The Fourth Rising (Peter Brandt Thrillers Book 3) Read online

  THE

  FOURTH RISING

  Martin Roy Hill

  THE FOURTH RISING

  Copyright © 2020 by Martin Roy Hill

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations used in critical articles or reviews.

  Published by

  An imprint of

  M. R. Hill Publishing

  San Diego, California

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 9781692350956

  For information contact:

  www.martinroyhill.com

  Cover design: Rebecacovers

  Cover Images: Zim235, Volodymyr Pishchanyi, Nazlisart via Dreamstime.com

  Books by Martin Roy Hill

  Fiction

  Duty: Stories of Mystery and Suspense from the Cold War and Beyond (2012)

  The Killing Depths (2012)

  Empty Places (2013)

  Eden: A Sci-Fi Novella (2014)

  The Last Refuge (2016)

  The Butcher’s Bill (2017)

  Polar Melt: A Novel (2019)

  Nonfiction

  War Stories: Tales of Leadership, Courage, Blunders, and SNAFUs (2018)

  Dedication

  For Teddy, Franny, Max, Molly, Harry, and Alex—our Marmalade Mafia and the inspiration for Jack.

  PROLOGUE

  May 1942

  Sea of Cortés, Mexico

  KAPITÄN ZUR SEE LUDWIG Müller climbed the ladder to the starboard bridge wing and glanced around at the new day. Despite his Kriegsmarine rank as a captain, Müller wore the plain khaki shirt and shorts worn by officers in many civilian merchant navies. His ship's papers identified the vessel as the SS Dalsland, a cargo carrier sailing under the flag of neutral Sweden. She was 433 feet from bow to stern and displaced over four thousand tons. Her main superstructure sat amidships, with small deck houses fore and aft. Other than unusually high gunwales, she appeared no different than hundreds of neutral cargo ships plying the world's war-torn seas.

  The papers, of course, were fraudulent, one of several sets kept locked in the ship’s safe. Her real name was the Danzig but, when needed, she could assume the identity of eight separate ships from neutral countries. Müller, however, preferred the Dalsland ruse because he had studied in Sweden before the First World War and spoke excellent Swedish.

  Müller pulled a bandanna from around his neck and wiped sweat from his face. It was only an hour after sunrise, but the heat and humidity were already oppressive. The Dalsland sat at a primitive berth hewn out of one of the jungle estuaries emptying into Mexico’s Sea of Cortés. Müller and his men had sweltered there for nearly a month, waiting for secret diplomatic negotiations between the German embassy in Mexico City and President Manuel Avila Camacho to conclude. If successful, Camacho would—for a price—maintain Mexico’s neutrality in the war. In the hold of the Dalsland was enough gold to make Mexico’s president a very rich man for the rest of his life—if he agreed.

  Müller turned at the metallic clang of footsteps on the ladder. One of the ship’s wireless operators bounded up the steps. Like Müller, he, too, wore civilian clothes.

  “Kapitän,” the operator said, breathless, “an urgent message from our embassy, just decoded.”

  He handed Müller a message flimsy. The officer read it, then closed his eyes and sighed. After a moment he said, “Very well. Please hail Kapitänleutnant Schmidt to report to the bridge.”

  “Yes, sir.” The radio operator stepped into the wheelhouse and spoke into the microphone for the ship’s loud hailer. “Would Kapitänleutnant Schmidt please report to the bridge.” The message echoed throughout the ship. The sailor waited a moment, then repeated the message. Then he stepped back onto the bridge wing.

  “Sir, I believe the embassy is waiting for a reply.”

  “Of course,” Müller said. “Tell them ‘Message received. Will initiate Emergency Plan Zebra immediately.’”

  The sailor made a note of the reply, excused himself, and started down the ladder only to backtrack as he saw Kapitänleutnant Schmidt, the ship’s first officer, coming up the stairs.

  “Reporting as ordered, sir,” Schmidt said, giving the senior officer a standard military salute instead of the Nazi salute.

  Müller returned the same salute. “I have just received this from our embassy,” he said, handing the message flimsy to Schmidt. “Camacho is caving into the saber rattlers. He plans to issue a declaration of war against Germany today.”

  Schmidt handed the message back to Müller. “Well, we expected as much after the second U-boat attack.”

  “Yes,” he said, “we did. Now we must launch Zebra.”

  “Everything has been made ready, sir.”

  “Which junior officer did you choose to implement it?”

  “Oberleutnant Weber, sir.”

  “He’s very young,” Müller said.

  “Yes, sir,” Schmidt said. “And very eager. He’s a—” The first officer lowered his voice. “A party member. A very zealous party member.”

  “I see,” Müller said. In the Kriegsmarine, professional seamen like Müller and Schmidt were rarely ardent Nazis. “I guess it would be beneficial not to have such an officer around for our return voyage.”

  “And since he’s a true believer, he’s less likely to be tempted by our cargo.”

  Müller nodded. “Good thinking. He understands the plan?”

  “Yes, sir. I have briefed him completely,” Schmidt said.

