The Long Hard Road

Chapter Thirty-One: In The Presence of Mine Enemies

Medical Research Lab

Germany

15^th May 1942

Benjamin Matthews checked his appearance in the mirror of the car before fixing his SS cap firmly on his head. It was dangerous to pose as an SS man – one of the people in the manor might know all of the senior officers by sight – but he hadn’t been able to find any other way of entering the building. Stewart’s camera continued to send its signal into the skies, but there had been no sign of her.

“I’m about to go in,” he subvocalised, and drove around the bend. The two SS guards at the gate straightened up when they saw his car, one that was only used by senior officers, and saluted firmly.

“Heil Himmler,” Matthews returned. In the week he’d spent in Germany, falling into his role and working with the handful of MI6 agents already within Germany, he’d picked up the new salute and the car. The German garage had been bombed from the air, just to prevent the SS from hunting for a stolen car. “My papers, here,” he snapped, presenting them.

“Thank you, Herr Gruppenfuehrer Zimmerman,” the guard said. Matthews kept his stern look on his face; there were at least five hundred Gruppenfuehrers – Major Generals – in the SS, and it was unlikely that any one person would know all of them by sight. The real Gruppenfuehrer Zimmerman was in Bavaria; the Germans were too good at keeping records to risk including a fake Gruppenfuehrer. “Excuse me, I have to check…”

“I am here on a personal mission for the Fuhrer himself,” Matthews snapped, putting ice into his tone. His monocle glinted in his eye. “Do you imagine for a moment that anything that is important enough to call me from Bavaria can wait?”

The guard wilted under his gaze. Matthews could almost see his thoughts; the papers were perfect, the attitude was perfect, and he was a senior SS officer with the confidence of the Fuhrer himself.

“No, Herr Gruppenfuehrer Zimmerman,” the guard said finally. “Your papers seem to be in order. You may pass.”

“Heil Himmler,” Matthews snapped, and drove up the driveway. The guard had to jump out of the way to avoid being knocked down by the car. He drove up towards the manor house, careful to avoid a sigh of relief. His attempt at planting some sensors near the manor had revealed that the Germans had constructed an elaborate surveillance network around the entire estate.

“Heil Himmler,” the secretary said. Matthews looked him up and down, and then fixed his gaze on a part of his uniform that was slightly out of place. The secretary stumbled to fix it, cringing under Matthews’s gaze.

“Heil Himmler,” Matthews said. “Now you are in a fit uniform for an officer of the force devoted to protecting the Reich, explain to me why the senior officer isn’t here to meet me?”

The secretary was too stunned to sort out the inconsistency in the statement. “Herr Doctor Mengele is experimenting with the patient – our main subject – at the moment,” he said. “Shall I call him?”

“No,” Matthews said. He kept his face stern, ignoring the shiver that ran down his spine at the name of Mengele. “Lead me to him at once.”

The secretary hesitated. Matthews glared at him and he submitted. “Right this way,” he said, leading the way into the manor house. Inside, it was designed like a hospital, with clean walls and locked cells. They walked onto a set of stairs and headed down; Matthews wished he could ask more questions, but Himmler would not have sent someone out here unbriefed.

“This is the viewing chamber,” the secretary said. “I can’t take anyone into the secure chamber; you have to wait while I call him.” Matthews shrugged and wandered over to the glass window, peering into a medical surgery. A woman was bound to a table, while a short man poked over her body with a needle. He felt sick; nothing he’d seen in Saudi or Iran had prepared him for the chilling and disgusting sight.

“Herr Mengele is on his way,” the secretary said. Matthews nodded and watched as dispassionately as he could as the short man left the naked woman to bleed, heading through a series of doors. He waited for five minutes, just long enough for the secretary to get really nervous, and then Mengele stepped into the room.

“You may leave,” Mengele said, indicating the secretary. The young man didn’t argue; he was glad to be out of Matthews’s presence. “Now, what can I do for the Reichsführer?”

