Ragnarok

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Germanica, Germany East

16 November 1985

Doctor Müller eyed Katherine sourly as she stepped into the security room. “She’s still in her cell,” he said, nodding towards the monitors. “Did you think she’d be somewhere else?”

Katherine shrugged, trying to keep the distaste off her face. The Führer had ordered Doctor Müller to leave Gudrun alone, but she wouldn’t have put it past the doctor, now that Gudrun had been sentenced to exile, to try to have some fun with the poor girl. But instead he was merely watching Gudrun through the cameras. Thankfully, Gudrun knew she was being watched at all times.

“The Führer will be arranging her departure tomorrow,” Katherine said, ignoring the question. She had no idea when all hell was going to break loose — Horst hadn’t been too clear — but she couldn’t afford to seem deficient in her duties. Too many familiar faces had vanished already as Holliston’s paranoia began to bite. “Until then, let her get some rest.”

“As you wish,” Müller said. He leaned towards the monitors, drinking in the scene. “The farmers would prefer her to be intact, I am sure.”

Katherine silently measured his back for the knife. It was easy, chillingly easy, to imagine the young Müller peeking at girls in changing rooms, slowly growing up into a monstrous pervert. No wonder the SS had recruited him. A man who enjoyed his work would be far more reliable than a man who saw it as a duty. And Müller would hardly be the first monster who had been offered a choice between service or going straight into the gas chambers.

“I am sure,” Katherine said.

“They’ll know she’s not a virgin, of course,” Müller added. “But I doubt they’ll care.”

Katherine touched the hilt of her dagger, resisting — barely — the urge to stab him there and then. She was no stranger to doing horrific things for the Reich, but she had never enjoyed them. Müller… did. He had nothing to gain from spying on Gudrun now, particularly after he’d been ordered to leave her alone, yet he was still watching the girl. And to think he had plenty of other victims at his disposal.

Bastard, she thought, nastily.

The alarms went off. She looked up, sharply, as red lights began to flash. The city was under attack! No, the Reichstag was under attack. She had no idea what Horst had done — he hadn’t been remotely clear on the details — but it was clear that he had done something. Three different alarm tones — air attack, ground attack, security breach — were sounding, blending together into a terrifying cacophony. She couldn’t help wondering, as she drew her dagger, if someone had deliberately set off the wrong alarms.

Müller glanced at her, his face suddenly fearful. She saw his eyes go wide as he noticed the dagger and realised what it meant. He stumbled backwards, but it was far too late. Katherine couldn’t help feeling a flicker of contempt as she lunged forward and sliced the dagger across his throat. His body crumpled to the ground, bleeding like a stuck pig. The stench of piss rose to her nostrils, making her smile. In life as well as death, Doctor Müller had been a coward.

She stepped over the body and peered down at the console as the alarms faded to a dull background noise. Dozens of voices were shouting over the intercom, despite the best efforts of the emergency controllers. God alone knew what was happening on the surface… she pushed the thought to the back of her mind as she triggered a pair of security protocols, then opened the locker and removed two rifles and a pistol. Gudrun could shoot, she knew; she’d seen her using a pistol. She could still help even if she couldn’t fire a rifle.

A low hum echoed through the bunker, followed by a voice babbling about lockdowns and sealed hatches. Katherine winced — there was no hope of simply taking Gudrun and sneaking out now — and then headed for the inner doors. They would have been sealed, of course, the moment the alarms went off, but they were easy to open from the outside. She’d just have to make damn sure the locking mechanism was jammed or she’d wind up trapped in the complex herself.

The two guards standing outside Gudrun’s cell looked relieved, then astonished, to see her. Katherine shot them both before they could react, feeling a twinge of guilt as their bodies collapsed. They hadn’t been nasty, unlike Doctor Müller. They’d done their duty as best as they could, instead of taking advantage of the situation. Hell, they’d even respected her as a fellow soldier. But there had been no time to try to talk them into surrender, even if she’d thought they would surrender. She’d had no choice.

She opened Gudrun’s cell and peered inside. Gudrun was seated on the bed, her arms crossed over her breasts. She looked resigned, rather than eager. Katherine blinked in surprise, then recalled that Doctor Müller had told Gudrun that she’d be killed if the bunker ever came under attack. There were procedures in place to kill all the prisoners before they could be rescued. But the planners had never anticipated betrayal from the inside…

“On your feet,” she snapped, as she opened the inner door. “Can you shoot a rifle?”

Gudrun shook her head. Katherine rolled her eyes. The BDM in the west was clearly useless. A girl who couldn’t defend herself was a girl who was utterly dependent on men for her safety. Perhaps that was the point. Gudrun had practically admitted that she’d been dependent on her brother and father. Katherine shoved the pistol and two spare clips of ammunition at Gudrun, then motioned for her to get out of the cell. The remaining alarms cut off a second later.

