Grudge: Operation Highjump

by Brian Parker

  “Of course, Oberleutnant. This is your room.”

  He started to stand and realized that he’d slept naked. “Ah, I’m sorry. Could you?”

  “Oh! Of course,” Anna said, smiling devilishly before turning her back to him.

  He rushed to the lavatory to relieve himself. When he was finished, he shrugged into a white robe hanging on the back of the door.

  “Ah…much better,” Berndt muttered as he came out of the bathroom.

  Anna sat in one of the two chairs that made up the small sitting area. The top two buttons on her blouse were undone, but Berndt was positive that they hadn’t been before—or had they been? It seemed a strange thing to focus on.

  “You should eat. I made that omelet for you myself,” she directed. “It’s special; it’ll give you lots of energy.”

  “Hmm. Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Oh, no. You should call me Anna.” She leaned back, arching her back in a stretch that pressed her breasts against her shirt.

  Berndt picked up the plate and sat at the table a few feet away. He cut a section of the omelet away and shoved the fork into his mouth. After a moment of chewing, he decided that Anna was right; the omelet was exceptionally good. She watched him expectantly.

  He swallowed. “You make a very fine omelet, Anna.”

  “Thank you,” she blushed. “Now, eat up.” She stood, walking to the cart. “How do you like your coffee…Berndt?”

  “Um, one cream and one sugar? I think that sounds about right.”

  She leaned over the cart, busying herself with preparing his coffee. She didn’t realize that the angle she was at gave him a perfect view down her shirt. He felt himself stirring and she glanced upward, catching him looking at her breasts.

  “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” she asked, not quite sounding like she was offended to Berndt’s inexperienced ear.

  “I’m ah… Sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Yes, you did, Berndt,” she stated, walking over to the table and setting his coffee down. She pushed her hand into the pocket on her trousers and emerged with a blue, diamond-shaped pill. “Here, take this vitamin. You weren’t taken very good care of during the interrogation phase and your health suffered from lack of nutrition. This will help introduce some of those vitamins back into your system.”

  He stared at the pill for a moment, trying to determine if it was a cyanide capsule or some other form of poison, but dismissed the idea. If they wanted to kill him, they would have done so long ago and skipped the charade of a nice hotel room, a beautiful room attendant, and a marvelous meal.

  Berndt picked up the pill and popped it into his mouth, followed by a sip of coffee.

  Anna smiled again. She seemed to do that a lot more than any of the girls he’d been around in Antarctica. “So, Doctor Grossman tells me that you’re willing to make amends for the wrongs of the Reich.”

  He sipped the coffee once more, relishing the rich flavor that he’d only experienced a few times in his life. “Yes. Those videos of the war opened my eyes to their wrongdoings. I still have a hard time coming to terms with how completely I was fooled by them.”

  She slipped off her shoes, which were the oddest things he’d ever seen. A long spike ran from her heel to the ground. It must have been impossible to run or march for long distances in them. The carpet made an odd swishing sound as she rubbed her bare feet back and forth on it.

  “I think it’s wonderful that you’ve decided to help America—to save America, really.”

  “I’m sorry, what’s that?” he asked, moving on to the oatmeal.

  “You know, that you’re going to carry out this mission and save the United States from the Reich.”

  “What mission?” he asked guardedly, feeling an odd tingle in his crotch.

  “We can’t talk about it here—secrets, y’know?” she stated. “But just know that I know, and it’s a very big turn on to be in your presence.”

  He frowned. “I’m not sure I understand you. What am I turning on?”

  “Me,” she breathed.

  “Uh… I’m not sure how you were turned off. Why do you need me to turn you on?”

  She giggled, unbuttoning another button on her blouse. Berndt definitely was beginning to feel something underneath the robe. “You’re funny. I like you.”

  “I like you too,” he answered. “You have a very pretty smile.”

  “Thank you, Berndt.” A look of worry crossed her face.

  “What is wrong?”

