by Lee Rudnicki
When the tunnel split, he stopped. He wasn’t sure which way to go, but they had to choose carefully—they could pay for a mistake with their lives.
“Should we toss a coin?” Sebastian asked.
“No.” Wolf pulled out a compass. “We’re going west, away from the Russians. If we head east, we’re as good as dead. Follow me.”
When Sebastian took Eva’s hand, she screamed and pulled him backwards.
Wolf spun around. “Let her go, soldier—that’s an order! We’ll be lucky enough to survive this night without dragging around a refugee who is having some sort of psychotic episode.”
Order or not, Sebastian wasn’t inclined to give up on someone who just saved him from certain death. He pulled her close and whispered into her ear. “You helped me. Now I want to help you. But you need to come with us. Do you understand?”
Eva just stared at him. No reaction at all.
Sebastian didn’t give up. “Listen to me. The Red Army did not come to Berlin to play games. They will kill you. Or worse.” He took her hand again, but Eva planted her feet into the ground like a stubborn mule.
A muffled explosion rang out above. The walls shook and dirt fell from the ceiling. “We’re out of time,” Wolf shouted. “Come on—we have to get out of here. Let’s go!”
Sebastian shouldered his rifle. He didn’t know what put her into such a catatonic and belligerent state, but he wasn’t going to leave her there. He grabbed Eva and threw her over his shoulder. She struggled briefly and then went limp.
Wolf didn’t say anything as he carried the girl past him; it would be impossible to get him to leave her behind now. He just hoped they wouldn’t pay for Sebastian’s misguided kindness with their lives.
Seventy meters later, the tunnel ended at another small wooden door. Sebastian put Eva down and the men readied their weapons. Wolf put his ear to the door and smiled when he heard the music. It was the Horst-Wessel-Lied. The anthem of the Nazi Party.
18
The Neptune
Otto the Jackal and Pig Face slept on the couch as Varik kept watch out the window. A whistle from within the building sent the men into a panicked scramble for weapons. Varik was dumbfounded. He had kept a close eye on the street—he had no idea how anyone could have gotten into the Neptune without him seeing it.
The panicked SS troopers pointed their weapons down the stairwell and listened for the intruders. Otto pulled the pin out of a grenade. Suddenly, a German voice rang out. “Don’t shoot—we’re friendlies! Please! Hold your fire!”
“Screw you!” Otto yelled as he angrily put the pin back. “You almost bought yourself a one-way ticket to hell.”
At the bottom of the stairs, Wolf and Sebastian smiled. They were relieved that the response—as rude as it was—came in German and not in the form of a live hand grenade bouncing down the stairs.
Wolf led them up to the second floor. They were happy to be back behind German lines, but when Pig Face glared at Eva with lustful eyes, Sebastian got worried—a strange nautical-themed room full of armed and drunken Nazi fanatics who were awaiting their deaths was no place for a young woman.
Pig Face grabbed Eva’s arm. “Come to papa, fräulein.”
Sebastian pushed him away. “Back off pocky, she’s with us. We don’t want any trouble.”
With the hour of their escape from Berlin approaching, the last thing Varik needed was a brawl between his men and other German soldiers. He tried to break the tension. “Gentlemen, I apologize for my rude friend. Welcome to the Hotel Neptune,” he said. “It’s not much, but it’s all we have right now. That and our lives.”
“Nice place,” Wolf muttered as he stared at the surreal underwater landscape and fluorescent sea creatures that covered the walls. “It looks like we’re in a fucking aquarium.”
“You can have it, skipper,” Pig Face said. “We’ll even throw in the radio and the cognac-soaked couch. We’re getting out of here.”
“You can check out, but you won’t live long,” Sebastian replied.
Pig Face belched. “Maybe you won’t live long, you arrogant prick, but we’re getting a flight out of here.”
That got Wolf’s attention. “From Tempelhoff?”
Varik shook his head. “Despite the valiant efforts of the Müncheberg Division, the Russians overran Tempelhoff airport. Planes can only take off from Brandenburg now—the one miserable strip of grass in Berlin that the Reds haven’t taken yet.”
