Initiative (The Red Gambit Series Book 6) (20 page)

It didn’t make for clear speech, but Lenz still tried.

“Seeg Heeeiill…”

“Fuck you!”

The single report drew many eyes, and the young medic turned, took one look, and violently deposited the contents of his stomach over both the wrecked jeep and the unconscious Collier.

The muzzle of the Winchester stayed in place, supported by the lower jaw of what had once been a head.

Hanebury nodded, the gun slipping from his grasp as his strength suddenly sapped and he became light-headed.

“You’ll kill no more of my fucking boys now, you bastard.”

He dropped gently to the ground and passed into unconsciousness, his mouth trying to master more words for the destroyed corpse of SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Artur Lenz.

“Handy hock, you fucking Krauts”

The medical infantryman practised his recently acquired German.

The two men in brown looked at him with great concern as they slowly raised their hands.

“C’mon, you kraut fucks, handy hock!”

“It’s Hände hoch, you idiot.”

He looked at the MP Corporal and spat derisorily.

“Yeah well, what-fucking-ever, corp’ral…handy hock, you sons of bitches.”

He looked back at the MP to see if his bravado was having an effect, but saw something else written large upon the man’s face.

“Cover them… don’t shoot them… ok?”

Not waiting for a reply, the MP was off at the run, returning quickly with a Sergeant from his unit.

“Reckon you’re right at that, Smitty.”

The senior NCO strode forward, addressing the taller of the two men.

“And who the fuck are you then, pal?”

His question was greeted with a blank expression, as Nikki could speak no English.

The sergeant turned his attention on the other man, conscious of something about the ragged uniforms that he couldn’t quite work out.

“What’s your name then, eh?”

Mikki, slowly dropped his hands, watched every millimetre of the way by a growing number of American onlookers.

“I are Mayor General Mikhail Gordeevich Sakhno.”

He nodded towards Nikki.

“You am Polkovnik Nikanor Klimentovich Davydov.”

Lenz had kept the two Soviet officers alive since the ambush in Ainau Woods, all those months previously, although they had expected death every single day.

The two were swept up in the move back to the hospital, where the wounded received the best of care, and the two former senior commanders of the 10th Tank Corps ate their first decent meal since August the previous year.

Army intelligence personnel arrived, and the two Soviet officers were quickly whisked away to another place, where impatient men waited with important questions.

[Author’s note - The exploits of SS Kommando Lenz exceeded the efforts of any other Werewolf unit, or, as is often suggested, all other Werewolf units put together.

Without a doubt, the feat of keeping the unit active and fighting-fit was unique in Werewolf history, and SS Kommando Lenz proved a major thorn in the side of the Soviet forces in occupation.

However, true to his oath and mission, Lenz opposed all foreigners on his soil and, unlike a number of other clandestine units, waged war on Allied and Soviet soldiers equally.

Their war ended on 15th June 1946.

Only Emmering and Schipper survived the battle, although Emmering did not survive the night, dying of his wounds on the stroke of midnight, despite the best efforts of the hospital surgery team.

Schipper regained sufficient health to be tried for his membership of the SS Kommando. He was hanged as a war criminal on 24th December 1947 for his part in the murder of Bruno Weber, as witnessed by the man’s son and heir, and for his collective responsibility for the slaying of ambulance personnel on the road to Bräunisheim.

Lenz and the rest of his men lie somewhere in the valley to the southwest of Bräunisheim, buried in an unmarked communal grave on the final day of their resistance.

The debate on honouring him and his troopers has now faded away, bringing no positive result for the family and friends of the fallen members of SS Kommando Lenz. A temporary effort, built near Ainau, was heavily vandalised within a week of its erection.

In the end, it would appear that their countrymen would prefer to forget the efforts of Lenz and his men.

The 2nd Special Platoon, 16th Armored Military Police Battalion, 16th US Armored Division was not reconstituted, and the surviving personnel found themselves distributed between the remaining units in the 16th Division.

Hanebury, Collier, Shufeldt, and Nave were all evacuated stateside, and none would ever actively soldier again, although Nave remained in service until the war’s end, and Hanebury went on to a career in US law enforcement, achieving the position of Chief of Police before retiring.

In 2016, the surviving members of the unit will gather in the village of Bräunisheim for what will probably be their last reunion.

Corporal Arthur Nave [93], First Sergeant Richard Shufeldt [96], and Captain Rodger Stradley [96] are the last survivors of Lucifer’s platoon.

Hateful to me as are the gates of hell, is he who, hiding one thing in his heart, utters another.

Homer

The engineer looked smug and questioned the naval officer once more.

“Satisfied now, Comrade Kapitan?”

Captain Second Rank Mikhail Stepanovich Kalinin was partially satisfied that the site was clearly fit for purpose, and partially annoyed that he had not been able to wipe the constant smug look off the abominable civilian’s face by finding it.

“It’s well hidden, I’ll give you that, comrade.”

