Stahl had made it half way through the foyer before coming to a halt. Feeling more desperate than he could ever recall, he’d been determined to somehow force Barkmann to change his mind – to not sign those orders that would finalise the official inquiry and place blame completely on his head alone. Yet he’d weakened during the confrontation, and had allowed the older man to bully and frighten him into surrender.
His original rage and sense of pride came back to him as he stood in the middle of that entrance, passed by dozens of military and civilians going this way and that in pursuit of their own lives, and with renewed determination, he had clenched his teeth, turned stiffly on his heels, and headed straight back up the stairs the way he’d come.
The guards at the end of the hallway hadn’t batted an eyelid as he’d walked past them a second time, and neither even turned to look at him as he’d halted outside the door to that suite and paused again for a moment to collect his thoughts and his courage. For some unknown reason, his hand strayed to the pocket of his greatcoat where a Walther lay hidden, and the crazy idea that he might somehow threaten Barkmann’s life in return flared briefly in his mind. With his nerves as steady as they’d ever be, he’d reached out for the door with his other hand and burst through into the suite once more, intending to have it out with the man once and for all.
The scene he was presented with was so unexpected – so incredible – that he was momentarily frozen to the spot in the doorway. Barkmann was tied to a chair in the centre of the room, and some unknown figure dressed in black fatigues and a light backpack was standing over him, already in the process of turning toward the open doorway and reaching for the butt of a pistol jammed into his waistband.
With one hand already on his own weapon, Stahl was much faster, and the Walther PPK was out in an instant, pointing directly at the assailant and halting the man’s movements for his own weapon. Recognising when he was beaten and out gunned well enough, Michaels instantly lifted his hands away from body and raised them in surrender, making it clear he wasn’t about to make any dangerous moves.
“I’ve got no line of sight…!” Kransky hissed desperately in his ears, unable to draw a bead on anything other than a pair of jackbooted feet from the angle he was on. “I have no line of sight on the doors: you need to bring him into the room…!”
“I know you…” Stahl declared softly in English, eyes narrowing as he took in Michaels’ features clearly for the first time. “You’re one of the rebels: the one with the razor!”
“Aye, you’ve got me in one there, Obersturmbannführer Stahl,” he replied with equal lack of volume, showing the man that the IRA were also able to do their homework.
“And what exactly was the purpose of your visit here, tonight, Mister Michaels?” Stahl inquired almost politely, forcing a thin smile as he reached back and carefully closed the doors behind him leading to the hall outside.
“Kill him! Kill him…!” Barkmann cried out desperately, the gag reducing the words to a muffled and almost unintelligible mumble.
“I asked you a question…” Stahl warned, raising the pistol slightly as Michaels began to slowly back further into the room, hoping to draw him into the firing line. “And please be honest – I can tell when people are lying to me, and as you know who I am, you’ll also know by my reputation that that’s probably true.”
“Well, now… I don’t really need t’ spell it out, do I?” Michaels began, trying to remain casual as be played for time. “This bastard ordered the deaths of thousands in those air strikes on Shankill. I’m sure you know the IRA’s no stranger to revenge…”
“Oh, you’d be amazed what I know about revenge…” Pieter Stahl breathed, suddenly filled with excitement and almost aroused now as an even more insane idea occurred to him.
“Shoot him, you moron… shoot…!” Barkmann screamed again, and again, Stahl ignored him, his entire attention focussed on Michaels at that point.
“I could call the guards… I could make you regret every one of your last few minutes of existence…” he pointed out instead, an evil smile flickering across his features.
“Oh, aye, I’ve no doubt about that,” Michaels replied with cold anger, not about to bow down to the sadist before him. “We know what you did to Volunteer Kelly, and there’s a score t’ be settled there as well, but this weren’t to be your night.”
“I shall await our next meeting with anticipation then,” Stahl quipped, not scared in the slightest while he was holding the gun. “In the meantime, let me ask you: were you intending to kill the gruppenführer, or only maim him in some way, as a reminder of his ‘wrongdoings’?” He took a step forward at that moment, giving hope to Michaels that he might indeed be lured far enough in for Kransky to take a shot.
