by Mat Nastos
Intense, intelligent, deep-set brown eyes blazed at the invaders from their position beneath a mop of thick, graying, black hair. Ludwig Wittgenstein despised the Nazi hold over him. He despised the stupidity of their cause and the ham-fisted way they had plowed it across the continent of Europe. Men like Gebhardt were less than nothing to him – men who climbed to the throne of genius by using the backs of the truly great. By using those like himself and his partner.
A snide remark began to form on the lips of the middle-aged master of every scientific and philosophical discipline conceived of by man only to be cut off by a quick, harsh cough from the other nude man in bed with him. In the years since the pair had begun their dalliance, Philipp Frank had become an expert in reading the explosive moods of his sometime-lover. Although not in the same class of mental wizardry as the more handsome Wittgenstein, Frank was much better at handling people, especially those who would not hesitate in having two homosexuals taken out and shot in the street.
“Very good to see you, Herr Doktor Gebhardt. If you would give us but a moment to make ourselves decent, Ludwig and I will be right with you,” crooned the balding, long-faced Austrian, who was up out of bed in the blink of an eye with a sheet wrapped around his waist. Pushing the brooding Wittgenstein toward the tiny bathroom located at the rear of the loft’s bedroom, he nodded a half bow to the soldiers quickly filling the entryway and slid the thin wooden door closed.
Less than five minutes later, both men were dressed and joined their surprise guest and the ten men he had brought with him in the modest main living area. While the Waffen-SS soldiers and Wittgenstein had all declined offers of tea, coffee or biscuits, Gebhardt and Frank both indulged themselves in cups of hot brown liquid as they sat across from one another on matching Italian-made couches.
Wittgenstein’s scowl had only grown more venomous in the time since the men had burst through the expensive oak door of his home. The only thing that kept his tongue in check was the fact that misspeaking in the presence of the Chief Surgeon of the Waffen-SS could get them both killed. Though Wittgenstein was renowned for his sharp tongue and rapier wit, his sense of self-preservation was stronger.
“If you have completed your pleasantries, I’d appreciate you getting to the reason you burst into my home. My role in the Edda Society guarantees we are exempt from the harassment of thugs.” No sooner were the words out of Wittgenstein’s mouth than Frank was already working on what his last words would be.
They’d need to be something significant. Something meaningful. His response was cut off by a black-gloved wave of Gerbhardt’s hand.
“Your role is precisely why I am here, Herr Wittgenstein. You have been ordered to Prague immediately, and you are to bring the Kelheim machines with you.” The Nazi Chief Surgeon motioned to his men, who immediately began grabbing notebooks and whatever equipment they could lay their hands on. The men had been instructed to take everything. “We are to leave within the hour, so do hurry.”
“What?!” Frank said, almost dropping his tea.
“Impossible!” Wittgenstein bolted around the furniture to stand in the face of the seated Nazi, finger wagging as he shouted. “If the British discover I am in Prague, they will suspect my involvement with Hitler’s war. It’s all I can do to keep the English unaware of my position with the Edda Society and its activities here in Vienna.”
Taking one last long sip from the china tea cup, Gerhardt set his beverage down on the saucer resting on an antique end table and looked up at the taller man from beneath the twin round lenses of his glasses. The force of the Nazi’s gaze and its implied warning paralyzed Wittgenstein.
“You will come with me to Prague and you will do so now, Herr Wittgenstein.” Gebhardt’s voice was slow and deliberate, the tone of a man used to supporting his commands with violence. “The only reason you still live is because you are an asset for the Edda Council to use as it will. Your entire existence is based upon your value to them. If you are not with me as I leave for Bohemia then your value is at an end.”
The power of the words left unsaid by the vicious Nazi hit Wittgenstein and Frank both between the eyes: And so is your life. The unspoken threat was accentuated by the sound of ten German-made submachine gun slides chambering rounds as they were readied to fire.
A deadly, tense silence covered the room – a hot blanket of fear and tension – before Frank smiled weakly.
