Chosen of the Valkyries (Twilight Of The Gods Book 2) (38 page)

The driver tottered backwards and collapsed to the ground, blood leaking from four bullet wounds.  Gudrun barely had a moment to savour her victory - or recoil in horror from ending a person’s life - before a strong hand caught hold of her wrist and twisted it sharply.  She screamed in pain, letting go of the pistol as her new captor pulled her all the way out of the car and slammed her head to the pavement.  There was a flash of pain, then the darkness reached out and swallowed her.

***

Katherine smiled as the driver died - he had never been intended to survive, despite being a long-term sleeper agent - and then peered down at the blonde girl beneath her feet.  Gudrun Wieland didn't look like much, Katherine decided, as she hauled the girl up and threw her over her shoulder.  She’d certainly not realised the driver wasn't alone.  Katherine had darted backwards, ready to take cover if Gudrun opened fire on her, but it hadn't been necessary.

She unhooked a grenade from her belt and hurled it into the car, then turned and started to run.  Gudrun was lighter than she’d expected, puny and weak compared to an eastern woman, but she had to be sneaked out of the city.  And that wouldn't be easy.

Mission accomplished
, she thought, as the car exploded behind her. 
And all we have to do is lie low.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a detonator, clicking off the safety and then pushing the button firmly, transmitting a radio signal across the city.  It would set off alarms, she knew, but it was already too late.  A series of explosions echoed over the city, ensuring that it would be harder for the defenders to react ... and signal the forces waiting on the other side of the defence lines.  It was time for the battle to begin.

“The bastard is still alive,” Hans grunted, as he caught up with her.  “I don’t think he’s mortally wounded.”

Katherine shrugged.  Horst Albrecht hadn't been trustworthy, no matter what his handler had said.  Either he was an incompetent buffoon, which was unlikely, or he was an outright traitor.  He’d had the perfect opportunity to stop the traitors before they became more than a gaggle of students and missed it completely.  No, he was a traitor himself.  If he hadn't been one when he’d started, he was definitely one now. 

She scowled at the thought.  Men could never be trusted completely when sex was involved, she knew from painful experience, and Horst Albrecht
had
been fucking the girl she was carrying.  And he’d even married her.  Katherine was no stranger to doing unpleasant things for the
Reich
, but marriage?  No, Horst Albrecht could not be trusted.  And if he survived the next few days, he would either be executed by the SS or his fellow traitors.  They'd assume he was responsible for Gudrun’s capture and take it out on him.

“They’ll blame him for this,” she said.  “And no matter what he says, they’ll never believe him.”

***

Horst staggered to his feet, feeling oddly unsure of just what had happened.  He’d been attacked by a pair of commandos ... they’d been commandos.  He was sure of that, if nothing else.  Their basic training and fighting style was identical to his, although they’d been far more practiced them himself.  He’d shot one, he thought - there was definitely a body in front of him - but the other had started to pound on him before Horst had finally managed to bury a knife in his heart.  Or was that nothing more than a hazy memory of something else?  His head felt as if he’d been drinking heavily the night before ...

Gudrun!

The thought snapped him out of his daze.  Turning, he looked towards where the car had been and recoiled in shock as he realised it was nothing more than a burning wreck.  The flames were so intense that he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if Gudrun was still in the car she was dead.  And yet, they’d wanted her alive ... he stumbled forward and noted, to his relief, that the rear door was open.  Gudrun had had a chance to get out ...

He cursed as he nearly tripped over the body and stumbled, then glared down at the remains of the driver.  Someone had shot him in the chest, three or four times; the damage was far less extensive than Horst had anticipated. 
Gudrun
had to have killed him, he realised.  The pistol he’d given her was far lighter than the one he carried himself.  But three bullets to the heart would be enough to stop anyone.

Should have worn body armour
, he thought, as he kicked the driver’s body.  He’d never suspected the driver, not even once.  And yet ... in hindsight, he should have been a prime suspect.  No one paid attention to drivers. 
You swinehund traitor ...

He gathered himself, somehow.  There had been a quick-response team on alert, but it had failed to show.  The outriders were dead.  Explosions were echoing over the city ...

... And Gudrun was gone.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Berlin, Germany Prime

25 October 1985

Hauptmann
Kurt Wieland wasn't sure if he was being rewarded for good service or being punished for some unspecified offense.  His unit had been recalled, shortly after Gudrun’s wedding, and deployed to defend the
Reichstag
, relieving a mixed unit of policemen, security troops and military forces belonging to the various political factions.  He had strict orders, from Volker Schulze himself, to make sure that
no one
entered the complex without both clearance and a thorough search, but just about everyone who wanted to get in seemed to believe they could browbeat his troopers.  He’d come far too close to ordering a complete strip and cavity search on one bureaucrat before the man had hastily backed down and stopped issuing threats to have the entire unit reassigned to Siberia.

