by Jack Hayes
The first barrage ripped the soldier in two like a guillotine.
The main 45mm cannon and machine gun both swivelled in Walker’s direction.
Walker was less than a tennis court’s length from the trees.
“We’re not going to make it,” Fallon called from behind him.
“We will,” Walker exclaimed.
Fallon changed direction.
“Head for the trees,” he yelled. “Get behind them – I’ll provide a distraction.”
Fallon was now bounding back up the slope, hoping to draw the tank’s fire.
He ducked among the remains of the sluices and threw a grenade at the lead tank.
“No!” Walker shouted.
He stopped running.
He turned.
The T-26 fired its main cannon.
The shell caught him in the right side of his rib cage.
One second he was there; the next, he was vapour.
CHAPTER 45
Lieutenant Beck was out of breath from running.
The snow was thicker than he’d expected – and keeping his movement up as he tried to pelt across it had sapped him dry.
He half collapsed on a moss ridden stump.
He was a jeweller by trade, before the war. He hadn’t wanted to be on the frontline fighting the Führer’s reckless campaigns. Still, he was no fool. He’d seen which way the wind was blowing in Germany. Six months ago, he’d been approached by a radical team of officers who’d wanted to alter the course of the war: Labyrinth.
In the new normal that was the Nazi Reich, you didn’t get anywhere if you didn’t join these elitist groups when they came calling. He’d seen it happen dozens of times to his friends. They’d been promoted and soon after risen high enough to leave the blood and stench of the Eastern Front behind.
That was all he’d wanted.
Especially when they said they needed a man with his particular skills.
What was there to think about?
A chance to use his jeweller’s skills and avoid a messy death in the lost fields of the Ukraine.
But he also knew the price.
Failure was not an option.
He patted outside of his jacket, feeling the weight of the pouch containing the blue diamonds inside.
His only hope at not being shot on his return to Germany – the only hope that anyone he ever cared about – his wife, his daughter, his mother, his sister – wouldn’t face a firing squad was those tiny stones rattling around in his pocket.
The snap of a twig.
Beck’s head twitched.
Breath held.
Where had the sound come from?
His eyes whipped between the pine needles. He knew they were there.
But where?
He turned, hoping to silently slip between the trees.
“That’s far enough,” Captain Maddox said.
The Englishman held his Sten II-S in both hands, pointed squarely at Beck’s head.
“Listen,” Beck said, “You don’t understand. I’m Lieutenant Beck – I’m only a jeweller on this mission to grade the gems. I have to get them back to the Fatherland. They have my family as hostages.”
“Not going to happen,” Maddox said. “Please lift the bag gently out and place them on the ground.”
A second soldier appeared between the trees, dressed in the same white uniform.
“Conley,” Maddox said, the barrel of his Sten pointed at Beck’s midriff, “please step forward and relieve the German of the stones.”
“That I can do, captain,” Conley replied, pacing closer to his commander.
Beck reached into his clothes and removed both pouches.
He gently tossed the closed bags down. They landed softly in the snow.
“Good,” Maddox said. “Now delicately take your pistol out and toss it there, too.”
A heavy sigh from the German.
Gingerly holding the grip of his gun between his thumb and forefinger, he threw it alongside the pouches.
“Please,” Beck said. “The larger pouch. It is full of gem quality normal stones. They’re worth a fortune. I’m begging you. Major Nieder, our leader, he kept a small plane nearby. It wouldn’t trouble you to allow me to leave with the smaller purse.”
“I’m not unsympathetic to your position,” Maddox replied. “But, even if you were telling me the truth, I can’t allow the kind of precision V2 bombing the stones in your pocket will be used for. Conley, step forward, careful not to cross my line of fire and retrieve the stones. Then hand them to me.”
“Ah,” Conley said. “Now that, I can’t do.”
A dull snack.
Maddox knew the noise well – the sound of a Sten refusing to fire.
Before he could turn, he was struck across the back of his skull with the butt of a rifle.
***
Patterson leapt across the top of the wreckage of the generator.
When he hit the ground, he rolled, ignoring the pain from landing on the gravel. Another round of shells from the tanks. Too slow, you Russian bastards. The volley blew a mine cart to splinters and scattered an already dead German to the wind.
Patterson rattled off a burst from his Sten.
He was still running, the bullets were never going to hit their target – and if they did they’d prove as powerful as a wad of wet paper blown through a straw at the hide of an elephant.
But that wasn’t their purpose.
“All eyes on me,” he grinned. “Just keep following me.”
He reached a small gully and dropped into it.
There was a withering burst of machine gun fire from the tanks.
“Good,” Patterson said. “Come a little closer, comrades.”
He popped his head so his eyes scarcely emerged from his hideout.
With a rumble of their giant diesel engines, the Russians were tearing toward him.
“Now!” he bellowed.
Fallon and Marlowe crawled out of the detritus of broken tents littering the former campsite. One was on each side of the back tank. They grabbed the guy ropes of one stretch of canvas that clung stubbornly to the behemoth’s front.
