Casca 4: Panzer Soldier (19 page)

Casca stood silently watching the interplay. His jacket was a little too tight and the room stifling as the diesel generator coughed, missed and then settled back into its steady drone. Hitler sat on the left side of the sofa, running his fingers through his hair, looking into the emotionless face of the man standing before him, "Longinus, the reason you are here with me at this moment is simple. Germany is dying and in a few moments I will join her – I and my wife," as he acknowledged Eva's presence for the first time. "We die, but you go on through the years and centuries. This moment must not be completely lost to history. When you leave here, only you will know the truth and bear witness to my sacrifice as you did to that of Jesus. He, too, came to save the world and died for it as I die for my world. As Jesus died and found greater order with his death, so my followers shall; even now hundreds are already preparing for he who shall come after me. I have shown the way. Now it is for the others to take up my work where I leave off. Like you, the brotherhood lives. Now it is time for you to witness my crucifixion in this subterranean Golgotha."

Turning to Eva, he spoke gently, as he would to a child. "You are to go with me. I would not have you treated badly or put on display for the mob to gawk at." He patted her hand. "Now, it is time."

Eva smiled, her round face childlike in its faith. She placed the vial of potassium cyanide between her teeth as did Hitler. The Fuhrer nodded at her as he placed his own vial between his front teeth. Eva bit down and the smell of bitter almonds filled the small enclosure, as her body gave one short shudder. She died, her feet still curled under her, looking as if she had fallen asleep on the sofa after coming home from a dinner with friends in the pleasant hills of Bavaria.

Hitler did not bite down. He trembled, still holding the vial between his teeth as he looked first at Eva and then back at Casca. Raising his face, he spoke, the deadly vial between his teeth, as his courage wavered. He spoke to the man of the centuries: "You will tell the future of me?"

With a smooth upward sweep of his hand, Casca slapped the Fuhrer's jaw shut, splintering the glass vial and sending the poison into Hitler's mouth. As the Fuhrer trembled in his death, Casca spoke for the first time: "No."

Reaching over, Casca picked the Walther up from the table and put one bullet into the head of this holy German messiah. The smell of the cordite mingled with that of the poison; he dropped the gun beside the body of Hitler, and it fell to the carpet. Casca had been inside the room three minutes.

He gave the room one last look. Moving to the body of Eva, he pulled her skirt down to cover an expanse of thigh. Whatever she was, she had the courage to die – more than the man she loved. Opening the sealed double doors, Casca stepped into the hall, closing the door behind him. The waiters heard nothing; fireproof and gas-proof doors prevented this. Casca merely nodded and turned right, heading to the supply room to collect his gear. The faces of those waiting were pale, frightened and confused, but no questions were asked and nothing was volunteered. They would wait the prescribed ten minutes. The only sound was that of his boots slapping against the concrete floor and the droning generator.

Gathering up his gear, Casca slung his pack to his back and picked up one of the new Stg-44 assault rifles that fired the 7.92
Kurz round and headed out down the passageway that led to the chancellery. Those who still had the strength were involved in an orgy of desperation. Women who had been fleeing the Russians gave themselves to any soldier who would have them, while in the makeshift hospital, Professor Schenek amputated the leg of a fourteen-year-old Hitler youth who had blown his own leg off when he tried to knock out a T-34 with a sticky bomb. The boy died before the leg could be tossed into the trash with the others.

Casca hunched low, waiting his chance. Dawn would soon be on him and he had to move quickly. To be caught in the light would certainly mean capture. The sound of Russians under the bridge was broken by a short round from one of their own 105 mms that blasted several men to bits and sent the others to the ground for cover.

Casca raced across the bridge, bending low to the ground, his assault rifle at the ready. On the opposite end of the bridge a scared Mongolian-looking face raised up from behind a pile of rubble in time to be shot through the mouth by a short three- round burst from the Stg-44. Leaping over the body, Casca ran into a cloud of smoke and entered hell....

He stood in the midst of an inferno. Buildings on both sides of the street were burning fiercely. The intensity of the fires made whirlwinds of flames dance and the heat tried to suck the air from his lungs. Acrid clouds of yellow smoke whirled and twisted as buildings crumpled, throwing clouds of ashes, sucked up by the flames and spread over the city.

