“Perhaps tomorrow.” Weber waved a dismissing hand.
“Now.”
The clock on the wall ticked away seconds.
“Very well.” Weber looked up at him and sighed. It was obvious that the deal was the furthest thing from his mind at the moment. Even now Weber’s eyes stole glances at the sheets of paper before him as he impatiently waited for Bruning’s request.
“I want the files on the Thule investigation. I want to make sure they are doing my discovery justice. You can get copies of them if you wish, I believe.”
“I do not know, Bruning. This will be difficult.” Weber grabbed another folder from his desk and rifled through it, eyes downcast.
“No, it will not. You have faked dozens of files to Offenburg in your little sham. You must have someone on the inside or the mistakes would have been noticed by now by command. Someone must make up the fake field assessment reports, someone must alter the visiting schedule so you can prepare for other members of the group. Use that person now. Do not push me. Kitt will want to hear from me soon.”
“Yes.” Weber laughed. “I underestimated you, Bruning. I must admit it, I thought the favor would have something to do with more mundane things. They are very serious about this Thule investigation. Many of the resources of the group are being shunted to the project. It could raise suspicions. My source, well...he is... “
“Do it, and then it will be done.” Bruning said simply, using his dead father’s favorite folk saying.
“Yes. Of course.”
Bruning exited into the freezing night air, leaving Weber behind to his petty intrigues. If he was foolish enough to believe the Deep Ones would commit themselves to such a deal, even when faced with the fact of the race’s natural inclination towards obscurity, Weber deserved his fate. Whatever the beasts had in store for Weber and his men was fine with Bruning. He planned to be long gone before the new moon.
Sentries stood at attention as he passed, clicking their polished boots together in the stark white lights of the compound. Out past the fence and the razor wire in the klieg lights, SS men skittered about in the dark, knee high surf, placing colored flags out in the water, marking the location of the objects the Deep Ones had left behind in the water for the ritual.
The small shacks which housed the officers stood off to the north end of the facility, away from the sea, and Bruning made his way slowly up the steps to his door in the northernmost shack, feeling old and hopelessly out of his league. Somehow he continued to portray himself as ruthlessly efficient and effective while still remaining human on the inside. Everyone believed his façade no matter how often it seemed to slip in front of their eyes, but only his thoughts of the world outside the Reich, the real world as it must continue to exist past the wire and mines and death, kept him going at all.
He sat quietly in his shack beneath a small desk lamp and shuffled through the files he had stolen from Offenburg, like an embezzler adding up pilfered sums. He would gather all the documents he could, all that he was responsible for, and make his way to Cherbourg the day before the ritual to find a way out. Already he had more than forty highly-classified documents which contained many of the most terrible secrets of the Karotechia. Soon, through his deal with Weber, he would have the last file he required to escape with a clean conscience. The one which was his sole responsibility—Thule, the one case which haunted his dreams more than any other. With these files perhaps someone would believe him: the Maquis, British, or American agents, it didn’t matter who. If they did not believe him, he would make them believe.
He would make a difference.
A commotion at the gates drew his attention, and through the smoke-stained window of his shack Bruning could make out two large trucks entering amidst a marching group of SS guards. Turning off his light and placing the files back in his valise, Bruning opened the window and leaned out to get a better look at the convoy. The trucks rolled past and the white faces of prisoners of war stared out from the flatbeds of the monstrous vehicles as they rocked and swayed up the muddy path. When one of the trucks came to a squeaking halt near the internment center, the engine backfired loudly, drawing nervous smiles from the guards at the gate and flinches from the pinched faces of the POWs.
Drawn from a dozen different countries and a hundred different battles, the faces of the thin stick-men who were unloaded from the trucks at machine gun point all looked the same. The gaunt cheeks and protruding brows, the scruff beards and yellowed teeth—it was hard to imagine them at any other time or place, with children or mothers or wives, in any role beside that which fate had decided they would play.
Bruning knew they would all die here in the waves. He searched himself for a feeling to connect with the living scarecrows that shuffled into the barracks like phantoms, and found he had none to spare. Perhaps he was not as human as he liked to believe.
Bruning shut the window on the scene of misery. From somewhere nearby in the children’s section, a French girl cried in vain for her mother.
CHAPTER 5:
We all seek what enlightenment we can
November 24, 1942: Cap de la Hague, France
Bruning had kept to himself the last four days, avoiding any action which would take him out into the awful activity of the camp. All day and night the tractors could be heard, along with hoarse shouts from the SS men as they beat and bullied the Todt slave crews into completing a difficult task in an impossible amount of time. Cement bastions were laid rapidly, sections of sand were pushed free to allow a central depression on the Cap de la Hague beach which ran to the high ground like a walkway, and the standing stones that the Deep Ones had left behind were raised in a line parallel to the water with such rapidity that they seemed to grow from the ground overnight, like monstrous trees. Two cement bunkers were laid on the stone breakers which enclosed the beach to garner a better view of the water.
