Anno Frankenstein

by Jonathan Green

  He looked at the slight man under the blanket, his lips set in a tight-lipped frown.

  “But before we do any of that, first we have to find you some clothes. Then, as WC would put it, KBO.”

  “And what does KBO stand for?” the doctor asked, weakly.

  “Keep buggering on!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Hell to Pay

  HERCULES CURSED HIMSELF for not stripping one of the dead soldiers of his uniform, to clothe the freezing doctor, but he didn’t dare to go back there now. Who knew how long it would be before a team of investigators turned up? It was going to be enough of a challenge making their way across country to Darmstadt and the rendezvous point without arousing suspicion, and Hercules didn’t fancy their chances against a whole platoon of SS Stormtroopers when the Nazi High Command found out what had happened not ten miles from the farm.

  Pistol in hand once more, just to be sure, Hercules returned to the empty farmhouse and made a more thorough examination of the property.

  Upstairs, in the damp, abandoned bedrooms, he found signs of the family that must have once lived there. He had no idea where they had gone now, or why they had left in such a hurry, leaving so many of their possessions behind, but he was glad that they had.

  In one bedroom he found a worn suit of black cloth. It smelt of mildew and the moths had had a go at it, but it was better than nothing. Thankfully there was a rough linen shirt to go with it, and under the steel-framed bed he found a pair of old boots. They had no laces and were almost worn through at the soles, but they were better than he might have hoped for and, he reasoned, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  Back in the barn once more, he helped the still-unsteady Jekyll into his new suit of not so new clothes. The trousers were loose about his waist, but they would have to do.

  He placed everything else he had collected from the house into the back of the half-track, and opened the barn doors. With the doctor sat in the cab beside him, the horse blanket around his shoulders, Hercules started the engine and steered the half-track out of the outbuilding, following the track away from the farm.

  It was close on two hours after dawn. On reaching the main road – if the dirt track that had first brought them to the farm could be called that – ensuring that his cap was pulled down tight over his head, Hercules turned west, away from the watchtower.

  It wasn’t until another hour later that he took a turning cross-country, following a road beside a river that led them north through the apple orchards and pig-farms of a number of run-down hamlets.

  Taking out the painted silk map that was hidden inside one boot heel, Hercules consulted the contour lines and road routes there revealed. He wasn’t sure how long the fuel in the half-track’s tank would last, or what other obstacles they might run into on the way to Darmstadt, but by giving the watchtower a wide berth he guessed that they would be on the road for a day at least. He only hoped that their contact would wait for them, otherwise their mission could still all-too-easily end in failure.

  IT WAS ONLY a matter of hours before Lieutenant Eichmann and his senior staff reached the site of the wreck of the Baron von Richthofen themselves. Their initial reaction was one of utter shock, which soon changed into disbelief, and then anger and recrimination.

  But questions of how such a total rout could have occurred in the middle of German-held territory soon gave way to a desire to know what had happened and what could possibly have done such a thing.

  There was no evidence that the zeppelin had been carrying a crack commando squad that could have survived the crash and wiped out the force sent to secure the crash-site. Even if it had, given the amount of firepower unleashed at the scene, Eichmann would have quite rightly expected a number of casualties on the other side too, and yet there was no evidence of any.

  Closer inspection found only shell-casings from German guns, so again, unless this mysterious commando squad – who seemed to have vanished like mist with the coming dawn – had captured German weaponry, there was no explanation for what had happened here. The devastation certainly didn’t look like a fire-fight between opposing forces. It looked more like somebody had set about the platoon with a wrecking ball.

  And so Eichmann and his men had started to try to unpick the pieces of the puzzle. The dead and wounded were stretchered away. There weren’t many of the latter, and none of them were in any state to be interrogated.

  He had been obligated to report the incident to High Command, of course, although he knew what the consequences for him would be.

