see, I know all of you as well as you know me. Your Office has been a subject of much study for me for as long as I have been in the Schutzstaffel.”

The kraut strolled between the struggling cocoons, flipping through his folder while he meandered, making little pencil check marks on each folder as he identified the men he'd caught..

“It is a formidable force, Colonel, despite it diminutive size. Every man here is a prolific killer of my countrymen. But, there is one of your number who is not in my files, his face. I am reminded of it every time I see my own,” the Nazi hissed. He stopped pacing and stood over Lucky, staring down, his face hidden in shadow.

Engines roared to life down the street and three halftracks pulled up to the entrance of the cannery. Bright headlights flared bright and blinded Lucky; lighting bolts danced behind Lucky's eyelids, but he forced his eyes open. He would see what was coming for him.

The Nazi’s men swarmed into the cannery. These storm troopers were holding serrated knives, billhooks, great garden shears, and blow torches. The lead Nazi was glaring down at Lucky, his Mauser drawn again.

“I will never forget your face, boy. Nor will you forget mine,” the Nazi snarled. Lucky's vision had recovered enough that he could see the Nazi clearly. In the scalding glare of the halftrack headlights, the man's malicious grin was twisted by a wicked scar torn into his cheek just below his left eye. It that warped his thin face into a permanent grimace. It was a horrible burn, pink, ragged, and deep, in the unmistakeable shape of a cross. That cross still hung around Lucky's neck.

“Gerhardt...” Lucky whispered, the memory of this monster pouncing at him, his friends' frothy blood dripping from its teeth, swelled up in his gut. He could still see the steam boiling out of its ragged face.

“So you do know me. I would suggest you do not struggle. I do not have to tell you what will happen to anyone who I have to chase down,” Gerhardt said.

The Nazi soldiers surrounded each ensnared official save Lucky and used blowtorches on their tools until they glowed orange. The threads sizzled away bit-by-bit. When each limb was freed, the Nazis would dog-pile it and chain it up. When each official was fully secured, he was dragged to his feet and blinded with a black hood over his head. The hooded officials were placed in a line, waiting to be taken away.

Gerhardt barked at one of his men who dragged one manacled official over. The official’s abdomen was soaked through with red from a gut shot, and he limped and shuffled over, nearly tripping over his chains.

The SS man left Lee with Gerhardt and went back to work heating his knives to cut Bucket up from the floor. Lee trembled but maintained his footing.

“I thought that showing you might leave a more permanent impression than simply telling you, boy,” Gerhardt said. He ripped Lee's hood off in one quick motion.

Lee blinked at the sudden light.

“What now?” he groaned. Lucky was amazed Lee was even standing. His wound was serious, and nothing had been done to slow the blood pouring out of him.

Gerhardt flipped through his papers until he found Lee’s dossier.

“Jeffery Lee, of San Francisco, California, Mongoloid. Much of the information in your file comes from our Japanese allies. They seem to think you something of a pest,” Gerhardt told him.

“I try my best to be,” Lee said. He stood up straight, staring Gerhardt down.

“You tried to shoot me, Mister Lee. If you are a pest, you are a trigger-happy one. The Black Dragons will be pleased to learn that I swatted you,” Gerhardt told him. He drew his Mauser again.

“I know they will,” Lee said. The cords in his neck stood out, and it was clear to Lucky that with his hands unbound, unwounded, Lee could have broken Gerhardt in half.

“You want me, you kraut bastard!” Lucky yelled, wrestling against the unyielding spider silk pinning him to the floor.

“Ha,” Gerhardt softly chuckled, “I thought the colorful language was solely reserved for your sailors, not men of the field. Do understand that I could make this much worse for your comrade were you to motivate me to.”

Lucky stopped struggling against the web, out of breath. He remembered how much worse this monster could be. Flashes of Squints torn to pieces with tooth and claw echoed in his mind.

Gerhardt smiled at Lucky and settled Mauser’s muzzle on Lee’s chest. He silently thumbed the selector switch, then looked away from Lee, his eyes locked onto Lucky's. He looked the same as he had the night before, when he'd determined that Lucky was nothing more than a victim or a meal and had every intention to tear out his throat with his own teeth.

The Nazi smirked, then pulled the trigger. Five full-auto 7.63 millimeter drilled rounds into Lee's chest. He crumpled, his blood spraying across the white mass of spiderwebs coating the factory floor.

“Go the hell!” Lucky screamed, his voice cracking. Tears stung his eyes.

“A quick death, calm and anticipated, is the best you could hope for tonight,” Gerhardt said. He squatted next to Lucky and whispered into his ear: “And you can hope for it all you want, my new friend, but know I wouldn't allow that to happen. Not with your gift to me.”

He ran the muzzle of the pistol along the burn in his face, hissing:

“I'll need some time to determine what I'll ask the doktor to do to you.” He stood and motioned to two SS men who wore leather aprons over their black uniforms.

The two men frisked Lucky through the webbing, first cutting free and taking his rifle, knife, and Colt before turning their blow-torched shears onto the webs binding him. The strands stank as they melted.

Lucky tried to fight them but the soldiers twisted his freed arms and legs into impossible angles, then 'cuffed them together. They threw a black hood over his head once he was free of the web and dragged him to his feet. Gerhardt pushed him forward. He blindly stumbled ahead, but didn't make it two steps before the toe of his boot caught on something, sending him face-first into a soft but solid mass on the floor. The blood stank even through the thick hood and he realized with horror he was sprawled out on on Lee's corpse.

The krauts grabbed Lucky's arms and dragged him back to his feet, pushing him to the closest idling halftrack. Another set of hands reached down from above and hauled him up and into the back of the armored transport. Lucky could feel the man next to him trembling, terrified but maintaining silence. Lucky took a deep breath and settled into the darkness behind the hood.

Someone shoved him over and squeezed onto the bench next to him. A cold hand encircled Lucky's throat, while another hand tore open the top button of his uniform. His dog tags jangled as the hands removed from under his shirt.

“We have already shared so much, my friend,” Gerhardt whispered, his face inches away from Lucky's own, just on the other side of the black fabric. “I must know your name. The name of the one who could do this to me.”

He snapped the dog tag chain and pulled them free.

“Lloyd Alexander Ford,” he read aloud. He stuffed the tags and cross into Lucky's chest pocket, then shoved him back. Lucky's back banged into the halftrack's sidewall, sending an ache all the way up and down his spine. Gerhardt laughed, saying: “A stereotypically Amerikaner name. Well, Herr Ford, remember this date, the eleventh of July, nineteen hundred and forty-three. It is the last of your old life. Those that pass beyond the Dragon’s Gate see their lives ended.”

The tailgate slammed shut, and the engine roared. Steel treads bit into cobblestone street, and they were moving.

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Copyright © 2022 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin. Art by Dudu Torres.