  “Who is going with him?”

  “I’ve chosen Matrosen-Gefreiter Wilhelm, sir.”

  “Ah, yes.” Müller knew Able Seaman Wilhelm too well. “He has presented a problem the entire cruise, hasn’t he?”

  “I thought we could kill the proverbial two birds with a single stone.”

  “Very well. Begin offloading our cargo and have the ship made ready for sea. And have Weber report to me immediately. Oh, and have the men switch into their uniforms and prepare for action stations.”

  Schmidt turned on his heels and went down the ladder. Several minutes later, a young officer with blond hair and sharp blue eyes came up the same ladder.

  “Oberleutnant Weber reporting, sir.” As Müller expected, Weber raised his arm in the Hitler salute. Müller ignored it.

  “You’ve been briefed on your mission?”

  “Yes, sir,” Weber said. “Wilhelm and I take the cargo north to the pre-designated location and bury it.”

  “Don’t trust Wilhelm too deeply, oberleutnant,” Müller said. “He is a bad nut, that one.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And take that translator guide,” Müller said. “Guzman. Make certain you don’t get lost.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Afterward make your way to our consulate in Tijuana. With this declaration of war, they will begin evacuation. They can sneak you back to Germany. You are dismissed.”

  ☼

  Two hours later, they heard the rumble of distant trucks. Heavy trucks loaded, undoubtedly, with soldiers.

  “We have company,” Schmidt said, “as we expected.”

  Schmidt now wore the Kriegsmarine’s khaki tropical uniform with peaked cap. Müller, standing next to him on the starboard bridge wing, still wore his civilian khakis.

  “You’re not changing, sir?” Schmidt asked.


  “No, not yet,” Müller said. “I don’t want to alert our guests. I wish to lull them into a sense of superiority. A ruse de guerre. The same as we do with any merchant ship we attack.”

  “Understood, Kapitän,” Schmidt said. “I’ll make certain the men stay out of sight until you give the order.”

  “Very good, Kapitänleutnant,” Müller said. He studied the single dirt road leading from the jungle to the dock. Dust rose above the jungle canopy and the engines noises grew louder. “And now you had best disappear, too. Our guests will arrive momentarily.”

  CHAPTER 1

  April 1997

  San Diego, California

  THERE ARE DAYS IN a man’s life when he looks in the mirror and recognizes all the losses he’s experienced. Lost opportunities. Lost dreams. Lost lovers. Lost friends. Most of all, his lost youth. It was one of those days for me.

  The deadline for my third book was looming, and I should have sat myself down at the computer and got some work done. Instead, I showered, wolfed down some breakfast, gassed up the Mustang, and headed east into California’s low desert and the city of Palm Springs.

  The city’s cemetery once sat on the outskirts of town. Now it sat like a verdant island in a sea of gated communities. It had been a while since I last went there, but I found the grave of my former wife, Robin Anderson, without problem. I laid flowers next to the headstone that recorded the short twenty-six years of her life, then sat down and remembered, concentrating on the good times, not the bad times. After an hour or so, I drove out into the desert and up into the foothills to where I had scattered Matt’s ashes years before. Matt Banyon, a bear-sized man. Ex-cop, private eye, good friend. I opened two beers, poured one onto the thirsty earth for Matt, and drank the other myself. And remembered some more.

  Then I left.

  It was dark by the time I reached Ocean Beach, San Diego’s small beach community and throwback to the 1960s. I thought about turning down Newport Avenue and having some machaca con huevos at Margarita’s, the only local Mexican restaurant that served food the way I remembered it when I was working down south. Instead, I returned to my small bungalow and pulled the Mustang into the driveway. I was putting my key in the front door when I heard a voice.

  “Hello, Peter.”

  I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. The voice was soft, with a sensuous huskiness reminiscent of a young Lauren Bacall. The kind of voice you don’t easily forget, even years after the last time you heard it.

  I turned.

  “Jo,” I said, “what are you doing here?”

  She looked the same. Same blonde hair kept short out of habit. Rich cobalt eyes that could turn to blue ice in a second. Cold as Ice Rice was her nickname when I met her five years before. She even dressed the same as the first time we met, tight denim jeans and just-as-tight blouse, revealing a figure well-honed through exercise.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” Joanne Rice said.

  “But why?”

  “I need a friend to talk to,” she said. “We’re still friends, aren’t we?”

  No other word stabs deeper into the heart than friend when it refers to someone with whom you were once intimate. Friend. Might as well just call us colleagues or acquaintances. Why not put a Russian spin on it and call us comrades?

  “Sure,” I said. I unlocked the door and held it open for her. “Come on in.”

  Jack must have been asleep on the couch. When he heard the key in the lock, he had geared himself up for dinner, only to see a strange woman walk in. Jack, a long-haired, orange tabby of unusual size, now stood with his back arched, fur standing, and large eyes flaring.

  “Stand down, Jack,” I said. “It’s okay. She’s a friend.”

  Again, that word.

  “You have a cat?” Jo said, surprised.

