The morning brought with it the rays of a strong sun beating down on the parched ground. For the first time since he had been in camp, Wayne heard the chirping of birds. He thought they sounded like blue jays; he felt a renewed optimism awaken in him.
Once at the plant, Wayne and the other research prisoners were loaded into a black transport vehicle, much like the vans shelters use to transport strays to the vet so they can be put down. It had steel bars that passed for windows on the two back doors and, since the vehicle was really just a tanked up trailer with no motor of its own, was hitched up to a military jeep.
Two SS men handcuffed the prisoners together in a chain gang. Immediately after shoving them into the back of the cramped transport vehicle, one of the SS men with a capped gold tooth, said loudly enough that the prisoners could hear, “If I was in their shoes, I would have hung myself.”
Another SS man snickered, “Same here. It would be quicker and less painful instead of what they’re about to go through.”
“Thank the Führer for animal research,” the man with the gold tooth added.
The jeep abruptly shifted into gear and drove off.
Linda had also volunteered to be part of the research group. At first Wayne considered that a bad sign. He did not need her getting in his way of him doing whatever it was that he had to do. But, as he mulled it over, he began to think that having an extra set of hands around might be useful. Wayne was on his way to Oberkoblenz and, he hoped, the gadolinium crystals. He knew that it wouldn’t be an easy road ahead, and that he would, in all likelihood, but putting himself in a do-or-die situation, but the important first step had been done.
Wayne looked at the sun rising and determined that they were headed north. All he was able to see through the sparkling steel bars on the back doors of the transport vehicle was the lonely two-lane road that they drove on and an occasional tree. Wayne wedged his way next to Linda, who was chained to a different group than he was. The prisoners had been told to remain silent, but Wayne nevertheless whispered in Linda’s ear, “I’m glad you’re here. Will you help me?”
Linda nodded, “I don’t want to miss out on whatever it is that you’re up to.”
“Believe me,” Wayne said. “I’m only doing what I have to. You may be putting yourself in danger. I have to get a hold of something and nothing’s going to stop me.”
“I don’t care.”
A prisoner, a sickly looking bald man who was part of Wayne’s chained together group, put his skinny finger to his lips and made a shush sound.
“Go to hell,” Wayne retorted. The wings of the butterflies in his gut fluttered more persistently as the trip wore on. In his mind, he let fifty different scenarios play out about how he would get to his prized crystals and what would happen when he did. All too often, they ended with a bullet being pumped into his body.
The Oberkoblenz Military Installation had been built in 1953 as a site to train and house army personnel. It had been one of many new bases built post-war in the newly acquired territories. Though Germany had won the War, it was still deemed necessary, by the Reich Department of Defense, that the German people have a massive military force behind them at all times.
Located amid the lush gentle rolling hills of what had been upstate New York, Oberkoblenz was a small city unto itself. Lofty steel reinforced fences proudly encircled the massive community of soldiers’ barracks, airplane hangers, defense research facilities, and training fields. Catwalks, evenly spaced out every two hundred yards, lined the enclosure of the compound. On them, machine-gunned armed Nazis prowled like wild cats, always keeping a watchful eye out for prey. At the main entrance gate, a small sign read: TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT. NO QUESTIONS ASKED.
The jeep towing its cargo of human guinea pigs halted at the base entrance. The guard stepped out of the checkpoint booth and reviewed the driver’s pass.
“Should I wait around?” the driver asked.
“No need to.” The guard entered a four-digit code into the computer in his booth, causing the main gate to slowly open.
“Good,” the driver stated.
As the jeep accelerated down the main camp road, Wayne could tell from his limited frame of view that he was indeed on a military base. He had once, as a young boy, visited an uncle who was a doctor stationed on an army base in North Carolina, and the sterile surroundings had looked almost identical to what he was able to see through the rear of the transport vehicle.
“This is it. This is really it,” Wayne mumbled to no one in particular. Wayne and the other prisoners were violently jerked forward when the transport van stopped short at its destination.
Less than a minute later, the back doors of the transport vehicle were unlocked and swung open by armed Nazi military guards. “Out,” one of them barked at the prisoners.
The prisoners debarked the vehicle and were unlocked from their shackles by the driver.
Wayne inquisitively surveyed his new surroundings. He was impressed by the magnitude of the building that lay before him. It appeared to be even more massive than the munitions plant he had been working in. It stood at least twenty stories high, towering above any of the other base dwellings in its vicinity and appeared large enough that it would be able to hold five football fields laying side by side, with room to spare. Wayne had a strong hunch that the building that stood before him was the main research and development center at Oberkoblenz and that the Gadolinium crystals were to be found somewhere inside. Under escort of two armed guards, the small group of prisoners was led into the huge structure.