They sprinted in to the T-26’s side, then vaulted onto its shell.
Confusion inside the belly of the beast.
The canvas tarpaulin blocked every way to see out of the machine – loud swearing could be heard from within. The front tank headed on regardless, unaware that its compatriot was blind and had stopped moving.
Fallon tied the canvas tight at the back of the turret. The Russians within spun it around, trying to free themselves of their blindfold. The machinegun blared, attempting to cut enough of a hole through the cloth to disintegrate it.
Foolishly, they fired the main gun.
A hole tore through the canvas.
The lead T-26 was hit squarely on its rear.
It detonated like a firework.
“Well that was an unexpected bonus!” Patterson smirked.
Louder swearing from within the remaining tin can.
Fallon and Marlowe withdrew fistfuls of hand grenades and rolled them underneath its front, before darting away to safety. The underside of the T-26 was its well-known weakness. The steel there was less than a third of the thickness of its armour elsewhere.
Six seconds later, the first of the Mill’s bombs exploded.
The tank erupted like a volcano.
The hatches blasted open.
The contents rocketed skyward.
Smoke billowed from every crack.
Marlowe let out a whoop of joy and slapped Fallon on the back.
But Patterson was less than amused. His head twisted back and forth, searching, seeking, checking for something and not seeing it.
“What?” Fallon asked. “What’s wrong?”
“The commander,” Patterson said. “He was face down in front of the lead battle tank.”
All three of them stared blankly at the empty spot in front of the vehicle, where Komelkov
had been knocked flat at the beginning of the fight.
“Shit,” Patterson muttered. “The bastard’s gone.”
CHAPTER 46
“So, your suspicions proved correct,” Sledge said, hoisting Maddox to his feet, once again.
In front of them, Beck lay on his back, three bullet wounds to the torso.
The pouches were gone.
So was Conley.
“Regrettably so,” Maddox replied.
“You’re lucky he opted to bonk you on the head,” Sledge said. “He could have shot you. He had the opportunity.”
“He’d have had a devil of a time doing it without this,” Maddox said.
He fished in his pocket and held up a small sliver of metal.
“You took the firing pin from his Sten?” Sledge asked. “Man, that’s cold. What if he’d needed it? He got up the slope first.”
“I tried to stop him,” Maddox replied. “I figured if he was with me, I could stop him getting into trouble. In any case, he tried to kill me – the strangest thing happened…”
“His gun didn’t work,” Sledge raised his eyebrows. “You surprise me. Still it didn’t stop him dispatching Beck.”
Maddox moved cautiously in a circle, examining the patterns in the snow.
“There was a struggle,” he said. “Looks like Conley and Beck both made for the German’s pistol.”
“It would appear Beck did not win that particular wrestling match,” Sledge observed. “Why didn’t Conley shoot you then?”
Maddox paused.
He hadn’t factored in that Conley would pick up another weapon quite so quickly – or be fast enough to smack him unconscious when he realised his Sten didn’t work. He scanned the ground more closely.
“Looks like another person arrived,” he said. “Must have scared him off.”
“It wasn’t me,” Sledge replied. “So who the hell was it?”
“I don’t know,” Maddox said, pointing with the barrel of his Sten at another set of tracks into the area. “But they both went that way at pace. Come on. Put your skis on. They’re on foot – it’s the only way we’ll catch them.”
A shot rang out deeper into the woods.
A second followed a few seconds later.
CHAPTER 47
Nieder was barely ten metres behind the English sergeant but was losing ground.
The snow was getting thicker with every stride.
He pulled his Luger from its holster.
“That’s enough,” he said. “Stop, or I shoot!”
The sergeant didn’t slow.
He managed two more bound-like strides.
Nieder’s pistol barked. The round hit Conley squarely between the shoulder blades. The young man toppled. Nieder inhaled deeply and closed the gap. Conley was prone, his fingers twitching, his head contorted to the side. In one palm, he gripped Beck’s pistol. The other was curled around the tops of the diamond pouches.
Nieder didn’t say another word.
He put a single shot straight through the side of the Englishman’s head and hungrily snatched the purses. Tucking the bags in his uniform, he staggered through the drift to a patch of ground more shielded by the pines above. At least here, his footing would be surer.
Gaining his bearings, he started off towards his plane.
Now, to get out of here.
CHAPTER 48
Maddox looked up to the heavens.
He and Sledge had followed the tracks of Nieder until they petered out on the snow. From their general direction he’d guessed the major was heading for an open patch of land marked on his map as somewhere around here.
But they found themselves standing on the edge of a high bluff, staring out across the steep slope and onto a frozen lake, with no sign of the Nazi.
“Maybe he doubled back?” Sledge suggested.
“Couldn’t have,” Maddox said. “We’re on skis. We’re faster – have every advantage. No, he was headed over here. He has a plan. But what?”
The rumble of an engine.
“A plane!” Sledge and Maddox both exclaimed at the same time.
“But how in the hell would you find enough flat land around here to take off?” Sledge asked.
