Tangled Web

Kydon Chronicles, Vol. 4

By Robert Legleitner

Here we go again! Kydon Schmidt, our favorite gay hero, is back, and this time he’s involved in a tangled web of espionage.

In 1945, Ky and Robin anticipate a leisurely drive across Europe, touring Italy and enjoying themselves after their recent adventures in England. Lundgren and MI-6 have other ideas. Soon the two adventurers are hip-deep in spies, ex-spies, ex-resistance fighters and still on a quest for a traitor to the allies and investigating the possiblity of a golden treasure hidden by the fleeing Nazis.

ISBN 1-59431-005-X Action Adventure/ Gay/ Mystery

Cover Art by Maggie Dix

Also available in RTF and HTML formats.





"Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive." __from "Marmion" by Sir Walter Scott

Prologue

Berlin, April 1945

The war was nearing its end. In the death throes of the Third Reich, the Nazi wolfpack turned on itself. Germany was falling and everyone must save themselves however they could. But people in positions of power watched every move. Colonel Otto Gruber had himself been investigated, he was certain, when the tall blond SS Colonel Schmidt came to watch the truck loading, ask questions, share a flask of cognac during an air raid, before he went away again.

Colonel Gruber went on supervising the loading of Reichsbank funds into what trucks were available. He had no doubt that the SS officers acted on their own, that neither the Chancellor nor the Reichsbank manager knew what was happening.

The Allied armies advanced steadily; there was little time for Gruber to decide what to do. How did it help him to have money and gold hidden in foreign countries for a few high-placed men? What of his men, himself?

The bombers were constantly overhead and the fires burned closer. An air raid in February had nearly buried the bank, but the vaults were intact. Money and gold were taken away regularly. As Gruber waved the canvas bags into the trucks, he looked up at the glowing sky. The Berlin he loved was dying, and he was glad his wife hadn't lived to see it, now sadly relieved that they had no children.

He had little to lose if he disobeyed his orders.

The truck being loaded was almost filled with bags of gold bullion, boxes of French, British, and American currency. If the men taking it to Spain were caught, the Allies would take it, shoot the drivers and guards, and that would be the end of it. If he followed his orders, but if not?

He called the young captain who was his aide. "This truck," Gruber said, "is of the utmost importance. When it leaves, you must destroy any paperwork pertaining to it. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Oberst Gruber," the captain answered. It was clear to Gruber that the man was near his breaking point. "I will follow orders, sir."

Gruber spoke excellent French, his sister Maria had married a French chemist and lived the past twenty years in Toulouse. The colonel knew at least two of the men loading the truck spoke French, one fluently. He called one of the drivers to him. The sergeant knew that one of the men had been a screenwriter in America, and who had returned to Germany late in 1937. In the dark, a whispered talk. The men were as dispirited as Gruber.

Before dawn the truck left Berlin and headed south on back roads. The records left behind showed the truck was destined for the German Embassy in Madrid. The frightened captain who was to destroy the records forgot to do so when the air raids began again, and he was unaware the truck carried the colonel, the sergeant, and two soldiers. Gruber was certain that, with its manifests destroyed, the truck officially ceased to exist.

Near the Czech border they commandeered two trucks, farm vehicles, and they headed southwest. When they met the first Allied blockade, they were loaded with battered furniture. The Allied forces had no time for refugees.

Committed to their course, Gruber and his men headed for the Swiss border. The man who had lived in America went ahead with American dollars to find a good forger. There were two men at the forger's shop, one English from his accent, the other a Gypsy. They both needed papers, they said, and neither seemed a threat.

With new papers, Gruber and his men went on to France. The Allied and Free French forces hooted at the ramshackle trucks and ragged clothes. Twice in the melee, Gruber saw men he knew to be German soldiers on the run. He would need men and they were willing to be saved whatever the cost. He could afford it. Gruber laughed and waved them aboard, twelve in all, as they headed into the south of France.

Sixteen ragged men with a fortune in gold and currency who, to survive, must spin a web of lies.