Time Riders

CHAPTER 30

1941, Berghof — Hitler’s winter retreat

Kramer cowered behind a small oak bureau in the hallway. Shards of wood stung hisface as a dozen rounds slammed into the far side and sharp slithers splintered off.

He rattled a stream of curses out under his breath as the corridor filled with the deafeningcrack of machine-gun fire.

At the end of the hallway several SS Leibstandarte were dug into covered positions, defendingthe double doors to die Gro?eHalle, the main room of Hitler’s mountain retreat.

Karl and several of his men returned fire, their shots peppering the overturned marble tableahead of them behind which the SS were putting up a valiant defence. Showers of powderedmarble erupted from the once mirror-smooth table surface, now pockmarked with cracks andbullet craters.

‘We have to move, Karl! They’ll have reinforcements here any second!’

Karl nodded. He understood the situation all too well.

The attack had started out smoothly. He and his men had quietly slipped past the machine-gunposts either side of the winding road and made their way up the steep rise towardsHitler’s hillside chalet. But the game was up when a guard spotted them at the lastmoment approaching the building’s main entrance. He’d managed to fire off a singleshot from his gun before Dieter had slipped a blade into his throat.

Hitler’s hand-picked guards had been surprisingly swift to react,bustling their leader to safety behind the thick double doors of the main hall and setting upa defensive position outside it. The rest of the SS guard detachment in the building had beenquickly and ruthlessly picked off by Karl’s men.

It was just these stubborn guards at the end of the hall now. The problem was, though, thattheir attack had been stalled right here and time was rapidly working against them. Outsidethe chalet a distant klaxon was sounding and the regiment garrisoned nearby was undoubtedlyalready scrambling into their boots and on their way over.

Karl’s five-man rearguard covering the front entrance of the chalet had as much chanceof holding their position as they’d had holding the ground floor of the museum — they were certain to be quickly overwhelmed.

Kramer was no soldier, but he could see that this last hurdle could be the one that finishedthem. If they remained in this stalemate a minute or two longer, then it was going to be allover. The numbers were quickly going to mount against them, and having modern pulse rifles andelite training wasn’t going to make a blind bit of difference.

We’re going to die if we don’t take those men.

He looked across the hallway to where Karl was crouched. Their eyes met. The man nodded,knowing what Kramer was thinking. A faint smile slipped across his face as he slapped in afresh cartridge and racked his pulse rifle ready for action.

The other men around Karl took his lead, quickly reloading their weapons and then readyingthemselves to burst out into the open and sprint the length of the hallway under fire.

Silently Karl mouthed a countdown, turning back to his men, encouraging them with a finaldevil-may-care grin that told the mercenaries they were going to succeed or die heroes.

Five… four… three… two… one…

They emerged from their covered positions as one, laying down a withering barrage ofrapid-fire high-impact shots that filled the air around the table with a blizzard of chippedfragments and marble powder.

They ran forward, still firing, ten yards… five yards…

Kramer followed in their wake. He found himself screaming like a banshee.

Karl was the first to reach the overturned table, crashing heavily into it. He swiftly pokedhis rifle over the top and sprayed the SS guards sheltering behind it point blank with asustained burst until his pulse rifle clacked like a woodpecker, exhausted of ammo.

Rudy and Sven joined him, emptying their clips blindly over the top of the table into thespace behind it.

Then all of a sudden it was as silent as a graveyard.

The smoke and dust cleared around them and Kramer, gingerly lifting his head to look over thetop, saw the men dead on the floor, an unpleasant mash of flayed flesh, splintered bone andtattered black ceremonial uniforms.

In the distance, muted through the thick stone walls of the chalet, he could hear the rapidtap of gunfire from the front of the building.

The garrison’s here already.We’re out of time.

Karl clambered over the table and aimed a swift, hard kick at the oakwood double doors. Theyrattled heavily and swung inwards.

Karl led the way in.

As he stepped through, a single pistol shot echoed across the grand room and a solitary shardof wood flung off the oak door beside his head.

Rudy, stepping in beside him, swung his weapon round and emptied half adozen shots into a portly looking Wehrmacht general with braids on his shoulders, throwing himback across a grand banqueting table covered with maps and scattered typed pages ofintelligence notes and field deployments. The general rolled off the side of the table andthudded heavily on to the floor.

Kramer stepped into the room, slowly scanning the sweat-soaked faces cowering behindarmchairs and coffee tables. Generals and field marshals — so much gold braiding, somany medals pinned to their chests — and yet here they were looking very much like aclass of startled children. His eyes finally rested on a trembling man in a tan-coloured tunicwith a dark fringe drooping over one eye, and his distinct toothbrush moustache.

Unmistakably… it was the very man they were after.

Hitler was crouching on the floor holding an ineffective-looking pistol in his shaking hand.As the sound of the distant gunfight around the Berghof’s entrance grew more insistent,Kramer took a step forward.

‘Adolf Hitler,’ he said in fluent German, ‘your plans to attack Russia inthe next few weeks will result in you losing this war.’

Hitler’s eyes widened, his lips flickered and tensed, but he said nothing.

‘Now, if you want to win this war, if you want detailed intelligence of what yourenemies are doing right now, if you want weapons technology that will make you invincible-’ he nodded back down the hallway, at the growing cacophony of approachinggunfire — ‘then I suggest you call off those men outside and listen very closely to what I have to tell you.’