Matthews glared at him. “You will address him as the Fuhrer,” he said. “He is the heir to Adolf Hitler, the sainted man who made us powerful again.”

Mengele cringed. “Yes, Herr Gruppenfuehrer,” he said. “Why are you here?”

Matthews peered down at him, projecting his annoyance with the rudeness of the question. He didn’t understand why Himmler had accepted Mengele; there had to be other doctors, rather than the squalid little man. Mengele was disgusting; he could still smell blood and smells he would have preferred to have never smelled emanating from him.

“I have been ordered to obtain a report on your progress,” Matthews snapped. “What progress have you made with the subject?”

Mengele cheered up, perhaps realising that he wasn’t about to get into trouble with a senior officer of the SS. “We have taken around twenty pints of blood in total from her,” he said. “Cultivation of the supply” – he pranced in delight – “indicates a clear vulnerability to smallpox, although the Fuhrer has forbidden us to infect her or any of the other prisoners to test the theory. Development of stocks of smallpox proceeds apace; we will soon have enough for the special project.”

Matthews concealed his shock with an effort. He needn’t have bothered; Mengele was too obsessed with his own progress to care. “In addition, there are a number of curious items in her body, from a perfect contraceptive to some vaccines – we can only imagine what diseases they are intended to prevent. The contraceptive itself is remarkable; it seems to grow and multiply like a virus. We have kept some of it alive in a blood mixture, it might even be possible to literally infect people with it, particularly the subhumans of China.”

Matthews focused his mind on the here and now. There was information that was vital here. “Are you manufacturing the smallpox here?” He asked. “Is that safe for Germany?”

“Oh, of course,” Mengele said, dismissing his concerns. “It’s a strain that we have all been vaccinated against, I assure you. The Fuhrer raised similar concerns.”

“And he ordered me to check again,” Matthews said. “How long until it will be ready for deployment?”

“Maybe a week,” Mengele said. Matthews felt his heart flip over; Smallpox would wreck havoc on the British population. “The Fuhrer refused to allow us to establish duplicate factories, so we are of course limited in what we can produce.”

Matthews nearly broke character and sighed in relief. He held it in, fixing Mengele with a glare. “I have seen enough,” he said. “I trust that you have written reports?” Mengele nodded. “The head of security here will show me around, so I can inspect your security,” he said. “Then you will give me copies of your reports, and a covering letter for the Fuhrer. Include everything he needs to know.”

Mengele opened his mouth to object. Matthews glared him into silence. “The future of the Reich is at stake,” he said. “Do not defy the will of the Fuhrer.”

Matthews, confident that he’d left an impression of himself as a total bastard behind, drove away from the manor. As soon as he was half a mile away, in a nearby town, he stopped for lunch, while using his tiny transmitter to relay his findings. He read his way through Mengele’s report while eating lunch in a small café, and then he drove away into the countryside.

“Sir, I assume that you want to move in at once,” he said, after detailing the contents of Mengele’s report. “It won’t be long before they catch on to my fake credentials.”

“We’re going to have to move in,” Hanover said grimly. “I relayed your findings to PJHQ; we’re going to have to really stomp the place into the ground and you know what that means.”

Matthews looked around the countryside and shuddered. “A nuke,” he said. He knew why; only the searing heat of a nuclear warhead could guarantee the destruction of the smallpox bug.

Hanover’s voice was grim. It was a measure of the seriousness of the situation that he was handling it personally. Matthews smiled; Hanover probably missed his days when he was doing something himself, instead of just giving orders.

“Yes,” he said grimly. “There remains a second problem; could an SAS team rescue her and capture Mengele first?”

Matthews nodded silently. “Raiding the building would not be difficult,” he assured him. “It’s designed to keep out casual observers, not a full SAS assault. They could have dug an entire division in around the building, but they didn’t.”

“We would have noticed and wondered why,” Hanover said. The Prime Minister sounded tired. “PJHQ is putting the mission together now,” he said. “It will be launched in dusk, five hours away. You will meet the team on the ground and leave with them.”

