The technicians who’d designed the device had warned him that there had been a number of countermeasures installed at Hegel’s request: countermeasures intended to foil any attempt to tamper with the mechanism once it was armed. There was no way of knowing what kinds of stresses or shocks the weapon had already been subjected to during its eventful journey so far, and Kurt Reuters had no desire to end his days as part of an expanding ball of fiery gas because of a shaky hand at the wrong moment.
Setting the maximum possible delay, he closed and locked the dust cover once more and slipped the key into a pocket, steadying his nerves before taking what he knew – one way or the other – would be the final step in the process. Checking carefully over every one of the warning lights and gauges fitted into the small instrument panel, he took a deep breath and tried to control his shaking hand as he pressed down on the primary arming button.
There was a distinct ‘CLACK’ as something inside clicked home, the sudden sound somehow deafening within the hollow vastness of that dark cargo hold. Reuters jumped in momentary fright, relief flooding through him as he realised that he had indeed performed the arming sequence correctly and that the device had not in fact gone off immediately upon his pressing the button. With shallow breaths rasping in his chest, he leaned down and held an ear close to the instrument panel, instantly rewarded with the soft, recognisable sound of a precision clockwork mechanism ticking away the seconds.
Atom bomb! That single dark, awful thought flared in his mind, and he inexplicably felt his insides suddenly turn to water with fear. This is an atom bomb… a real one… and I’ve just armed it…!
He’d spent most of his military career working in the deadly shadow of the nuclear threat, standing guard at the German border with thousands of Soviet warheads waiting to be unleashed to rain death and destruction down on the cities of Europe and the United States… and with thousands more on their side too, ready to do the same in return.
The Americans cherished their nuclear stockpile. They were proud of the fact that nuclear deterrence had kept the world safe and at peace since the end of the Second World War, and that was true enough. But most of them were thousands of kilometres away from the Warsaw Pact, and it was easy to forget the dangerous reality of the Soviet threat when it stood at arm’s length. Not so for the thousands of NATO troops that stood guard every day along the West German border… not so for the panzer crews or the Luftwaffe pilots who day-after-day went about their drills and their alert training with the shattering might of the Red Army staring straight at them on the other side of that dark, forbidding barbed-wire.
Reuters had been a young leutnant in his twenties at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and he remembered well enough those few long, tense, agonising days of terror the world has suffered through as two superpowers had postured and argued and squared up against each other over a handful of missiles placed ninety miles off the Florida coast.
Much as they had kept the peace for sixty years, Reuters had come to loathe and fear nuclear weapons; to despise nuclear weapons for the carnage and destruction they were capable of, all of it held in check by politicians: civilians mostly, who had no idea of the true horror they held in their hands. Reuters had served under too many politicians in his days as a Bundeswehr officer to have any faith in their judgement, and he’d learned to truly fear nuclear weapons as a result. The fact that he was now standing right beside one that he himself had armed and set for detonation was suddenly eating away at his soul.
He choked back a soft bark of fear as his thoughts snapped brutally back to the present, and he cast a wide and worried eye about the otherwise empty hold. Reuters knew he was already well overdue, and he was running a very real risk of being caught and shot. He quickly replaced the main cover panel and screwed it tight, checking just once more with an ear to the outer casing. This time he heard nothing, and he allowed himself a faint nod of approval in recognition of superior, Swiss engineering as he limped across to the other side of the hold and stopped at the bottom of the steps leading back up.
Turning to take one last look around, he groaned as he realised that the hatch through which he’d dropped the bodies was still open, and that that just would not do. An unexpectedly open hatch might demand an inspection he could ill afford, and with a growl of frustration he limped his way back over to the opening and reached for the cover. Again he paused, another thought coming to him in that moment. Something that was done might easily be undone, and at that moment he truly didn’t trust his own resolve enough to be certain he could see the deed through.
‘When he reached the New World, Cortez burned his ships…’ He remembered that quote by Sean Connery, as the sub captain in that Red October movie. Well, in reality, Cortés scuttled them rather than set them to the torch, he conceded with a shrug and a grim smile, but the end result was the same. Better for my motivation also, if there is no going back…!
Slipping the chain and tiny key from that same trouser pocket, he lifted them, dangling from one finger, and stared at them for a few seconds before letting it drop down through the opening into the darkness. There was a single plop somewhere down below and at that moment, a terrible chill rippled through him in recognition that the deed was indeed done. With a grunt of exertion, he carefully lowered the hatch cover once more, sealed it as tightly was he was able, then shuffled awkwardly back across the hold once more and struggled laboriously back up those same metal steps.
It was another ten minutes before he’d managed to reach Kormoran’s deck and lower himself carefully down that rope ladder to the ground, the task made infinitely more difficult now by the flaring agony that lanced through his knee with every step. Clenching his teeth against the pain, he almost managed to hide his injured movement as he approached the jeep he’d arrived in, the driver still smoking quietly and paying no attention whatsoever until the German officer was almost directly upon him.