Although how he expected to get us to Siberia is an open question,
Kurt thought. 
I ...

He jerked up as he heard the sound of an explosion, followed by several more in quick succession.  Those hadn't been shellfire!  And they’d been well within the safe zone surrounding the
Reichstag
.  He dreaded to think how many people had hurried into the safe zone, believing that the SS would leave it untouched, only to be caught now by bomb attacks on a scale unseen since the Arab Rebellions.  Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people were dead or wounded ...

“Incoming fire,” Loeb snapped.

Kurt ducked behind shelter as the first antitank missile slammed into the defences, followed by a hail of RPGs.  The first explosion shattered the guardhouse, but the
Reichstag
itself was largely unharmed.  Kurt allowed himself a moment of relief - the designers had planned on the assumption that there would be a nuclear war - then started to bark orders as commandos opened fire, pouring gunfire into the
Reichstag
.

“Lock down the building,” he bawled.  One of the explosions, unless he missed his guess, had been far too close to the barracks.  The soldiers on duty would have problems getting to the
Reichstag
, even though they were bare minutes away if they sprinted.  And if the bomb had been
in
the barracks, hundreds of good men would be dead now.  “Send a warning up the chain.  Tell them we need help ...”

He swore again as he heard the sound of shellfire, shells crashing down all over the city.  The SS had mounted a coordinated attack, hitting the
Reichstag
at the same time as they thrust forward and into the defence lines.  Command and control networks were probably disrupted badly, if they weren't down altogether.  The defenders knew to hold the line - he’d had similar orders before his men had been pulled out - but it was going to be harder to send reinforcements to plug the holes before the SS rammed an infantry division through them.

“Aircraft,” Loeb barked.  “Watch the skies.”

Kurt nodded, grimly.  The SS air attacks had dropped down to almost nothing over the last few days, but now they were back with a vengeance.  A missile rose up to blow one of the planes out of the sky, yet the others kept coming, targeting defence lines, garrisons and power plants right across the city.  Berlin might survive the offensive, but life in the city would never be the same again.

He shook his head, dismissing the thought, as the shooting outside grew louder.  It didn't matter, not now.  All that mattered was holding the line ...

... And praying, desperately, that help arrived in time.

***

“The main offensive has begun,
Herr Oberstgruppenfuehrer
,” Weineck said.  “Resistance is still strong.”

Alfred nodded impatiently.  Taking out the enemy command and control network was a core facet of modern war, but it hardly mattered in Berlin.  The defenders had nowhere to run and no reason to expect to be treated well if they surrendered.  His forces had taken a handful of prisoners, but almost all of them had been badly wounded before they’d finally stopped fighting and two of them had died shortly after being captured.  The basic interrogation - the POWs had been shipped east, on the
Fuhrer’s
direct orders - had made it clear that no one dared surrender, simply out of fear of being shot as soon as they were captured.

Damned bastards
, he thought. 

The thought gnawed at his mind.  He was no stranger to the horrors of war - he’d seen more horrors than any pampered westerner - but allowing so many atrocities to be committed had been stupid.  They hadn't even had the sense to win the war outright before starting the reign of terror.  And he’d wanted to stop it.  It would have been so easy to hang a few of the worst offenders, just to encourage the others, but the
Fuhrer
had refused to allow it.  Terror might weaken the defenders, he’d argued, yet it had also made them reluctant to surrender.  And that gave them the determination to fight on when all seemed lost.

He looked up.  “And the enemy reinforcements?”

“No movements as yet,
Herr Oberstgruppenfuehrer
,” Weineck said. 

“They’ll move soon,” Alfred predicted.

He kept the rest of the thought to himself.  The
Fuhrer
had shot a number of men for ‘defeatism’ and he had no intention of joining them.  And yet, the military logic was beyond doubt.  His force, burnt out after weeks of savage fighting, simply didn't have the time to stand off even a single armoured thrust.  And the enemy, if the latest reports were accurate, had enough panzers massing in place to launch
two
thrusts.  His forces would wind up trapped between two advancing jaws.

We have to break through to Berlin
, he thought, coldly. 
Whatever happens, we have to get through now.  Or we lose
.

***

The enemy were keeping their heads down,
Hauptsturmfuehrer
Hennecke Schwerk noted, as he led his men towards the first enemy position.  It had been worked into a suburb of Berlin, a blur of housing, shops and a single large school, but twenty minutes of shellfire had left most of the once-proud suburb in ruins.  The school was nothing more than a pile of rubble - he couldn't help thinking that the children would be pleased - while most of the homes had been badly damaged.  Only the shops remained intact, although their windows were smashed and several nearby vehicles were burning brightly.  Hennecke’s commanders hoped to loot the shops to feed their men.

