The Black Gate Read Online Free PDF

and bottom. He felt unworthy when he put it around his neck, the cross at his throat. Even though it was an award held in great esteem by the enemy, he felt as if he hadn’t earned it, that he had no right to wear it, even as part of his disguise.
    With one last look in the mirror, he grabbed the heavy overcoat draped over the back of the chair and stepped around the cloth curtain. Throwing out his right arm in the Hitlergruß , the Nazi salute, he snapped his heels together. “ Heil Hitler!”
    “I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” Bob breathed. “Hitler himself would be proud, sir.”
    Even the woman looked impressed for a brief moment. “Appearance is the least part of your disguise, Herr Müller,” she said in German, pricking Peter’s ego. “Given the unusual nature of this mission, we decided to keep things as simple as possible for you. You were given only the most rudimentary training, and under normal circumstances we would never send someone so unqualified into the field, but in this case we have no choice. Remember: stupid mistakes are the easiest ones to make and the ones that are most likely to get you killed. So you’ll keep your name, except for changing your surname from Miller back to Müller.” She handed him a packet. “These are your identification papers. You can lose anything but these. Without them, you won’t last more than a day before the Gestapo tracks you down, so keep them on your person at all times. I don’t have to tell you what will happen if you’re captured.”
    Feeling a bead of cold sweat run down his spine, Peter took the black leather document holder. He quickly flipped through the contents before slipping it into the breast pocket inside his tunic. “Speaking of documents,” he asked, “how is it that I’m not going to be found out? All they’ll need to do is ring up SS Headquarters to ask about me and the game will be up.”
    “A personnel file with your information has been inserted into their records, with a telegram sent to Arnsberg about your arrival,” the woman told him. “If anyone asks questions, having an oft-used name and what passes for a nondescript appearance among the SS should help cover you. Your leg could be a giveaway, but you aren’t the first or only serviceman to be retained after an otherwise debilitating injury.” She came closer, staring into his eyes. “Your best defense is to blend in and be useful, Peter. You have to hide in plain sight.”
    “What if…what if I have to kill someone?”  
    “Then you kill them, sir,” Bob answered softly. “You shoot him or slit his throat, and you think no more of it than if you were shooting or bleeding out a deer. You left any halfway measures on the far side of the Atlantic.”
    Peter stared at Bob and nodded slowly.  
    “You’re not going there as a hired gun, you’re going as an engineer,” the woman reminded him. “Now focus on what will happen, and stop worrying about what might. Here,” she handed him a small folded paper, “this is a pass for the train.”
    “I’ll be on a train?”
    “You won’t be riding it, but you might need some sort of proof that you rode one from Berlin. Keep it with your other papers.”
    As he put the pass in his tunic pocket, Peter asked, “So just how am I going to get there? Assuming I survive my parachute landing, of course.”
    “You’ll be met by an agent when you land, and you’ll be taken to schloss Arnsberg, using the cover story that they picked you up from the train.”
    “Who is it?”
    “I can’t tell you,” the woman said. “But the agent who contacts you will use a code word embedded in a sentence,” the woman said. “That codeword is Charlemagne . You are to answer with Bismarck . Don’t forget. If you use the wrong code word, the agent will kill you.”
    “And if whoever meets you doesn’t use their correct code word, kill him, sir,” Bob added. “Without hesitation.”
    “All right,” Peter breathed. “What