No.
Stop it.
He was ill, and old, and helpless.
No matter how black his soul might be, no matter how evil, he was nothing more now than wasted skin and brittle bones, no more capable of harming her than he was of popping out of his deathbed and dancing a German waltz.
She pulled one of the pillows out from behind his back. His body tilted to the left and his eyes fluttered briefly and almost opened as his body spasmed in protest against this unexpected change in the status quo. Then he fell still again.
Tracie examined the pillow. It was thick and comfortable and would serve her purposes well.
She bent over the ancient Nazi and placed the pillow over his face. Then she leaned down and, using both hands, provided steadily increasing pressure to his mouth and nose.
He barely struggled. His rail-thin arms lifted off the mattress and flailed randomly as his feet kicked under the covers.
Then he stopped and remained utterly still. It took almost no time at all.
It was as if he had recognized his fate, so long in the making, and accepted it.
Tracie maintained pressure longer than necessary, then lifted the pillow.
She checked his pulse, and then checked it again to be sure.
Adolph Hitler was dead.
26
November 19, 1987
2:35 a.m.
Phoenix Compound
Langenberg, Federal Republic of Germany
The trussed-up guard followed Tracie’s progress with his eyes as she exited Hitler’s death chamber and closed the door. His head was twisted at a plainly uncomfortable angle, yet he held it steady. His eyes glittered, dark and cold in the dim light of the cottage.
“One down, one to go,” she said softly, locking eyes with the guard as she knelt and checked his bindings. The clock was ticking but it would only take a few seconds to ensure he was still immobilized. It would be time well spent. Were he to work himself free before she completed her mission she would never survive.
All three electrical cords remained tightly secured. Tracie smiled. “Now don’t go anywhere,” she said. “Just stay here and wait for your girlfriend.”
She sprang to her feet and hurried to the rear of the cottage. Besides the combination kitchen/sitting room in which she had left the trussed-up guard and Hitler’s bedroom, the cottage contained only a small bathroom.
The bathroom’s lone window had been left cracked for circulation, and Tracie pushed it open fully. She unlocked the screen and opened that as well. Then she boosted herself up, much as she had done exiting the warehouse, and dropped to the ground on the outside of the cottage.
The shadows were deep and full on the back side of the two identical Hitler residences, and Tracie felt much more comfortable proceeding this way than she would have using the front door again. The window was placed too high above the ground to enter through it, but for exiting the structure it was perfect.
She held herself flat against the rear cottage wall, getting her bearings and allowing her eyes to once again adjust to the low light in the shadows. The patrolling sentry was nowhere to be seen. She turned right and crept toward the rear of the Phoenix camp.
***
The sentry was on her before she ever saw him.
“Halt!”
She was partially shrouded in the shadows projected by the barracks buildings when the challenge rang out.
She pivoted toward the sound of the voice and the guard said, “Frieren! Jetzt.”
Tracie lifted her hands slowly. “I will freeze,” she answered in German. “Please don’t shoot.”
“Who are you and what are you doing out here in the middle of the night?” The guard stood about ten feet away—too far for Tracie to neutralize—and his right hand rested on the butt of his sidearm, which was still holstered. For the moment. The rifle all the guards seemed to carry remained slung over his shoulder.
“You don’t recognize me?” she said innocently. “My name is Helga. I am one of the nurses. We have spoken several times.”
The sentry took one step forward, then another. He radiated suspicion. His hand left his pistol and fumbled for a flashlight. This was a bad development. The second he got a good look at her clothing she would be finished. Tracie had to put him down before that happened.
“I asked you what you are doing out here,” he said.
“I was looking for you. Or to be more specific, I was looking for any sentry.” She stepped toward him, hands held away from her body where he could see them.
“Why do you need a sentry?” His voice was becoming more stressed as his suspicion intensified, but he was now almost within striking range.
“It is about the Führer.” She took another step.
“What about the Führer?” She needed to be one…step…closer.
He took that step and stopped in his tracks. Did a double take. “You are not a nurse,” he said, and his hand flashed toward his weapon.
“What are you talking about?” She raised her hands quickly, palms out, in front of her face, as she pivoted and launched a sidekick to the sentry’s left knee. A sharp crack! told her the blow had connected solidly.
He staggered backward in a desperate attempt to maintain his balance on one remaining good leg. Tracie leapt forward as the soldier retreated. She ripped the rifle off his shoulder and drove its butt into the side of his skull before he could scream a warning. A second crack and the soldier dropped.
He crumpled to the ground at her feet and lay unmoving. She lifted his sidearm from its holster and tossed it into the forest. His rifle followed right behind it.
She continued on, praying the sentry’s first confused warning to her had not been loud enough to wake anyone or alert another sentry. Praying also that he would remain unconscious for a few more minutes.
After that he could shout as much as he wanted, it would play right into her hands.
***
The barracks buildings were long and narrow, utilitarian wood-framed structures that had been thrown up hurriedly and for the moment remained unpainted. Their siding appeared relatively dry, and Tracie hoped that in this case appearances weren’t deceiving.
