Kat's Rats

by Michael Beals

  The rest of the table bolted to their feet, cursing and gasping. Kat stayed in her seat and snagged an untouched plate of Petit Gâteau from some Admiral. “Ohhh, chocolate!”

  She suckled every last bit from the spoon and smiled up at the terrified men. “So, boss, do I kill them now or when we get to their Headquarters?”

  Darlain plopped down in his seat, snagging his cognac and drowning what little didn’t slosh over his trembling hand. He leaned his head back and waved at the rest of the men.

  “Well, at least you have the element of surprise. Even the SS thinks the invasion fleet is coming the day after tomorrow, at the earliest. And the forces I have on hand right now are merely enough to delay the inevitable…” The General forced everyone to sit back down and whispered with the other Flag Officers in passionate French. After a minute, he nodded and leaned forward.

  “You have a deal… Our personal… arrangements haven’t changed… yes?”

  Trufflefoot spit out a smile. “Oui. As long as you stay bought, all the Swiss bank accounts will stay fully funded.”

  “I’ll toast to that. À votre santé!” Darlain snapped his fingers, bringing the tuxedo-clad older man out of the shadows and to the head of the table.

  “Guten Abend, Schatzi.”

  Trufflefoot clenched his jaw and froze, while the Frenchmen squirmed. Kat dangled her empty glass at the waiter. “Hiya, Papa. Glad to see you finally found a job you’re good at. Chop, chop now, or no tip.”

  All the wide eyes around the table gawked at the cackling redhead. Oberführer Pernass kept his hands folded under a silk towel in front of him, never raising his voice over a slight muse.

  “I must admit, I’m disappointed. My little scavenger hunt shouldn’t have kept you busy for more than a few days. Nonetheless, I’m in your debt for dropping those paratroopers in a whole other country. Gives me time to finish cleaning house. Stand up, gentlemen. Let’s not make a scene.”

  “This is French soil! The Gestapo has no damn authority here. I, on the other hand, sure do…” General Darlain stopped flapping his open jaw and snapped his fingers at his bodyguards by the front door.

  “Do you really believe that, General?” Pernass bared his teeth in the closest thing to a smile Kat had seen in years.

  Neither Vichy soldier at the door budged, so the General sprang to his feet and barked into the darkness.

  “Arrêtez cet homme!”

  He leaned around the bright chandelier, peering deeper into the shadows of the empty restaurant.

  Both his men crumpled with a gurgling gasp. Six larger gray shadows fanned out from the front door, converging on the table with automatic rifles tucked into their shoulders. Pernass tilted his head at Kat’s gritted jaw as a rapid crescendo of machine-gun fire lit up the street outside. “Don’t worry. My men are quite systematic. Your Comrades didn’t feel a thing.”

  General Darlain took a deep breath and forced out a laugh. He tipped his glass at Trufflefoot and drained the last swallow. “Touché. Well, my dear Colonel, I’m sorry to say this German spy here drives a harder bargain than you. You can count on us to do our duty, Oberführer.”

  Kat shook her head and leaned back, lacing her fingers behind her head. In particular, her right hand deep inside her high bun. “You poor, naïve thing. He’s not a spook. Pernass here is a spy hunter. Au Revoir, General.”

  Colonel Pernass flicked the towel off his folded hands at the same time he clicked the safety off his Mauser Schnellfeuer machine-pistol underneath. Without the slightest tinge of emotion in his hawk eyes, he snapped the oversized buttstock into his shoulder. He split General Darlain’s skull in half before the older man could get his sidearm even a smidgen out of its holster.

  With a custom-made 50 round magazine feeding the devil’s party popper, Pernass swept the table from left to right. Through the red fog of brain matter and shredded campaign medals, Kat tackled Trufflefoot. She chucked him off his chair towards the slaughter, forcing Pernass’s fire to chisel through all the Vichy hamburger. Every round ricocheted off one of the many rib cages in the way, letting the Colonel break his nose on the floor otherwise unscathed.

