Thunder Run (Maelstrom Rising Book 6)

by Peter Nealen

  “Do you know what kind of connections the DDSB have with the government?” The Deutsche Demokratische Sozialistische Bewegung was roughly the German equivalent to People’s Revolutionary Action back in the States. Militant, violent socialist/communist “activists,” they pushed their agenda by way of a sliding scale of demonstrations, sabotage, arson, personal violence and intimidation, and out-and-out riots and terrorism. They were the spiritual descendants of Baader-Meinhof and the Red Army Faction. And they seemed to have more sympathizers in high places than any of the other groups floating around the current political landscape, on either side of the Atlantic. Sure, the Fourth Reich had their backers, but they were a distinct minority compared to the commies.

  The people in the middle seemed to be the odd men out in this environment. Or else they just got lumped in with the ethno-nationalists and neo-Nazis, no matter how repugnant they found the Fourth Reich or their fellow travelers.

  It was an unfortunate side effect of civilization. People who just wanted to live in peace weren’t easily mobilized or stirred to action. And by the time they hit their limit, it’s usually too late, and they’re behind the eight ball.

  Sometimes it works out. More often, it turns into a bloody nightmare that nobody comes out the other side of whole.

  Elias took a long moment to answer, which pretty much told me what his answer was going to be. “I don’t really know.”

  “Who does?” There was only so much time I could afford to spend feeling him out. That he was passionate was undeniable. His professionalism was more than a little lacking, though. An angry young man who knew only that he had to “do something.”

  That tended to make me doubt Jaromir’s suspicion that Elias was former KSK. He might be able to play hardass, but there was some professionalism missing. I wondered at that, given what Jaromir had said about him. Had he been churching things up, or had Elias simply given him an erroneous impression? What did that say about Jaromir’s skill as an intelligence officer, and what did that mean for our mission as a whole?

  He answered a bit more quickly this time. “That would be either Corrina or Gerhard. They are both very good with computers, and usually have a good idea of what is happening. Most of us get our information from them.”

  Apparently in bite-sized chunks. I didn’t say that, but his vague intel dump wasn’t exactly confidence-building. “Are they in Regenstauf?”

  He shook his head, and I gritted my teeth. “No. No one knows for sure where Corrina is. She moves around, and never stays in one place for long. Gerhard, I think, is in Nuremberg.”

  “Then what is in Regenstauf?” The rest of the team had stayed pretty quiet along the ride so far, but Jordan apparently couldn’t help himself. It wasn’t as if there was a barrier between the front seats and the back. This wasn’t a purpose-built cargo van or box truck. It was a passenger van that had had the seats taken out to carry more bodies.

  “We have a safe place there, and you can meet Pascal. He is sort of our leader. He will want to see you, to talk to you, and plan what comes next.”

  I thought about it for a moment. There was something to be said for meeting this Pascal, just from a “hearts and minds” perspective. My impatient side—which can get awfully loud—was already clamoring to tell him to just go to Nuremberg so we could find this Gerhard. We needed information more than anything else. It would determine what our next step would be—whether we would try to turn the Verteidiger in Bayern into a viable allied guerrilla force, or whether we’d cut away, try to accomplish our reconnaissance around Görlitz, and get back to Poland.

  But alienating a possible ally—especially when we already suspected that it was going to be a much, much longer war than the American Combined Forces headquarters hoped—wasn’t a great idea, either. And despite the fact that we had a hard deadline, a certain degree of patience was not ill-advised. It might delay us on the immediate mission, but it could turn out to be vital in the long run.

  Welcome to strategic decision making at the team level.

  So, I didn’t say much. I just let Elias continue on the road to Regenstauf, to meet with Pascal. We could sort out the intel picture after that. It was even conceivably possible that this Pascal had a better picture of the overall situation than Elias did, and we wouldn’t have to track down the Verteidiger’s intel people.