“And now, the finest airport in all of Germany!” Otto added. Pig Face laughed uncontrollably, which made Sebastian want to kill him.
Varik’s patience was wearing thin. “I just hope that you idiots aren’t so drunk that you won’t be able to get on the plane,” he scowled.
Pig Face pointed a bayonet at his commander. “Watch yourself,” he said ominously. Pig Face was smiling, but he had the eyes of a rabid animal.
Varik cautiously returned the smile. He knew all too well that both Pig Face and Otto the Jackal were capable of incredible violence when they were provoked.
19
The Sniper
As the campaign in the Eastern Front progressed, the Soviet military noticed that the Wehrmacht was having a tough time replacing the officers that their snipers were gunning down every day. To take advantage of this fact, the Russians strategically increased the number of snipers that were embedded in their units and significantly enhanced their training. Unlike most combatants of World War II, the Red Army also allowed women to join their sniper teams.
Lyudmila crawled across the rooftop with cat-like stealth, a path that had been carefully calculated to keep her in the shadows as much as possible. She called it the “MSR,” the maximum shadow route. After years of hunting fox and other game in the forests surrounding Novosibirsk with her father, Lyudmila’s marksmanship with a rifle was unparalleled. But she wasn’t hunting fox that night; she was conducting reconnaissance. Specifically, she was searching for a German machine gun nest that was hidden inside one of the buildings across the street.
A few meters behind her was Ruslan, a shy but dedicated soldier from Rostov-on-Don. Being the spotter in a sniper team was an apprenticeship. Lyudmila determined the target, position and escape route for each mission; Ruslan shut up and did what he was told so he could learn from the master. That night, he was learning that patience and stealth were the keys to success as a sniper.
The Wehrmacht had made killing snipers a priority. As a result, there were only two kinds of snipers left in the Soviet Red Army—good ones and dead ones. In fact, Lyudmila’s previous spotter panicked and ran from a concealed position in the Tiergarten when probing gunfire got too close. That unfortunate decision put him into the dead category.
Once their rooftop position was set, Lyudmila scoured the street and adjacent buildings. At night, there were two ways to locate a machine gun. The first method involved careful and deliberate reconnaissance. The second involved getting shot at. Lyudmila had no intention of finding out through the latter method; the Russian bodies in the street lay in mute testament to the deadly accuracy of the enemy machine gunner.
20
Catastrophe
Deep in the Führerbunker, Adolf Hitler nervously waited for a status report on Operation Tristan. “Where is the girl?” he asked. “I don’t see her. Where is she?”
“She will be here soon,” Goebbels replied. “The hour of Final Victory is at hand.”
General Weidling cursed under his breath. All hope may be lost, he thought, but Goebbels’ unrelenting arrogance annoys the hell out of me. He is just as delusional as the Führer.
Suddenly, there was a commotion. Weidling’s heart raced—he thought Russian shock troops had located the Führerbunker. His panicked thoughts of a quick suicide were tempered by the fact that Heydrich still had his pistol.
Weidling let out a sigh of relief when Martin Bormann stormed into the situation room. His clothes were torn and covered in soot. He looked like hell.
Then came Ad
algar, Hitler’s personal astrologer and practitioner of the black arts, complete with fiery red hair and brooding brown eyes. Introduced to Hitler by the Swiss astrologer K.E. Kraft, Adalgar was rumored to be developing a supernatural weapon. His surprise appearance in Berlin on 15 February made Hitler’s bodyguards nervous, but they tolerated him at the Führer’s insistence.
Hitler apprehensively surveyed the new arrivals, looking for his most important guest. “Where is she?”
Adalgar pushed Bormann towards Hitler. “Go ahead. Tell him.”
The Führer put his arm on Bormann’s shoulder and peered into his eyes. “Tell me what, Martin?”
Bormann was so nervous that he actually stuttered. “Sh-sh-she wa-wa-wa-was...”