  Just before her falling ponytail disappeared under the table, Kat snapped the stiletto hidden inside the red bundle straight at Pernass’s neck.

  The pig sticker struck the Gestapo man’s sharp jaw at a poor angle and rebounded off the bone, gouging a thumb-sized canyon out of the skin and muscle. Pernass didn’t even flinch as he rammed a fresh magazine in. He dropped to a knee under the table and shredded the oak bar on the other side.

  Kat combat rolled out from behind the counter in the opposite direction as Trufflefoot scurried, splitting Pernass’s attention while he reloaded again.

  Kat laughed at her stepfather, “you’re ten feet away with a machine pistol, and you can’t hit Scheiße? Go back to bussing tables before you hurt yourself.”

  With her back pressed against the slim cover of a narrow brick pylon, Kat snagged a 120-proof bottle of schnapps rolling across the floor with her ankle. She ripped off the cap and twisted a loose napkin inside. As soon as she flicked her Zippo on, something clicked in her ringing ears.

  “What is it with men and their guns? Takes all the sport out of the game.”

  The grinning Stormtrooper kicked the bottle from her hands, jumping back out of her reach as she swiveled on her butt. He bounced a pair of handcuffs off her face, splitting Kat’s hissing lip. “For some reason, the boss wants you alive. Don’t be stupid and just take the rare gift.”

  Kat licked at the blood and glanced at Trufflefoot. She patted her hand on the ground as another Stormtrooper dragged him out from behind a different pillar. Trufflefoot collapsed at the man’s feet. The German hovered over him and leveled his weapon at the back of the Colonel’s skull.

  An endless salvo of muffled booms from the west rattled the restaurant’s windows. Pernass double-tapped what was left of the Vichy Officers in the middle of the giant room and circled a finger over his head. “Mop this up and let’s move. We need to implement Phase Two before the Americans get off the bea—”

  Pernass spun around and dropped to a knee as a blinding light silhouetted him from outside. The roar of a diesel engine washed over the room right before the front façade exploded. The Oberführer emptied his last magazine at the headlights crashing through the tables, knocking out both headlamps as the front fender slammed into his chest.

  Kat didn’t have a second to snicker at the old NAZI flying over the bar and smearing himself against the liquor shelf. She reached for the Stormtrooper hovering above her while the whole room erupted in gunfire.

  Only to tumble back as his stiff body collapsed across her chest.

  She pried him off and untangled his intestines wrapped around her neck. Dore hopped down from the French Command car, the engine still straining as the front tires spun in the air over the remains of an ornate table.

  “Clear left!” Capson and Atkins shouted in unison from the far side of the auto.

  Dore tactically reloaded and gave Kat a hand up. “Clear right…All clear! Miss me, Lassie?”

  “Like hell it’s clear!” Kat snatched the dead German’s weapon and levitated across the room. She bounced on the car’s hood and swept the barrel behind the wrecked bar.

  Kat didn’t fire a shot at all the empty space.

  “Scheiße… the kitchen!” She crashed through the swinging back door, only to reemerge a few seconds later and beat the Renault’s hood with her rifle stock.

  Trufflefoot wheezed through his bent nose and patted her back. “Pernass is small potatoes right now. We have to stay focused. He shot our plan to hell. Literally.” He turned away from the pile of French b
ody parts peeking out from under the car’s rear end.

  Kat’s frown flipped upside down as she stared at Pernass’s handiwork. She sauntered over and plucked through the corpses, dragging the oldest one out.

  “General Darlain still looks pretty recognizable. The face at least.”

  She twisted around and winked at the gang. Dore squinted, and Trufflefoot shook his head, red droplets spraying out from his upturned nose. Atkins went paler than usual. “No… no! Are you mad?”

  “You’re only crazy if you lose.” Kat unbuttoned her blouse and let it fall to the floor while stomping over to another body in the far corner. “The Oberführer had a good plan. No reason it can’t work just because he’s not here. It’s all about feeding the Vichies enough carrots before walloping them with the stick.”

