Kitabı oku: «Blue Flame», sayfa 6

7
If you’re going through hell, keep going.

On a crisp spring morning in the Kinzigtal alpine valley, puffs of white smoke billowed out of the stone chimney of an isolated white Nordic stone cottage. A pleasant aroma from the cottage drifted on the breeze as Twigg Hansen and his pregnant wife, Freda, prepared their meals for the day. Bread baking in the wood-fired oven gave the cottage and surroundings a homely smell. Twigg and Freda, a young married German couple, lived at the cottage. Twigg worked his land and took care of livestock while Freda took care of the household chores. She visited the nearby town of Schenkenzell on occasions if a resident who lived there had a problem that Freda could help with. Their secluded, simple life was idyllic and far different from the rest of their country, with its previously decadent features now war-ravaged and rubble. Twigg and Freda knew nothing about the Second World War and the stupidity that had been devastating the mortal world for many years. This homestead and the Hansen Clan had survived untouched and unhindered for millennia… until now.

* * *

Twigg and Freda had finished eating breakfast when an invisible force shocked the couple, sending an icy chill through them both. Twigg was a tall, well-built, German man with long blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. It seemed hard to imagine that anything could put fear into this individual, but something had. He went outside and heard a distant rumble coming from within the dense Black Forest. Feeling a sense of foreboding, he heard a drone of engines above him and looked up. He saw large round parachutes with men and equipment, drifting down from an aeroplane and heading towards the cottage.

Twigg watched as they neared the ground. One, in particular, caught his attention. He gasped and rushed inside to Freda.

Hans Kruger and his crack commandos landed on the soft earth in the clearing surrounding the cottage and removed their parachutes and other items they carried with them. Kruger waited for the last man to land and helped the clumsy man remove his parachute. The shell-shocked Jewish man took his spectacles from his pocket and nodded at Kruger as he put on and adjusted his glasses.

Kruger looked down and smirked at Erik, “Wait here,” he ordered.

After checking his men were armed and prepared, Kruger and his six commandos’ ran toward the small cottage and stopped at the door.

Kruger gave hand signals and a soldier barged the door, which splintered and fell. The first soldier crashed through the doorway and a look of horror came across his face as he received a blow on his head from a large sledgehammer wielded by Twigg. A second soldier charged in receiving the same greeting. Both soldiers with their heads and faces covered in blood splayed out on the floor. Twigg stood back with rage in his eyes and waited.

Hans Kruger, seeing the demise of his men, looked inside the cottage at Twigg, who smiled as if beckoning him to enter. His remaining commandos had their weapons trained on Twigg, but they had strict orders not to shoot, with him needed alive.

Kruger walked through the doorway and the two giant men stood facing each other.

“What do you want,” snarled Twigg, glaring at Kruger.

“Put the hammer down, now!” said Kruger pointing his weapon at Twigg’s head.

Twigg, afraid for his and Freda’s lives, swung his large hammer at Hans, who moved out of the way and smashed the stock of his MP40 submachine gun into Twigg’s jaw, stunning him. Twigg stood back and shook his head to regain his faculties. Hans then fired the machine gun into the air as a warning and again pointed the gun at Twigg.

“Drop the hammer,” ordered Hans.

Hans’s remaining commandos came in. Still pointing their weapons at Twigg, they looked at their fallen comrades now groaning on the floor.

Twigg looked at the commandos, and with a steely glare charged at them, wielding his hammer like the mighty god Thor. He swung at Kruger, who again dodged the blow and they all attempted to subdue this tiger of a man with hand-to-hand techniques, ramming their weapons hard into his body, which proved ineffective. Twigg and his hammer wreaked havoc amongst the tough battle-hardened warriors.

The skirmish went on for several moments until the last member of the assault team stumbled through the door. Suddenly, the fighting ceased. Twigg’s body appeared to go limp. His hammer fell to his side as he stared at the newcomer. The bruised and bloodied commandos again pointed their weapons at the shaking, and now subdued Twigg.

“I told you to wait outside,” snapped Kruger.

Erik smiled at Kruger and then looked at Twigg, “Where is your Guide?” he asked.

Hans’s commandos looked amazed and felt confused about how Twigg had no fear of them, yet appeared terrified by an insignificant, puny Jew.

Twigg said nothing and gasped for air as Erik repeated, “Where is your Guide?”

