The Billy Club Bastard Case Files: The Case of Friendless and the Six-Toed Cat, Part 7 of 8

The origin of the mysterious Qutat al’Um is revealed, then Mickey and the Crooks head out into the open sea to seek safety in Miami and draw the desperate Silver Legion away from the innocent folks of Key West.

Crazy, Crazy, Crazy, All the Time is available as a Kindle ebook, in paperback, and as a DRM-free ebook.

This is Part 7 of The Case of Friendless and the Six-Toed Cat. If you haven’t read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, or Part 6 yet, check them out first.

Content Warnings: Mild Swearing, Violence, Gun Violence, Animal Violence, Death, Alcohol Use, Tobacco Use, Body Horror, Nazis

MONDAY MORNING, MAY 11, 1942
ZUWAYYA SHEPHERDS' ENCAMPMENT
MA'TAN AL JAFR, AJDABIYA, LIBYA

//translated from the speaker’s original German//

Rochus Skorzeny lowered his smoking machine pistol, satisfied that the shepherd woman was dead. Her blood flowed slowly, gleaming like liquid mercury under the purple sun. Amethyst pyres roared around him, hotter still than the desert air. These had once been tents. Beyond, the arid plateaus and mountains glowed in white under a sky as gray as a drowned man's face. His men tromped around this alien landscape in their shimmering uniforms, projecting vibrant purple beams the reveal blinded men and women. The tracers they drilled into their targets flared magenta before disappearing into flesh.

Skorzeny slid the goggles up to rest on his damp forehead while he wiped the sweat from his eyes with the back of his gritty sleeve. Where once an alien landscape had laid itself bare before him, now he was enveloped by pure, endless darkness. He could still feel the heat of the burning tent not a dozen meters away, but even its glow was subsumed by shadow. The world was as black as the inside of a coffin, long-buried and long-forgotten. He could have been alone in the entire universe, drifting in a black void for eternity.

Except for the wailing starting up in the infinite void near his feet. The shepherd woman was still alive.

Skorzeny sighed and settled the eyepieces back over his face. He blinked as he readjusted to the presence of light. The ultraviolet spotlight mounted on his machine pistol could pierce the hanging blackness as if it weren't there. He could see her illuminated in its purple beam, splayed out and squirming not two meters before him, howling in her language. His pistol bucked twice in his hands, and her screaming stopped.

He liked the darkness, and the quiet. It was as if he was the entire world, and that world ended at his skin. This chaos, this battle, was its antithesis. He watched the sparkling blood ooze out of the dead woman. There was nothing like fluids, smoke, and screaming to remind him that he was not alone, that under the light the world was impure, and that he was small and insignificant in it.

Another native yelled close by. Skorzeny watched him stumble blindly, catching himself on the rocks with his outstretched hands. He was already bleeding. In his goggles, blood looked like flowing mercury. Skorzeny's machine pistol rattled again and this man fell once more, never to get up. Silver pooled around his still frame.

Skorzeny hauled himself up onto a table, kicking plates out of the way. He needed a good vantage to watch his men work.

The Abgrundmacher gas they dropped onto this nomad camp had done its job. This odorless, non-toxic gas was engineered to allow that small sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum that the human eye interpreted as visible light to pass through it. He did not understand the science of it, all he had to do was see, or not see, to know it worked. Without their Vampir gear, with its UV spotlight and the goggles to see it, his men would have been as lost as these natives.

“Bartkäuze!” he shouted. His men fired their last few shots into their targets, then looked up at him, waiting for orders. Their goggles reflected like frog eyes when his UV beam passed over them. He yelled his orders over the screams and flames: “Secure the package!”

His Bartkäuze linked back up into their fireteams and began coursing through the small encampment. Most of the tents were burning, most of the nomadic shepherds were dead. Within a few minutes, curling columns of purple flame had consumed everything and his men had assembled before him. Their hands were empty.