Extreme concern suddenly showed itself on Hitler’s face. “Where the hell is the Romanian girl?”
Bormann wiped his brow and took a deep breath. He was dripping with sweat. The tension in the air was extreme. “Sh-sh-she wa-wa-wa-was mo-mo-moved to Ge-ge-ge-ge-stapo headquarters under the gu-gu-guard of our be-be-best troops,” Bormann stuttered. “But we lost her.”
With those four well-spoken words, the color drained from Adolf Hitler’s face. He turned away and his left arm involuntarily contracted and shook like a flipper. Goebbels knelt down on the floor next to him, put his head in his hands and screamed. “Goddamn it!”
Then Hitler’s demeanor changed from shock to anger. He grabbed Bormann and shook him like a rag doll. “What the hell happened?” he screamed, saliva flying out of his mouth. “Where is the girl? Where is the girl???”
“It’s not my fault,” Bormann whimpered. “A bomb hit the building—my men are dead.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about your men,” Hitler screamed. “Where is the damn girl?”
“She was last spotted near Berlin Cathedral, but that position got cut off. She won’t get far—she is sedated and we are organizing a counterattack to retrieve her. But with all due respect, there are more important strategic matters regarding the defense of Berlin right now than a Romanian peasant.”
And with that, Adolf Hitler went berserk. He stomped on the floor and flew into a rage, the likes of which his staff had never seen. He ran around the room like a militant chimpanzee, screamed obscenities in a fury and tore the map right off the table.
Bormann jumped out of the way when the first chair flew across the room. “It’s not my fault! Please calm down! Please!” he shouted.
“The war is lost!” Hitler shouted back as he threw chair after chair at Bormann. “We were so close! We were so fucking close! I can’t believe it! I am surrounded by idiotic incompetence! I’m going to kill you!”
Bormann tried to run away in the face of such an insane display of aerodynamic furniture, but Hitler cornered him before he got to the door. Bormann tried to protect his head and beg for his life, but the Führer would have none of it; he pummeled him until the blood flowed freely. Bormann was a strong man—he could have easily overpowered Hitler, but he was too scared to fight back.
Everyone stood to the side and watched the Führer beat the crap out of his trusted advisor. When Hitler was done with the beating, he screamed for his guards. “Take this traitor outside and shoot him!”
In stark contrast to the violent scene that was playing out in front of them, Adalgar and Heydrich stood by calmly—almost nonchalantly—as the SS guards dragged Martin Bormann out of the room kicking and screaming.
Hitler braced himself against the wall and shook with rage until Dr. Morell entered and gave him another injection. He calmed down as the powerful narcotics entered his bloodstream, but he still looked like he wanted to kill someone. “Where the fuck is she, Heydrich?” he snarled.
“She is still in Berlin. I can sense it.”
“There’s not enough time,” Hitler replied. “There’s not enough goddamn time. We’re finished. Everything we worked for is finished. The German people deserve to lose this war. They are not strong enough.”
“Everything will be fine, mein Führer. The Tristan facilities in Prague are fully operational. We’ll have twenty-four hours to make the transfer after your...” Heydrich stopped mid-sentence. It took a few seconds to find the right word. “After your journey.”
The Führer grabbed Heydrich’s hands and looked deeply into his eyes. “Succeed,” he said. “You must succeed.”
21
The Neptune
Pig Face grew more stinking drunk as the night wore on. When he was just about out of cognac, he put the bottle down to pursue other pleasures. He called out to Sebastian. “Hey soldier. If you want to go to the airfield, you gotta share your whore with us. Besides, you can’t take her with you.”
“Leave her alone,” Sebastian replied.
“Not a chance. Give her to me.”
“She has been traumatized enough already.”
“Relax, soldier,” Pig Face replied. “I’m not asking for something for nothing. I’ll give you cigarettes and cognac. Now, give her to me.”
At that point, it became clear to Sebastian that diplomacy wasn’t going to work; any attempt to talk his way out of the situation would be perceived as weakness. The only thing that the SS understood was force.
