by Mat Nastos
MacAndrew grinned to himself from behind the now red-hot barrel of his gun. Another moment and they’d have the bastard dead to rights. They’d all make it out alive–
The report from a round of heavy machine gun fire in the distance, followed by a gut-wrenching scream, punched MacAndrew in his stomach and destroyed his hope. One of the soldiers in the approaching Horch transport had spotted Valcik’s hiding spot. A pair of MG42 machine guns swung around in the hands of two powerful Wehrmacht soldiers and ended the life of the lookout in a blaze of nearly four hundred high-powered rounds, leaving behind a pile of red meat that bore little resemblance to the man it once had been.
An instant later, Opalka’s weapon was knocked from his grip as a lucky shot fired by Heydrich in the rear of the car struck the Czech in the forearm.
“Curda, back Opalka up, man!” ordered the still-kneeling Captain between bursts of rapidly-dwindling rounds from his gun.
“He’s gone!” called back the wounded lieutenant, sliding behind the stone bench for cover, his gun covered in blood and forgotten in the bullet-riddled grass he had been shot on. “The little bastard ran off!”
“Shite,” was all Ian MacAndrew could mutter, his attention split between the two men returning fire from within the besieged, battle-damaged roadster, and the gouts of flame he could see from the quickly-approaching Nazi trooper carrier. “Kubis, blow the bastards up.”
Nodding, the young Czech shoved his smoking pistol into his belt, slid the satchel around from his back, and removed one of the modified anti-tank grenades the crew had fashioned for their mission. MacAndrew yanked the wounded Gabcik to his feet and began pulling the man back toward the relative safety of the hedge wall and the bicycles the men had waiting. A quick hand-signal to Opalka sent the lieutenant off in another direction.
A heavy round of fire from MacAndrew’s machine gun kept the two Nazis ducked down far enough into their vehicle for Kubis to lob his short-fused explosive onto the running board of the ravaged Mercedes-Benz.
The last thing the big Scotsman saw before he was engulfed in the thick brush was Kubis hauling mail after him, and Oberscharfuhrer Klein bolt upright in the front seat, taking aim at the Czech’s back with his 9mm Luger, never noticing the grenade at his feet.
The force of the explosion a second later sent all three assassins stumbling to their knees as they reached their bikes. The acrid smell of burning flesh and rubber and steel, and the shrill sounds of Germans screaming, brought a tight smile to Ian MacAndrew; rekindling hope in the man an instant before it was extinguished once more.
Over the sound of fire, MacAndrew heard the voice of the Butcher of Prague call for their deaths.
“Ride hard, my lads,” huffed the Scotsman as the trio peddled down a cobblestone road toward the heart of Liben, “…the Butcher is still alive!”
CHAPTER 2
THE BATTLE JOINED
In his few short years as Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, Reinhard Heydrich had survived many attempts on his life by the mongrel lackeys of the former Czech leadership, by the Jews and the English, and even by those of his own Nazi party who feared his rapidly-growing power base.
He had survived so many attempts that rumors of his luck had taken on near-mythical proportions with the locals. There were rumors the real Reinhard Heydrich never left his castle in Prague, that he sent out doubles and decoys for public appearances. Others said he’d bargained away his soul for immortality to the Devil of the Christians, or the Devil of the Arabs or even to some inscrutable Oriental demon. Of course, his current personal favorite had Heydrich wearing the skin of a dead Bengali Fakir that turned away attacks on his person.
As if he’d allow himself to be sullied by the touch of something so filthy and vile as the flesh of some Indian beggar.
The truth was far simpler: Reinhard Heydrich was intelligent, observant and, most important, incredibly paranoid.
When the would-be Czech assassins had opened fire on his car, Heydrich took a moment to open the small calfskin pouch he wore under his shirt, and removed one of the seven tiny bones contained within. The pouch had been given to him by the members of the Edda Society, and its contents had saved him on more than one occasion.
The particular bone he chose was slightly charred and had carved into its surface a series of runes; runes whose names Heydrich chanted quietly under the sound of machine gun fire against the reinforced steel doors of his auto and the tiny moans of fear that escaped Klein’s lips.
