Winds of Change (Empires Lost Book 2)

by Charles S. Jackson

It was to this end that Branch and Knotts found themselves standing at the front door of the Morris home that afternoon, barely able to hear themselves speak over the continuous buzzing of the six-legged local wildlife.

  “Mrs Morris…!” Branch called out loudly for a second time, hammering on the door frame as he did so. “Mrs Morris, you in there, Ma’am? We’d like to have a word with you…”

  “Ain’t no answer, sarge,” Knotts observed with all the hillbilly mastery of the absolute obvious Branch would’ve expected.

  “Maybe she ain’t home, Earl” Branch suggested, sweat trickling down both sides of his face and leaving a stain no his collar that perfectly matched the damp patches beneath each armpit.

  “But the front door’s open,” he replied eventually, having chewed over that thought for a while first in his own mind.

  “That don’t mean nothin’, Earl. Folks ‘round here leave their doors open all the damn time…” He shrugged. “Hell, back home on the farm, neighbours never locked their doors neither… Mrs Morris…!” He bellowed again, and again hammered loudly on the door frame to no avail.

  “That asshole ain’t here, sarge,” Knotts grumbled, having nothing personally against Eddie Leonski save for his being the cause of their current, uncomfortable situation. “He’s probably lit out along the river a ways, sittin’ down in the shade and takin’ it easy.”

  “Sure sounds nicer than this, Earl, I’ll grant y’ that,” Branch agreed, nodding faintly. “Aw, the hell with this shit…!” He added finally, making a decision. “There ain’t nobody home here, Earl, and we’d end up with our asses in a sling if we went snoopin’ ‘round some local’s place without permission or a Goddamned warrant. Let’s go on back to the river and check out all that shade like you said.”

  “I like yer thinkin’, sarge, I like your thinkin…” Knotts grinned, repositioning his forage cap and following his superior NCO back to the jeep. “Maybe we should pick up some… ‘refreshments’… on the way… just to keep us ‘hy-dray-ted’ and all, like the doc keeps tellin’ us…”

  “Well, you’re just full o’ good ideas today, ain’t ya, Earl?” Branch exclaimed as he slid into the front passenger seat and Knotts kicked over the engine. For the first time that afternoon, things seemed to be taking a turn for the better as the jeep executed a U-turn straight from the kerb and powered off south along Bridge Street.

  There was no sound out in the empty street as Maude’s body fell to the kitchen floor.

  KZ Buchenwald, NW of Weimar

  Thuringia, Germany

  Reuters and Schiller waited in the rear of the Mercedes G4 as their identification was checked by the guards at the main gate. A chill wind was blowing down from the nearby hills, whipping past the staff car and easily finding its way inside; the convertible’s canvas roof provided little defence against the cold as another European winter drew near. To the east, the Grosser Ettersberg rose almost five hundred metres above the surrounding Thuringian Basin. Tree-covered slopes that were a beautiful and impressive sight during daylight hours became an image of ominous foreboding as they stood dark and featureless against the building glow of the pre-dawn.

  The courtyard was bathed in stark floodlighting from several angles, although the overhang of the actual entry remained in relative darkness as one guard checked papers and the other kept a light shining directly into their driver’s face through his open side window. Two more guards armed with submachine guns stood on either side of the gates while another pair each held a snarling German shepherd at bay off a very short chain. This was no minor border crossing in some occupied ‘backwater’: this was a concentration camp in the very heart of Deutschland itself and the SS guards took their jobs very seriously.

  The actual gates were relatively narrow and were boxed in on either side by the white-painted stone walls of the entrance buildings. A wooden second storey rose above, at least providing a little cover in inclement weather, while a pair of guards with assault rifles patrolled the ‘ramparts’ of a smaller third level built above that. At the very top of the structure, a large clock face was built into the roof and capped by a short flagpole flying the ubiquitous Nazi flag.