  The conversation sort of died away after that. I watched the road roll by as best I could in the dark. We passed through or by quite a few small towns, in between long stretches of woods and open fields.

  Twice, Elias slowed, then pulled off onto a side road to go around what appeared to be a Polizei checkpoint. There was no pursuit, though we didn’t get close enough to tell if they had noticed and reported a vehicle obviously avoiding checkpoints. Whether the Polizei were just lazy or didn’t actually care that much, I had no way of knowing.

  Especially since Elias hadn’t known when I’d asked, either. My suspicions about him and Jaromir’s assessment of him were getting stronger.

  What we saw on entering Regenstauf didn’t make me feel any better, either.

  A pall of smoke drifted over the roofs of the town, diffusing the glow of the streetlights, flashing blue Polizei lights, and what had to be one hell of a fire on the other side of the hill that loomed above the bridge as we crossed the Regen.

  That wasn’t the only fire in town, either. As we got across the bridge and turned south, we came into view of a burning Polizei car in a parking lot alongside the road. Several dark figures ran the other way as our headlights crossed the street.

  “This ain’t good.” I twisted around in my seat. “Everybody get ready to go loud.”

  Even as I said it, I wondered if it was wise. We had zero real understanding of the situation, and so far, our only contact with the German resistance was Elias. Getting into a firefight under these circumstances was probably not a great idea. We had too far to go to extract, and there was no way that friendly forces could get to us fast enough.

  A stark truth about operating like this is that you have to be extremely careful and cautious. There is zero room for error or flying off the handle. One misstep and it’s mission failure and you and your team are dead or captured.

  Elias had slowed, his eyes wide, as we came around the corner. He’d almost brought the van to a stop as he stared at the flames.

  “Keep moving. Get us off this main street.” I had no way of knowing for sure that the side streets were going to be any better, but being right out in the open in front of a burning police car wasn’t my idea of keeping a low profile.

  He shook himself a little, but did as I told him. I was thinking and scanning our surroundings as he turned off and into a darkened side street along the base of the hill that dominated the Regenstauf skyline, one hand on the folded butt of my Rattler inside the day pack as we moved.

  But I was thinking as we went. I couldn’t escape that nagging feeling that pulling guns had to be the absolute last resort. If we started shooting, given what we knew about the situation in Germany, it was going to be pretty close to a dead giveaway that there were infiltrators on the ground.

  We’d gotten into a firefight with some Fourth Reich thugs in Germany previously, but this felt different.

  As we came around the shoulder of the hill, I could see several more fires. No gunshots, yet, but something was clearly very, very wrong.

  Elias turned onto the Bergstraẞe and I reached out and barked, “Hold up!”

  The street was blocked by two cars, one of them on fire, and a pile of trash and tires. Dark-clad figures were moving around on the other side of the barricade. There were no Polizei in sight, but it was apparent that this blockade had been put up to keep them out. A massive plume of smoke, underlit by flickering flames, rose farther down the street.

  “That’s near Pascal’s house.” Elias’s face had gone white as a sheet, even in the orange light of the fires, and his eyes were as big as saucers.

  “Okay, keep it cool.”
I was scanning our surroundings and thinking fast, looking in the side mirror. “Back up, get us off the street. Chris, Jordan, you’re with me. Scott, keep the rest of the team out of sight and ready to move.” I pointed as Elias put the van in reverse and started backing up, even as green lasers flickered out of the smoke toward us from the other side of the burning barricade. “We’ll push into the woods and come at Pascal’s house from up the hill. Keep your weapons in your packs. Bring ‘em, but keep ‘em out of sight until we’ve got no other option.” I glanced over at Elias, who was studiously paying attention to the road. “You don’t happen to have a tire iron or something like that in here, do you?”

  “Got one here.” David lifted the L-shaped tool, before Elias could say anything one way or another.

  “Pass it up here.” I reached back. “Sorry, Jordan, Chris, you’ll have to get your own crowd beaters on the way. Should be some decent sticks back there in the woods.”

