Deleted Scenes From...

Dangerous Allies
by Renee Ryan

Scene #1 | Scene #2 | Scene #3

The scene below was the original opening to DANGEROUS ALLIES. I wrote it to show how dangerous it was for American merchant ships to make their deliveries to the British Isles. America wasn’t officially in the war…yet. However, that didn’t mean the country wasn’t supporting its allies.

In his attempt to defeat England quickly and decisively, Hitler’s war machine devised a plan to cut-off the British Isles from the rest of the world with a revolutionary secret weapon. As you will see below, the Nazis had considerable success.

I cut the scene because it was essentially set-up to the real story. None of the characters in this scene are related to the main characters of the book. Hence, the cut.

Nevertheless…it explains the high stakes my hero and heroine will have to face as well as the considerable cost of war.

ENJOY!

Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea... Revelation 13:1

PROLOGUE

18 November 1939

The English Channel, two miles northwest of the Isle of Wight

A band of low-flying clouds swallowed the last patch of sunlight, turning the sky a stark shade of gray. Thunder quivered, then smacked. The cold, nasty bite in the air cut straight to the bone.

Captain Ian Dougherty ignored the chill as he studied the hovering clouds. Eyes filled with thirty years of experience gauged the wind direction and speed. More out of habit than necessity, he turned his attention back to the control panel and checked the barometer. 28.75 inches of mercury. Five minutes to rain, he predicted. Maybe less.

Mist snaked along the deck of the 10,000-ton, single-shaft cargo steamer. The Rhonda Sue was an old girl, but sturdy all the same. She’d made similar trips across the Atlantic at least a hundred times before. She was protesting more than usual today, but Dougherty was confident she’d pull through again.

Lightning cracked, washing the sky in silvery white light for an instant. Dougherty grimaced, and forced down a shiver of foreboding as he stared at the churning sea. The storm wasn’t the problem. He’d lived through worse. It was the other, deadlier dangers lurking below the frigid waters that set him on edge.

Now that Europe was at war, even a neutral merchant ship was fair game for the Germans. The escalating conflict was costing the world a heavy price, turning routine supply runs into life-threatening gambles. But delivering materials to the Brits mattered more than the risks.

The ship dipped then listed starboard, jerking Dougherty’s attention to his right. He braced his feet, yanked his binoculars up. The loss of light from the approaching storm made for poor visibility. He searched for danger anyway, praying he’d see it before it was too late. “Speed to four knots, Mr. Dean.”

“Speed four knots,” the quartermaster repeated, then rang up the order on the ship’s telegraph.

“Angle on the bow?”

“Sixty, sir.”

Dougherty crossed to the flying bridge, raised his megaphone and called to the forward deckhands battening down the cargo hatches. “Tighten the slack on those straps.”

Working as a team, the men repositioned the wooden timbers over the holds. As a tightly honed unit, they stretched the tarpaulins over the top until they were taut.

Another shiver raced down Dougherty’s spine. Swallowing back the inexplicable sense of dread, he looked out to the churning sea and studied the shifting current. White caps frothed over deep green, hiding the faceless evil lurking below the surface.

Dougherty crossed back to the main bridge. “Port ahead, one-third.”

“Port ahead, one-third. Aye, captain.”

The Rhonda Sue protested as she pulled to the left. Her hull continued to groan and strain for another full minute, then settled onto her new course.

The heavy, rain-scented air poised in eerie silence. Waiting. Holding.

Dougherty shot a quick glance at the barometer, noted the dip to 28.50. The first drop of rain hit the deck. Tension rose from his chest, then clogged in his throat. Maybe he should head to shallower waters. “Come about,” he ordered.

The ship bucked over a wave, dipped low.

Four members of the crew wrestled with a handline that had fallen slack during the maneuver. Dougherty made a mental note to praise the competence evidenced by their controlled movements.

Suddenly, one of the men dropped from position and ran to the rail. The sailor pointed wildly out to sea, shouting something incomprehensible into the wind.

Dougherty didn’t need to decipher the words to read the panic in the man’s gestures. He raised binoculars to his eyes but could see nothing through the churning sea.

The sailor continued gesturing madly as he leaned over the bow. Straightening, he spun back around and shouted past the wind. “Bombs. Ten, maybe more.”

Dougherty searched the sea, but still saw nothing. Dear God, had he turned them into a mine field?

Fear, shock, fury. Each emotion slammed into another, all too immediate to deal with at once.

“Come to port, thirty degrees.”

