7 JULY 1940

THE OUTER BANKS

NORTH CAROLINA

The hotel was secluded enough. A place with too much privacy could draw unwanted attention. This place was small with only a handful of guest rooms, most of which were filled since this was the high summer. Most of those guests were walking the beach and dunes, or going for a cool lazy swim on a hot summer day. They were definitely too distracted to notice Adam and, those were much the circumstances that he had imagined when he picked this place. Up till now he had never had to use it. Now that he had, he never could again and that just seemed too bad. It was nice enough to take a real vacation.

He waited in front of one specific door that belonged to the most remote of summer cottages. He pretended to watch the ocean and even half way did as he waited for the two registered guests to come back. The guy that did show up was wearing nothing but a pair of swimming trunks. The man was toweling his hair and stopped at a garden hose so he could wash the sand from his feet. He was jovial, smiling, and paid no great attention to Adam. He certainly showed no alarm.

The guy just said, “you want something Mac?”

Adam was not as pleased as this man was, “where is your friend?”

Only then did Adam feel the sharp and cold point of a blade poking through his jacket and shirt. It was only lightly so but, firmly, touching the skin between his ribs. He tensed up and tried to glance back but, a thick hard grasp pushed his head back around before he could see who this was.

The smiling man tossed a towel down on a lounge chair and, still smiling, told Adam, “I think you found him. Now what do you want?”

Now Adam relaxed as much as he could with a knife sticking in his ribs. He smiled and said, “Ross I take it? I’m the man who arranged your room.”

Ross nodded in the affirmative and then to the man with the knife. It slipped away from Adam’s chest and he let out a deep breath. Then he looked at the man who had been holding the knife. The man was quite large, strong looking, and had the most horrific looking scar across his cheek. Such identifying marks were not a good thing in this line or work. What in the hell was Berlin thinking?”

Adam asked Scarface, “and exactly who are you?”

Ross snickered and then said something to the man in French. Scarface simply nodded and went inside the cottage. Ross grabbed for a shirt and began putting it on as Adam, with some amount of concern, asked, “that man doesn’t even speak English?”

As Ross buttoned his shirt he said, “no but he has other more important skills. He also happens to be running this little show. So I would suggest you get used to him.” Adam’s displeasure must have been obvious because the next thing that Ross said was, “relax. He’s here on a French passport. Trust me, I lived in this country for ten years. They don’t know the difference.”

That would explain the accent that Ross had. When Adam found himself having to work in America he had found himself having to adopt a persona that explained his accent. That was part of the reason why he had settled in a Jewish neighborhood. The other part being that it was the last place the FBI would go looking for a German agent.

It was not the same with this Ross. He not only spoke the language fluently but, he even had a slight southern twang. If Ross had not known what this man was to start with he would have never guessed him anything but what he outwardly appeared. Of course, a fat lot of good it would do him if the other guy gave him away.

Adam just shook his head and realized, it was not his problem. He reached into his coat and pulled out a manila envelop that was marked as legal papers. On the inside they really did look like just what the envelop said, unless you knew how to properly read them. Adam handed off the envelop and asked, “I assume it is not just you two?”

As Ross opened the envelop and scanned the tops of the documents he stated, “I’ll tell you this much. No, we’re not it. Past that I wouldn’t ask too many questions.”

Adam stepped up and squared off with Ross. He looked the man dead in the eye and told him, “your Frenchman might be running you but, just remember that this show, as you put it, is mine. When you reach your target I expect timely and regular reports.”

Without breaking eye contact, Ross let the papers fall back in their envelop. When he spoke he sounded easy and unalarmed, “anything you say Mac.”

Ross watched the guy in the suit walk out to the sand parking lot, get in his car, and drive away. When he was gone, Scarface walked back out and noted in French, “if he becomes a problem we may have to kill him.”

Ross snickered at the idea and replied in the same langauge, “relax Otto, he‘s not that big of a problem. We don’t even know where he lives anyway.”

Otto Skorzeny pointed to himself, “I know where the little Jew wannabe lives. Our uncle saw fit to make sure that I know.”

That caused Ross to give Skorzeny a strange look. Both men, as well as their entire team, had been cramped up in a U-Boat for several weeks and, in that entire time, Skorzeny had probably not spoken seven words. Despite this, Ross knew exactly what the man meant when he said “our uncle.” It meant that Skorzeny was talking about the Fuhrer.

Ross had also known that Skorzeny had come out of Hitler’s personal guards but, he had not realized that the man was held in such high personal esteem by the Fuhrer, let alone knew him. Ross, had been a member of the SS since nineteen thirty-six and he had never even met the Fuhrer, even at a parade! It left Ross wondering what Skorzeny was really doing here. In the back of his mind it also made him wonder if this guy thought that all of them were as expendable as he did their contact.

Skorzeny obviously saw that Ross was in deep thought and did not like it. He slapped his comrade on the arm and said, “do we have a destination or not?”

Ross was still half buried in his own thoughts when he nodded and replied in English, “looks like we’re going to tinsel town.”