Grudge: Operation Highjump

by Brian Parker

  “And why were you with the engineers?” the policeman asked, clearly comfortable inserting himself into the conversation.

  Berndt glanced at the colonel and then looked back at Mueller. “I was questioned about the avionics, flight controls and tactical employment of the düsenjäger. Men tortured me until I gave them information about how to make the damn things work.”

  “A traitor!”

  “Oberst Henke, stop,” Generalfeldmarschall Mueller ordered, triggering Berndt’s mind. The oberst was the chief of the Gestapo, the German secret police. “Young Oberleutnant Fischer escaped to pass along the information of new American treacheries to us.”

  “But, Generalfeldmarschall, he is clearly trying to cover for his treachery. He gave away Reich secrets of how our düsenjägers operate. Without his—”

  “I said to stop!” the field marshal thundered. “When I give an order, you will obey me. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Generalfeldmarschall,” the oberst replied.

  Fracturing of the High Command, Berndt thought.

  All eyes were on the field marshal. He’d provided the distraction that the pilot needed.

  It took him less than the blink of an eye to draw the weapon Doctor Grossman gave him. He squeezed the trigger, leaving it depressed as the doctor had instructed. He expected some type of noise or a visible light, but nothing emanated from the pistol.

  Across from him, the three German officers and the two privates writhed in pain, their bodies spasmed uncontrollably as the microwave beam boiled the blood inside their veins and cooked their flesh from the inside. The smell of burnt hair, melted plastic and cooked meat filled the small meeting space, and still Berndt held the trigger on the weapon. Flesh split open as the internal heat and pressure escaped the confines of the bodies.

  Finally, it was over. The men stopped moving and Berndt released the trigger. He stood tentatively and walked around to the opposite side of the table. All of them were dead.

  The pilot glanced furtively out of the room’s glass windows to see if anyone witnessed his act. It appeared that no one had. He crammed the weapon carefully into the holster, avoiding the hot metal barrel as best he could.

  Before leaving, he took one final look at the generalfeldmarschall and the men whom he’d brought to interrogate him. Berndt felt no remorse at what he’d done. It was a necessity. Now, the High Command would be in disarray as the new Allies descended upon them from all sides. It was a small payback for what the Nazis had done to millions of people during World War Two—and the lies they’d forced upon generations of Nazi children.

  Berndt opened the door and peered into the hallway beyond. The same frantic level of activity greeted him and it appeared that the officers in the headquarters were unaware of what had just happened. He reached around and twisted the lock on the doorknob from the inside and pulled the door closed. It would take several hours for anyone to be foolish enough to attempt to interfere with an interrogation headed by Generalfeldmarschall Mueller and the commander of the Gestapo.

  When he emerged from the building, he immediately saw that his düsenjäger was gone. “What?” he cried and ran down the steps, crossing the street to stand on the grass.

  He turned slowly, trying to see if he’d misremembered where he landed, but it was gone.

  The soldier who’d been ordered to guard the aircraft stood on the corner and he walked over to him. “You, Oberschütze,” he said as he got closer. “There was a düsenjäger sitting here less than an hour ago. What happened to it?”

  The private saluted and Berndt returned the salute in annoyance. “The Standartenführer took it.”

  “The standartenführer? Who—do you mean Skorzeny? Otto Skorzeny?” He was the only SS-Standartenführer in the Wehrmacht, of course the private meant him.

  “Yes, sir,” the soldier replied, looking confused. “He said the generalfeldmarschall had given him a mission and ordered me to move away or risk death from the engine blast.”

  “Scheisse! Scheisse! Scheisse!” Berndt screeched and pounded his fist into his leg.

  The private stepped back warily. “Is everything alright, Oberleutnant?”

  “No, it’s not alright,” Berndt fumed. He wanted to shout at the private, to shake the man unconscious for letting Skorzeny take his means of escape. But, the idea of self-preservation stopped him. He’d just murdered the commander of the Wehrmacht. He needed to get away without further incriminating himself than he’d already done.

  “I apologize, Oberschütze. I’d hoped to pass a message along to Standartenführer Skorzeny before he departed. I suppose it will just have to wait until he returns.”

  Berndt didn’t wait for the private’s response. He spun on his heel and began walking west, toward the bridge. Somehow, he’d make it back to Anna, the woman who’d promised him the world if he murdered Mueller.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  07 September 2025

  Duke Raleigh Hospital, Raleigh, North Carolina

  “Oh, I don’t know if I should,” Gabe replied when Gloria offered to let him hold the baby.

  “Nonsense. Go wash your hands and then sit down so you’ve got some stability,” she said, pointing at his crutches. “It’s only right that little Gabriel is held by the man who saved his life.”

  Gabe did as requested and then sat in the chair that she’d indicated. James lifted the baby from Gloria’s arms, wheeling over to him. He handed the baby across to Gabe.

  “Watch his neck,” Gloria cautioned.

  “Here,” James said, adjusting the baby slightly. “Yeah, you’ve gotta support his head and neck.”

  Gabe looked down at the baby and smiled largely for him to see. The child stared vacantly at him and gripped Gabe’s index finger tightly, causing him to laugh. “He’s a strong little guy.”