Wayne gazed around the interior of the building and saw that it consisted of a vast open area in the center of it with the many floor hallways above circling the never-ending building floor, as if it was designed to be a fancy hotel giving the guests a birds-eye view of the lobby. Only instead it was one of the numerous locations where the Reich perfected their weapons of destruction. Weapons that would better maim and kill human beings. Wayne noticed what appeared to be, perched on the ground in the spacious center of the bottom floor, what seemed to be a stupendous weapon of some sort. Maybe a bomb, he thought. It looked to him as if it was in the process of being loaded onto a bomber aircraft, which took up a large amount of space next to it. Wayne was able to clearly make out the red swastika emblem on the airplane’s fuselage. A small army of men worked around the bomber and plane.
The prisoners were, at a hasty pace, led up a stairway. A prisoner, the same bald man who had signaled Wayne to stop talking during the uncomfortable ride, stumbled.
“Get the fuck up,” one of the Nazi escorts demanded and pulled the man up by his shirt.
Wayne and the other research prisoners were walked up four flights of steps and then through a door that led out to a long corridor.
As the six male and six female inmates were led down the passageway, Wayne turned his head to the right to get an expansive look at the great deal of activity taking place below him on the floor of the building. The barrel of a pistol was quickly staring him in the face. “Did I give you permission to put your eyes anywhere else except on the swine in front of you?” one of the Nazi escorts coldly asked him. Wayne, without hesitation, fixed his gaze directly in front of him.
Coming to a door with ominous words on the glass pane that read: “BENZIN PRÜFUNG” (gas testing), the prisoners were shoved through the entrance into a room.
Wayne, out of the corner of his eye, glanced around at his new environment. He stood in a small room containing only a cage, table, and nothing else.
Two middle-aged scientists entered from the testing area. Their security passes shone brightly against their white coats as the man flipped through his clipboard.
The woman adjusted her glasses as she said sternly, “Hm. They sent twelve this time.” She gestured to the first six she saw, “These six.”
One of the Nazi escorts opened the cage door and ordered, “Those not chosen, get in here.”
Wayne and Linda breathed a sigh of relief as they were shoved into the cage and the door locked behind them.
“Rest of you swine, through that door,” he ordered the chosen subjects, pointing his gun, as if it was an extension of his hand, at the side doorway.
“I’m heading back to my post,” the second Nazi escort informed his colleague and exited by the front entrance.
The six chosen prisoners, four women and two men, including the thin bald man, followed the scientists through the side doorway to the testing area.
Inside of the main testing area, a viewing glass-partition separated the large research room into two distinct parts. One half accommodated the researchers’ control table. It was scattered with scientific journals and half empty Styrofoam cups of coffee on it, as well as a large assortment of knobs and dials — tools that helped the researchers carry out their unique, gruesome experiments for the Reich War Ministry. The second half, located behind the partition, was a control room that sported air ducts that had been especially built into the ceiling. In the control room, six white chairs, matching the color of the painted walls and floor, had been arranged in a circle.
The male scientist picked up a cup and sipped some lukewarm coffee. “Have them go into the control room,” he told the Nazi guard.
The Nazi guard stood at the entrance to the cleanroom and yelled, “Get in, you rats.”
The research subjects hurried into the white room.
“Sit down!” Once the prisoners rapidly complied, the guard exited the room, slamming and bolting shut the heavy door behind him.
The scientists sat comfortably in their well-cushioned chairs behind the control board.
“Since we are using human subjects this time instead of animals,” the scientist said, “set the dose at a liquid concentration of thirty-five percent.” He grabbed the stopwatch from the table in front of him.
The other scientist turned a small control knob. She optimistically said, “Keep your fingers crossed.”
Yellow gas begun to stream out of the air ducts above the prisoners.
The male scientist peeked at his ticking stopwatch and stolidly said, “Ten seconds.”
The gas became thicker, meticulously probing every square inch of the sealed room. Three of the subjects, heavily inhaling the toxic fumes, coughed frantically and then collapsed, unconscious. The thin, bald man tried to hold his breath. He could not hold it for very long and quickly passed out. Two women screamed silently in the soundproof room as the gas took over completely. The Nazi guard grinned as he watched them fall to the ground, lifeless.
“Twenty seconds,” the female scientist methodically wrote down a note in her journal.
“All movement has ceased,” the male scientist said without emotion. He clicked the button on the timepiece he held, discontinuing its monotonous ticking. “Twenty-eight seconds.”
The female researcher scientifically recorded the time.
The male researcher pushed a button on the control table and said, “Degassing.”
The scientists got up from their throne. They each slipped on a pair of latex gloves. The female scientist unlocked the control room door. The Nazi guard peeked at the results of the experiment.
The skin on the dead corpses of the control subjects was badly burned, like the skin of whole chickens that had been roasting too long over a scorching barbecue. The tiny amount of unburned epidermis had an odd, greyish tint to it. Three bodies were sprawled out on the floor while the other three sat in the white chairs with their heads slumped over. Their eyes had melted away.
“Splendid,” the female scientist said gladly. “The effects of an atomic weapon achieved with gas. Not only are the subjects blinded, but in a burned and decomposed state as well.”