She stood for a moment at the southwestern-most corner of the southwestern-most building. Licked her index finger and held it in the air, then smiled. A light but steady breeze was blowing from the southwest. Perfect. The wind wasn’t necessary for her plan to succeed but represented an added—and unexpected—bonus.
Tracie knelt and dug a lighter out of her pocket. Flicked it and held it against the wood siding. Watched anxiously as the flames flickered and then lengthened. They devoured the siding greedily and began to work their way upward. Toward the roof. Toward the sky.
She trotted along the rear wall and stopped at a point roughly midway to the next corner. Lit the siding and waited for it to catch. Looked behind her in grim appreciation of her handiwork. The flames were now spreading not just upward, but also along the rear wall, moving toward her, and she knew they would be doing the same thing along the portion of the building she could not see.
Continuing on, Tracie repeated the procedure at the southeastern corner of the empty barracks building. Then she hesitated, torn between the need to return to the cottages before it was too late and the necessity of ensuring the barracks building be fully consumed in flames when she did.
After a moment she made her decision. She retraced her steps, past the rear of the structure, feeling the intense heat of the flames radiating off the burning building. She turned the corner and sprinted to roughly the midpoint of the long side wall. Then she stopped and took the time to light one more section before dropping the lighter into her pocket.
“For better or for worse,” she muttered, taking one last look at the flames. Sparks were beginning to rise into the air, carried by the breeze toward the next barracks building in the row of five. It was only a matter of time, and likely not much of it, before that building caught fire as well, and then
the one next to it and the one after that.
This would have to be good enough. If the burning buildings didn’t accomplish the distraction she needed, nothing would. The success or failure of her plan from this point out would be determined largely by the discipline—or lack thereof—exhibited by Phoenix.
Tracie turned and crept toward where she had left the sentry lying face down in the dirt. She doubted he could possibly have recovered enough already to make himself a threat; he had suffered a concussion at the very least, and quite possibly a fractured skull.
But she wasn’t about to take anything on faith.
At the northwest corner of the burning building she paused. Eased her head around the corner. The sentry was still down, but he had rolled onto his side and was struggling to stand while moaning softly.
She re-holstered her weapon and padded to his side. Prodded him in the chest with the toe of her boot, not kicking hard enough to injure him, just ensuring she had his full attention.
Speaking quietly, she said, “Get up. Get your act together. You have work to do.”
The man shook his head groggily and held a hand to his skull where Tracie had rapped him with the butt of his own rifle. Blood was leaking down the side of his face, thick and black in the shadows. He looked up and his eyes widened.
He reached for his pistol and she shook her head. Wagged her right index finger at him. “Come on. You don’t think I’m that stupid, do you? Your pistol is long gone. And stop worrying about me,” she added. “You’ve got bigger issues at the moment. You need to sound the alarm.”
“A-alarm?” He shook his head again. “What in the hell are you talking about?” Between the massive headache she knew was pounding through his skull and the utterly unexpected statement she had just made, his confusion was complete.
He would know what to do soon enough, though. All he would have to do would be to follow her lead.
“FIRE!” she screamed, turning toward the residence buildings near the front of the camp and then pivoting and facing the barracks, three of which had now begun to burn. She cupped her hands around her mouth to fashion a makeshift bullhorn. “FIRE!”
She leaned down over the prone sentry. “I suggest you continue to raise the alarm and get as many of your fellow lunatics as possible back there to fight the blaze. Because if you don’t, before you can say ‘Heil Hitler’ this camp is going to be nothing more than a smoking hole in the ground.”
At least, that’s the plan, she thought. Part of it, anyway.
She turned and sprinted toward the twin cottages with the blue shutters, leaving the confused and injured sentry in her wake. From behind her came muttered curses, and then shouts of alarm as the man finally caught sight of the still-spreading fire. Out beyond the front gate she could hear the confused shouts of the guards manning the entry checkpoint.
Maybe she would get lucky. This suicidal plan just might work.
27
November 19, 1987
2:45 a.m.
Phoenix Compound
Langenberg, Federal Republic of Germany
In the short distance between the downed sentry and the two Hitler cottages, Tracie encountered two more soldiers, both partially dressed and both stumbling toward the flickering glow in the distance. Each man had clearly been roused from a deep sleep, and they rubbed their eyes and yawned as they moved. The barracks were behind her, so she decided these guys must be officers and had been awakened inside the residence buildings north of the Hitler cottages.
The first man stiffened and froze when he caught sight of her. He probably thinks he’s still dreaming, Tracie thought with a hint of amusement.
She took advantage of his exhaustion and confusion and began haranguing him. “What are you stopping for? Get moving! Every second you hesitate is a second bigger that fire becomes! Move, move, move!”
The man began sprinting toward the fire. He hadn’t thought to grab a weapon as he rolled out of his bunk and never even questioned her.
She was almost back to the cottages, sprinting at full speed, when the second soldier spotted her and moved to cut her off. This man seemed much less confused than the first, and much more suspicious. “Halt,” he said authoritatively. “Stop right there.”
