Berlin or Bust

^{CHAPTER SEVENTEEN} THE OBJECTIVE

Eagle took over as lead company in line, with Second Platoon as the tip of the spear. Oberfeldwebel Wolff marched with a fresh sense of purpose.

This war, this objective, felt right to him. No longer was he training eager young men to die like flies for a patch of rocky ground. The Fallschirmjäger were here to save Germany from itself. In such a conflict, dying meant something.

And his boys were again living up to their reputation as the best of the best. They respected the draugr but no longer feared them.

As they neared Tiergarten, signs of war were everywhere. A splintered tree scattered across the autobahn among a cluster of motorcars chewed up by machine-gun fire. Ladders abandoned around a bombed tenement. Carts with half-eaten horses lying next to them. Volkssturm, mostly old men and boys who should have been in school, lay dead around sandbag positions. Snow blanketed everything.

In the distance, a jarring rumble as a large building collapsed. A cloud of dust rose over the red rooftops. Muffled booms and splashes of gunfire rolled from the southwest, the Tommies defending the airport they’d taken by force. The squads leapfrogged down the autobahn, two providing over watch while the rest bounded forward.

“Help us!”

Civilians filled the windows of a tenement, waving white sheets at them.

“We have nothing!”

“Are the traitors gone?”

“Are you here to say?”

The platoon slowed, waiting for the order to stop and provide aid.

“Keep moving,” Leutnant Reiser snarled.

“My children need milk!”

“Arm yourself and join us,” the lieutenant shouted back. “Otherwise, shut up.”

The men’s faces darkened. Misery seemed to settle across the entire platoon. Chivalry was ingrained into the Fallschirmjäger psyche.

The huge boost in morale they’d gained by destroying the Soviet battalion, they’d lost by ignoring German women and children in need.

Wolff veered to march alongside Reiser. “Herr Leutnant—”

“Wer zwei hasen auf einmal jagt bekommt keinen,” the lieutenant snapped. He who chases two rabbits at once will catch none. “I would have thought a soldier of your experience would remember that.”

Wolff swallowed shame and anger. “Verstanden, Herr Leutnant.”

“The best way to help our countrymen is to stop the plague.”

The platoon reached the edge of Tiergarten, a welcome relief for eyes made sore by the ravaged urban landscape. Dense with trees, the park appeared peaceful, offering sanctuary to the paratroopers.

The squads continued their leapfrogging progress into the park. Wolff spotted the white dome of the Army Research Center and called it out to Reiser. The lieutenant placed a squad to wait for the next platoon and led the remainder into the woods. They crossed the frozen lake, cut the wire, and approached the building.

The heavy steel entry door stood wide open. Bloody boot prints led away to the north. The paratroopers eyed the cavernous doorway with trepidation. A warm, hellish stench steamed out into the cold air.

Wolff looked at Reiser, who said, “Das glück hilft dem kühnen, Herr Wolff.” Fortune favors the bold.

The sergeant turned to his squad. “We’re going in. I’ll lead the way. I want good trigger discipline in there. You shoot me in the back, I’ll kill you.”

“Jawohl, Herr Oberfeldwebel.”

“Schneider, I want you up here with me. We see a ghoul or even a few, leave them to me. We see a big crowd coming at us in close quarters, I want you ready to torch them. Verstehen sie?”

Animal grinned. “Verstanden, Herr Oberfeldwebel.”

Wolff shouldered his FG42 and stepped into the administrative area. Their boots stomped against the dead quiet. A thick layer of trampled paper covered the floor, some of it burned in a pile of ash and charred sheets.

The area was clear. He ignored the lift and proceeded to the stairs.

The next level was clear as well.

The paratroopers found bodies and a harsh chemical stink on the third level. From a side room came a strange drumming. The sound of fists pounding a door in a tireless frenzy.

As the squad filled the space, the pounding stopped.

Something growled deep in its throat.