Turning to Wittgenstein, the Austrian said, “Prague is lovely this time of year, Ludwig, and this gives us an excuse to work on the cold iron machines to see what went wrong during the Black Forest ceremony last year. Perhaps we’ll even be able to solve the energy conversion problem we were having during the ignition sequencing.”
Wittgenstein only grunted in agreement – not happy, but still breathing.
“Excellent!” clapped Gebhardt, standing and heading for the door. “I’ll leave these men behind to help make whatever arrangements you need for your work to be moved to Prague. I’m sure you will be able to help Herr Heydrich and save his life?”
“Herr Heydrich has been injured?” The words dropped from Frank’s mouth.
“Reinhard has been the victim of a most unfortunate assault by insurgents. His life sways in the balance,” answered Gebhardt. “So I ask again, you will help our friend, yes?”
“But of course, Herr Doktor Gebhardt. We would be delighted to accompany you to Prague to aid in our… friend… Heydrich’s recovery.” It took every ounce of willpower Wittgenstein possessed to enunciate a sentence utilizing both ‘friend’ and Heydrich’s name in it. The scientist despised the man with a level of passion he could only achieve for the most important – or most vile – things in life. If luck and the gods were with them, the Nazi would be dead before Wittgenstein’s feet touched Czech soil.
The two geniuses watched with relief as Gebhardt exited the building. Things could have gone much worse for them.
Turning in a circle to take in the mess made by the soldiers milling around the once-seemingly spacious apartment, Frank shot his partner a look filled with overwhelmed exasperation. The pair followed the high-booted SS members into their laboratory and were greeted by the sight of nine machines that melded science, art, philosophy, music and arcane lore into something that was beyond the sum of its parts. Tubes filled with neon gas, wires, great gears and plates of rune-etched cold iron, rose nearly to the height of the cathedral ceilings of the work room.
The machines were the product of genius and madness, much of which now lay in disrepair from an attempt by the Edda Society twelve months earlier to breech the dimensional barriers to the realm of the Jotnar. An attempt to gain power beyond imagining that failed catastrophically, and in the process cost the lives of forty innocents.
Frank hated the machines, but knew his friend would never give up on perfecting them. Ludwig’s mind was not one to surrender to the solving of a puzzle, not even at the cost of a thousand or a million lives. The truth of that realization haunted Philipp Frank.
“Where do we start?”
For a moment it seemed as if Wittgenstein had not heard his comrade’s question, so engulfed by the occult devices before him. Then slowly, he shook his head as if he was responding to a question unheard by mortal ears.
“We’ll take the keystone machine,” said Wittgenstein, watching over the Nazi soldiers as they dismantled what had become his life’s greatest work. “It has the runic equations to open a doorway to the Jotnar and was the least damaged in the explosion. The rest are too far gone and won’t be of much use to us.”
Frank was amazed at his friend’s ability to go from anger and terror to excitement and eagerness all within a few heartbeats.
“What do you think happened to Heydrich?” asked Frank as he began directing the soldiers in the proper way to complete their tasks.
Shrugging, Wittgenstein answered, “I don’t know, my friend. Perhaps justice finally
caught him.”
“I only hope it doesn’t catch up with us as well, Ludwig.”
Forty minutes later, with their cold iron keystone machine stored away in eight large crates, Wittgenstein, Frank, and Gebhardt were seated in the posh private train car often used by high ranking Edda Society members, steaming their way toward the Czech border. Three hours later they would be in Prague, working to aid in keeping one of the most evil men in the Third Reich alive.
CHAPTER 5
HUNTING THE BUTCHER
Ian MacAndrew was worried.
While worry had become a familiar bedfellow for the Scotsman, flitting at the edges of his every waking moment since he’d departed England days earlier, it had begun to cloud his mood with each step taken with his new partner – Grimm, the giant had said his name was.
Something had begun to scratch away at the back of his mind within moments of setting out from their rundown hideaway on the outskirts of Liben. His concern wasn’t from dodging Nazi patrols along the way – he’d been doing that since he first set foot on the continent to take part in Operation Anthropoid, and it had become an ingrained part of his routine.
