Before anyone could stop him, he rushed to the door, flung it open and leapt through. Lying writhing on the other side of the yard was Tomas, blood pumping from a wound in his side. Gardermann only managed three steps before spinning round and crashing to the ground. The four agents watched in horror as the old man, sobbing hysterically, crawled painfully to his friend and lovingly encircled an arm around the old boar’s head. After a moment, all movement of man and animal ceased.
Firing from their ambushers had become light and sporadic, but Manteufel knew this was not a good sign. “They’re getting ready to rush us. Pick your target, make it count!”
A group of men sprang to their feet and started racing across the open ground towards the farmhouse. Within a heartbeat, three were down—two lying very still and one rolling and groaning in the dirt. The assault faltered immediately and the other attackers went to ground, shuffling back into cover.
“They didn’t expect us to be armed. That will keep them quiet for a while. Sybilla, how many?” asked Manteufel.
“About a dozen, I think.”
“I’ll swear that was Müller leading them,” said Kelly, still mortified that he had been the only one who had missed.
The assailants appeared to be separating into two distinct groups, one group to the left of the main entrance and the other to the right.
“They are going to try to skirmish towards us. They must be insane—we have the advantage!” said Manteufel. “Ignore where the firing comes from. Concentrate on the other side, that’s where the assault will come.”
The group to the right of the farmhouse opened up with everything they had. “Ignore that!” roared Manteufel. “Keep your eyes on the left group!”
With a roar, half a dozen men leapt to their feet on the defenders’ left and sprinted towards the house, firing their weapons. Two were downed after less than three paces and the others went to ground and retreated.
“They won’t try that again.” Manteufel spoke quietly and calmly.
Calm reigned for a while with only sporadic firing from the ambushers.
“What do you think they’ll do now, Horst?” asked Sybilla.
“If it were me, I’d try to get around the rear of the house,” he replied.
As if to confirm his words, a round crashed through the window on the east side of the house and thudded into the opposite wall.
“There’s someone firing from the copse on the hill. They’re trying to get around us as I suggested. If they do, we’re in trouble,” observed Manteufel.
“I have to get my rifle,” called Kelly. “You three, take up a position near the side window and prepare to put down rapid fire on the copse. Wait for my word, I’m going to make a dash for the car.”
Kelly shuffled through the kitchen to the rear door and opened it. He could see the car no more than a half a dozen paces away, but for four of those paces he would be completely exposed. The angle of the house would provide shelter for the first yard, and the car was facing the copse, so if he could make to the rear, he would be sheltered while he rummaged in the boot. For the remaining few yards, he would have no cover.
“Now!” Kelly waited until he heard the volley being laid down on the copse, then leapt across the gap, ending up on his stomach, slithering to a halt under the rear of the car. Hastily he opened the boot, which provided additional cover, and collected together the dozen or so boxes of small arms ammunition. Calling to Manteufel, he tossed them across the gap to his comrade standing in the sheltered part of the building.
Kelly stole an apprehensive glance behind. If someone came up the western side of the house at this moment, they would find him right out in the open. Carefully he picked up a long object wrapped in hessian. Unwrapping it, he produced his precious sniper rifle, a beautiful Lee Enfield .303, complete with telescopic sight, precision barrel and hair trigger.
“I’m coming in, Horst! Warn the others and get ready to lay down fire.” He waited a moment to allow Manteufel to prepare the others then called, “Now!”
The man in the copse was not taken by surprise this time and managed to get off a shot at the fleeing Kelly. Kelly heard the round sing past his ear as he dashed for the open door, landing full length on the kitchen floor. He didn’t wait to thank his maker. Scrambling up the stairs, he crawled forward to the side window in the east bedroom. Poking the muzzle of the Lee Enfield through the already broken window, he peered through the scope and scanned the copse. There! A shape, indistinct, but definitely a man.
Kelly pulled the rifle into his shoulder, the cross hairs on the scope centred on the shape, controlled his breathing, then gently squeezed the trigger.
He saw the man throw his arms in the air then disappear from view. Kelly didn’t stop to admire his handiwork; he was already crawling towards the west bedroom. The window here was intact until Kelly pushed the rifle muzzle through the bottom left pane and rested it in the junction to provide stability. He scanned the area on that side of the house. Nothing definite, but he detected a slight rustling in a hedge around two hundred yards away. There it was again but further along—someone was in all likelihood creeping alongside the hedge and using it for cover. Kelly noted that there was a break in the greenery about ten yards further on. Carefully, he lined up the rifle so that he was aiming at a spot midway up the hedge and about a foot beyond the end of it. He would get one shot at whoever it was as they broke cover and dashed across the gap back into cover.
Kelly tensed as he saw a slight movement near the end of the hedge. A head appeared and turned to observe the house. The last thing the unfortunate man saw was a flash from an upper window a millisecond before a .303 round crashed into his forehead and exited through the rear, taking half of his head with it.