Silence met his command. He gripped the quartermaster by the shoulders, shook him out of his frozen fear. “Bring her hard to port. Ring it up.” Dougherty ordered, his voice sharp as a blade. “Now. Now!”

The quartermaster screamed the order over the telegraph, the wheel spun in the pilot’s hands.

The Rhonda Sue jerked, then shot forward.

Dougherty stumbled forward. “Everybody hold on.” He gripped the control panel, willing the Rhonda Sue to obey. “Turn, baby. Turn. Turn!”

For a split second, the silence was deafening. Then, chaos erupted as every hand on deck jumped to action. Men scrambled for cover, tripping over one another to find safety. Screams tangled inside hastily worded prayers.

Time slowed. Stopped. Then...

Click. And...

Boom!

The high-pitched ripping of metal against metal washed over the men’s screams. Boom! The hiss of steam erupted, sizzled. Boom! Boom! Blinding flames clawed across the deck, down into the cargo bins.

In the next instant, the Rhonda Sue split in two, plunging her captain and crew to a watery grave.

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This second deleted scene was the original introduction of the hero of DANGEROUS ALLIES. But, again, it’s merely set-up and yet another explanation of the stakes. In the end, I decided to cut it as well. Nevertheless, it’s an insight into Jack’s psyche before he accepts the mission to return to Germany. ENJOY!

CHAPTER ONE

1730 Hours, 19 November 1939

The northeast shores of the Isle of Wight

The Rhonda Sue hadn’t stood a chance. Although the Germans denied any direct responsibility for the incident, the sinking of yet another civilian merchant ship had been a deliberate act of war.

Mindful of the importance of his findings, Lieutenant Jack Anderson stooped to investigate a portion of the wreckage. Eyeing a six-foot piece of the ship’s hull, he removed his heavy gloves. With his bare hand, he dusted off granules of sand frosted over with ice. The jagged piece of remains could almost pass for rusted scrap metal, except for the slice of torn cloth caught on one of the edges.

Giving into a frustrated sigh, Jack rose and shielded his eyes against the setting sun. He ignored the sluggish foam lapping against the shore at his feet.

Below the surface hid a shrouded evil that had already sunk more than a hundred vessels, over half of which were civilian ships. Indiscriminate killing of innocents. The Nazis had upped the stakes once more.

And Jack was the man to stop the destruction.

On loan to the British from the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence, his fluency in the German language and personal, hands-on knowledge of the Kriegsmarine was the official reason for his presence in England. The unofficial reason was his uncanny ability for creating impossible solutions out of imperfect information, and his direct connection to the German War Machine.

After many failed attempts, Jack’s skill and knowledge hadn’t been enough. He and the team of British experts still hadn’t been able to design an effective countermeasure for the revolutionary magnetic explosives.

I might have to go back inside.

Everything in him rebelled at the thought. It was too soon. His plan wasn’t in place yet.

He needed to walk, to breathe in the salty air and to think. As sand crunched under his boots, the sun dipped toward the horizon, dragging a brilliant ribbon of color in its wake. There was a time when the God-fearing man Jack had once been would have stopped to admire the Maker’s glorious handiwork. A time when he would have seen God’s plan inside the chaos in front of him.

That was before he’d walked among the enemy and studied their methods. Before he had become the embittered U.S. sailor turned SS henchman, Friedrich Reiter.

Before he’d lost his soul.

One face, two names, no identity. These were the legacies of the double life the politicians had created for him. And now, death’s shadow followed him ruthlessly, stealing his hope of ever recovering the man he’d once been.

German. American. Did his heritage matter anymore?

The breeze kicked harder, slipping the cold beneath the neck of his thick sweater. The potent smell of wet wool wafted above the scent of fish and sea. Icy fingers of chill slithered deeper beneath his skin, tugging at his heart.

Had all his efforts over the last two years been for nothing? Was he playing roulette with his life and countless others against a force that couldn’t be stopped?

But what choice did he have? There could be no going back now. He had to start thinking like the man he was, a man with no future, and no hope. A man with a single goal -- hunt and destroy the enemy that had stolen his life from him.

Meticulous preparation was the key.

Tucking his impatience aside, Jack focused on the immediate problem before him.

Within hours of Britain declaring war on Nazi Germany, Hitler had ordered his Kriegsmarine to cut off the British Isles from the rest of the world. In less than three months, the Nazis had succeeded in launching a successful, maximum effort, by sinking neutral supply ships like the Rhonda Sue.