  He was proved right at dawn the next day, when the rumble of more vehicles on the road interrupted his own ongoing examination of the crash-site and the wreckage of the Baron von Richthofen. The fires had been doused, the twisted metal struts of the airship’s superstructure plinking as they cooled in the chill of morning and looking like the bones of some great iron whale.

  “Sir,” a young corporal called to him, the blond-haired boy running over the muddied field towards the crumpled carriage where Eichmann was busy examining the instruments on board.

  “What is it?” he snapped.

  “Lieutenant-Colonel Teufel is here.”

  Eichmann felt a shiver course down the length of his spine and swallowed hard. “Gods, that’s all we need.”

  He had feared that the SS would send one of their own to find out what had happened, but he had prayed that it wouldn’t be Teufel. Teufel was the very Devil himself.

  “Is the bitch with him?”

  “If you mean Major Haupstein, sir,” the boy said, suddenly looking uncomfortable, “then yes.”

  “Then there’ll be hell to pay.”

  Lieutenant Eichmann straightened his back and his jacket, took a deep breath, and turned towards the crumpled door.

  This was it. This would be the end of his career, he was sure of it. He was in command of look-out post Valkyrie 7, and this disaster had befallen on his watch. There was no escaping that fact. Good German soldiers had died and others had been brutally injured. Someone would have to pay the price for that loss, and Eichmann knew it would be him.

  Taking off his cap, Eichmann swept the fingers of one hand through his hair before replacing the hat. If he was going to go down for this, at least he would do it with pride, facing his future proudly.

  Ducking his head under the buckled lintel of the doorframe, he stepped out into the cold morning to face Teufel’s icy wrath.

  “Ah, Lieutenant – Eichmann, isn’t it?” the lean-faced, black-suited Lieutenant-Colonel said, one eyebrow raised archly and a cruel smile playing about his lips. He slowly, and pointedly, removed his black leather gloves. “There you are.”

  Teufel was in his mid-fifties, his hair thin and grey, his face as sharp and cruel as a blade, his grey skin showing signs of liver spots. But he possessed a lean, wiry physique that Eichmann had already heard, from others, you underestimated at your cost. It was said he had the ear of Himmler himself and that even members of Hitler’s High Command back in Berlin shuddered at the mere mention of his name. Not for nothing was he known as the Devil in Black.

  But as if his own intimidating reputation wasn’t enough, Teufel was always accompanied by his personal enforcer, Major Isla von Haupstein. Some said that she was more than just his adjutant, that she was his own private assassin – loyal to him above all others, including the Führer – and some even went so far as to suggest that the Devil and the Bitch were lovers. But Eichmann didn’t know of anyone who had ever suggested such a thing within earshot of either of them; at least, no one still living.

  The major filled her tight-fitting uniform perfectly. Her body was taut and muscled, like a coiled spring that – he had heard – could be unleashed in a display of deadly savagery at the merest word from Teufel.

  Lieutenant Eichmann saluted smartly, his body rigid as he extended his right arm out in front of him. “Seig Heil!”

  “Quite,” Teufel said, dismissing Eichmann’s salute with a wave of the hand in which he w
as now holding his gloves.

  He waved next at the churned and bloody mud, and the burnt and upended vehicles all around them, as he strode towards the taller Eichmann. “And this,” he said, still smiling, “this is your responsibility?”

  “Lieutenant-Colonel, the incident occurred during my –”

  The slap with the gloves was more of a shock than it was painful, but it stopped Eichmann mid-sentence nonetheless. It was embarrassing more than anything else, to be treated in such a manner in front of the men under his command.

  But the silence that followed was most painful of all; a collective holding of breath. He could feel the heat of shame and embarrassment spreading across his face.

  “Now,” Teufel said, in the same disturbingly calm manner. “Tell me some good news.”

  “Some good news?” Eichmann repeated hesitantly, fearing more humiliation.

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” Teufel said, still smiling. “Something that will demonstrate to me that you are not a complete incompetent.”