Maddox closed his eyes, listening for the source of the sound. It was impossible to pinpoint, the noise echoing off the trees until it rang like it was coming from the very earth itself.
From here they had a good vantage from which to see the plane.
But there was nothing.
Simply miles and miles of snow covered conifers.
Yet the buzzing was there – higher pitched now as the craft took to the air. Maddox turned sharply to Sledge.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “No plane could get off the ground that quickly and just vanish.”
“There!” Sledge pointed through the pines behind them.
A lone aeroplane, small enough for just one passenger, putted gently through the sky. It was barely visible through the branches but heading their way.
“A Fieseler Storch,” Sledge said. “Damn it. They’re slow movers. If only we had a bazooka – we could catch it and bring it down.”
“But we don’t,” Maddox replied.
“We could rake it with Sten gun fire,” Sledge said. “We might get lucky.”
Maddox considered it for a second.
“It’s massively unlikely,” he said. “Even on a tiny plane like a Storch.”
He glanced away from the aircraft and down the steep embankment to the lake. Maddox had assumed the German would have planted his getaway plane down there, hiding it under a canopy, so that he could use the frozen water as a runway. But wherever he’d picked, his plan had been devastatingly effective.
The Storch had been a good choice for Nieder. The wheels on this one had been augmented with runners to allow for landings on the frozen tundra. It was resilient and so simple to maintain, you could almost fix problems with an elastic band and a paperclip.
It was also well-known for its extreme abilities: with a slight headwind, it could launch in 150ft and land in just a little more than 50.
But where the hell had he taken off from?
The Storch, barely visible through the conifers, turned gracefully and began to head in their direction – it would have to pass over the bluff they were standing on to set a course south for Reich.
It didn’t matter. He was aloft now.
Uncatchable.
Unless…
Maddox glanced at Sledge.
“What?” the burly Australian asked.
Maddox grinned irascibly.
“Oh shit. Don’t tell me you’ve got another crazy plan again?”
“I’m quite sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Maddox smiled. “Have you still got that exploding grapnel?”
Sledge swiftly dumped his knapsack on the ground and began chucking items out onto the ground. Three seconds later he pulled out the grappling crossbow and rope.
He held it up for Maddox to take.
“You cannot possibly be thinking…”
“Have you ever seen anyone try to lasso a plane and fail?” Maddox asked.
“No…” Sledge replied.
“Then don’t tell me it can’t be done.”
CHAPTER 49
Maddox pushed off with his skis, making as swiftly as he could for the top of the embankment where the Storch would pass overhead. Although the plane was hardly lightning fast, it would still be touch and go as to whether he would make it in time.
“And even then, there’s the question of whether this plan will get me killed,” he hissed.
The snow squeaked as it compacted beneath him. His muscles burned with the exertions of his earlier actions. He grimaced and ignored the pain. His breath plumed from his lips as though he had a literal fire in his belly.
The Storch was getting louder with every second.
He dared not look up, lest he see its tail whip by – taking Nieder on to Germany and freedom.
Maddox slid to a halt at the very edge of the slope, tossing his skiing poles aside. He threw his backpack after them. He wished he could take his equipment with him but his plan was dicey enough as it was – the additional bulk would make it impossible. He kept his Sten, shifting the shoulder strap so that it ran diagonally across his back. He’d need it if he was to have any hope of stopping Nieder, and repositioning the harness made it less likely to slip off. There was also his Webley on his hip and his trusty Fairbairn-Sykes knife.
The Storch was barely 100 yards away. It had been painted in disruption camouflage. In this forest, with webbing over the top, no wonder they hadn’t found it.
Maddox levered the bowline on the crossbow taught, the grapnel fixing into place with a heavy ‘thunk’.
50 yards.
Maddox shouldered the crossbow and took aim.
40 yards.
Heavy breaths.
30 yards.
“Come on. Calm yourself. You need to relax to make this work.”
20 yards.
“Slow, slow your heart beat. Relax those muscles.”
10 yards.
“I am a leaf on the breeze… I am a leaf on the…”
The Storch whisked above his head. Maddox tracked its motion with the bow. He pulled the trigger. With a satisfying ‘swish’ the quarrel fired into the air, carrying the grapnel. Maddox had expected the arrow to move without the pace of an aimed bullet but it travelled even more slowly than he’d expected.
“Shit. It’s going to miss.”
He’d targeted the Storch’s wing, hoping his weight on one side of the tiny plane would prevent it from getting the lift it needed. For a second he’d wished he’d followed Sledge’s plan and simply raked the thing with machine gun fire…
Then the grapnel reached the right height. The wing had passed it but one of the flukes caught on the aircraft’s tail and punched a hole through the outer skin.
“Holy shit,” Maddox said. “This might just work.”
The grappling hook bit in deep.
It held.
The rope pulled tight.
Maddox’s arms were nearly ripped from his sockets as he accelerated from a standstill to fifty miles an hour. Yanked almost horizontally from his position, he gripped the line tight as he whipped over the top of the embankment.