Ragnarok (Twilight of the Gods Book 3)

by Christopher Nuttall

  He’s not eating enough, she thought. Lack of sleep was bad enough - Holliston was hardly a young man any longer - but lack of food and sleep was worse. And he isn't drinking enough either.

  “There were traitors everywhere,” Holliston added. “We could have stopped everything if the traitors hadn't intervened.”

  That, Katherine knew, was true. Horst Albrecht could have betrayed Gudrun at any moment; instead, he’d sided with her despite the risks. And Katherine found it hard to blame him after meeting Gudrun. She’d thought that Horst was driven by lust, allowing his hormones to override his common sense, but there was something about Gudrun that appealed to Katherine too. What would Gudrun have become, Katherine wondered, if she’d grown up in Germany East? Would her ... determination have been beaten out of her? Or would she have changed the world?

  “Something must be done,” Holliston said. “She must be broken.”

  “She is on the way to breaking,” Katherine said. She hesitated, then took the plunge. “I believe if I were to show her affection and support now, it would push her over the edge.”

  Holliston seemed to snap back to reality. “And you think that would help?”

  “Yes, Mein Fuhrer,” Katherine said. “There is a point where punishment - harsh punishment - just hardens the soul. Gudrun may turn unbreakable - or she may die - if more beatings are handed out. But varying her treatment will undermine her resistance.”

  She kept her face impassive, wondering if Holliston would take the bait. She’d known a teenage boy, back in school, who’d been stubbornly defiant to the last, despite regular beatings, forced marches and public humiliations. He would have been excellent material for the commandos, Katherine thought in retrospect, if he hadn't disappeared during her sixteenth year. She had no idea what had happened to him ...

  ... But she’d admired his ability to just keep going, whatever the teachers threw at him.

  “Very well,” Holliston said. “You may do as you please.”

  “Thank you, Mein Fuhrer,” Katherine said.

  She carefully kept her face impassive. She’d expected to have to search for a loophole, but Holliston had rendered it immaterial. Do as she pleased ... she would do as she pleased. And Doctor Muller wouldn't be able to say a word about it.

  “I’ll return to the cells at once,” she said. “I’m sure Doctor Muller will be happy to hear the news.”

  Holliston smirked. “You may give it to him personally,” he said. “And you can also remind him that my orders are not to be broken.”

  “Jawohl, Mein Fuhrer,” Katherine said.

  She saluted again as he dismissed her, then wheeled about and walked out of the giant chamber. Holliston was clearly in a bad way, even though the enemy offensive had been halted before it could do serious damage. She couldn't help fearing for the future. She’d been taught that the men at the top were cold dispassionate thinkers, ruthlessly putting their feelings aside to serve the Reich. But Holliston was nothing of the sort ...

  And if that isn’t true, she asked herself, what else isn't true?

  She mulled it over as she walked back down to the cells, passed through the security checkpoint and peered into Doctor Muller’s office. He hadn't dared return to the cells, let alone his office. Katherine checked on Gudrun, just in case, but there was still no sign of Doctor Muller. She had no doubt he was amusing himself somewhere else in the underground complex while trying to work up the nerve to face her. And she was looking forward to that meeting ...

  But what do I do, she asked herself, if everything I’ve been taught is a lie?

  She stepped back into the security office, dismissed the two guards on duty and sat down in front of the monitors. Gudrun was sleeping in the medical chamber, sedated. The doctor had cuffed her hand to the bed, but otherwise left her largely alone. Katherine was more relieved than she cared to admit. If she’d had to threaten a second doctor - and she knew she might have had no choice - it would have raised eyebrows.

  And what would you do, she asked the sleeping form, if you discovered the truth?

  But, deep inside, she already knew the answer.

  No, she told herself. I know what you did.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Front Lines, Germany Prime

  4/5 November 1985

  Hennecke felt sick.

  He had no idea what was wrong with him, but he wasn't the only man in the trenches to be suffering. He’d thrown up everything in his stomach shortly after the nuclear blasts, then dry-heaved several times through the night; his head hurt, his body felt dizzy and he’d had real problems just getting up after an uncomfortable night’s sleep. There was no food or drink in the trenches, save for snow they’d collected and melted for drinking water. It hadn't made them feel any better.

  “Get up,” a voice snarled. “Now!”

  Hennecke glared, but slowly stumbled to his feet. The speaker was a young officer, too young to have seen any real combat. He looked so perfect, as if he'd stepped off a recruiting poster, that Hennecke hated him with an intensity that surprised him. It was all he could do not to stagger forward and try to vomit on the newcomer. But he barely had the energy to stand upright.

  “Help the others to stand,” the officer barked. Each word sent a shock of pain through Hennecke’s aching head. “See who can't stand under their own power.”

  His head spinning, Hennecke did his best to obey orders. A couple of dozen men looked as though they could walk, although only two of them looked coordinated enough to march in unison. The others were either too ill to move - he felt a chill running down his spine as he saw them shaking with fever, despite the bitter cold - or dead. He couldn't help feeling sick himself as he saw a big soldier, a man so large he could practically pass for a gorilla, screaming like a baby as he shuddered violently, then fell silent. By the time Hennecke checked him, he was dead.