  She leaned back heavily against the back of the chair. “It’s just… Oh, it’s silly of me to say it to you.”

  “No, go ahead,” he prompted.

  “It’s just that… I’m scared. The Reich is expanding their position, pushing beyond where they used to be. I don’t want them to do the same things that they did in Europe over here.”

  “There are different leaders now,” he countered. “The Führer is long dead. That couldn’t happen again.”

  “Are you so sure? Before two days ago, you didn’t even know the Nazis were responsible for the largest ethnic genocide in human history. Where are all those soldiers and Reich members going to live? They’ll move into the homes of the average American citizen and eliminate the occupants. All the support personnel and everyone from your base, they’ll need places to stay as well. I think that Generalfeldmarschall Mueller plans to keep the territory they’ve taken.”

  Berndt’s mind raced to remember whether he’d ever mentioned Generalfeldmarschall Mueller, but stopped. Of course they knew, there were several prisoners, if even one of them mentioned the commanding officer, they’d know about him.

  “Do not worry. He will not—” He stopped, considering what he’d learned about the Nazis of the past and what they were capable of. “On second thought, given what I know now, he may attempt to cleanse the Washington, DC area to keep as the new Fatherland.”

  A small, suppressed sob escaped Anna’s lips. “Please tell me you will stop him like Doctor Grossman believes.”

  “Stop the generalfeldmarschall? How am I supposed to do that?”

  “I don’t know!” she exclaimed. “You’re the military officer. You’ve got the training, not me. I’m just a scared girl who wants the war to end and all the suffering to stop.”

  “I don’t know what I can—”

  She surprised him by rushing to his side. The feeling of arousal down below was almost unbearable. “Promise me, Berndt.”

  “Promise you what?”

  Anna sank to her knees, reaching out tentatively to slide her hand between his robe lapels, her fingers tickling the hair on his chest. “Promise me that you’ll be the hero.”

  “Hero?”

  “You’re a hero, Berndt. You just need to accept that fact. America needs you to defend us. I need you to.”

  “What is it that you think I can do?”

  Her fingernails scraped lightly across his ribs, sending his body into a frenzy. “You are going to kill Generalfeldmarschall Mueller and end the war.”

  “I’m what?” he asked incredulously.

  Anna’s opposite hand trailed along his thigh under the robe. “You are going to be America’s savior. My savior.”

  She leaned up and kissed him. “But first, I’m going to show you my gratitude for what you’re willing to do. What every woman in America would be willing to do for a hero, such as yourself.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  20 July 2025

  Hillcrest Heights, Maryland

  Gabe had given up trying to reach the brigade. They continued to tell him that help was inbound, but it wouldn’t matter. In a few hours they’d be dead. The only reason they’d survived the night was because of their night vision devices—standard issue for American infantrymen. It seemed the Germans didn’t have the same capabilities, yet another advancement in the technology of warfare that they’d chosen not to pursue.

  He would have asked the colonel whether the Nazis had night vision, but Specialis
t Olshefsky hadn’t been able to save him. The German took a bullet to the throat in the first few minutes of fighting, drowning in his own blood until the medic put in a chest tube to drain the fluid. Then, the blood loss led to shock, which led to a heart attack and finally, death.

  The platoon’s mission was a failure all around. They’d failed to exfil without alerting the enemy, they’d failed to extract the asset, and they’d failed to get the location of the Nazi base directly from the colonel. On the positive side, they still had Lieutenant Colonel Adams-Branson, who claimed to know that the base was in Antarctica, and with the exception of the German, they hadn’t lost anyone else.

  That would change, though. His men were already at less than half of their expanded combat load of ammunition.

  Gabe high-crawled to where Jake Wilcox tinkered with the drone. “When can you get that thing back in the air?”

  “I don’t know, sir. One of the rotors is completely destroyed and the frame is bent, making it all wonky when it flies.”

  “I don’t care about it listing to the side like a drunken sailor, Jake. I need it up in the air observing those Germans.”