Tracie didn’t halt.
She didn’t stop right there. She never even slowed.
She veered left, running straight into the man, and raised her knee at contact, ramming it directly into his groin.
“Uhhh,” he gasped, and they went down in a tangled heap, tumbling backward and then rolling in the dirt. They came to a stop with Tracie atop the soldier as he writhed in pain. She reached back with her right fist and rabbit-punched him below the ear.
She was up and running again almost before his head hit the ground. She skirted the rear wall of the now-dead Adolph Hitler’s cottage, and then did the same with the younger Hitler’s residence. She prayed he was still inside and tried to determine how long it had been since her first cries of “Fire!”
Thirty seconds? Forty-five?
It had certainly been no more than a minute. She reasoned it was highly unlikely the new Nazi leader had had time to awaken from a deep sleep, throw on his clothes and then exit his residence to take charge of the firefighting effort.
Still, the two men she had already encountered were all the proof she needed that it was possible. And if she arrived at Hitler Junior’s cottage to find it empty, she didn’t know what she was going to do.
There was no Plan B.
Tracie rounded the second cottage’s rear wall and then flattened herself against the siding as she crept toward the farmer’s porch. She listened for any sounds that might indicate the younger Hitler was inside the residence, but heard nothing.
Her tension began to rise. This was a dangerous spot to be loitering, and she was far too exposed for her liking as the compound began to come to life. Men were pouring out of virtually all the residence buildings in the cluster surrounding the Hitler cottages, rushing toward the rear of the camp and the burning barracks buildings.
So far, none of the men had spotted her, but it would only be a matter of time before someone did. And she couldn’t hope to continue immobilizing soldiers without eventually being caught.
Or worse.
A man trotted past, directly in front of Hitler’s cottage, not six feet from Tracie’s position.
He didn’t see her.
A pair of nurses wandered out of the building from which Tracie had seen them come and go all afternoon and evening. They stood in the middle of the access road, using their hands to shield their eyes from the spotlights as they gazed southward.
They didn’t see her either.
Tracie perked up at the sound and vibration of footfalls inside the cottage. Someone was still inside the building, although there was no way to know—yet—whether that someone might be Hitler.
The footsteps approached the front door. Tracie edged closer to the side of the porch, balancing the need to remain unseen with the equally important requirement to be as close to the door as possible when it came time to make her move.
A moment later the door opened, and a voice from deeper inside the cottage barked, “What is happening? I want to know now!”
The footsteps clomped onto the porch, and Tracie watched from just around the corner as a sentry—fully dressed, wool overcoat on, rifle slung over his shoulder—stared for a moment toward the burning buildings.
“Fire,” he said, an edge to his voice. “The barracks, they are on fire!”
“How bad is it?” Although Tracie had yet to see the man this voice belonged to, she knew it had to be the younger Hitler. His tone was crisp and authoritative, like a man who was accustomed to being obeyed immediately and fully.
“It looks bad,” the sentry said. “It looks very bad.”
“Go. Take command of the firefighting efforts until I arrive. I’ll dress and be there in two or three minutes.”
“But, Mein Führer, I am not to le
ave your side. Ever. Those were your father’s orders, sir. He was very explicit.”
“Who is your commanding officer, Hans?”
“Well, you, sir.”
“Then you will do as you are told. Begin organizing the men into a fire brigade and I will be there in minutes.”
“Yes, Mein Führer.” The sentry’s reluctance was plain, but he had no alternative than to obey a direct order. He descended the steps and began double-timing in the direction of the barracks, shouting orders toward the rear of the camp almost as soon as his feet hit the dusty ground.
Tracie was moving, grabbing the railing with both hands and vaulting it, landing as quietly as she could on the pine plank floor. She was sure she knew what Hitler would do next. It was human nature. He would walk through the front door and onto the porch to see the blaze and try to assess the damage with his own two eyes before returning to his bedroom to dress.
And she was determined to meet him when he did.
The porch was engulfed in shadow, minimizing the risk of being seen by a soldier passing in the glare of the floodlights. At this point, though, any risk of being seen was secondary to the necessity of an up-close-and-personal meeting with Adolph Hitler Junior. Tracie had worked hard to set up the best distraction she could, and if she failed now that she had done so, she would likely never get a second chance.
She padded across the porch and reached the doorway at virtually the same moment as Hitler. She stopped short, pressing herself against the front wall of the cottage as the door flew open and the Nazi leader barreled onto the porch.
He never saw her.
He stood at the top of the stairs, shielding his eyes in unconscious imitation of the nurses still standing in the middle of the access road. He stared for a moment into the distance, shaking his head and muttering to himself, before turning on his heel.
And running directly into Tracie Tanner.
He stopped and glared at her in obvious surprise but absolutely no fear. It didn’t seem to have occurred to him that he might be in danger inside his own training camp, surrounded by dozens of fellow fanatics.
Tracie Tanner Thrillers Box Set Page 88