  “I’ve got a knife.” Jordan’s tone was so flat and expressionless that I saw Elias start a little. He clearly didn’t know whether or not Jordan was joking.

  I didn’t think he was. Jordan’s sense of humor was…a little thin at the best of times. And given his history, I had no doubt that he figured anyone burning cars on the street was fair game. Either they were Fourth Reich—for whom he had a special, personal grudge—or they were DDSB, who were Communists, and therefore fair game as well.

  It was a tossup whether Jordan hated white supremacists or Communists more. The white supremacists had murdered his mother, but something he’d seen in Africa had put a deep, dark hate-on in his heart for the Commies.

  Elias pulled a Y-turn at the intersection behind us, then started back the way we’d come. I pointed toward the alley that suddenly opened up on the right. “Pull in there. Quick!”

  He almost didn’t make the turn. We’d come on it suddenly, and the van didn’t exactly turn on a dime. He had to back up twice to get in, while simultaneously trying to watch over his shoulder for the mob behind us.

  But we made it in, and then I was shoving the door open, even though there was hardly enough room in the narrow slot of an alley to get out. I had to shuck my pack off to squeeze my way out of the cab, almost getting tangled with Jordan as he piled out of the side door.

  It took a few seconds to get everyone out and the doors closed. I ducked under the side mirror to get past, but heard a low curse behind me as Jordan didn’t quite duck far enough. Glancing back, I saw that while he’d gotten his head underneath, the pack had snagged on the mirror. He got untangled and followed me.

  We spread out a little as we moved up the alley, though we still stayed closer together than we might have on patrol. If this went sideways, it was going to be a close-quarters slugging match, and tight formations matter more under those circumstances. I hadn’t heard any gunfire yet.

  The alley led up to a cul-de-sac on the side of the hill. One side of the street was lined with pretty nice houses, all of them dark, lit only by the light of the fire down the street. The woods stood on the other side.

  We slipped around the dead end and into the trees. We were armed so that we could deal with any of the rioters if we had to, but that didn’t mean we were looking for a fight. Given the usual dynamics of mob violence, that would be suicide, even if it didn’t mean completely compromising our mission.

  Fading back into the dark, I contemplated pausing to pull my NVGs out, but decided to chance it and just push. Time was of the essence; the longer we were in Regenstauf while this was going on, the more likely we were going to get cut off, and then we’d have to fight. If it came to that, we were definitely going to guns, but that was a complication I still hoped to avoid.

  The woods weren’t exactly wild. The trees were fairly widely spaced, and the undergrowth was minimal. It was more of a park than a forest. There were also plenty of footpaths running through the trees, but we didn’t have time to run danger area drills to cross each of them. We only had about four hundred fifty yards to go, anyway, and even without NVGs, there was enough light filtering through the trees from the fire that I’d see anyone coming in time to act.

  We hustled over the first finger, and down into the shallow draw behind it. I’d hiked over far worse terrain with a lot more weight, so we were moving fast. So far, none of the rioters appeared to have spread into the woods, so we were still undetected.

  Coming up onto the next finger, I got a glimpse of the burning house through the trees, and came to a halt, sinking to a knee under an oak.

  “Oh, hell.”

  I’d made sure that Elias showed me exactly where we were going on the way, along with a good description of Pascal’s house and where it sat within the neighborhood. And that was the house that was currently fully engulfed in flames.

  I watched the fire through the gaps in the trees for a moment. There was no way anyone was still alive in there. And as I moved slightly to get a better view of the street out front, it was apparent that no one had gotten out, either—or if they had, they’d probably been beaten to a pulp. A mob of twenty to thirty people, all dressed in dark colors, half-surrounded the house, still throwing rocks and bottles at the fire. If they were yelling, it couldn’t be heard over the roar and crackle of the flames.

  I scanned the woods behind the burning house. I saw no movement, nothing that might be a person trying to hide. Slipping my pack off my back, I pulled my NVGs out and scanned the hillside.

