She walked past Larsen, yet again, wondering how long Jack had been gone. It felt really, really long, but she had a feeling it had only been a couple of minutes. She did her six paces into the darkness and time seemed to slow and stretch again. For a brief moment she felt almost elongated, but then she snapped back to normal, the sensation broken by the sound of voices—and voices that sounded like they were coming toward the bunker, toward them. Boredom was replaced with adrenal driven panic. She needed to be careful what she thought. A little mental whining about boredom and wham…peril gets you right in the kisser.
“Larsen,” Mel hissed at him as they passed again. “Duck out of sight this round.” Mel shortened her pass in front of the entrance, turning it into four steps each way as the voices resolved into two shadowy figures approaching her position. Quickly, too quickly, she began to hear bits and pieces of their conversation.
“…only temporary while we assess the value…moving it to Berlin…knew you’d find it interesting…” The speaker kind of reminded her of Sergeant Shultz, only one who knew something.
One of them carried a hooded flashlight that danced across the ground almost playfully. They weren’t worried about tripping over anything. They drew close enough that the wind didn’t snatch away chunks of their conversation. Their figures grew more distinct.
“And for this, you get coffee and apple strudel, Dieter? I cannot wait to see it.”
It was Thorhaus. Again? She’d think he was stalking her, only he didn’t know she was here. Actually, she was might be the stalker in the piece, even if it was inadvertent.
No way to know who this Dieter was in the larger picture of the war without more information. She pulled her helmet low, checked her posture for ramrod-ness, and turned to face the approaching men, doing her very best Shultz impression.
From under the metal rim of her helmet, she saw the taller Thorhaus walking beside a rotund figure. Rotund abruptly halted.
“Where is the other guard?” His voice was more querulous than sharp. “The orders are for two at all times.”
Mel produced a snappy salute. “He is relieving himself, Herr Oberst.” This talking gruff was killing her throat.
Thorhaus chuckled. “It is cold, Dieter. Remember when we had the night watch?”
Dieter hesitated, then a rumbling chuckle erupted from a tiny dark slash of mouth. They were both smiling and relaxed, as near as she could see, clearly old comrades enjoying a reunion. It took them from television cliché to real as he clapped Thorhaus on the back. It was an odd, unsettling sensation. If the first step of dehumanizing someone was to distance yourself from their reality, then the reverse was also true. Trouble was, she needed a bit of distance from them to complete her mission.
“I try to forget, my old friend, but always you remind me.” He was still smiling when he turned back to Mel. “We’re going inside. Open the door and wait for us out here.”
Mel saluted again and stepped down the two shallow steps with what she hoped was the right amount of brisk, trying to push the sight of his very charming smile out of her mind. Keep your detachment, she reminded herself as she rattled the lock to warn Jack.
“What is taking so long? Open the door.” Dieter came down the steps with short, impatient struts. He struck Mel as a small man trying to look big. In another place and time, he would have been amusing. In the circumstances, it was a little sad.
Mel cracked the door. “Sorry, Herr Oberst. The cold has made the lock stiff.”
There was no light inside. Mel breathed more easily. It must be driving Jack and Larsen crazy, not knowing what was happening. She held the door wide and stepped back to allow Dieter to enter. She saw Larsen moving in from behind. Thorhaus was still outside the perimeter but had moved to the top of the steps. No sign his spider sense was tingling. He gave off vibes of relaxed content. And why shouldn’t he? Based on the supper she’d smelled, he was in clover.
Mel kept her chin down, while trying not to look like she was trying and also trying to watch both men without looking like she was doing that either. A lot of trying going on and no clue if there was any succeeding. The only thing she knew for sure, they didn’t have time for this delay. Mouy would leave without them if they didn’t make it back to the truck in time.
Mel started to ease her rifle forward.
Thorhaus stepped down the first step.
The air raid sirens went off.
And just when she thought it couldn’t get any more complicated.
* * * * *
Inside the make-shift bunker, Jack shone his light around, moving cautiously forward until the came to a small and dreary open space. He’d had no sense of descending, but he must have. Dirt walls were about half his height, the rest some kind of temporary dome with sandbags visible through the slats. The floor was packed down dirt. A single bulb provided light, the wire stretching back toward the entrance. It reminded him of something. Maybe a modified air raid shelter? Clearly someone’s comfort wasn’t high on the necessities list when this place was pulled together.
It was not only cold, it was dank and smelled of dirt and mildew.
Dead center, there was a forlorn table covered with a cloth of some kind. Jack pulled it back and stared at what had brought them all to this place and this time.
A pair of binoculars?
But was that what they were? It looked like binoculars, but…not. He picked them up. They were rubberized and sleek. And very light. It was too dark to look through them, but his gut told him they were wrong somehow for this time. Mel might know, but she was outside. Was there time to show them to her and bring them back? They needed to be destroyed, that was clear.
He hesitated, then slipped the strap around his neck and tucked them inside the heavy coat. There was a small metal box with a lock, probably waiting to be transported with the binoculars. He broke it open, using the butt of his Luger and found it filled with pictures and papers, all written in German, naturally. He took those, too. There didn’t seem to be anything else of interest.