A commando pushed Twigg onto a chair as Erik looked around.

“Come with me,” ordered Erik. He and Kruger went upstairs and Erik went over to a large pine cupboard in the bedroom and opened the door.

Freda sat trembling in the cupboard and glared at Erik as Kruger motioned her with his gun to come out.

They took her downstairs and directed her to a stool to sit beside her husband. The commandos went outside to fetch in the equipment that parachuted down with them, while Erik Jan Hanussen sat on a stool in front of the Hansen’s, grinning like the Cheshire cat.

“What do you want demon?” asked Twigg.

Erik said nothing. He kept looking at the cellar door and smiling.

Over the next hour, men took equipment into the cottage cellar. Twigg and Freda sat and held hands, comforting each other while trying to figure out what was happening at their portal. “We must let my father know, the spirit world will know what to do,” whispered Twigg, who also felt concerned about the rumbling outside getting louder.

Once they had installed the equipment to Erik’s satisfaction, Hans came up from the cellar holding a Luger pistol and motioned for Twigg and Freda to go with him into the cellar.

Erik waited at the bottom of the steps and grinned when he saw the shocked expressions on the faces of the couple when they saw what now lay in their portal room. Twigg gasped when he saw the pentagram and symbols that surrounded their portal and had protected their family for generations, stripped off the wooden floor and replaced with other symbols that he knew and feared.

The couple turned around and saw an empty glass room resembling a large aquarium with a door. The Hansen’s looked inside the room at what looked like a glass coffin placed at its centre, with drawings and scripts painted on the walls of the glass room and the coffin. Twigg felt concerned and looked at Freda after reading the ancient texts on both glass compartments.

Hans beckoned them over to the glass rooms door and shoved Freda through the glass door and over to the coffin.

Twigg, enraged, was about to attack Hans again when Erik shouted, “Come here, Keeper.”

Twigg trembled and went over to Erik standing with the commandos by the portal, while Hans Kruger ordered Freda to lie down in the coffin.

Freda rubbed her stomach, comforting her unborn infant as Hans closed the lid. He picked up a large jar marked ‘Schwefel’, Sulphur and poured the powder in a circle around the coffin.

Twigg became furious when he looked back and saw this and punched the soldier closest to him. The other troopers tried to mob him, hoping they would not get a repeated thrashing. A scuffle never occurred, as Erik moved in front of Twigg, who went numb. Erik walked forward, forcing Twigg to back up towards the Hansen’s portal.

“Summon the spirit ‘Aufpasser,’ Keeper, Guardian,” demanded Erik.

There was no need as Fritz Hansen, the Spirit Keeper, after detecting strange anomalies at the portal went to investigate and materialised in the earthly portal.

Fritz felt fear coming from his son and his pregnant daughter-in-law, who he saw lying in a glass coffin looking helpless. He saw the protective pentagram and symbols replaced and became concerned as the mortal with the demon aura now stood in front of him and gave him a stark warning, “If you attempt to raise the alarm in the spirit world, it would not bode well for your mortal family,” said Erik pointing to Freda.

The bemused commandos in the room could not understand what was happening and Hans ordered them to go upstairs which they did with great haste because they felt scared.

Fritz waited to see what would transpire before summoning help and knew his Spirit Guide wife would not be far away.

“What do you want demon?” Fritz asked.

Hans looked on bemused. Erik appeared to be speaking to an empty spot on the floor. ‘What is this devilry’ thought Hans, as he slowly edged his way behind Twigg as instructed to await the signal from Hitler’s Jewish psychic.

Hans was a mortal spectator in the room and could not perceive what the others were witnessing.

The room became a swirling kaleidoscope of illuminated vivid colours. Crimson lights emanated from the glass coffin containing Freda, the two Keeper’s myriad of rainbow colours swirling around the portal, and the dark blue, almost black, aura emanating from Erik.

Twigg glared at Erik, and asked again, “What are you doing, and what do you want?”

“I am here to help mankind. They have lost their way and need guidance. I demand the help of the spirits to accomplish my goals,” said Erik.

“You can demand nothing demon, your kind only wanted to destroy mankind,” said Twigg and sounding defiant, added, “We will stop you as we have always done in the past.”

“And what do you hope to achieve?” Fritz asked.