  The woods were brilliantly lit by the fire in the white phosphor image. I didn’t see anyone trying to hide in the sparse undergrowth. If Pascal had gotten out, he hadn’t stuck around.

  After another glance at the mob, I shut down the PS-31s and peeled the skullcap mount off, stuffing both back in the pack. Turning back, I pointed toward the alley.

  There was nothing more we could do here. I hoped that Pascal had made it out, but we needed to get clear before we made any further moves.

  It didn’t take long to get back to the van. But we’d already been in one place too long.

  Even as I ducked under the rear-view mirror and moved to open the side door for Jordan and Chris, a knot of masked young people came around the corner and into the alley. It was too dark and narrow to see much, but at least the two in the lead had weapons in their hands—pipes or batons of some kind.

  One of them said something in German. I couldn’t quite catch it, but the tone was unmistakably a challenge. One that I was perfectly willing to meet.

  While I might not have been able to make out what the lead masked man had said, there’s more to assessing a threat than just words. Their body language, the way they were moving toward us, told me everything I needed to know. They were hyped up and out for blood.

  They were going to get it, too, just not the way they’d anticipated.

  Even as they swaggered forward, the tall, skinny guy in the lead hefting the pipe in his hands, I charged.

  That stopped them in their tracks. They had the advantage of numbers, and clearly had the run of the town at the moment. I didn’t know exactly how much the Polizei were being allowed to counter them, but from the burning police car just on this side of the bridge, I gathered that even if the authorities had taken the choke collar off, the local cops were outnumbered and pulling back.

  So, the mob was high on power and violence, and the last thing they’d expected was a lone man with a tire iron in his hand to attack them.

  I took the leader first, barreling into him, grabbing the pipe with one hand while I swung the tire iron with the other. It connected with his knee with a sickening crack and he screamed, his leg collapsing as his knee bent in the wrong direction. At the same moment, I wrenched the pipe out of his slackening grip and twisted my upper body to drive my elbow into his jaw. His teeth snapped together with a clop, and he dropped to the pavement like a sack of wet cement.

  I hefted the pipe and turned toward the next two. There wasn’t a lot of room to maneuver in that narrow alleyway, so I had to play this
carefully, balancing aggression with caution. If I overpenetrated, I could get surrounded and beaten down. Only the ferocity of my initial attack was currently keeping them on the back foot.

  If we’d been loaded up, I could have just had Elias run them over—provided he had the stones for it. But we needed time and space to get into the van, and so I was doing what I could to buy us that time and space.

  The next couple of rioters were already trying to backpedal as I stepped forward, a tire iron in one hand, my recently acquired pipe in the other. I rammed one in the chest with the pipe, getting past the stick in his hand, and swung the tire iron at the other’s shoulder. It connected solidly, and I felt bone crack. The crude bat that one had been holding clattered to the street as she let out a scream.

  I felt a momentary pang at the sound. I don’t like hurting women. Unfortunately, sometimes you are left with no choice, especially when they decide to join feral packs of murderous rioters.

  It had all happened in a handful of seconds. One was down with a shattered knee, starting to groan as he came to after having his brains rattled by my elbow, another was only still upright because he had sagged back against his compatriots, the breath driven out of him by a hard poke in the solar plexus, and the third was screaming in agony from a seriously injured shoulder. And I was still moving forward, already cocking the pipe for another blow at whatever target presented itself.

  They broke and ran, leaving their comrades groaning and screaming in the alleyway. The woman whose shoulder I’d broken ran with them, staggering and mewling in pain. The other two were still on the ground.

  I reached down and grabbed the first man I’d maimed and heaved him against the wall. I wasn’t going to bring him with us, but he wasn’t a threat at the moment, so I wasn’t inclined to have Elias run him over. The other one, still trying to wheeze some air back into his brutalized lungs, was already crawling away.