Take the Money Trilogy Books

In the summer of 1941, Sergeant Dan McGill did the unthinkable, something no Chicago cop was ever supposed to do. He refused to go on the Mob’s payroll. Refused to become one of organized crime’s stooges in blue. If the Mob let something like that go unchallenged, it’d be the end of them. So McGill had to go. Six feet under. Only the Mob made a serious mistake. The boss decided Charlie Hart, Dan’s best friend and the crooked police lieutenant who’d been given the task of roping Dan in, had to die, too. That was the price Charlie had to pay for failing to make Dan knuckle under. The Mob got Charlie, all right, but then Dan struck back. He killed the boss’s two sons and then the old man himself. He caught the boss just as he was about to blow town — with $3 million stuffed into two suitcases. Finders keepers, Dan thought after putting the boss down. He took the Mob’s money after all. From that moment on, a hunt began that would last four years. The mob would stalk its target throughout the United States and all the way into war-torn Europe after learning that Dan, now calling himself Charlie Hart, had joined the army. The boys in Chicago figured if they didn’t kill the bastard, the Nazis would get the job done.

Landing at night on a beach in the South of France, Cohort 1, Major Edward Kinney commanding, has a plan to penetrate enemy territory, conceal the American military presence, and get their bearings before going on the offensive. Two-men teams will move forward at timed intervals Major Kinney assigns Sergeant Charlie Hart and Master Sergeant Russell Weaver to act as the rear guard. Not wanting to just hang around while waiting their turn, Charlie takes it upon himself to investigate a nearby hamlet and see if he might learn something. That’s just the start of improvisation. Charlie and Weaver’s first enemy targets turn out to be of immense value. As Cohort 1 moves inland, a female British spy finds them by identifying their boot prints in a field of mud. Faced with the prospect of starvation and freezing to death as winter approaches, the spy comes to the rescue … there’s this castle in neutral Liechtenstein. Fighting their way through France and Southern Germany in their own unique style, Cohort 1 gets whittled down. Not by the enemy but by a summons home from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Only Charlie, two of his comrades, and the British spy decide to stay and soldier on.

The war in Europe is all but over and Germany’s surrender is imminent, but Charlie Hart’s work continues. Given his background as a Chicago cop, he’s assigned to track down and capture the commandant of the Dachau concentration camp. That evil bastard, realizing that the Nazis’ end is near, has taken off with a truckload of ill-gotten gold. General Crosswell orders Charlie to find the war criminal and bring him back to face an Allied court of justice. Charlie has no objection to following those orders. He does so in style, using the leverage from on high to commandeer his own aircraft, with SOE agent Robyn Bradly acting as his personal pilot. Their pursuit leads to Malmö, Sweden, Amsterdam, and ultimately Paris. Shortly after arriving in the French capital, Sergeant Patrick Jameson reconnects with his old comrades-in-arms, and the three of them soon close in on their sinister prey. After that … well, it’s time for Dan McGill to resume his own identity and head home to Chicago to confront the Mob.