  “That’s not what that saying means...” Trufflefoot snorted on reflex, only to choke on bloody snot. Kat hummed while stripping down to her knickers.

  “Whatever. You’re going to be doing all the talking anyway.”

  “You’re being overrun, you damn fool.” Trufflefoot never took his head out of the shadows in the battered Renault’s backseat as something blew up a few hundred yards down the coastal road. “I need to speak with whoever is still in charge. Open the gate now, or I’m coming back with an SS Assault Team. Hopefully before the Americans get their own here.”

  The Vichy Sergeant leaning against the door dropped prone as yet another blue dive bomber swooped in out of the rising sun. Like all the rest, this one flashed 500 feet over the Headquarters Bunker but focused its deadly attention elsewhere.

  The guard glanced back and forth between the fighter strafing a column of reinforcements and the raw hatred in the eyes of the hulking Stormtrooper nearest him. The newcomer’s stained gray-green tunic strained at the buttons, ready to pop at the slightest twitch.

  “Ok… does this mean we’ll have to fight to the death?”

  Trufflefoot folded his arms as the gate rose and Capson put the car in gear. “Just follow orders without question, and you’ll be all right.”

  Half a minute later, Hauptsturmführer Trufflefoot barged through the Command bunker’s steel hatch, ignoring the raised-rifle salute from the Vichy sentries outside.

  Despite dozens of staffers shuffling about inside, none gave the SS team a second glance. One radioman shoved past Trufflefoot and snagged an Officer hunched over a cluttered map table.

  “It’s confirmed, Major. Safi has fallen. We’re holding the line at the Fedala and Port Lyautey beachheads.” The Vichy Officer nodded without glancing up.

  “Just keep them pinned for a few more hours until the reserves get here, then we’ll drive these fuckers into the sea. The nerve of launching a surprise attack against a neutral country… we’ll make them pay.”

  Trufflefoot kicked over the nearest aluminum desk and boomed at the panicked room. Whining through his swollen nostrils, his German took on an even more lethal tone than usual.

  “Where’s the traitorous bastard in charge here?”

  The crowded bunker fell silent. All eyes bounced between the strange SS Officer and an even older Frenchman in the far corner. The Vichy Officer took a deep breath and marched over. His disgusted sneer was impossible to hide, though his voice dripped deference.

  “I’m Brigadier General Norles. What can I help you with?”

  “You can start by surrendering immediately. I thought you Frenchies were experts at that.”

  The older man folded his arms and roared. “What is this bullshit? I have orders straight from Vichy and backed up by Berlin to hold at all costs. Why don’t you check with your superiors? Speaking of, where’s Oberführer Pernass? I don’t know you from Adam.”

  Trufflefoot clucked his tongue and yanked the most terrifying weapon a Career Officer could imagine out of his coat pocket. “How do you spell Norles? So your official statement is that you never received a stand-down order from General Juin, Commander of all French Land Forces in the theater?”

  Norles gulped as the calm SS man scribbled detailed notes in a bloodstained pocketbook. “I… I mean, of course we received the initial radio broadcast. There was no response to our request for confirmation. In fact, we lost contact with every base in Algiers and most in Oran minutes after the order was sent. Something about a massive guerrilla uprising. Oberführer Pernass stood right where you are a few hours ago and informed us the General was being held hostage. We’re obligated to disobey any commands sent under duress and continue with our previous orders.”

  “I see. And this German Officer is where exactly in your French chain of Command?”

  “Don’t give me that crap. I didn’t come out of retirement to play games.” His bushy eyebrows flicked down for a moment. “We all know who has the real authority here.”

  “The SS?” Trufflefoot puffed out his collar. The General avoided the flashing lightning bolts, focusing instead on the dark stains around the collar. “So why aren’t you following my orders? It’s time to stand down and surrender.”

  “Um, I don’t… perhaps we should wait for General Darlain to return. I have runners out searching for him now. I’ll send some more…”

  A thin Stormtrooper in an oversized uniform stepped up to the Hauptsturmführer’s side, swinging a rucksack off his small shoulders. The man’s delicate face was barely visible under the steel helmet, but the playful soprano in his voice caught everyone’s attention.