“These are natives, with bows and slings. You are the Bartkäuze! The Fuhrer's talon in the night! How could you let them best you?” Skorzeny shouted at them. They grumbled amongst themselves. Sound was cleaner, crisper within the Abgrundmacher cloud.

“It probably ran away.”

“Some god.”

“It ran? Not even the sheep ran.”

Skorzeny gripped the saber on his thigh. His brother had forced this assignment upon him. His brother had recruited these men. The dueling scars creasing his face throbbed at the thought of Otto. It was all another trick, another prank. Otto had set him up to fail again, this time with Hitler, and Himmler, and the whole Arm watching. These incompetents that he'd been saddled with were - !

A sudden, desperate thought stopped dissipated these thoughts in an instant. He spun on his heel and brought his spotlight up.

The natives’ massive flock of sheep hadn't bolted. Instead, they'd gathered in a circle at the bottom of the rise, downhill from the burning camp. They all faced uphill, watching the men who had killed their minders. Their eyes twinkled like a thousand stars at the UV beams passed over them. There were no fences here; the natives drove their animals from pasture to pasture by whatever whims they followed. The sheep should have run at the first gunshot.

“What is this?” Skorzeny snapped. “Linden! Binoculars!”

Skorzeny's section leader ambled to his side and handed over the glasses. It took a practiced hand to maneuver the eyepiece against his goggles, but Skorzeny had been one of the first to adopt the Vampir system into field combat. He focused the view onto the strange, lingering flock.

The sheep had arrayed themselves in a perfect circle, two hundred meters across. Their thick bodies were packed together so tightly that the ones in the center could hardly move. And they had indeed done this themselves: all of the shepherds and dogs were dead.

“Do you see that, in the middle?” Skorzeny asked. He handed the binoculars to Linden and massaged his scarred, waxy chin while the other man examined what the odd flock had circled around.

“A small crate,” Linden replied. “It matches the package description.”

“I concur,” Skorzeny replied. He took the glasses back from Linden and said: “Retrieve it.”

Linden pulled a net out of his pack.

“Fire Team Ansuz, on me. Nooses at the ready,” he called out. The first squad assembled behind him, slinging their weapons and taking telescoping nooses on sticks out of their holsters.

“Double time,” Skorzeny snapped. Linden and his men made their way down the hill, picking their way between the rocks with their gun lights. Skorzeny watched their progress. The sheep hardly acknowledged their approach.

“All-Highest, what are these sheep doing?” Skorzeny muttered to himself. He focused his view on the center of the odd flock. A small box sat in the middle, no more than three-quarters of a meter on each side. Carved wood, it looked like. It reflected their UV lights well. The reports had said it was painted gold, and empty within save for plush cushions. A ‘masterful’ carving, they had said. But they had not sent the Bartkäuze behind British lines for a box. It was the box’s passenger that Skorzeny sought. It had to be close.

Fire Team Ansuz had stopped at the near edge of the milling flock.

“They won't let us through, sir!” Linden shouted up the hill. Skorzeny's eyes went wide. Otto never had to deal with this. Otto worked for the Fuhrer, not some strange, secret branch run by the insane. Otto had never had to have his body cut open, he never had to steal herding deities from natives. The acid gurgled in Skorzeny's throat.

“They are sheep!” was the only thing Skorzeny could think to yell back. One of his men began kicking bleating ewes aside. After the third kick, a ram reared out of the woolen mass and head-butted his crotch. This elite commando, one of Hitler's finest, went down, clutching his groin. Sheep swarmed in, and he was lost beneath the flock.

The rest of Ansuz recoiled in horror, only for the sheep to close in around them. From the hilltop, Skorzeny watched the flock shift and stretch like a hungry amoeba. Rams and ewes spread wide and circled around the fire team's flanks. Two more men went down before Linden got a clue in his head.