  “Yeah, eight pounds, ten ounces,” Gloria replied.

  “Uh… Is that big? I’m sorry, I really don’t know much about babies.”

  “It’s on the bigger end of the scale,” Gloria answered. “The average baby weighs anywhere from six to eight pounds, so he’s just above that.”

  “Means he’s gonna be a football player,” James proclaimed.

  “No, he’s not. He’s not allowed to play football, too many injuries.”

  “I played football in high school,” Gabe remarked.

  “Yeah, and look at you; you have a broken leg.”

  Gabe chuckled. She knew the injury wasn’t from playing football. She was there the day he lost twenty-four men in close combat against the Germans. That was after eighty-one of his men were killed in a bombing attack by German aircraft.

  His thoughts turned dark. So many men and women had died fighting against the Germans. The numbers were still not known, but between the civilian casualties and the military casualties for the New Allies, it was in the millions. The average Nazi soldier was a fanatic who fought to the death rather than surrender as their ancestors had done in Europe. The news said it was something about their being raised in isolation and indoctrinated as zealots toward the Nazi cause.

  “I’m kidding, Gabe,” Gloria said, shaking him from his melancholy. “I know what happened on that train platform. We were there too.”

  Gabe frowned. “I’m really glad that you invited me to stop by and see the baby, ma’am,” he said. “And I’m beyond flattered that you decided to name him after me, but do you mind taking him back now?”

  Gloria nodded and asked James to get the baby. “Gabe, it’s okay to have the feelings you do,” she said once the baby was safely back in James’ arms. “It’s called survivors guilt. Soldiers throughout history have experienced it, but you dying on that train platform wouldn’t have done anything more than add another name to a list.”

  “I know… The Army makes me go see a therapist once a week and we talk about survivor’s guilt a lot, although she calls it PTSD.”

  “I’m glad you’re talking to someone. If you need to talk to anyone else, James and I are always
available too.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” He clambered to his feet with the assistance of the crutches. “I think I’m gonna go now.”

  “Of course, Gabe. Don’t be a strange—”

  She was cut off by a shrill beep from the room’s speaker. “Attention hospital patients and guests,” an older woman’s voice came out of the intercom. “President Sanchez is addressing the nation to announce the official VN Day. Please tune to channel seventeen on your television to witness this historic event. Thank you.”

  Gabe eased back down in the chair as Gloria turned the television on. “VN Day?” he asked.

  “Victory over the Nazis,” Gloria remarked. “It’s reminiscent of the VE and VJ Days from World War Two for ‘Victory in Europe’ and ‘Victory in Japan’.

  “Funny,” she continued. “I didn’t peg the president as a student of history when I briefed him about the location of the Nazi base in Antarctica last month.”

  *****

  07 September 2025

  Ruins of the White House, Washington, DC

  Javier Sanchez stood behind the podium that his aides had set up. The sun shone brightly overhead and it was a beautiful day in Washington, if you looked past the horrific destruction of the city’s national monuments and buildings.

  “My fellow Americans,” he began and then stopped, glancing at the teleprompter that displayed the speech that Captain deBoer had helped him craft

  He remembered enough of the speech that he decided to go off script. It would be more sincere if he spoke from the heart, he decided. If he got lost, he could always refer to the paper copy in the binder on the podium to point him in the right direction. Besides, he did win the California State Speech Championship two years in a row in high school, after all. That was much more stressful since he had had to look at an audience of thousands; today, there were only about forty reporters standing around. Piece of cake.

  “You know, I don’t know why all of us choose to start our speeches that way. It sounds so formal and imposing.” Javier grinned. “I have a speech prepared today, and it’s been provided to the networks for their own political commentary, but I’m not going to read that speech. I want to talk to our citizens from the heart.

  “Our nation is hurting right now. Yes, we’re celebrating a major military victory against the greatest threat this nation has ever faced on our own soil, but at the same time, we’re grieving the loss of loved ones, friends and family. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone in America who doesn’t know someone affected by this tragedy, be it here, in Washington, DC, or in the forty-one sites across the nation where the Nazis attempted to gain control of our nuclear weapons using paratroopers. Our servicemen and women, as well as local law enforcement officials and even the average citizen who took up arms defeated them at every juncture.”

  He glanced to the side and saw the senior British and Russian military officers smiling politely. “Oh, whoops. Maybe I should have read the script,” he said, eliciting laughs from the correspondents in the crowd. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank our dear friends and allies, the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation. Without their added weight to the fight, America would still be throwing punch-for-punch with the Nazis.” He turned and placed a hand over his heart. “Thank you… Thank you.”

  Javier turned back to the cameras and continued. “Today, we celebrate Victory over the Nazis Day, or VN Day as I like to call it. It is an important distinction that we say it is a victory over the Nazis, not the Germans. Let me be clear, the German people have paid their debt to the world. The savages that we fought against here in America were the Nazis, a carryover from the past, war criminals who fled Europe and established a secret base in Antarctica.