Erik grinned and told them, “With your cooperation, I can bring about new world order and …”

While the Keepers glared at Erik as he spoke and unable to pick up any emotion to know he was lying, Twigg and Fritz did not notice Hans, who now stood behind Twigg.

Eric had, and seeing Hans in position, yelled, “Now, Hans!”

Hans lunged at Twigg, pushing him to the location on the floor that Erik had shown him. Fritz saw this, panicked, and tried to flee back into the spirit world, but with everything happening too fast, Hans had forced Twigg into the portal before Fritz could escape.

“Excellent, excellent,” shouted Erik, clapping excitedly. “Right on target.”

Hans looked on in horror as the mighty Twigg shook. A force seemed to enter Twigg’s body, knocking Hans of his feet. Hans watched from the wooden floor, as Twigg stood fixed to the spot, convulsing as if some powerful invisible force shook him. Hans saw Twigg’s face distort and small particles of flesh floating away from his body, swirling around him. Watching with horror, Hans saw Twigg disintegrating before his eyes which unnerved him and he looked at Erik grinning as he stared where moments ago Twigg stood.

What Hans didn’t see was the portal’s blue flames intensifying, as a multi-coloured tornado swirled around violently as the two Keepers intertwined, stuck together like conjoined twins. After several moments, the blue flame disappeared, leaving the fused slow-spinning rainbow vortices rotating around a flameless portal

Erik laughed and sounding condescending, said aloud. “I knew I could do it. My calculations were correct, “I have closed a portal. Now me and the Füehrer can live forever.”

Erik then looked down at Hans on the floor with his mouth agape. ‘You’re not so tough in my world,’ he thought, sneering at him.

Hans got to his feet, and trembling like a frightened child, asked, “What devilry is this?”

“You need not know, so carry out your orders. Now, give me your pistol,” snapped the Jew.

Hans’s hand shook as he handed Erik his Luger.

Erik walked into the glass room and over to the glass coffin. He opened the lid, pointed the Luger, and as Freda put her hands up to protect herself, Erik fired two shots, one into Freda’s head, and another into her stomach and closed the lid.

“You’re going nowhere,” he said to the corpse and smirked as two crimson spirits filled the coffin, like red smoke in the wind.

He looked over at the swirling rainbows in the portal, grinned, and shouted, “At least you can spend eternity close to each other,” he laughed as the crimson lights settled down, as Freda, now a Spirit Guide, realised the situation was hopeless. She watched her husband and father-in-law’s spinning auras, before melding with the smaller crimson light of her unborn child within her prison.

Erik went over to Hans and looked up at his ashen face glaring wide-eyed at him as he handed back his Luger, smirked, and said, “You have done good work here SS-Oberfüehrer, the Füehrer will be pleased.”

Erik and the trembling Hans left the cellar and went upstairs. Hans’s commandos saw their leader shaken. They all thought that the sooner this part of their mission was over the better, they’d never felt so scared. These soldiers were the elite of the German army and although they had witnessed and caused many scenes of death and carnage, this was something that seemed far worse than simply dying.

They all went outside the cottage and looked towards the edge of the Black Forest as the rumbling became louder and the first row of trees collapsed forward. With the sound of splintering and cracking wood, two large Weinmach MS40 heavily armoured earthmovers pushed their way through. Smaller diggers, cranes, and various other excavation and building equipment, along with trucks carrying men and supplies, followed closely behind.

The convoy made its way sluggishly toward the cottage.

Hans looked at his watch. The slow pace of the machines infuriated Hans and his men. The heavy vehicles only appeared to inch their way forward. The commandos all looked relieved when they saw three vehicles swerve past the others and speed towards them. Two half-track Maultier cargo trucks and a Kubelwagon jeep approached the cottage.

Hans breathed a sigh of relief as he saw his replacement, SS-Oberfüehrer, Benno Von Arent, sitting in the front.

“Good, now we can get away from this place,” Hans told his relieved, battered, bruised, and terrified men.

Erik glanced at Hans and smirked as the Kubelwagon stopped in front of him and the commandos.

Benno got out and saluted them. They returned the salute and Benno, Eric, and Hans went inside the cottage. Benno took blueprints and other documents from a case and laid them out on the kitchen table.