He started toward the entrance, but heard Mel’s voice, speaking in German, followed by the rattle of the door’s lock. He snapped off the light. Now he could hear another voice speaking. He wished he knew what they were saying.
Note to self, send someone back further in time to tell him to learn German. Make that freaking tell him to learn freaking German.
Then he heard the air raid sirens start up.
* * * * *
Thorhaus stopped and glanced up. Mel almost looked up, even though they both knew the bombers couldn’t possibly be up there yet. Dieter turned and looked up, too, giving Mel the opening she’d been looking for. She used Thorhaus’s momentary distraction to affect an introduction between Dieter’s skull and her rifle butt. It was too noisy to tell if he went down quietly. All that mattered is that he went.
She half crouched by the slumped figure, hopefully giving off an impression of concern. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Thorhaus turn back and see his friend down. He immediately came to him. Mel took him down, too, though a bit more gently. He had to survive. Even as she thought this, she felt the strangeness of the thought. She might be from the future, when Germany was an ally, but in this present, he was the enemy. If she’d had the time, both eyes would have twitched. She grabbed Dieter’s flashlight and looked at her watch. They should already be gone. Make that long gone.
“Jack!” She had no compunction about shouting, with the sirens so loud. She saw a bobbing circle of light rapidly approaching. When he was close enough to hear, she shouted, “Did you find anything?”
“Just this.” He pulled a pair of binoculars from under his coat and handed them to her.
Mel hefted them, then turned them over. There was something—
Larsen jumped down into the sandbagged perimeter.
“We need to go!”
“We should put them back,” Jack said.
“There’s no more time. We’ll take care of them once we’re cl
ear of the compound.” If they were from the future, and if she returned to the future, it would help if she could trace them to their source. Mel hooked the strap around her neck and tucked them inside her coat.
“Take these, too,” Jack said, stuffing some papers in her pockets.
Mel pointed to Thorhaus. “Grab his arms.”
“What?” Larsen looked at her like she was crazy.
Mel looked at Jack. “We need to get him out of here.” She hoped Jack understood what she was trying to tell him, without actually telling him.
He did. He moved to the other side of the slumped man. “Grab his arms, Larsen. Mel, you lead the way.”
Mel hooked the rifle over her shoulder, pulled her Luger and started off across the open compound. The sirens had startled the place into activity that was still fairly controlled and orderly. Their blackout was complete, so the odds were slim the bombs would find them, except by an accident. They didn’t know about the charges and the change that would bring to their life expectancy. She just hoped they hadn’t missed their ride.
Figures moved in the darkness around them, but no one appeared to pay them any particular attention. They blended in with the flow of people responding to air raid protocol. They moved with them as long as they could, and then fell out of the stream when they neared the kitchen where the truck had been left. They rounded the corner and stopped.
It was gone.
At that moment the first charge blew.
When lady luck turned on you, she didn’t do it by halves.
* * * * *
Kass stood near the checkpoint, directing the movement of his men, but paused when he heard bombers heading this direction. It would complicate the hunt—then some kind of explosion or flare lit up the line between wood and sky in the distance. That was odd. He’d thought the bombers still too far away. And—
“I thought the aerodrome was further west,” he said to a checkpoint guard. It was a fairly small airfield, not worthy of the RAF’s attention he would have thought. Had Herr Ullstein known about the raid? Was it something at the airfield the underground was interested in? Or someone coming to the airfield?
“It is, Herr Leutnant,” the man said. “That is not the aerodrome.” He frowned. “It could be the secure compound.”
Kass didn’t know there was a compound there, but then he was a mere Leutnant, as that bitch had been so happy to point out earlier tonight. “Can you raise them on your radio? Do they need assistance?”
The man tried, then shook his head. The radio crackled and he turned back to it for a few minutes. After a moment he looked at Kass, his face puzzled. “They say the bombers have not arrived, Herr Leutnant. The explosions are on the ground.”
“It must be sabotage.” That’s why Herr Ullstein wanted him here with his men. But surely they could have stopped the sabotage—unless the Herr didn’t want to compromise the woman? Or he hadn’t known what form the sabotage would take? Whatever deep game was being played out, he must do his duty. He turned to his sergeant.
“Tell the men to move out.” Herr Ullstein had said nothing about Oberst Thorhaus. Should he notify him? He didn’t know exactly where he was.
“Do you know how to contact Oberst Trump?”
The man looked wary and uncertain.
“Herr Oberst Thorhaus is dining with him this evening. I wish to inform him—“
“They are both at the compound, Herr Leutnant. He was cleared past this checkpoint by the Herr Oberst Trump personally.”
That was unfortunate for the Oberst, Kass thought. A pity he would not live to learn who was the better hunter. Thorhaus was supposed to be a soldier, a career soldier, but what good was a soldier who baulked at the kill? What else was there in war but blood?
