by Brian Parker
He tried to do calisthenics to keep himself healthy and sane, but he found himself tiring too quickly to get any real satisfaction from the exercises. Besides calculating the size of his cell, the only other thing he could do to entertain himself was talk to the prisoner in the next cell. The man hadn’t been there as long as Berndt had. He was captured far away in the American West. Their conversations were surely being recorded, although no one questioned him regarding his interactions with the other prisoner.
Berndt wasn’t sure if his newfound friend was completely sane, though, and often wondered if he spoke the truth. He told wild tales of terrifying weapons and said that their American captors beat him for no discernable reason other than he was a fallschirmjäger. Berndt himself had never been physically harmed, but his friend often returned from his sessions with obvious signs of abuse.
They’d taken the man next door for another session what seemed like hours ago. Time seemed to stretch away from him as he focused and unfocused his eyes on the wall across the way. As a game, he began to try to find shapes and patterns in the painted brick. Several düsenjägers appeared and there was one creature that mostly resembled a lion. Everything else was just an uncomprehending jumble of texture.
Berndt heard the commotion before he saw any evidence of what caused it.
Shouting drew his eyes from the wall to the edge of his vision outside of the cell. He stood and pressed close to the bars for a better view. The dull thudding sounds of batons impacting against flesh made him cringe, shying away from the bars to sit on his bunk. Then, the noises quieted and two guards appeared across his limited field of view. They dragged a semi-conscious prisoner by the armpits between them. His friend’s head lolled to the side and his eyes fixed on Berndt. He smiled, causing blood to pour from his lips.
That brief glimpse was all he had of the man whom he’d come to know over the past few days. The guards opened the cell next door and it sounded like they threw him to the floor. The prisoner shouted obscenities at them in German. The giant brutes were likely too stupid to understand what he said.
Berndt waited until the guards disappeared and a door slammed nearby, letting him know they’d returned to wherever it was that they went between sessions. He also knew that he was next.
“Gregory!” he hissed. “Are you awake?”
“Yes, brother. I am alive.”
“I didn’t—never mind. What did they ask you?”
“The same questions as always: Where did we come from, how many troops do we have, what is our goal, how many people did I kill—and other questions along those lines.”
“What did you tell them?” Berndt asked, curious if the man’s story would change.
“That they were the savage beasts, not us. That machine…” Gregory trailed off and Berndt worried that he passed out from the beating he’d received in the hallway.
After the long pause, Gregory began again. “That machine was pure evil. My men screamed in agony as they were cooked alive and their skin split open like an animal cooked over the fire too long. They died horribly. Everything we were taught about the Americans is true; they are monsters in human form. But, they will not break me. I will resist.”
Berndt smiled at the man’s insistence that he would stay true to the Reich. “So you didn’t tell them anything?”
“No, of course I haven’t,” the paratrooper asserted.
“That is good, brother. They do not know where our base is, otherwise, why would they continue to ask?”
A wet slap on the opposite side of the wall meant that Gregory hit the concrete block with a bloody palm. “If they discover its location, then that is the endgame for our people. I failed in my mission to seize control of the nuclear launch facilities and at least one other platoon did as well. They can still destroy Ar—”
“Watch out!” Berndt warned, fearing the man would accidentally mutter the name of Argus Base, which was named for the Argus Dome eighty kilometers away. The Americans had proven time and again that they were unafraid to use the nuclear option. Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Neuschwabenland. Regardless of their assertions that they were the good guys, they were certainly not.
“Thank you,” Gregory mumbled. “I almost said it.”
“I know. They are recording us. Even though we can’t see the cameras or the microphones, it is as sure as the sun will rise that they are there.”
“You’re right, Berndt. It was a momentary—”
“Back away from the bars!” a voice ordered in German through the speaker in the hallway. Berndt stepped back rapidly. It meant that the guards were coming to take another prisoner to the interrogation room. He wasn’t sure how many Wehrmacht soldiers were captive in this facility, but he’d seen at least five different men cross in front of his cell, including Gregory. How long could they continue to resist?
Not that Berndt had been treated harshly, of course. The interrogators were cordial with him. He’d only been hit once. They were returning him to his cell when a person opened a door which he’d never seen open before. He stopped, seeing a massive room beyond, filled with people and large television screens. The guards hit him behind the ear, knocking him unconscious. He awoke on his bunk.
Gregory, on the other hand, seemed to get beaten every time they took him. He’d never known the man before, since Luftwaffe and Heer rarely trained together after their duty assignment, but he seemed to revel in making problems for himself. He told Berndt that for three consecutive sessions he’d refused to say a single word, so they didn’t even know what to call him. He often caused trouble, trying to incite the other prisoners to resist or to actively work at escaping. Berndt would escape if the opportunity presented itself, but until then, he would cooperate and avoid unnecessary hardship.
“Oberleutnant Berndt Fischer, prepare for interrogation,” the speaker directed.