“You don’t look well SS-Oberfüehrer, you look like you have seen a ghost, was everything alright,” asked Benno as Hans trembled and glanced at the cellar door.

“Yes, he is fine,” said Erik smirking, eager to get on with the next phase.

A truck pulled up outside and a dozen infantry soldiers jumped out and formed up into a line. The Gestapo officers gave the soldiers their orders and they unloaded their cargo of furniture. Hans’s commandos offered to lend a hand until they found out the items were going to the cellar.

Another truck pulled up. This one’s rear compartment was armoured and its cargo differed from the first having various sized, heavy narrow crates and a rectangular red strongbox.

Hans, Benno, and Erik were organising and planning. Erik stopped when his furniture came through the cottage. He went with the soldiers down to the cellar to oversee the delivery.

It didn’t take long to complete the task. The soldiers went outside to wait for the slow, heavy excavation equipment and to speak with the commandos who told them about the creepy cellar.

Hans, Erik, and Benno came outside. Benno pointed out the area for the excavation and building of an underground bunker.

Erik gave an order to a Gestapo officer, who marched to the back of the armoured truck.

Benno looked at his watch and told Hans, “Your job is finished here SS-Oberfüehrer. You need to carry out your next assignment. There is a camouflaged Junkers Ju252 cargo plane waiting at a makeshift airstrip, 40k North West, at the rim of the Black Forest. The plane will take you and your team to a transitory airstrip near Farge port. A truck will pick you up from there.”

Hans smiled and breathed a sigh of relief as Benno clicked his heels together… “Heil Hitler!”

The commandos returned the salute and Hans ordered his men into the Kubelwagon.

“Wait!” shouted Erik stood behind the BUCH MOSE strongbox,beckoning Hans to return.

Hans glared at Erik as he got out of the Kubelwagon and went over to Erik, who said, “You know how important this is, and the Füehrer insisted that you and I place this into its new home.” He smirked.

The Kubelwagon drove around the slow oncoming convoy of heavy machinery and along tracks and small roads around the Black Forrest region. The commandos, relieved to be away from the cottage, remained deep in thought and confused as they made the slow journey to the airstrip. Milky orange dusk enveloped the sky as they reached the Junkers, covered in camouflage netting. The pilot ordered them to hurry with the plane not being equipped to fly at night.

Hans’s men removed the netting, and the pilot started the Jumo 211F engines. Hans and his commandos climbed aboard and the plane took off. The commandos, still unnerved by their experience, stared ahead in silence throughout the short flight.

Hans looked at his watch in the moonlight, “2:00 am. We could have walked there quicker,” he grumbled. He and his men had now been waiting on a small roadside at the now deserted airstrip for several hours. They then heard engines and saw headlights coming toward them.

Four ‘Moles,’ Opel Maultier trucks loaded with cargo and troops pulled up alongside them. Hans and his men climbed into the back of one vehicle for the short journey. The night sky was quiet, but everyone on the vehicles knew at any moment things could change. All the troops looked on edge as they listened for the sound of aircraft.

They arrived at a jetty at the port of Farge, pulling up alongside a sleek U-boat, where two young SS officers met them. “Heil Hitler!” said the fresh-faced youngsters, snapping to attention and raising their arm in salute. Hans returned their salutes, marched past them, and boarded the U-boat, followed by his commandos.

Previously, pity was not in Kruger’s nature, but after the unnerving events he’d witnessed at the cottage, he could not help but feel sorrow for the two young officers. He knew there was no room on the U-boat to accommodate them, so they would be a disposable loose end.

The other troops got out of the trucks and started offloading the cargo into the U-boat. Several of the U-boat crew came from below decks and assisted. They loaded small heavy wooden crates, marked with a large black stencil:

PRODUCTO DE ARGENTINA

MAQUINARIA AGRICOLA

Argentine agricultural machinery.

Captain Viktor came on deck, while the rest of his officers stayed below supervising the storage of the heavy cargo. Several other trucks arrived during the night with storage containers that dockside cranes hoisted into watertight compartments. Other trucks arrived with smaller crates they loaded into the conning storage area within the vessel. Several hours into the offload they all ran for cover as allied bombers flew overhead, dropping their payloads onto the nearby town of Bremen and the Valentin submarine pens close by. The bombing was brief and once over they continued with the loading. By daybreak, the U-boat’s crew felt exhausted.