Kelly was about to return to the east window to check on developments when he was hailed by Rahn from below.
“Dan, get to a front window. There’s a barn half right, about four hundred metres, I’m sure that’s Müller on the corner!”
Kelly squirmed his way across the floor to the window and poked the muzzle of his rifle through the shattered glass. Lining it up on the corner of the barn, he peered through the scope. It was Müller right enough, gesticulating to someone near him. Kelly fought to calm the excitement rising in him as he lined the cross hairs up on the SS General’s chest.
Just as he squeezed the trigger, a round crashed into the woodwork just above his head. It caused him to flinch involuntarily, and he thought it had spoilt his shot, but a glance down the scope showed him Müller on the ground, injured, but clearly moving. Before Kelly could get another aimed shot off, two of Müller’s henchmen had rushed to his aid and dragged him to cover behind the barn.
All firing had now ceased. If the attackers were the twelve that Rahn had seen at Wewelsburg, then with Müller that made thirteen, eight of whom, including Müller, were now either dead or incapacitated. That left five against Kelly’s four. The game was over.
The sudden roar of engines being started from behind the barn was followed by a convoy of three cars streaming out of the farm gate and heading at high speed south down Lenggriesser Strasse.
Kelly clattered down the stairs, calling to the others, “Right, everybody out! Into the car! We don’t want the authorities finding us anywhere near this place—we are way out of our jurisdiction.”
All with the exception of Rahn clambered into the car. Rahn took a moment to check on Gardermann, who was quite unresponsive. The man and the beast together in death. Rahn genuflected and said a silent prayer before joining the others. The car was a quarter of a mile up Lenggriesser Strasse, heading north towards Munich, before he managed to close his door fully.
The End?
The russet browns and drab greens of Kelly’s camouflage jacket blended perfectly with the rustic, autumnal surroundings of the woods where he now lay. A green beret, devoid of any identifying cap badge, hid his blond hair, and smears of camo paint covered his face. His precious Lee Enfield rifle was wrapped in
hessian to prevent reflection from its metal surfaces. To anyone more than ten yards away, he was invisible.
Following the ambush at Gardermann’s farm, Kelly had debriefed his team on arrival in their Munich hotel. They knew they had had a lucky escape. If it hadn’t been for the farmer’s kindness in inviting them in for coffee, well, who knows?
Kelly had hoped to get some inkling of Müller’s whereabouts. He was convinced that Müller was the key to this whole affair. Manteufel had reported that Gardermann’s prevarication over the picture had convinced him that he knew Müller, and probably knew where he was. They had certainly discovered Müller’s whereabouts in a surprisingly short time after that, when he and his dozen Nazi thugs had attacked them in the farmhouse.
Müller had been hit—there was no doubt of that—and was therefore in all probability hors de combat, and consequently lying low. It was unlikely he would be leading them to their target any time soon.
In a sudden fit of frustration, Kelly had asked, “Billa, you’re a woman. Imagine you’ve just returned from abroad to give birth to your firstborn … where would you go?”
Sybilla shrugged but answered immediately. “If I had a mother, I would go to her, probably. Speaking personally, I would go to my sister Inga.”
“Billa is right,” commented Rahn, “but she wouldn’t have gone there immediately she returned to Germany. That would have been too obvious. She probably gave birth under the protection and care of Maria Orsic or one of her Vril Maidens, but eventually she would have made contact with her close family, if not to live with them then certainly to visit occasionally.”
“My money would be on Gretl, her sister—they were very close,” observed Manteufel.
There followed a frenetic period of research as the team, using military archives and municipal records, traced the whereabouts of the Braun family post war. After locating all known close relatives of Eva Braun, they started their surveillance with Ilse, the eldest of the three sisters. The decision to target Ilse had been as a result of Rahn’s analysis. He conceded Manteufel’s point that Eva and Gretl were very close, but pointed out that on the two occasions in the past when Eva Braun had tried to take her own life, it had been Ilse who had found her, administered first aid and cared for her during her recovery. It showed, he felt, that Ilse had recognised a fragility, a weakness in Eva—and, as her older sister, was determined to care for her. Who better, then, for Eva to turn to in a crisis?
They found Ilse, now forty-two, living in an apartment block in Munich. She had few regular visitors, although a man identified as ‘Rudi’ by a local woman Rahn had spoken to, did seem to be one such. She did not appear to have married again and was still using the surname Fucke-Michels of her last husband. Kelly even went to the extreme of renting a room in a hotel opposite the apartment block in order to see into her rooms with a high-power telescope. There was no sign of any visitors even remotely matching the description of Eva Braun, even allowing for elaborate disguises. After a week they moved on to the next target.
