Vengeance 10

Jan pulled the door partly shut. In the near darkness his sensitive eyes could see enough to strip the machine pistol from the dead man’s shoulder. The guard he had struck was trying to get to his knees, holding his groin with one hand, scrabbling at the wall with the other.

Memling kicked him down again and in the shaft of light, saw that it was the same unterscharführer who had shot the three resistance people so brutally. Without thinking, Memling jammed the muzzle of the machine pistol against the man’s throat.

‘You bastard,’ he snarled in English, pushing on the gun so that the man gagged. The SS officer tried to plead with him. There was another shout in the corridor, a door was slammed open, and a burst of automatic rifle fire ricocheted the length of the hall. Memling stared into the man’s eyes and pulled the trigger once. The body convulsed, and hands tore at the ruined throat.

Someone had turned out the corridor lights, but his eyes were still hypersensitive, and he could see clearly the two men crawling towards his cell from the courtyard entrance. He waited until both were well along, then fired two short bursts that struck them head-on. A long period of silence followed. Memling slumped against the wall, unmindful of the icy stone on his naked skin. He drew a deep breath, revelling in the loss of his terror. The time had come, he knew, but at least he had accounted for four, possibly five, Nazis, and he knew then how the two Poles he had met in northern Germany an endless time ago had felt. He was ready to die now. Memling took a deep breath and bit down on the pistol barrel.

An explosion whip-cracked through the building. Automatic weapons erupted and there were more explosions, until the noise and concussions drove him to bury his head in his arms.

* * *

It took Magnus von Braun an hour to assemble four former frontline soldiers at the radio direction station. They came as quickly as they could be detached from their duties, and replacements found, without incurring the suspicions of the SS guards. The four men — one oberfeldwebel, or sergeant major, one stabsgefreiter, or corporal, and two grenadiers — were members of the Versuchskommando Nord, or Test Command North, technically a combat unit assigned to guard the Peenemunde installation, but in reality a device used several years before to assemble six companies of technically trained men to ease the severe manpower shortage. Oberfeldwebel Harmutt Sussmann had served for three years in the Twenty-first Division of the Africa Corps. Wounded at Kasserine Pass, he was among the last to be evacuated from North Africa. After recovering from wounds, he had been assigned to command the VKN, most of which had now been reassigned elsewhere; only a few dozen from a ration strength of one thousand remained at Peenemunde. Sussmann’s eyes glowed when his assignment was explained, and when they were assembled, Magnus left to telephone the news to his brother.

With a few rapid strokes Sussmann sketched the location of Gestapo headquarters in relation to the village of Trassenheide.

‘As you see, the building is separated from the town proper by the sand dunes,’ he explained in gruff Bavarian accents. ‘They are not high but provide the privacy the Gestapo requires for its activities.’ Sussmann stared at them and singled out Prager.

‘Lay out the interior,’ he snapped. There was a distinctly hostile tone to his voice, which Prager wisely ignored.

The building is little more than a large box, thirty metres on a side,’ he began. ‘The front portion is devoted to offices and administrative areas. The files are kept in this locked room here. There are six cells, all three by three metres, on either side of this hall which runs like so.’ He sketched a narrow corridor leading from the centre front to back. ‘There are two rooms on the north wall for interrogation, and all are equipped as physicians’ examination rooms.

‘There is a garrison of eight SS and four Gestapo officers. The SS are part of a special unit attached to Division Three. They take their orders from Walsch and not from Kammler’s command. There are also eight more employees, none of them armed, and most will have been sent home for the night. The building is constructed of cement blocks. The interior is plyboard. The cells are reinforced ply and thoroughly sound- and light-proofed. In the rear, separated from the sea by a wall three metres high, is the courtyard where the resistance traitors were executed.’

‘Where will we find Walsch?’

‘We?’ Prager and Sussmann both asked simultaneously. Bethwig nodded. ‘We.’

‘You can’t go,’ Sussmann told him flatly.

Bethwig leaned across the table. ‘No one has a better right than I do. I intend to kill Walsch myself.’