“Think what this means, Gilda. Since it would be logistically not practical and inefficient to bomb each small village and town of our enemy,” the male scientist said, working himself into a tizzy, “this gas can be used as an alternative with virtually the same wonderful results. Gilda, this could mean the Iron Cross for us. Our research has been a success!”
“Yes,” Gilda nodded her head in agreement. “I think the Reich War Ministry and Defense Department will be pleased with our work.”
“Let’s do one more test before we announce our findings — this time with a forty-percent concentration. That should considerably speed up the procedure.”
She turned to the guard, “Get a clean up crew in here.”
In the holding cell, Wayne paced back and forth, while everyone else sat on the floor. An hour had passed since he and the five prisoners in his control group had been locked away. Beads of sweat ran down his chest as his intuition forewarned him of an impending danger. He thought about what he should do or should have done. He kicked himself for not taking advantage of the opportunity he had had when his group of prisoners was being placed in the waiting cell. Why didn’t he just overpower the two guards? He could have locked them up, and gone searching for the crystals. He could rely on Linda, but could he count on the others to go along with him? Highly doubtful. He sighed heavily.
The Nazi guard, gripping his gun tightly, approached the cell. He unlocked the cell door and ordered, “Out.”
Wayne again felt the urge to take action bubble up inside of him. He recollected, for a split second, having the same apprehensive, paralysis the first time he had tried, as a kid, to jump off of the high diving board at the local community park pool. He had stood on the springy platform and looked down at the bluish chlorinated water below him. It had seemed to be such a huge distance away. Wayne remembered how all of the other kids in the park had laughed at him and ridiculed him when he had turned and climbed down the ladder from the high dive stand. He had been on the verge of taking that great leap on that long ago, hot summer day, but fear had kept him from going through with it, and he had regretted his inability to act every day for the rest of that summer. Faced with an imperative decision — a life of death decision — Wayne again felt the paralysis of fear.
The guard directed the research subjects to seat themselves on the white chairs, which had once more been arranged into a neat circle. The thick entrance door was shut and locked.
Linda sat in the chair beside Wayne. “What’s going to happen to us?” she nervously asked.
“I don’t know,” Wayne returned, “but I think I know how a lab rat feels now.”
The scientists, sitting at their throne in front of the viewing glass, prepared for the test. The male researcher took a swig of freshly brewed coffee and said, “Set the concentration for forty percent.”
Gilda turned a knob on the control table.
“Begin the procedure,” he said.
She pushed a green button on the control board, “Here we go.”
Holding the stopwatch in his hand, the male scientist clicked it on.
In the human populated control space, yellow gas crept out from between the cracks of the two ventilation ducts, quickly filling up the diminutive room.
The male scientist peeked at the ticking stopwatch. “Five seconds.”
The subjects in the control room began coughing and gasping for oxygen.
“Ten seconds,” the male researcher announced.
Gilda scribbled in her journal. “The process is moving along more expeditiously at the forty percent concentration,” she noted.
Amused, the guard stood at the rear of the testing area, carefully watching the experiment proceed.
The moans inside of the locked control area grew louder. The gasps for air more strained. Wayne’s eyes burned and blisters developed on his skin.
“What the fuck?” he let out, his New York accent more pronounced than ever.
“Fifteen seconds,” the male scientist informed his partner in scientific research for the Reich War Ministry.
Choking, Wayne realized what was happening. He had enough knowledge to know that he would be dead shortly if he continued breathing in the chemical gas. He had to do something — fast. He had to take the dive.
Wayne scanned the site, his eyes burning. Three people had already lost consciousness. There was only one option for him to take. His adrenalin pumping, he seized a hold of the chair he had been sitting on, screamed, and smashed the chair through the one-way mirror. Glass shattered and flew in all directions. Yellow gas escaped from the confinement of the control site and slithered into the scientists’ testing area, smoking up the room. The researchers and the Nazi guard immediately began coughing; their eyes teared up. Wayne jumped through the destroyed partition.
The male researcher placed a handkerchief over his nostrils and mouth as the gas became denser. “Kill them,” he yelled at the Nazi guard.
Aiming his pistol at Wayne, the Nazi guard, his vision blurred by the poisonous vapor, fired and missed. He cocked his gun again. “You will die,” he said and stepped closer.
Wayne snatched one of the researcher’s snug chairs and held it in front of his body like a shield. He was twice again fired upon. One bullet hit the chair and another the wall behind him. Wayne, the gas causing him to still breathe heavily, threw the weighty chair at the armed Nazi. His opponent fell to the floor, dropping his gun.
The female scientist picked up a phone.
“Stop her,” Wayne screamed to Linda as she crawled out of the gas-filled room.
Linda sprung at the woman in the white lab coat and knocked the phone out of her hand and stomped on it.
The guard tried to reach for his gun, but Wayne was faster. He launched the chair at the guard’s head. There was a loud thunk, but Wayne needed to be sure. He picked up the chair again and brought it down even harder cracking the guard’s skull. Wayne grabbed the gun and aimed it at the scientists. The mustard colored gas was dissipating.