“Fire, fire, fire!” he shouted. He leveled his machine pistol and let off a rip that dropped a score of animals. Tracers sizzled in raw mutton. His men fired into the flock as well, driving the sheep back. They advanced on the ornate box. Another soldier went down beneath uncountable hooves before they made it to the swarming center of the flock.

“There it is!” Linden shrieked. He dove at the box with his net wide open. He struggled for a moment, battling the small thing he had snatched up. The churning mass of sheep froze in place. As one, they turned to face the squad leader and his netted, writhing prize.

A feeling of nausea suddenly struck Skorzeny like a great hand had grasped his stomach and twisted it. He held himself together and forced the tremor in his hand to still so he could look through the binoculars again.

Ansuz was nearly doubled over. Whatever was affecting Skorzeny had hit them even worse. They'd all wrenched their goggles away to vomit where they stood. The world would be flat and black for them. Their point man was blind-sided by a ram. He bent backwards with the impact and was subsumed beneath the flock with a yelp.

“Grenades!” Skorzeny shouted. “Open the way!”

Fire Team Berkanen loaded their rifle grenades, aimed carefully, and fired. The near end of the flock went up in purple flame. Holes opened in the mass of sheep that were instantly filled. Linden and their prize was no closer to escaping than before.

“Fire again!” Skorzeny ordered.

Another volley decimated the flock. Inside its perimeter, Linden and his remaining man were letting loose fully automatic fire, emptying magazine after magazine. They dodged charging rams and kicked ewes aside. The pooling blood glistened under the UV beams. The whole hillside would glow like it had been dipped in silver.

As suddenly as they had attacked, the flock suddenly parted. A path opened before Linden like the first slice taken out of a Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte. A feeling of calm washed over Skorzeny. Everything would be fine. He had accomplished his mission. The bag in Linden's arms was not longer thrashing.

“Get our men,” Skorzeny told his other two fire teams. Berkanen and Kaunen, after Ansuz's fallen. He could see the crushed bodies as the sheep parted. The animals had stomped his soldiers into the ground. He had never seen anything like it. It took him a moment to realize that the fire teams had yet to respond to his commands. Skorzeny turned to find them swaying on their feet, eyes glassy and mouths slack as if they were asleep upright.

“Troopers!” Skorzeny shouted. The men came to with a start. The looked at each other confusion. Skorzeny didn't give them time to figure out what happened: “Gather our men, now!”

The two teams rushed past. Skorzeny stood alone atop the ridge and watched. Linden and his man had cleared the sheep without further incident. It was beautiful, in its way, the way this primitive land glowed in its violet hues.

The familiar chill of a blade against his neck leeched the last bit of the alien calm from Skorzeny. A hot voice whispered against his cheek. Skorzeny did not speak Arabic, but the man's threats were spoken in a universal language.

“Whatever you do next, you'll not survive,” Skorzeny assured him. He raised his hands, careful not to agitate his assailant.

The man sounded old, with a tremble in his voice. Perhaps he'd been weeping, Skorzeny couldn't tell. The man babbled on and on, eventually just repeating one phrase over and over:

“Qutat al'Um, Qutat al'Um, Qutat al'Um,” he mumbled.

“I do not speak your language,” Skorzeny grated. He nodded down at Linden, who had already made it halfway up the hill with their prize. “Things are about to get very bad for you.”

The native drew his knife away and instead locked one ropey arm across Skorzeny's throat. The blade found a new home with its point nestled against his kidney. The man twisted Skorzeny around, using him as a shield before the returning fire teams. He kept babbling while they watched Linden step over the top of the ridge. Linden’s whole uniform was slick with silver sheep’s blood.

The native shrieked at Linden, right next to Skorzeny's ear. He winced, but waved Linden off. Linden looked at him funny but understood. He made no move to raise his weapon.

“Is it alive?” Skorzeny asked, pointing at the bag with his chin.

“Sure is, it's been purring in here ever since the sheep stopped attacking,” Linden replied. He held up the back and poked it with his finger. The cat within grumbled.