  He froze in horror as he stumbled across Scharfuehrer Kuhn. The man was lying on the ground, his hair falling out ... he stared up at Hennecke, his eyes silently begging for life ... or death. Hennecke could do nothing. He'd honestly believed that Kuhn was too tough to be wounded. But now he was dying, poisoned by ... what? He didn't want to think about what happened to those too close to nuclear explosions, but it seemed as though he had no choice.

  The water, he thought, feeling a flicker of horror. We collected poisoned water and drank it.

  But there was nothing he could do, either for Kuhn or himself. Tottering forward, he carefully removed Kuhn’s pistol and strapped it to his belt, pocketing the two ammunition clips Kuhn had kept in his belt. Kuhn made no protest, something that frightened Hennecke more than one of his savage rages - and beatings. The man he’d seen knock a rowdy stormtrooper down with a single punch was now as weak as a kitten ... and dying. Hennecke was torn between giving Kuhn a mercy kill and leaving him to die. What should he do?

  “Strip the corpses,” the officer barked. “And then strip anyone too weak to walk!”

  Hennecke swallowed hard as he realised the truth. Whatever had poisoned them - radiation or not - those orders made it clear what was about to happen. Soldiers who were beyond salvation were to be left to die - including him, if he collapsed. Gritting his teeth, fighting to make his hands work despite his pounding headache, he forced himself to stagger over to the nearest corpse and start to undress it. But it was nearly impossible to strip the body ...

  It felt like hours before a team of newcomers showed up, wearing baggy protective outfits that he hadn't seen - or used - outside training exercises that felt as though they'd taken place a millennia ago. They had radiation poisoning then, he realised; he hadn't wanted to accept it, but there was no choice. The Fuhrer’s nuclear weapons had poisoned their own men ...

  “Get some food,” the officer snarled. The handful of walking men hurried over to the food cart, passing a trio of stormtroopers on the way. “And make sure you get back here to continue the work.”

  Hennecke was too tired to say or do anyth
ing, but sip the broth they’d been provided. It was warm, crammed with pieces of meat and vegetables, yet he couldn't help thinking that it tasted of manure. Perhaps their food, too, had been poisoned by the sleet of radiation. He wished, suddenly, that he knew more about radiation poisoning, although what he did know was more than enough to make his hair want to fall out. But now, with far too many men losing their hair - or worse - it wasn't anything like as funny as it seemed. He still giggled helplessly as he finished his broth. Thankfully, the dry-retching had come to an end.

  He heard a shot and glanced back, sharply. The stormtroopers were moving from body to body, systematically shooting each and every one of the wounded in the head. Hennecke knew just how ruthless the SS could be - he’d been there when an entire village had been slaughtered for harbouring rebels - but killing their own men so casually was a whole new dimension of ruthlessness. He watched in utter horror as a stormtrooper shot Kuhn, leaving the man’s body to lie on the ground, then forced himself to look away.

  They sent us here to die, he thought. And then they killed us.

  He found himself torn between the urge to laugh and the urge to start crying. He’d thought he was serving the Reich, but the Reich had turned on him. No rebel had killed him, no rebel had even come close to killing him ... he’d been killed by his own side. He didn't know enough about radiation poisoning to be sure, but he thought it was always fatal. Did he have a hope of surviving long enough to get medical treatments? Would he even be given medical treatments?

  I have to get better, he told himself, numbly. But how?

  The men were pushed back to work as soon as they finished their scanty meal, digging a large pit and burying their former comrades. Hennecke had plenty of experience digging mass graves, but without the proper tools the job was nightmarish. The newcomers didn't do anything to help, either. They just killed two men who collapsed on the job and couldn’t even begin to get up. Hennecke thought about drawing his stolen pistol and shooting them - or at least the damned officer - but his hands were too weak. He wouldn't have a hope in hell of shooting even one of them before they shot him down.

  There was no rest even after the mass grave was dug. The remainder of the corpses were stripped and buried, then covered with a thin layer of earth. Hennecke doubted they’d remain buried for very long - there were plenty of animals who’d dig them up even if the rebels didn’t come to see who’d been buried in the grave - but it seemed to be enough for the officer, who ordered them to follow him east. His legs still felt weak as he walked, yet the thought of being killed if he dropped out of line kept him going. The officer didn't seem to care.

  He was probably well away from the blasts, Hennecke thought, savagely. Or perhaps he was just out of training when the war began.

  The landscape had been utterly devastated by the blasts. Hennecke had travelled down the roads during the build-up for the first offensive - they’d been typical roads at the time - but now they were badly damaged, bridges knocked down and pavement torn up, leaving them impassable to anything short of a panzer. The trees by the side of the roads had been incinerated or knocked down; a number of burned-out vehicles bore mute witness to the deaths of a number of unfortunate civilians - or soldiers - caught in the open. He wondered, numbly, if the cars had belonged to higher-ups in Warsaw fleeing the war, although he had to admit it was more likely that the vehicles had been commandeered by the military. But he clung to the former thought anyway as bitter resentment gnawed at his soul. It was all that kept him going.

