Upfall

The door banged shut, but didn't lock. The only locking mechanism was the bar on the outside—after all, who would voluntarily lock themselves inside a gas chamber? Shapira sat back against the chamber wall, catching his breath. The sudden movement had cleared his head, and his hearing. But while his ears worked again, he felt blinded. The room was almost pitch black. A small thick window in the door reflected a tiny morsel of light from the burining buildings outside, but not enough to illuminate the chamber. Shapira turned on his red-filter flashlight and looked around

The chamber was not particularly big, about the size of a large living room. The floor was concrete. Drains, for human blood, piss and excrements were liberally scattered about. The walls were made thick wooden planking covered with plaster. Judging by the sounds of bullets smacking off of them, they were bullet proof. At the rear of the chamber was an opening for the pipe that pumped in the deadly exhaust gas from the engine outside. Next to it was an exhaust fan and a vent to evacuate fumes. A large door to the right rear was for emptying the chamber. The only ways in and out of the chamber were the front or rear doors, but Shapira assumed both were now guarded. Absent a suicidal attack out either door, he was stuck.

Shapira assessed his equipment. He had used up or thrown away everything except the flashlight, a combat knife, his Kevlar vest, and his pistol. He pulled the Sig from its holster and charged the weapon. He had thirteen rounds in the magazine and two spares.

Shapira was about to crawl to the rear of the chamber to check the back door, just for the hell of it, when somebody pulled open the front door and tossed a stick grenade into the building. The grenade skittered along the smooth empty floor to the back of the room. Shapira dived into the left front corner of the chamber and huddled in a fetal position awaiting the explosion. German stick grenades were blast weapons without much shrapnel, but the concussion could kill, especially in an enclosed space. The blast wave struck the wall above Shapira, with much of its force dispersed through the fans and ducts in the back. Though partially deafened again, and badly shaken, Shapira was otherwise uninjured. His training kicked in, and he forced himself to turn about in the ink dark room to face what he knew was coming next—an assault.

Wan morning light and the glow of the nearby burning buildings lit the opposite wall. A second later the macabre shadow of a hunched SS man with a bayoneted rifle fell onto the floor. The doomed trooper followed his shadow into the room. From his position pressed back against the front wall Shapira raised the Sig and put two rounds into the soldier. A second man entered quickly and turned toward Shapira, but the Israeli lieutenant easily shot him down too. Shapira shot at a third man who poked his head his head forward, the bullet tearing off the top of his cranium. The German and his brains tumbled back from the entrance onto another man man who blindly emptied an MP 40 magazine into the room, missing Shapira entirely. Shapira shifted his position a meter into the room and from the darkness pumped two rounds into the MP 40 gunner, then pressed himself back against the wall. A shouting German officer pushed on the door and slammed it shut.

Shapira took a deep breath and tried to shake out the cobwebs. He removed the half-emptied magazine and replaced it with a fresh one from muscle memory—the half-magazine went into a pocket. Shapira knew that he didn't have much time He had to decide whether to live or die.

Wirth had noticed the assault on Shapira’s chamber from the corner of his eye, as he directed one of the Jewish fire gangs towa an SS man toss a grenade and heard the explosion. Before he could stop them, a team of three riflemen, pushed on by a sergeant, rushed at the chamber. Wirth saw the flash of pistol shots reflect off the white plaster interior wall and two men disappear inside. Wirth ran toward the gas chamber as another SS man fell at the threshold. The SS sergeant fired his submachinegun wildly into the doorway, and then fell back dead. Wirth reached the chamber and slammed the heavy door shut, pushing through the big iron bold behind it, locking it in place.

Opificius, who had been standing next to Wirth, watched all this in stunned amazement. Had the cowardly camp commander really run forward—rashly and bravely—to protect his men? That didn't seem like Wirth. Opificius pulled out his Walther PPK, and strode over to the gas chamber. He stepped unconcernedly over the two dead SS troopers sprawled at the entrance, to where Wirth leaned against the front wall of the building, breathing heavily.

"What was that about" demanded the baffled Opificius.