  “No need. I’ll let him give you a head’s up.”

  Norles snagged the messy bundle Kat tossed against his chest, matching General Darlain’s stiff, eternal “oh!” face.

  “You monsters! He was one of your staunchest allies!” He dropped the severed noggin and hyperventilated over the squishing plop at his feet.

  “He couldn’t follow orders. Looks like you’re the Head Honcho now.” Kat folded her hands behind her back and gave Trufflefoot a little elbow nudge.

  “Monsters…” Trufflefoot kept his eyes off the gruesome prize, calming his churning stomach somewhat. “You have no idea.”

  Norles backed up until the map table blocked his retreat. Clearing his throat, he raised a shaking hand towards the sentries at the door. Trufflefoot caught his wrist and growled. “Think very carefully about the next words out of your mouth. They could be your last on earth, or the first as Commander In Chief of all French forces.”

  Trufflefoot searched the old Frenchman’s eyes, striking as soon as rage seemed to overcome fear. He sighed and dropped his shoulders. “Look, we’re trying to keep this under wraps, so I shouldn’t say anything…” Trufflefoot leaned in yet raised his voice loud enough for a dozen of the wide-eyed staffers to hear.

  “There’s been a coup in Berlin. Bomb at the Wolf Lair right before breakfast. They’re still mopping pieces of Hitler off the ceiling as we speak.”

  A short Vichy Captain barked over the murmuring and gasps. “Are you part of the coup or a loyalist? What damn side are you on?”

  “Sides? The war is over, you idiots! Admiral Canaris is on the radio with Washington and Whitehall right now.” Trufflefoot jerked his thumb at the bunker’s roof as something boomed above.

  “How are we supposed to negotiate a peace treaty while you’re slaughtering Allied troops though? Hence General Juin’s cease-fire order. You fools are the only organized resistance left, standing alone against the full weight of America and England!”

  No one budged for a solid five seconds.

  Then the room erupted as staffers burned out their transmitters blaring out cease-fire orders.

  “Stop! Belay that order, Lieutenant… no, don’t recall the fighters!” Norles finally recovered himself and shouted every which way over t
he maelstrom. He flipped the cover off his holster and whipped out his sidearm while spinning around.

  “This can’t be true! Everyone, stop and arrest these—”

  “Don’t lose your head, buddy.” Norles’s gun hand went limp as Darlain’s jaw worked up and down, inches from his own gaping mouth. Kat wagged her trophy higher as Norles clutched his heart with his only hand that could still move. He collapsed at the skinny SS man’s feet with only a grunt.

  Kat slid off her helmet and shooed away several Officers rushing over with her scratchy French accent. “It’s all right. I’m a doctor. Just a panic attack. Touch of nerves. Get him a stiff drink.”

  “Hell you say.” One of the Vichy with a Red Cross armband elbowed his way through, careful not to bump shoulders with the grinning girl swinging a severed head like a fashionable handbag. “That’s a heart attack. He’s 70 years old. You twisted psychopath!”

  “Oops.” Kat alley-ooped Darlain’s skull into a wastebasket and cocked her head at Trufflefoot. He tossed her a handkerchief and squeezed her shoulder.

  “We really need to have a talk when this is over.”

  “Ah, I never even touched him.” She managed to scrub some of the bloodstains from her hands. “What do you care if an old NAZI collaborator dies now or later in a POW camp?”

  He snatched her arm and hissed in Kat’s ear. “You’re getting worse.”

  “Or better?” She brushed her lips against his ear and giggled. “We just wiped out an army without firing a shot. It doesn’t get more civilized than that.”

  While a stretcher party hustled off the unconscious General, a red-faced Colonel waved his fist in Trufflefoot’s face.

  “What are you two whispering about? Haven’t you caused enough chaos? Get out of my headquarters and go back to your camp!”

  Kat cut her eyes and jumped between the two Officers. “What base?”