When the Reichsprotektor had finished, he felt the power of the Old Gods enter his body as he activated the pact the members of the Edda Society had formed two years earlier. The tingling roamed from the base of his neck, through his torso and down to his fingers and toes in a delicate electricity that caused his blood to race and goosebumps to form. Thus activated, this particular pact would allow him no harm from man-made weapons. Knives and bullets both would be turned away with no effect.
All Heydrich had to do was sit back and wait for the loyal Wehrmacht soldiers in his escort to arrive. A smile split the Nazi dictator’s face as he decided he’d have Johannes introduce him to one of his women once they reached Hradcany Castle. After a battle, there was nothing better than the feel of smooth, perfumed skin and the moans of a good woman… or a bad one.
Klein’s voice interrupted his train of thought. “The rebels are fleeing, Herr Heydrich.”
Fleeing? Heydrich stole a glance over the back of the car and saw the rapidly-approaching Horch loaded with his men. The transport was still nearly a minute away. Why had their attackers fled?
Panic raced through the Reichsprotektor’s mind. Why were they fleeing?
Klein bolted up, boots pressed firmly into the dark leather of the bench seat of the automobile’s fore, right arm extending to take aim at the backs of the quickly-vanishing peasant thugs. “We’ve got them on the run!”
Heydrich’s bowels nearly voided themselves as he caught sight of the stick grenade resting just out of reach on the thin running board of the Mercedes. His pact would protect him from guns and bayonets, but not from fire or the ruinous explosion of such a device.
Heydrich kicked open the door on the opposite side of the car, and scrambled to escape the certain death promised him by the assassin’s grenade. Diving for the grass just beyond the auto’s confines, Heydrich looked back and was taken full-face by the heat and light of the explosion. Later, he would recall seeing the flesh torn from his aide’s body before the bliss and darkness of unconsciousness took him.
By the time he regained his senses, he was surrounded by the gray and black uniformed men of his escort. His car was burnt beyond recognition, and SS-Oberscharführer Johannes Klein was dead. An oily-black cloud coated the area and darkened Heydrich’s mood.
“Are you alright, Obergruppenführer?”
Brushing away the plump, pasty hands of Sergeant Schreieder, the overly-rotund commander of his escort detail, Reinhard Heydrich climbed to his feet, swatting at the still smoldering patches of his formerly-pristine black trousers, and ran fingers through the tangles of his pale hair. He would not stand for this attack.
“What are you all standing around for?!” Heydrich screamed. Kicking Schreieder’s backside, he forced the man back toward the diesel-belching Horch. “Bring me the men who tried to kill me, Sergeant!”
“Yes, Obergruppenführer. We will find them.” To Heydrich’s ears, even Schreieder’s voice sounded fat as the man climbed into the driver’s seat of the transport vehicle. “Mount up, men!”
At their leader’s urging, the soldiers climbed noisily into the heavily-armored car, weapons at the ready. Heydrich slid into the passenger’s seat next to Sergeant Schreieder and pounded on the dash of the open-air vehicle.
* * *
The thunder of the German auto and bellows of its passengers chased the fleeing rebels through the cobblestone streets of Libe
n, spurring their pedaling to the edge of their endurance and beyond.
MacAndrew hated to lead his pursuers into the more populated section of the village, but he saw no other hope for escape. If they could lose sight of the Nazis for even a moment in the crowds or tightly-packed Czech buildings, then his men might have a shot at making it away from the failed assassination with their lives. Opalka and Gabcik were wounded and barely able to keep up. With the burning pain in his own calves growing with each downward pump of the pedals, MacAndrew knew if the shot didn’t come soon he and his men were goners.
Seeing the busy main thoroughfare of Liben up ahead, MacAndrew signaled for his men to turn onto the street. If luck was with them, the quartet would be able to ditch their bikes and steal an automobile.
Rounding the corner at high speed, MacAndrew’s eyes darted down the busy road spread out before him, taking in every piece of detail in his search for his team’s salvation. Every detail except for the enormous shadow crossing his path as his eyes turned away from the thin pedestrian walkway he angled his bicycle down.