“It would be a shame to leave this car,” Matthews said wryly. “Understood; will they want me to take part in the assault?”

“That’s up to the team leader,” Hanover said. “You’ll brief him on it now, and then you can plan the assault.”

“Yes, sir,” Matthews said. “I’ll wait nearby for extraction.”

Hanover snorted. “Don’t miss your flight out,” he said. “If you stay on the ground, you’ll die like Doctor Tucker.”

The Luftwaffe had abandoned any attempt to challenge the RAF or the USAAF in the night time, withdrawing from the offensive as dusk fell. The flights of bombing attacks over France and Germany continued, allowing three Eurofighters and a Tornado to slip through the German defences unobserved, completely invisible to even the naked eye, so high in the sky.

Squadron Leader Shelia Dunbar took a breath. The mission was going to be chancy enough, even for her; they would have to make certain that they managed to rendezvous with the tanker, or they would have to swim home. She knew the pilot of the tanker – she’d even spent a pleasant weekend with him in a hotel room – but his orders were specific. The tankers – and the AWACS – were not to cross over the mainland, whatever the situation.

“Let’s hope they don’t challenge us,” she muttered. The Eurofighter was handling badly, carrying two Paveway bombs on each wing rather than the missiles it would normally carry. She shuddered; she knew what the Tornado was carrying. The tactical atomic weapon would burn two square miles of the German countryside.

“You deserve it, you bastards,” she snarled. She’d seen the damage left by the V2 missiles. If there was any truth at all to the rumour about smallpox – and she’d seen that the entire RAF was being vaccinated – she wanted to use the weapon herself. She had other targets; the Germans had a handful of bases nearby, and they had to be destroyed before they could react to the commando raid.

She triggered her radio. “This is Eagle-one,” she said. “We’re in position.”

“You are clear to attack,” the controller said. “Commandos inbound now.”

She checked the target designator. For once, the bombs were being guided from satellites, rather than a spotter on the ground. The Eurofighter shuddered as the bombs fell from the plane, flying lighter as sparks of fire appeared on the ground. Against such a dark background, it was almost beautiful.

Seven CV-22 aircraft headed into Germany, flying directly from airfields in Sweden. In the lead aircraft, Captain Dwynn ran though the orders; they had been very specific, even to the point of interfering with his freedom to design his own operations. Raid this building. Rescue this woman. Secure her camera. Capture this man. Failing that, ensure that both of them are dead. Then run and don’t look back…

“Captain, we’re coming up on the landing zone,” Flying Officer Chehab reported. “Two minutes until we land.”

Dwynn nodded. He would have preferred to have inserted some distance from the target, but it was not to be; the orders had seen to that. They would be landing in a field close to the target, while the RAF would hit the outer defences of the manor house they were attacking. It was dangerous; they would be horrifyingly vulnerable if they were caught on the ground, but speed was of the essence.

“Everyone ready,” he subvocalised, preparing his team. He had twenty-one men for the operation itself, and thirty who would guard the aircraft and act as a reserve if it were to be needed. He’d wanted to use them in the attack itself, but they hadn’t trained together; another hint that the operation had been put together on the fly.

He waited until everyone had acknowledged, then the ground came up with stunning speed, the manor house silhouetted against the trees. An explosion blossomed up from within its grounds, hopefully giving them something to worry about apart from the team.

“Move it,” he shouted, as his team formed up around him. Three groups, spreading out and running through the woods. A wooden fence was jumped over; Sergeant Vash left a small explosive pack behind, just to destroy it and prevent it getting in their way when they made their escape. They kept moving, coming up on a number of Germans who were trying to repair a damaged gun.

“Die,” he shouted, firing down. The Germans were swept aside in a moment; a RPG round slammed into the main door and shattered it aside in a moment. A dull thump announced the destruction of the fence, then the team was moving inside, throwing grenades around to keep the Germans busy.

“Move,” he snapped, firing madly into a bunch of German guards. They seemed stunned; they were unprepared for the attack. A German in nightclothes was killed before he could move or jump back; Dwynn could only hope that he wasn’t the target.