He stood in the middle of the small cell, placing his hands on his head where the guards could clearly see them. In seconds, the men appeared to take him to the interrogation room. One man opened the cell while two others, dressed in thick green uniforms that looked as if they were designed to absorb bites from the prisoners, moved quickly into the room, flanking him with clubs drawn.
It was their standard procedure. It had startled him at first, but he’d grown accustomed to it as this was his fifteenth interrogation—maybe it was the twentieth, he could no longer remember how many times they’d taken him for questions. The guards were not rough with him, per se, but one of them applied firm pressure against his spine with the club to get him moving. These men did not speak German, so asking them for directions was useless.
He waited until they handcuffed his wrists behind him. When they were finished, he walked through the open cell door and turned left, leading the way toward the interrogation room. The guards fell into step behind him, ready to bash him in the back of the head if he deviated from the path.
It was a relatively short walk. The prison corridors were nowhere near as long as those in Argus Base. He stepped into the room where he’d been questioned on multiple occasions and sat in the chair facing the door. He waited for the man with the glasses to come into the room.
Berndt was surprised when a dark-haired woman entered instead of his normal interrogator. This is different, he thought as he appraised the newcomer’s appearance. She was thin, but appeared well-endowed; pretty without being one of the women that he would have imagined to be in a beauty pageant.
“Good morning, Oberleutnant Fischer,” she stated flatly.
He smiled. It was the first time he’d seen a woman up close since before he was frozen. He’d seen some Americans from far away at the airfield, but it wasn’t like this. He could have reached out and touched her—if he’d dared.
“Good morning,” he replied, not realizing that she’d spoken in German until he responded in kind.
“My name is Megan. I’m going to ask you a few questions. What is your unit?”
“I fly—flew—Düsenjäger 519 i
n Vengeance Squadron, Fourth Reich Luftwaffe,” he answered truthfully. There was no sense lying about things that were inconsequential. Plus, it helped him to keep his stories straight.
“Very good, Oberleutnant.” She made some annotations on a piece of paper in a folder. “What was your mission?”
“To attack the advancing American forces.”
“Were you successful?”
Berndt thought about all the bombing runs he’d conducted and the two jet planes that he shot down on the first day of the invasion. Yes, he’d been extremely successful.
“I carried out my missions with honor, ma’am.”
“Were you successful in attacking American forces?” she repeated.
“I did my duty, yes.”
“What about against the civilian population? Were you successful in carrying out that mission as well, Oberleutnant?” the woman asked, her pleasantness dropping away. “Did you know that our current estimates of dead or dying civilians is up around four million? That’s a lot of innocent lives lost.”
“I— I did my duty to the Reich, ma’am. If I was directed to attack a target, then I did so.” He did not like where this line of questioning was headed. The male he’d spoken to previously never discussed the fact that innocents likely died in the düsenjäger attacks. Berndt thought of the children that he never fathered, regretting that he was not more like his friend, Matthias, who’d bedded many women.
Faster than his mind could process, the woman across the small table lashed out, punching him directly in the nose. He cried out in pain, hunching over as blood flowed freely from both nostrils. Another blow landed on his ear and he fell from the chair to the floor, unable to defend himself with his hands secured behind his back.
“Those ‘targets’ were my family!” the woman screamed, as she came around the table and kicked him in the kidney.
Dimly, he heard the door handle rattle as her foot connected with the back of his head. “Doctor Sanjay! Stop immediately,” a familiar male voice shouted.
Berndt turned to see the original interrogator standing in the doorway flanked by several guards. As he did so, the woman’s booted foot impacted against his cheek, slamming the back of his head into the concrete floor. His blurred vision began to swim and he was fearful of passing out. If he did, the woman would kill him.
“I’m done,” she answered, her boots retreating to the other side of the table.
“What you did is against the Geneva Convention for dealing with prisoners of war,” the man with the glasses stated. “Oberleutnant Fischer did nothing to provoke your attack. You are relieved for the day, you may go home.”
“My home is gone, Jeff. Everything is gone because of the Luftwaffe.”
“That may be, but this man did nothing to you. Guards, escort Doctor Sanjay from the room and then return the oberleutnant to his cell.”
Berndt rested his cheek against the cool concrete, seeing his dark red blood spread in a small stream toward the drain in the floor, covering several preexisting rust-colored spots. Dried blood, he thought. Then, another odd thought occurred to him as the bespectacled man’s shadow darkened out the overhead lights.
He tried to think straight, but his mind was fuzzy. Had he imagined the interaction between the two doctors? Surely he must have. His brain must have created the dialogue in an effort to distract him from the beating.
Berndt knew he imagined it because the doctors had spoken to each other in German.
NINETEEN
17 July 2025
Anacostia, Washington, DC
Gabe knelt beside Staff Sergeant Paredes in the deepest shadows of an old brick church. They’d picked up V Street and followed it northwest until the road intersected with 14th Street. It had been much slower going than he’d anticipated. The snipers, Sergeant Kelley and Corporal Hicks, had to reposition twice because buildings interfered with their view of the squad. Their last move brought them to the fire station across the street from where the captain rested on his knee.