Sebastian got up and raised his voice. “Stay away from her or we’re going to have a problem.”
The only problem was that Sebastian was bluffing—he had no idea what he was going to do if they rushed him. He was betting the farm that the SS needed every available trigger finger in case the Russians attacked the Neptune while they were still in it.
Wolf tried to diffuse the situation by changing the subject. “Time is running short, gentlemen. When will we try to reach the airfield?”
“Soon,” Varik replied.
“We’re not going anywhere until Fritz gets back,” Otto said.
“And we fuck his girlfriend,” Pig Face said, reaching for the bottle. He took a swig and spit at Sebastian. “It’s time. Give her to us. Now!”
Tired of the games, Sebastian posed a question to Otto the Jackal that instantly changed the dynamics of the situation. “Hey fatso—does Fritz have a big ugly scar on his cheek? From a bayonet or something?”
Otto looked up, surprised. “You saw Fritz?”
Sebastian threw a wallet at him. “If those are his family members in those photos, then don’t wait around for your scar-faced buddy. He’s not coming home tonight.”
The atmosphere in the Neptune crashed like a freight train. Then Sebastian pushed it one step further.
“But there is a silver lining to this black cloud. Fritzy died in Berlin Cathedral, so he probably got to say goodbye to God on his way down.”
The room fell silent. Otto sat down and wiped the tears from his eyes as he looked through the photos. The trickle of tears quickly became a downpour.
Sebastian was confused by his extreme reaction. People were dying all over the place in Berlin; surely no German soldier could expect a life span that was measured in anything but minutes or hours—especially the SS. “What the hell is wrong with him?” he asked.
“Fritz is ... was ... his brother,” Varik said.
“Oh ... sorry ...” Sebastian replied meekly, having just made the most significant faux paus of his entire life.
Wolf slapped his forehead. Sebastian just killed any chance they had to accompany the SS to the airfield.
Sebastian sat with his back to the wall and one hand on his rifle as the furious SS troopers organized their weapons and equipment. He crossed the line, but he had no way of knowing that the dead soldier was the Jackal’s brother. He just hoped that they would leave without another incident.
When things calmed down, he poured water from his canteen into a cup. He gently turned Eva’s head towards him and lifted the cup to her mouth. Suddenly, Eva screamed and knocked the cup away!
Pig Face looked up in horror as the tin cup clanged across the floor. “Shut her up! That bitch is going to get us killed!”
22
Recon
>
As the Russian snipers searched for the machine gun position, Eva’s scream gave it away.
The Germans are idiots, Lyudmila thought. They slaughtered our patrol and stayed hidden for hours. Now the dogs are more worried about carnal pleasures than the battle to come. This is why we are slugging it out with them in the streets of Berlin and not Red Square.
Through the scope of her Mosin-Nagant rifle, Lyudmila spotted two German soldiers through the widows of the Hotel Neptune. She pulled Ruslan close. “I found them. But we don’t have the firepower to take them out. Go tell Kolachenko. Quietly.”
Ruslan crawled across the roof and peered over the ledge. After three days of fighting, the exhausted soldiers in the alley were sound asleep. In the middle of them, Major Boris Kolachenko snored like a bear. With his big stomach, long hair, blue headband and eye-patch, Boris looked like a misplaced buccaneer. Ruslan would never say that to him, of course, as he might find himself assigned to a vanguard minefield clearing detachment.
Next to the sleeping men, a truck carried the feared Katyusha. The Germans called the weapon “Stalin’s Organs,” because of the terrifying, screaming sound that the rockets made. The Katyusha worked well in Berlin because the Germans were in fortified buildings. Having no desire to see their men mowed down en masse, the Soviets lined up the Katyusha and other heavy weapons and pounded the German fortifications with high explosives until there was no resistance or building left. The weapon’s main drawback was its lack of accuracy. Of course, accuracy was much less of an issue in Berlin than was the ability to reduce a building to a steaming heap of rubble.