  “Got it, sir. I’ve had Privates Powell and Sweeney working the crank charger non-stop for about an hour, so the battery should have enough juice to stay airborne for about forty-five minutes.”

  “Good,” Gabe said, glancing eastward toward the lightening sky. “We need it up in the sky. They’ll attack once they can see.”

  “Got it. It’ll be up in the next ten minutes.”

  “Good,” he repeated, slapping the lieutenant affectionately on the back. “You’ve done a hell of a job, Jake. We’ll get through this.”

  “Thanks, sir.” Lieutenant Wilcox paused and then added, “It wasn’t your fault the colonel got shot. I saw him; he was standing up, like he was trying to see the action. It was his own fault.”

  “I know, Jake. Doesn’t make it any easier though.”

  Gabe dropped the conversation and crawled to the stairwell where his new high-value asset rested with her family behind the protection of concrete walls. “How are you holding up, ma’am?”

  She rubbed her stomach absently as she responded. “I’m doing alright. James won’t say so, but he’s in a lot of pain. I can tell. The doctor only gave him enough pain meds for a week because he was supposed to return for a follow-up. Now he’s out of drugs only two weeks after he became paralyzed.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am,” Gabe replied, unable to do anything about the narcotics he’d likely been given. “I can have Olshefsky give him a bunch of Motrin, that’s about it.”

  “Would you mind? Like I said, he’d never admit to weakness, but he needs something.”

  “Of course. Anything else I can do for you?”

  She smirked. “You can tell me that the cavalry is on its way.”

  “It is on the way.”

  “That’s what they told you two nights ago when we stopped here initially. I just hope we haven’t been written off because the colonel’s dead.”

  “They wouldn’t do that.”

  “It’s wartime, Gabriel. The military has done much worse during war.”

  Gabe decided that he didn’t like talking to her very much. Conversations with her almost always ended with some way that the past was coming back to haunt them in the present.

  “Well—”

  The report from an M4 at the far end of the train platform cut him off. He gave the lieutenant colonel a thumbs up and crawled back to the bench he’d designated as his command post. He had to try to get the brigade on the horn. Gabe’s driver, Specialist Mendoza, already had the radio handset ready to hand over to him.

  “Thanks.” Into the handset, he called, “Spartan Three, this is Berserker Six, over.”

  “Berserker Six, this is Spartan Three November, over.”

  The Operations Sergeant Major. Gabe’s hopes soared. The Three and even the Six were worried about their next job in the Army. Getting more troops killed trying to rescue troops in combat was always a slippery slope. It was the right thing to do, but oftentimes military panels of inquiry decided that rescue attempts were misguided and poorly-planned. As a result, officers tended to over-plan and tried to make sure the conditions were perfect before they acted. The noncommissioned officers, however, had spent their entire career on the line. They knew the importance of immediate assistance.

  “Three November!” Gabe shouted, holding the transmit button down for a couple of seconds so the sounds of gunfire would transmit. “We have troops in contact, request immediate extraction, over.”

  “Roger, I understand. TIC. The Three Actual got called away to a meeting. I’ll send a runner to tell him, over.”

  “Sergeant Major, we ain’t gonna last long. We need immediate exfil. Can’t you call your buddies over at the Aviation Brigade?”

  “I can, sir, but I’m not authorized to do that, over.”

  “Sir,” Lieutenant Wilcox yelled. “The drone’s up. There’s a hovertank coming our way!”

  “Dammit, Sergeant Major!” Gabe shouted into the handset. “They’re bringing armor into the fight. We can’t do shit against that thing. Take some fucking responsibility and get us the fuck out of here.”

  “You keep your men alive, sir. I’ll see what I can do, over.”

  Gabe wanted to throw the handset, but it was their only lifeline; without the radio, it was a guarantee that they were done for. Around him, men screamed for medics, cross-leveled ammo, and called out targets to one another as the fighting renewed. The time seemed to slow and he realized that they were all going to die at the Metro station.