Despite the German propaganda, Jack also knew the Kriegsmarine’s success was not due to U-boat domination alone. Beneath the frigid depths of the English Channel prowled a German secret weapon of unconscionable power.

The Nazis were fighting dirty.

But they’d unwittingly created a deadly weapon in Jack Anderson, a man capable of not only playing by their rules and within their own boundaries, but destroying them at their own game.

Unfortunately, time was running out.

If Hitler wasn’t stopped immediately, not only Great Britain but all of Europe would fall under the Fuehrer’s power.

In four short days, Jack would give his portion of the intelligence report to the First Lord of the Admiralty. Winston Churchill would not accept theories or indefinite answers.

Jack dug his boot under another piece of the wreckage and flipped it over. It would take a miracle for the Brits to uncover a countermeasure in the four days they had left. Too bad Jack didn’t believe in miracles anymore.

Nevertheless, the situation wasn’t completely hopeless. There was always a solution, somewhere, hidden in the obvious, waiting to be unearthed. He just hadn’t found it yet.

But he would. If not as Jack Anderson then as Friedrich Reiter.

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This scene was originally the scene where Jack, the hero of DANGEROUS ALLIES, receives the official mission to go into Germany and get a photograph of the plans. I wrote this scene as a way to introduce Jack’s internal conflict, but it was also my way of introducing the spymaster in charge of him. I wanted to show how dangerous it was to be a spy in WWII. I also wanted to reveal the various agendas of all the characters, including the spymaster.

I cut the scene for pacing reasons and then fed the information into the first few chapters.

Enjoy!

1100 Hours 20 November 1939

MI-6 London Headquarters Broadway Street

Instinct told him this summons meant trouble. Rubbing a finger across his throbbing temple, he realized he should have taken a powder before he’d left the lab.

Stopping several feet in front of Stewart Menzies office, Jack stabbed a glance around the reception area. Like the rest of the building, the stark room spoke of functional sterility. The only furniture was a wooden bench on the right and a straight back chair behind an empty desk on the left.

Tapping lightly on the door leading to the chief’s office, Jack waited until he heard a muffled response before entering.

The splendor of the room took him by surprise, especially in contrast to the outer office. The expensive claw-footed velvet furniture, elegant paintings on the walls, and polished oak flooring created a combination of dignity and elegance only the very rich or very powerful could afford. The kind of décor chosen by leaders who sacrificed good men with a single order, and very little remorse.

Sudden helplessness and rage churned in Jack’s gut. For a fraction of a second all of the intense emotions -- the guilt, the anger, the need for vengeance -- that he’d pushed into a holding tank deep inside his mind threatened to break free and sweep away his control. But if there was one thing he’d learned from the tortuous years of his double life it was to disengage from his emotions at all times.

He just needed a little more distance.

A little more control.

Schooling his expression into a blank mask, Jack focused on the man sitting behind the large mahogany desk. With his head bent over his paperwork, Stewart Menzies looked every bit of his forty-nine years. The thinning hair and a mustache too thick at the edges added to the image of a man who spent long hours behind a desk.

When Menzies continued to ignore him, Jack cleared his throat. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

The head of British Secret Intelligence pushed aside a stack of papers and looked at Jack with cool, measuring eyes that had a layer of street thug below the polish.

The eyes of a politician, Jack thought, a man who would do anything to get his mission accomplished. British, American, German. In some ways they were all the same. Puppet masters who plotted and manipulated, while men like Jack got their hands dirty.

Which carried the darker sin?

With a snort of impatience, Menzies scowled then motioned to one of the empty chairs in front of his desk. “Sit down, Lieutenant Anderson.”

Jack folded his large frame into a wing-backed chair, mentally ticking off the seconds until he could return to the lab.

Outwardly, he held perfectly still, his mind void of all emotion, as Menzies slowly searched through the stack of papers in front of him. After a long, tense moment he pulled out a sheet from the bottom and looked up again. “Are these estimates accurate, Lieutenant? We’ve lost 113 merchant ships since September?”

Appreciating the no-nonsense approach to the situation, Jack blew out a quiet hiss. “Actually, counting the Rhonda Sue, the total is now 114.”

Menzies turned his attention back to the report. “How many of the total losses were due to the magnetic mines?”

Jack took a deep breath. “Nearly half.”

“That many?”

“From my estimates, and confirmed by MI-6 intelligence, the Germans have ‘sowed’ hundreds of the mines off the coasts of England. They’ve concentrated their greatest efforts around the entrance of the British naval bases, and in the broad estuary of the Thames River.”