“Are you alright?” Wayne asked Linda.
Breathing hard, Linda answered, “I’ll make it.”
“We are doing important work that will greatly benefit the Reich,” the female scientist said proudly.
The male researcher added, with stoicism, “What happens to your kind does not interest us in the least. The important thing is that the Reich…”
“Your Reich can rot in hell!” Linda angrily cut him off.
“Quick, off with your clothes,” Wayne ordered the two researchers.
The scientists stayed motionless, as if not hearing the command.
Linda said, harshly, “Now. Strip. Maybe we won’t shoot you.”
“No need to worry, Gilda,” the male scientist bravely said, “They won’t kill us.”
“Oh, believe me, you sadistic jerk-off, I am very capable of pulling this trigger and blowing your well-educated brains all over this fuckin’ dump.” Wayne said agitatedly. He put the gun’s cylinder up to the male scientist’s temple. The scientists tugged their clothing off quickly and handed it over.
Wayne kept a lookout as Linda got dressed and she did the same for him.
“C’mon, move it.” Wayne said. He led the nearly naked researchers into the room with the cage. “In the cell. Hurry up.”
The scientists reluctantly obeyed.
Wayne handed the firearm to Linda and said, “Keep an eye on them. Be back in a sec.” He trotted off into the testing area.
“I should kill you two for what you did,” Linda informed the scientists.
Dragging the passed out Nazi guard by his feet, Wayne re-entered the holding cell and deposited the limp body inside of the cell next to the researchers. Wayne bent down and lifted the cell key, which he had previously seen the guard put in his pocket. Wayne locked the cell door.
“Where are the tests with radioactive material done?” Wayne wanted to know.
The scientists kept silent.
Linda aimed the gun at the female scientist’s chest and stated, “I’ll just have to waste them.”
“Ninth floor,” the male scientist mumbled.
“What was that?” Wayne loudly asked.
“Ninth floor,” the male scientist said in a higher volume. “That is where that type of testing is done.”
“Good boy,” Linda said. “Now you’ll live, though you certainly don’t deserve to.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Wayne said. Gilda shook her head and frowned disapprovingly at her counterpart.
They walked down the corridor cautiously. Linda turned to Wayne, the gun clutched tightly in her hand, “How do we get upstairs unnoticed?”
“I’ll let you know when I know,” he said and, eyeing the pistol, he added, “And put that thing away. It looks odd that a research person is carrying a gun.”
Linda nodded toward the corner, “Let’s find the elevator.”
They turned the corner and
a plainclothes German man exited from the elevator down the hall. Wayne looked down as the stranger passed them, careful to not make eye contact. The door hissed closed behind them and, Wayne pushed the button for the ninth floor. He said, “I have to get a hold of the crystals that I came here for. I didn’t intend to drag you into this with me. It would have been safer for you to have stayed back at the plant.”
“My life has never been safe. I was going to escape from Ravensbruck soon, anyway. You saved me the trouble.”
The elevator halted at its destination and the door slid open. Sauntering out onto the ninth floor hallway, with its generous view of the bomber and the feverish activity taking place below, Wayne became focused on the task at hand. He only had one chance to do this. It wouldn’t be long before the two scientists were found and a small army would be searching for them.
“Which way?” Linda asked.
Wayne surveyed the long corridor, devoid of people, which branched in an inviting way in the left direction and also in the right direction. Turning his gaze to the right, he said, “This way is as good as any.”
Passing by an unmarked door, Wayne said, “I might as well take a look in this room. Stay here by the door and keep a watch out for any trouble.”
“Okay,” Linda responded.
Wayne turned the doorknob and slowly walked into the unknown room. Inside, human skulls sat lined up neatly in a big bookcase, as if they were great literary works being displayed in a library. A youthful doctor, busy performing an autopsy on a corpse strapped down to a rolling medical table, had just finished the intricate process of removing the brain from the cadaver. The doctor, his smock bloodied and holding the head organ in his blood soaked arms, turned around at the intrusion. Wayne flinched at the sight he beheld. Nausea swiftly overcame him. He darted out of the room.
Wayne ran past Linda, to the nearby corner of the corridor, next to a casement that contained a fire extinguisher. His esophagus went into convulsions. He threw up.
Linda approached him in the corner and asked, “What did you see?”
Wiping his mouth with his shirtsleeve, Wayne regained his composure. The feeling of nausea left him. “Nothing worth talking about,” he paused, “Why don’t we look for some type of warning sign for the dangerous material outside the room?”
“Makes sense to me,” Linda agreed.
They casually surveyed the entire floor, each time having to avoid passersby.
“Shit!” Wayne exclaimed after the fruitless search. “We covered most of this floor and still nothing.”
Linda looked at a steel door down the hall with a digital readout, “What’s that?”
“I don’t know. The sign was out.”