From his north window Bruning watched as the last of the eight sea-smoothed stones was raised by exhausted, stick-thin men with gold stars or double Ns on their filthy shirts. The black silhouettes of SS men on raised bastions stood nearby, backlit by the rising sun, armed with submachine guns, wary of any troublesome activity in the large slave labor group. Around them a sea of the starving men rapidly trundled about, working hard to complete the tasks set before them, struggling in the face of the bleak alternative to success—and its terrible, unspoken consequences, which hovered over their heads like a curse. Lower-rank SS men carrying batons circulated through the grey-clad crowds, beating and prodding those who were unproductive or slow.
Twice in the last few days the chattering reports of a machine gun had woken Bruning from his self absorption as he worked on his “debriefing.” Every significant fact and memory of his time in the service of the SS that he could unearth, he typed up on the old, rickety machine with the raised “e” key, in the hopes that the document alone would convince the Allies that he was valuable enough to risk extraction. He had plodded through the last few days, typing, eating, and sleeping in turns, trying his best to ignore the cacophony from the camp. The days were going fast now, and every night above the camp the moon grew fatter, more pregnant. When that cycle renewed itself on the new moon, the Deep Ones would come, and their terrible leader Dagon would bring its tidings to man, perhaps for the first time in recorded human history.
Looking out towards the rolling grey surf, Bruning remembered a section of Paradise Lost, which he thought he should not be able to recall with such clarity. Although he was not a particular scholar of Milton, the snippet appeared without difficulty in his mind:
There Leviathan
Hugest of living creatures, on the deep,
Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims,
And seems a moving land, and at his gills
Draws in, and at his trunk spouts the sea—
There was a knock at the door.
Bruning rapidly collected his papers into a messy stack and shoveled them in to his valise with both hands
. He pulled the last sheet of paper from his typewriter and crumpled it. Bruning glanced back once as he prepared to open the door, to make sure no signs of his treachery were laying about overlooked. He pulled his Walther from the belt holster which hung upon a hook on the back of the door, and cocked it slowly and as silently as possible. When he was certain nothing was visible, he pulled the door open a crack, keeping the pistol in his hand out of sight.
An SS man unknown to him who wore the insignia of the Karotechia on his collar stood on the steps carrying a sealed folder. His face was blank as a mask.
“Hauptscharführer Karl Bruning,” he stated expressionlessly.
“Yes.”
“Files from Offenburg, sir.” The man rapidly consulted a photograph, presumably of Bruning to verify his identity, and then held out a sealed folder which was emblazoned with a huge, blood-red Sonnerad rune—a curved swastika, the symbol of occult power and the Karotechia. Thankfully the SS man held no security forms for Bruning to sign. Unlike other clandestine organizations within the Reich, the Karotechia did not keep a running record of their files outside of Offenburg. Those in the group with approved access simply requested the file from the archives. When finished with it, the file was returned or destroyed. This ensured that, if need be, all records of the group (which existed in only three places in Germany) could be eliminated at a moment’s notice, doing away with the common paper trails which existed in other organizations.
“Thank you.” Bruning grabbed the folder and slammed the door on the man’s stiff salute. Placing his pistol down carefully, he greedily ripped open the seals on the document and spilled the pages out on his squeaky bed. The nearly blank title page leapt out from the mess of other pages covered in dense text. It read:
“PROJECT PARSIFAL (Thule/S.A.)”
Weber had lived up to his end of the bargain. Bruning spent the next hour assembling the documents carefully, placing them in order with his notes in his battered brown valise, along with an extra pistol and a simple outfit of clothing he took everywhere. It would be suicide to walk into Cherbourg alone in his SS uniform. He tried to picture the situation which would lead to his encounter with the Maquis, or less likely, with British or American agents. Nothing clear came to mind, but as he lay down, his thoughts drifted off easily. A sensation like coming to the end of a long journey filled him with a warmth he had not felt in a long while.
Bruning slept for the first time in more than a day and a half, with the valise clasped loosely in one hand and his pistol in the other.
Bruning dreamt of weapons practice at Bad Tolz. In his twisted nightmare the MG34s chattered away endlessly like crows, ripping up the targets behind him as he ran desperately down the line trying to gain cover. Only the helmets of his colleagues as they hunched behind their weapons could be seen downrange, hidden behind the licking flames of their muzzles. Why wasn’t he down there with them? Rounds punched past him by the hundreds, tearing into the targets and spitting dirt up in the air as he ran through it all screaming. But no matter how far down line he ran, the targets and machine gunners kept on going. He ran until his lungs burned and his knees shrieked, he ran until his loping steps faltered as he tried to limitlessly gain ground away from the endless machine guns. With a sudden jerk his legs betrayed him and Bruning spilled to the ground, face smashing into the dirt as hundreds of rounds ripped through the air around him. Wheezing, moaning, he looked up from the dirt as the bullets slipped into his body in a dozen different places, and before all went black, he saw the end of the firing line, a concrete overhang, precious cover, not five feet away from his bloody outstretched hands...