The obnoxious man chuckled and gave the order to put in to shore.

“We shall impress you even more when we get inside, Comrade Kapitan.”

The launch moved close into the land, but Kalinin maintained his close watch, occasionally raising his binoculars to examine a straight line, or a curved one, anything that could give the base some form to prying eyes.

He saw nothing of note, save nature flourishing, untackled by man.

The boat grounded and the engineer led the way, splashing his way up to the beach, before turning to wait for Kalinin, the triumph of his achievement writ large on his face.

Kalinin dropped into the water and looked around him, assuming that the boat had grounded near to the site that was the object of the morning’s search.

The old boathouse caught his eye immediately, as it had on the run in, and he used the proximity to examine it more closely.

It was simply an old boathouse.

Morsin, the engineer, waited patiently as Kalinin used the steadiness of the beach to scan the coastline to the north and south.

‘Nothing.’

“Perhaps you would like to look from up there, Comrade Kapitan?”

Morsin indicated the hill and the rough stone steps set in its front edge.

By way of an answer, Kalinin set off with a will, determined to leave the civilian floundering in his wake.

Reaching the top first, the submariner took in his surroundings, first with the naked eye and then with the powerful naval binoculars.

He had been part of the planning of the facility, so had some idea of what he was looking for, the size and extent of it, but there was nothing even close… and yet here it was… apparently.

The engineer arrived, seemingly on death’s door from his climbing exertions.

He placed his hands on his knees and took his time to recover, every second of which Kalinin used to find the damned facility.

Reluctantly, he dropped his binoculars to his chest.

“I have to say, Comrade Engineer Morsin, the camouflage is excellent. I cannot see it, I cannot sense it… there seems to be nothing at all of interest for kilometres around.”

Morsin held up his hand as he gulped in volumes of oxygen.

“It is how we were ordered, Comrade. There… should be nothing to alert Allied observation, either from… the air or from the sea.”

Kalinin nodded, happy that, wherever it was, the facility would not be detected.

“Fine, the job is clearly excellent, Comrade Engineer. Now, let us go and inspect the damn thing. Show me… where is it?”

Morsin laughed and pointed out to sea, slowly turning and sweeping his single finger across the horizon.

Enjoying his moment, he prescribed a full circumference before coming to a halt, looking at the naval officer, and pointing to the ground.

“You’re standing on it, Comrade Kapitan.”

Kalinin had seen the inside before, but only in drawings and a scale model that had long since been burned in the courtyard of the Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters in Sevastopol.

In the flesh, the construction was more impressive than he had imagined.

Much of the work had been done during the interwar years and on into the Patriotic War when, given the impending demise of Nazi Germany and her cohorts, work on the special facility had been halted.

The imperatives and requirements of the new conflict, and, in particular, Operation Raduga, meant that the inoffensively named ‘Vinogradar Young Communists Sailing Club’ was reborn and work continued.

The whole floor area was flat, broken by two types of constructions.

Firstly there were steel pillars, rising to the rock ceiling, offering the additional support needed to the hewn rock curve that ran for nearly two hundred metres, side to side.

Secondly were the bays, six of them, each twenty metres wide and one hundred and fifty metres long, two dry and containing the parts of submarines under construction, the other four wet and ready to receive whatever was allowed to proceed through the huge doors that protected the entrance.

The six bays were slightly angled in, so as to present their openings at a better angle to the entrance.

Had Kalinin been able to work it out, he would have seen the old boathouse sat across the join of the two doors, obscuring their presence as had been intended.

The Captain moved around, observing the sections that had been transported from the Baltic to the Black Sea being put together by the best quality ship builders the Soviet Union could find.

The two type XXIs required no less than the best.

Elsewhere, the offices, stores, fuel tanks, and armouries that would make the base into an operational covert facility were being made ready by different but equally skilled men.

One tunnel was already guarded by NKVD soldiers, and Kalinin, lacking the necessary authority, was refused entry.

He did not push the matter, for he had seen what lay beyond in model form and had little need to see it in the flesh, at least not until it was occupied by the weapons of Raduga.

In the antechamber, to the side of the XXI berths, he could not help but admire the sleek forms waiting silently, their potential unrealised, their deadly task ahead of them, his part known only to him and a handful of others.

Morsin slapped him on the back, a comradely slap that Kalinin did not in the slightest welcome. None the less, he felt invigorated by what he had just seen, so he let it go with a smile.

“Beautiful aren’t they, Comrade Kapitan.”

The engineer looked up at the quiet sentinels and sighed.

“How I wish I had designed and built them. I’d have the Hero Award for it, I tell you. Anyway, they’re ours and I’m sure that our glorious leaders have found a way to use them properly. Now… come… lunch with the facility commander awaits.”

Kalinin turned away to follow in the hungry Morsin’s wake, but risked one further look at the deadly weapons.

‘One day soon, you will fly for the Rodina!’

He followed on quickly, leaving the silent V2s behind him.