No, that wasn’t it.
The problem was the lack of Nazi presence on the streets. Outside of a few patrols near the site of the Czech underground’s attack on Reinhard Heydrich, there had been almost no sign of the thousands of Waffen-SS troops MacAndrew was sure should have spilled onto the streets within minutes of the attack. There was no way the Nazi high command would allow an insult like this – the attempted assassination of one of the most powerful Germans on the planet – to go unpunished.
So what were the Nazis doing if not exacting their revenge upon the populace of Prague? What were the jack-booted bastards up to?
The Scottish veteran didn’t have the faintest idea, and the giant running at his side had been silent since they began their mission to Bulovka Hospital in hopes of discovering the fate of the Butcher of Prague. The man moved like a pale phantom gliding through the gray half-light that filled the dusk air. Although he was on the other side of six and a half feet and had to weigh close to one hundred and forty kilos, Grimm was a panther in the night, keeping up with MacAndrew’s own significant stride without breaking a sweat, and easily able to disappear into the shadows in spite of his great bulk.
The strength radiated by the man impressed – even overwhelmed – MacAndrew, and there was no way he was going to reveal his worries to the German titan with nothing more to go on than paranoia. Having witnessed the giant rip through ten men with ease and then eviscerate a man MacAndrew and his team had been unable to take down with a veritable storm of bullets and explosives was a big enough blow to the Scotsman’s pride. He refused to admit another weakness to Grimm.
But the feeling continued to bite at his heels with every footfall. If the Nazis weren’t on the streets, where were they? And the giant German was light on answers to MacAndrew’s questions, no matter how often the Scot asked.
Peeking out of an alley a stone’s throw away from Bulovka Hospital answered one of MacAndrew’s questions, and not in a way that pleased either himself or the marble-skinned man at his side.
Bulovka had become a Nazi fortress in less than six hours. Wehrmacht troops walked its walls, the tops of its buildings were strung with razor wire and stacked high with sandbags that hid machine gun nests, and every inch of its grounds was patrolled. At least three hundred stormtroopers had been relocated to the medical facility, and the path to their mutual enemy was barricaded with gray-uniformed bodies.
There was no possible way for the duo to gain access to the hospital and discover what had become of Reinhard Heydrich. They would have to find another way. Perhaps interrogate rebel-friendly members of the staff or capture a Nazi and pray they had the information the group needed. Whatever they did, it would have to be done another day and far from the lion’s den MacAndrew saw in front of them.
Tilting his head, he gazed at the undeterred look beaming from Grimm’s face as the man’s eyes darted back and forth, drinking deeply of the situation laid out before him.
“We must get closer,” was all Grimm said before he darted across the empty street leading into the hospital, mindless of the danger that awaited within.
“That man is an absolute nutter,” muttered MacAndrew. Hiking up his belt and checking the sight at the end of his Owen gun one last time, the Scotsman followed the rapidly-vanishing figure into the shadows. “And so am I.”
“Down,” hissed Grimm, pulling MacAndrew into the cramped space behind a pyramid of oil drums – a space already filled to capacity with the German’s own bulk. The man’s quick reaction kept the pair hidden as twin beams of light lanced along the wall where they had been standing a moment before. A second, third and fourth set of lights, all mounted to the front of approaching transport vehicles, joined the first. Peeking out from his hiding place, MacAndrew was startled to see a row of twenty or more large vehicles ‒ all overladen with armed Nazi troops dressed in the black and silver of an elite SS division ‒ rumbled into the hospital’s courtyard to join the troops already massed.
Patches on their uniforms revealed the men to be from Vienna.
MacAndrew was confused; why in the Queen’s name would the Germans be pulling in troops from eight hundred kilometers away? Something big was going down.
A wave of Grimm’s hand caught MacAndrew’s attention, directing it back toward the lone non-military vehicle in the convoy – a black and silver Horch Sport Roadster with a quartet of men packed into its small passenger’s compartment: two men dressed in crisply-pressed Waffen-SS uniforms and two slightly disheveled middle-aged men dressed in the tweed jackets that members of the intelligentsia might wear.