The Captain stood on the conning bridge and watched his men load the last of the cargo into the U-boat. He felt angry, because not only was his crew’s complement less than half, just twenty-eight men but also they had to work tirelessly loading the boat. He, along with the rest of Germany knew they’d lost the war and knew they were transporting looted- treasure.

Kruger and his men came out of the U-boat, now attired in black S.S. uniforms.

The sailors just milled around on the jetty.

The Captain thought that with the U-boat now loaded, they should soon be underway. He wanted to get back out onto the familiar ocean, maybe for the last time. Karl always hoped that he would die at sea, a maritime warrior.

Hans issued an order to his men and they rounded up the U-boat crew at gunpoint and ushered them aboard. Hans then ordered the Captain to join his men. Captain Viktor clenched his fists, angry about getting orders from an S.S. murderer, but he had no choice; his orders had come from the top.

The SS commandos locked the crew in the hot forward compartment of the vessel with the six remaining torpedoes.

“What’s happening sir,” asked a submariner.

“I don’t know but we’d better rest,” said the Captain who sat on the cramped steel floor, rested his head on his knees, and thought about his wife and kids.

The jetty was now silent, except for screeching seagulls and the groan of twisted wrecks, buffeted by the waves.

Hans Kruger and the two young SS officers stood on the jetty. Kruger looked at his watch, satisfied that everything had gone according to schedule. All he had to do now was wait for the Füehrer.

* * *

With the battle raging outside, a grisly sight greeted S.S. Officers Otto Guensche and Heinz Linge, as they entered Hitler’s quarters within the deserted Füehrer bunker. After hearing two shots and seeing an SS officer leaving Hitler’s drawing-room, they carried out their orders.

Adolf Hitler, dressed in his beige uniform and Eva Braun in a blue floral skirt lay dead in what appeared to be a suicide tryst. Their faces contorted with blood staining their clothes, floor, and furniture. Wispy smoke drifted from the barrel of a Luger pistol lying on the floor beside Hitler’s body. Both he and Braun had white powder around their lips, with a bottle of cyanide capsules, and an empty carafe of water overturned on the table. Small gunshot wounds on their heads still smouldered as Otto and Heinz, glanced at each other, smiled, covered the bodies with plain woollen blankets, and lifted them onto trolleys. They wheeled them to the bunker’s elevator and took them to the surface. With no ceremony and little respect paid to the corpses as Heinz, Hitler’s former valet, and Otto, spat on the corpses before wheeling the bodies outside and dumping them into a bomb crater within the gardens of the chancellery. Artillery shells and gunfire exploded around the buildings as the two S.S. Officers’ removed the cap off a large tin drum and poured a pungent-smelling liquid over the corpses. They ignited the fuel, and with a whoosh, the two bodies erupted into flame.

The two men watched as the corpses incinerated in the inferno. Otto noticed something strange as Hitler’s jacket dissolved in the flame. He nudged Heinz and pointed to Hitler’s forearm. Heinz looked and shrugged.

“The bastard isn’t dead,” said Otto.

Heinz sighed as the inflammable incendiary mix took only minutes to incinerate the flesh from the bodies, leaving only ash and bone.

“We can say nothing about this,” said Otto sounding concerned.

Heinz nodded, and the pair walked away from the cremation, heading away from the bomb-wrecked gardens and toward the sound of battle to surrender.

The following day, newspapers around the world headlined the news: Adolf Hitler is dead. They reported that he and Eva Braun committed suicide. The word celebrated as the war in Europe was over.

Neither Otto nor Heinz ever mentioned what they saw on Hitler’s body as it burned at the war crimes trial in Nuremberg. They told the court that they had seen Hitler and Braun’s corpses, along with the cyanide and Luger. They told prosecutors that their orders came directly from SS – Grupenfüehrer Heinrich Műller Chief of the Gestapo before he fled Germany with his whereabouts unknown.

Otto and Heinz went to their graves without ever telling anyone what they saw tattooed on Hitler’s forearm; the concentration camp serial number of its Jewish resident.

While Germany burned, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun sat drinking cognac in their cabin, as the U-boat headed towards its final destination. They laughed and joked as they discussed their future together, seemingly unconcerned about the fate of war-ravaged Germany. Hitler knew with his cargo he would rebuild his shattered Reich, either in this life or the next.