“Oh, this fucker here was never gonna last the night, but it was gonna be slow… so slow…!” The Irishman snarled softly, such venom in his words that Stahl didn’t doubt them for a moment.
“I hear that your expertise with a straight razor is something of legends,” Stahl observed honestly, actually taking a step backward toward the doors once more to Michaels’ great dismay. “It almost disappoints me that I shall not be here to witness what you’re about to do…”
It took a moment for what the man had just said to register, both with Michaels and Barkmann, and the SS officer immediately began to struggle with renewed effort, his muffled howls little more than incensed rage now as his mind tried to come to terms with what Stahl was actually about to do.
“Are you sayin’…?” Michaels began in surprise, not sure he heard right and unable to believe it.
“I know the ‘man’ here well enough to suspect that the guards outside are unlikely to react if they hear a little screaming,” Stahl suggested with bitterness, stepping back again and reaching behind him for the door knob with his free hand. “Just in case, however, I shall be happy to tell them that the gruppenführer desires some privacy, and that they are to have the evening off. Again, I doubt they’ll question that at all.” He cast a quick glance toward a large clock hanging on the wall opposite the bed. “I shall return on urgent business in two hours – with others, just in case you have any silly ideas – and if you are still here at that time, I will shoot you dead. If I return here in two hours, and the gruppenführer is still alive, then the last orders I ever make will be to have every single Irish prisoner we still hold captive tortured and executed in the most despicable fashion. Do we understand each other?”
“You think I’ll believe that, you’re insane!” Michaels declared angrily, not sure what to make of anything he’d just heard as Barkmann continued to howl and rage in muffled awkwardness to the point that his chair tipped over, leaving him lying on his side on the floor.
“Had I wished you dead, I’d have called the guards already, or simply shot you myself…” Stahl shrugged. “No doubt you and I may have our own meeting someday, but not today, as you’ve already pointed out. Have your vengeance… just make sure you are gone from here when I return…”
“Pieter…!” Barkmann wailed, one long, drawn out cry of awful desperation as he finally realised than Stahl as completely serious.
“Heydrich needs a scapegoat, as you said, Ernst…” Stahl observed coldly “…and what better than a dead one, rather than all the scandal of accusing a serving, highly-recognised officer at the peak of his career? Think of me won’t you… just a little?”
Without another word or even a glance at Michaels, Stahl opened the doors and stepped into the hallway, securing them again quickly before Barkmann had a chance to cry out to the guards. He paused for a moment, stuffing the pistol into his pocket once more, and nodded almost approvingly as he heard the lock click on the other side. Waiting just a few seconds for his nerves to settle and for his hands to stop shaking, he marched purposefully down the corridor toward the waiting troopers.
“Meine Herren: the gruppenführer has decided to kindly offer you both the evening off as a reward for your fine service!” He dec
lared loudly, feigning an outward appearance of geniality as best he could. “In fact, he’s told me that if you wish to head down and relax with the ladies on the lower level, you may mention his name at the door.
The guards, for their part, weren’t fooled for a moment regarding any claim that Barkmann was doing them a favour. They knew better than to argue, however, when the gruppenführer wanted some time ‘to himself’, and the added bonus of an invitation to partake of the officers-only brothel was an opportunity they couldn’t afford to refuse. The pair snapped to attention, saluted, and then marched off at a good pace, laughing and joking with each other about which girl they were going to choose, and how jealous the rest of their troop was going to be when they heard what had happened.
Stahl didn’t even look back as he followed on after them, checking his watch to make sure of his schedule as he made his way down the steps for a second time. By the time he’d walked out through the front doors and into the street, he was smiling broadly and already thinking about how he was going to turn the situation to his own benefit.