From their vantage point, MacAndrew and Grimm watched as the line of vehicles moved past the tightly-guarded cordon outside Bulovka’s gates and wind its way into the lot just outside of the facility’s main building. A sharp intake of air from Grimm as the roadster passed less than twenty yards in front of them told MacAndrew the man recognized the new arrivals.
Turning to ask his companion about the men’s identities, MacAndrew was left staring only into the empty space Grimm had occupied a heartbeat earlier. Somehow, without either MacAndrew or any of the soldiers surrounding them noticing, Grimm had made his way along the darkened edge of the courtyard and into a breezeway between buildings.
MacAndrew followed. “Who are those men? And what is that equipment?” He was beginning to feel like he’d been thrust into the middle of a tale without any clue as to what had gone on before. He didn’t like it one bit. “What’s going on here, Grimm?”
Silence was the only response the Scotsman received from the glowering giant crouched next to him in the darkened shadows. Grimm remained perfectly still, thick muscles corded tightly beneath his skin. The only thing that gave away that he was more than a chiseled marble statue was the shallow movement in the depth of his barrel-like chest as he breathed, and the quick movements of his eyes as he watched the Nazi soldiers begin to unload a most unusual cargo from the backs of their transports.
“Grimm?”
The words seemed to wash over his companion completely unnoticed. To himself, Grimm whispered, “The fools… they’ve brought their cold iron machines!”
Frustrated at being ignored again, MacAndrew snapped, grabbing the German’s massive forearm in his own over-sized grip, “Grimm! What is it, damn it!”
Eyes of blue flashed at MacAndrew with enough ferocity that he nearly fell back over himself attempting to avoid being burned by them. For the most fleeting of instants, MacAndrew was sure the German was going to kill him as the man’s right hand hovered over the hilt of the antiquated blade sheathed at his waist. But, the moment passed as quickly as it had come. Grimm nodded slowly, relaxing.
Nodding toward the rapidly-growing mountain of oaken crates being removed from the vehicles,
Grimm said, “I have seen those men before… and their machines. I saw them used… on an innocent town. On my home.”
A deep pain settled over Grimm’s features. Pain and sadness. On the edge of his hearing, MacAndrew was convinced he heard the comforting whispers of a woman and a child, but they were gone before he could decipher the words.
“The Nazis have brought evil and death to this place, and they must not be allowed to finish their work,” said Grimm flatly, moving away from the place the men had chosen to hide. “We must find Heydrich and end him before they succeed. Come.”
Allowing himself to follow along in the German’s wake, MacAndrew promised himself the matter wasn’t done. He was going to get an explanation from Grimm and soon, whether the giant wanted to give one or not.
One of the traits that had allowed the Nazis to be such a devastating force was the discipline, precision and focus drilled into every soldier pulled into the German military machine. The levels of perfect timing and regulation allowed the German army to act in an efficient manner, maximizing their resources with devastating results.
It also allowed Grimm and MacAndrew to quickly analyze the schedule laid out by the force entrenching itself at Na Bulovka Hospital and calculate the timing of the four patrols actively holding its perimeter. Within a few moments, the pair of conspirators had made their way through the heavily-occupied courtyard and into the belly of the facility’s main building.
“Stop,” ordered MacAndrew quietly through the bristles of his thick mustache.
Grimm started to protest – it was clear he was tiring of MacAndrew’s pauses and delays – but was cut off by a gesture from the Scotsman’s meaty hand. At the end of the hall, standing amid a small congregation of hospital staff was Rela. Her long straight hair as black as coal and the beauty of the woman beneath it caught the attention of both men.
It wasn’t long before Rela spotted MacAndrew. Her eyes went wide, at first bright in recognition before worry and panic clouded them a heartbeat later. It took the young woman agonizingly long minutes to extract herself from the group of her hospital colleagues and make her way over to the darkened, empty room where MacAndrew and Grimm waited.
