Projekt Saucer: Inception Part 126

'Did he treat you well?'

'Yes. In the sense that he wasn't cruel. He was neither cruel nor kind he simply didn't have such emotions and as long as I did what he asked, he let me have what I wanted. But I thought he cared for me at least a little... It's a human conceit.'

'But he didn't care.'

'No. Not a bit. When the order came for him to move out, he just moved out and left me. I meant nothing at all to him.'

'Did anyone mean anything to him?'

'Not that I noticed. I think he was dead from the neck down. He had no heart, no soul. He was all brain a mathematical machine, above human emotion. I've never met a man like him.'

'Is there anything else you can tell me?'

'No. I don't think so. He left me and went to the Harz Mountains and is probably still there. I want you to find him and hang him. It's all he deserves.'

'Yes, Frau Bernecker.'

'Now I'm tired and wish to go to sleep. Goodbye, Colonel.'

'Goodbye.'

Unable to move anything else, Greta Bernecker closed her eyes. Bradley, elated and disturbed at once, walked out of the ward.

By nightfall, Bradley had left his makeshift office in the ruins of Cologne and was resting on one knee, like Davy Crockett, with an M-1 rifle in his hands. The sky above him was filled with black clouds of bursting flak, phosph.o.r.escent streams of tracers, descending parachutists, and fat-bellied Allied bombers and gliders. All combined to make a noise that could strip the senses bare.

Bradley gazed across the river, along the length of that enormous bridge, and saw the water geysering up all around it and roaring dramatically. There were infantrymen bunched up all around him, behind him, in front of him, and as the ones in front jumped up and yelled obscenities and rushed forward, the distance between him and the bridge decreased all too rapidly.

He moved forward at a crouch, holding his M-1 like a woman. He heard the shouting and the roaring and the rumbling of tanks and halftracks and thought that he was living a dream too intense to be borne. Then he was all alone there: not one soul in front of him; just the river and geysering water and that enormous length of bridge, plus a dizzying drop down into the river, where dead bodies were floating.

American bodies, he thought, and started shaking. I can't do this. It's too much.

'Go, dammit! Get going!'

Someone grabbed him by the shoulder, shook him violently, and threw him forward. He jumped up and ran like the wind, straight onto that d.a.m.ned bridge. The wind was worse out in the open, carrying all the noise to him, and the German sh.e.l.ls were looping down around him and the water was roaring. He was drenched, but kept going; now he simply had no choice. When he glanced around him, he saw geysering water and more men falling off the bridge. Shocked, he looked away, raising his eyes to the heavens, where he saw the bombers and bursting clouds of flak and tracers painting the night. Death in war could be so beautiful, always lighting up the darkness, but it was still blood and broken bones and burning and it made him feel nauseous.

'Keep going, G.o.ddammit!'

Which he did, as he had no choice. Running above death and destruction. Advancing beneath a night sky rendered exotic by modern technology. He ran and fell down, jumped up and ran again, while the water splashed over him, then fell away again, and bawling men, some of whom were his friends, jerked frantically and fell down. He couldn't stop to check their pulses. Once you started, you couldn't stop. You just had to keep going, through the h.e.l.lish noise and chaos, and pray to G.o.d, as Bradley was doing right now, that you'd somehow get through it.

'G.o.ddammit, f.u.c.kin' German sons of b.i.t.c.hes! G.o.ddammit, we've made it!'

Bradley didn't know who was shouting. All the voices seemed the same. They were filled with exultation and dread and a childish defiance. He just followed the other men, still running, crouched low, his M-1 bouncing off his chest, and raced through raging water into more h.e.l.lish noise and emerged to a stretch of solid ground that was erupting in flame and smoke. He jumped off the bridge, bringing his M-1 up, taking aim, but the wave of men filing up behind him forced him onto the scorched ground.

It was earth and it was black and torn asunder by bomb and sh.e.l.l and his buddies were spreading out across it and heading into the darkness.

Bradley stopped for a moment, briefly blind and deaf, drenched, and then realized that he was standing on the soil of the Thousand Year Reich.

He held his rifle at the ready and marched forward, into Germany.

To Wilson.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX The move began on the first day of April. Kammler had arrived back from the Hague at the end of March, after firing the last of his 1,050 V2 rockets on London. He had immediately informed Ernst that as the American army was rapidly approaching Nordhausen, the whole complex was to be evacuated forthwith.

'As you know,' he said, seated in his office in the Nordhausen Central Works, his back turned to the panorama of forested hills and sky framed by the large window behind him, 'it is Himmler's intention to use Wernher von Braun and his five thousand technicians as p.a.w.ns in a possible trade-off with the Allies. While I personally disapprove of this, I cannot argue with the Reichsfhrer, who is increasingly neurotic. I therefore had to agree to personally move them to a safe place in Oberammergau, in the Bavarian Alps. I plan to do that in four days' time. While I am thus engaged, I expect you personally to supervise the evacuation of the laboUr force from Camp Dora and back to Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Neuengamme, Ravensbruck, and similar camps around Brunswick and Hanover. Brook no resistance. Execute those who either cannot or refuse to go. Make sure the evacuation is completed by the fourth of April, when the evacuation of the Kahla complex is due to begin. Understood?'

'Yes, sir,' Ernst replied. Although he had formerly detested Kammler's icy efficiency, he had to admire it now. 'But I fail to see how you can make it back here from Oberammergau by April 4.'

'I won't be coming back,' Kammler said. 'As soon as I've settled von Braun and his men there, where they'll be placed under guard, I'll take a plane to Kiel and join you there. Once there, I'll remain with Wilson and his team until you return to Berlin to pacify Himmler.'

A tremor of fear pa.s.sed through Ernst at the thought of returning to Berlin, let alone seeing the increasingly demented Himmler.

'Pacify Himmler?' he asked tentatively.

Kammler smiled with cold, mocking amus.e.m.e.nt. 'When I saw Himmler yesterday in that quack's sanatorium in Hohenlychen, he expressed his concern that the much discussed Schriever saucer be testflown as soon as possible and insisted that I send you to see him, to give him a full report. To avoid any kind of suspicion, you must do just that.'

Knowing that escape from the besieged Berlin was becoming more difficult every day, Ernst did not feel too happy. He was ashamed of the tremor in his voice when he said, 'But I may not get out of Berlin in time to rejoin you in Kiel before you leave for Argentina.'

Kammler chuckled maliciously. 'You'll get out, all right,' he said. 'I've personally arranged for an SS plane to fly you out of Reinickendorf Airport on the night of April 10, which should give you plenty of time to see Himmler, sort out what he wants you to do regarding that idiot Schriever and his saucer, and make your escape before Berlin falls. Any more questions?'

'No, sir.'

Ernst saluted and left Kammler's office; then he went to work with no great enthusiasm, but considerable efficiency. No longer revolted by what he had to do, he arranged for the first of the Camp Dora inmates to be moved out that evening. He personally supervised the movement of some groups to Bergen-Belsen. Some were driven there by truck or train; others were made to go on foot, forced along by the snapping dogs and cracking whips, usually without food or water. If they lacked the strength to go on, they were shot, their bodies dumped in the ditches. Even here, Allied aircraft flew constantly over the roads and railway lines, bombing the lengthy columns of prisoners and increasing the chaos. By normal standards, it was a nightmare, but Ernst took it in his stride. He was disgusted not because of any moral outrage, but because he was risking his own life to escort this ragged column of Jewish sc.u.m and other useless human rubbish to what would be their final destination.

Yes, he knew that they were marked for extermination before the Allies arrived.