He dropped to the ground as he heard a burst of machine gun fire, then motioned four of his men into a flanking formation while the others opened fire, trying to keep the gunners from noticing that the attackers were trying to outflank them.  They’d used the tactic before, time and time again, but this time it failed.  Several other machine guns opened fire, picking off the flankers before they had a chance to get into position.  Hennecke felt his lips curl in sharp irritation, remembering the pre-battle briefing.  They’d been ordered, in no uncertain terms, to break through the enemy defences, stopping for nothing.

Tapping his radio, he called in an airstrike.  There was a long pause, long enough for him to wonder if something had gone wrong, then three HE-477s roared over the battlefield, their cannons pouring explosive shells into the enemy position.  The machine gun fire stopped abruptly, but the aircraft weren't finished.  Hennecke stayed low as one aircraft dropped a handful of tiny bombs on the enemy, then turned and flew eastwards.  A missile rose up from the ground, behind them, only to drop to the ground and explode somewhere to the east.  The pilots had escaped in time.

“Forward,” he yelled, as he rose and ran towards the smouldering remains.  “For the
Reich
!”

There was almost no incoming fire, although he kept his head low just in case.  The enemy seemed to have been wiped out, save for a couple of young men who were both badly wounded.  There was little hope for them, he knew, even if they got to a field hospital in time.  He shot them both - it was a mercy kill - and then swore as mortar shells started to land around them.  The enemy had had plenty of time to plot out their firing positions ...

... And a number of enemy soldiers were slipping forward, trying to launch a counterattack.

“Not this time,” he muttered, as he motioned for his men to get into position.  “You’re not going to stop us now.”

***

“What happened?”

“A whole string of attacks,
Mein Herr
,” the operator said.  He didn't seem to know
how
to respond to a policeman - particularly one with powerful relatives - but at least he was trying to do his job.  “One of them was on Councillor Wieland’s car ...”

Herman blanched.  He knew the plan - he knew what was
intended
to happen - and it wasn’t an attack on Gudrun’s car.  Horst had told his handlers that Gudrun would be vulnerable in the afternoon, not midday ... something had gone badly wrong.  Had Horst betrayed Gudrun, his wife of a week?  He doubted it - he was fairly good at reading people - but if he hadn’t, someone else had to have betrayed
Horst
.  His handlers might have suspected his loyalty all along.  And if
that
was the case ...

He looked down at the map as report after report came in; bombings and shootings from inside the city, airstrikes and shellfire from outside the city.  The quick-response team that had been on alert had already been deployed, racing to a commando assault on one of Berlin’s power distribution stations.  Most military and government bases had their own generators, he knew, but losing power all over the rest of the city would cause panic ...

“See if you can find any patrolmen free,” he ordered, finally.  He doubted it would be possible.  The thousands of men who made up the
Ordnungspolizei
- the men who had continued to serve after the uprising - would be scattered over the city, facing their own nightmares.  “If you can, divert them towards the scene of the ambush.”

He groaned, inwardly, as the operators went to work.  The whole plan might have been Gudrun’s idea, but he should never have agreed to it.  He should have beaten sense into Gudrun and Horst when they actually tried to make the plan work, rather than risk his daughter’s life.  And now he was trapped in the
Reichstag
, the building already under attack, unable to do anything to help either his daughter or his new son-in-law.  All he could do was wait, watch and pray.

***

Horst slumped down next to the driver’s body, feeling oddly unable to move as he battled complete despair.  He’d lost everything in less than a second, a feeling so profound that he was barely able to move.  And yet, somehow, he managed to force himself to gather his thoughts.  The commandos had escaped, taking Gudrun with them - he had to
believe
they’d taken Gudrun with them.  They’d risked far too much to kill her when they could have ordered him to end her life.

Unless they doubted my loyalty even then
, he thought, as he forced himself to stand. 
They might have feared to alert me too soon
.

He picked up Gudrun’s pistol and stuck it into his belt, then hastily searched the driver’s body for anything useful.  The man had been carrying a pistol himself, which Horst took, and an ID card, but very little else.  Horst pocketed everything anyway and then stared into the remains of the car.  There was no hint that anyone had died, as far as he could tell.  He didn't
think
the heat was hot enough to reduce a body to nothing but ash, but the SS
had
a habit of using incendiary grenades to burn down insurgent hovels in Germany East. 

They will want her alive
, he told himself, again and again. 
They will want her alive
.

He shuddered at the implications.  Gudrun had been a symbol of hope - the hope of a life without fear - from the moment she’d gone public and told the regime that she, a mere university student, had no fear of them.  Merely killing her would never be enough, not if her body was never recovered.  Karl Holliston would want to crush her beneath his heel, he would want to make it very clear that he had captured and smashed the symbol of hope, he would want to use her death to boost his cause.  And yet, the cause had grown far beyond her ...