  The harsh illumination continued on within the camp, and from their position it was already possible to see several long rows of bland, single-storey barracks buildings beyond the open assembly area directly on the other side of those iron gates. Guards patrolled here or there, their breath curling in clouds about them as they marched and blending with intermittent patches of mist that floated slowly about with the vagaries of the icy breeze. Searchlights swept the area here and there at irregular intervals from some unknown source inside.

  The Reichsmarschall glanced across momentarily at his aide as an involuntary shudder ran through him. He wondered silently if Schiller was experiencing the same skin-crawling sensation as the gates slowly drew back and the vehicle trundled forward, entering the grounds of the largest concentration camp on German soil. The man certainly looked uncomfortable... (What ‘modern’ German wouldn’t feel unsettled by these surroundings...? He asked himself silently as he turned back to stare out through his own side window with a grim expression.) ...but deep down, Kurt Reuters wondered if perhaps the ‘distance’ of a generation or more would go some way toward lessening the effects.

  He’d been old enough – barely – to remember vague images of a shattered, post-war Germany still reeling over the truth of the death camps and the sheer, unimaginable horror of it all. Of course, he thought darkly, the whole problem was that it wasn’t ‘unimaginable’... that to the Nazis it had instead been a quite logical and pragmatic solution to what they perceived as a cultural and racial ‘infection’ within their midst.

  Mama…! Mama…! Papa…! I want Papa…! The child’s words rose from the back of his mind, causing him to stifle a snarl with gritted teeth and grip tightly at the leg of his field- grey jodhpurs with one clenched fist where he was reasonably certain Schiller couldn’t see. The occurrence of that internal voice was still infrequent, but increasing in regularity nevertheless and although he was otherwise quite sound of mind – in so far as one was able to ‘self-diagnose’, if that were even possible – the Reichsmarschall was fairly confident that the hearing of ‘voices’, even a child’s, would most certainly not be considered a normal thing for a sane man.

  The Mercedes rolled slowly through as the guards opened the gates, all eyes watching as it passed by. Both passengers within stared back in return, taking in the thick, iron gates with the camp slogan embedded in the metalwork. It was almost unintelligible from that angle as it was written backwards from their perspective, intended to be read from the inside. Jedem das Seine, it declared to all, and both men shuddered inwardly again at the sight of it, knowing full well the implied message that came with it.

  They continued on through the main gates, past the motor pool and the Gustloff forced labour munitions factory, and on past the main administration buildings to the far end of the road where the Gestapo offices lay, quite close to the high fences and brilliant lighting of the main prison compound. Outside the building, a young man in grey prison clothes that were little better than rags made a reasonable effort of sweeping the path beneath the stark floodlighting, the yellow Star-of-David sewn on the front of his shirt clear enough.

  There was already activity on the other side of those tall wire fences. With perhaps an hour left before sunrise, guards were bellowing their orders as hundreds of emaciated inmates wearing similarly ragged dress staggered out from the rows of long, wooden barrack rooms. Forming into uneven lines, the shuffling mass moved off toward some unknown destination that Reuters presumed – hoped – might be morning role call. Neither man found it easy to look the other in the eye as the car came to a halt not far from where the sweeping inmate worked.

  As they stepped from the vehicle, their breath whirling around them in clouds of condensation, an SS officer waited to escort them into the relative warmth of the building.

 
; “Heil Hitler, Herr Reichsmarschall, I am Hauptsturmführer Hackmann, Chief of Personnel here at Buchenwald, the young officer advised, coming to a crisp Nazi salute as they shed their coats at the front desk and handed them to a waiting trooper, who immediately hung them on a coat rack near the door. “Oberführer Pister sends his apologies… he was called away to Berlin on the orders of the Führer just yesterday morning and we had no warning of your visit. If there’s anything we can do for you while you are here, please let me know and I will see it done…”

  “You’re most kind, Herr Hauptsturmführer,” Reuters replied coldly through a tight-lipped smile, “but the only purpose we have here on this chilly morning is the rather special prisoner you’ve been holding for me these last few days.”