Linda approached it. The sign blinked on and off before reading: ACHTUNG — RADIOAKTIV MATERIELL.
“Please, let this be it,” Wayne said. “How many…” He paused as a person, dressed in lab clothes, passed by. “How many radioactive areas can this place have?”
“Hopefully, only one,” Linda returned.
“Have that gun of yours handy,” Wayne said. “We might need it. In case there’s anyone in the room, do you think you could ask, in German, where the Gadolinium crystals are stored?”
“The what crystals?”
“Gad-o-lin-ium.” Wayne spelled it out, as if trying to teach a kid a new word, “G-a-d-o-l-i-n-i-u-m. Can you remember that?”
“Gadolinium, got it.” Linda said, irritated.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I’m just—“
“Time is wasting,” Linda reminded him.
“You’re right,” Wayne concurred. “Let’s go.” They quietly entered the room.
Two middle-aged chemical engineers were busy at work on a contraption that Wayne thought looked much like an electron particle generator machine that he had used during his first year Introduction to Physics class at NYU. The intruders went unnoticed. “Ask about the crystals,” Wayne silently mouthed to Linda.
Linda cleared her throat to get the attention of the preoccupied men. The chemists turned around and fixed their gaze upon the uninvited interlopers. Linda said, “Wo ist der Gabolidium Kristalls?”
Neither man offered a response.
“Wo ist der Gabolidium Kristalls?” Linda repeated.
Wayne trailed the bearded chemist’s stare to the identity tag. His stomach sank, “All right, just give us what we want and we’re out of here. You won’t be hurt. I need Gadolinium crystals. Where are they?”
Linda retrieved the gun from her coat pocket and directed it at the worried chemists.
Dr. Krauss turned the intruders’ attention towards a large industrial-sized refrigerator that had a locked padlock on its door. “The mixture is not a stable one,” he warned.
“Why do you want them?” a chemist asked in broken English.
Wayne ignored the question. Studying the appliance, he demanded to know, “Where’s the key to this thing?”
Not bothering to wait for the answer, Wayne firmly grasped the handle of a hammer that had been resting on a worktable with other tools of its kind. He banged, with all of his muscular force, the pounding tool down on the padlock. It remained intact. He pounded the tool again. On the fourth try, the padlock broke apart. Wayne swung open the refrigerator door. Inside, it was stocked with jars, vials, flasks, and bottles of many different sizes and shapes, all of which had been punctiliously labeled with the correct names of the various compounds and mixtures that they boldly held. Wayne spotted a vial containing a light, greenish substance. He examined the word on the label: GADOLINIUM. Wayne cautiously picked up the small vial and removed it from the icebox. “I go it, Linda,” he exclaimed and placed the sealed vial in his shirt pocket.
“Great,” she said, still aiming her gun at the chemists. “What are we going to do with them?”
Wayne glanced around the laboratory-workshop and observed a roll of electrical cable wire. “No problem with that.” With his hands, he motioned to the chemists to move towards the room’s head radiator. “Come on, get together; no wasting time.”
The two middle-aged men did as instructed and bunched close to one another. “Please,” Dr. Krauss pleaded, “you must be very careful with the substance that you have taken. It can be…”
“Keep your concerns to yourself, Doc,” Wayne said. He grabbed a pocketknife from the tool table and began to rapidly tie the cable wire around the chemist’s collective arms and feet, using the knife to cut the wire as needed.
“Your type sickens me,” Linda informed the captives. “Have you no conscience about what you do?”
“They don’t care,” Wayne replied for them. “They just follow orders like the rest of them. Mindless robots.” He finished securing the bound chemists, with additional cable, to the radiator. “Thanks, gentlemen. You have just saved the world. Before you know it, you’ll both be working as high school science teachers.”
Their mission accomplished, Wayne and Linda left.
“Hans,” Dr. Krauss said, “reach into my back pocket. I have a lighter. Use it to burn the wire.”
Wayne pushed the first floor button on the elevator’s control panel, in the same elevator that, formerly, he had freely taken up to the ninth floor. The door slid shut and the cab initiated its descent. Linda at his side, he said, “You screwed up.”
“What?” she barely raised her voice.
“You asked for Gadolinium crystals,” Wayne pointed out. “They are GADOLINIUM crystals. You pronounced them wrong. I thought you had it down.”
“Are you calling me stupid?”
“No, I didn’t say that. It’s simply that you have no idea…”
Linda became mad. “What are you bitching about? You got them, didn’t you?”
“It’s important!” Wayne stated irately. “That’s probably what tipped them off that there was something fishy about us. There’s too much riding on this.”
“Maybe we should think of getting out of here now instead of arguing,” Linda firmly suggested.
The elevator stopped. Wayne pressed in the “door close” button, preventing the lift’s door from opening.
“What are you doing?” Linda asked.
With his hand, Wayne wiped away freshly formed droplets of salty perspiration from his forehead. “Everything has gone smoothly so far. I need a few moments to think.”