Casca stood frozen in the halo of the flames raging about him as gray ash with small red sparks of life tried to catch his clothing on fire so that he too could become part of the holocaust. Ashes covering his face and mouth were the same dull color of the ground now three inches deep with ashes. In front of him halfway down the block, a four-storied apartment building's brick exterior crumbled and fell away, leaving only a burning frame. Katyushas added their own special sound to this overture of destruction with an intensity that would have made Wagner pale. As the framework of the building was consumed in clouds of yellow smoke, one part of the structure remained. Three stories high, it blazed and all that was left was a giant burning cross, wrapped in dancing licking flames, reaching for the heavens then wrapping around itself lovingly, feeding the raging roar and blast, making tears run down his face, cutting clean small channels that showed skin beneath the coatings of ash and dust. The structure burned until all that was left was a giant cross.

Watching fascinated through watering, burning eyes, Casca looked into the fires of Gotterdammerung. For a fleeting moment, a face looked out from the fire of the burning cross, gentle eyes in a sad face as the smoke formed a wreath of thorns and then it was gone.

Numbly, Casca blinked. His throat was dry and cracking as soundless words came: through the maelstrom of the inferno...

"Nothing changes. All that was will be. The wheel turns once more."

The square back of the soldier hunched over as he walked into the cloud of twisting yellow and red smoke, the flames kissing his boots as the clouds covered him and the cross crumbled into ash.

*  *  *

Goldman shook his head. Things began to come back into focus. A doorman standing erect at his position looked at him with a concerned expression.

"Are you all right, sir?" He spoke in English, recognizing the American cut of his clothes. "May I call a doctor?"

Goldman looked about him. Casca was gone, vanished in the afternoon crowd. "No, no, I'm quite all right, thank you. Just a touch of dizziness."

He left the doorman still looking after him and walked out onto the crowded sidewalks. Evening was
near, the lights of the city were coming on to signal another carefree night of gaiety.

Where are you now, Casca? Why have you chosen me to do this to? I don't want it but I can't stop it. I know sometime somewhere you'll come again and I'll be waiting.
Till then, auf Wiedersehen, you miserable bastard. I think I've said that before
.

Carl Langer was waiting in line at the airport at Templehof. The announcer gave the departures over the PA in German, French and English. Flights going all over the world.

The plane to the Orient wouldn't be leaving for a couple of hours yet. He paid for his ticket and found a seat to wait in. He had time to kill. Yes, that was one thing he always had plenty of.
Time.

The plains of Parthia were littered with the bodies of the dead and dying, as Casca moved away from the battle.
  Rome did not take desertion lightly, and while they couldn’t kill The Eternal Mercenary, they could make life very uncomfortable….

His only escape is into the Northlands beyond Germany, to lands lovely with fjords – and horrible with blood lust.

For more information on the entire Casca series see
www.casca.net

The Barry Sadler website
www.barrysadler.com

By Barry Sadler

Casca 1: The Eternal Mercenary

Casca 2: God of Death

Casca 3: The Warlord

Casca 4: Panzer Soldier

Casca 5: The Barbarian

Casca 6: The Persian

Casca 7: The Damned

Casca 8: Soldier of Fortune

Casca 9: The Sentinel

Casca 10: The Conquistador

Casca 11: The Legionnaire

Casca 12: The African Mercenary

Casca 13: The Assassin

Casca 14: The Phoenix

Casca 15: The Pirate

Casca 16: Desert Mercenary

Casca 17: The Warrior

Casca 18: The Cursed

Casca 19: The Samurai

Casca 20: Soldier of Gideon

Casca 21: The Trench Soldier

Casca 22: The Mongol

By Tony Roberts

Casca 25: Halls of Montezuma

Casca 26: Johnny
Reb

Casca 27: The Confederate

Casca 28: The Avenger

Casca 30: Napoleon’s Soldier

Casca 31: The Conqueror

Casca 32: The Anzac

Casca 34: Devil’s Horseman

Casca 35: Sword of the Brotherhood

Casca 36: The Minuteman

Casca 37: Roman Mercenary

Casca 38: The Continental

Casca 39: The Crusader

Casca 40: Blitzkrieg

Casca 41: The
Longbowman