  “All rather interesting, Mein Herr,” Hackmann observed with a grim smile of his own, well aware of the identity of whom the Reichsmarschall was referring to. “He’s not been a particularly pleasant ‘guest’, I’m afraid… quite unaccustomed to the conditions, I suspect, but then… most are when the first arrive.” The smile became a grimace of some malevolence. “That doesn’t usually last too long once they’ve settled in…”

  “If you’ll take me to him…?”

  “Of course, Mein Herr, of course…” He extended a hand toward a door at the back of the room where two armed guards stood, one on either side. “If you’ll allow me…?”

  “Coming, Albert…?” Reuters inquired with genuine concern, picking up almost instinctively on his aide’s growing discomfort over the environment and the situation in general. While he wasn’t particularly pleased about the concept of stepping through that door alone, neither did the Reichsmarschall feel any great desire to involve his younger colleague to some of what might occur within. “There’s no need… if you’d prefer to remain here?”

  There was honesty and genuine concern in that tone now – something that surprised Schiller somewhat considering his CO’s general demeanour over the last week – and he was grateful to be allowed the choice to opt out.

  “I think I might wait outside and have a quiet smoke,” he ventured in return, his voice almost hopeful that the answer would meet with approval.

  “Of course, Albert…” Reuters nodded with understanding and a wan smile. “Stay close though… we shan’t be staying any longer that absolutely necessary…”

  “Mein Herr…” Schiller acknowledged in return, coming to attention as commanding officer turned with another silent nod and walked away with Hackmann, leaving the generaloberst to his own devices.

  As he stood there by the main door, arms crossed and staring about the sparsely-decorated front office in a vain attempt to find something interesting, he eventually noted that both guards were staring straight at him.

  “Cold night,” he ventured hopefully with a grin, assuming his rank might afford him some modicum of respect. The two SS troopers continued to stare impassively, not a hint of response or recognition in their faces. “Ohhh…kayyyy…” He muttered under his breath in English, using phraseology he’d heard time and time again in Hollywood movies in just such awkwardly-uncomfortable situations. “I’ll… I’ll just be outside having a cigarette…” he announced slowly, slipping back to German as he reached for his coat and slipped his arms into the sleeves. “Shan’t be too far away…” he added, unable to stop himself and suspecting he’d get as much reaction from a pair of Easter Island monoliths “…if you need me…”

  Buttoning his coat, Schiller steeled himself against the cold once more and stepped outside, thinking the conditions likely to be a vast improvement over the emotionally frigid reception inside the office. He was completely wrong.

  Beyond the door, Reuters found himself at one end of a long hallway leading to the very rear of the building. Doors to other offices – presumably for administration – led off the corridor on either side, and about halfway down its length a set of barred iron doors locked off the area beyond, with two more armed men standing guard beside a senior NCO at a plain, wooden security desk decorated with little more than a single phone, a notebook and an old mug filled with a variety of pens and pencils.

  “Reichsmarschall Reuters to visit cell four,” Hackmann advised loudly as they approached, all three men instantly coming to attention at the mention of his name.

  “Jawohl, Mein Herr…!” The sergeant snapped immediately, nodding to one of the guards to open the gate. “If you’ll just hand over your sidearm, Mein Herr…” he added, almost apologetic “… no firearms are permitted inside the detention area…”

  “Of course, Herr Scharführer,” Reuters nodded without a second thought, slipping his Luger from its holster and handing it across, butt-first. “My father carried it during the war, so do take good care of it…”

  “Of course, Mein Herr,” the NCO responded with a smile of his own, incorrectly assuming which war the Reichsmarschall had meant.

  “Second door on the left, Mein Herr,” Hackmann advised softly as they stepped through the door that was being held open for them by the guard. That he didn’t obviously flinch as it slammed shut with a clang a moment later was a great surprise to Reuters, so greatly were his nerves on edge as they drew ever nearer to the solid iron door on the left side off the brick-lined hallway that sported a large ‘4’ in stencilled white paint. The guard that had held the door now accompanied them, stepping deftly past and leading the way with a large ring filled with keys already dangling from one hand. Reuters noted with some irony that no one had bothered to relieve him of the pistol hanging from the guard’s dress belt.