Yanagisawa had not returned as yet, it appeared, and Reuters thanked whichever God had smiled upon him as the vehicle powered away along the track a moment later, heading back toward Halong the way they’d come. The guards at the ship’s stern had not turned around once during that whole time, their attention mostly held by the distant flash of gunfire and rumble or artillery on the other side of the bay.
By the time the absence of the two guards was noted, some twenty minutes later, it had come around to shift change, and the newly-arrived men on duty simply assumed that with no commanding officer about to stop them, the two slackers had simply taken off early for the afternoon meal. Yanagisawa himself ended up being so completely swamped with work looking after the new prisoners that it took him the rest of the afternoon, and no one else thought for a moment to check in the hold or look any deeper into the matter.
The area around Laha was a vista of mud, death and destruction as Ritter and Schiller walked gingerly between the remains of the shattered village and administration buildings that lay to the north-west of the airstrip itself. Some of the huts – what was left of them – still burned fiercely, while other ruins continued to pour faint trails of thick, cloying smoke into an atmosphere already choked by the dust, smoke and debris left over from that terrible assault. Bodies lay strewn everywhere – Allied and Japanese alike – along with the burned out hulks of at least half a dozen light tanks and armoured cars the Australians had deployed against in defence of the airfield. All around them, Japanese soldiers and marines moved here and there, rounding up prisoners and moving them all off to the north at gunpoint; back toward a makeshift collection point that had been hastily set up outside the nearby Soewakoda village.
The grey clouds above still hung low, dour and oppressive, and the faint mist of a fine rain had begun to trickle down to earth, leaving everything coated in a damp sheen and making the smoke rising from those smouldering fires even worse. Dusk had begun to settle in, although the thick, dark blanket overhead made it difficult to tell any different.
“It will be night soon,
” Ritter observed with a frown, staring up at the blackening clouds as they paused for a moment. “Do you think they survived… that she survived…?” Both men were breathing heavily from several minutes of intense exertion as they’d literally jogged back and forth about the entire airfield, painstakingly checking each broken, shattered corpse wearing Australian camouflage pattern to verify whether it was female.
“Absolutely certain of it,” Schiller replied instantly, staring about with hands on hips. “The bloody woman’s too smart to have been caught this easily. This will be the second time in three months we’ve had her in our grasp: let’s just hope she doesn’t slip through our fingers this time.”
“Better that – from what I’ve learned – than letting the Japanese capture her…” Ritter observed as casually as he was able, making a concerted effort not to sound too concerned for Donelson’s safety.
“That, I would agree with wholeheartedly…” Schiller turned his gaze skyward, scowling at the thick, drizzling clouds. “Thought we’d have left this kind of shitty weather at home in Europe…! He growled with a snort. “What’s the bloody point of visiting some tropical bloody paradise if it doesn’t even have the decency to be tropical…!”
“Or a paradise…” Ritter suggested darkly under his breath, finding it difficult to tear his eyes away from the nearby body of a Japanese marine who’d been blown in half in a most untidy fashion.
“Lassen sie mich gehen, sie gelber schwein…!” That angry, plaintive and unmistakably German phrase reached both men’s ears in that moment, galvanising them into immediate action.
Turning as one, they immediately caught sight of a single, clearly Caucasian man being physically manhandled along through the rubble of the ruined village, both hands tied securely behind his back. Filthy and covered in mud almost from head to toe, it was still possible to pick out the prisoner’s Kriegsmarine uniform from that distance.
“You there…!” Ritter bellowed in Japanese, instantly gaining the attention of the two escorts. “Stop right there!”
“Oh, Mein Gott…!” Dieter Bremer exclaimed in equal parts frustration and relief as that barked command finally halted the progress of the troopers on either arm. “Meine Herren..! Thank the Gods you’re here! These yellow swine were going to throw me in with the rest of the bloody prisoners!”
“Let him go!” Ritter snapped curtly as they drew up beside the guards. “He’s a German: cut him loose, damn you…!”
Grudgingly, one of the escorts complied, deciding it better to perhaps humour the two gaijin officers than risk the wrath of his own CO later. He’s already suspected the prisoner hadn’t been Australian – the language, although unintelligible, had clearly not been English – but they’d both just assumed they’d collected a Dutch deserter instead.
“Who are you, boy?” Schiller demanded the moment the guards had cut his bonds and taken a few steps back.
“Matrosenobergefreiter Dieter Bremer, Mein Herr…!” He responded instantly, snapping to attention and ignoring the pain flaring through his freed wrists. “Crewman aboard the Hilfskreuzer Kormoran, sir: we were captured by an Australian warship last week and brought here for repairs. Fortunately, our allies were able to invade before these Australischer schmutz could get her running again, Heil Hitler…!”
“Heil Hitler, yes… of course…” Schiller responded in kind, matching Bremer’s Nazi salute with a far less enthusiastic version of his own and desperately fighting to keep any thoughts of ridicule from appearing in his expression. “Herr Bremer, what’s brought you here to this side of the island? Most of Kormoran’s crew were liberated over the other side of the bay at the Australian barracks… why are you here…?”