  Calm settled over him. There was nothing else that he could say to headquarters to spur them into action. He needed to get on the line and fight beside his men. Gabe pressed the button to transmit. “Thank you, Three November, do what you can. We’re amber ammo. One KIA, multiple WIA. Berserker Six, out.”

  He gave Mendoza the handset. “Monitor for any further traffic from headquarters.”

  “Roger, sir.”

  “Give me your extra magazines. Keep three for yourself.”

  Mendoza dug through his bag and produced five thirty-round magazines of ammunition and pulled another four magazines from the pouches attached to his body armor.

  “Thanks, Mendoza. You’re a great soldier.”

  Gabe high-crawled to the north side of the platform, handing Mendoza’s magazines out to the men there. They’d seen the heaviest fighting and needed ammunition more than the others. Once that was done, he crawled to a bloody spot in the line of men where someone had been shot. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Olshefsky had dragged the injured man to the concrete wall and was busy slapping bandages on him.

  Gabe pressed the butt of his rifle against his shoulder and peered through the ACOG site. Men in dark grey uniforms, wearing the same mixture of helmets that he remembered seeing that day on the beach, appeared in the ACOG. He turned off the feelings of abandonment and the responsibility of leadership. For now, he was simply another rifleman on the line.

  He squeezed the trigger, satisfied that he was finally able to do something for his men.

  *****

  20 July 2025

  Skies above Virginia

  The düsenjäger’s controls felt familiar in Berndt’s practiced hands—and yet, somehow different. He couldn’t explain it. He felt the same, and yet different. He’d been trying to figure it out since Dr. Grossman told him that he’d be flying the captured düsen back to the capitol.

  The feelings of contradicting loyalties assaulted him as he walked with the doctor from the hotel room he’d shared with Anna that morning. He was a German, through and through, raised to hate Americans and prepared to sacrifice his life for the revenge that the Reich had fostered inside of him—except, his experiences in captivity made him feel something that he hadn’t felt in all his years at Argus Base. He felt hope.

  It was an odd sensation because in all likelihood, he was
flying to his death, but he knew the truth now. His ancestors had committed terrible atrocities and the Americans, along with the Brits and Russians, were the only ones who’d been able to halt the reign of the Third Reich. Now he was fighting on their side, flying headlong toward the US National Mall, where he knew Generalfeldmarschall Mueller made his headquarters.

  The ground sped by underneath him. It would be a short flight and he needed to work through his feelings in the few remaining minutes.

  He was a changed person. The knowledge of what his people were capable of, and what they’d done, made him sick to his stomach. He’d been lied to for his entire life. Everyone he knew had been lied to. He wanted revenge. They’d taken his youth and injected him with the regeneration serum, which, if the men who’d been kept in the cells beside him were any indication, may be responsible for mental derangement over time.

  Ahead, he saw a group of German hovertanks traveling in a single file line down a wide, six-lane highway. They were completely unaware of his presence above them, content in the knowledge that the Wehrmacht owned the skies. He briefly considered firing upon them. The düsenjäger’s cannons would make short work of their lightly armored hatches. The move would save the lives of countless American soldiers and civilians.

  The desire to contribute something that would be an immediate benefit to the men and women on the ground was strong, but Berndt knew that it was a foolish train of thought. If he killed the hovertanks, word would get out that there was a rogue düsenjäger pilot on the loose, jeopardizing his ability to land without clearance. The success of his mission depended on his ability to make it to the generalfeldmarschall’s headquarters without alerting his former companions.

  The hovertanks disappeared behind him and he passed the smoldering ruins of the American Pentagon building. It had continued to release toxic fumes and smoke for more than two weeks as the decades of paper and secrets were destroyed.

  Then he was over the National Mall. The skeletal remains of most buildings were the only indication that there’d been anything there at all. He took a deep breath and thumbed the radio transmit button.