“Your husband is attacking the Reichstag,” Katherine said. She thought fast, trying to remember the emergency procedures. If the alarms had cut off, lockdown procedures had been completed. And that meant that Holliston was in the bunker. “And we need to cut off the Führer.”

She groaned, inwardly, as she led the way out of the cell. Holliston wouldn’t have many guards with him, but the ones he did have would be fanatical. And she’d have to kill them all just to get to him. Unless there was another way…

…But what?

“The bunker has been sealed,” she added, as she struggled with the outer door. “Everyone you will meet is an enemy. Kill him before he kills you.”

She glanced back at Gudrun. She looked pale, but determined. Katherine prayed, silently, that she survived and escaped — or, if she was caught, that she died quickly. There weren’t that many men in the bunker, but they’d be trapped underground for weeks and Gudrun would be the only available woman. Karl Holliston, his mind already snapping, would probably order them to rape her in succession until she died. He no longer needed to worry about anyone else’s opinion.

“Here we go,” she said, turning back to the door. “Don’t stop for anything.”

“Send half the operators out,” Karl ordered, as he stepped into the communications room. “They are to go back to their bunks until further notice.”

“Jawohl, Mein Führer,” the commander said.

Karl sat down in front of the console and opened the briefcase, perching it on the table beside him. Radio transmissions could be jammed — if the transmitters weren’t simply destroyed — but no one could do anything about the buried cables. The Americans had grown so good at intercepting and deciphering the Reich’s communications that almost anything sensitive was sent over the wire, instead of through the air. And the rebels — and their treacherous allies — wouldn’t be able to stop him from unleashing hell.

He sucked in his breath as he removed the small device and plugged it into the radio transmitter, then started to work his way through the paperwork. It was depressingly primitive, compared to some of the other systems he had used, but it was impossible to tamper with it. Or so he had been told. The authorisation code for each and every nuclear weapon in Germany East was included within the briefcase, with different codes for unlocking the warheads themselves and launching the missiles. And…

…And there was no way to know if all of the missiles would actually fly.

“Open the channel,” he ordered.

He cursed the rebels, savagely. His men thought they had unlocked all of the warheads — and the missiles — but they didn’t know. The only way to know would be to launch the missiles… and if it failed, the security devices would render the missiles useless. In hindsight, it had been a grievous mistake to allow the Reich Council sole control over the nuclear arsenal. But it had been the only way to prevent civil war.

Sorting through the papers, he found the plan for a two-fold nuclear offensive. The missiles would be launched at American cities, aimed at causing maximum carnage rather than destroying the American military machine. It was inefficient, he recalled from the briefings, but it would cripple the United States. The Reich might be mortally wounded, but it would take its enemy down too. And the tactical warheads would be hurled into Germany Prime.

The Americans may not destroy the rebels, he thought. But we will.

He allowed himself a moment to savour the thought as he produced the first set of coded signals. The rebels had no idea of the hell he was planning to unleash. But it was what they deserved. They’d betrayed him, they’d betrayed the Reich, they’d betrayed everything Adolf Hitler and his successors had done for the Volk. It was a shame he’d never get his chance to wring their necks personally, but it wasn’t necessary. All that mattered was taking his revenge.

And we might survive down here, he thought. We can recover control after the war.

“Get onto the radio,” Horst snapped. “Send the emergency code to the bombers.”

“Jawohl,” the operator said.

Horst cursed as he stared at the bunker doors. There was no hope, absolutely none, of getting through in time to make a difference. It was time for one last roll of the dice.

Gudrun shivered the moment she stepped through the door and into the main bunker complex. The cell hadn’t been particularly warm, but it was colder here, deep below the ground. She couldn’t help feeling horrifically exposed as Katherine led the way down the corridor, her nakedness bothering her for the first time in weeks. If they were caught, if they were shot, she had absolutely no protection. But then, that would have been true even if she was wearing an ugly uniform.

She clutched the pistol tightly, feeling her hands grow moist with sweat. Horst had taught her how to use it, but he’d never thought she’d have to fight her way through a bunker of stormtroopers. It sounded like something out a bad novel, perhaps one of the SS Adventures that Kurt had devoured as a young man. But she had no choice. She lifted her pistol as they rounded the corner and came face to face with two young men, both of whom stared at her in shock. Katherine shot them both down before they could say a word.

Gudrun swallowed, hard. She understood the logic, she understood the importance of not giving them time to sound the alert, but she still found it shocking. And yet, she knew there was no choice.

“This way,” Katherine muttered.

She led the way into a room and opened fire, picking off five men before they had a chance to react. Gudrun followed her in, pistol at the ready, but it was already too late. Five men were dead, the sixth was staring up at Katherine in disbelief and terror. They didn’t look like stormtroopers, Gudrun thought; they looked more like students. Who were they?