  “With regards to their base, we received intelligence that it was located near Dome Argus in Antarctica—the coldest and most inaccessible place on the continent, and consequently, on the planet. I have sad news to pass along to the peoples of the world. By the time our forces were able to battle their way through the elements to reach Argus Base, everyone was dead.”

  He paused for the gasps and the clicking of cameras to stop. “It appears that they had the entire facility rigged with pipes full of cyanide gas. Upon learning of their army’s defeat, they triggered the release of the gas, which flooded the base and killed everyone. The first Americans on scene succumbed to the gas as well. The Nazis poisoned a hundred thousand women and children just to keep us from finding them.

  “Their labs and engineering facilities were completely destroyed by fires, so the technology that they used to cryogenically freeze their soldiers and the battlefield medical advances that they employed are lost to us, with the exception of any unused samples we found here on our own soil.

  “For the losses to our nation, it is still too early to know how many we have lost. The death toll is in the millions, some estimates even going as high as five million Americans who’ve lost their lives due to the Nazi attempt at retribution.

  “We will not let their sacrifices be in vain. We also have intelligence of nations that collaborated with the Nazis against us—some for more than eighty years. Rest assured, the governments of those nations will be dealt with.”

  Javier tried to remember more of the speech’s highlights, but decided that he’d hit them all. “Americans are resilient people. We will rebuild and our nation will be stronger than ever. Thank you.”

  He stepped away from the podium as a cacophony of questions poured from the media section. He gave Becky and the boys a hug and a cheesy thumbs up hand signal for the cameras, and then walked through the curtain that led to a secure area and the giant, armored vehicle he’d traveled to DC in. Bill and Ted nodded respectfully to him, but the blonde woman waiting on the other side did not look happy.

  Captain deBoer crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at him. “What’s wrong, Ashley? I thought winging it would come off as more sincere.”

  “Of course, Mr. President. You did sound sincere. But, by winging it, as you say, you forgot to mention the losses from all of our other partner nations, who lost thousands of citizens from their embassies when you add them all up, including the French who contributed troops to help us. You also forgot to talk about the heroes of the war. We’d put that part in the written speech to give our citizens something to cling to as a beacon of hope during these dark days.”

  Javier waved her off. Indeed, he’d forgotten to mention the German defector who killed the Nazi commander or the rescue mission to save that Army officer with the information on the Nazi base. In reality, he should have discussed the church deacon who organized a resistance movement to fight a guerilla war in DC. His constituents would have loved that story, but he’d let the excitement of the moment blank his mind.

  “You’ve taken your own speech to heart, Ashley. Never do that, or you’ll end up getting upset every time,” he counseled. “I hit all the highlights of the speech we had prepared. We can spotlight on those heroes over the coming days to keep the people distracted and hopeful.”

  Her lower lip trembled slightly. “Hey, you did a great job of seeing me through all of this. There’s a long, hard road ahead of us all, so you’re gonna need to toughen up a little bit if you’re gonna be playing ball in the big leagues.”

  “Big Leagues, sir? We’re talking about the death of millions and the destruction of our capitol city.”

  He placed a hand lightly on her upper arm. “True, it’s terrible, but isn’t it exciting as well? We’ll be able to shape this country as it was truly meant to be.”

  Javier let his hand drop as he walked past her to the RV. He had so much to plan. From an emergency election to a budget, there were months and months of federal government requirements that he would personally oversee. His fingerprints would be on everything for the next century.

  He smiled at that thought, secure in the knowledge that his twenty-one years in politics at every level of government had prepared him for this moment. The sweeping reform of the N
ew Deal Coalition’s programs and policies would pale in comparison to those of Javier Sanchez. This is America’s moment, he thought.

  “Correction, this is my moment,” the president muttered as he took a seat at the desk in the RV. He pulled out his journal and jotted a few notes. Maybe one day, they’d be worth something.

  EPILOGUE

  10 September 2025

  Aokigahara, Mount Fuji, Japan

  Timbak’s hand trailed along the tops of the grass growing beside the trail. He knew what must happen; the Council would demand an all-out war now that the conflict between the Nazis and the Americans had played out. The time for observing and acting as a passive observer were over.

  As he walked toward the clearing, he found himself dreading reintegration with his people. He’d lived amongst the Terrans for almost a century; of course he felt attached to them in some way. He was just as human as they were. Their shared ancestry bonded him to them in ways he never thought possible—until it was time to sever those bonds.

  He’d been saddened to learn of the cyanide gases in Argus Base. The Nazis were a cruel people, but even he hadn’t foreseen the poisoning of their own kind. Maybe the admiral he’d met with earlier this year was correct; the Terrans’ time on this planet was at an end. That level of barbarism had no place amongst civilized humans.

  Timbak entered the clearing into a whole host of fleet officers. The sheer number of them surprised him. A familiar face appeared among the crowd and he bowed his head in deference.

  “Ah, Science Officer Timbak,” the admiral said. “I’m so glad you could join us. The men and women before you represent the fleet’s planners. We are in position to attack and require the latest intelligence on our enemy.”

  Timbak smiled sadly, knowing that any details he gave his people would result in millions—possibly billions—of deaths. The Terrans were inferior creatures, little more than beasts in the fields, but they were human, so were the Aryans at one time.