“Stop that,” Skorzeny said, suddenly annoyed.

His captor wrenched his arm tighter around his neck, but pulled the blade away so he could point at the bag with it while shouting at Linden.

“He doesn't understa- !” Skorzeny tried, but the native hauled back, choking off his words. Skorzeny coughed, then wheezed: “Enough.”

For all of its insanity, Department Three had given him gifts. It was wrong not to use them. Skorzeny flexed the transplanted tendons in his throat, which in turn squeezed the alien bladder within his neck. Mucus-coated expectorant tubes that ran from the bladder to the underside of his tongue snapped open, allowing the spray of Gyps fulvus gastric acid to escape out of his mouth. The second the foul liquid touched the native's arm, he jerked away in surprise and pain.

Before the man could remember he was holding a blade, Skorzeny had run him through. Bedouin blood oozed over his saber hilt like dripping molten steel. He shoved him backward, off his sword. Skorzeny could hear the dead man's arm flesh sizzling and popping from where he stood.

“Sir,” Linden offered, pointing at his own chin.

“Load the package and the dead, have the pilots spin us up,” Skorzeny snapped. He wiped the dribbles of acid off his own scarred chin with the back of his sleeve. He had been using his Malfeuer implant long enough that the smell of melting skin no longer bothered him, and the nerves in his lips and chin were long cauterized. His uniform sleeve went white wherever it touched the dripping liquid. He ignored it and gave more orders: “Move. We do not want to be behind enemy lines longer than we need.”

Skorzeny watched his remaining fire teams load into the waiting Drachen. The aircrafts' twin propellors spun up at once, whisking the Abgrundmacher gas away, blinding him for just a moment. He removed his Vampir goggles and hung them on their hook on his shoulder. In the light, the entire hilltop was smoke and blood. Two dozen tents had been burned to the ground. Whole families dead. The man who'd tried so desperately to save his patron god looked at least eighty, a gnarled old thing who'd tried to take on the greatest army in the world with a dull rope knife. The acid had eaten most of the way through the man's tibia by then. Skorzeny stepped over the corpse.

Linden transferred the package to a secure container. The small gray cat paced the interior of its new cage before settling in the corner. It didn't seem to mind the Drache's deafening engine or constant rattle. It did not look special, but so few special things did.

Perhaps it was worth all these lives. It was said to be a prize. Perhaps the Fuhrer would recognize Skorzeny for greatness, rather than for his surname. Perhaps this cat would change the world, and even Otto would acknowledge what he had done.

Skorzeny boarded last. They were back in the sun now, and they would be an easy target for Allied patrols. The Drachen lifted off without trouble and began their journey, skimming the hills and desert until they were over the sea. They stayed low and moved fast. The Bartkäuze's next stop would be an airfield in Greece. Then the cat would be someone else's problem.

SUNDAY MORNING, JULY 28, 1942
ABOARD THE PILAR
25°07'15.9"N, 80°19'27.2"W

“All any of 'em are hearing now is 'C Major,'” Saxon confirmed. “They're trying to get something out, but all they got to go on is the G-man's call.”

“Agent Leddy did his job,” Tamm snapped. “If your mercenaries' codes and frequencies were right...”

“Oh, they're bang on, Mister Assistant,” O'Laughlin said. He was leaning in the bridge's doorway, smirking. A half-smoked cigarette hung off his lip.

“Assistant Director,” Tamm said. O'Laughlin ignored that, adding:

“I wouldn't be codding ye, not when me good name's on the line.”

Mick could see a vein rise a quarter-inch out of Tamm's forehead, but the fed had enough sense not to let the Irishman prod him too far.

“You're deal's not on paper until we're on the mainland, alive, with the cat and the rat in tow, O'Laughlin,” Tamm said. “Remember that.”