“I think you need better friends there…” Michaels chuckled as he heaved Barkmann back into a sitting position. “Much as I’d like to trust your little mate, I’m afraid I might not have as much time as I’d originally hoped, Ernst… D’ye mind if I call y’ ‘Ernst’…? Seems a bit formal callin’ y’ anythin’ else, considerin’ how much fun we’re about to have together…” he added, the reality of that statement finally breaking Barkmann and reducing him to a terrified, sobbing heap on that chair.
“Aww, come on, now…” Michaels admonished softly, as if speaking to a naughty child. “Buck up, pal. Where were all those tears when the bombs were rainin’ down on the Shankill Road, eh? Where were the tears then?” He rested a firm hand on Barkmann’s shoulder, and the gruppenführer lost control of his bladder in that moment as Michaels raised his other hand in that moment and he saw the open razor clenched between his fingers. “We’ll get some tears for ‘em now, though, I reckon…” he continued, dark vengeance in his eyes now. “Lots o’ tears for ‘em now…!”
There were no guards to hear the subdued screams of agony that issued from behind those locked doors over the next thirty minutes, and the few civilian night staff that worked the hallways were too accustomed to hearing similar goings-on to even think about raising an alarm.
Capitol Cinema, Wexford
County Wexford, Republic of Ireland
South Main Street was almost empty as Stephen Hayes stepped out of the cinema, lifting the collar of his woollen coat against the cold wind that whipped down from the north-west between the rows of shops and offices. Two bodyguards were already waiting outside on the footpath, their coats open, and he knew – as did anyone else likely to approach – that they were carrying automatic weapons beneath. He paused a moment to light up a cigarette, his driver already waiting in front of the cinema with the engine idling, faint clouds of condensation rising from its exhaust that were quickly caught by the breeze and whisked away into nothingness.
The Garda inside the police car that cruised past at that moment certainly knew that the men standing there that night were armed, but they also knew who Hayes was, and it would be more trouble for them than they were worth if they bothered to stop and challenge him. Instead, they carried on their way, turning left into King Street at the next intersection and disappearing without incident.
Beside him, a sandwich board declared that the movie Casablanca was now showing, sandbags placed over the sign’s feet as protection against the wind. Much as he hated the fact that the Americans were – in his mind – now ‘in occupation’ in Ireland, he was forced to admit that one improvement that had come with the Yanks was how quickly Hollywood movies made it across the Atlantic.
Brought over to entertain the troops, those latest release motion pictures eventually went on to show in mainstream Irish cinemas in the weeks that followed, to the general approval of all concerned. As the OC of the IRA’s Southern Command, Hayes hadn’t found it difficult to organise a private showing while the cinema was closed for Good Friday.
“Whaddya think, Andy?” He asked conversationally, taking a long drag on his cigarette and sending a long plume of smoke into the air above his head. “You like that one?”
“It was all right, I guess, boss…” the younger man shrugged, not sounding impressed as his eyes continued to scan the street in either direction for any hint of danger. “I liked that Road to Morocco better though.”
“You’re a true aficionado there,” Hayes smirked, knowing exactly what was behind the bodyguard’s ambivalence. “Tell me true, now, would it be that Dorothy Lamour that you really liked?”
“Aww, boss: can I help it if I think she’s pretty?” Andy conceded, sounding a little embarrassed as the other bodyguard grinned silently behind Hayes, enjoying seeing his partner squirm a little in good-natured fun. “Fine-lookin’ woman like that: some o’ the boys say she’s even go a bit o’ Irish in her!”
“Andy would love to have a bit o’ Irish in her!” The other man chuckled coarsely, never a man for subtlety.
“And I can’t for a moment understand why you boys ain’t got girlfriends yet,” Hayes declared, shaking his head in exasperation as he threw the remainder of his cigarette to the ground and crushed it beneath his shoe. “With that kind o’ class, I’m amazed they’re not throwin’ ‘emselves at y’ in droves!”
“Andy…!”