“Captain!” came Opalka’s warning from behind, a split-second too late as the shadow fell and the Scotsman slammed into something harder and more unyielding than stone. MacAndrew was thrown to the ground, his now-ruined bike skittering off into the rough street, and sending a shower of sparks as it went. His Owen gun bounced to a stop in front of one of the largest men he had ever seen.
From the hard leather boots to the shock of fine white hair that bounced around the sun-silhouetted head well over six-and-a-half feet above the ground, MacAndrew’s one thought as his eyes traveled up the monstrous frame above him was that no living man stood before him. For a fleeting instant, MacAndrew was convinced a marble statue, sculpted by Michaelangelo himself, blocked his path.
The illusion was broken as the giant bent down to pick up the fallen weapon at his feet with hands large enough to palm a human head, making the gun look like a child’s toy in its grasp.
All thoughts of flight vanished from the old soldier’s mind as he allowed his men to pull him to his feet. For a moment they all stood shock-still, riveted in the wonder posed before them.
The man, whose height MacAndrew re-evaluated at six-foot-eight or more, was pale to almost translucence, and massive beyond comprehension; covered in muscles that had more in common with expertly-chiseled marble than with flesh and blood. But even the incredible physique and unnaturally white skin were nothing compared to the eyes, which blazed out from the handsome face before them ‒ eyes of the brightest blue that seemed to dance with flashes of electricity as they stared at MacAndrew’s gun.
“Captain… the Germans. We must get off the streets.”
MacAndrew barely heard Gabcik’s urgent hiss from behind, but the cold fire of the giant’s eyes snapped up at the sound, finally taking in the group of rebels.
“Die Deutschen?” came the giant’s voice, rolling out in a deep baritone, sapphire orbs narrowing at the words, fingers threatening to snap the Owen gun in half. Every gun in the group echoed with the sound of chambered bullets upon hearing the fluid German pronunciation by the man.
Machine gun fire tore divots of stone and pavement free around the men as the armored troop carrier turned onto the street with them.
“It’s Heydrich,” screamed Opalka, diving for cover behind an old truck and returning fire. Gabcik and Kubis followed suit, hunching down, wounds forgotten as they prepared to make their last stand.
MacAndrew started to follow his men when he was yanked up forcibly, feet dangling nearly six inches from the ground; his frantic eyes looked up into the blazing gaze of the giant, heart sinking.
Brilliant, the monster is one of them.
“Where is Heydrich?” the giant said slowly, this time in heavily-accented English. MacAndrew could feel the anger and hatred radiating from the man; but there was more than that, he thought, as the Scotsman looked down and finally got a good look at what the man was wearing.
Beneath the tight, knee-length leather duster coat, the giant wore a cloth vest, open to the navel, and tucked into a belt the likes of which MacAndrew had only seen in the storybooks of his youth.
The belt, an enormous thing more suited to an earlier age, covered the giant’s midsection from groin to ribcage. It was made of what appeared to be hand-worked leather mounted with hammered iron plates, and trimmed with some sort of gray and white fur. Each plate – nine in total – was adorned with an ancient Germanic rune beaten into the surface, and all seemed to glow with an inner light that pulsed in synchronicity like the beating of a heart. Strapped to one side was a large handgun, and to the other a short, Viking-style sword in a hard scabbard.
“Where?” demanded the rich voice once more. The giant shook MacAndrew for good measure, unaffected by the Scotsman’s own considerable bulk.
MacAndrew jerked a thumb toward the rapidly-approaching Nazi vehicle. “There… he’s after my men.”
Nodding, the unearthly giant let MacAndrew drop to his feet and then returned the Owen gun to his hands. “Get them to safety. Heydrich has much to answer for.”
In one fluid motion, the giant tore off his leather coat, snapped open the holster on his right hip, pulled out the Shanxi Type 17 Broomhandle Mauser pistol housed within its confines and squeezed off a pair of shots into the driver-side window of the German military vehicle. Copies of the nine runes were tattooed along the man’s arm, from wrist to chest, all illuminated with the same glow. Peeking from behind cover, MacAndrew gasped as, from a distance of nearly fifty meters, the first shot took the Horch 108’s driver in the right eye and the second blew off his lower jaw, disintegrating most of the soldier’s face.