Menzies released a stream of expletives in unusually creative combinations, then flicked his gaze to a door at the back of the office. “Are the countermeasures operational yet?”

A pall of defeat enveloped Jack. He wanted to lie, to give false assurances, but an unexpected jolt of honesty wouldn’t let him. Apparently the Nazis and this war hadn’t killed off all of his decency. Yet.

“Every man on my team is working a minimum of eighteen-hour days. We’ll have a solution soon.”

With a dangerous expression on his face, Menzies rose and lurched around his desk. “Are you telling me you haven’t come up with a workable countermeasure yet?”

Jack slipped the other man a dark, jaded smile, but behind his careless façade was the empty, shaky feeling he experienced right before he went into battle. He refused to bow to pressure and risk men’s lives on an action that he hadn’t personally investigated. He’d only caved into that desire once, and the consequences of that lone mistake still haunted his nightmares. “We need to run more tests.”

Menzies’s heels clicked as he paced to the tiny window overlooking a small balcony outside his office. “I have been told, Lieutenant, that you are a man who has difficulty recognizing when a solution is good enough.” He swung around, his eyes rigid as steel. “Is that the case here? Or is this stalling tactic a part of your own personal agenda?”

The dark, ugly beast inside of Jack cracked open an eye. With a hard swallow, he shoved the black-hearted fiend back in his hiding place. Control. He needed complete, iron-hard control.

“The truth is, sir, half-measures result in accidents.” Jack flattened his lips into a hard, thin line. “I’m not prepared to send out test ships and have them blown into powder. I need more time.”

“Time?” Menzies spat the word as he came back to stand in front of Jack. “Therein lies your problem, Lieutenant. You don’t have time. I will not go into our briefing with the First Lord of the Admiralty and tell him we still don’t have a countermeasure operational.”

“Accurate solutions aren’t commodities that can be bought and sold like other weapons.”

Menzies slid a speculative look at Jack. “Would the acquisition of the plans to these bombs answer the last of your concerns?”

Jack edged to his seat, wondering just what sort of game the intelligence chief was playing. “You have the plans in your possession?”

Menzies waved his hand in a quick slash of dismissal. “We know where they are.”

A clever, calculating man, Jack mused as he returned Menzies’s glare. Bordering on the vicious. A true spymaster. It was no wonder the man had succeeded Sir Hugh as the chief of MI-6, in spite of Churchill’s vehement disapproval. “Where are the plans now?”

Smirking, Menzies scratched his chin with a thumbnail. “In Admiral Karl Doenitz’s office at the Kriegsmarine headquarters in Wilhelmshaven, Germany.”

“You’re sure of this?”

“Our intelligence is accurate.”

So, all the preamble about countermeasures and time running out had been part of Menzies’s nasty little game, a test to see if Jack’s desire for a solution would make him willing to do anything to find an answer. Even sacrifice years of building his cover for this one mission. “You want me to photograph the plans.”

“That’s right.”

“Nothing else?”

“Gaining a copy of the plans is your only priority.”

Jack wasn’t buying it. “Why not one of your own field agents?”

An ironic eyebrow shot up. “Come now, Lieutenant. You’re the best man for the job, and we both know it. Your work in the field is incomparable. Your cover as the SS henchman, Friedrich Reiter, will open channels other operatives couldn’t possibly hope to achieve in our limited timeframe.”

Menzies paused, and then continued before Jack could respond. “But more importantly, you know exactly what portion of the plans you’ll need to finish your work here.”

Listening to the man’s recitation certainly made Jack sound like the reasonable choice. His cover was solid enough that only a handful of men knew where his loyalties ultimately lay. Jack had dug so deep into the heart of the Third Reich that the line between right and wrong had begun to blur inside of him. He’d pray for forgiveness, if he didn’t know it was too late.

A dingy pall of darkness covered him now, threatening his very soul. Death pursued him, giving him no hope for salvation. And thanks to this spymaster’s secretive agenda, the beast in him was awakening once more. Sniffing around the lies.

Clearly, Stewart Menzies was using him for his own purposes.

Jack knew he was expendable. As an American, he had no direct connection to MI-6. If his cover was blown or the operation compromised, the British would never claim him.

And no one would come to get him out.

Regardless of the risks, this mission was yet another chance for Jack to strike at the enemy directly. The red-eyed fiend in him scented blood. “When do I leave?”

“Within the hour. You’ll be briefed on the particulars in route. Your contact in Germany is already in place. Katarina Kerensky, code name Butterfly, will meet you this evening at the Schneble Theatre in Hamburg.”