“Oh, I hear you, G-man, I hear you, I'm not thick,” O'Laughlin replied. He took one last drag of his cigarette and flicked it into the sea, which caught a scowl from Cypress. He smirked again and ambled away to watch the approaching boats, saying: “Keep cracking on, then. The port side is mine.”

He threw his own weapon, a double-barreled shotgun with an underslung rifle barrel, over his shoulder and posted up on the left side of the bow. Tamm watched him for a moment and grumbled something terse to himself.

“He's a good gun to have on our side,” Mick assured him. He rubbed the sore spot on his chest, then said: “He's a great shot, believe me.”

“Fight's coming whether we want it or not, men,” Hemingway said. The boats on the horizon were close enough to see now. There was almost two dozen of them, each loaded down with men and heavy weapons. The unprepared skiffs they'd driven off before were nowhere to be seen. The Legion was sailing to war.

“They're going to tear us the pieces!” Sparacello was shouting at O'Laughlin. He shoved the rifle the Irishman has foisted on him away, O'Laughlin refused to take it back.

“Ye going to want that, friend,” O'Laughlin insisted. He shoved the weapon right back at him. Massimo was shrieking as they scuffled, setting Basil off barking.

“They didn't buy it!” Sparacello told him through gritted teeth. “The krauts are going to let them at us.”

“Stow that talk!” Hemingway roared. He looked around the silent bridge. Sweat dripped off his broad nose. “Ready for battle.”

His crew scrambled to work, pulling weapons out of every crate, false bulkhead, and disguised trap door they could reach. All Mick had on hand was his Office-issue thirty-eight. The snub-nose revolver looked absolutely puny in his mitts. Hemingway shoved past him, almost spitting when he saw what the ordnance Mick had brought to the fight.

“Where's my big gun?” the author roared.

“The priest's on the Browning,” Saxon reported. Out on the roof of the bridge, Padre Untzaín was racking a fresh belt of fifty-cal rounds into the long-barreled machine-gun while reciting a blessing. Fernando, Paxchi, and Juan had formed a train, handing up sandbags to Don Monstruo who was building up a little wall for the priest to duck behind while he laid into the Legionnaires.

“No, the big gun,” Hemingway said, waving dismissively at the heavy machine-gun.

“Right here, Ernest, though I was hoping to try my own hand at this particular game,” Winston said, disappointed, arms full of wide-bore hunting rifles pilfered from Pauline's house. The British playboy couldn't decide which of Hemingway's ornate elephant guns he preferred to surrender to its owner.

“Not those,” Hemingway grunted. Winston grinned and set up his arsenal with the mercenaries at the bow.

“Aquí, Papa,” Kid Tunero said from the cabin door. The boxer had traded in his gloves for a bazooka. Hemingway's huge smile shined through his beard as he took the rocket launcher in hand.

“The right tool for the right job,” he said. He slapped Mick on the back as he exited the cabin. “Empty hands? Not today, Mickey. I'm sure we've got something for you.”

“¡Papa, allí!” Juan shouted from the bow. Everyone snapped their spyglasses back up to their eyes. Sparacello and O'Laughlin stopped their quarrel and went quiet, taking up shooting positions shoulder-to-shoulder at the bow. Mick could see the water boiling ahead of the Pilar and the oncoming raiders. The monolithic black edge of a U-boat's conning tower pierced the waves.

“It's the krauts!” Leddy whooped.

“What did I tell you?” O'Laughlin asked. A dozen other submarines surfaced, forming a wall between the Pilar and the Legion. Nazi kriegsmarine scrambled out from within the U-boats, running across their decks before the seawater was done spilling off. They worked the covers off their massive deck guns and pulled the wide plugs out of the barrels.

“Moment of truth,” Saxon said quietly. The Crooks, officials, agents, and weird menagerie aboard the Pilar watched the Nazis work in silence. Mick only dared breathe when he saw the first of the guns track away from the Pilar to take aim at the oncoming Legion.