“About?”
Wayne, after remaining silent for half a minute, said, “About how we can get safely back to New Berlin. Our best bet is to get a hold of a car.” As if to build up his confidence, he reiterated, “Yep, that’s what we’ll have to do. Get a hold of a car.”
“We can do it,” Linda reassured him. “I know we can.”
Wayne released the “door close” button. When the door opened up, with the building’s first floor spread out before them, he said, “Just act like we belong, and no one will bother us. I used to sneak into these fancy, rich folks beach clubs all the time. It was easy. Just acted like I belonged there.” They exited the elevator.
They ambled toward the main door. Each time a passerby walked by, Wayne’s heart would skip a beat. He avoided eye making eye contact with anybody. Finally reaching the big main entrance, Wayne extended his hand to grip the large door’s brass handle, splendidly bedecked with little ornamental swastikas. Wayne’s fingers, a mere six inches from clutching the gateway to freedom, paused in its movement.
A shrieking whistle, much like the one that would wake the prisoners at Hollenburg, sounded out. Wayne, temporarily immobilized by a sudden terror, tried hard to brush off the alarm. He could not, for he knew the purpose of its being. In a mania, he threw his sweaty fingers around the brass door’s big handle. Linda heard something click in the door that sounded like a lock. Wayne pushed on the swastika-garnished handle. It would not budge. He slammed his upper body into the large door, with no success in getting it in motion.
“Shit,” Linda exclaimed, almost inaudible above the deafening alarm that continually blared through the numerous loudspeakers.
Wayne twisted around to behold a Nazi Rottwachtmeister and two Nazi military policemen less than one hundred feet away and rapidly closing in on them.
“You got any good ideas now?” Linda questioned.
“Run as fast as you can.” He sprinted off, with Linda keeping a steady pace behind.
Corporal Bruener clicked his walkie-talkie, “We have located the intruders on the first floor near the entrance.” He gestured and the police took off after them.
Wayne and Linda darted past the huge German bomber, knocking technicians, busy at work, out of their way.
Not far behind the intruders, a Nazi Unterwachtmeister aimed his high-powered machine gun at them. As he was about to pull the lever, the Nazi Corporal snatched the deadly weapon from his hands. “No. Not near the plane,” Corporal Bruener scolded him.
With a cluster of more Nazi military policemen gaining ground on them, Wayne was aware that his only chance was to escape the building. He came upon a red emergency door exit. “Excellent,” he said and tried to pry it open. “Jesus,” he vented his frustration and pounded a fist on the door.
“I see a staircase over there,” Linda urged. A bullet hit the emergency exit door a mere two inches above her head.
“Go!” They ran into the stairway and moved up the steps. “We have to get out of this damn complex,” he said between puffs.
“I’m taking out any of those Nazi bastards that I can,” Linda grasped her pistol tightly.
Corporal Bruener, a squinty-eyed slender man of average height, and a squad of military policemen, their weapons drawn, entered the stairway taking three steps at a time. Just as he turned the corner, the Corporal saw the passageway door shut.
“Ah, yes,” the Corporal said self-satisfactorily in his low voice, “they are not as smart as they think.”
An alert military policeman pressed, “Sir, are you sure it’s not a trap?” Corporal Bruener, unlike most of the men of his rank, lent an open ear to his subordinate’s opinions.
“Spread out. Consider them armed and dangerous. Max and Bernhard, with me.” The Corporal and his two extensively trained men strutted into the fourth floor corridor as the others continued moving speedily up the stairs.
Bruener and his goons, firearms cocked quietly swept into a room with a heavy leaded glass wall. A silhouette shifted across the wall; he had the same build as Wayne. Bruener, never shy about taking credit for his good actions, situated his gun on the murky figure in the room and fired. The glass crumbled.
“Are you crazy?” the injured man, who had been shot in the left thigh cried out. The Corporal frowned and looked down at the scientist. His walkie-talkie chirped.
“Bruener, report!”
“We are narrowing in on the intruders, sir,” Bruener responded.
“State your position,” the powerful voice beamed through the communication device.
“Floor four, south wing.”
“Carry on. Over.”
Bruener clipped his walkie-talkie back onto his black leather-banded utility belt. He waved his men on.
Wayne and Linda frantically tried to open any door on the fourth floor as they rushed down the hall. All of them, though, had been automatically locked by the building’s advanced security system. Turning a bend in the hallway, into the east wing, Wayne spotted a fire extinguisher.
“When I turn this on, grab any guns that you can,” he told Linda.
“Sir,” one of the military policemen uttered, drawing his superior’s attention to a welcome sight across the way. The search was over.
The pack of Nazis roved into the east wing corridor. They were greeted with a spray of foamy white, chemically based fire retardant. Their hands went to their eyes as they screamed in pain. Their weapons dropped to the ground as they were covered head to toe in the white foam until they resembled Nazi Snowmen.
Linda snatched up the pistols off the floor and wedged one into the waist of her pants. She handed the other to Wayne.