The unexpected call came softly from somewhere in the vicinity of Oyster Lane, an alleyway running off Royal Avenue roughly thirty yards away, on the other side of the street. Even as all three men turned their eyes in that direction, instantly suspicious and reaching for weapons, the short, sharp snort of suppressed rifle fire echoed mutely off the shopfronts along the street and both Andy and his partner collapsed to the footpath, their heads half blown apart. The sound of shattering glass came a second latter, and Hayes’ driver slumped down across the front seat of his sedan, also quite dead.
Hayes had been caught off guard, completely unprepared, and even as his hand was reaching for the pistol inside his coat, dark figures were already running toward him from the King Street intersection: from exactly the opposite direction to that of the original shots.
“No miracles for you this Sunday, y’ bastard…!” Seán McCaughey called tauntingly as he and Tomás Glynn drew near, pistols in hand.
“This one’s for Eoin, y’ fookin’ traitor!” Tomás Glynn added venomously as both men opened fire from a distance of just ten feet.
The pistols they held in their gloved hands were unsuppressed however, and the shots that followed were deafening in the enclosed space of that narrow avenue. McCaughey’s Webley revolver and Glynn’s Colt automatic were of similar heavy calibre, and between them, the dozen or so huge slugs that tore into Hayes’ chest and stomach were more than enough to kill him instantly, his ragged and bloody corpse dropping to the ground between his dead bodyguards with a terminal look of surprise frozen on his face.
They immediately discarded both handguns and headed for Oyster Lane, meeting up with the shooters who’d taken down the bodyguards and running on down the alleyway. It was only a few hundred yards to the docks from there, and by the time the first police car arrived on scene, all four men were already on a small motor launch on its way to the northern side of the Slaney Estuary, where a getaway car lay waiting.
In the police investigation that followed, no one was particularly surprised to find that no witnesses ever came forward who were able to identify the shooters.
21.The Dead Alone
Genbaku Dōmu Memorial
Hiroshima, Japan
December 14, 1943
Monday
Before the war, it had been known as the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall; an architecturally-designed exhibition hall predominantly used for art and educational displays. Completed in 1915, its most distinctive feature was that of the great dome that towered above the centre of
its four-storey structure, overlooking the Aloi Bridge as it crossed the Ota River, just a few dozen yards north. The hall – at least in part – had been one of the few buildings to have remained standing after the 1.2-megaton blast, due to its tough, steel framework and also, ironically, because it had been positioned almost directly below the hypocentre of the explosion itself.
What was left was little better than a skeletal ruin – a shattered husk of scorched concrete and twisted steel – yet the fact remained that it nevertheless still stood when almost everything else for many miles around had disintegrated or been crushed flat by the immense force of the blast and the shockwave that followed. Much of the surrounding inner city was still in ruins, however there were definite signs of rebuilding, with cranes and the frameworks of new construction evident amid cleared, barren blocks where once had stood offices, schools, hospitals and other commercial and residential structures.
There was some small mercy to be gained from that fact that as the weapon had been detonated as an airburst. As the fireball itself had not touched the ground, the amount of radioactive fallout that had been sucked up into the mushroom cloud had been far less than would’ve been the case, had the blast occurred at sea level. Although there’d been thousands of cases of radiation sickness of varying degrees to deal with, along with a sharp spike in the rise of birth defects since, Geiger counters shipped over from the United States in the months following the end of hostilities had revealed no major hotspots of radioactivity within the city itself that would preclude rebuilding or have any long-lasting effects on health and safety moving forward.
There had already been calls from many of the survivors for the ruins of the Promotion Hall, now colloquially being referred to as the Genbaku Dōmu – the ‘Atomic Dome’ – to be pulled down completely, its continued existence too much of a reminder for some of the terrible devastation they’d suffered through. There were other however, the new Prime Minister included, who felt that the ruin should remain, to forever stand as a reminder of what had happened and, by association, the mistakes and arrogance that had taken the country down that road in the first place.
The Dead Alone (Empires Lost Book 3) Page 121