  He tried to remember what little he’d been taught about nuclear weapons during basic training, but very little of what he could recall was actually helpful. His instructors had talked about blast effects in some detail, yet they’d said next to nothing about radiation poisoning and nuclear fallout. He wasn't even sure what they were. But then, no one had seriously expected the Americans to launch a nuclear strike on the Reich. Everyone had known the Americans didn't have the stomach to start a nuclear exchange ...

  And they didn't, he told himself. He had no doubt of it. We dropped the bombs on ourselves.

  The small party came to a halt - it felt as if they’d been walking for hours - near a camp by the roadside. Hennecke felt a flicker of relief, mixed with concern, as he saw a set of armed stormtroopers standing by the gates, wearing the same protective gear as the others. He kept inching forward anyway, even though part of him kept insisting that he was going to die in the next few moments. The stormtroopers might have orders to gun them down ...

  Cold water came out of nowhere, drenching them to the bone. Hennecke barely had a moment to turn his head and see men holding hoses before they were drenched again, water soaking through their uniforms and leaving them shivering helplessly. He saw a man drop to the ground like a sack of potatoes, just as the gates were opened and they were ordered forward, into the camp. Behind him, he heard a single shot.

  “You’ll remain in this tent,” the officer said, as he led the way towards a large tent. “Do not attempt to leave without permission.”

  Hennecke scowled at his back. The other officers and soldiers in the camp were staring at them, as if they weren't quite sure what to make of twenty-five stormtroopers dripping water as they marched. They were being isolated, Hennecke saw, and he wasn't quite sure why. He was feeling better, wasn’t he? But not all of the men looked better. He stepped into the tent, cursing under his breath as he realised there was nothing there beyond a pile of looted blankets. They’d need to undress before they could even think of taking a nap.

  His head started to pound again as he struggled to undo his battledress. His fingers refused to cooperate; he started to shiver, helplessly, as he finally managed to get undressed and take one of the blankets to dry himself. He wasn't the only one to manage it, he saw, but several of the others had just collapsed, either through tiredness or radiation damage. Gritting his teeth, he lay down and closed his eyes. His head was spinning helplessly ...

  ... He started awake, hours later. The tent was dark, the only light coming from a lantern mounted over the flap. And it stank, of shit and piss and vomit and blood. He heard a faint moaning, the sound so close that he wasn't sure who was moaning. It might have been him ... he just didn't know. His head was pounding like a drum, his body so utterly dehydrated that it was hard, so hard, to roll over and crawl naked towards the tent flap. He needed water, desperately. He’d been told to stay in the tent, but he couldn't stay in the tent, not if he wanted to live.

  Outside, it was dark; rain and snow lashing down around the camp, mocking him. What was the snow bringing, but death? It was hard to see the shape of any other tents, even though he knew they were there. The cold gripped him, slicing into his naked body ... he was torn between staying where he was and freezing to death or trying to make his way back into the tent. Surely there should be a guard, someone who could help? But there was no one ...

  “Hey,” a female voice said. “What are you doing outside?”

  Hennecke turned his head and stared. His vision seemed to have blurred ... an angel was standing there, wearing a white uniform. And it was tight in all the right places, revealing curves a man could stroke and fondle to his heart’s content. A surge of lust flashed through him, only to fade just as quickly. She wasn't a nurse, he was sure. There was no way she was a nurse. She was probably an officer’s lover ... the shithead had brought her with him while his men suffered and died ...

  “Water,” he croaked. His head was a mess. Part of him wanted to grab her and make love to her, part of him wanted to snap her neck just for daring to exist. It was hard, so hard, to sort out right from wrong. “Please ...”

  “I’ll bring you water,” the girl promised. She had a voice he would have found reassuring, under other circumstances. Now, he merely found it annoying. “Stay inside.”

  Hennecke stumbled back inside and crouched by the tent flap, feeling utterly helpless. He couldn't even walk. If the girl was an officer’s lover, rather than a nurse ... his he
ad kept spinning, tossing up hundreds of possibilities that faded almost before he could get a grip on them. But he was dependent on her now ... his body twitched, as if he wanted to cough but couldn't muster the energy. If she wasn't a nurse, he knew he wouldn't live through the night and see morning. Not again ...

  The tent flap opened. Hennecke looked up as the girl, looking even more angelic than before, stepped inside, carrying a small glass of water in one hand. She knelt in front of him and held the glass to his lips, as if she were feeding a baby. Hennecke sipped gratefully, unable to keep his eyes off the rise and fall of her breasts. His feelings were so conflicted that he couldn't even keep track of them himself. He wanted her, yet he knew he couldn't muster the energy to have her. And his head was still pounding.