Two more guards rounded the corner with their guns raised to fire. Linda popped hers off first and shot one of them in the head. The other guard leaned out of cover quickly and fired, missing both of them. Linda attempted to fire again, but her gun jammed.
The guard heard the clicking of a jammed weapon and stepped out of cover. He aimed at Linda, but before he could fire Wayne shot at him and missed. In the time it took for the guard to realize that Wayne had missed; he and Linda were already through the door with machine gun fire echoing behind them.
Another pair of well-armed military policemen arrived on the scene. “Have they been located?” one asked.
The private nodded at the broken glass, then kicked out the remaining pieces that were still attached to the door frame.
The three men cautiously entered the room, coming into a large area that functioned as an administrative office, complete with computer terminals, bland desks, and unattractive file cabinets.
They wandered slowly, light on their feet, searching for their prey. Nothing stirred. The military policemen roamed past one of the six bulky metal desks present in the room, which seemed to be laid out in a random configuration.
Wayne pushed a rolling desk chair smack into one of the guard’s spidery legs. The guard tripped back against his partner and they both tumbled to the ground.
Linda, hiding behind a tall beige file cabinet, shoved the heavy organizer onto them as they fell.
Wayne turned his gun on the remaining military policeman. “Don’t move, asshole,” he said simply.
The guard didn’t hesitate. With a lightning-quick jerk of his foot, he kicked the weapon out of Wayne’s hand and jumped him.
“Fucking swine,” he growled. His partner, having freed himself from the filing cabinet, jabbed his closed fist into Wayne’s face, giving him a taste of his own blood.
The third man stood up carefully and as Linda turned to take his gun, he grabbed Linda’s right leg and twisted it. She collapsed to the floor.
The private pulled her hair and snickered, “You want to play games, bitch? Is that what you want?” He elbowed her in the mouth hard. He grinned sadistically.
“How about one more, you troublemaking bitch?” He swung back about to elbow her again when she rammed her foot into his crotch. He groaned in pain and released his grip on Linda as he curled into the fetal position.
“How’s about one more, you Nazi piece of shit?” Linda sarcastically said as she whacked him again.
She snatched the private’s gun from him, stood up, and aimed the firearm at the military policemen, busy dishing out their own brand of punishment, on top of Wayne.
“Get off of him,” she instructed them.
The military policemen did as ordered and backed up. After a moment of truce, one man lunged forward at Linda. She didn’t wait a second and he was promptly shot in the gut. He fell to the ground groaning in pain. His partner, not nearly as brave a man, stood in place and swallowed hard.
“Head or tails?” Linda asked Wayne.
Wayne shot back, “Linda, we have to get the fuck out of here!”
“Heads or tails?” she repeated.
“Tails.”
“You lose,” Linda wryly informed her target and fired.
“Are you happy now?” Wayne asked.
The private, who was spread out on the floor, took a small pineapple shaped hand grenade from his holster and pulled the pin on it. There could be no greater honor to bestow upon oneself than to die in the course of carrying out one’s duty for the Reich. The private began to laugh deliriously.
“Wayne,” Linda called out, “Grenade!”
“Go!” Wayne sprinted for the door.
Linda grabbed the grenade.
Wayne screams, “What are you doing!” Linda drops the grenade quickly and Wayne yanks her out of the room.
A platoon of military policemen was swiftly converging on the intruders.
Wayne unwound a long burlap fire hose from its resting place on the corridor wall. “Jump on my back,” he shouted at Linda. The pack of policemen drew closer.
“I don’t know what you’re doing, but it better be good,” Linda said and hopped on Wayne’s back.
Wayne, clinging to the hose with all of his available strength, crawled over the balcony.
A great explosion emanated from the administrative room on the fourth floor, rocking the hallway, and killing most of the platoon.
Wayne tumbled, with his passenger, down to the first story. A bullet whizzed by them. Wayne couldn’t tell where it came from, but he didn’t really care. What mattered to him was that it hadn’t either of them.
“Keep low,” Wayne muttered as they kept moving. BANG.
“I’ve been shot. I’ve been shot!” he yelled as blood stained his shirt. He ripped off his shirt sleeve.
“I think it’s just a graze,” Linda said tying the sleeve tightly around his arm.
“Well, it hurts like a motherfucker,” Wayne retorted. “Let’s get over by that plane. I have a plan.”
Wayne and Linda approached the massive German bomber. The technicians and engineers whom had been working around and on it had scattered when the emergency siren went off. Wayne spotted a woman pointing a rifle at him from the balcony and took a dive. Linda fired off a shot at her. The military policewoman fell over the balcony, dead.
The fugitives made their way to the huge military aircraft and ducked under its fuselage. The bullets suddenly stopped for fear of hitting the bomber itself. Wayne looked up to see an open panel that revealed part of the plane’s complex engine. He gloated at the sight.
“What do you have in mind?” Linda asked.