Gabe glanced around at their surroundings, trying to determine if the asset was to the north or south along 14th Street. Spartan Six said that he was in the basement of a house on 14th and V, as in Victor. To the south along 14th Street, it only appeared to be more of the larger buildings like the church and the fire station. To the north, the road split around a small median with apartments and another church on one side, and single-family homes on the other. He was willing to bet that those homes were where the asset was hiding.
“Alright, we need to move up to those houses,” Gabe said, gesturing toward the row of homes on the same side of the street. “We’ll have to knock on doors until we find the right place, and hope that nobody has dogs or an itchy trigger finger.”
The latter part scared him more than the dogs. It was the middle of the night, and there had plainly been fighting nearby as little as an hour ago, so people were bound to be wound tight. He didn’t need a friendly fire incident.
“What if we try looking in the basement windows before we knock, sir?” the NCO asked. “We can avoid knocking on any door until we see something that interests us.”
“Good idea,” Gabe said, keying up his throat microphone so everyone could hear. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of something so simple. “I’ll take Griffiths and McCoy to peek in the windows of the houses on this side of the street. The remainder of the squad will keep watch to make sure nobody comes creeping up on us. The snipers will provide direct overwatch of my team as we try to figure out which house the asset is located in.”
“Got it,” Sergeant Kelley replied over the radio and Staff Sergeant Paredes gave him a quick thumbs up.
“Griffiths, McCoy, on me,” Gabe ordered. He saw the squad’s heavy machine gunner stand and run toward him while another soldier slunk through the shadows. The second man had an M32A3 Multiple Grenade Launcher for suppression and a pump-action shotgun as his primary weapon.
Once both men were at his location, Gabe gave a quick brief on what they were going to do. They’d use their night vision to sneak through the darkness and peek through the basement windows. If they found a house that looked promising, then they’d knock on either the door or window and ask about the German colonel.
The men acknowledged their understanding of the plan and the captain stood, prepared to cross the street to the first house.
“Contact,” Corporal Hicks stated over the squad frequency.
Gabe froze and then quickly scooted back into the bushes beside the church. “Where is it?” he whispered.
“Far end of the next street. I count three—no, four men—coming toward us. Looks like Germans.”
“Berserker Six, this is Berserker One,” a new voice came over his headset.
“This is Six. We’re a little busy, One. What is it?”
“You’re about to have company. We count eight men moving your way. We can’t tell whether they’re hostiles or civilians.”
He glanced skyward. Somewhere up there was Jake’s drone, keeping watch on them from the sky to provide the full picture of the area of operations. “Our snipers just saw them too,” Gabe replied.
“Recommend you stay hidden. Drone has a twelve-pound shape charge that we can drop on the newcomers if it comes to it.”
“Roger. We’re going to wait them out.” Gabe passed that message over the squad frequency. The men were mostly combat vets, but there were two privates who’d only conducted live fire training, not any situations where the enemy shot back at them. If they panicked, then the whole operation could be in jeopardy.
“Powell and Sweeney, this is Captain Murdock. You boys need to stay calm and don’t initiate a firefight. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” they replied in unison over the net.
He had to hope they’d keep their cool. Next to him, Griffiths and McCoy prepared their position silently, shifting behind old bricks and pressing as close to the dirt as possible. He did the same.
The group of men came closer, al
l eight visible to Gabe’s squad. They were too far for him to make out any type of uniform or features. Then, he noticed something.
“Corporal Hicks, this is Six,” he said into the radio.
“Yeah?”
“Are those black guys?”
“Roger, sir. Looks like…seven black dudes and a white guy wearing a cop uniform.”
“Everybody, listen up,” Gabe stated. “Those are Americans. When they get close, I’ll call out to them and go out to meet. Maybe they can tell us where we’re going.” A few grunts of acknowledgement reached his ears without the need for the earpiece.
They waited until the lead man was even with the stop sign across the street and then Gabe called out in a whisper.
“Friendlies.”
The point man must have jumped three feet into the air, firing a round into the church behind Gabe.
“Goddammit, stop!” the captain shouted, all attempts at being quiet hopelessly lost with the report of the point man’s pistol. “We’re American soldiers.”
“William, put that thing away, you fucking idiot!” someone whispered harshly from the group of newcomers. “You’re an American?”
“Yeah,” Gabe answered, still under the cover of the bushes. “We’re up from Georgia, sent here to take back the city.”
The cop pushed his way through the group. “Come on out, then.”
Gabe glanced at his men and then nodded. This was the most opportune time for him to get shot. “Alright, I’m coming out now,” he stated.
“We won’t shoot ya.”
He stood, hunched over in the bush and parted the branches in front of him so he could get out. “Holy shit! You’re either a real soldier or you’ve got way too much time on your hands,” one of the guys laughed. “Look at all that gear you got on.”
Gabe shrugged. Besides being in civilian clothing, the only thing he wore different from the standard grunt was the range extender for his radio, everything else was what they wore on a daily basis. “I’m coming across the street,” he said, holding his hands up so they could see he didn’t have anything.