  “Everyone needs somebody to love,” I muttered, my tone a little too harsh. I softened it and said, “A couple years ago, I found him crying on my door step, drenched by a hard rain. He was just a little kitten then. So small he could sit in my hand. Look at him now.”

  “Looks like you feed him well.”

  “If I don’t, he might try to kill me in my sleep.” I leaned down and Jack jumped onto my shoulder. “Let me give him dinner. You don’t want to be around him when he’s hungry. Drink?”

  “Please,” Jo said.

  “I’m having Scotch,” I said. “It’s been one of those days. Wine for you?”

  “I could use a Scotch,” Jo said, “for the same reasons.”

  I poured two stiff drinks, added ice, and left Jack happily munching his dinner in the kitchen. Jo was standing at the bookcase, holding a familiar hardcover tome, and flipping through its pages. She held it up.

  “So, you’re a rich, famous author now,” she said.

  “An author, yes,” I said. “Not so famous and not—” I gestured around the small living room. “—so rich.”

  Since the last time I saw Jo, I had published two books—one on America’s proxy wars in Central America in the 1980s, the other on the war with Iraq, Operation Desert Storm. My publishing contract called for a third. That was the one I should have spent the day working on, but hadn’t.

  “I read this one,” Jo said, holding up the Central America book. “It’s good. Haven’t read the new one yet.”

  “You don’t have to,” I said. “You were there.”

  I handed Jo her drink and she made herself comfortable on the sofa. I sat on a lounge chair across from her.

  Jo rubbed her right leg, remembering. “Yes, I was,” she said. “Are they selling well?”

  I shrugged. “A lot of Americans don’t want to hear the truth about the policies we had in Central America in the ’80s, or what really happened in the Gulf War. But they’re selling well in Europe.”

  “Are you still reporting?”

  “I still do some freelance work for the newsweekly. I’m also teaching some journalism classes at a local community college.”

  We sipped our drinks and looked at each other uncomfortably. Finally, I asked the question we were both thinking.

  “Jo, what are you doing here?”

  She dropped her eyes and bit her lower lip. After a moment, she said, “You know Frank was murdered.”

  Frank Crane, Jo’s husband. The man she left me for four years before. I watched her for a second or two, letting the news sink in. Then I shook my head.

  “No. When?”

  “Two weeks ago,” Jo said. “It was in the newspaper and on TV.”

  “I don’t pay much attention to the local news,” I said. The local newspaper wasn’t worth reading, and the local news stations were all happy talk between former beauty queens and failed actors. “What happened?”

  “The police found his body dumped in a field,” Jo said. “It was set on fire and burned beyond recognition. They had to identify him through dental records. The autopsy showed he’d been tortured before he was killed.”

  Jo’s voice was calm and matter of fact. That wasn’t unusual for a woman who had been a military police officer in the army and a combat veteran. It was, I thought, unusual for a recently widowed wife.

  “I’m sorry, Jo,” I said. “If I’d known I would’ve tried—”

  “No, Peter, no.” Jo waved her left hand at me, showing there was no wedding ring on her finger. “It was over between us. I don’t think there ever was anything to begin with. I started divorce proceedings last month and moved out.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “It’s the same old story, Peter. Frank wasn’t the man I thought he was, not the man he portrayed himself as in public. There was a poorly concealed parade of other women. I was just his blonde, blue-eyed combat-wounded, war-hero trophy wife. Emphasis on the blonde and blue eyed.”

  It took me a while to realize what she meant, then I said, “You mean Frank was a racist?”

  She nodded. “I knew he had very conservative views when we got married,” she said. “So what? So did my father, the general. Maybe that’s wh
y I was attracted to him. But after we got married it became clear he had some pretty extreme views. Including the submissive role of a trophy wife.”

  “What about the police, Jo?” I asked. “Do they have any leads?”

  Jo took a long drink and held out the empty glass. “Could I have another?”

  I went into the kitchen and poured her another. She drank half of it at once.

  “Leads?” I repeated.

  “As far as I can tell,” Jo said, “their prime suspect is me.”

  A sheepish smile flirted with her lips, then vanished. She shook her head.

  “I’m sure that’s just SOP,” I said. “Spouses and family members are always immediate suspects. You were an army cop. You know that.”

  “I know,” she sighed.

  “They can’t possibly think you tortured Frank, killed him, then dumped his body and set it on fire,” I said. “You’re fit, but Frank was a big guy.”

  “They don’t,” she said. “They think maybe I hired someone.”

  I looked at her and said nothing.

  She shook her head. “No,” she said, “I did not hire someone to do it, Peter. I didn’t love Frank anymore, but I didn’t want him dead. I just wanted him out of my life.”

  Jack finished his dinner, sauntered into the living room, and jumped onto my lap. He turned circles a couple of times, slapping my face with his thick, lush marmalade tail, then lay down and glared at Jo.

  “I don’t think your cat likes me,” Jo said.

  “He doesn’t like anyone,” I said. “He’s very territorial. Growls and howls at anyone or anything that comes near the house. Never goes out. It’s like he remembers what it was like when I found him.”