  “Well…” Eichmann hesitated, his nerves suddenly getting the better of him. As his cheeks burned, he desperately tried to think of anything that he could tell the Devil that wouldn’t see him receive another shaming slap. “We found the body of Lieutenant Kunze and his driver.”

  Teufel let his gaze drift across the churned-up expanse of the crash-site. “It would appear, Lieutenant, that you have discovered a great many bodies. Too many.”

  “But Kunze and his driver, Private Lang, were found hidden in a ditch back along the road.”

  “I see.”

  An awkward silence fell as Teufel waited expectantly for Eichmann to continue. Haupstein stared at him, wearing a hungry, wolfish expression. The Major was beautiful, there was no denying that, but hers was the savage beauty of a tiger, scimitar claws outstretched.

  Unable to endure the discomforting silence any longer, Eichmann felt compelled to speak.

  “Kunze was travelling by half-track. But the lieutenant never made it this far.”

  “I see,” Teufel mused, chewing at his bottom lip. “And is there any sign of the Lieutenant Kunze’s transport here?”

  “No, sir.”

  Teufel continued to chew his lip as he chewed over the evidence in his mind. “So we have a spy operating behind enemy lines, possibly masquerading as one of our own. And you consider this good news, Lieutenant?”

  Eichmann swallowed hard, feeling his gorge rising in his throat.

  “Is there anything else you can tell me that will sweeten the pill?”

  “There’s this,” Eichmann said, pointing at the open casket, still stuck in the mud where it must have landed during the crash.

  “And what is this?” Teufel asked quietly, shaking his gloves at the gleaming steel pod.

  “It would appear to be a cryogenic containment unit,” Eichmann explained.

  “A cryogenic containment unit,” Teufel repeated. “How wonderful. And was it occupied?”

  “It was, but not anymore.”

  “I can see that, Lieutenant. With my own two eyes.”

  “I mean, Lieutenant-Colonel,” Eichmann gabbled, “it had already been evacuated by the time we got here.”

  “I see.”

  Teufel paced across the field towards the pod. The tension in Eichmann’s body eased a little.

  He watched as Teufel ran a finger across the wet metal as a fastidious housewife might run her finger along a shelf looking for dust after the maid had finished cleaning.

  “So we have a spy running around Germany in a half-track with – shall we assume – another passenger in tow. And all this happened – as you put it – on your watch?” Teufel added quietly, his expression suddenly stern, the masking smile suddenly gone.

  “Yes, Lieutenant-Colonel.”

  Teufel turned his back on the pod, on the wreck of the downed zeppelin and, pointedly, on Lieutenant Eichmann.

  “I want road blocks set up on every road between here and Berlin and I want the cyber-eagles made airborne again so that we might find these spies before they cause any more trouble,” he commanded the assembled military personnel, his men running to obey his orders without hesitation, else they be found lacking in his eyes.

  Eichmann moved to do the same.

  “Not you, Lieutenant,” Teufel snapped, without even looking back over his shoulder.

  Eichmann froze.

  “Major?” the Devil said, continuing to stride away from the crash-site towards the staff car that had carried him there, without looking back once. “Show the Lieutenant how we deal with those who fail the Führer.”

  Smiling like a hungry tiger, Haupstein sidled up to Eichmann, her hips swaying provocatively. Eichmann swallowed hard and knew then that this was it. This was his punishment. His time was up. And the end, when it came, would be neither quick, nor merciful.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Hunted

  “DO YOU SEE that?” Doctor Jekyll asked, peering at the road ahead.

  “I see it,” Hercules said, his eyes fixed on the road ahead, hands tightly gripping the steering wheel of the half-track.

  Two hundred yards ahead, at the end of a steady gradient where the road sloped down towards the outskirts of a clinker-built clapboard village, stood the road block. It had been constructed from what appeared to be oil drums, wooden railway sleepers and a hay cart.