* * * * *
The detonation of the charges and the sympathetic detonation of the various objects they were next to rocked the ground and almost knocked Mel off her feet. There were buildings between them and the perimeter, but the flash of the explosions was bright and painful against the horizon. The sound was terrifying. She’d thought it was bad in the bomb shelter, but this was much worse. In addition to the explosions, debris started thumping the ground all around. She thought she counted all five charges, though two of them were close enough together for doubt. She couldn’t see it, of course, but it seemed that the perimeter of the compound had been well and truly painted for the incoming RAF.
It was a pity they were caught inside the lines. It was bad now and would get worse when the bombs started falling.
They crouched where the truck had been, in deep shadow caused by the flickering fires on the other side of the building.
On either side, they could see figures running now. Some trying to bring order and put out the fires, others who just wanted to get away. The noise was intense and very German. Oaths, orders, and shouts of pain. And through it all, the growing rumble of the approaching bombers. She realized that one voice was shouting Thorhaus’ name.
“Do you hear that? That’s probably his driver.”
“Driver. A driver would have a car,” Jack said. “Answer him.”
Mel moved partially out of the shadows and called out, “The Oberst is here! He is injured!”
A man detached himself from the melee near a command vehicle, all of it backlit by a raging fire. Mel was glad they hadn’t set the vehicle on fire. He must have cared a lot for his commander to run toward her. It felt like the bombers were on top of them.
“Quickly!” Mel called.
The man didn’t hesitate when he saw his commander. He knelt by him just in time to hear Thorhaus groan.
“He is alive. Help me get him to the shelter,” the driver ordered.
“Can’t you see that saboteurs have marked this compound? It is suicide to remain.” Mel kept her head bent away from the man.
The man hesitated. “They won’t let us out the gate.”
“We’ll figure something out.” She turned, as if she had the right to give orders. “Here, you two, help us with this man.”
She gestured in Jack and Larsen’s direction, hoping they’d understand. They moved toward her and grabbed Thorhaus, propping him between them and dragging him forward.
“This way,” the driver said. Mel jerked her head and the two men followed her as fast as they could across the open ground to the vehicle. Debris continued to hit the ground around them as gravity reasserted its control. The flames were hot here and bright. Figures and shadows moved together and apart. It was hard to tell which was which.
Jack and Larsen shoved Thorhaus in the back seat. Before the driver could climb in after him, Larsen clubbed him with the butt of his pistol. Mel bit back a protest. This was a war. She climbed behind the wheel and cranked the ignition. There was too much noise to tell if it caught, but she thought she felt the seat rumble. Jack scrambled in next to her and Larsen, after an almost unnoticeable hesitation, climbed in next to Thorhaus.
Between the explosions and the roar of the approaching bombers, it was hard to think. She didn’t bother to tell anyone to brace themselves or to hang on. If they couldn’t figure it out on their own, they were too stupid to live. She slammed the engine in gear and stomped on the gas pedal. They shot forward, straight at the perimeter fence. She almost turned, but then thought, why not the fence? At least it wouldn’t argue with them.
At first she wasn’t sure, but then she knew she heard it. It was the whistle of incoming bombs. She tried to put more pressure on the gas, but it was already all the way to the floor.
The fire spread along the perimeter, leaping from vehicles to buildings, as if racing to cut them off. Time slowed again. Mel had the odd feeing they were stopped and it was the fence rushing toward them.
The fire leapt to close the gap. They hurtled forward, trying to beat it. The race was a draw. Flames flickered and danced across the hood, obscuring her view. She felt, rather than saw, the impact with the fence.
There was a jolt. Not as much as she expected. Fence pole
s banged against the sides. At some point they fell away. They burst clear of the flame field. The fires threw light on the field ahead of them for a few yards. But the car quickly outran its reach.
It seemed darker, as she waited for her eyes to adjust to the change. The vehicle jolted over and through unseen ruts and bumps. It was terrifying, but it didn’t occur to her to ease up on the gas. Not with the bombs incoming.
The sirens wailed louder.
The whistle of the bombs grew closer.
Flames danced in the rear view mirror, as if mocking their escape attempt.
They raced forward into a wall of dark.
The first bomb connected with the ground behind them. The earth wrenched from the force of it, but there was no recovery time between it and the next impact. Then she couldn’t tell them apart anymore. The ground beneath the vehicle seemed to ripple and dance from the concussions. They swerved and might have left terra firma briefly. At one point, it felt like the car was swatted forward by the force of the explosions.
The field wasn’t nearly as smooth as it looked in the brief glimpse she’d have of it.
Teeth jolted.
Bones rattled.
Terror crawled out her gut and tried to burst out her throat. It couldn’t, but only because her throat was too dry…
It wasn’t dark behind, which made it harder to see ahead. The shadows moved and shifted unpredictably. It was like a freakish carnival ride, only one that could kill.
A tiny voice in her head suggested she ease up on the gas. Most of her brain was shouting, not yet. You’re still too close…
More lurching.
More jolting.
Lots of banging the under carriage against the ground.
Some slipping.
Lots of sliding.
The further they got from the compound, the less light there was, though the painted compound still messed with Mel’s night vision. She remembered there were headlights, of a sort, and tried them out. Oh yeah, that worked. Now she could see a couple of inches to—
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