The name of his contact drew Jack up short. “Did you say Katarina Kerensky?”

“You know of her, then?”

“Everyone knows of her.” She was the most well-known German stage-actress behind Marlene Dietrich. Were the British actually going to assign a Russian princess turned actress to help him steal the plans?

Was this a trap?

Jack mentally stepped back from his thoughts and focused. “Let me get this straight, you want to send a woman into Doenitz’s headquarters with me? A famous woman, at that?”

Talk about unconventional warfare.

Menzies’s eyes turned shrewd, measuring. “Do you have a specific reason to distrust Kerensky?”

“Aside from the fact that she’s a woman, and as high-profile as they come?” Jack didn’t bother hiding the sarcasm in his voice.

“Aside from all of that.”

A protective instinct he long thought dead surfaced. “I’ve studied Admiral Doenitz and his tactics for years. He has a capacity for utter ruthlessness. He thinks in terms of the offensive. When he strikes, he strikes hard. If he catches Kerensky, he won’t care that she’s a woman. He’ll turn her over to the Gestapo and-- ” Jack broke off, swallowed. The tortures she would endure were unthinkable.

A cold chill of fear for a woman he had never met kicked along the base of his spine. He’d personally witnessed the forms of torture they used to get answers. He’d watched in steely-eyed silence as the toughest spies were utterly destroyed under the perfect blend of physical pressure and mental interrogation. The experience had cost him his soul.

He’d accepted the cost, or at least lived with it. But this, this dangerous mission, could cost Katarina Kerensky her life.

Sensing his thoughts Menzies laughed again, and this time it came out as a cold, bone-chilling sound. “I can assure you, Butterfly is more than aware of the risks.”

Something in Menzies expression warned Jack there was more to Kerensky’s involvement than the other man was revealing. Jack closed his eyes a moment, detached from his emotions, then tapped into one of the former Jack Anderson’s distant memories. The Bible was full of stories about God using unlikely vessels for serious missions. Abraham had lied on more than one occasion. Jacob had cheated and swindled his own father. Rahab had been a harlot. David a murderer.

But a stage-actress in the role of spy? It didn’t add up.

This had to be a trap.

But for which one of them -- him? Or Kerensky?

Menzies’s voice jerked Jack’s attention back to the problem at hand. “I don’t have to remind you, this operation has been given the highest British security code, Most Secret.”

Jack nodded, swallowed three times. Each time a hot ball of dread expanded in his throat. In a few, short hours he’d be back in Germany, back in his role as Heinrich Himmler’s dark angel of death.

But turning down the mission wasn’t an option. He, more than most, realized the importance of getting his hands on those plans.

With nothing more to say, he rose and turned to go, but Menzies’s voice stopped him in mid-stride. “One more thing, Lieutenant.”

Jack looked back over his shoulder.

“Whether you get the plans or not, I expect a countermeasure operational in seven days. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

And, in attempt at penance for sins he’d never atone for in his lifetime, Jack would do it in five.

# # #

The moment the American left the room, Menzies strode to the back of his office. With a flick of his wrist, he pushed opened the door and motioned the man in a Royal Navy uniform to join him.

“Well? Did he buy it?”

Menzies shook his head. “Not entirely. But he didn’t ask as many questions as I would have expected from a man with so much to lose. Nevertheless, he’s willing to play the game as I laid it out. For now, anyway.”

“I take it you didn’t tell him we doubt Butterfly’s loyalty?”

Returning to his desk, Menzies sank back into his chair. “It wasn’t necessary. He’s a cautious man by nature. He won’t risk his cover for this mission. And if Kerensky is a double agent for the Germans, who better than Anderson to root her out?”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I am.”

“I can’t help saying again that I think you’re taking a big risk here. Maybe too big. You and I both know Lieutenant Anderson is extremely important to our overall operation. If the Nazis uncover his real identity now, we lose years of carefully orchestrated groundwork. Years we can’t get back.”

Menzies swallowed back an oath. He didn’t need anybody –- especially not a vice-admiral in the Royal Navy -- telling him something he already knew. “Be that as it may. If this war continues, as I fear it will, the actress could prove invaluable to us, perhaps even more than Anderson. Her personal link to Hitler’s inner circle will open avenues unprecedented in intelligence history.”

And by obtaining a mole with Kerensky’s contacts, Menzies would prove to Churchill and all the other doubters that he truly was the right man to succeed Sinclair as chief.

Even if that meant sacrificing a valuable man like Jack Anderson in the process.

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