The U-boats roared as one. Despite their armaments, the Legion boats were still civilian vessels. They didn't stand a chance against cannon fire. The shells pierced them like needles, leaving circular holes that showed blue through the other side.

Only two of the Legion boats had enough heft to detonate warheads, but when they went up, they went all the way up. Men and munitions cartwheeled in orange through the air. Three of the hit ships had holes close enough to their waterlines that they were beginning to flounder. Only two of those still steaming attempted to veer away from the suddenly-hostile wolf pack before the Nazis fired again.

“G-man, get back on the horn,” Hemingway ordered.

“And say what, Papa?” Leddy asked.

“Tell those Nazi asses that we're still taking fire. Ask for cover,” Hemingway told him. Leddy looked to Tamm for confirmation, who nodded. The agent picked up the radio mic and started yammering to jerry again.

“What are you up to?” Tamm asked him.

“Those krauts are going to get wise to us soon enough, and with half of Key West and their mother aboard, Pilar's going to need all the head start she can get to get to Miami in one piece.”

It made sense. Mick watched the U-boats through his binoculars. The krauts had slacked off with their cannon fire and were closing in, letting the men on their decks begin going to work with small arms, plugging Legionnaires in the water. A few surviving Legion boats were firing back, and Hemingway was betting that the Nazis would believe some of that was getting past them to threaten their prize.

“There we go,” Hemingway said. The U-boats that were hanging back opened up with their mortars. White phosphorus rained down a few hundred yards ahead of the Pilar, building a wall of smoke that hemmed them off from the battle. Once they were totally out of sight, Hemingway relayed his new orders.

“North, hermanos!” he shouted. The Crooks whooped as they abandoned their weapons to take their up stations. The fishing boat's modified engines roared, scattering their attendant dolphins. The deck twisted beneath Mickey's feet as it made its hard turn, sending him grasping for a handhold. The rum he'd drank gurgled ominously but his guts wrestled it into submission.

Mick kept his eyes on the smoke. The second the krauts picked up their first water-logged prisoners, they'd be wheeling around to go after their real prey. They'd blow the Pilar out of the water, Qutat, Baby, and all, just to save themselves the embarrassment of having one gotten over on them.

“Keep your ear on that thing,” Mick ordered Leddy after a few tense minutes of staring. The G-man nodded, turned up his headset, and plugged his other ear hole with his thumb. His frown deepened. Mick asked: “What is it?”

“They stopped transmitting,” Leddy said. Mick knew what that meant.

The first mortar shell burst five hundred yards behind them. It was high explosive, and its torrent of shrapnel raise a geyser of seawater. Another half-dozen cracked the sky in quick succession, the blasts and falling water inching closer along their wake.

“The krauts are tracking us,” Saxon reported. “Engine noise.”

“We can't cut it,” Hemingway snapped. His jaw dropped. “Good God.”

Ten white trails churned the surf, emerging from beneath the smokescreen.

“Fish in the water!” Winston shouted. German torpedoes were the most advanced in the war, and there were ten of them zeroing in on one little fishing boat. When they blew, they'd go up with enough force to crack the Pilar in half on a thirty yard miss. Mick watched the warheads barrel at them, angry lumps cruising just beneath the surface. A second salvo emerged from under the smoke, then the krauts themselves.

Black U-boats cut through the white wall like blades. Desperate tendrils of smoke grasped at their jagged prows, as if to pull them back into their blinding embrace. The U-boats pulled away, inevitable, leaving the wisps to wither away in the sun.

“They're on us!” Hemingway shouted. “Give me more, Gregorio!”

“¡Es todo lo que tiene, Papa!” the first mate shouted. Every dial in the bridge was in the red. The engines were going so hard that the whole ship was shaking. They'd never outrun the torpedoes or the U-boats, and those same straining engines were what was drawing the noise-seeking torpedoes to them.

“Well, shit,” Mickey grunted.

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Copyright © 2023 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin. Story by Bonnie Baldwin. Art by Bruce Conners.