  “Gave us a bit of bother to start with, Mein Herr,” the trooper observed conversationally as he pulled back a small panel set into the door at roughly eye height and stared into the cell through the opening, “but he’s all right now… you can go in if you like.”

  “I’d prefer to speak to him alone, Herr Hackmann, if that’s acceptable?”

  “Please…” Hackmann encouraged eagerly, nodding to the guard who immediately unlocked the door and drew it quickly back. “We will be directly outside… you need only call for assistance…”

  “My thanks, again,” Reuters nodded, forcing a smile. “There is information I need from this prisoner,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “and I may not be successful in getting it on my own…” He swallowed thickly, almost disgusted with what he himself was about to suggest. “I trust you have… men here skilled in the art of ‘extracting’ information…?”

  “Of course, Mein Herr,” Hackmann replied without batting an eyelid.

  “Have your best man come at once… have him waiting with you if I call…”

  “Jawohl, Mein Herr… Heil Hitler…!” Hackmann snapped curtly, coming to attention and giving the Nazi salute as Reuters steadied his nerves and stepped through the opening into the cell beyond.

  It was freezing by the door of the building as Schiller stood to one side and lit up a cigarette, yet even so it had still somehow felt far warmer than the inside of that Gestapo cell block as Reuters had been ushered away. Schiller had been born at the beginning of the Realtime 1970s when the only enemies the West Germans had known were the Warsaw Pact and the ongoing Cold War threat of the Soviet Union. The Holocaust had been taught in schools of course; there wasn’t a German alive who’d not laboured under the shame and guilt of it all… of the terrible reality of those six million corpses and the damnation of a nation that resulted. But that had all been thirty years ago, hadn’t it? Such a long time ago that was far in the past for a child growing up in the suburbs of Bonn amongst the prosperous middle classes.

  By the time Schiller had graduated as a lieutenant some twenty years later, the USSR was already crumbling along with the Berlin Wall, and the only looming threat that remained then were ‘force reductions’ and the fear of being forced into finding a new profession in the civilian world. He’d been one of the lucky ones; his exemplary military record saw him retained within the armed forces far longer than some of his colleagues, and he was able t
o reach the rank of captain prior to his eventual involuntary ‘retirement’ at the turn of the new millennium. Even when his old commanding officer, also retired, had approached him in early 2004 with the crazy idea of time travel and had eventually convinced him that it was more than the ravings of a bunch of Neo-Nazi madmen, there’d never been ‘that discussion’: the discussion about what their mission might mean for the Holocaust and for millions more Jews all over Europe.

  At first it had just been a theoretical project – a fine technical challenge for a fine military mind – and by the time the possibility of actually doing it became a reality rather than imagination, Schiller had been far too deeply involved to even think of backing out. He’d been too close to the whole thing by that stage anyway, and had never even thought to look past that dark, enticing ‘forest’ to actually see the six million dying ‘trees’ beyond.

  He had to admit that there was no hiding from it now, though; standing in the middle of one of the most feared and hated concentration camps the world had ever known. Directly in front of him as he stood in that doorway were the three-metre, barbed-wire fences encircling the main prison section of the camp itself.

  Beyond that wire, high-roofed barracks houses stood in bland, featureless rows beneath stark floodlighting as tower-mounted searchlights constantly swept this way and that, seeking out and exposing any lurking shadow. Inmates still tramped away in droves from their barracks under the barked orders and insults of guards as other armed troopers slowly patrolled outside the perimeter in pairs with dogs, ever alert for movement and ready for action with submachine guns slung across their chests.

  The prisoner who’d been sweeping along the path earlier rounded the left corner of the building at that moment carrying a bucket and cleaning rags and stopped at the top step for a short rest. He glanced across at Schiller with a look of fear that cut the man to his core, instantly averting his eyes to the ground by the officer’s feet so as not to cause any offence… and there on his chest, the damning sight of that yellow star made the generaloberst’s stomach churn with self-loathing.