From his lab coat’s side pocket, Wayne removed the pocketknife, which he had lifted from the chemist’s workshop.
He said, “I figure our chances of getting out of here are a lot better if this place is in total chaos.”
He put the knife’s sharp edge up to the plane’s fuel line. Before he was able to cut it, Corporal Bruener pulled him into a headlock from behind, fire retardant still smeared on his coat.
“Cut the red one,” Wayne squeaked as he handed the knife to Linda.
Bruener’s grip tightened around Wayne’s neck as he struggled to reach Linda too.
With one expeditious movement, Linda slashed the fuel line. Gasoline started streaming down from the plane.
Wayne slammed the Corporal’s body into the plane’s mammoth wing as hard he could. Wayne twisted the Nazi’s arm behind his back and pinned him against the plane, directly underneath the broken fuel line. The Corporal coughed as his hair and clothes became soaked with kerosene.
Bruener knocked his head against Wayne’s, liberating himself. He quickly took out a ten-inch steel knife from its sheath. “Are we having fun yet?” he smirked.
Linda grabbed the book of matches out of her pocket and opened it up. One match remained. Corporal Bruener lunged forward but missed Wayne as he darted to the side.
Ripping the last match from its cover, Linda struck it lit, and tossed the burning match onto him. He became a human torch as flames consumed his body. Bruener screamed at the top of his lungs.
“Surprise, surprise, surprise,” Wayne said in his best Gomer Pyle drawl. Wayne kicked the flaming Nazi into the increasing puddle of fuel, igniting the immediate area into flames. Fire spread onto the bomber’s fuel line, and it started to burn like the fuse to a stick of dynamite.
“It’s gonna explode! Run!” Wayne yelled.
With a swarm of immaculately dressed Nazi privates and military policemen ascending upon the scene, the great Reich bomber’s main fuel tank exploded with a monstrous immensity as Wayne and Linda ran for their lives.
Aircraft debris hit every nook and cranny of the building. Each person who was within one hundred feet of the plane, at the time of the explosion, would be left with a permanent hearing impairment, if they were lucky enough to be alive. Thirty seconds after the first burst, a second, but equally disastrous, explosion rocked the burning, metal bird as the reserve fuel tank exploded. Pandemonium broke out as the force of the explosions caused bodies to go flying and a number of men to experience painful third degree burns. A young private, fresh out of training academy, only six meters distant from the bomber and engulfed in flames, cried out, “HELP! I’M ON FIRE! WATER…” before his voice went forever silent. A fire alarm sounded as smoke filled the air, adding to the orchestra of noise. The water sprinklers that worked did little to help the situation.
The fugitives raced up the steps of a stairway and exited at the third floor.
“What are we doing?” Linda inquired.
“What?” Wayne loudly said, his ears ringing badly.
“Why are we up here?” Linda spoke in his ear.
“Because there’s no fucking way we’re getting out of here on that bottom floor.” The rapidly increasing amount of thick smoke began to make Wayne cough incessantly.
“The best bet is for us to get out of this building before we choke,” he said. He attempted to turn the doorknob on a room door. It wouldn’t turn.
“Stand back,” Linda said. She pointed her pistol at the lock and fired three shots, demolishing it.
As they sprinted into a small storage room, Wayne peered through the dense vapor to see if any Nazis were on their tails. None appeared to be.
Linda looked out the window.
“Oh,” she said.
“Beautiful,” Wayne agreed. With a swift, strong kick, he broke the glass. “Go first.”
“Why me first?” she said startled.
“So you can break my fall.”
“That’s thoughtful of you.”
Another massive explosion caused the entire building to tremble.
“GO! JUMP!” Wayne yelped.
Linda leaped from the room and landed on the outside of the back of the building, in a trash dumpster piled high with rubbish. Wayne, without faltering, next took the plunge, landing beside her. Climbing out of the dumpster, Wayne felt the precious vial of Gadolinium Crystals to make sure that it was intact. It was.
Fire trucks blanketed the front of the huge, flaming building. Firemen went to work with their hoses and ladders.
“Well, hotshot, what do you suppose we do now?”
“The quickest way to get back to the city will be by airplane. This is a military base. Let’s go find ourselves a plane before they figure out that we’re still alive.”
“Just like that, you think we’ll find a plane?”
“We have to. It’s only a matter of time before they have an army out here searching for us. We’ll never make it on foot and we’d be spotted too easily in a vehicle.”
Wayne headed toward a small, red military jeep. He hopped in and ran his hand under the dashboard and fiddled with some of its wires.
“Those crystals of yours better be pretty damned important if we went through all this shit for them,” Linda complained.
“I told you why I need them,” Wayne said as Linda climbed in. He peeked at the wires below the dashboard. He touched two wires together and the jeep’s engine purred to life.
“Ah, the things you learn in Brooklyn.” Wayne shifted the vehicle into first gear and drove away from the burning building and the mass of black smoke rising above it. In the rearview mirror, the sun was setting.