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Katherine said. She held a pistol to the young man’s head as she drew her knife from her belt, holding it against his crotch. “I need you to answer some questions. If you lie to me, I’ll turn you into a girl. Do you understand me?”

The man nodded, frantically.

“Good,” Katherine said. “Where is the Führer?”

“We have our orders,” Hauptmann Walther Johannesson said. “Prepare to deploy the bomb.”

He gritted his teeth as the bomber turned and headed east. Their training had assumed that they’d face massed antiaircraft fire as well as jet-powered interceptors, but so far Germany East hadn’t been able to muster any real resistance to their incursion. Getting to Germanica had been so easy that he’d honestly wondered if it was a trap of some kind. But it seemed otherwise…

“The bomb is ready,” his co-pilot said. “On three…”

Walther nodded, hastily tapping his arming code into the device when the co-pilot reached three. Down in the bomb bay, the weapons officer would be doing the same. It took three codes, entered within a minute of one another, to arm the weapon for detonation. And if they made a single mistake, the bomb wouldn’t detonate at all…

“Code accepted,” the co-pilot said. “Bomb away.”

Walther nodded, pushing the engines forward as hard as he could. They’d practiced outrunning the blast before, but no one had ever tried until the war. The world seemed to flare white as the bomb detonated, a massive shockwave striking the aircraft seconds later, the airframe groaning in protest as it struggled to cope. He fought desperately to maintain control, but the shockwave was too strong…

An instant later, the bomber started to break up and fall from the sky.

Karl Holliston felt the ground shake and glanced up, sharply.

It shouldn’t have happened. They were so far below the ground that nothing, not even a direct nuclear strike, should have affected the bunker. And yet he’d felt… something. Had the rebels invented a weapon that could break through the doors? Or had they purchased something from the Americans? Or…

The communicator failed. He poked it, puzzled, then looked at the technician. The young man scurried forward, fear written in every part of his bearing as he went to work. Karl glared at his back, silently willing him to work faster. He hadn’t even managed to get the first set of command strings out before the line had failed.

“Mein Führer,” the technician said. “The communicator is working, but there’s nothing on the far end.”

It took Karl a moment to process what he’d been told. There was an entire SS base on the far end, commanded and staffed by loyalists. The base couldn’t be gone. But he’d felt something… had the base been nuked? The rebels had nuclear weapons and they’d certainly proven themselves willing to use them. And how else could they take out the entire base before the nuclear codes were sent to their final destination?

His blood ran cold. If the base was gone — and if Germanica was in enemy hands — he was trapped. They might not be able to get down to him, but he couldn’t escape either. And that meant…

Cold hatred congealed in his heart. “Bring me the bitch,” he snarled. “Now!”

The technician hastily saluted and practically ran out of the room.

Katherine gritted her teeth as she ran down the corridor, cursing under her breath. She couldn’t leave Holliston in the communications room, not when he could be using the radio and landlines to summon reinforcements or launch the nukes. But getting into the room might be tricky. She barely noticed two men as she shot them down, intent on her destination.

“In there,” she said, as she slowed to a halt. The door was solid metal. She couldn’t get through without a grenade. “We need to…”

The door opened. A young man ran out, his eyes going wide when he saw Gudrun. He started to say something incoherent, but Katherine shot him before he had a chance to finish whatever he was trying to say. And then she led the way into the room.

Karl heard the shot and jumped, picking up his pistol and bracing himself. Treachery! Even in his bunker, there was treachery! His eyes opened wide as he saw Katherine, of all people, running into the room, followed by Gudrun. The bitch was still naked… his head spun as he realised she’d subverted Katherine, of all people. Was he the only one immune to her charms?

But there was no time to worry about that, not now. He lifted his gun and fired.

Gudrun recoiled in shock as Katherine grunted in pain, then remembered herself and fired back. Holliston’s eyes seemed to meet hers, just for a second, as he crumbled backwards, blood leaking from his chest. She saw utter madness and hatred staring back at her just for a second, then he fell to the ground. And yet, she kept pulling the trigger until she realised that the gun was clicking uselessly… She’d run out of ammunition.

She reloaded, then stepped forward, holding her pistol pointed directly at his head. But it was clear that he was dead.

It’s over, she thought. She turned to look at Katherine and winced. Her left arm was hanging limp, blood dripping through the sleeve and down to the floor. Shit…

“It’s a flesh wound,” Katherine said, irritated. “Pass me that medical kit, then get in touch with the guards at the gate. Tell them to open the hatches.”

Gudrun looked at her. “Will they listen?”

Katherine barked a harsh laugh. “The war is over,” she said. She opened the medical kit with one hand and removed a bandage, wrapping it around her arm. “And they now have the choice between surrendering or staying down here until they die.”

Gudrun nodded, then went to work.