The paratroopers spread out, weapons raised.

“Come and get it,” Wolff called.

Two figures sprinted howling into the room. The squad dropped them with a salvo.

One was an SS fighter, the other a British paratrooper, his shredded sleeves revealing arms gnawed to the bone.

“They’re Tommies,” Steiner said, surveying the dead carpeting the floor. “Tommies and SS and scientists.”

“What are the Red Devils doing here?” Muller said.

“They don’t trust us,” Reiser said behind them. He turned to address the squad coming down the stairs. “Keep going. Secure the serum.”

“Jawohl, Herr Leutnant.”

“Now we shall see who these two unlikely comrades were trying to get at,” the lieutenant told Wolff.

They entered the side room, another lab space. Test tubes and other glassware had toppled from the metal shelving and had been ground into glass dust.

Wolff knocked on the door. “Fallschirmjäger!” He added in his poor English, “You let us inside.”

The door opened to reveal a wide-eyed British paratrooper in a cramped storage closet.

“Herr Wilkins,” Wolff said in surprise.

“Thank you, Herr Wolff,” the man said with British aplomb. “You saved me quite a lot of bother.”

Another Red Devil lay shivering in a ball with a bandaged leg, his face flushed and glistening with sweat.

Wilkins glanced back at his comrade. “This is Lieutenant Chapman. He’s wounded.”

“This is it, Wilkie,” the British officer said. “Thank you for everything. Carry on.”

“Ask the English if his man is bitten,” Reiser said.

“He is,” Wilkins said in German, “but—”

Reiser stepped into the storage room and shot the British lieutenant twice in the head.

“Christ!” Wilkins shouted.

The lieutenant swung the Luger to aim it at the man’s face. “Were you bitten?”

“I’m clean,” the sergeant said. “Honest! Now put the bloody gun down. Nicht schiessen!” Don’t shoot!

“As you wish.” Reiser holstered his pistol. “Herr Wilkins, a pleasure to see you again. Now explain your presence here.”

Wilkins said the brigade had dispatched a commando team to the facility as insurance in case the Fallschirmjäger failed.

“Just ten of you,” Wolff grunted. “That was your first mistake.”

Wilkins shrugged. It obviously hadn’t been his call. He’d followed orders.

“We made contact with some SS who’d barricaded themselves in the bottom level,” he said. “Hoping to entice them out, the lieutenant told them Hitler had been infected, and if we had the germ, we could cure him.”

“That was your second mistake.”

If the Führer died, the SS might have gone out in a blaze of glory or simply shot themselves where they stood.

But the Führer hadn’t died, not quite. They believed he’d become infected with the Overman germ.

They’d injected themselves so they’d be draugr too.

The British paratrooper shrugged again. He hadn’t made that call either. “We waited an hour. Strong ambush position, clear lanes of fire. The SS charged in like wild animals. There was no stopping them.” He looked down at his dead lieutenant. “At the end, Chappie and I lost our weapons and made it into this cupboard. I was hoping to give him some comfort before ending it for him with my knife. He was a good man. He’d earned that much.”

“A touching sentiment,” Reiser sneered, “which easily could have resulted in your death. You have two choices now, English. Run along and join your comrades at the airport, or come with us.”

“If it’s all the same to you, sir, I’ll tag along with you and your men. The devil I know, so to speak.”

“You will submit to my authority as your superior.” Reiser glanced at Wolff. “Oberfeldwebel Wolff will see to it.”

Wolff crossed his arms and nodded. “We’ll put this English to good use.”

“Since he does not trust us to do our duty, give him the most dangerous tasks so he can show us how they’re accomplished. Ja?”

A paratrooper rushed into the room and saluted. “We have secured what we believe is the original serum, Herr Leutnant.”

“That is good news,” Reiser said. “Prepare to move out.”

The Fallschirmjäger exchanged grins. They’d fought to their objective and obtained it.

Now they just had to fight their way out.