Driverless, the Horch swerved and bounced out of control along the road, smashing through an iron lamp-post and a smaller roadster parked in front of a bakery before plowing into a storefront thirty yards distant. Smoke and debris filled the air along with cries of pain from those caught inside by the collision.
Seemingly unsatisfied with his first salvo and the destruction it had caused, the giant charged toward the Nazis, who were scrambling from the crash. Each shot fired from the Shanxi Mauser sounded like a canon burst, and the flash from its blow-back lit the giant’s face with a furious orange glow. While most of the Waffen-SS troops were protected by the armored shell of their vehicle, one unlucky soldier made the mistake of rising from his bench seat just behind the driver’s compartment to take aim with an assault rifle – only to be perforated by a trio of shots to the chest and neck.
* * *
Wiping off the pieces of brain matter and shattered skull from the dead Horch driver, Reinhard Heydrich pushed Sergeant Schreieder’s corpse to one side and chanced a look through the blood-splattered, bullet-ridden side window to see who dared to attack him.
More Czech rebels no doubt. Squinting to focus through the smoke spitting out of the ruptured radiator beneath the ruinous hood of the transport, Heydrich knew his men would make short work of the insurgents and the Reichsprotektor would still make afternoon tea at Hradcany Castle. But the sight of the nearly seven–foot-tall giant with skin the color of bone and a great mane of white haloing his head, froze the blood in Heydrich’s veins. The giant marched unfalteringly toward them, pausing only to reload the deadly hand canon held firmly in his right hand.
“No,” whispered Heydrich in dread and disbelief. He recognized the man and the throbbing blue runes that snaked up his arm and around his waist. “Grimm,” he said even quieter, fearing that just speaking the name would give the giant more power.
“HEYDRICH!” shouted Grimm, as if in response. Increasing the speed of his approach, the giant fired off rounds in rapid succession with a deadly accuracy that almost sent a steel-jacketed bullet into Heydrich’s temple.
Having already used the only charm he had to protect himself from Grimm’s attack, Heydrich flattened himself against the opposite si
de of the auto’s passenger compartment and shrieked out to the soldiers in its rear to open fire. They had to kill the single-minded Grimm before the giant could get his hands around Heydrich’s throat.
Four gray-clad soldiers scrambled from the rear of the Horch, prototype MP43 rifles locked and loaded, and opened fire on the monster with death blazing in his frosty blue eyes.
“Kill him!” yelled Heydrich.
* * *
From his position a few yards away, stationed in a small alley with his band of wounded revolutionaries, MacAndrew was convinced the first few bursts of machine-gun fire from the Nazis was going to kill the mammoth German warrior. There were too many guns on the stranger, and the soldiers too skilled in the use of those weapons for him to have any hope of escape. In that instant, MacAndrew made the decision to help the giant of a man. If nothing else, his distraction could aid the Czech underground in their mission to kill the Reichsprotektor.
Before he could vocalize orders to his men, the giant burst into action at a speed that belied his great bulk. He ducked under the first volley of shots and returned fire, emptying the Mauser’s clip into a pair of his opponents, killing them instantly. With no time to reload, and three more SS troops replacing the two he’d sent to the afterlife, the giant of a man holstered his pistol and leapt for cover behind an old Volkswagen delivery truck.
Watching the man slowly reload his Mauser, taking his time and in no real hurry despite the hundreds of rounds of bullets pounding into his shield, MacAndrew cocked his Owen gun and said, “We still have a shot at Heydrich… help that crazy bastard kill some Krauts!”
The Scot made a break for the rapidly-disintegrating delivery truck as his men provided heavy covering fire. From their positions thirty to forty meters from the heart of the battle, Opalka and the others couldn’t do much more than harry the Nazis, but every little bit would help. If there were just some way for MacAndrew – or the ferocious newcomer – to cover the last few feet to where Heydrich was trapped in his truck, they could end things.