The MG34s sang and Bruning woke to the sounds of death.
Fear gripped him in his guts, and he leapt up from the bed and rushed to the north window, spilling his valise to the ground. In the thin orange light of the evening he could make out the muzzle flashes of the machine guns as they rattled on and on. A dozen or more SS men stood on the recently dried concrete ramparts holding MP40s, as two machine gunners emptied their weapons into the clots of stick men on the beach. There was nowhere for the slaves to go; they were stuck in the run which bisected the beach, a run which they themselves had created. Some crawled before the bullets finally tore through them, some walked about in a daze, but most charged straight into the guns as fast as they could. Wild-eyed and crazed with the knowledge of imminent death, the men had no fear. They would rush up the murderous run and throttle the guards so fast that no one would know what happened. Even half dead with starvation and sickness, the stick men were fast.
But the machine guns were faster.
They dropped like they had simply fallen, as if in moments any of them might get back up and try again for the summit. From Bruning’s perspective none of the atrocities of war could be seen. There was no blood or gore, no screams, no expressions on the tiny faces. Just stick men falling down on the beach amidst the repetitious and distant clamor of the machine guns, and the helmeted silhouettes of those on the ramparts as they watched. The sounds roared on the rock cliffs which surrounded the beach, rolling back in like the surf, and when the guns stopped their bellowing, the ghostly echoes played on for almost a minute before disappearing completely.
Clumps of the dead lay on the beach as the SS men cleared their weapons in the last mingling colors of the setting sun. Bruning looked away as a work detail of more Todt men were ushered out at submachine gun point to police the bodies of their own dead. What were they thinking? How did they feel? Bruning could not find a point of reference which would link his life to the things which lived and died on the beach.
It was time to go.
Bruning buttoned up his officer’s long coat and buckled his belt, slipping his pistol in his holster as he retrieved his valise from the floor in one fluid motion. Nothing moved inside him. He felt neither fear or regret as he walked towards the gate of the camp in an authoritarian stride. As he approached the huge double gates, he fixed his face with an incredulous expression and locked eyes with the unfortunate Rottenführer who had been left in charge of the seven men tasked with guard duty that evening. He would bluff his way out and he would make it to Cherbourg tonight.
“Rottenführer, I am leaving. Bring a car around,” Bruning ordered bluntly.
“Sir. This is impossible. I have orders from the camp commander, sir. No one comes in, no one leaves until the ninth of next month, sir,” the Rottenführer stated boldly.
Bruning’s mind swam. All his plans collapsed around his ears in seconds, quietly, as the guard waited for his response.
“Why?” was all Bruning could manage.
“Partisans, sir. We have had three incidents on the road to Cherbourg, sir. No one leaves until Oberscharführer Weber clears it, sir. I am sorry, sir.” The soldier’s eyes glazed over as he returned to attention in front of the gate, his submachine gun slung casually off his shoulder.
“I will see Weber.” Bruning said as he marched back to the center of camp with his breath trailing behind him like a dim fog.
Bruning burst into Weber’s office and found the man engaged in deep conversation with another SS officer in Scharführer markings. Bruning assumed it was Lutzen or Schwelm, but didn’t ask. He locked eyes with Weber, who finally said, very quietly:
“Excuse us, Otho.” And the man stood and left Weber and Bruning in the silence of the room.
“Is something wrong, Bruning?”
“Why am I not permitted to leave?”
“Was the Thule file not what you had expected?” Weber retorted, throwing his hands up in the air as if he could not believe what he was hearing.
“No...that is not what—”
“Well, then you agree I have fulfilled my obligation to you?” Weber sat, locking his eyes to Bruning’s.
“Yes.”
“Then fulfill your bargain with me. Wait for the ritual. You will then talk to Kitt. Vindicate my misdeeds as necessities for the greater good of the Reich and we shall be equal.” Weber stood and r
olled the papers on his desk up. On them a complex construction diagram of the beach showed the firing arcs of machine gun emplacements on the new topography of the shoreline, isolating a kill zone illuminated in red in the center of he beach, where the Deep Ones would rise with their leader in less than fourteen days. It seemed Weber was not as foolish as Bruning had believed.
“Besides,” Weber continued, “we have lost more than ten men to Maquis attacks in the last few days on the road to Cherbourg. The courier from Offenburg is the last one to leave. And the last to enter!”
“Should you not alert Cherbourg command?”
“And bring a division of the Waffen-SS down on my head? While I misappropriate funds and slaves and God knows what else here on the beach? Do I really risk all this for some added safety from ill-equipped Frenchmen hiding in caves? Soon this all will be beside the point!” Weber hissed at him.
“Listen to me, Bruning. I played your game at Offenburg. Now you play mine. I have nothing to lose now, you have everything.”
Delta Green: Denied to the Enemy Page 7