“They were evacuating some of our wounded along with their own, sir… evacuating them and my superior officers. I volunteered to help with the men who couldn’t walk, sir…”
“They brought them over here to evacuate…?” Schiller continued, taking a step forward as Ritter very carefully prepared himself to prevent any untoward reaction to whatever news he might hear. “Why would they come to this side of the island?”
“Mein Herr, I’ve been trying to tell these bastards ever since they picked me up…!” Bremer exclaimed breathlessly, the vital information he carried suddenly leaping back into the forefront of his mind. “They have an escape planned: two flying boats tonight, sir… somewhere off the south coast! They’re taking the worst of the wounded and the ship’s officers… they think the captain and XO will be useful for intelligence.”
“No doubt…” Ritter observed sourly, hiding his apprehension behind feigned disgust. “There was a woman here, Bremer: a Schottisch officer wearing Australian uniform. Was she there, man: was she with them…?”
“With them…? Mein Herr, that bitch was organising everything. Running around, acting like she was in charge, sir… even the Australian officers here were bowing down to her commands…”
He was about to add, petulantly, that his own superiors had also been working with the female officer in question, yet something caught him at the last moment, staying his words. Much as he disagreed with what Detmers had done, the man was his captain all the same, and had been a fair one at that, the current issue of fraternising with the enemy notwithstanding.
“Where was this rendezvous, man?” Schiller demanded, a sudden excitement showing through. “What time…?”
“My apologies, sir… they did not tell us where…” Bremer answered, a little crestfallen. “It was to be before midnight however: this much, I know…”
“Then we’ve still got some time up our sleeves!” Schiller declared, looking more motivated than he had in a long time.
“Mein Herr, are you sure you want to do this?” Ritter whispered carefully, drawing the other man aside, away from the rest of them. “We’ve already decided it better the Japanese don’t have access to this woman: might it not be better if she were allowed to ‘slip through our fingers’… this time?”
“Even if we are able to intercept them, that doesn’t necessarily mean we need to let the Japanese have her…” Schiller mused softly, unwilling to give ground on his decision.
“…And do what…?” Ritter hissed, allowing himself to sound just a little exasperated now, confident he was safe enough, hiding his lies behind complete logic. “What then if we do capture this woman; unless you intend to let her go again, we can do only one of two things: hand her over to our ‘allies’ here or shoot her there and then.”
That remark attracted Schiller’s full attention, and he stared sharply at Ritter, eyes wide with the true realisation of the situation he potentially wanted to create.
“Hand her over to them, and they will have the very information we cannot afford to give them…” Ritter pointed out in a low growl, seeing his most effective argument clearly now. “Never mind the fact that they will undoubtedly torture her in ways that I would not – literally – wish on my worst enemy…” He sighed in frustration as the other man’s face fell, Schiller clearly also considering the ramifications of what he was proposing. “And the other alternative…?” The pilot added, allowing a finely-judged amount of scorn to creep into his tone now. “To kill a defenceless woman in cold blood…? Best check the weapon at your side, Mein Herr, for I’ll not be the one to pull the trigger, if that’s the course of action you expect.”
“Kurt wants her found…” Schiller ventured softly after a long, silent pause filled with some extremely dark thoughts. “I hear what you’re saying, but he wants us to locate her all the same…” he gave a faint, almost bemused shrug “…and I can’t explain why… but somehow, I think it’s important also…”
“To do what…?” Ritter repeated, unable to understand how the man could stand in the face of blind logic.
“I… I don’t know…” Schiller answered eventually. “I don’t… I just know that I must…”
“I thought it was just the Reichsmarschall,” Ritter muttered, shaking his head sadly. “Now, I see that both of
you are obsessed with this – what was it, he called them…? – Hindsight group! What are these people, that the two of you cannot forget them, even for a moment…?”
“On that point, you have no idea…” Schiller replied, almost managing a wry smile. “But enough of this: the decision is made, and we are doing it! Humour me, man! I swear to you, no harm shall come to any woman by my hand…!”
Not again, anyway… his own self-loathing added silently, but he forced the thought away.
“Come now…!” He continued, slapping Ritter lightly on the shoulder in an attempt to lighten his own mood as much as anyone else’s’. “Tell these bastard frontschwein we need a vehicle of some kind and we need it immediately. And get Herr Bremer here a weapon also: if there’s only to be the two of us, then perhaps it’s better if there were three…!”
Much as he couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do less at that moment, nevertheless Carl Ritter knew he couldn’t refuse that order, lest his own motives be called into question. He’d already ventured deep into dangerous ground by sticking his neck out as far as he had, and any further pushing might well make his appeals to common sense seem too forced to not be hiding some ulterior motive or hidden agenda. Reluctantly, he turned and addressed the two guards who’d been escorting Bremer, sending them scurrying off in search of some sort of viable transport.
“Where are those bloody bodyguards of ours too, now that I think of it?” Albert Schiller demanded, casting his eyes once more about the surrounding environment and coming up wanting. “She’s almost certainly not going to be alone, and I think do with a little extra firepower we can trust along for the ride…”
The Dead Alone (Empires Lost Book 3) Page 79