“Down there,” Corporal Chang snapped, pointing at the stair leading down to the prisons. Dwynn detailed one squad to guard the stair – the only known entrance or exit – and led his force down the stairs, into the chamber of horrors. The signal was very close now; he kicked open a door to see a naked and horrifyingly bruised girl screaming in the corner.

“We’re friends,” Dwynn shouted. He tapped the British Union Jack on his shoulder. “We’re friends.”

She stopped screaming. “Come on,” Dywnn snapped. “Plummer, take her upstairs.”

“Aye, sir,” Plummer said. “Will you be fine here?”

“Move,” Dywnn snapped. Agent Matthews had located Mengele’s room for them; the evil doctor had taken a room next to his chamber of suffering. “Come on.”

He kicked down the door and the bullet caught him in the chest. It slammed into his body armour, throwing him back, but it didn’t have the impact needed to punch a hole right through his armour. Chang leapt forward and kicked the weapon out of Mengele’s hand, and then kicked the doctor in the groin.

“Ouch,” Dwynn said, rubbing his chest. “That’s him?”

“Looks like it,” Chang snapped. Mengele voided his bowels. “Yuck.”

“Bring him,” Dwynn snapped. He tossed some grenades further down the corridor to discourage the other scientists from trying anything, before running back down the corridor, covering Chang as best as he could. His chest hurt; he knew that Mengele would hurt worse.

Damn it, I hope he hurts worse, he thought, as they made it up the stairs. “Report!”

“We’re still holding here,” Sergeant Vash said. “They seem to have given up on evicting us.”

“Time to leave before they get ideas,” Dwynn snapped. He watched grimly as Mengele was neatly handcuffed and picked up effortlessly by Vash. “Move it.”

The team, minus three soldiers who had been hit and killed, moved out quickly. Plummer had to carry the reporter; she was in shock. Dwynn muttered a report into his radio as they ran through the woods and back to the planes.

“This is Big Bird,” a new voice said. “I suggest that you get out of there. The Germans are sending an armoured force into the region.”

Dwynn blinked. “What the hell do they think we’re doing?” He asked. The CV-22 aircraft appeared out of the darkness in front of him, along with an old friend. “Ben,” he said in delight. “What are you doing here, you stupid bastard? I thought you washed out and never got back in.”

“Finding targets for you,” Matthews said. Mengele looked up at Matthews and started to stammer. “Hi, doc,” Matthews said. “Aren’t you lucky you’re coming with us? Himmler won’t be happy to see you after all this, you know?”

“Get him in the plane,” Dwynn ordered sharply. “Ben, we have to get out of here.”

Matthews nodded. “No argument there,” he said, climbing into the aircraft. Moments later, the aircraft climbed into the air and ran for it, flying as high and as fast as they could. “Do you know what’s coming here?” Dywnn shook his head. “They’re going to nuke the place!”

“Eagle-one, that’s the planes out of the main blast range,” the AWACS said. “The special weapon can now be deployed.”

“Confirming target,” the Tornado pilot, Anisa Samna, said. “Weapons armed and ready to be launched.”

“Launch,” Dunbar said. She hit the afterburners, vaguely aware of the other planes doing the same thing as the nuclear bomb headed towards the ground. She closed her eyes as the bomb fell, moving faster and faster, and slammed into the house. She had seconds to wonder why it hadn’t detonated… and then a blast of white light flashed behind them.

Fuck me, she thought. The tactical nuclear weapon had been an American design, ironically intended for strikes against rogue state bioweapon manufacturing centres, and modified for the strike. It blasted its way into the bunker before detonating, then exploded, scorching the region clean of any life at all. No viruses could survive the heat of the strike; they were wiped out in seconds.

The Eurofighter shuddered as it fled the blast wave, and she felt pure terror for the first time in her life, before it steadied. A quick check revealed that the other pilots were also safe and well.

“Gentlemen and lady, we just made history,” she said. “Now, let’s get home before something else goes wrong.”