  Behind this hastily-formed barricade had been parked a rusting oil tanker and a dun-coloured jeep displaying Nazi insignia. Three troopers and a uniformed officer stood at the side of the thin strip of road beside the barricade. The troopers’ hands rested on the rifles slung over their shoulders.

  “Do you think they’ve seen us yet?” Jekyll asked.

  Hercules laughed mirthlessly. “Oh, I’d bet my life on it.”

  As if on cue, the guards at the checkpoint started pointing. After all, they were pretty hard to miss; what appeared to be a Nazi officer at the wheel with a farmhand sitting next to him, as they drove their half-track down the country road. It wasn’t the most effective disguise ever conceived.

  “So what do we do now?” Jekyll asked, a tone of rising panic in his voice. Hercules caught a glimpse of the man’s whitening knuckles as he clenched the sides of his seat.

  Hercules dropped down a gear, slowing the half-track to a crawl, giving himself time to think and, at the same time, hoping to allay the suspicions of the guards at the checkpoint by giving the impression that they were obediently slowing to allow themselves to be searched.

  Hercules hurriedly considered his options.

  If he turned off the road, he would arouse the guards’ suspicions even further. The half-track wouldn’t have too many problems with the terrain, ploughing its way across a furrowed field, but its open cab wouldn’t afford its passengers much protection either. They were outnumbered, and Hercules didn’t fancy trying to fire back at the better-armed soldiers while driving cross-country. And he couldn’t exactly turn around and head back the way they had come. He would soon find the soldiers in pursuit, himself and Jekyll heading into a steadily closing vice of armour and infantry.

  Of course all of these considerations might already be academic, he thought. After all, how long would it take for the rest of the troops stationed at the watchtower to find the bodies of the officer and his driver and realise that one of their half-tracks was missing?

  And then there was Jekyll’s abandoned cryogenic capsule. If the Germans were already looking for them, what they knew about the fugitives would have been radioed half-way across Germany by now. The lethal cyber-eagles were probably already out looking for them, tasked with finishing what they had started with the airship.

  Several of the guards had their rifles raised now. Hercules rather suspected that his worst fears had been realised.

  The soldiers’ commanding officer began to flag down the half-track.

  It was now or never. If they were going to get away from the road block alive and in a fit state to be able to continue their missio
n, Hercules was going to have to do something, and fast.

  There were no other vehicles on the road ahead of them to create a distraction, which meant that Hercules was going to have to create one of his own.

  He glanced back over his shoulder.

  “I need something heavy,” he hissed at Jekyll, nodding at the tarpaulin spread out in the back of the half-track.

  Jekyll shot him a terrified look before leaning over the back of his seat to rummage under the tarpaulin.

  Hercules dropped down another gear, the half-track’s engine coughing in response. The grey-suited soldiers were taking cautious steps up the road towards them.

  “Quickly!”

  “Will this do?” Jekyll asked, passing Hercules a wheel-jack.

  “Perfect,” he replied, taking the heavy object from the doctor and bracing it between the accelerator pedal and the underside of his own seat.

  The half-track began to accelerate at once.

  Hercules changed up a gear and the squealing of the revving engine became a steady purr as the half-track picked up speed once more.

  The accelerator was taken care of, but he would just have to hope that the steering stayed straight.

  The Germans started shouting urgently as they heard the changing note of the furiously working engine and saw the half-track powered towards the checkpoint once more.

  Hercules checked the speedometer.

  Twenty miles an hour.

  Twenty-five.

  He turned to Jekyll, a look of grim determination upon his face. “Get out!”

  Jekyll returned his expression with one of weak-willed doubt. “What?”

  The speedometer was still creeping upwards.

  “Get out now or the fall will kill you. Try to keep yourself curled in a ball and as soon as you’re on the ground, keep low and make for cover in those trees.” Hercules nodded towards the coppiced woodland to their left.

  Thirty miles an hour.

  “Now!”

  Echoing strangely from tree-trunks over the ploughed field, the sound of rifle-fire reached them as the bullets themselves spanged off the front of the cab.