Manteufel was adamant that if Eva was living with a family member, it would be Gretl. The two had shared the same bedroom in their parents’ home, had shared a flat in Munich and later, Hitler had—obliquely through Heinrich Hoffmann—obtained a villa for the girls also in Munich. Gretl had frequently stayed at the Berghof and had, for a few months in 1945, stayed at the Reich Chancellery where Manteufel had personally met them both. They were inseparable, he maintained.
The apartment that Gretl occupied was in a block in the western area of Munich, part of a much larger residential complex. Several such apartment blocks had been built in a square formation, enclosing a central communal space of lawns and leisure areas. Whilst it was easy to set up a watch on the front entrance of the building, watching this internal area was troublesome. Entering the area presented no difficulty—a number of shops and a café in the space were open to the public at large—but maintaining a presence without becoming conspicuous was a real challenge. They overcame the problem by varying the length of their individual watches and never making them too long, and by frequent changes of clothing.
There were regular sightings of Gretl and her little girl. Her daughter Eva Barbara, named after her aunt, had been born in 1945 only days after Gretl’s husband and the child’s father, Hermann Fegelein, was shot for desertion and treason. However, of Eva, there was no sign. After nearly two weeks, even Manteufel had to admit defeat.
The final hope of finding Eva rested on her parents’ home in Ruhpolding, some ninety kilometres or so from Munich. Accommodation was easy to find as the place was a tourist haven for skiers and mountaineers. After reconnoitring the area, Kelly found a hill in a wood which partially surrounded the old farmhouse the couple occupied. The hill gave him a perfect view of the couple’s back garden, about two hundred yards away, but still providing good concealment. The back garden had been laid out in the form of a children’s play area with a sandpit, a slide and a swing. It could, of course, be for Gretl’s little girl when she visited, but then again …
It was the second day of his surveillance. The previous day had been miserable in the extreme. He had lain for some twelve hours in the same position in persistent drizzle and had ended his watch freezing cold and soaking wet. The evening watch was provided by Manteufel and Sybilla in slightly more luxurious surroundings—a hide near the entrance to the drive leading to the farmhouse, where they could observe any comings and goings. There had been none.
Kelly was thankful that the next day had dawned bright and free from mist and drizzle. It was still extremely cold, but he was dressed for that, with a number of layers under his camouflage.
He froze as a woman emerged from the double doors leading to the inside of the house. Pulling his rifle into his shoulder, he gazed down the telescopic sight to get a clearer view of her. It was Eva Braun! He was absolutely certain. He had seen Gretl several times during their last stake-out, and it was definitely not her.
Kelly tried to quell the rising excitement he felt. He must remain calm. Eva sat down at a bench near the end of the garden and opened a magazine she had been carrying. The side door opened and a child emerged, running towards her. Kelly could clearly hear the shouts as it approached.
“Mutti! Mutti!”
Eva picked up the child and held it in an embrace for a minute until it broke free and ran to the swing. Once on the swing, Kelly had a clearer view.
Gasping in horror, he lowered his rifle. It was a little girl!
Why had no one considered this possibility? It was after all a fifty-fifty chance. Why had he not considered it? He and everyone else had blithely assumed that Hitler’s heir must be a boy, but here she was.
Kelly’s mind was a maelstrom of emotions. He tried to be calm and rational and think the issue through. So, it was a girl—what difference did it make? Europe was a tinderbox with the Soviets and the Allies hurling abuse at each other, and this child—this little girl—had the potential to spark a flame in the German people that could set the whole continent ablaze once more. A child whose very existence could be the catalyst needed to start a nuclear conflict that would cost the lives of millions. It made no difference that she was a girl. The risks remained the same.
Kelly pulled the rifle into his shoulder and thumbed the safety catch to ‘fire’. Peering down the scope, he lined up the cross hairs on the child’s chest. She was quite still, trying to remove her mittens. Controlling his breathing, he hovered his finger over the hair trigger, then lowered the rifle. He closed his eyes for a minute and cursed himself for his indecision. With a barely audible growl, he snatched up the rifle again and sighted it on the child … he would fire! Would he fire?
Could he fire?
* * *
The End?
* * *
Dragan Kelly will return for further adventures.
* * *
Follow the author on Amazon for updates.
Also by Peter Alderson Sharp
The Crea
ture from the Grim Mire: A Humorous Sci-fi, Time Travel and Alien Contact Mystery
* * *
There’s no chance of a quiet life when you’ve aliens in your attic.
* * *
Felicity Westmacott craves solitude.
* * *
But something with a hearty appetite is stalking the moor and terrifying the locals.
* * *
And things going bump in the night puts paid to her equilibrium.
* * *
As does the mysterious appearance of an elderly gentleman.
* * *
He claims to be a time traveller.
* * *
Obviously as nutty as a fruitcake, he wants her to run a creche.
* * *
For baby aliens.
* * *
Now her secret’s out and other people are interested in Felicity’s unusual house guests.
* * *
Her ‘children’ are in terrible danger.
Shadow Of Evil Page 26